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LIFE
OK
HORACE    MANN.
By   HIS   WIFE.
'
SECOND EDITION.
 reoo Genl's ^
            o


*sf»'ngton D-°*
•
          BOSTON:
WALKER, FULLER,  AND  COMPANY,
       245  Washington Street.
             M DCCC LXV. 
                100


                  ins     ■



      Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865,
               BY MRS. MART MANN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
Stereotyped bt C. J. Peters and Soh.

  Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avert. 
DEDICATION.
   1  dedicate this work to the toung.  Those who were  young
when Mr. Mann  first entered upon  his educational work in Massa-
chusetts, and who are now men and women, love to call themselves his
children.  " My eighty thousand children " was a favorite expression
of his  own; and those  words alone  expressed the sentiment he felt
towards them.   They were to him the next generation, whose culture
must tell upon society for good or for evil; and it was a delightful
task  to help them to a better one than was then enjoyed by the people
at large.
   In his later  life, other young people came under his direct personal
influence, who were old enough to love him with enthusiasm, and to
labor cordially to diffuse the views and purposes of life which he so
earnestly inculcated upon them.  I know they will  love to  read the
record  of his growth,  of his affections, and of his success; and they
can  also sympathize with his trials.  If he had been less ardent, he
would have suspended the  gigantic efforts he made for success in his
last enterprise to a period when he could have obtained more co-opera-
tion ; but his zeal in the cause blinded him to the extent of his own
physical powers, and he  fell as by a mortal blow.
                                                           M. M.
   Concord, Mass.
                                                  8 
  ■-      1-1
W^b 
INTRODUCTION.
   It has been more difficult than was anticipated to write a memoir
of a life from so near a point of view.   I am conscious  of my dis-
abilities as well as  of my advantages for the grateful task.   One
tends to idealize a character, which, during many years of the clos-
est intimacy, was never swayed by unworthy motives, or acted upon
secondary principles, and over which the beauty of sacred affections
poured an  indefinable charm.   I am aware, that, where  others see
faults, I see only virtues.  When his is called a " rugged nature,"
because he could not temporize, and because he made great requi-
sitions  of men upon  whom were laid great  duties, I see only his
demand for perfection  in others as well as  in himself; and no
man ever  made greater requisitions of self.   He could forget his
own interests when he worked for great causes;  and he sometimes
wished others,  who had not  his moral strength, to  do likewise.
But the very requisition often evolved self-respect to such a degree
as to bring forth the  power to do the duty, as many a man who
has come under his influence can testify; and  what greater  honor
can we do  to our fellow-man than to expect of him the  very high-
est of  which he is capable ?  It is true  of him, that he had  not
much  charity for those who sinned against the  light;  but it is
equally true, that his tenderness for the ignorant and the oppressed
was never found wanting, and that the first  motion of repentance
in the  erring melted his heart  at once.  Love of man was so es-
sentially the  impelling  power  in him,  that it cost him no effort to
exercise it; but he had no self-appreciation which made him  feel
that he could do what  others could not  if they would.   Perhaps
the most remarkable  trait in his character was his modest estimate
of himself.   He  measured himself by the standard he  wished to
attain,  and  not by comparison with others;  and, when he was lauded
                                                v 
VI
INTRODUCTION.
 for what  he had accomplished, his unaffected humility made him
 uncomfortable  because the act  was not  more  worthily and ade-
 quately performed : for, at every stage of his progress, he was as far
 from his own ideal excellence  as before.   By nature, he craved the
 sympathy and approbation of his fellow-men, — not of the populace,
 but of those whom he respected and loved ;  yet  even this craving
 did not deflect him from the path of rectitude, or blind him to the
 demands of duty.   Principles were more to him  than even friends ;
 which is  no light praise of one who loved so tenderly, and felt so
 keenly every suspicion of his  motives.   He rarely unbosomed him-
 self ; for  his sensibilities were of exquisite delicacy: the  musician
 who has the acutest  ear for harmony is  not more sensitive to a dis-
 cord than he was to the slightest jar of feeling. He was too earnest
 a man to be able to sustain superficial  relations  with other  men;
 and this often made  him solitary when he would fain  have been
 social, and made his intimate circle a small one.   Friendship meant
 more to him than to most men :  it implied  not only pleasant  social
 relations,  but a oneness of sentiment and principle, without which
 the delicate links of the magic chain would soon  part.   He  could
 not give his affections  to those who  did  not share  his love of hu-
 manity or his moral insight; for both his conscience and  his  intel-
 lect must consent before the bond could  be cemented.  But,  when
 he  did  unfold  his heart, the surrender was entire; and he became
 again a child in his confidence, and dependence upon affection.  In
 those crises of  his life when divergence of principle separated him,
 as was inevitable, from many whom he had loved, and of whom he
 had hoped all noble things, a woman could not weep  bitterer  tears
 over the disappoiutment.  This- tenderness of his character can only
 be  equalled by the moral force with which he assailed whatever he
 saw to be wrong in the world.   It was a conscientious act with him
 to battle with evil wherever he saw it.   Man was endowed with
 his destructive and combative powers for this  end  alone,  as he
 thought; his only legitimate enemy being evil.  The men who were
 the victims of  it  were the objects of his solicitude; the men who
 made evil their good,  the objects of his attacks, if only so could he
 lay the spirit that marred creation.  Still,  evil was, in his estimation,
only relative;  the absence of good, one of  the conditions of imper-
fection and of growth.
   " If I believed in  total depravity, I must, of course, believe in 
INTRODUCTION.
VII
everlasting punishment,"  he would  say;  "but  I consider both
unworthy of God."  To hunt evil into its corner, therefore, was the
first step towards turning it into food for growth.   He could bear,
for  himself and  others,  present  pain, however acute, in order to
redeem as much of this life as possible for truth and heaven, whose
enjoyment is entered whenever  the  spiritual element is made to
take precedence of the earthly one in our double nature.   Painful
early impressions of his heavenly Father cast a cloud over much
of his  religious life;  for persons of  such delicate  organization  do
not  easily recover from impressions  made upon  their nerves in
childhood.  He could have said  with another remarkable man who
emerged from  the  gloom of  Orthodoxy  into the light and  life  of
religious liberty,  " My heart  is Unitarian ;  but my nerves are still
Calvinistic."   But his faith in endless progress grew stronger with
every  experience, till his  very aspect was irradiated by it.  All
nature became  full of revealings to him, —revealings of beneficent
laws, of overflowing love : nothing in it seemed trivial to him ;  for
every thing had  been an  object of divine  thought, from the hum-
blest flower, or even stone, to the  most  distant star.   And, while
he loved with an unutterable love the beauty God had made, the
revelations of science were scarcely less sacred to him than the rev-
elations of moral truth; and they were  illustrative of each other
in his teachings.   This conception of the  universe was not given to
his childhood;  but he wished it to  remain the birthright of all who
came under  his  influence, rather than that it  should  be  wrested
from their experience as it  had been from his own.
   But not the  less earnestly did he  continue to labor to  put the
weapons of strength into the hands of the young, or less sturdily do
battle  against the enemies that assail us from within; and he learned
to look with more pity than indignation upon those who  abused
God's  gifts, when they should only have used them:  In reproving
the young, which it became his duty  to do,  he was often moved to
tears; and the more obdurate the  subject,  the more deeply ho was
affected.   But one  of  those  who responded  most genially  and
naturally to his inspiring touch said of him, that " it was heaven to
look into  his face."
   Those who loved him are consoled  by the thought that he did not
live to see the  terrible struggle of his beloved country ;  for he was
keenly susceptible  to every form of suffering,  and had forelived it 
VI11
INTRODUCTION.
all by his reaUzation of the relations of cause and effect.   His clear
moral convictions would  have  saved him from any doubt that  thin
is a necessary war of purification;  yet  he had allowed  himself to
hope  for a more  peaceful  solution of our national evil through the
milder forms of industrial  and  commercial  interests.   Like  the
great souls of all times,  he wished beneficent changes  to come to
pass through reflection rather than through violence.*

  * Since the above was written, the glorious advance in public sentiment, which
has resulted in the death-blow given to the cause of all our woe, might  well
make his friends wish that he could  have lived to share the universal joy.  Yet
who can doubt that all is open vision to those who  have vanished into other
spheres from spheres below scarcely less divine t 
CONTENTS.
                          CHAPTER   I.
                                                                    PAGE.
Birth. — Early Life.— Influence of Calvinism. — Autobiographical Letter.—
   A Friend's  Letter concerning that Period. — Preparation  for College. —
   Letters Home. — Brown University. — Letter from his  Chum, Judge Ira
   Barton. — College Honors. — Tutorship. — Law School. — Letter of J. Scott,
   Esq. — Law-practice in Dedham. — Fourth-of-July Oration. — Marriage.—
   Death of his  Wife.— Letters upon the Subject. — Removal to Boston.—
   Death of Silas  Holbrook ;  of Dr. Messer.— Intercourse with Dr. Chan-
   ning.—Rev. E. Taylor. — Mr. Jon. Phillips. — Dr. Howe. — Hon. C. Sum-
   ner. — Rev. R. C. Waterston. — S.  Downer, Esq. — Dr.  Woodward. — Dr.
   Todd. — George Combe, Esq.—Letter to his Sister. — Letters to  Friends
   through 1S37................................................................   0


                         CHAPTER   II.

Mr. Mann as an Educator. — Combe's Constitution of Man. — Common-school
   System.....................................................................  SO


                        CHAPTER   III.

Extract from Journal from  May 4,1S37, to March,  1843. — B. Taft, jun. — Ed-
   mund Dwigat, and Board of Education. — Nomination as  Secretary. —Tem-
   perance Cause. — Names  of Board  of Education. — Examination of  Ply-
   mouth-Colony Laws. — Letter to Edmund  Dwight, Esq., upon  Duties of
   Secretary. — Acceptance of the Office of Secretary. — Letter to a Friend
   upon the Subject. — Dr. Channing's Sympathy.—Chapoquiddic Indians—
   Conventions in Various Places. — Marshpee Indians. — Indian Reception in
   Boston — Convention in Salem. — Re-union at Jonathan Phillips's, Esq.....  65


                        CHAPTER    IV.

First Report to  the Board  of Education. —First  Normal School. — School
   Conventions of 1838.  George Combe, Esq. —G. Combe's Lectures.—First
   Number of Common-school Journal. — Letter to Dr. Storrs upon an Attack
   on  the  Board of Education in " Boston Recorder." —Letters to G. Combe,
   Esq. — Rev. Cyrus  Pierce. — Opening of First Normal School. — School
   Conventions of 1839. — Invitation to take Charge of College in Missouri.—
   Governor Morton's Inaugural. — Attack on  the Board of Education in the
   Legislature  of 1839. —Journey to Washington and the West. — Visit to
                                                    ix 
X
CONTENTS.
   Gen. Harrison.— School Conventions of '840—Letters to G. Combe, Esq.
   — Abstract of School Returns. — Attack on Board of Education in the Le-
   gislature of 1841. — Letters to Nieces. —Letter to G. Combf, Esq.— Article
   in " Edinburgh Review " upon Massachusetts Schools. — Letter to G. Combe,
   Esq. — School Conventions of 1842. — Cause of Education in the Legislature
   of 18-12. —Letters to Rev. S. May, then Principal  of Lexington Normal
   School.—School Libraries.................................................  08


                         CHAPTER  V.

Second Marriage. — Voyage to Europe. — Motives. — Extracts from Journal.—
   Eaton Hall.—Westminster Abbey. — Smithfleld Market.—Rag Fair.—
   Jews' Quarter. — Greenwich  Hospital. — Carlyle.— Factory Commission.'—
   Normal School. — National Training College. —Archbishop VViiately. — City
   of London. —Royal British School for Boys. —St. Paul's. — The  Tower.—
   Stafford House. — Windsor. — Uanwell Lunatic Asylum. — Home and Colo-
   nial Infant School. — Blue-coat School.— House  of Commons. — Penton-
   ville Prison. — Almack's. —Archbishop Whately.—York Cathedral. — Jour-
   ney to Scotland. — Edinburgh. —Schools. — Scotch Scenery. — Glasgow. —
   Society for  the Relief of Widows and Children of Schoolmasters. — Ham-
   burg. — Magdeburg. — Berlin. — Potsdam.  — Sans Souci. — Charlotten-
   berg. — Von Turk. — Royal Orphan House. — Frankc Institute of Halle. —
   Dresden. — Saxon Switzerland with Mr. and Mrs. Combe. — Lunatic Asy-
   lum of Pirna. — Konigstein and Lilienstein. — Saxon Diet. — M. da Krause.
   — Mr.  Noel. —Bohemiau Education. —Austrian Education.— Hof-prediger
   Ammon —Erfurt. — Eisenach. — Wartberg. — Nassau. — Darmstadt. — Carls-
   ruhe. — Baden. — Biugcn. — Coblentz. — Cologne. — Holland. — Gronigen.
   — Deaf and  Dumb School. — Leyden. — Rotterdam. — Antwerp. — Brus-
   sels.—Hospitals and Prisons of Paris. — Normal School. — Jardin  des
   Plantes. — Foundling Hospital. — Versailles.— Return to  Loudon —Visit
   to Oxford. — Return to America. — Letters to Friends  between April,  1844,
   and August, 1852. — Attack of the Episcopalians. — Attack of the School-
   masters of Boston. —Normal School-house at West  Nettton.— Reply to
   Schoolmasters. — Mr. Quincy's Donation. — Schoolmasters' Rejoinder.—
   Teachers'Institutes.—Mr. Tuttle's Bequest. —Attack of  Teachers' Advo-
   cate.— Dedication of Bridgewatcr School-house.—Study Hours in Normal
   School at West Newton. — Irish Famine.— Death of Dr. A. Combe. — Death
   of J. Q. Adams. — Nomination to his Seat in Congress. — Defence of Drayton
   and Sayres. — Religious Qualifications of Teachers, ia Letter to Mr. Wright.
   — Nomination of President Taylor. — First Defeat of Compromise Bill.—
   Oregon Bill. —South-Carolina Convention. — Treaty Willi Mexico. — Cali-
   fornia Bill. — Memoir of Dr. Chauniug. — Letter from Theodore Parker.—
   Another Session of Congi ess. — Contest for Speaker and Clerk. — Prophecy
   of the Rebellion (Feb. G, 183U). —Teaching the Dumb to speak. — Mr. Web-
   ster's Seventh-of-March Speech.—Death of Mr. Calhoun. — Compromise Bill.
   — President Taylor's  Death. — Mr. Fillmore's Course. — Attack on Mr. Web-
   ster.—Texas  Boundary Bill. —Letters from Theodore Parker. — Fugitive-
   slave Bill. — Review of Congressional Life in a Letter to Mr. Combe. —Re-
   election to his Seat.—Kossuth in Washington. —Temperance Lecture in
   Syracuse. — Letter to Young Men's Debating Society. — Letters to G. Combe, 
CONTENTS.
XI
  Esq. — Proslavery Spirit in Congress. —Mr. Arbuckle. — Letter to Rev. E.
  Fay upon Antioch College. — Presidential Election. —Maine. Liquor Law.—
  Death of Henry Clay. —Dr. Henry Barnard. — Pardon of Drayton and
  Sayres. — C. Sumner's First Speech  in  Congress. — Letter  to  Rev. A.
  Craig....................................................................... 174


                         CHAPTER   VI.
Nomination as Governor of Masssachusetts, and for President of Antioch Col-
  lege—Speeches of Seth Webb, Esq. —Hon. Henry Wilson. — First Fac-
  ulty Meeting of Antioch College at West Newton. — Journey to the West. —
  Grace Greenwood's  Mother. — Return  to Washington. — Key to  Uncle
  Tom's Cabin. — Woman's Rights. — Thackeray. — Miss Dix. — Mr. Pierces
  Cabinet. — Muzzey's Prosecution for publishing Volume of I'olitical Letters
  and Speeches by Mr. Maun. — Removal to Ohio. — Opening of Antioch Col-
  lege.— History of the Enterprise. — Lady Professors. — Unitarian  Liber-
  ality. — Joins " Christian " Church. —Bible Class. —College Discipline.—
  Colored Students. — Eulogies of Rev. H. C. Badger and C. W. Christy, Esq.
  — Letters. — Theodore Parker at Antioch College. — Idiot  School  of Syra-
  cuse.— Letters to Hon. Gerritt Smith (one in the Appendix); to Rev. A.
  Craig. — Political Matters. — Letter from Theodore Parker. — Mackinaw. —
  Letter to D. Austin, Esq.;  to Hon. C. Sumner; D. Austin, Esq.;  Rev.
  Cyrus Pierce; Rev. A.Craig. — Crisis at Antioch College. — Second Visit
  to Mackinaw. — Letters to Mr. Craig and to Rev.  E. Conant on Financial
  History  of Antioch College. — Donations  from D.  Austin, Esq. —Letters
  to Rev. S. May. — Last Efforts to save the College. — Death of G. Combe,
  Esq. — Preparatory School of Antioch College. — Letter  to Rev. G. Conant.
  — Letter to Rev. O. Wait on his own Religious Opinions. — Last Labors.—
  Purchase of the College by an Independent Corporation. —Last Commence-
  ment Day. — Last Illness. — Last Baccalaureate............................ 383
                           APPENDIX.

                                    A.
Correspondence connected with a Testimonial of Massachusetts Legislature to
   Mr. Mann when Secretary of Board of Education.......................... 57"
                                    B.
" Code of Honor," falsely so called, originally accompanying a Catalogue of
   Antioch College........................................................... 5S3

                                    C.
Report on Resolutions on Intemperance,  Profanity, and Tobacco............ 5(f)

                                    D.
Letters Irom Mr. Combe inadvertently omitted in the text.................... 601 
 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
                CHAPTER   I.

     HORACE MANN was born in Franklin, Mass., on the
      4th  of May, 1796.  His father, who died^hen he
was thirteen, was a farmer, and a man who left in his
family a strong impression  of moral worth,  and  love of
knowledge ;  but he had not the means to give his chil-
dren any better advantages of education than this inher-
itance.  His mother, with whom Horace remained till he
was twenty years of age, was the object of his most pro-
found respect and tender affection ;  but, in those days, a
certain reserve and distance existed between  parents  and
children, which constituted a great barrier io freedom of
intercourse.  His habits of reserve were such, that, by his
own account, he never told  even his mother of personal
physical sufferings until  they revealed themselves by their
own  intensity;.  and of his mental emotions  he never
thought of any thing but to keep them to himself.   In
our day, when enlightened parents make it such  a point
to secure the personal  confidence of their  children  by
sympathizing in their  least joys  and sorrows, we  can
hardly reconcile a sterner rule with the idea of true affec-
tion, or'estimate the depressing effect of such puritanical
manners upon a  sensitive child.  He was obliged to work
out all  his problems alone, and  retained  only painful
                                      9 
10
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
 recollections of the whole period which ought to be, with.
 every child, a golden age to look back upon.   But, even
 at that time, his lively affections and naturally joyous na-
 ture bubbled up irrepressibly when in company with those
 of his own age.  He was full  of practical fun and  witty
 repartee ;  playing his native logic on all half-thinkers, but
 neVer unkindly.    If any opportunity had  been  offered
 him for artistic culture, he might have excelled in it; for
 he sometimes tried his wings in  secret.   But there was a
 repressing  influence  upon  all  such  " foolish waste of
 time;" and he said of himself, that, in his younger days,
 he was accustomed to regard the cultivation of the imagi-
 nation in the light of a snare to virtue rather than as  a
 legitiinfte enjoyment of God-given  powers.  It  has  been
 well said of him by a sagacious  friend, that " his  causal-
 ity  was  an inspiration."  It was all  that saved him  in
 those dark days, as may be  seen by his  own testimony.
 His modesty, however, being as striking a  trait as his logi-
 cal  power,  his  heart  was  long influenced  by the  social
 views around him, even after he  suspected their fallacy.
 In a letter to a friend, he  says,—
  [ regard it as an irretrievable misfortune that my childhood was
not a happy one.  By nature I was exceedingly elastic and buoyant;
but the poverty of my parents subjected me to continual privations.
I believe in the rugged nursing of Toil; but she nursed me too much.
In the winter time, I was employed in in-door and sedentary occupa-
tions, which confined me too strictly; and in summer, when I could
work on the farm, the labor was too severe, and often encroached
upon the hours of sleep.  I do  not remember the  time when I began
to work.  Even my  play-days — not  play-days, for I  never had
any, but my play-hours — were earned by extra exertion, finishing
tasks early to gain a  little leisure for boyish sports.  My parents
sinned ignorantly; but God affixes the same physical penalties to the
violation of his laws, whether that violation be wilful or ignorant.
For wilful violation there is the added penalty of  remorse; and that 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
11
is the only difference.  Here let me  give you two^ pieces of advice
which shall be gratis to  you, though they cost me what is of more
value than diamonds.  Train your children  to work, though not too
hard ;  and, unless  they  are grossly  lymphatic, let them  sleep  as
much as  they  will.   I have derived one compensation, however,
from the rigor of my early lot.  Industry, or  diligence, became my
second nature ; and  I think it would  puzzle any psychologist to  tell
where it joined on  to the first.  Owing to these ingrained habits,
work has always  been to  me what water is to a fish.  I have won-
dered a thousand times to hear  people say,  " I don't like this busi-
ness •"  or, "I wish I  could  exchange  for  that;" for with me,
whenever I have had any thing to do, I do  not remember ever to
have demurred, but  have always set about it  like  a fatalist; and it
was as sure to be done as the sun is to set.
   What was called  the love of  knowledge, was, in my time, neces-
sarily  cramped into  a  love of books • because there was no such
thing as oral instruction.   Books designed for children were  few,
and their contents meagre and  miserable.   My teachers were very
good  people; but they were very poor teachers.   Looking back to
the schoolboy-days of my mates and myself, I cannot adopt the line
of Virgil, —
               " O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norintl"

I deny the bona.  With the infinite  universe around us, all ready
to bo  daguerrotyped upon our  souls, we were never placed at  the
rio-ht focus to receive its  glorious images.   I had an intense natural
love of beauty, and of its expression in nature and in the  fine arts.
As " a poet was in Murray lost," so at least an amateur poet, if not
an artist, was lost in me.   How often when a boy did I stop, like
Akenside's hind, to  gaze at the glorious sunset, and lie down upon
my back at night on the  earth to look at the heavens!   Yet, with
all  our  senses and  our  faculties glowing and receptive, how little
were  we  taught! or, rather, how much obstruction was thrust in
between us and Nature's teachings!   Our eyes were never trained
to distinguish forms  and colors.   Our  ears were strangers to music.
So far from being taught the art of  drawing, which  is a  beautiful
language by itself, I  well  remember that when  the impulse to express 
12
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
in pictures what J could not express in words was so strong, that, as
Cowper says, it tingled down  to my fingers, then my knu-kles were
rapped with the  heavy ruler of the  teacher, or  cut with his  rod, so
that an artificial tingling soon drove  away the natural.   Such youth-
ful buoyancy as even severity could not repress was our only dancing-
master.   Of all our faculties, the memory for  words was the only
one specially appealed to.   The most  comprehensive generalizations
of men were given us, instead of the facts from which those generali-
zations were formed.   All ideas outside of the book were contraband
articles, which  the  teacher confiscated,  or  rather flung  overboard.
Oh ! when the intense and burniug activity of youthful faculties shall
find employment in  salutary and pleasing  studies  or occupations,
then will parents be able to judge better of the  alleged  proneness of
children to mischief.   Until then, children have  not a fair trial be-
fore their judges.
   Yet, with  these obstructions, I had  a love  of knowledge which
nothing could repress.   An inward voice raised its  plaint forever in
my heart for something nobler  and  better •  and, if my parents  had
not the  means to give  me knowledge, they intensified the love of it.
They always spoke  of learning and learned men  with  enthusiasm
and a kind of reverence.   I was taught  to .take care of the few books
we had, as though there was something sacred about them.   I never
dogs-eared one in my  life, nor profanely scribbled upon  title-pages,
margin, or fly-leaf; and would  as soon have stuck a pin through my
flesh  as through the pages of a book.   When very young, I remem-
ber a young lady came to our house on  a visit, who  was said to have
studied Latin.   I looked upon her as a sort of goddess.   Years after,
the idea that I could ever study Latin broke upon my mind with the
wonder and bewilderment of a revelation.   Until the age of fifteen,
I had never been to school more than eight or ten weeks in a year.
   I said we had but few books.  The town, however, owned a small
library.   When incorporated, it  was  named after Dr. Franklin,
whose reputation was  then not only at  its zenith, but, like the  sun
over  Gibeon, was standing still there.   As an acknowledgment of
the compliment, he offered them  a  bell for their church ; but after-
wards,  saying that, from what he had learned of the character of the
people, he thought they would  prefer sense to sound, he changed the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
13
gift into a library.   Though this  library consisted of old histories
and theologies, suited, perhaps, to the taste of the "conscript fathers "
of the town, but miserably adapted to the " proscript" children, yet
I wasted my youthful ardor upon its martial pages, and learned to
glory in  war, which  both reason and conscience have since taught
me  to  consider' almost universally a crime.    Oh !  when will men
learn to  redeem that childhood  in their offspring which was lost to
themselves ?   We watch for the seedtime for our fields, and improve
it;  but neglect the  mind until  midsummer or even autumn comes,
when all (he actinism of the vernal sun of youth is gone.   I have
endeavored to do something to remedy  this criminal defect.   Had I
the  power, I would scatter libraries over the whole land, as the
sower sows his wheat-field.
   More than *by toil, or by the privation of any natural taste, was
the  inward joy of my youth blighted   by theological inculcations.
The pastor of the  church in Franklin was the somewhat celebrated
Dr. Emmons, who not only preached to his people, but  ruled them,
for more than fifty years.   He was an  extra or hyper-Calvinist, — a
man of pure intellect, whose logic was  never softened in its severity
by the infusion of any kindliness  of sentiment.  He expounded all
the doctrines  of total depravity, election, and reprobation, and not
only the eternity, but the  extremity, of  hell-torments, unflinchingly
and "in  their most terrible  significance; while he rarely if ever des-
canted upon the joys of heaven, and never, to my recollection, upon
the essential and  necessary happiness of a virtuous life.  Going to
church on Sunday was  a sort of  religious ordinance in our family;
 and, during all my boyhood, I hardly ever remember staying at home.
 Hence,  at ten years of age, I became familiar with the whole creed,
 and knew all the  arts of theological fence by  which  objections to  it
 were wont to be parried.   It might be that I  accepted the doctrines
 too literally, or did  not temper them with the proper qualifications;
 but, in  the way in which they came to my youthful  mind, a certain
 number of souls were to be forever lost, and nothing — not  powers,
 nor principalities, nor man,  nor angel, nor  Christ,  nor the Holy
 Spirit,  nay,  not God himself— could save them ; for he had sworn,
 before  time was, to  get eternal glory out of their eternal torment.
 But perhaps I might not be one of the lost!   But my little sister 
14
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
might be, my mother  might be, or others whom I  loved ;  and  I
felt, that, if they were in hell, it would make a hell of whatevci other
part of the universe I might inhabit; for I could never get a glimpse
of consolation from the idea that my own nature could be so trans-
formed, and become so like what God's was  said to be, that I could
rejoice in their sufferings.
   Like all  children, I believed what I was taught.   To  my vivid
imagination,  a physical hell was  a living  reality, as  much so as
though  I could have heard the  shrieks of the tormented, or stretched
out my hand to grasp their burning souls, in  a vain endeavor for
their rescue.  Such a faith spread a pall of blackness over the whole
heavens, shutting out every beautiful and glorious thing;  while be-
yond that curtain of darkness  I could see the bottomless and seeth-
ing lake filled with torments, and  hear the wailing and agony of its
victims.  I am  sure I felt all  this a thousand times more than my
teachers did ; and is not this a warning to teachers ?
   Wnat we phrenologists call causality,—the faculty of mind by
which we see effects in causes, and causes in effects, and invest the
future  with a present reality, — this faculty was always intensely
active in my mind.  Hence the doom of  the judgment-day was  ante-
dated :  the  torments  which, as  the doctrine  taught  me, were  to
 beo-in with  death, began  immediately; and each moment became a
 burning focus,  on which  were concentrated, as far as  the finiteness
 of my  nature would allow, the agonies of the coming eternity.
   Had there been any possibility of escape, could penance, fasting,
 self-inflicted wounds, or the pains of a thousand martyr-deaths, have
 averted the fate, my agony of apprehension would have  been alle-
 viated ; but there, beyond effort, beyond virtue, beyond hope, was
 this  irreversible decree of Jehovah, immutable, from everlasting to
 everlastino-.  The judgment had  been made up and entered  upon  the
 eternal record  millions of years  before  we, who were judged  by it,
 had been born  ;  and there sat the Omnipotent  upon his throne, with
 eyes and heart of stone to guard  it; and had all the beings  in all the
 universe gathered themselves together before him to implore but the
  erasure of only a single  name  from the list of the doomed, their
  prayers would have been in vain.
    I shall  not  now enter into any theological disquisition  on these 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
15
matters, infinitely momentous as they are.   I shall  not stop to in-
quire into the soundness of these doctrines, or whether I held the
truth in error ; my only object here being, according to your request,
to speak of my youth biographically, or give you  a  sketch of some
of my juvenile experiences.   The consequences upon my  mind and
happiness were disastrous in the extreme.   Often, on going to be^
at night, did the objects of the day and the faces  of friends  give
place to a vision of the awful throne,  the inexorable  Judge,  and the
hapless myriads, among whom I often seemed to  see those  whom I
loved best; and there I wept and sobbed until Nature found that
counterfeit repose in exhaustion whose genuine reality she should
have found in freedom from care and the spontaneous happiness  of
childhood.   What seems most deplorable in  the retrospect, all these
fears and sufferings, springing from a belief in the  immutability of
the decrees that had been made, never prompted me to a single good
action, or had the slightest efficacy in deterring me from  a bad one.
I remained in this condition of mind until I was twelve years of age.
I remember the day, the hour, the place, the circumstances, as well
as though the event had happened but yesterday,  when, in an agony,
of despair, I broke  the  spell that  had  bound  me.    From that
day, I began to construct the  theory of Christian  ethics and doc-
trine respecting virtue and  vict, rewards and  penalties, time and
eternity,  God and his providence, which,  with such  modifications  as
 advancing  age  and a wider vision must impart,  I  still retain, and
 out of which my life has  flowed.   I have  come  round  again to a
 belief in the eternity of  rewards and punishments, as a  fact neces-
 sarily resulting from the constitution of  our nature ;  but  how infi-
 nitely different, in its effects upon conduct, character, and happiness,
 is this belief from that which blasted and consumed the joy of  my
 childhood !
    As to my early habits, whatever may have been my shortcomings,
 I can still  say that I have always been  exempt  from what may be
 called common vices.   I was never intoxicated in my life ; unless,
 perchance, with joy or anger.   I never swore :  indeed, profanity was
 always most disgusting and repulsive to me.    And (I consider it
 always a climax) I never used the "vile weed" in  any  form.  I
 early formed the resolution to be  a slave to no habit.   For the rest, 
16
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
my public life is almost  as well known to others as to myself;  and,
as it commonly happens  to public men, " others know my motives a
great deal better than I do."
   A recent letter from a  friend, touching upon  the same
topic, deepens the impression just  given : —
       Yes, it  is true that Mr. Mann spoke to me often of his boy-
hood,  chiefly  of its sorrows.   One of these was the  death  of a
brother, who was drowned at twelve years of age.   He  said he was
a charming boy, and that his death immediately brought  home to his
hearf the terribleness of the  theological views in which he was edu-
cated.  He had been in the habit of hearing logic chopped upon  the
scheme of the universe, the federation of the race  in  Adam,  the
plan of redemption by  Christ's atonement, &c. ;  and there was a
certain entertainment to his mind in this intellectual  gymnastic, so
that  he became a very  expert theologue  himself, and could refute
the Arminian  and Arian theories with great acumen.   But  there
were certain things that did  not feel good  to his heart which he
,often  heard  from  the  pulpit; such as,  that "the smoke of  the
damned  was the enjoyment of the  blessed," and "the punishment
 of the wicked one of the special glories  of God."  He had none of
 the canonical evidences of being in a state of grace himself:  and a
 strange fascination used to impel  h'nn,  Sunday after Sunday, to  find
 in Watts's hymn-book, and read over and over again, a certain  verse,
 which must be eliminated from modern  editions, for I cannot find it;
 but it depicted the desolation of a  solitary soul in eternity, rudder-
 less and homeless.
    He had a strong impression, that, if  he should die, he should  per-
 sonate the "solitary soul" therein  depicted.  But when his darling
 brother died, having not yet  experienced the orthodox  form of  con-
 version, his ao-onized heart stimulated his imagination to clothe  it in
 his brother's  form and feature.    He  thought he could  see  in his
 mother's face a despair beyond the grief  of losing the mortal  life of
 her son •  and when, at the funeral, Dr. Emmons, instead of  sug-
  gestino- a thought of a  consoling character, improved the opportunity
  to address  a crowd of young persons present  on the topic of " dying
  unconverted," and he  heard his mother groan, a crisis took place in 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
17
his experience, similar to that described in Mrs. H. B. Stowe's story
of the "Minister's Wooing," when Mrs. Marvin hears of her  son
James' death, without knowing whether he  was converted or not.
His whole being rose up against the idea of such a cruel Creator, and
declared  hatred to him !   He would hate Infinite Malignity personi-
fied,  if he  must  suffer eternally  in  consequence.   The  childish
image, familiar to his mind, of a crystal floor covered with  angels
and saints playing on harps and enjoying the fruits of the tree of life,
in the New Jerusalem, as described  in the book of Revelation,—
under which scene, in full sight, was the hell so often  emphatically
described by Dr. Emmons, — recurred to his imagination ; and deli-
berately, with all the tremendous force of his will, he chose to suffer
with the latter, rather than make one with the selfish immortals who
found happiness in witnessing torture.
   But to put himself at odds in this way with what he still thought
was Infinite Power produced a fearful action upon his nerves.  His
imagination was possessed by the idea of a personal Devil, to whom
he had no attractions, whatever was his repulsion from God ; and he
was yet too young to get behind  all  these  forms, in which the  de-
praved imagination of men had clothed the great realities of the spir-
itual life.   Nature  seemed  to him but the specious veil in which
demons  clothed themselves.  He expected the foul Fiend to  appear
from behind every hedge and tree to carry him off.
   To escape from  such  misery, — which  sometimes  in  the night
amounted to such  intensity that  he saw fiends and other  horrid
shapes distinctly as with his bodily eyes, and was obliged  to use the
utmost force of bis will to keep  from screaming, — he did what he
could to divert himself with study; but his early tastes for  investi-
gating and  experimenting in  science were  all repressed by the im-
possibility of procuring books or any other materials to work upon.
   Still the  fund of humor, the sparkling wit, which all his sorrows
could never quench, and the  childlike  playfulness  into which he
always fell with children, as if it were his  element, could not  but
 have made  him a charming, merry child; and I  have heard from his
 elder as well as from his  younger sister and playfellow that he was
 such.
   To me it was a marvel that so sensitive a  boy, absolutely banished
                 2 
18
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
from the bosom  of a heavenly Father, grew up  so  sweet, so truth-
ful, so faithful to the unknown God, whom he ignorantly worshipped,
and  who, unawares to himself, strengthened  him  for  his  protest
against the  popular theology.
  The Unitarian sect was nearly unknown, and " everywhere spoken
against," at the time he went to college; and  he did  not go where
it  prevailed,  but  to Brown  University,  where, while  he  was  a
scholar, there was what is called a  "revival  of religion."
  He had now become acquainted with the classics, and  had tegun
to read  history and  general  literature;  and he accepted the Deism
of Cicero, and began to feel  that true  religion was the  cultivation
of social duty, and to feed his heart and imagination on the idea of
making a heaven of society around him, with a home of his own for
the Holy of  Holies; though, as he said, he was not without occasional
anxious glances towards the future life, of which he felt that he knew
nothing.
   The exercise of his great intellectual faculties, and of his pure and
noble affections in philanthropy, gradually brought him into a health-
ier atmosphere of feeling and thought; and at last his happy marriage
seemed to justify God's creation.
   Such is the impression that he gave me of the general course of
his experience, which I have expressed as well as I can.   I did not
know him until after he was a widower; and, in  those first years of
sorrow, all the gloom of his childhood returned upon him with terri-
ble power.   It was a relief to him to
                         " Give sorrow words,
             Lest,  whispering the o'erwrought heart,  it break;"

 and in such conversations he would detail  his early life.  I think I
 then obtained the deepest impressions I  ever received  from any mor-
 tal that the soul is a child of God, and that virtue has no  element
 of  self-love or self-seeking in  it.    He was good, and  was willing
 good to others, and striving to confer it, although his heart's utter-
 ance as for a brief moment was that of Jesus of Nazareth :  " My
 God,  my God,  why  hast thou forsaken me?  "   I have, therefore,
 not been surprised, that since  the stress of that bereavement  grew
 lighter  on  his  heart, and since  lu found himself in a home, and 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
19
blessed with children, the radiance of religious light and lo\e  has
flowed from his lips;  nor that in the hour of his death he should
seem never to think of himself, and to say no word except to uplift
others into partaking  the life and beneficence of God.   Nothing in
his life was more eminently characteristic than just such a death.
                            Yours,                 ----•
  But while somj  of the circumstances of his early life
seemed  thus adverse, others were favorable to the ripen-
ing of his strong yet gentle, brave yet  tender, character.
Perhaps they were all favorable ;  for those which directly
hindered his intellectual progress  may have tended indi-
rectly to bring out in him his strong views and purposes
of reform.  The true soul transmutes all  circumstances:
only inferior natures are crushed by them.
   In speaking of the influences  which  make  a man a
man, we must never lose sight of  the truth, that only  the
highest natures are  fully susceptible  to the highest in-
fluences.   The same motives may be operating upon  dif-
ferent  individuals ;  but only the well-poised soul will
respond to them  generously and faithfully.   Emerson
has truly  said, "He is  great who is what he is from
nature,  and  who  never reminds us  of others;" and
again, -' Man  is that noble endogenous plant which grows
from within outward."
   In speaking of his youthful longing for more  educa-
tion, he once  said to  a friend, "I know not how  it was:
its motive never  took  the  form of wealth or  fame.   It
was rather an instinct which impelled towards knowledge,
as  that of migratory birds  impels them  northward  in
spring-time.   All my boyish castles in the air had refer-
ence to doing something for  the benefit of mankind.
The early precepts of benevolence, inculcated upon  me
by my parents, flowed out in this  direction ;  and I  had
a conviction that knowledge was my needed instrument." 
20
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
   Reverence for knowledge as a moans of good, had, in-
 deed, prevailed in his father's family;  and his only sur-
 viving sister, who  devotes her life to more  than one of
 the saddest charities of the world, basing her action upon
 both intellectual and moral culture, is  but another proof
 of it.
   Without any pride  of pedigree, the  family felt  that it
 had an honorable, because a virtuous  ancestry.   All its
 traditions were of integrity and  honor.   The  privations
 incident to the early settlement and  growth of the New-
 England Colonies, following the sacrifices that necessarily
 pertained to the Pilgrim enterprise, strengthened sterling
 virtues, and  transmitted them  as  a  rich   inheritance.
 Stern qualities, such as endurance,  perseverance,  toiling
 energy, and the might of self-sacrifice, were  mixed with
 the more gentle traits of family affection, and devotion to
 the sentiments which had induced the forefathers to leave
 home and luxury for conscience' sake.   The subject of
 our Memoir  inherited his share of all  these.  All the
 family labored together  for  the  common support;  and
 toil was considered honorable, although it was sometimes,
 of necessity,  excessive.   Horace  had eaVned his school-
 books, when a child, by braiding straw; and the habit of
 depending solely upon himself for the gratification of all
 his wants  became such a second nature with him, that to
 the last day of his life a pecuniary favor was  a painful
burden, which could only be eased by a full requital in
kind.   One of the maxims he wished to have inculcated
upon  his  children was,  that they should "always pay
their own  expenses," and  thus  be able  always to assert
themselves independently, -™ the first  element of true
manhood.   To afford them the means to  do this, he de-
nied his own life every luxury, and coined his very brain,
as it were, into money. 
                LIFE OF HORACE MANN.              * I

  A fine classical teacher at last crossed the young man's
path, and a plan was formed by which he should  pursue
his  studies.  He prepared himself in six months  from
the time he began to study his Latin grammar, and en-
tered the Sophomore class of  Brown University  in Sep-
tember,  1816.   From that strain upon his health, and
the still harder labors of his college-life, he never recov-
ered.  The rest of his life was one long battle with ex-
hausted energies ; but how valiantly he fought it!  He
struggled  with  it ignorantly  at first, accomplishing all
tasks as they presented themselves, until fairly laid^upon
his bed with illness; and, after he had learned the theory
and art of health, leaving no effort untried to redeem his
own.   Those  who  watched  over him  were  obliged to
reason with him, however, even in  his advanced years,
when  he laid out too much work for  his strength ; for he
grew to be ashamed  of ill  health:  and it  must  be con-
fessed that he sometimes begged the  question  of  duty to
one's own health by saying that his life was  not of so
 much  consequence as the thing in hand to be accom-
 plished.
   Few young men leave home with so intense a sense of
 filial duty, or so thorough  an acquaintance with mutual
 domestic sacrifices; and all his letters home breathe the
 spirit of  devotion to  his  friends.   Nor did  any  young
 man ever make smaller means answer his purposes.  He
 did not complain of this, but  often  made comical repre-
 sentations of his pecuniary distresses.
    In  a letter to his sister, written soon after entering col-
 lege,  he says,—

    If the children of Israel were pressed for " gear" half so hard
 as I have been, I do not wonder they were willing to worship a
 golden calf. It is a long, long time since my last ninepence bade
 good-by to its brethren; and  I suspect the last two parted on no 
22
LTFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
very friendly terms, for they have never since  met together.  Poor
wretches!  never did two  souls stand  in  greater  need of mutual
support and consolation. .  . . For  several weeks  past, I have been
in a half-delirious state  on account  of  receiving no  intelligence
from home; when this morning I met at  the door of my boarding-
house Mr. J. F. H-----, only two weeks from Franklin !   I would
have shaken hands with the "foul fiend" himself if his last  em-
bassy had been  to  that place.   For a good part of  the time, 1
have been  trying the  experiment with  respect  to  money which
ended so tragically in the case of the old man's horse.
   I wonder  you do not write.  You  seem to treat  it as though it
were ^task, like the pilgrimage to Mecca, and not to  be performed
but once in a lifetime.   Perhaps you will  say  you have nothing to
write about.   Write about  any thing.   The whole universe is before
you, and offers itself  to your selection.  Dr. Middleton wrote an
octavo  volume of seven or eight hundred  pages  on a  Greek article,
which article consisted of one syllable, which  syllable consisted of
one  letter';  and though I think  such overflowing fecundity is not
to be approved of, yet it cannot be so reprehensible as this lockjaw
silence of yours.   In  your next  letter, put  in  some sentences of
mother's,  just as she spoke them: let her  say something to  me,
even if it  be a repetition  of those  old saws, — I mean if it  be a
repetition of her good motherly advice and direction  all about  cor-
rect  character, and proper  behavior, and straight-forward, narrow-
path conduct, such as young Timothy's in the primer.  You know
the sublime  couplet,  and the  elegant wood-cut  representing  the
whole affair  in the margin.   But  I ought not  to speak of any sub-
ject, which brings my mother's image to my mind, in any strain of
levity.    She deserves my love for her excellences, and my grati-
tude for the thousand  nameless  kindnesses which she has ever, in
I he fulness  of parental  affection, bestowed upon  me.  How often
have  I traced  her  features in  that incomparable  description of
Irving's of  the  Widow  and  her  Son : " Oh, there  is an endurin"-
tenderness in the love of a mother to her son !  "  &c.

   Again, in allusion to his  sister's attendance  upon her
mother during a long illness: — 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
23
  I wish you to be careful of your health; but, as far as that will
permit, continue to go on  in  the  discharge of every office of filial
tenderness and love.   Never did a parent more richly deserve this
requital.   The ties of nature, the  bonds  of consanguinity, she has
strengthened by all the innumerable and nameless deeds of mater-
nal kindness and solicitude.   Others may have been more ostenta-
tious of their anxiety, may have spent more  time in useless wishes
or unavailing  prayers, because it is much easier to desire and  praj
an hour that one may receive assistance, than to labor half that time
to give  it;  but she  has tested the sincerity of her affection by ac-
tive  and  unceasing beneficence.  When we have counted all her
hours of care  for us,  and have cared as long and as deeply for her;
when we have numbered all  her days  of toil, and have toiled aa
long; then, and not  till then, can we commence the work of  char-
ity to her.

   Many years after, writing to a friend during  an alarm-
ing illness of  his mother, he says, —
   Principle, duty,  gratitude, affection, have bound me so closely to
that parent whom#done Heaven  has spared me, that  she seems to
me rather a portion of my own existence  than a separate and  inde-
pendent  being.   I can conceive no emotions more pure, more holy,
more like those which glow in  the  bosom of a perfected being, than
those which a  virtuous son  must feel towards an affectionate mother.
She  has little  means of rendering  him assistance in  his projects of
aggrandizement, or in the walks of ambition ;  so that  his feelings
are  uncontaminated  with  any  of those  earth-born  passions that
sometimes mingle their alloy with  his other attachments.  How dif-
ferent is  the regard which springs from benefits which  we hope here-
after to enjoy, from that which  arises  from  services  rendered and
kindnesses bestowed even before we were capable of knowing their
value!   It  is this higher  sentiment  that a mother challenges in  a
son.  For myself, I can truly say  that the strongest and most abid-
ing incentives to excellence, by which I was ever animated, sprang
from  that look  of solicitude  and  hope,  that  heavenly expression
of maternal tenderness,  when, without the  utterance   of  a  single
word, my mother has looked into my  face, and silently told me that 
24
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
my life was freighted with a twofold  being, for it bore her destiny
as well as my own.   And as truly can I say that the  most exqui-
site delight that ever thrilled me was, when some flattering rumor of
myself had found its way to her ear, to mark her readier smile, her
lighter step, her disproportionate encomiums on  things of trivial
value, when I was  secretly conscious that  her altered mien was
caused by the fountains of pleasure that were pouring  their  sweet
waters over her heart.

   His fears for the life of his mother were  not realized at
that time.   This beloved parent lived many years longer
to bless him and  to be blessed by him.  How radiant was
her joy  in  his successes, not  in  the paths of ambition
only, but of duty!  When  he  achieved good  for  others,
how her heart "  ran o'er with  bliss " ! for she knew the
high  motives, the beneficent nature, from which  his ac-
tion sprang.   Years after her death, when he was  moved
to tears  by a testimonial of respect and affectionate re-
gard  for high services he had rendered #o his  State and
to  the world, how fervently he wished his mother  had
lived to enjoy it!   How keen was his remembrance of her
maternal joys !
  This trait of filial piety is not dwelt upon here because
it is exceptional,  but simply because it was a trait in Mr.
Mann's character.  Good and devoted mothers are not so
rare, that a great proportion of men who read this record
of a son's affection  will  find it difficult  to recognize in
their own hearts  the truth of the picture; but  it is pleas-
ing to know  that the  subject of our contemplation  lost
nothing  out  of his life  from a neglect of or indifference
to parental love, and that his appreciation of it  was never
wanting from his boyhood up.
  From  the  home and good influences of this excellent
mother, whose character he learned  to  reverence more
and more as  he  grew  older, and  where, if  he had not 
                LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.             40

variety  and means  of great  intellectual  culuire, he
had the advantage of  being kept in ignorance of much
of the evil that is  in  the  world during those years in
which the young need to be guided over the quicksands
of passion, and pointed to  the  heights of principle, and
to the example of the  great and  good who have resisted
temptation,—and who can doubt that the longer the youth-
ful faith in goodness is fed by the ideal, the better ? —
Mr. Mann passed into the charmed circle of another holy
fireside, with which many years of his future life  were to
be linked, and  under whose influence his  life-purposes
grew and were matured.  It was during his college-life
in Brown University that he became acquainted with the
lady  whom he married long afterward, the daughter of
the excellent President of that  institution.
   And here he slaked his  burning thirst for knowledge
at every fountain to which he could gain access.   It  is
difficult for the young of the present time to  estimate the
advantages they enjoy in  comparison with those of the
generation to which Mr. Mann belonged.   The young of
this period begin where the young of that period arrived
only  after long study; for the  knowledge  of a thousand
 things  then unknown is in the very air we breathe, and
 the very figures of daily speech are predicated upon sci-
 entific  facts  then sealed  to  most men.   Freedom  of
 thought is following swiftly upon the traces  of improved
 scientific knowledge, and a giant stride is now making by
 the nations that have  long  slumbered.  The great dead
 may almost be expected to walk amongst us to give an
 earnest of their joy at the awakening to which  they in
 their earthly lives contributed.
   Judge Barton, of Worcester, Mass., writes of him at
 this  period: —
   My acquaintance with Mr.  Mann commenced  in Providence in 
26
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
the fall of 1816.   Wo  then  both < n;ered the sophomore  class of
Brown University, and soon contracted a friendship, which, on my
part certainly, continued during his life.   During the last two years
of our college-life  wo were chums, occupying  room No.  — in Uni-
versity Hall.  We were both  of mature, and  I believe about the
same, age.   Having been brought up in the country (he in Franklin,
and I in Oxford,  Mass.), it  was perhaps rather due  to our early
education .than otherwise that the dissipations of neither  the college
nor the city had  any controlling attractions for us.   During  the
three  years  of our college-life,  I  recollect not a single instance of
impropriety on his  part.
   Perhaps  I ought to confess one college sin, if sin  it be deemed.
The students had long been in  the habit of celebrating the Fourth
of July in the chapel.  In our junior or senior year, arrangements
were  made for the accustomed celebration.   The college govern-
ment forbade it.    A majority of the students went for resisting  the
government.   I went for loyalty.  But my chum, being a little the
more impulsive, and having been  chosen  the orator for the  occasion,
went  for independence and the celebration of it.  The procession
was formed in the  college-yard.    I concluded, that, if there must be
rebellion, I  had better  rebel against the college government  than
against the majority of my fellow-students.   I took the front rank in
the procession ; helped to open  the chapel door; and chum went in,
and delivered his oration amidst great applause.   A trifling fine was
imposed upon him; but he lost no credit with  either the students or
the government.   I believe your honored husband afterwards  vindi-
cated  the principles of subordination in  college government.    But
I trust that our Fourth-of-July rebellion never gave  him any serious
remorse of conscience: it certainly  never troubled  mine.   There
are cases when generous sentiment pleads strongly for an amnesty
of the fault of violating strict  discipline.
   Notwithstanding Mr. Mann entered college under the disadvan-
tage of going into an advanced class, he soon assumed the first place
in it.   He had been remarkably well fitted  in the languages  under
an  instructor of some note;  I think, by the name of Barrett.  I
never heard a student translate the  Greek and Roman classics with
grealer facility, accuracy,  and elegance.   As we should expect, ho 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
27
was a fine writer; and, as we should not expect from that circum-
stance, he also excelled in the exact sciences.
  My chum possessed qualities of a high order.   By this means he
attracted the attention and secured the respect, not only of the mem-
bers of our own class, but of members  of the other classes in  col-
lege.  Our  room was the centre of much good company,  except in
study-hours; and I sometimes almost wished that I  had not so in-
teresting and attractive a room-mate.   But I felt much more than
compensated by his intelligence, and by the fact that the  company
his genial manners  invited were from amongst the best young men
in the college.
   In connection with Mr.  Mann, I always call to  mind  the  late
Rev. George Fisher of Harvard ; a very respectable clergyman, who
died a short time before him.   He had been  a member of the  col-
lege a year before we entered ; was then deservedly the candidate for
the first part in the class, but eventually received the second part,
 while Mr. Mann had the first.   You will excuse me for saying that
 I was not a competitor for either of these parts, so called ; having in
 the space of nine months fitted for an advanced standing of one year
 in college, and being quite  content with a position next subordinate
 to that of my friends.
    The religious views of your husband and  Fisher were  not quite
 coincident ;°and their earnest, but I believe  always courteous, dis-
 putes afforded  much  amusement,  and perhaps some  edification, to
 their fellow-students.   I love to think of both  of them as now ten-
 ants of  the same happy land ;  and I  trust they have  learned  that
 men may enter it through different channels of faith, provided that,
 in time, they avoid the broad way that leads to death.
    After we graduated in 1819, our course diverged somewhat.   Mr.
  Mar.n remained for some time at the college  as tutor; while I pur-
  sued my professional  studies principally in Massachusetts,  at the
  Cambridge  Law School.   We met  first in public life in our State
  Legislature in 1830;  Mr. Mann as representative of the town of
  Dedham, and mvself of the town of Oxford.    He had been a mem-
  ber of the Legislature before I met him  there, and remained some time
  after I left The Senate in 1884.   He was President of the Senate
  in 1836.  I found he enjoyed the same consideration and respect in 
28
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
the Legislature which was always accorded to him in the various
public  positions he occupied.  We always agreed in our views as to
public measures, and frequently co-operated in the  committee-room,
as well as in the ordinary routine of legislation.  Among the most
important measures that we instituted was the resolution of 1832
for a revision  of the General Statutes of the Commonwealth.   The
resolution will be found in my handwriting: but Mr. Mann greatly
aided in its passage; and, after the revision had been made, he, with
our learned friend Judge Metcalf, supervised the publication of the
work in 1836.
   Another and most beneficent  subject of legislation, of which, as
far as I know, Mr. Mann  was the sole originator, is the State Luna-
tic Hospital.
   I learn with much satisfaction  that his friends are about to erect
to  his  memory a bronze statue in front of the State  House in
Boston.  That is well.   But we have, my dear madam, in Worces-
ter, a monument to his memory, literally " cere per-ennius," —our
State Lunatic Hospital, — valuable  not  only in itself, but as the
parent  of those beneficent institutions throughout the country.
   I might speak of your husband's valuable services as Secretary of
the Board of Education in this State;  but those are well known to
you and to all.  I knew, if I could say any thing of  interest to you,
it  must result from my early and intimate association with him in
college-life.   It is a green spot in my recollection, saddened, indeed,
by the reflection that my friend is takeu away before me, in the midst
of his life's labor and usefulness.   I  shall always remain
                          Yours very truly and respectfully,
                                            IRA M. BARTON.

   Mr. Mann  took the " First Part," as it is  called, when
he graduated.   The subject of his oration was the "Pro-
gressive Character of  the Human Race."    This was his
favorite theme all through life, the basis of  all his  action
in education  and in politics.   Another  youthful produc-
tion, of which no copy can now be found, was  upon "The
Duty of every American, to Posterity."   It is said by one 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
29
who remembers it, that he treated the subject with a depth
of insight and  breadth of comprehension that go far to
elucidate the meaning of the  Hebrew prophet, who en-
titled the Ideal Man he saw in the future the "Father of
Ages."
  He left college to enter  the office of Hon. J. J. Fiske
of Wrentham, Mass.; but was soon invited back to Brown
University  as tutor of Latin and  Greek, where he  was
able to review  carefully his classical studies and  their
collateral literature.  He was very successful as teacher;
noted  for his fidelity and  thoroughness,  and the  moral
stimulus he gave to the pupils under his care.
   He would have been glad to devote some time  to scien-
tific study, as his personal interest in it led him to see its
superior advantages in the culture of the whole man ; but
facilities for it,  so abundant now, were wanting then, and
necessity obliged him to press on to the acquirement of a
profession.
   Mr. Mann had taken the highest honors of the college,
and had been eminently successful as  tutor; but, when
he  left the place where he had been so fortunate and  so
happy, more grateful to him  than any honors were the
tears  shed at parting by  his lovely young friend, who
afterwards became his wife.  Dr. Messer had soon marked
him as a favorite, and admitted him to his domestic circle.
His daughter was still but a child :  but Mr. Mann carried
her in his heart for the next ten years; and, as she grew
and expanded into the most engaging womanhood, — for
others as well as himself testify to her  rare beauty of mind
and character, — all his conceptions of excellence and all
his hopes of happiness became identified with her image.
   What condition of the human soul  is so exalted as that
 in  which the love, not merely of excellence, but of the
excellent, purifies every sentiment, and rallies every power 
30
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
co make  it worthy to love and to inspire love ?   What
better guard - angelic  over the  character  of  a  young
man, especially over one already bent  upon  a noble ca-
reer?   Such it was  to him: and many of the finer traits
of his character were   doubtless confirmed  by this en-
nobling and purifying influence ; for his  native earnestness
made it impossible for him to love lightly.   The painful
modesty which was  one  of his distinguishing traits, and
which always, even after all his successes in life, made it
so difficult for him to realize that he was worthy the high-
est estimation of his friends,  rendered  that period of his
life one of intense anxiety as well as aspiration ; and all
tended to make  the short period of his domestic happiness
a consuming fire,  whose extinction  nearly deprived him
of life and reason.
  In  1821, Mr. Mann entered the Law School  at Litch-
field, presided over by the late Judge Gould.
  A letter from J. W.  Scott, Esq., now  of Toledo, 0.,
though bearing a recent date,  is here given because it re-
fers to that period: —
__       __    „,                            Castleton, N.Y.
My dear Mrs.  Mann, —
  ... I first saw Mr. Mann in the  summer of 1822, in the lecture-
room of Judge Gould, at Litchfield, Conn.   The law-school of Judr>-e
Gould was then in the zenith  of its prosperity, having an attendance
of about thirty students.
  It was with a lively interest that I took my first observation of the
young gentlemen with  whom I expected to  associate  through a
course of lectures.  With no acquaintance or knowledge of any of
the members, I took  an interest in forming  a judgment of their
various characters and their comparative mental power by inspecting
their persons.  Phrenology had not then been taught in  this country,
and physiognomy was depended  upon to show forth to the eye the
characteristics of the person.   Either through defect of my knowledge
of it, or imperfection of the science, the conclusions deduced by me 
                   LIFE OF HORACE MANN.                31

were quite  incorrect.   Mr. Mann's massive brow and high arching
head did not then tell me what a great intellect was indicated ;  but
the mild bright eye,  and the pleasant expression  of the  eloquent
mouth, told of geniality and mirthfulness.
   It was therefore easy to believe what was told me  by the students,
that he -fas the best fellow and the best wit in  the oflice ;  but  not
before I formed  his acquaintance was  it so credible to me  (what I
was also told) that he  was the best whist-player, the  best scholar,  and
the best lawyer of the school.
   Several  of the  students had been admitted  to the bar, and com-
menced practice before coming to Litchfield ; and others had possessed
superior advantages to obtain law knowledge, and had brought with
them no little proficiency in the science.
   Our lecturer,  Judge  Gould, was,  ex officio, the bench of  our
moot court:  the  next ofiice, that  of attorney-general, was  elective
by the students.   Mr. Mann bad been elected to  that ofiice before
my arrival.   It was not until near  the close of the  season that I
formed  much  personal acquaintance with  him.   I think our first
intimacy was formed  in the room of our fellow-student, James Sul-
livan of Boston, who  was confined  several weeks by acute inflamma-
tion of his eyes.   The room of suffering was always, I believe, at-
tractive to Mr. Mann; and Mr.  Sullivan, by his  excellent qualities,
was especially entitled to sympathy and aid from all.   In our moot
courts, held weekly,  the  question of law  to be  discussed was pro-
posed,  the preceding week,  by Judge Gould; and  four students,
two on  each side, were detailed to discuss it;  the  judge, at  the
close of the  arguments, summing  up and giving  the grounds of
his judgment at  length.    The  arguments  of Mr.  Mann were
distinguished for  the clearness — I might almost say the  trans-
parency — of the distinctions, and  the fulness and  pertinency of
the analogies  brought  to the  support of   his position.   On  on&
occasion, when the side he sustained was opposed to the decision of
the judge previously  written out, it was  the general  opinion of the
school that Mr. M. made out the  best case.  And of this opinion
seemed to be the judge; for, after reading  the arguments  to sustain
his decision,  he proceeded to reply to some of  the  points of Mr. 
32               LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.

Mann, and, as we thought, with some exhibition of improper feel-
ing or wounded self-esteem.
  Mr. Mann's mind was at this time, I think, more intensely en-
gaged in metaphysical  investigation than  on any other  subject;
Brown  being  his favorite author.
  I parted from Mr. Mann at Litchfield, with the full conviction
that his was to be one of the great names of our time, whether his
clear and fertile intellect should confine itself— as was not probable
— to the law, or to any other one department of human knowledge.
The only drawback to the realization  of such a  destiny seemed to
be the lack of physical vigor  compared with the immense develop-
ment of his nervous  system,  especially his cerebral organs.   His
rich nervous temperament had, however, something of that wiry na-
ture  (such as I  have  heard Mr. Mann attribute  to Mr. Choate)
which gave the muscular and vital functions, as well as the mental,
great capacity for endurance.
&      r  J                                     J. SCOTT.

   Mr. Scott did not understand the  theory  of tempera-
ments precisely as Mr. Mann and other modern physiolo-
gists do.   Mr. Choate's temperament was undoubtedly a
fibrous one, the most enduring and resisting of all ; but
Mr. Mann's endurance came from the  force of his will, and
was subject to terrible revulsions.   He could not, like a
man of  fibrous temperament,  turn  from one long-sus-
tained effort to another, and  thus find  rest; but utter
prostration  followed over-exertion,  and  many times in
his life he has risen from such falls because his will never
yielded the  point.   But this could not last always.   Phy-
siologists have assured him that there was but one mode
of recovery for him under such circumstances.  The only
excesses  he ever  committed were those  of brain-work;
and sleep, not exercise, was his  only  restorative.
   After leaving Litchfield, Mr. Mann went into the office
 of the Hon. James Richardson,  of Dedham ;  and was ad-
 mitted to the  Norfolk bar in December, 1823. 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
33
  He had studied law, as he did every thing else, exhaus-
tively,  and worked thenceforth  eighteen  hours  a  day.
Mr. Livingston ably describes his " forensic  practice " in
these words: —

  We believe the records of the courts will show, that, during the
fourteen years of his forensic practice, he  gained  at least  four out
of five of all the contested cases in which  he was engaged.   The
inflexible rule of his professional life was, never to undertake a case
that he did not believe to be right.  He held that an advocate loses
his  highest power when he loses the ever-conscious conviction that
he is contending for the truth ; that though the fees or fame may be
a stimulus, yet that a conviction of being right is itself creative of
power, and renders its possessor more than  a match for antagonists
otherwise greatly his superior.  He used to say that in  this con-
scious  conviction of right there was  a magnetism;  and  he  only
wanted an opportunity to be put in communication with a jury in
order to impregnate them with his own belief.  Beyond this, his aim
always was, before  leaving any head or topic in  his argument, to
condense its whole force into a vivid epigrammatic point, which the
jury could not help remembering when they got into the jury-room ;
and, by graphic illustration and simile, to fasten  pictures upon their
minds, which they would  retain and reproduce after abstruse argu-
ments were forgotten.   He endeavored  to give to each one of the
jurors something to be " quoted " on his side,  when they retired for
consultation.  He  argued  his cases as though  he were in  the jury-
room itself, taking part in the deliberations that were  to be  held
there.   From the confidence in his honesty,  and  those pictures with
which he  filled the air of the jury-room, came his uncommon suc-
cess.

   In 1824, he was invited by the citizens of Dedham to
deliver  a fourth-of-July oration;  and it  was of this  pro-
duction  that  Mr. John Quincy Adams  used  such  warm
words of confidence as to his future career.
   In public life he was never a partisan ;  and therefore,
                3 
34
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
though respected, could  hardly be called  popular.   Nor
did he ever let his feelings about men influence his pub-
lic action.  He advocated the right measures, and never
allowed himself to  be approached by motives of expedi-
ency ; though, with all his ardor, he was eminently pru-
dent and cautious.  When State representative, to which
office he was elected in 1827, his first speech was  in de-
fence of religious liberty, in opposition to a scheme by
which close corporations could secure the income of given
property forever to the support of particular creeds.  His
success was consummate: the bill was rejected ; and no
similar attempt was ever after made in Massachusetts.
One of the first, if not the first, legislative speeches ever
printed in the  United States in  favor of railroads,  was
made by him; and his whole public career of that period
was marked  by a devotion to the interests of public char-
ities, of education,  and of civil, political,  and religious
liberty, temperance, and  public morals  of every descrip-
tion.  Mr. Livingston has ably described these labors in
detail.  No  one who watched them, or  carefully reviews
them, can fail to see what a mighty power one man can
exercise if actuated by noble motives, and  with the con-
scientious feeling that he ought to do every thing he can
which the powers  he  has  been gifted with  will enable
him to do.  Worldly ambition is an immense incentive to
activity ; but the activity so  inspired does not run in the
channel of love for  the  ignorant, the needy, and  the op-
pressed.   The  patient, arduous labors  which Mr. Mann
performed in those  years can never be estimated in the
courts below ; but they made him a world-moving power,
and gained for  future spheres of action a mass of experi-
ence and observation, which illuminated and indeed light-
ened his subsequent career, enabling him  to accomplish
that which would otherwise have  been impossible. 
LirE OF  HORACE MANN.
35
  Mr. Mann was not married until he had attained some
eminence in his profession  and  in public life, paid the
debts he  had incurred for his  education, and acquired a
small competence.  This he might have secured earlier,
by his power at the bar, if he had yielded to the tempta-
tion the profession of  the law holds out to the unworthy,
— the temptation to defend the wrong.  No lawyers are
so  popular with  rogues — probably no  lawyers receive
such high fees from  that class of men whose characters
make the enactment of human laws necessary—as those
who are facile upon this point.   But Mr. Mann preferred
to wait for  his  domestic  happiness to yielding to great
temptations that were offered to him.  He  had adopted
the principle, from the beginning, never to put  himself
on the unjust side of any cause, even for intellectual  glad-
iatorship  and  practice.    The  young who  have  been
under his instruction and influence will  remember how
earnestly he  inculcated upon  them this duty  to  them-
selves.
   Of Mr. Mann's marriage, and life in Dedham, an inti-
mate friend of himself and  wife writes: —
  How brilliant he was in general conversation! with such sparkling
repartee, such gushing wit, such a merry laugh, but never any non-
sense.  His droll sayings could never be recalled without exciting a
hearty laugh  at their originality.   Even after the long life that has
passed over me since those.days of my youth, they are often sug-
gested to my thoughts; but I do not laugh now.
   His originality was so  refreshing,  so exciting, because he treated
the most trifling subjects  in a manner peculiar to himself.
   And then  how much power he had of drawing out other minds!
The timid ones, who usually hardly dared express themselves on
grave and weighty topics, would rise from a tete-a-tete with him,
wondering at the amount of talent, thought, and feeling he  had
opened, and the chord of sympathy he had touched.
   He was a  radiant m m then ; perhaps more so in the spright- 
36
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
liness and genuine mirthfulness of his nature than  after the blight
of sorrow fell so heavily upon  him.   In  more intimate intercourse,
in which his intellectual  points were brought out, in the interchange
of ideas and emotions suggested by mutual  literary pursuits, we be-
came cognizant of all the finer traits of his nature, as well as of the
strong and brilliant ones.   His exquisite tenderness and care for the
feelings of others; his delicate appreciation  of woman's nature, and
his estimate of her capabilities, at the same time that he shrank from
any assumption, on her part, of the place in social life for which she
was by nature, and the evident design of Providence, unfitted;  his
love,  too,  for the beautiful;  his quick  eye for it  in nature and
art, in the inmost working of the human soul,  and in its outward
developments;  ami the truth  and honor and disinterestedness and
earnestness of his whole character, with his warmth of heart, and his
love  of his race, and  the intensity which was so marked in every  thing
which he  did and said,  made themselves very  apparent in famil-
iar and easy talk on every imaginable topic.   When in his intercourse
with men,  politically and otherwise, other aspects of his character were
seen, and his intense expression of his sentiments  was  sometimes
thought to be  bitter and sarcastic  and  exaggerated,  I always felt
and said that those who so regarded  him did not know what was in
him.
  His was too strong a nature not to come sometimes in collision
with the opinions and prejudices, perhaps with the principles, of
other individuals, by whom, consequently, his true character could
not be appreciated.
  When I knew his wife personally  (I had long known her through
him), I was7 indeed   rejoiced  that such  an  angelic being  had  been
created to be his comfort, solace, joy,  and happiness.   She was  ex-
tremely delicate in health, and called forth the tenderest care.   This
fostering, protecting, caressing care, she had, of course, in perfection.
It was expressed in every tone of his voice when he addressed her.
It seemed as if she  were too  ethereal to dwell long on  earth, and
was only permitted to taste of earth's most perfect  bliss, and then
was taken to her heavenly home.   Then came that sundering which
seemed so dark and mysterious, and which it required  so much faith
to acquiesce  in.   Was it necessary that his own heart  should be 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
37
broken  before he could  perform the work that  was  allotted  to
him ?

  His most intimate letters of that period, which cannot
be published, show with what a deep sense of responsibility
and with what exalted aims he made that new home, —
every such new home being a new test on earth of man's
capacity for improvement.   All his arduous  labors were
lightened  by his young wife's sympathy, and his plans for
the amelioration  of the woes of society quickened and
widened by her aid and approval; for, though very young,
he found  in her  not only all  the womanly purity and
sweetness that  he had expected, but  a wisdom  and
humanity rare at any  age.  And  her  religion was the
breath of life: its mien was rejoicing and hopeful, and
illumined instead of darkening life.
   His short domestic happiness was to him the first per-
fect proof of  the  goodness  and benignity of God; but it
was  very  brief.   A little less than two years comprised
the whole of  their married life.  Her delicate health had
always given him great  anxiety, and the sufferings of her
last illness were very severe, but borne with such fortitude
that he was not aware of its dangerous nature.  She died
in a sudden access of delirium, while he was watching by
her side alone, with no  one within call.  The terrors of
that dreadful night, spent alone with  the dead, where he
was found nearly insensible in the  morning, revisited him
with  fearful  power for many years  at each  recurring
anniversary,  and  were  never wholly  dispelled.
   In  the  season of grief which followed, the shadows of
his early creed returned upon him,  and darkened his soul;
for he could not  reason then.   When we  suffer, no less
than  in the  hour  of death, we cannot go  to find our
religion:  it must find us, and save us. 
38
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
   A few years  afterwards, he wrote to a friend to whom
he always loved to speak  of his beloved wife : —

   I spent the last  Sabbath in Providence ; and when I visited the
spot  which had been to me, as  it were, the  central point of the
universe, and spoke the name of her who was once so quick to hear
every sound of my voice, but  who never will answer it again upon
earth, I think I was able to realize more fully than I had ever done
before, that what I loved was not there !  But what I still want is
to be intimately penetrated with the feeling that she is  in  some
region of blessedness.   Were  this a part of my consciousness, as the
idea of our own existence  is a part of our consciousness, whenever
we reflect upon the things in which we  have been engaged, I  think
I should soon find relief.   It  was  on  this account that I was more
affected by that sermon of Dr. Channing's than by any thing I have
ever heard before.

   And again : —
   Let me assure you that you have not pained  me by adverting to
a  subject, which, as you truly suppose, does engross all my mind
and heart, and forms the melancholy tissue of my life.  My soul has
gone over to the contemplation of one theme.  Amid  the current of
conversation, in social intercourse or  the  avocations  of business, in
the daily walk of life, it is never but half forgotten; and the sight
of an object, the utterance of a word, the tone of a  voice,  re-opens
upon me the mournful scene,  and spreads around me, with  electric
quickness, a world of gloom.   Perhaps even a nature compose 1 of
affection like yours cannot fully comprehend the condition  of being
through which I have  passed.   During that period,  when, for me,
there was a light upon earth brighter than any light of the sun, and
a voice sweeter than any of Nature's harmonies,  I did not think but
that the happiness which was boundless in present enjoyment would
be perpetual in duration.   Do not blame my ungrateful heart for
not looking beyond the boon with which Heaven had blessed  me;
for you  know not the potency of that enchantment.   My life went
out of myself.   One  after another, the  feelings which  had before
been fastened upon other objects loosened  their strong grasp, and 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
39
went to dwell  and rejoice in the sanctuary of her holy and beautiful
nature.   Ambition forgot the applause  of the world for the more
precious gratulations of that approving voice.  Joy ceased its quests
abroad; for at home there was  an exhaustless fountain to slake its
renewing thirst.   There imagination built her palaces, and garnered
her choicest treasures.  She, too, supplied  me with new strength for
toil, and  new motives for excellence.  Within  her  influence there
could be  no contest for sordid  passions or degrading appetites; for
she sent  a divine and overmastering strength into  every generous
sentiment, which I cannot describe.   She purified my conceptions of
purity, and beautified the ideal of every  excellence.   I  never knew
her to express a selfish or an envious  thought; nor do I believe that
the type of one was ever admitted to disturb the peacefulness of her
bosom.   Yet, in the passionate  love she  inspired, there  was  nothing
of oblivion of the  rest of mankind.  Her teachings did not make one
love others less, but differently  and more  aboundingly.    Her sym-
pathy with others' pain seemed  to be quicker and stronger than the
sensation of her own;  and, with a sensibility that would sigh  at a
crushed flower, there was a spirit of  endurance that would uphold
a martyr.   There was in her breast no scorn of vice, but a wonder
and amazement  that  it could  exist.  To  her it seemed almost a
mystery ; and, though she comprehended its deformity,  it was more
in pity than in indignation  that she regarded it: but that hallowed
joy with  which she  contemplated whatever tended to ameliorate the
condition of mankind, to  save them from pain or rescue them from
guilt, was,  in its manifestations, more like  a vision  from a brighter
world, a divine  illumination, than like the  earthly sentiment of
humanity.   But I must forbear; for  I should never end were I  to
depict that revelation  of  moral beauties  which beamed from her
daily life, or attempt to describe that grace of sentiment, that love-
liness of feeling, which  played perpetually, like  lambent  flame,
around the solid adamant of her virtues.

   It was not long after Mr. Mann's removal from Dedham
to  Boston in 1833, a change which was  brought about
by friends who  loved him, and felt that it was essential to
his continued life and usefulness, that distressing circum- 
40
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
stances swept from him the hard-earned fruits of years of
toil, for which he  had worked  sixteen hours a day in his
profession, and  subjected  him to  many privations  of
common  comforts that  seemed necessary to his health,
then very precarious.   In  the midst of  this misfortune
occurred the death of his early and long-tried friend, Silas
Holbrook.
  He wrote to a friend, of this event: —

  A denser shade of gloom has come over the earth ; and my faint
heart bleeds anew.  There is no man living who loved me so well
as my friend Holbrook.  I have a thousand times comforted myself
with the thought, that if, amid the tempests of life, my character was
lost overboard, there was one man who would plunge in to save  it.
As a friend, it is not enough to say of him, he was true :  he was
truth.  At the time when the whole earth became to me a scene  of
desolation, he was the first man that came to  me across its boundless
wastes to support and uphold me.   I might never have again rec-
ognized  Nature, or renewed my companionship  with men,  had  he
not  won me back.  Why should he be taken, and I left?   He who
rejoiced  and improved  every one here who  knew him is snatched
away, and my  sentence of exile  and  banishment  is prolonged.
Where now is my best friend?   What  and whom has he seen?
These thoughts  overwhelm  me;  and I can only say, that would to
Heaven I were as ready as I am willing to follow him !

  The  death  of Dr. Messer soon  followed, of which  he
wrote to the same friend: —

  Never was a more firmly linked circle-broken.   There was  in
that family such an intercommunity of thought and feeling,  that the
result could never be otherwise expressed than  by absolute  unity.
Distrust was never banished from the house, for it never entered it.
There was, of course,  a common consciousness, and a desire for
each other's welfare  possessed all the energy of self-love with  the
self-sacrifice  of disinterested affection.    Of the  effect of  bereave-
ment in such a family there can be  no description.   I looked upon 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
41
the dead with envy, and pitied the living because they still lived.   I
administered  consolations which I did not feel.   I can speak to the
heart-broken in language they can understand : I am versed in every
dialect of sorrow.   I know how this flattered and  extolled  world
looks when it is seen from the side of the  grave into which all its
glory and beauty have gone down.
   Dr.  Messer, certainly, had  inspired his  children  with the  most
entire confidence : he never inflicted  upon them in his daily admin-
istrations  any painful sensations or emotions; and  hence  to hear
him, and  see him, and obey him, became associated with the idea of
gratification ; and pleasure and duty so harmonized, that  they never
knew from which motive they were acting.  How rare it is to find
that attachment which comes  only from habits of agreeable inter-
course, where no annoying  or  irritating acts are committed on either
side, and where it has become a greater pleasure to yield or to har-
monize than to be gratified by that  which is  displeasing to another !

   A lovely mother also sanctified  that home, of  whom he
said,  that he never heard  from her the expression of  any
other than a beautiful sentiment.   Her love for him was
so true, that there was always  ample room  in her  heart
for all that  he loved and all that was his.
   When his own mother died, he  wrote : —

   A memory full of proofs of the purest, strongest, wisest love is all
that is left to me upon earth of a mother.  So far as it regards this
world, it is retrospection only in  which I shall behold  her, — the
 retrospection of a life in which  she has always sought to make my
 comfort paramount to her own, and,  amidst transient and casual cir-
 cumstances,  has invariably kept her  eye fixed upon my highest wel-
 fare.  Death will not sanctify any of  her precepts, her wise and judi-
 cious counsels; for they were sanctified  and hallowed before.
   It is now  years since I have felt as though I were on  the isthmus
 between time and eternity.  I have long ago left the earth, but have
 not yet entered the  world beyond  it.  Standing  in this  solitude be-
 tween worlds, my mother has  passed by me; and how much the bal-
 ance of the universe has changed!  What weight of treasure is added 
42
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
to the scale of the future !   A wife and a mother; and such a wife !
In that heavenly world I cannot conceive of her lips as glowing with
any  diviner smile, nor her  forehead as starred with a more glorious
beauty.   And  such a mother! Were she now to return to earth,
how, more devotedly than she has done, could she toil for the welfare
of her children ?
  I  go to-morrow morning to perform the last rites,  and probably I
am to have a day, the like of which will never come to me again.

  Mr.  Mann was subsequently  associated  with many
minds  whose high moral views coincided with  his own,
and whose happier  religious  associations aided his  own
efforts to put himself more in harmony with  the universe,
whose adaptations to the soul of man had been again  lost
sight of by his crushing sorrow.   His quick  sensibility to
the  sufferings of others, sharpened by his own grief, made
him look upon life at that time as only a heritage of woe,
to quote one of his own expressions.   His native tender-
ness of heart had shown him  before, that  life becomes
such to  all who  do not  live conformably to the laws of
their being;  but he  was now  led  to search  more  deeply
into the remedies for  it.   For a  long time, he felt as if
motive  itself were paralyzed:  but others who saw his
life, and its continued  devotion  to the highest  aims  and
needs of humanity, saw that he was only temporarily be-
numbed ; and his social and genial nature,  at  happy
firesides where childhood and youth always  recognized
their friend, and where parents prized  his influence, grad-
ually became restored to cheerfulness.  He  oiten  left
such scenes  abruptly  when  the  contrast with  his  own
lonely abode was felt too keenly ; but he returned to them
again, driven from his solitude by its terrors.
  He was little interested in the  exciting scenes of  city
life, where frivolity often reigns paramount;  but he prized
highly the pleasures of intercourse with cultivated minds. 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
43
Mere literary characters, who had no deep interest in ame-
liorating the evils of society, attracted him little.  A cer-
tain golden thread of  benevolence  must be found in the
texture of every work of art or literature, or it failed of
an effect upon him ; and it even seemed to him a per-
verted use of Heaven-bestowed powers.  Where his heart
did not find moral beauty, the external semblance was an
empty shell.   Perhaps he did not separate the work from
its author sufficiently; for men " build better than they
know," as our great  poet tells us: but to him the work
was vitiated if it did not spring from  a pure source.  He
loved passionately the music of the human voice ; but he
often said, " It did not touch me : there was no benevo-
lence in it."   This peculiar criticism was always his test,
and no instrumental music ever pleased him that did not
touch tender chords  of feeling.  He  used to say of him-
self, that he was born to sing; but the long repression of
that as well as of every other artistic tendency left him
only  the power to enjoy, not  execute.  Music with  ap-
propriate words was  his delight; but there  were  times
when he could bear only the music, without the utterance
of the sentiment in language.
   When he  returned to the world,  it was rather as  a
spectator than a participator  in  its ordinary pleasures:
but, baptized in the  divine flame which sorrow lights  in
the soul, he  was  ready to do  all  he  could  to supply its
needs ; and it seemed to others that the period had passed
when an unworthy thought  or  motive could influence
him.   His habits  of  indefatigable, inevitable  labor stood
him in excellent stead then.
   Outward helps came  to him  from such souls  as  Dr.
 Channing's, Rev. E. Taylor's, Mr. J. Phillips's, Dr. George
 Combe's.   Nothing  could be more  different  than  the
 modes in which the  liberality of  Dr. Channing and  Mr. 
44
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
Taylor had been nurtured.  One was born into as dark
a faith as Mr. Mann himself, and  had the misfortune, like
himself, to hear the doctrine preached by a powerful ora-
tor.   Dr.  Hopkins was to  Dr. Channing's youth much
such an evil genius as Dr. Emmons was to Mr. Mann's:
but other influences were favorable  to the emancipation
of Dr. Channing's  mind ; and by the help of these, and
of the highest culture, he had thought  himself into  the
happiest confidence in the divinity of human nature.
  Mr. Taylor's youth was spent roughly, and reckless of
human  creeds.   Later in life, he fell among uncultured
enthusiasts, whose hearty religious enthusiasm he shared,
but whose bigotry and superstition he shed as  the cater-
pillar sheds the  skin  from  which it soars into life and
light  and  beauty.   Bigotry could not retain or contain
the soul of " Father Taylor,"  as his  sailor audience affec-
tionately call him.  Where he saw fidelity to duty, love
to man, allegiance  to God, he gave his great heart.   He
recognized the  tie which binds man to God even in  the
humblest form of piety in the simple and ignorant, and
no less  in those who acknowledged  it amidst the errors
and  tyranny of  human  creeds.   He knew the differ-
ence, and  sharply  discriminated between religion and
theology.
  The cordial love and sympathy between these two great
men, who  took the deepest interest in Mr. Mann, and saw
his value to humanity, gave the  latter a  practical assur-
ance of freedom from bigotry, which opened his heart to
both ; and he drew from their  full urns the balm of conso-
lation which strengthened  his failing steps.  They deep-
ened his favorite thought,  that  love to  man is the best
test of love to God, and must  precede it.
   Dr. S. G. Howe was an object  of  very tender affection
to him; and the reciprocation of the feeling was ever one 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
45
of his greatest enjoyments.  The same uncompromising
devotion  to the  great causes they  together  promoted
strengthened this friendship.   Both were disinterestedly
benevolent,  forgetful  of  self  in duty, energetic and
prompt in action, able to comprehend and act upon prin-
ciple, and  agreed  that education  must underlie all re-
forms.
   Later in point of time, the  Hon. Charles Sumner en-
deared himself to  Mr. Mann by striking into the same
vein of love of freedom, and unswerving allegiance to  a
high  sense of duty.  When  Mr.  Sumner  first  went to
Congress, Mr. Mann said of him that he was  " the great-
est constitutional lawyer in the country, except Col. Ben-
ton."  But that was not his highest title to  the regard of
good men.  He could sacrifice popularity to principle, not
from native indifference to the approbation of his fellow-
men, but in defiance  of a natural love  of  it and of the
social pleasures  it brings, that makes firmness in  the path
of rectitude a noble  trait.  Perhaps these  three friends
resembled each other more in this natural  characteristic
than in  any other; and in withstanding its temptation
lay their truest greatness, also kindred.
   Another man, who has  threaded New-England society
like a beam of golden sunshine  gleaming in dark places,
was just then coming  under the  observation of those
whose eyes- were ever open to see goodness.   Robert WTa-
terston did not owe his original  impulse to Mr. Mann,  to
whom he afterwards  looked as  a  guide, or to any other
than his own pure and noble nature, and to parents who
knew how to cherish what was loveliest in their children.
The  death of a little only sister, whom the boy  loved
dearly, first drew  his attention to other children ; and he
loved to  gather them, and teach them to be good, when
he was very young. When Mr. Mann first heard of him, he 
46
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
w*as a wonderfully successful Sunday-school teacher  to a
class of the most degraded  Boston poor, and had drawn
into  the work many noble persons kindled by his enthu-
siasm ; and his father, in whose business employ he  then
was, gave him certain hours  for visiting  the  families of
the Sunday-school children he had assembled in  Mr.  Tay-
lor's vestry, and with whom he  kept up such close inter-
course, that he knew which ran away from school, which
told  falsehoods, which stole, &c.  Mr.  Mann listened to
the story of this young man with swimming eyes, and in
subsequent years was anxious to  secure his services for
one of his beloved Normal schools, feeling that they  were
to be the nurseries of true teaching, and that in such hands
the moral culture which he craved for his " eighty thou-
sand children " might be found.   Mr. Waterston loves to
say now that  he owes the continued consecration of his
life to the mission — for which others can see that Heaven
designed him — partly to the influence of Mr. Mann's ca-
reer, which stimulated his  native tendencies.   When he
had passed from that which, to some eyes, seemed a hum-
ble sphere, into a more  prominent ministry, he was not
corrupted  by the worldly distinctions which gave him an
opportunity to preach to the wealthy and the proud in-
stead of to the lowly and ignorant;  for he still held so
faithfully to his allegiance to the poor and oppressed, that
he took Mr. Mann's  part boldly and earnestly when many
other friends dared not give him their countenance ;  and
this  moral courage  was  the first  step towards  his  sepa-
ration from  his society, where indeed many who  had
watched his more youthful career had always felt him to
be out of place.  It was as if Christ had  left the fisher-
men of Galilee, and the multitude on the mountain, to
preach common-places in the synagogue.   Since Mr. Wa-
tcston's release from that bondage, he has had  freedom 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
47
to speak and act wherever a true man was most needed ;
and that is in all the unpopular places where a fearless
word is to be spoken for the right, or wherever little chil-
dren are to be blessed and instructed.
  Another friend, whom Mr. Mann first met at a board-
ing-house, and who  attracted him  by singular nobleness
of sentiment, was subsequently very dear to him, — Mr.
Samuel Downer, always sagacious, independent, true  to
principle, unambitious, but full of insight into  public
men and measures,  deep in heart, faithful in adversity.
  Dr. Woodward, principal of the Worcester Hospital, —
which  Mr. Mann had projected and carried through the
House of representatives with his  one  right arm, — and
Dr. Todd of Hartford, also devoted to  that benign char-
ity, were a great delight to him, and objects of his enthu-
siastic love.  Of Dr. Todd he once said, that he was " a
man oue wished to  embrace if he only met him in the
street."   This gentleman had peculiar sympathies  with
him ;  for he, too, had  lost  a young wife  of lovely  char-
acter ;  and the mere knowledge  of the fact which Dr.
Todd  communicated to him  on one occasion, that drew
 his attention to Mr. Mann's domestic history, constituted
 a bond of union between them.
   Mr.  Mann looked  upon  his  acquaintance  with Mr.
 Combe and his works  as an important epoch in his life.
 That  wise  philosopher cleared away forever the  rubbish
 of false doctrine which  had sometimes impeded its action,
 and presented a philosophy of mind that  commended  it-
 self to his judgment: and yet there was not a servile sur-
 render to  his views;  for,  although  he considered Mr.
 Combe his  master, in reasoning power, he did not follow
 him  to  all his  conclusions.   Mr. Combe  was rather de-
 void of imagination, and could believe nothing but what 
48
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
he could clearly understand.  Mr. Mann had that " pass-
port into Elysium; " and his reasoning  power acted with
it, arguing  from the seen to  the unseen, which  is the ob-
ject of faith.   It was happiness  enough  for Mr. Combe to
believe thoroughly in the unprovability  of  the race ;  and
his conception of  its possible attainments in wisdom and
virtue took  the place, to him, of a future life of endless
progress: but  Mr. Mann had the assurance within him-
self that this life, with all its possible ameliorations and
capabilities  of earthly  attainment, was  but the  vestibule
of an existence which  " the  heart of man hath not con-
ceived," and for which this condition, sometimes so mys-
teriously wretched, is  but  a preparation.  He believed
God to be too benevolent to  have created one soul which
was not eventually to find him, and understand him, so
far as the finite can comprehend  the Infinite.   Present
ignorance was but the reverse of a glorious future  of
ever-dawning intelligence.   His own words often express
this thought better than another's can do it for him.
   I give a few letters of this period.
                                              July, 1836.
   My dear  Sister, — I learnt from a letter which I received from
----, and still more from her own  lips when I met her at----,
and with  perfect fulness and distinctness from your letter to me,
what apprehensions and anxiety about the condition of my mind had
been disturbing the peace of yours.  I know that it is, on your part,
an act of the  purest love and affection to communicate  to me your
alarms and your  desires.  Nor, if you have such feelings, would I on
any account have you smother or conceal them.   To each other let
there be no hidden fold of the heart.   If I act up to this principle,
I cannot forbear to say that this knowledge of the state of your mind
has given me  serious disquietude.   I  should  be false to all the feel-
ings of a  brother if  I could,  without  pain, see  you either  pursuing
a course of conduct,  or adopting a system of opinions, the inevitable
consequence  of which must be to render you unhappy.  I  know 
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
49
there are minds which can contemplate  the unutterable and eternal
suffering — a suffering equally without  limit in degree and in dura-
tion— of a large portion of the human race with feelings of indiffer-
ence ; indeed, it sometimes seems as if they contemplated it with  a
kind of horrible complacency; it always being understood that they
themselves are to be spectators only,  not  sufferers.  But you, my
dear sister, thank  God, have  no such humanity.   It would be im-
possible for you to know of any high degree of suffering in any large
portion of your fellow-beings, whether they were on the other side of
the ocean or on  the other side of the grave, without your own con-
scious sympathy going forth  and pervading that suffering, and feel-
ing it as though it were inflicted on your own spirit, at  least in  a
degree.   I see, in the adoption, by a mind like yours, of such doc-
trines as those to which you so plainly refer, the residue of life filled
with anxiety and terror; at least for your friends, if not for yourself.
I know you can never  break your mind into such  a submission to
the supposed will  of God as  not to tremble and  agonize when you
see the torture applied to others, whether you see it with  the bodily
or with the mental eye.   It is this knowledge of the inevitable effect
of  such  a faith upon a nature like yours that gives me pain.  I
claim no superior sensibility to the fate of others over the mass of my
fellow-men;  but I know that, to  my nature, there  can be no com-
pensation in the  highest happiness, and that of the longest duration,
 for the endless and remediless misery of a single sentient thing.   No :
 though the whole offspring of the  Creator, with the exception of one
 solitary being, were gathered into a heaven of unimaginable blessed-
 ness, while that one solitary being, wide apart in some region of im-
 mensity,  however remote, were wedded  to immortal pain, even then,
 just so soon as the holy principle  of love sprung up in the hearts  of
 that happy assembly, just so soon would  they forget their joy, and
 forget their God, and  the whole universe of them, as one spirit,
 gather round and weep over  the sufferer.   My nature revolts at the
 idea of belonging to a universe in which there is to be never-ending
 anguish.   That nature never can be made to  look on  it with com-
 posure.   That nature may indeed be  annihilated, and  another  of
 similar form be created, and receive a  similar name, as  I might  re-
 move one of the Limps by which I am now writing, and  substitute a 
50                 LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
similar one in its place; but my nature, that which constitutes me,
shrinks frgm an existence where any such thing is  ever  to come to
its consciousness.
  You say that our love to man should arise or flow from supreme
love to God.   I do not think you had a definite idea in your mind
when you wrote that sentence.  If God be the greatest and the best
of beings, then, indeed, should  we  strive to  expand and dilate our
conceptions of him, and love will rise in our hearts at once ; but that
emotion, after all, is a very different one from what we  must feel
towards our fellow-men.  God needs none of our aid, — our fellow-
men need it constantly ; he is infinitely superior to us, — our fellow-
men are our equals, sometimes our inferiors;  to his happiness we
can add nothing, — to theirs much.   We  know it is the duty of the
powerful to give  strength to the weak; of those  who have abun-
dance  to  impart  to the  needy; of the wise  to instruct the inex-
perienced.   It is against the whole  analogy of nature, and against
every clear perception of duty, to despoil the  destitute in order to
give to him who already has a  redundance,  and to  make the feeble
perform not only  their own tasks, but also the labors of the healthful
and vigorous.   We  are, to be  sure, to love  God;  yet it is not for
his welfare, but for our own.  The individual who does not feel that
love,  is bereft of a source  of unfailing happiness ;  but he may still
perform the first of duties towards his fellow-men : and much higher
do I believe he stands in the scale  of moral being, who faithfully
devotes himself to the welfare  of his kind,  though his  communion
with his Maker may be feeble  and interrupted, than the man whose
contemplations are so fastened  upon the Deity, that he forgets those
children of the Deity who require his aid.   So far  as we can derive
 strength in the performance of our duties by contemplating the per-
 fect nature of God, or by dwelling  intently upon  the example of
 Jesus Christ, so  far it is our duty to do it;  and should we be trans-
 lated to a world where our fellow-beings can no longer be benefited
 by our efforts, then, indeed, it would be  our duty  and our pleasure
 to regard the supreme perfection with supreme love.  But, while we
 are on earth, the burden of our duties is towards man.   This is the
 entire texture of the New Testament.  Where else in the whole
 book  is there such anxious  repetition as in one  of the last injunctions 
LiFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
51
of Christ ?—" Lovest thou me ?  If thou lovest me, feed my lambs;''
and again,  "If thou lovest me,  feed my sheep;"  and again, the
third time,  " Feed my sheep."
   My sister, I have looked at the world  from the side of a grave
that  has swallowed  up my happiness.   For months afterward, I
daily and hourly yearned for death as  much as  ever  a  famishing
infant yearned for the  breast of  its mother.  But, during all  that
time, I felt not a moment's  remorse because I had not loved  God
more.   I felt, indeed, that it was a  great and irreparable misfortune
that I had not been taught the existence  of a God worthy of being
loved.   All the regrets I had were  that I had not acted differently
towards mankind.   That was a  condition  of mind, if there can be
any such condition  upon earth, to reveal to a man the sources and
the objects of duty.  What we   learn from  books, even  what we
think we are taught in the Bible, may be mistake or misapprehension :
but the lessons we  learn from our  own  consciousness are the  very
voice of the Being that created us; and about it can there be any
mistake ?  I would plead with you on this subject, not so much on
my own account, for that would be selfish, but on your account, and
especially on account of the children, so much  of whose happiness
will depend upon your teachings.
                       Dear sister,  farewell.                 g  jj.

                                           Boston, Dec. 9, 1836.
   My dear Friend, — How wofully long it  is since I have heard
from you !  What have I done to deserve  the chastisement of si-
lence?  . . .
   I thought you would have an ocean of gladsome feelings to tell
me of, after your visit to Concord.   Mr. Emerson, I am sure,  must
be perpetually discovering richer worlds than those of Columbus or
Herschel.  He explores, too, not in the scanty and barren region of
our physical  firmament, but in  a spiritual firmament of illimitable
extent, and compacted of treasures.   I heard his lecture last evening.
It was to human life what Newton's  " Principia " was to mathematics.
He showed me what I have  long thought of so  much, —how much
more can be  accomplished by taking a true view than by  great
intellectual energy.   Had Mr. Emerson been set down in a wrong
place, it may 1 e doubted whether he would ever have found his way 
52
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
to the right point of view ; but that he now certainly has done.   As a
man stationed in the sun would see all the planets moving  round it
in one direction and in perfect harmony, while to an eye on the earth
their motions are full of  crossings and retrogradations ;  so he, from
his central position in the spiritual world,  discovers harmony and
order when others  can discern only confusion and irregularity.   His
lecture, last evening, was one of the mo,st splendid manifestations of
a  truth-seeking and  truth-developing mind  I ever heard.    (Dr.
Walter Cbanning,  who sat beside me, said  it made his  head ache.)
Though his language was transparent, yet it was almost impossible to
catch  the great beauty and proportions of one truth before  another
was presented.
   I have been to see  your great Incarnation  of the Good and  True
one evening  since  his return to  the  city.   Allow me to say that I
think  the Dr.* endangers your salvation more than all other thin<*s
united.   That much-abused being who has such an unenviable repu-
tation for planning and carrying  en all the  mischief of this world,
and who, by  the way,  if he  is half as bad as is  alleged, must be
highly delighted at the exalted opinions which are entertained of his
success, —he knows  better  than to try to  tempt  you by any thine
selfish or by  any mercenary motives.   I  don't believe he will  ever
attempt to ply you  with luxurious apathy, and ease, and a worldly in-
difference synonymous with a want of human  sympathy.   He knows
hLs woman too well: you are assailed on the  other side.  He makes
you acquainted with persons, who, upon a single point, may have  a
little more than such  a scanty modicum of merit  as belongs to the
generality of people, and then he makes you believe they are models,
paragons, angels.   Then you render a sort of divine honor,  and are
forthwith accused  and punished for idolatry.   But this is a digres-
sion.  I only meant to say that I broached  my heresies about mir-
acles to the Dr.; and by degrees, as fast as he can bear it, I mean to
let him know how  wicked I am.   He preached last Sunday, and it
was as though his urn had been freshly filled from  a fountain of ever-
lasting love.
   Excuse this scrawl, written  for the sole purpose of condemning and
punishing you for so long a silence.
                          Yours affectionately,
                      * Dr. William E Channing. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
53
                                                    Jan. 24, 1837.
  My dear Friend, —  ...
  Probably neither you nor our sister M. ever had so certain and
sure a correspondent as I am, — that is so  certain and sure  not to
write when he was bid to.   I surely am a man, (so far as your and
her letters are concerned,)  who reaps without sowing much;  and I
do not perceive that my harvests are any less abundant, and rich,
and  nourishing than if I had paid the price of previous culture.
  At nine  o'clock this  very evening, I flung myself down in my
chair, for the first time  this year, with the feeling that I had any
choice among the things I might do.  The bird, which for a month
has been struck from battledore to battledore, fell for the first time
on the ground, where it will be suffered to lie, I hope, till to-morrow
morning.
   I came, at nine o'clock aforesaid, from Warren-street Chapel. The
lecture is spilt, and nothing can gather it  up again.  Now,  laying
my hand on my left breast, I do asseverate  that I did desire to send
the lecture to you before one syllable of it should ever have struck
any other mortal tympanum : but that was impossible; for though I
sat up almost all night,  last night, I did  not finish it until after six
o'clock this evening; and  part  of it I read for the first time to the
audience.
   By way  of confession, let me  tell you  that  never have I writ-
ten  any  thing which cost  me  so  much labor,  and, perhaps  I can
say, produced  so  little effect.   The truth  is, as I  have often told
you, I am like a man overtaken by a premature  night:  he not only
goes slower, but loses time by going circuitously.   I should like to
have you see the lecture, because  I have  faith that  you would deal
sincerely with me, and  tell me to the uttermost point and  pendicle
what strikes you as too short or too long, too high or too low, therein ;
and if you will prescribe any way by which I can despatch it, pro-
vided you can return it forthwith, — for I may deliver it again next
week at  Roxbury, — I will send it to you without delay.
   You always make up  such a face at the egotism, as you call it, of
your own letters, I wonder what you will say of this.
   I have no particular thing to tell  you as to aught that has hap-
pened either outside  or  inside  of  me.  One  of the  Sundays, when 
54
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
   you wondered where I was, I was at my mother's, who was very ill,
   aud still remains ill.  She is now very old and infirm ; and strange,
   — horribly strange, as it seems to me, — I should not shrink were I
   to hear that she had escaped from this dreary prison-house.  Indeed,
   that is the aspect in which the living or the dying of almost all now
   habitually strikes me.  My first feeling is, not that ill, but that good
   fortune has overtaken the departed.   I used to look at the dead as
   going out of the world:  now  my first  impression is that  they  are
   coming out of it.  .  . .

                       To  C. Sumner,  Esq.
                                                  February, 1837.
     My dear Friend, — I found a note on  my table, this  evening,
•  written in so deprecatory a style, that I fear  I may have  appeared
   to  press  the subject of your making an address indiscreetly.  If I
   have so done, I hope you will pardon me.
     My attention having  been now for many years drawn  to all  that
   variety and enormity of evils which  make up the hell of intemper-
   ance, I have acquired what the artists would call a quick eye in dis-
   covering  them ; the consequence of which is, that,  wherever I  go,
   some species of  that generic horror afflicts me : and  who can see it,
   or a ten thousandth part of it, unmoved?
     Knowing too, as I do, that if the talented, respected, and influ.
   ential young men of this city, even to the number of one hundred,
   would stand in the pass of Thermopylae, that worst of evils might
   be excluded forever, I have sometimes felt as if  I had  a  right, in
   the sacred name of humanity, to call  upOn every one to contribute
   his assistance in so beneficent a work ; and I am aware that I some-
   times speak to my friends as if they must  yield obedience  to  the
   highest law of their nature, and perform this duty.  Believing too,
   as I do, that the infidel towards God is  more open to recovery than
   the infidel towards man, — he, I mean,  who  docs not believe in  the
   recuperative power of the race, — I know I am liable  to make  use
   of strong  expressions, which may  seem very extravagant if taken
   without the general views which are in my mind ; and it is more than
   probable, that, in speaking to you  on this subject, I have exposed
   myself to misconstruction.  But all these things I hope you will be 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
55
good enough to overlook. ... Do not believe that I would interfere
with the freedom of not-speaking  any more  than I would with the
freedom of speech.
                      Yours very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                                 April 20, 1837.
   My dear  Friend, — It  is now long since  I have written you.
I opine that you may not be unwilling to hear from me ;  therefore I
write.   That you are well, I hope ; that you are too good for your
own comfort, I know ; that you will ever learn to put alloy enough
into your gold to deprive it of its ductility, and give it a consistence
adapted to human uses, I question.   Ilium fuit.   And so, to-mor-
row night, will be said of the present session of what, in  the magnil-
oquent style of  our  forefathers, used to be called  the  Great and
General Court.  The Senate Chamber will be deserted.  Its seats
will be  vacant.  Its vaults will echo to the lightest tread.  And
that vast, coliseum-like hall of the  House, which to-day has been
compacted with life, — fermenting, tossing,  raging, —will be like
the silent interior of a pyramid.
   Now I must tell you some things that have come to  pass during
the "hundred days."   We have passed a  most excellent license-
law, adapted,  as I  think, to the  present state of the Temperance
reform.   It  prohibits the sale of all intoxicating liquors  on the Sab-
bath.   That day has hitherto been profaned and desecrated  above
all other days in the week.   There  has been more intoxication that
day than on the other six.  If I may be allowed to call names, I
think it has been the Devil's benefit!   His curtain rose early, his
 acts were numerous,  his scenes combined every variety of wretched-
 ness and guilt:  yet throughout the  whole there reigned a dreadful
 unity,  such as no other drama ever equalled;  and, at the  horrid
 denouement, the whole — stage, proscenium, and cavea — were
 covered with death.
    The  bill  passed  by crushing majorities on both sides, — in the
 House, about  240 to 17 ; and in the Senate, 23 to 6.  It contains
 other provisions of a most salutary nature.   When I signed the act
 to-day in my official  capacity, [Mr.  Mann was then President of the 
56
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
Senate,]  the whole history of the  fierce  contest which was  waged
five years ago this winter in the House, when  I  stood  almost alone
in the front of the battle, rose like a  vision  before me.   At that
time there were but  two representatives from  the city of Boston
who voted with me : one was Dr. J. B. Flint; the other the venera-
ble old Major  Melville, " the last of the Cocked Hats," who was a
member of the Boston Tea-party in ante-Revolutionary days.
   You asked me, some time since, what I meant by the triumph  of
the Temperance reform, and whether we must  not always see ex-
cess.   What  I meant by the triumph of the Temperance  reform
was the  entire prohibition of the  sale  of ardent spirits as a drink,
the abrogation  of  the laws authorizing the existence of public places
for its use or sale ; thus  taking away those frequent temptations  to
men whose appetites  now  overcome their resolutions.   There are
thousands and tens of thousands of  inebriates who never would have
been so,  had the tavern and the dram-shop been five miles off from
their homes.
   When I  tell you what has been done for the hospital at Worces-
ter, you  will be superstitious, and exclaim, " It has had an angel."
Dr. Woodward's salary has been  raised six hundred dollars; which
will be  the  means, I  think, of securing his invaluable services for
some time longer.  The Legislature have appropriated ten thousand
dollars (I write the words out  instead  of figures, lest  you  should
think  I have mistaken in the matter of a cipher) to finish the build-
ings, so that, when done, they will accommodate say two  hundred
and thirty ;  seven thousand dollars for the purchase of land, so that
our inmates can enjoy the advantages of  agricultural employment,
which we regard very  highly;  and  three  thousand dollars for a
chapel, where the oil of religion may be poured  in a  flood over the
ocean of  insanity; and  eight thousand  dollars to meet the current
expenses of the institution.  All this  was done  without  a sino-le
audible murmur of opposition; nay, with the greatest apparent cordi-
ality towards the hospital.  Besides this, the Senate has empowered
its clerk to republish all the reports of the institution in one volume,
together with other papers, as he may see fit, with an ad libitum
authority as  to the number of the edition.   Enough will be printed
to be distributed  liberally in every  State, and also to  send to Eu- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
57
rope.   Ah!  I never thought of this when, in 1830, we stormed
the  dungeons of  inhumanity.  The outer gates are broken down;
and some of the captives are coming forth every day to enjoy the
light and the  beauty of the physical, and the holier light and beau-
ty of the moral universe: yet here  in this midnight silence, as I
write, I hear  from their more interior cells, as audibly as if it were
the voice of the thunder-cloud, the voices of many victims awaiting
in unconsciousness the day of their deliverance.

  Those who  saw Mr. Mann at  this time, when he felt
that the cause so  dear  to him was  firmly established  in
the hearts and  consciences of the people, well remember
the radiance of his presence.  It seemed as if life,  joy,
and hope had  rolled back  upon him from  the realm of
darkness in which he had seen  them swallowed up.   The
cause always continued to excite his deepest enthusiasm ;
and, as  Miss Dix  extended it from the borders  of his
native State — with all whose  dungeons he at  one time
had made himself so familiar — to the borders of the civ-
ilized world, his worship of her  divine prowess waxed, and
became a part of his consciousness ;  he counting it happi-
ness enough, as he has sometimes said,  " to be the lackey
to do her bidding in the work."  He loved to picture her
entering alone  realms  of darkness where  man  did  not
dare to set  his  foot, and reading words of cheer from the
Book  of Life, or with a hymn upon her lips, quelling the
fiercest raging of madness.
  After the  chapel  was added to the  hospital at Worces-
ter, when  that large  and  motley assembly, many of
whom needed  confinement and watching at other  times,
sat  quiet  and  orderly  during  divine  service,  with no
other  check than  their own  associations with the  scene,
and the calm, penetrating blue eye and majestic brow of
Dr. Woodward, who always looked  like Jupiter Benig-
nus, as he  sat or  stood  by the side of the clergyman, 
58
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
it was a great pleasure to Mr. Mann so to time his visits
as to enjoy the wonderful spectacle, and feel the  blessed
reflex influence  distil drop  by drop upon his own heart.
He was personally  beloved  there also,  and his presence
always had a salutary influence. 
CHAPTER  II.
THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE BOARD  OF  EDUCATION.

  IN speaking of Mr. Mann as an educator, I enter into
    his inmost life ; for that cause, of all others, roused
into action all his powers.  He had always been interested
in reforms ;  but no cause  in which his duties as a citizen
involved him held the same rank in his estimation as this.
His interest and action in the  cause of  insane hospitals
had deepened his insight into the  primary causes and
hiuderances of human  development;  and  the  study  of
" Combe's Constitution of Man," which  he met with  in
1837, added new  fuel to the fire  of his enthusiasm.
Although  life had lost its charms for him since the death
of his beloved wife, his reserved  power was, unconsciously
to himself, lying ready to  be evoked by some great aim.
After  the  stunning effect  of that blow had  passed  away
in a limited degree, he began  a  private journal, which
covers the first six years of his  secretaryship ;  and a few
extracts from that will show in  what spirit he undertook
it.  But his own words, even in a private journal, do  no
justice to  the zeal and devotion  with  which he prosecuted
the work.   The first conviction  of his early  manhood had'
been the necessity of head and  heart culture in the citi-
zens of a republic ; and, through every period of his life,
the conviction grew, till it culminated in a fervor of action,
which obstacles  could not cool, and which no selfish  or
personal considerations could abate. If I can well describe
                                       59 
60
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
the sentiment that animated him, I feel sure that I bhall
kindle in the young, to whom I have dedicated this work,
a generous emulation to go and do likewise, aiding rather
than contending with each other at every step.  If I can
make it apparent how he understood the central principle
of our religion, " Do unto others as ye would that others
should do unto you," I  shall feel that I have succeeded
in an endeavor which costs me too  much  to be made for
any  lesser motive.   Only  those who knew him vitally
know how truly he  lived to that  end, and how  hard he
labored  to improve  the relations of the  young and inex-
perienced  with  the  older and more experienced.   Only
through the  young could he work out reforms which must
underlie society before  the next step in  human advance-
ment can be  taken ;  for it is the effect of practical unbelief,
such as pervades what is  poetically called " the world,"
to deaden hope and  generous  resolve, and to dim the  light
of the ideal man which burns in every soul till it is covered
up and quenched by false  doctrine, and by the " rubbish
and muddy  waters of custom."
   One must understand all ecclesiastical  and  sacerdotal
history, or the animus of it, to estimate the full effect of
the ages in which might constituted right, with those few
exceptions which illuminate history and redeem  the race
from  the  stigma of  a failure.  Only a great soul can see
that God has made no failure ; though happily the simple
heart believes it, as we see exemplified by the filial  trust
and  faith of the lowly  and  pious  sufferers, who, in all
times, have  taught us that God speaks in the humble and
waiting soul.
   Education, religious and political freedom,  then, were
the watchwords of his life and action.  All collateral evils
would vanish if these things could be established.   In one
sense, he cannot be said to have sacrificed himself to them; 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
61
for he identified himself with them, and  cared  little for
any thing  else.   To work for them was  his  happiness.
All  culture, all  living, that could  be transmuted  into
material for their advancement, were dear to him, if they
were not to be monopolized  by the few at  the expense of
the  many;  for there was nothing  beautiful or of good
repute which was to be selfishly appropriated.   He wished
every child of God to be so  situated as to lay hold of the
means of self-improvement;  and with sledge-hammer and
battle-axe ho would beat down the  obstacles, if they did
not yield to the arguments of love and truth and justice.
He considered it the first duty of government to put these
means within the reach of every one.  He  did not believe
that men were created  to minister to their own pleasures,
or even to their own self-improvement merely ;  indeed, he
did not believe that any self-improvement could be vital
which  did  not  consciously  ally itself with the  improve-
ment of others.   He believed that  man was created for
ends of which he only obtains a faint and far-off glimpse,
his  consciousness of the  great  destiny that awaits him
gradually deepening as he advances ; that for this great
destiny he is endowed with faculties of indefinite progress;
and that he is so allied socially, that the advance of one
cannot  go  on successfully without  the advance of the
whole.  When he looked upon the inequalities of human
condition, he saw that  it was  the consequence of man's
not  using  worthily  his God-given  gifts; and  that  the
stimulus of acting  for the good  of each and  all caused
these gifts to become divine  in their proportions.
  Feeble in health, and still  more feeble in animal spirits,
there were times when the exhaustive nature of his labors,
and  of the way in which he  performed them, made it im-
possible  for him to write down  his own purposes and
emotions for his  own  perusal.   His journal was written 
62
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
rather as a relief from depression, than as a full exponent
of his thoughts.   He was  not  himself aware, that, while
under that cloud, the  calls of humanity  often  touched
him as with fire from heaven.   Nevertheless, a man's own
words are always an expression of himself, if written in
sincerity and simplicity.   If he had been as much ani-
mated and inspired by his own eloquence  upon this sub-
ject as others  were, we should have  had  brilliant para-
graphs recording successful performances  ; but he never
appreciated justly his  own efforts.   No sooner  had  he
made an effort than he was tormented by a sense of its
inadequacy to the demands of the occasion ; and especially
when ill health  and sorrow held such  sway  over him,
his exactions of himself were fearful.  He  has sometimes
been  called "  pitiless " in  his requisitions  of others:  he
was so in regard to himself, never counting his own ease,
comfort, or even life, as of any importance, if he  thought
the sacrifice of them could further the ends of  any cause
in which he had  embarked with a disinterested purpose.
It was not that he imagined that the world could not get
on without  him,  but  that  he  saw so   much to  be
done, and so few willing  to do  the work, that  he  took
more  than his share upon  himself.   He was content to
work  at the underpinnings of great interests, sure that, if
these  were well laid, the superstructures would  be  safe.
This characterized his  later as well as earlier efforts ;  for
when, in subsequent years, he  transferred himself to a
field  in  which much less had been accomplished than in
Massachusetts, he was still content to begin at the begin-
ning,  and made new  and  deeper explorations into  the
kingdom of ignorance  than any he had before been led to
make.
   But I will not anticipate.
   In Massachusetts the common-school system had degen- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
63
erated in practioe from the original theoretic view of the
early  Pilgrim Fathers.   Common and equal opportunities
of education for all was  the  primitive idea of those men
who had been  so signally made to feel how unequally
human rights  were shared.   The  opportunities, unpar-
alleled in the world's history, which the establishment of
the Federal Union had opened to all classes of men to ob-
tain wealth, had caused this idea to be nearly lost sight of;
and the common schools  had  been allowed  to degenerate
into neglected schools for the  poorer classes only, instead
of becoming nurseries of democratic institutions for all
classes.   For, as wealthier and better educated citizens
turned away from them, the best talent and education
were  not secured to carry them on.
   The word "classes"  is not a good democratic word.
Under our  institutions,  there should be but two, — the
educated and the ignorant; and the  latter should be an
ever-decreasing one, gradually merging into the other. Mr.
Mann's wish was to restore the  good old custom of hav-
ing the  rich and the poor educated together; and for that
end he desired to make the public  schools  as good as
schools  could  be made, so that the rich  and  the  poor
might not necessarily be coincident with the  educated
and the ignorant.   As long  as poverty necessitates igno-
rance, society will always be divided on a wrong principle.
Poverty  may in itself  be honorable; and  it is a well-
observed fact, that out of its ranks have risen the most
distinguished   Americans.   The  self-reliance and  self-
denial consequent upon limited means is one of the finest
elements  of education.   Education is the  best  security
for that competence which  holds  the golden mean be-
tween riches and poverty, affording time and opportunity
for cultivation  of all the powers, while it does not preclude
the necessity of industry and exertion.  For the temporal 
64              LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
and spiritual advancement of society, Mr. Mann felt that
the vocation of educator was the highest possible one in
a republic. He approached it with the deepest awe and a
sense of the highest responsibility, gladly  relinquishing
senatorial honors and  wealth for its arduous but inter-
esting duties.
  Very exhausting labors had preceded his acceptance of
the office of  Secretary of the Board of Education.  He
had found the practice of the law  very onerous;  for  he '
regarded the legal profession as one by whose conscien-
tious practice a man wields  great  power for truth and
justice.  But he was unable to leave it for more  conge-
nial pursuits  until he had discharged certain obligations
already alluded to.   When he assumed the office, he was
wholly free from debts  thus  incurred, but nearly penni-
less; and had passed three years of diis sad lonely life in
his law-office, without  even  the solace of a  borrowed
domestic life  such as can be found in a boarding-house.
  Most of his friends, who thought wealth, the position
which it  insures, and the  prospects of  political advance-
ment that lay fairly before him, the most desirable objects
of life, considered him foolish and  visionary  in making
the change  from a  lucrative profession.   A  few, who
knew the spirit he  was  of, rejoiced in  his decision, al-
though his present aim promised no worldly honors. 
CHAPTER   IH.
                        JOURNAL.

 I GIVE  a few extracts from his journal, chiefly to show
     the  rise  and  progress of  the new measures taken to
 carry out the original idea of universal  education.   The
 sad tone that pervades it  was natural to him under his
 circumstances;  but  his  native  buoyancy  of spirit  and
 strength of will carried him through  his great labors tri-
 umphantly.

   May 4, 1837.  I have long had an inefficient desire to keep a jour-
 nal.  This desire has always been just at the most unlucky point,—
 so strong  as to make me regret the omission, and yet too weak to
 induce me to supply it.  According to a law of optics, the particular
 inconvenience because it was near  has seemed  larger than the gen-
 eral benefit because it was remote.  This, however, is an illusion of
 the sensas, which  it is the duty of the reason to rectify; for, in the
 eye of reason, proximity and distance are alike discarded, and every
 thing is estimated at its intrinsic value.
   I wish  to keep some  remembrancer (daily when I am able,  less
 frequently when I must) of the states of my mind, and of the most
 important  transactions in which I  may be  concerned.  I can put
 that upon  paper, which, if I were to whisper even to the best friend,
 might expose  me to a  suspicion of  vanity; and I  think  I  have
 honesty  enough to  record in a  diary  against  myself what  my
 pride  might  induce me  to conceal  even  at the  confessional of the
 closest friendship.   Besides, in  this  world of mixed motives, may it
 not be right to  avail myself of the reflection, that the night  shall
record the  actions of the day, in  order to give form and heart to good
purposes, and to impose restraint upon bad ones ?  Is it wise to deny
              6                              65 
66
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
any helps which can  assist  in  ascending the eminences of virtue ?
In this attempt, I hope I may be sincere : for what motive have  I to
assume to be what my own consciousness would deny ?  and what pos-
sible fear can actuate me, save that  fear which is the beginning of
wisdom ?  My future days are, like the succeeding pages of this book,
untouched, alike receptive of good or evil.   There is this difference,
however, —that the record kept in the mind is necessarily a true rec-
ord.   That cannot be  forged, falsified, distorted, or discolored ;  and
that is the record which I am hereafter  to have spread open before
my eyes.   It is my belief that each individual will hereafter remem-
ber all that he has ever done, said, or thought.   That is the  book
of judgment.   May that volume be so filled, that it  may in  after-
periods of existence be unrolled and inspected with pleasure !  and
may this volume be a transcript of that!
   May 5.  I thought to-day would furnish me nothing to record : but,
this afternoon, I was most agreeably surprised in meeting my friend B.
Taft, jun., Esq., of Uxbridge, with whom I was for several years asso-
ciated in the erection and direction of the Worcester Hospital;  and
all our intercourse has left nothing behind which I do not now  recol-
lect with pleasure.  How much was that commission indebted  to his
skill and practical  judgment!   His good sense saved  money,  saved
embarrassment, and, in so doing, saved reputation :• better even than
that, I think it made some.   If ever I performed a disinterested  act,
it was in my efforts to found that institution ; and I have been fully
rewarded therefor.  Indeed,  I have  observed that acts emanating
from worthy motives  have  almost invariably yielded  me  an ample
requital of pleasure ; while those which sprung from a selfish motive,
however  intellectually judicious, have, at least in their connections
and remoter results, ended in annoyance or injury.   Is this fancy 'I
or is there some mysterious, indissoluble connection between embryo
motive and physical result, just as there is between the invisible, im-
palpable  quality of a germ, and the  self-exposing, self-diffusing char-
acter of the fruit ?  Surely it is not above or beyond the wisdom of the
Deity to ordain such  a connection.   And physical science affords a
thousand instances where we discern causes, not by knowing  the  pro-
cess, but only by witnessing the uniformity of results.   Will not the
time come to us all, by an adamantine law of necessity, when we shall 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.                 67
be compelled to analyze all our own former motives, and to trace them
to their results, and when  the present invisible  continuity between
beginning and end shall be made manifest?   Surely there is much,
very much, in the deductions  of experience, to authorize this broad
generalization.   And does not the argument, a priori, from a know-
ledge of the Deity, lead to the same conclusion ?   These truths—for
I believe they are truths — are to me revelation.   This species of
revelation cannot  be gainsaid.   It  does not  depend upon  historic
proof.   It was not designed to be transmissible from one generation
to another.   It had a higher design, — that of being personal,  and
therefore indisputable, to each and all.
   May 6.   This morning I engaged and  sent to Worcester an ele-
gant two-horse carriage to be used  at the hospital  to give rides to
the female patients.  The  exercise they will thereby attain will be
directly beneficial to their physical  health, there is no doubt;  and
the agreeable emotions excited by pleasant rides in a  fine-looking
carriage, will, in an indirect way, be not less promotive of mental
health.
   Dined to-day with Edmund Dwight, Esq , for the  purpose of  con-
ferring with him on the  late  law authorizing  the appointment of a
Board of  Education.   Mr.  Dwight had the civility,  or the incivility
(I do not doubt that his motives would place the act under the former
category), to propose that / should be Secretary of  the Board, — a
most responsible and important office, bearing more effectually, if  well
executed,  upon the coming welfare of the State, than any other office
in it.   For myself, I never had a sleeping nor a waking dream  that
I should  ever think of myself, or be  thought  of by any other, in
relation to that station.  Query, therefore, could he  have  been sin-
cere in his suggestion ?
   May 7.   Sunday.  This day has furnished me with no incident,
nor excited any  train of thought that I now remember, which would
be available,  if recorded, for future use.   Have I lost a day 1

             " Count that day lost whose low-declining sun
              Views at thy hcind no worthy action done."

   May 8.  Have read to-day the first article in the 130th number
of the "Edinburgh Review," upon Lord Brougham's  "Discourse 
68
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
on Natural  Theology;" a most deeply interesting paper, — elevated,
tolerant, philosophical.   I know it is thought  by many, perhaps
by most professing Christians,  to be a fatal heresy, and worthy of
being  purged by fire;  but,  for  myself,  natural religion  stands as
pre-eminent over revealed religion  as the deepest  experience over
the lightest hearsay.   The power of natural religion is scarcely be-
gun  to be understood or appreciated.  The force and cogency of the
evidence,  the intensity and  irresistibleness  of its  power, are not
known, because its elements  are not developed and explained.  It
gives us more than an  intellectual conviction,—it gives us a feel-
ing of  truth;  and however much  the lights  of revealed religion
may have guided the  generations of  men amid  this darkness of mor-
tality, yet I  believe that  the time is coming when  the  light of nat-
ural  religion will  be  to that of revealed  as  the rising  sun is to the
day-star that preceded it.
  May 9.   I have been to-day to Worcester, and  found the  affairs
of the hospital  prospering.   Oh ! how should I bo  able to bear the
burden  of life,  were  I  not sustained  by the conviction of  having
done something for the alleviation of others'!  Surely Nature sends
no such solace for our own sufferings as when she inspires us  with a
desire to relieve the sufferings of others.   How wonderfully she has
linked the feeling of self-restoration with an efficient desire for the
restoration of others!
  May 10.  A day of drudgery without any  particular pain, and
with  only a single pleasure.   I called just at night to inform  a poor
old mother about  her  daughter, whom I yesterday saw  at the hospi-
tal, that she already showed decided symptoms of relief and im-
provement :  whereat  the old motherly heart began  to overflow with
grateful garrulity; and,  as I was the nearest object, she poured it out
in floods upon me.  Is it not a pretty good sign  if one feels ashamed
at receiving more praise than he deserves ?  If others hear it, it may
gratify vanity or enhance  reputation ;  but,  when  one  hears it  all
alone, he has nothing to do but to think whether he does not know
better than to believe it.   However, if one has not sufficient moral
sensibility to be ashamed of praise which he does not deserve, then
I suppose  he would  enjoy it; and  if he  is ashamed  of being ex- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
69
tolled beyond his merits, then does not the justness of the feeling
of shame argue a condition of mind of which he may feel proud ?

   May 12.   This day I carried a female friend to see the Institu-
tion  of the  Blind,  and was  delighted with  her delight.    Indeed,
who  can witness the natural  privation of sight,  and think of all its
lamentable train of consequences, and then behold those successful
acts  of  skill and benevolence by which that privation has been sup-
plied, without deep and abiding gratification ?  If the powers of the
human  mind and the resources of wealth were directed to ameliorate
the condition of the unfortunate and  the afflicted, instead of being
devoted to selfish and  sensual gratifications, what a different world
this  would be !  and, in the quantity and quality  of happiness pos-
sessed,  those who bestowed the favors would be as great gainers as
those who received them.
   May 13.  To-day Deacon Grant and I concluded that it would be
expedient to hold a consultation, with  a few of the most  judicious
friends of temperance, upon the subject of  the  means most  eligible
and  expedient for the enforcement of the late license-law, which pro-
hibits the sale of any intoxicating drinks on the Sabbath.   Each of
us, therefore, undertook to send out a  few invitations to particular
persons, inviting their  attendance  to-morrow (Sunday) evening at
the office of  the  Visitors of the Poor, to devise measures  to secure
if possible, even in this city, the execution of  the above-mentioned
law.    How incalculable, how unimaginable, an amount of private
happiness  and public welfare depends  upon the faithful administra-
tion of that law !   How little does that public think even of its  exist-
ence !  When will the human mind  be instructed to arrange things
upon a scale according  to their intrinsic value, so as for the future
to refuse the precedence to trivial and transitory objects over univer-
sal and immortal interests ?
   May 14.  A meeting has been  held this  evening, as contem-
plated yesterday ; and I have been appointed chairman of a commitr
tee to have an interview to-morrow with the Mayor of the city upon
 the  subject of providing means for causing the late license-law to be
observed in the city.
   May 15.   Called on the  Mayor  in pursuance of yesterday's ap- 
70
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
pointment.   He speaks  decidedly  and encouragingly.    May his
words become things !  Had  an interesting conversation with Dr.
Channing on the times.   His perception of the moral aspect of sub-
jects is so intense, that it  becomes almost exclusive ;  but, as moral-
ity is the  central point of this earthly universe, he who selects that
portion, even though he does not see all, yet sees more than any one
else.   His is a noble ministry.  Supposing, what  is sometimes said
to be true, that he  is a  man of one  idea, yet is not one life well
spent in developing one idea, especially if  it be  that great idea upon
which he  has expended  his  powers?   Had each  man,  great and
small, developed an  idea, great or small, what  a  wise  world we
should have about this anno Domini 1837 !
   May 18. . . . Spent this  evening with  Mr. Dwight, who showed
me a letter from the Governor, proposing my nomination, with his,
as a  member of the Board of Education, provided for by a law of
the last session.   Mr. Dwight again urged upon me  a consideration
of the subject of my being Secretary of the Board.  Ought I to think
of filling this high  and responsible  office ?   Can  I adequately per-
form  its duties ?   Will my  greater zeal in the  cause  than that of
others supply the deficiency in point  of talent and  information ?
Whoever shall undertake that  task  must encounter privation, labor,
and an infinite annoyance from an infinite number of schemers.  He
must condense the steam of enthusiasts, and soften the rock  of the
incredulous.  What  toil in arriving at a true system himself! what
toil in infusing that system into  the minds of others !   How many
dead  minds  to  be resuscitated  ! how  many prurient ones  to  be
soothed !  How much of mingled truth and error  to be decompounded
and analyzed !   What a  spirit of perseverance  would  be  needed  to
sustain him all the way between  the  inception and the accomplish-
ment of his  objects !  But should  he succeed;  should  he brin*
forth  the germs of greatness and of happiness  which  Nature has
scattered abroad, and expand  them  into maturity, and enrich them
with  fruit,; should he be able to  teach, to even a few of this genera-
tion,   how  miud is  a god over matter;  how, in  arranging objects of
desire, a subordination of the less valuable to the more is  the great
secret of individual happiness ; how the whole of life depends upon
the scale which we form of its relative values, — could he do this, 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
71
what diffusion, what intensity, what perpetuity of blessings he would
confer !   How would his beneficial influence upon mankind widen
and deepen as it descended forever !
   May 21.   This  afternoon, heard a most excellent sermon  from
Mr. Taylor  oi» the duty of nonconformity to the world.   It  was
compact with graphic delineations of fashionable and customary vices.
What a wonderful man !   There is a natural  language which com-
municates to one mind  the  state or condition  of another mind.   In
this language, words  and  sentences  are  subordinate  instruments.
Soul speaks to  soul.   Over this language Mr. Taylor has power.
It is not embarrassed by rules of syntax.   It makes itself understood
in spite of all violation of those rules.
   May 23.   Wrote to Dr. Woodward yesterday on the subject of
receiving an insane woman of this city at the hospital.   To day, re-
ceived answer that she could be admitted.   To-day,  also, made appli-
cation in behalf of another woman, belonging to Weymouth.  Scarce
a day passes in which I have not some call in reference to  that insti-
tution.  They are  all  acceptable.   These duties I  perform  with
spontaneous alacrity and  pleasure.   Let me commune with myself,
and see  that no  arrogant  feeling of  pride  and  self-complacency
mingles with  my emotions on these occasions.   I  cannot  deny, in-
deed,  that to have been instrumental  in  furnishing means  for allevi-
ating such unimaginable forms of suffering is one of the few sources
of earthly gratification  which the consuming calamities of my life
have not dried up.  Nay, had it not  been for  a few  such subjects
of reflection  to call off my thoughts when  they were  concentrating
into despair, I think that  long ere  this I should have been driven
'into insanity and suicide.
   May 25. . . . To-day has  been spent in reading that most valu-
able book, " Combe on  the Constitution  of  Man."   When will
truth be the standard of value ?
   May 26.   The annual meeting of the Massachusetts Temperance
Society took place this evening.   Pretty  well  attended, and some
good speeches made.  The cause progresses.  I  used to feel a faith
in its ultimate triumph, as strong as  a prophecy.   The faith is now
in a forward state of realization ;  and what  a triumph it will be!
not like a Roman triumph that made hearts bleed, and nations weep, 
72
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
and reduced armies to captivity, but one that heals hearts, and wipes
tears from a nation's eyes, and sets captivity free.
   May 27.   An official annunciation of the  following gentlemen
to constitute the Board of Education has this day been  made ; viz.,
James G. Carter, Emerson Davis, Edmund Dwight^ Horace Mann,
Edward  A. Newton, Robert Rantoul, jun., Thomas Ilobbins, and
Jared Sparks.   Thus a  portion of the duties  of a  most important
office are devolved  upon me.   This I believe to  be like a spring,
almost imperceptible, flowing from  the highest  table-land, between
oceans,  which is destined  to  deepen  and  widen  as  it  descends,
diffusing fertility and beauty in its course ;  and nations shall  dwell
upon its banks.  It is the first great movement towards an organized
system of common education, which shall at once  be thorough and
universal.   Every civilized State is as imperfectly organized, without
a minister or secretary of instruction, as it would be without ministers
or secretaries of State,  Finance, War, or the Navy.  Every  child
should be educated: if  not educated  by its own  father,  the  State
should appoint a father  to it.   I would much  sooner surrender a
portion of the  territory of the  Commonwealth to an ambitious and
aggressive neighbor than I would surrender the minds of its children
to the dominion of ignorance.
   May 29.   This evening, met Mr.  Briggs and a  number of  other
temperance  gentlemen at the  temperance house of  Deacon Grant,
the embodiment  of the law and the practice of temperance.   Father
Taylor was there, with a world of beautiful material images corre-
sponding with  his world  of beautiful spiritual ideas, — the noblest
man I have ever known.
   May 30.   An attempt this evening, about nine o'clock, to set fire
to this building in the attic over the entry-way, between Mr. Loring's
room and mine.  Fortunately  it was  discovered early, and extin-
guished.   A gang of incendiaries infest the city.  What a state of
morals it reveals !   Is it  possible that such things could  be, if moral
instruction  were not infinitely below what it ought  to  be?   That
passion against an individual might be so inflamed as to lead to such
atrocities from  a  spirit of revenge, is sufficiently wonderful;  but that
an enormity of that description should be perpetrated from the wan- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.                 73
 tonness of malignity, seems incredible.   When  will society, like a
 mother, take care of all her children ?
   May 31.   General Election Day.  How different it is to me from
 what it was when a boy !   Not one particle of my boyish mind seems
 to-remain to establish  identity.   How perfect the change  that may
 be wrought in  us by new fortunes,  new circumstances,  and new
 views, leading to new pursuits !   What a topic of moralization is the
 change, of which I am now conscious, between my present and my
 former self !   Memory alone connects  the two together.
   June 1.  Visited the navy-yard of Charlestown this afternoon with
 a friend.   What a magnificent product of human art and  labor is a
 ship-of-war !   Were an inhabitant of some other  planet to see a ship
 and a man side by side, would not  he think the  ship had made the
 man, rather than the man the ship ?   Yet, after all, there are, in my
 conceptions, painful considerations clustering round such an object,
 which even its magnificence cannot dispel.   With all its vastness, it is
 only a more powerful engine for the destruction of human life.  With
 its power of locomotion, it is  only the  more capacitated to seek out
 the objects of that destruction, wherever they may be, in any part of
 the world washed by the all-embracing ocean.   If a thousandth part
 of what  has been  expended in war,  and in preparing its  mighty
 engines, had been devoted to the development of reason and the diffu-
 sion of Christian principles, nothing would have been known for cen-
 turies past of its terrors, its sufferings, its impoverishment, and  its
 demoralization, but what was learnt from history.
   June 3.  Have completed to-day a cursory examination of the
 Plymouth-Colony Laws. I feel some disappointment in their perusal.
 They do not seem  to me to evince so  much forethought, sagacity, and
 comprehension of principles, as I had anticipated.  Providence for the
 future  is not so far-sighted; and selfishness is less self-preserving and
 self-improving than I expected to find.  Compared with the contem-
 porary legislation   in  the  Massachusetts  Colony, the advantage is
 strongly in favor of the latter.  Schools seem to have occupied very
little of their  attention.   Learning was not a prominent object  of
ambition.   Great  virtues and talents would have  shed  a  higher
lustre upon  office, and, one would suppose beforehand, would have
superseded the necessity of enacting, that,  " if a  person chosen gov- 
74
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
ernor should refuse to serve, he should be  fined £20 for his delin-
quency " !
  June 4.   Sunday.   If religion  consists  in  going to meeting, I
have been non-religious to-day.   The truth  is,  that hearing common
sermons gives my piety the consumption.  Ministers seem to me not
to care half so much about the salvation of mankind  as I do about
a justice's case.   When I have a case before a justice of the peace,
I can't help thinking of it beforehand, and  perhaps feeling grieved
too, afterward, if in any respect I might have  conducted  it better.
If I am at a dinner, the merriment or the philosophy of the table-
talk  suggests  something, which I put away into a pigeon-hole in my
mind for the case;  and when I read, be it poetry or prose, the  case
hangs over the page like a magnet, and attracts to itself whatever
seems to be  pertinent or applicable.   Success or failure leaves a
bright or a dark hue  on  my mind, often for days.   But, judging
from external indications, what do ministers care on Monday, at a
dinner-party or a jam, which way  souls are steering?  Let me al-
ways except in this city, however, Dr. Channing and good old Father
Taylor.
  June 11.   Sunday.   As  I  sit  down to write,  martial music is
playing in  the streets.  A  riot of almost  unheard-of atrocity has
raged for several hours this afternoon between the Irish  population
of Broad Street and its vicinity, on one side, and the engine-men and
those who rallied to their assistance, on the other.   It is said lives
are  lost:  it  is certain that great  bodily injury  has  been inflicted.
Different accounts  are  given, by the different  parties, of the origin
of the  affray,  each  nation charging the aggression upon  the other.
It will, of course, be the subject of judicial investigation : but I have
fears that antipathies will pursue the foreigners; that sympathies will
protect the natives; and that punishment will  be administered with
an unequal hand.
  No man can have observed the  state  of public opinion on the
subject  of  insubordination and violence,  for  redress of supposed
wrongs, for some time  past, without painful  forebodings in regard to
the future.   A resort to force, if it  has not been openly approved by
men of  wealth, character, and influence, has been but feebly repre-
hended.  Physical  resistance has been spoken of feebly as one of 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
75
the modes of redress.  Men's minds have been diverted from the
remedy of a quiet and calm administration of the law, if they hive
not been taught, indeed,  to look with some degree of contempt upon
the slow processes of judicial proceedings.   A reverence for law has
not been inculcated.  The public mind has become habituated to the
contemplation of speedier modes of redress. The sentiment of insub-
ordination has  not been branded.   Overt  acts of interference with
the rights of others have been almost  applauded; for when  strong
condemnation is expected,  and only feeble  and timid disapproval
is  given,  the offender feels as though he had  been  justified.   If
 it had  been the  practice of all men, and all public organs for the
 expression  of opinion, to place violence  and civil commotion at  its
true point in the  scale of guilt, that condition of the common mind
 would not have existed out of  which a riot could spring.  Under the
 influence of such expressions of the public voice, for some time past,
 as I have referred to, those general feelings have grown up in which
 a sudden and widely diffused  provocation would  generate violence.
 An occasion only was wanting for thoughts to become  actions,  for
 ideas to find arms, for the impulse  to take the weapon.  Those who
 form, or contribute to form, this public opinion,  are the real culprits;
 nor are those exonerated from guilt who might have done much to
 reform, to enlighten, to correct, but who have preferred  the  private
 indulgence of their own ease and their own  luxuries to the labor of
 moulding public  opinion.  In a government like ours, there will be
 a public opinion of almost uncontrollable power.   The educated,  the
 wealthy, the intelligent,  may have  a powerful  and decisive voice in
 its formation; or they may live in  their own selfish enjoyments, and
 suffer  the ignorant, the vicious,  the depraved, to form that public
 opinion.  If they do the latter, they must expect that the course of
 events will  be directed  by the licentious  impulse, and  that history
 will take its character from the predominant motives of action ; and
 that they will, at distant places and at distant times, be  doomed to
 bear the ignominy they are now disposed to ascribe wholly to others.
    June 14.  All the leisure of this day has been spent in writing a
 long letter  to E. Dwight, Esq., at his request, portraying the duties
 of the Secretary of the Board of Education, and informing him of the
 relation in  which I must  stand  to his proposition to me to accept 
76
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
that office.   I cannot  think of that station, as regards myself, with-
out feeling both hopes and fears,  desires  and apprehensions, multi-
plying in my mind, — so glorious a sphere, should it  be crowned
with success;  so heavy with disappointment and  humiliation, should
it fail through any avoidable  misfortune.   What a thought, to have
the future  minds of such multitudes  dependent  in any perceptible
degree upon one's  own  exertions  !  It is such  a thought as must
mightily  energize or totally overpower any mind that can adequately
comprehend it.
  June  16.    Have  seen nothing, heard nothing, done  nothing,
thought nothing, to-day, worthy of being  recorded in this valueless
journal.   The whole  day has been spent in  investigating a legal
question, which, the farther I explore, seems more and more promis-
ing for my client.   But what is the reason of that  increasing confi-
dence ?  This is a most profound and interesting question.  Do my
convictions gain strength because I discover new reasons for believ-
ing I am right? or does the revolving of old reasons in my mind  ten
tunes over produce the same effect as the  discovery of ten new rea-
sons?  Who can analyze his own  belief into  its elements, and  de-
termine how much  of it has arisen from  some  predilection to one
thing, or repulsion  from another ?  An opinion  is  adopted without
reflection, or any comparison with other  views,  expressed perhaps
with heedlessness, then defended through  pride, then rescued from
refutation  through  sloth in examining  other opinions, then consoli-
dated  into an article  of the  creed.  Of what infinite importance is
it, that in the incipient stages  of conviction, when the mind per-
ceives that it  has  the elements of belief in it  that have not  yet
found out their affinities, before it subsides  and hardens  into con-
viction, — how infinitely important is it to keep the eye steadfastly
on truth! — never to think whether it will  be popular, profitable,
pleasant to have the truth one thing or another, but to ask  solely,
exclusively, earnestly, incessantly, What is truth?  There is no such
treasure as truth; there is no such source of happiness as truth;
there  is no  such  antidote  against calamity  as  truth.   Truth will
bear a man prosperously onward;  but error is a burden that has to
be carried.
   June  17.   One  cannot see the  date, " June  17," without an ac- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
77
celeration of the blood, and a certain emotion of feeling taller.   I
am not in a mood to moralize or fustianize on this topic.  How else
can we so worthily or sincerely show either gratitude or admiration
for the deeds of our ancestors as by improving and transmitting to
others the  various  blessings they  achieved  for us ?  In our day,
things are to be done, though  not  such things as they did.   They
did what the circumstances of that age  demanded :  the  exigencies
of our age  demand the performance of appropriate acts quite as
imperatively as theirs  did.   Our  imitation of their example, as
adapted to our times, is the only legitimate proof of our admiration,
or the true measure of our gratitude.
   June  19.   Employed the 'whole day in  looking  up a technical
question of law.   I have not, therefore, had any thing in my head
but  technical combinations of technicalities.  This part of the law
has  a strong tendency  to  make  the  mind near-sighted.    What
Coleridge says generally, and very untruly,  of the law, may be just
when applied solely to this part of it, — that its operation upon the
mind is like  that of a grind-stone  upon a knife; it narrows while
it sharpens.   And is it not true that every object of science, however
grand or elevated,  has its atoms, its minute  and subtle  divisions
and  discriminations?   The degrees of longitude upon the earth's            ,
surface,  the zones into which the globe  has been  divided, and their
corresponding lines and compartments  in the heavens, would show
pretty well in the registry for county deeds; but yet, in surveying
and  affixing  the bounds and  limits to these vast  tracts of  space,
what  minute  calculations  must  the  geographer and  astronomer
make ! what  fractions, what  decimals, what infinitesimals!  So
the  natural philosopher, whose patrimony, bequeathed  to  him by
 science,  is  continents and  oceans  and suns,  must  deal also with
 globules  and  animalculae,  and points  vanishing  into nothingness.
 Who can have more subtle questions to settle  than the casuist or
 the metaphysician ?   So  of all.  In  one  direction we  lose every
 thino- in magnificence, in vastness, in  infinity:  in  the other direc-
 tion we  are equally lost in attempting to trace  to their elements
 those substances,  whatever  they are, whose  aggregate  is  earth,
 ocean, air, sky, immensity.   Those who see nothing in the law but
 technicalities, apices, and  summa jura, are about  as wise  as the 
78
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
child who mistook the infinite host of the stars for brass nails that
fastened up the earth's ceiling.
   June 20.  Another clay in search of the  technical rules of law.
If the whole professional business of a lawyer  consisted only in
investigating and determining technical rules, one might almost be
excused for attempting to reach justice summarily through the  in-
strumentality of that monster, a mob.  Those who only have to pay
for technical law are comparatively fortunate ; but this effort for two
days in succession to keep the eye fixed upon the edge of a razor is
apt to make one  a little nervous.   I will, therefore, try to try the
effect of " tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep."   Ah ! sleep
I  can  rarely woo ; " balmy sleep," never !   Calamity and misfor-
tune and attendant ill-health have thrown my system into such dis-
order, that  now I  never sleep; and, as a necessary consequence, am
never awake.   The sleep and the being awake — the land and the
water — are mingled together, and neither can be enjoyed.
   June 22.  Spent half an hour to-day in the Athenceum Gallery.
Some exquisite  paintings.   What an art ! — to  vivify canvas,  to
make colors express soul.   By means of language, we  can, at best,
only communicate ideas one by one.   It is as though the ocean were
to be shown to a spectator  by separate drops.   By painting and
sculpture we see  the whole  soul at once :  the great  ocean  of  its
thoughts and feelings is taken in at a glance.  No wonder the an-
cients called the arts " divine."  And if it costs the artist so much
labor, such  sleepless study, such  vehement strivings,  to draw the
outline of form with such wonderful exactness, to color the  space
within the outline with such  exquisite skill, so that a mere trem-
bling of his hand in the delineation, the slightest  failure in the
touch of his pencil, would mar the beauty of his productions, — if
all this toil  and care and dexterity are requisite to make a dead im-
age,  a lifeless, thoughtless, soulless copy of a soul, how much more
toil and care and judgment  are demanded in those who  have the
formation of the soul itself!
   June 28.  This morning, received a call from Mr. Dwi°-ht  on
the subject of the Secretaryship; and as the meeting of the Board
is appointed for to-morrow,  and as he did  not seem to  have arrived
at any certain conclusions in his own mind, I thought  the rime had 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
79
already come when points should be stated explicitly.   I therefore
wrote to Mr. Dwight, saying that it would  be better for the cause
if the candidate who should be selected should appear to have been
the first choice of the Board;  that I therefore should feel it to be a
duty to decline  the honor of being voted  for, unless it was  bond
fide my intention to accept; that I would accordingly regard the
subject  in  its business aspects  alone,  and place the  matter in a
point of view not liable to be mistaken.   I then stated, that, as I
should have some professional business to close up, it had all along
been  my intention  not to  receive more  than twenty-five hundred
dollars for the first year; that as to subsequent years, if the Legis-
lature  should add  any thing  to the one thousand they have now
appropriated as the salary of the Secretary,  half of that addition
should be added to the sum of twenty-five hundred until  it became
three thousand, but should not go beyond the  latter sum; that by
this it would become the interest of the Secretary so to  discharge
his duties as to gain the favor of the public; and that it was  quite
well in all cases, and with regard  to all, to make their interest and
their  duty draw in the same direction,  if possible.   This was the
substance of my letter; though it had the proper amount of inter-
lardings and lubrifications.   I tremble, however, at  the idea of the
task that possibly now lies before me.  Yet I can now conscien-
tiously  say that  here  stands my purpose, ready to undergo the
hardships and privations to which I must be subjected,  and to en-
counter the jealousy, the misrepresentation, and the prejudice almost
certain to arise ; here stands my mind, ready to meet them in the
spirit of a  martyr.   To-morrow will probably prescribe  for me a
course of life.   Let it come !   I know one thing, — if I stand by
the principles of truth and  duty, nothing can  inflict upon me any
permanent harm.t
  June 29.  I cannot say that this day is one to which I have not
looked  forward  with deep anxiety.   The chance of being offered
a station which would change the whole course of  my action, and
consequently of my duties, through life, was not to be regarded with
indifference.  The  deep feeling of interest was  heightened by the
reflection, that, in case of my receiving the appointment of Secretary
of the Board of Education, my sphere of possible usefulness would 
80
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
be indefinitely enlarged, and that my failure would forever force into
contrast the noble duty and the inadequate discharge of it.   The
day is past.  I have received the offer.   The path of usefulness is
opened before me.   My present purpose is to enter into it.  Few
undertakings, according to my appreciation of it, have been greater.
I know of none which may be more fruitful in beneficent results.
  God grant me an annihilation of selfishness, a  mind of wisdom,
a heart  of benevolence !  How many men  I  shall meet who  are
accessible  only through a single motive, or who are incased in pre-
judice  and jealousy, and need, not to be subdued, but to  be  re-
modelled !  how many  who will  vociferate their  devotion  to  the
public, but whose thoughts will be intent on themselves !  There is
but one spirit in which these impediments can be met with success :
it is  the spirit of self-abandonment, the spirit of martyrdom.   To
this, I believe, there are but few, of all those who wear the form of
humanity,  who will  not yield.   I  must  not irritate,  I must  not
humble, I must not degrade any one in his own eyes.   I must  not
present myself as a solid body to oppose an iron barrier to any.   I
must be a fluid sort of a man, adapting myself to tastes, opinions,
habits, manners, so far as this  can be done without  hypocrisy or-
insincerity, or a compromise of principle.   In  all this, there must
be a higher object than to win personal esteem, or favor, or worldly
applause.   A new fountain may now be opened.  Let me strive to
direct its current in such a manner, that if, when I have departed
from life,  I may still  be permitted to witness its  course, I may
behold it  broadening  and deepening  in an  everlasting progression
of virtue and happiness.
   June 30.  This morning  I communicated my acceptance of  the
Secretaryship of the  Board  of Education.   Afterwards I sat with
the Board until they adjourned without day.  I trren handed to  the
Governor  the resignation of my membership of the  Board.   I now
stand in a new relation to them; nor to them only: I stand in a new
relation to the world.   Obligations to labor in the former mode are
removed;  but a more elevated  and weighty obligation to  toil sup-
plies the place of the former.  Henceforth, so long as  I hold  this
office, I devote myself to the supremest welfare of mankind upon
earth.   An inconceivably greater  labor is undertaken.  With the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
81
highest degree of prosperity, results will manifest themselves but
slowly.  The harvest is far distant  from the seed-time.  Faith is
the only sustainer.   I have faith in the unprovability of the race, —
in their accelerating improvability.  This effort may do, apparently,
but little.   But mere beginning in a good cause is never little.   If
we can  get  this vast wheel into any perceptible  motion, we shall
have  accomplished much.   And more and higher qualities than
mere labor  and perseverance will be requisite.   Art  for applying
will be no less necessary than science for combining and deducing.
No object ever gave scope for  higher  powers, or exacted  a more
careful, sagacious use of them.   At first, it will be better to err on
the side  of caution  than of boldness.   When walking over quag-
mires, we should never venture long steps.  However, after all the
advice which all the sages who  ever lived  could give, there is no
such  security against danger, and in favor of  success,  as to under-
take it with a right spirit, — with a self-sacrificing spirit.   Men can
resist the influence of talent;  they will deny demonstration, if need
be :  but few will combat goodness for any length of time.   A spirit
mildly devoting itself to a good cause is a certain conqueror.  Love
is a universal solvent.  Wilfulness will  maintain itself against per-
secution, torture, death, but will be fused  and dissipated by kind-
ness,  forbearance, sympathy.   Here is a clew given by God to lead
us through the labyrinth of the world.
  July 1.   This day I consider the first on which my official char-
acter  as  Secretary of the Board commences.  The acceptance was
with an express condition, that I was to finish  my professional busi-
ness already commenced.   That, however,  will occupy but a small
portion of my time, and it will be tapering off continually.   I mean
soon to commence reading and writing with express reference to the
office. . .  .
  July 2.   Sunday.   I heard  Mr.  Taylor this afternoon.  How
wonderfully rare it is to hear a sentiment of toleration  uttered by a
man who cares aught about religion !   A  sceptic may  well  indorse
the right of private judgment on religious subjects; for it is only an
error on a topic which at least he holds to  be worthless.  But for
one whose heart yearns towards religion; who believes it to be the
"all,"—for such an one  to  avow, practise,  feel, the noble senti-
                6 
82
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
ment of universal toleration, can proceed from nothiig but a pro-
found recognition of human rights and the conscientious obedience
to all their requirements.   Yet such is Mr. Taylor.
  In my early life, I was accustomed to hear all doctrines, creeds,
tenets,  which did not exactly conform to  the  standard  set up,
denounced as heresies; their believers cast out from fellowship in
this life, and coolly consigned to eternal perdition in the next.  I
think it would have made an immense difference, both in my happi-
ness and character, had the genial, encouraging, ennobling spirit of
liberality been infused into  my mind when its sentiments were first
capable of being excited on that subject.   Then it would always
have been a matter of ready impulse, of spontaneous feeling, instead
of my being obliged to work out  that problem of duty by the most
painful efforts of the intellect.

  Mr. Mann might have here recorded a fact which helped
to  let the light in upon his mind.    The Universalists
were denounced  then even  more than now  as God-for-
saken, deistical sinners, wolves  in sheep's clothing, out of
the pale of Christian fellowship ; but within his neighbor-
hood there lived a man of that much-maligned sect, who
was remarkable for all the Christian  virtues.   Probably
his  love to God was not credited, even if he professed it:
but  his love  for  man  was  unquestionable; for  it  was
proved by his beneficent deeds and his honorable deal-
ings.  It was  heresy  in the  young  Calvinists  (who were
the only  ones likely  to dare to think for themselves, —
youth being naturally rebellious to tyranny) to look upon
hu>  virtues as any  thing but  godless works; but to a bold
thinker  it was a  nucleus around  which thoughts would
cluster.
                                       Boston, July 2, 1837.
  My dear Friend, — How long it is since the light of your pen
visited me !  It really is long, and probably it seems longer than it
is.   In the mean time, what a change in externals has befallen me !
I no longer write myself attorney, counsellor, or lawyer.  My law- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
83
books are for sale.  My office is "to let."  The bar is nc  longer
my forum.   My jurisdiction is changed.   I have abandoned juris-
prudence, and betaken  myself to  the  larger sphere of mind and
morals.   Having found the present  generation composed of mate-
rials almost unmalleable, I am about transferring my efforts to the
next.   Men are  cast-iron; but children  are wax.   Strength expend-
ed upon the latter may  be effectual, which would make  no impres-
sion upon the former.
   But you will ask what is the interpretation of this oracular ambi-
guity. '  A law was passed last winter, constituting a Board of Edu-
cation " consisting of the Governor and Lieut.-Governor,  ex officiis,
and eight other persons to be appointed by the Governor and Coun-
cil;" which Board was authorized to appoint a Secretary, whose duty
it should be "to collect information of the actual condition and effi-
ciency of the common schools and other means of popular education,
and to diffuse as widely as possible, throughout  every part of the
Com nonwealth,  information  of the most approved and  successful
modi   of instruction."   I  have accepted that  office.   If I do not
succeed in it, I will lay claim at least to the benefit of the saying,
that in great attempts it is glorious even to  fail.
   Thursday.  I wrote  thus  far last Sunday,  when  I  was  inter-
rupted, and have  not had  time since to finish this letter. .  . . Al-
though my mind is full of the subject of  my  new duties, yet my
thoughts are almost chaotic; and they will continue,  I suppose,
for a lono- time, to fly round and round  without  order and harmony.
I hope, however, that the time will come when they will subside, and
cohere according to some law of intellectual and moral affinity. As
yet, my task seems  incomprehensibly great.    I scarcely  know
where  or  in  what manner  to begin.   I have,  however, a faith  as
strong as prophecy, that much may be done.
   My intention  is to leave the city  for perhaps  a  few weeks, and
go into the country (probably to Franklin), carry some  books, and
endeavor to  think out  something  worthy of being acted.    Some
time early in September,  I  shall probably commence a  circuit
through the State, inviting conventions of instructors, school commit-
tees, and all others interested in the cause of education,  to be held
in  the different counties, and  at such times avail  myself of the op- 
84
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
portunity to recommend some improvements, and generally to apply
a flesh-brush to the  back of the  public.  Now, out of your abun-
dance, I shall expect  you to contribute much to fill my small urn of
experience  and knowledge.   I will be a conduit between you and
the public for as much information as my gauge will enable me to
convey.   Do let me  hear from you soon.
                                 Yours affectionately,
                                                      H. MANN.

  July 3.   What strikes me  as  most extraordinary in  relation to
my new office  is, that every man, with the single exception of Dr.
Channing, inquires concerning the salary, or makes remarks  that
look wholly to the comparative honor of the station; while no  man
seems to recognize its possible usefulness, or the dignity and eleva-
tion which is inwrought into beneficent action.   Does not the com-
munity need to be educated half round the compass, until they shall
cease to look upon that as the  greatest good which is the smallest,
and shall find the greatest good in what they now overlook, and by
which their  minds pass as unconsciously as though  it had no ex-
istence ?
   July 4.   Celebrations during  the day;  parade  of military com-
panies;   people turned out of doors, and houses  shut  up;  this
evening,  fire-works on the Common, which was filled, crammed, —
as a vintner would say, " a  quart of spectators put  into a pint of
Common;" and all  day I have not seen one  staggerer!  " Laus
Deo, et societatibus  temperantige ! "
   July 8.   This week I have commenced in earnest,  and  with some
degree of exclusive  devotedness, a  course of  reading  tending to
qualify me  for my new duties.   I have long  known that no  man
can apply himself to  any worthy subject, either of thought or action,
but he will  forthwith find it develop into dimensions and qualities
of which before he had no conception.  If this be true  of all  sub-
 jects worthy of rational attention, how extensively true is it of the
all-comprehending subject of  education!   This expansion of any
object to which our attention is systematically directed may be com-
pared to the opening of a continent upon the eye of an approaching
mariner   At first he descries some minute point, just  "--"'"firing in 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
85
the distance, — the lofty summit of some mountain.  As he upproach-
es, other elevated points seem to rise out of nothing, and stand up in
the horizon; then they are perceived to be connected together; then
hills, cities, towns, plains, rivers,  which the eye  cannot count for
their numbers, nor  embrace for their distance, fill up the admiring
vision.  So it  is in approaching any of the intellectual or moral sys-
tems which Nature has established.
  Jidy 9.   Sunday.   Spent the main part of the day in reading
James Simpson's work entitled "  Necessity of Popular Education;"
and, as I read and think upon the  subject, that point, that speck,
that  dot,  of which I  spoke last night,  grows larger and larger.
Let it grow.   I hope I shall have strength to  explore some of its
most important parts.
  July 10.  Still following up  the great labor  of  preparation.
Have this day examined a great variety of articles designed for ap-
paratus in instruction.   Here, on this point of introducing appara-
tus into common use, and  thus  substituting real for verbal  know-
ledge, I must  endeavor to effect a lodgement in the public mind.
  July 13.  Another striking instance has come  to my knowledge,
of a gentleman, whom I should have expected fully to appreciate the
importance and the inherent dignity of my  new office,  expressing
surprise that I  should forego other expectations  for its sake, and
regret that its  title did not indicate more fully the duties to be per-
formed.   If the Lord prospers  me  in this great work,  I hope to
convict  such persons of error; and  as to the title, of what  conse-
quence is that ?  If the title is not sufficiently honorable now, then
it is clearly left for me to elevate  it; and I had rather be creditor
than debtor to the title.
 ' July 14.   My reading upon the subject of my new duties is very
delightful.  Nothing could be more congenial with all my tastes,
feelings, and  principles.  What  occupation more pure, more ele-
vated, more directly tending to good, and. hence  more self-sustain-
ing ?  So let it continue to appear to me, and it will make the resi-
due of life more tolerable than I had ever supposed it could be.
  July  15.   Still looking  upon the externals of the magnificent
temple which  I hope some day to be less unworthy to  enter.  Had
a conversation with Judge-----upon the  subject, in which he 
86
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
brought out in their fulness all his conservative and anti-movement
notions.   Is he not so much of a conservative  that  he is  in  great
danger of conserving error? and, if error can only be conserved,
how mightily will it grow of itself!
                                           Boston, July 16, 1837.
  My  dear Sister, — You will  be not a little  surprised to learn
how great a change has come over my course of business-life since I
last saw you.  I have  quitted the profession of the law.  I hope that
no necessity will ever compel me to resume it again.   But  why,
you would  ask, and   for what  object ?   I will  tell you.  .  .  .
I have accepted the office of Secretary of the  Board ; and, as it will
occupy all my time (and is sufficient to occupy me in ten places at
once if that were possible), I necessarily leave my profession in
order to bestow upon  it my undivided attention.   Could I be as-
sured that my efforts in this  new field of labor would be crowned
with success, I know  of no occupation that would  be more agreea-
ble to me, — more congenial to my tastes and feelings.   It presents
duties  entirely accordant with principle. .  .  .  Some persons  think
it not wi^e to leave my profession, which has  hitherto treated me
quite as well as I have deserved : others profess to think  that  my
prospects  in political  life were not to be bartered for a post whose
returns for effort and  privation must be  postponed  to another gen-
eration ; and that my present position in the Senate would be fin-
preferable to being a post-rider from county to county, looking after
the welfare of children who will never know whence benefits may
come, and encountering the jealousy and  prejudice and misrepre-
sentation of ignorant parents.   But is it not  better to do good than
to be commended for  having done it ?  If no seed were ever to be
sown save that which  would promise the requital of a  full harvest
before  we die, how soon would mankind revert  to barbarism !   If I
can be the means of ascertaining what  is  the  best construction
of houses, what are the best books, what is the best arrano-ement of
studies, what are the  best  modes of instruction; if I can discover
by what appliance of means a non-thinking,  non-reflecting,  non-
speaking  child can most surely be trained into a noble citizen  ready
to contend for the right and  to  die for the right, — if I can only
obtain ai\d  diffuse throughout this State a  few  good ideas on these 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.                87
and similar subjects, may I not flatter myself that my ministry has
not been wholly in vain ?  .  .  . The laws which sustain our system
of common-school  instruction  are  scarcely better than they have
been for a  century and a half.  If schools have improved, it has
not been in consequence of any impulse given to  them  by gov-
ernment. ... I intend to  go to Franklin soon, to stay a week or
two, to read on the new subject, to write  an  address, &c.; and if
you will write to me there, and say you will come and stay a week
or a few days, I will go for you. ...                      H. M.

   July 22.  Have entered  slowly upon my lecture, though a dys-
peptic obscuration of intellect baffles the will.   Dulness Jiever
had a more copious  subject.  Indeed,  its largeness, its  infinity,
embarrass  me.  It is  like an attempt to lift the earth: the arms
are too short to get hold of it.  However, I hope to get  hold of a
few handfuls. ...
   Aug. 12.   On Friday last, went to Boston, where  I  remained
one week.  .  . .  Accomplished considerable  business  in Boston.
Prepared and issued  circulars to the school committees  of every
town in the State, designating time and place for holding the pro-
posed conventions iu each of the counties.   As yet, nothing trans-
pires which indicates at all in what manner the new mission will be
received by the  public.  All is left  for me to do.   At the best,
perhaps, I can only hope  that the community is on a poise, and
ready to be swayed one way or the other, according to the manner
of putting on the weight.
   Sept. 15.  . .  • Northampton.   This  evening, had a  long con-
 versation with-----------, who was on a visit to Northampton, on
 the subject of attempting to enlighten and elevate the masses; and
have found him  an infinite sceptic.  He holds the British Govern-
 ment, of kings, lords,  and commons, to be the  best in the  world, or
 that  can  be  in  it; that classes  are essential, — one to work,  the
 other to improve ; laments that the good old days of the aristocracy
have o-one by, when no upstart could  ever obtain ingress into their
ranks; and thinks that one portion of mankind is to be refined and
cultivated, the other to suffer, toil, and  live and die in vulgarity.
 In the course of the conversation, he denied that the class he eulo-
 oized ever insulted those who started in life,  as he would call  it, 
88
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
below them; and yet he  insulted me and all  my  relatives twice
most outrageously.  That  is their way.  Beginning with the  prin-
ciple that they are  from their  birth superior, they are constantly
acting it out in life,  embodying it in conduct, and yet profess to be
ignorant that they are committing the grossest indignities.  A pow-
erless, conceited, haughty race, who have little  or nothing besides
adventitious merit, — what would the poor  insects do if they were
deprived of that ?   Therefore let them  be  pardoned; not for any
repentance  or improvement, — for of  that   they seem  almost
incapable, — but for their insignificance.
   Sept.  17.   Yesterday, saw Mr.  Lyman,  who seems much inter-
ested in  the cause.  The High School for  Females is constituted
substantially according to the free plan of Mr. Alcott, contained in
one of the volumes of the American Institute of Instruction.
   Sept. 27.   Found on my  return a most encouraging letter from
Dr. Channing, full  of a spirit  communing with my spirit.   How
different from  the views  entertained and expressed to me at North-
ampton by Mr.-----! and how different must be the source from
which such opposite sentiments flow !  Many of our educated  men
need  educating much  more than the ignorant.   When  shall we
bring them both up to the level of humanity ?  Perhaps never;
but we will try.
   Oct. 8.   Sunday.  Have been over to see  the Chapoquiddic
Indians.    Called on a number with their  guardian, Mr. Thaxter,
who, I think,  is improving  the  habits and condition of the tribe.
They have a  meetinghouse-schoolhouse, "one and indivisible;"
have had a Sunday school  up  to  to-day, but are to have no more
through the winter.   Have next to no school among them,  except.
this  Sunday school.  They appear, I  should  think, pretty well for
an Indian settlement;  having about fifty inhabitants and one barn
on their part of the island.  A failing and white-man stricken race !
   To-morrow  is the day of the convention here.
   Oct. 10.   This is Nantucket.   Hither I have come to-day, gaz-
ing and still gazing upon the ocean;  while the feeling in my mind
continually is, "I do  not comprehend it yet."   The mind  is
adapted  to admire  it as much  as the web-foot of a sea-bird  is to
swim in it. A striking anecdote of intolerance was told me to-day. 
\
                   LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.                89

Last Sunday, being at Edgartown, where there were only a Cono-re-
gationalist, a Baptist,  and a Methodist  society, — all Orthodox,— I
thought I would go  over  to  Chapoquiddic and see  the  Indians;
which  I  accordingly did, and  availed  myself  as much  as  I  could
of my visit to exhibit an interest in their welfare, and to encourao-e
them  in well-doing.   Monday, the next day,  was the day for  the
convention at Edgartown, called to meet at ten o'clock,  a.m.   It
met at that hour;  and,  after being in  session an hour  or two, ad-
journed for the afternoon.  One Rev.  -----(reverend by courtesy,
and a Christian  by assumption), who came that morning from Tis-
bury, —nine miles, —told a friend of mine that he had  understood
that  I was in town the  day preceding,  and did not go to meeting :
so that it seemed, forthwith, on the getting together of the godly,
the question had been,  whether I  had the Congregationalist, Bap-
tist, or Methodist ear-mark ; and, it being found that I was guilty
of not having either, I  was forthwith  condemned;  and, moreover,
the Rev.-----said, that " if  Mr.  Mann was in town, and  did  not
go to meeting, he had as lief  not  hear him as to hear him; " and
further, that, if  I did not wish to show a preference for  either sect,
I might have gone to hear  each during the day, — thus  giving  me
the alternative to hear  three Orthodox sermons  in one  day,  or be
burned.  I confess I  had rather be burned ; at least, a  little.
   Oct. 14.   The  convention  has  been: yet not wholly;  for  the
meeting was unable to get through this evening, and has adjourned
to Tuesday evening next.   On the whole, a pretty good meeting;
and, if the cause has any reason to complain, I have not.
   Oct. 17. . . .  Barnstable.  Went two and. a  half miles out of my
way to see an Indian  school on the Marshpee District,  kept by  a
Mr. Perry.  If one may judge by appearances, that man has a high
aim, and appeared very  well at school, — invited and rather insisted
upon my going home  with him to  ding.  I found he lived in an In-
dian house.   His wife had  the dinner ready, to which  we sat down.
It consisted of a piece  of corned beef and vegetables, — potatoes,
one carrot and one beet,  and brown bread without butter, salt, or the
slightest thing in the way of pickle, spice, or  any condiment what-
ever.   There was no dessert.    His "grace before meat"  was less
hurried than is usual, when, the rich viands being close by, and God 
90                LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.

a great way off, the flavor of the meat prevails over the odor of the
sanctity,  and the thanksgiving hurries into the enjoyment.  There
this man labors for the children during the day, virits the people at
night, and preaches to them on Sundays; and all the apparent re-
ward is meat and vegetables without trimming, while the million-
naires go for the several varieties of sensuality, and cannot afford time
even to have a religious garment fitted upon their backs.   But will
not the time come when he will have the banquets  of immortality,
and they will have to  gnaw the dry bones of the past for rations ?
   I trust I have left  an impression favorable  to the  cause on the
old sandy cape.   But we will  try whether the seed sown in such  a
soil will grow.    Just a notice is given in  the paper here of the
educational meeting for next Tuesday,—about a square, not quite ;
while  a whole column  is  devoted to the proceedings of a county
political convention :  the reason  given, indeed, for not  being able
to publish more, that the paper was occupied with political matters;
and the relative spaces allowed show the relative importance of the
two subjects in the public mind.
   Oct. 22. . . . To-day I  have visited some of the graves of the
Pilgrims.   How little they saw, two centuries ago, of this  present!
Who can fathom future time ?
   Oct. 29. . . . Boston.  Yesterday I witnessed the  ceremony of
the reception by  the  Mayor, at Faneuil Hall, of about thirty In-
dians, fresh  from  the  wilds of the West.   On the very spot where
we live, how many of them have trod !  now how" few their remnants !
Other men — nor other men only, but other forms of being — now
exist where they existed.  May it be for the better !  As specimens
of the human race, the whole interview was mournful, together with
the subsequent dance on  the  Common, — almost sceptic-making;
but, in contrast with the vast powers of civilized man, it was full of
encouragement and hope.   How closely the  red and the white man
were brought together, speaking to each other, shaking hands! and
yet how many centuries lie between them ! . . .
   Nov.  3.  .  . .  Have been engaged  all  the  week at  court in
Dedham, arguing causes.   The interests of a client are small, com-
pared with the interests of the next generation.  Let the next gene-
ration, then, be my client. . . . 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.               91
   Nov. 6.   Glad to find Dr. Channing in the city.  As I  called
on him to-day, he proposed that some gentlemen engaged in  ameli-
orating this pessimum world should have a " re-union " somewhere
this winter.   If we can devise  any scheme to give it a hoist, I am
willing to try the strength of my back.
   Dined with C. Sumner to-day, who is going to Europe soon.
When he goes, there will be one more good fellow on that side, and
one less on this.
   To-morrow for Salem, where I am  not only to repeat my speech,
but where I have  engaged  to lecture for the Lyceum.   And, cer-
tainly, never was a poor debtor so desirous to get  well out of the
hands of his creditor as I am to get well out of that engagement.
I have been obliged to write it all on  my last journey, and it has
given me a waking nightmare all the time. . . .
   Nov.  10.   Went to Salem as proposed.   Met  the convention;
though that is almost too great a word to apply to  so small a num-
ber of men.   But few were there.  Mr. Rantoul did not  come at
all, Mr. Saltonstall but Uttle.   Things had not been arranged be-
forehand, and every thing dragged and stuck, — one of the poorest
conventions I have had.   I went to deliver a  lecture before  the
Lyceum also, introductory to the couise.  That was done last even-
ing to a very good audience at the  Tabernacle Church.  But  it was
not the lecture I  had  prepared for the occasion.   Some of those
who heard the Educational Address called for a repetition  of that:
so they had it.  I have been indebted to my  friend Mr. Webb for
many civilities while  at Salem, and to as much assistance as it was
in his power to  render; but there my  debts stop, not  because  of
payment, but because I received nothing to owe for.
   A friend  who was present at  this convention  says it
was remarkable to  see the apathy with which it opened.
One gentleman, who made one of the first speeches, ques-
tioned  the  expediency of  endeavoring  to  get  the  edu-
cated classes to patronize  public  schools.   He  spoke, he
said, in  the interest of mothers who  preferred private
schools for  their children; and  he believed  the  reasons
that they had for this would  always prevail: they would 
92              LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
 have their children grow up in intimacies with those of
 their own class.   No one  spoke on the American side of
 this question;  and the unanswered statement of this par-
 tial interest which the educated had in the public schools
 seemed to cast a chill over the meeting.  No generous
 sentiment was  touched.
   Another gentleman said he thought, that, preliminary
 to all things else, the Secretary should go round the State,
 and pass a day in  every public school in it, and  then make
 a report of their condition.
   After several sapient speeches like this had been made,
 Mr. Mann rose and said, that, if the gentleman who made
 the last proposition would take the trouble  to  do  a short
 sum in arithmetic, he would find that it  would take six-
 teen years for the Secretary to  do  this work, if he never
 intermitted one  day.   A general  stir in  the assembly
 intimated that  suddenly the  immensity of the work to be
 done struck their minds  for  the  first time.   It was  also
 striking to others, though  Mr. Mann did not recognize it,
 to see the effect of his remarkable address, which followed
 in the afternoon.   The request made, that he should repeat
 it at the Lyceum  in the evening, showed that it  did not
 fall on unintelligent ears.
   An interesting portrait  of him now hangs in the noble
 building erected for the Essex Normal School.

  To-day, returned to Boston.  My great circuit is now completed.
The point to which, three months ago,  I looked forward with so
much anxiety, is reached.. The labor is  done.  With  much weari-
ness, with almost  unbounded anxiety, with some thwartings, but, on
the  whole, with unexpected and extraordinary encouragement, the
work is done.  That, however, is but the beginning.  I confess,
life  begins to assume a value which  I have not  felt for five years
before.
  Nov. 16.  To-day I have examined the returns in the Secretaiy's 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
93
office, of which an abstract is to be made; and find they look very
formidable.   What an ocean of work hes spread out before me!
Well, I am ready to plunge into it.
   Nov. 28.   Shortly after accepting the office  to whose duties I
am now devoting my time and soul, I planned to give up my office-
room,  take  one in  some respectable place,  and  live  in a man-
ner more agreeable to my feelings than I can here in this law-
yer's office, where I have slept about three years.   Such  an ar-
rangement has now been made; and probably to-morrow I shall
begin upon it, having  taken rooms at Dr. H-----'s, corner of Tre-
mont and School Streets.  This, therefore, may be the last night  1
 may sleep in this room, where I have been so long, and labored so
severely, and — perhaps I may write it here alone without  blush-
ing— brought some things to pass.
    It is not  stated, I  believe,  anywhere in these confessions, that
 after my irreparable loss, which made a far  greater  change  in my
 soul than in my  external condition, — though what of the kind
 could be greater than  that ? — a misfortune of a different character,
 but comparatively light, befell me.  It was comparatively nothing;
 yet, operating through my health, it aggravated  other ills to a de-
 gree seemingly incapable of extension.   I had  become liable for
 my brother to the amount of many thousand dollars beyond the
 value of every thing I could command.  His pecuniary misfortunes
 thickened upon him, so that he not only left me to pay his debts,
 but became  necessitous, and  called upon me  in various ways to
 supply him still more.  This I  did  to some extent,  as far as I was
 able.   When I found in what condition as to liabilities I really was
 left, I was living very comfortably.  I changed my course entirely.
 I left my boarding-house, and  after a time got a  bed here, and
 have  for about  three years taken care of  it with  my own hands,
 restricted my expenses in every  possible way, and lived  out the
 storm.  For a period of nearly six months, I was unable to buy a
 dinner on half the days.  Suffering from hunger and exhaustion,
 overworked,  I fell  ill, and so remained for about two months; my
 best friends  not  expecting my recovery, and some of them, I sin-
 cerely believe, deprecating it  as the infliction of further suffering. 
94
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
Since I  have been here in this house of offices, a part of the time
with no  other person in the whole building, it has been twice set on
fire by incendiaries right over my head, and  several other attempts
have been made.  I have held my life as nought;  for to me it has
seemed to be worth nothing.  I have toiled in despair, yet not com-
plaining.  Now that the debts are paid, and I can call my income
my own, I mean not to endure those removable evils as I have done.
Not a slight trouble in this accumulation has been the belief that
there were those who  ought to have at least showed me so much
sympathy as to have offered to relieve me; but that has not been
done.   I confess it is  not in my power to feel in that case just as I
should  be glad to.   But  perhaps  I do not know all their views
upon the subject.   I  pray  God that  these trials may now be over
and past.  Yet not that I would escape from them to fly into any
that affect internal character or outward reputation.   No : let come
what may upon the body; let come what may to crush the intellect:
my most earnest prayer is that the moral nature, the affections, the
sense of justice and of right, may never be impaired.  Let all tor-
tures come, provided they are safe.
   Nov. 29.   As I  anticipated last night,  I leave this office to-
night, and somewhat  of  an epoch occurs in my life.  May I not
hope that at least the privations of which I have been the subject in
this place may not continue to visit me at another residence ?  May
I  not also hope, and  with some confidence trust, that no change in
external condition will weaken the strong purposes of my mind, or
shake my resolution to devote what  talents and what length of  life
I may have to some good purpose ?
   I now leave these  walls, which have witnessed for the last three
years so many  disconsolate days, and so many sleepless and  tearful
nights.
   Nov.  30.   Thanksgiving Day;  but,  oh, what days they are to
me! and what a day would a real Thanksgiving Day be to me !  But
it fills my heart too full;  and fortunately I have  been so busy to-
day,  that I have very much escaped the corrosion of my mind on
itself. .  .  .
   Dec  2.  Yesterday I  went to Ipswich, and preached my preach- 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.                95
mont to a pretty full house. ... On the whole, perhaps it is well
that I went where I can make a favorable  impression, if it is but
upon one man : it is something,  and may turn the scale.
   Dec. 10.   Last Friday I was at an anti-mob meeting in  Faneuil
Hall.  Had  I time, I would write out an account of the meeting,
and of the views which such occurrences are bringing out.  A-----
made a speech so flagrantly wicked as to be  imbecile.   No part of
it came up to the dignity of sophistry.   Every part of it was what
common indecency would blush at.   How can a man either pervert
himself so, or be so perverted ?
   But it is approaching  the " witching time of night;" and, as I
slept  scarcely at all last  night, I must  try my luck  to-night; and
should I write what I feel, and  all I feel, of that devil-oriment, it
would either  occupy me till morning, or it would give me an excite-
ment equally incompatible with rest.  So let  me look  forward to
the children of the next  generation, rather than around to  the in-
corrigible men of this.
   Dec. 15.   On the evening of the  12th, the  freshly elected
Mayor gave a party which I attended; though I confess I neither
appetize the parties nor the partisans very much.   Thenceforth, in-
cluding to-day, I  have been hard  at work, excepting last evening,
when a re-union  of certain  gentlemen was held at Mr. Jonathan
Phillips's.   Dr. Charming, Dr.  Tuekerman, Mr. E. Peabody, Mr.
Bartol, and  a  young,  unfledged theologian, made up the  clerical
side of the house : Ellis  G.  Loring and myself represented the lay
gents. Dr. Cbanning introduced the subject of the meeting, which
he had been  the chief agent in getting together, by saying that he
was desirous of meeting  some  friends in  a social way, for the pur-
pose,  among other objects, of knowing what  might  be the actual
condition  of  the  public  mind on  certain vital  principles.   He
wanted to know better than  he did what sort of a world it was he
was living in; what influences predominated in society; what was
wrong, and what  means could  be devised to  set  the wrong right:
His remarks had that perspicuity and distinctness which his mind
imparts to whatever it handles.
  The conversation of the evening turned mainly upon the  prevail-
ing state of public opinion in this  city respecting the  Faneuil-Hall 
96
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
meeting against mobs : and it seemed to be a very general opinion,
that the opposition was not directed against abolitionists; that there
was no settled determination or desire to debar  them from  the ex-
pression of their  opinions; but that their opinions  were not the
opinions of the people of the city, and therefore ought not to go out
from Faneuil  Hall, because the place whence they were sent might
cause them to  be mistaken abroad for Boston sentiments, and the
authorities of the  city would be understood  as favoring and counte-
nancing doctrines they discarded.
   Dec. 16.   To-day, Hon. Jonathan Philbps has sent me the  sum
of $500.   He has submitted it wholly to  my  disposal, to be ex-
pended in the  cause.   It shall be expended in the cause, if I live ;
and  I hope to make it  do  something — a little, a very little —
towards it.
   Dec. 18.   Last evening, spent an hour or so in conversation with
Mr. -----on the subject,* and this afternoon two hours more.   On
the whole, my# cavern has not been so much lighted up by  this
luminous body as I had anticipated.  He may have such practical
notions as a man long engaged in the practice  must be compelled to
learn; but his views certainly have not seemed to me very original
or striking.  This may be  part guess-work, part inference, and all
wrong; but it  is at present the state of my mind.   I hope I shall be
compelled to alter it hereafter.
   Dec. 21. . . . To-night  I  heard  Mr. Emerson's  third  lecture.
Not so lucid, pellucid, as the other.  He condensed the command-
ments, as it regards young men, into two : "Sit alone," and " Keep
a journal."  The first, I think,  is about equivalent to the  " Know
thyself: " the  last, perhaps, is a more direct injunction, " Improve
thyself."  My practice has, for a long time, adopted the first;  and
this book speaks of the last.  " Have a room by  yourself," said  he :
" if you cannot without, sell your coat, and sit in a blanket."
   Dec. 31.   The close of  the year.  I have  not made an entry in
this book  for ten  days, having been so engrossed in the printing of
the Abstract of school returns and in the preparation of my Report.
The last has cost me considerable labor.   The Board meet to-morrow,
* The educational enterprise. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
97
when it is to be presented.   I have just been writing its last para-
graphs ; and  now, at the end of the day and of the year, shall try
to get a little rest for this weary body and mind.   One  thing, how-
ever, is certain.   Severe as this labor is, it is surrounded with the
most debghtful associations.  I am sure I can perform much more
in this than I could in any other cause.   But to-morrow will prob-
ably give me some indications about my Report.   I shall present it
with fear and trembling.
   It is not prudent to open my heart to the associations that would
throng it if permission for their entrance were given.   The year has
gone:  it  has  joined the  past  eternity.   I shall  go with some of
them ere long.   When will it be ?
7 
CHAPTER   IV.
              CONTINUATION  OF JOURNAL.

  Jan.  1,  1838.  This  morning,  read  my  Report to the whole
Board, and have been, not  on the  shallows, but in the deep water
of the  fidgets ever since.  I cannot  tell how it  has  squared with
their notions; for that is their test of right or wrong.  I  left the
room to give them  opportunity to let their minds  run whither they
would, without fear of running against me.  Whether I should have
been run down  or crushed, railroad-fashion,  had  I been there,  I
know not.   Whereupon, as the writs  say by way of  conclusion,  I
have not had a happy new year; and at this time of the night it has
passed, beyond change.  The time that comes to us  is soft, yield-
ing : like wax, we  can shape  it as we please.   We take it, or per-
haps scarcely take  it: as it passes  we give it a  touch, or a careful,
prayerful moulding; and now  it is adamant!   Yes :  it is beyond
miracle-working  power.  Omnipotence cannot alter or modify it.
How wonderful!   Now, nothing so flowing, so ductile, so shapable ;
now, all that calls itself might on earth,  or in or beyond the starry
universe, cannot  color it with  a new tint, or give  it a new attitude.
It is eternal!
  Jan. 2.   This morning the Board met, and, after a  discussion of
an hour or two, referred certain propositions to the Executive Com-
mittee.  A headache has extinguished me the rest of the day.
  To-morrow the Legislature convenes.   Till to-day the last  Gen-
eral Court was prorogued.  Till to-day my senatorial life lasts; to-
day it ends.   With good sleep, I  shall wake up un-senatorial.   So
be it.  I would  not  exchange this  life, toilsome,  anxious, doubtful
as it is, and may be, to be at the head of the " grave and reverend  "
senators to-morrow.  Probably I am breathing the few last political
breaths I shall ever respire.  This  drives one's mind back a  little
to see how the political breaths have been breathed up to this time.
             98 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
99
But I will not go deep into that, lest I should fail, through under
or over estimate, of hitting the true mark.
   Jan. 6.   Since my last  entry, I am sorry to say, I have accom-
plished but  little labor; being obstructed, from some cause, in my
mental machinery.    I have, however, worried  through with the
Abstract; and,  this very  evening, have  a copy of it complete.
That work, therefore, which has been a most serious one, is com-
pleted.   To-day I go at my Schoolhouse Report,  which I hope wjll
prove to  be beautiful schoolhouse-seed, or seed out of which beau-
tiful schoolhouses will grow, — a whole crop of them.
   Jan. 16.   To-day a meeting of the Executive  Committee of the
Board.   The Governor had a sort  of embryo report, —two or three
life-points here and there, as in one end of an egg, where here and
there an  organ is visible, and the  chick hovers half this side of the
line, half, as yet, in night.
   Jan. 18.   Yesterday, received  an invitation to preach a preach-
ment, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, on  my hobby;
and, to-night,  have  preached it.   A pretty full house, though the
weather was unpleasant: held them one hour and a half, stiller and
stiller to the end.
   Feb. 3.   This afternoon, have had a meeting, full of interest and
promise,  at Chauncey Hall, of all the teachers of the primary schools
in the city.   The object is to bring them together, once a week, to
hear a lecture ; to converse on some topics relating to the subject in
which they are all engaged; and not  only to have  a free communi-
cation and exchange of the views which  are now entertained,  but,
by turning the minds of so many persons to the  facts suggested by
their own experience, to improve and  extend the valuable informa-
tion that may now be possessed by  all.   The future meetings, it
seems to me,  promise very much  in  behalf of the children of the
city.  Mr. Russell  is to deliver a course of lectures on elocution;
and all subjects connected  with teaching are to have  their share of
attention, especially that of moral training.  Oh for success in this !
   Feb. 7.   Last night, lectured at Warren-street Chapel to pretty
good listeners.   To-morrow at Newton.   I go in ignorance; but I
wait the results.   Do we not all reap  exactly the harvest of which
we have sown  the seed ? . . . 
100
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
   Feb.  10.   This afternoon, attended the meeting of the primary-
school teachers again, — all women ;  and, after a lecture from Mr.
Russell, Mr. C.  Barnard and I addressed it in relation to modes of
teaching.   The  meeting was very fully attended;  as  many  as a
hundred, I think, being present.  This argues well.  Why may we
not have  the  primary  schools much  improved — doubled in value
— in a  single year ?  I believe it may be done; I hope it will  bo
d^ne; I intend  it shall be  done,  if I live  that  length  of time to
attend to it.   That I should call making a mark.
   March  2.   The lecture before the Diffusion Society is delivered.
I had a small audience, but  an attentive one.   Many  people who
were attracted by Dr. Walker's name and subject, of course, would
not come  to hear me, as I have nothing like the first to attract
them, and the subject of education attracts no fashion to  listen to its
claims.   Well, how could I expect that  a subject which the world
knows so little and cares so little about would produce any interest ?
It is left for some one to excite that  interest.  That is the work to
be done.  To that, in various ways and with all assiduity, I must ad-
dress myself.  If, after ten years of labor, people should remain as
indifferent as  at present, there  may be reason for desponding;  but
now this  very indifference is my  impulse.   If  any thing can  be
done to  push away some things which are before  the eyes of men,
and to put some other  things in their places, I think it no rashness
to say,  " I'll try."  I do not think I delivered the  lecture well, —
I was too much disconcerted, — but hope I may feel better  next
time.
   March  10.   My second lecture was delivered last evening,  with
some evident  hitchings on the  seats now and then.   Afterwards
went to Mr.  Dwight's, where a number of gentlemen were assembled
to discuss the  expediency of applying to the Legislature for a grant
to aid in the establishment of Teachers'  Seminaries.   Considerable
was said on  both sides, but mostly on the pro side.  But, after they
had mainly dispersed, Mr. Dwight gave me  authority to propose to
the Legislature, in my own way, that $10,000 should be forthcoming
from himself or others; and that at any rate he would be  responsible
for that  amount  to accomplish the  object, provided  the  Legislature
would give the same amount for the same cause.   On Monday, it is 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
101
my intention to make a descent upon the two honorable bodies, and
see if they cannot be so rubbed as to emit the requisite spark.  This
looks well.
   March 13.   I had the satisfaction of sending the following com-
munication to the Legislature : —


  To the President of the Senate and the  Speaker of the House
                      of Representatives.

   Gentlemen, — Private munificence has placed at my disposal
the sum of $10,000 to promote  the cause of popular education in
Massachusetts.
   The condition is, that the Commonwealth will contribute the same
amount from unappropriated funds in aid  of  the same cause; both
sums to be drawn  upon equally as needed, and to be disbursed,
under the direction of the Board of Education, in qualifying teach-
ers for our common schools.
   As the proposal contemplates that the State  in its collective ca-
pacity shall do no more than is  here proffered to be done from pri-
vate means, and as, with  a high and  enlightened disregard of all
local, party, and sectional views, it comprehends the whole of the
rising generation in its philanthropic  plan, I cannot refrain from
earnestly soliciting for it the favorable regards of the Legislature.
                     Very respectfully,
                                            HORACE MANN,
                                   Secretary of the Board of Education.


   This appears to be glorious !  I think I feel pretty sublime ! Let
the stars look  out for my head !  . . .
   April 4. .  . . To-morrow evening, I have engaged to lecture at
Lynn.  Query, how shall I hit the good shoemakers with my flights
and  gyrations?
   April 14.   To-morrow  afternoon, I have  engaged to speak  to
Mr.  Waterston's Sunday-school children at the  North Church.
This is  a new  field, and comes pretty close to preaching;  but, when
I preach, I hope I shall not forget, that, however near a live man 
102
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
may get to heaven, he still sustains the main part of his relations to
the earth.         •
   April 16. .  . .  My Schoolhouse  Report came  out last Thurs-
day.  I  think  it will make the community  of children breathe
easier. .  . .
   April 18. .  . . To-day the Board of Education has been in ses-
sion.  Important business presents itself; among other things, the
mode of disbursing the sum of $20,000, — half of which comes from
Mr. Dwight, and half from the  State.  No definitive action can be
had at this time  ; but " eyes open " are the words.   It is a difficult
subject.    The  Legislature have fixed my salary as Secretary of
the Board  at $1,500; which will probably leave about $500  for
my ordinary expenses and services,  after  defraying the extraordi-
nary  expenses.   Well, one  thing is certain:  if I live, and  have
health, I will be revenged on  them;  I will  do them more  than
$1,500 worth of good.   Lectured at  Charlestown to a  good au-
dience.
   April  28. . . . On Thursday afternoon, I went to Franklin to
see my friends.  Found my sister removed to another place with her
family.   The old home, the place where I was born, and spent the
first sixteen years of my  life, has passed into other hands.   I  have
no ancestral pride  about  such things, which is generally little else
than self-love flowing out copiously over connected objects;  yet I
shall never be able to pass the spot without deep emotions.  There
lived  my father, of whom I remember little; and there, too, lived
my mother, of whom I not only remember, but  of whom, so far as I
have any good in me, lam.   That place, too, has been consecrated
by the presence of the purest, sweetest, loveliest being, — my wife.
You,  my love,  know nothing of the sufferings  which belonged to
these associations; or, if you do, you must have such knowledge and
faith as to disarm them.
   May  13. . .  . Have been reading Miss Edgeworth's  excellent
work on " Practical Education."  It is full of instruction.   I  have
been delighted  to find  how often the views  therein expressed had
been written out on my own thinking.  Had I ever read the book
before, I should charge myself with unconscious plagiarism.
   May  21.  Returned from Boston  to Franklin this evening with 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
103
bones and  muscles all in one harmonious state of aching, — cum
multis tossibus.   Wednesday, met a committee for the county of
Plymouth,  and a few other gentlemen, and made a pretty full and
explicit statement to them of the supposed views of the Board in
regard to a seminary for teachers, by way of offering an inducement
to the county to  assist in the establishment of  one in that county.
To-morrow I  am  to go to Wrentham to confer  with them there on
the same subject.   If we get Teachers' Seminaries, it will  not be
because they  are of spontaneous growth.
   May 25.   On Wednesday, held forth to the orthodox Procrustes
of Franklin.   A pretty good house, for the spring season, and for
a country place.  But in  that house how few of those with  whom,
when a boy,  I used to assemble !   Of the whole family, but two
remain.  Others, indeed, fill their places; and  yet, even for them,
there is not less of the pain of anxiety than of the pleasure of affec-
tion.   What  is in the unseen future for them ?  Towards what goal
are they speeding ?  What cup  of sweets or of bitterness is min-
gling for them?   Solicitude asks these questions, and  may ask
them a thousand times.   They will  never be answered in season to
win  the good, or turn aside the evil.    On  the use  alone  of the
proper means can any confidence of their safety be founded.   And
in how few points can I reach them, — older, and of a different sex !
If my wife were yet upon  earth, she would  give  them such an
example of loveliness and purity, that  it would stand before them
— full in  their presence — alike in the light and in the darkness.
That is gone,  and can never be supplied.   God save their innocence,
their purity, their integrity !
   May 27. .  .  . This week, the Board of Education meets.  Much
depends upon our movements to the cause directly, and still more
to the  cause indirectly.   If we prosper  in  our  institutions for
teachers, education will be  suddenly exalted;  if not, its progress
will be onward still, but imperceptibly slow.
   June 9.   On Monday, the meeting of the Board of Education
was held.  . .  .  All the questions were decided  in  accordance  with
my views, and very much to my satisfaction.  .  . . My first labor is
to prepare an address to be delivered on my fall circuit.   This is  a
labor of incalculable  importance.   On the acceptability  of my 
104              LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
address will, in no considerable degree, depend the success of the
cause.  I can do nothing alone.   No one can do any thing alone.
Others will act with me according as they are pleased with me.
How necessary, then, that they should be pleased, not with a flashy
pleasure, a  pleasure  flashing, and instantly expiring,  but  with an
abiding satisfaction;  one founded on just, generous, and elevated
views; one that will connect itself with the higher faculties, and, by
being founded upon them, will partake somewhat of their grandeur
and  duration, and  not  on the  lower  propensities, that act so
treacherously, and expire so quickly !

  After lecturing  on  the circuit at Nantucket and  Edgar-
town, where he was requested to repeat his lecture in the
Orthodox  church,  after having  delivered  it  once,  and
where a deputation of young men met him on his  way to
Holmes  Hole, with  a  request  to  deliver  it  there, he
lectured again at Falmouth, and finished the tour in that
direction  with a  convention in  Barnstable.    To  others
his progress seemed like a triumphal procession, though
his foreboding fears threw over it all  a pall of apprehen-
sion ; for it was one of his peculiarities, to be ashamed of
his lectures until he had tested them by the interest of an
audience.   He had no misgivings about the righteousness
of his cause, and the general views he took of it, but the
greatest doubt about his own  ability to  present them
adequately.

  Sept. 4.  In the morning, I lectured in Hanover.   In the after-
noon, Mr.  Rantoul spoke business-like on the  subject of  Normal
schools.  Mr. Putnam followed  him with  a speech made up of
equal parts of sound sense and  good feeling.   The ex-president
made a most admirable  speech, and  one Daniel Webster followed
him;  and it was, indeed, a great day for  the  cause of common
schools.
  Sept. 5.   Have  spent the day at the   hospital in Worcester,
administering the affairs  of that institution.   The thino- there sought 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
105
          for seems to be, not  more happiness, but less suffering; and why
          is not the latter as high an object as the former ? .  . .
            Sept. 11.  To-day the meeting of  the convention has  been in
          Springfield; and, in  point of numbers, a miserable meeting it has
          been.   It is at  once discouraging and impulsive; for if they, as
          yet, do so little,  there is more — still more — need of effort.
            Sept. 17.  Pittsfield.  Meeting not numerous, but  the two or
          three individuals of themselves equal to a meeting; Miss Catherine
          Sedgewick, for instance.
            Sept. 20.  To-day I have  attended a grand temperance conven-
          tion in Northampton.  That  movement  is most  encouraging   If
          temperance prevails, then education can prevail; if temperance fails,
          then  education  must fail.   To-morrow I must address the people
          in this town, where great expectations have been raised.
            Sept. 21.  The day has passed ; and, just as the hour for attend-
          ing my address arrived, a furious rain  set in, which deterred many
          people, and left rather a sparse population in the great house where
          we assembled.
• .          Sept. 27.  Worcester. Attended the Common-school Association
          meeting yesterday ; and to-day have had a benefit of my own.  On
        ' the whole, I think a little dent has been made in this place.
            Oct. 6.  Went to  Salem and to Topsfield,  where the convention
          for Essex County was appointed.   We had  a most  beautiful day,
          but  a most pitiful convention in point of numbers.  In point  of
          respectability, very good, as they  always are. . .  . Ah!  how much
          remains to be done !
            Oct. 8.   To-day I have had the pleasure of being  introduced to
          George Combe,  Esq., of Edinburgh, who has lately arrived in this
          country, the author of that extraordinary book, " The Constitution
          of Man,"  the  doctrines of which, I  believe, will work the same
          change  in  metaphysical  science  that Lord  Bacon wrought  in
          natural.  . .  .
            Oct. 10.   Last evening, went  to Taunton.   To-day,  have had a
          grand convention there.  Had the good fortune to be accompanied
          by George Combe, Esq., and lady, from Edinburgh.   Found them
          most sensible people ;  and him, whom I saw most, full of philosophy
          an I philanthropy.  He  has, this  evening, delivered the first in his 
106
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
course of phrenological lectures in this city, — a good lecture to a
good house.  I am rejoiced at an opportunity to form an acquaint-
ance with a man so worthy and so profound.
  And thus ends my peregrinating for the  current year.   I may
have a meeting in this city;  and then the conventions will be over.
  When I undertook the arduous labor of effecting  improvements
in our common-school system, up to  a reasonable  and practicable
degree, I did so with a full conviction that it would require twenty
or twenty-five years of the continued exertions of some one, accom-
panied with good fortune, to  accomplish the work; and I  think I
took hold of it with a cordiality  and resolution which  would not be
worn out in less than a quarter of a century.  I am now of the
opinion that one-twentieth part of the work has been done.

  This is  a fitting place in which to say, that, for one con-
vention authorized  to be held by the  Secretary, he  had
during this year  held  four  or five,  the extra occasions
being at  his  own expense.   He continued to do  this
through his whole occupation of the office,  and was occa-
sionally assisted by the contributions of  friends  to  a very
small amount.  The same  may  be said of  the  Teachers'
Institutes, a sort  of temporary Normal school afterwards
established.   In the Teachers' Institutes  he often labored
alone for  days.

   Oct.  12.  Have heard Mr. Combe lecture again this evening.  He
considered  the effects of size in  organs, and of temperaments, — all
very well.   I hope,  if I get no  new ideas from  him, I shall at least
be able  to give some definiteness and firmness to existing ones.   He
is a  man of a clear,  strong head, and a good heart.
   Oct.  20. For the past week,  have been principally engaged in
preparing the first number of the " Common-school Journal," — a
periodical, the publication of which I intend soon to commence.  . . .
   To-morrow evening I go  to Brighton to lecture  on my hobby-
subject.
   Oct.  27.  The past week has not brought  much to pass.  . . .
Have attended  three excellent  lectures by Mr. Combe.  They are 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
107
very  interesting, drawing clear  distinctions between the mixed-up
virtues and vices of men.
   Last Saturday there appeared in the " New-York Observer " the
first of a series of articles against the Massachusetts Board of Educa-
tion, and probably their Secretary, professing to inquire into the bear-
ings of the action of the Board in regard to religious teaching in the
schools.   They are addressed to Dr. Humphreys.   Probably they
will have no difficulty in making out that the Board is irreligious;
for with them  religion  is synonymous with Calvin's  five points.
As for St. James's definition of it, " Pure religion  and undefiled
is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction," &c.; and that
other definition,  "  Do justly,, love mercy,  and walk humbly with
thy God," — the Orthodox have quite outgrown these obsolete no-
tions, and have got a religion which can  at once gratify their self-
esteem and destructiveness.   They shall  not unclinch me from my
labors for mankind.
   Oct. 29. . . . Have heard Mr. Combe  again  this  evening.   Ho
is a lover of truth.  If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget
greatness, and ask for truth, and he will find both.
  Nov.  10.  It is  a long time since I have made an entry here,
because I have been deeply engaged, and have  had nothing of per-
manent interest to record.   To-day I have sent the last of my man-
uscript for the first  number  of the " Common-school Journal."   It
is an enterprise whose success I look forward to with great anxiety.
It will cost me great labor.   I hope to be repaid in the benefits  it
may produce.    My reputation in no small degree  rests upon it.
Oh ! give me good health, a clear head, and a heart overflowing with
love to mankind.
  Nov.  15.   Constant  engagements prevent  my  entering  my
thoughts lately so  often as I would.   Mr.  Combe's course of lec-
tures,  wliich is just finished, has occupied  me a good deal, and
to-night a splendid entertainment has been given  him.   To-morrow
evening,  I lecture at Chelsea.  And so the time flies;  and every day
I have to ask myself what impression I am making, what I am doing
in the great cause I have in hand.  God prosper it, and enable me
to labor for it!
  Nov. 17.   To-day  the  first  number  of the " Common-school 
108
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
   Journal " has been issued.  With this I hope to awaken some at-
   tention to the great subject I have in hand.   It must be made an
   efficient auxiliary, if possible.   I know it will involve great labor ;
   but the results  at the end, not the labor at the beginning, are the
   things to be regarded.
     This periodical fully answered the purpose for which  it
   was established.  It was continued for ten years, and con-
   tains not  only Mr. Mann's best thoughts upon all  the
   topics treated  in it, but all the Annual Reports made to
   the Board during his Secretaryship.   Friends contributed
   valuable papers to it also.   It is a work which has been
   sought by  those  interested  in  education all over  the
   world, even in the  heart of Asia; and the numbers  left
   after the work stopped had a  regular sale  as long as
   complete sets could  be made out from them.   In looking
   forward to the probable condition of our country after the
   close of this war, when the whole extensive area of it will
   be opened to free institutions, of which public schools will
   be an inevitable feature, certainly following the occupa-
,   tion of any portion of its territory by Northern men, a re-
   publication of it may be desirable.  It would  be the best
   possible accompaniment of the introduction of a common-
   school system in any region where the political conditions
   of things make such  a system possible.  Mr. Mann had
   frequent correspondence with  Southern gentlemen upon
   the subject; but it  always  ended in the conviction that
   there could be no common schools established in a region
   where equality before the law was not even desired for all
   classes of white men.   In the rural districts it was simply
   impossible.  New Orleans is the  only city where  an at-
   tempt was made;  and there, under the judicious  super-
   intendence of Mr. J. Shaw, something very creditable was
   effected;  though it  could in no wise compare with  the
   results to be obtained where justice was, to say the  least
   the prevailing theory. 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
109
  Nov. 25.   Since my last entry, I have  suffered  from severe in-
disposition, and been utterly unable to accomplish any of the labors
upon my hands.   This  is most unfortunate; for time grows short,
while labor is long.  I  am a perpetual memento to myself of the
value  of health,  and  therefore of the  pains  that should  be be-
stowed in  childhood and infancy in taking the necessary steps  for
its production, and in bestowing the  habits, which, except under
most adverse circumstances, will insure its enjoyment.   Could I
live my life over again, I think I should  adapt the means for its
better preservation and invigoration;  and yet, if, with  my present
knowledge, I do not obey the laws upon which  it is  dependent, how
can I be sure, that, were I permitted to re-enact the  scenes of life, I
should be  more wise, though I might be more learned? But, though
the past is gone, the future is, to some extent, my own.

   If  any assault was  made  uppn the Board, it was Mr.
Mann's habit to disarm opposition, if possible, privately;
and the following is an attempt of that  kind.   The prog-
ress of the work was  often  impeded by  such  assaults,
arising from  private disappointments of book-makers or
ambitious  men.  Mr. Storrs  was  ever afterwards  a cor-
dial friend.

                                           Boston, Jan. 19,  1839.
Rev. Dr.  Storrs.
   Dear Sir, — Three  days ago, I met my friend  Mr. Louis
Dwio-ht; when our conversation turned upon  the  strictures lately
made in the "Boston Recorder" upon the  Board of  Education
and myself.
   I said to  Mr. Dwight that those animadversions were without  a
shadow of foundation ;  that they were cruel; that they were making
my labors, aheady greater than I feel able to perform, still more
arduous and anxious.   Yesterday, Mr. Dwight was kind enough to
call on  me with the editor.   The latter opened the subject of the
articles in a very proper spirit and manner, and professed a desire to
have any misapprehension rectified.   I referred him to  the extraor-
dinary meaning which  had been forced  upon the word " sectarian- 
110
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
ism " in the prospectus of the  " Common-school Journal; " to the
declaration of the existence of ground for suspicion that I had ma-
tured in my own mind and deliberately resolved on a plan for the
"exclusion  of the  religion of  the Bible from  our schools;" to
the further declaration, that a simple  perusal of the documents of
the Board had caused suspicions to spring up in all  parts of the
Commonwealth that such a plan was concerted ; and that the "mere
existence  of the suspicions was strong presumptive evidence that
they were not wholly without  foundation;" and what  was per-
haps worst of all in its natural effects, an expression, made  in an
apparent spirit of charity, of a strong inclination to believe that the
Secretary is honest in his belief that the Board of Education cannot,
without violation of law, allow books that treat on religious sub-
jects to be placed on the  desks of our schoolrooms.   I then stated to
him that the Board had never published any document authorizing
the slightest suspicion, either against themselves  or against me, like
the one here referred  to;  that,  so far  from my entertaining a belief
that it  would be illegal  to have  any  books treating of religious
subjects on the desks of the schoolrooms, the very  contrary was one
of the most prominent points in my Report of last year, wherein I had
at once exposed and deplored the absence  of moral and religious in-
struction in our schools, and had alleged the probable reason for it;
viz., that school committees had not found books, expository of  the
doctrines of revealed religion,  which  were not also denominational,
and therefore, in their view, within  the  law, and not that  books
which did not infringe the law should be excluded.
   He then told me that you were the author of those articles; and
both he and Mr. Dwight seemed desirous that I should address you
a note on the subject, and send you  a copy of  the only document
which has yet been published by the Board, — they supposing that
you had been misled by some letters  addressed to Dr. Humphreys,
which letters were instigated by the fact that the Board and myself
would not become instrumental in introducing the American Sunday-
school Library into our common schools.
   Allow me to say, sir, that, by an examination of the  law, you will
find that  the  Board  have no  authority,  direct or indirect,  over
school-books; and that you will see, by a letter addressed to me by 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
Ill
 name, a week ago, through the columns of the " Recorder," that a
 jealousy exists among your religious friends, even of a recommenda-
 tion of school-books by the Board.  I will  also  state,  that by the
 rules and regulations for the government of Normal schools, where
 the Board has power, they had decided, before the  appearance of
 P-----'s wicked pamphlet, that the principles of  piety and morality
 common to all sects of Christians should be taught in every Normal
 school, and that a portion of the Scriptures should be daily read.
   I hope, sir, that my motives in writing this letter may be justly
 appreciated.   I loathe  controversy, especially at a  time when the
 efforts of every good man are necessary in the work of improvement.
 I have no spirit for controversy, nor time  nor strength to devote to
 it.   To exclude all chance of my being  involved in it, I must beg
 you to consider this letter as confidential, except so far as it regards
 Mr. Willis and Mr. Dwight,  at whose request it is written.
                   Yours very respectfully,
                                                HORACE MANN.


   P. S. — The "Trumpet"  directly and repeatedly has charged
 the Board with the intention to introduce religion into  the schools,
 from the same evidence wliich others interpret so  differently.


                                           Boston, Feb. 11,1839.

   George Combe, Esq.   My very dear Sir, —...  We are all
 very glad to hear of your success and acceptability  where you have
 been.   When any meeting occurs among the members of your class,
 you are always remembered.  We see  that  there  will be a  new
 earth,  at least,  if not a new  heaven, when your  philosophical and
 moral  doctrines prevail.   It  has  been a part of my  religion for
 many years that the earth is not to remain in its present condition
 forever.   You  are furnishing the means by which the body of
 society is  to be healed of some  of its  wounds heretofore deemed
irremediable.   They are  doctrines  which cause a  man's soul to
expand beyond the circle  of his visiting-cards; that recognize the
race a$ beings capable of pleasure and pain, of elevation or debase- 
112
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
ment.   Many men have no more reaUzing belief of the human race
than they have of
                     " Anthropophagi, aud men
            Whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders ; "

and  I have  always thought that  this practical disbelief  in  the
existence  of the creature had,  at least, as bad an effect  upon the
character  as a disbelief of the Creator.
   You observe, in  your letter, that  your audiences fell off from
eight to ten per cent in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, when
you lectured on the moral sentiment.   Now, my dear sir, are you
not mistaken  in  this statement, in regard  to  Boston?   We all
observed  otherwise.   We  think there was  an increase  in your
audience here, both in numbers, and in attention, and in pleasure
too, if that were possible, when you expatiated upon the foundations
of justice, reverence, and  goodness.   Pardon me for being a little
sensitive  on the subject;  for we should think  our character some-
what involved in it.  We think, on this point, we could not defend
ourselves by quoting from Dr.  Franklin, who said that revivals in
religion always made him think of a scarcity of grain: those who
had  enough said nothing about it, while  those who were  destitute
made all the clamor. . . .
   Please make my regards acceptable to Mrs. Combe ; and believe
me when I say that I am a better man for having become acquainted
with your mind and yourself.   I hope all your leisure time will be
spent in our neighborhood.
                              Yours very truly,
                                               HORACE  MANN.

                                         Boston, March 25, 1839.
   G. Combe,  Esq.,  Philadelphia.    My  very  dear  Sir,— .  .  .
There have been some striking conversions, since you were here, to
the religious truths contained  in  your " Constitution of Man."
Some of these have happened under my own ministry.   A youn»
graduate of one of our colleges wrote me, a few months since, to
inquire in what manner he could best qualify himself for  teachino-.
He had then been employed in  teaching for two years, after having
received  a degree.   I told  him, that,  in the absence of Normal 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               113
schools, I thought he had fjctter take up his residence in this city,
visit the schools, make himself acquainted with all the various pro-
cesses which various individuals adopt to accomplish the same thing,
and read all the best books that can  be found on the subject.   He
accordingly came ; and, when he applied to me for a list of books, I,
of course, named your  "Constitution" as  the first in the series.
After about a fortnight he called on me, and said he had read it
through with great pleasure, but did not think he had mastered the
whole  philosophy.   A few days  after, he came again, not a  little
disturbed: he  had read  it  again,  comparing it  with his former
notions (for he was highly orthodox),  and found that the glorious
world  of laws which you describe was inconsistent with the miser-
able world of expedients in which he had been accustomed to dwell.
I spent an entire evening with him, and endeavored to explain to
him that your system  contained all there is of truth in orthodoxy;
that the animal nature of man is first developed; that, if it con-
tinues to be the active and the only guiding power  through life,  it
causes depravity enough to satisfy any one ;  but if the moral nature,
iu due time, puts forth its energies, obtains ascendency, and controls
and administers all the  actions of life  in  obedience  to  the highest
laws, there will be righteousness  enough to satisfy any one;  that,
if he chose, he might call the point, where the sentiments prevailed
over the propensities, the hour of regeneration; nor was the phrase
— a  second  birth — too strong  to  express  the change; that this
change might be  wrought on the hearing of a sermon, or  when
suffering bereavement, or in the  silence and secrecy of meditation,
or on reading Mr. Combe's " Constitution of Man; " and, as God
operates upon our mental organization through means,  these might
be the means of sanctifying us.   He adopted my views on the sub-
ject, and is now, I believe, a convert beyond the danger of apostasy.
But,  my dear sir,  I have occupied so  much space with this case of
conversion, that I have little for other things I wished to say.  . . .
                         Very truly yours,
                                                HORACE MANN.

   March —.   This afternoon, attended the anniversary meeting of
the Warren-street  Chapel Association,  and heard a very interesting
              8 
114               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
report read by  Rev. Charles Barnard.   No  remarks were made.
Fifteen hundred children have been connected with the institution
since it  was opened.  Had Sir J. Herschel  been here  to  tell of
fifteen hundred new stars which he  had catalogued in the southern
hemisphere, would he not have excited a much deeper interest, and
had many more  hearers ?
  This institution seeks out those children who seem  to be outside
of all the favorable  influences of  civilization.   As  shadows are
always deepest where the light is brightest, those who are  in the
shadow of the bright light of civilization are in  the deepest darkness.
Our institutions for moral,  social, and religious improvement, seem
to have, in  most instances,  answered their end, or fulfilled their
promise, when the  community have been brought within the circle
of their action; but a portion of the community are outside that
circle, and therefore are even worse situated, relatively, than they
would be in  a  less advanced  state of society.   These  need an
institution like the chapel.
  March 31.   Engaged to lecture four times this week, at Lynn,
Salem, and  Newburyport.   Oh my poor body !
  June 13. .  . . Went to Nantucket, saw Mr. Pierce, obtained the
consent of the school committee for his discharge from his engage-
ments to them,  and returned yesterday worn down  with fatigue.
But, at last, I believe we have  a competent  principal for one of
our Normal schools;  and this  is  a subject for  unbounded  re-
joicing.
  June 21.   Attended on Thursday a meeting of the Executive
Committee of the Board to act upon a proposition from Prof. New-
man.  . . .  Thus the two  schools at Lexington and Barre are now
provided  for,  and I am relieved  of a weight of anxiety and care
which has been almost too much for me.

   The  subject  of Normal schools now became the one
which Mr. Mann considered of  the fust importance, and
Mr. Pierce proved to have qualifications for his vocation
even beyond his expectations.   He not  only knew how* to
teach with  precision, but he evoked  from his pupils, for
the reception  of his teaching, such  a force of conscience 
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.              115
 as insured thorough study and assimilation of whatever
 was taught.   When Mr. Mann first visited his school in
 Nantucket, he was charmed by the evidence of power that
 the whole management  and  all  the  recitations of  the
 school evinced; and, when  he spoke  of it afterward to
 gentlemen of the place, one  of the most respectable citi-
 zens  said  to him  that  he had lived forty  years on  the
 South Shore, and could always tell Mr. Pierce's scholars,
 whenever  he met them  in the walks of life, by their mode
 of transacting business, and by all their mental habits,
 which were conscientious,  exact, reliable.   Mr. Pierce
 had taught  in that  vicinity  the  greater  part of  those
 years.  From that time, Mr. Mann  had his eye upon him;
 and he always  felt that to Mr. Pierce was chiefly owing
 the very rapid  and unquestionable value, in all  eyes, of
 this new movement.  Those who were conversant with his
 modes of instruction, and of appeal to the  sense of  intel-
 lectual and moral duty in his  pupils, can pick them out,
 even  now, from other  teachers.   This characteristic of
 the school was handed down  many years through the
 influence of his early pupils, two of whom were professors
 in Antioch College.

   June 14.   Last evening  and this, attended Mr. Espy's lectures
 on the Law of Storms.   He certainly starts upon a fair philosophic
 basis, and seems to advance nothing visionary or extravagant.  No
 doubt  the motion of every  particle both of wind and vapor has its
 law, and so of all particles in combination; and why should not ob-
 servation and reflection discover what that law is ? ... So far as we
 know the operations of the  Deity, he seems to work by fixed, inva-
 riable laws;  and special interpositions give place, in the opinions of
men, just as fast as science advances.  This gives glorious augury.
  July 2.   To-moi-row we go to Lexington to launch the first Nor-
mal school on this side the Atlantic.   I cannot indulge at  this late
hour of the night, and in my present state of fatigue, in an expression
of the tit in  of thought which the contemplation of this event awa- 
116               LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
kens  in  my  mind.   Much must come of it, either of good or of
ill.  I am sanguine in my faith that it will be the former.  But the
good will not come itself.   That is the reward of effort, of toil, of
wisdom.   These, as far as possible, let me furnish.  Neither time
nor care, nor such thought as I am able to originate, shall be wanting
to make  this  an era in the welfare and  prosperity of our  schools;
and, if it is so,  it will then be an era in the welfare of mankind.
   July 3.  The day opened with one  of the most copious rains we
have had this rainy season.   Only three persons presented them-
selves for examination for the  Normal School in  Lexington.   In
point  of  numbers, this  is not a promising commencement.   How
much of  it is to be set down to the weather, how much to  the fact
that the opening of the school  has been delayed so long, I cannot
tell.  What remains but  more exertion, more and more, until  it
must succeed?
   Aug. 11.   Still at Cape Cottage  (near Portland), where I have
been enjoying the society of Mr. Combe, who is,  on the whole, the
completest philosopher  I have ever  known.   Ideas so  comprehen-
sive and just, feelings so humane and so true, I think I have never
known before combined in the same individual. It has indeed been
a most agreeable, and I think instructive, visit to me. . . .  Mr. Combe
comprehends how he is  made, and why he was made, and he acts as
the laws of his nature indicate ;  and, by submitting to the limitations
which the Deity has imposed on his nature, he is enabled to perform
the duties which the Deity requires of it.
   Aug.  19.   Great Barrington. ... To make an impression in
Berkshire in regard  to the  schools is like attempting to batter down
Gibraltar with one's fist. ... My health fails.  I may perish in the
cause; but I will not abandon  it, and will only increase my efforts
as  it needs them more.
   Aug.  SI.   Greenfield.  There was not encouragement at North-
ampton.  Ah me !  I have hold of  so large  a mountain, there is
much  danger that I shall break my own back in trying to lift it!
I could not shake the dust, but only the mud, off my feet ao-ainst
them.   But to  have any ill feeling  toward them would only turn
apathy into hostility; and as for despondence, the  cause is  so <rio-
rious that it must dispel that.  ... I wish the county of Franklin 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
117
could have  the  spirit of Franklin.  In  this town much has been
done, though, I  fear, not in the right way.
   Sept. 1.   Heard a sermon this morning from  the Rev.----- of
-----.   I do not wonder that ministers produce so little effect upon
their audiences.    They attempt to write  more than  almost any
mortal can accomplish.  The  consequence is, that, with all possible
diligence and effort, they  must write  mainly their first  thoughts.
They have  no time  for culling, but must  fill their baskets with
whatever grows  rankest and  is first found.   This induces a habit
of writing not only without premeditation, but without meditation.
All thoughts are made  equally welcome.  Out  comes  a stream of
commonplaces.  First, there  is a simple want of excitement; then
the sermons become sedative and soporific; then they supersede opium
as a narcotic.  Thus ends the minister's  power.   Thus are turned
into weakness the mighty elements given them to use.  Without con-
tinued effort, the mind loses its power to  make effort.  Eventually,
therefore, even a strong mind, being compelled  to write weak ser-
mons, is reduced to the level  of its own productions.
   To-morrow  the convention.  In  Berkshire, they explained and
excused the  thinness of the  meeting because the day was fair; in
Northampton, because it was stormy.   The truth lies in the dearth,
or death,  of interest in the  subject.   That  interest I  have got
to create.   The  edifice is not only to be reared, but the very mate-
rials out of  which it is to be  constituted) are to be grown.    Can I
grow them ? — that is the question.   In part, perhaps, may be the
answer.  Some  one  else may arise to  form  them into a noble and
everlasting temple.  Mine may be the labor, and another's the honor.
Well, if I knew the  work  would go on  when my labors cease, I
would not touch the  question  of ultimate honor.   Give me the cer-
tainty that the cause shall prosper, and I will waive all question
about honor; nay, even in  the uncertainty whether it will succeed
at all, it shall have my extremcst exertions.
   Sept. 5. .  . .  Spent the morning at Barre.   Twelve-young ladies
and eight young gentlemen admitted to the Normal School.  Shall
undoubtedly have thirty by the end of the  month.   This is a fan-
beginning.   May it go on prosperously !   This afternoon, the Gov-
cnor (Briggs) delivered a very acceptable address, touching upon 
118               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
the origin, progress, advantages, and hopes of a Normal school.   . .
In  the midst of adverse events blowing  on opposite sides of my
boat, it is my business to keep it in trim. . . .

                                          Boston, Sept. 11,1839.
  G.  Combe, Esq.   My very dear Sir, — Since I had the  pain
of  parting with  you  and  Mrs.  Combe, I have been realizing
the existence of perpetual motion; otherwise I  would not  have
allowed so much time  to  pass  by  without reminding  myself, by
writing to you,  of the  pleasant and instructive visit which I made at
Portland.   Never have  I passed a week in my life more congenial
to my coronal region.    The quiet cottage, and  the half-earth,  half-
ocean landscape, are vividly present to my view;  and the old rocks
upon the shore, where the philosopher  sat and discoursed wisdom,
are as firmly fixed in my memory as they are in their own bed.   It
will take a  long time, and  much beating  by storms, to  wear them
out.  And when  I  think of the  sail in the boat, and the rides in
the old chaise, I will not say that I grow sentimental; but I regret
that I had any other brain-work to do, wliich prevented me from
enjoying them as I ought.
  Since I left you, I have held six educational conventions in parts
of the State nearly two hundred  miles  from  each other, and in the
intermediate places,  besides  being  present and  assisting in  the
examinations and opening  of the  Normal School  at Barre.   The
opening of the two Normal  schools, and the finding of two suitable
and acceptable individuals to take  charge  of them, cost me an
incredible amount of anxiety.   I believe I counted over all the  men
in New England  by tale before I  could find any who would  take
the schools without  a fair prospect of ruining them.  But I trust
we  have succeeded.   At  any rate, my  nightmare  begins to go
off.   I  will  not trouble  you  by  stating the difficulties of the
problem given to  me for solution; which was to do right, and not
offend  the ultra-orthodox.   I needed  your philosophy, i.e. equa-
nimity, for that task.
  I have heard but the  expression of one opinion  on the subject of
your coming here for another course of lectures. .  . .
  I cannot express to  you my sense of undeserved honor for the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               119
insertion of my name in the new edition of your lectures on educa-
tion.   The first aspect in which the fact presented itself to my mind,
when the dedication was shown to me, was, that it might render the
expression of my sincere opinions about the worth of your works a
little suspicious, as people might think that those  views, which were
dictated by all the judgment I have, possibly came from my grati-
tude for your kindness and the expression of  your good will.   But
I will try to manage it in such a way that you shall lose as little as
possible for conferring upon me an honor I did not deserve. .  . .
  My kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Combe.
                                               HORACE MANN.

  Sept.  14.   On Thursday I went to Lexington, where  I  spent
the whole day in Mr.  Pierce's school; and a most  pleasant  day it
was.   Highly as I had appreciated his talent, he surpassed the ideas
I had formed of his ability to  teach, and in that  prerequisite  of  all
successful  teaching,  the power of winning  the  confidence of his
pupils.   This surpassed what I have ever seen before in any school.
The exercises were conducted  in the  most thorough manner: the
principle being stated,  and then applied  to various combinations of
facts, so  that the pupils were not  only  led to  a clearer apprehension
of the principle itself, but taught to look through combinations of
facts, however different, to find the principle  which underlies them
all; and they were taught, too, that  it is not the form of the fact
which determines the. principle, but the principle which gives char-
acter to the fact. . . .
  Sept. 21.  This morning, bade good-by to Nantucket.   Did all
parts of  the  State receive me  as cordially, and  pay half as  much
attention to my views, as the good people of Nantucket, there would
soon be a common-school revolution in the State.  But this is far
from being the ca'se: therefore I have  so much the more to do.
Many  people kindly express  sympathy with me  in regard to the
embarrassments which I encounter, and the obstacles thrown in my
path; and  are  pleased to say  that they have  feared that I shall be
discouraged.   They do not know the stuff I am made of.
  Sept. 23.  To-morrow is Convention  Day for  Barnstable.   The
prospect  is very unpromising.   Those are absent,  who, in former 
120
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
years, have contributed to the interest of the meetings.   Barnstable
does not seem to have felt  any tingle, which, in other places, has
begun an excitement.  When the tool is dull, or the material tough,
put on more strength !
   Sept. 24.  The day is over.   As miserable  a convention as can
well be conceived.  If the Lord will, I will;  that is, I will work
in this moral as well as physical sand-beach of a county until I can
get some new things to grow out of it.
   Sept. 29.  Plymouth.   The cause is getting ahead  in Plymouth
County, beyond question.   A large  house was well filled here all
day.
   I am surprised to hear people express their surprise that I do not
tire of this business.  Why should I tire of such a cause ?   If I
meet with encouragement, can  any thing be more congenial to my
feelings than to contemplate the progress of so glorious a movement?
If, on  the other hand, obstacles are thrown in its way, what higher
service can any one perform  than to endeavor  to remove them?
The more opposition, the more  need of effort.
   Oct. 1.   Dedham.  To-day, have  had what  must be called the
convention in Dedham, — a meagre,  spiritless, discouraging affair.
A few present, and all who were present chilled, — choked by their
own fewness.   Surely, if the schoolmaster  is abroad in this county,
I should be glad to meet him.   So  it is : but it must be otherwise ;
perhaps not in my day; but, while my day lasts, I will do something
to have it otherwise.
   Oct. 13.  A tolerable week as  to brains.   I have made  some
little progress in digesting the form of a Report.  . . .  Heard, a short
time since, of the destitute condition of many Irish children on the
railroad  between  Springfield  and  the  New-York line.   To-day,
wrote to Mr.-----that I would be responsible for the expense of
their instruction, and that he  might engage teachers, at least  for
three months from the 1st of November.
   Oct. 27. . . . To-morrow I begin the great work of getting out
the  "Abstract  of  School  Returns," — a gigantic labor; but  I go
into it " choke-full " of resolve.  Come on, labor, if you will brin"
health in your company.
   Nov. 17.  Laboring at  my  Abstract and Report with  unabated 
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
121
vigor.  How  the  granite mass  gives way under  the  perpetual
droppings of industry!  Oh for continuance in a good degree of
health ! and then exertion in this glorious cause will be a pastime.
Neglected, lightly esteemed  among men, cast out, as it were, from
the regards of society, I seem to myself to know that the time will
come when education will  be reverenced as the highest of earthly
employments.   That time I am never to see, except with  the eye
of faith; but  I am to do something that  others may  see it, and
realize it sooner than they otherwise would.  Their enjoyment may
be greater  than mine ; but if my duty hastens that enjoyment, then
that duty is greater than  theirs.   And shall I shrink when called
to the post of the higher duty ?

   The above passage  is  a strong proof of how little  the
public estimated the value  of such labors as Mr. Mann
was engaged in at that time.  He was made to feel keenly
that the President  of the State  Senate, and a lawyer in
lucrative practice, held  a very different place  in society
from the  Secretary of the Board of Education on a small
salary.

   Dec. —.  During the week,  I had an informal proposition to go
to Missouri, as president of a college, with a salary of three thousand
a year, a  splendid house, gardens, &c.; but, as far as my own
preferences are concerned, I would rather remain here, and work
for mere bread, than go there for the wealth of the great Valley of
the Mississippi.  Oh,  may  I prosper in  this!   I ask no other
reward for all my labors.   This is my only object  of ambition; and,
if this is lost, what tie will bind me to earth ?
   Dec. 29.  The Board met and adjourned.   Did the occasion of
reading a Report to them occur often, I certainly could not survive
it.  But it has passed.

   Those  who know the  estimation  in which Mr. Mann
was  held  by his friends will perceive that this fearful
despondency was very much  due to the utter prostration
of strength,  which, at this time, followed  unusual labors. 
122
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
Some  of his friends would  have  been  thankful  beyoi.d
measure to  have taken  him into their families as guest,
boarder, or on any terms he would  prescribe ;  and urged
him in the warmest terras to come to them': but he shrunk
from any thing that interfered with his total independence,
and was unwilling  to  carry his heavy heart and  failing
health into any happy circle.  His solitary room, however,
was forcibly invaded by those  who loved him, when  he
disappeared from their view for any length of time.

  Jan. 5, 1840.   Sunday.  With the close of the old  year, and
the  incoming of the new, I had many thoughts  in my mind, but no
power to say them.  The year 1839, from  ill health, from opposi-
tion in the  sacred cause which I have wholly  at heart,  and from
being called upon to  do impossible things by the Board of Educa-
tion, has been the most painful year — save the year — that I have
ever suffered.  But it  has  passed.  I have come  out of it. -  The
cause has come out of it, and is beginning to give signs of vitality.
I enter upon another year not without some gloom and apprehen-
sion, for  political madmen  are raising voice and arm against the
Board ; but I enter it with a determination, that, I trust, will prove
a match for secondary causes.  If the First Cause has  doomed our
overthrow, I give it up; but,  if any thing short of  that, I hold on.
Three lectures this week.
  Jan. 2(3.    This week, on Wednesday, Governor Morton gave his
inaugural address.  He cut  the  Board  of Education  entirely.
Probably he did not know' of its existence.   He has  got to know
it.  He has made a mistake on his own personal account, I  believe.
But time will make further developments.
  Feb. 2.  Some partisan men are making efforts to demolish the
Board  of Education; but  all the jealousies which ignorance  en-
genders cannot be  entered  and recorded here.   It is my fortune to
stand  as  the pioneer of this movement;  and, like other pioneers, I
cannot expect to escape unscathed.   But it is a cause  worth beinw
sacrificed for: and, first, I will try to conquer; but, if conquest is
impossible, then I will try to bear. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
123
   Feb. 16.   Looked over the  last proof-sheet of my Report on
Friday.  It will be  distributed  to-morrow.   What fate awaits it, I
must wait to see.   It has caused me great anxiety; and, if it causes
anxiety to my friends, we shall be a sorry company.   But it has
aimed  at truth;  and if it brings truth down, and allows all to par-
ticipate in it and to  enjoy it, the labor it has cost will be repaid
with abounding joy.   I have done my best in the circumstances, and
must stiffen my back to take consequences.


                                           Boston, Feb. 22,1840.

   G.  Combe, Esq.,  New Haven.   My  very dear  Sir, — It  is
now almost two months since I received your kind parting, and, as
yet, unanswered note.  It giieved  me to be sick; but as a conse-
quence of it was your departure from the city, without  another
interview, and another expression both of  the benefits and the  plea-
sure I  had derived from your acquaintance, I was almost more sorry
for the effect than for the  cause.   After  that capsize, I righted
pretty  soon: and need enough of it there was; for the boat in which
some of the interests of education seem to be embarked has been
assailed by  cross-currents,  head-flaws,  and  some monsters of the
deep.  ' But Palinurus has not slept, and she will weather the storm.
First came the  Governor's  Address, which committed that  high
treason to truth which consists  in perverting great  principles  to
selfish  ends.  Then the cry  of expense has been raised;  and,  were
an Englishman to hear it, he would think  the Board  of  Education
was trying to outvie the British national debt.  But it will end  in
alienating a portion of the public mind from  the cause, which it will
cost us another year's labor  to reclaim.
   What an enemy to the  human race is a party-man!  To get
ashore  himself is his  only object: he cares not who else sinks.
   There are some good men in Albany;  which proves that Nature
will have some good souls, notwithstanding all efforts  to baffle  her.
There was your friend Mr. Dean of Albany, and Mr. Barnard,  now
representative in  Congress,  and  Gen. Dix,  formerly  Secretary of
State, who are worthy to be  remembered in  any consultation about
destroying the city. 
124
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
   I have just been listening to a course of lectures on geology.  This
is truly a magnificent science.  It has kept my causality and vene-
ration in a state of great activity.   I never enjoyed but one course
of lectures more than that.   The fact that made  it most delightful
to me was, that many of our granite, felspar, hornblende, and mica
State Orthodox attended; and before  all these, the lecturer, who is
known to be one  of the elect, assaulted, bombarded, battered, and
demolished the six-days' account of the creation,  until I sometimes
fancied I could hear Moses himself crying out, " Et tu, Brute? "
Probably they would not have heard the same thing from any other
man extant.  He not only enlarged the creation immensely, but he
reduced the  Deluge to a  mere puddle.  He said there was not an
existing phenomenon on earth which could certainly be traced to it.
All this broke up through the primary and secondary formations of
bigotry, just as his own volcanic fires rushed up through the corre-
sponding geological strata.   When, in the last lecture but one, he
came to the upheaving action of earthquakes and volcanoes, he. only
described in the physical world what I had seen going on every day,
so far as his audience was concerned, in the moral.  Ho attempted
to reconcile  himself to Moses; but that made one think of the two
men (is it not in " Gil Bias"?) who shook hands, and were enemies
ever afterwards. ...
   Farewell  to  you both,  and believe  me  ever,  with the  greatest
esteem,                   Yours,
                                                HORACE MANN.

  March  15.  This week has been wholly devoted to preparations
to meet the  atrocious attack upon  the Board  of  Education.   The
question still pends; but I am too much exhausted and worn out to
comment upon it.   I am compelled to go to New York; and the
chance is that I must be absent when the day of trial comes.  This
is bad, but inevitable.   I must submit; but the cause shall  not die,
if I can sustain  or resuscitate it.  New modes may be found, if old
ones fail.   Perseverance, perseverance, and so on a thousand times,
and ten thousand times ten thousand.
  March  19.  New York.   Was  obliged  to leave Boston yester-
day in the midst of the Report of the Education Committee for abol- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
125
ishing the Board.  Of course, the question is undoubtedly decided;
but I remain in ignorance, and must do so until to-morrow morning,
when, on arrival of the mails, I shall learn its fate.  Let it come.
If the Board is abolished, it will show how much is to be done in
this great cause; and I think it will only inspire me with new zeal
to accomplish it.   If, on the other hand, it triumphs, then its claim
to public favor  must be evidenced by the good it shall accomplish.
In either case, I stand almost pledged, if right, to advance the right;
if wrong, to repair the wrong.
   March 21.  Heard  yesterday from Boston that the bigots and
vandals  had  been signally defeated in their wicked attempts to de-
stroy the Board  of Education: 182  in  favor of the attempt, 245
against it.   I have not as yet been able to bring my mind into a
state to describe the merits of the case.   Perhaps I may do it some
time ; perhaps it is not worth doing :  but the letters of congratula-
tion over their defeat  show how much others enjoy it.
   Yesterday Mr. and Mrs. Combe arrived here from New Haven;
and  we  soon struck  up a bargain to travel together to the West.
From this I promise myself great pleasure and advantage.  To be
able  to  enjoy for a month  the  society of that man will familiarize
great truths  to my mind,  if it  does  not communicate many new
ones.   The utile et dulce could rarely be more happily united.
   March 22. . . . Another huzza from Boston to-day on account
of the defeat of our enemies.
   March 28.  Washington. .  .  .  This is  the  first  time  I  have
ever seen the Capitol.   This is the first day I  ever  set  my foot
upon  soil polluted by  slavery.    This day,  on witnessing groups
of colored  persons, such feelings have poured into my mind as I
have no  language to express.   They  are  too strong to be  formed
into words'.   To-night, after many days of excitement, my mind is
not in a condition to declare what is in it.   At some future time, I
hope these  emotions may take body and life.
  March 30.  Yesterday  attended meeting  in  the  Capitol, and
heard a roaration.  It might, perhaps, be called a sermon; but it
had not one idea calculated to give  clearer views of truth or stronger
feelings of duty.   Oh !  when will  the world be free from the drag-
chain of most of the clergy ? 
126               LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
   To-day I have been in the hall of the House of Representatives
and in the Senate Chamber; have seen the rooms, and  heard the
magnates.  My impression of the magnificence  of the former ha.s
been increased more than that of the greatness of the latter.   Oh!
how much good might these men do, if they would forget the inter-
ests of party, and attend to the welfare of mankind!  Civilization
would bound forward with unwonted speed, if the tenth part of the
talent or  a hundredth part  of the resources were devoted  to the
amelioration of the race, which are now neutralized by the conflicts
of parties.  Would each party strive for the whole, each would be
vastly more benefited than it now is.
   March 31.  Baltimore.  . . .  Ascended the Washington  Monu-
ment, 180 feet in height, and cost $200,000, — a great height and a
great sum ; but they were for a great man.  He left his monument,
however,  in the improved  condition of his  country:  that is the
only noble monument.
   April 5.  Wheeling. . .  . The Alleghanies are not stupendous
to the perceptive, but only to the reflective, faculties.  The geolo-
gical characteristics were full of interest.   As we rode toward their
summit, the strata were almost uniformly inclining upward.  We
then passed on about fifty miles, surrounded only by hills of some-
what more than ordinary magnitude.   Here  the strata  were more
nearly horizontal: they were of trap.   When we came to the very
summit, they were of granite ; and, the moment we began to descend
from the western brow, the trap re-appeared, and the dip was toward
the west.   I was  lost in amazement  in  contemplating the vital
forces that upheaved this ponderous mass.   The vastness  of the
power, and the length of time that has elapsed since it was exerted.
were too immense for my comprehension, and made me yield myself
to a feeling of wonder and reverence.   Bald Mountain is-said to be
the highest point on this road.  Laurel Hill is the westernmost battle-
ment.   From this the descent is rapid; so rapid, indeed, that, in half
an hour, I think our thermometer must have risen ten or fifteen de-
grees.  The woods hitherto had  circumscribed our prospect  to the
narrowest  limits; and, as the road wound around the sides of hills
wliich it could not directly surmount, our view extended forward onl v
a few rods.  But at this point, all at once, as though a curtain had 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
127
been withdrawn, the Great Valley of the West burst upon us.  Away
in the horizon, as far as the eye could reach, in every direction, we
saw all  that the convexity of the earth's surface would allow.  It
was like a glance from a lofty headland upon the outstretched plain
of the ocean,  which, though level, seems to  rise  in the  distance.
So here we seemed to  see distant and gigantic mountains; and we
only knew by reflection, that what seemed to be a circular wall of
distant mountains was only an apparent elevation, owing to immense
extent, where  miles in length made only an inch in height.  It was
only in  this way that we approximated  to any adequate conception
of the vastness of the region which we saw, and of that immeasura-
bly vaster region which we could not see, — of that world of terri-
tory which lay beyond  the  reach of vision and below the line  of
light.
   April 8.   Cincinnati. ... I was  told by the pilot of the boat in
which we came from Wheeling to this place,  that,  according  to the
best estimate  he could form, the distance from  Cincinnati to Pitts-
burg is about  470 miles, and that the  River  Monongahela is  navi-
gable by steamboats ninety miles above Pittsburg.   I am satisfied
that the only way to get an adequate  idea of this country is to travel
through  it.    No imagination can give the  realizing sense  of  its
vastness, which is  caused by that deepening, day after day, of the
impression made  by actually  seeing it, and by  combining the two
elements of rapidity and length of time  in passing over  it.   The
imagination may conceive of great extent in an hour, or even in a
minute:  but imagination cannot hold on day after day;  and all her
impressions  upon the brain do not leave traces so  vivid, deep, and
strong as  come from actual observation,  and from being made to
comprehend by seeing and feeling, suffering and enjoying.
   April 11.   Spent the evening of  Thursday at the house of Mr.
Nathan  Guilford.   He is the author  of  the school  system  of  Ohio.
He prepared  the bill and carried it through  the  State Senate  in
1825.  What  great results have followed from this measure!  Here
is an encouragement.   Cannot I work  in a faith that needs only to
look as far forward as fifteen years ?
   April 20.  . .  .  On Monday we went to the " North Bend " to
see Gen. Harrison, as probable a candidate for the next Presidency 
128
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
as any man in the country.  He had been ill, — pale, thin, his skin
shrivelled, and his  motions weak.   He  entered  into conversation,
however, and seemed to gain strength and vivacity as he proceeded.
His conversation was sensible, without being learned or profound.
His manners had the utmost simplicity.  In the course of the visit,
he spoke of the events in which he had borne a conspicuous part, with-
out the  slightest elation ; and referred to his own frugal and homely
life, without a hint that his poverty was a thing either to be proud of
or ashamed of.  His dwelling is humble.   It is surrounded by a
large  enclosure, all  of which is a lawn, except that behind the house,
which is a garden.   The whole  is enclosed by  what is  called in
New  England a " Virginia fence."  We entered this  enclosure by
a gate large  enough for carts or carriages.   There was  no small
gate or  turn-stile by the side of the principal one, as usual; it hav
ing been wisely inferred that whatever could enter through a small
gate might enter through a large  one.  The gate was secured by a
wooden latch and button; and  the  only process necessary in order
to open it was to put the arm between its different rails, move the
button,  raise the latch, press against the gate, and the feat was fully
accomplished.  I doubt much if  Windsor  Park  has any such gate
in all its avenues.   The path leading from the gate aforesaid to the
door was such as had  been formed in the natural course of events
by the wheels of vehicles, and the indiscriminate feet of bipeds and
quadrupeds.   Of walks gravelled below and arbored above we saw
none.   The greensward had not been disturbed to make way for
flowers.   The water  had  not  been gathered  into fountains,  but
sought  its way, irrespective of jets d'eau, wherever  the  laws  of
gravitation inclined it.   The statues had not yet  left the quarry.
The doorsteps were  such laminae of unhewn and undressed stone as
Nature  had provided.    All that art had done was  to put  them in
the right place.
   The house was a  building with two wings.   Part of the central
building was veritable logs,  though now covered externally by clap-
boards,  and  within by wainscoting.   This covering and these wings
have been added since the log nucleus was rolled together.   The fur-
niture of the parlor could not have drawn very largely upon any one's
resources.   The walls were ornamented with a few portraits, some 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
129
 in frames, some disembodied  from a frame.   The  drawing-room
 was fitted up more in modern style; but the whole of the furniture
 and ornaments in  three rooms might  have cost  two hundred or
 one hundred and fifty dollars.
   I think that half the farmers and mechanics in  Norfolk  County,
 Mass., have a room quite as well furnished as the best room  of
 Gen. William H. Harrison,  the leading Whig candidate for the
 Presidency of the  United States.  The billiard-room of a certain
 gentleman in Boston would buy the general out of house  and home.
   But how, Mr. Traveller and Taker-of-notes, did all this act upon
 your contemplations?   These were my  lucubrations  thereupon.
 From that homely gateway never went forth any armed band to  do
 injustice.   No blood of human victims was upon the portals of the
 door.   If there were no flowers along the path, no tears had been
 transmuted into hue and odor by the taskmaster; and rather would I
 go out and in amid that rude carpentry, and sleep beneath a thatched
 roof on  a bed of straw, with obtruding winds  and storms for my
 lullaby,  than dwell in princely  palaces, in the midst of gardens like
 that  of  Eden, when  the wealth  that created the enchantments
 around  me had been  plundered in war,  or wrung by oppression
 from toiling vassals.
   The conversation and phrenological appearance of Gen. Harrison
 indicated a man of clear intellect, without any great strength.  His
 superiority undoubtedly comes from the absence of disturbing forces,
 rather than from original energy.  He said, that, when  Mr. Webster
 came to  see him a few years ago, he prepared such entertainment
 for him as his house afforded, but had no wine; and added, that he
 had had  none in his house for, I think, twenty years.   He  told his
 guests on that occasion that he should be glad to give them some,  as
 they were probably accustomed to it; but that, if he had bought any,
 he probably should  not be able to pay for it.  After Mr. Webster
 went  away, he inquired of his  fellow-guests if it were really true
 that the general did not keep  wine; and remarked, that he thought
 he should have it, whether he could pay for it or not.
   We were shown an eagle, which had been caught a few months
 since, and presented to the general at a public meeting.   At the
battle of  Fort Meigs, an eagle was seen hovering over the armies in
              9 
130
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
the midst of the engagement; and the orator, with a poet's license,
had taken  the liberty to presume that  the  eagle, which was then
regarded as an omen of martial victory over the foreign enemies of
the country, was the same which was now caught, and was to be the
omen  of a  civil  victory over its domestic  foes;  that is, in plain
prose, of a triumph of the Whigs over the Van Buren party.  When
Mr. J. C. Vaughan, who  accompanied  us, said that he must keep
the eagle, according to the trust, until  that political victory could
be achieved, — "Ah!" said the general  very promptly, "there
is  another condition to that.  If Mr. Van Buren will repent of his
iniquities, then he may remain where he  is, and I will remain where
lam."
   He has no predominant self-esteem, or love of approbation.  Those
organs are small.  Combativeness is also small.   Alimentivcness and
acquisitiveness are almost wanting.   The moral region is tolerably
developed ; but this absence of the great mischief-working propensi-
ties gives it fair play.  This is  the  key to  his character and  his-
tory.  .  . .
   I have never enjoyed and at the same time profited so much by
the society of any individual with whom I  have met as by that of
Mr. Combe; so that, as a  traveller, I  can hardly have a greater
misfortune  than to  miss him.   I hope they will return  from  Cin-
cinnati,  therefore, that we may go up the river together.
   This  country has been created  on a  splendid  scale of physical
magnificence.   Are its  intellectual and moral proportions to be of
a corresponding greatness ?  We trust in God they are ; for, if such
an energy of physical nature predominates,  it will lead to extremes
of licentiousness, of brutal  indulgence  of  all kinds,  such as  the
world has never yet exhibited.
   April 24.   No Mr. Combe.   My desire to see him is so great,
that I defer my departure till to-morrow.   If he does not come by
that time, I must bid adieu to  the expectation of ever seeing  him
again.  This will be most painful.  .  . .
                                           Boston, May 9,1840.
   My dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe,—I am suffering under a malady
for which there  is  no prescription in the  pharmacopoeia,  nor  any
skill in  the professors of the healing art.   It is an intellectual  and 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
131
moral atrophy.   After being high fed for  five or six weeks, I am
suddenly put upon the teetotal system.   How I long for the nodes
et  dies  deorum  again!   For a renewal of this wise pleasure, or
pleasant wisdom, I would sleep with a steam-boiler breathing in my
face, or "he over" in  that  odd caravansary where Jonah  took
lodgings for three days and nights; or, «if  nothing else would pro-
cure it,  I would  again enter a canal-boat.  I am reminded of what
Lord Byron said,—that hearing Mrs. Siddons had disqualified him
from enjoying the  theatre forever.   We came  from Stonington to
Providence, and from  Providence   to  Boston, ninety miles,  in
three hours  and fifty   minutes.   Had the cars bolted from the
track, or butted upon it, no righteousness would have saved us. .  . .
   Territorially, how insignificant  Massachusetts appears to me !  It
is  not large enough for a door-yard  for  the West.   Rhode Island
always  seemed to  me  very minute, compared with Massachusetts;
and  I remember that one of my brother-collegians at Providence,
who was offended at something there, once threatened to shovel  it
into  the ocean ! but, as compared with that trans-Alleghanic world
(of which there  is enough to make a planet), there is not much
difference between the two.  But, as you say, every thing is by com-
parison; or, more classically, " smallness is  as peoples thinks."  .  . .
I found all things had  subsided into  accustomed quiet or torpor in
relation to the Board of Education.   The universal forces of society
are all concentrated upon a revival in religion, or a change in the
administration.   Distant and foreign events are said to have charms
for our people.   If so, the cause of education should begin to have
attractions for them ; for I hardly  know of any thing more distant or
foreign to them than that. .  . .
   Well, my dear friends, I must  bid you farewell.   Had I control
over the laws of Nature, I should fill not only the month of June,
but all the rest of your days, with  special providences in your behalf.
Farewell again; and whatever words are the strongest to express my
esteem and affection, consider me  as  saying them.
                                                HORACE MANN.

   May  10.   I arrived in Boston a week since, after a journey of
tliree thousand miles.  In  Philadelphia I parted with Mr. Combe, 
132              LTFE OF  HORACE MANN.
who seems to me to understand, far better  than  any other man I
ever saw,  the principles on which the human race has been formed,
and by following which  their most sure  and  rapid advancement
would be secured.   I have never  been acquainted with a  mind
which handled such  great subjects with such  ease, and, as it appears
to me, with such justness. • He has constantly gratified my strongest
faculties.  The world knows him not.  In the next century, I have
no doubt, he will be looked back upon  as the greatest man of the
present.   But  he has a  mind fitted for this extensive range.   I
have no doubt  it would cause him great  pain, were he to believe
that his name would never emerge into celebrity: but  he has  an
extent of thought by which the next age is now present to  him,
and he sees that his persecuted and contemned views will then  be
triumphant; and, with that  assurance, he  can forego contemporary
applause.   Let me, too, labor for  something more  enduring  than
myself.
   May 23.   Another  Abstract of school  returns to be prepared,
and, of course,  an enormous amount of  labor to be  done; but to
this I go with  good heart, knowing the wonder-working power of
diligence.
   The Governor said that he had not been satisfied with the course
of the Board in relation to the library.   The act creating them was
very general.   It made it their duty to  attend to education in  all
its  parts.    He did not  know but that  the act would authorize
them to take measures for the military education of the people.   The
form of approval adopted by the Board seemed  to carry us back a
century or two.  It approximates to a  license.   If  it were a new
question, he should  be opposed.  It looks  like the old black-letter
licenses.   He could not sanction  it without  compromising his own
rights.  He professed not to wish to injure those who had embarked
in it; was willing it should  continue, if it could  be  done without
the names; was very much in favor of libraries.
   The second  day,  Mr. Hudson called  him  out by saying that it
seemed useless to discuss questions about altering the form of the
sanction of the  Board,  until  it was known how far the objections of
any member went, whether to the present form only, or to the whole
plan.   To this the Governor rephed, that he  doubted the right and 
                   LTFE OF  HORACE MANN.               133

the propriety of the Board giving any recommendation to books;
and he read part  of a  letter which he had prepared to send to the
publishers, which was as follows :  " I must decline to give my official
sanction to any book which has been  or may be presented to the
Board " !
   After this, a modification became indispensable.  Thus  has the
most excellent plan of  the  Board, in relation to this most important
subject, been defeated.

                                       Weentham, June 11,1840.
   My dear Friend, — I  received your former letter while I was
putting up lightning-conductors to draw off the electricity from that
cloud that had been raised against the Board.  For a few days, I
assure you .there was not much leisure ;  and finally, as you know,
the moral paragreles drew off the  elements of fanaticism and mam-
mon with which it was bursting.  ...  I should be glad if I could
make you see that this cause is wholly a practical one, and that all
advancement in it  is to be  accomplished by human means, and not
by transcendentalism;  but it is hard, after all, to correct any one's
mistakes, when  those  mistakes come  from having higher, purer,
more disinterested  feelings  than belong to the rest of mankind.
   I was much  interested in the story you told me of  the young
lady at the Normal school.  I  rejoice  that the motive to do  right
prevailed;  though  I think it was the  absence of intellectual  light
that gave such an aspect  to the  subject.   The higher  sentiments
run into mistakes  almost  as easily as the  propensities.  Intellect
and  knowledge  are equally necessary for  the  guidance of both.
You have adverted to  another subject, on which, perhaps,  I ought
to say a word.   You left it at my discretion to do as I thought best
about presenting your  note to the Board.   I exercised that discre-
tion, but said nothing to you at the time, because I felt  it would be
impossible to make you see all the inherent difficulties with which
the subject  was surrounded.   I strained  my head and heart  for
three months last spring, and almost brought on insanity or idiocy,
to obviate  the difficulties, to allay the  prejudices, to harmonize the
oppositions, which encompassed that enterprise.  I had the assistance
of no mortal in it all.   Nay, some, who ought to  have  aided me, 
134
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
almost openly blamed me that I did not at once make a perfect man,
as God made  Adam,  and set  him over the  school,  without any
salary.
  But the Normal  School  has " got to going," and will go  at
some time, though this attempt should fail:  but it never would go
without more or less  of these obstacles; and I feel glad, therefore,
that  the pioneering has been  done. ... If you have leisure, a
good use you can make of part of it would be in writing to  me.
I have much that I would say to you, had I time; but a printing-
press is roaring behind  me, and I must say good-by.
                    Affectionately as ever,
                                                      H. M.

  Aug. 9.  I  have  only to  record that  yesterday I had  the last
proof of the Abstract.  That great work, therefore, with the excep-
tion of the Index, Report, &c., is done;  a labor  in which I have
almost died within the last  ten weeks.  I  now resolve never to
undertake to do so much work in so short a time again.   It  is a
violation of the natural and organic laws :  these are wisely  framed,
and it is unwise to disregard  them.

  This kind  of resolve was, perhaps, the only kind that
Mr.  Mann  never  kept.   He  always  did the  work that
presented itself, let  it cost him  what  it might;  and was
often so prostrated by his exertions, — which were always
ardently made, and  with  his  whole soul, — that  his
friends feared  he  would  wholly disable himself.   I pro-
ceed  with extracts from his journal, that the world may
know that his office was no sinecure.  He  continued to
lecture several times a week from this date.

  Aug. 29.  Lectured extempore  at Holmes Hole, owino- to the
peculiarities of  the place ;  then at Nantucket, at New  Bedford, at
the  convention.  An extempore lecture at Westport to a small au-
dience.  A hundred citizens went from New Bedford  to Westport
to hear a  political address a  few  evenings  ago, which is  exceed-
ingly flattering to my self-esteem, and love of approbation.   But I 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
135
must take my pay, not out of those organs, but out of conscientious-
ness and benevolence : these are long-lived powers, and shall stand
when  the day of the others  is passed away forever.   This county
is one of the  dark spots of the earth.   I would  'pray most heartily
for the success of the convention to-morrow, but am satisfied that
success,  if it comes  at  all,  must come from works, not prayers.
Politics have absorbed every thing else here.    The  idea  of  effect-
ing political reforms by reforming the sources whence all evils  pro-
ceed seems not to have entered the minds of  this people.
  Sept.  10.   Tuesday, the convention at  Bridgewater; which,
considering all  circumstances, was  pretty fair.   Wednesday, we
launched the Bridgewater Normal School.   How  much depends
upon its success  !  Last evening, I returned to give  the  last touch
to the Abstract.   A better work on the subject never has appeared,
as I believe,  in  any language.  It cannot but  do immense good;
and  half a century hence,  I predict, it will be looked  upon as
one of the most  interesting  documents  of the  age.   Now it will
excite no notice except in  a few minds;  unless, indeed,  some bad
persons may  seize upon it as a means of mischief.*
  Sept. 15.   Wellfleet: a miserable, contemptible, deplorable con-
vention.   This morning, on arriving,  I found that not the slightest
thino- had been  done by way of arrangement; absolutely nothing.
To-morrow I will shake the dust from off my feet in regard to this
place.   Thus far I have  found things in a deplorable condition in
this county.   How will it be ten years  hence ?   Such a state of
things was  not  to be  anticipated  anywhere  in  Massachusetts.
But I see every day how much is to be  done.  On Wednesday,
the 16th, I  came,  through  Eastham,  Orleans, and  Brewster, to
Dennis.   Visited several schools and schoolhouses, and found both
schools  and  schoolhouses very miserable.  Lectured  in  the  even-
ing : making four  successive evenings of lecturing.   Thursday,
went to South Dennis to  see if any interest could  be  found or
inspired  there. .  . . Visited  a school where  the intellectual  exer-
cises were wretched in the extreme:  returned, and visited another

  * This Abstract was compiled from the written reports of every school com-
raittep in the State. 
136               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
in the afternoon with  but little  more  satisfaction.    At  evening
came  to  Yarmouth: called on Mr. -----,  with whom I  did not
feel very  good-natured,  on  account of  his  want of  interest in
the schools.   Thus ends the Cape tour, with all the good  in  pros-
pect.
   Sept. 30.  Had a meagre  convention last week at Barre.   Poli-
tics are the idol which the people  have  gone  after,  and  the  true
gods  must go without worship.   The President  of the  County
Association, and of the American  Institute  of Instruction,  saw
fit to stay away.    When those who  heretofore have professed the
greatest interest in  the  cause,  and who seem bound to support
it by their official relations, fall off, I must do so much the more, —
both their part and my own.
   Yesterday I closed up affairs for F.anklin County by a conven-
tion most miserable in point of numbers ;  almost  all of the princi-
pal men  of the  village going out of it to attend a political con-
vention at Deerfield.   Surely, if I were not proof against slights,
neglects,  and  mortifications,  I should abandon this cause in de-
spair.   But it  is this indifference which  makes perseverance  a
virtue.  Did I meet with universal encouragement and sympathy,
the work would  be so delightful as to repay exertions as fast as
they were made.   It is  these neglects that put me to the proof;
and I will stand  that proof.   Yet who could have believed before-
hand  that  such  men as  ----T, -----,  -----, -----,  &c, would
have  left  the  Common-school  Convention  in their own  town to
go abroad to a political one ?
   Oct. 1.  Pittsfield.   Visited a school  in Lanesborough;  then
came  here, and visited two more.  To-morrow is the day of the con-
vention, when I  am to  appear before somebody perhaps, but proba-
bly very few.  All causes prosper  more than the greatest of all;
and everybody is more ready to hear of subordinate and temporary
interests  than of primary and permanent ones.   If it is not my
mission to change this state of things, it is to  commence a change
of proceedings which will one day result in a change.
   Oct. 2.  The  day of shame is over.  At ten o'clock,  the time ap-
pointed for the  convention, not  an individual had come  into the
place.  At half-past eleven,  eight  or ten made their  appearance 
LTFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               137
from other towns, who, with about a  dozen on the spit, constitut-
ed the  convention.   This  afternoon, I lectured to about a dozen
women  and  some  hundred  men;   and,  immediately after  I got
through, the company dispersed like a flock of birds that have been
shot  into.   To-morrow I shall shake the mud (it will probably be
rainy) from  off my feet, and leave this place,—so  dark, that it
puts light out before it reaches it.  For Westfield to-morrow, where
I have some hopes of a better time.

                                                   Oct 1, 1840.
  My dear  Mr. Combe,— . .  . You ask me to express my opinion
about your " Moral Philosophy."  I have no hesitation in saying
it is worthy of you.   That it should  be equal to  the " Constitution
of Man " was impossible.  There can be  but one discovery of the
circulation of the blood, or of the solar system, or of the identity of
electricity and lightning;  and so there can be but one author of the
" Constitution of Man."   He or others may apply its principles to
facts, and to new combinations of facts; but the great  discoverer
must  stand unequalled by himself or by others.   Your applications
of the  subject to  criminal  legislation,  jurisprudence,  &c,  will
in time, I have no doubt, work  revolutions in those departments,
but not until the general  mind has become imbued and saturated
with the true philosophy.
  The political excitement of this country is increasing in intensity
beyond  all former parallel.   The air has become a non-conductor to
all sounds except such as come from the politician's mouth, and the
light ceases to be reflected except to the politician's eye;  or rather,
without accusing  Nature of any departure from  her established
usages,  there  seems to  be neither  ear nor eye  for  any thing but
politics.   People are running to and fro ;  but I  fear the great mis-
fortune is that knowledge does not increase.   I endeavored, with the
use of all my previous knowledge, to appoint my school conventions so
that I might pass between the drops; but, behold ! the political con-
ventions come,  not in drops, but in a sheet which it is impossible to
escape.   All seems to indicate that Gen. Harrison will be our next
President. .  . . The consequence of so fierce a contest between the
parties is, that they are  ready to sacrifice any thing to gain a vote : 
138               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
they seem not to look beyond the next election ;  that is, to them, the
day of judgment.   For the sake of getting  the Catholic votes in
New York, the Governor of that State has suggested that the Catholic
sect should have their proportion of the school-money distributed by
the State, to expend under their own direction, and, of course, for
the propagation, not of secular knowledge (so  to  call it), but
of religious instruction;  and  the Secretary of  State, who in New
York  is, ex officio, superintendent of the common schools, is advo-
cating the same cause.
  You asked me to make suggestions in relation to subjects  proper
to be  treated in your Journal.  I know of nothing by which you
will be likely to do more good, both  here and at home, than by
explaining at full length, so as to make it intelligible to all Ameri-
cans, what obstacles the cause of general education has encountered,
and is encountering, in Great Britain, especially in England, through
the bigotry of the religionists (lucus a non lucendo) in resisting all
measures which do not emanate  from, or cannot be controlled by,
them; in showing how the  spirit of our  laws forbids  this sectarian
interference;  and commenting in proper terms upon  the  efforts
of fanatics to infuse their peculiar dogmas into the  great subject of
education,  and the iniquity of politicians who favor their schemes
for political effect. . . .
  Farewell,  dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe !  If my  prayers had any
efficacy,  the only bounds to your prosperity and happiness would be
your power to possess and enjoy them.
                 Ever and affectionately yours,
                                              HORACE MANN.


   At this period, Mr. Mann's phraseology concerning men-
tal operations underwent  a striking change, due to his
interest in  the phrenological science and philosophy.  It
somewhat mars the  gracefulness of his speech ; but there
was a peculiar pleasure to  him  in giving  a definite ex-
pression  to his ideas upon  a subject which he felt  to  be
satisfactorily cleared  up  by that  mental  nomenclature.
Some of his friends used to tease him a little for having 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
139
adopted this mode of expression from his excellent friend
Mr.  Combe ; but he would reply, that he  had been so
long bothered by metaphysicians and  their systems, that
he enjoyed speaking wide of them all.   He did not come
to all Mr. Combe's  conclusions, nor was he bound by his
limitations; but he enjoyed that philosophy which recog-
nized the adaptation of every  faculty  to its  appropriate
object.   It simplified to him the whole theory  of mental
phenomena.

                                         Boston, Nov. 8,1840.

  G. Combe, Esq., Slateford, Scotland.  My very dear Friend,—
... I come  to a point which I never thought would arise in my
intercourse with (vou.   From my earliest acquaintance with  you,
our relations have  been established upon the basis of friendship.   I
have felt, and still feel, all, and more than all that I have expressed;
and now the occasion which tests sincere friendship, the real casus
foederis, as the  diplomatists call it, has come.  Both  Dr. H. and
myself are disappointed in your Journal.  How much of it comes
from our expectations being unduly raised, we are unable to say;
but, on  a careful review of the grounds of our opinion, we cannot
change it.  That yours is  superior to the common class  of journals,
we might admit: but mere superiority is not what will  be expected
of you; nay,  demanded; nay, what  you  will  be punished by
public opinion for not producing.  The author of the " Constitution
of Man" cannot write commonplaces and  truisms, and give  a de-
scription of  the mere outside of society, with impunity.   Public
expectation is a hard taskmaster, and will  punish him  for omission
as well as for commission.   We ventured to surmise that you must
have kept a  note-book of  your goings from  place to place, and  of
daily events, and which you have, to a great extent, copied.  The
consequence is,  that careless  memoranda, made  from  day to day
when the mind was absorbed in other things, came forth  as the prod-
uct of  the  greatest reasoning  faculties,  and  impressions   early
received are  left uncorrected by a greater extent of observation and
more just deductions from it.  . . . This leads also not  only to the 
140
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
 juxtaposition  of the most  heterogeneous  things,  but makes the
 transition from one to the other bewilderingly rapid.   Where entries
 are so strikingly foreign to  each  other, each one must have  some
 recommendation of its own.   It is like a jest-book,  where each wit-
 ticism or epigram must commend itself, and seems only the  worse
 for having a good one above  and below it.  Had  you thrown all
 that relates to your course of phrenological lectures in Boston under
 one head, and all the public institutions, the manners of the people,
 &c,  under  different heads,  there would   have  been  not only a
 continuity of subject, but  you could  not now, in your leisure and
 retirement, bring all the facts  under your causality and comparison
 at once, without valuable philosophizing or moralizing.   But taking
 up these things in detail and by fragments excludes the very things
 in which your strength lies;  and, like  Samson, you  are  shorn of
 your locks.   A volatile, pert,  flippant traveller will describe every-
 day trivialities better than  you; but when the  machinery of the
 universe gets out of order,  then comes the dignus  vindice nodus.
 Now, where social institutions are not wisely established, or  where
 the manners and customs, and the tone of feeling that  pervades
 society, among a people whose law is public opinion, are wrong,
 then the machineiy is out  of order, and those who can both perceive
 how it is, and how it should be, are commissioned  to  set it  right.
 But I will not dwell on this  topic.   I am sure you will pardon what
 I have stated, even if wrong, because of the motive from which  it
 comes.   A regard for yourself, and for the great good which your
 other works  can do, if not obscured by this, has prompted what I
 have said.*
   Gen. Harrison, as you will learn by this conveyance, if not before,
 is to  be our next President.   Our  State  Legislature is entirely
 different from the last.   The author of the movement against the
 Board was  dropped by  common  consent,  as  the reward  of his
 malevolence. . . .
   Give my  best regards  to Mrs. Combe.  Oh! you  cannot tell
 how much I wish to  see and hear you  again.   Command my ser-
 vices  to any  extent;  and  beheve  me most  truly and  faithfully
yours,                                       HORACE MANN.
                 * See Mr.  Combe's reply in Appendix. 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
141
   Dec. 20.   Have been engaged mainly this week with a lono- ar-
ticle for the first number of the third volume of the " Common-school
Journal."   It contains some truths which it is desirable to send
abroad; but whether they will prove to be in an unexceptionable
form, is the question.   I shall submit them to their fate, believing
them to be true, and to contain no just ground of offence.

   In this introduction, Mr. Mann shows how forcibly his
mind had been led, by the " wild  roar of  party politics "
of that year,  to look into the secret  springs of public ac-
tion; and how futile is the attempt to " define truth  by
law, and to perpetuate it by power and wealth, instead  of
knowledge."   He  closes it in these  words, which apply
equally to  our own times: — .

  . To the patriot, then, who desires the well-being of his nation;
to the philanthropist, who labors for  the happiness  of his race;
to the Christian,  who  includes both worlds in  his comprehensive
survey, — is not the path of duty clear and radiant ?  Is it not the
duty of the wise and good of all parties to forget their personal ani-
mosities and contentions; to strike the banners of party; to unfurl
a flag of truce ; to come together, and unite in rearing new institu-
tions, or in giving new efficiency to old ones, for the diffusion  of
useful knowledge, for the creation of intellectual ability, for the cul-
tivation of the spirit of concord; for giving to those who are to come
after us better means of discovering truth, higher powers of advocat-
ing it, stronger resolutions of obedience to it, than we have ever
enjoyed, possessed,  or felt ?  For clamor  and convulsion and per-
secution, for the "wind" and the "earthquake" and the "fire,"
in which the spirit of God does not dwell, may not the past suffice ?
and for the future, can we not listen to the " still small voice " of
reason and conscience ?
   .  . . By a rational and conscientious use of the means put into
our hands, an era may be ushered in, when the appearance of such
a spirit as animated a Howard, a Washington, and a Wilberforce,
will no longer bo deemed a prodigy, and to be accounted for only on
supernatural principles. 
142
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
   If there must be institutions, associations, combinations, amongst
 men, whose tendency is to alienation and discord, to whet the an ■
 gry feelings of individuals against each other, to transmit the con-
 tentions of the old to the young, and to make the enmities of the
 dead survive to the living, — if  these things must  continue to be
 in a land calhng itself Christian, let there be  one institution, at
 least, which shall be sacred from the ravages of the spirit of party,
 one  spot in the wide land unblasted  by the fiery breath of animos-
 ity.  .  .  . Let  there be one  rallying-point  for a peaceful and har-
 monious co-operation and fellowship,  where all the good may join in
 the  most beneficent of labors.  The young do  not come into  life
 barbed and fanged against each other. .  .  .
   The common school is the institution which can receive and train
 up children in the  elements  of all good knowledge and of virtue
 before they are subjected to the alienating competitions of life.  This
 institution is the greatest discovery ever made by man :  we repeat
 it, the  common  school is the greatest  discovery ever  made by man.
 In two grand, characteristic  attributes, it is supereminent over all
 others : first, in its universality, for it is capacious enough to receive
 and  cherish  in  its parental bosom every child that comes into the
 world;  and, second, in  the timeliness of the aid it  proffers, — its
 early, seasonable suppbes of counsel  and guidance  making security
 antedate danger.  Other social organizations are curative and reme-
 dial : this is a preventive and an antidote.  They come to heal dis-
 eases and wounds;  this, to make  the physical and moral frame in-
 vulnerable to them.   Let the common  school be  expanded to its
 capabilities, let it be worked with  the efficiency of  which it is sus-
 ceptible, and nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal code would be-
 come obsolete ;  the long catalogue of  human ills would be abridged;
men would  walk more  safely by  day; every  pillow  would  be
more inviolable by night; property,  life, and character held  by a
 stronger tenure;  all rational  hopes  respecting the  future bri°-htr
ened.

   Do  not these words apply as well  to  the changed cir-
cumstances of our country, when a ne\y  field is so sud-
denly  and wonderfully opened for the  benign influences 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.             143
of education, and when  the subjects of its  beneficencp
spring forward to meet its benefits with such intensity of
aspiration, — an aspiration that, it is true, sees only vague-
ly all the good that is to come from it, but with a faith
that will " remove mountains ; " when the North  seems
to be resolving  itself, directly and  indirectly, into one
great Educational Commission, to make up  by enthusi-
asm, and efficiency of labor, the work of a century in our
country's annals ?
   After the establishment of the  Board of Education in
Massachusetts, Mr. Mann was the constant recipient of
letters from  philanthropic  and enlightened  individuals
of the South, inquiring  of him what could  be done to
extend the blessings of common-school education to that
benighted region, where a few aristocrats monopolized all
the advantages wealth and culture  could give,  leaving
wide-spread  regions, inhabited by their own Anglo-Saxon
race, a prey to the night and misery of ignorance; but
neither he nor they, when they reasoned upon it, could
see any light to  their path in that  latitude.   But the
day-spring has come ; and, by one of those  astounding
retorts of Nature  before  which the machinations of man
sometimes stand aghast, an oppressed and  down-trodden
race, whose aspirations for knowledge have hitherto been
suppressed by legal  enactments,  bids fair  to  rise in its
might, and be the superiors and instructors  of the en-
slaved white men of the South,— no less enslaved, because
indirectly so, than themselves.   Before they have well
shaken off the gyves that bound them, the negroes rush to
the fountains of knowledge to slake  that undying thirst
which  the Creator has planted in every soul, and which
they appreciate as yet only because  it has been forcibly
withheld from them.   Can the youth of a generation have
a nobler work before them,  or indeed  a more  grateful 
144             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
task, than  to answer with all their  stores of culture to
such a  noble aspiration ?  Party politics, which  are  al-
ways subversive of the  best interests of society,  will in
future have little basis left in our land, when all its inter-
ests are for advancement  and  freedom;  and we may
now reasonably look forward  to the day when the best
men will not feel themselves degraded by entering into the
political arena, no longer the  arena  of  slavery and igno-
rance against liberty and light, but that of generous emu-
lation to discover the best modes of ameliorating  human
life.   One  necessary condition of perfection  is imperfec-
tion ;  and there will be enough for man to do to emulate
the creative spirit of God after the equal  rights of  all
men before universal law are secured, as  the first step-
ping-stone in the ascent from the babe to the archangel.
  A fire has long  been  smouldering  in  the souls of good
men, which is now consuming the stubble of selfishness
and the monopoly of God-given rights.  It raged fiercely
within that of Mr. Mann, and kindled hope  and faith in
him that the earth would before  long quake  and swallow
the oppressor, or purify him  as fire only can.   "• Oh that I
could live  a hundred years  ! " was  his oft-repeated  ex-
clamation.   He wished to see the breaking  of the great
seals with his own eyes, and  to help in the breaking.

                                      Boston, Jan. 1,1841.
  I wish you, my dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Combe,  a happy
New Year; yea, many of them, and very happy.  I received, by the
"Acadia," your welcome letter of Dec. 1, and the accompanying
packages.  The one addressed to Mr. Hart was forwarded as soon as
it could be obtained from the hands of Uncle  Sam, who, consider-
ing the amount of liis  business and  the number of his acquaint-
ances, is certainly the greatest uncle I ever had.
  Oh !  how many times I have asked myself, What will the philos- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
145
opher  say when  he reads the letter of  Dr. H. and  myself on
his first volume?   Will  he not  exclaim,  not merely  "Et tu,
Brute/ "  but "Et vos Bruti! " the first exclamation being usually
translated, you know, " Oh, you brute! "  But, if you have the power
of Caesar, you also have his clemency.   If it is the seal of friend-
ship to speak out all one's thoughts of a friend  to  himself, did we
not stamp the  impression ineffaceably  deep?   I  have read the
second volume, and it is  much  superior  to  the  first.  You  have
emerged from the gastric and sensuous region of the common tourist,
and the great light of Causality begins to  shine.  This volume has
merits enough to be self-subsistent, though I can  hardly say that it
will also be able to sustain the first.  If  the third  rises above the
second,  as the second  does above the first, all  nations will cry out,
"Lord, give us a fourth, and take the first away! "  I have marked
some errors,  but they  are  mostly trivial; though it is  well to be
perfect where we can.   Massachusetts has not had  a State  lottery,
I think, for twenty years.  In our revised statutes, you will see how
throughly we try  to  smoke  the  vermin  out.    They are forever
prohibited by the  New-York Constitution. . .  . And  now I am
doubly glad that I have closed the list of exceptions, — glad because
they are done, and glad because I  have  done them  honestly and
faithfully, as  I  trust you  would do  to  me, if I  were the  philoso-
pher, and you  a humble  disciple.   I will only add, that, a few
days ago,  Dr. Channing spoke very cordially of you to Dr. Howe
and myself, and referred  with interest to the forthcoming books;
saying,  very decidedly,  that  he  hoped  they would  not  come
in the   form  of a journal, for that you  had great  power to  treat
of this  country in a philosophical way,  but that  he lacked  con-
fidence  in your journalizing skill;  and he earnestly entreated Dr.
Howe and myself  to dissuade you from adopting that form of pre-
senting  yourself to the public.   We concurred with him, to some
extent, in his general views, but kept  mum  as a  deaf mute on
the subject of  our special enlightenment.  A rumor is in circu-
lation that you are preparing a book, and  a late  evening paper an-
nounced that it was now in the Philadelphia press.   Whence it
came we do not know;  for we have been  secretive as death.
   I do not think you have any thing to fear from the general  man-
              10 
146
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
ner in which  you have spoken  of  this country thus far.  If  your
conscience is  satisfied, our people ought to be.   I have  often  been
asked what opinion you  formed of  the  United States.   I  have
replied, with  an idea which  I think you  can  expand, that  of our
possibilities you think every thing;  of our actualities, not very much.
And  it seems to me this is the  true view of the subject.   An
expansion of  the ideas contained in your last  lecture in regard to
this country would make a glorious chapter.
  I cannot say that I think our Presidential contests tend to unite
this wide-spread  people by any useful bond of sympathy or  practi-
cal  improvement.   In the last  few years,  our  contests have resem-
bled those at  Rome between the partisans of Marius, Sylla, Cinna,
&c.; only that our soldiers use  votes instead of arms.
  In  regard  to  education, I want you to look as much as  your
time will allow into the Abstract  which  I sent you, especially at
the Reports of Roxbury,  Charlestown, Hai-vard, Brookfield, Graf-
ton, and Northfield.  Allow me also to remind you  of what I  have
said, in  my Second and Third  Reports, as to the  dependence of
the prosperity of the schools on the  public intelligence; that the
people will sustain no better schools, and have  no better education,
than they personally see the need of;  and therefore  that the people
are to be informed and elevated, as a preliminary step towards ele-
vating the schools.  And then, further, you will look at the machin-
ery by which it  is  done.   The  Secretary, by travelling round the
State, by correspondence and interviews, obtains all  the  knowledge
he can  respecting existing defects and practicable  improvements.
He communicates this information to the Board : from them it  goes
to the Legislature, by whom it is printed, and sent   into  every
school district of the State.   Then the committee of each  town h
obliged  to make a Report to the town, a copy of which comes  back
into the hands of the Board ; and  from these  Reports the Annual
Abstract is made.  See also two Reports prefixed to the Abstracts
of 1838-9 and of 1839-40.    This is the machinery;  and such a
forcing-pump was never invented before :  it only wants  to be  used
vigorously, and it will inject blood  into every vein and artery of the
body politic.   A long article on the subject appears  in the " North-
American Review " to-day.  If  possible, I shall get a copy to  send 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
147
to you to-morrow by the "Acadia; " if not, you can find one in
Edinburgh.   It was written by our friend  and your most earnest
disciple, George B. Emerson.
   I have read Guizot.   It is a great book.
   Mr. Pierpont's case is still in fieri.   He has published  another
letter, every word of which is a porcupine's quill. . . .
   Farewell, and blessings attend you both.
                                               HORACE MANN.
  Jan. 17.   The Board of Education has  met.   I have  read  a
very long Report, which, like all my others,  has not been well re-
ceived.   I  must suppose  they are better judges  than I am, and
that the Reports have no merit,   Some people, I find, are disposed
to give them some credit.   I hope they will do  good, and that will
supersede all other considerations.  In two days, they will probably
be sent to the Legislature.   That makes them  public property, to
be treated as political men may desire.
  Feb. 7.   Still troubled by a strong  congestion of blood in the
head, which  has now oppressed  the brain  and sense for  several
weeks,  owing to too  severe  mental  labor.   I  must  obey the
natural laws.  The  power which  I  resist in disregarding them  is
more than a  match for me.   Not  one  particle of punishment  is
foregone ; and the only way, therefore, to avoid, is not to incur.
  Feb. 21.   A  minority of the  Committee on Education, in the
House, have  reported  a bill to transfer the powers and duties of
the Board of Education to the  Governor and Council; and of the
Secretary, to the Secretary of State.   Thus  another blow is aimed
at our existence, and  by men who would  prefer that  good, should
not be done,  rather  than that it should be done  by men whose  views
on  religious  subjects  differ from  their  own.   The validity of their
claim to Christianity is in the  inverse  ratio to the claim itself:
they claim the whole,  but possess nothing.
  Feb.  28.   The bill to transfer the powers  of  the Board, &c,
has not yet come up, but probably will to-morrow, when we shall
see how many have  any adequate appreciation of this great subject,
and hence how much work is vet to be  done : for the work  is,  to 
148
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
make all adequately appreciate it; and, until that is accomplished,
the work is not done.

                                          Boston, Feb. 28, 1841.

   My dear Mr.  Combe, — The third  volume  of your work is
decidedly superior to the second ; and you already know my opinion
of that, as compared with the first.   Your views on American civil-
ization are sound and judicious, and written in a spirit of philosopluc
candor, which constitutes one of the  great  excellences of all your
writings, and Which will give you a greater power over antagonistic
opinions than any previous philosopher has ever possessed.  There
is but one striking departure from this rule ; and, indeed, it is the
only important one,  so far as I recollect, in all your works.  . . .
The address, also, will  make a deep impression  upon the  public
mind here.   I have always thought it was  a most  able view of the
subject; and it is  conceived in a truly dignified and noble  spirit,
and expressed with great clearness and  force.  . .  .  There is much
that is valuable in it, and that which we should all care most  about,
— there is  that which will do great good.
  Perhaps  I ought, in a  formal and  explicit manner, to thank you
for the mention you have so frequently made of me  in the progress
of the work; but no selfish and personal regard which I can possibly
have for you will ever bear  any proportion to that generai esteem
and reverence which  is founded  on  the imperishable basis of your
mind and works.   Indeed, I have regretted to find  myself the  sub-
ject of such frequent commendation,  because it will have the effect
both to diminish my opportunities to  speak of  you  as you deserve,
and will impair the authority (if any) or the force of my encomiums
when given, as people may say that I extol you because I have my-
self been praised.  But this is  past.  You can yet help my mind,
as you  have hitherto done; and whenever it is  in my power to
render you  a service, remember, I am ready.
  In  regard to the Abstract,  of which you  speak so favorably,
I entirely agree with those whose judgment is better than my own,
that there is no such work  extant;  nor do I beheve there is more
than one other community where men capable of preparing the
materials of such a work  could be found. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               149
  We have no "rural districts," independent of towns, each one of
which is a body politic and corporate, with power to elect officers,
levy taxes, &c. . .  .
  It is remarkable, that, at the very time that I am receiving your
congratulations on the prosperity and security of my plans to improve
our popular education, my friends in the General Court are prepar-
ing to fight another battle for their existence.   D-----, who was
among the foremost  in the  attack last year, has returned to the
assault again with as  much virulence as ever.   It  so happens-that
retrenchment of expenses is the popular hobby this year; and both
parties are running a race for the laurel of economy, and are willing
to sacrifice all  the laurels of  the State to win it.   The question will
come on for discussion to-morrow or next day.  We all  think  it
cannot be  carried  through the Senate, if, unfortunately, it should
pass the House.  But are not reformers always  persecuted?
   It gives me  pain to think,  that, in a short time, another sea will
roll between us; but there  is that in  our hearts that neither seas
nor  continents can  sever.   Please  present my kindest  regards  to
Mrs. Combe.   I wish she could have enjoyed our winter, which has
been unusually mild and delightful.   Ever yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

   March 28.  ... My health is rather gaining.   How I long for a
body of power to execute the purposes of the will!   I intend to try
an absence from the tumult and excitements of  the city, and see  if
the lowering of the tone of the brain will not lead to improvement.
My  nervous is evidently predominating over all my other  systems;
losing in strength, but gaining in excitability.   Oh, give me health !
I have resolution enough of my own.
   April 28.   Attended the  examination  of the Normal School  at
Lexington, which was very satisfactory.   The school is doing well,
—very well.  The experiment is succeeding.  Whether it will have
time to commend itself to the favorable  opinion of the public,  is
what cannot now be determined.

   It is  a remarkable  fact, which  shows how society  is
divided  into strata, that at  this  time, when the  success 
150              LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
of the Normal School was one  day mentioned  to  a cul-
tivated and wealthy  Boston lady, she  inquired what  it
meant, never having heard of it!   This is mentioned to
show how little  many  of the wealthier class of society,
even in Boston, cared  for any reforms or interests  out of
the circle  of their visiting-cards ; and makes more credible
the  apathy Mr. Mann  found in all  places in reference to
an interest which he felt to be so vital to the Republic as
thorough  common-school education.

                                         Boston, April l, 1841.

   George  Combe, Esq.   My  dear  Mr. Combe, — ...  Since I
wrote you  by the  steamer on  the 1st of March, your "  Notes"
have  been  pubhshed.  What  I have  heard  in  private circles is
commendatory; and, had they been written by one of less reputation,
it would have been high praise.  But your other works had created
an expectation which it  would require an extraordinary book  to
answer.  The public is a hard taskmaster.   It will not allow a man
to fall below himself with impunity.  Its demands run with  extraor-
dinary facility from the  positive degree  to the superlative.   The
exceptions  are, however, more to the form than to the  substance;
the contents of the  chapters being so very heterogeneous.  There is
no continuity, no attraction of  cohesion :  but it is thought to treat
our institutions with a great degree of candor and fairness ;  and the
two last chapters are regarded as very valuable, and in every respect
worthy of  the author.   It is  also thought to be  a book highly
appropriate and serviceable to the British public.  . .  .
   In my last I stated that another attack was made upon the Board
of Education in our House  of Representatives.   Its decision was
postponed till very near the close of the session;  and it came up in
the afternoon, and before a very thin house, half the members being
absent.  Mr. Shaw made a few remarks in defence: when the bigot
D-----followed  in a speech of an hour's length, the whole intel-
lectual part of which was made up of  misrepresentations;  and the
whole emotive part, of aspersion.  The previous  question was then
moved and sustained ; many of the Whigs voting for it, in  order'to 
                   LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.               151

shorten the session (which has been the Whig hobby this year) :
and, without one word being said in reply, the proposition was voted
down, —131 to 114.   Never was any question taken under circum-
stances more disadvantageous to the prevailing party ; and  I am
inclined  to  think that it will be considered, in  flash language, a
settler. ... My kindest regards to  Mrs.  Combe.   If I had any
influence in the councils above, I would pray most  devoutly that
God would bless you both.
               Very truly and affectionately yours,
                                                      H. MANN.

   June 13.  On Thursday,  after my return from a  long absence,
I commenced  in  good earnest the  examination of the  Reports of
the School Committees, in  order to make selections from them for
the Abstract.   So far, they are excellent, and will furnish materials
for another glorious document.  I  read them with  real  delight.
And thus  has begun my summer's work, — reading reports,  many
of which are almost illegible; examining returns, all of which  ought
to balance, but many of which cannot be made to ; and,  in the end,
reading proofs of the whole, — a year's work, to be crowded into
three months, — a pleasant prospect  for hot days !
   July 29.   To-morrow will furnish me with the last proof of the
Abstract.  Thus perseverance is putting its seal of consummation
on  another  great work.   So let it  be.   Every  one  of these will
raise a wave of feeling  in favor of the cause of education, which will
not subside till the end of time.
   Sept. 14.   To-day I have  been to Lowell, and have had a very
pleasant interview with Mr.  Clark  and  Mr. Bartlett, superintend-
ents of some of the largest establishments in that city,  on the sub-
ject of the  superiority of educated  as contrasted with uneducated
people, in the  amount  and value of their products of labor.   My
object is to show that education has  a market value; that  it is so
far  an  article of merchandise, that it may be turned to a pecuniary
account: it may be minted, and will  yield a larger amount of statu-
table coin than common bullion.   It  has a pecuniary value, a price
current.   Intellectual  and moral education are powers not only
insuring superior  respectability and  happiness, but yielding returns 
152               LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.

of silver and gold.   This is my idea.   Questions founded on these
views I  have put to them ; and  they have  been answered in a way
attesting this value of education, beyond my expectations.

                                                 Boston, 1811.
  To Misses R. and E. Pennell (pupils of Normal School).  My
dear Nieces, — I shall  enclose the money for your bills ;  and I do
it most cheerfully, for I  trust you will get a great deal more good
from it than the mere money is worth.   Indeed, as  money merely,
it is worth nothing ; but, as a means of improvement, I hope it will
produce a hundred,  or at least sixty fold.
  If you are reading " Brigham on Mental Excitement," you must
take care  of your own  excitement.   If you  get much excited in
studying how to prevent excitement, you will be as badly off as the
man who put out his eyes studying optics.  I shall never cease to
give you admonitions about your health, having lost so many years
of my own life through the want of a little knowledge and attention,
which I could so easily have acquired and applied.
  We were all very much pleased with the appearance of the school
on  the  clay  when we  visited you.   Dr. Howe  speaks of it often.
We think  you have  the  very best instructor,*—one who is worthy
of all your confidence.
  I do not think you need any impulse to greater diligence or effort.
What young ladies usually lack most is self-possession, — the power
of using and commanding  their  faculties  on emergencies, or on
occasions when inconstant minds will  be  thrown off their balance.
Very many  persons  can do what they would  when alone or with
their  friends; but, when exposed to observation, they are discon-
certed and frustrated, and become ninnies, though  it is the  exact
time when they most need calmness and equanimity.   How unfor-
tunate it would be, could you keep ever so good a school, if, as soon
as the committee  or strangers made their appearance, your senses
should take  French leave, throwing you into a cataleptic fit!  This
misfortune comes from having the organ of cautiousness, or of love
of approbation, too much excited, so that they absorb the whole force3
* Rev. Cyrus Pierce, now deceased. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
153
of the mind, and leave nothing by which the other faculties can be
worked.   But this, bad as it is, is beauty compared with the bold-
ness which comes from self-esteem.   You will find that to keep the
balance of the faculties is  the greatest of all desiderata.   It is that
which makes the perfect man.  For the great object of self-possas-
sion, you  ought  always to be able to say to yourself, " I  have done
as well as I could.   I know my motives are good.  I believe that
the world is so constituted, that good  motives, with a moderate en-
dowment of intellect, will enable their  possessor to produce great
benefits, and always to be worthy the esteem of good men.   Where
motives are right, and the intellect is clear  (even though it be not
very strong), there is no  occasion for  any very intense activity of
cautiousness ; and therefore  I will command my powers, and keep
down too  great anxiety."   In  this way you can  learn to stand on
your feet when there is nothing but the glance of a human eye to
throw you off your poise. . .  .
                    Yours very affectionately,
                                                          H. M.

                                          Boston,  Oct.  13, 1841.
   My  dear  Mr. Combe,  — Before I attempt to tell you how wel-
come and dear was your letter of July 16, to  which Mrs. Combe
was so kind as to add a postscript in her own hand, — beautiful gilt
edging to  massive silver plate, — I  must first explain my own  long
silence.  .  . . During the month of September, I was absent from the
city on my annual  circuit; but I  expected to  return in season to
write you by the steamship which  sailed on the  1st  of this month.
Before my return, however, an unusual confluence of fatigues, anxie-
ties, and efforts overpowered all my strength; and in that state some
villanous tavern-keeper smuggled a little poisonous food into my port
of entry, which immediately caused  infinite mischief throughout the
internal economy of my kingdom.   If I were in a moralizing mood, I
should say, How strange it is that this paragon of Nature, this lord of
all below, this being whose thoughts wander up and down through
eternity, can be  extinguished, annihilated, by a slice of bad bread !
Now, I hope this account (having no flesh to lose, I was reduced to
mere cellular tissue) will present me before you rectus in  curia: al- 
154
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
though I am not without fear that your causality will compel you to
look one step back in the order of events, and find my offence, not in
the sickness, but in the causes that induced it; just as the law holds
an intoxicated man responsible for an act done in the state of intoxi-
cation, not because he knew better when he committed it, but because
he knew better when  he incurred the  hazard of committing it;  he
being, as  my  Lord Coke says,  voluntarius demon.   Well, if  so,
I can only say, I have now suffered the penalty; and, thus having
expiated the offence, I ought to be restored to my rights.
   By the way, you know Graham, the author of the  teetotal, anti-
carnivorous system known by his name.   He resides at Northamp-
ton, in this  State.   Last year he was  dangerously ill;  and the first
labor to which he devoted himself after his recovery was the writing
of'several long articles for a newspaper as an apology for his illness,
in which he endeavored to vindicate his system from  the odium of
the malady, and himself from the guilt of being principal or acces-
sory to its perpetration.   It occasioned considerable quiet ridicule
at the time; but I confess I felt rather  disposed to commend the
course, believing it far more rational than  the common  mode of ap-
pealing to minister and congregation  to offer  public thanksgivings
for a recovery from the consequences of misconduct, when not even
a scant resolution  of amendment enters into the public displays of
gratitude.
   Your account of the social manifestations of the German mind is
most interesting.  Though brief, yet  it is an outline  sketch from
one standing on an eminence, and who sees outside and around the
object he delineates.   I availed  myself of the liberty  you gave to
show your letter to many persons, to whom it has given great delight.
At the time I read it, I was  reading  Miss Sedgewick's  "Letters
from Abroad," and that part of it in which she describes Godesberg,
your then place  of residence.   The strong sympathy I have for her,
and my affection for you, made the coincidence very pleasant.  Have
you seen her letters ?   She is indeed  a noble woman.  Humanity
exhales from her whole being.  Her benevolence,  conscientiousness,
and reverence will not suffer any scene to  be left, or any discussion
to be  closed, until  they have  expressed  their reflections  upon
it.  . . . 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.                155
  I perceive, with unbounded pleasure, that the " Constitution of
Man" has had a sale wholly unprecedented in  the history of scien-
tific works.   As demonstrating a spirit of inquiry on this class of
subjects, and the adoption of the best means to  gratify it, this fact is
most  cheering  to those who wait for  the coming of the intellectual
Messiah. ... Its views must be penetrating the whole mass of mind
as silently and latently indeed as the heat, but as  powerfully as
that for productiveness and renovation.   What  constitutes a broader
and deeper  channel  for the diffusion  of these truths is that they are
reproducing themselves in the minds of liberal clergymen, and hence
are welling  out from the pulpit, and overflowing the more barren
portions of society.   A Unitarian clergyman told me  last week that
he had just preached  a sermon drawn from your '' Moral Philosophy,''
and had been complimented for it by his parishioners.  If once the
doctrine of the natural laws can get possession of the minds of men,
then causality will become a mighty ally in the contest for their de-
liverance from sin as well as from error.   As yet, in the history of
man,  causality  has been  almost a supernumerary faculty: the idea
of special providences or interventions, the idea that  all the  events
of life, whether of individuals or of nations, have been directly pro-
duced by an  arbitrary,  capricious, whimsical  Deity, alternating
between arrogant displays of  superiority  on the one hand, and a
doting, foolish fondness on the other, has left no  scope for the exercise
of that noble faculty.  What a throng of calamities and follies it will
banish from the world, as soon as it can be brought into exercise !
  The article  on the  common-school system of Massachusetts ap-
peared in the "Edinburgh Review" for July.   It was received here
by all the friends of  the good cause with great  delight.  Conjecture
has been active in divining its  authorship ; but even our friend Dr.
Howe is at fault.  As it bore no resemblance to your ordinary style,
and was untinctured  even with a homoeopathic  dilution of phrenolo-
gy, he thought it could not be yours.  Mr. S.  has given out that it
was written  by some member of  Parliament, who was very anxious
to become acquainted with our system, and whom he  supplied with
all our documents for that purpose.  With others,  the title  to its
authorship is ambulatory,  migrating from Mr. Stimpson  to  Lord
Brougham and yourselr.   To  all,  however,  and especially to my 
156               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
friends, it is in the highest degree gratifying, — I mean, to all whom
you would  like to gratify, — for one of the authors of the report to
abolish the Board  is incensed against it, and asserts  that it wa.s
written here, and sent to Edinburgh to be printed and  sent back;
but nobody believes him.
   Howe is doing nobly for the cause.   Indeed, I  sometimes think
we should have been wrecked  before this but for his pilotage.  The
Normal schools are  doing well.  I have completed  another Abstract
of the  Massachusetts school returns.   It is even superior to its pre-
decessors.   The statistics show an advance over the preceding year
in all the elements of prosperity belonging to our school-system.
   Dr. Channing writes me, " I should be glad to see the letter to
which you refer; for  Mr. Combe is a wise observer, and Dr. Follen
told me that  he had met  no foreigner  who understood  Germany
better, or as well.   That country is very interesting, and full  of
anomalies.   Under despotism, there is  much  freedom of thought.
To a plodding industry they join wildness of  speculation and ima-
gination ; and, what is more striking, they are said to be licentious in
the  social  relations, and a moral people in other  respects.   Their
intellectual influence on Europe is greater than that of any  other
people.  I wish Mr.  Combe would help  us to  comprehend them."
   I am exceedingly obliged  to Mrs.  Combe and yourself for  all
your kind wishes in regard to my health, and that  I would join you
while  on the Continent.   I should be most happy  to do so, could I
take Massachusetts with me.   But it is too  large for  my pocket,
though not for my heart.
   I have read your brother's work  on Infancy with much delight.
While perusing it,  I saw Death let go his gripe from more than ten
thousand children.  . . .
   Farewell!  Ever sincerely  yours,
                                                HORACE MANN.

   Nov.  23.   Came from Boston to Walpole yesterday, where I have
had a meeting which must be called the County Meeting, though
the  smallest and most discouraging I have had in the State.  If I
could allow aught  to break down  my spirit and hope, it would be
the  manner in which  these efforts to arouse public  attention seem to 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               157
fail.   Words, counsels, exhortations,  seem like substances  thrown
into an abyss.  I hear no report giving assurance  that somewhere
there is a bottom  upon which they strike.  But continue to throw
in I will.   Perhaps it may be my own fortune, at some future clay,
to hear an echo  from the depths.   If I do not, some follower of
mine in the glorious cause will do it;  and at length the chasm shall
be filled, and not only be filled, but, above, the superstructure shall
rise as high from the surface as its depths now sink below, and that
structure shall be the glory of the world.

                                          Boston, Feb. 28,  1842.
   George Combe, Esq.  My dear Mr. Combe, — Your kind letter
of Nov.  15  I did not receive  till about  the 10th  of Jarruary.   I
should have said beforehand, that the intensity of my desire to hear
from you would have been an attractive force sufficiently strong to
draw it into my hands in a shorter time.  But it seems to have been
projected into space with great centrifugal velocity, and  almost to
have  formed an orbit in which it might have revolved round me
forever.   New York was the point of its perihelion; but there the
centripetal prevailed, and brought it to the centre at once.   I could
not write you by the steamer of the 1st of this month; for my en-
gagements were so numerous, that I wanted not  only the hundred
hands of Briareus, but brains enough to keep them all at work.  I
was rejoiced, in common with  your other friends here, to hear of
your  happy  and quiet life.    We wish  our boisterous democracy
could furnish you with a peaceful retreat;  but in our political lati-
tudes there reigns one  storm,  and that  is  endless.  I have often
thought there was the closest analogy between the geological theory
and human history;  a time for the wild commotion of all the  human
propensities,  raging  and battling with each other, and bursting up-
ward  through all the  orders  and classifications  of society;  just
as, in * the early geological eras, the  action of internal fires broke
through  the  primary  formations:  and,  pursuing  this comparison
further, I have hoped that by and by these hostile forces  of the
social economy would subside, and lay the foundation of a state of
society as much more propitious to human happiness than is the pres-
ent, as the exuberance of the alluvial deposit is beyond the  sterility 
158
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
of its granite substratum.   All T hope is, that my life may be as a
single leaf cast off from this deciduous generation, whose decompo-
sition may add a single particle to the mass of deep and rich marl
on which the growth of some future age shall luxuriate, and gather
nutriment for a glorious moral harvest.
  You say nothing would give you greater pleasure than a republi-
cation of your  works, but  that you  should  be sorry if it  were to
injure  the   publishers.    Your sympathy for  them  is  useless.
Assignees administer upon their estate.  I shall undoubtedly lose
by them.  But there is one consolation about this and  other things
that have been happening to me in  a row, and, with small intervals,
all  my life : God created me without any love of money; and, in
all his works, there is no more striking instance of the adaptation of
the thing made to its circumstances. .  . .
  Howe is  absent,  and has been so almost all the time  for nearly
three months.   Early in  December,  he went to Columbia, S. C,
to visit the Legislature of that State, and obtain an appropriation
for  the education of their blind children.    Though  they were
cold,  and at first almost repulsed him,  yet, when they  granted
him an opportunity  for an exhibition before the members, they sur-
rendered themselves unconsciously into his hands.   His success
was complete.  An  annual grant of  $1,200 was made; and their
blind children will be sent here this year.  He  afterwards went to
Georgia; but could only obtain the good will and the promises of
the people there, as the high-mightinesses of  the  State were not in
session.  He then returned to Boston ; but did not stop more than
a week, when, knight-errant like,  he rushed  forth again.   He went
to Louisville, and from there to Frankfort, and  gave an exhibition
in the State House.  How well you must remember Frankfort, the
quiet, sequestered little town, with its fountain of water playing in
the yard, which you and I  went to see; the hill  on the right bank
of the river, which we climbed ; the tavern where we breakfasted so
quietly, while  you  listened  to the conversation of the revivalist
minister with the impassive-souled  judge about the praying govern-
or !   All this seems like yesterday, —it seems like now.  Only I
look up to catch your glad eye and voice, and to grasp your hand,
and am reminded that there are four thousand miles between us. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
159
  Dr. Howe gave an exhibition to the Kentuckians, and carried
them  away as by enchantment.    They  voted,  by  acclamation,
$10,000 in aid of an institution for the blind, on condition that
some city should  commence a school,  and sustain it for a year.
He then went to  Louisville;  and there such measures  have been
taken as will doubtless eventuate in raising  the  necessary funds,
and insuring a permanent establishment for this  noble object.  The
success of an appeal to the sympathies of our  people in behalf of
the blind may be now calculated upon as one of the natural laws.
It has been tried in nearly half the States  of the Union,  and has
never failed.  At the painful sight of the deprivation of their unfor-
tunate children, followed by the gladdening spectacle of  the results
of the  wonderful  art by  which that deprivation can be supplied,
avarice itself relents, and'opens its coffers,  and  suffers the almoner
of this bounty to  thrust  in his  arm elbow-deep.   We have just
heard that he has left Louisville for New Orleans,  that he may give
sight to the blind in that God-forsaken region.  Those who  have
eyes there  seem to  be more  sightless than the blind.   They are
doing something,  however, even  in  New Orleans, for  education.
Within the last year, one of the municipalities of the city has estab-
lished a system of common schools ; and my excellent  friend, the
Hon. John  A. Shaw, — the man who prepared  the minority report
against the  abolition of the Board of Education in 1840,—has gone
out there to launch it.  Indeed, there seems to be in several of the
States a faint indication that there is but one  remedy for our social
ills, — the  formation of minds whose intellectual vision can discern
the laws by which social  evils may be avoided,  and whose  well-
trained sentiments pre-adapt and incline them  to obedience.
  I am  carrying  on the "Journal" for  another  year,  although a
labor which I am unable to perform.  But,  while I do all the  work
for nothing, it just pays its way, and is doing some good.  I do not
know but it would be going too  far — and, if so, you will 4>ay no
attention to it — to ask you  to furnish me, during your residence
in Germany, with a series of letters in relation to  the  German
schools,—their course of studies, modes  of instruction,  discipline,
order, qualifications of teachers, attainments of scholars, results, &c.;
any thing,  in fact, which  you could write without  much labor, and 
160
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
which would be most interesting to our people, and  most beneficial
to our schools, whose condition and wants you well know.   I think
your charity could not find a more useful channel  to flow out in;
and it would be most delightful to me to spread your wise thoughts
abroad  amongst this  numerous  people,—more numerous than
great.
  I have got out my Fifth Annual Report.   It is mainly addressed
to the  organ of acquisitiveness, and therefore  stands some chance
of being popular.  In our  Legislature, this winter,  there is a very
good feeling towards the Board and its  improvements.   The Rev.
Dr. Palfrey, editor of the " North-American Review," has cut theolo-
gy, and become a politician.   He is Chairman of the Committee on
Education in the House.   All the committees of both houses are
friendly to  the cause; my two best friends there, Mr. Quincy, and
Mr.  Kinnicut of Worcester, being respectively President  of the
Senate, and Speaker of the House.   If they could not give me good
committees, of what use would it be to  have one's friends in these
offices?  A  bill is now pending before the Legislature to grant
further  aid for the continuance of the Normal  schools, and to en-
courage, by a small bonus,  the respective  districts of the State to
purchase a  small school-library.  We have pretty strong hopes that
it will pass.  Mrs.  Combe's parts of your " Notes "  have  been very
much and universally admired : they are golden threads interwoven
into the solid and enduring  fabric of your own mind.  I wish I had
power equal to my will  to bless her, and  then  there should be no
room left for doubt as to quantity or quality.   Some of my friends
have been trying to send me to England; but,  while you  are away,
the whole island seems to me empty.   When it is inhabited again,
perhaps I may go to see it.  Lord Morpeth and Dickens are both
in this  country.  Our political condition is very extraordinary; but
I have not  time to describe  it.
                   Most affectionately yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

  Feb. 28.   To-morrow there is to be a grand celebration at Salem,
on account  of the improvement and extension of their school-system.
A great change has been effected in that city, — a new body and 
LTFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
1.61
a new soul;  new schoolhouses, and a new spirit among the teachers ;
and to-morrow is to be a, fete-day.  In the evening I am to lecture ;
and  on Wednesday  evening I  am  to endeavor,  by a lecture in
Brookline, to carry out a  plan for the establishment of a high school
there.
  March 3.   The brightest days which have ever shone upon our
cause were  yesterday and to-day.   Yesterday, resolves passed the
House for granting $6,000 per year for three years to the Normal
schools;  and fifteen  dollars to each  district for a school-library, on
condition of its raising fifteen dollars for the same purpose.
  Language cannot  express the  joy- that  pervades my soul at this
vast accession  of power  to  that machinery which is  to cany the
cause of education forward, not  only more rapidly than it has ever
moved, but  to places which it  has  never yet  reached.   This will
cause an ever-widening  circle  to spread amongst contemporaries,
and  will project influences into the future to distances which no cal-
culations can follow.
  But I am too much exhausted to  raise  a song of gratulation that
shall express my feelings.  Yesterday I breakfasted at Salem;  came
to the city;  found that all possible exertion was necessary;  worked
all  day; and  at evening went to lecture at Brookline, to fulfil an
engagement;  and returned at half-past nine, having spent the day
without another meal.   To-day I have been hardly less busy.  But
the great  work is done !   We must now use  the  power wisely
with which we have  been intrusted.
   March 8.  The joy I feel on  account of the success of our  plans
for the  schools has  not  begun  to be exhausted.   It keeps welling
up into my  mind, fresh and  exhilarating as it was  the first hour of
its occurrence.  I have no doubt it will have an effect on my health
as well as my spirits.   The  wearisome, depressing labor  of watch-
fulness which I have  undergone for years has been a vampire  to
suck the blood out of my heart, and the  marrow  out of my bones.
I should, however, have  held on until death; for I felt  my  grasp
all the tune tightening, not loosening.   I hope  I may now have the
power of performing more and better labor.
   March 27.  I am not well;  but the  success of the last session
              n 
162
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
is a perpetual spring of joy, throwing up continually sweet waters
of satisfaction.
  April 17.   I have  been busy with lecturing and  my Report.
Incredible pleasure and relief of mind are shed over my whole time
by the glorious success of the cause in the Legislature.
  April 24.  I understand that eighteen thousand copies of my
last Report to the Board have been printed in Albany, for distribu-
tion.  Tins will carry it to many minds;  and, if it does any good, I
shall be paid for all my labor.   It is also translated into German.
  May  10. • Niagara Falls. .  . . The convention at Utica lasted till
Friday.    I arrived  about  ten-o'clock this  morning at Lockport.
having  travelled most  uncomfortably  in the canal-boat all  night;
thence to this place.  I ran down to catch a hasty view of the Falls;
but, being much exhausted, returned to dine.   After dinner, I sal-
lied forth, and have spent four hours on my feet, going from point to
point, and gazing in astonishment and awe upon this great and varied
work of Nature.   The emotions it has  excited I cannot now attempt
to describe, — perhaps never; but commonplaces of amazement and
admiration ill befit this unique wonder of the world.
  May  17.  Spent a, day at Richmond, a border town of this State;
and, so  far as their  interest in schools is  concerned, they are on the
borders, at least, of civilization,  if not a little on  the other  side.
When will Berkshire rise from her degradation ?
  May  22.  Yesterday, commenced the  great labor of another Ab-
stract.  This is  an appalling  undertaking;  and were it not for its
utility, which I see more plainly than ever seed-sower saw the future
harvest, its very aspect would repel me from  attempting to perform
it.  But I go into it with good heart and zeal; and, if  my strength
will only hold out,  I shall count the toil more fondly than ever " a
confined boy looked forward to his pastime."

   Mr.  Mann  had no  clerk, and  no  appropriation  was
made for one; and as he  at this time  spent all  his salary,
except what  was sufficient  for  his  bare  necessities  of
board, lodging,  and  something  to wear, in his office,  he
was obliged to do all his own writing and  copying.   He 
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
163
had no other assistance  than what  a friend occasionally
insisted upon rendering  him when his strength was seen
to be nearly exhausted.   But he worked now with pleas-
ure, where formerly only hope illumined his efforts.

  July 3.   To-morrow is an eventful day for me.   I find that ex-
pectations of my coming oration are raised high in  some quarters;
and it will be difficult, if not impossible, for me to satisfy them.  But
all that my strength and time enabled me  to do I have  done ; and
nothing remains but to submit it to the  terrible ordeal of public
opinion.   Before twenty-four hours have  passed,  I  shall  know
something of whether the great object I have in  view — that  of
favorably influencing the public mind on this question of education
— will be likely to be answered  or not.
  July 19.   How weary  a life this  would be if my soul were.
not in it!  but it is, and this renders the toil a pleasure.  I see my
efforts yielding their fruits; and God grant they may be  so abundant
that all mankind may be filled!  Have been making a short visit at
my friend Mr. Quincy's, in Quincy.

  At this period, the Rev. Cyrus Pierce, who had so nobly
fulfilled his part in the educational  work, as Principal of
the Normal School, failed in health, wholly in consequence
of the too  great labor  he  had performed.    When the
Normal School at Lexington was  first opened,  the means
for its support were very scanty ; and, during the time of
its location there, Mr. Pierce not only did all the teaching,
but superintended the interests of the boarding-house, and
even rose every day at three o'clock to see  that the fires
were built; allowing himself, for a great part of the time,
only three hours sleep.   No one but a thoroughly consci-
entious teacher has  any conception  of the labor of keep-
ing a good school.  The exercises of school-hours form but
a small part of that labor.  The private study and prepa-
ration, especially in a school of advanced character like a
Normal school, where not only things  are  to be taught, 
164
LIFE OF  HORACE MANX.
but the best modes of teaching are to be considered, com-
pared, discussed, tried,  and watched  over in the model
school in which the pupils of the higher school practise
their art under close criticism of the principal (and, in
that case, Mr. Pierce was principal of both  schools, passing
from one to the other daily, with  every faculty stimulated
to its keenest work, in order to do justice to both), — this
study and preparation, I repeat,  were almost beyond the
power of man to endure: and Mr. Pierce, though of the
firmest fibrous temperament, became the victim of intense
neuralgic pain, which obliged  him to relinquish his office.
Mr.  Mann's grief at this necessity was inexpressible; but
he was obliged to  look round, among the friends  whom
the  progress of the cause had brought to his notice, for a
successor.  At this date, he wrote the following letter to
Rev. S. J. May, who  for the  three  succeeding  years so
ably filled the post vacated by Mr. Pierce: —

                                      Boston, July 27, 1842.
  Rev. S. J. May.   My dear  Sir, — ... The  object  of this
note  is to inquire, in an entirely confidential and unofficial manner,
whether you will so far entertain the proposition as  to allow me to
present your name to the Board of Education for the Principalship
of the Normal School at Lexington. .  . .
  My dear sir, neither my time nor my disposition allows me to in-
dulge in compliment.   You know something of what I think  a Nor-
mal  school-teacher should be.   With  such opinions as I have of
the quahfications for  that office, you  need no words of assurance
of my regard for and  opinion of you.  . . .
       Very truly and sincerely yours, &c,
                                           HORACE MANN.

  Aug. 14.  The American Institute  of Instruction is to meet at
New Bedford this week, and I  shall  probably lecture there.  The
meeting is important, and in that part of the State there is much 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
165
need of a  revival in  educational  matters.   The soil  of  Bristol
County is so thirsty, that it would absorb all the dews which a dozen
institutes could distil upon it; and even then I fear it would not be
enriched to the point of vegetation.
  Aug. 21.  A good meeting at New Bedford.  About seventeen
thousand copies of my oration  have been pubhshed, and another
edition of three thousand is to be issued this week.
  Aug. 28.   Mr. Samuel J. May is probably to become principal
of the  school  at  Lexington.   There will  be at first  an outcry on
account of  his abolition principles; but I believe he will be consci-
entious enough not to become a  proselyter instead of a teacher.
  Sept. 4.   On Monday last, I went to Springfield to see if arrange-
ments could be made for establishing a Normal school at that place.
.  . .  The Abstract is now out, and will, I trust, shed a flood of light
over the State on the greatest and darkest of all subjects. . .  .
   Oct. 20.   I went to Springfield, as proposed; where I found all
my expectations thwarted in relation to establishing a Normal school
at that place.   Mr. Calhoun will try to do something for the  droop-
ing cause there. ...
  I  have not  accomplished much  during the last  three  weeks.
Found my strength utterly prostrate from  previous efforts.   Hope
to renew it, and go on rejoicing  again.
  Nov. 9.  ...  I rejoice to find  that evidences  are  everywhere
springing up of the progress of the great work.   A momentum has
been given which will not soon  be expended.  Still I never felt so
much hke applying additional power, rather than relying upon the
speed already attained.
  Nov. 13. .  . .  To-morrow I go to Falmouth to attend a meeting
of teachers.  Thus may perpetual droppings wear away the stone of
ignorance.   One drop I expect to shed on this occasion, in the form
of a lecture.
  Dec. 11.   Yesterday, attended a convention of school-teachers,
and lectured before them.  It is pleasant  to see these proofs of in-
terest on the part of teachers.   They have a great deal yet  to do;
but these indications are not only performance, but promise  for the
futi re. 
166
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
                                             Boston, Dec. 13, 1842.
Rev.  S. J. May.
   My dear Sir, — ... I shall be desirous to be  present at your
examination,  but  fear  I  shall  not be  able to.    My  Annual
Report * is mainly at the bottom of my inkstand yet:  and I  fear
that my two great organs will experience just the reverse  of what
they should under all my torments; that is,  that  I shall have a
hardening of the heart, and a softening of the brain. . . .
   Well, what is to become of us this winter ?   Are we to  fall into
the hands of the  Philistines ?   If so, we must make friends of the
mammon of party.  I see a Democrat is to come from  Lexington.
Do you know him ?  Can you magnetize him ?  If so, infuse a ful-
ness of the right spirit, though you faint in the operation.   You
know Mr. F-----, of Nantucket.   He worked well for us  last winter.
Cannot you secure him  for the  present?   Mr.  R-----,  of West
Cambridge, also, was in favor of us last year.   See him,  if you  can.
If not, see his friends.  Become all things to all men.  Go,  preach ;
and wherever you  preach, speaking with a flaming tongue, miracu-
lously convert.   Let us carry the  cause through one year more, and
I think the young giant will be able to take care of himself.
                          Yours ever,
                                               HORACE MANN.

   Dec. 25.   During  the  last week, an  event highly favorable to
the schools has taken place.  Being filled with a  desire (which
might, perhaps, better be called a determination)  to have the work
of Messrs. Potter & Emerson, the " School and the  Schoolmaster,"
distributed  among the schools in the State of Massachusetts,  as it
has been among those of  New York, by the liberality of  Mr. Wads-
worth, I ventured to make application to  Mr. Brimmer, the Mayor
elect of the city, to see if he would not  take upon  himself the ex-
pense of this benefaction.   With a readiness and a propriety highly
creditable to him, he signified not only his assent to the proposition,
but his pleasure in embracing it;  and he has authorized me to incur
an expense not exceeding fifteen  hundred dollars to  carry out the
plan.   This will put an excellent  work on  the subject of education
* To be presented the 1st of January. — Ed 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
167
in the hands  of every  teacher in the State,—a glorious  thing!
How many minds will be opened  to a perception of the momentous
work! how many will be  stimulated ! how many withdrawn from
the transitory pleasures of frivolity and dissipation !   What a har-
vest of blessings will be reaped from the sowing of this seed !
   When I see what  good may be done with money, I sometimes
wish that I had some  at my command.
   Jan. 1,1843.   A new year !   The past year is now beyond mor-
tal or immortal control.   To me,  to the cause I have  most at heart,
it has been a most  auspicious year.  Event after event has occurred
to give that cause an impulse; and I  do  not recollect any thing of
an untoward  character which is worthy to  be mentioned.   The
grant for the  libraries and for Normal schools, the increase  of the
town appropriations, the increasing interest felt in the subject by
the people, and the well-timed donation of Mr.  Brimmer of a work
on education for all the schools in  the State, attest the prosperity of
the cause for the last  year.
   But another year now opens.   The great subject of inquiry now
is, What fortunes await the cause before it shall close ?  This inquiry
I  cannot answer, any further  than to say, that what depends on
human exertion shall  not be wanting to its prosperity.   I may die
in the cause ;  but, while I  live, I will  uphold it to the utmost of
my strength.
   Jan. 22. .  . . This week, Governor----- has come  into power,
and commenced his course by a most insidious and Jesuitical speech.
He speaks of education ; but  not  one word is said of the Board of
Education or of the Normal School.   There is no recognition of the
existence of improvements effected by them.  Six years of as  severe
labor as any mortal  ever performed — labor, too, which  has cer-
tainly been rewarded  by great success — cannot procure a word of
good will.  This  denial of justice, this suppressio veri, is  of no
consequence, only as it may prevent our doing as much as we other-
wise might.  But, if  allowed  to  go  on, a  noble revenge  shall be
wrought, — that of malting it apparent to the most prejudiced and
unjust that much has  been  done.

   The  following letters are  given  to show the principle 
168
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
upon which Mr. Mann conducted his educational labors.
He thought it  right and  essential  to  keep them from all
party influences; knowing that politics, in our country,
vitiated every subject they touched.   May we not  hope
now that that day is passing away ?
   Mr. May thinks it not judicious to publish the letters, as
the public  mind has  undergone  such a change upon this
subject, that he  fears it will injure Mr. Mann's reputation
with some good  men ; but I am induced to do it, contrary
to his advice, which I still respect for its motive,  because
Mr. Mann has been accused of timidity, and want of hon-
orable openness and  independence in his caution.   His
own rendering of the subject will show the fallacy of this ;
and  his subsequent public course  upon  the  subject of
slavery shows plainly enough that he  feared no man, and
that he never renounced his principles for the  sake of
popularity.  Nor did any one ever love the  man, whom
all his friends involuntarily call  "dear  Mr. May," better
than he ; and none the less, but all the more, because Mr.
May is, by his  nature and  culture  alike, so profound
a  hater of slavery.  What  a comment it is  upon the
torpid state of the national conscience at  that time, that
no public  interest was safe that was  associated with the
desire to do away chattel slavery !

                                       Boston, Jan. 27, 1843.
Rev. S. J. May.
   My dear Sir, — I have been debating with myself for almost a
fortnight whether I ought, or whether I ought not, to write you on
a certain subject.   At last, musing here, just before twelve o'clock,
and warming my toes  for bed, I have resolved to do so.   Could
you see my feelings just as they are, I should need no other apology.
I can only assure you that it is from kindness alone that I do it.
  I was at W—— a fortnight ago to-morrow evening, where I met
a number of gentlemen at Dr.  H----'s.   The doctor  and his 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
169
family spoke very kindly of you, and expressed, with every appear-
ance of sincerity, a great personal regard.   But the doctor observed
that you had lost a very fine girl from one of their most respectable
families, in consequence of your having visited W-----a few even-
ings before, with a portion of your pupils, on the occasion of an anti-
slavery meeting.  Very little else was said ; but the obvious feeling
was, that it was a  pity that theoretical antislavery should prove to
be  practical anti-education, by depriving your school of  a valuable
pupil, and  yourself, to some extent, of  the respect of an influential
citizen.
  I write this in  no unkindness, and  in  no spirit of fault-finding,
but merely to apprise you of the consequences of your visit there on
that occasion.   I confess myself one of those who hold the  maxim
to be a  damnable  one, that " our actions are our own: the conse-
quences belong to  God."   We  cannot separate the  action  from
the consequence ; and therefore the latter is as much our own as the
former.   Consequences aid us in determining the moral character
of an action, as much as. they do the physical properties of a body;
and, as it seems to me, I may as well  adopt  a theory  that fire will
not ignite gunpowder,  and  then flourish a torch round a magazine,
and say, " Consequences belong to God," as to say it in reference
to any thing else.
  But I will not go on moralizing further.   I have eased my con-
science ;  and I trust you will take this letter as it is intended, —
perfectly in good part. . . .
                      Yours ever and  truly,
                                                HORACE  MANN.

                                            Boston, Feb. 6,  1843.
  Rev. S.  J.  May, —I had strong hopes of  being able to see you
to-day;  but  the printers of  my Report, after having worn my
patience all out by delay, are now  sending it to me so fast, that  I
cannot leave.   If any one inquhes why I  am not  there, please
tell them the reason.
  I have been anxious to  reply to your last letter ever since  I re-
ceived it, but  so much engaged that it has been impossible.   Some
things I think  you have misunderstood, and others misrecollected. 
170
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
 For instance :  I did not say that  the young  lady at W----- de-
 clined to go  to Lexington because  of the visit of yourself and
 pupils to the antislavery meeting.    Yet you reply, that, if she
 were prevented from going for the reason assigned, " she must be
 inferior in mind and heart to many"  whom you have.  It was not
 the-  young lady: it was her father who  refused to let her  go, be-
 cause he thought your going to an abolition meeting in term-time,
 and carrying the scholars, was aside from the purposes of the school,
 and of bad example.   For aught I know, the young lady herself
 might have  been an abolitionist, or good stuff from which to make
 one.  Thus the school lost one pupil at least, and some friends.
 And this reminds me of what you say of your pupils, —that  some
 of them were abolitionists when they came there, or were made so by
 Father Pierce.   Father Pierce  had no right to make them so, any
 more than he  had to make them Unitarians, or Bank or anti-Bank
 in their politics.   One  was  just as  much a violation of his  duty
 (if ho did the act) as  the other would be.  We want good teach-
 ers of our common schools, and that is what the State and the pa-
 trons of the Normal schools have respectively given their money to
 prepare; and any diversion of it to any other  object is obviously a
 violation of the trust.
   Pardon me for saying one word in reference to  yourself.   You
 certainly said  that  you did  not mean to withdraw from the  aboli-
 tionists, and that,  by receiving more salary, you should be able to
 contribute more  money to that  cause; but did you not also say
 that the school  should have  the whole  of your energies?  The
 extremest remark you ever made to me in regard to any active co-
 operation in abolition movements was, that if, in vacation,  you hap-
 pened to be  at a place where  an abolition meeting was  held, you
 should not consider yourself  debarred  from  attending it.   This
 surely seems to me different from carrying your own pupils to  such
 a meeting in term-time,  and indulging in remarks which disaffected
 several very excellent  friends  of the  school, and prevented  one
 pupil from attending it.
   I  certainly  say these things with  no  particle of unkindness to
yourself.  I think you will see, with me, which is the highest cause,
or at least that the interests of the Normal School ought not  to be 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
171
 impaired, nor  its friends  alienated, by active, public co-operation,
 not only by yourself, but with your pupils, and in term-time.
   But I  have time to write  no more.   I am sorry I  cannot see
 you to-day.   I hope  I may  soon.  If in the city,  do  not fail to
 call_____
   In a letter from Mr. Pierce, he says you are doing very well; but
 he does not think  you  make  the  pupils agonize quite so much
 as might be well for them.
                          Yours truly,
                                                 HORACE MANN.


                                               Boston, Feb. 22,1843.
 Rev. S. J. May.
   My dear  Sir, — If, a few days ago, I overcame all doubt as to
 the propriety of addressing you on the subject of the  actual loss
 which had occurred  to your school in  consequence of your zeal in
 another cause so  alien from  it,  how can I forbear, at the  present
 time, to point out consequences still more serious, which must re-
 sult from pursuing the same course?  If I believed you to have any
 doubt of the  personal friendship  and sincerity of my  motives, I
 should first endeavor to convince you of that fact.  But I must as-
 sume this, without a preamble.  Pardon me, then, for saying that it
 is with inexpressible regret that I learn from the public newspapers
 that yt>u are  to be one of the lecturers for the abolition course about
 to be  delivered in this  city.    Every friend  of yours, and of the
 cause with which you hold so  important a connection, is  pained be-
 yond measure  at this  annunciation.   Three of your friends,-----,
 -----,----,  have spoken to me  upon the subject with sincere grief.
   In the first place,  it is the middle of a term; so that  the imme-
 diate  accusation will be, by the  opponents of  the  cause  which  you
 volunteer to espouse, that you are neglecting the  duties of the
 school.   I do not mean to say that I would make such a  charge,
 but that it is too obvious not to be made.
   In the second place, we have  entertained great fears for the  fate
of the whole educational system during the present session;  and
these are not  wholly  dissipated.  The Legislature is now in session,
and we know there are many members of it who would  rejoice in 
172
LTFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
any pretext for making an attack upon the Board and the Normal
schools.   I cannot expect that the  event  announced in the papers
can take  effect without open or secret and extensive  animadver-
sions being made upon it.   I have had  a  talk with your  represen-
tative, and he is disposed to be reconciled ; but he expressly stated
that his dissatisfaction with your appointment had arisen from his
fears that you would more or less abandon the school to propagate
your views on another subject,  which fears he  now hopes  were
groundless.  Will you give occasion for the revival of those fears,
and put an  unanswerable argument  in his mouth against all that I
can say ?   Being a Democrat, he could lead a great many of that
party with him.
  But a third consideration is perhaps still more important.   A
public interest and  sympathy are now excited  through the Com-
monwealth in behalf of the cause of education.   With the excep-
tion of Mr. Dwight's donation, more has  been given by rich  men
during the last year for its general  promotion, probably, than ever
before. ... If I had not succeeded  in producing a conviction,  that,
while I am engaged in administering the cause, it will be kept clear
of all collateral subjects, of all which the world chooses to call fanati-
cisms or hobbies,  I should never have obtained the co-operation of
thousands who are now its friends.   I  have  further plans for ob-
taining more aid; but the moment it is known or supposed that the
cause is to be perverted to, or connected  with, any of the exciting
party questions  of  the  day,  I shall never  get  another  cent.   I
shall be bereft of all power  in regard  to  individuals, if not in re-
gard to the State.
  And again: did you not  tell me, again and again, that, if the
public would let you alone in regard to your abolition views, you
thought you could get along  well enough  with your friends ?  But
how can  you expect that the public  will let you alone, if  they find
you,  every term, making abolition speeches  or delivering  abolition
lectures, and exhibiting yourself as a champion of the cause in a way
and on occasions which so many will deem offensive ?   The public  is
not wont to be  so  tolerant.   You  must  not mistake my motives;
and,  if you think I am speaking too plainly, you must pardon it for
t.he zeal I have in the cause. . .                           H. M. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
173
  Feb. 5.  Last week, a libel was published against me in the "Mer-
cantile Journal;" and thus something is  continually occurring to
take away almost all the comfort of my life, except that which arises
from the  prosperity of the great cause.  Well, then, I must make
that prosperity my comfort.
  Feb. 12.   Were I to record all my thoughts, feelings,  hopes,
fears, for the week,  they would make  a volume.   If I do not re-
cord them, I have httle to say.   I go to Manchester,  N.H., on
Wednesday, to lecture.   To hope  to accomplish any thing in New
Hampshire by one lecture is as vain as to expect to make the ocean
boil by throwing in one coal of fire.
  Feb. 19. .  . . Yesterday the whole question of the school-libraries
was opened again in the House of Representatives, and was sus-
tained by a  crushing majority.   So the  cause has evidently  ad-
vanced almost incredibly within two or three years.  It now needs
discreet  and  energetic management:  it will  then be able to take
care of itself.
  March 5.  .  .  .  Last night I read the last revise of my Report.
So now, for good or for evil, it is done; and I trust it will eventual-
ly do good, but shall not be surprised if it is not well received. 
CHAPTER   V.
    ON the 1st of May, 1843, Mr. Mann was again married,
     and sailed for Europe to visit European schools,
especially in Germany, where he expected to derive most
benefit.   He hoped thus to do more for-  American schools
than he  could do, just at that juncture, by remaining
at home.  He thought the good cause was safely ground-
ed in the estimation of  the people; and now it only re-
mained  to improve methods of instruction, and to bring
the subject  of moral education more  fully before the
public.  To this  end, he had  set in operation  the most
adequate means, — the Normal schools, — and  placed
them in the hands of men, who, as far as he could judge,
saw the importance of that element in human culture.
  The opposition he had been forced to encounter, and the
double labor this had  cost him, had seriously affected his
health ; and a change  seemed absolutely necessary for his
brain, which was in such a preternatural state of activity,
that he could  not sleep.   As his  friend Dr. Howe  ex-
pressed it, " it went of itself."
  The  excursion did not prove so much of a recreation as
his friends hoped it would.  His time of absence was lim-
ited  to six months; and his attention  was  so  much ab-
sorbed in educational  matters, that he  had little strength
or leisure to devote to mere amusement.  It was his habit
to spend the day, from seven till five o'clock,  in visiting
schools, prisons, and the men who were interested in these,
and  many of his evenings in reading documents which he
           174 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
175
gathered in his progress.   He needed the suggestions of
others even to see other things that he passed by the way.
He read, but could not speak, the modern languages; but,
with the help of an imperfect interpreter by his side, prob-
ably few men ever made such  a visitation who gleaned
more fruits.  The "white-haired gentleman," as he was
called, excited much interest  in the  schoolmasters, to
whom he did not always give  his name; for he wished to
see the schools in undress, and therefore visited them un-
officially, when that was possible, though always duly armed
with credentials from the Ministers of Instruction.  He was
treated with much courtesy;  though  it is to be doubted
whether  the good men  of the  schools often underwent
such  a searching examination, not  only into  their pro-
ceedings, but  into the theories and motives that impelled
them.   Probably not  a few of them had glimpses of some
aims of education they had not  thought of before,— not
through any formal instructions from the " white-haired
gentleman," but simply from the questions he asked.
   The main results of the tour were given to the public
in his Seventh Annual Report to the Board of Education:
In Germany alone he met with any true comprehension
of what he regarded  as moral and religious instruction.
The effect of his Report of it at home was to shake some
dry bones that had apparently become not only fossilized,
but firmly embedded.
   I give a few extracts from his journal.

                                   Liverpool, May, 1843.
  On the 16th we visited Eaton Hall, one of the seats of the Mar-
quis of Westminster.  The income of this nobleman is said to be
$5,000 per  day.  The avenues which lead  to it from Chester are
several miles in length, skirted with hedge and all varieties of forest
trees.   Herds of deer and cattle were grazing or ruminating in the
grounds.  Swans bedecked the quiet lakes.   Trees to which each 
176
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
season for  centuries had  added bulk and loftiness stood around.
At last, the massive pile opened upon our view.  As we approached
it, we saw some ten or dozen old women, with coarse features and a
coarser garb,  carrying away upon their backs the limbs of a large
tree which  had been felled; and around other parts of the premises,
and in  the pleasure-grounds,  other  groups of the same sex were
busily employed weeding the walks, gathering in the  new-mown
hay, &c.   The gardens and pleasure-grounds cover fifty-two acres,
— about the  size of Boston Common.   Here was apparently evory
variety of flower and  plant and fruit which could  be found on the
globe.  Hot-houses were prepared for the productions of the South ;
rocks, grottoes, and places adapted to the cultivation of the feeble
and  scanty growths  of  the  North.   Beds  of pine-apples were
ripening.   Peach-trees  were  trained  against  the walls.   Straw-
berries, cherries, &c,  hung in  luscious clusters.  Vats of capacious
dimensions were set under glass for the cultivation of the Egyptian
lotus, &c.  Long  sheds,  with  bins upon the  side,  were constructed
for the growth of the mushroom and potato sprouts.  Artificial grot-
toes were  scattered along winding passages; the whole sometimes
assuming the form of  the  most regularly laid out garden, and again
winding away into labyrinths.   But a description is impossible.
  The house was constructed and furnished in a style of indescriba-
ble elegance. .  . .  The marble floor of the entrance hall was said to
have  cost 75,000 dollars.   It was adorned with splendid pictures,
coats of mail, magnificent tables, &c.   The hall of communication
(a miniature imitation of the cloistered aisles of Chester Cathedral)
is 740 feet in length, lined with pictures and groups of statuary.
When we  came to a  splendid piano in  the library, the attendant,
who was a lady dressed in violet-colored satin, adorned with heavy
black lace, told us the  young ladies played very  well; and in  the
garden we  were afterwards shown '' the young ladies' garden.'' Ah!
was there  no spot in the souls  of these tenderly  reared  daughters
where a brighter flower than any ever formed of rain and sunshine
could have been  cultivated, — the  flower of sympathy for others'
hearts, by Nature formed of as fine a mould, and, in the sight of God,
of as high a  price, as their own ?   Was there no time when all the
richest  music wrought in the burning souls of the highest genius 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
177
might have been bartered for the grateful voices of sorrow and pov-
erty and crime which these daughters might have elicited ?  Well
might all these  accomplishments, and all this splendor and beauty,
have been  bartered for these;  for heaven would have  been given
them as a requital.
  I left in  a state of mind which I cannot now express.   I  hope
my feelings will find a form of utterance at some future time.
  The next day, we visited Chester Cathedral.   Of the antiquity
of this there can be no  doubt.  No art can prepare a counterpart.
Time  puts  a certain wrinkle and sallowness on its objects, that no
common colorer can imitate, or  graver etch.   This cathedral is sup-
posed to be twelve  or thirteen centuries old.  Its dimensions are
vast.   Here we saw a bit of a tomb of seven centuries.  We went
into rooms  which were once occupied by nuns.   Many old associa-
tions arose.   These must always rise while the history of the secret
deeds of monasteries and nunneries remains.

   This  ancient  cathedral  and splendid  castle, and  the
poor  old women, made an  impression  upon Mr. Mann
that  farther  travel in  England only deepened.  Passing
from high to low, from palace, castle, cathedral, to prison,
school, and cottage, the glory  and the shame of England
were ever in  sad and striking contrast.   In a letter to his
sister, written May 15, he  says, —

   I am here at a very interesting time,  so far as the general ques-
tion of education is concerned.   A bill is now before Parliament for
the establishment of a national system ; but it is framed with such
express reference to the  promotion and extension of the Established
Church, that it meets opposition from  all the  Dissenters.   It ori-
ginally gave all the power of appointing  teachers and supervising
the schools to the members of the church, and then it prohibited
any manufacturer from  employing  any child who  had  not received
a certificate from  a school which the church  approved ; and  there-
fore made the bread, as well as the intellect  and morals, of all,
dependent upon their will.   But, if I begin to write on so prolific a
theme, where shall I stop? . .  .
               12 
178
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
   In what  cud this bill differ from the  persecutions of
nonconformists, which  drove the Puritans from  England
in days gone by ?

   May —.   In passing from Liverpool to London on the railroad,
we were struck with the exuberance of the vegetation.   The fields
were all so monotonously green, that at last I longed for  a piece of
Cape Cod for variety. . . . But we saw scarcely a large tree in the
whole journey. ... I was quite struck with the comparative amount
of grazing and mowing land, compared with the tillage.    More land
sown to wheat, or planted  with  esculent roots, would very  much
increase the sustenance of man.
   May 20.   Visited Westminster Abbey.   Here are deposited the
truly great and  the  sham great.   The  truly great, however, are
principally by themselves, in what is  called the  " Poets' Corner."
The sham  great are scattered about in the various chapels  or niches.
Here and there, however, a genuine man, such as Lord Mansfield,
Wilberforce, Watt, was placed  by the   side of a king  or queen,
like gold  pieces among copper pennies.  . . . Here were  deposited
the remains  of  Ben  Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Addison, &c.
Among the kings and queens, there was  a  sprinkling of ladies of
the bed-chamber, masters of the hounds, pimps,  &c., who obtained
this resting-place for  their bones  through favoritism.   A statue of
one of the kings had  been covered with silver, with an entire head
of the same metal.   The head had been wrung off by  some one
at once  acquisitive and unloyal, — probably done more from the
acquisitive than  the  democratic instinct.   A monument  had been
erected  to one of Cromwell's  generals, — Popham, — which was
threatened with removal after the Restoration; but at the interces-
sion  of his wife, and a proposition to have the whole  inscription
erased, it was suffered to remain.   It is now a blank.
   Cromwell himself was buried here ;  but his remains were removed
by his successor, and  it is said they were hung at Tyburn.
   The finest statue was that of Lord Mansfield.
   The whole  hardly impressed  me so much as I expected.
   May 23.   Visited Smithfield  Market,  where  John Rogers was
burned.   Is it not strange that the oddity of that ambiguous  state- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               179
ment about the number of his  children should  almost universally
have the effect of repressing all  sympathy for the  manyr, and all
indignation against his tormentors ?
  Visited " Rag Fair," or the  old-clothes market, which is a large
open area, nearly  square,  all trodden to a mire, with coarse wooden
booths on the side, prepared in  the rudest manner, and so finished
that there has been no waste of skill upon  the material.   When
filled with old clothes, and wretched  traffickers in them, what  a
scene it must present!   Afterwards, taking a police-officer, I passed
through  covered  markets for the  same object,  where sacks and
bundles  of old clothes were being opened  and displayed, or had
aheady been  shaken out, and  spread upon  rough-board  stalls, or
counters.   They were, probably,  the joint product of the previous
night's  purchases  and thefts.   A more deplorable sight  than the
fetid, squalid wretches exhibited can hardly be imagined.
  Went also through the Jews' quarter, where, from narrow, pent-
up  lanes, holes and caverns opening on either side, poured forth
the foulest stench.  The eye also was repelled that would penetrate
to their  loathsome recesses.   What a place to lie in immediate
proximity with so much  luxury, voluptuousness, and superfluous
wealth !   From these dens of vice, debasement, and iniquity, we at
length emerged, and passed  through some respectable streets.  One
was that in which John  Milton was born,  — then named Grub
Street.   Onward  we went  through  Billingsgate Fish  Market, the
sight of  which added  intensity to the meaning of the word, which
had its origin  in  the  foul language  of that locality.  In looking
around, one could well imagine that he saw the genius of the place.
   Went into the  " long room " of the Custom House; and a long
room it surely is.   And why should not the room be long in which
account is taken of the products of all the climes in the world, as
they are borne to this spot by every wind that blows ?
   Visited Greenwich Hospital.    Here reside seventeen or eighteen
hundred sailors, mutilated, broken down, or  decayed in the service
of the nation, —the results of war.  Who  would not be a peace
man after beholding  such a spectacle ?  Hardly a battle  has  been
fought  by England within fifty years but here is one of its victims.
Should each one  of them  tell his history, what a volume it would 
180               LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
make !   Yet how few are these representatives, compared with the
constituency of the dead which they represent, — each one, perhaps,
representing a thousand!   In the great painted hall of the hospital
are numerous and  splendid paintings, commemorative  of Britain's
naval glory, as it  is called.   Here the remembrance of all  her
triumphs  is perpetuated.   Every  child  who visits  this place is
taught to feel loyalty for the sovereign, a pride in his country, and
an ambition to distinguish  himself  in her service.   In one glass
case was the very coat in which Nelson was  shot at the battle of
the Nile; in another, the  model of some celebrated  ship, fraught
with historical associations ; and so of all its garniture.   Wherever
I go, this not only suggests itself to my mind, but forces itself upon
my senses.  At Westminster Abbey, at St. Paul's, at all the*public
buildings, there are monuments to honor the  heroes of the nation,
whether on land or sea, and to embalm their memories.   How deep
and energetic must be the  effect of  all this  upon  the national char-
acter !  What  the  Roman  Catholics do, by means of shrines and
pictures and images, to secure the blind  devotion  of their disciples,
the leading minds  of  Great Britain do  to  secure the feeling of
national pride.
  The park belonging  to the hospital is an object of great beauty.
The  grounds rise to a considerable height, and overlook the country
for  some distance.   Here is the celebrated Observatory by which
time is regulated  all round the globe.   On the  top of the dome,
and resting upon it, is a large ball, through which  the spire of  the
observatory  passes up.   At a minute  before  twelve  o'clock every
day, this ball is made  to rise half-way up the spire.   An instant
before twelve, it rises to the top, and  then suddenly falls.  It is
n6w twelve  o'clock at Greenwich, and a corresponding hour, wher-
ever a British ship floats, all over the world.
  From this we descended, strange emotions filling my breast, and
took our seats in the railway, built for about  four miles  on arches
sustaining it above the tops of the houses, so that  it could not have
been necessary, for its construction, to remove any more dwellings
than enough to make room for the abutments.
  On Monday, I spent  the evening with Carlyle.  What pleased
me  most in  Mr. Cailyle  was the  genuine, boyish, unrestrained 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
181
heartiness of his laugh.   Made the acquaintance of Mr. Kay Shut-
tleworth, and of Edwin Chadwick, Esq., author of an " Inquiry into
the Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Classes of  Great Britain."
With these men I am highly delighted.
   May 25.   Made the acquaintance of Leonard Horner, Esq.; a
very sensible man, the chairman of the Factory Commission.  Had
much conversation with him on  the subject of education in Eng-
land and America.
   He said, that, as factory commissioner, he had many times seen
certificates of  school-teachers  given  to  children,  to  certify then-
attendance upon the master's school, signed by a cross, because the
teachers were unable to write their own  names.   He  also  said
he once saw some reason to doubt whether one of this class of teach-
ers could read.   He sent for him, and asked the question, whether
he could read.   " Summat," said he: "at any rate, I keeps ahead of
the children."
   Visited a  Normal school, where we heard one  of  the teachers
take passage after passage from the Liturgy, call upon his  pupils for
an exposition of its meaning, and then for passages from  Scripture
to prove it.   Among these was cited,  without a word of  comment,
that interpolated passage, that " there  are three that bear record in
heaven," &c.  What a powerful machinery for sustaining the Church,
whether its doctrines are right or wrong,  and without any reference
to their being right or wrong!  The conductors or sustainers of the
school do not approve this plan of upholding the doctrines of the
Church by religious doctrinal instruction in the  school, and would
gladly modify its  course to a very great  extent: but  they declare
that they must have this education, or none at all; that, if they were
to omit the doctrinal part of instruction, the whole  influence of the
Establishment would be directed against them, and would crush
them immediately.   They therefore submit to it as  to an inevitable
evil.
  I afterwards  went to the National Training College, Stanley
Grove.   This is a Normal school established  by the National Soci-
ety.   The land, buildings, and  fixtures  have cost $103,000 ;  and
sixty pupils  are the extent proposed to be educated here.  How
enormous  an outlay for the  object to be accomplished !  ... In  this 
182
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
Normal school, not only  the  doctrines but  the  discipline  of the
Church are regularly taught; and Mr.  Coleridge, the  principal,
says his hope is to raise  up  a class  of  teachers auxiliary to the
Church, — a sort of half-clergymen, — and station them all over the
land.   Here, again, is power perpetuating itself.
  May 29.  Breakfasted with Mr. Whately, the Archbishop of
Dublin, whom I found to  be a very agreeable man, full of youthful
vivacity and  spirits, kindly  in  his  feelings, and  republican in his
principles.  He said a great many playful things, such as generally
interest school-boys rather than  theologians, — as, how can  it be
proved that there are many persons in the world having  the  same
number of hairs on their heads; the old fable of the hare  and the
tortoise, &c. : and showed  me  the manner of constructing and
throwing  the  boomerang, — a New-Holland weapon ;  also  their
method of forming a sling.
  When I led him to speak  on education,  he  evinced  the  most
liberal spirit; eulogized the benefits  of  mere  secular education;
and said that the  great and the only principle was to include as
much of religious instruction as practicable, and to omit  all the
rest.   There  is no doubt of his being a great man ; and I believe he
is also a good one.
  Visited a school in Sharp Alley, which  is  conducted on princi-
ples of toleration.   It is called the " City  of  London Royal British
School for  Boys;" and one of its regulations is, " that the school
be  open to persons of every religious persuasion," and " that no
book, commentary, or interpretation, tending to inculcate  the  pecu-
liar tenets of any religious denomination, shall be admitted on any
pretence whatever."  The school is patronized almost equally by
Churchmen and Dissenters, and  both  Roman  Catholics and  Jews
attend it.   The teacher told  me that he was a Churchman, but that,
as he was  placed there to  educate all the children without partiality
or proselytism, he  did not attempt the inculcation of his own  pecu-
liar opinions.
  I was much pleased with  the general method of  instruction
adopted in the school.    Res non  verba  was  the practical motto.
Cards and prints were freely used,  and every thing not understood
was explained. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               183
   May 30.  Visited St. Paul's,  where there was  a musical re-
hearsal of all the children belonging to the Sunday schools of Lon-
don.   It is said that on the anniversary celebration there are ten or
twelve thousand collected together,  and probably nearly as many
adults attend  as spectators.    Galleries were fitted  up under  the
dome of this immense edifice; and  here the children were  seated
in the centre, while seats rising at each end in the form of an amphi-
theatre afforded accommodation for  the vast audience.  The view
from the Whispering Gallery, to which we ascended, was  most  im-
pressive.  What a mass of human life, of human hopes and fears,
of happiness and misery, was collected within that circle !  Had
there been a  sudden revelation  of all the future history of that
company, who could have borne it ?  But these musings are useless,
only as they stimulate  one to greater exertions for the welfare of
the young; and God knows I need no  such stimulus.  Nothing
can ever alienate me from my sworn love of the young, nor divert
my wishes and  exertions from what I believe will best  promote their
welfare.
   We then went to  the Tower, where we saw how little and bad
men could tyrannise  over the great and good.  We saw the style of
the armor — and much of it was  original — of more than twenty
British kings;  the frightful implements of war in use  before the in-
vention of gunpowder;  the dungeon in which Sir Walter Raleigh
was confined, and the stone room in which he slept for eight  years.
We saw the tower where the two  children were murdered by the
command of Ptichard,  &c.   We also  saw the Regalia,  or treas-
ures of the crown, all  of which  a man  might carry easily in  his
arms, and which are valued  at three millions of pounds  sterling :
the crown  alone, of the shape of a boy's cap without any visor,
cost a million of pounds sterling.   Three millions of pounds in the
Regalia,  and more than  three millions of  destitute, almost starving,
subjects !
   Visited the rooms, pictures, &c, of the Duke of Sutherland, at
Stafford  House, near  Buckingham  Palace.   These  are  splendid
beyond any thing I  ever saw. . .  . Were there <no crime and no
poverty in the world, how one would enjoy this !
   Went to Windsor; and, having a ticket for special admission to 
184               LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
the private apartments, we traversed them.   To go to one end, that
we might return through the suite, we  traversed a corridor as long
as Park  Street, literally lined, almost as closely as they could be
placed, with paintings,  statues, &c, and the  sides piled  up with
furniture,  all the articles of which, as  the Queen is not residing
there now,  had their covering, or night-clothes, on.   From this we
visited the  plate-rooms, where the service  of  plate for the  palace is
kept.   These are two rooms of very considerable size, with  shelves
behind glass doors, literally loaded down with  plate.  Most of  the
articles, we were told, were only silver gilt.  There was nothing so
poor as silver visible.   Many  articles were  inlaid with diamonds.
There  was a lion's head of solid gold, as large as life,  with  cut
crystal for teeth; and a little  bird, not so large as a pigeon,  but
intended to represent a peacock,  its breast  and plumes all inlaid
with diamonds  and precious stones, the value  of which was thirty
thousand  pounds  sterling.  These  two  last-named articles were
taken from Tippoo Saib.   Are  they mementoes of triumph, or of as
wicked a plunder as ever one committed against another on Houns-
low Heath ?
   Having  sated our  eyes with  all these wonders, we returned by
railroad as far as Hanwell, the celebrated Lunatic Asylum.  It is
a grand establishment, under the care of Dr. John Connolly.*
   We had a delightful evening at Sir J-----C-----'s, where we  saw
many admirable people, — Dr. Arnott,  the  author of " Physics ; "
Dr.  Reid,  now employed by  government  in  superintending  the
structure of the new Parliament House, and  in regulating  the heat,
ventilation, &c, of the old one; the Rev. P. Kelland, Professor of
Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh;  Mr. James Simpson,
the writer on education ; Mr. Chadwick, &c.
   June 1.   Called on Mr. Wyse, the author of the work on educa-
tion, and had a very interesting conversation. ... In the afternoon,
visited the Home and Colonial Infant-school.   This is a fine institu-
tion, conducted on the Pestalozzian system ; and I was told by  Mr.
John Reynolds, the principal, that nine-tenths  of all the children in
the kingdom get all the education they  ever  receive before they are
nine years of age.

  * This is one of the institutions for the insane, described in " Very Hard Cash." 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
185
  June 2.   Visited the Blue  Coat School, or Christ's Hospital,
as it is called.   This school consists of about a thousand scholars.
.  . .  The uniform or dress of the boys is peculiar.   The school was
founded in the time of Edward VI., and the dress remains the same
now  as it was originally.   It consists of no hat; the boys going out
in all weathers, at all  seasons  of the year, and to all  parts  of
the  city, bare-headed.   I was told they never caught cold in the
head.  It would be well to inquire whether they ever have catarrhs,
&e.   About the neck, they wear a band, like  a clergyman, not of
lawn, but of coarse cotton.  A long blue  coat — coat above, but
gown below — reaches to the feet, so full as to  meet in front.  The
rest  of the dress is small-clothes and coarse yellow stockings.  The
small-clothes button at the knee.   The  writing in this  school  is
the most beautiful I ever  saw.   The method of instruction is very
simple; the elements only of the letters being  given, without any
frame-work  of lines  by which to draw them. ... I asked the head
master, Dr. Rice,  what instruction he gave  his  pupils in  morality.
He  smiled, or  rather sneered,  and said  he considered the teaching
of morality a humbug :  he taught religion,  not  morality.   I asked
him  if he  did  not inculcate the duty and explain the obligation of
truth, and the vice and turpitude of falsehood.   He said that could
be of little or* no use ;  that Nature taught  children to lie ; that he
explained to them from the Bible that the Devil was the father of
lies; that, when  a boy told a lie, he set him  a copy, — such  as,
" Lying is a base and infamous offence," — and required him to write
a quire of  paper  over with the sentence ;  that the offenders were
generally submissive, for  they well knew, that, if they showed any
spirit of defiance, they would  receive a sound flagellation.   He
added, that corporal punishment was much less  used than formerly.
  After this edifying conversation, I  left him.  How strange it is,
that, on every other subject, the existence of reason is acknowledged:
on that of  religion, the most important of all, blind authority is
appealed to !
  After a  survey  of the premises where the Houses of Parliament
are,  and are to be, I  went into the House of Commons, and sat
three or four hours listening to an animated, though not very inter-
esting, debate on the Canada Corn Bill.   Here I heard Shiel (the 
186
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
Irish orator),  Lord Stanley, Mr. Hope, Mr. Woodhouse, Admiral
Sir Charles Napier (the stormer of Beyroot) : and last a Lord N-----
make a most violent  and abusive speech against Mr. B-----; to
which the  poor  commoner,  Mr.  B-----, only responded by a very
servile speech, flinging sops  where he ought to have flung daggers,
and whining when he should have thundered.   The abuse from the
" noble  lord " was heartily cheered.
   Visited the  Union Workhouse, Gray's Inn Lane. .  . .  The whole
seemed  to  be well conducted,  and impressed me very favorably
with the measures that are taken to relieve people after they have
become  poor.
   On Friday I  visited Pentonville Prison.   It is on the Pennsyl-
vania system of solitary confinement; the intention being that no two
prisoners shall have an opportunity to see each other while in prison,
so that  they may go  out as great strangers as they come in.   The
arrangements to  produce  this result are certainly very curious ; but
I doubt whether they fully accomplish it.  Another professed object
is never to let a  prisoner  see a stranger visitor, nor a stranger visitor
a  prisoner; and yet I am certain, that, if I had desired it,  I could
have taken such a view of many of them as would have enabled me
to recognize  them  after  their discharge.   Each prisoner, when out
of his cell, wears a close woollen cap, coming down very low,  with
a  long visor, or  peak, which they are  required to drop down over
the face, and which nearly covers it all  from view.   Little  eyelet-
holes in this peak enable them to sec any object immediately before
them; and, when they are  marched out  to the airing-yards or  to
the chapel, they are required to keep behind each other, and at some
distance apart.   The arrangements of the chapel and  schoolroom
(which are the  same) are very ingenious.   The tiers of seats rise
behind  each  other, amphitheatre-fashion,  very steep : the prisoners
enter single file; and each  one, as he takes his allotted seat, shuts
his pew-door, which  is high, and which effectually precludes him
from seeing  any other individual whatever except the minister or
teacher. .  .  . The  contrivance for watching  the  prisoners, when
airing themselves in their  yards, is equally ingenious.  The yards
radiate  from a  centre, separated from  each other by a high brick
wall.   The  occupants of  the yards  are watched from a  centre. 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
187
Orifices in a brick wall surrounding the very centre command each
yard.   In another brick wall, within this, are similar smaller orifices,
exactly opposite the larger ones in the outer wall.  Between these
two walls is a spiral staircase, from the top of which the superin-
tendent can look into all the yards by a coup d'ceil. .  . .
  The arrangements for a supply of water are  admirable.   The
superintendent  said no evil  effects upon mind  or  body resulted
from this system of confinement; but he did not seem to me very
fully to have considered these important questions.  It is generally
averred that such confinement lowers the tone of the system, in-
creases its susceptibility to impressions,  makes  the  subject more
yielding and pliable, and therefore seems to produce amendment,
and redeem  from the power of evil propensities ; but that, when the
system is  re-invigorated by a return to society, when the force of
the natural  stimulants is again applied, the impressions made in a
state  of debility are effaced, the resolutions formed when the appe-
tites were weak are broken, and  the old  identity of feeble  self-
restraint and vigorous passions is renewed.
   At  Pentonville,  prisoners are  retained but  eighteen months.
They are then sent to Australia; being divided into  three classes,
according to their behavior here.   The first class (that  is, those
whose conduct has been most correct) are  admitted to many privi-
leges,  and relieved from many restraints; the second class  occupy
an  intermediate state as to privileges; the third or worst class are
sent to work in chains.   This holds out the strongest inducements
to  good behavior, and, with the  strict surveillance  that  prevails,
must make the order of the prison very good.

   Prison discipline, and reformation, which is the highest
object of prison discipline, was a subject of great  interest
 to  Mr. Mann, and  one upon  which he hoped  to find time
 to  write his views.   It is a subject that involves the whole
 theory of morals and religion.   If a criminal  is led to be-
lieve— by education, or by  the instructions  he receives,
 when, for the first time perhaps, he has any opportunity of
hearing any instruction (that is, after his imprisonment 
1SS
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
for crime) — that his heinous sin is to make him the sub-
ject of eternal punishment, and that his  relief from it is
only to be gained by his belief that another being has
taken upon himself the  suffering due to the sinner, he
will not  be likely to  have sufficient vitality  of faith to
secure his  reformation  under subsequent  temptation;
but if he is made to  realize  the beneficent idea that in
each human soul is a  recuperative power which he can at
will exercise for  his own reformation, and that his Cre-
ator is ready to  accept his sorrowful repentance at  any
moment  when it is sincere, and that he, as  well as the
best educated  and the most favored of fortune, has before
him a future life of endless progress, let his earthly for-
tunes bo  happy or not, a season of imprisonment might be
made indeed a golden hour for him.   The first  requisite
of a prison is, doubtless, such physical arrangements as will
secure health  and comfort: the next is such instruction
as  a parent would give to an erring child;  and, in the
instructor's hands, there is no instrument so powerful as a
rational, earnest, and benign inculcation of the vital truths
of religion ; these vital truths not being found in any creed
or dogmas, but in the proofs of the love of God  shown to
man by the history of the soul, as exemplified chiefly in
the character  of Christ, " a man tempted  like  as we are;"
for in this alone lies its true  power.   Instances could be
quoted  from  the experience of well-known clergymen
of our day, among whom I can, from personal knowledge,
cite the Rev. Edward T. Taylor of Boston, where men who
had never had an opportunity, because born and educated
at sea, to hear any religious truth inculcated, yielded very
soon, with all the strength of their strong natures, to the
convictions of duty evoked by such heart-preaching — in-
formal, and without any of the paraphernalia of external
rites — as men like " Father Taylor " alone are capable of, 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
189
— men who through the form see the substance of reli-
gion, and understand the relations of the human soul to it.
Father Taylor never addressed the sentiment of fear, but
those  of love and honor and  self-respect:  hence his suc-
cess within the prison and in the still harder school of the
world. Such men as Charles Rcade (and there are doubt-
less others, though not yet organized for the work) see
into the real difficulty of this great department of benevo-
lence.  Our own countrywoman, Miss Dix, has perhaps
rendered as much service in this labor, though informal-
ly, as in the one by  which she has  openly  moved the
world.  Her leisure hours, spent in penitentiaries, have
been fruitful of good, which cannot be measured like her
efforts for the insane. It is a work for woman ; and, when
chaplains for prisons are chosen from woman's ranks, we
may look for a new era  in prison-discipline.   Is  it not
strange that Mrs. Frye has been so admired, yet so little
imitated, in this respect?   Mr. Mann  often used  to say,
when he heard of women's complaints  of having no ca-
reer but the domestic one (which he  thought a great
sphere if well filled, and by no means limited to the care
of one's own fireside), that, while  the  world  was sown
with jails  and  prisons,  he  could  not understand  the
complaint, except by the fact that the practice of benevo-
lence does not insure  worldly distinction.  In this con-
nection, however, he always felt the difficulty thrown in
the way by the common formulas of religious belief above
referred to.  A truly enlightened education of the people
he knew to be the only permanent remedy in  this as well
as other neglected fields  of human  duty, and he also
hoped for time to enter into such  details.  Any subject
that involved popular theories of religion and morality, in
their  mutual relations, always looked  to him like hercu-
lean labors ; there was  so much to be undone before a new 
190
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
beginning  could be made.   He was too  conservative to
pull down, without endeavoring to reconstruct something
upon the ruins of fallen idols, yet too radical to leave error
at peace.
  In the evening, attended a fancy ball at Almack's, given for the
benefit of the Poles;  at which the company wore the same dresses
which they wore  at the Queen's masked ball.  And  such  dresses !
Such caricatures  of humanity were enough to make a man call the
baboons and kangaroos his brethren rather than these.   Such an
immense display  of wealth, such pearls and diamonds, and cloth of
silver and gold, —how would it all put to shame the  pretensions
of our  displaying people!   About twenty ladies were beautifully
and tastefully  dressed.  The money of the others  apparently did
not hold out; for their dresses rose but just above  the  waist.
Among the men  there was  not a single  good head, — not one  that
argued strength  and  benevolence  :  among the  women there were
a few.   About seven hundred persons were present.
  June G.   Visited  Norwood and Newgate.   At Norwood there
are more than  a  thousand  children sent from London.   They are
the children  of parents who are in the London  poorhouses.
  Visited Marylebone Workhouse.  It contains about eighteen hun-
dred inmates.  They  appeared very comfortably situated.   Parts of
the building have been constructed  for a very long time, and without
any knowledge of the importance of classification  or  ventilation.
Some complaints  have lately been made on this subject,  and reforms
ordered.   Indeed, those who have the administration of the poor-
laws of the  kingdom — the poor-law commissioners, as  they are
called — seem duly to appreciate the importance of physical arrange-
ments,  and, in this particular, are effecting a great change  through-
out the kingdom.
  The  children  are taught some of the elementary branches; the
boys, some handicraft; the girls, sewing, knitting, &c.   Eighteen
hundred, — a population of paupers !  Not half of the towns in Mas-
sachusetts have a population equal to this, inclusive of their whole
numbers.
  Dined in the evening with the Archbishop of Dublin, with whose 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
191
noble liberality and catholicity of spirit I was more charmed than
ever.   He spoke again of Ireland, — of the means now in success-
ful operation to educate her people ; more than 300,000 children
being now in the schools which are under the superintendence of
the National Board  of Education.   In alluding to the exclusive
measures now insisted upon by the Established Church in regard to
a national  system of education in England, he  said,  " Suppose I
should make a  great feast, and  among my numerous guests there
should be a Jew :  should I compel  him to eat pork? "
   He was full of sportiveness and anecdote.
   Lord Monteagle and  lady were  of the  party.   He is altogether
the finest-looking nobleman I have seen, with a countenance  full  of
the expression  of  benevolence,  and a fair share of intellect, and
therefore a  gentleman with whom the archbishop  would be likely
to sympathize.
   How good a man must have been, to remain so good after  all
the temptations and seductions to exelusiveness under which a high
dignitary of the Church, like  the Archbishop of Dublin, must have
labored! .  . .
   Visited the famous York Cathedral. ... To  me the sight  of one
child educated to understand something of his  Maker, and  of that
Maker's works, is a far more glorious spectacle than all the cathe-
drals which the art of man has ever reared.  . .  .
   After reo-alino- our eyes on  this great  pile, we went to the wall
around the town, said to have  been built  by the  Romans.   It is
three or four miles in extent.   It  is now in  excellent  condition.
We walked nearly round it, and went to the foot of the old  castle,
which  has begun to  crumble.  . . .
   June 10.  We left Newcastle in  a coach called " Chevy Chase."
Thus  are  legends  perpetuated.   This is  natural and agreeable.
The county of  Northumberland presents  a very different  appear-
ance from the interior of England.  We soon found the fields be-
ginning to grow much larger, the hedges less frequent, the trees not
one to ten: and at last we came to  wide, open commons, where per-
haps for miles there was  no fence by the side  of the road; where
there had been but very little  cultivation, and most of the animals
were sheep, the houses few, and collected into poor-looking villages. 
192
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
This aspect of the country continued until we came to the Cheviot
Hills, which  divide  England  from Scotland.  Beyond  these, the
cultivation very  much improved.  As  we  approached  Jedburg,
situated on the River Jed, the scenery was very picturesque, resem-
bling in some degree that of Westfield River as seen from the West-
ern Railroad  or from the old Pontoosuck Turnpike. Jedburg itself
is a romantic place.  Here we  saw the  ruins  of  an old  cathedral,
and would most gladly have explored  them; but they were at some
distance, and only twenty minutes were allowed at dinner.
  From Jedburg we went to Dryburg Abbey, the burial-place  of
Sir Walter Scott.  Here we wished to  stop, but could only enter
Edinburgh by daylight by going on.    From  Dryburg to Melrose
is about two  miles.    From Melrose  to Abbotsford,  the  residence
of the late Sir Walter, it is three mile's.   We saw the house which
he built,  the trees which he planted,  and the grounds which  he
bought, — those  fatal grounds ! — and would gladly have made  a
pilgrimage to them:  but we are looking to the future rather than to
the past;  and that, all things considered, seemed to have the most
imperative demands upon us.   I confess it was a sacrifice for which
it is not probable  that posterity will repay me.
  We rode for many miles along the banks of the  Tweed, which are
full of beautiful scenery.  On this day's journey we  first  saw the
Scotch broom, a gaudy yellow flower; and the heath,  which looked
brown and lifeless, and had not  a  particle  of beauty to  ally it  to
poetry;  and  yet  the Scotch make  it  the subject of poetical asso-
ciations.  This is pure amor patriae.   The heath looks as  if it was
dead when it came up.
  On the way we saw the  Duke of  Buccleuch's  dog-kennels,
which were much better built, and had a far more comfortable air
about them, than half the cottages we  have  seen in England and
Scotland.
  June  18.   During the last week, I have devoted almost my en-
tire time to visiting the schools of Edinburgh.  ... It  is said to be
ascertained, from  statistical returns, that not more than one-third of
the children of Scotland are educated  in the parochial schools : the
rest depend upon  private schools, or receive no schooling at all. .  . .
The  office of  teacher is substantially held  for life.   He can be 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
193
disciplined, however, for good cause.   Teachers, in general, look for
promotion to the Church.   It is, as a general rule, only in default of
such promotion that they continue in a school.    Many, if not most
of them, are educated for  the Church, and then take a school until
they can get a living. . . .
   Of emulation, roused and inflamed to intensity in these  schools,
I have spoken on many occasions.   However one might be disposed
to regard it in matters purely of an intellectual character, it would
seem  beforehand as if  there  could be no  difference of opinion re-
specting it when religious or moral emotions are to be enkindled in
the mind.   On  those momentous themes, the very thought of which
should make the heart quail and the  eyes  stream with tears, there
is the same intellectual desire of responding as on a  question  of
the multiplication-table, with no  more consciousness of the solem-
nity of the subject treated in the one  case than in the other.   And
when I asked the teacher  of a school, in which every scholar had
evidently committed to memory every verse of the Gospels and. the
book of Hebrews, to examine them on some point of social  duty
or morals,  to  bring  out their ideas of conscience,  &c, he did not
seem fully to comprehend my meaning, and requested me to exam-
ine them myself.  In this respect, they were not equal to a  class of
boys in a good school of our own.*
   This teaching the bare doctrines or dogmas of theology,  without
awakening the conscience  and purifying  the affections, seems like
teaching anatomy without  physiology.   It is as necessary  that the
application of the principles of religion to the duties of life, or mo-
rality,  or natural theology, should be inculcated, as the principles
of scriptural theology. ...
   The object which has called up  the deepest  and tenderest asso-
ciations, far beyond those of any other object seen since I left home,
was the lowly, humble cottage where  Jeanie Deans is said  to  have
been born.   I have seen nothing that  affected me so deeply as the
sight  of the  residence, with the recollection of the story, of that
noble  girl.
   On Thursday, passed Sterling  Castle and the " banks  and braes

   * For details concerning Scotch schools, see Seventh Report of the  Secretary
of the Massachusetts Board of Education.
              13 
194
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
of bonnie Doon," and arrived at night at the cast end of Loch Ka-
trine.  In the morning I rose at five, and  ascended the beautiful
hill behind  our lodgings, near Loch  Achray.  Standing at any
one point, there seemed no path by which the ascent was practicable :
but seeking  my way,  step by step, I always found a spot where I
could plant  my foot;   and by diverging a little to the right here,
and to the left there, — now descending  apparently with a  retro-
grade movement   in  order  to turn  a crag or reach a  safer foot-
ing, — I at length stood upon the point which from  below seemed
inaccessible.  And here I moralized.  " It is in this way,"  thought I,
" that great  and difficult enterprises are accomplished.  If one looks
to the mighty evil to be overcome, or to the  great moral renovation
to be achieved, and thinks of these alone, he  may lie down in de-
spair at the apparent inadequacy of the means for the attainment of
the end.  But if he  looks around and about him,  and  sees what
wood can be done, what is now within his reach and  at his com-
mand, and addresses himself with all zeal and industry to do what
can be done, to take  the step next to the one just  taken, he will
gradually yet assuredly advance, and  at  last will find  himself at
the point of elevation  which from below seemed unattainable."
   We saw the launching of a little steamboat (the first ever launched
here) that was intended to ply the waters of Loch Katrine, but
we were  ourselves  taken over in a boat  rowed by  four men.   In
the course of the voyage,  one of  these  said he was a  teetotaler,
and refused to drink any whiskey which was offered to him  : so, when
we stepped ashore, I gave him a double fee for his  discipleship.
   The scenery of Loch  Lomond is at once beautiful  and  grand.
(The scenery of Loch Katrine was obscured by a pelting, blinding
shower.)  It  is  a  place  in which  to abandon one's self to the
love of Nature, to become receptive of impressions, and.  to yield to
the influence which they make upon the emotive part of our nature.
Amidst all this, however, I confess  my heart often turned  to the
fortunes of the rising  generation at home ;  and were it  not that I
hoped here to replenish  my strength, to  enter with  renewed vigor
into their service, I would have preferred to be closeted  in narrow
apartments,  working for them, to all the joy of  beholding this mag-
nificent display. 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
195
   Mr. Mann's heart turned to the " rising generation at
home " too often during this short European excursion.
Even the little recreation it afforded him to run up moun-
tains, and  sail all day occasionally upon a beautiful lake,
gave  his over-worked  brain some relief, though never to
the point of affording him much or quiet sleep, which was
the restorer  he  needed.  He " fought all his battles o'er
again " in the night-watches ;  and not even the counsels of
his wise friend Mr.  Combe could persuade him to dismiss
all thought of labor, even for  a few weeks  at a time, in
view of the future advantage.   He thought then that his
hold of life might be very brief; and his wish to bring his
plans for the common  schools of his country to a certain
maturity overmastered every consideration  of prudence.
When remonstrated with for thus  violating the natural
laws he so strenuously urged, his only reply was that  he
obeyed a higher law than he violated, and that the benefit
of the experience he had gained must not be lost to the
cause  for any personal considerations.   Finding remon-
strances to  be  unavailing,  his  friends always felt  the
magnetic  influence of his ardor such,  that they yielded
the point, and joined their efforts to his  to accomplish the
ends  he had  in view.  But if he had  occasionally given
himself up to the healing influences of the nature he so
much loved, and which is so admirably adapted to the wants
of an exhausted system, he might have escaped another
source of  ill health which from this period distressed him
for many  years.  It Avas the tic-douloureux, whose tor-
tures rendered him nearly frantic, till  at last he  had a
whole mouthful of apparently sound teeth extracted, which
revealed the  neuralgic sacs at  the roots of three teeth,
that had been the hidden cause of the malady.   His health
improved from that time, until  the exhausting labors  of
the last £qw years of his life again prostrated him beyond
recovery. 
196               LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
   Thursday,  June 22.   Visited  the  Normal  School at Glasgow.
There is nothing peculiar in this school, except  that Mr.  Stowo, the
principal, discards emulation as one of the incitements to study.
   In the Royal Asylum for the Insane, the plan of common dormi-
tories is introduced.   One  room is  designed for four suicidal pa-
tients.  It is  said they will keep each other from committing an
injury.
   Dr. Hutchinson, the principal, says it answers an excellent pur-
pose to  place the melancholic and  the  boisterously gay in the same
apartments: the excesses of each are counteracted by those of the
other.   This seems rational.
   Under the protection of Capt. Miller, the Superintendent of Po-
lice, I visited some of the worst districts of Glasgow.   The condi-
tion of the poor is inconceivably wretched in some of these quarters.
In one place, we passed under an arch of ten or twelve feet;  then
we  came  to a small open  square, perhaps six feet, where all the
refuse of many families was thrown.   Through this we  went  up a
narrow stairway into  a room not more  than ten feet  square, where
were three beds and two sick women, one groaning as if in agony.
Here were all the furniture,  goods, and chattels of the family.
  In another place, we had to contract ourselves into a height of not
more than four feet to enter  the  low door.   We descended a  long
step for  this, passed under a covered way where we could not stand
upright  by more than a foot, and entered a miserable room, about
as large as the one just  described, but not higher than my shoul-
ders ; and on the front side was the only window, of six panes of
glass of about six inches square.   Along the street into which this
window  looked ran a brook, which sometimes rose and overflowed,
and filled up these apartments almost to the ceiling.   The water of
the brook was exceedingly muddy and  fetid.  This district covered
acres, in which there was nothing but a repetition of the same dread-
ful  scenes.   Children abounded here.   Almost  every  female old
enough  to hold a child had one in her arms.   This place of abomi-
nation was screened  from  public view by rows  of fine houses and
shops on some of the principal streets of the city.
  Visited the old Cathedral of Glasgow, and  heard  the quota of
legends  that belongs to all such places. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
197
  Dr.  Nicol, the astronomer, showed me very beautiful  astronomi-
cal instruments.   The transit instrument cost £800.   Here, too, I
saw a very beautiful anemometer, made  by Mr. Osier of Birming-
ham.  It records, or rather delineates, the course and intensity of the
wind.  A rain-gauge is also connected with it, by which not only the
quantity of the fall of rain is ascertained, but exactly at what time
it rained fastest,  and how much the fastest.   The cost of the whole
is £40.
  In the University of Glasgow is a statue of Sir James Watt.  He
was a native of Greenock, a poor boy, and at sixteen years of age
came to Glasgow in search of his fortune.  He used to stand at the
great arched entrance to the square of  the University, and sell toys
of his own  construction to the students.  As he obtained means, he
extended his traffic : but,  being interfered with by members of the
city corporation for exercising a trade, the university, which was also
a corporation,  took  him  under its  protection; and here his genius
began  to develop itself.   An  original  model of a steam-engine —
the very one  on which he first  exerted his inventive  powers —
stands by the  side  of his  statue.   How  rude and feeble, compared
with those  beautiful and mighty instruments which have succeeded
to it, this model appears !
  In Scotland, there is a society, incorporated by act of Parliament,
"for  the relief of the widows and children of burgh or parochial
schoolmasters."   This society  was incorporated early in the present
century.   All burgh and parochial schoolmasters are, ex  officio,
members of it.  Each member is obliged to pay a certain sum an-
nually towards the funds ; and, in consideration of this payment, his
widow,  if he leaves one, and her  children, if children  survive her,
are entitled to draw an annuity from the funds.  It is optional with
the members to pay more or less within certain prescribed  limits;
but the amount  of  the  annuity to which these representatives are
entitled is determined by the amount of the annual subscription.
  There are many details of minor importance respecting this cor-
poration, for which  one must look to the act of Parliament and to
the by-laws and regulations of the  society.   No widow or family
can draw more than £25 a year.
  The funds of this society are now rather more than  £50,000 : 
198                LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
total accumulated  fund or capital on the 10th  September, 1842,
£54,207.  13s. bd.
  Taking a broad and  statesmanlike view  of  the subject, it is
clear that it would have been  far better  to give to schoolmasters
such a  competent  salary, that each one, by prudence  and good
management, could not only support himself during his term of
public  service, but could also  have  a competency  for his family.
The whole scheme is  an attempt to mitigate the evils of poverty,
winch the penuriousness  of the schemers  first inflicts.   It is not,
like a common insurance, a provision against casualties,  or unfore-
seen or uncontrollable disasters; but it compels each one, however
poor or unfortunate, or however small his salary may be, to contrib-
ute to a fund, the income of which is also to be divided among  all,
merely on the contingency of leaving a widow or an orphan, — not
on the contingency of actual want, nor in case of actual want, on its
happening through misfortune, or the sufferer's own improvidence.
  Hamburg. .  .   . This was  once  a fortress;  and  walls  were
erected  all round  the town, except on the side where it lies upon
the Elbe.  The ramparts are now demolished ; and, where they once
stood, beautiful winding  walks  are  laid out, and the grounds  are
planted with various  forest and flowering trees and garden-flowers
of many kinds, stretching outward into the walks.   The whole is
open to the public, and the truant boy from the streets  as well as
the day laborer and the people  of taste have free access here; and
yet a tree or shrub is never injured, a flower  is never plucked.
Suppose the whole of Boston Common to  be laid out like a gentle-
man's garden, the fences  to be removed, and the whole thrown open
to every one who might choose  to enter, whether from the city or
from the country:  how long would the walks remain uninjured, the
trees and plants  unmutilated,  the  flowers unplucked?    This is
certainly a lesson to republican America.
  Magdeburg is a walled city and  fortified town.   It contains
about thirty thousand inhabitants.   Its main  street,  called Breite
Weg, runs through the city from  north  to south.   At each end is
one of the gates, or entrances;  and before each gate are very exten-
sive fortifications.   Those at the south gate must cover five hundred
acres or more.   The fortifications  are ramparts and moats, with cov- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               199
ered ways, or  subterranean  passages, by which those on  the outer
walls, if driven  in, can pass securely behind another and another;
and there are still other barriers, I know not how many.
  The sight of the whole produced a most painful impression on my
mind.   What a height of honor, of excellence, and of happiness,
might mankind have attained, if a thousandth, or even a millionth,
part of the wealth, and the  time, and  the  talent, and  the  energy,
which have been expended for their oppression and debasement, had
been spent wisely in improving their condition !
  Berlin.—The institution for the deaf and dumb surpasses that
at Magdeburg.  .  .  . Almost all the public schools in Berlin were
closed for the summer vacation the morning after our arrival.  By
the favor of some very kind people, we obtained access to several
private schools; and here we saw excellent specimens of teaching.
  The curiosities or '' wonders'' of Berlin are many and very interest-
ing.  The Museum, the collection of two  thousand specimens of
art from Pompeii and Herculanoum;  the fountain in the Lust-garten;
the Arsenal; the Palace, in which is the Kunst Cabinet; the library
of five hundred  thousand volumes; the Thier-garten, &c, — are
certainly  things well worthy the  attention  of any one who  travels
for  sight-seeing.
  July 1G.  At Potsdam we find the schools still  open, and have
seized with great avidity  upon the opportunity of visiting them.
With them all  we are highly pleased.
  We  have visited Sans  Souci, the  palace  built by  Frederick
the Great.  In the New  Palace* is  one of the most tasteful and
splendid of rooms,—a spacious apartment, more than a hundred feet
in length and sixty in  width, with pillars at each end so as to bring
the central part  into the form of  a square.   This  room has a most
beautifully variegated  marble floor.   Large and splendid figures
are  inlaid,  radiating  from  the  centre  outward.   But  the most
beautiful idea of the whole  is the formation of the walls — which
resemble  stalactites — and  the pillars.   These are covered  with
shells  of  all kinds that fishes have ever lived in, or with specimens
of mineralogy, tastefully arranged.  The present castellan, who is
  * This palace is said to have been built by Frederick after the seven-years' war,
to p -ove that he had some money left. 
200
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
 an old gentleman of taste, has introduced this feature; and kings
 and potentates, as well as lesser people, send him specimens from
 every  part  of  the world,  so that the collection is ever increasing.
 Large  chandeliers  are suspended from  the ceiling;  and, when
 lighted up, the scene  must be brilliant beyond  the description of
 fable.  ... In  the Old Palace  at  Potsdam, and  in  the  new one
 near  Sans  Souci, we saw the favorite rooms of  Frederick  the
 Great, his library, tables,  writing-desks, and various other parapher-
 nalia.   Some of this has been preserved as nearly as possible in the
 same condition in which it was left by him.   It is said that a clock,
 which  he had  always  wound  up with his own hand, stopped at the
 very minute of his death;  and it has been left in that condition ever
 since.   Here, as in  other palaces, was a perfect wilderness of pic-
 tures.   The rooms of state were as rich  as gold and carving and
 painting could make them.    England's  palaces  do not compare
 with them.   In many instances, the eye was pained with the profu-
 sion of those things which were intended for its delight.
   At Charlottenberg we saw  a very beautiful mausoleum, or small
 temple, erected by the late king  to the memory of his  wife,  the
 lamented Louise.  Here  is a statue, — recumbent, — larger than
 life, of the queen, by Rauch.   The building was very simple in its
 architecture, and very rich in its materials;  and the only unpleasant
 circumstance pertaining  to our visit  there was that the  keeper
 should be allowed to take money from visitors,  for the  king, for
 showing the monument of  his deceased  mother.
   At Potsdam  we became acquainted  with  Von Turk, a man Ion"
 celebrated for his charitable deeds.   He has erected several orphan-
 houses ; and is  now at the  head of one, to the support of which he is
 said to appropriate his whole income.
   One  of the  most  interesting sights  in  Potsdam is  that  of  the
Royal Orphan House, founded by Frederick the Great.   It contains a
thousand children, — all the children of soldiers.   They  seem  col-
 lected there  as a monument of the  havoc which war makes of men.
 They are instructed in all the rudiments of knowledge and  in music,
 and are  practised  in gymnastic exercises to a remarkable point of
 perfection.  They performed feats which I have never seen equalled,
 except  by a company of professed circus-riders  or  rope-dancers. 
                   LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               201

Here we saw a terrible array of feather-beds, a hundred and forty
in one room; and  no other covering,  in summer weather, but  a
feather-bed weighing fifteen or twenty pounds !
  Halle, July 21.   In the  Franke  Institute  are three thousand
children under the superintendence of Mr. Niemeyer.   The  orphans
compose but a small part  of  this  number.   It was founded in the
eighteenth century,  and is said to be the father of all the  orphan-
houses which have  been erected  since in Germany.   The  teachers
were all of a very high order, — intelligent, benevolent-looking men.
The institute is a quarter of a mile long, six stories high, several
apartments thick, built round an oblong court-yard.   The statue of
the founder stands in one  of the courts before the director's house,
with his hands on two children's heads, and the motto on the pedestal,
"He trusted in God." . . . We also visited a poor-school, where the
children behaved much better than they dressed (I have seen schools,
in some countries, where the children dressed much better than they
behaved) ; also a  school for very poor children, where  they are
taken care  of while  their  parents are at work; and a school of a
dozen or fifteen large scholars, who had  been examined for confirma-
tion, but had failed in consequence  of their ignorance of the Bible.
Here they were  collected, and put under the  care of an instructor,
who was endeavoring  to give them, to commit to memory,  so many
verses of the Bible as would authorize their being confirmed, avow-
in«- their belief in the Lutheran creed, and partaking the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper.  They certainly were as desperate-looking
subjects as I ever saw; but they  could  obtain no clerkship, appren-
ticeship, or other employment, unless confirmed. ... All the incon-
veniences and physiological wrongs of  German schools find a com-
pensation in the character of the teachers.  Those whom I have met
in the schools, if assembled together, would form the finest collection
of men I have  ever seen, — full of intelligence, dignity, benevo-
lence, kindness,  and bearing in their countenances  and demeanor
the impress of conscientiousness and fidelity to their trust.   In our
own schools, the employment of female teachers has been frequently
advocated; and  one of the strong  arguments in favor of their ser-
vices  has been, that they were more kind, affectionate, forbearing,
and encouraging than the other  sex.   In Germany this argument 
 202                LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.

 would not be understood; or, rathor, the fact on which the opinion
 is founded with  us does not exist there.    As  yet, I have  never
 seen an instance of harshness or severity:  all is kind, encouraging,
 animating, sympathizing.  This  last is  true to  such  a  degree as
 would seem  almost ludicrous with us.   A German teacher evinces
 the greatest  joy at the success of a pupil  in answering a question;
 seems sorrowful, and  even  deeply moved with  grief, if he fails.
 When a question has been put to  a young scholar, which he strove
 and struggled to answer, I have seen a look of despair in the teacher ;
 but if the  little wrestler with difficulties overcame them, and gave
 the right answer, the  teacher would  seize and shake him ardently
 by the hand  to felicitate him upon  his triumph; and where  the
 difficulty has been really formidable, but the exertion on the scholar's
 part triumphant, I have seen the teacher seize the pupil in his arms
 and embrace  him, and caress him with  parental fondness, as if he
 were not able to contain the joy which a successful effort had given
 him.   At  another time, I have  seen a teacher  actually clap his
 hands with delight at a bright reply.   And all this has been done
 so naturally, so unaffectedly, as  to excite no  other feeling  in  the
 residue of the children than  that of a desire to win the same favor
 for themselves.
   Dresden, July  29.  . .  .  We have visited the gallery of paint-
 ings several  times, and  found  a collection vastly  superior to any
 thing seen since leaving England.   Without being much of an ama-
 teur, I must say that there is true delight  in looking at such chefs
 d'ceuvre of genius;  and, if other things were as they should be, it
 would give unalloyed  pleasure to see them.   But when wo reflect
 how the arts have  flourished amid  an immeasurable extent of mise-
 ry, and that those  who have cultivated them most  munificently by
 their patronage  and their wealth have been most regardless  of  the
 welfare of their fellow-men,  it throws a cloud over the brightest
 pictures which the pencil of the artist ever  painted.
   Aug.  2.   Visited the Green Rooms, as they are  called,  of  the
 Palace.  Here are collected the wonders of Art  and the riches of
 Nature. . . .  The regalia of the Saxon kings is  one of the richest in
the world.   A few  years  ago, it was  mortgaged  for  five  million
dollars; and this was supposed to be only about half its value.  Oh, 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
203
how these look  to a philanthropic eye, that knows at what an ex-
pense of human happiness they have been acquired !
  Aug. 3.   Saxony has a constitution, and a representative body
of two houses.   The constitution was granted by the king in 1831.
The  upper house, where the ministers have  a seat, that they may
answer questions and make  explanations, &c, during  the debates,
seemed, when I visited it, to be really a deliberative and a dignified
body. ...  A representative assembly in Saxony, with Austria on
one side, and Prussia on the other, is like a bit of good ham in an
otherwise miserable sandwich.
  In a burgher school  near Dresden, I heard, for the first time in
Germany, a lesson on the constitution of the State.   The teaching
was extemporaneous ; and the teacher took occasion to contrast the
excellence of their present condition, when they have laws made by
representatives  elected  by themselves, not  only with  the  condition
of unlimited monarchies around them, but with their own condition
in former times.
  From Dresden we visited the tomb  of Moreau.  The monument
is very cheap and simple.  It marks the spot where he  fell.   At the
great battle of Dresden, in 1813, between Bonaparte and the allies,
it is related that Bonaparte saw  a small body  of men assembled
on a little elevation, a mile and a half or two miles from his head-
quarters, and also that couriers were constantly passing to and from
them.  He immediately ordered one of his batteries, consisting of
twelve guns, to load, and elevate  for that spot, and, at the word of
command, to  fire simultaneously.   This order was executed.   The
group at which  the guns were  directed consisted  of Moreau, of the
Emperor Alexander, the king, and others.   The ball which struck
Moreau took off his leg on  one side, passed  through the body of the
horse, and took off the other leg.   Bonaparte said if he had fired a
single shot into  such a company, as most men would have done, he
should only have alarmed them, and committed  no execution; but
something was to be hoped from a dozen guns.

  In Leipsic, Mr. Mann and Mr. Combe had unexpectedly
met.  Mr. Combe had been peremptorily  sent  to Germa-
ny, and condemned to silence, by his physicians, on ac-
                                                            1 
204
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
count of an attack upon his lungs;  and the two friends
were put under  protest: but they disregarded every pro-
hibition, and pied a pied, or on some pleasant excursion,
they  talked solidly from morning till night during  the
few weeks they remained together.   In  spite  of the  ap-
prehensions of friends, Mr. Combe  improved every day.
Sometimes, taking one  horse, one would  literally " walk
on  the horse," as the French say, while the other walked
on  foot, still talking, till  Mr. Combe had imparted  all
his observations on the country, with which he was familiar
by  frequent  and  long residences, and  till they had talked
far into the future as well as into  the  past.   At last, time
was no more for them ; and they reluctantly parted, never
to  meet again on earth, except in  the affections, and in
such  measure of intellectual companionship as correspon-
dence by letter  could give.   Both  were men capable of
deep  and abiding friendship ; and the brilliancy of the one
was a fine counterpoise  to the gravity of the  other, each
being endowed with logical power  to satisfy the other's de-
mands for that quality of intellect, without which neither
could enjoy interchange of thought with any one.
  Aug. 4.  We started, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Combe, on
an excursion to Saxon Switzerland, as it is called, — a region about
twenty-five miles east of Dresden.
  We went first to Puna  to visit a lunatic asylum of great re-
pute.  It contains rather more than three hundred subjects.  The
building is most beautifully situated on  a very high eminence rising
abruptly from  the right bank of the Elbe.   It entirely overlooks
the  whole town, and would do so if it were  a hundred  feet lower.
It was an ancient castle ; and, having been built expressly for a gar-
rison,  it may well  be  supposed that the internal  arrangement is
ill adapted to the  purposes of  a hospital.   We heard beautiful
music, some pieces  of which were performed by the inmates, who
appeared to be well treated, and as happy as such sufferers can be.
Apart from the main building is a separate establishment  for the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
205
convalescent, — an excellent arrangement.  The hospital was estab-
lished in 1811, when the king had supreme power, and it was not
necessary to enlighten the people to secure obedience  to the com-
mands of the State.   How different is  this from the case in Mas-
sachusetts !   Our hospital depended for its support  upon  the good
will of the people, and therefore  it was necessary to enlighten the
people.  Annual reports  are not  published from  this  German hos-
pital ; but in Massachusetts the people were enlightened in various
ways, particularly by the  preparation and publication of extensive
reports.   These, being freely distributed, have  produced an  entire
revolution in public opinion upon the subject of  insanity.   Proba-
bly far less has been done  in the course of thirty years, in enlighten-
ing the minds of the people of Saxony on this subject, than  has been
done in Massachusetts within ten years.
   When this country  was occupied  by Bonaparte,  in 1813, he
wished to station a detachment of soldiers at Pirna.  Accordingly, he
despatched orders to the superintendent  to have the hospital cleared
in eight hours.   The insane were sent  to the  neighboring church,
and the troops occupied their dwelling.
   On our way to Schandau, we passed the Fortress of Konigstein, —
a fortress which has never yet been  taken.  On  all sides but one, it
is inaccessible to any thing that has gravity.  Opposite  to it  is the
Fortress of Lilienstein, which is almost inacessible on all  sides. Yet
Napoleon caused a road to be made  for a considerable distance over
a before impassable tract of country, and three cannons to be carried
to the top of this bluff, in the hope of throwing his shot into Konig-
stein ; but the distance was too great, and therefore the attempt un-
successful.
   Lilienstein is a beautiful, symmetrical eminence, rising  from the
level of the surrounding  country; and  shot up through the centre
of this is a tremendous mass of sandstone, leaving a surface,  at  a vast
height from the region beneath, of an extraordinarily striking char-
acter.   It is  more than  a hundred and fifty feet higher  than its
fellow, and is  a more imposing object; but Konigstein  is situated
immediately on the left bank of the Elbe, and serves  to command
that channel both into and out of the heart of the  country.
   On Saturday,  the  5th, we  set  out for Saxon Switzerland; pro- 
206
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
ceeding a number  of miles in a carriage,  when we were obliged  to
alight, and either be carried in a litter, ride on horseback, or go on
foot.  The scenery of this region of country is most peculiar.  In one
place, a perpendicular wall of rock from  three to five hundred feet
high encloses an area of two miles in diameter.   The rock is sand-
stone, and generally appears in thin layers (from one to ten feet  in
thickness), although sometimes there is no visible division horizontally
for a hundred feet; but vertically they are all split, as it were, into
pillars, the rifts being generally very narrow;  and  sometimes the
clefts cross each other at right angles, dividing the mass into small
squares if we consider them horizontally, but into immense parallel-
ograms when considered vertically.  The  summit of  each pillar has
been worn by time,  so that it presents the  form of a rounded cap,  or
dome.  The highest point in this vicinity is that of the Winterwalde,
seventeen hundred feet  above the level of the sea, and commanding
a view of the whole region; and when the grandeur  of  the features
and the wild natural aspect are contrasted with the cultivated fields
which lie to the east, and with the quiet flowing of the Elbe as it is
seen towards the west, the scene is picturesque  and imposing in the
highest  degree.   For particulars of sites and  wonders, the guide-
books must be consulted; but no one can have any adequate idea
of the face of  Saxony, who does not visit  this miniature of Switzer-
land.   The best route  is that from Chandau to  the Kuhstall first,
and back  by the Elbe.
   On Monday,  the 7th, I visited the two Chambers again, and
was struck with the order and sobriety of the members  of each.
The lower as well as the upper house sits uncovered, and the mem-
bers all  leave  their hats and overcoats in  an  anteroom.   In the
lower house there is a  democratic party, or a party contending for
more  privileges.  Last winter, they made  a  strong effort to  carry a
measure  for the publicity of  criminal trials, and the  removal  of
restrictions from the press.
   To show how much  the constitution  is  valued,  it  may be  re-
marked, that in Leipsic  the day of its anniversary is a holiday in all
the public schools.
   In the evening we were invited to  the house of a Mr. de Krausc,
a pleasant gentleman, who, with his family, spoke very good English. 
LTFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
207
He told me that all the governments of Germany, excepting Austria
and Prussia alone, had constitutions and representative assemblies.
   We made the  acquaintance  to-day of a Mr. Noel, a  cousin of
Lady Byron.   He is an  English gentleman, who married a  Bohe-
mian lady, and lives at Ispilitz.   He  assured  me that this country
is  working its way rapidly towards liberal institutions.    Even in
Bohemia, where a sort of parliament is assembled thrice  a year to
register the will of the king, — it being so much a matter of form,
that  the sessions last but a single day, — even here a spirit of in-
quiry is  aroused, and for the last two years the right had been ex-
ercised of asking some questions in reference to the  use of moneys
granted to the king.  At the coming session, he said he  knew that
this inquiry was to be renewed and insisted upon.   Thus light is
dawning upon the midnight of Austrian despotism.
   He told me that education is very general in Austria, but that it
b  very inferior, and that government  means to keep it  within its
present limits.   A number of private  gentlemen, last year, desired
to contribute the means, and erect a school in Prague for the prepara-
tion of  teachers; but, on making  application to the  government for
liberty to do so, they were  refused.  Yet, even in  Austria, a  man
is  not allowed  to  teach until he has served an  apprenticeship  as an
assistant school-teacher for a year or more.
   To-day, also, I was introduced to  the  Hof-prediger Amnion, a
Catholic priest, the keeper  of  the  king's conscience.   I found him
a  most  delightful man; full  of  generosity;  a noble figure, fine
head, the most charming expression of countenance;  and,  when any
thing was said that particularly interested or pleased him, he would
seize the speaker- by the hand, and evince the liveliness of his satis-
faction  by a hearty shake.   He  inquired very particularly about
the Germans in America,—their civil, social, and political condition;
and exhibited the warmest interest in every thing that concerned the
welfare of man.   If such a man can  grow up  under the  influences
of Catholicism, what would he be under a  nobler dispensation ?
He spoke of Bohemia,  which is  Cathohc, with great regard, and
said that the school-teachers who came from there had more  practi-
cal skill, though  they  were not  so  theoretically conversant  with
their duty as those of Prussia and Saxony.               i 
208                LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
  We have met with but very few beggars in Prussia and Saxony;
not so many in all as I have  seen in a single day in London.   But
when, in making the tour of  Saxon Switzerland, we entered Bohe-
mia, we encountered more beggars in an hour than we had seen be-
fore in a month.   Indeed, the road was almost thronged with them;
and I think they must all have heard  the story of the unfortunate
woman who  meant to succeed by perseverance, —by worrying, if
not by exciting compassion.
  Erfurt was formerly a Saxon city, but was transferred to Prussia
by the Holy (or,  more  properly speaking,  the  Unholy)  Alliance.
We called immediately on Director Thilo, to whom we had an inti'o-
duction.   After visiting schools, we went  to the monastery where
Luther  translated the New Testament; saw the pulpit where he
preached, and  the cell which he occupied.   This is  the celebrated
cell of Luther  at Erfurt.  Here is shown the very inkstand out of
which he wrote,—a large,  coarse,  wooden box  about three inches
long, five inches wide, and  six inches  deep.  That  box moved  the
world.   How  many sceptres must be  added  together to  get  the
emblem or the remembrances of such  power !   We  saw his  first
translation of  the New Testament; specimens of his handwriting,
as well as that of Melanchthon, which are preserved in a glass case,
and  are  certainly not  models of calligraphy.   In  this cell it was
that Luther had  those  strivings which  he held  to be contests  with
the Devil; and so completely did his imagination triumph over his
senses, that  he supposed the Devil  appeared to him, and tempted
him, face to face.  In  the  cell, upon the wall,  is  shown the  spot
made by his inkstand when he hurled it into the face of his Satanic
Majesty.  This was certainly a very intelligent hint to the intruder;
and, if his complexion were a matter of any consequence to him, it
may be presumed he did not expose himself a second  time.
   From Erfurt to Eisenach.   Visited,  with Director  Schmid, the
schoolhouses of Eisenach, one of which is  new and quite elegant,
but constructed without the slightest reference to its being inhabited
by breathing animals.  Mr. Schmid is a man of the highest nervous
temperament, and of great mental activity.  He took us to an exam-
ination  of a private school, where two fine-looking teachers were in
turn examining a class of about thirty girls.  Here the idea recurred 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
209
to me, but more forcibly than ever before, what a disproportion be-
tween  the amount of  thought and  of talent devoted  to  the  cause
of education here and in America.
   Visited the Schloss of Wartberg, where Luther hid himself when
he fled from Worms, and where also, it  is said, he  translated his
Bible.  Here  the  cell which he  occupied is  shown, and  another
place on the wall where he flung his inkstand at the Devil.  Which
is the true scene of that rencounter, I have no means of knowing;
but according  to all traditions, wherever it might be, the Devil came
off second-best.
   Saw the cathedral where the  emperors were  formerly chosen and
crowned, and the present Town House where they repaired  to dine.
In the great dining-hall of the Town House, at the ends and sides,
there are  forty-five niches, with pictures, in each, of the whole
series of German  emperors, from the tenth century down to the
present, when the line came  to an  end.   I was told that  great
care  had been taken to obtain these likenesses; and a rascallier-
looking set of  fellows  one would  not  desire to see out of a  state
prison.
   While visiting the Cathedral, I fell in with my friend Dr. Howe,
whom  I was more glad to see than I can express.   The  meeting
was purely accidental.   I should like to have Babbage calculate .the
chances that two atoms like Dr.  Howe and myself, floating about
in the atmosphere of all  Europe, would come  in contact with  each
other.
   Aug. 19.   At Schwalbach we dined, and  at Schlangen we re-
mained over  night.  .  .  .  These great wateringrplaces  are in the
Duchy of  Nassau.  .  .  .  The  schools here seem  to be very well
managed,  the  teachers competent;  and here, as  elsewhere, nothing
is wanting but freedom.   But is it not a reproach to freedom when
men  who are free act less wisely for  themselves than despots act for
their subjects ?
   Daemstadt. ... In speaking with the director of the city schools
here  about the regularity of attendance, he said they did not know
that  there was any other way :.  the children were born with the in-
nate  idea  of going to  school.   Our  school registers and  abstracts
14 
210               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
will  show that our children  are very far from having  any such in-
stinct.
  Aug. 26.  Came to Carlsruhe, or  Charles's Rest.   It  is said,
that, in  the  early  part  of  the  last century, Prince  Charles was
travelling through  this part of  his dominions, when,  sitting  down
to rest under a tree, he conceived the idea of founding a city from
that  centre.  He laid  out thirty-two roads from that point,  like the
radii of  a  circle, corresponding with  the  thirty-two  points of  the
compass.   One-half the area laid out  is still  forest.  The only
stream upon which the city is built is about large enough for one
duck with her brood to swim in, and it has no  natural advantages
whatever.  It stands here  solely to  gratify a selfish whim, and is
upheld by being the residence of the Grand Duke and the garrison
of a few thousand of his soldiers.  At a short distance to the west
flows the Rhine.  Such are the effects of folly when united with
power.   Berlin  is another example of the same thing.  Carlsruhe
has provided very liberally for the education of its children.   There
is a polytechnic school, in which the subjects taught are very  inter-
esting, and have a close relation with practical life.
  Sept. 3.  I  remained at Baden during the  whole  of  the past
week, and tried to drown disease out of my system as people drown
a woodchuck out of  his hole; but I  found  that  disease had a
stronger hold than health, and, therefore, that I was daily drowning
out the  latter instead of the former.   Finding  that I  was growing
worse so fast that there would be small chance to grow worse  much
longer,  I abandoned all'hope and  water at the same time, and
hastened away.
  At Baden I visited the remains of the old castle, which are stu-
pendous.   In its walls  there is an  oublie  where prisoners were
immured, to be forgotten by the world.
  In the new  castle  I  also visited some horrible dungeons, — a
descent below the surface of the earth, and  then winding passages
through eight or ten cells of solid walls;  and, last of all, a dungeon,
into  which those condemned, or those only suspected, were let down
through a trap-door to receive a horrid punishment, perhaps  to die
a lingering death.   In a passage-way adjoining the  prison was a
vault of unknown depth, over which was placed a trap-door, and by 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
211
the side of the door an image of the Virgin Mary.   This image the
condemned  prisoner was requested  to kiss; but,  the  moment he
approached  it, the door fell, and he was precipitated to the bottom,
where were placed large wheels  stuck full  of sharp-pointed and
sharp-edged knives, that, by their revolutions, cut him  to  pieces.
One would think that ghosts would  dwell  in such a house,  if any-
where ;  and that no king could  enjoy the honors of  royalty who
inherited blood from such ancestors. . . .
   At Bingen, also, I saw an old castle which had  its trap-door and
dungeon a la mode. . . . From Bingen we came to Coblentz.   Here
the Rhine passes  through what is called the Rhine-gau, — a kind
of scenery which cannot be described; or, if describable, the best
description may be found in " Childe Harold."
   In Coblentz the greater  part  of  the  people are Catholics.   I
heard a priest  of the Catholic Church give a religious lesson to the
children.   A part of it consisted of an explanation  of the sacrament
of the Lord's  Supper, and  particularly of transubstantiation.   He
said, if  Christ could turn water into wine, then why not turn wine
into blood,  and  bread into flesh ? — and I am sure I could  not tell
him why one was not as easy as the other.   The children  were
obliged to sit for an hour, with their  hands placed together in front,
and hear this nonsense.  They seemed uneasy and miserable enough.
I went into  the church, heard the mummeries, saw the genuflexions,
and the sprinkling with holy water.  The quantity of water  did not
seem to be material; for, when two women went out together, I saw
one of them dip the tip of her finger in the holy copper kettle, and
the other then touched the tip of her finger to the tip of the wetted
one,  and  both  passed on.  I am inclined  to believe that such a
homoeopathic dose answered the same  purpose as  taking an entire
bath.
   Cologne. —The Dom Church is one of the grandest structures I
ever saw.   On the top  of the great  tower is still standing the huge
crane by which the heavy blocks of stone were raised.  The church
not being completed  when  first  built, this was left to  be  further
used, and so remained  since the thirteenth century.  At one time
it was  taken  down;  but, soon after, the town was  visited  by a
furious thunder-storm,  by  which the  inhabitants were  terribly 
212               LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
frightened, and which they attributed to the removal of the crane
aforesaid.   Whereupon it was re-instated  by  acclamation;  but
whether it has since kept off all thunder-storms, as in duty bound,
I know not.

   This is all the notice of the  Cathedral of Cologne,  that
miracle of art and  beauty, which appears in  Mr. Mann's
hurried journal;  but, although such structures generally
awakened more  painful than pleasurable feelings in him,
he was overcome  by this one so far as to linger round it,
and revisit it, and do homage to its wondrous beauty and
its miraculous proportions, as long as he staid  in  Cologne.

   The Church of  St.  Ursula has nothing in its architecture to
attract notice :  but it is remarkable for being a place of more bones
than Golgotha; for that, if we take the account strictly, was only a
place of skulls, whereas St. Ursula has all the varieties in the whole
skeleton.   In building  the church, large niches, or holes, were left
in the walls; and these  have been filled with dead women's bones,
as the tradition goes:  but probably no scientific physiologist  or
comparative anatomist has  ever examined them to see whether they
were not  bones of  men or monkeys.  The tradition is, that ten
thousand virgins were put  to death for allegiance to  their vows of
chastity, and that  these bones belong to the said virgins.  In the
choir, and around the altar, about  fifteen feet  from  the  floor, are
twenty glass cases,  set  into the  main wall of the building.  These
cases are divided into twenty-four compartments; and from behind
each little pane of the  glass looks out, or rather grins out, a skull.
Twenty times twenty-four is four hundred and eighty.  No doubt,
some churchyard was robbed  to obtain these.   But here,  also, is
said  to be the skull of St. Ursula herself;  and in this church, or in
some other in the same town, is also the skull of St. Peter, and the
skulls of the three wise  men who came from the east at the birth of
the Saviour.
   Holland.—Here is a  society for promoting the  public good,
whose  headquarters  are at Amsterdam, with  branches  in  all the
principal  cities.  It numbers  forty thousand  members.   It was 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
213
commenced in 1784 by a Baptist clergyman.   It did a great deal
for the  public  schools before the year 1806, when the government
took them under  its protection.   Since that time, great improve-
ments in the education of the people have taken place.
   Holland is famous for its benevolent institutions.  Amsterdam
alone has twenty-three hospitals, alms-houses, and charitable founda-
tions  of various kinds.   It is said that when some one, in conversa-
tion with  Charles  II., prognosticated speedy ruin to the  city from
the meditated  attack of Louis XIV.'s  armies, Charles,  who was
well acquainted with the country  by a residence in it, replied,
" I am  of opinion  that  Providence will preserve Amsterdam, if it
were only for its  great charity to  the poor."   I called on a vener-
able old Quaker  gentleman  in Amsterdam, a member of a society
for the  improvement of prisons and prisoners.   He said he could
not introduce me  to the prison, and would  not if he could; for it
was too bad to be seen.
   A deputation from Holland is  now in England, examining the
Pentonville and other prisons, with a view to the erection of a new
one.  The Quaker gentleman is in favor of the Pennsylvania system,
with some modifications of the rigors of that  system.
   In the evening,  we came to Haarlem.
   Sept. 12.   Tuesday.   By the politeness of M. Johannes Miiller,
we had  a card for  Mr. K. Sybrandi, a Baptist clergyman, who was
as civil  as possible to us.  With him we visited  many schools.
   Mr. Sybrandi was once a religious teacher at the  deaf and dumb
school in Groningen.  He told me  that he  had great difficulty  in
giving to the children any just apprehensions of God; that the am-
biguities of  the language were such that he  was liable to give  erro-
neous impressions,  which he did not himself discover till afterwards,
when it was too late to remove all the influences that had sprung
from them.   He told an anecdote of giving them a lesson in refer-
ence to  the divine  prerogative of pardon.   The verb which, in the
Dutch   language,  signifies "to pardon," has a double  meaning,
signifying also " to poison."   He had told the children, that, under
certain conditions,  God pardoned all sinners; but one pupil under-
stood him  that the enumerated conditions were  those under which
God poisoned all sinners. 
214
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
    The pupils  at Groningen are taught to speak with the lips; and
 signs are not only disused, but discouraged.   As illustrative of the
 perfect manner in which they succeeded in speaking, he said an
 anecdote was told of a visitor who went through the institution, hear-
 ing the conversation between the teachers and the pupils, and when
 he had seen all the school, and his guide came to a pause, turned to
 him, and told  him that it was not those, but the deaf and dumb,
 whom he had come to see. I cannot but beheve that there is some-
 thing of exaggeration in this.   I have seen none who could not be
 easily and instantaneously distinguished from a perfectly organized
 individual;  and  yet  it is not without foundation, for the deaf and
 dumb can be taught to speak in an intelligible manner.
   . . . The children whom we have seen in the  Dutch public
 schools have been very well behaved.  Their organization is widely
 different from  that of the German children.  They have far more
 self-esteem and firmness,  and I think also more destructiveness;  and
 this seems to accord with the national character.
   .  .  . We went to Ley den from the Hague.  I felt a curiosity to
 see this town, because it  was for a time the residence of some of the
 Pilgrim Fathers, who were driven from England by the persecutions
 of the church and government there.
   I have often been  at Plymouth, in my native State, and looked
 out  from the shore eastward, as it  were  to  see them coming, for
 freedom's sake, to a strange and inhospitable shore.  Here I looked
 westward to see them  departing; and it seemed as if my spirit could
 follow them on  their desolate course, — a path which was illumined
 only by the  light of  duty, and in  which they were  upheld only
 by the love  of  truth.   I found in this beautiful town  no memorials
 of their residence.  No monument marked the spot whence they
 departed, no antiquarian  knew the place where  they resided.   Not
 even one of their descendants, whom I visited, knew any thing about
 them, or felt any  interest in them.   Even  in Plymouth, art has ob-
 literated all vestiges of their footsteps; for the spot on which they
 first trod is now ten feet below the surface  of the wharf, where com-
merce plies its occupation.  But what need have such men of mon-
uments ?  A monument to their names is but an object placed near
the  eye to intercept the real vision of their greatness.   Not  the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               215
 gates  of the  Leyden city, whence they  departed  from the  Old
 World, nor the Rock of Plymouth, where they entered the New, are
 monuments of their glory ; but the free institutions of America, the
 career and the capacities of human improvement opened throughout
 that boundless Western World, are the monuments and testimonials
 of their worth.   Half the planet whose air we inhale has already
 been blessed  by their godlike attributes; and the time is not far
 distant when the whole shall join  in one acclaim to their praise.
    At Leyden we  saw Jussieu's  botanical garden,  as well as the
 Linnsean.   They are said to be among the best in the world.   The
 keeper said it contained twenty thousand individual plants.   Aus-
 tralia was largely represented in a fine conservatory.
    In some of the schools here was the most offensive proof I have
 yet witnessed, that the Dutch, like the  Germans, have no noses.
    When one large school opened, all the children placed them-
 selves in a becoming attitude, and closed their eyes ; then one of the
 boys, being appointed, read a short prayer.  I have never seen in
 any schools, either abroad or at  home, public or private, composed
 of older or younger scholars, such propriety and decorum, during
 devotional exercises, as in the Dutch schools.   No religious dogmas
 are allowed to be taught in them.
    We saw here the Japanese museum  of Dr. Siebold.  Although
 I was disappointed in this, yet perhaps  it was because I had ex-
 pected too much.   There were many objects of curiosity, and some
 of a more rational interest.   What pertained to the fine arts, how-
 ever, was uniformly placed in the foreground ; while specimens of
 the useful ones, on which the welfare and progress of mankind so
 much more directly depend,  were thrown aside into obscure places,
 or even cast  away like rubbish.  . The  manner  in which a nation
 makes  a mill, or builds a house  or a  ship, is far more important
.. than the manner  in  which  they make japanned  baskets  or silk
 sandals.
    The Town Hall of Leyden contains a number of pictures illustra-
 tive of the distinguished men of the olden time.   A court of justice
 is also in this building.
    The road from  Leyden to Rotterdam, through the Hague, is a
 very delightful one.   It lies,  almost all the way, along the  dike or 
216
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
embankment of one of the great canals.  The waters of the canal art
high above the level of the surrounding country; and this country is
also above the surface of the  numerous canals by which it is inter-
sected.   At  brief intervals along the way, windmills are stationed,
which raise the waters of the  surrounding country, and pour them
into this  great canal, which  is upheld by its  embankments, and
thereby preserves the whole land from inundation.  I have not seen
a single lock, from Ryswyk, where we left the Rhine, made neces-
sary to accommodate a difference of level  in the land.   With a few
exceptions, when we saw sand-hills in the distance, the whole area
is almost  one dead level, not only as far  as the eye can reach, but
as the traveller proceeds, day after day, stage after stage, it presents
the same  aspect.   I have  seen  but very little tillage : it is  almost
all pasture-land.
   At Rotterdam, we visited a  prison for young offenders, — one
hundred and  forty-four, between the ages of ten and eighteen.   They
are confined for periods  varying  from  a year  to half a year. The
principle of reform is constant occupation, either manual or mental.
From eight,  a.m.,  till twelve, the boys are in school, where they
learn to read, write, cipher, &c.; and some of them are taught to
draw very beautifully.   After dinner  they work at various  trades,
— joinery, carpentry, tailoring,  shoemaking,  &c.   The  command-
ant was a  very good  man.   The  prison for those under  arrest was
on the old plan, in which there  are only  varieties of bad, without
any good.
  In Antwerp, we ascended to the top of the tower of  Notre  Dame
before breakfast; and after breakfast attended a school for girls, kept
by a nun, where the children work and  study alternately.  The
work is the manufacture  of lace,  which begins at six in the morning.
It is a very curious operation, and well worth the trouble of seeing.
In Brussels, where the richest lace is  made, there are  larger estab-
lishments.  It is said the spinning of the thread is very injurious,
and indeed sometimes fatal, to the eye.   The  finest lace is  worth
forty dollars a yard.   But why should a queen or a duchess hesitate
to wear lace which cost  forty dollars a yard, because one class  of
people are worked to death to  get the money, and another class
destroy  the eye in making the  article ? 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
217
   In Brussels, all the schools were in vacation, even those for the
deaf, dumb, and blind.  While we were  there, the Queen of England
made a visit to her uncle,  which caused  a  great  stir among the
people.   There was  a vast crowd  out  on the occasion,  and the city
was beautifully decorated.   But the people were very well behaved,
and  no disorder marred the harmony of the occasion.    Here I saw
many Catholics worshipping in the  churches :  and every thing which
I  have  seen of them, here  and elsewhere, impresses me more and
more deeply with the baneful influence  of the  Catholic religion upon
the human  mind; and not  upon the mind only, but even upon the
body.   The votaries are not degraded only, but distorted ; not only
debased, but deformed.   Belgium  has  lately laid the foundation, by
a  fundamental law of the government, for a national system of  in-
struction.  The schools, which  are for the whole kingdom, are to
be under the civil authority as to their instruction, but under the
ecclesiastical in reference  to  morals  and  religion;  and religion
and  morals  are proclaimed  inseparable in the schools.   This latter
branch of instruction is to be given by  clergymen of that denomina-
tion  to which  a majority of  the  children  in. the school belong;
but the children of parents of a different denomination are not held
to be present at the instruction.  As, however, the population  of
Belgium is mainly Catholic,  it is easy to see to whose benefit this law,
though on its  face impartial, will inure.  Here the Catholics are
giving to the Protestants a taste of what the Protestants, in some
other places, are endeavoring to force upon them.
   The  same law which  establishes a  system of  public instruction
establishes two Normal schools.
   Paris, Sept.  20.  . . . At the hall of  the  Louvre, the  heads  of
several of the kings to whose hands the destinies of millions were
committed were as rascally  as  their lives; and why should not the
former correspond with the latter, as effect bears a relation to cause ?

   After visiting many hospitals and prisons in and around
Paris, Mr.  Mann says, —

   On the whole, I think we are far ahead of any thing I have seen
in Europe in regard to the treatment of the insane, especially if we 
218
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
take into  consideration  the  material  arrangements as well as the
moral treatment of this class.
  At Versailles, the Normal School of France occupies  the  build-
ings which were the  dog-kennels  of Louis XIV. and XV. ;  and a
revolution which can turn  a dog-kennel into a Normal school has
at least one argument in its favor. . .  .
  The Jardin  des  Plantes  is  the  embodiment  of science.   The
Museums  of Comparative Anatomy, of Mineralogy and Botany, are
splendid collections.   Even to the uninstructed eye, the number,
variety, and beauty of the objects they contain are a source of high
gratification.   What, then, must they  be to the well-prepared mind,
which  sees here such a profusion and diversity of beautiful and
magnificent objects as would at first lead him to suppose that many
a god, each  powerful to create and  bountiful to bestow, had here
mingled the abundance of their gifts, until, on a profounder view,
he discovers  running through  all this variety, and connecting  its
most dissimilar parts, such  a unity of plan,  and consistency in exe-
cution, as compels  him to believe that all this  disparity  of parts
and exuberance of detail proceeds from one and the same all-power-
ful and all-wise Creator!
  The Foundling Hospital is a vast cesspool, where one portion  of
the vice of Paris, after passing for a long time in subterranean chan-
nels, is brought to light.  The facts connected with it are appalling.
For an average of ten  years, the number of illegitimate  children
deposited  here  has  amounted nearly  to five thousand annually; a
number many times greater than the whole number of births in the
city of Boston.  The total  expense  of this establishment  in 1839
was three, hundred thousand dollars.   At the same date, the num-
ber of children belonging to  the  institution was fifteen thousand
seven hundred and  nineteen.  All this must strike not only the
moralist and the philanthropist, but even a political economist, —who
might  be  neither moral nor philanthropic, — with terror.  What a
condition  of  society it comes out of! and what a condition it must
soon plunge  the best society into!   All  these  are thoughts which
would arise without any prompting in the mind of a reflecting man ;
but, to excite the appropriate emotions  which  appertain to these intel-
hctual truths, one should see the place itself in aU its details, and 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
219
particularity of misery.   Considered  as history, how much crime
does it reveal!   Considered  in its present connections with those
wretched beings whose misfortune or guilt has filled it, what a living
record of shame  and woe  is  each  deserted  child!   Considered as
prophecy, considered  in its necessary and indissoluble connection
with the future degradation of these unhappy but innocent outcasts,
of what an inconceivable amount of mortification, of secret grief, of
crime, of despair that leads  to crime, is it the certain herald!   If
one, standing in  the midst of these five thousand guiltless but help-
less beings, were suddenly gifted with the spirit of prophecy, if he
could  lift the veil which hides  their  future destiny, what forms of
woe, of desperation, of madness, of suicide, of  death, and of crimes
that, are worse than death, would  start up and  fill the  air  before
him !  How would the low and piteous wail, wliich strikes the ear
as  soon  as  one  passes the threshold, rise  to  a tempest of groans!
Oh, woe for  humanity that  it  should contain these  elements of
misery and  wrong!   Oh,  deeper woe  for humanity,  that, while it
contains these elements, there  should be  so  few among  the great
and powerful of  the earth  to seek for its amelioration !
   Took a walk through  the Place  de  la Concorde to the Champs
Elysees, and up  to l'Etoile, or Arch of Triumph, — a splendid work
of art, commemorative of  some of those remarkable  events in the
history of France for which  she ought to feel  remorse  instead of
pride.
   On the whole, the prisons  which I have seen in Paris were miser-
ably  constructed (with  one  exception, — that  for  the  " Jeunes
 Detenues "), and under loose regulations; the prisoners associating
 together indiscriminately.   Their keepers do not seem to me to be
men of  high character and principles; and therefore those elevating
influences that should daily  flow in upon them, as the surest means
of their reformation, do not appear to exist.   Nothing in the situation
of the prisons, in the  wisdom of the penal laws, in the conscientious
administration of them  by the  courts, nor in  the character  of the
head director or  spiritual guide, can produce the legitimate effect of
prison discipline  upon the  motives and character of the condemned,
unless the  assistants, who are continually brought into contact with
the prisoners, be themselves of a character to transmit any good in- 
220               LTFE OF HORACE  MANN.

fluences which  may flow out from others, or to originate and exert
such influences themselves.
   Versailles was built  by Louis XIV., who,  it  is said, expended
two hundred million  dollars upon it.  In  extent and  splendor, it
surpasses  any thing  I have yet  seen  in  Europe.   The front  is a
thousand  eight hundred and  fifty feet long : but this gives no idea
of its  capacity; for its wings are nearly, if not quite, as capacious as
its front.  It has been  placed in its present condition, as a pictorial
history  gallery  of France,  mainly  by the  present king (Louis
Philippe).  It contains pictures of all the great battles fought by
Napoleon.  These are  arranged in chronological  order; a room, or
suite of rooms, being devoted to the victories he gained in one year,
another to those gained the next year, and so on.   One  suite of
rooms is devoted to the  marshals of France, another to the admirals,
another to the kings,  &c.  But the spirit  of the  whole  breathes of
war.  The  canvas glows with martial fire.  The whole  scene is red
with the blood of battle.  It  seems to be rather a temple dedicated
to Mars than the work of a civilized nation in the eighteenth  century,
— of that era  which we call  Christian.   Beforehand, one  would
say it is  impossible  that such a thing  should be done.   With a
thorough  knowledge  of the French people, one  may say that it  is
impossible such a thing should not be done.   Here and there only,
and scattered, with wide intervals between them, is  there  any me-
morial of sages, philosophers, or philanthropists.   And this spot is
visited more, perhaps, than  any  other in France.    How must all
these  things cultivate that love of military renown, that passion for
the criminal glories  of  war, which has worked such havoc upon the
resources, the prosperity, and  the lives of this people!
   The water-works or fountains of Versailles admit  of  no descrip-
tion:  they  must  be seen.   In  the  Great Fountain  of  Poland,
seventy-four separate  fountains pour out their streams.   The  grotto
— a structure  of a  semicircular form — is built  of  stones, terrace
above terrace,  eight  in number; and the water which flows  into
the upper one pours  over its brink into the second, and so on until
it reaches the lower terrace, the whole being on one side of a circle
or area of beautifully ornamented ground.  The Fountain of  Col-
umns is an  area of some hundred feet  in diameter, in the  centre 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
221
of which is a beautiful fountain, playing into  a large basin, around
whose circumference are twenty-four other fountains, throwing up
beautiful jets of water, and altogether  making a  circle  about the
central one.  Outside of all this are double rows of marble columns,
with marble beams, as it were, extending from the top of one col-
umn to another, binding them all together.   Then  comes the Foun-
tain of Apollo, which represents him, after the completion of his
day's circuit through the  heavens,  resting from his labors, and re-
ceiving the homage and caresses of his nymphs.   On each side of
him are liis horses, also' reposing after the toils of the day.   As a
background to these groups, an artificial rock of huge dimensions rises
up to a great height, now overgrown with trees.   In the centre of
this rock, and immediately behind  the principal group of figures,  is
a cave, from which pours a copious stream of water; and, a little to
the left of this, another stream gushes  out, and descends, in  short
cascades, to the basin below.
    Last  and  grandest of all is the  Fountain of Neptune.   The
huge basin of this fountain is in the form of a half-circle.   On the
 straight side or diameter  spout  up many fountains, the middle one
 being the  highest, the others in  regular gradation; so that a line
 drawn through  the  tops  of the  respective jets would describe an
 arc of a  very  large circle.  At  the  corners, two  immense lions
 spout vast quantities  of  water   from  their  mouths.   These jets
 are directed,  at an angle of thirty or thirty-five  degrees, towards
 a central  point  in the basin.   On a parallel with the  line of jets
 first described,  rising out of the  basin,  are  other jets, and  again
 others; so that the  whole number, considered  simply as station-
 ary objects, present a beautiful  symmetry.    Thousands of people
 were  gathered. around  the circular side of the  basin, enjoying
 the beautiful scene.
    In addition to all. that has been described (which, however, has
  not been  described), these great basins  are  all  so  symmetrically
  located, and the avenues of tall  trees that  lead from one  to the
  other so appositely opened, that  every beauty in each is enhanced
  by its  relation  to  the  others and  to   the whole.   The  Great
  Fountains, as they are  called, are played on the first  Sunday of
  every month, when half Paris pours out to see the spectacle.   At 
222
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
Versailles  are also the palaces  of  the Great  Trianon  and the
Little  Trianon.   These have not  much beauty or splendor, but
are memorable for  the  fortunes and  characters of the beings who
have  inhabited  them.  The latter was the favorite  residence  of
Marie  Antoinette.   Here  she sought to imitate  humble  and do-
mestic life by having a group of Swiss cottages  constructed, and
to please her fancy  by something quite the  reverse of that life
which she had always  led.  One of them was a dairy, where she and
her ladies-in-waiting used to  play  dairy-women.   It is a fact
worth remarking, that while those who are in humble  walks of life
are perpetually striving to  reach or to imitate the splendor of the
opulent, and  longing to exercise the authority of the powerful,
here was an individual, born  to power, educated amid the luxu-
ries of  a court, and  resident in the  most luxurious  court in the
world, who sought  for novelty and gratification in the simple em-
ployments of the laborious  poor.
   After returning  to London, I visited Oxford,  the seat of the
famous university.  I had  a seat in the  cars, from London to Ox-
ford, with a student or fellow of one of the  colleges.   I had much
conversation with him;  and when, at one time, it became necessary
to explain to him that  I was not an Englishman, he immediately
replied, " Oh ! then you must be a Russian, as you speak  our lan-
guage  as none but an  Englishman or  a Russian  can." . .  . The
professorships  of Oxford go far to exhaust the various sciences,
according to their usual grand division into  subjects.   But hardly
any one  attends  upon  these lectures.   The professor  of law
advertises,  several  times  a  year,  that  at  such a time he  shall
deliver a course of lectures  on law;  but no  one  appears  to  hear
him, and he  delivers no  lectures.   So of  the  other professors.
Dr. Buckland occasionally has  a few hearers in attendance upon
his geological  lectures; but this is an exception.   Each college, in
addition  to the public professorships  above mentioned, appoints  a
certain number of  private  tutors, who  are  taken  from among the
fellows of the  college  making the appointments, and these private
tutors instruct in Greek and Latin.   On these instructions all the
pupils are compelled  to attend; and Greek  and Latin become the
only secular subjects of study,  with exceptions too insignificant to 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
223
be mentioned.  Theology is studied, as this  is the aim of a large
part of the students resorting to Oxford.  The Latin grammar is
still studied in the original language by the pupils of the prepara-
tory schools.   The average age of those  entering these colleges is
eighteen  years.   One  might marvel at  the folly of devoting four
years, at this period of life, to the classics; but hardly any thing is
marvellous which has  habit, early education, and prescription on
its side.   All the old, who have the control, have been educated in
this way; and all the young who aspire to honors in the university
know they are to be obtained only by pursuing the  same course.
The old practice is still kept up. of having a sermon delivered in
Latin the day before the commencement of the term.  I was pres-
ent during a part of this pedantic exercise,  and heard an elderly
man prosing off from a manuscript, from which he never raised his
eyes, to about twenty younger men in gowns. .  . .
   The great  Bodleian  Library has become  so vast, that no account
is any longer taken of the number of  its books, and the  books of
which are not arranged according to subjects, but sizes; a catalogue
designating the place where they may  be found.   This has  a very
great disadvantage, especially for a young man, who may not  know
beforehand what  particular  book  he wants,  or what is its  title;
whereas,  if they were arranged according to subjects, an inquirer
could resort to  the proper  compartment, and  find whatever  the
library might contain on that subject.
   In the Bodleian Library, I had  another amusing instance of the
knowledge of one  of the body of learned men  at  Oxford.   The
gentleman who took me  round into the various rooms containing the
immense  piles of books,  observed, when he  saw me looking at some
law-books that  had just come in, that, throe or four years  ago, a
young  gentleman from America, who visited  the library, told him,
much to  his surprise,  that the English  law-books, and  especially
the English reports, were  used in American courts !  My conduct-
or was the professor of Arabic !   Here was  a  professor of Arabic
who did not  know  that the common law of  America is the same
as the common law of England !
   On the whole, though I had not very elevated conceptions of the
glories of Oxford before visiting it, I must  confess that an inquiry 
224
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
into its  organization, course  of  study, and especially the spirit
that prevails there, took  away most of the respect, such as it was,
that I had.  Dr. Buckland  told  me there  was no intercourse
between  the officers  and fellows of  the college and the  inhab-
itants of the city.   They looked down upon all those not educated
like themselves with disrespect or contempt; and no private worth,
nothing but the most extraordinary genius or attainments in other
departments, could atone for an ignorance of Greek and Latin.

   Mr. Mann's visit to Europe may have  saved his life at
the time; but it could hardly be  called a rest.  He hardly
waited  till the  exhaustion caused by a very stormy and
sea-sick passage home had  passed away before he again
plunged into excessive toil.   He sought the repose of the
country to prepare his  Seventh  Report, which was upon
education in Europe ; and this was immediately  followed
by the long controversy with the Boston  masters,  as  the
public  school-teachers of the  city were  called.    These
masters formed almost a close corporation, eager for each
other's  interests,  and almost monopolizing, by the  influ-
ence  they exerted, the choice of who should form this
very important  body.  But Mr.  Mann's own account  of
the war they waged with  him will give .a  more just view
of it than any one else can do.
   The  following  extract shows the tension of his nerves
under this infliction : —

                                     Boston, Feb. 10, 1844.
   Dr. E. Jarvis.   My  dear Sir, —... Can  you do any thing
for a brain that has not slept for three weeks ?  I can feel the flame
in the centre of my cranium, blazing and flaring  round just as you
see that  of a pile  of brush burning on a distant  heath in the wind.
What can be done to extinguish it ?
                               Yours truly,
                                                    H. M. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               225
                                       Wrentham, April, 1844.
  My dear Mr. Combe,—Would to Heaven that an ocean did not
separate us, and that some  mode of communication more quick and
spiritual than that of correspondence by letter were left us !  I long
again for intercourse with your mind, in order to discover more and
more of those laws of  the universe that determine the order of
Nature  and regulate the  affairs of men.   It is only  through a
knowledge of these laws that the individual can be brought  into
harmony with the universe, and that the progress of the race can be
placed upon a secure basis. .  . .
  Our history since I last wrote you, though full of toil, anxiety,
and feeling, can be told in a few words.   We suffered, from Dieppe
to Brighton, from Milford Haven to  Waterford,  from  Dublin to
Liverpool, and from Liverpool to Boston, one of the worst passages
that  have been experienced  since St.  Paul's shipwreck.    There
were many ships lost the night we came across the English Chan-
nel ; and, during the whole of our voyage home, we had  a  strong
head wind, and of course encountered a heavy sea, which struck day
after day, like a  pugilist, directly into  the  nose of the  vessel.   I
passed sixteen days and nights almost without food, and with as
little sleep.  Of  course, all vitality was  abstracted from me.   At
home, I found an immense  mass of labor  to  be performed;  and
doubtless  I commenced  it before my system  had recovered from its
exhaustion.   On  the whole, therefore, I have not been able to ac-
cumulate any stock of health, but have lived upon what  strength I
could make from  day to day. . . .  My  Report, generally speaking,
has met with unusual favor; but there  are owls, who, to adapt  the
world to their own eyes, would always keep the sun  from rising.
Most teachers amongst us have been animated to greater exertions
by the account of the best  schools abroad.   Others are offended at
being driven but  of the paradise which their own self-esteem  had
erected for them.
  The Episcopalians  here  have  always borne  me a grudge  be-
cause I have condemned the  spirit of the English Church  in deny-
ing all education to the  people, which they could not pervert to  the
purposes of proselytism.   After "the appearance of the first  two
numbers of my Journal this year,  and  of my Report, a regular at-
              15 
220
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
tack w is commenced upon me in a paper which is the organ of that
sect, and was published in Boston.   Of course, they had too much
craft to  avow  the  real  grounds of their  hostility, but fabricated
charges, in regard to which they excited the sympathy of others.
Hence they were in the false position of  a  man who  acts from one
set of motives, while he avows another.   The reasons given in such
cases never correspond with the feelings manifested or the  charges
made.  A man who lives in that way can  never take good aim; and
bo, of course, misses the mark.   These attacks became so virulent,
that I at last replied.   My first reply was admitted into the paper
that had brought forward the accusation; and the editor accompanied
it with remarks so weak and wicked, that I replied to those.   This
last communication he refused to admit.  I then published it in an-
other paper.  Both of my articles have been extensively copied into
other papers; and, as far as I can learn, I have almost all the other
denominations on my side, and even the great mass of the Episco-
palians themselves.   Though I am considered as having kept down
my temper  pretty well, for one of the uncircumcised Philistines, yet
6ome writers, who have espoused my cause in the newspapers, have
opened all the batteries of destructiveness upon them.
   On the  whole, it  is believed that this  will be the last effort
of orthodoxy  to  secure the admission of  its doctrines into our
schools. . . .
   I have hardly left room for personal and  domestic concerns.
  I told you in my note that our boy was born on the  25th  of Feb-
ruary.   Your brother's  book is our guide  in all things.  We live
alike in the light of his laws and  in the admiration of his spirit.
We  have come out into the country to a place about  twenty-five
miles from Boston, on the old post-road to Providence, where we in-
tend to pass the summer.  It will take a very long letter from you
to tell us half what we want  to know about  you.  One thing, if you
can,  I wish  you to do; and that is, to prepare for me four articles on
the four temperaments, detailing the different manner  of treatment
that each of them should receive,  especially in childhood.   This
would be for my Journal, several volumes of which — enough, I be-
Iieve, to make up your  file — I have sent you.   Give our kindest
regards to your brother's family (in whom we include Mr. and Miss 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.               227
Cox), and all who inquire for us, or who, through  you, have been
led to take any interest in us. . .  .
   We go on with the cause very much as heretofore.   Though we
had a Whig Legislature, yet there was a strong infusion of hostile
spirit in it.   But they did not dare to attack our cause.  We asked
nothing of them; and our politicians will not give, except they ex-
pect to  receive in return.   Send me what educational news you
can.   I sent you a Report, not addressed.  Give  it to whom you
please.
                      Ever truly yours,
                                               HORACE  MANN.

                                    Wkentham,  June 27, 1844.
   Rev. S.  J. May.  My dear Sir, —  ... I am six feet deep —
that is, over head and ears — in the Abstract.  It is going on well,
and  will come out bright.  My heart is in the work, or fifteen hours
a  day would kill me. . . .

                         to tue same.
                                         Boston, Oct. 16, 1844.
   My dear Sir, — Troubles thicken; but that only makes me stif-
fen.  On Friday, this week, at the Teachers' Convention in Ipswich,
Mr. Swan is to lecture on reading-books.  Of course, the plan of
Mr. Pierce and myself is to be blown up.  In the evening, F. Emer-
son  is to lecture on the best modes  of improving common schools.
Of course, every thing which we care for and consider indispensable
is to be assailed.  I have so much to do, that I cannot go.  Will
you go and defend the cause, and save the Essex-County teachers
from being carried over en masse into the ranks  of our enemies ?
 I shall  insist on  paying your expenses; but I want your time and
influence there.
   In the greatest possible haste,  I am yours, &c,
                                               HORACE MANN.


   In  making  extracts  from  Mr. Mann's  letters  to Mr.
 Cyrus Pierce, with whom his  intercourse  was like that
 of a brother, I shall not omit  his own references to some 
228
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
 slanders  of the day which  touched his honor, — a point
 upon which he was keenly sensitive.

                                     Wkentham, Aug. 12, 1844.
   C. Pierce, Esq.   My dear Sir, — I am disappointed about the
 fitting-up of the schoolroom.  I had set my heart upon having a
 Normal room for the Normal school.   I feel unwilling to relinquish
 the  beautiful vision I had  in my mind.   If you make  the  case
 known in Newton, cannot some  further assistance be obtained ?  I
 will write to the postmaster  about it.  Why will you not see Prof.
 Sears ?
   I think he is so much interested, that he could engage to get a
 hundred dollars or so.  Perhaps Mr. James  would do the same.
 If Mr. Jackson  has returned, see him.   I cannot bear the thought
 of giving it up.  In the last  resort, you may run the Board in debt
 two  hundred dollars;  and, if they won't pay it, I will.
   So far as what the Board owns at Lexington will not  do  for
 Newton, sell it, and use the  money.  You have said nothing about
 a bell.   Perhaps some  one will  give one  by and by.   You must
 see Messrs.  James and Sears.  I do not believe Mr. Sears will let
 the thing go without an effort.         Yours truly,
   „ D    -.   ,                              HORACE MANN.
   P. S. — Put the rooms in  good order.

 „       _      „                                July 30, 1844.
 George  Combe, Esq.
   My dear Friend, —It is now the  last of  July.  Months  and
 months have passed since we  have heard from you. ... As you are
 as punctual to your plans as  the  sun to  the seasons,  I have sup-
 posed you would  be in Edinburgh in May;  and accordingly directed
 two letters there, and sent you my last Report and some volumes of
 the  " Common-school  Journal," with  other  documents.   One
 of the documents was entitled the " Common-school Controversy."
 If you have received it, you  will  see that we have been engaged in
 a struggle here on the question of doctrinal teaching in our public
schools.   The accounts, in my last Report,  of how religion is forced
down the throats, and thus introduced into the circulation of chil- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               229
dren abroad, has started some of our fanatical people, who think it
is  necessary first to  put me  down, that they may afterwards carry
out their plans  of introducing doctrines into our schools.   What I
said  of religious teaching in the English, Scotch, and  Prussian
schools, would, as I thought, be an antidote against attempting the
same things here.  With the ultra-orthodox it has proved just the
reverse.  They say,  " Why cannot we do here as they do there ? "
They know by experience that the Bible never effects the teaching
of their views, unless they send an interpreter with it.   Therefore
they are determined an  interpreter shall accompany it; and, if this
is  not  done forthwith, they think it will be too late.   I speak advi-
sedly,  and  from the best authority, when I say that an  extensive
conspiracy is now formed to break down the Board of Education,
as a preliminary measure to teaching sectarianism  in the schools.
The  latter they can never effect; but the former,  it is not impossible,
they will do.  But it will not do to present this  bold ground as the
basis of the attack.   They  can have  an  understanding  between
themselves in regard to this, but make  the charge on  other pre-
tences.  One of the other means is to impugn the accuracy of my
Report on certain points.   I wrote you, heretofore, that I under-
stood the Scotch delegation, who came out here to obtain funds in
behalf of the Free Church, being ashamed of the religious aspect of
some of their schools, as presented in my Report, had given out
intimations adverse to its accuracy.  These  they are endeavoring to
extend by public rumor, to  make them cover more ground.   Can
you  help me in these  matters ? — remembering that, by so doing,
you  are helping the cause  of religious  freedom, not only in this
country, but over all the world.  What I shall  want from Scotland
is something  I  can use a3 authority to show that my description of
their schools is  correct as regards the manner of imparting secular
as well as religious instruction.   The school in  Niddy Street, Edin-
burgh, and  also  a  school  kept by Mr.  Carmichael, for  giving
classical education,  will fully  sustain every  word  I have said  in
regard to the vehement and rapid intercourse between teacher and
pupils.  I think, also,  that you may hear such religious instruction
as I have described in many  of the schools of the common grade.
I  am sorry to trouble you even with these  rumors of wars; but  I 
230
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
most  seriously apprehend we are to have a conflict.   The best por-
tion of the orthodox are with  us, who may possibly ward  off the
impending danger; but you know how feeble  is the control which
reason can exercise over fanaticism.
   Can  you tell  me, without  any trouble, what is  the  supposed
amount of rents  drawn from the land in Ireland by absentee land-
lords, and what also is the value of tithes (commutations) paid for
the support of the Protestant clergy, and taken out of the country
annually ?
   I think  Mr. Wyse told me  the latter was six millions sterling;
but I have forgotten, and have lost a few of the last sheets of my
Journal.
   What is the whole number of voters in the kingdom for members
of Parliament ?   What is the number of union  workhouses ?
   I am not going to write a book.*
                  With much love and regard,
                                                HORACE  MANN.

                                           Boston, Dec. 1,1844.
   My dear Mr. Combe, — I owe you for three long, excellent, soul-
cheering letters;  and yet I am so circumstanced, that I can give
you in  return only one short and worthless one.   We have been
spending the summer in the country, about thirty miles from Boston,
and came into winter quarters last evening. . .  . The orthodox have
hunted  me this winter as though they were bloodhounds, and I  a
poor rabbit.  They feel that they are losing strength, and that the
period even for  regaining it  is fast  passing  out of  their  hands.
Hence they arc making a desperate struggle.   They feel in  respect
to a free education,  that opens the mind, develops the conscience,
and  cultivates reverence for whatever is good  without the infusion
of Calvinistic influence, as the old monks felt about printing, when
they said, " If we do not put that down, it will put us down."   My
office, duties,  labors, stand in their  way.   Hence my immediate
destruction is  for the  glory of God.   They have not done yet;

  * Mr. Mann considered himself as still a servant of the State, and thought he
had no right to write a book for his own interest.  He had therefore embodied
his observations of foreign schools in his Seventh Annual Report. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               231
though from circumstances, which I will proceed to name, they have
just now suspended hostilities.
   There are two  classes, — the one  who  are  orthodox only by
association, education, or  personal condition.  These  may be good
people,  though they always suffer under that limitation of the facul-
ties which orthodoxy imposes.   The second class are those who are
born orthodox, who are naturally or indigenously so; who, if they had
had wit enough, would have invented orthodoxy, if Calvin had not.
I never saw one of this class of men whom I could  trust so Ions: as
a man can hold his breath.  These are the  men who are assailing
me.
   My Report caused a great stir among the Boston  teachers: I
mean those of the grammar-schools.  The very things in the Report
which made  it acceptable to others made it hateful to  them.   The
general  reader was delighted with the idea of intelligent, gentle-
manly teachers ; of a mind-expanding  education ; of children gov-
erned by moral means.  The leading men among the Boston gram-
mar-school masters saw their own condemnation in this description
of their  European contemporaries, and  resolved, as a matter of self-
preservation, to keep out the infection of, so fatal an example as was
afforded by the Prussian schools.  The better members dissuaded,
remonstrated, resisted;  but they are combined together, and feel
that in union is their only strength.  The evil spirit prevailed.  A
committee was  appointed  to  consider my Report.   A  part of  the
labor fell into the worst hands.  After  working at the task  all
summer, they sent forth, on the  1st of September, a pamphlet of
a hundred and  forty-four pages, which I send you, and leave you
to judge of its character.  I was then just finishing  my Annual
Abstract, a  copy of which I  send you, and which I commend to
your attention for its extraordinary merits.   As soon as the prepara-
tion of the Abstract was complete, which was my recreation during
the hot days of summer, I wrote  a." Reply to the Boston Masters."
In this Reply, you will see  of how much service your letter and others
have been to me.  Please make  just as warm acknowledgments to
Mr. Maclearan as  ought to be  made by me.   His kind letter was
most welcome.
  I think the Reply is doing something in Boston.   All except  the 
232              LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
ultra-orthodox papers are earnest, I may almost say vehement, against
the masters.   I ought to have said that one of the masters, William
J. Adams, Esq., came out in the newspapers with a public retrac-
tion, and disavowal of his signature.
   Our municipal election for mayor, school-committee men, &c,
comes on a  week from  Monday; and, in some of the  wards,  a
change has already been  made in nominating school-committee men,
the voters being determined to have better schools and less flogging.
In ward number seven, the central and  most intelligent ward  in the
city, strong resolutions were  passed  on the subject, evening before
last.   Others meet to-morrow evening, and are resolved to do the
same.  Mr.  Quincy is the candidate for  mayor;  and he goes for
reform, both as a friend  of  the cause,  and as my strong personal
friend. .  . .
   But things are coming to a crisis.  The prevailing party will
probably  be left in possession of the field for some time to come. . . .
                   Ever and ever truly yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

   P. S. — You will do me another great favor  by either supplying
me, or informing  me how I  can supply myself, with Capt. Macon-
ochie's pamphlets, pubhshed at Hobart Town in 1838 and  1839,
and also  some  account of his administration at Norfolk Island.   I
want all that I can turn to good account on the  subject  of school-
discipline.
   Portland, Sept. 1, 1844.  . . . Prof.  Stowe's introductory lecture
before the Institute was an admirable thing.  It was on " Religious
Instruction in Common Schools;" and  he occupied and powerfully
defended even broader ground than  I have ever done.   They have
voted to  print  five thousand extra copies, and it will be circulated
far and wide.   The orthodox must  now denounce him, or let me
alone.
                                           Boston, Dec. 14, 1844.
C. Pierce, Esq.
   My dear Sir, — I received your note, with the accompanying
bills, yesterday.   They have astounded me.   As you say yourself,
it is more than double the amount which I ever had an idea  of ex- 
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.              233
pending upon the place, — more than double what we ever talked
of. . . .  The  Board held its annual meeting on Tuesday and Wednes-
day last.  In making  the  estimates  for the  current expenses, I
proposed to Mr. James, the chairman  of the visitors,  the allowance
of five hundred dollars for expenses of fitting up, beyond the New-
ton  contributions.   Even to that sum he seriously demurred, but
finally put it in.   It was handed to the Governor, as chairman and
presiding officer, who expressed a doubt  about its being presented
to the Board, on account of its amount.  Mr. Bates then sought an
interview with me, and repeated the  doubts of the Governor, con-
firmed  by his own.  I told him that five hundred  dollars was as
little as we could get along with in addition to the Newton contribu-
tions ; and,  if the Board did not see fit to make that allowance, I
should  pay it out of my own pocket.   It was then allowed.  But
what will they say to a thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars ?
I confess I know not, and see not what can be done.
  When the pure'^se of the building  was suggested to some of the
members at fiftc> d'hundred dollars, and before we got  the money
to buy  it, an obplytion was made to the amount, that the Board had
no right to expend  so  large a sum  for a  building.  Yet  here is
between three and four hundred dollars more than the whole sum,
for improvements only!
  The  whole strikes me  as a very  serious matter; and I have not
been so alarmed about  any thing this long time.  What measures
can be  devised for relief?
                             Truly yours*
                                                  H. MANN.

   The Board had not  agreed to purchase the building;
and Mr. Mann  begged  the money, and purchased it him-
self.   But  Mr.  Mann may  speak for himself in  a letter
written as late as 1852,  when  political  opponents tried
every  means to undermine his  reputation.
  In 1850, some  gentlemen who knew that he had fitted
up the building  at his  own  expense,  and  contributed
something  toward the erection  of  the  two other Normal
school-buildings, made a representation  of the facts  to the 
234               LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
Legislature  of Massachusetts, and  he was partially re-
munerated by the State;  but it was done wholly without
his seeking.   Mr. Livingstone published  the proceedings,
which will be found in the Appendix to this work.

                                      Dover, N.H., Oct. 30, 1852.
C. Pierce, Esq.
  My dear Sir, — After speaking every evening this week from
an hour to two  hours each, I feel a little Monday-ish, as you min-
isters say.   Still, I am in good spirits, and have a faith undimmed
in our ultimate triumph.
  Perhaps you have seen that the apprehension I expressed to you
about  the  enemy has been already fulfilled.  The " Boston Post "
of Friday last, in one of those short javelin paragraphs by which
they mean to kill people from an ambush, asked, " What are the
facts in relation to  the  purchase of the Fuller Academy in West
Newton, by Hon. Horace Mann,  for the Norii  "  School?"—in-
tending thereby to make an insinuation against .* ^
  I wish I could have seen you after I saw that; k>ut I was on my
way to preach the political gospel here in New Hampshire.   Could
I have seen you, I would have asked you to tell the " Post " that
the facts were that I begged the money to buy the premises, instead
of asking the  State to buy them;  and then, that you and I spent
thirteen hundred dollars of our own  money to  fit them up; and
then ask the judgment of the " Post," whether, if there was any
thing dishonorable in that, it was on our side.
  If I have any friends, they will  find it necessary to be on the
lookout, especially this week.
                  In haste, yours very truly,
                                             HORACE MANN.

   Mr. Pierce immediately sent a  notice of the facts, over
his own name, to the " Post; " but, at this remote time, I
cannot tell whether  it was inserted.  Probably  not.   It
was about that time that his political  enemies sent an
emissary to  search  the  archives  of the  State, hoping  to 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.              235
find some  evidence of  Mr. Mann's tampering with the
public moneys.   Of course, the record was clear, and they
retired baffled.
  In this connection,  although equally out of date, I will
subjoin part of a letter from Hon. J. Quincy, jr., in refer-
ence to another accusation of the  same kind, — that of
appropriating to his own use the proceeds of the building,
when sold, on the  removal of the school to Framingham.

                 FROM HON. JOSIAH QUINCY, JR.
                                         Boston, Nov. 21, 1862.
  My dear Mrs.  Maxn, — My donation of fifteen hundred dollars
was made to your husband,  to be used by him in promoting popular
education.
  The immediate cause  of the  donation was this :  The Normal
School, which was originally established at Lexington, had been, or
was  about  to be, discontinued;  and the  project, ridiculed and
opposed, was likely to be abandoned,.   At this time, your husband
came into my office, and, in his very striking manner,  said, —
  " If you know any man  who wants the highest seat in the king-
dom of heaven, it is to be had for fifteen hundred dollars."
  I  asked what he meant.   He replied that a schoolhouse at West
Newton could be purchased for that sum; and  this, if obtained,
would enable the friends of education to convince the State of the
importance of Normal schools, and insure their becoming an essen-
tial  part of the common-school system of Massachusetts.   I gave
him the money, directing him to take the deed in  his own  name.
He  sold his  library  to fit up the building,  giving more than I did
to the cause.   The result was that Normal schools have been intro-
duced in many, and  will be introduced in all the free States.*
  In order  to prevent any misunderstanding, I subsequently gave

  * Mr. Quincy has inadvertently blended two transactions in this statement.
The Law Library had been sold several years before to fit up the boarding-house of
the Lexington Normal School; a  promised donation for that purpose having been
unexpectedly withdrawn. Other sacrifices were made to meet the demand for
fitting up the West Newton house, which were made jointly by Mr. Mann and  Mr.
Pierce. 
236
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
him a written authority to apply the proceeds of the building, when
sold, to any purpose that he  might judge  most conducive to pro-
mote the interests of popular education.
  The reward  playfully  offered  for the donation  is reserved for
others.  I ask no greater than the consciousness of having aided
him  in the noble  and philanthropic purpose to which  he devoted
his  hfe.   I  have  the  honor  to  have  been the friend of Horace
Mann.
                        Yours truly,
                                              J. QUINCY, Jr.

  It was Mr. Mann's  intention to use Mr. Quincy's  dona-
tion  to   put  a  raised  gutta-percha  globe  into  all the
common schools  of Massachusetts.   He projected  one,
and it was executed  by some of his friends; but gutta-
percha works were suspended  in the country, owing to
some  difficulties in the  way of working  it  cheaply and
stably;  and, after spending  about five  hundred dollars
upon  the project, it  was necessary to give  it up.    Mr.
Quincy's donation, however, was  duly applied  for  the
good of the State.
                                       Boston, Feb. 28, 1845.
  My dear Mr.  Combe, — For your long and interesting letter
of Dec. 29 I can give you only a short and dull one.  I have but
a few moments to  write.
  ... I  have inquired of two of our best lawyers, and both are
clear and  decided that a war with Great Britain would not result
in a forfeiture or confiscation of American debts due  to  British
subjects,  or of American  stock  owned by them.   Mr.  Loring
said he would  send me an abstract  of the law on the subject;
and, should it come in season, I will forward it.   But have you not
Chancellor Kent's " Commentaries " in your law-library ?  If so, ex-
amine vol. i. pp.  64,  &c, and  you will find  the  whole doctrine
clearly and satisfactorily  explained.
  Heaven forefend that the case for a legal adjudication of the ques-
tion should ever arise!  I should look  upon a war with Great Brit- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
237
 ain  almost  in  the  light of a civil war.   In the Atlantic States, it
 would be deprecated  with a depth and fervor  that could not be
 described.   It would bring ruin to thousands of business-men, and
 would shock the  spirit  of peace  in  the more moral and religious
 portion of the community.   I am sorry, however, to say that I fear
 a different spirit prevails at the  West.  Combativeness and destrue-
 tiveness occupy a larger portion of their brains, and are made more
 active by education.  They  are also removed far more from the
 restraints of direct interest, and feel far less the restraints of morali-
 ty.   God hasten the day when war between the great  nations of
 the earth shall be impossible !
   I received your two letters containing an account of the religious
 common-school controversy in Massachusetts.    It was well  drawn
 up, and I hope will do good.  Ecclesiastical oppression is wearing
 away in Europe; but, alas! about as slowly as the disintegration
 of granite  mountains by the seasons and elements.  The paper of
 which you  spoke,  containing a review by a phrenologist of the
 " Vestiges," &c,  I have not received.
   I am sorry to  say that  my controversy with the Boston school-
 masters is not ended.  They do not accept the  propositions of peace
 which I made.   I am told they now have a Rejoinder in  press.   I
 think it ought to be out soon, if ever.   It is now nearly four months
 since my Reply was published.  An old militia-officer in the country
 told me he guessed it took them some time to bring their forces into
 line.   All this is very bad, as it makes  me anxiety and labor. . . .
 Capt. Maconochie must  be an  extraordinary man.   I  learn, by a
 communication from him, that he is in favor of teaching a creed in
 school.  He thinks it gives a good form of words, which, in  a case
 of urgency  in  subsequent  life, may have  a resurrection, and  be
 clothed with spiritual power and life.   I  shall enclose a note to him
 in  this packet to you.
   We expect this morning to hear the result of the Texas business.
 (It is now March 1.)  Great anxiety prevails.   On Tuesday next,
 President Polk will be inaugurated.  I cannot write more, but re-
main as ever truly and devotedly yours and Mrs. Combe's.
•
HORACE MANN. 
238
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
                                        Concord, July 4, 184.r>.
  Rev. S. J. May.  My dear Sir, — ... I hardly know whether
I ought to hope that your situation  is to your  mind,  or whether I
ought to desire  that you should have occasion to repent and return
to Massachusetts, out of which you never should have gone.  I can-
not, however, but be good-natured enough to wish you  here in the
first place, but contented and happy wherever you may be.
  My mind is wholly absorbed, as always, in  school-matters.   We
have not yet succeeded  in making arrangements  for the new Normal
schools. Belay after delay has  interposed, and postponed action.  It
has, however, been  decided  that the one at Bridgewater  shall be
continued there. . . .
  Probably  you have  seen that the " masters " are out in a  " Re-
joinder " against me.   It has fallen dead-born from the press: very
few read it.   Two Orthodox newspapers have tried to indorse  it;
thinking, as they always do, that whatever is  practised against a
Unitarian  is for the glory of God.   The same man who wrote that
carping review in the " Christian Examiner " has a short notice of it
in the last number of the same periodical, which has some shameful
slurs.   I think my friends  ought to protest to  Br.-----and Dr.
-----against turning their batteries to the overthrow of their friends.
It is only-----'s connection with the Boston schools which prompts
him to this course.  He has been so long on the committee, that he
thinks a condemnation  of them is a condemnation of himself.
  The "masters" are  in great trouble.   Some of them went to
the mayor, and besought him  not to put Howe or Brigham on the
committee of examination.   He had some spirit, and put them both
on,—Howe as chairman of the grammar-department,  and  Brigham
of the  writing.  They have adopted a new mode of examination.  A
fist of  printed  questions is prepared on  each subject, which  are
given  to all  of the first section  in the first class  of each of the
schools, so that all the scholars  in each  section can be compared
together, and also all the first sections in all the schools.  The same
time is allowed to all for preparing and writing  down their answers.
This necessarily gives  a transcript of the actual condition of the
schools; and rumor reports  that it is any thing  but flattering.  The
results will be drawn off in  a table;  and eight  thousand copies of 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
239
the reports are ordered to be printed.  We shall know what condi-
tion our boasted Boston schools are in.
   There  are suggestions for certain changes  among  the  masters.
Howe  has  asked me  several times whether I thought you to be so
devoted to the cause of practically improving the condition of the
colored people,  that you would come to Boston and  take the Smith
School;* for the  general opinion is that F-----must  go.   I have
told him that I presumed you were under engagements  more or
less binding at Syracuse. . . .
   I see by an Albany paper that there is a State Convention called,
at Syracuse, of common-school teachers, &c.   Am I not right in
divining  that this is a movement against the county superintend-
ents,  and  designed to  promote  conservatism  or  stand-still-ism
throughout the State?'  In  the next number of the "Journal," I
shall publish some of the proceedings of the late  Syracuse Con-
vention,  with a very strong expression of good  will towards the
superintendents.   My account will  be taken from the "Onondaga
Standard," which was much better than the one in the "Journal."
I have long witnessed with very great satisfaction  the course taken
by the "Onondaga Standard" on the subject of common schools.
   Being on the ground, you will have a chance to see and know the
means  and objects of the common-school  convention.  Is it not of
great importance to moderate their antagonism against the system
of county superintendents as far as possible, and, should they per-
sist in passing any offensive  resolutions, to make use, as far as pos-
sible,  of  the influence of the press  in counteracting  them ?  Of
these things, however, you can judge better than I; and I have no
doubt you will  do whatever  you  can, both for the State  of New
York,  and  to prevent  any  unfortunate  re-action  against Massa-
chusetts.                 Very truly yours, &c,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                        Boston, Sept. 25, 1845.
   My  dear Mr. Combe, — Since your letter of the  2d of June,
I suppose you have visited your favorite spots upon the Rhine; and
I hope that you and  your party, particularly Mrs.  Combe, have
* Colored school. 
240
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
realized all the health and pleasure which you anticipated from the
excursion.   How happy would it have made me could I have been
of your number! but, instead of that, I have been spending my dog-
days in an  agony of hard work.  Nor have I been  scorched and
sweated by a natural Sirius only,  but by a moral one.  My doughty
assailants, the Boston schoolmasters, thought  best  to  collect their
forces,  and strive at least to make  good  their retreat.  Whether they
have done so, you will judge by the pamphlets I herewith  enclose.
About the last of May, after having taken six months to rally, they
came  out with a Rejoinder to my Reply.   Our controversy was
taking so  obvious a turn in favor of improvement  in the. schools,
that my regret at being called into the field again was very much
modified: accordingly,  on the first of August, I gave  them an
answer;  and thus, as between ourselves, the matter now rests.
  After the presentation of the Report, the conservatives  and mas-
ters' aides-de-camp  insisted upon  proceeding to an election before
the charges  proposed in  the  Report  could be submitted  to  the
public.   The old members of  the committee reasoned that the al-
leged condition of the schools  convicted them of negligence and re-
missness in the discharge of their duties in former years; and there-
fore they were to defend where they thought  there was any hope,
and to palliate and deprecate where they could not  defend.  An
election of the masters was precipitated; and notwithstanding the
most earnest efforts on the part of the conservatives, and those who
wear their eyes in  the  posterior  part  of the head,  so as to forever
look backward, and not forward, — notwithstanding all this, four
of  the  roasters  have  been turned  out;  a  work which,  twelve
months ago, would have been  deemed  as impossible as to turn four
peers out of the British House of Lords.
  Such is the present status of the matter.   The Report will soon
be in the hands of alb;  and there will be a vigorous contest at the
ensuing city election between the young  Boston and the lauda-
tors temporis acti.    But the  change already effected in the public
mind, and even in the schools themselves under the  old  heads, is
immense.   It is estimated that corporal punishment has fallen off
twenty-five per cent;  and the masters have gone to work this year
with the idea that they are to make their calling and  election sure. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
241
But enough of this.  Knowing the kind interest you take, not only
in the welfare of the schools, but in whatever concerns me, I have
ventured to give you this long narration.   I have suffered severely
in the conflict, so far as my feelings are concerned; and doubtless I
have suffered considerably in my reputation.   The  masters consti-
tute a strong body of men.  They are thirty in number.  They have
immediately  under  them,  and to a great extent  dependent  upon
them, twice as many more  ushers and assistants.  Between all  these
there is a natural bond of union.  Each one has his or  her circle of
relatives and friends; and  the whole, acting in concert and through
favorite pupils, are able to produce a great effect  upon the public
mind. But the old notion  of perfection in the Boston grammar and
writing schools is destroyed; the  prescription by which the masters
held their  office, and appointed indirectly their successors, is at an
end. There is a strong revulsion  of feeling in the public  mind, and
the masters are hereafter to stand upon their good behavior rather
than on the self-complacency of their employers; so that good will
eventually come out of  evil, in the old-fashioned way.  . .  .
                      Always your friend,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                         Concord, Oct. 7, 1845.
   Cyrus Pierce, Esq.   My dear  Sir, — Where  are you ?  and
what are you doing ?  I hear no more from you than if you be-
longed to a different planet; but I hope your affairs prosper.  Have
you  seen the  Report of the Boston School Committee of the Gram-
mar  and Writing Schools ?  What a pile of thunder-bolts !  Jupiter
never had  more lying by his side, when he had ordered a fresh lot
wherewith  to  punish the wicked.  If the masters see fit to assail me
again, I think I can answer them in such a way as  to make it re-
dound to the  glory of God.
  I  have got up  a new project for Massachusetts, — Teachers' In-
stitutes.  I am to have four of them, —one at Pittsfield, which, in
the geography of common  schools, lies  in the arctic  regions, above
the line  (hitherto)  of perpetual congelation.   I had obtained a
promise from Gen.  Oliver,  formerly  a distinguished teacher in
Salem, to go  to Pittsfield,  and officiate as one of the teachers of the
              to 
242
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
Bchool.  Thinking that institute provided for, I have engaged all
the available  teachers whom I know to  go to  other places.   But
Gen. Oliver has disappointed me.  I have tried several others since,
and can secure none.  I do not see but I must make a draft on
you.  I intend to take Pittsfield myself  for three or four days, and
teach by clay,  and lecture by night; but  by that time my pond will
be drawn down, and I shall also have to  come away for the purpose
of attending another, at Fitchburg.  Now I am writing all this story
to prepare the way for bespeaking the services of yourself or Miss
Tilden* to go to Pittsfield, in case  I do not succeed in getting any
one else.  I know it is a bad thing to take away any of your forces ;
but it is not a hundredth  part so bad as it would  be  to  have one
of these institutes prove a failure at the very commencement of the
experiment.
  There are some reasons  why I should prefer to have you go, and
others why I should prefer to  have Miss Tilden go.  It would be
fun to see her manage the great boys, and teach them their A, B, C's
in arithmetic,  and I think  it would  give them an intellectual spasm
such as they never  had before.  There  need not be  the slightest
objection on her part. Of course, all expenses will be defrayed;
and there is no reason why either of you might not have as pleasant
a time as is consistent with a good degree of hard work !  Please
answer as soon as convenient,
              And beheve  me ever truly yours, &c.,
                                                    H. MANN.

  When  Mr. Mann arrived in Pittsfield, and entered the
schoolroom  assigned  for the  purpose (all  the  common
schools  were  in  vacation), at seven in the  morning, to
make  arrangements, he found the room had been left un-
swept, and  had not been  put in order for his reception.
A hundred pupils, the teachers of  schools, were expected
at nine o'clock.  Gov. Briggs, then  actual Executive of the
State, who felt great  interest in Mr.  Mann's plans, and

  * This lady was a very superior mathematical teacher of the West Newton
Normal School. 
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
243
had   accompanied  him  to  the  schoolhouse, borrowed
brooms in a neighboring house; and the two  gentlemen
swept and dusted the room, and had all things in order at
the appointed hour.

                                      Boston, Nov. 3, 1845.
  C. Pierce, Esq.  My dear Sir, — ... I have the most favora-
ble accounts from  Pittsfield.   It was quite a  stroke  of policy to
have Miss Tilden go there.  She produced forty times more effect
than  you or I or any one  else  could have done, had we exhibited
the same command of the subject that she did.   I wish you could
spare her for a day or two to  go to Fitchburg; but I hardly dare
ask  it.  Contrary to my expectations, I found  myself alone there
the first two days,  with more than a hundred  and thirty teachers
about me;  and you will of course say that I had to manage pretty
shrewdly not to expose my ignorance.
  On Thursday, a.m., I am to start for Nantucket.  From there I
must go to Chatham, on the Cape, where we are to have another in-
stitute ;  and from there to Bridgewater, where we wind up  our fall
musters, as the militia-men say. I hear you are working the young
brains again very  hard, making some  ill.  Remember, it  is your
duty to give power, not to take it away.
                      Yours ever and truly,
                                            HORACE MANN.


  In explanation of this last  sentence,  I  must say  that
Mr.  Pierce was so anxious  for the  fame of the school, that
he inclined to press  study too hard.  He was a man  of
apparently iron nerves himself (though, alas ! subsequent
years proved  that even iron  nerves  could not withstand
such trials as he gave them) ;  and his friend, whose more
delicate organization gave him keen  sympathy with over-
excited brains, was obliged to stand as guard-angelic over
the  health of his beloved " Normalites."   An  equal zeal
for  the success of what they had  undertaken — a project
that was  to have such far-reaching  consequences — ani- 
244
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
mated both, and was accompanied with an equal  forgct-
fulness of self.   They were  not working  consciously for
their own fame;  but they alike felt that they were laying
the foundations of the only lasting basis  of a free republic,
as yet free only  in  name, but destined  to  outlive its own
shortcomings, as surely as truth and humanity are loftier
principles  than gain and oppression.  " Would that they
could  have lived to sec the dawning of  that day !" is the
exclamation  of our  blind affection; but  they doubtless
see its progress in  the future far more clearly than  wo
can.
                                         Boston, Nov. 21, 1845.
C. Pierce, Esq.
  My dear Sir, — I have  this  moment returned  from  a foui--
weeks' expedition, attending  Teachers'  Institutes.   I write to re-
quest, to urge, and, if I only had authority, to  command you to
go to the great " Practical  Teachers'  " meeting at Worcester on
Tuesday and Wednesday next.   We  know where  it originated,
and what the plans  of some  of the movers are.   I am  debarred
from going.  No member of the Board of Education can go;  but
you must go and watch the enemy.
                         Very truly yours,
                                                  H. MANN.  •

                                          Boston, Dec. 2,1845.
Rev. S. J. May.
  My  dear Sir, — I  have  long desired  to write to you,  and to
acknowledge the receipt of your favors.   But the old reason has still
deterred me, — work, work,  work.   If Hood  had known my case,
he would have written the " Song of the ' Secretary,' " instead of
the "Song of the Shirt."'
  I  see you cannot silence  the battery that is opened upon me in
your neighborhood.   My enemies here seem  to have succeeded in
saturating the  minda  of the New-York  teachers  with prejudice
against me, and to a degree that is unaccountable; and your neigh-
bor, the  "Advocate,"  is made  the vehicle  of  discharging  their 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
245
spleen.   What have I done that  has  brought upon  me this con-
tumely and bitterness ?  What have I done  that renders me thus
worthy of the extreme of ridicule and opprobrium ? . .  . These per-
sonal attacks are very annoying ; and I should like to prevent them,
if it can be done.   I hope I have written to him the soft words that
turn away wrath;  but perhaps his is a worse kind than Solomon
referred to.
  We  are  now in a state  of excitement and anxiety on the subject
of the  school committee.    The  "thirty-one" are exerting every
muscle against the reformers.  Nothing can exceed their activity, or
the baseness of the means  that some of them resort to.   I wish you
to read the number of the " Journal " for Dec. 1, and see what reso-
lutions have  been taken  on the subject of corporal punishment in
our schools. . . .
  We  have had a State teachers' meeting here, originally designed
as an attack upon the  Board of Education; but the movers, like
your Albanians, were not  able to carry out all their plans.
  It is late, and my sheet full: so good-night.
                           Ever yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                          Boston, Feb. 13, 1846.
  My dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe, — Were I to  stand upon cere-
mony, I  should not write you at the present time.  But ceremony,
at the best, is vanity; and between us it would be mischief.   Having
an opportunity to send my last Report,  I  avail myself of it, and put
in this  note to say that we have another little son, born on the 27th
of December.   He is a fine, healthy little fellow,  fat enough for an
alderman, and has a head  planned  and executed on the principles
of phrenology.   His mother and I have been discussing the  im-
mensely important subject of his name.   When I said to her that
George  is  a  pretty name,  she said George  Combe  would be a
glorious name; but we should not dare to call him so without your
consent, indeed without your expressed desire, which I can hardly
hope for.  Our oldest boy, whom his mother calls after me, is well,
and has a very active temperament and a very inquisitive mind. .  . .
                     Yours ever and truly,
                                               HORACE  MANN. 
246              LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
  Mr. Combe, who had no  children, but  whose love  for
them was very great, took much interest  in his " name-
son," as he called  him; and was never weary of reading
minute accounts of the doings and sayings of both the
children of his friend.

                                             April 27, 1846.
  My dear Mr. Combe, — I write you from Gardiner, Me., where
1 have come to  spend  a few days with some old friends of Mrs.
Mann.   I am  partially resting from my labors; though Sisyphus
never will be permitted to cease rolling his stone up hill. .  . . What
are  you doing now for the good of the race ?  I  trust you will not
cease to use your brain for the right formation of other brains, as
long as it has the power of operating. . . .  My affairs arc going on
prosperously.   The Boston masters have not attempted any reply
to my "Answer."  I think they never will;  but I almost wish they
would.   One of the already ripened and gathered fruits of the con-
troversy is, that it is admitted on all hands, that,  since the contro-
versy began, corporal punishment has diminished in the  masters'
schools at least eighty per cent!
  I received, by one of the last steamers from England, a London
edition of my Seventh Report, the very causa malorurn.  It was
edited  by Mr.  Hodgson,  who is  at  the  head of  the  Mechanics'
Institute, Liverpool;  and it has copious running notes  from  begin-
ning to end.   It so  happens, that, in regard to  every one  of the
points in my Report which the  masters questioned or denied, Mr.
Hodgson, in his  notes,  has confirmed  my statement.  That is very
gratifying, as he had never,  I  presume, seen one word of  the
controversy. . .  .
                       As ever, yours,
                                                   H. MANN.

                                              West Newton.
  My  dear Sumner, — After you went away  last evening,  the
same reflection  occurred to me which always occurs in relation to
such bequests as Mr. Tuttle proposes  to make; namely, why don't
these benevolent men execute their good deeds while they are alive, 
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
247
and not wait till after they are dead, and so  lose half the pleasure
of it?
  I was delighted at Mr. Tuttle's plan of spending his money in
solido.   It often requhes all my charity not to'accuse the men, who
wish to leave a money-monument behind them, of expecting to hear
people praise them  as  they lie in their graves.  Let the generous
give what money they have to give to be expended in blessing the
world  immediately; and, when  that  is used  up,  somebody will
give more.    But these mortmain funds keep others  from giving
more, because  the want seems to be supplied.  There is only one
improvement on this;  and that is, to give during life, and not wait
till  after death.   How Girard  got fleeced  and balked, and his
benevolence kept in abeyance  for years !
  I cannot forbear saying how much I was delighted with the object
of Mr. Tuttle's charity.  How I should  love to  administer such a
benevolence !  One year of it  would be worth all the honors of Con-
gress forever ;  that is, to me.   Look at the last three verses of that
little song  of Whittier's, at the end of the number of the " Common-
school  Journal" I  sent you.   You can also point them out to
Mr.  Tuttle*
  I  send  you a number containing my letter to the  children of

  * The verses alluded to are these: —
             Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years,
             Feels not his eyelids  wet with grateful tears,
                         If he hath been •
             Permitted, weak and sinful as he was,
             To cheer and aid in some ennobling cause
                         His fellow-men ?
             If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in
             A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin;
                         If he hath lent
             Strength to the weak; and, in an hour of need,
             Over the suffering, mindless of his creed
                         Or hue hath bent, —
             He hath not lived in  vain; and, while he gives
             The praise to Him in whom he moves and lives,
                         With thankful heart
             He gazes backward, and with hope before,
             Knowing that from his works he nevermore
                         Can henceforth part. 
248
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
Chatauque County, New York.  It cannot shoot very wide of Mr.
Tuttle's notions about children, I think.  . . .
                       Yours very truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.

   Such  letters  as  the following are  given,  in order to
meet false accusations and misrepresentations: —

                                            Boston, May 15, 1846.
Rev. S. J. May.
   My dear Sir, — After a night's ride, I have just got back to
Boston from the convention at Albany.  I could hardly reconcile my-
Belf to  the disappointment of not meeting you there.   The conven-
tion treated mo very civilly.  I delivered the lecture which was pro-
nounced so heretical in the " Advocate" some  months ago.  It was
apparently well received; and Elder Knapp, of revival  memory,
said  he would give any thing to  see  it in  print.   Mr. C-----
complimented  me by a special resolution, inviting me to deliver
a speech on the subject of free  schools; came and caused him-
self to  be introduced  to  me,  and  gave  me a long  history of the
influences which had  been exerted, at the  outset, to make his
paper what it was;  said that he  had felt  constrained to  admit
sentiments not his own, but that the end of such things had come.
He spoke freely of and against the Albany clique.   The amount
of it was that he was  disposed to be gracious;  and though he did
not do  what   I  think the* highest notions  of duty would  have
prompted, yet I accepted it, and I  trust it will be the  commence-
ment of a new era. ... I am greatly fatigued to-day: I cannot
write more.
                     Ever and truly yours,
                                                    H. MANN.

                                        Weentham, July 25,1846.
Rev. S. J. May.
   My dear Sir, —... We expect  the new Normal School Build-
ing at Bridgewater will be dedicated on the 19th  of August.  It
will add vastly to the pleasure of  the occasion to see  you  there.
Do come; do.  The other,  at  Westfield, will be  dedicated about 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
249
 the  1st of September.   Then we  shall have  three.  I think the
 cause will be anchored when those are completed, so that no storm
 which F.  E. or the Boston schoolmasters can conjure  up  will
 drive it  from its moorings.
   I see  that N----- has,  in the  "Teachers'  Advocate,"  opened
 his small battery upon  the Normal schools.   The statement made
 in the first number, that one of the  Normal schools in Massachu-
 setts " has become extinct,  and the State appropriations would have
 been cut off from the other two, had not a private individual offered
 to give a sum  equal  to  that appropriated  by  the State," contains
 two  errors,  probably  falsehoods.   The  school originally at  Barre
 has  not  "become  extinct."  It was suspended  for a short time,
 owing to the death of its principal.  It is  now removed to a more
 central  and  commodious place, where  the State has assisted in
 erecting  a  building for it.   The appropriation  made for these
 schools,  after they had  been four years in operation, was made
 wholly by  the  State.   No  private individual gave a cent.   The
 State was so well  convinced of their merits from  the  experience
 it had had, that not only was there no aid, but there was no opposi-
 tion to the grant.
   Another  statement, made in number two,  shows  the  extreme
 ignorance of the writer.   He  says  the members of the Normal
 schools in Prussia are graduates of  the universities.   Not one in
 a hundred, probably not  one in  five hundred, of them  are so.
 These flagrant  misstatements ought to be. pointed out. . . .  The
 examination of the  Boston  schools is conducted this year in the
 same way as last.   The  masters are submissive,  and it seems al-
 ready certain that  a  great improvement over last year has  been
 made. . . .
           Believe  me very truly and sincerely yours,
                                               HORACE  MANN.

                                      Wkentham, Aug. 6, 1846.
  My dear Sumner, — The new  Normal  Schoolhouse  at Bridge-
water is  to  be  dedicated on Wednesday, the 19th inst.  Address
by Hon.  William G. Bates.
  The active and leading agency you have  had in  executing meas- 
250
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
ures which  have led to this beneficial result would  make  your
absence on that occasion a matter of great regret.
  I know it will console you for  your troubles in relation to the
subject  to be  present  on the  day of jubilee, to  gratify so many
persons, and to participate in a joy which will be common and com-
prehensive.
  Let me assure you, that, however it may seem beforehand, you
will not be  sorry afterwards for having made some  exertion, and
even some sacrifice, to be there.  Probably there will be three hun-
dred graduates of the school who will feel  deeply disappointed if
you are not present.
  Do go ! do go !
                   Ever and truly yours, &c,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                             Boston, May 7,1846.
C. Pierce, Esq.
  My dear  Sir, — I heard you were going to add another  hour to
study-time this term.  I protest against this.  Your love of appro-
bation for the fame  of the school must not be a Moloch, before
which young virgins are sacrificed ! . . .
                                   Ever yours,
                                                     H. MANN.

                                         Wrentham, May 24, 1846.
C. Pierce,  Esq.
  My  dear Sir, —... You acknowledge  that you have really
added  one hour in  a week to the period of study; and, including
four Saturday hours, you have thus an hour each day for five  days.
Now, if you have  any exercise or duty for Sunday, then I do not
see  but you  plead guilty to the whole of the charge.
  You  say there is about as much truth in this as in the story of
" flogging a model  schoolboy in the barn, doubtless under  distress-
ing circumstances."   Am I, then, to understand that there was as
much truth in the flogging story as there  is  now acknowledged to
be in the story about study-hours ? . . .
                                   Ever yours,
                                                      H. MANN. 
LIF.J3  OF HORACE  MANN.               251
~,    „  T _,                            Wkentham, Aug. 6, 1846.
Rev. S.  J. May.
   My dear Sir, — I have just  received yours of the 29th ult.;
and, while I am pleased with all its contents, there is one thing in
it which has so delighted  me, that I cannot  help thinking  of it,
and writing to you  about it: I mean the mention of the purpose
and possibility of your becoming the editor of the "Teachers' Advo-
cate."  That, indeed, is a "consummation devoutly to be wished;"
and I beg you to leave  no  pains spared to accomplish so desirable
an object.   How much you could help me, and how readily and
heartily would I help you  all in my  power! . .  . Push the thing,
therefore, with all the resources  you can command.   Few events
would give me greater pleasure, both on your own  account and on
account of the cause, than to hear that you have  succeeded.
  Have you heard that  the Legislature of Maine, at  its present or
late  session, has established a Board of Education,  and provided
for the appointment of  a Secretary at a salary of a thousand dol-
lars a year ?   This looks well.
  Gov. Slade, of Vermont, has  consented to become  the  ao-ent
of a society for the promotion of national education at the West,
and will  remove to  Cincinnati as soon as his present official  term
expires.  I think we will give the Devil one kick yet before  we
leave the world.
                     Yours ever and truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.
                                         Wkentham, Sept. 23, 1846.
Rev. E. B. Willson.
   My dear Sir, — I have just received your desponding missive of
yesterday.   I see you are sensitive: you have not got case-hardened
yet; you have not been rebuffed and neglected, and seen  every
mountebank and hand-organist  and  monkey-shower and mihtary
company running away with your  audience.   I have  been accus-
tomed for years to yield precedence to every puppet-exhibition or
hurdy-gurdy mendicant; but I always transmute this discourage-
ment into encouragement (or stimulus).   If people are  so  indif-
ferent  to the   highest  of  all earthly causes, it only  shows how
much we have yet to do; and if it is to take a  great while to  do 
252               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.

what must be done, then it is time we were about it; and  if it is
an arduous business, then our coats must go off, and we must ad-
dress ourselves to the work with corresponding  good will.   Let us
convert despair into courage.   If you cannot get seventy teachers
together at a Teachers' Institute in the great County of Worcester,
I know you will work harder for the cause of  common schools as
long as you live.  I shall be grieved at such a spectacle, indeed;
but my heart has  ached hundreds of times  before, yet I  have in-
finite faith.  It  is a part of my religion to believe in the  ultimate
success and triumph of the cause.   If it can  come in my day, I
should like it;  but a true disciple works with the same zeal for the
object  of his faith, whether its glorious consummation is to be greeted
by his own eyes,  or whether it is yet the embryon existence of some
distant century.  . .  .
                In great haste,  yours very truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                    West Newton, Feb. 25, 1847.
   My  dear Friends, 'Mr.  and Mrs. Combe, — All I can  say in
defence of myself for  being  what you  call  a " naughty man  " is
that I  have had  a conflict of duties,  and that I  have postponed the
performance of those which would have been most agreeable for the
sake of those which seemed to me most indispensable to the welfare
of the  cause to which I am pledged.  " Strike,  but hear."
   In the early  part of the  last season, I prepared another volume
of our Annual  School Abstracts, containing nearly four  hundred
pages.   Even before  this was completed, I  had to go away on a
tour of Teachers' Institutes (described in my Ninth Report), which
occupied me for  seven or eight weeks.  On my return, in November,
I was  obliged to sit  down  and write  my Report, a hundred  and
seventy pages, and carry that and the Report of the Board through
the press.  My  correspondence equals all the labor I have enumer-
ated.    I have  had the  general  care and superintendence  of the
erection of two Normal school-buildings, which have been built the
last season, and  are now  occupied; and, what I know will gladden
your hearts, I have built a house for myself at this place, which we
came into on  Christmas Eve.   I have been a wanderer for twenty 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               253
years ; and, when any one asked me where I lived, I could  say, in
the language  of  another, " I  do  not live anywhere; I board."
This Arab life I  could bear while I was alone;  but, when I had
" wife and weans " to carry  from place to place, it  became intoler-
able.   I should have  preferred, on  many accounts, to live  in the
city; but so small  is  my salary' and  so  considerable the demands
made upon it in order to carry forward the cause, that it was neces-
sary to  give  up the idea of a city residence, or resign  my office.
We  have, therefore, put up a  shelter at West Newton, ten miles
from Boston, and within a  hundred rods of the West Newton Nor-
mal School.  . . . Just  as  I  was looking  for a little relief from the
pressure of  my labors, a child of  sin  and Satan came out  with  a
ferocious orthodox attack upon the Board of Education and myself,
which  I felt moved to answer; and here is another pretty job of
work of fifty-six  pages.   Now, I  assure  you, it  would have  been
vastly more  pleasant to have been  writing to you and Mrs. Combe,
and  telling  you about Mrs.  Mann, and little Horace Mann (who is
three years old to-day), and litlle-er George Combe Mann, who has
a head that would satisfy the most  fastidious and exacting phrenolo-
gist,—I say it would have been vastly more pleasant to do this than
to be fighting, like St. Paul, the wild beasts at Ephesus.
   I received the  " Phrenological Journal," containing your article,
which  I read with  great pleasure  and profit. ... I should like ex-
ceedingly well to be made acquainted, from time to  time, with what-
ever promotes the progress of humanity, whether  it comes in the
form of improved education or in  any other.  How horrible is the
condition of Ireland !   It pours a bitter  ingredient into every meal
I eat.   I had thought, owing to improvements in  agriculture and
commerce, that famines were at an end ;  but it  seems that misgov-
ernment can more than cancel all the blessings of science and the
bounties of Heaven.   The policy pursued towards  Ireland  for the
last few centuries will be one of the most appalling admonitions to
future governments to  be found  in  the pages of all history.   I hope
it  may lead to such organic changes in  the policy of the British
Government towards that people, as will,  in part, compensate for the
terrible calamity the'y are suffering, and will prevent the possibility
of its repetition.   Great commiseration is felt in this country for the 
254               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
famishing people.  A large committee is now engaged in the city
of Boston in collecting subscriptions.   No  report of the amount
obtained has been yet  made;  but I have  no  doubt it will  bo in
some degree worthy of the city,  though it must be immensely inade-
quate to the relief of the sufferers.   Bennett  Forbes, one of our
wealthiest men, and a man whose heart is bigger than his purse, has
offered to take charge of any ship that shall be freighted with relief*
Oh, if all the millions we are  spending in  this execrable Mexican
war could be appropriated to the relief of suffering, the instruction
of ignorance, and the reformation  of the wicked, what a different
world we might have!   The money and the talent  employed to
barbarize mankind in war, if expended for education and the promo-
tion of the arts of peace, would  bring on the  millennium at once.
   You know, my dear friends, how incessantly I am engaged.   Do
not be punctilious about return  letters^  Write  me when  you can.
I have no letters that are so acceptable as yours.   Keep me advised
of all that is  important;  for I have not time even to read English
newspapers sufficiently to know  what important things are  going on.
   Our  present  Congress closes its  session on the  4th of next
month.   The next Congress will be  a very different  body of men.
For the honor of humanity, they ought to be.   My kindest regards
to your brother, and to all who do me the honor to inquire after me.
                     Ever and truly yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                   West Newton, April 25,1847.
   My dear Mr. Combe, — Your kind letter of March 24 is before
me.   I learn from it that you were, at its date,  without intelligence
from me.   You write, too, somewhat despairingly.   But why should
you lack faith?  Do you not believe in my regard for you, as in a
law of nature ?  While my nature and yours remain unchanged, I
cannot  but have  the highest  estimation of you, and  I cannot
cease to  be grateful;  for you have been my benefactor in  the
largest and best sense.  By the steamer of March, I  sent you  not
only a long letter, but a large  parcel,  and gave you some account of
* Mr. Forbes nobly redeemed hi." promise. — Ed. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
255
my year's work, so that you might see for yourself that idleness was
not the cause  of my omitting to write to you. ... I sent you  a
mighty great Abstract of School Returns which I had got out, and
also copies of  a controversy,  which,  in the way of by-play, I had
had with one of the wild beasts of Ephesus; and a more untamable
hyena I  do not believe St. Paul ever had to encounter, — once a
preacher of the annihilation of the wicked, then a Universalist, and
now a Calvinist of the Old-Testament stamp.   In believing in total
depravity, he only generalizes his  own  consciousness. .  . .  Since  I
wrote you before, he has come out with a  " Reply," which  is worse
than the  others, in a sort of geometrical progression.  This I have
answered in  a "Letter" to  him,  and am now awaiting his next
movement.   I read, with  great interest  and profit, your article
on education in the " Phrenological Journal; " and it is now some-
where in the circle of my friends, going about  doing good.  I have
also just  received the same in  tract form. ...                 •
   There  has already been sent to Ireland, from Boston alone, money
and provisions to the value  of a  hundred and twenty thousand
dollars.   Mr.  Quincy told me he had no doubt  it would soon
amount to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  This would look
beautifully on the celestial records, if the Devil had not such a per
contra of a hundred millions spent  in this infernal Mexican war.
Still,  it is about the first item  ever entered to the credit of a nation
in the books  above; and, as such,  it  is  not only  a fact, but  a
promise, — an augury not less than an entry.   I wish you to inform
me what  is the estimated sum  drawn annually  from  Ireland by the
absentee  landlords.   How different  is the character of the Irish
peasantry or immigrants here from that of the English  landlords !
The former are sending home amounts of money which are so incred-
ible that  my memory cannot hold them, while the latter are drawing
the heart's blood out of the country.   Will you  please also inform
me what  are the revenues of the Church derived from  Ireland, and
spent at   home and elsewhere?  I  also  want to  obtain the best
accounts  I can of the " ragged schools " in London.   I have access
to the Reviews; but are there  no tracts or pamphlets on the subject ?
I do not get at the present state of pubhc  sentiment in the  United
Kingdom  on this all-important question of education. . . . 
256
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
  At our last  Congressional election, Howe consented to be the
candidate for Congress of the anti-slavery and anti-war party.   I
think in so doing he made a great mistake.   Any other man would
have served as a rallying-point as well as he; and such is the inexo-
rableness of party discipline, that he at once  lost a great portion of
his well-earned  popularity and extensive influence.  He was pro-
scribed, and, in a  few days  after, failed of being  elected on the
school committee, when he might have been but for that misstep.
  I  shall leave the babies for Mrs. Mann to write  about.  Please
think how much I  have to cIo, and never wait for a letter from  me
as an inducement to write one yourself.
  With kindest regards to Mrs. Combe and all who inquire after me,
                       I am yours ever,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                     West Newton, May 22, 1847.
Rev. T. Parker.
  Dear  Sir, — Yours of the 15th inst. was not received until this
evening.   I shall be most happy to meet the friends of a true con-
servative reform anywhere, and  particularly at your house, if my
engagements will possibly permit.
  The Board of Education, however, are to  be met on Wednesday
next, and may be in session two  or three days.   I have never been
able to escape from them  and their  committees  for an hour.   If,
therefore, I do  not appear, you will infer that I cannot.
  By a " conservative reform," I mean the removal of vile and rot-
ten parts from  the structure of  society, just as far as salutary and
sound ones can be prepared to take their places.
                        Yours very truly,
                                                      II. MANN. ,

                                    West Newton, Nov. 14, 1847.
  My dear Mr. Combe, — I intended to write you by each of the
last steamers, but was absent from home; and, when I attend Insti-
tutes, I have no time nor thought for any thing else.  Our cause is
flourishing.   Other States are coming into the ranks of improve-
ment.  New Hampshire  has  appointed  a school commissioner. 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.               257
Public sentiment in. Rhode Island, under the administration of Mr.
Barnard  as school commissioner, is revolutionized.   Vermont has
established a Board of Education;  and even the democratic  State
of Maine  has, within the last twelve  months, organized a Board
nearly on the same principles, and precisely with the  same objects,
as Massachusetts.  All these arc  so many buttresses to hold our
fabric firm.   I feel great interest in the movement in Maine, and
am going down there to spend a few days, to use a flesh-brush upon
their long torpid  backs.  I trust we shall make this a revolution
that will  not go backward.
   We have not heard from you since your return from the  Conti-
nent.   Our last letter was from Mr. Cox, announcing the death of
your brother, that benefactor of mankind.   How many  people will
be better and happier  because he has lived !  This is his  noble
monument.   To go about doing good is religion.   In age3  yet to
come, ho will live upon earth; and his wise precepts, the  repre-
sentatives of  himself which he has left upon earth, will "go  about
doing good."  We have been greatly interested in your  pamphlets,
and in the additional matter contained  in the  new edition of the
" Constitution of  Man."   The citadels of bigotry must eventually
be crumbled  under such missiles;  but  it  is a long contest, and
neither you  nor I shall see the victory  but  by an  eye of  faith.
But never mind.   It is the evidence of a true disciple, that he can
labor as faithfully, though triumph is a thousand years off, as though
it were to be won to-morrow, and he already heard the note of prep-
aration.
   Please give me all practicable  information about British affairs.
The history of this age will hereafter stand out  prominently in the
annals of the race.  I would that it were more worthy !
   With undiminished affection for yourself and Mrs. Combe,
                  I am, as ever, truly yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

   Duriinr all his educational  life,  Mr. Mann had never
allowed himself one  day of pure recreation.  If he made a
visit to a friend, some educational errand was sure to lie
in ambush,  or some plea to be entered for the furtherance
                 17 
258
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
of his cherished plans.   He had not the art of lying fal-
low, and thus gathering new strength for labor.  His love
of children was the only natural outlet for his native hi-
larity ; and this blessed  resource was all  that saved him
when the  outside world  seemed  bent upon  harassing
him.   He never could turn his back upon  them:  others
had to defend him from their loving inroads, hunt them
in his  study, and pick  them off  his writing-desk, and
out of the back of his chair, where they would be found
perched.   No play was so charming as  that in which
he partook.  He  did  not  know how to tell fairy-stories,
nor approve of them, unless allegorically beautiful; but
he could bring the wonders of Nature within the com-
pass of their admiring little souls.   It came to be neces-
sary to make a rule about taking turns  upon his knee ;
and they learned to watch for the occasions when he laid
down his pen, or was alone in the often-sought study, to
which all the  schoolmasters and school-committee men,
educators and would-be educators, earnest inquirers  or
malcontents, had  free access.  To  " tell papa" became a
necessity; for his sympathy was never wanting, whether
in joy or sorrow.  To cultivate the  religious character of
his children, irrespective of dogmas, was his aim, and he
knew it  could  not be cultivated too early; but he  so
dreaded for them the painful impressions  stamped upon
his own  young heart, and he was so sure that terror must
be the first emotion excited by the knowledge of God, that
it was long before he could consent that his eldest child
should know of the existence of a higher Power.  When
the inevitable moment came, and the child's  cravings for
that  knowledge could no  longer be  set aside ;  when he
passionately demanded " who made him " or it (for every
thing was a mystery without this solution), and would not
be denied, — his father walked the room in the deepest 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
259
agitation: but when lie perceived that  immediately the
heart and intellect gave a recognizing consent to the con-
ception of a  loving heavenly  Parent, who  made father
and mother, and the butterfly, whose mysterious evolution
from  the  chrysalis was  the special  object of inquiry at
the moment; and that the little boy needed no further ex-
planation  and no other satisfaction, — tears of joy relieved
him  of his painful  anxiety, and father and child had from
that time a never-ending topic of mutual interest in tra-
cing God through his love and works.  It was the happiest
of thoughts to  him, that his children  could  make  God a
sharer of their joys, and an object of personal affection
and  confidence.
   Suddenly, owing to the  death of Mr. John  Quincy
Adams,  came  the  demand  for his services as represen-
tative to  the National Congress.   It was an  important
crisis  in the cause of liberty; for slavery was  then to be
stemmed, or allowed to extend itself indefinitely ; and  a
champion as fearless  and  persistent as Mr. Adams was
 needed in his place.
   At  first,  Mr. Mann could hardly, by an effort of the
 imagination, place himself in any other  position than that
 which he occupied: but, on reflection, he saw that the new
 office  had bearings upon the  great cause, which  allied  it
 closely to its interests; and he allowed  himself to be per-
 suaded.
   His hope of seeing a Department of Public Instruc-
 tion in the  National Government was, however, not real-
 ized.
   His friends were glad to have him leave his educational
 labors for a time ; for his plans were so large, and had so
 expanded in his  hands, that  no  man could execute them
 without suicidal efforts.  He  could plead the necessity of
 more assistance for his successor, but was not  the man  to 
260
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
beg it for himscdf; feeling, as he did, that there was but a
very partial appreciation of the work yet to be done.
  During the first session, he did not gain much rest; for
he still retained the office  of Secretary of the Massachu-
setts Board of Education, pending the choice of a suc-
cessor: and his friends, Dr. Howe and Mr. Sumner, urged
him to  undertake the defence of Drayton  and Sayres,
owners of the little sloop " Pearl," who had allowed some
fugitives from  the District to  escape  in  their  vessel.*
They knew he would not make it a  technical  matter
merely, but Avould improve the opportunity  to enunciate
great principles wliich he  and they had at heart.  They
did  not  urge him, as men often did,  to do that which
they would not have done  themselves.  He  felt the kin-
dling influence of  that spirit in them which burned with-
in himself, — an  unquenchable flame  of patriotism, and
love of justice ; a  desire to hold up his  testimony against
the great sin of his country.  They ail  stood alike ready
to  sacrifice  every personal consideration  to the cause.
Not even  friends  could urge  selfish claims in the pres-
ence of  such  sentiments  as animated  their conferences
upon these topics, though the  domestic  calamity  was not
to be lightly estimated.   Indeed, the light  of the house
went out when he left it.   One little boy planted himself
upon the hall-stairs every day, for a month,  to " wait for
papa,"  and  could hardly be  torn  from his post; and
another  would open the  daguerrotyped  likeness, and
weep over  it,  saying, " How beautiful he  is!"  To  be
" little papas "  to the new-born babe was the most grate-
ful form of consolation; and  the postscript  to  the  boys
in  the   daily letter  home was  seldom wanting.   They
were unwilling to see other people sit  at his desk or in

  * The particulars of this case and the argument to the jury will appear in a
future volume. 
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.              261
his special  chair.   He had taken care  of  every one, in-
stead of  allowing  himself  to  be taken care of.   The
house had been furnished by his taste, and he had had a
special interest in all its arrangements.  Even the flower-
beds knew his shaping hand, and it had  trained the vines
and rose-bushes over porch and summer-house.  When
his absence became  intolerable, the  children were  told
that  he  had gone  to help make  the laws  that would
make  people do  right;  and, as they had  never known
him to do wrong, he remained ever to them a near prov-
idence, stimulating every  aspiration, and feeding  their
hunger for  knowledge and  the  means of knowledge.


                                  Washington, April 26, 1848.
  My dear Mr.  Combe, —... I write you  this from  a seat in
Congress ; a place which, a few weeks ago, it would have seemed as
impossible for me to fill  as to be the successor of Louis  Philippe.
Strange events have sent me  here.   I have  time to-day to write
but a^single word more,  to say, that, wherever I am.  I shall never
cease to be your friend  and admirer, and  to acknowledge my in-
debtedness to you for the great principles  of thought which have
helped me on in the world. ... I am writing this during an earnest
debate; and, if I delay, I shall fail of sending it off in season for
the steamer which goes from Boston on  Saturday.  My best re-
gards to Mrs. Combe,  and beheve me ever and truly yours,
                                            HORACE MANN.

                                    Washington, April 28,1848.
Rev. D. Wight, Jun.
  Dear Sir,—Your letter of the 25th inst., this day received, has
found me in the  midst  of very pressing engagements; for, for a
few weeks, I have  assumed new  duties, without being  released
from my old  ones.  This pressure of business, however,  counsels
me to promptness, instead of delay: I therefore give you a brief
and perhaps a too hasty answer. 
262
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
  Some of the questions you have propounded, I regard as very
simple and  plain; while some of them  might lead to theoretical
difficulties, if not to practical ones.   I  regard it as sufficient, at
present, to take a practical view of the subject.
  You ask  whether "literary qualifications" alone  ;ire  sufficient
for a teacher.  I answer, that-, in my opinion, they arc not.  Moral
quahfications,  and ability to inculcate and enforce the  Christian
virtues, I consider to be  even of greater moment  than literary
attainments.
  You ask,  again, whether school committees are bound to approve
Roman Catholics.   I do not touch the cases of " Jews, Mahomet
ans, Pagans," &c.; for I presume you have no such cases in hand
You also further ask what has been the practice  in Massachusetts,
so far as I know,  on this point.
  The city of Lowell presents the most striking case that has come
to my knowledge.   There,  several  years ago,  a very  intelligent
committee, consisting of clergymen and  laymen, entered into  an
arrangement with the Catholic priests and parents, by which it was
agreed that the  teachers of their children should be  Catholics.
They were, however, to be subject to examination, and their schools
to visitation, by the committee, in the same manner as other teach-
ers and schools.   I have not time to enter into details; but you
may find  a  minute' and interesting account of the whole proceed-
ing, as prepared by one of the school committee of Lowell, in the
last April number of the " New-Englander."   I refer you to this as
more  particular and satisfactory than  any account  I  can give in a
letter.
   But this  was a case where Catholic teachers were provided for
Catholic children.   I know no case in Massachusetts where Catho-
lics have been brought forward as teachers of Protestant schools.
   But as to the true interest and meaning of the law, premising
that I  have no  authority to declare what the  law is, still, when
asked by a gentleman, from proper motives, what my opinion of the
law is, I am free to express it.  It is but an opinion.   The school
committee have  the sole authority in the matter; and  they must
discharge their duty on their responsibilities, as I or any other man
must  do on ours. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
263
  I do not see how, according  to our law, a man is to  be disfran-
chised, or held to be disqualified for the office of a teacher,  merely
because he is a Catholic.   If his manners and  his  attainments are
good, if his conduct  is exemplary, his character pure,  and he has
ability to inculcate  justice, a sacred regard to truth, the principles
of piety, and those other excellences  which the  Constitution enu-
merates, can you reject him because you understand him to be a
Catholic ?  Would  Pere la Salle, Fenelon, or Bishop Cheverus, be
disqualified, by the  fact of their faith  alone, to  keep a school in
Massachusetts ?
  In any case of this kind, however, there  are some other points
which I should think it lawful to consider and act upon.  For in-
stance,  I  have always  and under  all circumstances held that the
Bible is a book which should be introduced into our schools.   Pro-
testant  parents  have an  undoubted right to  have their children
read the Protestant version, and be instructed  from it.   If I  had
reason  to suppose  the candidate  to be a Catholic, I  should feel
perfectly authorized to inquire, and to know, whether, if approved,
he would  use the Bible in school in such a way as  the committee
should  direct; whether he would  use the Protestant version for a
Protestant school;  and whether, also, he should not feel under ob-
ligation to abstain,  on  all occasions, from obtruding  his  peculiar or
sectarian views upon the scholars.  I should want security on these
and similar points.   I could not construe our law and constitution
to say, that, because a man is a Catholic, therefore he cannot incul-
cate  and simplify justice, virtue, the principles of  piety,  &c.   And
again:  if the district (as  you suggest in this instance) has been so
grossly delinquent  as  to choose an immoral and  profane  man as
prudential committee, I should not regret to see them punished in
any way that would not harm the children.
  These, my dear sir, are my general views.  If  I had  more time,
I might be more explicit and guarded, and  perhaps suggest some
further limitations or qualifications of my opinion ; but, rather than
delay, I have given you at  once what,  according to the  best of my
knowledge,  is a  true  exposition of  our law, without raising  the
question whether the law is right or wrong.   If this opinion seems 
264
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
to you unsound, you  had best go to some counsellor on the sub-
ject, or raise the question for the courts.
J                l                                     H. MANN.

                                      Washington, June J), 1848.
  . .  . We have just  heard that Cen. Taylor has been  nominated
for  President.   If so, it has been  done  by the combined  force
of slavery and war.    The principles on which all the best  men of
the North  profess to  act — the great principles for  the advance-
ment  of civilization — have been sacrificed to sustain  the war-fever
and the slavery-grip.  I  do not feel as if I could stand  this: at
any rate, I trust there will  be  a movement at the North which
shall  look  to other objects, which shall be led only by men who
inscribe peace and liberty on their banners.   I  have almost ceased
to have any of the  feelings  of a mere politician;  and,  situated
as I am, — I mean, as I  still fill the office of Secretary of the Board
of Education,—if  I  come out at  first, and take any  leading or
prominent part  in politics, I shall be accused of political interference
through the influence of my office;  a thing which, as you  know, I
have for so many years tried  to keep clear  of.  I feel, therefore,
unpleasantly hampered at the  present time.  Were it not  for the
necessity thus  laid   upon me,  I  should be  inclined  to  heroic
measures.
                                     Washington, June 10, 1848.
  There will be great enthusiasm for  Taylor  at the South,  and
great  coldness at the North, — in some instances, aversion.  It will
play mischief with Whig  politics in Massachusetts.  I have a diffi-
cult position.    I shall  try to keep my conscience;  though, in so
doing, I may lose my office.
                                     Washington, June 13, 1848.
  It is evident there  will be great opposition to Gen.  Taylor in the
North.  This will lead to a feud among the Whigs themselves ; so
that they will have to fight, not only the Democrats, but  each other.
Our  district will doubtless be in trouble.  I  may lose  my office ;
but I will try to preserve my integrity.
   The ground  on which  the nomination for Taylor goes is not with- 
                   LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               265

out plausibility.   They say we must turn out the present Adminis-
tration at any rate;  that, if Taylor be  not supported, there is  a
worse evil.  On the other hand, it is said we  have yielded to the
demands of the South  again and again; that they always ask for
once more ; and that we may yield  and  yield forever, and still they
will require us to do it once more.  This conflict will  probably dis-
tract my district more than any other in the  State;. and there is
no State that will suffer so much as Massachusetts.

                                     Washington, June 24, 1848.
  My dear Sumner, — I think you are rather the hardest taskmas-
ter since Pharaoh; and I  am not sure I ought to stop with that old
Egyptian scamp.
  You know I am not only Acting Secretary of the Massachusetts
Board of Education, and now  keeper of a sort of intelligence-office
on certain subjects for the whole  country (in which capacities I have
literally had thirty letters  to open and answer in a day since I have
been here), but you also know that I came into the class hero when
the  other members of it had read the book half through; so  that I
had the back lessons all to make up. You also wanted me to under-
take the defence of the "Pearl" prisoners, who will be arraigned next
week, probably on Wednesday, — on how many indictments, do you
think ?  I expect 245 (two hundred and forty-five).  I shall write
again when I am certain.  You have been drumming me  up for a
speech in the House, and now you want  me to go to Worcester.  Is
not all this a lhV.b too bad ?
  Besides all this, if I am not greatly mistaken, you are calling me
to account for not plunging at  once, with the toga of my secretary-
ship  on, into the Taylor war.    Now, I have written  at length to
II-----about this latter point, and you may see the letter.   Under-
standing this whole matter, I  should like to know what you and
others think about it.
                         Truly yours,           HORACE MANN-

                                    Washington, June 28, 1848.
  The District Attorney is making ready for  a fearful amount of
indictment against Drayton  and  Sayres,—so many, that, if the 
266               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
prisoners should be  convicted  on all  of  them, it will  require an
imprisonment of hundreds of years to expiate the deed.  . .  . There
must be a tremendous re-action  at some time — perhaps not till after
our time — against the oppression and abuses which are  committed
to uphold slavery.
                                  Washington, D.C., April 24, 1848.
C. Pierce, Esq.
  My dear Sir, —I assure you I was right glad to see  the super-
scription  of a  letter  in your beautiful handwriting.   Now, do not
laugh at my adjective; for beauty, you know,  is in the  eye  of the
beholder. . . .
  I find myself as comfortably situated here as I could expect; but
I have not the slightest expectation of ever feeling any  attachment
for the position.  I have no idea that I can make my efforts tell on
the body with  which  I am associated.   From present  appearances,
I have not run away from correspondence on schools and education,
but into  it.   I may have an opportunity to do an unseen work in
this behalf, — even greater than I have ever done  before.   I have
seen enough already to give me  even a deeper conviction  of the
necessity and indispensableness of education than I  ever had before.
It is the only name  whereby a republic can be  saved.  If I ever
return to the  field, as I hope to, I shall  return with new motives
for exertion and zeal.
  We  have had a  great  excitement  here for a few days.  The
South are on fire.  They like to sympathize with revolution so long
as it will stay three thousand miles off;  but revolution at home  is
to be  decided  by different  principles.    They have furnished some
admirable texts for Northern men  to preach from; and according to
the gospel these promulgate  will be the disciples they will make.
  Love to madam.
                     Ever and truly  yours,
                                                HORACE MANN

                                  Washington, D.C., April 26,1848
Dr. Jarvis.
  Dear Sir, — I acknowledge  with great  pleasure the receipt of
yours of the  22d instant; and  what welcome news you  imparl
respecting the  progress of school-matters in Dorchester !  An appro- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
267
priation of $10,000 -f- 4,000 -f- 10,000  in  a single  year, when
last year you raised but a little more than $6,000, if I remember
rightly !   This is triumph, and reward for all your labors. . . .
   And  now,  my dear sir, you do  not  know how home-sick  and
State-sick  I am; that is, how I  long to get  back among the boys
and  girls  of  the Massachusetts schools.   One consideration only
helps to reconcile me to the change.   I am satisfied  that I was on
the point of breaking down remedilessly when I came away.   If my
heart was  not growing  hard,  my brain was growing soft.  I begin
to feel a little better.   If my health  is restored, I shall  be  back in
the vineyard again before long.  The present crisis about our  new
territory, — is it not enough to wean anybody from home ?
   For all the kind things you are pleased to express, I can only
say that they  point to what I would  do, rather than to any thing I
have done : indeed, what I have done falls so far short of what should
have been done, that I feel something of an emotion of shame when-
ever the subject is called  to my mind. . . .
            Beheve me most truly and sincerely yours,
                                     Washington, July 18,1848.

  We  are  getting along very slowly.   There is much business in
the hopper, only a little of which will ever be  ground out.  It is
impossible to tell what will be the fate of the territorial bills.   The
future welfare and greatness  of the Territories has very little to do
with the question.   The fate  of millions and millions is to be voted
upon as  it  is thought  the temporary and evanescent interests  of
politicians will be best subserved.   " Who shall be  President?" is
deemed of more consequence  than whether there shall be  millions
of slaves in the West in each generation, and a thousand or million
generations of these.  I see, every day, more and more, the neces-
sity of the  great work of education ; and  were  I young, or had I
my old strength again, nothing should keep me  from  that work of
works.  How different this Government would be if there were any
coronal region belonging to its sensorium! 
268               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
                                    Washington, July 29, 1848.
  The celebrated Compromise Bill, on the subject  of slavery in the
Territories, came to the House yesterday, and was laid upon the table
— that is, to sleep forever — by a vote of 112  to 98.   The major-
ity  represents the antislavery interest in the  House.   It was  a
scene of absorbing interest.   The house was more full than at any
other time  since I have been here.  Usually, when taking the yea;
and  nays, the House is like Bedlam.   No one cares for any thing
but to give his own vote  in turn.   But yesterday it was still as  a
church.  Every man wanted to know how every other man voted.
The South has had  a fiery dispensation  this Congress.   Speech is
getting to be free here, and they have been coerced into some de-
cency and deference.

                                       Washington, Aug. 5, 1848.
Rev. S. J. May.
  My  dear Sir, —I thank you for your letter of the 2d inst., in
which  I find  so much  new  proof of your old partiality.   The
speech you so kindly refer to, I  think  has produced more  effect
than any other of my educational writings; which is to be attributed,
not to  its greater power  (for I think  it  inferior to most  of what  I
have said on this subject before), but solely to the fact  that it was
said in Congress, and by  a member of Congress, whom I find to be
a very different man, even though he be the  same, from a mere Sec-
retary  of a Board of Education.  It was very attentively  listened
to; and some  members from slave States came to  me immediately
after, and from civility, or other motive, offered  me  their  congratula-
tions.  I do not hear that it is doing any harm in  the way of exas-
peration or otherwise.  I have just received a  note from an entire
stranger, — a Virginian born, — in which he says he, now and here-
after, goes for " free soil " in new Territories, and for the annihila-
tion of slavery where it exists.   Excuse this appearance of egotism
to an old and  most valued friend.
  You go  to Buffalo, then.   I have but one word to say.   If you
have any regard for the purity and moral strength of the Great Party
that is to be, don't put such a corrupt  man as Van Buren at the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
269
head  of it.   Just so certain as you do, the cause itself is tainted
and corrupted.
                   Ever and truly your friend,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                      Washington,  Aug.  5, 1848.
   We had a verdict of " guilty " returned yesterday against Dray-
ton.   The jury were in consultation  twenty-one  hours.   Wo un-
derstand  that those who stood out for the prisoner were at last
induced to surrender by the fear of losing all patronage and custom
in the city if they refused to convict.   But this is not the  end of it.
We shall try to set the  verdict aside on what seem  to us  good
grounds.
   Aug. 7.   Notwithstanding we have reverses, yet I think the law
is on  our side ; and  we mean so far to get the principles on record,
that,  if  we fail here, we can get the decision reversed in a higher
court.  I  am in  a  good work; so do not feel uneasy about  me.
Maybe it  will turn out to be a great one. . .  .
   I am told that public  opinion  in  this District is undergoing a
change.
   Aug. 10.   Ah !  the verdict was against us again  yesterday.  It
seems impossible here, at the present time, to have an  impartial trial.
No jury,  in a free State,  would have  convicted Drayton in either
of the cases.   No jury would have remained in consultation half an
hour,  without acquitting him.   We must struggle  hard yet.  They
have not yet got him hopelessly in their clutches.

                                     Washington, Aug. 11, 1848.
   Wo began yesterday with the first case against Sayres.   It looks
better than the others; and I do not see how it is possible,  even with
the most  prejudiced jury and  afore-determined judges, to convict
him.  But I may not estimate  the force of prejudice and predeter-
mination aright.  If we were in any  Christian land,  I should be
sure of success.
   But we have done a glorious work in the House to-day.  A few
days ago, we passed a bill for the establishment of a territorial govern-
ment  in Oregon.   It went to the Senate, and  they amended it by 
270
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
adding the Missouri-compromise provision to  it;  that  is,  that all
territory north of 36° 30' north latitude  should be free  territory.
and  all south of it slave territory, as they desired, —this line t<i
extend to the Pacific Ocean.
  When the bill came back to the House, we voted to non-coucnr
:n the amendment of the Senate ; and, to the surprise of everybody.
we had thirty-nine majority.  All the Northern Democrats, so many
of whom have  heretofore voted with the Southern Democrats and
Southern Whigs on slavery questions, — all excepting four, — voted
with us.   They can no longer stand  the fiery  furnace of public in-
dignation on the subject of slavery.  It is one of the most glorious
events that has happened this century.  All our discussions on the
subject of slavery during this session have tended to it.
  Saturday Morning.  All ready for the fight.   This case will go
to the jury to-day.  I do not know what will come next.   If the
Government tries another of these  cases, we cannot get through till
Tuesday, or perhaps Wednesday;  so that we  may be separated a
day or two longer.  But hereafter it may give  us pleasure  to re-
member all this.
  Aug. 13.  Verdict of " Not guilty ! "   The  fight in Drayton's
case helped this one very much.
  We went back to the Senate to  see if they  would recede from
their amendment to the Oregon Bill.  They debated it a good part
of the day yesterday,  and all night, and  took the question  about
nine this morning.  There was a majority of four for receding.   So
the Oregon Territory  will be  established with the slavery restriction
in it.  Is not this worth  coming to Washington to see ?  It  is a
great triumph, and the  first  upon which we can really rely.    The
days of each of the four members who voted against us in the House
will probably be ended thereby, politically.

                                    Washington, Aug. 14, 1848.
  Drayton has a wife and children in Philadelphia.  Sayres has a
wife : I do not know  whether he has children.  I  went yesterday
to bid Drayton  good-by in his jail.   He was firm and collected, re-
solved to abide  his fate.   Sayres must remain till December, at any
rats.  Do I think my  fato hard ? Let me compare  it with theirs.  I 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               271
feel in this case as if I were not working for Drayton and Sayres
alone, but for the whole colored race.  Is it not clearly right that I
should stay and help these men, who have no chance of seeing their
homes for months, and possibly not for years ?   I cannot believe,
besides, but  this  trial is  to have an important  influence on  the
subject  of slavery in  this  District.   We are quietly and  silently
making thunderbolts,  which will by and by be hurled at the heads
of the proslavery men  here.
   Aug. 17.  I hoped to be able to send you the verdict of the jury
to-day; but I am disappointed in this.
   Mr. Carlisle made a most complete and beautiful closing argu-
ment on our  side yesterday.  It was then the District Attorney's
duty to address the jury, who would then retire to consult and give
their verdict.
   But Mr. Key asked for  a few minutes' delay,  and then  said he
had such a severe  pain in his head, that he could not go on with  the
argument,  and moved the court to postpone the trial till this morn-
ing.  This the judge did ; for he does every thing against the prisoner,
and nothing in his favor.    So we lost nearly the whole day.  How
painful  this was to me, I  cannot  tell you.   The truth is, as I be-
lieve, the District Attorney is getting sick of his infernal cases, and
will make use of any pretext to get rid of them at the present time;
that is, postpone them  to another court.

                                   West Nkwton, Sept. 22, 1848.

   My dear Mr. May, — ... I hope you do not despair of the race,
though  you write so  despondingly.   Probably I think  quite  as
little of Congress,  intellectually and  morally, as  you do: still I
trust they will never  repeat some of the wicked things they have
done.  I certainly agree with you, that schools will be found to be
the way that God has chosen for  the  reformation of the world.
Somebody has said. God is never in  a hurry.   We are ; and there-
fore the ameliorations of society seem to go on so slowly.  It is not
by any one miraculous blaze of light that the dark paths of earth
are to be at once illumined, but slowly will the  day-star creep up,
and the sun after the  day-star.  I think  more progress was made 
272
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
during the last  session of Congress,  in  favor of antislavery, than
during any ton Congresses before ; and it is not only progress, but
momentum, or headway, which will help  forward througli another
stage.  There are many people among the Southerners who are all
ready to become openly hostile to the institution.  They have been
made clamorous in its defence by the violence and denunciation of
Northern abolitionists.   The first thin-j is to get their ear, their at-
tention;  and  this never can be done by railing.   Anathema and
vituperation make them brace themselves up against conviction ;
and  they  act as the chambermaid did, who  said to  her  mistress,
" The moic you ring, the  more I won't come."
  As to my present  position, you will probably see by the  papers
of this week that I am almost  compelled  to assume a new attitude.
My intimation not to be  again  a candidate for Congress  did not
proceed upon  the  supposition  of my  continuing Secretary  of the
Board.   I have  come  to the conclusion that it is best for me and
for the cause  that I should retire from that post, — not from my
zeal  or works in the cause itself, but from an ofrbiul  relation to it.
My purpose was to be a free  man  next  4th of March.   But my
movement to get out of this office seems  to threaten to get me into
it;  for both  conventions  this  week,  the "Free  Soil"  and  the
"Whig," have unanimously nominated me for re-election.   So, if I
am chosen, I must go again.

                                      Washington, Dec. 2,1S48.
  I had the most confident expectations that we should get through
with Drayton's cases to-day ; but yesterday, Mr. Bradley,  a lawyer
on the opposite side,  spoke  five mortal  hours,  ana" did  not get
through even  then.   I hope he will  finish to-day, and  then Mr.
Carlisle will speak.   I wish you could hear him !  He is  a young
man,  rather  small, but beautiful, dignified, and gentlemanly;  the
best-natured fellow that ever  was; of Irish  descent, and full of
Irish  fire;  polished in his diction;  imaginative, poetic, and withal
an excellent lawyer, — so much so, that there is always a solid terra
firma of good sense for all his lofty flowers and magnolias to grow
out of.  He contests a point of law with  the judges  as if he had
devoted himself wholly to  law.   He retorts upon an assailant as if 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
273
 he had spent his days among men of elegant  conversation, and his
 nights in regaling his mind over the best literary works;  and he is
 as quick in his  susceptibility to generous  sentiments as.if he had
 been brought up by the Sisters of Charity.
                                       Washington, Dec. 28, 1848.
   I think the country is to witness, or rather experience, serious
 times.   Interference with slavery will excite civil commotion at  the
 South.   Still it is best to interfere.   Now,  when we have a South-
 ern  man and a military man at the head of the Government,  is the
 time to see whether the Union is a rope of sand, or a band of steel.
 It is not a life at all  congenial to me.   The great question of
 freedom or slavery is the only one that would keep me here.

                                       Washington, Jan. 9,1849.
   Do you -mean, by the "present doings of South Carolina," the
 measures which the Southern senators and representatives here  are
 adopting to overawe and frighten the North from making free Terri-
 tories  and a free District  of Columbia ?   If so, then you already
 must know what I think of them.   I will not say those movements
 are treasonable;  but they are quite as treasonable as the  old  Hart-
 ford Convention, which all friends to the  country condemned.   They
 are to have their adjourned  meeting on Monday evening next; and
 I  think  the movement will be  defeated.   It will  be embarrassed,
 at any rate.  But to let you into the. whole secret of the movement
 would be very much like telling little  H. about the wickedness of
 men; and I have not time to do this to-day.
                                                      Jan.  15.
   There is great commotion here in political matters.   To-night the
 Southern Convention, called to see what measures the South will
 take on the subject of slavery, are  to meet.   An  address  has  been
 prepared by Mr.  Calhoun, which is said to be in the highest degree
 inflammatory.   It is thought here, by many of the most intelligent
 men, that Mr. Calhoun is resolved on a  dissolution of the Union.
 Many of the Democrats also are playing into the hands of the South,
because they desire to break up the  Whig  party;  that is,  to dis-
sever the Northern and Southern branches of it.
             18 
274
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
                                                       Jan. 16
   I sat  up last night  to hear the result of the Convention, which
did not break up till midnight.   Mr. Calhoun's report was recom-
mitted, which is equivalent to a defeat.   The  Southern Democrats
went with him;  the Southern Whigs went against him :  so  that
politics  helped  to  modify the  course  of both, even in regard to
slavery.   It is considered a triumph for the friends  of the  Union,
and a quasi triumph against the Southern  machinations  to  protect
slavery.
                                       Washington, Feb. 4, 1849.
   A supposed fraud on the part of the President, in relation to the
treaty with Mexico, has been discovered ;  and if it turns  out as  is
apprehended,'—that is, if he has not  some  answer which we  can-
not now  conceive of, — he has been guilty of one of  the most high-
handed atrocities ever committed by any ruler of a civilized people.
But I do not allow myself to form an opinion until I hear what the
evidence is.
                                                        Feb. 5.
   We are  having  a very interesting debate to-day on the  subject
of the treaty which the  President  ratified with Mexico.    It  is a
very serious affair.  The President is in a light place.   He will
find it difficult to extricate  himself.   It will  lead to  much future
action.
                                                   Feb. 7,1849.
   I rejoice that this Congress is drawing to a close.   I shall breathe
easier on the slavery question  as the 4th  of March  draws  nigh,
A strong  proslavery effort  is making.   The plan is  to  invite the
inhabitants of the new  Territory to form a  State constitution.   If
this succeeds, then the  argument will be, that Congress must receive
them, let  their constitution be  what it will, whether prohibiting
slavery or not.  If California were to form a  State constitution of
her own  will,  she would doubtless put  an antislavery restriction in
it; but,  if we ask her to come, it will be expected that we shall take
her as she comes.   On this point, there will be a struggle before the
close of  the session.  If we can weather this cape, we shall  go out,
apparently, into a comparatively tranquil sea. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
275
                                      Washington, Feb. 20, 1849.
   We had a decision yesterday in court; and it was, as I expected
 it would be,  in our favor.   This gives Drayton and  Sayres  a new
 trial, and under much better  circumstances than before.    It was
 gratifying  to have the court to which we  appealed  demolish, one
 after another, the abominable decisions by which the judge,  in our
 trials last summer, decided against us, and sought to  secure  a con-
 viction of the prisoner.   I struggled  against his nefarious conduct
 like a man struggling for his life; but it was  in vain then.   It is
 not in vain now.
                                                      Feb. 21.
   It is just a year ago to-day since Mr. Adams fell in this  House.
 . . . Yesterday and to-day we are striving to get at a bill, which is
 on the calendar, in favor of abolishing the slave-trade in the District
 of Columbia.  The South are playing shy.
                                                      Feb. 22.
   The President made a lame defence in regard to the treaty with
 Mexico.   But nothing will be done about it, except to scold: for our
 people will never give up the gold;  and, even  if the  gold were not
 there, they never would give up the land.

                                      Washington, Feb. 27, 1849.
   My dear  Sumner, — Mr. Palfrey made a grand speech last
 night.  About half of it was in answer  to  the speech of Gov.
 M'Dowell of Virginia,—the most elegant  and captivating  speech
 made during  the session, but in which some questions were  put to
 Massachusetts which it required a scholar and a Christian to answer.
 Mr.  Palfrey answered them all most beautifully.
   We are  now taking the yeas and  nays  on the  California  Terri-
torial Bill.    There has been a vehement effort to defeat it, or rather
to defeat the  " Jefferson Proviso" in  it.  I will give you the result,
if we ascertain it  before  the  mail  closes, which will be in  a few
minutes.
                  In great haste, yours as  ever,
                                                HORACE MANN.
   Bill passed, — ayes, 126; noes, 87.   Glorious! 
276               LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.

                                                     March 3.
  Before I write you again, the question of freedom  or  slavery fir
the  Territories will be settled.  There is a bare chance, if the decision
is against us, that it may be recalled by the next Congress.   I have
great fears  as to the  result.   We  sat until between eleven and
twelve last night.   It is one to-night.  We shall probably sit nearly
all night to-night; and that winds up the concern for good or for ill.
1 am not without  hope; but my fears preponderate.   Most others
would say, " God save us! " but I  believe he will let us  save  or
sink ourselves.

                                                xMarch 4, 1849.

  The Republic is safe.  We commenced  our  session yesterday at
eleven,  and were  adjourned this  morning at  seven.   It was a
tumultuous  night, but it was fought  bravely; and  the victory is
ours.  The  slave-party, and those of the  Democrats who act with
it, have wrought from  the  beginning of the session to provide  the
way for bringing in the new Territories as States, without any re-
striction  as  to slavery.  Not succeeding  in getting  any cf then-
regular bills for that purpose through Congress, they started  the
project, a week or two ago,  of attaching a section to the Civil and
Diplomatic  Bill, — a bill that provides for  defraying all  the  ex-
penses of the civil departments of Government  the  current year.
It was utterly incongruous  in this bill: but they knew the bill must
be passed, or the wheels of  Government must stop; so they fastened
it on to compel its opponents to vote  for it.  This was in the  Senate.
The House  did not agree  to it.  A committee  of conference was
appointed.   That committee could not agree :  so  the question came
back to the  House;  and on that we  had the contest.   It is impos-
sible to detail the manoeuvres and tactics  by which the respective
parties conducted the strife.  At last, however, at about two o'clock
this morning, wo succeeded in  attaching an  amendment which vir-
tually took the slavery out of it.   It was  then sent to the Senate;
and  there, after two  or three hours' hard fighting,  they yielded;
being satisfied that they could not bring the House to their terms,
and being unwilling to take the responsibility of stopping the wheels 
LTFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
277
 of Government.  There were two regular fist-fights in the House,
 in one of which blood flowed  freely;  and  one in the  Senate.
 Some of the members were fiercely exasperated ; and had the North
 been as ferocious as the South, or the Whigs  as violent as the Demo-
 crats, it is probable there would have been a general melee.   But
 all this  depends upon the men.  I walked  round the  House a
 number  of  times;  conversed with  all the  Southern slaveholders
 whom  I knew, and, by introduction, with some I had not known ;
 and  had not an uncivil word.   I never felt farther removed from the
 spirit of fighting in my life.  At last, at seven this morning,  Mr.
 Winthrop made an elegant farewell  address  in  answer  to a vote
 of thanks;  and we all ran.

                                      West Newton, April 12, 1849.
 To George Combe, Esq.
   My dear Mr. Cojibe, — Silence  is not forgetfulness.  ... On
 Feb. 23,  1848, Mr.  J.  Q. Adams died,  struck  down in his
 seat on the floor of Congress.   Having recently moved into the
 Congressional District  which he  represented,  I  was nominated as
 his  successor  in the following March; and,  on  the third day of
 April, was elected.
   Can I justify myself to you for having laid down an educational
 office,  and taken up a political one ?   I  can  truly say, that, on my
 part, the change was an involuntary one.  After the nomination was
 made,  I  prepared  an  answer,   peremptorily declining  it.   But
 various collateral incidents and accidental causes led a council of my
 best friends to decide that I  should reverse my purpose.   AmOng
 other considerations, I  think  a regard for my health was the most
 decisive ;  and, if my health or life were worth  any thing, they were
 right.   I now verily believe that another year, without aid  and
 without relaxation,  would have closed my labors upon earth.  On
 the 13th of April, I went to  Washington.   Soon after, I resigned
 my Secretaryship;  but the Board, not being prepared to  appoint a
 successor, requested me to continue to discharge its duties till the
close of the year.   This I consented  to do,  especially as  it would
afford me an opportunity to make a final Report,—a peroration to
the rest.  Thus, instead  of  being a relay,  I was  made  to  run 
278
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
double  stages, — to perform  the  duties of a  member in Congress,
and by  correspondence to carry on the Secretaryship. .  . .
   You may have heard of an attempt to carry off seventy-five slaves
in one night, in a sloop from the city of Washington, which occurred
last spring.   It caused  the fiercest excitement;  and the prisoners,
who were taken, three in number, were  doomed  to destruction.  I
was importuned  and over-persuaded to undertake  their  defence.
Not a lawyer in the city of Washington would argue the  question
of  the constitutionality of slavery in  the District  of Columbia.
I longed to do it.  The trial came on in August; and for twelve
successive days, in a Tophet called a  court-room, with the ther-
mometer seldom lower than ninety, I fought  against as abominable
a spirit  as ever disgraced  a Jeffrys-  or  a  Coke.   The atmosphere
was so  impregnated by the  excitement without, that it  became,
to a great extent, a non-conductor of humanity  and reason to the
jury within.   One of  the prisoners,  howe#ver,  escaped entirely;
one was  convicted of  an  offence punishable by fine only, with
imprisonment until paid;  and the third was  convicted  on the
indictments,  sentenced  to ten years' imprisonment  on each, while
thirty-nine indictments for  a  similar  offence were continued.   Ex-
ceptions were taken to numerous  rulings of the court,  which were
argued before the Appellate Court in November; and all the judg-
ments were set aside.    Now we are  to  begin de novo, but under
much better  auspices; for many of the  abominable legal doctrines
of the court below have been annulled.   But I dwell  too lono- on
                                                          O
this.
   After the  1st of September, on my return home, I  had all my
arrears of official business to bring up, institutes  to attend, and my
Report  to make.  I went to Washington in November to argue
the questions of law, and again in December to attend the session.
I returned home on the  5th of March, 1849.   We had a fortnight
of the worst possible weather before I left Washington, and three
weeks of the  same kind after I  got home.   Exposure to  this,  the
fatigue of travelling,  and being up all  night, as we were  some of
the last  nights of the session, abolished me.   I have had no lungs,
no stomach, no brains, or only had them as foes,  and not as allies.
Within  a week past, we have had fine weather;  and my vital cur- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               279
 rents are once  more beginning to flow.  I avail myself of the first
 leisure hour, and use  my first returning strength, to write to you.
 And now, have I not made my justification for this long omission ?
 Will you not pardon me ?   I doubt not you will  say the excuse I
 urge is sufficient for  not writing; but what excuse, you will ask,
 can I render for so gross  a violation of the natural laws ?   It  is
 only this: That it seemed  to me  I  had duties to perform which
 were of more importance than life itself; and therefore, in the con-
 flict of laws, I obeyed the highest.
   I have just  begun to  read the Memoir of  Dr. Channing by his
 nephew, W. H. Channing.   I am about  half through  the work,
 and about half through the  life.   And what a life !   If inspiration
 is claimed for  anybody, was not Dr. Channing  inspired ?   How
 lovely, how true,  how gloriously progressive !  If  you have not
 read it, I entreat you to read it forthwith.   I never knew before how
 athletic and vigorous he was when a  boy, and how, when at Rich-
 mond, Va., and striving to obey the highest moral and religious
 laws of God, he was, in this very act of supposed obedience, violat-
 ing  every physical law,  and thereby almost cancelling the benefi-
 cent power of his spiritual attainments, by incurring bodily debility
 that lasted through life.   What a divine  desire  to take care of his
 heart, with utter ignorance  and heedlessness as to the  condition of
 his stomach!   Oh, if he had understood that God was the Creator
 of both organs, and that the value of either is  reduced compara-
 tively to nothing by the  neglect of the other !  Why was not this  a
 proper case for a miracle ?   Why could not some spare angel, some
 loiterer, perhaps, about the courts of heaven, have been despatched
 to give him the substance of a certain book called the " Constitution
 of Man," or of " Combe on  Digestion"?   Modern theology can-
 not  answer this question; but you and  I can answer it reverently
 and  philosophically, and in a way which will  " vindicate the ways
 of God to man."
   On political affairs, I  cannot but remark how full of instruction
 they are in both  hemispheres.   What an upheaving in the Old
 World !   What an expansion of life and vigor in the New !  We
are as yet too  near to take  a view of the Olympian vastness of
these events.   We cannot  see their magnitude any more than an 
280
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
insect can measure the outline of a pyramid, on one side of whicn
it is perched.  To compass these events, we must stand at a dis-
tance of a hundred years, — a point at which you and I shall never
stand in this  life;  though I am beginning to feel as Dr. Franklin
did when he  poured out a fly from an old bottle of wine, and re-ani-
mated it, and said  that he would like to be bottled up for a century
in the same way, and then be revived to take an observation of the
progress of the world.
  With  sincere  love,  whether silent or garrulous, your abiding
friend,                                        HORACE MANN.

                                           Boston, April 30, 1849.
Hon. Horace Mann.
  Dear  Sir, — I thank you  for sending me the Document of the
House of Representatives in Boston.   As for your conduct in the
education-matter which it brings to  light,  I can only say, It  is
just like  you.   When I see such conduct, I thank God, and take
courage.
  I believe I have all of your printed speeches but the last; and, as
one day or another I may have to " reckon " with  you,  I beg you
to send me your last speech in Congress.
                      Yours truly,          THEODORE PARKER.

  May 11, 1849.  When I added the postscript yesterday, with
" Not guilty," I felt vast relief; for I did not think it possible that
the attorney for the Government could be so ferocious and vengeful
as to try Drayton still again.   To the  astonishment of every one,  he
this morning declared  for another  trial  against him, on another  in-
dictment for stealing the slaves.   He has called  in one of the most
eminent counsel to assist;  thus  stultifying himself, after he has lost
one case, by  employing aid to help him  gain another.
  It has taken  all day to find a jury that had not made up or ex-
pressed an opinion respecting  the merits of the case.   One  man
was asked whether he had  formed or expressed an opinion respect-
ing the prisoner's guilt  or innocence;  and  he  spoke  out boldly,
before  both court  and jury and all  the  spectators in the court-
house, saying, "Yes:  my opinion is that he ought to be hung." 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
281
Another man who was summoned said the same thing to one of the
officers of the court.  This shows what a deadly hostility there  is in
some minds to the prisoners.   Others earnestly desire their acquit-
tal, but hardly dare to speak out.   When I happen r» be standing
aside, they come along once in a while, and speak confidentially
about it.
   May 13.   The cause came on yesterday in good earnest.   It is
very easy to see, that, in Gen. Jones, we are to have an antagonist
vastly superior to Mr. Key.   Indeed, with a jury composed of not
more  than two-thirds of knaves or fools,  I  should  not have been
afraid to try even such a kind of case as this against him.  But the
difference between a giant and a pygmy does not represent the dif-
ference between the great and the little man we are now contending
against.
   May 17.   I  spoke nearly three hours in the case yesterday.
Mr. Carlisle  now addresses the jury,  and then  Gen. Jones.   No
case ever looked better for a prisoner, if it were only on some other
subject.   But the spirit, or  party-spirit, of the people here, is fierce
and fanatical beyond  expression.   They  are  hardly in a state of
mind to be reasoned with.   We have some  advantage with a jury ;
for they know they must sit still, and listen;  and, by calming them
and expostulating with them, one may at last make an impression.
But,  should  it ever be my fortune to  be tried  by slaveholders, I
should consider myself doomed as soon as I was  accused.

                                            Boston,  Nov. 14, 1849.
Hon. Horace Mann.
   My dear  Sir, — It is time to go to bed; but I cannot go to
sleep  without thanking you  for  the noble work you have  done
to-night.   Of the magnificence and eloquence  in thought and in
 speech, I shall not stop to speak :  they were the smaller beauties
 of your sermon.
   I must thank you for the  magnificent morality you set before
 those young men.*
   I think I can appreciate  the heroism  it required to do so, and to
 speak, as you have spoken,  on such an occasion,  in such a presence,
 when your words must seem personal to many; no, not to many,
            * Lecture before the Mercantile-Library Association. 
282
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
but to a few.  I know well enough, and you know much more anil
better than I, how  your oration will be received by  the men who
are looked upon  as models, but whose  baseness it exposed, whose
littleness it scathed with terrible fire.   But there were many true
hearts, in bosoms younger than mine,  which beat with yours, and
echoed back your words.
   I  have often  been  thankful  that you are in Congress, — one
faithful man,  not a  slave to the instinct for office, more than a slave
to the instinct for  gold, but  a representative of the instinct for
justice and for truth.
   There  is one that will long be grateful to you for such words as
you  spoke to-night, and the life which  makes them not words, but
deeds.  I beg you to accept my most hearty thanks, and believe me
                       Truly your friend,
                                           THEODORE PARKER.

                                     Washington, Dec. 11, 1849.
   Half an hour ago, Mr. Clay came into the House, and took a seat
near mine. I have  been studying his head, — manipulating it with
the mind's fingers.  It is a head of very small dimensions.  Benev-
olence is large ; self-esteem and love of approbation are large.  The
intellect, for the size of the brain, is well developed.   His benevo-
lence prevents his self-esteem from being offensive ; and his intellect
controls  the action  of his love of approbation, and saves him from
an excessive vanity.  This vanity, however, has, at some periods of
his life,  led him into  follies.   He derives his whole  strength  from
his  temperament, which is supremely nervous,  but with just  as
much of the sanguine as it was possible to put into it.  Consider-
ino-  the volume of the brain, or size of  the head, it has the best ad-
 justed faculties I have ever seen.  The skull, after death, will give
no idea of his power, as he derives the whole of it from liis temper-
ament.
   Dec.  13.   A word about the proceedings of the House yesterday.
The Southern men concentrated on William J. Brown  of  Indi-
ana for Speaker.  He is a Democrat.  The Democratic  portion of the
regular  Free-soil party thought, if  they could get  him  to  make
pledges  on the subject of free soil, they should get a Free-soil man 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
283
and a Democrat too.  So he  gave them  pledges that he would do
the very opposite  thing  from what was expected of him by all the
Southerners who had brought him forward and sustained him.  He
came within two votes of being  elected.   Five of the Free-soilers
voted for him.  This alarmed  some of the extreme Southern men,
who thought there must be mischief lying under "that white heap,"
as the rat said of  the cat covered with meal.   Three of them with-
drew their votes from Brown, and he lacked two of a choice.   This
led to an inquiry, and the whole rascality came out.   You will see,
by the " Republic " I  send you, how he got  cursed.  I  feel like
going into sackcloth and ashes for human nature.
   Dec.  14.   We had a terrible  day yesterday.  The  most violent
declamation, and almost a fight.  But to-day has opened more calm-
ly. The  paper will show you what we have to witness.   Oh, how
it makes one yearn for the light of truth, which would  save men
from rushing violently against each other in their  zeal to reach the
true goal!
   Dec.  22.   I shrink from  the praise that you  say I receive  in
certain  quarters.   It is prompted, in part  at least, by motives  in
which I do  not at all participate.  I have voted for Mr. Winthrop,
and in that way have fulfilled the  hopes of the Whigs.    He was
their first choice ; he is  only my second or third :  yet, as he  is the
best  man we could possibly elect, I have supported him.   Just so
much undeserved credit  as  I get from the  Whigs, just so  much
undeserved  censure I shall get from the Free-soilers.
   We have  had the worst outbreak in the House this morning that
we have ever had.   It was infernal.   The  " Globe " will tell you
all our proceedings.
   Dec.  23.   The Speaker was  chosen at six o'clock  last evening,
after the stormiest day  that even  our  tempestuous Congress ever
experienced.
   Howell Cobb is Speaker;  one of the fiercest, sternest,  strongest
proslavery men in all the South.  He loves slavery.  It is his pol-
itics  and  his patriotism, his  political  economy and his  religion.
And by whom was he allowed to be elevated to this important post ?
By the  Free-soilers, who, at any time during the last three weeks,
might have prevented it, and who permitted it last night when the 
284
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
fact stared them full in the face.   Mr. Winthrop was not unexcep-
tionable, it is true; but what a vast difference between him and a
Southern, avowed  champion of slavery, with all the  South at  his
back to force  him on, and at his ear to minister  counsel!  How
strange  is that hate  of an evil thing which adopts the very means
that secure its  triumph !   How strange that love of a good thing
which destroys it!   Now we shall have all proslavery committees.
All the  power of patronage of the Speaker, and it is great, will be
on the wrong side ; and this has been permitted by those who clamor
most against all forbearance toward slavery,  when by a breath they
might have prevented it.    Surely they must believe that God pun-
ishes only commissioners, not omissioners.

                                      Washington, Jan. 5,1850.
  I went last  evening with Mr.-----to  hear Professor  Johnson
lecture.   In walking home, we got  into  some discussion about
the condition  of  the  country, and  the prospects of humanity in
general.   I found  Mr.-----apparently sceptical about any ameli-
oration of the  condition of mankind,  or that there is, in truth,  " a
good time coming."   When I spoke of sloughing off the vices of
mankind, he rephed, that if men were to obey the law^of  God, as
I had been  indicating, the drain of vices would be  stopped,  and
the race would soon become so numerous  as to lead of itself to
infinite  distress.  I said, if men once understood their duty, and
the means of  happiness, no man  would have  any more  children
than he could  support, educate, and  leave  in an eligible condition
behind him, any more than a judicious farmer would have more
stock on his farm than  he could support with profit to  himself,  and
with humanity to them.  I told him,  further, that the  bringing of a
human being into  this world, with a moral certainty of his being
unhappy and miserable, I regarded  as a far greater crime, in  the
abstract, than  sending a human being  out of it.  Both seemed to
be entirely new ideas to him.

E. W.  Clap, Esq.
  Dear Sir, — Mr. Thompson has been to see me.   Of course, I
was obliged  to tell him there might be circumstances in  which I 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
285
would  vote  for a  slaveholder.    This,  I  suppose,  has lost Lie a
hundred votes; but I had better lose a hundred by honesty than
gain one by dishonesty. ... In great haste, very truly yours,
                                                       H.  MANN.

                                       Washington, Jan. 7,1850.
   . . . Mr.  A. has infinitely slender cause to  praise Mr. Cobb for
putting Mr. Giddings on the Committee  on Territories, and Mr.
Allen  on the District  Committee,  and Mr.  King  on  the Judi-
ciary ; for he has  so buried them up with Southern Democrats, that
they cannot get  their heads high  up  enough to  breathe.   With
such  a committee as  Mr.  Winthrop  would  have appointed, we
should have met with no obstacles  in getting  our measures before
the country and  the House.  Now we shall encounter the most
serious of obstacles at every step;  and, if it is possible for skill or
power to bar out all antislavery measures,  it will be done.
   There  is  no  end to  the  perversions of partisans.  A partisan
cannot be an honest man, whether he be  a political or a religious
partisan.   How necessary it is to  cultivate the seeds of truth in
the young!  Nothing can be, or can approach to be, a substitute for
it.   So of the great principle, that it is  for the  interest of every man
to be a true man, and that by no possibility can perversion or error
be useful.  How  the world needs to be educated !
   Does H. get exact and complete  ideas of things ?  Can he repro-
duce what you teach him ?  This is an all-important part of teach-
ing.   Has  a lesson been so learned that the pupil can restate  it in
words, or exemplify it in act, or draw it on blackboards,  &c? This
is the  test to which learners should be  early subjected.   I am very
glad about  the music.    We pity  Laura  Bridgeman for  the priva-
tion of her physical powers; but how many of us need to be pitied
for the privation of faculties whose absence deforms just as much as
a loss of the senses !   One of  these is  music.

                                         Washington, Jan. 12,1850.
E. W. Clap, Esq.
   Dear Sir, — If you  do not pity a poor fellow who is condemned
to stay here and  vote day after day, doing no good, and  perhaps 
286
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
 some harm, then you are more hard-hearted than a slaveholder. .  . .
 I hear the Free-soil  men are very ferocious against me  because
 I voted for Mr. Winthrop.  Some discussion was had about getting
 up an indignation meeting to give me a special denunciation.   But
 probably they will think they can do the same thing without expos-
 ing themselves to an answer. . .  .
   I am told that Mr.-----and others have  got this  notion in their
 heads, and speak of it freely, — that I am to be put forward next
 year  as a  candidate  for  Governor,  in order to break down their
 party.  They want, therefore, to break me  down first.  It is not
 what is past,  but what they profess to apprehend for the future, that
 directs  their  course.   They mean to put me in the wrong, at all
 events. Hence that article in the " Republican," a week or ten days
 ago, written,  as I am told, by-----.  I should  like  a good oppor-
 tunity to set this matter right. . . .
                             Truly yours,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                                 Jan. 11, 1850.
   We have been going the  same rounds, in attempting to choose
 a Clerk, which occupied us three weeks before we chose a Speaker.
 It is most irksome business, and cuts away all the ties that bind me
 to office.
   We have  just this minute  elected a Clerk from Tennessee.
 He is a Southerner, but  as unobjectionable  as any Southerner can
 be.   He does not hold slaves; but he was once a member of Con-
 gress, and voted with the slave-party through and through.  I have
 not voted for him at all, though he is a Whig.  We had an exciting
 time at the close of the voting,  and before  the vote was declared.
 The Southern Democrats, seeing how near he was to  being  elected,
 came  over  to him  one after another,  and  at last  gave him just
 enough.  That is the way.  They are always more  true to  slavery
than to Democracy.   It is a good result;  but I am rejoiced that I
did not help  to  bring it about.   During  the  whole voting, the
Northern Whigs came round  me,  and some of our  Massachusetts
men too, and urged and besought me to change  my vote.   At  one
 moment,  when only one more vote was wanted,  forty men turned 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
287
beseechingly to my seat.   I shook my head at them all; and at that
moment a Southern man on the other side  of the  House jumped
up, and changed his vote.   This settled it.
                                                  Jan. 27, 1850.
   My lecture in Albany was delivered in Dr.  Campbell's church.
He was not there to hear it; but on the list of lecturers were Mr.
Parker, Mr.  Peabody, Dr. Dewey.   This list frightened Dr. Camp-
bell ; and, as I learn by a letter  received from there yesterday, he
has closed his church against the course.  Isn't this beautiful ?

                                                  Jan. 28, 1850.
   I am sorry that  dancing is made a standing amusement at  the
parties where the Normalists go. In the way in which it is gener-
ally done, it  is of little benefit to health, and of little  advantage to
any part of man's nature ; but my objection to it is the mischievous
use which the enemies of the school will make of the custom.   I
can give up so much for peace !
                                                      Jan. 30.
   Mr. Sears will not find it easy to sweep  prudential committees
out of existence.   Reasons very different from what belong to the
merits of the case will be present at the settling«of that question.
   As for the Abstract, it is a great mistake.  If it is understood
that such portions only are to be  taken as belong to one topic, and,
after being taken once, that topic  is to be dismissed, the consequence
will inevitably be, that the committees will ignore the topic which
has received attention, and write  on  some one which they hope will
receive attention.
   I cannot but wish it were possible for some man  or men to spread
themselves over this great  State of New York, and  see that the
children are as well taken care of as the  pigs.
                                                 Jan. 23,1850.
   This morning I was introduced to-----, a gentleman from North
Carolina, who wanted to have a  talk with me about slavery.   He
is embedded in all the doctrines in its favor.  He has been offering
all  commercial, economical, and  pecuniary arguments to me in ref-
erence to slavery in the Territories.   As to the moral and religious 
288
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
aspect of the question, he is as firm for  slavery  as  William  Lloyd
Garrison is against it.  He says he is willing to take up with any por-
tion of the new territory which the South can accept, as a decent
pretext for surrendering the rest.  I told  him I  would give the
South any money as an equivalent, any  amount of the public lands
which they may  turn  into  money; but one  inch  of territory for
slavery — never !  let what would come.
   Dark clouds overhang the future :  and that is not all; they are
full of lightning.
                                                   Feb. 4, 1850.
   Gen. Taylor's Message is very good so far  as  it relates to Cali-
fornia.  He recommends that it be admitted as a State.   But, in
the same  message, he recommends non-action  in  regard  to New
Mexico ; that is, to form no territorial government for New Mexico,
but to await its own motion on the  subject.  Now, the benefit of a
territorial government in New Mexico, with a prohibition of slavery
in it, is, that, while such a  prohibition exists, no slaveholders  will
dare go there, and therefore will not be there to infuse  their views
into the people, and help form a constitution with slavery in it.  If
there is no such government, and no  such prohibition,  the fear is
that slaveholders will go  there, and exercise an influence  in favor of
slavery, and help form a constitution which  shall not prohibit it,'
and, when they send that constitution  to Congress, will get in,  and
so slavery be ultimately established by  reason of present neglect.
I approve, therefore, of the  California  part of the message,  but
disapprove of the other.
                                                       Feb. 6.
  I really think,  if we insist upon passing the Wilmot Proviso for
the Territories, that the South — a part of them — will rebel.   But
/would pass it, rebellion or not.   I consider no evil so great as
that of the extension of slavery.
                                                       Feb. 7.
  Yesterday, Mr.  Clay concluded his speech upon his Compromise
resolutions.   Its close was  pathetic.   There is hardly another slave-
holder in all the  South who would have perilled his popularity to
such an extent.   It will  be defeated :  but, if we from the North are 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
289
still, it will be defeated by Southern votes and declamation ; and it
is  better for the cause  that  they should defeat it  than that we
should.
   You were right  in  saying  that I would not have asked  Mr.
Winthrop about putting me on a committee;  for I would not  have
answered such a question, had I been in his place, and had it  been
asked me.   Still, I think I should have held an important place on
an  antislavery  committee; and, what is more, should have had a
majority of  colleagues  who would  act with me.   Now every thing
is in jeopardy.
   I never said  whom I would vote for, nor whom I would not.  It
would have  been a bitter pill to be obliged  to  choose between the
three candidates; but, if I had been so obliged, I should have vx>ted
for the least evil.
                                                      Feb. 14.
   You ejaculate a prayer for my protection.  I do not feel in any
personal danger.   I mean to tell them what I think, and in  such
a way that they shall understand me.  But I am principled against
doing it offensively.
   If Mr.  Clay had  demanded immunity for slavery  in  the States
and in the  District only,  he would have demanded  nothing  more
than the South claims  as absolute right; and so it would, in  their
eyes, have wanted  the reciprocity of a compromise.   Nobody but
the abolitionists of the Garrison school pretends to  interfere with
slavery in the  States; and non-interference  with  slavery in the
District, now only fifty square miles, would  have seemed to  them
paltry.  I think, regarding the thing as a compromise, Mr.  Clay
has done pretty well.  But I  do not concede their  right to carry
slavery into  the Territories at all;  and therefore I will never yield
to their claim  to carry it  there, come what will.  I  should prefer
dissolution even, terrible as it  would be,  to slavery extension.

                                         Washington,  Feb. 6, 1850.
E. W. Clap, Esq.
   My  dear Sir, — ... You must be  entirely mistaken in  your
speculations.  The Free-soil party, with the best principles to stand
on that erer a political party had, well-nigh  ruined  themselves by
              19 
290
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
their injudicious conduct.  But I am afraid the Whigs are behaving
every whit as badly as they.   Last Monday, a portion of the party
gave the most insane  votes that ever sane men gave.  They voted
down, or helped to vote down, not only the Wilmot Proviso, but the
Declaration of Independence and the Ordinance of 1787.  To  be
sure, they say they voted against these doctrines because they were
brought forward by Root and Giddings for the mischievous purpose
of embarrassment  and party spite, and without any adequate cause.
But I would not vote against such a measure if the Devil brought
it forward. .  . .
                       Yours very truly,
                                               HORACE  MANN.

                                     Washington, Feb. 12, 1850.
  . . . You remember what a hue and cry was raised among all the
teachers and  friends  of the  existing institutions of the  deaf and
dumb at  my  Report  on the subject.   Mr. P-----, of the New-York
Institution, wrote  a libellous article, which he sent to the " North-
American Review; "  and which was so bad, that even Mr. B----
would not publish it until it was mitigated.   Mr. Gallaudet chimed
in; though he was more  civil, and  left his successor to do the
offensive  work.   Afterwards,  as  you will remember, they sent  an
agent to examine European institutions, and make a report adverse
to mine, — a  work which he performed with  zeal, and without
scruple.  The " thirty-one " took it up, and put it as an arrow into
their quiver;  and so  poor I was rather put down, or thought  to  be
so, by the public.
  But, at the  same time that  that controversy was going on, a
Dr. Dix  of Boston,  who was in Berlin,  wrote home a letter,  in
which, without knowing  at all what was going on here, he sustained
my views in full.  Afterwards, Mr. Willis, who had seen the wonder,
ratified my statement; and James F. Austin, in a  letter published
in the " Boston Advocate," did  the same thing.  But nothing, I
suppose, has ever  removed a strong impression which was  made  on
the  public mind, that  I was  romancing.   In  the  "Christian
Register" of last Saturday,  there  is a  long  article, by an eye-
witness of the Berlin Anhalt, which confirms my statement through- 
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.              291
out.   The author refers to me;  says he did not believe me, but
now is convinced  by his  own eye-sight; and his statements are
stronger than mine.
  I have written to Dr. Howe, hoping to get it published in  some
of the Boston papers : so that I hope the truth will work its way,
though it may be slowly.

  In  regard to instructing  the deaf and dumb in our
country to speak  as they speak in Germany, the difficulty
is in our anomalous  spelling,  and  the  variety of the
sounds  of our vowels.   But by phonetic  means it  may
still be  done: and  perhaps  that is the  final reason why
phonetics were invented ; for, in every other respect, the
system  only obscures the origin and philological history
of the  language.    It would be  worth while, however, to
have  all literature published in it also, for the sake of the
deaf and dumb, who are restored to society by means of
speech.
                                              Feb. 18, 1850.
  In the House, this morning, a resolution was offered to direct the
Committee on  Territories to bring in a bill for the  admission of Cali-
fornia.   The Southern men were foolish enough to commence an
opposition, not merely to the measure, but to every thing; that is,
to attempt to  stop the wheels  of Government, to prevent us from
doing  any thing, by  a  perpetual  call  for the yeas and nays; thus
taking up all time, and suspending all business.  It is a  resolution
on the part of the South to prevent the Government from doing any
thing at  all, if it attempts to do what they object  to.  It  is a revo-
lutionary proceeding, — revolution without force ; but it  may come
to force elsewhere.
  It shows what an excited state  of feeling the South is in; and  it
furnishes us with an opportunity, which I trust we shall improve,
to show our firmness.  It was the worst  possible issue for them to
make, and one on which I do not  believe they can defend them-
selves, even at home.  Do not be alarmed  for me.  I shall take
care of myself, and sleep and eat  as usual. 
292
LITE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
                                                      Feb. 19.
  The opposition, and the calling for yeas and nays,  motions  to
adjourn,  excusing  men  from  voting, &c,  continued  till  twelve
o'clock at night;  when the Speaker declared that Monday was at an
end, and that the debate on the resolution ended with it.    This
allowed us to go home to bed.   It was an exciting time.   Members
were very good-natured on the surface ; but there was a deep feeling
underneath.
                                                      Feb. 20.
  You are mistaken in supposing the great majority of the South
would rejoice if slavery  were not extended;  at least, this  is true
of the  men who control  public sentiment.   Mr. Clay is almost a
dictator in Kentucky.  His personal popularity saves him.
  We live a hurried and confused life here.   So much  labor to be
performed, and such short days to work in ; such mighty events to
control and regulate, and so little of public spirit and intelligence
to direct them!  Life is quickened to an almost unconscious whirl.
One thing alone makes it tolerable to me, — the possibility of doing
something to favor the right or to check the wrong.

                                               March 1, 1850.
  I dined at the  President's  to-day, and sat on his left, with only
one lady between, and had considerable conversation with him.  He
really is a most simple-minded old man.   He has the least show or
pretension about him of any man I  ever  saw; talks  as artlessly
as a child about affairs  of State, and does not seem to pretend to a
knowledge of any thing of which he is ignorant.  He is a remarka-
ble  man in some respects; and it is remarkable that such a man
should be President of the United  States.   He said it  was  impos-
sible to destroy the Union.   " I have taken an oath to support it,"
said he ;  " and do you  think I  am going to commit perjury?  Mr.
Jefferson pointed out the way in which any resistance could be put
down, — which was to  send a fleet to blockade their harbors, levy
duties on all  goods going in, and prevent  any goods from  coming
out.  I can save the Union without shedding a drop of blood.  It
is not tme, as was reported at the North, that I said I would march 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               293
an  army  and  subdue  them: there would  be no need of any."
And thus he went on talking like a child about his cob-house, and
how he would keep the kittens from knocking it over.
  March  4.  To-day Mr. Calhoun's  speech will be  read in  the
Senate, he being unable to deliver it.  Mr. Webster is expected to
6peak very soon.   I do not  believe  he will  compromise the great
question.   He will have too much regard for his historic character
and for his consistency to do any such thing; at least, I hope so.
  March  5.  Mr. Calhoun's speech was given  yesterday.   It doe.u
not give universal  satisfaction, even at the South.  This is  good.
  March  8.  Mr. Webster spoke yesterday; and (can you believe
it ?) he is a fallen star ! — Lucifer descending  from heaven !  We
all had the greatest confidence in him.   He has disappointed us  all.
Within a week, I have said, many times,  that he had an historic char-
acter  to preserve and maintain, which  must be more  to him than
any temporary advantage.  His intellectual life  has been one great
epic, and  now he lias given a vile catastrophe to its  closing pages.
He has walked for years among the gods, to descend from the empy-
rean heights, and mingle with mimes and apes!  I am overwhelmed.
There is a very strong feeling here among  the Whigs of the New-
England delegation; and we shall do what we  can still to uphold
our cause.  It is  a terrible  battle.   Not  balls of lead or copper
strike their  victim  down, but, I fear, those of  gold, or what some
men value more than gold, — the possession of office.  But Mr.
Webster never can bo President of the United States; never, never!
He will lose two friends at the North where he will gain one at the
South.
  March  10.  I have read Mr. Webster's speech carefully.  It  has
all the marks of his mind, — clearness of style, weight of statement,
power of.language; but nothing  can, to my mind, atone for  the
abandonment of the Territories to what  he calls the law of Nature
for  the exclusion  of slavery.  When so much of Delaware, Vir-
ginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, lies far north of a great part of New
Mexico, how can a man say that a law of Nature will keep slavery
out of the latter, when it has not kept it out of the  former ?  The
existence or  non-existence of slavery depends more upon conscience
than climate.  Why should all the South be so  anxious to pass this 
294               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
law, if Nature has aheady passed one ? Who knows but mines may
yet be discovered in  New Mexico ? — and  mining is the very kind
of labor on which slaves can be most  profitably employed.
   I wish  I had not made my speech.   I should like to take  up
these  topics, and set forth what seems to be the merit or the  de-
merit of them.   There is a very strong feeling here that Mr. Web-
ster has played false to the  North.    Many of our men will speak,
and we shall have an exhibition of Northern feeling yet.
   March  14.   Mr. Webster has not  a favorable response  from any
Northern  man of any influence.  It is hard  to believe that a man
who has been  so intellectually consistent should at once overthrow
his grand  reputation; but who can  tell what an ambitious or disap-
pointed man will not do to accomplish his object ?  Oh, how priceless
is  principle! . .  . The  delegate of Congress  from Mexico (not yet
received as such, because Congress  has as yet established  no Terri-
torial Government over  it)  tells me the New-Mexicans  arc very
averse to slavery, and that labor is too  cheap, and the danger  of
slaves escaping  too  great, for  any slaveholder to meet  the risk
of transferring his property there; that climate and  soil arc not
adapted to it, &c.  But the opening of mines, as I have said before,
would create a demand  for them;  and all that is said of out-door
labor  in reference to  the uncongeniality of the climate  does not ap-
ply to menial  service.   Besides, though  the Mexicans  may be hos-
tile to slavery, yet they are a feeble, effeminate, unprincipled race;
and ten strong Southern men, with their energy and activity, with
their domineering and overpowering manners, would be a full match
for a hundred  of the best Mexicans that could be found.   There is
no absolute security but in the proviso.
   As soon as we had the President's message, in which he  proposed
non-action on the part of Congress,  and that the Territories should
be left to form their own institutions, I foresaw some defection from
the spirit which  had  before governed Congress.   I therefore wrote
to  some gentlemen in New York,  advising first  that  they should
send out a regular missionary, who should traverse all the settle-
ments in  that country,  and pre-occupy the minds of the people
against slavery; or at least  that they should send out antislavery
tracts in English and Spanish, and  scatter  them  throughout the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               295
 whole region.  The first project was supposed to be too expensive;
 but the latter has been adopted, and an address  to the inhabitants
 will be distributed  there in both  languages to  every one who can
 read.  We are determining mighty events;  and the occasion, there-
 fore,  is worthy of a mighty struggle.

                                        Boston, March 11, 1850.
                                                  Saturday Night.
 Hon. Horace Mann.
   Dear Sir, — God bless you for your noble speech which I have
 just read in the  " Boston Daily Journal."  Send me a copy to keep
 as  a  monument  of the age when the Websters did as  they have
 done, and oblige
                          Yours truly,
                                            THEODORE PARKER.

                                                Makch 13,1850.
   The hallucination that seizes the South on the subject of slavery,
 is,  indeed, enough  to excite our compassion; but an excuse of their
 conduct to themselves on this ground, would, perhaps, enrage them
 more than any thing else.  I would  be wilhng to offer them  any
 pecuniary indemnity which  they might desire.   Indeed, I  had
 thought of bringing forward  some such idea in  my speech; but I
 feared they would only scout it.
   I do not think Mr. Webster can be honest in the views expressed
 in his speech.  I would struggle against a belief  in his treachery to
 the last minute;  but this speech is in flagrant violation of all that
 he has ever said before.
   You are in an error in  supposing that the exclusion of slavery
 from the Territories will affect the  growth of cotton or rice unfavor-
 ably.   Slaves are  in great demand  now for the cotton and rice
 fields.  No production of the Territories would come in competition
 with  their great  staples.   It is a fear  of  losing the balance of
 power, as they call  it; and no doubt, in some cases, a fear that this
 is only a beginning  of a war upon  slavery in the States themselves.
 On this latter point, they will not be  pacified  by any declarations
made by the  North.   Then,  again, on this subject they are not  a
reasoning  people. 
296
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
   To recur to Mr. Webster again.   He has said some things it
was  quite  unnecessary  to say, and  some things not true.   Look
at his interpretation of the admission of Texas!  The act was, as
he has quoted in  his speech, that four  new States — no more —
mio-ht be formed from  Texas: those south of 36°  30' might be
slave States, and those  north must be free States.   Now, he say;)
we are bound to admit four slave States.   But we  are bound to
admit only four in the whole.  Why, then, admit  all these four as
slave States, and then others, that is, if we get the consent of Texas.
as free States?  No : we are to admit but four in the whole;  and,
as one or two of these are to be free, there  must not be four slave.
He  therefore  not  only proposes to execute that  ungodly bargain,
but to give one or two slave States to the South as a gratuity.
   So his offer to  take the  proceeds of the public  lands to deport
free  blacks is of the greatest service to slavery.  It is just what
the South wants, — to get rid of its free blacks.   It would enhance
the value and the security of the slave property  so called.   Had
he proposed to give the proceeds of the lands to deport manumitted
slaves, that would encourage manumission, and be of real service
to humanity.  Indeed, the more I think  of the  speech, the worse I
think of  it.

                                       Washington, March 21,1850.
Samuel Downer, Esq.
   My dear Sir, — I am glad  to hear from you.  I did not  know
but you would  give me  over to "hardness of heart and to a repro-
bate  mind" after my votes for Speaker.   But I  am as well satisfied
as I  can be of any thing that it was the  best  course.   If we  must
have one of two men for Speaker,  you do nothing towards deterring
me from  supporting one of them, on  the ground that he is a bad
man, so long as I can prove the other to be a worse one.   I  have
found that  those who hold to the  doctrine, that they will not  take
the least of two evils, forget that, by adding  their own course to
the number of evils, they make three of them, and then generally
take  the  worst  two of the three.  I prefer the  least  one of two to
the worst two of three. .  . .
                                                     H. MANN. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               297
                                                    March, 1850.
To S. Downer.
   My dear Friend, — Mr. Webster astonished almost all Northern
men here.   We are recovering from the shock; but it was a severe
one.  It was as unexpected as  it was  astounding.  It may seem
egotistic  in  me; but I wish I had  not  spoken till after he did.   I
should have liked to ask him how he  knows that God  has Wilmot-
provisoed New Mexico.   Has he had any new revelation since the
North-west  Territory needed  provisoing, since Wisconsin needed
it,  since Oregon  needed it ?   Indiana  came near  being a slave
State, proviso and all;  and would have been so, if Congress had
not rejected her petition, — John Randolph,  of Virginia,  making
the report.  Has God Wilmot-provisoed the whole belt of country
from the eastern side of Delaware to  the western side  of Missouri,
any more than he has  New Mexico? and,  if so, why has not his
proviso  taken effect?  Is there not a vast  region of  those States
that lies  far north of the greater part of New  Mexico ?  Has Mr.
Webster any geological  eyes by  which he has  discovered that there
are no mines in New Mexico which could be  profitably worked by
slaves ?    If predial slavery cannot  exist  there, cannot  menial ?
Does not slavery depend more on conscience than on climate ?  If
individuals  do not desire  to  carry slavery into  New Mexico for
personal profit, may not communities and States desire it for politi-
cal aggrandizement ?
   As to  fugitive slaves, I need say nothing.   While Massachusetts
citizens  are imprisoned  in  Southern ports,  I  think fugitive slaves
will be gentlemen  at large in Massachusetts.
   But the offer to give  eighty millions received and a hundred and
eighty millions expected to be received from  the public lands  to
transport free  negroes  to  Africa,  and  thereby to give increased
value to slaves and  increased security  to slave  property,  is
atrocious.
   Now, would to  God  that  you Free-soilers were not a separate
organization !   With what  power such  men as S. C.  Phillips, G.
Palfrey,  William Jackson,  and Sumner, could act upon the Whigs,
if they were not alienated from them !   For Heaven's sake, heal this 
298
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
breach, instead  of widening it, and bring the whole force of the
North  to bear in favor of freedom !
   With best love for your wife and your babes and  yourself,  I am
very truly and sincerely yours,
                                                       H.  MANN.

                                      Washington, April 1, 1850.
   Mr. Calhoun died this morning. .  . .  The opinion  is that the
South will be relieved.   He has carried his doctrines of  disunion so
far, that his political opponents have made capital out of his extrav-
agances.  He had  done all the political thinking for South Caro-
lina for twenty  years.   That State has known  but one will, and
that was his.  It is the most oligarchical  State in this Union, —
perhaps in the world.   The spirit of its people has rendered it so.
I regret his  death politically :  I think it will tend to canonize  him,
and give a sort  of sanctity to his enormities.  Men will attack hi3
seditious and treasonable doctrines with less earnestness than if he
were alive;  for it always looks, or can be made to look,  like cowar-
dice  to assail a  dead man.  His  private life has  been, I believe,
unimpeachable; but his public course has been one of the greatest
disasters that has ever befallen  the  country.   His  errors have all
originated in his disappointed aspirations for the Presidency.  Oh,
if we could  only look a few years into the  future, or, throwing our-
selves  forward a few years into the future,  look back,  what dif-
ferent  motives of action would be  suggested to our minds !

                                                      April 2.
   Mr. Calhoun's funeral,  which  took  place  to-day, was attended
in the  Senate Chamber at twelve  o'clock.   I did  not wish  to con-
nect the  thoughts  I have with death  with the  thoughts which I
have with him; and therefore I  did  not  attempt to  be present.
What  a test of true  greatness is death !  How it converts to vanity
and  nothingness all  wliich is  not intrinsically  worthy!   How  it
magnifies and eternizes whatever is good !   The preacher who could
carry men for an hour to the other side of the grave,  whenever they
have a prospect  of worldly appetite  or  ambition or aggrandizement 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
299
in view, and make them look back upon the objects of their desire
from that point, would indeed be a minister of God.

                                             April, 6,1850.
  Public affairs arc looking worse here,—more dangerous for the
cause of hbcrty than ever.   The defection of Mr. Webster is dread-
ful !   The Whigs and Free-soilers in Massachusetts arc so hostile to
each other, that, though the great body of them think alike on the
most important subjects, they cannot act together.  They fly from
each other  with hard words,  instead  of laboring together for the
cause of the country.
  Since  Mr. Webster's speech,  the  tide of things  is  changed.
The South have taken courage, and are pressing their schemes with
renewed energy.   Their old skill can hardly be improved.
  Being the last bid for the Presidency, this speech of Mr. Webster's
was the heaviest; but the  other aspirants for the same object do not
wish  to  be outdone  or outbid, and  so they are  taking a strong
Southern ground.   I fear  the cause will be lost.  God grant that  I
may be mistaken!

   Many remarks upon  Mr. Webster are published  in  these
letters, because the spirit in which Mr. Mann held up his
testimony against him is often  misrepresented.   In his
 subsequent  life, he often  said, that, if he had never done
any thing else purely for the love of truth and his country,
 the course ho had pursued in regard to Mr. Webster had'
 the sanction of his later  conscience and judgment; that
 he acted consciously against his own immediate interests ;
 and that society would finally justify him, though he never
 expected  justice from  the men who followed so closely in
 Mr. Webster's footsteps in sacrificing the cause of freedom
 and truth for party, or political or personal considerations.
   On the day when he left home to take his first  letter
 against Mr. Webster to the printer, he said, " I am going
 to do the most reckless thing, on my own  account, which
 1 have ever done, in publishing this letter.  A thousand 
300
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
of the most, prominent  men  in  Massachusetts will never
speak to me again.   But I must do it; and I shall proba-
bly follow it up  with more.*'

                                      West Newton, April 24,1850.
Rev.  T.  Parker.
  Dear  Sir, — I have just returned from a  visit of some days into
the western  part of New York, where  I have seen our  common
friend, the Rev. Mr. May.   He has written a letter to you, which
I take pleasure  in forwarding.   I attended  service in his church
last Sunday morning, where he administered the communion, and
spent at least  half an hour in  enforcing our duty to  follow the
example  of Jesus Christ in our conduct rather than in our profession
or creed.   Ho pathetically lamented the  apostasy of so many of the
clergy at the present time, and their active agency on the side of
wrong;  and  he said, what I and I  doubt not many others were
rejoiced to hear, that, while so many doctors of divinity were proving
faithless to their highest trust, Theodore Parker, the man whom they
denounced as an infidel, was more ably  and  conspicuously faithful
to the cause of truth than any of their number.   It produced a
strong sensation, as home-truths always will. . . .
                       Yours very truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.


,                                             Boston, May C, 1850.
Hon.  Horace Mann.
  My dear Sir, — Perhaps I ought not to trouble so busy a  man
as you arc to read  so unimportant a  matter  as  a letter from  me;
but I  cannot reasonably forbear telling you how thankful I am to
you for writing such a noble letter to  your friends and constituents.
God bless  you for  it!  I  intended  once, soon after Mr. Webster
made  his speech, to have written a public letter to you, and reviewed
the whole matter before the country;  but I am glad I did not, for
then I should, perhaps, have prevented you from  doing better  than
any one  has done  hitherto.  A hundred and seventy years  ago,
John  Locke wrote :  " Slavery is so vile and  miserable an estate of
man,  and so directly opposite to the generous temper  and  courage 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               301
of our nation, that it is hardly to be conceived that an Englishman,
much less a gentleman, should plead for it."
  Yet think of Mr. Webster and his eight hundred "retainers,"
as the " Advertiser " calls them !
  Accept my heartiest thanks for  your many services, and believe
me your friend and servant,
                                                TIIEO. PARKER.

                                      Washington, May 18,1850.
  . .  . My letter  is  approved  or disapproved  a  thousand times
more  for its bearing on party attachments  than for its  merits:  so,
though I do not accept as just all the criticisms made  upon it, or
the condemnations bestowed upon  it, neither do I suffer  myself to
be elated by the  extravagant praises  which it receives in certain
quarters.   I hope there is nothing in it that I shall be sorry for or
ashamed  of hereafter: that  is the greatest thing, after all.  It
pleases all people with whom  antislavery is the first object.  This
is because antislavery is  my first  object.   As you  shade off with
less and  loss antislavery,  or  more and more proslavery,  and  into
attachment to party as a paramount motive of action, it is liked less
and less, or disliked more  and more : so that it has a perfect test.
  I suppose Mr. Webster is in a very anxious state of  mind.    He
has never known what it was to  encounter general opposition before.
I have most urgent letters from the North that I shall answer  his
Xewburyport letter.
                                      Washington, June 9, 1850.
  Yesterday I read  Prof. Stuart's pamphlet in defence  of  Mr.
Webster. •  It is a  most extraordinary production.   He begins by
proving biblically that slavery  is a divine institution,  permitted,
recognized, regulated, by God himself;  and. therefore that it cannot
be malum in ss.   The greater part of the work consists  in main-
taining this point both from the  Old  and New Testaments;  but
he spends a few pages at the close in showing that it is  contrary to
all the precepts and principles  of the gospel, and  is little better
than all crimes concentrated in one.   How it can be both of these
things at the same time, we are not informed. 
302               LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
  He says,  with Mr. Webster,  that we are bound  to admit four
slave  States from Texas, although we were to admit but four in the
whole;  and one at least, if not two, of the four were to be free
States.   But  he says it  is to  be  by the consent of Texas; and
Texas may give consent to only  four slave States  taken  in succes-
sion.   Now, the answer to this is so plain, that it is difficult  to sec
why even an Old-Testament orthodox minister should not sec it.
  When a contract is executory, as the lawyers say (that is, to  be
executed in  future), and it contains mutual stipulations in favor of
each of the parties,  then nothing can be more clear than  that each
of the successive steps for fulfilment  must  have reference to what
is to be done afterwards.   Neither party can  claim  that the con-
tract shall be so fulfilled by the  other party in any  one  particular
as to render the fulfilment of the whole impossible.   Each preceding
act of execution must have  reference  to what, by its terms, is  to
be subsequently executed.
   So ho says the Wilmot Proviso for a Territory is in vain, because
the Territory, as soon as it is transformed into a State, can establish
slavery.  But the Wilmot  Proviso over a Territory defends it against
that class of population that would  establish  slavery when it be-
comes a State.  It attracts to it that  class of population which will
exclude slavery; and therefore  such  proviso is decisive  of the fate
of the State.
                                                 June 17,1850.
   This is Bunker-Hill day; but,  though  the cause of human liberty is
intrusted to us now, there is not much of the Bunker-Hill spirit here.
Compared with our fathers, we have become a most mercenary race.
With many, human freedom is  a light affair, when  placed  in the
scale  against money; and Mars  and Mammon are the greatest gods
in the Pantheon.
   We are just now taking a vote to  give a portion  of  the  public
lands to the States, to be  appropriated  to  the support  of institu-
tions for the insane, the deaf and  dumb, blind,  &c.  Almost  all
the public lands have hitherto  been  given to the States in which
they arc situated;  and, generally, more for business and  economical
purposes than for charitable one3.   What a glorious  fund it would 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
303
be, if all the public lands, or their proceeds, could be consecrated to
education  and to the amelioration of human  suffering!   I  had a
dream of this  sort once, but  shall never be able  to  realize it. .  . .
The  preliminary vote has passed by more than three to one !

                                                 June 18,1850.
   Yesterday Mr. Webster made his last and special declaration.
A motion was pending, that it should be no objection to  the admis-
sion of  any State hereafter to be formed out of the  territory ceded
by Mexico,—that is,  California, Utah, or New Mexico, — that its
constitution should recognize or provide for or  establish slavery.
The present Congress, it is admitted on all hands, has no power to
act on that subject; but the movement was designed to give some
moral power to the claims of slavery hereafter, should such  claims
be made.   Mr.  Webster took a retrospect of his whole course since
the 7th of March speech,  his Newburyport letter, &c, and declared
that he had seen, heard, and reflected nothing which had not con-
firmed  him in  the soundness of his opinion; and so, in the most
solemn manner, he declared his purpose to go for the bill.  I think
it will pass the Senate beyond all question.   I fear it will also pass
the  House.   It is said that Mr. Clay  put in the provision  about
buying out the claims of  Texas at some eight or ten or twelve mil-
lions of dollars, for the very purpose of securing a  sufficient num-
ber  of votes to carry it.
   The  Texan debt consists of bonds or scrip,  which, at the time the
 Compromise Bill was  brought  in, was not worth more than four or
 five cents  on the dollar: but the same stock is said to be now worth
 fifty per cent; and, should the bill pass, the stock will be worth a
 premium.   Now, where so many persons are interested, will they not
 influence members ?  May not members themselves be influenced by
 becoming  owners of this stock ?  It affords at  least a chance for
 unrighteous proceedings; and,  should the bill pass, there are mem-
 bers who will not escape  imputation and suspicion.
   A rumor has reached us from New  Mexico, that  the people are
 takino- steps there to call a convention  for the formation of a State
 Constitution.    Should this  prove  authentic, as most people here
 think it will,  and should  they put a proviso  against slavery in their 
304
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
constitution, would it not look like a godsend, — like a special prov-
idence,—notwithstanding all we say about that class of  events?
Oh, may it turn out to be so !
                                        Washington, June 13, 1850.
S. Downer, Esq.
   My dear Sir, — You must excuse me for not  answering all your
kind letters.   I should be  glad  to do so, if it were possible, espe-
cially if it would be the means of getting more; for they are most
acceptable to me.
   I leam that Mr. Webster  has written home, that,  if  the North
will give way on the subject of slavery, tiiey can have  a  tariff
in six weeks ; and I suppose the address now to be circulated is
for signatures, calling upon the  Massachusetts delegation to make
" concession ;" that is, to surrender the Territories to slavery : then
we may have " beneficent legislation," by which he means a tariff.
   I am also told that the Hon.  ——, a factory superintendent at
Lowell, on a salary of four or five thousand dollars a year, was on
here two or three weeks ago to see if some arrangement  could  not
be made to barter human bodies and souls  at the South  for  the
sake of certain percentages on imported cottons at -the North; and
that  Mr.  Foote of Mississippi,  and  Mangum of North Carolina,
offered to become  sureties for the arrangement: how many others,
I do not know.  I have no doubt of all this, not a particle; though
I communicate it to you to give you the means of further inquiry,
and of action after inquiry is made. .  . .
   The Whigs, with very few exceptions, appear to stand well in the
House ; and I trust we shall be able  to give a good account of our-
selves.  How I wish the Whigs now had all the Free-soilers  in
their ranks !   In great haste, yours ever and truly,
                                                HORACE  MANN.

                                        Washington, June 28, 1850.
S. Downer, Esq.
   Dear Sir, — The fate of the  Compromise  Bill is still doubtful
in the  Senate, though public opinion here is against its success.
Nothing but the prowess of Clay could have  kept the breath in it
to this time. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
305
  The news from New Mexico, if confirmed, knocks the bottom all
out of  the  compromise.   If they organize a  government  there,
choose a governor and a legislature, appoint judges, &c, it will pre-
sent a very pretty anomaly for us to be sending governor, judges,
&c, to them.   But  the  great  point is the presumed proviso in
their constitution.   With  that, the longer the South keeps them out
of the Union, the more antislavery they will become.
   . .  . Well, Downer, it is the greatest godsend in  our times that
Taylor was  elected over  Cass.  It is the turning-point of the for-
tunes of all  the new Territories.  Had Cass been President,  they
would have all been slave, and a fair chance for Cuba into the bar-
gain.   I am not sorry because I did not vote for Taylor; but I am
glad others did.  I think he has designedly steered the ship so as
to avoid slavery. .  . .
   Best regards to  your wife.   You know you always have them.
Look out for the boy, and make a hero of him.
                                Ever and truly yours,
                                                      H.  MANN.

                                       Washington, July 1, 1850.
   Webster said there were only two parts of the Constitution which
had any bearing on the subject of the  trial by jury;  and that the
Constitution, neither in its letter nor in its spirit, required the trial
by jury for a fugitive slave.
   I proved in my letter that the article in the Constitution about
courts did have a bearing, and a most important one, on the  subject
of jury trial; because, on the strength of it, Congress provided jury
trials for more than nine-tenths of all the cases that ever arise in the
courts.  I showed, that,  under this article about courts,  Congress
had power to make provision for juries.
   On the second point, I showed that the spirit, of the Constitution
did clearly require, that, in legislating on the subject of fugitive
slaves, Congress should provide the jury trial.
   Now, some one who has written an article in the " Christian Re-
gister," which no man at  once honest and sensible could write, takes
the second position of Mr. Webster, and applies  my first answer to
it; that is, when  Mr.  Webster says  the trial by  jury is  not de-
                 20 
306               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
manded, he applies my answer to the part of Mr.  Webster's posi-
tions, that there was no clause having any bearing on the subject,
or conferring any power.
   The Compromise Bill drags along with various prophecies about
its success.   How I shall hallelujah if it is defeated in the Senate !

                                                 Sept. 1, 1850.
   " Oh that we could see the end of crime from the beginning ! "
was the ejaculation that broke spontaneously from me on reading the
account of-----'s last day.  It has always struck me that the cultiva-
tion of causality would be a mighty aid to morals, because it would
connect consequences with actions in our minds so indissolubly; and
the least reflection would always show that there must be more suf-
fering  from unlawful indulgence than there can be enjoyment:  so
that every man would know that lie would be the loser by not sup-
pressing his passion.   A starving man knows the difference between
bread and a rock.   Can any circumstances  be  supposed in which
he would prefer the rock to the bread, when eager to gratify his ap-
petite ?   Suppose the conviction  to  be just as clear in the human
mind, that all wrong-doing will bring pain, and vastly more pain, too,
than it can bring pleasure, — because to suppose  that a man can vio-
late any law of God, and get more, or as much, from the enjoyment,
as he must suffer from the punishment, would be to suppose that he
could outwit or circumvent the All-knowing and  All-powerful, —
suppose,  I say, this conviction to be perfectly clear and strong, and
I cannot see  how a man could deliberately choose  the evil, and re-
fuse  the  good.  It  may be  replied,  that most men, in their sober
senses, will acknowledge that they must lose more by pain than they
can gain by gratification for all transgressions  of the  divine law.
Grant  that they may do so  in their sober moments; yet when the
temptation comes, and passion arises, this conviction is darkened :
it is, at last, temporarily lost sight of;  and, in its oblivion,  the evil
triumphs.  But no  passion  can  make us love pain  rather than
pleasure ; and if we ever come to see that offences will bring pain and
will destroy pleasure, as clearly as we  see that  two and two make
four, or that fire will  consume, or  water will  drown, then how can
w choose to incur  the pain by committing the wrong?   In some 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
307
things, we see  this now.   Why can we not in more ?   Why, even-
tually, can we  not in all ?

                                      Washington, July 9, 1850.
   It is a sad hour.   News has just come  from the White House
that the  President is dying.  If he dies, it will be a calamity that no
man can measure.  His being a Southern man, a slaveholder, and  a
hero, has been  like the pressure of a hundred atmospheres upon the
South.  If he  dies, they will feel that their  strongest antagonist has
been struck from the ranks of their opponents; and I fear there will
not be firmness nor  force enough in all the North to resist them.
The future is indeed appalling.
   July 10.  Long before this reaches you, you will have heard
that Gen. Taylor is gone.  It is indeed a sad event for the country.
Only one thing, at the time  of his election, reconciled me to it,—
the perfect political profligacy of his opponent.   But the course of
Gen. Taylor has been such as to conciliate me, and all whose opinions
have coincided  with mine, to a degree which  we should have thought
beforehand impossible.   He  had probably taken the wisest  course
that he could have taken.  He poised himself between the North
and the  South.  He knew it was utterly impossible for any prohi-
bition  of slavery to pass the present Senate; he supposed  that no
Territorial Government could possibly be passed by the House, with-
out the proviso; and therefore he took things at first where he knew
they could be  left after  the  contest of a session.   He went for no
Territorial Government  at  all,  leaving the Territories to form State
Governments for themselves; being well convinced  that they would
form free constitutions.  He relied upon this with more confidence
than any of us did: but he had it in his power to procure the ful-
filment of his own prophecy;  and I am satisfied that it has been his
purpose,  from  the beginning, that slavery should be extended no
farther.
   A dark hour is before us !
   July 12.  To-day the city is dressed  in  mourning.   No one as
yet seems to know what will be the policy of the new President, —
whether it will  be for freedom or for slavery, or whether he will not
profess to adopt such a middle course as that slavery will be sure 
308
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
 to get  the  advantage in the end.  I look upon the movement in
 New Mexico — that of inserting the prohibition of slavery in their
 new  constitution — as  even more valuable than I  did before.
 They will be far less likely to recede from this ground, having once
 adopted it.
                                     Washington, July 20, 1850.
   I  suppose the Cabinet work is done, and that Mr. Webster is to
 be Secretary of State.   This is  to be regretted for a thousand rea-
 sons ; but there arc some aspects of the case in which it may  argue
 well for a settlement of the hostile questions wliich now agitate the
 country.  Mr. Webster will be very acceptable to the South for the
 very reason that he has made himself offensive to the North.  I
 only hope it will eventuate for the good of the country.
   July  21.  Four of the seven members who compose the cabinet
 are from the slaveholding States :  so, if we consider Mr. Webster a
 proslavery  man, they have five out of seven.   But one thing is very
 observable, — though four are from the slaveholding States, yet one
 is from  Missouri, one from Kentucky, one from  Maryland, and one
 from North  Carolina.   All these are just south of Mason and Dix-
 on's  line; and they are from the States that hold  slavery in its more
 mitigated forms, and not one  of them is an intense proslavery State.
 The  men selected are, I  suppose, moderate men, comparatively, on
 this subject.   Therefore, though the South have no confidence  in
 Mr.  Webster as an honest man,  yet his late  change of position on
 this subject  renders him less offensive to the extreme men, and more
 acceptable to the moderate men.
  If Mr. Fillmore has  taken this course to conciliate the South  in
 the first instance, and,  with his  Cabinet, eventually to subserve
 Northern feeling on this subject  of slavery,  then the whole may
 eventuate well;  but if it  is a concession to tlie South, on the surface,
 to be followed by an adoption of  their views as to slavery ultimately,
 then  it deserves all reprobation.   For myself,  I  shall not give my
confidence  to  this Administration, on this  point, until  it earns it.
 When it does earn it,  then, as a  matter of justice, I shall no longer
withhold it; though, in the honesty of one of the members composing
it, I  have  not, and probably never shall have,  the  slightest con-
fidence.   I therefore await developments.   It has proved, so far, a 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
309
godsend to Mr. Webster; for I do not believe  he could have with-
stood the opposition against  him in Massachusetts.   Now, instead
of being defeated, he  escapes from  the conflict.  Still I can have
no confidence in his ultimate success; for no one can safely prophesy
success of a dishonest man.
                                                  July 23, 1850.
   Yesterday Mr. Clay made his closing speech on the  Compromise
Bill.   He  spoke three hours and ten minutes,  and seemed to retain
his vigor  and  mental activity to the  last.    It is certainly  very
remarkable.  He is now in his seventy-fourth year.   For more than
two months, he  has  sat in his seat every day,  listening to the attacks
made  upon his  favorite  measures,  occasionally replying when  he
thought it expedient,  sometimes by a  speech  of half an hour, and
always alive and on the alert; and now, at the end  of this long and
intense vigilance, he makes a speech of more than three hours, full
of energy and skill, and comes out of it alive.   He  is certainly an
extraordinary man,  prepared by nature to do  great and good things,
but has not fulfilled his destiny in regard to  the latter.
   Every day of my life impresses the conviction upon me more and
mere, how important is the early direction  given to the sentiments
as well as to the intellect.   There is now power enough among the
educated men of the country to save it, if that power were rightly
directed.
                                                 July 27, 1850.
   One of our colleagues, Mr. Daniel P. King of Danvers, is dead.
.  . .  What a series of startling events befall us !  and yet how little
they are  heeded!  As we  sail  along, the cry  is raised, " A  man
overboard ! "  There is a momentary arrest;  but soon the ship is on
its way again as if nothing  had happened.   There is no place so
good to die in as at the post of duty.  When  Smith O'Brien was
on his trial for treason in Ireland, and  while he was sitting in the
dock, which is  the  criminal box, he was asked for  his autograph;
upon  which he  wrote, —
                   " Whether on the gallows high,
                     Or in the battle's van,
                    The fittest place for man to die
                     Is where he dies for man.*'
A noble sentiment,  beautifully expressed ! 
310
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
                                                July 29, .850.
  We  have just heard that  Mr. Winthrop has  been appointed
senator to fill the place made vacant  by Mr: Webster.   Under the
circumstances, the duty of appointing devolved  upon Gov. Briggs.
I am so certain, that I can almost say I know this appointment has
been very disagreeable to Gov. Briggs, and that he has been forced
into it by  the Webster influence.   The promotion, and  therefore
indorsement, of Mr.  Webster by President  Fillmore, has given the
proslavery  party a  prodigious advantage  in this  contest.  If the
South, and their proslavery friends at the North, do  not carry this
measure, it will be almost  like a  miracle.   But there  is  a goodly
number of us who will stand firm.   For  my part, I would rather
have the feeling of free thought and free speech within  me than to
have the highest office which the nation can bestow.
  The Compromise  Bill  is  coming  to a  crisis, and  the contest
becomes intense.  Two tie-votes were taken yesterday in the Senate
on important  amendments, which  shows  how nearly parties are
divided.

                                     Washington, July 31, 1850.
  My dear Downer, — You could not  have given me any proof
of your friendship so acceptable as in writing to me with the frank-
ness you have done.  I am  astonished  at  the  idea  that  my notes
were unjustifiably severe in the apprehension of any reasonable man.
It is, as it seems to me, nothing but truth that gives them  an edge.
In what might be called harshness or bitterness, or, to -use a still
harder word, vindictiveness,  my  references to  Webster, compared
with his contemptuous and  supercilious  manner  to me, were  as
honey to vitriol.
  However, if I have gone beyond the  point, in attacking  Mr.
Webster, at which the sympathy of the public is on  my side,  then
I have made a mistake ; but I do not feel that I have done a wrong.
It cannot, however, be expected  that my friends will  attack him  as
his do me,  or Jfchat mine will defend me as his do him.   Besides, —
and this, I think, accounts for the most of it, — since my notes  were
written, he has not only escaped  the doom which awaited him  as a
Massachusetts senator, but has passed into  a place of great power 
                   LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               311

and-influence.   All are now looking at him as a man having almost
the nation's patronage at his disposal, and as interested to carry out
measures which will pay in gold.   But I have no such prerogative,
and therefore must  suffer.   This  is my explanation of the  matter.
Could it have been  possible that our fortunes could have been
changed, I believe the result would have been changed also.
   You speak of my not having written to you.  It is too true.  But
I have been so  worn down with what seemed indispensable to be
done, that I have not found time, and could not, as I sometimes do,
make it.  ... I wish you would write me often.   Tell me in frank-
ness every thing that will be of service to  me, and all in  which I
feel interested, whether I  reply or not.  Your letters are always so
welcome to me,  that,  if you could know how glad I  am to receive
them, it would be some compensation to you for writing them.
   I have not time to  go into political  speculations.   The  Compro-
mise Bill will probably pass the Senate to-day, or almost certainly
to-morrow. . . .             Yours truly,
                                                      H. MANN.

                                                   Aug. 5, 1850.
   We are rejoiced at the defeat of the Omnibus Bill.  It strengthens
the chances of the Territories for freedom.   All delay in admitting
California, that comes from slavery, will intensify their hatred of it.
However the  questions may be  decided  in Congress, the  chances
are increasing, that the  Terri^ries, by their own action, will exclude
it.   This, too, is the best mode in which the work  can be done;
for there are  many at  the  South who would all  but rebel, if not
actually do  so, should  Congress prohibit slavery,  who would still
allow it  if the Territories themselves  prohibit it.   Several of the
Southern States have actually resolved that they would  resist if
Congress should pass the  proviso; but none have dared to  utter a
threat if the inhabitants of the Territories  legislate it into existence.

                                                  Aug. 7, 1850.
   The President's  message, yesterday, on the subject of the Texan
boundary, gives general satisfaction.   The extreme Southern men,
who are for the doctrine of States Rights, or nullification, or seces- 
312               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
sion, of course denounce  it.   But the Constitution men from  all
parts of the  country will, I  think, uphold it. . .  . Mr. Webster's
letter to  Gov. Bell is deprecatory  in its  tone, — a  letter coax-
ing or fearful or timid.  The prospect now is that there will be a
settlement of the most exciting and alarming topics before Congress,
and that the  country will have peace out of the commotion in which
it is now involved.   It may postpone the  close of  the  session for a
few days, or  even weeks; but this we must  bear for the general
good.
  Aug. 15.  The House  is  engaged in an earnest debate on the
subject  of the President's message about Texas;  the  North gene-
rally  defending  and upholding  it, while  the  South is declaiming
against it con furore.  The South is becoming,  to appearance, more
desperate ; and the men talk  treason as they take their daily meals.
We are to have warm times here before we leave.  Calling the yeas
and nays, and practising all manner of delays,  will be resorted  to,
no doubt; and we shall have one or two night sessions.   But it is
thought we are strong enough to divide, and work by relays ; that is,
one half of us stay by for twelve hours, and the other half for the
next twelve.

                                        Washington,  Aug. 9, 1850.
S. Downer,  Esq.
  My dear  Sir, — Perhaps you will think my prophesying is not
from above, because I said the Compromise Bill would pass on the
very day that it didn't.  But I  was deceived, in common with
almost everybody else.  At the  time I wrote  you, I had  not seen
the "MorningIntelligencer"  or " Union"  of that day, but observed
afterwards that both of them anticipated its passage  almost certainly.
It was a most extraordinary combination of circumstances that de-
feated it, — wholly unexpected by either friend or  foe.
  You have written me a  most excellent  letter — your last — full
of wisdom and truth.   I  suppose  the issue is  made up in Boston,
and that Websterism is to  be  triumphant.  Of course, " outer dark-
ness " must be the fate of all who do not bow down before  the
image that he sets up.   You  speak of my defying it and assailing
it.  I feel just as you  speak; but  it is not the time  now.  New 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
313
events will develop themselves before the adjournment of Congress;
and we  shall not know where to  plant  ourselves until we see  the
results of present movements.  If we were to take any ground to-
day, the chance is that some new event would change the whole
aspect of affairs,  and render the application of the wisest counsels
ineffectual.   When the session is over, we shall see what is before
us, and what is behind.
   I shall not be surprised even if  California  is not admitted  this
session, or, if admitted, then admitted on such terms as would make
us all prefer that it should remain where it is.  . .  .
                   Yours ever and truly,
                                                      H. MANN.


                                        Washington, Aug. 11,1850.
S. Downer, Esq.
   My dear Sir, — Nothing is more agreeable  to me than  your
letters.   I  feel,  on seeing them,  that  the whole world  has not
abandoned  me, which many other things that I see would ahnost
make me believe.
   In yours of the 8th inst., you suggest that I should present my-
self before the public again,  and, as I understand you,  without de-
lay.  But,  in the first place, have I any chance to be heard in such
a storm ?   I fear not. . .  .
   And again: the new leaves  of  the  history of the country are
turning over so fast, that  comments upon the  text on one leaf are
almost  superseded  by what the next suggests.    It is impossible
to say  what is  to be the result of the session  which must  now
be drawing to  a  close.    Suppose^ which is  not impossible,  that
California  should not be admitted : in that  fact, there  would be
thunder enough to frighten Jupiter.  Suppose, if California should
be admitted, Territorial Governments should be formed without the
proviso :  that single  fact would put more weapons  of war  into
one's hands than Vulcan could forge in  a twelvemonth.  When the
session closes, however, things will  have, at least  for a time, more
of a fixed character.
   Aug. 12. Since writing the above, I have seen the "Dedham Ga-
zette " of Saturday, which has a very strong article against Webster 
314               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
  and his body-guard, and therefore indirectly in my favor.   There
  is one peculiarity about that editor's articles on this subject.  He
  never approves my course or defends me, unless when, by so  doing,
  he can put the Whigs in the wrong.   Such  defence is almost as
  bad as a direct condemnation; for when any Whig finds his own
  party placed in the wrong, and me in the right, for no other reason
  than  because I  differ  from them, it prejudices  him against me
  more than any thing  else could.   It turns  out,*therefore, that my
  standing on independent ground, and  not  pledged to any  party,
  leaves me without any support whatever arising from partisan feel-
• ing, and exposed to all the  violence of opposition which can arise
  from that source.   This is the political  misfortune of my position;
  but conscience got me into the scrape, and conscience must sustain
  me through it.
    The  " Norfolk-County Journal " of Saturday  contains a very
  pointed article  on me.   It says nothing about  the future;  but I
  should not be surprised if it meant as much  as the  " Courier " has
  expressed. . . . But this thing occupies my thoughts too much, and
  I am afraid it does yours. .  . .
                    Very truly, as ever, yours,
                                                       H. MANN.


                                       Washington, Aug. 15, 1850.
  S. Downer, Esq.
    My dear Sir, — I have  yours of the 10th inst.. in which you
  say, " I do not hear that any of your friends  are hearing from  you."
  If you had heard of any such thing, you would have heard of what
  does not exist.  I  have written to but one friend in  my district since
  the first  clap of thunder that  opened the storm:  that was to my
  friend Clap, of whom I spoke to you.  To whom can I write, and
  what can I say ?   I hope I am  not  entirely without friends, per-
  sonal at least, if  not  political. . . . But what can I write  to them ?
  They do not write to  me; and my bump of  self-esteem is not large
  enough to  enable me to thrust  myself before ^hem, and  intimate a
  desire of being defended by them.  I should like  very well,  if not
  too much trouble, to have you introduce  yourself to E. W.  Clap.
  I think, if I have a zealous friend jn the world,  he  is one.  He lives 
LTFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
315
out in the country, and  sees many of the Boston men who go  out
into the country to sleep.   The noisy, clamorous Whigs never  had
much political liking for me.   I was  not sufficiently subservient to
party discipline. . . .
   It seems a great pity now that I had not formally declined being
a  candidate before this outbreak.   Then I  could  have stood  my
ground, and bade them defiance before the  people;  nor should I
have  any  doubt,  under such  circumstances, what their decision
would be.   But now there is so much in what  you say about my
declining looking like fear,  or,  at any rate, being construed  into
fear, that, in the present condition of things, I hate to do it.  Still,
if it has got to be  done before a nominating  convention  meets,
perhaps it  should be done before long.  It will be hardly safe for
any convention to act before the close of the session of Congress;
for it will be impossible to  tell how things are to be left at the  end
of it.
   . . . Your friendship seems a thousand times more valuable now,
in my need, than when, in former days, I knew it to be worth so
much.
                      Yours most truly,
                                                 HORACE MANN.

                                                 Aug. 18, 1850.
    . . We are  now debating the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation
Bill in the House.   It is quite uncertain when any one of the excit-
ing questions  will be  taken up.    On those  questions, the  old
parties are greatly divided; -and many members act upon their  own
 judgment, or with reference to the wishes  of their constituents at
home.   There  is a party, however, which is  determined  to support
the Administration,  without further  inquiry.   The  truth  is,   the
slave-power of the South and the money-power of the North have
struck hands.   The one threatens the Union: the other yields, pro-
fessing to be in fear of disunion, but really  for  the purpose  of ob-
taining the profits of trade and of getting a new tariff.   The whole
mercantile press of Boston is under the influence of this  power.
They  either come  out  decidedly, and denounce  every thing  and
everybody that stands in the way of  getting more  money, at what- 
316
LTFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
ever sacrifice of human liberty, like the "Courier," " Advertiser," imd
"Post," or like the other papers, the "Traveller," the " Mercanli'c
Journal," &c, they maintain silence on the subject while the enemy
is at work.   The " Courier " is the most spiteful and virulent against
me.   They cannot reason me down; so they try to ridicule  me
down.   They copy from the "Springfield Republican."
  Aug. 19. . . .  We have no indications yet of what is likely to be
done with the Texas Boundary Bill.  The  subject presents some
points of real difficulty.  Different views will be taken of the same
facts,  according to the party medium through which they are seen.
We are in trying times; but  I  never felt my mind clearer and
stronger to do the right, and defy consequences.
  Aug. 20.   Since  the-children of Mammon have  opened their
batteries upon me,  Downer writes me  frequently,  and says the
wisest  things  about  political and personal affairs.  He is so much
ahead of the age, that very few will appreciate him.   He seems not
to have any power  to lead or create  a party; but  he has more
wisdom than four-fifths of those who constitute parties.  He proves
all the good things I have ever thought of him.
  Aug. 23.   I stay at home this morning to write to  you.   I  long
to be  at home; but  the time of our departure cannot be  seen by
any political astronomer.   There is a probability that we shall come
to some of the exciting questions this week.   We are as ready now
to meet them as we ever  shall be.  The great influence  of Mr.
Webster is brought with full force  to bear  against all security for
freedom in the Territories.  His name, his reputation for talent,  and,
above all, his power of patronage and influence in the Government,
tell with prodigious  force upon all measures.   His  going into the
cabinet may be the salvation of Mr. Fillmore's administration ; but
it is even more likely that it will be fatal to the cause of freedom.
See what comes of intellect  without morality !
  We had another furious storm last night.  It reminded fne of the
last, — the one in which Sumner's brother and Margaret Fuller  were
lost;  and,  when I hear the winds howl  and sweep so at night, my
mind  always  goes out to  watch along  the seashore, and  then  I
cannot but see what the  next papers relate  of disaster  and death.
I always had a special horror for a shipwreck.   It seems to  me the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
317
most terrible form of death that is not ignominious.  If, however,
— and I often have a vivid intellectual perception of this, — we
regarded death as  we should, it  would cease to be  the dreadful
spectre that it  now is.  How much of this,  in  all after-life, must
depend upon education !
                                       Washington, Aug. 21, 1850.
S. Downer,  Esq.
  My dear Sir, — The only question on which the sincere friends
of freedom here have any doubt is the  Texas Boundary  Bill.  Most
of us, I  think, will go  against  this as it  now is; but  suppose  it
could be amended so as to conform its northern line to that of the
Compromise  Bill, and suppose also we  could strike out the provision
which secures  the right to Texas to bring forth four slave States,
what would then be your opinion about suffering it to pass, or help-
ing to pass it ?  This boundary properly settled, I think we  could
count upon all the rest as free territory.
   I see the "New-Bedford Standard," a Democratic Free-soil paper,
comes out for the boundary as it is.  So does the "Nantucket
Inquirer."  So, I am told, does the " Ploughman," a neutral paper:
Doubtless the Whig papers will generally come out for it.
   There is to be a competition  between the old Hunkers of both
parties  for Southern  support.   On this  Texan boundary question,
I prophesy they will carry the country wijth them.   On the Terri-
torial questions, country or no country, I will never go with them.
Either no  Territorial governments, or  governments with the Wilmot
 Proviso  in them.
   Please give me, as soon as you can, your opinion on the bounda-
ry matter, and I shall prepare myself  for doing what, under  all the
circumstances, seems to be best for the cause.
   Your last letter was very gratifying.  You seem to me to  take
the  most just, practical, as well as theoretical View  of things.
                 In great haste, very truly yours,
                                                 HORACE MANN.

                                      Washington, Aug. 25,1850.
   I must say, my dear Downer, for the friendliness of your letters
 turns the  esteem  and regard which I have always had for you into
 affection. 
318               LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
   Your view of the difficulty of my case coiresponds exactly with
 mine.   The  sentiment  of the old catch, " I caros for nobody, and
 nobody cares for  me," is  perfectly true when applied  to  parties.
 No party has felt that  I  was  in  full  communion with it.  The
 " communication," as the magnetizers say, has not been established.
 They may have believed, what always was and  always will be true.
 chat, while ready to do any thing for their  principles, I  would not
 sell myself to their partisan  schemes.   Hence, in a crisis like this.
 they feel that I am not  the man for them.
   From all that I  learn, I am led to suppose, that, while every thing
 is done against me that can be done in the lower part of the county.
 there is a state of entire  quiescence  in the upper.   From those
 parts of the district which  are in Plymouth and Middlesex Coun-
 ties, I hear almost nothing.   I have letters from different parts of
 the State  which are as complimentary  as  my most partial  friends
 could  desire.   They speak  of  the universal  disaffection  there  is
 towards Webster,  and of the sympathy  there is for me.   But these
 are away from commercial  and  manufacturing  localities.  In such
resorts, and among men engaged in business, who are susceptible
 on the  Mammon side  of their  nature,  I suppose  Webster  is all-
 powerful.   Never  was a greater  influence exerted than his  friends
 are exerting  now, here  as well  as at home; and I think that the
 Territories have as good a chance to  come in without the proviso  as
 California has to be admitted as  a free State.
  It is impossible for the friends of freedom at  home to take any
but the most  general positions now.
  Within  the coming month,  there will be developments which will
have decisive influences upon parties and individuals.  No conven-
tions should be held till after the adjournment of Congress.  We
shall then see what foe  we  have to meet,  and  what weapons we
have to fight  with.
  On the  Texas Boundary  Bill I may have  an  opportunity  to say
something, though  not much at length.    Texas  has been allowed to
slide or steal  into possession of a great  extent of territory to which
she has no right, — all, or almost all, between the Nueces and the
Rio Grande, from the Gulf up to  New Mexico.  The New-Mexicans,
by fixing  the boundary  in their constitution  at 32° on the east 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
319
side of the Rio Grande, have cut their friends off from all attempt
to give them any thing below.  My impression is, that if the Texan
Boundary Bill were amended so as to  adopt the  compromise  line,
— that  is, starting from twenty  miles above El Paso, and  going
north-east to the south-west corner of the Indian Territory,—and if
the provision were stricken out which  gives Texas a right  to an
additional slave  State, it would  be best to vote for it.   Please to
tell me what you think of this, as soon as convenient.
   I do  not know exactly on whom to rely in these times. ...  I
will send you one or two letters, that you may see what people say
to me.  .  .  . Please  return  these letters  to me.   I  receive any
amount  of this kind, — much more than the amount of the  news-
paper abuse.
                          Yours ever,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                     Washington, Aug. 28,1850.
   My dear Downer, — I received yours of the 26th to-day.  We
are at last at the hand-to-hand  encounter.   The Texas  Boundary
Bill is up.  The Omnibus  is to  be reconstructed, or there will be an
attempt to do it, and then the Devil is to be harnessed in to take  it
through by daylight.   I tremble for the fate of freedom.   I fear our
only hope will repose at last on the Territories themselves.  A motion
is now pending to amend the Boundary Bill by adding substantially
the New-Mexico and Utah Territorial  Bills to  it.   Then another
motion will be made to  add California  to  that.   This is the bait.
It is  hoped that the friends of freedom will not venture to vote
against  adding California,  so that this amendment will be  easily
effected.  But then, California being  on the amendment, it is hoped
that this will carry over a sufficient Northern force  to sustain the
whole;  that is, there are men who will not dare to vote for  New
Mexico  and Utah without the  proviso, who will venture to face
their  constituents, if, at the  same time, they can  say  they  have
secured  freedom to California.   But while there is life there is hope.
   The inference which you draw from  the  entire silence of every
one of my acquaintances in  the city is inevitable.   However painful,
it forces itself irresistibly upon my mind, I have not a friend among 
320
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
them.  While I seemed prosperous, and had the leading men of the
public on my side, they professed friendship ; but now, when I am
away, and when a most extraordinary conjuncture of circumstances
has exposed  me to the raking fire of all the sons of Mammon and
all the sycophants of power, I see that they are as heedless of me,
my character, my interests, my  feelings, as though  I were one of
the slaves whom they are willing should be created.   It is  sadden-
ing, disheartening.  I feel it for myself some : I feel it for human
nature  more.  But will  I ask  them to come  to my  rescue, and
fulfil the promise which years of intimacy and of professions have
made ?  No : I will perish before I will beg.   And as  for this war
in favor of liberty, and against  its  contemners, high or low, I will
pray God for life and strength to carry it  on while  I live, and for
the spirit that will bequeath it to my children when I die.
                      Yours ever and truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                                     Aug. 28.
   The  moneyed interest of the South  protects  slavery;  and the
moneyed interest at the North, especially  in  Massachusetts,  or
wherever cotton is manufactured,  sympathizes with  that at the
South.   One wants slaves to  produce the cotton : the  other wants
many slaves to make cotton cheap.   Hence they go  together as far
as they dare;  and our friend-----said to somebody,  ho "didn't
care a damn if there was another slave State," — so much has the
love of money gangrened his generous soul!
   At last the cominus, or hand-to-hand fight, has come.   The Texas
Boundary Bill is before us.  A very good spirit seems  to exist this
morning;  that is,  there  is a  great deal of joking and laughing
going on all over the house.   Perhaps, however, it is on the  prin-
ciple that persons are prolific of bon-mots when about to be hung.

                                                     Aug. 29.
   The  first  question about the  Boundary Bill was, " Shall  it be
rejected ? "    This was decided in the negative by a very large vote;
all its friends as it stands in its present shape, and all who thought
it  could be  put  by amendments into an  acceptable shape, voting 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
321
in the negative.  Every one voted in the negative, except those who
were  determined to go against the bill at all events.  Then came an
amendment to attach the New-Mexico and Utah Bills.  This is now
pending.  Should it prevail, then another amendment will be offered
to attach the California Bill to it; and this will reconstruct the
Omnibus.
   An attempt will  be made to  manage  the  case, as  by parlia-
mentary tactics, to  prevent  us from taking  a direct vote on the
Wilmot Proviso, and thus save some of the  Northern doughfaces
from the odium which  a direct adverse vote on that question would
inflict.   The Speaker, being in favor of the bills, will recognize the
right  men at the righ^ time, so  as to help forward  the  measure.   I
have the greatest fears that all is lost.
                                                      Sept. 2.
   You may expect,  notwithstanding what Miss-----says, that Mr.
E-----will vote with the Northern proslavery men, and help decide
all the great questions now pending against us.   He, hke all the
rest, will be artful; and, when he finds  a chance  to cast a vote
against slavery which will do slavery no  harm, he will be glad to
improve it; but in'the essentials he will go for them. ... I  have
no doubt the time will come when Mr.  Webster's  course will  be
seen in the true light; but it will not be till  after the mischief is
done, and then only individuals will be vindicated, while the cause
will be ruined.
                                                      Sept. 4.
   We had two or three proslavery speeches yesterday, and  we  have
been  taking some very interesting questions this  morning.   This
whole question has become so complicated, that it is difficult to ex-
plain it.   It cannot be done by letter.   I hope I shall have a chance
soon to do it orally.  ... I wish every night that you could see our
sunsets.   I get no time to read or to write.   To keep  up with the
business of the  House, to prepare myself so as to know how to vote
conscientiously, occupies my whole time.   If I would vote with the
party, or vote  without knowing any thing upon what I  vote, it
would save me  a great deal of time.  We have just voted to commit
the Texas Boundary Bill  to  the Committee of the Whole on the
State  of the Union.   This gives us a chance to amend it,  and put
              21 
322               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
it in a better shape.   The friends of freedom all voted for this;  and
many who do not care for freedom, but who must vote  as they  did,
joined us, so that we prevailed by 101 to 99.
                                                      Sept. 6.
  I had no letter from you last night, nor eke this morning.  I am
so sure that  you never fail, that I always convict the  railroads or
postmasters, and condemn them.
  I had a sad day yesterday.   The day before, Mr. Boyd's amend-
ment, giving a Territorial Government  to New Mexico, not only
without a proviso against slavery, but with an express provision, that,
when States are erected,  they may be slave States if they wish,  was
voted  down;  but  yesterday  that  vote  was  reconsidered.  Then
Massachusetts members went for it, although our Legislature, the
last of last April, expressed the most decided  opinions to the  con-
trary, and  although, before this new Administration, in which  Mr.
Webster  takes  so conspicuous  a part, the whole  North, with the
exception  of a part of the  cities, was against it.   Mr. E----has
voted steadily and uniformly for slavery.  It is getting to be a fixed
law, in my mind,  to have no faith in men who make money their god.
It is amazing into what forms  the human  mind  may be  shaped.
Here are twenty, perhaps thirty, men from the North in this House,
who, before  Gen. Taylor's death, would have sworn, like St. Paul,
not to eat nor drink until they had voted the proviso, who  now, in
the face  of  the world, turn about, defy  the  instructions  of then-
States, take  back their own declarations a thousand times  uttered,
and vote against  it.   It  is amazing; it is heart-sickening.   What
shall be  done ?   I know no other way but through the cause in
which I have so  long worked.   May God save our children from
being, in their day, the cause of such comments by others !
  P. S. — It is two o'clock, and the infernal  bill  has  just passed.
Dough, if not infinite in quantity, is infinitely soft.   The North is
again disgracefully beaten, — most disgracefully.
                                                 Sept. 8,1850.
  Texas has not a particle of rightful claim to all the north-western
region this bill contends for ; but she has  passed a law claiming it,
and  threatens to make war upon  the  Union if her  claim  is not 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.               323
allowed.  An extra session of her legislature is now in being.  Her
governor recommends that she should raise and equip men to march
to Santa Fe, and subdue the people  there to her control (who are
Mexicans, and who hate her);  and the legislature is now preparing
means to carry, or rather to seem to carry, their threats  into  execu-
tion.   Our great  Presidency-seekers, Webster,  Cass,  Clay, &c.,
wish to succumb to her claims.   They cannot afford to offend any
party at the South, because they want the votes of the South. The
South wants Texas to have all this territory, because Texas  is one
of the most atrocious proslavery States in the Union; and, if any part
of the territory is set off to New Mexico,  they say it may eventually
be  free.    Those  who think  their  party will gain something  by
yielding to this false claim of Texas go for it with their leaders.
Texas would not relinquish an inch of it but for  money : therefore •
it is  proposed  to  give her ten  millions  of dollars to  buy her off.
It is the most outrageous  piece of swindling ever practised.  In
reality, we give her, by this boundary,  a hundred  thousand more
square miles than she owns, and ten millions of  dollars besides.
President Taylor meant to maintain the rights of the country; and,
if he had lived, we should  have tried strength with the miserable
braggarts of Texas : but,  since his  death, the whole policy of the
Administration is  changed,  and  with that, owing to their power and
patronage, Congress is demoralized, and  the bill has  passed, and the
Territories have  governments  without  any prohibition of slavery-
California is admitted as a free State; and that is all the compensa-
tion we have.
   I am sick at heart, and disgusted  at the wickedness of men.

                                                      Sept. 9.
   Eureka !  Eureka ! or  at least almost  Eureka !   The House has
passed a resolution this morning to adjourn three weeks from to-day.
It must be acted upon in the Senate; but I think they are tired
enough to go home, and that it will not be postponed longer.  This
will bring it to the very last day of the month, and I  shall  almost
count the hours till it comes.
   Read Mr. Underwood's speech on the  Texas Boundary Bill, and
understand it, and you need read nothing else on the subject. 
324               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
  The politicians and the Texas bond-holders had  a sort of punlic
frolic on Saturday evening, after the bill for the admission  of  Cali-
fornia, and for the  establishment of a Territorial Government for
Utah, was passed.   Texas stock, which, on the 1st of January last,
was not worth more than five or six cents on the dollar, will now be
worth one dollar and five or six cents !   This bill  appropriates ten
millions  of  dollars.   Think, then,  what immense  and  corrupt
mfluences have  been brought  to  bear upon  the decision of this
freedom-or-slavery question! . . . One of the most extreme antislavery
men in all the North, who  had given the strongest pledges, made
the most  emphatic declarations, and defied all  consequences in the
most unreserved manner,  went over as soon  as  Mr. Webster was
appointed Secretary of State, and has voted  on the proslavery side
ever since.   He has been  talking for some  time about going to
California, and, this morning, has notified  the House of his resigna-
tion, and started for  New York.   See if, before six months  have
elapsed, he does not have an office.   It wrings my heart to see such
venality.

                                   West Roxbury, Sept. 9, 1850.
  Dear Sir, — I suppose that any word of commendation which I
could utter would seem to you as a very doubtful compliment; for,
if it is a desirable thing laudari a viro laudato, it is undesirable
to be praised by a viro odioso.   Still, I cannot help saying to you
how much I honor and esteem you for the services  you have ren-
dered to  your country and  mankind since you  entered Congress.
I thought, at the time you first went  there, you would  find more
trouble there  than  with the  Boston schoolmasters and  such  poor
things as Matthew Hale Smith.  It seems to me,  not only that you
have done a great service by your speeches on  slavery, but by  what
you have done- in opposition to Mr. Webster.  Excuse me  for say-
ing so; but there are some things in  your Notes which it grieved
me to see there.  They weakened your position; they gave  your
doubtful friends an opportunity to  pass  over to Webster's side;
and to your real foes they gave an opportunity of making  out a
case before the public.  Still, to candid men, it must be plain, from
your Notes, that Mr.  Webster is exceedingly base.   In  doing this, 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               325
you have done a great service.  Webster has often been  attacked,
but almost wholly by political rivals  or  mere partisans, neither of
whom were sincere in the charges against him.   You attack him on
moral grounds.   I think your attack must  disturb him more than
all ever written against him before-now.   But, in  the mean time,
you are continually or often attacked yourself, your language  mis-
interpreted,  your motives assailed.   There is nobody to defend
you.   Some cannot; others dare not.  Then some of the men you
have relied upon were never worthy of your confidence, and will do
nothing.  You have crossed the path of some  selfish men by your
theories of benevolence, and mortified them by your own  life ;  and
they will pay you for both.   Some men would gladly have written
in your defence ; but they would only bring you into trouble.   You
saw  how  " Codus Alexandricus," in the  "Advertiser," tried to
couple you with me; and you doubtless appreciated the benevolence
of the  attempt.   I write to you chiefly to suggest  to you, whether
it would not be a good plan for you to write another  letter to your
constituents,  on the state of the country, the conduct of public
men (above all, of Webster), and your own relations to the wicked
measures  of the past Congress.  It seems to me you might, in this
way, orient yourself before the  public, and give them a good  deal
of information which they need and want.  I suppose, of course, you
knew the  attempt made in Boston (and  by a few in New York) to
defeat your election this autumn.   Marshall P.  Wilder is thought
of by  some men for your  successor.   Such a letter as you might
write would settle that matter.
   I beg you not to answer this letter, which will  only occupy your
time;  but beheve me truly your friend and servant,
                                                THEO.  PARKER.

                                                    Sept. 10.
   This is Tuesday, my black-chalk day; for, on this day, I get no
letter  from  home.  The  House  is  now discussing  the  question,
whether the  representatives  from  California shall be  admitted as
members  of the House.  They are objected to because  they  were
chosen by the people long before Cahfornia became  a State.   The
bill to admit California was signed by the President  yesterday, and 
326               LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
these claimants were chosen  nearly a year ago :  so that  they were
chosen to represent a State before there was any such State.
  What a mighty country ours is !  It has all the means of great-
ness but intelligence and integrity.   In  these how deficient it is !
I hope God will let us live through  our youthful follies  and vices,
as he does some individuals; and that,  later in life, something may
be done to atone for the follies of these early days.
  The time  for our adjournment is fixed.   Then — oh then !   I
will not think too much of what may lie between me and my hopes.
                                                     Sept. 12.
  What  I wished to tell you yesterday was what Miss Dix had
just told mo  about her hospital in New Jersey.   One  gentleman
has given money enough — several hundred dollars — to place  a
fountain in the yard ; another to buy a magic lantern for the amuse-
ment of the patients ; and she  had just asked a Mr. King, a mem-
ber of the House, to give her money for a library, and he had given
it.  So she was all smiles and delight when  I saw her.   Think of
her going round, first to establish hospitals; then to fill them, and to
take care of them; and  then to enrich  them with libraries and
apparatus, and beautify them with embellishments !
  I have been writing so far while  the  clerk was  calling the yeas
and nays on the Fugitive-slave Bill, — an outrageous bill;  not so
bad as the one I denounced  in my second  letter, but  one which
will make abolitionists by battalions and regiments.
  It  has just passed by a vote of  105 to 73, — an enormous
majority.  I  think this bill will inflame the country more than the
Territorial  bills ; but I do not know but the nerve of the country
has been so often excited, that it has lost its susceptibility.  I can-
not speak with any composure of this series of diabolical measures.
What  makes it  all  so terrible is, that  these   bills  passed by
treachery, — the grossest treachery of those who were chosen to do
directly the opposite thing.    I  wish  I had  my former  force with
which to curse the measures, if not the men !
                                    Washington, Sept.  10,  1850.
  My  dear Downer, — ... You see  all is  gone.  The influence
of the  Administration  became all-powerful   E-----voted  in com- 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
327
 mittee against the Wilmot Proviso, direct.  D----was swept away.
 He voted on the first day against the Texas Boundary Bill, when it
 was alone;  and the next day in favor  of it, with New Mexico at-
 tached.  ^Bhere will be the most vigorous efforts to wheel the Whigs
 into  line.   Will they wheel?   All motives on  the surface  will
 prompt them to do so.  Thousands will say, " What can we do better?
 It is past:  it cannot be remedied.  Abandon the past, and go for
 the  future."  This will be the superficial argument;  but I mistake
 if the Whig  party has  not  received a wound  from which it  will
 never recover.   Good-by!
                                Ever yours,
                                                HORACE MANN.


                                        Washington, Sept. 13,  1850.
 S. Downer, Esq.
   My dear Sir, — Is it true that you say, or that  you have been
 informed, that I have written any apologetic or any explanatory or
 deprecatory letter  to the editor of the  " Boston Bee," which he is
 privately showing ?
   It certainly shows native  genius  when men can build so large a
 superstructure of  falsehood  on so small a foundation of truth.   I
 will tell you the whole story, so that you may see how big a bird
 can be hatched out of a small egg.
   Some time during the present session, — I think, last winter, —
 one of the editors of the " Bee," Mr. R----, called on me here.  I
 saw him several times, and he appeared friendly, and our interviews
 were  agreeable ; that is, to me.  He asked  some favor of me, which
 I gladly rendered.  He then expressed his thanks, quite as warmly
 as I could have  desired; told me that his  paper  had done  me  in-
  justice formerly (during my controversy with the Boston schoolmas-
 ters) ; said he resisted it at  the time, but was overcome by his  part-
 ners ;  and  then  expressed to me, in strong terms, his regret for the
' injury that had been done me.   I gave him to understand, that, at
 the time, I had felt the injustice, but  that the occasion  had passed
 away, and  with it  almost all recollection of it; and that I should
 be none the less  ready to do  him a favor when occasion should offer.
    In July or August last, when the  " Bee " published that gross 
328
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
 falsehood, that I (with others)  had visited Mr. Fillmore, and had
 interfered to persuade him not to appoint Mr. Webster as a member
 of his Cabinet, the interviews which I had  had with  Mr. R-----,
 his apology for the wrong done  me by the "Bee," &ft., came to
 my mind.   At that period, the "Bee" had, for some  time, been
 assailing me through what was  called a "  Washington  correspond-
 ent."   Under these circumstances, I thought I would write a letter
 to Mr. R-----, remind him of our former intercourse, and put him
 upon his bearings as a man of honor  and truth.   I did not know
 his partners, and  did not  wish to write to  them, or put myself in
 their hands in any way.  I thought, if I had not entirely mistaken
 the character of  Mr. R-----, I  would  prevent  further abuse  and
 falsification  by appealing  to him.   I therefore wrote him the letter
 marked private, or confidential, in which I referred to  our  former
 interview, reminded him of his apology, and remonstrated with him
 for the  course taken in charging me with  what I had not  done.
 There was not a word in  the letter which  a gentleman  might not
 write or receive ;  nothing  clandestine, nothing partisan;  no threats
for anger, no intercessions for favor.   Not  knowing Mr. R-----'s
 partners, and  at the same time  knowing how such things get dis-
torted and misrepresented and falsified when they pass  through a
 partisan medium,  I wrote  to him alone;  and I can hardly conceive
that he should show the letter, even to his partners.  Certainly, if I
did not entirely mistake his character as a man of honor, he cannot
have been showing that letter  to the  public  or to individuals, or
suggesting that there is one idea in it unworthy of me, as a man of
truth and sincerity, to feel or to express.
  I desire, therefore, that you would go to Mr.  R-----, and, if the
letter is in being,  ask him to show it to you (for which this  is my
permission), and  learn for yourself whether it  contains any thing
which I might not write, or any thing which would authorize  him to
 break the seal of  silence by showing it.
                       Yours very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
329
                                     Washington, Sept. 13,1850.
  My  dear Downer, — I wrote  you nothing about affairs;  and
how could I ?   The atmosphere is full of treachery.   If what was
done about New Mexico and Texas shocks every honest mind, what
will be said  of the Fugitive-slave Bill ?
  By the way, in the " Boston Courier " of Tuesday they pretend
to give the Texas Boundary Bill;  but they wholly omit the clause
at the end, by which an additional slave State  is given to Texas.
So I sec, in  the " Union " of this morning, they profess to give the
Fugitive-slave Bill, but- leave  out  from the fifth section one of the
most obnoxious and outrageous provisions which  the bill contains.
I have seen  these bills quoted falsely in other Northern papers.  Is
this ignorance, or falsehood ?
  You do not tell me how this series of measures strikes the North-
ern mind.   Are they all dead in Massachusetts ?  Will there be no
re-action ? or will the Whigs face about, and go for slavery in 1850,
as the Democrats did for Texas in 1846? . .  .
  We  had  no chance to amend the  Fugitive-slave Bill.   It  was
hardly anticipated that not a moment's debate or chance for amend-
ment would  be allowed.  . .  .
  If the friends of freedom do  not rally on this,  they are dead for
half a century.
  Does the  " Atlas "  lie down, and take it without one kick?  Do
all the Boston papers take command, as expressed by Byron?—
                         " Kiss the rod ;
               For, if you don't, I'll lay it on, by God! "

                     Yours ever and truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                               Sept. 13, 1850.
  I wrote you word yesterday what an infernal  day's work we did.
The Fugitive-slave  Bill was driven through under the gag.  The
floor was assigned to  Mr. Thompson,  a  Pennsylvania  Democrat,
who made a  speech of nearly an hour long, and then called for the
previous question, which was sustained ; and  so all possibility of de-
bate or of amendment was precluded. 
330
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
   Sept. 14. ...  I do  not  think  Mr. Webster  has any chance for
the Presidency.   The South, having used him, will fling him away.
But that  he neither does nor will see.   My own  opinion is, that,
notwithstanding all this billing and cooing of the heads of the hos-
tile parties, there will  be a deadly  fight between them ere  long.
They have united to settle this question satisfactorily to the South,
so that they might challenge Southern votes.   It has been a com-
petition for political power, stimulated, in regard to some of them,
by the venality growing out of the Texas ten millions.
   Sept. 15.  There has been a very sharp debate in the Senate, in
which the  Southern  men have rode and overrode Mr. Winthrop,
and hunted up all the ugly things they could say about Massachu-
setts, and pitched them at him.   I do not think  Mr. Winthrop  has
sustained himself  very well.   He ought to have  carried  the war into
Africa, or at least to have repelled the intruders from his own terri-
tory.   When we speak of the South as they are, the first thing they
do is  to ransack our old history; and whatever they can find either
against the law of toleration as we now consider it, or the duties of
humanity as a higher civilization  exemplifies and  expounds them,
they bring forward.   They have never yet been  properly answered.
If some such man as Sumner was in the seat, he would turn  the
tables upon them.
   The South are more rampant than ever.  They feel their triumph.
Two or three times within the last week, the " Union," the South-
ern Democratic organ here, has  declared, that,  if  such or  such a
thing is done, the  Union will totter to its centre.  Her interminable
cry will now be, if she cannot have her own way, that the Union is
tumbling to pieces.   We are to have this idea of dissolution as  the
supplement for all argument, and the arsenal of all weapons.   There
is  a momentary lull; but the presidency-seekers will soon open a
deadly fire upon each other.

                                                    Sept. 18.
   I have just c,ome from  the library, in one of whose  alcoves  sits
Miss  Dix,  and fills  the members that she calls  about her with
her divine magnetism.   When I see  her  and  some  others, how
I do long to have  her portion of the human  race rise to theh true 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               331
condition!   I am for "woman's rights," in the highest sense  of
the word; not for her being made a  politician, a soldier, a judge,
or a president, but for her entering that glorious sphere of benevo-
lence which Nature has opened, but which the selfishness and short-
sightedness of  men have hitherto closed  up. . . . She  is full  of
anxiety about her bill now before Congress.  She  reminds me  of
my old anxiety for  some of my educational measures; and in this
particularly, that I see, that, as soon as she can accomplish her pres-
ent plans,  she  has others lying behind, and ready to be brought
forward to take the place of the successful ones.
   One fortnight from to-day, we close !
   I hope to have but one more black Tuesday in this place. . . .

                                                     Sept. 17.
   There is a great rush here of the Tariff party.  Mr. Webster has
held out the idea all summer, that, if we would surrender liberty,
the South would  withhold their opposition  to a tariff.  This is the
idea that has worked such a wonderful change in Boston, and in
those parts of the State connected by business with it;  and almost
all parts of the State are so connected.   It is the  pecuniary senso-
rium, and the nerves reach to all the extremities; for it is within
twelve hours of every part of the State by railroads,  &c.   This idea,
therefore, that money is  to be made by a settlement of the difficulties
in favor of slavery,  has been the corrupting idea of  the year, and it
has worked its way with prodigious efficacy.   Several attempts have
been made to get a tariff measure through; but,  as yet, all  have
failed.   I suppose this to be  the  reason why there  is such a flock-
ing here now from Lowell and Boston.  How disgraceful it is ! and
yet, if these motives were exposed, they would first be denied, and
then the author of the charge would be  sacrificed.   It  is a corrupt
state of affairs; but I think not all who are engaged in it either see
or feel how base it is.
   It is this class  of people who are making the outcry against me.

                                       Washington, Sept. 21,1850.
Rev. S. J. May.
   My  dear Sir, —... You have seen how Websterism overrides
every thing in Boston.   A large  portion of the voters in my district 
332
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
belong in Boston, and have no sympathies or interests but in Boston,
and only come out into the country to  sleep and vote.   They are
exciting an opposition to me, to the extent of  their influence and
Webster's money.  Were  it not for this,  I should long ago have
positively dechned to be a candidate again.   The posture  of  affairs
may compel me  to withhold the execution of this purpose.  ... I
have no heart to write a word on the course of  things in  Congress
this session.  The slaveholders have overthrown principles, and put
them to rout as Napoleon did armies.
                           Yours very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                                Sept. 19,1850.
   A Mr. Venable, of North Carolina, is making a speech against
any special efforts to colonize Liberia.  He thinks the negro  settle-
ments there will fail;  that the settlers are incapable of civilization,
and will soon relapse into barbarism.  This is  a fine commentary
upon that view of the special providences which justifies the  slave-
trade and slavery in this country for these hundred years, in  order
to return the race to the land from which it came, and  thus  intro-
duce or transfer our civilization into that region  of the earth !
   The days wear away beautifully.   Ought any one to be placed
in such a position as to desire the lapse of time ? .  . .

                                                       Sept. 20.
   It is truly appalling to see the swarms of men who come on hero
from the  North — and a  full proportion of them are from Massa-
chusetts—tore-enforce the interests of the manufacturers,—cotton,
woollen, and iron particularly.   Oh, if there were such alacrity, such
zeal, such effort, for what is good !   But though  I have no  doubt
such a state of society will come at some time, yet that time is  a
great way off.   If it is, then why  should we not try to  bring  it
nearer, as we may do ?
   . . . Last night I was taking my accustomed walk on the terrace,
when there spread all  over the western horizon one of the most
gorgeous sunsets I ever beheld.  Then I wanted more eyes than 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
333
mine to see, and more sensibihties  to  feel what provision has  been
made to gratify sentiments whose  use the mere  utilitarian cannot
perceive.   The world needs educating up to the  enjoyment of the
pleasures which are strewn around them.   So much  beauty exists
unknown  and unperceived !   So  it  is with truth;  so  it is  with
affection.
                                                     Sept. 21.
   The Fugitive-slave Bill is very much altered  from what it was
when originally offered.  That  bill made all  postmasters in the
United States judges, who might decide the question of freedom or
slavery.   As it stands, the courts of the United  States are author-
ized to appoint as many commissioners  as they may think fit; and
these commissioners are also authorized to appoint marshals (whose
duty it will be to serve legal process), as  many as they see fit, for
making arrests, &c.:  so that there will be  nd deficiency of officers
to carry out its nefarious purposes.   It is a surrender complete and
abject, like those which characterized the baseness of the courtiers
in the time of the Charleses and the Jameses.  Posterity will treat
the conduct of our leading men as  Macaulay has treated that of the
sycophants and courtiers of the Stuarts.
                                                     Sept. 23.
   For four or five days, we have had as  beautiful weather  here as
can be had anywhere out  of Eden.
   We shall have a crowded week ;  public business pressing, which
can hardly be postponed without arresting the wheels of Government;
private claims urging attention, and seeking any sleepy mood of the
House to steal in and get something from the full pockets of Uncle
Sam; and members, tired, disgusted, and homesick, deserting their
seats, and going home.   In some States, the elections will come on
very soon; and  such of the members as are candidates will feel too
anxious about their own private  political fortunes to stay longer and
attend to the public business.  It will be  a most deplorable sight,
such combinations of selfish interests, and  such  dissolving  of  com-
binations whenever new interests intervene.   It is a sad spectacle,
I assure you; but I am telling tales out of school.
   It is twelve o'clock.  One week from this  hour, no matter  what 
334
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
is going on, — an orator in the midst of a speech, or  the Speaker
himself with a vote but half declared, — as soon as twelve o'clock
comes, down will come the  hammer,  and this session  of Congress
will be adjourned.  Let it come !

                                                Sept.  23, 1850.

  Poor, dear Miss Dix!   Her bill has failed this  morning in the
House; or, at least, it has been referred to the Committee of the
Whole on the State  of  the Union,  from which  it cannot be  re-
turned should the session continue for a year.   I went to carry her
the news;  but she has not come up to the library to-day.
  Yesterday, when her bill came up, men were  starting up on  all
sides with their objections;  but to-day the point under discussion is,
to pay an additional sum to  the soldiers in the Mexican war for ex-
penses of coming home,  and  almost  all are  in  favor  of.it.   It is
amazing how war-mad all the South and South-west are.   Conquest
and numbers  constitute their idea of glory. Christianity is nineteen
hundred years distant from them.
  I have  not yet had time to read S-----'s letter; but her letters
have a charm for me always.  I wonder how so much poetry as she
has ever kept itself from flowing into  rhyme.   I am sure she might
make her everlasting worldly fortune  by writing song3  for children,
reasoning like  a fairy on  all the realities and moralities of life.
Hasn't she the word-faculty? or what is the reason she doesn't do it?
  I am glad  Mr. Pierce has arrived.*  How deep the feeling with
which we look back upon perils escaped and the  object of our labors
secured!   It must be a little more than a year since we had the fete
that "welcomed" him away.   I  rather envied you your visit to
him.   I should  really like to hail  him again.   Why could not the
old soul  transmigrate into  another body ?  However, ho has done
his work, — a great work; one that can never be undone. What he
has done is not the erection of a structure that will  not increase, and
will decay, but it is the planting and  early culture of a seed which
will grow, and cannot but grow, and must protect other trees of the
same  healthful  influences  in theh  growth.    " Lame, cold, and
* Cyrus Pierce, of the West Newton Normal School. 
LTFE  OF HORACE MANN.
335
numb " as he is, there are few young men that could equal him in
the race.
   It is very cool here, — " autumnal," as you say; and to-day it is
beginning to storm.  I am always glad to hear of you "gardening;"
and, when you are out, the children are out too.

                                       Washington, Sept. 24, 1S50.
   My dear Downer, — I have but time to say a word. .  . .
   There has just been  another desperate attempt to get a tariff.
Messrs. A-----and G-----were put forward to  pioneer the meas-
ure.  Mr.  G-----moved  to reconsider a bill from the Committee
on Commerce, giving Canada vessels a right to lade and unlade in
our ports, &c., so that it  might be sent  to  the  Committee of the
Whole on the State of the Union,  to be there amended by. a tariff.
So the motion prevailed.   Then a motion to lay the subject on the
table failed.  Then  came the question about committing with  in-
structions,  which  failed by  a large vote.   So the whole thing
slumped.   We are surrounded by lobby members from Pennsylva-
nia and New England.  The men  who have been  ready  to  barter
away liberty and blood and souls for profits  have failed again mis-
erably.  Mr. Webster's promise made at the Revere House, that, if
the North would go for conciliation (that is,  the surrender of liber-
ty), they could  then have "beneficial legislation" (that is, a tar-
iff),  has not been fulfilled.
   I regret as much as any one the suffering of our laboring classes;
but there is  a  retribution in all  this which gratifies one's moral
sense.
                  Good-by to you, my friend!
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                   West Newton, Nov. 15, 1850.
   My dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe, — I received  your brief note
from  London, dated Sept. 15;  and afterwards your  letter from
Edinburgh of Sept. 29.   The letter gave me what I must call an
unlawful pleasure :  for it  fully acquitted me of  what my own con-
science had long told me I was guilty of; namely, neglect of you.
Mary has  often said  to  me,  " Now,  my  dear,  you  must write 
336
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
to Mr. Combe; "  and I had  as often replied, " Yes, I must  and
will."  But, like  all other promises, these were made under the
tacit and implied condition of possibility.  But the possibility never
came; and, before I get through, I must tell you why.   I have re-
ceived a copy of the Annual Report of your school; which Mary and
I read together, as we always do every thing that comes from your
pen.   Your Life of Dr. Combe was  sent here before I came home.
Mary began to read it, but put it off that we might read it together.
Since I came  home,  we have  begun it, and  advanced nearly Half
way in it; but other engagements of one kind and another have in-
terrupted.  I find it very minute in its details; so much so, perhaps,
as to be objectionable to the general reader:  but to me, who know
the subject and the writer, and who have such  a deep personal inter-
est in every  thing they have said or done,  it never loses its in-
terest.  I should as soon complain of an absent friend for giving me
all the incidents  of his fortune, when, the more of each twenty-four
hours he describes, the better.  I like to read  his letters.   I delight,
and profit too, in reading a book which never departs from the phren-
ological dialect, and refers every thing to  phrenological  principles.
It is like a review of a delightful study.
   When first offered the nomination for Congress, I had serious
doubts about  accepting it:  but I was in my twelfth year as Secre-
tary of the Board of Education; and, while acting in an official capa-
city, I was under the trammels of neutrality  between all sects and
parties.  It was  just at the crisis when the destiny of our new Ter-
ritory of about six hundred thousand  square miles in extent was
about to be determined.   All of human  history that I ever knew
respecting the contest  for political and  religious freedom, and  my
own twelve-years' struggle to imbue the public mind with an under-
standing not merely of the law but of the spirit of religious liberty,
had so magnified in  my mind the importance of free institutions,
and so intensified my horror of all forms of slavery, that even  the
importance of education itself seemed for a moment to be eclipsed.
   Besides, my fidelity  to principles had made some enemies, who,
to thwart me, would  resist progress, but who, if I were out of  the
way, would be disarmed, and would co-operate where they had com-
bated. . . . The commencement of the session  in December last was 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
337
full of excitement.   We voted three weeks before we succeeded in
making choice of a Speaker;  the issue being between freedom and
slavery, modified by its bearing upon the next Presidential election.
In the Senate there were three men, Clay, Webster, and Cass, each
one of whom had staked body, reputation, and soul on being the
next President.   In 1848, Gen. Cass  had surrendered all that he
could think of, as principle, for the sake of winning the Southern
vote.   Clay had just been returned to the Senate, and Webster had
been  thrown into the background, partly for his mighty advocacy
of freedom, and partly because he had no skill in flattering the
people.   Clay devised a plan of indirect opposition to the policy of
Gen.  Taylor, which, should it be unsuccessful, wculd hardly injure
its originator, but, if crowned with success, would  place him high
and conspicuous above the President himself.
   Up to this time, at least ostensibly,  Webster had  maintained his
integrity.  But he supposed his final hour had come.  Cass as a
Democrat,  and Clay as a Whig, had offered to immolate freedom to
win the  South.  Webster must do more  than either, or abandon
hope.   He consented to  treachery, and, to make his reward sure,
proposed to do more villanies than were asked of him.   His 7th of
March speech  was an  abandonment  of  all he had ever said in
defence of  the great principles of freedom.   It was  a surrender of
the great interests of freedom in the  new Territories then in issue,
and it was  wanton impiety against the very cause of liberty.   We
were  not merely amazed, but astounded by it.  He artfully con-
nected the pecuniary interests of the  North with this treachery to
freedom.   Our manufacturing interests were in a deplorable  condi-
tion.  He told the manufacturers, that, if they would  surrender free-
dom,  they  could  have a tariff.  This  assurance was repeated in a
thousand covert forms.   It brought out the whole force of  Mam-
mon.    One  of the Boston newspapers, the "Daily Advertiser,"
whose whole circulation was among the wealthy and aristocratic,
took ground in his defence at once.   Another of them, the " Cou-
rier," sold itself immediately for  mere money  to him  and  to his
friends; and such an overbearing and threatening tone was assumed
by his whole pretorian guard, that every other paper in the city,
however  clamorous it had been for  freedom  before  (except the
22 
338
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
" Liberator "),  was silenced.  The press in  Boston, for the  last
six months, had been very  much  in  the condition  of the press
of Paris.
   I came home to visit my family in April on  account of ill health
in it, and staid a month.   The public mind had not recovered from
its shock;  and  Mr. Webster's "retainers," as the "Advertiser"
unluckily called them, were active in fastening their views upon the
re-awakened consciousness of the public.   I  converseil with many
very-prominent individuals.   I found they agreed with me fully in
regard to Mr. Webster's treachery, and in private  would  speak
freely,  but in public would not commit themselves to a word. This
was grievous, and reminded me of what you used to say so often, —
that our people have not confidence  enough in truth.   I was invited
by a respectable portion of my constituents  to  address them.    I
wrote them a letter instead.   In that letter, I  reviewed the course
of the leading men, — Cass, Clay, and Webster.  I pointed out Mr.
Webster's inconsistencies and enormities in as searching a manner
as I could,  but in a very respectful tone.   He and his friends swore
vengeance against me at once.
   When I  returned to Washington, he cut me.   He indulged in
offensive remarks in private intercourse.  In a letter written to some
citizens who sought to uphold his course, he put in the most arro-
gant sneer  that  his  talent could devise, and  published it.  That
gave me  a chance to review his letter, and  to discuss the question
of trial by jury for  alleged fugitives.   In  another letter, he made
another assault upon me.   This, too, I answered.   Just  at this
moment,  Gen. Taylor died.   The Vice-President, a weak and irres-
olute-minded man, succeeded.   Mr.  Webster was appointed Secre-
tary of State; and he thus became omnipotent, and  almost  omni-
present.  The cause of freedom was doomed.   Thousands saw what
the event would  be, and rushed to the conclusion.   Three-fifths of
all the  Whig presses went over in a day.   The word of command
wentiorth to annihilate me; and, if it was not done, it was for no
want of  good  will or effort on the  part of the hired executioners.
From having been complimented on  all sides, I was misrepresented,
maligned, travestied, on  all sides.   Not a single  Whig  paper in
Boston drfended me.  Most of them had an article or more against 
LTFE OF  HORACE  MANN.
339
me every day.  The  convention to  nominate my successor was
packed by fraudulent means, and I was thrown overboard. ... To
bring the odium theologicum to crush me, an evangelical was taken
as my opponent.  I took the stump, and put the matter to my con-
stituents face to face.
  The election took place last Monday, and I have beaten them all
by a handsome majority.  This is something of a personal triumph,
therefore; but, as a triumph of principle, it is of infinitely more
value.  Nothing can exceed the elation of my friends, or  the morti-
fication of my enemies.  The latter feel like a man who has com-
mitted some roguery, and failed of obtaining his purpose in doing it.

  This triumph of principle in  Massachusetts gave  inde-
scribable pleasure to Mr. Mann.   All the sanguine hopes
of many friends, who were deeply interested in the result,
for his  sake as well as for that of the good cause, had
failed to give him one ray of hope that the election would
be carried in his favor.  He was quite content to be the
means of defeating the triumph  of the other party, which
wquM have been such a lasting disgrace to the State ; but
expected no more.   He had been called up at night more
than  once  by bands of his  friends, who went from town to
town in the district to attend the various conventions, to
hear their assurances that his election was probable: but
all  their eloquence had  failed  to  convince him of any
greater success than  this, so discouraged and heart-sick
for his State had he become from the evidences of Mr.
Webster's  malign influence; and when a relative in  his
family went, late  at  night, to  the village  to count the
votes, and brought back a favorable  answer, he was
equally incredulous, and  coolly proposed  to  wait till he
could count them himself when the newspaper should
come in the morning.  The young lady's ardor was quite
cooled down ; but, on descending the hill in the morning,
she met the village omnibus on its way up, and the driver 
340
LIFE OF HORACE. MANN.
swung his hat with the announcement.  She  flew back to
be the first to tell the news, but could not speak when she
arrived.  The carriage  passed the gate, however; and the
vociferous demonstrations assured Mr. Mann  of the  fact.
He walked the floor  some time without  speaking, and at
last, " Thank God  for Massachusetts! "  were the  first
words he could utter ;  and those who knew him best knew
that the choked voice was not that of a selfish emotion.
It had not been his intention to stand as candidate for a
Congressional election again; for he felt  that the  odds
against freedom had been so great, that it was a waste of
his time, which  could' be better employed  in the  good
work of bringing up the nation to the desired point, than
by sitting in Congressional halls whose very atmosphere
polluted the breath of freemen.  But the state of affairs at
that critical juncture forbade him to leave  his  post then,
even though he were to have been sacrificed by remaining
firm to it.   A defeat at that time, and under the  circum-
stances, would have been very disastrous to him ;  but he
was not accustomed to make himself the first consideration.
He really belonged to no party.   The Whig  party, which
had elected him for  certain purposes, had proved recreant
to  their own principles, and had left him standing just
where they put him.  He went to Congress the first time
because  his  constituents thought him  the  best man, at
that juncture, to carry out the principles of Mr. Adams
in the cause of freedom: they had  changed, but  he had
not changed; and it was not his fault if lie stood without
a party for a time.

   In October, 1850, Mr.  Webster, in a letter from Frankhn, N.H.,
 to a committee of gentlemen in New York, says, —
   " I concur, gentlemen, iii all the political principles contained in
 the resolutions, a copy of which has been sent to  me ; and I  stand
 pledged to support those principles, publicly and privately, now and 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
341
always, to the full extent of my influence, and by the exertion of
every faculty which I possess."
  Two of these, resolutions were as follows : —
  " Resolved, That we cordially approve of the recent measures of
Congress for the adjustment of the dangerous questions  arising out
of the acquisition of territory under the treaty of Mexico, &c.
  "Resolved, That the Fugitive-slave Bill is in accordance with the
express stipulations of the Constitution of the  United States; . . .
and that  Congress, in passing a law which  should  be efficient for  •
carrying out the stipulations, &c, acted in full accordance with the
letter and  spirit  of that instrument; and that we will  sustain this
law and the execution of it by all lawful means."

                                        Washington, Dec. 14,1850.
C.  Pierce, Esq.
  My dear Sir, — I am glad to hear from you, and that you think
of putting  on  the  harness again.  I guess  the  "old clock-work"
will go well yet.   Whatever I can do for you, I shall do with great
alacrity.   I doubt  the expediency of establishing another Normal
school yet  a while in Massachusetts.   Those already in existence
must be filled and crowded before  another will prosper.   I  do not
know what  sphere  you  intend to  fill:  the  one you talked of with
A-----would  open a noble field for  usefulness, though I should
struggle against all secondary causes that should threaten to remove
you from Massachusetts.
  My journey to Washington  was in some respects pleasant.   I
was greeted  all along  the way by  many  persons  known   and
unknown to me ; and,  on arriving here, I found  the  controversy
between  myself and  Mr. Webster  had  really assumed  a national
notoriety and conspicuousness.  Whigs and Democrats had a common
exultation, though it was probably more for  his defeat than  for my
victory. .  .  .
                        Yours very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                      Washington, Dec. 22, 1850.
  My dear Downer, — I see by the date  of my  letter that it  is
Forefathers' Day; aid I cannot but ask myself what the stern old 
342
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
Puritans would say, were  they here  to witness the degeneracy of
their sons.   Evil days have surely come upon us.   There is a very
considerable number here, it is true, who  are  still faithful to their
principles; but they are embarrassed and oppressed with the palpa-
ble fact before them that they  are in the  hands of the Philistines,
and that nothing can be done in behalf of the measures they have
so steadfastly  and earnestly contended for.    The Administration
has placed itself on open, avowed, proslavery ground.  They will
lie prescriptive of enemies, and bountiful to friends; and I fear that
what Mr. Webster once said will prove  true, — that he had never
known an Administration to set its  heart  upon any measure which
it did not accomplish.   There will be a giving-way  somewhere ;  and
all effective opposition will be frightened away or bought up.
  But to what a  pass  has  Northern  recreancy brought us !  You
see the list  of conditions which the South are everywhere laying
down, upon compliance with which, in  every  item, the Union can
alone  be preserved, — no abolition  of slavery in  the District of
Columbia;  no  imposition of a proviso on any Territory, — which
looks to its future acquisition, and is  meant to forestall its  doom;
no objection to the admission  of any State, whether  from  Texas,
New Mexico,  Utah, or from  any new acquisitions,  on  account
of the proslavery constitution, &c.    And now the  Governor  of
Virginia, in a special message to the Legislature, has  proposed the
holding of a national convention,  at which the North  shall  appear
as suppliant, shall promise all that the South demands, and shall lie
down on her belly, and eat as much dirt as she can hold. It is said
there is no end to discoveries;  and certainly there  i3 no end to  dis-
coveries in  humiliation.  One would  think that even the  soulless
instigators of Northern Union  meetings would  recoil  on the brink
of this abyss of degradation.  But  such is the progress of things;
and, however low they go, a " lower deep" still opens before them.
Even the " National Intelligencer," with all its proslavery instincts,
shudders at this pit.
  What shall we do here ?   I  declare myself ready, for one, to do,
to the  utmost of my ability, whatever may appear under the cir-
cumstances to be advisable.   I find it to  be true, as I have  always
said, that there is  no  more  chance  of repealing or modifying the 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.              343
 Fugitive-slave Law than there is of making a free State out of South
 Carolina.  Still, my own opinion is that we  ought to mate  a
 demonstration upon it.  My belief is that there  never was so much
 need of contending against the slave-power as now.  There is far
 more reason for a rally now than in 1848.   Then a great prize was
 in imminent peril.  Had  Cass been made President in consequence
 of a diversion of Whigs into the Free-soil ranks,  it is, to  my mind,
 as certain as any unfulfilled event, that California would have been
 a slave State,  and New Mexico and Utah would have had slavery
 had they desired it.  This great interest was put  in jeopardy by that
 movement; though, fortunately, God sent us a deliverance.
   But now there is no such immediate and magnificent stake to be
 lost or won.   We  cannot lose any thing now, because we have lost
 all.   Our dangers are prospective.  Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, are
 the  game  now afoot.  We must  be prepared  for the  time when
 these shall be the  subject  of contest.  We must see that we have
 Congresses that will stand their ground;  and  therefore the anti-
 slavery principle must not be  suffered to  sleep. . .  .
                                 Yours  as ever,
                                                         H. M.

                LETTER FROM GEO. E. BAKER, ESQ.

   Dear Mrs. Mann, — I send herewith a copy of the letter alluded
 to in my note to W. W.  & Co.   The original I have bound with
 other valuable letters and  autographs, and I cannot detach it with-
 out injury.
   Your  husband's memory is very dear  to me.   I was very early
 impressed by his character,  and you  know how durable early im-
 pressions are.  While the admonitions of the other " committee men "
 — many of them able men — have faded away, the counsels he gave
 nearly forty years  ago in  the old schoolhouse are  still  alive with
 me.   And then it was easy and natural for me, little boy as I was,
 to  see whom my father esteemed above all other men, although Mr.
 Mann  was then but a. young  lawyer, without any official position
save that of " school-committee man."  I remember well when  he
was first  elected to the Legislature,   About that  time, the Tremont
House was opened,  and was the wonder of the people ; and it was 
344
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
 among the small-talk of our neighborhood, including several young
 ladies, that Horace Mann boarded there.  My vivid recollection of
 this illustrates the adage, "Little pitchers  have great ears."   I
 think it was after I was  a few years older* that  he astonished and
 captivated me by a most eloquent (volunteer) defence of a prisoner
 in court charged with theft.   These words ring in  my ears while I
 write: "I consider it as  much my duty to  defend this  man as it
 would be to reach  out my arm to a man floating down a stream and
 in danger of drowning.''  The prisoner was acquitted; the jury not
 even leaving their  seats.   Even the unrelenting prosecuting attor-
 ney confessed  to the effect of Mr. Mann's argument.
   Pardon  me; but it is a delight to me thus to dwell on the recol-
 lections of my boyhood, and of so great and good a man.
                        Very respectfully,
                                                GEO. E. BAKER.

                                        Washington, Dec. 14,1850.
 Geo. E.  Baker, Esq., Member of Assembly,  Albany, NT.
   Dear  Sir, — I remember you well as one of the little^ boys on
 one  of the lowest seats in the  old schoolhouse at " Connecticut
 Corner," in Dedham.
   I have a vivid recollection of how my heart used to exult in hope
 as I saw  the " little fellows " in jacket and trousers, out of whom
 my imagination used to make good and true  men for the country
 and the world.   And if you can conceive  how it  must delight  me
 to have those visions realized in a single case, then you  may com-
 pute the  pleasure which  I enjoy in the receipt of many, many such
 remembrances  as yours.   Your father* was one of my best friends,
 and  I have great respect for his memory.   I am glad you are to go
 among the men who make laws, and, what is  more efficacious than
 laws, public opinion, for the community.  Nor am I less  delighted
 to hear, that, in your political convictions, you are  attracted towards
 Mr.  Seward.   I say attracted towards Mr.  Seward; for I do not
quite agree with him on some views which I consider ultra:  and
yet,  in the main, he holds sound  doctrines, and  certainly supports
 them with ability.
               * John Baker, Sheriff of Norfolk County. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               345
  As to your course of action, allow me to express the hope  that
you will connect yourself with educational, charitable, and philan-
thropic spheres of action, rather than with party combinations and
schemes.    As soon as it is understood in what direction your taste
and predilections lead you, you will find  yourself placed in those
positions, or falling into them naturally, and as if by gravitation.
  Two years ago,  I revised the whole  system of Massachusetts
common schools; and if you have any desire  to  see my work, and
will address our Secretary of State, asking for a copy of my revised
Tenth Report, I doubt not he will send it to you.
  May I  suggest to you to purchase  and  read  and study two
volumes, just published, of Charles Sumner's orations?  You will find
them  full of the most noble views and inspiring sentiments.   I could
wish a young man, just entering pohtical life,  to  do nothing better
than to form his conduct after the high models there presented.
  Excuse the haste of this letter, written, as most of my correspond-
ence is, in the midst of constant interruptions;  and believe me very
truly  yours,
                                                 HORACE MANN.


                                          Washington, Jan. 5,1851.
To E. W.  Clap, Walpole, Mass.
  My dear  Sir, —  ...  After a week of factious opposition, we
have  at last, this morning,  passed  a vote, by a large majority,  to
do the handsome  thing to Kossuth.   The South and the " Old
Hunkers " have been in a " tight place."   How could they vote  to
honor one fugitive from slavery, and chain and send back  another ?
If an Austrian "commissioner" should issue  his warrant for Kos-
suth,  and he should kill the marshal, would he, like the Christiana
rioters, be guilty of treason ?
  You see my book*  has  been  prosecuted,  in the  name  of the
publishers, for libel.  If the greater the truth, the greater the libel,
the book  must plead guilty.   Regards to you  all.
                   As ever, very truly yours,
                                                 HORACE MANN.

  * " Of Antislavery Documents and Speeches," which is to be  republished
with some additional  matter. 
346
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
                                      Washington, Jan. 6, 1S51.
   My dear Mr. Combe, — ... I have nothing to write on polit-
ical subjects  that can  afford any gratification to a humanity-loving
man.   In 1848, there was a great inflowing of  the sentiment of li-
berty, both in Europe and in this country.   You have already ex-
perienced the  ebbing of  that tide in Europe, and it has receded as
much relatively in this hemisphere as in yours.  Notwithstanding
the inherent  and radical wickedness of some  of the compromise
measures, as  they were called, yet the  most strenuous efforts  are
making by the Administration to force the Whig  party to their adop-
tion and support.  It is a concerted movement  between those who
are ready to sacrifice liberty for office and those who  are  ready to
make the same sacrifice for money.  From the day of Mr. Web-
ster's open treachery and apostasy (if indeed he  had political virtue
enough to be an apostate),  he has been urging the idea upon New-
England Whigs, that, if they could give up freedom, they might have
a tariff.   This has wrought numberless conversions  among those
who think it a sin not to be rich.   They say in  their hearts,  " The
South wants cotton to sell,  and must have  negroes to produce  it;
we want cotton to manufacture, and so we  must have neo-roes  to
raise it:  slavery is equally indispensable to  us both."  So  both  are
combining to uphold it.   Before Texas was annexed,  the  whole
Democratic party at  the North denounced it.  As soon as  that was
done, they wheeled round like  a company of well-drilled soldiers at
the word of command, and supported it.   I fear the great body of
the Whig party will do no better as regards these infamous prosla-
very measures.   Party allegiance here has very much the  effect of
loyalty with you.   It has the power to change the nature  of right
and wrongs  I profess to belong to none of the parties.   I have
given in my adherence to  certain  great principles; and by them
I stand, not only in independence,  but  in defiance  of parties.   I
should like to send you a copy of my letters.  I will do so as soon
as I can find an opportunity. . . .
                                       Washington, Feb. 10,1851.
E. W. Clap, Esq.
   My dear Sir, — ... I was glad to hear from you, and should
he much obliged for a more detailed account  of proceedings  at 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
347
home.   Things are looking bad for freedom there, and worse here.
There never was a greater effort on the  part of any Administration
— not even in the most  imperious days of Jackson or Polk — to
subdue  all  opposition, by fears  or by rewards, than at present.
Webster is as corrupt a politician as ever lived.
  What is the chance of Sumner's success? . . .
                      Yours very truly,
                                               HORACE  MANN.


                                     Washington, Feb. 14, 1851.
   My dear Sumner, — Remember it is the darkest time just
before day.   I have long had very serious apprehensions about the
result this session; that is,  the  end of the beginning: but you
must now apply to yourself the counsel  you gave last autumn to
me; that is, you must now take the field,  and vindicate your cause
before the  people; not  yourself, — that  I do not say, — but the
cause.   If you do  not prevail now, Massachusetts goes over to
Hunkerdom.   This may the gods avert! . . .
                              Yours ever,
                                                HORACE MANN.


                                      New York, March 1,1851.
   I had a call this morning from  a man who wishes  to get a grant
from Government, and so he is civil to me.  It gave me just the
feeling  I used to have at the selfish civilities of many Boston men,
when I was in our  Legislature,  who used  to coax and  pet  and
flatter me, and tell  me what  fine speeches  I made, and  make  me
dine, and force me to drink  their wine  (for I had not then the full
grace of a  teetotaler) ;  but as soon as I left  that presidency, and
became an educationist, they knew me  no longer.
   The  ice  on  the Susquehanna seemed perfectly strong, and I was
 not afraid to go where  I saw the baggage-cars go.  I wished you
 could have been  clairvoyant enough to see me when I stepped on
 the hither shore; but we suffer in this life for our short-sightedness.
   Syracuse. — I trust you will now be at ease about me; for here I
 am  in Mr.  May's home, and  I am to  remain here until Monday. 
348               LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
He came to the hotel yesterday morning,  and, like a true Ilopkin-
sian theologian, made his free  grace  irresistible, and  took  me  up
here.   He has a  beautiful place, — as beautiful as ours : so I feel
quite restored to old comforts again.
   We had  about ten speeches, and at least six of them were very
brilliant.   There  was an air of boldness,  of defiance even,  against
the crime, and its abettors and promoters,  which  augurs well for the
cause.
   Neal Dow, the moral Columbus, was there, — a small, iunocent-
looking, modest man of middle age,  who looks as though he must,
have felt infinitely surprised, when, as Byron says, he waked  up
one morning, and found himself famous.
   A mighty audience last night, I was told,—not less than five thou-
sand people.  I had only a music-stand to put my lecture upon, and
was obliged to stand one side of it, — a rascally arrangement!  Had
I  not had your plain handwriting, I could  not have got along at all:
so I thought of you continually, as you helped  every sentence out
of my mouth.  I think  of that cough of George's.   Do I hear it ?
or is it imagination ?
    The temperance camp is all  astir.   I  have just been invited  to
 deliver another temperance lecture before I leave the city.
    Dear H. and G., — did I hear my little boys  speaking  last night
 with singing voices like birds,  and showing glad eyes  and  smiling
 faces ? or was it  a dream ?

                                        Washington, April, 1851.
    My dear Sumner, — Laus Deo !   Good, better, best, better yet!
 By the necessity of the case, you are now to be a politician, — an
 honest one.   Scores have asked whether you would  be true.   I
 have underwritten to the amount of forty reputations.
                           Yours truly,
                                                HORACE  MANN.*
* This note was written on occasion of Mr. Sumner's election to the Senate. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
340
LETTER TO  THE YOUNG Men's  DEBATING SOCIETY, 111 BOWERY, NEW
  YORK,  IN REPLY TO  A COMMUNICATION ASKING  HIS ADVICE  IN
  RELATION TO THE BEST MANNER  OF DEBATING.

                            West Newton, Monday, June 16,1851.
  I am very glad to be made acquainted with the existence of your
society, and feel highly honored by  your request for a word of en-
couragement and counsel.
  I have an inexpressible interest in young men, and wish I  could
live my life over again, that I might cause less of evil and more  of
good than I have done.  But hfe is a book of which we can  have
but one edition : as it is first prepared, it  must stand forever.  Let
each day's  action,  as  it adds another page to the indestructible
volume,  be such  that we shall be willing  to have an  assembled
world read it!
  You say you constitute a debating society.  Will  you allow me,
as a friend, to make one remark on the subject of the choice of sub-
 jects, and  another upon your habit of treating them ?
  I would  recommend that  you choose topics for discussion  which
are, as far  as possible,  both theoretic and  practical.  The theoretic
will exercise your  speculative faculties,  which are essential to com-
prehensiveness, forethought, and  invention;  and the practical will
cause you to keep continually in view the uses which may be made
of your combination of ideas.   Both powers will make the man, so
far  as the intellect is concerned.
  My other remark is, — and I am  sure  you will think more and
more of it  the longer you live, — never investigate  nor debate  for
triumph, but always for truth.   Never take the affirmative or nega-
tive side of a question  till after you  have  mastered it  according to
the best of  your ability, and then adopt  the  side  which judgment
and conscience assure you to be right.
   The mind is not  only the  object to be improved, but it  is the
instrument to  work with.   How can you improve a moral instrument
by  forcing  it to hide or obscure the truth, and espouse the side  of
falsehood ?  If you succeed, you do but injure  others by inducing
them  to adopt errors;  but you injure  yourself more than any one
ehe.   The  optician who beclouds the glass through which he  looks 
350
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
is a wise man compared with the reasoner who beclouds his faculties.
Keep one thing forever in view, — the truth ;  and if you do this.
though it may seem to lead you away from the opinions of men. it-
will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God.
  With sincere hopes for your welfare, I am, dear sir, very truly
yours, &c,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                     Washington, July 13, 1851.
  ... A Virginian told me yesterday that he saw I kept preaching;
and, upon my evincing some curiosity to know what he meant, he
said he heard a discourse from me the day before, — Sunday;  all
which, being at last interpreted, meant  that  he had heard a street
temperance-lecturer read  my Letter to the Worcester Temperance
Convention, to a large audience which he had collected.  I see the
letter itself is in Monday's " Commonwealth."  . . .
  I was glad  to see in some  paper yesterday a letter from  Gen.
Scott to Gen. Jackson, declining a challenge for a duel which the
latter had  sent him.  It was well written, saying at the end that
he,  Gen. Jackson, could probably gratify his feelings by  calling him,
Scott, coward, &c, till  after  the  next war; meaning  thereby,
that, in another war, he would have an opportunity to vindicate his
courage, &c.
  The general impression here is  that  Mr. Webster cares nothing
for the Whig party, but will accept a nomination from any body of
men not too contemptible to be noticed.          ,
                                       West Newton, Aug. 4, 1831.
  Rev.  S.  J.  May, — ... Webster has debauched the country, not
only on the subject of slavery, but of all decency and truth.  Well.
I have no  doubt who will come out right ten years hence.
                    Very truly yours, &c,
                                                     H. MANN.

                                     West Newton, Sept. 25, 1851.
Rev. T. Parker.
  My dear Sir, — ... I wish to find a few of the best authorities.
taken from as wide  a range as  possible  among heathen and pagan 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
351
writers, in favor of the higher  law.   Can you refer me to them ?
I wish to shame-our Christians by a little pagan morality. .  . .
                       Yours very truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                   Washington, December, 1851.
 " My dear Mr. Combe, —... In  this political wrangle, I,  who
before was, in  some respects, very popular, have  become very un-
popular.  But I look to futurity for my vindication.   During the
past summer and autumn,  I have collected and revised all my lead-
ing speeches and letters on antislavery, and have published them in
a volume, making nearly  six hundred pages.   They will be,  in a
good degree, historical as  to my course  on the great questions of
freedom and slavery.   For a time,  I, and those with whom  I have
acted, may be  under a cloud;  but  I  have no doubt as  to how we
shall  stand a  quarter of  a century  hence.   And hereafter, when
some future Macaulay shall arise to announce the verdict of history
in relation to these times, I can feel no doubt that he will condemn
the statesmen and the judges who  have  upheld the  infamous com-
promise measures and the Fugitive-slave Law, to stand forever by
the side of, and to share the immortal reprobation which now, by the
universal consent of mankind,  is awarded to, the lawgivers and the
courts of the Stuarts.
  I came to Washington last Saturday,  bringing the whole family,
and a niece who is very dear to me, and who proposes spending the
winter here.   We are situated in a most pleasant part of the city,
on Capitol Hill; and hope to have as agreeable a winter as one can
have in the midst of these  national  immoralities.   The business of
the  session will consist mainly in the  manoeuvres,  intrigues,  and
competitions for the  next Presidency.   The only  candidate yet
named, whom I can support, is Gen.  Scott.   Ho will not mingle in
the intrigue.   I shall be a spectator of these questions, having no
temptation even to participate in them.

  I am exhibiting myself in a new character,—that of a school-book
maker; and am preparing, in conjunction with a gentleman who is
very competent to perform  the  labor, a series of arithmetical works 
352
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
based on a new principle.   Instead of taking, as the data of the
questions, the transactions of the shop,  the market-house, the  bank,
&c, I explore  the whole range of history, biography, geography,
civil, commercial, financial, and educational statistics, science, &c,
for  the  materials which form the basis of the questions: so that
the  pupil, in addition to a problem to be solved, shall always find
an  interesting  or instructive  fact to be delighted with.   I can,
however, give you but a meagre idea of my plan, which I have fully
unfolded in  my preface,  and which I  hope some time to  send to
you.*
  I ask myself a thousand times,  Shall  I ever see you again ? and
the  answer which probability returns makes me sad.  With our best
regards to yourself and  Mrs. Combe,  we are, as  ever, most  truly
your friends.
                                                HORACE  MANN.

  P. S. —There is something in your suggestion of having me for
your posthumous editor that struck me as almost ridiculous.   Your
chance for being the survivor is probably better  than mine.   But
that is no reason why your work should not proceed.   Put all your
wisdom into it.
                                       Washington, Dec. 5,1851.
  My dear Friends Mr. and Mrs. Combe, —... Politics in this
country do not, as  they should,  mean a science,  but a controver-
sy ; and in this sense we are all  involved  in  politics.   When will
the time come  that politics can be  taken from the domain of pas-
sion and propensity ?  I have no doubt that such a millennium is in
the future.   Nor will the whole world  enter that millennium at the
same  time.   Wise and  sage  individuals like Mr. George Combe
must be the pioneers : then it must be colonized by a larger number,
and then entered and dwelt in by all.   But I fear the epochs and
eras which will mark and measure  these successive  stages of con-
summations  are to be  geological in their distance  and duration.
Doubtless you  have  seen a  book  entitled the '' Theory of Human

  * This arithmetic was published in Philadelphia: but the publishers made little
effort to forward it; and Mr. Mann was too much occupied, when he became aware
of this, to take any measures upon the subject. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
353
Progression," which, from internal evidence, is Scotch in its origin,
and whose  object is not only to prophesy, but to prove, the future
triumph of peace and justice upon earth.   I have read  but part of
the book.   I am reading  it to my wife at odd  hours, when our
chances of  leisure come together.    I have  long believed in the
whole  doctrine;  but it is delightful  to see it  argued  out, not
only to take the Q. E. D.  on authority,  but  to  feel the  truth of
the solution.   All sciences, even the natural ones, have  been the
subjects  of  controversy and  of persecution  in their  beginning:
why, then, should not the science of politics?   One  truth after
another will be  slowly developed; and by and by truth, and not
individual aggrandizement or advantage, will  be the only legitimate
object of inquiry.  Then will its  millennium come ! — Doubtless
you have through the public papers the political movements of the
country at large.  The old struggle for supremacy between  the polit-
ical parties goes on;  but worse means are brought in to insure sue
cess than ever before entered into our contests.  The North (or free
 States)  comprises almost  two-thirds of  all our  population;  the
 South (or slave States) but  about a third.   The  North is  really
 divided into  two great parties, Whigs and Democrats.   These are
 arrayed  against each other in  hostile  attitude; and, being nearly
 equal, they cancel each other.   The South is Whig or Democratic
 only nominally. It is for slavery exclusively  and intensely.  Hence
 we now present the  astonishing and revolting spectacle  of  a free
 people in  the  nineteenth  century,  of almost twofold power, not
 merely surrendering  to a proslavery people one-half the power, but
 entering  into the most vehement competition to join with them in
 trampling upon all the great  principles of freedom.   We have five
 prominent candidates for the next Presidency.    All  of  them are
 from the North.  The South does not put forward  as  yet a single
 man; for Mr.  Clay  can hardly be considered a candidate.  Each
 one  of  the five candidates  begins  with  abandoning every great
 principle  of  constitutional  liberty, so far as  the black  race is con-
 cerned ;  and to this  each one  has  saddled more and  more prosla-
 very gratuities  and aggrandizements, as the propositions he advanced
 wereinade at  a later period of time.   All  Whigs professed to be
 shocked when Gen.  Cass offered in substance  to  open all our new
                23 
354
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
 Territories to slavery.   But Mr. Webster's accumulated proslavery
 bounties,  as compared with those of Gen. Cass, were as " Pelion to
 a. wart."   Mr. Buchanan offers to run the line of 36° 30' through
 to the Pacific  Ocean, and to surrender all on the south side of it to
 slavery.   Mr. Dallas, late Vice-President under Mr. Polk, tells the
 South that the antislavery spirit of the  North will never be quiet
 under the compromise  measures and  the Fugitive-slave Law; and
 so proposes to embody this whole series into the Constitution  by
 an amendment, thus putting them beyond the reach  of legislative
 action.    And Mr.  Douglas,  a young senator from  Illinois, who
 aspires to the  White House, offers Cuba to the South  in addition
 to all the  rest.  In the mean time, the South sets forth no  candidate
 for the Executive chair.   Some  of their leading politicians avow
 the policy of  taking  a  Northern  man, because "a Northern man
 with  Southern principles" can do more  for  them than  any one of
 their own.  All of them are virtually  saying to Northern aspirants,
 "Proceed, gentlemen;  give us your  best terms: and, when you
 have submitted your proposals, we will make our election between
 you."   Is it  not indescribably  painful to  contemplate such a
 picture, — no, such a reality ?  You must feel it as a man : I feel it
 as an American, — you as a lover of mankind, I as a lover of re-
 publican institutions.
   You will, of course, understand that such contests cannot be car-
 ried on without corresponding contests in the  States.  In Massachu-
 setts,  many collateral  issues have mingled with the main  question.
 Mr. Webster's apostasy on the 7th of March,  1850, had not at first
 a single open  defender in our Commonwealth.   Some  pecuniary
 arrangements were made by which one or two papers soon devoted
 themselves to his cause.  In a few days after the speech, he visited
 Boston; and, at a public meeting to receive him, he held out, in un-
mistakable language, the lure  of a tariff, if  they would  abandon
 principle.   This interested motive appealed to both parties. It was
pressed upon them, both in public and in private,  during the whole
summer, and indeed until the  approaching termination of the 31st
 Congress showed that it was only a delusion and a cheat.
  During the  summer,  another pecuniary element was introduced.
The merchants of New York sought a  monopoly of Southern  trade 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               355
through a subserviency to Southern interests.   The merchants of
Philadelphia and Boston forthwith became competitors for the same
profits through the same  infamous means.   In this way, within a
twelvemonth,  all the Atlantic cities were carried  over to the side
of Southern policy.   I believe I told you of  efforts made against
myself, and their result, in the last year's election of a representative
to Congress from my district.  Since that time the process of defection
has gone rapidly on, spreading outwards from the city, and contami-
nating the country.   The  great body of  the Whig  merchants and
manufacturers in  the Northern States now advocate Mr. Webster for
the Presidency.   This, of  course, determines the character of the
mercantile papers.  A large meeting was held  in Boston last week
to nominate  him for that office.  He is expected soon  to resign his
secretaryship,  and to travel South on an electioneering tour.   His
health is very much  impaired;  and that glorious physique, which
should be in full vigor at  the age of eighty, is now nearly broken
down.  He  can do nothing but under the inspiration of brandy;
and the tide of excitement also must be taken " at the flood ; " for
if a little too early, or a little too late, he is sure to fail.
   In  Massachusetts we have  had a fierce contest for State offices.
Mr. Winthrop was the Whig candidate for Governor; and his elec-
tion would have  been claimed as a Webster triumph, though not
justly so.  But he falls short of an election by about eight thousand
votes.   The Free-soilers and Democrats combined, and  have ob-
tained a majority in both the  Senate and the House.   This  secures
an anti-Whig Governor, and is a triumph of antislavery sentiment.
We have never had a more fiercely contested election.   I was " on
the stump," as we say, about  three weeks, speaking from two to two
and a half hours  almost every evening.  Since  the election, I have
been dehvering lyceum lectures;  so that you  may well suppose I
am pretty much " used up."   With this term in Congress, I hope
to escape from political broils,  and to live a life more in accordance
with both natural and acquired tastes.  . .  .
                       *                                  H. M. 
356
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
                                        Washington, Jan. 3, 1852.
Rev. S. J. May.
   Dear Sir, — It is now a long time since  I have received  any
copies of your shots at Mr. C-----. So I suppose the war is ended.
I did not see his articles; but, from yours, I should suppose you had
much the better of him, both in temper and  logic.   It is curious
that you should propose to engage my professional services for your
defence in a case arising out of  the Fugitive-slave Law, and that so
soon my own writings on the subject should require legal defence.  I
presume you  have seen in the "  Commonwealth " that Mr. Commis-
sioner Curtis  has commenced an action for libel against Mr. Muzzey,
the publisher of my speeches, on account of that Lancaster exhibi-
tion of himself.  What do you say now to being my  counsel ?  Are
you' ready to  do as you would be done by ?
   ... I hope you see full debates of Congress — such as are pub-
lished in the  " Globe " — in relation to  the reception  of Kossuth.
The whole opposition  to  him  comes from the  South, and from
Northern Hunkers who are devoted to the South.  The avowed op-
position is  based  on the  question of "intervention;" but the real
motive is slavery.  While they  demand  that one fugitive  shall be
fettered and sent home, they cannot bear to see another feted and
honored.   You see the cloven foot;  indeed,  you can see nothing
else.  With best regards for your family, I am
                     Very truly yours, &c,
                                               HORACE MANN.


                                    Washington,  Feb. 10,1852.
   My dear Downer, — There is nothing of much moment transpir-
ing here.  Cabell of Florida, in the House, a few days ago laid down
the Southern  Whig platform, that no man  should be supported for
President who was not sound on the  slavery question ;  and  added,
that though Scott, for every other  reason, would be his first choice,
yet he had not come out in favor of slavery to this time, and he feared
it was even now too late.   He  was  determined (Cabell) never, to
be caught by another Taylor.  Murphy,  from  Georgia, followed on
the Democratic side,  and prescribed very much the  same creed for
the Democrats that Cabell had for the Whigs.   So you  see the bold 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.    '           357
 stand  the  South is taking.   They will  talk up  to it now.  Next
 June, they will act up to it.  Will  not  both parties at the North
 succumb ?
   Dismy of Ohio,  in the same debate, on being  taunted for voting
 against the Fugitive-slave Law, said he did it because it was not
 stringent enough!

                                         Dansville, N. Y., 1852.

   I have  seen only the most meagre  account  of D----'s  and
 R----'s speeches.   I do not see how D-----can come out without
 being battered and  shattered to pieces.   Nor ought he to.   I think
 he has been false to great principles, though with such palliations as
 apostates always find.   I think posterity does not look at crimes as
 the traitors themselves do.  With the latter it may not be unmiti-
 gated  and untempted crime.   They have their excuses, theh sub-
 terfuges, and theh casuistry.  Gorgey doubtless disguised his treason
 to himself  under some plea of benefit to his nation.  It is a known
 fact, that Arnold stoutly contended  that  he desired to confer a be-
 nefit on his country as, the motive of his treachery.   Judas proba-
 bly made himself believe that the interests of religion demanded the
 surrender of his Master.   Even Mr.  Webster talks to this day as if,
 in sacrificing  the immortal  principles of liberty, he had only the
 good of the Union  in view.   But when the occasion has passed by,
 when the event is far removed into the past, then the palliations and
 the pretexts are lost sight of; and only the black, fatal, damning guilt
 remains for the detestation and abhorrence of men.


                                    Washington, D.C., Feb. 13,1852-
 C. Pierce, Esq.
  My dear Sir, — We heard from  you  authentically  through  our
 common friends, from whom we had a very pleasant visit; but direct-
 ly we have not heard from you at all.  We  should  be pleased to
 be remembered in  your thoughts, and now  and then to have an
 hour of your time;  but the claims of old friendship perhaps belong
 to that class  of  imperfect obligations which cannot  be  enforced
against the will of  the party.   Let  me assure you, however, that 
358               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
you have no truer friends, no warmer admirers, than Mrs. M-----
and R-----, to say nothing of the gentleman who first knew  you
when your fame was insular, and who adhered to you through all
seasons and at all times, until it became continental, ay, co-exten-
sive with civilization. . .  .
   To say that  the  political aspect of things here is not the worst
possible, is about all the  praise you can give it.   A politician does
not sneeze without  reference to the next Presidency.   All things
are carried to that tribunal for decision.   The greatest interests  and
the worst passions are  assayed for this end, and their value  deter-
mined accordingly.   The next canvass will doubtless be the most
corrupt and corrupting one ever witnessed in this country.   It is
the general opinion here that there is but one Whig who can by any
possibility be elected, — Gen. Scott.  The Democrats will triumph
over every one else, whoever their candidate may be, — perhaps
over him, should he be nominated.  I believe Gen. Scott to be a
very honorable, high-minded man, — a man of rare talents and at-
tainments.  On the other hand, I believe the man whom the people
universally call "Old  Sam Houston," alias "Old San Jacinto,"
to be a man of incomparably more character, honesty,  and resolu-
tion than any other of the Democratic candidates.
   Unwell as I am here, — for we made a very respectable hospital
here for the last twelve weeks, — I am going to try a little rustica-
tion at the North.
   I hope to attend the great Temperance Banquet at New York on
Wednesday evening next.  I am also engaged to deliver a temper-
ance lecture in the same city on Tuesday evening.  Indeed,  I  am
to speak four successive evenings, from Tuesday to Friday inclusive;
hoping by that means to improve my digestion.  After that, I have
some idea of going up to see brother May at Syracuse, and congrat-
ulate him for the hundredth time that he was not  hung in Massa-
chusetts with that dreadful malefactor who included  three capital
crimes in one act.   I think I have told  you that story, and have
seen you laugh at  the predicament in  which your brother May
might have been placed.   It is sometimes very strange how serious
people will laugh  at serious things.   I wish you could meet me at
New York or Syracuse, or elsewhere on the way,  and let  me look 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
359
again upou  that good old horologue whose machinery keeps such
excellent time, however much the case may have been battered.
   You must see Kossuth, at any expense of ribs or toes; for he will
warm your heart.   Many of his  admirers think him perfect.   His
enemies will probably succeed in finding foibles enough in his char-
acter to prove him human.
                      Your sincere friend,
                                               HORACE MANN.


                             Blooming Grove, N.Y., Feb. 22, 1852.

   . . . This is a mere rural region; but they have had a course of
lectures this winter, and the audience is gathered from all the sur-
rounding country.  How came the people, you will ask, to be of this
inquisitive and intelligence-loving character ?
   Their former minister,  Mr.  Arbuckle, was a strong-minded and
honest man, whose mind, by  its natural  operation, reasoned out
some points of dissent from  the Presbyterian creed : whereupon his
brethren arraigned and excommunicated him.  This disengaged his
mind from their creed;  and he went on growing into  truth, — the
people of his congregation for the most  part  adhering to  him.
After Mr. Arbuckle left them, some  natural  affinity led them in
their search to find  their present man, Mr. Austin Craig.  He is
now about twenty-eight years of age, and a most extraordinary
young man.  He was led to invite me here by seeing my " Thoughts
for a Young Man."   He devotes himself very much to the young.
He is very  earnest and sincere; has a fine cerebral development,
though small in the lungs.  His introductory remarks this morning,
and  also his  sermon, were exceedingly beautiful in spirit and in
manner, all based on  phrenology, and full of most delightful reli-
gious spirit.   His people are sensible enough to have but one ser-
vice a day: so we  have spent  the afternoon together, in company,
too, with a college-educated farmer; and I find them full of a love
of truth, entirely emancipated  from old  theological  dogmas, and
sympathizing  hereby  with  all  progress.   Aside  from Howe and
Downer, I hardly know another such a lover of the true,  and yet so
young   He wrote to me  a  long  time ago for liberty to publish an 
360
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
   edition of my " Thoughts for a Young Man," for gratuitous distri-
   bution.
     I was put into a chamber last night with no sign of a fireplace ;
»   air like the inside of a cavern made in a snow-drift; and, as if that
   were not enough, the three doors of the room — one of which leads
   into the entry — were cut off at the  top, so as to leave an opening
   five or six inches all round the house.   Then I  had a feather-bed
   and a comforter, and it was a dismal  prospect; but I  put a shawl
   round my  head, leaving only a  spiracle,  or breathing-place, and
   really had a very good  night's sleep, and  came out this morning
   free from a cold.  All this makes me want to get home  again.  It
   is some compensation, however, to find such  a  man and  such a
   people.  It shows what the people would be if Orthodoxy would let
   them alone.   I wish I were clairvoyant enough to see how you all
   are, but must submit to the conditions of my nature.  Perhaps the
   time wiU come when this will cease to be one of its  conditions.

                                         Washington, March 27,1852.
   C. Pierce, Esq.
     Dear Sir, — ... I found  I was doing no good here, and that it
   seemed impossible for me to effect any; and therefore I took a short
   excursion into the State of New York, in hopes to redeem a little of
   my time from worthlessness by preaching the gospel of temperance
   and education.  I  spoke on these themes to willing or unwilling ears
   for about twenty-five successive nights, and returned  in better health.
     I find people in the western part of the State of New York more
   ahve to the importance of thorough female  education than we are in
   Massachusetts.  They are seeking to reach the true point, however,
   not by public and free institutions for all, but by  private institutions
   for those who can  afford it.  I spoke on this point to  some social
   parties, not in the way of a lecture, but of a private conversation,
   with hberty of  catechism.  At Rochester,  a meeting was held for
   the establishment of a female college whose curriculum of studies
   should be equal to that of other colleges; and  some very sensible
   and energetic women are engaged in the  enterprise.   At  Lima,
   about twenty miles from Rochester,  they have a college for both
   sexes; and I was invited and present at two or three social  parties 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               361
where the young lady-students composed a part of the  company.
They have here a preparatory school of some six hundred or  seven
hundred pupils, whom I addressed.  At M'Grawville, a little farther
in the interior, is another college, whose doors are open not only for
both sexes, but avowedly for all colors.   Another college, already
largely endowed,* is about to be opened at Yellow Springs,  Ohio.
Sixty thousand dollars are to be expended the ensuing summer for
buildings.   This is  established with especial reference to the educa-
tion  of females.   (Confidentially, what should you  think of your
humble servant's complying with  a request to preside over this ?)
I think the young ladies of the West are stronger, larger,  and better
developed in every way, than those in Boston and its vicinity.   A
few miles out of Rochester, I attended an examination of a boarding-
school, kept by Mrs. Brewster, formerly Miss Bloss, the  historian;
and I think I never  saw twenty young  ladies together to be com-
pared to  that number in her first class.  There was not an ordinary-
looking person among them;  and twenty such foreheads I  never
beheld before " all  in a row."  I saw a great many intelligent  and
earnest people.   Doubtless the character of my mission  selected
this class from among the  masses as a magnet will  pick out steel
filings  from  sand, and brought them around me ; but their existence
and their affinities were the main  thing to rejoice at.   I  advocated
the Maine Law with the zeal of one crying in the wilderness.
   I felt very deeply indebted to you for the pains  you took  to set
me right in  the matter of the Normal schoolhouse and premises.   I
was so much disturbed by the apparent course of-----, that I wrote
him  a letter of inquiry, putting the thing in a not  unfriendly  and
uncomplaining manner, and making no reference to any sources of
information.   He replied at some length, solemnly declaring  that
he had never  given any impression that  the property belonged to
the school,  the  Board, or  the  State; but,  on the other  hand,  had
showed Mr. Quincy's letter to all the  people of  West Newton  and
elsewhere who had any interest in knowing the facts.   What think
you  of this ?  If his letter were by me, I would  send it to you,  that
you  might know how broad his denials are.  It is enough  to say
they are  as  broad as language can make them.
  * Mr. Mann proved to be mistaken about the endowment of this college. —Ed. 
362               LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
   As to politics, I do not know as there is any thing here that you
do  not  know as well as we  do.   Congress does  little else but
intrigue for the respective candidates.   The  partisans are now so
zealously at work for their respective favorites, that they have little
time for assailing their opponents.   As soon, however, as the nomi-
nations are made, the battle will be set  in  array, and  the batteries
will be  played with  Napoleon-like  energy.  I  did  not go to the
North at all  on a political mission; but still, where  there was so
much said, I could not but hear some of it.   The hostility to  Mr.
Fillmore, throughout the northern and western parts of New York,
is very intense.  It is not merely an opposition of principle for his
abandonment of all the great doctrines of freedom, but it is personal.
The objections to  Mr. Webster, so far as principle  is  concerned,
are very much  the  same  as  those urged against  Mr. Fillmore.
As to the  candidates of the  other  party, all you can  say is,  that
one is as bad as possible, and the other  a  good deal worse.   Any
idea of getting a man who is as he should be is out. of the question.
I fear the  only resource  left us will be to get rid of the worst.   But
here you will say I touch on the expediency doctrine, which I shall
not now attempt to discuss. . .  .
   M. sends very much love to you both.  If R. were here, I know
she would do the same ;  for she has it in her heart.   So has
                                                      H. MANN.

                                       Washington, April 24, 1852.
Dr. Jarvis.
   Dear Sir, — I have just received your favor of the 19th instant,
and the accompanying volumes ; for which I am greatly obliged to
you.  If,  as  Adam Smith said, a man who makes  two blades of
grass grow where but one grew before be  a " public benefactor,"
of what honor is he worthy who diffuses ideas regarding health and
life among the  people ?   The  doctrines of human physiology have
come in just in  season to save the race from destruction.  Had their
advent been delayed much longer, it is doubtful whether men would
have been  able to discover them at all.  They might have gone,
like our Western Indians, beyond the gravitating point.  You have
done your part to save them. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
363
  Political  parties here  seem  crystallizing  about Fillmore  and
Scott.   Our debates lately are mostly on the Presidential question ;
but I don't think Mr. Webster's name has been mentioned for three
weeks in reference to the matter.
  What are you doing at home ?   From what I hear,  the coalition
is not making headway.  If they are not, then I  suppose Hunker
Whiggery is.   When  Mr. Webster is dead, will  Hunkerism die ?
I hope so.
  You must see Kossuth.   He has the best sort of greatness;  that
is, goodness. .  . .
                        Yours very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                      Washington, May 8, 1852.
  My dear Mr.  Combe, — We are on the verge  of a Presidential
election.  Our political caldron is beginning to seethe vehemently.
Macbeth's witches had nothing in  theirs  so  baneful  as  that which
gives character to ours.  The pohtical leaders desired to make it
palatable to the South; and hence  they have saturated its contents
with  proslavery.    Even under the application of the  three-fifths
basis of the Constitution  in  regard to the  slave-representation in
Congress, we can give nearly two-thirds of  the Presidential votes.
Could we only unite for freedom as the  South do for slavery, all
would be well; but the lower and hinder half of the brain rules,
and we do not.  The  acquisition of our new territory from Mexico,
by  robbery  under the form of a treaty, gave  opportunity for compe-
tition between our leaders  for Southern support. .  . -  Mr. Fillmore,
the present  President, goes for what is called the  " finality " of the
compromises,  and makes himself acceptable to the South by issuing
proclamations, and giving  instructions to  marshals and prosecuting
attorneys to enforce the Fugitive-slave Law.   Mr. Webster tries to
get some new popularity in the same quarter .by lauding the same
accursed law, and by maintaining that it is not only constitutional,
but " proper " in itself.   The only Whig candidate who is not fully
committed  on all these proslavery measures  is  Gen. Scott;  and
towards him, therefore, the antislavery part of the Whigs are looking
is  their only hope.   Portions, indeed, of the antislavery men, — 
364
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
the abolitionists and no-government men, who vote nowhere;  the
Liberty-party men, who will vote for no one who does not represent
their views in full;  and the extreme men, perhaps, of the  Free-soil
party, — are  as violent against Gen. Scott as against Gen.  Cass.
This repellency of bigots  and partisans seems to  act on the law of
the "inverse ratio of the squares of the distances;" for  they are
much more violent against those who almost  agree with  them than
against those  who are at the opposite moral pole.  How the contest
will  eventuate, it is impossible to  foresee.    Should the Whigs
indorse the " compromise measures " of 1850, or should they nomi-
nate Mr. Fillmore or Mr. Webster, or should Gen. Cass, if  nomi-
nated,  come  out in favor  of the  " compromise measures,"  the
Democrats will  certainly prevail.   There seems to be but one chance
for the Whigs to  succeed; namely, the contingency of their  nomi-
nating Gen. Scott, and then of his  non-indorsement of the " com-
promises."  Of course, the greater portion of the antislavery people
are hoping for this result.
   Another great moral question is profoundly agitating the people
of the Northern and Eastern States: it is the question  of temper-
ance.  Between one and  two years ago,  such  a concentration and
pressure of influence was brought to bear upon the Legislature of the
State of  Maine, that though it is said that  body was principally
composed of  anti-temperance  men, yet it passed  what  has  now
become famous, and will forever be famous in the moral history of
mankind, — the Maine Llquor Law.   Its grand features are  the
search for and the seizure of all intoxicating liquors, and their  de-
struction  when adjudicated to have been kept for sale.  It goes upon
the ground that the  Government cannot knock a human  passion or
a depraved and diseased appotite upon the head, but it can knock a
barrel of  whiskey or rum upon the head, and thus prevent the grati-
fication of the passion or appetite ;  and after a time the unfed appe-
tite or passion will die out.   The author of this law was Neal Dow,
the piayor of the city of Portland.   He enforced  it, and it  has
worked wonders.  The alms-house ceased to  be replenished with
inmates;  assaults and  batteries became rare;  the  jail-doors  stood
open; and the  police officers held almost sinecures.  The success
was so great,  that the temperance party in other States have  made 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
365
it an element in popular elections; and  though in most  instances
they have been defeated at the  first trial, yet  they are resolved to
return again to the contest.  The Legislature of the Territory of
Minnesota passed the law, but provided that it should be submitted
to the people for ratification; and it has been  ratified by a popular
vote!  And,  what  is still more important, the  Legislature  of
Massachusetts, now in session, has this very week, after one of the
most earnest and protracted contests  ever waged,  passed  a similar
law.  It is to be submitted to the people next month.  If a majority
vote for  it, it is forthwith to  become  the law of the State.  If a
majority  vote against it, then it is to be suspended in  its  operation,
and we  will agitate anew.   But this, perhaps  you will say, is an
heroic remedy for the evils of intemperance.   I  acknowledge  it.
But, when a disease becomes so desperate, I go for heroic remedies.
I would  resort to surgical practice, and lose  a limb to save  a life, or
deplete  the  whole body to reduce  a  topical  inflammation  that
threatens to be fatal.   When I saw you,  I believe I used occasion-
ally to take a very little wine;  and  I  sometimes, though rarely,
drank tea.   I believe I had left off coffee  long before.   But, for
many years  past, I have abjured wine, coffee, tea, and every thing
of a  stimulating nature.  I  confine  my beverage  to  the " pure
element," and am a great deal better in health for the practice.
  My whole family has been  in  Washington  since the commence-
ment of the  session. . . . How I wish you could  come here and see
them ! for  then one  of  the greatest  desires  of my  life would  be
answered;  that is, I should see you.
  How goes on the work of educating in your island ?   I had a
printed account of an examination in your school;  but how is it for
the million ? . . .
                    Your friend  and disciple,     HORACE MANN.

                                        Washington, May 13,1852.
Rev. E.  Fay.
  My dear Sir, — No event in my life has ever caused  me more
deep and solemn anxiety than the application to  become a candidate
for  the presidency of your proposed  college at  Yellow  Springs,
Ohio.  At first, the impression made upon  my mind by your pro- 
3G6
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
posal was not deep ;  and nothing but the habit which I have always
had, never to decide important  questions  until after  the fullest
deliberation, prevented me from declining it at once.  But  I  must
now confess, that, from  the  day when I first  had the pleasure of
meeting you at Lima, the importance  and attractiveness of the work
proposed have not ceased to gain strength in my mind.
  The two great ideas which win me toward your plan are, —
  First,  That of redressing the long-inflicted wrongs of  woman by
giving her equal advantages of education — I  do  not  say in all
respects an identical  education,  but equal advantages of education
— with men;  and, second, The idea of maintaining a non-sectarian
college.
  I have always had the  deepest  aversion to sectarianism, and to
all systems of proselytism among Christian sects.   I would enlighten
the human mind with  all  true  knowledge  and with  science;  I
would repress the growth of all evil propensities and desires;  and,
in doing  this work, I would take the gospel of Jesus Christ as my
text-book, and the life  of Jesus Christ as  my  example.   In  this
way, I would endeavor to train up children in the way they should
go-
  As far as possible, I would prepare every human  being  for  that
most important of all duties, the determining of  his religious belief
for  himself.   It seems to me  that a generation so trained would
have an  infinitely better  chance  of getting at the truth than the
present generation has had.  I always look upon my own conclusions
on  questions of faith with a measure of distrust, lest I may have
landed in possible error on  one side, from the vigor of the spring
which  I  gave to escape  from  what  seemed  certain error  on the
other.                             .
  These, sir, are my general views, with which you have a right to
be  acquainted before  making  your  relations with me any  more
special or intimate.
  Again:  so strong, in order  to  that high degree of  success at
which I should aim,  would be the  necessity, not only of public and
official co-operation,  but of private and personal cordiality also, on
the  part  of the faculty with whom I should  bo associated, that I
should ask  the privilege of nominating two of its members, subject, 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
367
of course, to any reasonable objection  of any kind which could be
alleged against them.  One of these would be a young gentleman,
the other a young lady.   You see, by this, that I should propose
to introduce females into the  corps of instructors.  I do this, not
only because I think they would  make  as good  teachers as men,
but because, when young ladies are assembled together for instruc-
tion, I think they need  maternal  as well  as  paternal counsel and
guidance.  As they do not leave their sex behind them, they should
find mothers as well as fathers at the institutions where they  reside.
The claims of sex and sentiment are not to be thrust aside for those
of intellect.
  And one thing more.   Recognizing the possibility of contingen-
cies that  cannot be foreseen, I think  it  would  be best, should an
appointment be tendered me, to accept of  it at  first as only a pro
tempore one;  that is, to organize  the institution, to  stamp  certain
great features upon it, and to  give it its  direction and momentum.
In this the greatness of the work would  consist.  When  plans are
settled, when instrumentalities are arranged  and put in  operation,
the acquired  impetus supplies, to  a great extent,  the  place of
original vigor; the obstacles are overcome, and the direction becomes
a habit instead of a foresight.   It  is the " marshalling of affairs,"
as Lord  Bacon expresses it, that demands  the  faculty of seeing
results in initiatory processes, or  effects in causes.  In  all this  I
should deem  it no  indignity to  be held inferior,  so far as natural
capacity  is concerned, to numerous or  numberless others; and the
only advantage which could be claimed for me would be my  life of
experience on various and important theatres  of action.   It is the
beautiful  attributes  of your enterprise that attract me  toward it.
Should I see these attributes organized, embodied, and in living
operation, I might well  claim the right to retire from  its  further
administration.
  The time at which we might look  for such an event  would be
uncertain; probably not less  than two or three, nor more than five
or six years.   The  graduation  of the first class from the institu-
tion at the end of four years would seem  a  natural period  ; but this
might be shortened or prolonged by intervening  circumstances. 
368
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
  The future would still be left open  to  any such arrangement as
its own circumstances should counsel.
  In  the  light of a mere worldly or pecuniary transaction, and as
between parties, one of  whom  asks for wages, and the other prom-
ises to pay them, your  proposition  in  regard to  a salary is by no
means satisfactory.  Were that the  only or the chief consideration,
I should  only send you the briefest words of declining; but  it is
very far  from being so: and  I assure you that your  proposition
looks  now to  my  mind far  more inviting than  it did when  you
broached  the  subject, and spoke  to me  of  a probable salary of
$3,000.   The moral side of the question  has gone up more  than
the pecuniary has fallen down.
  I do not make  any serious account  of  this difference.   A  little
yielding on both sides, either directly or indirectly, might probably
bring us upon common and acceptable  ground.
  I have now touched upon the leading  topics which occur to my
mind  as  proper to be understood in this  preliminary state of pro-
ceedings.  The above seem to  me the only conditions on  which I
could  comply with the  request you  have so flatteringly  urged.
Whether acceptable or  not, your institution  will always have my
best wishes; and you have the present tender of any unofficial ser-
vices which at any time  I may be able  to render you.
              Very truly and sincerely yours, &c,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                     West Newton, May  31,  1852.
Rev.  E.  Fay.
  My dear   Sir, — I  had no  sooner arrived  at West  Newton
than I was unexpectedly summoned back  to Washington to attend
to indispensable business.   I  have just  reached home again, and
found your letter of the  26th inst.
  I regret that I had not understood  some features  of  your  plan
before, as it might have terminated negotiations  at once.   Please
inform me if I am to understand that each " scholarship owner " is
entitled to a vote in choosing  the Faculty, and  also  in  dismissing
them.  If so, I fear you will find it impracticable to obtain a comple-
ment  of suitable  officers.   Supposing  you have twelve or eighteen 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               369
 hundred entitled to vote.  On any sudden clamor against any officer,
 however unfounded, a sufficient number of these  might be assem
 bled to eject him.  Dissatisfied students might disaffect theh patrons.
 Enmities are more  active than friendships.   Most people  will go
 farther to gratify a grudge than to reward merit.   The malcontents,
 therefore,  might  easily be  assembled,  while  the contents  would
 remain at home, and thus a man's fate be determined, and his rep-
 utation sacrificed, without any  of the guaranties  of innocence.  I
 make  these remarks without any suggestion or suspicion that your
 contributors are not as fair  and honorable as  any body of men so
 constituted can be.  Doubtless they are even pre-eminently fair and
 honorable.  I do it also with the hope, not to say confidence, that 1
 myself, and those appointed to act with me, could get along as well
 as the average of  men  under such circumstances.   My point refers
 to the very nature of such  a  relation.   I think I could refer to
 several crises in  all our  New-England colleges, when  all the offi-
 cers, or at least a  majority of them,  would have been  swept  away
 under such an organization.   If not right in this understanding of
 your plan, please  inform me ; and,  if you can obviate  the  force
 of the  above suggestions, I shall be happy to hear your arguments.
   Your remarks in  relation  to the  appointment of those personal
 friends of  mine  have much  force in the abstract; but they apply
 only partially.   The young gentleman and lady to whom I referred
 are a nephew and  niece of mine, whose education and the formation
 of whose character  I  have  watched over, and in a good  degree
 directed, from their childhood.  He has now been ena-aged in teach-
 ing for fifteen or  eighteen  years with  unvaried  success, and the
 lady for ten or twelve.   She  is now a teacher in one of our Normal
 schools.  Both are of the very highest grade of character; have large
 attainments, and the habits of industry which are a promise of con-
 tinued acquisition.  He is  a Baptist; she is  a Unitarian.   The
 religious  life of both would be acceptable to all good men.
  I do not think of any " Orthodox "  man  at the West for the
 station you mention ; but  I know one here who would, as I believe,
 be admirably  qualified  for the  department of mathematics, espe-
cially applied mathematics.   He was for many years a teacher in
an academy, and has  since been a practical engineer and machinist;
                24 
370
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
and, in the value of the instruction he would impart, has probably
no superior in the country.
   May I have the pleasure of hearing from you soon ?
                        Very truly yours, &c,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                       Washington, June 24,1852.
E. W. Clap, Esq.
   My dear Sir, — I left home on Saturday, stopped over Sunday
in New York, and came on on Monday.  At Philadelphia I heard
the news of the nomination; and, when I arrived at Baltimore, the
first men I saw were some of our Massachusetts Hunker delegates.
Sadder-looking men away from a funeral I never saw.   The Fill-
more  and Webster men composed a majority of the convention,  and
therefore had every thing  their  own way in the  organization  ; in
the Committee on Credentials, by which they let in all their friends,
and shut out  all their enemies, without reference to  the  fairness oi
unfairness of their  election — just as the Democrats did Rantoul;
and also in the Committee on Resolutions.
   But, when they came to the nomination, the antislavery and anti-
compromise portion  of the  convention  prevailed;  and, if they did
not win  a full  triumph, their enemies suffered a terrible defeat.
They withstood  not only the Southern  slavery phalanx, but  all
the influence of the Government, and all the mammon Hunkerism
of State Street, Wall Street, and Walnut Street. . . .
                                                         H. M.

                                    Washington, June 24, 1852.
   . .  . When the Whig Convention nominated Scott, they killed off
those  who had been  most clamorous for slavery,  and  therefore did a
great  work.   Though not a triumph of antislavery sentiment, there-
fore, it was a defeat of Hunkerism  at the North, and  of slavery
domination at the South.   It was the first antislavery stand in a
National Convention that has ever  been  successful.  So far it  is
matter for thanksgiving and hallelujah.  But  it adopted the pro-
slavery platform.  This  was effected by the union  of the slavery
men of the South, and the Hunkers or Fillmore and Webster men 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
371
of the North.  These together made a large majority ;  one hundred
and forty-nine being a majority.   All these men worked together
in the organization for the  Committee on Credentials and for the
Platform Committee, and were, of  course, successful.   But, when
they came to candidates, they split.  Nothing could carry enough of
the Webster men over to Fillmore, or enough of the Fillmore men
over to Webster,  to make a majority.   A portion of each knew of
the other,—what all sensible and unbiassed  men knew, — that
the nomination of the other would be death to the party ;  and they
would not defeat  the party, even for  the nomination  of a favorite.
Thus it was done, and thus it was not done.
   There is  such  an infinite difference between Scott and Pierce,
that all true antislavery men must desire the success of the former.
About ten or  a dozen Whigs from  the South, and  about the same
number of Fillmore men, went over for Scott.  This is all that could
be meant by the  South's supporting  Scott or abandoning the com-
promises.  They  have got them in form, but not much more. The
reason why they  say Scott adopts the Southern platform is,  that he
accepts the nomination  of  the party that adopts the platform; and,
indeed, his telegraphic  despatch  to the convention was, that he ac-
 cepted the nomination with the platform.  But as many interpreta-
tions can be  given to  the platform  as to the Thirty-nine Articles.
 And, besides, the Whig Platform, though disgraceful  to human na-
 ture, is not so black by many hues as the Democratic.
  • I read this  morning the  greater part  of Kossuth's  speech at the
 Tabernacle, New York.   Is it not his greatest  speech ?
   We are  now  taking the question, by yeas and nays, on the pas-
 sage of a bill to  give a certain quantity of the public lands to the
 old States for educational purposes;  and it looks as if it would go
 through the House.  I hope so with  all my organ of  hope.

                                      Washington, June 29,1852.
   Mr. Clay is dead : he expired  between eleven and twelve o'clock
 this morning.  . .  .  Probably no public man ever had more* ardent or
 more numerous friends.  He was a man of great nobleness of heart.
 He has impressed  his mind  upon the  policy of the country;  an
 impress, however, which is becoming fainter every year.   On the 
372
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
slavery question, he has always been  far in advance of the people
among whom he lived.  Had he  belonged to the  North,  he would
have become an antislavery man, and not a treacherous or perfidious
one like  Mr. Webster.   He has  lived to see Webster die a moral
death, and Webster sees him die a natural one.  I have no doubt,
such has  been the secret hostility between them, that each is rejoiced
at the fortune of the  other.   Rivals for public favor  for so many
years, their competition is now at an end.  Both have failed in the
supreme  object of their ambition.  Would that all politicians and
all men would learn a lesson from so instructive an example !


                                      Washington, July 1,  1852.
  My dear Mr. Combe, — ... My friend Henry Barnard, Esq.,
who for many years was Secretary of the Board of Education, either
in Connecticut  or in Rhode Island, is about to visit England and
Scotland, partly on account  of his health,  and partly  to  see  your
schools.   You  have  always been partial enough  to affix a higher
value to  my services on the  subject of education than I could hon-
estly claim or  fairly expect.  If you will put double all the credit
you have ever given to me, and pass  it to Mr.  Barnard's account,
you will  hardly do his extraordinary  services  more than justice.
His mind is full of wisdom, and his life has been full of devotion on
this subject.
  You will have learned, before receiving this, the event of our parly
Presidential nomination. What an awful moral has been derived from
the  fate  of those who have  been false to freedom  !  Every one of
those Northern  men, who, for the last half-dozen years, have devoted
themselves to slavery, have been set aside; and those men who
suffered and indirectly promoted  all the atrocities of the Mexican
war, though against  all their own professions, did,  by that  very
dereliction from duty, raise up  two warriors to come in and pluck
away the honors they had forfeited their integrity  to obtain.   Was
it not a just retribution ?
  There  is all the difference between the  candidates that there  is
between  a hero and his valet de  <mambre.  Scott, too,  is an anti-
slavery man.    Pierce  will be the merest tool of slavery.   The 
                  LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.              373

Democratic Convention was almost in toto a proslavery body, and
the ultra proslavery portion of it prevailed in the selection of Pierce.
In the Whig Convention, the antislavery element prevailed; so that,
though the contest is implicated with other  matters,  and its real
issues are  somewhat obscured, yet, if Scott is elected, it  will be a
great antislavery triumph.  It was the  first time that  the antisla-
very element ever  prevailed in any national convention.
  Mrs. Mann and the children have gone home.  I live here alone,
and, of course, forlorn.  I hear from them  every day, and they are
well.  With kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Combe,
                 I remain, as ever, yours truly,
                                             HORACE MANN.


   The long and tender friendship which existed  between
Mr. Mann and Mr.  Barnard, beginning in their common
duties in the educational field, finds  little record  in these
pages, for the want of letters which have been lost.  They
always took counsel together, and, though men of  differ-
ent theological views, were  equally liberal  and universal
in  their  administration  of schools ;  feeling  alike that it
was the vital and not the speculative part of religion that
should be taught in them.
                                               July 8,1852.
   ... I  see by  the telegraphic report, that at a  meeting of the
Native-American  party at  Trenton, N. J., this week,  Mr. Webster
was nominated  for the Presidency.   This makes his  position su-
premely ridiculous.  It is an insignificant party, founded on the
narrow basis of being born in America or out of it.  If Mr. Webster
does not notice it, there stands the nomination  to show his power.
If he declines it, everybody will laugh at him.

                                     Washington, Aug. 10, 1852.
Rev. Theq,. Parker.
   My dear Sir, — I hope you did not think the two queries which
1 put to  Mrs.  Mann  imposed any necessity on you to write an 
374               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
 answer; though  I am so glad to hear from you, that  I might bo
 tempted to use means a little irregular for that end.
   I sent the  question about Gen. Scott's  supposititious policy be-
 cause I think justice to be  the highest  policy.   I know you think
 so too.   It  being my belief that Scott is an anti-war man and an
 anti-annexation man,  I think it wrong,  or rather it would be very
 wrong in me, to  intimate the contrary.   Besides,  the tendency of
 all such statements is to put the two Presidential candidates, Scott
 and Pierce, upon the  same ground; whereas I think their principles,
 desires, and purposes are very diverse.  I  know there is little if any
 difference in the platforms ; but there may be all the difference there
 is between life and death in two pilots, though both profess to steer
 by the same chart.   One  may wreck  you, while the other may get
 you safely into port.
   A  strong effort is  made, by men who care more for  democracy
 than for antislavery, to make it out that freedom has  more to hope
 from  the success of Pierce than from  that .of  Scott; but  this I
 believe to be a great mistake, and I do not think  the argument
 ingenuous.
   As to the amount of the Free-soil vote, it must be remembered,
 that, in 1848, New York alone gave one hundred and twenty thou-
 sand votes for Van Buren.   Now, if she gives fifty thousand, I shall
 be agreeably disappointed.
   Our  loss  of Rantoul is very great.   I am also struck with.ex-
 ceeding sadness, because this is the second blow that our cause has
 received.  Taylor's death let in the whole pack of slavery  blood-
 hounds, and they have wantoned  in theh power ever since.   Will
 not Rantoul's death  unleash another pack ?  I fear  so.  Nothing
 but my faith  in  God saves me from despair;  for just  now I can
 hardly " walk by sight."                                 H# jj.

                                     Washington, July 15,1852.
   I walked an hour yesterday, including sunset-time, on the  south-
east terrace; 'and a greater variety and variegation of the " fields of
air" I never saw.  There was no wind;  so that the changes were
merely atmospheric and chemical.  But such rapidity of scene-shift-
ing I never before saw.   At every turn I took,  a new celestial tap- 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               375
estry was displayed.  There was no noise of ropes and pulleys.;  but
the change was complete.  The Gobelins could make nothing finer;
but oh! for extent and rapidity of production, what are the Gobelins
to the great Manufacturer ?  How I longed for you and the children !
   I see that Mr. Tallmadge of New York comes  into direct colli-
sion  with Mr. Webster's  "retainers" in Boston.   He»made a
public speech  in New-York City the evening of the day that Mr.
Webster passed through there.  In that speech, he said he had seen
Mr. Webster that day,  who told him there was nothing to be done
but to support the regular nominations.  This statement the " Bos-
ton Journal "  says it is " authorized directly and authoritatively to
deny."   This  brings out Mr. Tallmadge,  who re-affirms his state-
ment.   The truth is, Webster is so deeply wounded he cannot get
cured.  He would rather  defeat everybody than be thus set aside
himself.                     t
                                                    July 16.
   . .  . Miss Beecher prays, if I want any more comfort in this life,
that  I will not try to  build  up a  college  at the West,  and says
Mr. Stowe held up his hands in deprecation at the  thought.  So
you see what  persons who  know about  things think our prospect
would be.
   I should like to see Father Pierce anywhere, even in a picture;
but still think  that he and I,  and  such looking people,  ought to
let those  who don't know us inquire how we look, rather  than
show our faces.
   I see that some one, in a Maine paper, says he wanted to nomi-
nate Ralph Waldo  Emerson  for President, and  Nathaniel Haw-
thorne for Vice-President;  but, seeing they have such good men as
Scott  and Graham up, he concludes not to do any thing more about
it.  Wit ought not to  run its head against a stump of any kind.
That  man  forgot that  both President and Vice-President cannot
come from the  same State.
   I do  feel homesick  here.  When I was here in the summer of
'48, I had so  much to do, that I had no time to think how I felt:
I was still Secretary then.   The next summer I spent here (1850)
was the  year of the slavery controversy; and I was too much alive
to the immense interests at stake to have any consciousness of my 
376               LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.

own personal  pleasures or sufferings.  But this  summer there is
nothing to engross  me, and my thoughts fly home, morning, noon.
and  night.  I  see  nobody, and live a lonely life, and, I fear, an
unprofitable one.   I am thinking all the  time that  it is the last
summer I shall ever spend in Washington.
        0                                            July 27.
   ... I should like  to see Rev. Theodore Parker  move  a table
without touching it, directly or indirectly.   Suppose what we call
electricity is the motive power of the universe, embracing magnet-
ism, caloric, gravitation, &c. ;  suppose the vital principle in us—
at least the principle  of mere physical  life — is electricity too:
may not an organized possessor of  this principle be able to exert a
force stronger  than that which operates upon  unorganized  bodies,'
or one organized being be able to exert a controlling influence over
another organized being?  If  so, wtiy may not the  battery in a
man's brain overcome the natural  gravitation of a table ?  I have
seen a magnet, that could lift  but  a few pounds when acting alone,
lift seventeen hundred-weight  when  a current of magnetism  was
poured through it.   Now, if the brain could evolve  this amount,
why should not that lift according to its size, structure, &c. ?  This
is all I have to say on  the subject.
   Kossuth designed to leave, as I suppose, in a way to secure pri-
vacy.  As for his going incog, for auy bad purpose, I  do not believe
a word of it; nor have I heard a lisp,  to prove it, of any credible
testimony.   A report was sent abroad that he had gone without pay-
ing his debts.   There  could  not have been a word of truth in it:
a regular Hunker lie.
   I agree with you that history is  bad reading for children.   What,
then, must be thought of  a great part of the Old Testament, which
records as terrible crimes  as any to be found on record ?   It is too
terrible a world to  make  children acquainted  with.   It is said we
must look  back to get  wisdom to direct us when going forward.   1
hope we  shall soon get wisdom elsewhere, or be so  far advanced
as to need no past warning.  Biography of the right sort of lives
is the better reading for children.   And science, and the elements
of science, — what can be better  than that, where we do see God
in his works ?   Here the  mind will find its true discipline. 
•
                   LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               377

  1 send you a " Liberator," which has a communication from the
reformed John Wesley, on the last page;  also a speech of Mr. T.
Parker's, on the  inside.  What can Mr.  Parker mean by saying,
that, if Gen. Scott is elected, we shall probably have an annexation
of a "large slice " of Mexico during the  next four years?   Will
the good gained  by making a man out worse than he is repay the
evil ?  Mr.  Parker  has  been so  much  wronged himself, that he
should be careful about wronging others.
  In 1837, in a  speech  dehvered  in New York by Mr. Webster,
he said, —
   " On  the general question of slavery, a great portion of the
community is already strongly excited.   The subject has not only
attracted attention as a question of pohtics, but  it has  struck a far
deeper-toned chord.   It  has arrested the  religious feelings of the
country; it has taken strong hold ,on the consciences of men.   He
is a rash man indeed,  little conversant with human  nature, and
especially has he  a very erroneous estimate of the character of the
people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of  this kind is
to be trifled with  or despised.   It will assuredly cause itself  to be
respected.   It may be reasoned with ; it may be made  willing — I
beheve  it is entirely willing — to fulfil all existing engagements
and all existing ties; to uphold and  defend the  Constitution  as it
is estabhshed, with  whatever regrets about some provisions which
it does  actually contain : but to coerce it into silence,  to endeavor
to restrain its free expression, to seek  to compress and confine it,
warm as it  is, and more heated as such  endeavors would inevitably
render it, — should all this be attempted, I know nothing,  even
in the Constitution or in  the  Union itself, which would  not be
endangered by the explosion which might follow."
   What an apostasy has his been !

                                     Washington, July 27,  1852.
   My  dear Downer, — What is said  about the Pittsburg  Con-
vention ?  From what I see and hear, I apprehend the  current of
feeling in  Massachusetts  sets in favor  of nominating Hale, rather
than Chase.   For any genuine  Free-soiler this would be the worst
policy.   That nomination should be such as to cut into the Demo- 
378               LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.

cratic party.   Notwithstanding all that some of the Free-soil papers
say about the equal proslaveryism of Scott  and  Pierce, it  is not at
all improbable there is the  whole difference between the annexa-
tion and  the Mn-annexation  of Cuba, between the division and the
non-division of Cahfornia, in these candidates.  How, then, can any
real lover of liberty fail to give the scales such a turn as shall check
slavery, and hold it at bay ?  Are not our Free-soil friends, in their
zeal to help the fortunes  of the  coalition,  misled  on  this point ?
You,  who  have  great influence  with  them, ought to make that
influence felt.  I wish you were to be at Pittsburg.  The  nomina-
tion  there  made  may bar  slavery, or  help it  on.   To-morrow,
Sumner means to  speak.   He needs combativeness, which he has
not got.   Don't  you  think I could spare him  a little of mine,
wkh advantage to us both ?  He  will make a great speech, be  as-
sured of  that.   He has all  the material of all  who have  hitherto
argued the question; and, besides,  the greatest speech can always
be made  on the right side.
  I am  awfully homesick.   The  summer is dull: nothing is upon
the tapis in which  I take any special interest, and my heart is with
my family.
     With affectionate regards  to you and yours,
                          I am,  as ever, your friend,
                                                HORACE MANN.


  Aug. 8.   I have sad news for you to-day ; which, however, you
will have heard before this reaches you.
  Mr. Rantoul is dead.
  I have been spending the morning about him, and the  arrange-
ments  to be made  on his account.  It will devolve on me to an-
nounce his death  in the House  to-morrow  : so I can write you no
more to-day.
  Aug. 9.   The melancholy duty is done. .  .  . Poor Mrs. Rantoul!
Of course it is a  case where there is no language of external signs.
The heart  alone knows it.  She arrived in the morning:  he died
that night.   Every thing was  done  that could be  done.   Funeral
services were  performed at  his lodgings.  At  four o'clock,  Mrs. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               379
Rantoul, accompanied by several friends,  took the cars  for home.
What a sad meeting !
                                     Washington, Aug.  12,1852.
  I never had the slightest doubt that the " old Hunkers " of Mas-
sachusetts would  rejoice over Rantoul's death.   The Hunkers re-
joice  in his  removal, just  as the proslavery men rejoiced in Gen.
Taylor's death, some of whom said they believed it to be an express
interposition of Providence to defeat his work !
  Drayton and Sayres are pardoned through Sumner's  influence,
and off in free territory.   This was done last evening.   The mar-
shal of the district, who has the control of the jail, received the order
for their enlargement last evening.   He called on Sumner to go tfl
the jail with him, but learned from the  jailer  that Mr. Stuart,  the
Secretary of the Interior, a Virginia man, had sent to him to delay
their enlargement till this morning.   Sumner  saw at once what his
object was, — that is, to get a requisition from  the Governor  of Vir-
ginia to take them into Virginia for trial;  for some of the slaves whom
they took in their schooner were  from Virginia.  He therefore in-
sisted  on  the  marshal's executing  the  order  of the President  for
their  release immediately; and, as the  marshal had no responsible
excuse for not complying, they went to  the  jail, and the men were
enlarged.   Sumner took them up  into the street, and  then made
arrangements at once for taking them to Baltimore last night, which
was done ; and this morning they started from Baltimore for a free
State, and are safe.  He was afraid some sham process would be got
up to hold them here until notice  could be  given to the Governor
of Virginia.   They are safe.  Sumner has done well in this : but it
could not have been done  until now; that is, until the nominations
had been made.
                                                     Aug. 15.
  I have not gone the journey yet, and do not know that I shall.
If a little bit of a speech which I am thinking of, but not talking
about, were off my hands, I might;  but  I do not know when it will
be, if at all.  . . .
  I had encouragement for the floor when I wrote to you: but  the
House passed a  resolution  stopping debate;  so the promise was 
380
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
worth  nothing.   The  next time we  go into " Committee of the
Whole," &c, we, of course, shall have a new chairman, and then
I shall be as far off as ever.

                                                      Aug. 17.

   Miss Dix's bill is now up.  We  are  calling the yeas and  nays
upon it.   It will pass, I think, without doubt; but I shall let you
know before  I seal this.
   Miss Dix finds new work all the time.  This District has about
forty lunatics, which it supports at the Institution of Maryland, near
Baltimore.   These are all to be turned  out in a few days; and she
is trying to get a bill passed for a hospital in this District.  . .  .
   The bill for a hospital has passed the  House !  .  . .
   I thought I was to have the floor just  now, and my heart went
pit-a-pat;  for I have never yet been able to speak anywhere without
trepidation.   But  the  chairman gave it to another man.  At ten
minutes to three, I shall try again.
   Miss Dix's bill passed by yeas 98, nays 54.  It  always took two-
thirds to get  it up : so a majority did not help us.
   Miss Dix  is alarmed  about her  land-bill in  the Senate;  but I
think it will go through there.  She wishes to get  through here, so
that  she can go to Nova Scotia; where they have made an appropri-
ation for a hospital. .  . .
   I had rather  a boisterous time for half an hour with  my speech.
It blew hard; but I weathered the storm.
   Don't be alarmed when you see what  Polk said about my not
holding myself responsible; that is, according to the laws of the
duello.  He  is a poor drunken fellow from Tennessee, for whom no
one has any respect,  though he is brother of the former President.
They tried to choke me down : but they might as well have tried to
roar  down old Boreas; for, when I  "gets up" a little,  I am quite
as hard to be subdued  as the more noisy ones.
   I hope  to  have  it all printed, and perhaps in your  hands, this
week.
   You will see what an attack  Polk made on Parson Fowler yester-
day,  — not violent and furious, but annoying.   He said to the par-
son o»seyly,  while speaking, " You  know we two  are Christians." 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.              381
Polk is drunk every day.  But it is now said that it will be honor-
ably arranged, and there will be no "coffee and pistols" between
them.
                                               Aug.  27, 1852.
  Sumner  spoke about four hours yesterday; and  it was a very
finished and able speech, sustaining in every point  his  high repu-
tation as a jurist and a scholar.   It was delivered in a very elegant
and finished'manner.  To speak in full, the 26th of  August, 1852.
redeemed the 7th of March, 1850.
  Webster came into the  Senate very early in the  speech.  He
took a seat not far from Sumner, and about eight feet from me; so
situated that I must look into his face, or turn my head.   I looked
at him fascinatingly.  I think he felt the magnetism  streaming out
of me.  In about two minutes, his  countenance fell: he  got up and
walked  round to the  other  side  of the  Senate  Chamber, staid a
while, and  went  off.   Sumner,  during all the time he was there,
was in the  least solid part of his  speech.   It was one  of his best
orations, well studied and well delivered, and will tell on the coun-
try, and be a speech for a book and for history.
  That  drunken Clemens of Alabama jumped up instanter,  and
said, —
  " Mr. President, it is  proper sometimes to take notice of the
ravino-s  of  a lunatic; but the yelpings of a puppy are not to be
regarded."
  Miss  Dix's bill has gone over to the next session.  She sent for
me  yesterday afternoon in despair.  But  she has got an appropria-
tion of a hundred thousand dollars for a hospital in this District;
and it is thought that her land-bill can be carried next session.   It
has passed the House, and, unless some amendments are made to it,
will not have to come back here again.

                                                     Aug. 28.

  ... I got off a speech yesterday; but it was too late to let you
know by yesterday's mail.   The Southern men tried to  stop me by
starting- points of order.  But it  was always without reason :  so  I
went  on, and gave them a pretty strong blast.   I  think it best to 
382
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
show them that they can't stop debate;  that, the more they try, the
more it won't stop.
  I wish I could be at home to behold the flowers and their behold-
ers ;  but it is of no use to talk about that at present.

                                      Washington, Aug. 28, 1852.
Rev. A. Craig.
  My  dear Sir, — I heard of a fact to-day which gave me tem-
porary pleasure and permanent pain.  It was that you had  been
applied to to become  a  member of the Faculty of Antioch  Col-
lege, and  had declined.   When the idea of your  being connected
with that institution flashed through my mind, it awakened every
thing of hope, and turned hope into certainty.  It was a revulsion
of feeling, that carried my blood with it, to hear you had declined.
  A man like you will do good anywhere;  but how can you do so
much good anywhere else on this earth as before children and with
children, and transfusing your spirit into young men and women ?
  Had it ever occurred  to  me that you were a candidate with the
committee, I  do not know  that I should not have made your ac-
ceptance a sine qua non.   I know of  no man in the world whose
daily co-operation  in such a  work I should so much delight in as in
yours.   I do  not  expect, even on  the contingency of my appoint-
ment, to remain connected with the institution for many years.  My
health and age denote this.   How delightful the idea of leaving it
in the hands of  such a man  as yourself! — able to work, willing to
work, and qualified to work in the best spirit, and, of course, with
the best results.
  I have not time to write  you at any length.   I send you  this
lament from the midst of the roar and din of our  Babel; and can
only add,  that I do most vehemently hope,  that, if a professorship
is tendered you, you will accept it.
  Can you not come and see us this autumn at West Newton ?
                     Yours most truly,
                                               HORACE MANN. 
CHAPTER  VI
    ON the 15th of September, 1852, Mr. Mann was nomi-
       nated for  Governor of  Massachusetts  by  a con-
vention of  the Free  Democracy  of the State assembled
at Lowell.  On the same day, he was chosen President of
Antioch College,  at Yellow Springs, Greene County, Obio.
He accepted the  latter  office.  I  give one  or two para-
grapbs from  speeches  of his  friends in  regard  to  the
former nomination.   In the State  Convention of the Free
Democracy in  1852,  the Hon. Anson  Burlingame said,
after  the nomination  of Mr. Mann for Governor, —

   " As to the candidate we have nominated, I shall say nothing but
that his fame is as wide as the universe.  It was my fortune to be,
some time since,  in Guildhall, London, when a debate was going on.
The question was, whether they should instruct their representatives
in favor of secular education.  They voted that they would not do
it.  But a gentleman then rose, and read some statistics from one of
the Reports of the Hon.  Horace Mann.   That extract reversed the
vote in the Common Council of London.  I never felt prouder of
my country.  I  call  upon the young men of the Commonwealth,
who have grown  up under the inspiration of his free schools, to sus-
tain their champion, and  to carry his name over the hills and through
the pleasant valleys of Massachusetts during the  present canvass,
with that enthusiasm which shall result in a glorious victory."

   Seth Webb, Esq., at the same convention, said,—
   " Two years ago, in spite of her old resistance to tyrants and her
Anglo-Saxon devotion to the indestructible rights of  all, Massa-
chusetts was forced, under*the lead  of her chosen and mighty but
                                        383 
384               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
   apostate champion, to draggle her imperial wings in the bloody tears
   of a slave.  From that day of horror, the statue of Liberty has been
   veiled among us; and the veil is not yet quite, though partially, with-
   drawn.   The deed of shame will not be  perfectly effaced until we
   place in the executive chair of Massachusetts a governor who is for
   liberty, and nothing but liberty,  from the crown of his  head  to the
.  sole of his foot;  who will guard  the personal security of the hum-
   blest and weakest individual on her soil with all the civil and mili-
   tary force in the Commonwealth;  and  who, if the feeblest infant
   were carried from her limits in violation of eternal  rights and the
   laws of the State, would bring it back, if need be, at  the head of
   an army, or resign his office for shame.  Such a man, we believe, is
   Horace Mann.    On the  5th  day of April, 1851, Thomas  Simms
   was carried away.   On the 25th of April, 1851, Charles Sumner
   was elected  senator of the United States.   That was  our first
   answer  to the act.   If we can follow it with the election of Horace
   Mann as Governor, I think we may rest somewhat content."

      And Hon.  Henry Wilson,   at  the  same  convention,
   said, —

      "Gentlemen,  you have selected,  as your standard-bearer  in the
   coming contest, one of the ablest men of Massachusetts and of the
   country.  For  six  years he has on the floor of Congress, with
   fidelity, maintained the principles of the  ' old man eloquent,' whose
   successor he is.   The Whigs in  convention  assembled, a few days
   after the death of Mr.  Adams, whose closing years were devoted to
   freedom and humanity, resolved  that they wished their representa-
   tive to follow in the track of Mr. Adams, and to be true  to liberty.
   Mr. Mann was the nominee of that  convention.   And  to-day thee
   is not a man, here or in Massachusetts, that does not know, that at
   all times, and on all occasions, he has been true to the vote  of the
   Whig party in the year that they put him  in  nomination, and true
   to the cause of freedom.  And though, gentlemen, after being thus
   true, he was sacrificed, or the attempt was made to sacrifice him, by
   the Webster retainers of the Eighth  Corfgressional District, yet the
   people,  the Free Democracy, hundreds of Democrats of that district, 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.               385
and, to their honor be  it said, many Whigs who could not bow to
slavery, took him and sustained him, and all together returned him
to Congress by an overwhelming expression of popular approbation.
Within a few days he has uttered, on the floor of Congress, one of
the most  brilliant speeches for liberty that  ever fell  from human
lips in our own or any other country.   Over the struggles of the
future it will exert an influence perhaps unequalled by any  effort
of our time."         *

                                      West Newton, Sept. 10,1852-
Rev.  S. J. May.
   My dear Sir, — You say so many kind things of my speech, that
I am  nonplussed.   It really seems to me  a very moderate  affair,
and was so far below what I wanted to say, that I had actually come
to the conclusion not to  speak.   But  some of my friends said I
must  speak, even if I  did not print:  so you have  it.   Valeat
quantum, &c.
   Does it not seem as if the Lord was not on our side ?  Think of
losing Rantoul,  who held many a bad  man  under  his hand, who
will now run riot; and Mr.  Fowler, who was a real Free-soil Whig,
and stood very much as I stood in 1848 ! . . .
                        Yours very truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                      West Newton, Oct. 20, 1852.
Rev.  Theodore Parker.
   My dear Sir, — I am afraid you will  be " sorry you  'listed,"
so many requests for service are appended thereto.
   The enclosed  correspondence explains itself, as  they say;  only
that my letter is  so misprinted, from the middle onwards, as to make
worse nonsense than I did.
   You will see that the New-Bedford people are in a rage.   I have
allowed the colored race superiority of the affections and sentiments,
— the upper end of man's nature ; but  they want the intellect too.
As for their " demon " of colonization, I did not hint at it; but so
Richertson tries to understand me.
   Now, they have requested the " Liberator" to publish the  corre-
spondence ;  and, if my friend P----could get hold of such a thing,
             25 
386               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
my experience teaches me that nothing would delight his pious soul
more than to make the worst of it.   The colored people  of Boston
are, at present, very well disposed towards me and our cause;  but
it would be in the power of the " Liberator " to turn all their  sac-
charine into  acetous by the infusion of one phial-full of  innuendo or
suspicion about Cahfornia.   Can you stop the chemical operation?
You can, if any man can; and therefore I take the liberty to trouble
you with the enclosed and this clumsy explanation, and remain, as
ever, yours most truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                       West Newton, Nov. 8,1852.
Rev. A. Craig.
  My  dear  Sir, — I owe you certainly as  much as one  apology a
day for all the time your late excellent and beautiful  letters have
lain before me unanswered.   But I have only to mention  the word
"business "or "engagements," and you  will understand all the
rest, and forgive me.
  Last week, the first Faculty meeting of Antioch College was held
at my house.   They were here  two whole days, and  parts of the
preceding and following.  We had a very full and free  discussion
on a great variety of points, and came most harmoniously to unani-
mous  conclusions.   We have sketched  a  provisional, not final,
course of preparatory and undergraduate studies, which I intend to
copy and send to you for your revision and suggestions.
  I found a most remarkable coincidence of opinion and sentiment
among the persons present, not only as  to  theory, but in practical
matters. . .  . We were  all teetotalers; all anti-tobacco men;  all
antislavery men ; a majority of us believers in phrenology;  all anti-
emulation men, — that  is, all against  any system of rewards  and
prizes designed to withdraw the  mind from a comparison of itself
with a standard of  excellence,  and to  substitute  a rival for that
standard.   We agreed  entirely  in regard  to religious and  chapel
exercises, &c.   The meeting was very satisfactory, and has raised
my hopes very much as to the ultimate success of the enterprise.  I
can never,  however, sufficiently regret  that  you are not  of our
number.  1 hope you will be ere long. 
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.              387
  I read to the persons present a part of your  letter of Oct. 14,
in which  you speak of a magazine  for the place.  We  all ex-
claimed that you were the person to carry out your own idea.  You
must leave your limited circle  at Blooming Grove, and speak to
them, and to  all good men from Yellow Springs.   What a wide
sphere for your improving influence !
   You speak  of lectures and of my lecturing.  We have no Ortho-
dox lecturers  of any great celebrity amongst us.  Emerson, Whip-
ple, Parker, T. S. King,  Sumner, Pierpont, &c, are all heretics of
a very malignant type when tried by the Orthodox standard.   The
truth is, the iron bars of Orthodoxy do not allow a man to expand
 into the  qualities indispensable for touching the common heart of
men.   Witness Beecher and Bushnell, who reach the  public soul
 only because they have broken from their cage.  . . .
                       Yours most truly,
                                             HORACE MANN.
  The meeting  in question proved to be no true test of
the opinions  of several members  present, one of whom
afterwards  ripened  into the most deadly enemy^of Mr.
Mann  and  of the college; and another of whom, not a
member of the Faculty proper, almost  shipwrecked the
institution  by mismanagement of its  financial  affairs.
Indeed, its final pecuniary ruin may be largely traced to
this cause.
                                   West Newton, Nov. 22, 1852.
Rev. A. Craig.
  My dear  Sir, —... I have a strong desire to see you,  and
will try t» be with you on the 8th  of December next.   My hesita-
tion has arisen  only from the fact of my having a cold; or, what is
worse, my extreme  sensibility to colds.  I  need  very  much to be
put into a better body.   My health was ruined before  I knew how
to take care of it.  My own house has a genial, summer tempera-
ture all winter; and, on a lecturing expedition last week, I was
obliged to sleep in a kind of barn-chamber, where I contracted a
terrible cold.  I have thawed it out of me to some extent, and hope 
388
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
to get over it wholly.  In  making  an engagement for  the  8th of
December, I must express, what is  always implied, sickness ex-
cepted.   It is but  right, however, to add, that, with all  my engage-
ments for the last twenty years, I have never failed in but one of
them ;  and then the doctors forbade my getting up from my bed to
meet it.
   Your  little tract is admirable.   How  it  would suit George
Combe !   When I go to you, you must give me some for distribu-
tion.
   My subject will be  " Great  Britain," unless you  can have all
your teachers present from the region round about;  in  which case,
if preferred, I would dehver a lecture to teachers.   The latter I
should personally prefer;  but I should want a sufficient number of
teachers, besides the ex-officio teachers, fathers and mothers, to feel
sure that I had some special sympathizers.
                   Yours as ever, very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                          Salem, Nov. 25,  1852. '
   ... By the papers which I see this morning, I think it is almost
certain  t^iat  the  coalition is defeated.   Rum and proslavery have
done it.   And, though I  hope  they will not yet triumph in Massa-
chusetts, the opposite  principles are not likely to be in the  ascend-
ant.  We must fall back again upon  our unfailing support, that
God is just;  and rely upon the future, since  we  have so little en-
couragement in the present.  It  is disastrous.   As for my personal
relations  to the result, they are not  worth a thought.   I was pre-
pared  for it, so far as I am  concerned, but  could  have rejoiced
heartily in the triumph of  our  cause, or rather causes.   This opens
to me the prospect of  a year of comparative leisure, which  I need.
I have a great deal of work to  do with my brain, and now see some
prospect that it may  be  done.  Personally it may be  all  for the
best, and for the Western enterprise  better yet.

                                       Cincinnati, Dec. 1, 1852.
   Here I am.  I  wish you could know it before this can reach you.
 . . . While in the boat on the  Ohio  (by the way, I think I shall 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
389
never venture to commit any offence, and then run away for impu-
nity), sitting quietly reading, a gentleman  came up, and  asked if
this was Mr. Mann.   Of course, I had to confess.   He said he
believed I knew a sister of his; and after a pause  added, " Grace
Greenwood."   It was her brother, who lives in Cincinnati.  Soon
he introduced me to his mother; and there  stood revealed the whole
mystery of Grace's genius.  She is a beautiful old lady; must  be
seventy or seventy-five (for married ladies, especially if they have
nine children, may be so old).   She says she was brought up after
the strictest  sect of the Orthodox, but she has wandered very far
from them now.  She went to visit her friends in Connecticut many
years ago.   Divisions had broken  the old society in pieces; and a
Unitarian had been settled, and was preaching in the meeting-house
where she sat when a child.  There was to be a meeting ;  and  she
tried  to persuade her relatives to accompany her, but they would
not countenance so  bad  a man.  She went, and was delighted.
She went on and described the minister, but could not remember
his name.  I said, "  Mr.  May ? " — " Oh, yes ! " she replied.
   She  talks excellent sense  in  good  language.   She is a good
woman to be born of.
                                      Washington, Dec.  5, 1852.

   Here I  am  in slave-land again.   It is the charmingest of days.
The eastern  sky, as  seen from  my window, is  all golden with the
mornino- light.   What a world, if it only had fit inhabitants !
       O  o                           *      •*            •ill*
   I hope you  will keep  the children out as much as possible this
winter.  I long to  have  them  healthy, and inured  to hardships.
What a blessing it is to be able to endure  physical exposures !   It
is next to being able  to endure moral ones.
   The  Baileys more than hinted  to me that Mrs. Stowe is getting a
second  park of artillery ready, which will be more formidable to the
South than all the  metal of " Uncle Tom's Cabin."   You know,
throughout the South, the answer made to her first work is, that it
is an  exaggeration, a  caricature;  so strong an over-statement, that
it is not merely valueless, but  mischievous.   This view the North-
ern Hunkers adopt;  and  the  English, so far as they dare.  Now,
bef recalcitration is to collect  facts, and  accumulate them, from 
390               LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
         Southern  authorities, proving all, and more than all, the abomina-
         tions she has described, out of their own mouths.  Won't this be a
         stiffener ?  God bless her !  I think I will write to her to-day, and
         put her on the track of some enormities which will  help  to deepen
         the damnation of her accusers.
                                               Cleveland, Dec.  13, 1852.
            A striking development came out here yesterday respecting the
         course of Andrew Jackson  Davis, who is here lecturing  on  the
         " spiritual world " matters.  To give the whole force of the incident,
         I must go back a little.  When  Mr. Parker was out here a few
         weeks ago, he was advertised to lecture on a  certain evening; but
         the train  of cars was delayed by some accident, and he did  not
         arrive in  season.  The audience being all assembled, Davis, who
         was present,  walked upon the  platform, and told  them  he would
         occupy a portion  of the time.   He said he could  give them what
         Parker's lecture would be ; but he had some  get-off to  excuse  him-
         self for not doing  it.   He was  afterwards  badgered for  saying he
         could do it, and not doing it; and was told it would have been an
         excellent chance  for demonstrating, in  an  irrefutable  manner, the
         soundness of  his claims to a knowledge of  the absent and future.
            Yesterday afternoon, he was lecturing again;  and now was  pre-
         sented the opportunity he  had so foolishly lost before.  So  he said
         Mr. Horace Mann was  to lecture  here  on Tuesday evening  next,
         on woman; and he would communicate to his audience some things
         that I should say.   He went on to detail some  parts  of what my
         lecture would be ; when a Mr.  Morton, who had read a report of it,
         in  Davis's own words, in the " New-York Tribune," rose,  and asked
t        him if he had  not seen' the self-same  statements  in  that paper.
         Whereupon  the prophetic candle  by which  this seer  looked  into
         the future suddenly went out.

                                              Washington,  Jau. 29,  1853.
            ... I went  to see  the Aztec  children this  morning.   What
         ninnies they are !   They call the boy sixteen  or  eighteen years of
         age, and the  girl ten or  twelve.   The first  is  thirty-three  inches
         high, the  second  twenty-nine, of  a swarthy color, or, as  I  should
         suppose,  an ultra-Creole complexion.    The  boy has  no head,  or 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
391
almost none, — about as large as a very large  apple, and almost
wholly behind his ears.  The girl's is much better shaped, and she
seems to be very much his superior.  What  can such brains do
with the problem of the solar system, or with conic sections, or with
the tough problems of ethics and  jurisprudence ?   Who has brains
large enough to answer these questions ?
   There  was an advertisement in  the " National  Intelligencer " to-
day of the sale of a slave at an auction-room.   I  was on the spot in
season to buy; but some private arrangement had  been made, and
the parties did not appear.   I wanted to see how I  could  manage
such an argument for atheism as the  sale  of a human being would
be.
   One of our members died this morning.  It seems as if the fact
of death  and our views of death could not  belong to the same system,
and that one or the other must be changed, or else what a contra-
diction and what sorrows !  ... Of your mother's eternal weal I can
have no doubt, if any mortal  has eternal weal;  but my early asso-
ciations with death are too  much for  my reason.

                                          Philadelphia, Feb. 4.
   I had a house jammed and squeezed last night.   Mrs.-----was
there, and mourned over my heresies most grievously.   Why is it,
that when  one of the Gentiles  comes almost over to what these
" Zion's people " think to  be right (or know, for they know every
thing), but  still, if there is the least interstice left, —why is it,  I
say, that they pounce upon him more ferociously, and maltreat him
worse, than  they do those who still remain in the " outer darkness " ?
Can you explain this ?
   Feb. 6.   I have your letter of Thursday.   When will mankind,
especially womankind, have a declaration of independence against
fashion ?  If its government were a  wise and paternal one, we could
bear it;  but it is as capricious and  arbitrary as  Queen  Elizabeth,
and even more cruel than that old hag.
   Feb. 10.  ...  I  dined out to-day, at-----,  and sat next to  a
lady, who,  when she  heard Mr. G. T.  Davis  speak of R-----'s
being a professor in Antioch College, said  she thought women had
enough to do without being professors,  and  she hoped it was not 
392
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
going to be any rule for others.   I told her young ladies were to be
educated there.   She didn't  know what young  ladies wanted of a
college  education.  She  did not wish to study any thing but the
piano and  drawing: she had no leisure for  it.  There could not
be too much drawing;  for she never was tired of that. .  . . She had
some smartness, and would captivate many a young man, I have  no
doubt.  It was about an inch and a half from the top of her nose
to the place where benevolence should have been ; and that was the
whole space she had for perceptive faculties, which were good, and
for causality and comparison.
   I  found the " woman's-rights " spirit very intense in Philadel-
phia, and  also  a  counter-spirit quite  as strong.  Of course, those
women whose notions I approach, but do not coincide with, are the
most violent.   I do not think I said  a  single thing that they had
any  right to be offended at, but am not at all  surprised that they
took offence.   I told Mrs. Mott she was too ambitious, because she
claimed for woman all  the highest things in all departments.   I con-
cede her the highest in more than half;  yet she cannot be satisfied.
But  she is a good woman, and I must love her.
   Feb.  13.   I have your  letter  about  the children to-day.   Your
accounts of them always interest me, and, when they develop the
fair side of their natures,  always delight  me.  Oh that an untainted
human being should be brought into so foul a world as this !   I am
getting  to be  entirely reconciled to  the theologic idea of the old
deluge ; and, if I were counsellor, I am not sure but I should pro-
pose another.
   Feb.  15. .  . . Venable has just got the floor, and is going to give
a talk on public corruption.   If I had more faith in his own purity,
I should like to hear him better.   However, it is bad enough ; and
I don't think he will make his indictment much too comprehensive.
There is great iniquity here,  beyond all question, — increased im-
mensely since the compromise measures, and made respectable (if
any such thing can be made respectable) by Webster's known cor-
ruptions.  It is as ----- says it  is  in  Boston, where  a  general
demoralization has invaded all departments of life.  How is a remedy
to be found ?   I trust God knows.  I don't, unless it be in the con-
tinued persevering and  energetic efforts of all good men for reform. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               393
  Feb. 17.   I went to hear Thackeray again last evening.  I  did
not like the lecture  so well as the preceding one.   It had much
quiet humor, which keeps a pleasant expression on the face ; but there
was  not a  high  sentiment  in  either lecture, and he  spoke of the
intemperate habits of the wits of Queen Anne's time as if he would
like  to have  drunk with  them.  Not a word of moralizing, from
beginning to end; not a caveat entered in behalf of youth : and I
think a young man would  go away with the  idea  that there  is  a
natural affinity between genius and intemperance.  I used to observe
in Miss Catherine Sedgwick's  works, that she could never let a sub-
ject go until  her benevolence had had its chance to  dilate  upon it.
Thackeray  goes  over this whole  field of intellect most wide  and
beautiful;  but neither benevolence, conscientiousness, or veneration
seem permitted or desirous to say a word.   He appreciated Pope's
power, and made it stand out wonderfully; but  he  found some
traits of meanness in him.   His redeeming point, so far as  his affec-
tions and sympathies were concerned, was his love  of his mother;
and  this Thackeray did expand and adorn as  if he  loved  his  own
mother.
                                     Washington, Feb. 13,1853.
   My dear  Downer, — I heard Thackeray last  evening, whom I
suppose you heard in Boston.   I am every day getting more in love
with the viscera,  thoracic and  abdominal.  I reverence a good cere-
bral cavity;  but a good  chest and a good  "refectory"  below  it
are hardly  less important.   I never understood the full meaning of
the  favorite English word "pluck" until  I  took  it in its hteral
sense : now I know exactly what it means,  and believe in it.   Our
Southern men are  vastly more developed in  that region than  our
Northern,  and therefore they override us.   High  moral develop-
ments are the only adequate antagonists to this vigor and valor of
the " lower organs; " but, alas !  how little of this there is !
   I  was a good deal excited as well as wearied by my Western trip.
As the drunken man said  to  his minister, when he met him in the
highway, and wished to conceal from him the fact of intoxication by
a striking  remark,  " There  seems to be considerable  land round
here," so I say in  regard  to  the West.  What a vast framework 
394
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
it is !   With what, in the providence of God, is it to be fnled up ?
Ay, that depends upon who shall fill it.  They need such men as
you and Howe out there. This is true; but where on God's earth,
too, do they need such men more than in Massachusetts?
  I went to  Yellow Springs.   It .is a beautiful place.  What
thoughts rush into the mind when we survey the scenes of antici-
pated  labor, or look upon those  of the past! — not thoughts; for
they are molten into  feelings,  and, by expansion, swell  and dilate
the bosom almost to bursting.  When I went to my present home, I
looked upon it as the place where I hoped to live, and expected to
die.   If thoughts were a graver's tool, what records would be in-
scribed upon all its trees and its rocks!  But I will not sentimen-
talize. . . .
  I have nothing new to say of affairs here.   The telegraph makes
you as well acquainted in Boston with all national matters  as the
morning papers  do us.  I am pleased with the turn which Cuban
matters are taking.   On this subject, and at this time, the slightest
breeze of opposition to Cuban annexation from  the South is worth
more than any blast that can be made  to blow from Northern hills.
  I am to be at home four weeks from yesterday. I hope to see you
here, still more to see you there; but here, there, or anywhere,
                     I am always yours,
                                            HORACE MANN.


  It was early in  this year  that a controversy took place
between Mr. Mann  and Mr. Wendell Phillips upon  the
point, whether a moral and Christian man  could vote or
hold  office  under  our governments, State and National,
because of the clause in the Constitution that seemed to
favor  slavery.  The  excitements  of the  time  made  it a
very  personal one; and few, even of their friends, read
it all,  because it was painful to  read a  dispute between
two men whose action tended toward the same good end,
— human liberty.    It was characterized  by Mr. Phillips's
usual  want of insight into character, and lack of justice
towards those  who differ from him. 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
395
   Mr. Mann subsequently wrote a letter to Mr. Garrison,
 which covered the whole ground, and which was published
 in the  " Liberator " of July 3, 1853.  It will be repub-
 lished in its proper place.

                                     Washington, Feb. 23, 1853.
   Yesterday I dined with Mr. Everett, with the Massachusetts dele-
 gation.  What an accomplished man he is!  Coming home after nine
 o'clock,  I stopped at the  President's levee.  It was jammed and
 crammed, — east room, green-room, hall, passages, everywhere.  I
 took one turn round the east room, and came out and away.  It was
 probably the last time that I shall ever be in that house; and there
 is something solemn-choly  in looking for* the last time upon a place,
 even when one has little attachment to it.  I have not been through
 Mr. Fillmore's room  this winter.  I cannot  touch  the hand that
 signed the Fugitive-slave Law.

                                               Feb. 24, 1858.
   ... I saw Miss Dix this morning.  She is an angel.  She has
 got two  or  three hundred  dollars out  of the Government  for a
 library for the penitentiary in this District.  She has induced Mr.
 Corcoran to  give a bit of land, fifteen thousand dollars for a build-
 ing, and ten thousand for  a hbrary, to be called the " Apprentices'
 Library," here.   Mr. Corcoran came to her the other day, and said
 he was overwhelmed with sohcitations for money.  " But you," said
 he, " have carte-blanche."   Isn't she a  " woman's-rights" woman
 worth having ? — going for theh  rights in the right way.
   Our whole force  at Antioch will have to be educated anew, and
 Calvin and R----will have to  do it.  Mr.----knows  nothing
 about school-keeping.
   As I look upon the Normal-school  girls as  part of my  thunder,
 though they have R-----'s lightning  in them  to make  them shine,
 I thought I  would stop last evening for a moment's call  on Miss
 G-----.  I took her to hear Thackeray.   It was an interesting lec-
ture on Sterne and Goldsmith, with this difference in  the  manner
of treating them,—that he brought all Sterne's faults and vices out
into the boldest rehef,  and was most assiduous in covering all Gold- 
396
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
smith's vanities up.   He did speak once  of Goldsmith's "vanities
and follies," and said he died two thousand pounds in debt;  but
that was all he had to  say on  the  negative side of his  character.
But Sterne's amours and hypocrisies, his sentimentalizing and mor-
alizing, while he  was decrying his own wife  and making love to
other married women, and his flattering one married woman while
he ridiculed her  to another of his pretended loves, Thackeray did
bring out, so that no one can ever forget it.  Poor Laurence's bones
will be in no hurry for the resurrection after such disclosures.
  What a warning it is, — these dead things coming to life !
  I went  to Dr. Bailey's Saturday-evening  party last  night.
Thackeray was there, and some notables  among the ladies, — among
the rest a splendid woman*from  New York, originally from Nan-
tucket, who  scraped acquaintance with me going to Nantucket near-
ly twenty years ago.  She  looks  young  as Hebe, and has  a  son
twenty-one years old. That is the way the women ought to be, and
would be if God's laws were theh higher law.

                                    Washington, Feb. 26, 1853.
  My dear  Mr- Craig, —. Can a clergyman, located  sixty  miles
out of a city, sitting in his manse, with  hardly a  sound about him
save the pleasant  ones  of waving trees or  flowing waters,  under-
stand the hounded, badgered, tormented, fragmentary life of an M.
C. in Washington?  If he can, then I  need make  no apology for
so long delaying  to answer your  late letter.  If he cannot, then,
though innocent, I must be convicted.
  The course of preparatory  and  undergraduate studies for  the
college has not yet been definitely determined.  I sent you a provi-
sional one.   A meeting is called, at my house in  West Newton, for
the  23d of next month.  . . .
  I have no idea  that our  "terms and conditions"  will involve
regulations as to  dress.  Boys "dressing in girls'"  clothes, and
girls " dressing in boys' " clothes, had better be left, as the old Ro-
mans left the crime of parricide, unprohibited, presuming it would
never be committed.  I regard  the fashions of dress as among  the
accidents and non-essentials of hfe; and when points  of  minor im-
portance are made to take precedence of the " weightier matters of 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               397
the law,—judgment and justice and mercy,"—or health, influence,
and character, it is a misfortune and a weakness.   A well-balanced
mind graduates all the affairs and interests of life on a scale accord-
ing to theh relative importance ; and though  young people and im-
perfectly educated people put some things  high  up on  this scale
which ought to  be low down, and vice versa, yet, as they grow
wiser, they are constantly re-arranging them, and conforming the
order of caprice or mis-education to the standard of Nature.  A well-
developed mind and heart is the only remedy for  youthful vagaries
of fancy. . .  .
   On your third  point, let me say that I presume no one will be
compelled to board at the common table. . .  . My observation, how-
ever, has convinced me that serious evils are likely  to grow out of the
self-subsisting method.  It is usually adopted by those in straitened
circumstances.
   The desire of economy, added to the  inconveniences of preparing
food, make too strong a  temptation to live meagrely.  Now, the phi-
losophy of living, as  you know, is to  make  strength out of food.
What can poor Nature do when  her supplies are cut off;  when,
like the inhabitants of a besieged city, or mariners on a wreck, she
is put on the shortest living allowance ?  There is a fatal seduction
about this, too, to the ambitious temperaments.  It gives a preter-
natural vivacity  and activity to the faculties, which  the deluded
victim mistakes for strength.  But its end is weakness, exhaustion,
and  premature decay.   I know some  temperaments will bear this
much better than  others.   Unfortunately, those  to whom it would
be most injurious  are most readily decoyed into it.   As  I grow
older (may I hope wiser), I find my former  contempt and neglect
of the thoracic and abdominal viscera — or, to speak it plainly, of
lungs and belly — gradually changing into a kind of respect, not
to say homage;  not,  however, as I certainly need not tell you, as
the dii majores of my regard, but as  the dii  minores, — without
whose help the upper deities of the brain are as helpless  as a com-
modore without crew to work his ship.    The calamity is, that there
is such infinite ignorance  about  the rules of health and  life among
our people, that the kind, the quality, and the amount of food which 
398
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
people consume are determined by every conceivable consideration
except the right ones.
  Of course, the very object of the preparatory school is to fit it*
attendants for admission into the college.  At first, this preparatory
school will be our stock  in trade, — the only thing out of which we
can make capital.  With our Eastern teachers, the Pennells, brother
and sister, if we do not have an unusual kind of school for that lati-
tude,  I shall be disappointed.
  And so you recur again (and I like to read  what you so wisely
and with such simplicity say) to the subject of a press.  One thing
only you omit.   You speak admirably of an effect; but where is
your cause ? — of a paper; but where is your editor ?  A glorious
invention, you know, the Frenchman had for preventing the ravages
of city fires; but, when the conflagration came, he had only a speci-
men of it in a phial.
  Where is the man to conduct such a paper?  That is the " main
question," by a higher  title than any parliamentary law.   I have
pleaded with you to go.   Oh, no !  you are too well situated with
the young people whom you love,  and with the old people who love
you.  As for myself, if there are half as many pupils there as some
of your sanguine coadjutors expect, I shall need a hundred heads,
as well as a hundred hands, to  meet the daily demand upon  labor
and thought.
  When, in my younger legislative days, I projected a hospital for
the insane, and carried it through our Legislature  unassisted, and
against great opposition, the Governor, on whom devolved the ap-
pointment of commissioners, sent for me, and  told me he should
appoint me (young as I then was) chairman  of the Board.   I re-
monstrated.   "No," said he: "you have got  us into this scrape,
and you  must get us out."  What  shall I say  to the Rev. Austin
Craig of Blooming Grove, New York ?
   And now, my dear sir, to whom  have I given so much time as
to you?  And if anybody upbraids me for this* have I not full justi-
fication in being able to say, no one deserves it  so much as you?
                   As ever, most truly yours,
                                                HORACE MANN
  t 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
399
                                      Washington, Feb. 28, 1853.
  My  dear Mr. Parker, — ... It is generally understood that
the Chief Joiner has settled every piece that is to go into his Cabi-
net.   Marcy will be Premier;  Cushing, Attorney-General; Davis,
the worst of fire-eaters, for War, — the  most exacting, proud, ego-
tistic of Southern disunionists, taken both for his own sake, and as
a compliment to the most scandalous and rascally of States.   This
gives the Cabinet not merely a Southern aspect, but even worse,—
a kind of Mississippi, repudiating aspect.

                                     Washington, March 1,1853.
   We sat nine or ten  hours  yesterday.   I suppose the great Cabi-
net-maker has selected  all the  boards  to make his Cabinet.   Mr.
Marcy, of New York, is expected to be Premier ; that is, Secretary
of  State.   Probably  Caleb  Cushing  will  be  Attorney-General.
Jefferson Davis, that self-absorbed egotist, a Southern fire-eater and
disunionist, is to be Secretary of War, — a double compliment, I
suppose,  to the  strongest proslavery man  and to  the repudiating
State  of  Mississippi.   It has a Southern aspect.   I see no chance
that Pierce will not adopt the Baltimore Platform, extol the Union,
and those who  have saved it.   Three  days will tell the truth or
error of these  prophecies.
   March 3.  This morning I went to see the colored school. I felt
bound to pay my respects to the cause  and the color; and that was
my last chance.   What a deep interest that school excites ! — so
many  human  beings within reach of varied forms  of social enjoy-
ment,  and yet separated from  them  all by an impassable barrier.
My mind was profoundly moved; and it was not until long after I
got back into  the whirl of business that other things effaced the im-
pression.
   March  5.   I rejoice to-day that I  am one hundred and forty
miles nearer you, and farther from Washington.   You will doubtless
have seen Pierce's inaugural before you see this, — filibustering for
Cuba, and  giving notice that he is for the Compromise Measures
and the Fugitive-slave  Law!   It is hardly creditable to his head,
and most disgraceful to his heart.  Those who voted for him, under
the delusion that he would be  antislavery, now  see  that he quotes 
400
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
theh support as a proof that they,  too, are  in  favor  of slave-
ry!.. .
   I am a free man again.  What a Congressional life I have had !
But I have fought a good fight, and come out with a clear conscience.
   How deeply the contrast in the state  of  the country was im-
pressed upon  my mind yesterday between the position on the sub-
ject of slavery which it occupies now and which it did occupy four
years ago!
                                      Washington, March 15,1853.
To Rev. Tiieo. Parker.
   Dear  Mr.  Parker, — The first trial  of  Drayton  and Sayres
lasted twenty-one successive days.   It was in the depth of a Wash-
ington summer.   For the first days of the trial, the court-room was
packed like a slave-ship.   Within springing distance of me, on my
left hand, planted himself regularly the man who drew his pistol on
Drayton  when he was marched from the river to the jail, and who
was supposed to come armed into court every day, and to be ready
to preserve order, — a la Warsaw.
   On  the second trial, I went  to Washington on  purpose.   It
lasted about a fortnight.   Here we had the old verdicts  set aside,
and new trials ordered.  The third time  I also went on purpose.
The trials lasted about ten days.    The accused were saved from a
penitentiary offence, and  were  only fined for a misdemeanor.   For
particulars, see my volume.
   My  expenses were paid; but I  never received a cent of a fee,
nor asked nor expected it. . . .
                                                      H. MANN.

                                       Boston, March 17,  1853.
   Dear  Mr. Mann, —I saw Mr. B. B. Muzzey yesterday.   He
would like to see you when in town.  His adviser on the law-ques-
tion is  a snob, one of the vulgarest  in town ; crawling upwards, and
would not like to slip down along  his slimy track : so he must not
offend  Curtis and Choate and the  rest of that tribe.   As I under-
stand it,  this is the dodge just now, — to make the matter of libel a
technical law-question for the sole  consideration of the  "judges: "
then there will be left for the  jury  the matter of fact as to publi- 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
401
 cation, and the matter of penalty as to damages.   If they succeed,
 then Judge L. Shaw will decide "as he will decide," and such a
 precedent be established as will delight the central muscle (in loco
 cordis) of all the snobs who are growing into Hunkers, and of all
 the Hunkers who have grown out of snobs.  Mr. Muzzey is  not
 disposed to submit tamely.  We ought to have a ship-money quarrel
 on this matter, with Muzzey  for a John Hampden.   I think he
 would  like to have you of his counsel, but feels delicate  about asking
 you.   He thinks of Hale and Dana for the matter of fact.
                           Good-by!
                                          THEODORE PARKER.

                                  West Newton, May 22, 1853.
   My dear Downer, — You left the programme of our  "Antioch:"
 but I mean you shall see what I say about  the natural and moral
 laws;  and so I send it after you.
   The men under whose auspices the institution  is  founded  are
 poor in this world's goods, but they are earnest; and you must see,
 that, by taking such a heretic as I am  from the world's people, they
 have very different views from  our evangelicals.
   Now, my dear friend, if you have any deposit of " filthy  lucre "
 to make in the Upper  Exchequer, I wish you to remit the same,
 for the benefit of Antioch  College, through  my hands,—more or
 less, thousands or hundreds, — and I will see that it is entered to
 your credit above.   Do you know of any better chance for  invest-
 ment? . . .
                         Yours as ever,
                                               HORACE  MANN.

                                  West Newton, June 15,1853.
   My dear Mr. Combe, — I should have written to you some time
ago; only I hoped to have something to send to you, and a friend
to send it by.  In both I have been, so far, disappointed : otherwise
I should earlier have thanked you for your much-valued present of
one hundred dollars, which I mean shall be better  than a common
monument of you ; not a dumb and barren one, but a  living, radi-
ating one, diffusing instruction  and delight.   I mean to expend it,
              26 
402
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
mainly at least, for phrenological works, yours heading the list, and
in such duplicates as will allow you to be speaking all the time  to
many persons.   In  the new college, I am to occupy (I dare not
say fill) the chair of Natural Theology.   It is something  of an
advance'(is it not?) to look outside the clerical ranks in America for
the president of a college, where with  the fewest exceptions, from
time immemorial, not only have the clergy had a monopoly of this
office, but the Orthodox clergy.   I am inclined to think this  is the
first instance, in all the West,  in which a layman has  ever been
elected to it.  Succeed or not, I do not  think it will be the last.
The faculty has three clergymen and  three laymen  in it, besides
one female professor, as it is to educate young ladies as well as
young men;  and I intend to have it so arranged that the Sunday
exercises of the chapel shall  be  performed alternately by the male
members.   In  this way I hope to get something of philosophy, as
well as theology, before the minds of the youth who are bold enough
to resort there.
   Mr. Mann  left New England  for the West  early in
September of this year.  He was unable to dispose of his
homestead, except  temporarily;  and therefore  realized
with  less force than  he  otherwise  might have done the
fact that he was changing  his home permanently.   All
was uncertain as  to  the  future,  except that  an  untried
enterprise was before him, insuring great labors ; but he
was animated by  a strong hope that he should be able to
put into  action  many long-cherished and favorite views.
It was surely a  virgin soil  that his educational  plough-
share was to break,  and his  enthusiasm figured a fair
prospect of success.
   His journey was not unattended with public evidences
of sympathy from those who had  concurred in the princi-
ples that  had actuated  his  Congressional  career.   At
Portland (for he  took a Northern route), a deputation of
friends, who had sympathized  with  his nomination by the
Free-soil party to the  office of Governor of Massachusetts, 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
403
arrested him at the station to bid  him a kin illy farewell.
Though he was peculiarly backward in seeking the  sym-
pathy he valued, he enjoyed the expression of it none the
less when it was spontaneous and  sincere.  But when  he
parted with the  last friend who accompanied him on the
way, and  felt  that he had cut loose from all further par-
ticipation  in scenes  not  only of honest triumph but  of
much wounded feeling, the strong man gave  way, and  he
wept like  a child.  Massachusetts was not all he wished
her to be, and that he had  hoped she would prove ; but
he had worked lovingly for  her, and her very rocks and
shores were dear to him.  The friends who had been true
to him, and the supposed friends who had deserted him,
were  remembered with almost equal  tenderness; but it
was difficult to convince him that his place in their mem-
ories would be kept green after he had passed away from
their  sight.  When he arrived upon  the new scene of
labor, he threw himself, with all the ardor of his.tempera-
ment, into the enterprise he had undertaken; for it seemed
as if he was to make a new world: and it was only when
the inconsiderate  question was asked, " Which do you
like best, the East or the West ? " that he allowed himself
to dwell with acute pain upon what he had lost.
  " I  must not think of my brain relations," he  would
sometimes say.  " I shall realize the loss too much."
  Several  of his near relatives were around him ; and the
new home was gilded with a halo of hope, — hope of use-
fulness and successful exertion.   The poetry  of the broad
prairies, which to other hearts spoke only of desolation,
was to his exalted state of mind, as he passed  over them,
freedom, — freedom from all that fettered  or darkened
the human soul through the agency of man.   Were they
not yet to be wrought ?  Their future vegetation  surely
depended  upon what seed was sown.  He had been an 
404
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
eminently  practical  man ;  but  his  dreams  had always
stood before him, and they were of the fruits of knowledge
and the "liberty of the sons of God."  How sadly these
hopes of a serene and successful field of labor were disap-
pointed, only those can ever know who were  inspired by
his enthusiasm to share them, and who felt the disappoint-
ment with him.
   Several years after, when driving one day over one of
those broad wastes where occasionally a solitary log-house
showed that human interests were beginning to be linked
with Nature, his  companion remarked, " I should not like
to be  a pioneer."—" Are we not pioneers ?" he answered,
not bitterly, but sadly ; for he had  already been  made to
feel that the  borders of civilization  are, in  their  social
aspects, but a  short remove from barbarism.
   The ambitious brick  towers of Antioch College were the
first objects to be seen on approaching the  spot; and its
unfinished aspect was symbolical of the unripe  condition
of all its affairs.   Mr. Mann once tried to  describe  it by
saying, that, " supposing creation had lately issued out of
chaos, it might be about as late in the week as Wednes-
day ! "  It was situated on a table-land, which, two  years
previously, had been despoiled of a magnificent forest to
make way  for that source of Western wealth, — wheat.
The stumps of the trees still  remained standing at the
very threshold of the  college.  Eastern energy, starting
upon  the basis of Western promises, had projected it thus
far into being; but its location  was too near Slave-land
not to feel the influence of its tardy fulfilments of all pur-
poses.  There was not  even any one standing ready  to re-
ceive the new president, except one of his own relatives who
had arrived three days  before him.   No house had been
built for his accommodation, as had been  promised ; nor
had he received any intimation of the fact.   No provision 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
405
had  even been made for a temporary residence  of ten
persons;  but,  happily, a  large boarding-house,  whose
summer residents had left but a few weeks before, was by
much persuasion opened to him at the moment.  There
were not many comforts in it:  but he and his friends were
strung up to a high tension of nervous energy, and  con-
tempt  of trifles, having  been forewarned, by one  who
knew something of Western life, that " the change from
the quiet comforts of a New-England home would be found
a matter both for laughter and for tears ; " and the party
took possession of the deserted rooms, which they were
allowed to arrange for themselves, and which, by dint of
a few  old stoves,  were made  habitable for a fall  resi-
dence.  The college-buildings were  far from being com-
pleted; and it  was only by means of the most strenuous
exertions, even by sabbath-day labors, that the  chapel
was  made ready for the reception of the large number of
guests who were expected to be present on the day of in-
auguration.   The committee did not dare to proclaim the
day too extensively ; for it was feared that there were not
accommodations enough in the village for so large a com-
pany as  would probably come.  But, in spite  of their
caution-,  when  the day  came, three  thousand persons
assembled, many of whom brought comforters and provi-
sions, and slept in their carriages and carioles.  Only one
boarding-house belonging to  the college-buildings, and
designed for the accommodation of the students, was even
partially completed; and the dining-hall of this  was still
to be made, except the  framework.  Boards were laid
upon joists for the dinner-party of the day.   One  hundred
and fifty students entered on the afternoon of the inaugura-
tion  ceremony.  The boards were swept, and the examina-
tion-papers laid upon them: and these alternate ceremonies
of eating and examining went on for two or three days; and 
406
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
the company of young people took possession of the unfin-
ished building, as far as windows were glazed  and doors
hung, a partition having been thrown up in the middle of
it to divide the young men from the maidens, and two of
the professors taking up their abode in the  building pre-
vious to the occupation of Mr. Mann, who was to take
possession of certain rooms in it as soon as  they were in
habitable condition.
  The  classes were opened at once, and the preparatory
school commenced, the whole corps of professors throwing
themselves into it.  Out of the whole mass of applicants,
representing every stage of human ignorance, eight were
found qualified upon the whole, though with some con-
ditions,  to  form a  freshman-class.   The rest, old and
young, married and  unmarried, some of them ministers
who had given up their parishes to take  a college course
of study, were obliged to drop into the preparatory school,
simple as were its requisitions.  The teaching, fortunately,
was of a high order ; the teaching corps invincible in reso-
lution, patient, sympathizing with the universal aspiration,
while lamenting the low stage of intellectual development;
and the professors' corps, aided by a few intelligent and
well-educated young ladies from the  East, who went  out
prepared to take a college course, and before whom stood
in amazement men of twice their age as humble  pupils,
soon evoked some order out of the chaos.
  It was a wonderful spectacle  then,— and grows more
wonderful  when regarded from a distant period of time,
— the enthusiasm of those young people, who kept to-
gether under circumstances that might excuse almost any
lapse from resolution to endure privations.   It was long
before the building was put into comfortable order.   It
was a year before  any provision was made to furnish fresh
water to the students, who were obliged to walk a quarter 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
407
of a mile with their pitchers to procure a draught of the clear
article ; all the water furnished being brought from a dis-
tance, and poured into a huge vat of ten feet diameter, which
stood upon a raised platform near the door of the Ladies'
Hall.  The water was often carted to it in cast-off oil-bar-
rels  that had been superficially cleansed; the  hydraulic
rams that originally supplied the vat having got out of or-
der,  with no Yankee promptness at hand to repair injuries.
  The young ladies were  obliged to  fill  their  own  bed-
room pitchers at this vat, no domestic service being allowed
by the superintendent.  Early one morning, in the  ensuing
winter, a stranger who was visiting the institution, and
had  risen betimes to take the cars, found a delicate young
lady struggling with a huge stream that was pouring from
the  vat.  She had inadvertently pulled out the  faucet;
and  knowing that  the  supply  of water for all  purposes,
cooking included, would be lost if she did not replace  it,
was  endeavoring to  do so, standing upon the wet snow,
and  drenched to the skin by the stream.   He rescued her
from it; but she was ill for a  long time  in consequence    ,
of the wetting.  Mr. Mann often ascended the ladder, to
ascertain, by probing  the  vat  with his cane, how much
gravel was not held in solution.
  A wealthy gentleman in the neighborhood, who owned
several hundred springs of delicious water oozing from
the brink of a gorge in the vicinity, and but one of which
he could use himself, had loaned the  use of one for the
two  previous years of college-building ; but no entreaties
could induce him to lend, rent, or sell the use of it any
longer.
  The next year, another person interested in the college
purchased a "distant tract of the gorge containing  a spring
of water, and it  was brought up by hydraulic rams.
  No appropriation was made for digging wells, either 
408
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
            for the college or the college manse, for  many years ; and
            then the enterprise only partially succeeded.  To finish
            the history of the water question, which may be taken as
            a representative one of much of the spirit that actuated
            the community: the pipes for these rams had to be  laid
            partially under another person's territory ; and, though
            they interfered in no way with the tillage or pasturage of
            the same, the owner, being disaffected because he could
            not on  one occasion make some money out of the  col-
            lege, threatened to  cut them off.  This calamity, however,
            was averted by much negotiation.
              Many  cold weeks elapsed,  after  the opening of the
            college on the 5th  of  October, before the stoves arrived
            which were to warm either the  main college-building or
            the close dormitories of the students (ventilation having
            been entirely ignored in  the structure).   A change of
            plan in the superintendent's mind in regard to the stoves
            caused this delay.  Some of the professors took possession
            of their apartments in the college-building before the
            plaster was  dry, while it was still impossible to make a
            fire; thereby incurring maladies, which, in one instance
•           at least, promised to be life-long.   There was  no remedy ;
            for the  village did not  afford'  accommodations for the
            sudden influx of population.
              Mr. Mann was unable to take possession of his apart-
            ments for many weeks after the opening of the college;
            for his  household  effects had been thrown  in a storm
            upon some  portion of the shore of  Lake Erie  not  con-
            nected with any railroad, and were long supposed, indeed,
            to have  gone to the bottom.  When they were at  last
            found,  the  carpets for the college-parlors,  one of which
            the president was to inhabit, still  remained untouched, till
            the ladies of the faculty unrolled and cut them out, and
            put  them  down;  and  they  were also obliged to stand 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
409
sentinels over  their boxes  of furniture  out of doors,
hatchet and  screw-driver in hand, waiting for the ap-
pearance of  some friendly  professor  or other  dignitary
to open them, no workmen  being spared  from the hur-
ried  preparations to aid  in  such small  matters.  The
amiable superintendent decreed that no domestic's broom
or mop  should  ever touch  the stairs  that led to the
president's apartments; and said ladies took turns dur-
ing that year in making them passable,  for their own
credit's sake, and for that of the institution.  All offers
made by the lady teachers to arrange the tables tastefully,
with a view of cultivating good manners, were rejected by
the superintendent  and  the  stewardess as an  invidious
criticism upon themselves.  It was even difficult to intro-
duce the refinement  of table-napkins,  a set of which was
presented by a friend.  It was necessary  to make a by-
law to oblige the students to sit at table half an hour, such
were their rough and uncultured habits.   These things,
however, were not to be allowed to daunt  pioneers.  The
question sometimes  came up, " Shall we  laugh, or  shall
we cry ? "   The verdict  was uniformly in favor of the
former, when the subject was  looked  upon  merely as
a  matter  of personal comfort; but it  was painful to
Mr. Mann  to be thwarted in his pleasant  plans  for even
the outward improvement of his new disciples.   Many
projects were entertained  of future dramas of " Antioch
in the Bud;" but too sad associations  linger around it
now for the fulfilment of such playful threats.
   Mr. Mann persisted  in presiding  over the  commons
table, hoping by his presence to  give a better tone to the
manners of the young people, wliich, by  all indications,
would otherwise have disfigured the establishment.   But
no power to  ameliorate the annoyances that all felt was 
410             LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
given him by the acting superintendent, who soon became
disaffected  because  not allowed by the faculty to  rule
the scholastic as well  as  the culinary department.  One
fruit of this disaffection was a cessation of work upon the
college manse for several months.
  During that year, Mr. Mann devoted much time to the
cure of many habits in the students common to Western
society, among which  the indiscriminate use  of tobacco
was very prominent, even in boys of twelve years of age.
Mr. Mann has been thought unduly severe upon this sub-
ject ; which is not surprising, when we consider that it is
a point of minor morals not yet recognized by the world
in general.  But perhaps even such  critics would have
sympathized with him there;  for recitation-rooms and
even parlors were rendered almost uninhabitable by the
vile accompaniments of chewing and smoking.  For sev-
eral  months, he  spent every evening he could  command
in using his moral and persuasive influence to induce the
students to renounce the  practice ;  and succeeded so far,
that, before the end of the first college-year, there were
but three students who had not  with apparent  willingness
signed a pledge to discontinue it, and to use their influ-
ence  to make others  do likewise.  In some  cases,  the
reform was very striking; for young men  who had been
addicted to the habit from youth up were  changed from
sallow, nerveless, irritable, stupid individuals,  painful to
behold, to fair, strong, cheerful seekers  after  knowledge
and  happiness.   One  young man, thus redeemed from
apparent ruin, came to Mr. Mann  every day,  for two or
three weeks, to report his resolution  held since the day
previous, hoping to  achieve  his emancipation by such
slow stages; and every day received the encouragement
and  sympathy requisite to  carry him  on, till  at last he 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
411
announced himself able  as  well  as  willing to sign the
pledge.
  He appealed to the common  sense  of  some, to the
moral sense of others.  Some who came into the class-
rooms ragged, and pleading poverty, he ridiculed, assuring
them that the money saved would at least  pay for mend-
ing the coat-sleeve  or the shirt-bosom.  Some he pleaded
with as fathers do  with their erring children.  But these
admonitions were all private; for he always avoided de-
stroying  self-respect by public fault-finding, if possible.
The same three who refused were finally ejected from the
institution on account of the kindred vice of drunkenness.
New students brought new cases to deal with ; but, when
public opinion was on the right side, half the battle was
gained.
  In view of the graver  trials that  came after, it w*ould
seem trivial to mention many which wore upon his nerves
at that time.  But he considered  it a matter of great im-
portance to cultivate the manners as well as the minds of
the young people  around him.   His previous plans had
been, to afford in his own house the proprieties  and even
elegances of social culture  to those who  had never en-
joyed them elsewhere ; but he was obliged to do the best
he could with what appliances were  at hand.   His  pres-
ence insured order and decency at the public tables ; and
for this end he continued to deprive  himself and  family,
for the  first year, of the luxury of any private life, a
measure  of which  he  might  have enjoyed through the
privilege of a private  table.
  But he could not prevent the Ohio pigs from walking
through  the dining-room, as there were  no  fences around
the college-buildings, no  doors to the  hall,  and no ap-
pointed homes for the animals.  Water  stood over shoes
between  the  main  college-building  and the dining-hall 
412             LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
(where  there is a covered arcade in the picture), so deep
that boards floated on it.  One day a professor (a lady)
was  arrested, on  her entrance  to the hall, by a hog of
unusual dimensions, which had  made his watery bed
•vhere a doorstep  should have  been.  She looked at it in
dismay  a moment, and  then, being  light of foot, tripped
over it as if it had been a bridge, and sprang over a board
which  had been  inserted  where  the  door should have
been hung, the board having been  placed there by some
friendly hand to prevent the intrusion of living bridges.
  The ladies  of the faculty and teaching corps arranged
themselves in fine linen and gloves when Mr.  Mann held
levees in the parlors of the only hall then erected, hoping
to suggest the refinement of re-arranging the hair, taking
off the apron, and putting on a clean collar, for such occa-
sions ; and these  improvements did grow,  so that, by the
time he could hold levees in the college  manse, they pre-
sented the agreeable spectacle of a company of ladies and
gentlemen  in becoming dress  and  clean shoes.  In  the
early college-days, when the whole  area of twenty acres
was  one vast  quagmire of clayey soil,  in which  plank
walks sank below  the surface, and in rainy weather floated
upon it, this last refinement was simply impossible.   It
was necessary, in walking, to arm one's self with a shingle
or other implement, to remove  the mass which adhered
to the shoo when  it accumulated sufficiently to  prevent
farther locomotion.
  In the later  days, strangers  often asked, with a sem-
blance of incredulity, " Do you mean to tell me that these
intelligent, agreeable, lovely young people are students
of the college ? "  Such was the  effect of culture when the
mind and heart were wakened  to receive it.
  Twice Mr. Mann's garden was stocked  with  valuable
fruit from the East, and twice destroyed by cattle and pigs 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
413
for want of enclosure: and, to the last days  of his resi-
dence, the unsightly heap  of broken brick, mortar, and
stone,  lay untouched  before  his  door;  but  he had
learned to look over it.  It was impossible to ask for ap-
propriations for such purposes, when it  was difficult to
obtain them for the commissariat  of the boarding-house;
and his own loose moneys, and all the contributions  he
could gather, were devoted to the relief of indigent stu-
dents.   A friend  from Massachusetts, who  visited him,
wrote word, after his return, that  he found every thing at
home painfully neat.
  Many serious difficulties soon  arose in regard  to the
appointment of teachers, who were selected by the su-
perintendent without  consultation with  the president.
Finances failed; and then a sufficient number could not
be employed, for want of money to pay them.  This threw
too great burdens on the few.   Some failed  for want of
adaptation to the places they were called  to fill: jeal-
ousies were  fostered  among others.  The disaffection of
the superintendent still delayed the building of the college
manse: and  his uncomfortable quarters, the self-denial he
practised about personal comforts (for only in the privacy
of his own bed-chamber would he partake of  a little food
that he could  digest, furtively prepared in an  inconve-
nient manner), the  absorption of every moment  of his
time (for no  waking hour was his own), and the anxiety he
began to feel lest the institution would become bankrupt,
proved too much for Mr. Mann; and, towards the end of
the first year, he was laid upon a bed of suffering, from
which only his iron resolution finally roused him; and he
actually did remain upon his feet until vacation came,
thus  rendering the subsequent  prostration still  more
fearful.
  The question may naturally be  asked here,  " Could not 
414
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
the president of the institution regulate the preparation of
food upon his own table, even if it stood in the Commons'
Hall ? " The answer is, that the raw democratic principle,
if the expression may be  allowed, is very levelling in the
regions of border civilization.   He saw the jealousy en-
tertained of men of Eastern culture by the rough denizens
of the prairies, and knew that it was fed in this particular
instance  by the personal ill-will of the superintendent.
He constantly feared a revolt in the dining-room, where
all his plans were systematically thwarted; and it is but an
additional proof of the enthusiasm of his young aspirants
for knowledge that such a revolt did not take place, con-
sidering  all the discomforts.   The seats  at the tables
were round, four-legged stools;  and Mr. Mann would not
have a chair for himself, even after  some ladies of the
teaching corps ventured upon that innovation for their own
accommodation and at their own expense.  No one there,
who  estimated  his services even approximately, can now
review the history of these petty yet serious evils without
a measure  of indignation that  baffles  speech.  The stu-
dents of  that period, who knew the whole, utter it with
tongues of fire; but he never uttered a word of complaint,
or would allow it in his hearing.  " I can endure any thing
for these young people," he would say.   At last, others
were convinced that  only  heroic  measures could avail;
and friends who advanced moneys, with no securities but
the banks of faith and hope, stopped  supplies  until the
obnoxious superintendent was dismissed.  He did not fail,
however, to infuse his spirit into  others who succeeded,
making dissatisfaction a tradition. He had much influence,
having been largely concerned  in  getting up the institu-
tion.   His successors, happily, were less powerful to con-
tend with the giant will that would endure all things for
the noble ends  he sought.  Mr. Mann's mode  of resist- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
415
ance, however, was chiefly to disarm hostile influences as
well as to endure.
  After one  occasion of exhausting  fatigue, Mr. Mann
was  himself startled, and the friends who were with  him
painfully shocked, by a partial paralysis of speech, which
made him utter words inadvertently, and so irrelevant that
they struck his own ear.  He was never reminded of it by
others, and never referred to it himself, even to those  who
administered relief to him  at the time; but the sword of
Damocles that hung over him was ever visible to the eyes
that knew and loved him best.
   After  his  removal  to  a private  residence, he  had
some repose; for he was  exempt from the unceasing
hum and confusion of a closely packed building: but all
responsibility for  the discipline of  the institution re-
mained in his hands, and of this he  could only be relieved
by the  occasional fortunate chance  of coadjutors  who
could manage their own  departments without friction.
In such an  institution, a  necessary officer  is a matron
whose duties are  combined neither with  those of house-
keeper nor teacher;  but for this there never were funds
enough, and constant difficulties occurred and recurred.
A mother's parlor, with the mother in it ready for all exi-
gencies, should be represented, and the illusion should be
entire,  in  a  house filled with  young ladies  of all  ages
needing motherly suggestions  and care.   But that aid
was denied him to the end by  circumstances  beyond his
control.  Even in his little cabinet, perfect unanimity did
not exist, nor even unalloyed  good feeling.   But  the
power to form the cabinet was not given  tc him; and he
had to wait for the day when the evils consequent upon
this state of things should work themselves off, and
when all would  come to look as he  did  upon the great
importance of their charge, rather than upon their own 
416             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
private interest and ambition.   Those who looked on and
saw what he encountered, and what he bore patiently and
hopefully, and how self-forgettingly and bravely he  rose
above  all obstacles;  how  radiant  his  countenance was
when he saw, that, in spite of  all difficulties, the young
people improved, and responded genially to his touch,—
were inspired also to hope every thing, and fear nothing,
and dwell only upon the  great issues  involved in the
marked progress of several hundred aspiring youth, ani-
mated to intense  enthusiasm by  the magnetism of his
presence and love : for he moved amongst them like a
father among his children, most ready to spend his time
and energies with the least hopeful.  He truly believed that
the germ of every thing good  was to be found in each
one, and that this only needed the sun of culture to grow
and blossom, and bear fruit.  All the previous training
and experience of his life were brought into requisition
to meet the demand; and he could hardly understand why
all others did not feel as willing to offer  themselves a sac-
rifice  to  the work as  he did.   He  had  hoped that only
the devotion and not the sacrifice  of any one would be
required; for he had no question, when he undertook the
charge of the institution, that means would be furnished
to carry it on.   When he found that these were  not at
hand, his only  thought was to stand in the  breach till
succor came.  He had expected to encounter ignorance in
the greater portion of the Christian denomination, which
had only of late  thought worldly knowledge  consistent
with religion, and, like the  Methodists of old, waited for
" a call" before they attempted to instruct others;  but a
few noble and cultured minds among them had made him
feel that the idea  of true religious freedom had dawned
upon them, and was destined to  become a great and shin-
ing light.  It was to this idea that  he attached himself, 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
417
and openly and freely gave  his  allegiance.   That the
light did not come more rapidly out of the present dark-
ness, he mourned over as truly as any man :  but he knew
that the bud was grafted upon thrifty stocks;  and, when
he  was  obliged  to withdraw his respect from the fathers,
he  did not lose his confidence  in the sons and  daughters,
but recognized  in  them so clear an acceptance  of the
great truth involved in the principles of toleration  and
free thought, that he loved to identify himself with the
noble platform to the very last.
  Perhaps no man, brought up  in  the  very hot-bed of
intolerance and  spiritual pride, ever so utterly  renounced
every vestige of both.   We sometimes see even the freest
thinkers — those who have helped to break the bonds of
others — as intolerant of difference of opinion  in those
whom they would fain lead as  were the bigots from whom
they broke away.   But Mr. Mann was too  conscious of
this tendency in mankind to trust himself to indoctrinate
others.   He confined himself to clearing away the obstruc-
tions to free thought, and was  not  afraid  to trust truth to
the pure in heart, and to the intellectual integrity of those
who sought it humbly.  He has been called  distrustful
of men ; but he was not distrustful of human nature,
although he looked carefully after  the motives of special
people.   He thought human  nature needed  educating,
and had been much maligned; and that it was only where
circumstances had cultivated the earthly side of it unduly
that the divine element was temporarily obscured. Educa-
tion was, in his  view, a word  of far higher  import than
that popularly given to it.   Its function  was to  call  out
from within all  that was  divinely planted there  in  the
proportions requisite to make  a noble being.   He knew
that man could  not create in  others what God  had  not
created; but he  had a generous and noble  faith in  the
            27 
418
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
indefinite capacities of the human race for improvement.
The fact of the humanity was all-sufficient to call out his
efforts for  the  culture of any of God's children ; but in
the aspiring youth  of our Great West he saw with pro-
phetic eye a glorious promise, whose  fulfilment  bid fair
to release society from the bondage of error.  The grand
sweep of the horizon enlarged his own sense of power;
and  he unconsciously transplanted  his  own  expanded
thought into the breast of every one he saw intent upon
the search after knowledge.
  Many laughable incidents, growing out of the primitive
simplicity of log-cabin life at the West, made the Eastern
residents in this hitherto  -uncultured region realize  the
difference between the two states of society.   Mr. Mann,
in his Western lecturing tours, had often slept in the one
apartment  of a log-cabin (the owner worth, perhaps, a
hundred thousand  dollars) in which  a row of beds were
turned  down at night to accommodate  the household,
guest and all:  therefore he was not alarmed when a very
demure young lady — not  particularly young,  but  a
student of the college — came to make the request that
she might make up a bed on the floor of her apartment for
her brother-in-law, who had come to visit her.  Mr. Mann
reminded her of the  regulation, that no gentleman, except
the fathers of  the students, should go into the dormitory
halls of the young  ladies' department, even to  make a
passing  call.  She said she knew that was a regulation,
but thought the case of a brother-in-law might be an  ex-
ception.   Without  hurting  her feelings, he made her
understand that such customs, although allowable under
the sanction of parental  presence  in  homes, would not
answer in an institution of learning, where the discretion
of young people could  not  always  be trusted, however
much their goodness might be confided in.  But these 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
419
customs often gave him trouble.  An old gentleman, who
was an itinerant preacher, brought two of his  daughters
to him, and said they were afraid to be left at home alone
since the death of their mother ; and  so he brought them
to the college, which was " as cheap a place as any other,
and girls were not of much account any way."  The girls
were as uncultured as one might expect from such a view
of the subject.  'They conversed in the precise phraseology
of Aunt Dinah in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," which Mr. Mann
did not know till then to be the vernacular of the West
as well as of the South.  But they  knew  how to read,
and had begun  to learn to write; and they were docile,
and could easily have been managed.  The father, how-
ever, was a more difficult subject.   He often came to visit
his  daughters (having shut up  his  house), and would
bring to their chamber hampers of mince-pies, roast turkey,
&c, and stay a week or two.  This was submitted to for
a while, although he necessarily turned his daughters out
of their narrow bed  to seek sleeping-places for themselves
in other students' rooms, or on the floor.   But at last he
brought a cousin to stay with him; and, when the young
gentleman appeared, the occasion was seized for earnest
remonstrance  and prohibition.   The old  preacher  was
sore offended, and left with his daughters at once.
  On  one occasion, during a short vacation, a party of
gay young ladies thought they would amuse themselves
by visiting a fellow-student, a young man, who was at the
time engaged in a neighboring town in keeping a district
school, which he had playfully invited them to  come and
see.  The president was absent; and, when they applied
for permission to visit a friend for a few days, their plans
were not so  thoroughly investigated  as they would have
been by his vigilant  care; and a delegated permission was
granted,  on the ground that  he  always took pleasure in 
420
LTFE OF HORACE MANN.
 promoting innocent recreations at such times, and, indeed,
 took pains to  provide entertainment.  The  young ladies
 proceeded on  their  foolish  frolic;  but, unluckily,  the
 gentleman had  also taken a few days' vacation, and was
 not to be found.  They knew no one else in the place, and
 had relied upon him to  find an abode during their stay ;
 and, as they suddenly realized the ludicrousncss of their
 position, they wandered about the precincts till picked up
 by another fellow-student residing on a neighboring farm,
 who took them home, and entertained them until the even-
 ing train  arrived.   They returned  under  cover of  the
 shades, and disposed of themselves  among  their friends
 in  the village for a  few days, too much mortified to  re-
 appear at their boarding-house, and afraid of being found
 out and laughed at.   They did not escape, however;  and
 they were brought to tears and dismay by the exhortation
 they received upon the subject of proprieties.
   Another party of young people, innocent of any design
 to  infringe these same proprieties,  had laid all  their
 plans, on a similar occasion, to spend a few weeks ram-
 bling about the  country, and  camping  out; but a word
 of appeal from Mr. Mann to consider what might be  the
 effect on the public mind of so wild an expedition from a
 college surrounded by enemies and persecutors, who would
 be glad of an occasion to find fault, deterred them at once.
 In his assumed character of parent, he could not sanction
 that which, under other circumstances, might have been
■ perfectly unobjectionable.  The cheerfulness with which
 the students also gave up dancing  as a recreation — a
 resource  which  would  have been healthful  as well as
 hilarious, and which Mr. Mann approved when pursued
 under proper regulations — showed how genuine was his
 influence over them.  This amusement is a source  of so
 much evil among the uncultivated, that a large proportion 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
421
of the religious people of the Western communities looked
upon it with a prejudice that would  have induced them
to remove their children from an institution where it was
allowed ;  and, on the ground that it would deprive many
of their companions of the advantages of education, it was
cheerfully given  up.   After a few years, however, they
were allowed to accept invitations to private houses where
dancing occurred at seasonable hours.
  In view of the various discomforts attending the prema-
ture opening of the college and its  boarding-house, Mr.
Mann sometimes allowed students to board in the village.
He  permitted it only in  individual cases, and then under
the  restriction, that they should board in no family whose
heads  would not pledge themselves  not to take young
men and maidens together; for this would almost insure
intimacies which might result in connections for life :  and
he wished to throw guards around the young ladies, which
should preclude any precipitate steps of this kind, as care-
ful  parents would do.   In his Inaugural Address, he had
fairly met the question of the probability that marriages
would frequently grow  out of the intimacies of college-
life  ; but there was a by-law of the institution to the effect
that they should not take  place there.  The pledge given
by housekeepers was violated in one or two instances ; but
they were parents who  had daughters, and were foolish
enough to take young men to board, and were alone
responsible when their children chose to be married rather
than to pursue their college education to the end. When
Mr. Mann was consulted  by the regents of another  uni-
versity at the West, in which there  was a question of
admitting both sexes,  he advised against it, because there
was to be no college-family, no superintendence of any
description, but  the  young people were to seek  their
homes at tl eir discretion in a city where no eye could be 
422             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
held over them.   He considered the moiul dangers  to
impulsive youth  so great,  when left without  parental
or other supervision, that he  thought it better to forego
the literary education than to incur them.
   Enemies slandered the  institution, and  the  slanders
doubtless spread where the  refutations have not always
followed them;  but no  one conversant with the  daily
life and walk of Antioch College can deny that the purity
and high tone of its morals and  manners, in both depart-
ments, were unequalled by those of any other known insti-
tution.   There  are many colleges at the West, in whose
neighborhood schools for young ladies* have sprung up,
in order that the services of teachers and professors in
the former may be made available in the latter;  and in
such cases there have always been regulations prohibiting
any intercourse whatever between the  two.   But it is the
universal testimony of those acquainted with the subject,
that loss of reputation, and even of  character, are not
udfrequent in such  places, growing  out of clandestine
correspondences  and  meetings.   Mr.  Mann  thought the
monkish error of repressing natural sentiments should be
swept away with other errors of the same nature, and a
generous culture should  enlist them in the interests of
purity.   Young  people are thoughtless  rather than  vi-
cious ;  and it is  cruel to put them into circumstances
where  they can learn wisdom only from a  fatal  experi-
ence.   Even at Obcrlin,  as  was testified  to not only by
pupils, but  by teachers of the  institution afterwards em-
ployed at Antioch, the  students,  though dining at the
same tables, were  not allowed  to speak at meal-times.
At Antioch  College,  the  dining-hall, which was, as at
Oberlin,  the  commons of  both sexes, was a charming
scene of social enjoyment and innocent hilarity,—a scene 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
423
which Mr. Mann specially enjoyed  for its  beneficent in-
fluences  upon manners and happiness.  On Thanksgiv-
ing days  he liked to be a guest of this large family, wliich
he  regarded  with true parental affection.  The  spoiler
entered it more than once, and tried to alienate the affec-
tions of his students, but with very slight  success.  Dis-
appointed  ambition  and disappointed greed  did  succeed
in  alienating the confidence of the Western public to a
great degree :  hence  the failure of all their flattering
promises  to  sustain the  institution, which they might
have done with  perfect ease if deposed professors, and
disappointed sharpers, and religious bigotry,  had  not
aspersed it.
   Mr. Mann was not the  only individual who  went into
this enterprise with lofty aims  and liberal and disinter-
ested views,  certainly with a very  creditable degree  of
them: but only two or  three had  had sufficient experi-
ence even to share all his views, or form a just conception
of what his purposes were ; and a far different spirit ani-
mated others with whom  its destiny was involved, — not
inextricably, perhaps, for it had already begun  to slough
off extraneous matter before he was cut off from it; but
at what a cost that was done, only those who were kindled
by  his enthusiasm,  and who acted with him, know,  or
ever can know, adequately.
  I would dwell a little longer upon one feature  of this
institution which interested Mr. Mann as deeply in it  as
its  unsectarian basis.  Colleges  for  women, or rather col-
leges frequented by women as well  as by men, presented
some objections at first view, which had their foundation
in  a delicate  appreciation of  feminine character.   He
had at one time felt  them himself;  but his experience  of
the joint education in the Massachusetts Normal schools,
two of which had this  feature, had  dispelled that doubt, 
424
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
in view of the advantages  to be gained.  He had never
been pleased with any desire on woman's part to shine in
public ; but it was his opinion  that the divinely appointed
mission of  woman is to teach, and  it was his wish  to
introduce her into every department of instruction as soon
as it could  be done with good effect.   He had  watched
teaching  long enough to know that  woman's teaching,
other things being  equal,  is  more patient,  persistent,
and thorough than man's;  and that to equal intellectual
advantages,  that of moral  culture, which should never
be divorced from these, is  more  surely added thereby;
and  that this grows  out of the  domestic traits,  which
are not marred by this use, but  only thus directed to
the noblest  ends.   Nor does  it interfere  in any degree
with the peculiarly appointed sphere of woman.  She  is
better fitted for the duties of wife and mother for having
first  used her faculties in imparting  knowledge  under
circumstances that are free from distracting cares.  lie
had no desire to shut out men from the enjoyment  of the
same privilege ; but he hoped, by the union of the two in
the vocation of  teaching,  to annihilate as  it were, cer-
tainly to  banish, all brutalities of growth  in young men,
and frivolities in young  women, and  this without check-
ing  the hilarity or  interfering  with  the  simplicity  of
youth.  He  was rewarded  signally by success, so  far as
he had the opportunity to test  his views.
  He knew that the preparation for such change must be
very gradual ;  for there  were as yet but few  women to be
found capable of filling the higher walks  of instruction.
The power to do it had been gained, previously to the es-
tablishment  of Normal schools, only by unaided practice,
which sacrifices  many victims in the  process.  He  had
the satisfaction of placing in  professorships in Antioch
College two  ladies, who, in  addition to other  opportuni- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
425
ties of culture, had enjoyed the advantages of thorough
training, first as pupils, and then as teachers, in the best
Normal schools of Massachusetts; thus  connecting his
early and his later labors.
  After restoring the common school to its full function,
as conceived by  its founders,  or its  discoverers,  as he
called them, it remained for him to connect it by an elec-
tric  chain with that advanced  educational course  repre-
sented by the college or university, and which wields such
mighty influence  over society by its prestige.   Indeed, he
had  been  able to  add the culture of a later period of time
to that  original conception whose principle  shonQ  so
purely to the minds of the early fathers, that no advance
upon that was possible, — principles having nothing to do
with time, and often gleaming through a dark age 0-s a
prophecy of the future.   He also felt that college  educa-
tion itself was  to take  a broader and higher stand than
the old scholastic method.   No link of that chain of con-
nection was wanting in his mind.  The only obstacle to
the  perfecting  of his early work had  been the want of
thorough and  complete  scholars  to  carry  it  on.  He
wished accomplished men and  women  to have the  charge
of Normal-school training, that the instruction in them
might fit  teachers who could meet  every requirement
of society:  but  the higher institutions  of learning had
showed little interest in the work ; and, as long as that
was  the case, it would necessarily be of  an inferior quality.
One year's  course at  a Normal school  did  not prepare
teachers,  who  entered  it ignorant, to go into  the high
schools, and train young  men for college.   He  wished
graduates of the colleges  to take such  lively interest in
educational work as  to  add the Normal-school training
to their other acquirements, and make of it a profession,
like law, medicine, and theology.  He hoped, in process 
426
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
of time,  to  add such a  department to Antioch Colli ge
itself;  making the preparatory  school  of the college  a
model  school,  after the  pattern  of that  which  is  an
integral  element at present of all good Normal schools
proper.   The  preparatory  school  of Antioch  College
never proved to be what he wished it  to be, simply be-
cause he could  not command any one to superintend  it
aright.   Its first principal could not speak or write the
English language correctly;  and no  one who ever took
hold of it understood discipline in his sense of the word.
His hands were tied in that as well as in other directions,
as long as the  institution was dependent upon the com-
munity in which it was located. Ail this he hoped to rem-
edy, if it could be set upon an independent basis, and be
governed by intelligent men.   The Western  trustees had
good will;  but most of them had not a conception of the
needs or the functions of an institution of learning. They
were supposed to hold the purse-strings;  and if they had
been content to do that, and  to  let better educated men
do the  rest, Mr. Mann could have  accomplished  thrice
what he was able to do with all the drawbacks in his
way.
  The duties of one of his lady professors included instruc-
tion  in a variety  of branches;  and  her experience  as
assistant teacher in a Normal school enabled her to be a
very great aid  in  arranging  the general programme  of
studies.  The other took the chair of mathematics, after
the dismissal of the original occupant,  and  taught  its
highest branches without book in hand, and in a manner
that  was pronounced  unsurpassed  by  those who  were
conversant with our first American institutions; for she
united  to an entire comprehension of  her  subject the
finest power of  imparting that comprehension to  others.
In all feminine  traits of character, this lady was as rare 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
427
as in her  intellectual cultivation.   Her  native grace of
manner imparted instruction in beauty as it radiates from
a flower, when she stood before her classes solving  the
most difficult problems as if she  had discovered them, and
as if books had not yet been invented.  Mr. Mann knew
this need  not be a remarkable case, and that the few
instances in which women have  attained eminence in  the
learned world need not be  remarkable cases; that they
were not  due to original  genius  so much as to happy
opportunity, such as he meant  to  multiply and  offer to
the many.
  In the early settlement of States in this country, it is
impossible to diffuse educational advantages of the highest
kind very widely.   The pioneers, though usually men of
energy who go from cultivated communities, are not often
men of literary culture; and therefore the home-life is not
so cultivated a one  as a republic needs.  The next gene-
ration  is still less  cultivated, of course; and the young
people must be sent from home to  secure education, or go
without it.  The question is not, therefore, whether to be
educated away from the restraints  of parental care is  the
best thing, theoretically, for daughters, but whether they
shall have instruction at all.   Since a university in every
village, as suggested by Thoreau,  is not practicable  or
possible in the present condition  of the world's learning or
with the present value placed upon education, the impor-
tant point  is to furnish the best kind of institutions, — those
most  nearly  resembling families, — as well  as  seats of
learning, and where there  is a  concentration of learned
forces.  Every  thing must  be provided  for, — not only
instruction, but a supervision that partakes of the parental
character, and a degree  of freedom compatible with  the
preservation of refinement, or the  inculcation  of  it when
found wanting.  In American society, the freedom of in- 
428
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
tercourse between the young has ever been found com-
patible with virtue, in striking contrast to the system of
repression that exists in the older societies of the world,
even of modern Europe.
  Such was the fair temple of Learning that stood before
Mr. Mann's inward vision.   He could see all the elements
of it; and he felt confident that he  could combine them
aright, if the means were only in his hands.
  To most  of the young women who frequented Antioch
College, intellectual life was a new life.  In Eastern com-
munities, in the average of public  schools, especially in
the country, the superiority of  scholarship is unquestion-
ably on the side of girls.   Evidence of this  was found
in the statistics of the Normal schools.  It was precisely
the contrary at the West.   In many cases, they had been
absolutely cut off from instruction.   There was no com-
mon stock  of knowledge.   They did hot  even know the
history of  the settlement  of the country  by white men.
Of the Pilgrim Fathers many had never heard.  Still less
had they had access to that literary  culture so delightful
to woman.   An occasional exception only made this more
striking.  One family from Indiana  had  been so  remote
from schools, that the daughters, who were deficient in
technical education of all sorts, had  been  furnished with
books of fine quality by their father, a man of taste and
talent, though of limited education;   and had so fructified
in mind by this privilege, that they immediately took high
rank as superior minds in  the college by their  written
essays, so misspelled that they could hardly be deciphered ;
the words, indeed, often running together to  the  length
of half a line.
  Many found that within themselves which they had not
dreamed to exist;  and their enthusiasm became equal to
the joyfulness of the discovery.  It is astonishing how 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.             429
rapidly young people ripen under favorable circumstances;
and they carried a new life back to the homes from wliich
they had come.  Nor did the accurate knowledge gained
by close and systematic  study, and  by  intercourse with
other minds, come amiss  or  unneeded to many to whom
intellectual life was not wholly new.  The general defect
in woman's education is its want of systematic precision.
In the best educated, the  taste is  often cultivated while
the logical powers  are neglected ; and critical knowledge
is left to what are called  the " liberally educated," which
means the college-educated.   The Normal schools are the
only public institutions, probably, where women have found
this want supplied.  The model schools for practice, un-
der experienced teachers, have been  powerful auxiliaries
to this end ; for no acquirements can  be so thoroughly
tested in any other way as by teaching them.   To teach
well, one must learn accurately; and it has been well said
that " no one  can  teacji well who does not teach out of a
mine."   The  critical  examinations  of Antioch  College
also made accurate knowledge indispensable.
   Mr. Mann wished to have as much of his teaching force
as possible of the  best quality of Normal-school pupils.
The superiority of their work was a  constant subject of
gratification to him. He was particularly pleased on one
occasion when he heard the services of a young lady
spoken of who was employed as assistant to the  teacher
of music, himself  a pupil  of Lowell Mason, the  distin-
guished teacher of vocal  music in Massachusetts.  The
young lady taught the  piano; and the  peculiarity of her
instruction was not only its quality, but the fact that she
not only gave  the  lessons, but  saw that they were faith-
fully practised.  The appointed hours for which her ser-
vice was due were  but a  small part of duty performed.
She kept guard over the practising, and no pupil escaped 
4C0
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
 her vigilance.   The remark was  made  in Mr. Mann's
 presence  by one who knew what  she was  speaking  of,
 '• She teaches like one of Father Pierce's pupils." —" She
 was one of Father Pierce's pupils," was the reply.  Instru-
 mental music was not taught in the Normal schools. But
 it mattered not what Father Pierce's pupils taught:  their
 teaching had a uniform characteristic.  I  know nothing,
 personally, of the teaching in the Normal  schools of the
 present day; but that which was practised under the
 critical oversight of  Mr. Mann was  of the  highest order.
 In Mr.  Pierce and Mr. Tillinghast, the first preceptors  of
 those schools, he found spirits kindred to his own; and I
 can also speak from personal knowledge of Mr. Conant,
 one of the successors.  The components of  the instruction
 Mr. Mann designed for Antioch College were the drill  of
 West Point, and the conscience of the Normal schools
 of Massachusetts.   Unhappily, there  were not resources
 to  meet the demands for  the physiological training  by
 wliich he  meant to build up bodies ; and jealousies  in re-
 gard to the choice of teachers from the East  (where were
 the Western teachers ?) interfered with the perfecting  of
 his  plans for intellectual and moral culture.  The  latter,
 however, was not wholly  dependent  upon material aid;
 and with the help of five ladies and one gentleman of the
 requisite training as  well as of good  natural ability, and
 of many others of equal good-will and ability though not
 so well  fitted, it  prospered to a remarkable extent, in spite
 of all drawbacks, even those of malice and envy.  One  of
 the  proofs of inferiority is envy  of superiority.   Humble
 ignorance is, unfortunately, the exception rather than the
 rule. This is partly due to the nature of ignorance, and
 is one of the difficulties that cannot easily be solved.
  In some respects, another world lies beyond the  gentle
slopes of the dividing mountains which separate the  East 
                 LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.             431

from the West.  The general interests  of  all mankind
are the same, and the bonds between the different sections
of our country  are indissoluble ; for it is  all  one civiliza-
tion, flowing from one centre, originally organized by a
great and overmastering sentiment of progress, destined
to leaven the whole body politic with civil, religious, and
political liberty.  But no one can have lived long in both
without perceiving that such widely separated sections of
country have local differences and interests, as well as
motives of action, which only a cosmopolitan spirit can
identify as one at heart.   It is certain that the East does
not wholly comprehend the needs of the West, or such an
interest as this one would have made itself felt to  better
purpose  among  those whose helping hand  could  easily
have lifted it from the shoals on which it stranded.  There
were noble exceptions to this.
   The aid which the Unitarians gave to the institution
was given with their characteristic liberality.   The charter
provided that two-thirds of the trustees and of the faculty
should always  be of the  " Christian denomination."  The
Unitarians, whose speculative opinions are  substantially
the  same, were  perfectly willing to give assistance, not-
withstanding this illiberal clause.   They had  no wish  to
have the control of  the college.   They wished  to aid
liberal and unscctarian  education.  They alone had an
approximate conception  of the needs of that section of the
land, and of the great part  it was  to play in  the  future
destinies  of  the country.  They saw, as Mr. Mann did,
that this " Christian " sect was the only conduit through
which unsectarian  education  could flow into the  West;
for other religious sects were too exclusive to work cor-
dially for any such end.  The Universalists had as bad a
reputation among  the Orthodox as the Unitarians, and
therefore could not be thus used so safely.  The idea that 
4o2             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
God in his love and mercy would finally bring all men
into his fold, however much they might have sinned in
this world, was one step in advance even of the ordinary
belief of  Unitarians: therefore they must  be  atheists.
Even many Unitarians were afraid of such latitudinarian-
ism as that, and set bounds to the love of God.  But they
were perfectly disinterested toward  the Christians,  and
magnanimous enough to  pour out their  money without
receiving even courtesy at their hands,  so they would but
improve by the use of it;  and they were willing to trust
that to  Mr.  Mann's judgment, capacity, and experience.
But Pegasus  cannot work in harness.   The more  liberal
and disinterested they were, the more they were suspected
of secret designs.   This suspicion was  artfully made use
of by disappointed men,  whose want  of character, not
whose religious opinions, as they pretended, led to their
dismissal  from the faculty.  The good and true men bore
every indignity; were long-suffering under  contumely;
sacrificed portions of their salaries;  waited uncomplaining-
ly for their just dues (and still waif) ; and endeavored in
every way to disarm ill-will, and to justify the motives of
the truly generous sect that threw  their  thousands  into
an abyss, hoping one day to bridge it over.  The men  of
the East alone knew the quality of the man who had un-
dertaken  the enterprise.   How could the ignorant and the
bigoted conceive of his plans, or comprehend their wisdom?
To the very last, and even after the experienced head and
heart that gave it its first impulse, and watched  over it
with the  affection  of a father, was  irrevocably lost, the
"Christian denomination" had every advantage of priority
in action, plurality of vote, and repeated opportunities to
 rise from their own ashes.  At last,  the proposition came
 from themselves to deal more justly by  their long-tried
 friends;  and now there is hope of future success, if men 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
433
can be found to labor in so arduous a field.   The charter
has been altered by excluding  the  obnoxious  restriction.
The unsectarian feature of the original plan has been
practically realized.  " It is no part of Christian charity
to be imposed upon," has been well said.  The Unitarians
have vindicated their unsectarian spirit nobly.  They are
even beginning to feel that they do not stand quite firmly
enough upon their own opinions to act always with energy.
The re-action in them from the other hateful extreme had
been so  great as almost to become a weakness.  They
have made  themselves  liable  to Fort-Sumtor  treacheries
by their candor and benevolence, and  begin to reproach
one another for not defending  themselves more manfully.
The ground has been broken for them  at the West.  The
blood of martyrdom waters the spot.  If they have the
pecuniary means,  they  can  take  an independent stand,
and be no longer at the mercy of an ignorant and unap-
preciative public.  Let them  hang out their banner  of
Unitarianism, not  defiantly, but invitingly, and crowds
will come to enjoy the blessings they will diffuse.  Many
noble spirits, first kindled by Mr. Mann's labors, can  give
the best aid to any efforts now made. Time has winnowed
the surrounding community of many characters that dis-
figured it, and marred all generous effort.   It is  not yet
too late to enlist the enthusiasm of many who personally
knew the spirit in which  Mr. Mann worked upon  the
underpinnings, and who knew something of the experience
he gained which should not be  lost, and which they shared
with him.
  The body of the  Christian denomination  was repre-
sented by men of limited education and narrow views, but
a little  in  advance of the general ignorance, and  who
cared more for the advancement of their sect than for the
advancement of learning and virtue.  Mr. Mann accepted
            28 
434
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
ignorance as one of the evils he must necessarily combat.
He did not despise it:  he only pitied it, and bent every
energy to removing it.   But he had no respect for bigot-
ry.  The bigot may truly be said to be the only enemy
that always baffled him.  The influences of bigotry had
clouded his childhood, taken the blue out of his sky injiis
early manhood, and haunted his imagination all his  life.
He encountered it  in  all his  endeavors  to promote the
cause of education at  the  East as well as at the West.
He hoped to drive it before him over the prairies, though
he  could not  always hunt it out  of its hiding-places in
more conservative  communities ;  but, where ignorance
reigns, bigotry and superstition will be  sure to dwell with
it.   He  could exorcise it from the  young;  but it  had
become a part of the very vitality of the risen generation.
Another demon, equally subtle, even more universal, the
demon of selfishness, met him on every  side.   The  two
combined have ever baffled the influence  of Christianity
itself.  They were linked together against all his efforts
there.   It would be an ungrateful task to enter into the
details of the strife he waged with them.  Perhaps he had
conquered them  at last.  He  thought  he had driven
them at bay at least, and hoped to deal a final blow by
success, after outward  obstacles to the prosperity of the
institution were overcome.   But  his strength  was spent
in the conflict, in consequence  of the great labors im-
posed upon him ;  and the venom which had been diffused
by the crafty, the  bigoted, and the selfish, had  so far poi-
soned the atmosphere, that none have been found strong
enough since his death  to extract the poison.
  The circumstance of his joining the Christian denomina-
tion, of which he speaks himself in one of his letters, has
been made the occasion  of traducing his character for
truth and openness.  Any man can be accused of insin- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
435
cerity by those who disagree with him.   He has been ac-
cused of it in politics by those who were angry with him
for not adopting  their views, and because he  chose  to
make his own discriminations, and reserve to himself the
right of breaking  away from party when he thought par-
ties forgot great principles in their partisan zeal; and he
has been accused of it in religious matters both by those
whose  latitudinarian views went beyond all the freedom
of thought that he had attained, and by those who feared
all freedom of thought.  He  was a man who earnestly
enforced his own  convictions  of duty, but who modestly
estimated the value of speculative opinions, and wished
to impose them upon no one, not even his own children.
He had that confidence in truth that made him trust it
to enforce itself upon a truly sincere and inquiring mind.
In short, his faith in God, and God's adaptation of means
to ends, was a vital faith.   He broke away from the dog-
mas that were inculcated upon his youth by the force of
this faith, when he was driven to the alternative of be-
lieving God  an unjust God, or of doubting the interpreta-
tions of the Christian record that were imposed upon him.
A truly logical intellect like his could not hesitate which
to reject, until further light dawned  upon him.
  In the Bible-class at Antioch College, which he held for
such members  as volunteered  to attend, it was his object
to make a fair statement of the various interpretations, by
different sects, of all disputed portions of the Scriptures,
and then leave his hearers  to adopt that which seemed  to
them most  correct.   On these occasions, his  appeals  to
the conscience  and the  affections were as unique  as his
biblical criticisms.   The latter  he  prepared with the aid
of all the  authorities  he could find.  For  the former he
appealed to  the consciousness of each one of his hearers ;
for in love and good works all  men  can  unite, whatever 
436
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
tricks their intellects may play upon them.   There are
no two  interpretations of the precepts, " Love  one an-
other," and " Do unto others as you would  that others
should do unto you."
  He has been called Utopian in his theory of the relation
that  should exist between  young people in colleges.  He
thought the time had come when a higher principle than
emulation should actuate those who were striving for in-
tellectual and moral excellence, and when young people
in colleges should bo taught to live together as brethren,
and  upon  a higher  code  of honor than that by which
rogues protect  each  other in evil-doing.  Stupid people
looked on, and thought, that, if dogmatic religion were not
taught,  no religion could exist, and  that there was no
higher law than that of the rogue's creed, — " Defend me,
and I will defend you."  Indeed, the community in gene-
ral know no other religion, and do not understand the
principle of brotherly love; but he felt sure that he could
evoke a generous and Christian sympathy for each other in
the young, if he had a chance to address them.  And the
event proved that he was right.  Emulation was exorcised
under his influence.  Mutual furtherance and interest in
each other's  progress, intellectual and  moral, took the
place of  it.   The contrary was the exception.  He incul-
cated the precept, that the position of students created in
them serious duties  and  responsibilities toward  each
other; that, if the good  among them could not influence
the  viciously inclined, it became their duty  to seek the
assistance of those who had assumed the parental relation
towards them, not for purposes  of chastisement, but for
more powerful influence.
  A  college was set fairly in operation, disfigured  by no
traditional  barbarisms or  meannesses,  such  as some of
the  institutions of the country have derived  from  their 
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
437
foreign prototypes.  Mr. Mann  frowned  down the first
symptoms of riotous conduct, and by meeting in fair en-
counter, and battling with, what is called and also what
is yielded to as "youthful indiscretion," taught young
people coming to years of  discretion to put aside the idle
pranks of boys, and live together  a dignified life of mu-
tual respect and respectability.   The presence of young
ladies in the institution doubtless made  this work easier.
A public  meeting was soon called  by the students, and a
vote  taken  to  uphold  obedience  to law  and  order.  A
paper dated  1859, found in his  desk, is a fair sample of
such resolutions as were voluntarily drawn up by succes-
sive classes from the very beginning : —

   At a meeting of the senior class of  Antioch College, March 16,
1859, the  following preamble  and resolutions were unanimously
adopted : —
   Whereas we, the senior class of 1859,  believe in the necessity of
laws for the regulation of any literary institution, and have full con-
fidence in the ability of the faculty of  our institution to make such
laws; therefore
   Resolved,  That we will endeavor to obey the laws enacted by
the faculty for the promotion of good morals and good order.
   Resolved,  That our influence should  be such  as to induce our
fellow-students to observe these laws, and such as shall promote the
general welfare of the institution.

  This paper was duly signed by the chairman and the sec-
retary of the meeting, and the words were not idle words.
They implied far more  than at first seems obvious;  for
this promise  to use their  influence for public order was
resolutely acted upon.  The higher classes did not exer-
cise a spirit of mean and  petty  annoyance towards  the
lower classes, as is the case in most colleges, but stood in
the relation of  elder brothers and sisters  to them.   The 
438
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
  first senior class was small, but every member of it was a
  gem; and those eight members, constituting the first class
  that graduated,—swelled to fifteen in the third year by
  a deputation from Oberlin College in the  same  State,—
  were a better force in the moral regulation of the institu-
  tion than the  faculty set over them.   Each one of the
• former  proved an efficient  aid  in the discipline; while
  many of the latter threw apples of discord not only into
  their own ranks, but among the students.   Mr. Mann
  found  it  easier  to  induce  the  young  people  to  take
  brotherly care of each other's welfare than to infuse his
  own spirit into  the  already demoralized characters  of
  some of his coadjutors in  government.  This remark ap-
  plies only to three of the faculty, well known to  those fa-
  miliar with the short annals of Antioch College,  and who
  were got rid of at the  first opportunity.   But Mr. Mann
  felt strong in his young battalions.   It was  not long be-
  fore they understood  that he  looked to them to be  their
  own police: and when a tutor, who had  resided in the
  gentlemen's dormitory to keep  order, was  exchanged
  for  a lady teacher, he appealed  to the senior class, one
  day after chapel service, to know if  they were not suffi-
  ciently strong in moral force to take  care of the  building
  without such supervision.   They rose to their feet simul-
  taneously,  accepted the trust joyfully and  confidently,
  kept the promise well,  and transmitted its spirit  to  their
  successors.  It was Mr. Mann's pride and delight  ever
  after to walk through  the gentlemen's hall  at any  hour
  of the  day or  night, and  to  take visitors with  him, to
  convince them that a true spirit  of honor  and fidelity
  could be  evoked  from the young, if they were  properly
  addressed.  But this had not been achieved slumbering.
  It was a work  he had delegated to no man;  for, though
  there were others who shared his  faith, it required a de- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
439
votion, a vigilance, a judgment, and a spirit of love, which
were untiring, and knew no secondary interests.   Often
he sprang from his bed at dead of night to know person-
ally the secret of an unwonted sound, or to satisfy himself
whether any suspicion of wrong-doing were well founded;
but he was so happy as never to have cause  to repent of
the confidence he had reposed in his young  friends.   So
truly did he infuse his own spirit of guardianship into the
hearts  of his best students, that they often came to him
to consult upon the measures to be pursued with a delin-
quent  brother, that he might be saved from a summons
before  the faculty.  Such petitions as the following were
not infrequent, though they were not always  drawn up in
writing: —

  "We the undersigned, classmates of ----, from our long and
intimate acquaintance with  him, believe that  he  will  pursue a
course of life honorable to himself, and useful to society; and we
do hereby express our earnest desire that he may be permitted to
graduate with us."

  Can it be  doubted  that one so petitioned for, though
in danger  at the moment of losing  his standing, kept
faith with his companions, and walked in the strait path ?
Such petitions were offered  before Mr. Mann had by his
baccalaureate publicly proclaimed to the world that  he
would  give  no  diploma to an unworthy character ;  but
his students understood his principle very early.  Far
worse  cases than this one, over which Mr. Mann and his
students worked together in true filial and fraternal love,
would  disprove the slur that has been cast upon him  by
those who have said  that  he was  not fit to  guide young
men because he " could  not shut his  eyes."  He was
principled against shutting his  eyes.  He would hunt a
lie or a vice into its own corner, and bring it to  light, if 
440
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
he spent months in the work, if he found  he could not
disarm it or bring it to confession by milder means; but
it is not true that he could not forgive a delinquent.  He
asked only for repentance, and was  severe  upon those
only who  sinned against light.  To  the weakly  erring
his tenderness was unbounded, and his patience measure-
less.  In these labors of love he was often so spent and
prostrated, that he needed to be soothed as if a father's
heart and  hope had been wounded ; but his joy in success
was so great, that, when he was thrown to the ground,
he would rise from it Antaeus-like, and go on  rejoicing to
new conflicts.   Many a student was dismissed from his
institution for the vice  of persistent lying,— not always
publicly, but  removed  by  private  communication with
friends; for that was the most hopeless form  of youthful
vice in his eyes, and he did not  think it right  to allow
its contaminating influence in such a" community.   Our
national vice of intemperance he treated like a physician,
and shared with his students the vigils held over the few-
cases that came to an alarming  crisis in the institution.
But that vice never made headway there : a healthy pub-
lic  opinion made it impossible.  This was his first object,
to winnow out inveterate sinners of all kinds, and estab-
lish a public opinion that should soon frown down  all ex-
cesses.  To this end he was no respecter of persons ; and
it is true that the children of some of the most prominent
patrons of the institution were sent away from it on this
ground, — that reckless and irresponsible persons must not
be allowed there to  corrupt the unwary, and spread de-
moralizing influences which no disciplinary or precaution-
ary measures could counteract.   The result  of this  care
was that fine moral tone which distinguished  the institu-
tion, and at last made it possible to receive difficult cases
and effect reforms without injury to others. Before long, 
                LIFE OF HORACE MANN.             441

the college community ranked far higher than the outside
community ; and it was this success which induced Mr.
Mann to remain in it, even after lie himself felt that his
strength was giving way.  He was confident that  he had
proved the position he had  taken in  the beginning;  and
he knew that an influence had gone out, and would con-
tinue to go out, into the schools and homes of the West, as
far as his  students might be  scattered, that would make
the institution one, as he once expressed it, " where men
would send their children to save them."  In conferences
with other college  faculties, he obtained  expressions of
concurrence with his views ; but, as far as I have learned,
the concurrence ended with the  expression.   He thought
something was gained,  however, by winning over the
intellectual sympathies of the elder generation so far that
they could not in decency controvert them or deny their
wisdom.  He  knew what  advantage he had  over older
institutions which had  been transplanted from the Old
World  with all their brutalities of custom; but  he did
not relinquish the hope that even they might be brought
to shame  and  reformation.
   A noble moralist, after sitting nine years in the Massa-
chusetts Legislature, where  he never lost sight of the
highest aspects of  public life,  said he had left it with a
better  opinion of human nature than  he had when he
entered it.  How heartily Mr. Mann sympathized in this
opinion, after seeing  some of his young pupils, fully pos-
sessed with the  noble  Christian sentiment of brotherly
love, lift  some of their companions out  of the  deepest
mire of sensuality and intemperance into the light of a
new life 1
   But one complaint of depredation  was ever  made; and
that was  the robbery of an Irishman's poultry-yard.   This
was treated by a short history, after morning  prayers 
442
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
(an occasion wliich Mr. Mann often seized  for any disci-
plinary remarks he wished to  make  in  public), of the
oppressions and disabilities which induced  that  unfortu-
nate population to emigrate to a country better governed
than their own, where their very consciences were made
the means of oppressing  them;  and  an appeal to the
better feelings of the youth around him to  live up to the
theory of their country's hospitality, and show the fruits
of a superior culture  by  good behavior.   It was well
done, and it -was  the last  occasion for such an  exhorta-
tion.
  No accidental  or  adventitious circumstances can ac-
count for this.  It was made a point of honor from the
beginning to be gentlemanly and trustworthy in  all rela-
tions with the community.  A lady walking in the village
of Yellow Springs, or its  outskirts, felt protected by the
sight of any student of the college.  Was not this a result
worthy to die for ?
  When Mr. Hill was invited to be Mr. Mann's successor,
the remark was made  to  him that he would hardly be
required  to carry out Mr. Mann's Utopian views as ex-
emplified in his " Code of Honor."  Mr. Hill  replied that
he  had  watched Mr. Mann's course with the  greatest
interest, and it was that special feature of it which made
him wish to be his successor.
  There is no doubt that Mr. Mann's principle and  reso-
lution in  regard to  refusing admittance  to  no one  on
account of their  color was a temporary disadvantage to
the college, and alienated many  who would otherwise
have contributed to its support.   He would  have  been
very glad if such applications had  not been  made until
pecuniary difficulties were past; but he would never for
a moment listen to the refusal of such applicants, if suit-
ably prepared to enter.  I remember but  two instances 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.             443
in which the presence of two lovely young ladies of talent
and refinement, who were slightly tinged in complexion,
lost any actual scholars to the institution.  One was of a
young man from Delaware, whose father professed to be
opposed to slavery ;  but, when  he learned  from his son
that he was in the same classes with these young ladies,
he ordered him to leave the institution at once.   By the
time the command reached him, the son had discovered
that the scholarship  and standing  of these classmates
were  far above his own,  and that  they  were highly re-
garded, and treated with as much respect as others :  and
he would fain have  disobeyed  the  parental injunction ;
but it was peremptorily repeated, and he left with great
but unavailing regret.
  The other instance  was  that of a wealthy gentleman in
the neighborhood, at the time President of  the Board of
Trustees.  When his  own daughter was  of suitable age,
and qualified to enter the  preparatory school, he ordered
the steward not to renew the  entrance-tickets of those
young ladies  of color.  The steward refused to comply,
except by a vote  of the Teaching Committee (Mr. Mann
was one of  these) ; wliich being refused, the gentleman
threw up his  office and  all  interest in the institution,
and sent his daughter elsewhere.  If the college  is ever
opened again, it is to be hoped that  the great change of
sentiment upon this  subject, which has resolved some
of the best and noblest of our Northern men and  women
into an educational commission for the  instruction of the
colored race, will make such circumstances as  the above
forever impossible.
  Mr. Mann's own letters will be the most satisfactory
history of this last, best portion of his life ;  and they will
show  how gradually, and almost unconsciously to  him-
self (for lie never admitted it), his hope of success faded. 
444               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
                                  Yellow  Springs, Nov. 9,  1853.
   My dear Downer, — It is a long time since I have daily said
 to myself, "Now I must write to my friend  Downer;"  but the
 day has brought its engagements and occupations, and so the letter
 to you, not the remembrance of you, has been  postponed.   Proba-
 bly I have suffered more from the delay than  you have. .  . . We
 are comfortably situated at last.   Ohio growths are rapid growths;
 but  this does not hold  true of our house, which has not yet grown
 up to the chamber-floor.  Another year, if we live, will probably
 find us in better condition. . . .
   As to my daily life,  it is a life  of being  busy rather than a life
 of- hard labor.   We have two hundred students, and should have
 had  more if our dormitories had been ready  to receive them.   This
 is considered here rather  an extraordinary beginning.   If they
 should call on " Mr. President,"  on an average, only once apiece
 in ten days, it would make twenty calls a day; and  so you see what
 my liabilities to be interrupted  are.  When the main  building is
 done, I shall have a  room in it;  and then I shall have particular
 hours for receiving applications and visits.   But  you ask " how I
 like."   Well, in few  words,  I think the  moulding  of youthful
 mind and manners is the noblest  work that man or angels could
 do;  and I ought to be content to  fill even a subordinate sphere in
 such work.   I have now a course of lectures, mainly physiological,
 which I am delivering on Friday evenings  this term;  and I have
 constant opportunities to say a word which may  serve to  shape opin-
 ion and character.
   I preached, Sunday before  last, to a large audience of students
 and villagers, and got through, perhaps, as well as I had any right
 to expect for a beginner.
   Last Sunday,  Mrs. M-----, R-----,  and I joined  the  Chris-
 tian  Church. We thought our influence for good  over the students
 would be increased.   We  had no  ceremony of baptism ; we sub-
 scribed to  no creed.   We  assented  to taking the Bible  for  the
 " man of our counsel," as it was expressed,  with the liberty of
interpretation for ourselves; and we acknowledged Christian char-
acter to be the only true test of Christian fellowship.  This is all.
  I was requested to speak  for myself before the church.   I said, 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
445
that, ever since I had known the theological views of the Christian
denomination, I had found  them to be more coincident with my
own than those of any  other  denomination; that I  believed the
whole duty of man consisted  in knowing and doing the will of God;
that I desired to  express this  belief,  and to  show my regard for
those who held it by uniting with them ; that my views for years
had undergone no change.   And then I entered an explicit  caveat
against the idea that belonging to any visible church organization
was essential to salvation, quoting the case of Cornelius the centu-
rion.  I was unanimously voted in;  and so of the others, without
their saying any thing, except through me, that they also wished to
join. . . .
                     Yours  ever and truly,
                                                HORACE  MANN.
                             November, All-Saints' Day, 1853.

  My dear Mr. Mann, — "All Saints"  is a good day to write
to you, who sympathize with them all, and some of the  sinners too,
I trust.   I concede to you the 29th  for your  lecture, with  no
meritorious self-denial; for I had written and asked for a different
day for myself.
  I  have heard from you indirectly twice,—by  the Howlands,
good souls that they are; and Downer, great noble heart that he is.
Sorry that your impedimenta got impeded.  The "Boston Courier "
praised  your  Inaugural highly.  What have you  been doing to
deserve that?   We go on nicely here.   Sumner is stumping the
State : if he had done it last year, you would  not have gone to
Yellow Springs  till January.   Mr. Palfrey, you  see, kicks at the
new combination.   He is  good, conscientious as a saint, but not
progressive.   I  respect his sacredness of individualism   He will
not be mixed up with other men's messes, and so is  a perpetual
mar-plan, but always with most conscientious motives.
  Love from all to  ditto.         Truly,               ^^ 
446              LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
                             Yellow Springs, Ohio, Nov. 29,1853.
   My dear Mr. Combe, — ... M---- acknowledges  that  she
has been egotistic; and I must be egotistic too, if talking about  our
own affairs constitutes egotism.   I am wholly absorbed in my new
work.  I want to transfer the more improved methods of instruction
and discipline  and the advanced ideas of education from the East to
the West.  I am well aware that the seed which I hope to sow will
hardly come up in my day; but my causality is so strong, that what
is to be at any time has a semblance of being immediately present.
Faith without  causality must be a tough problem.   Oh, how I wish
and  yearn that you could be here, so that we might spend the re-
mainder of our days  together, and that, whoever  of us should die
first, the survivor might close his eyes !
                             Farewell!
                                               HORACE MANN.


                             Yellow Springs, Ohio, Dec. 5,1853.
   My dear Mr. Combe, — I do not know that we have any thing
new in  this country of which  you would not be likely to hear in
England through the ordinary channels  of communication.   Our
new President is a  thorough party man, who  has been obliged to
pass through  a fiery ordeal, or rather to run  a terrible gantlet, in
the distribution of his  patronage.   The "New-York Evening Post,"
a Free-soil, Democratic paper (which, however,  strenuously sup-
ported Mr. Pierce during the late campaign), commends him in a
left-handed way for filling all our foreign missions with persons who
can leave the country  for the next four years without being missed
at home.  It is thought that the nominations  to office have almost
exclusive reference to  the highest good of the country and of man-
kind, — that  is,  assuming  that  the President's re-election at  the
end of the four years will  be more promotive of the well-being of
mankind than  all other  things, — for  these nominations are made
with reference  to that event.
   What do you think of France ? . .  .
   Frivolity, sensuality, and the Catholic religion, — what will  they
not do for the  debasement of mankind 1 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
447
  Howe remains very  much  as heretofore,—rather broken  in
health, but glorious  in  spirit.   When he  goes, it will  be almost
like taking the pilot from the helm.   I should miss him more than
it is possible for me to describe. . . .
  Since writing the above, I have received your note of the 27th
of May.   If  your health depended  upon my volition, how strong
you should be!
             I am, as ever, most truly your friend,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                            Yellow Springs, Ohio, April 24,1854.
  My dear  Mr. Craig, — What will  you  think of Mr. Horace
Mann ?  What can Mr. Horace  Mann expect that you will think
of him ?  Though you have written to me several times since I came
to sojourn this side of Jordan, and made only the most reasonable
requests, yet  I must confess that I have not replied at all.   Now,
rather than bear the whole offence of this apparent neglect and un-
kindness,  I must charge  something  to  Nature,  or circumstances,
or fate.
  Let me say that I have either  had  too much to do, or Nature did
not give me  strength enough  to perform what  she threw into my
hands, or circumstances baffled me in the fulfilment of events  that I
counted on as certain.   In short, it is hardly too much to say that
I have thought of you continually, have retained all my admiration
of you, have  praised you  with earnest and sincere words, and have
all the time — that is, from week to week for three months past —
intended to avail myself of the occasion of sending you my Inaugu-
ral, to write  you a letter of explanations and  thanks and hopes.
For three months past, I have  been constantly deluded with the
promise that my address would be ready for me,  and  as  constantly
disappointed.   I now send you  a copy of it, invoking your kind-
ness,  but deprecating your criticism.
  My dear Mr. Craig, when are  you  coming out here ?  It  seems
as though almost any thing desirable could  be  done if  you were
with us.   Much must long remain to be done, if you are not.   I
want once more to see you and converse with you on  this subject 
448
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
Shall you  not attend the Unitarian convention next May in Louis-
ville?  When you  do  come, you  must calculate  to spend two or
three sabbaths with us, and preach in our chapel.
   We are  prospering as to numbers.  All places for lodging in the
college and in the village have been crowded from the beginning.
We now have almost three hundred.  More than a thousand have
applied, but could not  obtain accommodations.  We are, however,
filhng up  fast enough.   I should not  desire a very large  quantity
of this raw material all at once.  We had better have it  and ma-
nipulate it by degrees.   Do let me hear from you;  do let me see
you.  When you come, come  with the idea in your  mind of an
ultimate change of residence.
                Yours as ever, with great regard,
                                             HORACE MANN.


   The following letter was addressed to the acting super-
intendent of  the institution, and  shows by its  tenor how
little Mr. Mann and the other members of the  faculty
were consulted  upon the  important  point of selecting
teachers.  In this instance, as in many others, the selec-
tions were made without reference to • the instruction
required, but  to  satisfy denominational demands ;  a con-
sideration quite at variance with the  declared spirit of the
institution.   One such appointee  could neither spell nor
use  English  correctly, and  yet  he had   been set over
the preparatory school.

                                 Yellow Springs, April 27, 1854.
A. M. Merrifield, Esq.
  Dear Sir, — At the beginning of our present  session,  in order
to meet the promises of our original prospectus and the requests of
a large class of  our students, we included book-keeping among the
studies to  be taught during this term.  This was inserted in the
programme, which has been posted in our halls ever since.
  Inquiries have been constantly made, since our present term com-
menced, when the class in book-keeping would be organized.  To 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.              449
these inquiries we have replied, that  we were only  awaiting the
arrival  of a new teacher, whom, for four weeks, we have now been
daily expecting.                       •
  After you  introduced Mr. K----to me yesterday, and  I in-
formed him that book-keeping was one of the studies he was desired
to teach, he replied that he had never studied it, was unacquainted
with it, and, had he been informed by you that he was expected to
do so, he should not have engaged to come here.*
  At a meeting of the faculty, held to-day,  the members instructed
me  to address the trustees through  you,  and inform them that
they deem it indispensable, in order to redeem our promises on the
one side, and  to meet the justly raised expectations of the  students
on the other, that some teacher be immediately appointed  who can
teach book-keeping.
  All the members of the  faculty expressed the opinion, that, had
any one of them been inquired of as to the qualifications expected
in or the duties required of the  new teacher, book-keeping would
have been the first item mentioned after the necessary executive or
disciplinary power.
  In compliance with the direction of the faculty, I transmit to
you this statement,  and remain
                   Very truly yours, &c,
                                              HORACE MANN.


  The  chapter of  difficulties  opened up  by this letter
might be continued by innumerable details.   Suffice  it to
say, for the present, that  it  had no end.   Jealousy of
Unitarian influence predominated in all the college coun-
cils, from its commencement to its sale under the sheriff's
hammer in 1859.  Many high-minded men were tempora-
rily alienated from its interests by the  industrious circula-
tion of this sectarian jealousy.   It prevented the appoint-
ment of some able  teachers, as well as saddled incompe-

  * This very estimable gentleman was selected by the  superintendent, without
any consultation with Mr. Mann as to what was required in the department. He
could teach Latin admirably, however.
             29 
450              LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
tent ones upon the  institution.   In some departments,
this evil was never fully remedied ; and it was only amaz-
ing that so  many students clung to it so long; for many
came and went disappointed  of their just expectations,
especially in regard  to modern languages, which disap-
pointment was due to no other cause.  It is true that the
want of funds came to be a serious obstacle  to securing
the services  of distinguished men  whose names might
have  given  eclat  to the college; but, for all purposes of
thorough instruction, Mr. Mann could have found enough
persons who would have worked under him for a pittance,
if he could have had any freedom of choice.   But the first
qualification of a candidate came to be, in the eyes of the
trustees, -lDoes he agree sufficiently with us  in religious
opinions ? "  instead of "Has he the  attainments to fit him
for the position ? "  Yet how the brave, indomitable heart
plodded on, hoping continually for  better things, till the
burden was no longer to be borne !

                                Newark, Ohio, Jan. 1, 1854.
  My dear Mr.  Parker, — I wish you a happy New Year;  ay, a
great many of  them.  I came  down to this pleasant village to lec-
ture, from Cleveland.  There  I heard your name  announced, and
it has been ringing  in my ears ever since.   How I want to hear
you! how I  want to see you!  When  I have time to  think of
it, what a feeling of  loneliness and far-offness comes over me at the
idea  of being separated  from you and  Howe and  Downer, and
others whom I so much love, not only benevolently,  but selfishly !
for how necessary a part of all personal hopes and plans, as well as
all my more public duties, you had become.  But, when I think of
what was once my home and my sphere, a feeling which I  suppose
must be like Turkish fatalism  comes over me, and I say to myself,
" Here you are,  and here you must remain.  Fate  has you in its
grip, and resistance i3 impossible.  No secondary cause can release
you. at least  for a time.   Go on, and  transmute your evil into 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
451
good as far as you  can."   So I submit, and try to make sunrises
and sunsets look as  when I could see my friends in the horizon.
  I have nothing to say  which can be of any special interest to
you.  I write to beseech you, if possible, to come and see us when
you are in our neighborhood.  If you go to Cincinnati, you  are, when
at Xenia, but nine  miles  from this place; even  at  Sandusky or
Toledo, only  a day's ride.   What a different hue  you would  give
to the  sunlight!  I had a most delightful visit from Downer.   I
felt a new emotion.   I enjoyed his presence so much as to make
me taciturn.  Did you ever have that  feeling beside a friend ?   I
have not for years, and supposed it belonged to lovers.
  I am working in faith.   I  don't know as I see any results, or
ever shall see them; but I think that causes must  produce  effects,
and  so  strive to put  the  causes  in motion.   I  know  that  such
things as I try to say to the young would have influenced me when
I was  young;  and  so  I  hope they may not all  fall upon stony
ground.   But our sphere of action is so limited, and our foresight
so short, that we must draw  our  encouragement more from  faith
and  our philosophy than  from reahzation.  My position here has
brought me into practical outward religious exercises;  and I assure
you I have enjoyed them very much.
  Before I came from Massachusetts, I asked several of our authors
and poets to  give me each a copy of their published works  for our
library.   I should have asked you too ; only, when I saw you, you
excluded all  else from my thoughts.  Let me ask you now.  Please
send them to me from  home;  or, if you  can, bring them with you
to our place,  or to the point where you approach it nearest.
  I wish you would also procure forme Dr. Hitchcock's " Discourse
on  the  Resurrection: " I mean  the  one in which he holds  that
the '' new body '' may have no relation  of identity with the  '' old
body,"  but may only be  the  same number of pounds of oxygen,
hydrogen, and carbon,  got together in the same way !  or at least so
nearly the same way that no  one will ever detect the  difference.
which I suppose would be just as well.
   If Mrs. Mann were  here, I know she  would join me in  most
lovino- messages to- Mrs.  Parker and Miss Stevenson  and  other
friends.
                   Yours  as ever,  most truly,      HORACE MANN. 
452
LTFE OF HORACE MANN.
  These  familiar words to his friend show i trait in Mr.
Mann's  character, — the  ever-recurring doubt, whether
he was  doing all that  ought  to  be done  in  whatever
sphere of duty he might be engaged.  How often, when
he had  been  wrought to  great fervor of thought  and
speech on some topic of  paramount interest to his own
mind and heart, would  he  wonder and wish to know
whether the fire  kindled in other breasts !  A little more
confidence in his own power to execute his  conceptions
would have added much to his happiness ; but,  as results
do not come immediately, he had to take refuge in his
causality for  encouragement.  What a blessing his logic
was to his heart! over what seas of difficulty and opposi-
tion and  ingratitude it bore him !
  One of his most appreciative  pupils,* writing to a
friend of the impression he made in his class-room, says,
•' His mode  of teaching was  suggestive and stimulating ;
not so holding his flock to the dusty, travel-worn  path as
to forbid  their free access  to every inviting meadow or
spring by the way.   It was his wont to hoar us recite a
few hours each week, assigning special  lessons  to special
pupils, giving each some  question, some theory, some
matter-of-fact inquiry, on which each could pursue inves-
tigations at leisure, and prepare a paper to be read before
the whole class,  and be  commented  upon  by himself.
The range of  these topics  (when  political economy was
the subject) — taking  in. questions  of agriculture  and
soil-fertilization,  of  canals  and railroads, of commerce, of
cotton-gins or steam-ploughs, of population, of schools and
churches and public charities in their economic  relations,
and of those  rising civilizations which bear  up art  and
foster science, both necessitating and making possible
greater civil and spiritual freedom, yet having their roots
* Rev. H. C. Badger. 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
453
among these lower material conditions — illustrates the
comprehensiveness  of  Mr. Mann's favorite methods  of
educating and instructing our minds.
  " But even this was  not so peculiar to him as a certain
personal impulse he imparted to all who came  in  contact
with him, — the impetus with which his mind  smote our
minds, rousing us, and kindling a heat of enthusiasm, as
it were, by the very power  of  that spiritual percussion.
It was in this that he was so  incomparable.  A man
might as well hope  to dwell  near the sun unmoved as not
to glow when brought to feel his fervid love of truth and
heartfelt zeal in its  quest. The fresh delight of childhood
seemed  miraculously prolonged  through  his  life: truth
never palled upon his mind;  the world never  wore a
sickly light.  And this cheerful spirit, which was  at bot-
tom  nothing but the most  living faith  in God and man,
was so contagious, that indifference, misanthropy, despair
of attaining  truth, gave way  before it, or were trans-
formed into a like hearty enthusiasm.
  " Then, in guiding the new-roused impulse, he was so
conscientious and candid, so careful not to trench on the
borders of individuality, nor to let our loving respect for
him  so fix our eyes on his opinion that  we should lose
the beckon of some proximate truth, that we  felt him as
gentle to guide as he was powerful to inspire."
  Another answer to this question, to which he  could hear
no response at the time, is in the words  of one who grew
under him as only noble germs can grow, who saw him
in all his later trials, and who watched over his last days
with the tenderness of  a son; and of whom the sufferer
said, " His touch is  as delicate as that of a woman."  He
now devotes himself and his rare gifts of heart and mind
to the noble charity of  guardian of the Soldiers' Home at
Memphis,  Miss.*
     * ♦'• W. Christy, guardian of the Soldiers' Home at Memphis, Miss. 
454
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
  With Horace  Mann it is eminently true that religion was central:
it was the core of his life.   Four years ago, 1 did not say co; but
in the depths of experience I have since  learned  that morality,  aa
he saw  it, includes what is usually called  religion.   He did not
translate the moral law of the universe as too  many of us translate
it, who are satisfied to say that " honesty is  the  best  policy;" that
it is better to do right than wrong: but he found, and ho said
boldly, that the moral law is in  the  imperative.    We ought  to do
and feel right  because it is right, not because  God  commands,  or
that we  shall get our reward in the future.  If there  be any  moral
perfection possible for us in this life,  it is  to have  come  to so love
and desire right and virtue simply as right and virtue, that we shall
not  need to elect or choose them, but shall unconsciously and spon-
taneously cleave to and follow after them.   To my own mind, I am
wont to  symbolize the life of Mr. Mann by the figure of an ardent
and strong youth begirt with the perils and temptations of life, with
these four sentences engraved around him in characters of fire : —
  What is the moral law of the universe, — the highest I know,  or
can know ? and what does it teach ?
  That  moral  law ought to be obeyed.
  That  moral  law can be obeyed.
  That  moral  law I will obey, ruat caelum.
  And  when I add  that no press or allurement  of  circumstances
was able to entice or force him from  his loyalty to  this moral law, I
have completed the statement of the central and organizing fact of
his entire life.  From this  point we easily trace  outward through
his external life the influence of what  thus  lay  at the centre of his
being.   All those angularities, those Gibraltar  points, which  so
foiled and annihilated his adversaries, were doubled in power  by his
fidelity to the right.   I  said, his angularities;  for thus certain traits
in him appeared to some minds : but the clearer  vision  of another
world will show us that his character was not  angular, save as  it
was a mighty  and loyal  will crystallized.
  Does it seem strange  to any that such a character  as  his, as the
world saw it,  should have religion as its basis  and organizing prin-
ciple ? . .  . He tells us himself that he  early came to grapple with
the  highest and yet  fearfulest problems  of human existence.   Is 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
455
not here proof enough that Religion, in some form, must be  the
primal conscious force  of his life?   The world  dealt sternly with
him:  she brought him to the armories of power;  she trained him
to industry or diligence, until, as he himself says, it became his
second nature.   And who  shall  trace  the  secret  foundations  of
wisdom and power laid in that theologic  or religious orphanage
which "brings one  face to face with  despair  and with God;  which
fills one's being with such  an unutterable  sense of aloneness and
captivity, that  life reveals  itself  as a flight through time to  the
bosom of the infinite Father ?  Who shall  tell us what magazines
of will  are gained, of  grim,  earnest force,  direct,  persistent, affir-
mative, swift; what clearness and length of vision ?  We are every-
where called upon to adulterate our life.   It is considered a fine
thing to  have a little  virtue, a homoeopathic  pellet of piety, in solu-
tion, in social and business  life;  but, as the point  of saturation is
neared, the man is regarded as less and less  likely to succeed in the
world :  every thing is spoiled if there be a precipitation.  We forget
that to be truly religious is  to love as the soul says, without compro-
mise,  without  hesitancy, without evasion,  and  without idleness;
with a rugged and angular energy, it may be,  scorning consequences;
or possibly with  a lamb-like, retiring temper, which works without
friction; which stays at home, or, if it goes abroad, goes as the
angel of mercy and inevitable love, so evacuated of passion as to be
unable to lift the axe of the reformer.   Is there not need of both
the lion and the lamb ?  And is it our place to say that  God should
send here none but lambs ?   If Nature  makes up her material into
a lion, the  breath  of life which God breathes  into him does not trans-
form him into a lamb, but he becomes one of God's lions. . . .
   There are men who seem to front  an infinite background of law,
justice, and power :  in  their presence, the reverences natural to the
soul rise up to assert themselves.  All who  came into the  presence
of Mr. Mann, especially in  his hours of work, when the lion within
him rose up and fought, felt that awe and reverence which  power,
genius, and virtue inspire.   Few persons, if any, were so abandoned
as to dare to be trivial or vicious in his presence.   Some of us here
know how he grappled with the apostle of free love : others can tell
better than  I of  his conflict with  the " great giant " of New'Eng- 
456
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
land ;  of his short but earnest career in Congress; of his  holy war
upon intemperance,  tobacco-using,  and slavery.   At  such times,
from every nerve of  his being there seemed to come forth  a whole
park of Jove's artillery.   It was this same religiousness that gave
him such an inevitable directness in  all he said and did.   He
gravitated as straight and as surely to the right as the stone gravitates
to the  earth.   He seemed to travel the highway of power.   He had
courage and persistency because he  had faith enough to do duty.
We all know how present to him was the future.   Immortality was
one of the most familiar words upon  his lips;  and there seemed
never to be absent from his thought the living sense of the truth,
that the future flows out of the  present.   Virtue is moral victory, —
is an infinite  series of moral victories :  hence  constancy of purpose
and of labor is indispensable.   Labor to him was a sacrament.   As
Cecil said of Sir Walter Raleigh, " We know that he could and did
toil terribly."  I find no other character which so illustrates to  me
that saying of Novalis as Mr. Mann : '' By enlargement and culti-
vation  of our activity, we change ourselves into fate."
   Character  and motives  seemed almost  transparent beneath  his
look.    Cecil says, " I could  write down twenty  cases wherein I
wished God had done otherwise than he did, but which I now see,
had I  had my own  will, would have  led  to extensive mischief."
Thus I think we may say of Mr. Mann's administration of this
college.  How many of us at the time thought some of his measures
needlessly severe ?   Some  persons,  perhaps, thought them unjust.
We were sure our own way would  have been better.   But now,
after a little time, can we put our finger upon a case where  we
think our way would have been better ?  How much of his wisdom,
how much of any man's wisdom,  comes to him  as  a remit of  his
love of virtue, and of his obedience to  the moral law ?   Those are
not hyperboles of the heart, beside itself with enthusiasm, which  we
read in the Scriptures: " The  fear of the Lord is the beginning  of
wisdom; " " Commit thy ways unto the Lord, and he shall bring
forth thy righteousness and thy judgment as  the noonday."   Do
we not think, that, the purer and more  transparent the medium, the
farther and more copiously enters the  light ?  and is not the good
man the medium through which God shines down into humanity ? 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
457
   One of the great benefits of such a man is that his life forces men
 to take sides decisively; to be black  or  white :  for it is  yet true
 that the  least tolerable of all human beings are those who are neither
 hot  nor cold.  His  speech and  his  manner constantly made  the
 appeal, " How long halt ye between two opinions ? "   I often saw
 in him the old Hebrew earnestness, sternness, clear far-sightedness,
 that sees things  as God sees them.   And then he had  the rarest of
 all qualities, — that of living as he believed.   That is the highest
 praise of any man.   Let him be solid;  of  one  piece  through and
 through; a man upon whom you  can make observations, and of
 whom you can compute the future with just as great certainty as the
 astronomer calculates the  movements of the sun and stars for cen-
 turies ahead.
   I  find no discrepancy between this deep religiousness of  his char-
 acter, and that fierce, unevadable vigor with which he  pursued vice
 and  its confirmed votaries.  Where virtue and right were  assailed,
 he acted with the rapidity and intensity of the lightning-stroke.
 The  delusion has fallen upon men  in these days, that every thing is
 to be done by compromise;  by compounding with God, so  as to let
 the  Devil  have matters partly his  own way.  It is expected that
 the attrition of our life will abrade and remove not only the social
 angles, but also  the moral angles, of a man's  character.   Hence it
 is regarded as in some degree a fault in a man to act in the presence
 of vice as natural forces act  when the conditions of their action are
 met.   Truth, we ought to know, has  a natural divine right; and
 whether  it lives and acts in a man, or in the  thunderbolt from God's
 own  hand, it has a normal  right to resist, to crush, to annihilate.
 The  common parlor prudence of our day,  the custom of lying, and
 betraying one's  self  to  the Devil, which  we have baptized  and
 admitted not only into conversation and business, but even into the
 church and  into morals, under the  name of expediency and  good
 policy, — this custom of  trying to  serve God and Mammon, Mr.
 Mann defied, and boldly put under his feet.  His life was a constant
negation  to  that shameful maxim of worldly policy, that every man
has his price.
  For five years he went out and in among us, our teacher and ad-
 riser, our reproof and encouragement; a Christian, and, as it were, 
458
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
our father.  He came  to many before me to-day as the spring sun
comes  to northern  groves and hillsides, the bringer and free-giver
of hfe  and beauty.  He rose upon our  educational  world like a
star  out of  the  east.    And yet the  very depth and blood-heat
of my  reverence  and affection for him would forbid me to open my
lips in  the presence of those less wrought upon  by his heroic  life
and death.  As yet, we are unused to his absence.  If his lithe form,
with its clastic,  resilient step and dignified  bearing, radiant with
the strength of self-conquest and impregnable virtue,  were to walk
among  us again  to-day, and we were to hear once more  his well-
weighed, living speech, it would be as if our dearest friend had re-
turned  to us after a short absence, rather  than as the  appearing of
the dead among  the living.   The world saw him as the stern, lion-
hearted worker.  We who dwelt with him as his  pupils knew him
as the kind adviser, as tender and solicitous of our welfare as our
own  parents.  Those who knew  him in the  bosom of his family,
where  he  unbent, and let all the genialness  and affection of  his
deep nature come  forth, tell us  that in none did they find such
richness and tenderness  of heart, — richness  and tenderness as of
a mother.

   Numerous other testimonials of similar  interest could
be given from  the  reminiscences  of students;  but  the
limits  of this  work  cannot contain  them.

                                         Boston, .Ian. 8, 1854.
   My dear Mr.  Mann, — Many a Christmas and  New-Year's good
wish did we  all send after you as the old  year drew nigh  its end.
You  do not know how often Howe and Downer and I want to see
you,  and strengthen ourselves in  your great might and high pur-
pose.   But it is a noble post that you occupy.   I  am glad  that you
are there, — sad  enough for my own sake;  sympathizing, too, for the
heartache which I know  often comes over the homesick man.   But
I think of the generations which will rise up and  call  you blessed.
I think New England had no seed in her granary which the West
needed so much  as yourself.   Now God has sown you in Ohio, I
look  for great harvests which mankind shall  one day reap there- 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
459
from.  I know what energy you will bring to the work, what power
to conceive  and to organize your  thought.  I am  glad you have
also  taken to  preaching, trusting  that you will  preach the  great
natural religion whereof the revelations of  old time  are but a small
part.  God  made  the universe;  man made the  Bible; and poor
Christian  ministers say to the people, " Hush !  don't listen to the
universe, only to the Bible: the  universe  is Nature;  the Bible is
grace ; it is God." . . .  God bless  you !
                          Yours truly,
                                          THEODORE PARKER.

                                 Yellow Springs, Feb. 28, 1854.
   My dear Downer, — ... What do the Webster men say now ?
The Nebraska Bill is the first upas-tree  that grow3 out  of  his
grave. . . .
                     Yours ever and truly,
                                              HORACE MANN.

                                Yellow  Springs, March 13, 1854.
   My dear Sumner, — ... I cannot describe my  feelings to you
on the Nebraska  Bill.   I seem  like one  who is dragged by fiery
devils or Douglasses — it don't matter which — into  Tophet, from
which, for the next five hundred  years, I see  no  escape.   It is
a case of desperation.   It so encompasses me about, that nothing
but the power and wisdom of God seems capable of reaching outside
of it.  Have you any hope ?
                     Very truly yours, &c,
                                              HORACE  MANN.

                                      New York, May 13, 1854.
   My dear Mr. Mann, — How long it is  since I have written you
a line, or read  one from you!    But I hear from you often by
Downer  and various others;   and  I  find  that you are doing  the
same great work for Ohio which you  did for Massachusetts.   Well,
God bless you!   But I fear  that your excessive  labors,  as well
voluntary as official, will break you  down. Remember that it is a
new country to you that you are now  in. Do be wise; for we cannot 
460
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
spare you yet.   I fear the good God will wait some time before he
gives us another Horace Mann.  I thank you heartily for your long-
looked-for " Inaugural."  It will give pleasure to more than one of
the household. . . . We have an antislavery convention from all the
free States at Buffalo on July 4.  " Voila le commencement  du
fin ! "   Love to all.
                           Good-by!
                                                   T. PARKER.

                                 Yellow Springs, May 30, 1854.
   My  dear Mr. Parker, — You ought to know, that, '' outside
barbarians " as we are, your " Nebraska Sermon " and your " Dis-
course of Old Age," &c, are on the counters of our village book-
stores.  But none the less did  I prize those sent under your own
autograph, which (though not always unattended with difficulties)
is always delightful to eyes and  heart.
   When your note of the  23d  reached me, I was pronus, but am
now getting erect.  I have talked with  Judge  Mills about a rally
of  Northern  forces,  in  defence of liberty, on the " Theatre  of
Words."   Here we are great and glorious.   Only give us some
question where virtue  and duty and piety can all be satisfied  by
fine speeches, and there never was such valor; but, beyond that,
what cowards and cravens and shirks !
   If the men who would go to such a  convention would expend
the same amount of time and means in convertinp; or in rousing their
own neighborhoods,  now or before the  next elections,  something
might be done; but I confess that latterly, at temperance meetings,
antislavery meetings, &c, I have felt somewhat sheepish.   I have
heard a voice saying to me, " Why are you here, and not elsewhere ?
why are you talking, and not acting ? why do you launch the thun-
derbolts of Salmoneus, and not  of Jupiter ? ''
   The North, in 1850, vested its capital in slavery.  The Kansas-
Nebraska Bill is the first payment of interest.
   The papers this morning tell us of your commotion in Boston.
Oh, how I burn to see it!  I know you will be brave; and there-
fore will only say, Be prudent.   When Boston was besieged in the
Revolution, liberty was far less in danger than now.   Why should I 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
461
say, as is customarily said, " God help us! "  I think he retjrts,
" Help yourselves ! " . .  .
  With best regards of all of us to all of you,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                  Yellow Springs, June 5, 1854.
  My dear Downer, —.  . . What is the real state of the public
mind and the Boston mind in regard to the practical beauties of the
Fugitive-slave Law?*   I get nothing worth a pin.  except  through
the " New-York Tribune " and " Evening Post." Is Massachusetts
any more worth living in than it was ?   Is there to be a time when I
can speak of it without blushing ?  I know there are glorious men
in it, as  excellent as ever lived; but are they still under  suppres-
sion?   How I am mortified to think of L-----!  and yet it is only
Websterism come to a head.  . . . What glorious resolutions those
were of Howe's !   I bear this new outbreak from hell with  a sort of
sullen composure.  When others display their excitement,  and talk
vengeance, I tell them that I went through all  that experience in
1850 ; that they are now only where I  was then; and that, if they
had been there at that  time, none of us would be here to witness
what we now see.  Can any thing be more true ?
   Off here a thousand miles, it looks as though the thing had not been
well managed.   Reasoning on the side  of the rioters, and for the
object of the riot, it was either folly to kill one man, or it was folly
not to kill enough  to answer the  purpose.   Do  let me hear from
you ; and, oh, how glad I shall be to see you ! .  . .
                          Yours as ever,
                                                 HORACE MANN.

                                  Yellow Springs, June 16, 1854.
   My dear Mr. Craig, — I received, in due course of mail, yours
of May 7.  To that part of it which related to your health, let  me
say that I am rejoiced to know that a clergyman is recognizing and
obeying the laws of health, and performing the first steps in  the
regeneration of the race; that is, their physical reformation.  You
* Anthony Burns had just been surrendered. 
462               LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
 honor philosophy and religion alike by so doing, and enroll yourself
 in the new school and amonz the new lights.*
   I ought not entirely to omit, and yet how can  I properly notice,
 that part  of your letter in which you refer to the  " Inaugural "?
 I never wrote any thing that seemed  to me to  fall so  far  short of
 what should be said on the theme therein discussed.   Your partiality
 alone makes  you speak of it  kindly: and yet I love to be com-
 mended, even for such a reason ;  that is, by such a man.
   But, my dear  sir,  I sat down this time to make love to you !
 Do not be alarmed.   I am serious and literal!   I must woo  you ;
 and nobody could woo who did not hope to win.
   The Rev. Mr.  Ladley, who has preached to the Christian Church
 in this village for the last few years,  has just resigned.   They are
 looking for a successor.   Yesterday the committee called on  me to
 make inquiry.  Whom could I speak or think  of  but you? ... If
 your right ear did not burn, there is no truth in signs.
   And now, my dear sir, you want to  do good.  That is your
 divinely appointed mission.  Where else can you reach and help to
 fashion  three, four, five, or perhaps  six hundred growing minds,
 and fashion them after your idea  of the  image of Christ ?   There
 never was such  an  opening for  you;  there may never be  such
 another.   Were I a believer in special providences, I should think
 this had all the signatures of genuineness.   We have a paper here,
 the  "Gospel Herald:" where else  can you  better write?  We
 shall have a library :  where else  can  you  better study ?   We are
 students of earthly lore :  will you not infuse the heavenly ?  We
 are among a money-loving people : will you not make them sanctify
 money in its uses ?
   Re-preaching your  sermons will give you a great deal of time An-
 other services.  Every thing says, " Come."  " The Spirit and the
 Bride say, Come."
   The people here  are  favorable  to extempore  sermons; that is,
 when, as Mirabeau  said, they have been fully thought out before-
 hand.   I believe  you preach so mainly. . . .
                         Yours as ever,
                                                HORACE MANN.
   * Mr. Mann here refers to the new philosophy growing out of the principles of
phrenological science, for which this was his favorite designation. 
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.              463
                                  Yellow Springs, July 1,1854.
Rev. Theodore Parker.
  My dear Sir, — Will you give us a lecture during the ensuing
lecture season ?  I am most anxious that our students should hear
you,—the young  men that they may see the  combined effect of
talent and culture, and the young women that they may know the
difference between men and butterflies. . . .
                   With best regards to all,
                                           HORACE MANN.

  To this Mr. Parker replied, when he was ready to visit
the West: —

  My dear Mr. Mann, — I hope to be in the place where "the
disciples were first called Christians," on Saturday, the 14th instant.
But as it would  be very improper for such a heretic as I am to
preach at Antioch on Sunday,  and as I fear there is small chance
for my hearing yourself,  and as I doubt the worth of listening to
the  Rev. ----, I wish to know if there is not some place  in its
neighborhood, say Dayton e.g., where so wicked a man could hold
forth and be welcome.  If so,  can you set the thing agoing in such
a manner that I may ride thither on the following day ?
                      Yours faithfully,
                                           THEO. PARKER.


  Mr. Parker was listened to with deep interest at Antioch;
and many a petition  was  brought  in, backed by earnest
entreaties, and also in some cases by the expression of
almost  angry  disappointment  when   refused, that  Mr.
Parker should be invited to preach.   But  Mr. Mann had
but one vote in the faculty on that  subject;  and both he
and Mr. Parker  thought  it  not best even  to make the
proposition, which would  surely have failed to succeed,
and might have added threefold bitterness to the existing
jealousy of what was supposed to be Unitarian encroach-
ment.
  .Mr. Mann's  caution was  not founded on  any fear of 
464             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.

uttering truth:  but he did not quite approve the spirit in
which Mr. Parker uttered what he conscientiously thought,
truth; neither did he think, from his experience there, that
Mr. Parker would be understood or appreciated for his real
worth by men upon whose breath the whole existence  of
the institution depended.  For such measure of light as
he thought  Mr. Parker  to have attained, — and he was
of opinion that no other  man was doing an equal work for
the rights of private judgment  and  free  speech,— that
community was not ripe.
   Instead of shocking religious sensibility and life-long
associations  by rude assaults upon the drapery in which
such faith as they had was clothed, he would have echoed
the words of John Robinson at Leyden : " The  Lord  has
more truth yet to break  forth out of  his holy word. . . .
Luther and Calvin were  great and shining lights in their
times ; yet they penetrated not the whole counsel of God.
I beseech  you, remember, 'tis an article of your church
covenant that you  be ready to receive' whatever  truth
shall be made known to you  from the written word  of
God."   Nor  did  he forget the  more  ancient words:  " I
have yet many things to say unto  you ; but ye cannot
bear them now ; " which,  unhappily, are as applicable now
as then to many regions,  even where the light of truth  has
dawned.   It was in this  spirit, and not in that of hypocri-
sy, with which he has  been charged even by Mr. Parker,
because he did not follow the method that seemed  to  the
latter good, that  he met and disarmed  opposition, while
he expressed his sympathy with all  that was gained  of
freedom.
   The following  letter  is inserted for its hearty expres-
sion of sympathy:  — 
                   LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               465

                                         Rockport, July 13,  1854.
Hon. Horace Mann.
  My dear Sir,—Your letter of the 3d has just reached me by the
sea-side.   If you will promise  to stay away from the lecture-room,
I will pledge myself to visit Yellow Springs, if I am invited to any
neighboring cities of Ohio.   It would afford me the greatest pleas-
ure to see you and your institution ; and I should jump at the naked
hook, unbiassed by the offer of your  hospitality or any lecture fee.
I know you will be generous enough  not to compel me to utter my
sleazy thoughts before the prince of lecturers. ... I ought to tell
you with what admiration I read your "Inaugural," a few  days
ago, in the shadow of the rocks by the sea-shore.   There is vitality
enough in  it to make a college thrive in Sahara.  One would like
to'know the details of the diet that floods the brain with such impet-
uous electricity for  the  service  of truth,  making  the  sentences
tingle the eye when they are read.  Do you have a Leyden jar for
a sauce-box upon your table ?
  Doubtless our Nebraska bills are fed at the root by tobacco-juice,
brandy, and the weak liquor that  trickles into the public mind from
most of the sacrificial churches of the country;  and it does the in-
most soul good to read such hearty and vivid religious appeals as
your "Inaugural"  makes  in  favor  of  obedience  to the   hidden
gospel in the constitution of body, mind, and soul.
                  Believe me  sincerely yours,
                                               T. STARR KING.

                                    Yellow Springs, Sept. 10,1854.
Rev. Austin Craio.
  My dear Sir, — I received your letter of  the 4th inst. on
Saturday, and have kept it-two days,  hoping to discover by reflec-
tion the wisest way of answering it.    But my  reflections have done
me  no good.   The letter  has filled me with sadness.  It is conta-
gious.  You were sad when you wrote it, — morbidly so; and I am
sad when I read it or think of  it.  You magnify your duties;  and
then you change the telescope, end for end, to look at your ability
to perform  them.
  The idea that it was possible  and probable that you would come
here has occupied my  mind very  much  for  several weeks past.
               30 
466
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
The anticipated influence you would exert on our  young men and
maidens has filled me with joy; and when, last week, they came
together at the  beginning of our term, to  the  number of about
four hundred, I assure you it was with  very vivid delight that I
looked forward to the influence of your spirit among them.   Was
there ever a more inviting field ?  With your eager desire to stamp
the spirit of Christ upon the human  heart, were there ever, or will
there ever be, more hearts, or more susceptible ones, than these, on
which to make the impress ? . . .
   I thought, too, that your duties would be light here.  You could
turn the old barrel of sermons over,  and  begin at the other end.  I
think  the  people here would want to see you pretty often in the
church; but one of your sermons would make forty such a^ they
have been accustomed to hear.
   My dear friend, I  fear the wind was  east when  you wrote that
letter.  Do not disappoint us.  Prof. Holmes is delighted at the
idea of your coming;  so are others.   As  to external attractions,
we have but few; but for one who lives so  much as you do in the
region of  the heart, and who wishes  to enlarge that region, I know
of no place for you so suitable as this.
                    Farewell, my  friend!
                                            HORACE MANN.


   These  letters, urging Mr.  Craig's  removal to  Yellow
Springs, are given  for the purpose  of showing more clear-
ly than  the words  of another  can do the principles on
which Mr. Mann wished to form the religious tone of the
new institution.  Mr. Craig's influence was as peculiar
as his own religious  character.  It was not dogmatical,
but exhortatory.  It flowed out of his own religious  ex-
perience with rare eloquence and simplicity, enlisting the
sympathy and vivifying the answering  sentiment in  his
audience with wonderful fervor. Mr. Mann held it in the
highest  estimation;  and his importunity, which might
otherwise seem unreasonable, can only be thus explained.
But the bond between Mr. Craig and his own society was 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
467
one that could hardly be  sundered.  In arranging the
religious exercises of the institution, Mr. Mann had en-
deavored to make them acceptable as well as useful to the
students.   When this subject was  discussed in an early
meeting of the faculty at his house in West  Newton, a
long time before his removal to the West, one of the gen-
tlemen who had  been  educated at an Orthodox institu-
tion in a community where only Orthodox families were
encouraged to settle, and where all the influences, social
and educational, were of consequence  in one direction,
and where it can be substantiated by facts that the students
were -actually persecuted into Orthodoxy, or had to flee
from its borders, as many subsequently did flee to Antioch
College, reported that  it was the custom there to have
a prayer before each recitation. When asked if such a
practice might not tend to make young people weary of
the observance, and even of religion itself, his  good sense
and candor induced him to express a doubt of its wisdom;
and he was willing to accede to the  more rational plans
of Mr. Mann, who wished to enlist the good-will and sym-
pathy of the young in all public religious exercises.  He
proposed that daily  prayers should take place  half an
hour before entering upon the recitations of the day, in
order that what he considered the religious rites of health,
bathing and exercise, might not be neglected, and that no
one might be inconvenienced by rising at untimely hours,
or associating cold  and  discomfort with a  rite  which
should have  every pleasing association.  The  wisdom of
these arrangements was manifested in the result. Absence
from prayers was very unusual.   Monitors appointed for
the purpose for each  class of the college and the prepara-
tory school made  memoranda, which were brought to Mr.
Mann every  Friday.  If the absentees marked  did not
bring in their excuses or explanations before that day, their 
468
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
names were read out after prayers on Saturday morning.
No penalty was attached to  the  violation;  but, as Mr.
Mann  collated  the  memoranda  himself, he had  his eye
upon delinquents, and  the loving fear  in  which  his dis-
approval was held was the strongest incentive  to compli-
ance with all rules.  It was decidedly respectable in  the
eyes of the young community not to violate any arrange-
ment made for the  good of all, and this  healthy public
opinion worked wonders.  To give  vitality to the morning
exercises, they  were administered in turn by  the  mem-
bers of the faculty, who in turn took charge of the preach-
ing.   But Mr.  Mann often took  the opportunity to give a
word of counsel, reprimand,or exhortation, a few moments
after prayers; and on  peculiar occasions he  thought  no
time so favorable as when the relations between religious
duty and the culture  of their minds had  been strongly
brought  before them, in order that knowledge, which is
power, might not be abused.
  Many students have been heard to say that the prayers
offered in  that chapel by the  president were the first
prayers uttered by another that had ever excited their de-
votional feelings. No student was  obliged to attend cither
the devotional  exercises of the  day or  the sabbath who
gave conscientious reasons for not so doing. The Quaker
or the Catholic had a permanent excuse, which  would
have been extended  to the Jew if  occasion had required.
How else could it have  been an unsectarian institution?
The  Quakers, thus disarmed, often preferred to give their
voluntary attendance.

                             Yellow Springs, Oct. 2G, 1854.
  My dear Mr.  Craig, — ...  There is something ludicrous in
your asking me to,suggest the " pithy " books or  trains of thought
on "prodigal sons" or any other wanderers.   I read  nothing but
the monitors' lists of absences, and think of nothing but to keep  the 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
469
team in harness.   Was not Mithridatcs celebrated for driving thirty-
two horses in his chariot at once ?  What would he have said of four
hundred ?  I can hardly be said to make any explorations into the
regions of thought; and, when I do, the elements close behind me
as behind a fish or an eagle, and leave no traces of their pathway.
  I cannot tell you, my dear friend, how much all the more reflects
ing people here were delighted with your visit.   I think  you gave
many of them a new idea of the function of an ambassador of Jesus
Christ.   But a plot was formed against  you,  which may be tempo-
rarily successful.   Mr.----- wished to obtain an invitation him-
self.  The last evening  you were  here, when you met company at
my house, a  regular conspiracy was  set on foot  to preach up re-
vivals, and preach down other means of attaining Christian  char-
acter.*   There were several speeches, and they grew worse and
worse to the end of the meeting; so that, as I was told, the  more
considerate of them were ashamed of the wildfire they had kindled.
The whole of it was understood to be aimed  at you, and designed
to show the  people  that they needed such a man  as Mr. -----pro-
fessed to be.   Your friends, seeing what a turn things were taking.
have thought it not best to urge their preferences at  present; and
your friend Mr. II----- is  engaged there temporarily, — which
probably will mean all winter.
  But those whose hearts are earnest for the religious  growth of the
place, and the most subduing influences  upon the untamed spirits
of the youth who resort  here for education, will never surrender the
hope of having you here.  I exhort you, therefore, to  hold yourself
in readiness,  that, when the time comes, you may be translated here
as quickly as Elijah was into heaven. .  . .
                   Yours as ever, most truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

   After a  while, it  was thought  desirable for Mr. Mann
to accept some of the invitations to lecture which poured
in upon him, with a view to interesting the Western  pub-

  * Great disappointment had been experienced in the Christian denomination
because Mr. Mann did not allow revival meetings in the college for the purpose
of swelling the village church. 
470
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
lie still more in the institution, which showed symptoms
of dying out  for  want of the means to live.  Not being
built  and endowed with money, but only with  promises
and hopes,  the prospects of the  faculty in a pecuniary
point  of view  grew more and more alarming.   Agents
failed to raise the requisite sums ; notes were protested ;
enmities began to arise among the neighboring landhold-
ers, whose promised benevolence to the  institution proved
to be  dependent upon the gains  they made ; and a  check
was given  to  the  influx  of  population, wliich had  set so
strongly into  the village  after   the college was  fairly
opened, because whispers of bankruptcy were heard from
time to time.   It  was made a cause  of complaint against
him in  after-time, by enemies of the  institution and of his
presence in it, that he was absent  on  lecturing engage-
ments ; but he never went  without consideration for the
institution,  and his absence was  almost  always in vaca-
tion-time.   In regard to the fortunes  of the college,  it
was a tale of alternate  hopes and fears, wearing to the
strongest nerves, and endured at great expense of vitality.

                                   Pittsburg, Dec. 9,  1854.
  It is as hard to keep clean in the physical atmosphere of Pitts-
burg as to retain one's integrity in the  moral  atmosphere of an
Atlantic city.
                                           Dec.  19,  1854.
  This Scranton, where I now  am, is near  the  poetic Valley of
Wyoming, but is really the valley of stone coal and of iron manu-
factories, — a new place, grown up out of the mineral riches of the
earth,  just as soon  as  there was knowledge enough to discover
them.
  So it  vrill be with all riches, as soon  as they are combined with
intelligence and skill.  This doctrine I apply to our boys.  If they
really  have common sense, and we can give them a good education,
— in  which I include a good moral character, — I have no fears 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.              471
about a good share of success for them in the world.   I desire that
they should have the very best education this age of the world can
supply;  and then, if I  leave them this, and integrity and truth,
and nothing else,  I shall go  out  of the world  thinking  my duty
in this respect not ill done.   I cannot bear to think of them so
cramped and  straitened  for means as I was: but even that is a
thousand times  better than ignorance ; and ignorance is a calamity
ten thousand times less to be deprecated than any form of vice.


                                 Yellow Springs, April 3, 1855.
   My dear Mr. Craig, — I wish to write  a long letter to  you,
but have hardly time to write a short one.  The absence of Mr.
II-----you know.   All our thoughts turned at once to you.   But
I knew your engagements at your  place with the  beautiful name.
Wo tried  Dr. Siedhoff: he  cannot come.  Wo  have made ar-
rangements for  the  current term,  not in  all respects satisfactory.
One class in Greek is postponed, which  I do not like; and Mr.
B-----takes  one.   We want a teacher for next September.   It is
almost six months.*  You can fill that place.   Your general cul-
ture, your acquaintance with Greek thought,  your  etymology, your
Greek philology indeed, fit  you  admirably for  the post. ... I
cannot tell you how  delighted  I should be.   I would  take you, for
a time  at  least, into my house.   We would build you up bodily
almost as much as you would us spiritually.
   This  letter is not official;  but  you know how my heart yearns
towards you. ...        „      -. ,  ,
        •'               Jiiver and truly yours,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                Yellow Springs, April 17, 1855.
   My  dear Mr. Craig, — If I thought you had at last taken the
position of a final, irrevocable denial and refusal ever to join your
fortunes  with  ours,  and  help  us to  carry  on the  great work  here
beo-un, I should submit  to  my  sad fate as well as I could, abate a

  * This was the amount of time necessary for Mr. Craig to give warning to his
parish. 
472
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
 great portion of my hopes, and labor with my might for the fulfil-
 ment of the rest.
   In reference to the arguments for  remaining  where you  arc, or
 coming here, you say that I may hold the scales while you  put in
 the weights.  But, my dear sir, may I not also see whether the
 weights are correctly or erroneously marked ?   If you put in plati-
 num, and call  it feathers, or  feathers, and  call  it platinum, may I
 not point out the mistake, and remonstrate against it ?   Otherwise
 how am I better  than  any peg or hook from  which to suspend
 them ?
   Now, have you not made a mistake something like this — quite
 like it — in relation to the " weights " ?
   In regard to health, would not our  milder climate be more  con-
 genial to your lungs than the butcherly blasts of the Highlands ?
   In regard to society, you know that your  nature yearns towards
 the young; that, reckoning from fossil old  age down to indurated
 manhood and  to irrepressible  youth, the fervor  of your  affections,
 the vivacity of your love, increase far more than in the ratio that
 the squares of the distance diminish.
   In regard to  intellectual companionship,  you  know that you are
 now just as solitary as  you would be on the top of Mont Blanc.
 Nobody comes up to your altitude intellectually.    You may pursue
 your studies there ; you may become very learned and wise :  but it
 will not be that better sort  of  wisdom which is found by study and
 contemplation, blended  with  communion with men.  The wisdom
 of the recluse is a very different thing from that of the practical
 moralist or statesman.   Now,  although we cannot, supply you with
many intellectual companions here at present, yet by and by I hope
 it will be otherwise.
   In  regard to  the good that you can  do, I must protest  that I
 never saw  such false weights used  in all  my life before.  Why,
 seriously and solemnly, had you  done this in old times, when bar-
 barous punishments were resorted to, I should have been afraid of
your  ears;  that is, your metaphysical  ears.    You  must  knew,
and do know, that whatever wisdom you have, or have not, you do
retain more of the purity and simplicity and  innocence of childhood
than almost any other  man,  and therefore are divinely  fitted to 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
473
 sympathise with the young while you instruct them, — to go down
 to the lowliness where they dwell in  order to lift them to your
 height.   I defy your modesty to deny this.
   As for labor, — ministerial labor, — you have now a great store-
 house of thoughts, more or less perfected : what better could you
 do, either for yourself  or for others, than to  review them, and give
 them, with the improvements of a second edition ? — thus hghtening
 labor and enhancing benefits.
   But what we want now in the college is a teacher in Greek  for
 the coming year.   Where shall we find him ?   Was there ever such
 an  opening ?   All the circumstances point  to  you; every  thing
 connected with the case shouts, " Austin Craig ! "  You can come
 for this year:  if then  health should fail, or repulsions spring up,
 or the social atmosphere become an  cast wind, or you should lose
 your interest  in  children, then you could return.   There is  no
 doubt, on the  least intimation of that kind, your people would keep
 your place open for you.  Why, then, will you not  come and help
 us for this one  year at  least ?
   I  must go  and look after a class:  so good-by,  and God bless
 you, and us through you.                                  ,
                   Very truly as ever,          TT_„ . __ ., ..T._
                       J      J       '          HORACE MANN.

                                 Yellow Springs, April 30, 1855.
   My dear Mr. Craig, — By your letter of the 22d instant, I  see
 I am required to sit down and compute  the  tables of an almanac,
 showing the declination, right ascension, &c, of your  orb for the
 cominp- year, and for a somewhat indefinite future afterwards.   We
 cannot,  as  yet, calculate  the orbit  of  a human,  astronomically,
 quite as well as we can that  of Mercury or Neptune.   Still, I will
 do my best.    At any rate, I will put  you in possession of facts
from which you can cast a horoscope. .  . .
  The committee  on the subject of teachers is authorized to employ
a teacher of Greek. .  . .  There has also  been  a good deal said
among the faculty  about a chaplain for the college ; and, could  we
get the right man,  the feeling amongst those  of us who now supply
the place of one would be unanimous in favor of the demand.   They 
474
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
have been deterred, as yet, from bringing  forward the subject  by
the condition of the college finances, which,  we have reason to hope,
will be improved before another year rolls round.
   Both the chaplaincy and the Greek would furnish easy occupation
to a man so  equipped as you are. . .  . The  Christian society in this
place is still without, a pastor.   The very favorable  impression you
made hero last autumn, I believe, would have secured you an invi-
tation,  but for the eager efforts of some who hoped for an invitation
for themselves if you did not succeed, and who based their  opposi-
tion to you on the ground that you were not evangelical enough  in
regard to the agency of the Holy Spirit in  the conversion of men.
If you  could associate with the  people  here for one  year, I feel
morally sure that a great majority would be for  settling you here,
and the society  would receive great accessions.  I cannot believe,
that, once here, you would be  allowed to go away until you went
the upper way.   I have now  stated the facts conscientiously.   I
will not offer any new considerations about your health, your growth,
your very much enlarged sphere of usefulness, &c, but remain,  as
ever,           Yours affectionately,
                                                HORACE  MANN.
   i

                                    Yellow Springs, June 27,1855.
Rev. A. Craig.
   My  dear Sir,—I am not dead;  though, from my silence, you
may think so.
   Our last term and year closed yesterday ; and now I can breathe
a little easier.
   When I received your letter some weeks  ago, I thought I would
not reply till I had official notice of your acceptance.  But, though
I have written on the subject several times,  I can extort nothing.   I
hear, however, in other ways, that all is settled, and that wo are  to
have the blessing of your presence next year. . .  . Since I had your
last letter, I have been so busy with our examination, that I  could
not get a splinter of time  anywhere to float away upon: so you
must forgive me.   It has been said that God never will ask what a
man has done, but what he has done under the circumstances.
   And now, my dear friend, it makes my heart glad  that you are 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.               475
to be here.  Let us make you as comfortable, bodily, as you can
be. . .  .
                         Yours as ever,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                  Yellow Springs, July 24, 1855.
   My  dear Downer, — We have not had one word from you since
you left.  It would have been an act of benevolence native to your
heart to toll us you  got home well; but I  suppose we must all
give place to coup oil for a  time.   If it  is always to employ your
thoughts, I shall place it in my anathemas with rum and tobacco----
   Tell me all the Massachusetts news of whatever I feel interested
in.  WTas it not good that E----got stung in  the tenderest place
for his infamous vote ?  I  cannot  but  think the tide is  turning.
How the whole present political controversy is going to stand  in
history, I have no more doubt than I have of the progress  of time.
To say that slavery is to be triumphant, and its advocates  honored,
is to say that  Judas and Jesus will change places. . .  .
                       Yours as ever, most truly,
                                                     H. MANN.

                                         Albany, Nov. 18,1855.
   I had a delightful  visit to Mr.  May.  I found an invitation there
from Dr. Wilbur, who  is the superintendent of the new establish-
ment  of  the  State of  New York for idiots.   We went out there
to dinner.  It is quite a magnificent  place, — cost about seventy
 thousand dollars.   He has  now about eighty idiotic children under
 his care.   After dinner, he took us over the whole establishment.
 I have a certain sort  of pleasure in viewing such a scene ;  but it is
 not an unmingled one. . .  .
    Mr. May had invited Mr. Gerritt Smith to meet me ; and, when
 we came back from dinner, we found, him waiting for our return.
 We had quite an exhibition of souls to each other.  I do not wonder
 that he should be a popular man in spite of some of his unpopular
 views.  The next day, we three sat and talked "divine philosophy,"
 or something else, which, in the present state of the world,  I should
 rather call  divine heresy;  and then he went  with me a dozen  miles 
476               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
on his way home.  I omitted to say, that, when I arrived at-----, a
lady came to sec me.   This always puts mo in a tremor.  I feel
like the cat in Mother Goose's melodies, or somewhere else, who
describes so pathetically her terrorification when a bad boy set a dog
on her.
          " And while I stood trembling, and aU of a shake," &c.

It proved to be----.   She is a person of good manners and address,
and, what is quite as important, good  dress.
                                          Boston, Nov. 21, 1855.
   . . . Early this morning, both Howe and Downer called  on me;
and it was pleasant to see them again.   Downer has  just been laid
up for a  week  with  an over-strained brain.   I  always  feel very
sorrowful when I think of his lame brain,  because you know it was
in my behalf that be first disabled it.   How much he lost for his
fidelity to me !   How different would his  loss have been  regarded
if he had sacrificed his fidelity, and-saved his brain ! *   I  have two
letters from you, and one from Craig.   How does  the good man's
head do ?   I wish it were as well  as his heart.

                                          Boston, Nov. 21,1855.
   My dear Mr. Craig, — I had a brief note from you ; but it said
nothing about what I care most for, — yourself. You have made us          •
all lovcyou so  much, that a new  obligation is upon you.  You must
take care of yourself for our sakes  as well as for your own.  The fame
of your popularity among the students has reached here, and  I am
congratulated upon it.
   I am on familiar ground  again.  If Massachusetts is compared
with most other places, how much there is to  admire ! if  with the
ideal, how much to lament!  However  much we  may  advance.
shall we not always be impatient at the contrast between the actual
and the ideal ?
                      Yours affectionately,
                                                HORACE MANN.

   * This allusion is made in reference to Mr. Downer's exertions in the political
campaign for and against Mr. Mann, which was followed by a sc/ere brain-fever. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
477
                                 Antioch College, Dec. 24,1855.
   My dear Mr. Parker, — You, of course, are aware that a project
is on foot by the " Bible Union," so called, for a new translation of
the Scriptures.  I believe the headquarters of this enterprise are at
Louisville, Ky.  At any rate,  the "Bible  Union  Reporter,"  a
periodical devoted to the cause, is  published there; I  believe also
at New York.  It was started under the auspices  of the following
denominations. — Church of England,  Old-school Presbyterians,
Disciples or  Reformers, Methodist-Episcopal Church, Associated
Reformed Presbyterians, Seventh-day Baptists, Baptists, German
Reformed Church,—all Trinitarians.  But they want" the indorse-
ment of the Unitarians and  " Christians;" and they  have sent to
inquire of me who  there is in this country  or in Europe whose
knowledge of Greek,  Hebrew,  Sanscrit,  Syriac, &c,  qualifies
hiin for the work.   I believe they  will pay a liberal salary for such
an indorsement.
   I recommended you.   They would like to know of some European
also on whose knowledge and integrity they can rely.    If any one
can  name to  me such a man, or  such men, you  can.   Will you
please do it at your earliest convenience ? and much  oblige
                        Yours very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

   P. S. — I was sorry to see so little of you during my recent visit
to the East.   I had, in some respects,  a  pleasant,  in others a sad,
time.   Many of the houses  in Boston  appeared to me like living
tombs containing the  dishonored  dead.   Our affairs  are  looking
somewhat precarious.   Oh, if I could have one half-day's  expendi-
ture of  the Crimean war, what a glorious use I would make of it!

                                     Ajstioch College, Jan. 1, 1856.
Hon. Gerritt Smith.
   My dear Sir, — After assuring you of my very pleasant recollec-
tions of our late interview at the house of our common  friend  Mr.
May,'I  wish to say that there is reason to fear the last sands of
Antioch College are running out.  The whole field of the Christian
denomination has been traversed; and  it is now pretty apparent to 
478
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
my mind, that, unless we can have some wholesale iir-'ead of retail
donations, our institution sinks.   Our students — about three  hun-
dred on an average since we have been here — are dispersed ; and
the cause of Liberal Christianity and a free-thoughtcd education ex-
pires for an indefinite  time for  all this Valley of the West.   One
of the most grievous of my regrets at this sad prospect is the appre-
hension that the experiment (as the  world will still call  it) of edu-
cating the sexes together will  be rudely interrupted,  to  be revived
only in  some indefinite future.
   It is  now nearly three years since I have been here, all  the  time
at a  pecuniary loss  to  myself; and the  professor  of  Latin, Mr.
Pennell, whom  I  stipulated  to  have in that chair, and who came
and who remains here solely from his personal relations to me, could
any day have doubled the  salary he is receiving here.  We are
willing;, however, to remain.   We can do so much as this in behalf
of the institution ;  but we cannot pluck it from the abyss into which
it threatens to fall.
   I  sincerely believe there has  seldom, if ever, been an occasion
where a deed of pecuniary munificence would be so munificently
rewarded by  the  highest and  most  precious kind  of blessings ;
where a great power might not only  be saved  to the cause of virtue
and  the progress  of truth,  but saved from  the cause  of bigotry,
sectarianism, and all uncharitableness.
   But I am not the judge  of other men's responsibilities.   They
are the  rightful  judges of what shall be saved, and  what shall be
suffered to perish.   If they  understand the facts, I am bound  to
beheve  they will judge aright.   These facts are, that, if help  does
not come to Antioch College, its fate will be decided  in thirty days,
and the end of this term will find its walls  empty, its halls-echoing
only to  the solitary tread of some stranger who  comes to inquire
where the spirit of the Christian denomination is gone;  or, what is
far more painful to contemplate, echoing to the crowd that will fre-
quent its apartments to  revile the  names of those who once  held
possession  of  it, and to counterwork all  their efforts for a truly
liberal education and a truly  liberal Christianity.   With the highest
personal regard, I remain yours most truly,
                                                 HORACE  MANN. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
479
                                       Dansville, Jan. 24, 1856.
  ... I wish I  had more disposition to look at the  ludicrous
side  of personal  matters.   Perhaps  it would  save repinmg  and
querulousness.   There  are  some things for which fan, not  phi-
losophy, was intended as a  remedy.  He is a  wise physician who
knows how to administer it; he is a wise man who gathers it co-
piously into his pharmacopoeia. . . .  My causality works actively on
the children when I am away;  and  I am constantly foreshadowing
what they are to be from what they  are.  Life is such a unity, that,
if we could truly see what people  are,  we should see what  they
would become.  .  . .
                                Boston, (probably) January, 1856.
   My dear Mr.  Craig, — As I am writing home  to Mrs. Mann, I
must write a word to you, because you are  now associated  with all
my ideas of home, — an object  standing in the foreground of the
picture.   One of the pleasures of home is that you are there : one
of the regrets of absence is to be away from you.   Your spiritual-
mindedness is the complement of my nature, — of what I have failed
to be, though I was fit to be, and ought to have  been.  But Cal-
vinism blasphemed all that part of me ; and, if it did not destroy the
germ, it checked its development.   I have something, I hope,  of
the  other side, — the  intellectual-religious  side.   What I have, I
rejoice in;  but  it constantly reminds  me  of what else I ought to
have.   I  desire its possession more  fully.  I do not feel too old to
cultivate its growth.  I am only made to feel and  to see how much
was lost to my nature, because all was  done that could be done,
when I was a child, to  educate  the love of a heavenly-Father out
of me, instead of  educating  it into me.   This  want  I feel and
deplore.  You supply its place  in me.   You call to  mind, better
than any other man I have ever known, what Plato would hold to
be the " recollections " of  a previous state of being.   Think, then,
how dear you are to me ; because I feel, if I could incorporate your
soul into mine, it would make me whole; i.e., a whole man.
   I feel constantly, and more and more deeply, what  an unspeak-
able calamity a Calvinistic education is.  What a  dreadful thing it
was to me !  If it did not succeed in making me that horrible thing, 
480
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
 a  Calvinist, it did succeed in depriving me of that  filial love for
 God, that tenderness, that sweetness, that intimacy,  that desiring,
 nestling love, which I say it is natural the child should feel towards
 a Father who combines all excellence. I see him to be so, logically,
 intellectually, demonstratively; but  when I would embrace  him,
 when I would rush into his arms and breathe out unspeakable love
 and adoration, then the grim  old  Calvinistic spectre  thrusts itself
 before me.   I am as a frightened  child, whose  eye, knowledge, ex-
 perience, belief even, are not  sufficient to obliterate the image which
 an early fright burnt in upon  his  soul.   I have to reason the old
 image away, and replace it with the loveliness and beauty of another;
 and in that process, the zeal, the alacrity, the fervor, the sponta-
 neousness, are,  partially, at least, lost.   You help me to recover it,
 and fix the true image ; and thus you help my spiritual life.  I would
 not  part with  one idea, one  conviction, on the other side of my
 moral life;  but I feel as though I should be a better man, and a
 vastly happier man, if I could add your side  to  mine.    And as
 you have opportunity, my dear friend, let me entreat you to impart
 this loving side of religion to  my little boys.   Above  all  treasures,
 I long that they should have this.   There can be no such chasm in
 their being  as to be without it.  For the trials of life, it is the best
 philosophy.  For the joys of existence, it is the greatest magnifier;
 for it magnifies  in the line of direction as well as of quantity.
   But I am interrupted by company;  and what will my wife say
 if I write but one sheet to her, and two to you to send in her letter ?
                    Good-by, my dear friend.
                                               HORACE MANN.


   Mr. Craig had been  compelled by ill  health  to resign
 the  professorship of Greek a  few months before,  but had
 remained  at  Yellow  Springs, at  Mr. Mann's  urgent re-
 quest, as a guest.   After  his return to  Blooming Grove,
ho was invited to a  new  position in and near the insti-
tution, as  will be seen  by  tbe  following letters: — 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
481
                                              Fei.kuaey, 1856.
  My  dear Mr. Craig, — I put a single word  into  Mrs. Mann's
letter,  more for the sake of telling you how Horace Mann  loves
Austin  Craig than for any other reason.  I  had a dolorous jour-
ney to  Meadville, hardly surpassed in perils and  tribulations  since
the days  of St. Paul.   We  missed  every connection both  in
going  and  coming.   My passage  from Erie  to  Meadville was
thrown  into the night; and  such a night!  The thermometer  of
Meadville, shortly after I arrived  there, stood at 31° on the wrong
side of zero.   I labored with Dr.  S----- until about twelve o'clock
the next night, and  then  started  to return  at three in the morn-
ing.   Our driver froze ears, hands, and feet, dreadfully.   Now,
think of something twice as  bad, and let that stand for the resi-
due of the journey.  Mr.  P-----has sent word,  that, if Dr. S-----
does not raise the $28,000, some  one else will.
   The  strongest  desire is  expressed  for your return.  . .  . Our
trustee  meeting is on  the 12th of March.   If  we can have your
affirmative reply before that date,  the proper measures can be  taken
by the Board of Trustees for giving you a status in the college as
College Chaplain, and Lecturer on the Evidences of Christianity,
Professor of  Moral Philosophy, or something of that kind.   This
ought to be ; for you  should have an official relation to the stu-
dents as the basis of your moral one.   Good-by, dear Mr. Craig;
and, if my invocation were worth  any thing, I would say, God bless
you!                                         HORACE MANN.

                                Antioch College, April 7, 1856.
   My  dear Mr. Craio, — Herewith I  send you the invitation of
the Christian Society in this  place to become their pastor.  I need
not tell you how much pleasure it affords me to do it.
   The circumstances attending the  call were such as you  could
hardly wish modified,  were they  at the  full  disposal of vanity  or
self-esteem.   After your  name was introduced  at  the meeting, it
was said that you  had been elected  College Chaplain; and  the
inquiry was made, how you could be College Chaplain, and pastor
of the  Christian  Church  also.   Omitting .what  I said  about Mr.
              31 
482
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
Craig as a man, it was said  that  the  relation which I wished to
see you fill was that of officiating at the college one-half the day on
Sundays, when the whole society would be invited to attend there;
and the other half of the day at the church, when the college would
attend  there.   Your morning duties at the chapel would  never
interfere with any thing at the church,  and your evening services
at the church would never interfere with any thing at the chapel.
We * could take your morning duties at the  chapel  whenever desi-
rable.   I said that there was a natural  alienation between the stu-
dents of a college  and the villagers  where it was situated ; that
there was loss of it here than usually happens; but that I wanted
none  of it  : on  the  contrary, I wished to cultivate  harmony, cor-
diality,  identity of spirit, between us; and  that you were the man
to do it.
   After the  statement  had been fully made  and understood, the
vote was taken,  and it  was unanimous with a single exception, —
Mr.  C-----, who spoke highly of you,  but  gave as a reason for his
vote afterwards,  that you were opposed to church organization.
   So flattering a call few men have ever had ;  and so fair an open-
ing for  usefulness rarely falls to the lot of ministers.   I can now
see nothing of a public or general nature which can  stand in the
way of  a noble  mission to the  people of  this place,  college and
village ; and I do not believe that you will suffer  any thing of a
personal or private  nature to do so.   I know not  what secrets
futurity may have behind  the curtain ; but I never saw so fair a
prospect for  any man's filling his worldly stomach with the honey
of success, and  his  Christian heart with the  rewards  of faithful
ministrations in divine things, as now opens before you.
   The church will be completed about  the first of May.   Do not,
I beseech you, allow the ceremony  of dedication to pass by without
your presence.  Let all future  associations connected with the house
be seen through  the medium of that beautiful  light.   Even if you
must go back for any period, longer or shorter, — though I sincerely
hope not, at least during  our present term, — come and be pres-
ent, be  installed, at the time of the dedication of the house ; and

    * The faculty.   There was only one Sunday service at the chapel. — Ed. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               483
then, if absolutely necessary, I doubt not you can obtain leave of
absence.   But I want  that radiant point in the sky at that place,
where it will forever be so conspicuous.
   . . . We  arc all well,  thanks to the good laws  of God which
we are trying to worship  him  by obeying.   We have about sixty
new students this term, notwithstanding all the efforts  of the un-
godly to keep them away. .  . .
              I am, as ever, yours devotedly,
                            J                   HORACE MANN.

   P. S. — You  cannot possibly forget where your home is when
you come.
                                   Yellow Springs, April 30, 1856.
Rev.  Austin Craig.
   My dear Sir, — You have apparent reason, at least, to think
the committee inexcusably tardy in  answering  your letter of the
12th  inst.  . . . One of the committee has been unwell;  and acci-
dent  has  again  and  again prevented our  meeting according to
appointment.    Yesterday afternoon  we were together,  and came
unanimously to the following conclusions. . . . These are the three
points presented to our consideration  by your letter; and we think
that our propositions correspond with your expressed wishes.
   The committee strongly desire that you should be present at the
dedication of the house.   Its  completion has been delayed longer
than was expected.  It will now probably be ready in two or three
weeks; but we would rather  wait a  month, perhaps even  more,
than  not  to have you participate  in those services, which will be
so interesting to us.
   Hoping that  these  propositions may be acceptable to you, and
that an  arrangement  will be  effected  mutually promotive of the
highest moral and religious welfare of both pastor  and people,
     I remain, as ever, most truly your friend,
                                 HORACE MANN, for the Committee.

                   Antioch College, Yellow Springs, May 4,1856.
   My dear Mr. Combe, — What will you  do with a  man who
repents and sins again, and repents and sins again ?  Christ's rule
is to forgive him seventy times seven times.   And  now, as I have 
484
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
not done this more than  half  seventy times seven, I have still
somewhat of a margin left for continued offending.  My dear friend,
you must come  and watch  me a day,  and see what I have to do ;
and then you would  not only grant amnesty for all the past, but
free Popish indulgences as to the future.   But  from  all this how
can you infer forgetfulness ?  How can I forget you, who have done
my mind more good than any other living man, — a hundred  times
more ?  I not only think of you, remembering you, but, in a very
important and extensive sense,  / am  you.  You are reproduced
in my views of life (though not in my views  of death), and  in
that understanding of the wisdom and ways of Providence which
vindicates God to  man.   I received your letter of April 4 tw'o  or
three  days ago; and my first impulse was to answer it instanter,
and dispel  any approaching  shadow of a  suspicion that I can ever
lose my regard, my affection, for you.   But I thought I would wait
till to-day; because to-day, according to  the old  family Bible, I am
sixty years old.  This event excites in my mind a strangely mingled
feeling, made up of joy  and  pain, to say nothing of a readiness  or
unreadiness  to die.   I am  too  intensely interested  in the  great
questions of human  progress, of humanity itself, to  be willing  to
quit the field in this  stage of the conflict.  The vital questions of
pauperism, temperance,  slavery, peace,   and education, covering
as they do many digits  of the  orb  of  human happiness, I cannot
relinquish, I cannot leave, without a feeling of the description of
breaking heart-strings from objects which  they have intwined.  You
may tell me  the work will go on, and perhaps it will; but I want
it should go on in my day.   I long to see it.   I want to help it,  to
expend myself upon  it;  and  life  seems  bereaved  of its  noblest
functions and faculties if it  fails in this.   I feel for these causes  as
a fond father feels for his children, whom he dreads to leave till
they are out of moral danger, and have the common securities and
guaranties for future safety and  welfare.  But I cannot stop the
earth in its orbit, and that is bearing me round  to the  point where
my participation in its struggles  must  come  to  an end.  From all
this, there is but one moral to be  drawn, — to redeem the time that
still remains,  be it longer or  shorter.  But, oh !  if with my present
views I could be set back  again to  the age of twenty, how gladly 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
485
would  I release all  that Divine  Goodness, in the exercise of his
highest prerogative of love, can bestow upon me elsewhere !
  Our college is most  prosperous  in all respects but the want of
money. By a great want of wisdom, if not by something worse, we
were involved in great debts at the  very outset; and the books and
papers were in such a  condition, that our embarrassment was  not
known.  Revelation after revelation first  startled, then astonished,
then overwhelmed us.   As time revealed deeper  and deeper diffi-
culties, the fair-weather friends of the institution, one after another,
dropped off, or were turned into antagonists and maligners.  Within
the last three months, however, a rally has been made ; and we now
have hopes that the college will be  lifted out of the slough of insol-
vency.  When I feel our wants, and see to what beneficent uses we
could  appropriate money, it makes me desire  wealth, and it gives
me feelings of intenser condemnation for the  manner in which so
much wealth is spent.  What untold blessings  for the present and
the future  could  be secured here by a hundred thousand dollars!
and yet there  is not a day in which many times a hundred LuOusand
dollars are  not uselessly, nay injuriously, spent  in all the great
cities of the world.
   . . . We  are politically in a very  excited condition.  The step
about Kansas, and the approaching Presidential election, will prob-
ably create a fiercer contest than  any yet known to our political an-
nals.   In Kansas, the attempt will  be made, and probably enforced
by arms, to maintain the fraudulent government of the '' Border
Ruffians."   On the other hand, it  seems impossible to avoid resistr
ance.  Yesterday's  telegraph informs us that the sheriff of  the
usurping  government was  shot.    The  United-States  army will
doubtless be called in.   The President will use his utmost prerog-
ative to maintain  the tyranny; for, should he omit a single effort,
his nomination for re-election would be lost; and he is a man who
would  sacrifice a  state or  a countiy, a zone or  a zodiac, for  selfish-
ness.
  What a ridiculous ado they make in France  about six  pounds of
baby !   Our births are of human liberty  or bondage !  . . . 
486              LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
                                 Yellow Springs, May 16,1856
   My  dear Mr. Craig, — We have  concluded to  dedicate  tho
church on the second  Sunday  in June, — tho eighth day of that
month.  It is the unanimous wish of the committee that you should
preach the Dedication Sermon; and you  are  hereby invited  to
do it. . . .
   And now, my dear friend, how could you write me so incomplete
a letter as yours of the 7th instant ?  The people here  arc all agony
to know " whether Mr. Craig  accepts the invitation to settle with
us."  I told them, that, by tho middle  of this week, we should un-
doubtedly hear  from you.  That time  came, and your letter, but
not a word about any thing beyond being  present at the dedication.
That, of course, would be most agreeable, but is not the tiling. . . .
Tho flock is without a head.   What wolves will  invade the fold, if
left in this condition for six months, who can tell ? . .  .
   My dear friend, let  me exhort you  to do two things.  Come and
speak for  us in the chapel, Sunday, June  1 ;   dedicate  the new
house,  and be  installed  as  pastor of  the  church here the next
sabbath;  and, having got released from what you call " home," let
us make you another, and, for the good you can  do, a better home.
I hope to hear from you soon.  With best regards from all,
               I am,  as ever,  most sincerely yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                Yellow Springs, May 27, 1856.
   My dear Sumner, — I have just  returned from an educational
visit to St.  Louis, Mo., — the eastern,  not the western, end of the
State.
   We are all not only shocked at the outrage committed upon you,
but we are wounded in your wounds, and bleed in your bleeding.
   Since I  left Washington,  March 4,  1853, I do  not know as  I
have ever felt a desire to be there again till now.   But I suppose,
if God meant  to save my life, he  found it  necessary to keep  me
away.
   I have only seen the newspaper accounts of your speech.  I long
to see the full report.   Altogether  the  thing has produced a great 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.              487
sensation, — as great for good as Webster's 7th  of March speech
for  evil.  How the  diabolical consequences of that speech arc de-
veloping themselves!   How every year vindicates our  course at
that time !   The years are our avengers, and will continue to be.
  In your full report,  why will you not quote the very Memorial
of South Carolina  to  the Continental Congress, asking  to be re-
lieved from furnishing  her quota of men, because of her dangerous
population at home ? .  . .
                       Yours most truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                Antioch College, June 16,1856.
  My dear Mr. Parker, — I hear of you occasionally through the
newspapers, when,  like old Thor, you  seize  a Norway  pine, and
smite tho wicked therewith;  but I hear from you in no other way.
  I will not intimate that you have forgotten me or ours, because I
know how many men's work you  have  to do.   It would give me
great pleasure to hear from you.   Working here, as it were, in soli-
tude, and with a settled conviction that my labors and sacrifices will
not be appreciated until I am removed from the  scene of action, it
would give me great satisfaction to hear a friendly voice from my
old home.
  Now  the political Christ is crucified, what  do the  Judases who
betrayed him  say for themselves?   I fear they have not even  the
one merit of their prototype, — repentance.
  I have a strong  presentiment that an  excursion up the Lakes
would be good for  what little of mortality is left me, and that it
would be far  better if I  could  get some "glorious fellow"  to go
with me.   Have you  a curiosity,  or a health-hoping policy, which
would lead you in  the same direction ?   I wrote to Downer to ask
you; but he replies that he has not seen you.  I hope you feel a
disposition to sec the great works of God in the Great Lakes.
                      Very truly, as ever,
                                               HORACE MANN. 
488               LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
                   Antioch College, Yellow Springs, June 18,1856.
Rev.  Daniel Austin.
   My dear Sir, — With  much surprise and  pleasure I have re-
ceived from Mr. 0. P. T-----of Salisbury, Mass., the sum of five
dollars, placed  in his hands by you,  to be  forwarded to me to be
invested in some token of remembrance.
   To be remembered by any one on whom we have conferred obli-
gations is very grateful to our feelings;  but  to bo remembered
without obligation by a gentleman of your character  and  standing,
seems, indeed, an instance of the laudari a uno laudato.
   First, Please accept my very sincere thanks for your flattering re-
membrance ; and,
   Second,  Let  me  tell  you what I  have ventured to do  with the
money.
   We have many poor students here who  are working their passage
through college by tho greatest frugality, industry, and effort.  The
condition of some of them,  manfully  struggling against adverse cir-
cumstances, makes  strong appeals to my sympathy;  and  I cannot
refrain from giving a considerable amount, every year, for the relief
and reward of  such noble  exertions.   We are now about closing
the year, and my means for this purpose were really exhausted.
   The day I received your letter, a young man came to me, saying
he had found the bottom of his pocket, and must absolutely leave.
Five  dollars would  carry him through this term; but five dollars
were as impossible to him as world-making.  I ventured to give him
your five dollars.   I thought it would give us both more  pleasure
than to put it in any book or other token or memorial.  I thought
it  would sanctify  it.  If you  do not  approve, I  will still do as
proposed.
   And now, my dear sir, I wish you knew more of our institution
here,  and of our plans.  I wish I could have the pleasure of seeing
you here.   In all this Great West, ours is  the  only  institution, of
a first-class character, which is not, directly or indirectly, under the
influence of the old-school theology;  and  though the mass of the
people here are more liberal-minded and free-thoughted, more open
and receptive and less cast-irony, than the corresponding  classes in
the East, yet the ministers are more narrow and bigoted.   Our col- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
489
lege, therefore, is really like  breaking a hole in the Chinese Wall.
It lets in the light of religious  civilization where it  never shone
before.   Think of this great State, with more than two millions of
inhabitants, and only one Unitarian society!   The Christians, how-
ever, are the best medium through which to introduce a more liber-
al Christianity.
        I am, dear sir, in great haste, very truly yours,
                                                HORACE  MANN.

                                         Boston, June 27,  1856.
   My  dear Mr. Mann, — Don't  think that your labors  are ob-
scure, or likely to be forgotten in this generation, or for many that
are to come. Your works are written all over the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, and are in no  clanger of being forgotten.    I know
how arduous  your  position is; also  how unpleasant much of the
work must be. I fancy you now  and  then feel a little longing after
the well-cultivated  men and women whom you  left behind at the
East, and find none to supply in  Ohio.   But the fresh presence of
young  people is a compensation.
   What a state of things we have now in politics ! —the beginning
of the  end.    I take it we can elect  Fremont:  if so, the battle is
fought,  and the worst part of the contest is over.   If  Buchanan is
chosen, see  what follows !  The principles of the administration will
be the  same as now; the measures the same ;  the mode of applying
the principles and executing the measures will be slightly altered, —
no more.   It is plain that  another  such administration would ruin
the country for men like those of  Middlesex County, Mass.   I don't
think the people will see themselves  conquered  by  three hundred
and fifty thousand slaveholders, headed by an old bachelor.   If Bu-
chanan is elected, I don't beheve the  Union holds out three years.
I shall go for dissolution.
   I wish I could go to the Lakes with  you.   But a family  of inti-
mate friends will sail for Europe  the 25th  of August, to be absent
for three years.  I  want to see them  all I  can this summer: so we
shall all  go  to Newton Corner, and  live  near by; else  I  should
do up my " unpretending luggage,"  and  be off to Lake  Superior
with you. 
490               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
  I  sent  you a  little sermon  for  the Sunday after Mr.  Brooks
struck Sumner; and have another pamphlet in press, containing two
speeches made at  New York a month ago; which please accept.
  On the  6th July, I shall preach on The Prospect with  Us, and
perhaps print.  July 8 I go to New-York Central University, at
Macgrawville, somewhere in New York, and deliver an address on
The  Function of the Scholar in a Democracy.
  I wish I was where I could see you often, but am glad to know
that you are well.  So arc we all.   With best regards from all to
all, beheve me       Yours ever truly,
                                           THEODORE TARKER.

                                 Yellow  Springs, July 3, 1856.
  My dear Mr.  Craig, — I received yours of June 23 a week
ago,  and have been most anxiously awaiting intelligence from  your
society.   To-day it has come, and is, as doubtless  you both know
and knew, in the negative !
  Is this irreversible ?  If so, my first impulse is to resign at once,
and  leave.  I know  the  consequences : not that my  withdrawing
would be  of any account;  but, if I should go, Mr. Pcnnell and
R----,  of course, would  not remain a day.   This would be fatal to
the concern.
  I should regard this result more than I can  express.  I think I
can sacrifice my own  ease and emolument for the sake  of success in
accomplishing the great enterprise for which I came out here; but
if no one else will make any sacrifice for the welfare of the  college,
and if we are to have Mr. -----as pastor of the church, or any one
like him, then I feel as though the success of the college itself, at
least under  my administration, is jeoparded, and the  only  motive
which I  have for staying here is gone.  You supplied all conditions.
Your refusal to come leaves  all  conditions  unsupplied. I write in
haste and sadness, but am, as ever,    Truly yours,
                                               HORACE  MANN.

  P. S. —If the  refusal of the society is peremptory,  is it peremp-
tory after six months  from the time you notify? I shall await with
great anxiety an answer to this inquiry. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
491
                                 Yellow Springs, Ju.y 5, 1856.
  To Mrs.  Mann, in Boston. — It is Wednesday, and  already
your going seems like some far-off event away in the dim distance.
Should the boys come back full grown into manhood, and you gray,
tottering, and decrepit, it would hardly  seem longer. It seems long
from morning till night, and from night till morning;  only I seem
to do nothing, and this makes it like a blank.
  -----wrote me about a Mr. Mathematical H-----, or an H-----of
mathematics ; saying it was rumored that our mathematical Magnus
did not  give satisfaction, and proposing this German in his place.
What a howl there would be through all Zion if the glimmering of
a suggestion were made that he were  not princeps  inter mathema-
ticos, and that his place should be supplied by one of the world's
people ! .  . . One man " driven into exile," one woman " forbidden
the use  of fire and water," another " discharged," another " abused
and sent off; " and now the mathematical pyramid, the very Cheops
of the cause, to be supplanted by that German-sounding name, prob-
ably, doubtless, undoubtedly, certainly, the very incarnate of  Ger-
man rationalism, neology,  atheism ! — ay,  worse than atheism ; for
who knows  but he is an unbeliever in the Devil?  Consider the
rest  of  the sheet filled with exclamation-points.    I  do  not  dare
to sign  my name to this sheet, though  it mentions  treason only to
rebuke it.
                                Mackinaw, Mich.,  Aug. 7, 1856.

  My dear Mr. Craig,—Yours of  July 20 has been forwarded
to me at this place, whither I have come in search of the fugitive,
health;  at least,  to escape from  the debilitations  of  our  summer
heats.   I  wish you were here.   It is  a fortnight  to-day since we
arrived ; and such paradisiacal weather  as we have had ! just warm
enough  not to be cold, and just cold enough not to be warm.  Only
one thing is wanting to me, and I should thrive like  a green bay-
tree ; and that is the home diet.
  Last nbriit we had some commotion among the elements; and to-
day it is cloudy,  and  a fire is comfortable.  But  a few whiffs of
this ah would make your lungs give a hygienic laugh.   I am sorry
to hear there arc any symptoms in your throat or elsewhere which 
492
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
give you present discomfort or forebodings.   I am afraid of that
Eastern climate for your lungs.  I do not believe that air will ever
agree with you.   It  requires a Boreas to blow it,  and none but a
Boreas can breathe it.  You are an  exotic in it;  and even hot-
houses will not save you, I fear. . . .
  My dear friend, you must answer me one question ; for it will be
an element in coming to conclusions  that now impend.  It is no
other than the question I put you before :  Suppose the six months
during  which you  feel  yourself bound  to  the Blooming-Grove
Society to be at an end, would you, or  would you not, come to Yel-
low Springs ?  That is the question.  Why should you not answer
it?   It is an important  element at least, if not a  decisive one, in
regard to ulterior things.  I came here with great  hopes, ready to
put forth ray best efforts,  ready to make  any sacrifices probably
resulting  in success.   If I am to fail,  I have already sacrificed too
much; and the  sooner I stop, the more strength I shall have for
something else.  Let me hear from you by the time  I get  home,
which I hope will be about the 20th inst.
                        Yours lovingly,
                                           HORACE MANN.

  Mr.  Mann's  visit to  Mackinaw, owing to  bad  living
and much  depression  of  spirits  while  absent  from  his
family,  and with  the care of  an invalid relative instead
of cheerful companions, was  not productive of as much
benefit  as he  had hoped ; and  an unfortunate fall just
after his return, which produced  violent effects at the
moment, and whose consequences reduced him for a time
in flesh and strength before his  family  could  reach him
from a visit  to the East, cancelled  what  little  benefit
remained from the cooler atmosphere, and  absence from
painful scenes.  He entered upon the great labors of the
next college-year weary and unrefreshed, and with added
duties which  did not legitimately belong  to his office as
president. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
493
                    ANTiocn College, Yellow Springs, Aug. 25,1856.
Rev. D. Austin.
  My dear Sir, — Your letter, full of kind expressions, of which
I desire to be worthy, rather than flatter  myself that I am so, is
just received.   Among life's draughts of vinegar, it is very pleasant
now and then  to get a sip of honey.
  I believed you would ratify the use I made  of  your kind remem-
brancer, and I am  glad  to have  you  do so.   I assure  you  it is
transmuted into better material than any other thing I could  have
changed it for.  I think I could make a glorious financiering  busi-
ness of it, could  I be allowed, by a divine alchemy, to transmute
into  knowledge that gold which is now worse than lost in pamper-
ing vanity and pride, and thus change that  knowledge into wisdom
and virtue.
  Our college is founded on scholarships, — a very common method
at the West, but not a very sound one;  at least, without some  addi-
tional support.  Each owner of a scholarship is entitled to a vote
in electing the College Board of Trustees, and  to keep one pupil
at college  free from tuition-charges.   This may answer where the
number  of scholarships sold is very large, and only a small portion
of them represented  by pupils; for then we  should have the income
of the several unrepresented scholarships to support the one pupil
who claims tuition under one.  But if the  number of scholarships
sold is small, and the institution is popular,  then  most of the schol-
arships  will be represented.   Whence, in that case,  is the fund to
support the institution to be derived ?  It is obvious, that, unless it
can have some endowment to repair to, it must fail.
  I am greatly obliged to you for your kind offer to give the-sum
of fifty  dollars annually for  five years to students at once deserving
and indigent.   But, my dear sir, will you pardon me for- making a
suggestion or two here ?   We have  many students who are poor;
and I suppose I have given at  least two hundred dollars a year,
6ince I have been here, to aid this class.   But I invariably do it in
such a  manner, that no one but  the recipient knows, and some-
times not he or she,  where it comes from.
  We have nothing, in our whole institution, of the nature of prizes,
honors,  parts, medals, or any apparatus or artificial system of means 
491
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
which stirs up in the bosoms of the members of our family the  un-
holy fires of emulation.
   I hold and always  have  held  it to be unchristian to place two
children or youth in such relation  to  each other, that, if one  wins,
the other must  lose.  So placed, what  scholars gain in intellect,
yea, and a thousand times more, they lose in  virtue.   We rely on
the love of knowledge, and  the natural advantages which its pos-
session confers ;  and we find that enough.   I have occasion to use
the curb quite as often as tho spur.
   Now, what could be  done with our whole system, should  your
idea of a bonus,  or  of  any competition, be adopted ?   Fifty dollars
too, which would pay the  whole tuition  of  only four  students,
might, if distributed in  sums of  five or ten  dollars  according to
circumstances, help  more.  Put enough of the  vitalizing oxygen
into tho lungs of each swimmer to buoy him up, and let him swim
the rest.  Let me, then, suggest that you put your fifty dollars into
the hands of some  member of our faculty, or  of our  Board of
Trustees, many of whom  would hardly be less judicious  than your-
self;  and let it be distributed, according  to exigencies as  they arise,
without the knowledge of any one but the recipient, and with  none
of the  heart-burnings  and  jealousies  and  surmises  of  favoritism
which  every other method involves.   I have  been almoner in one
or two such cases with  great effect.   When a poor student receives
a small sum of money unexpectedly, just enough to meet a dreaded
emergency, it seems a thousand  times  more as if it came straight
from God than  if he had been wrestling for it in the  ring,  and
had won  it as a trophy.   I confess  I have seen  so many dismal
forebodings  removed,  so  much joy occasioned,  even by a  small
amount of money, — tears of apprehension suddenly changed into
tears of joy, — that I  have envied the rich their powers of benefi-
cence,  with all its reflected happiness.  . .  .
   You  speak  of remembering  xVntioch in your will.  I sincerely
hope so;  yet I am  about to  interpose a caution.   Antioch is now
the only first-class college  in all the West that  is really an unsecta-
rian institution ;  where truth, and nobody's or party's ism, is the
object.   There are, it is true, some State institutions which profess
to be free from  proselyting instrumentalities; but I believe,  that, 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               495
without exception, they are  all under the control of men who hold
as truth something which they have prejudged to be true.  I do not
believe, that, in all the West, there is such a Sunday-school class as
I teach here.  We believe the elements of  truth are in the Bible,
in the Gospels, in the life  of Jesus Christ;  and we mean to find
them  there.
   This freedom from proselytism our college recognizes and avows ;
and I trust it will always be able to live up to its  doctrines.   But
how frail is human nature ! how weak to execute the good resolu-
tions  it had  strength enough only to form !  With all my love for
Antioch College, — and its prosperity is now the  ambition of my
life, — I would  not give it  any very large donation, one after the
Lawrence standard  of  magnitude, absolutely and outright.   I
would put it into the hands of trustees, or  a trustee, to be given to
the college if it held on to its avowals  of  non-sectarian, non-prose-
lyting administration.
   One thing we want  now and severely, — an exercising  hall or
gymnasium, especially  for our young  ladies.   We pay far  more
attention  to physical  education than  any other  institution (except
military ones) that I  know of in the world.   Oh, if some good man
__so much the  better if it were  a good woman — would  give me
two or three thousand dollars!   I know it would make the bones
 in their own graves rest easier, and sleep a serener sleep, could they
 but feel how much health and happiness, how much physical,  intel-
 lectual, and moral power,  such  a structure would create.   But
 pardon me, my dear sir.  I am running on  unconsciously and un-
 endingly.   Your kind letter, amid my many cares and labors and
 trials,°has opened my heart  and  loosed my tongue.  You see this
 letter, from its very nature, is private; but I am hereafter publicly
 your friend,                                     HORACE MANN.

                                   Yellow Springs, Sept. 9.1856.
    My very  dear Sumner, —I have to-day the  great  pleasure
 of hearing  from you under your own hand.   May God  surround
 you  with healing influences, and  bless them !  It is impossible to
 tell you how much we have felt for you, — sorrow, admiration, hope, 
496
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
affection, for you; grief,  indignation, contempt, abhorrence, for the
malefactor.  Mrs. Mann  read one account of the outrage, and could
never read another.  She said she felt the concussion  of  the  blows
all throuo-h her brain.  I have not written you, because I felt that
keeping myself away from all claim to your time or  attention was
the greatest kindness I could do to you.   I am glad to be restored
tc the privilege of writing to you again.
   Now comes your danger, — the danger of getting well too fast,
— of not patiently awaiting the  slow  recuperative  processes of
Nature.   Your brain must  all be made  over again.   It  took nine
months to make it the first time;  and then it was not worth much
until it had been some  years  in  ripening and  maturing.   Do not,
then, I beseech you, think that it can be  made  all  over again and
set to work in a hurry.    Festina lente.  I can hardly believe  that
the cause in Massachusetts needs your efforts.    Pennsylvania is the
battle-ground, the Flanders between North and South.   I wish you
could stand on one of the peaks of the Alleghanies, and make your
voice heard from the Ohio to the Delaware.
   0 Sumner, how good it feels to hear the tramp of this army of
freemen !   Every new battalion,  as it  comes into line, every shout
of its aroused and cheering columns, heals a wound which tho atroci-
ties of 1850 inflicted upon  my soul.   Sweet is the anodyne  after
such torture !
  When the healing influences of time have given  you permission
to buckle on your armor  again, then  do it; but do not  anticipate
your hour.   Seek the noblest revenge, which is strength.
  My work is  different from yours; but, in some  humble way, it
conduces to the same end.  Principles are the  seeds to be sown in
this field of time.  The order of Nature, which is God's providence,
will mature the fruit.   I  feel as if I were never doing  more of this
work than now.
   . . . Come and stay with us a  month.   We  will  nurse you  like
a baby, on pap; or feed you like a hero, on lion.
  With best regards from Mrs. Mann, I am yours ever,
                                               HORACE MANN. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
497
                                   Antioch College, Sept. 29, 1856.
Rev. D. Austin.
  My dear Sir, — Your favor of the 17th instanf  I received  on
Saturday last.  I am greatly obliged to you for it.   In the midst
of the obstacles which I have to encounter here, I may be supposed
to need the encouraging words of friends as much as the most indi-
gent student needs the  "material aid;"  one instalment of which
your letter contained, and others  promised.   I hope  you will give
me credit for being wise enough not to consider any thing '' small''
which can do  good.   I have undoubting confidence in your wise
apportionment of your means, and I think  I  can assure you that
what you may scatter here will be sown on good ground.
  You intimate an intention of remembering the college  by bequest,
provided it shall continue to be administered " without isms  (espe-
cially sectarianism, I trust) and  without prizes; " and  you  ask me
to name a person or persons to be invested with power to decide the
question, whether, at the time the bequest may fall due, the  college
is entitled to receive it.   I thank you sincerely for this wise provi-
sion.   In the illiberality of sects, and in  the  partisan contests for
superiority,  no sect is beyond the need  of such salutary restraints.
It is most agreeable to me also  to learn that we  agree  in opinion
respecting the immoral tendency of prizes,  honors, &c.   I  do not
believe that such stimulants are the best, even for making philoso-
phers : I am sure they are not for making Christians.
  In compliance with your request, I give you the names of Dr. S.
G. Howe of Boston, and Rev. Henry W.  Bellows of New York, as
suitable persons to determine whether this institution  is  faithful or         •
faithless to its avowals.
  I fear I may have said too much to you on the subject of  a gym-
nasium.   I am so anxious to obtain one,  that I may be tempted to
overstep the limits of propriety in regard to the means.   If  I have
done so in this case,  the motive must make what  atonement  it can
for the act.   I thank you for the generous  and confiding tone  of
your letter.   I will endeavor to prove to you that your  confidence
has not been misplaced.
  With best regards, I  remain very truly  yours, &c,
                                                HORACE  MANN.
             6~& 
498
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
                                  Yellow Springs, Oct. 20,1856.
   My dear Mr. Craig, — Your having been here, and being gone,
and being going to be gone,  seem to me like a sad  and doleful
dream.   Then comes the consciousness that it is not a dream, but a
reality. .  .  . Mr.  Doherty got the Christian  Church  together on
Sunday a week ago, and told  them, that, if they would raise  four
hundred dollars, he would see the pulpit supplied for a year.  Nearly
five hundred dollars were promptly raised ; and so he stands respon-
sible for the facit per alium aut facit per se for  the next twelve-
month.
   We have  a large entering class,  but not so many young ladies
in proportion as heretofore;  doubtless owing to the repellent power
of  the  infernal Nichols.*   Mr.  Pennell starts for St. Louis to-
morrow : so you hear another sound of disintegration. . . .
   Your admirers here have been to me several times to know what
they should  do with that money.  One of the committee introduced
the subject to me again since the receipt of your last letter.   I  said
I thought it  would be most agreeable to you  to have  it expended
for some permanent object of ornament or utility, to be attached to
the college.as a remembrance of you ; and I mentioned a chandelier.
How emblematic of you would a great lighted chandelier be !  Shall
the money be so expended ?  If Mrs. Mann were here, she would
send her regards along with mine.   As she is not, I send double.
                                               HORACE MANN.


                                 Yellow Springs, Dec. 10, 1856.
   My dear  Downer, —... We closed our fall term yesterday.
We have had a prosperous term.  We are getting more and more
of an esprit de corps of the right  sort among our young people.
High hopes and high aims are, I think, gradually supplanting  low
ones.   I can never get the institution, I suppose, fully up to  ray
ideal; but I can say it is advancing towards it.
   With kindest regards from all to all, I remain yours as ever,
                                                    H. MANX.
  * Dr. Gove Nichols, who established himself for a time in th* neighborhood. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               499
                    Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Dec. 10, 1856.
 To Rev.  Cyrus Pierce.
   My dear Mr. Pierce, — Were I to sit down to write you all
 I want to say, I must secure much time and much paper.  But be
 assured I think  of you  often, and  always with  affection.    My
 unbroken round of engagements, however, forces me to commit the
 almost impious act of sacrificing the demands of friendship.  I de-
 sire exceedingly to  see  you, and have that opportunity to pour out
 and to take in which a personal interview alone can give.
   I hear  you have discontinued your relations  to  the school at
 West Newton.  I am glad of it.  If any person ought to stand on
 the  "Emeritus" roll,  it is  Cyrus Pierce.   Now you  are floating,
 why cannot you suffer the gales of affection to blow you and Mrs.
 Pierce hitherward ?  I think we are doing something  of a work
 here :  it  cannot  in  all respects  come up to your  high  standard;
 but, compared with the  standard that has existed here hitherto, it is
 respectable.   I  have few things to look  back upon with compla-
 cency during my past life;  but  I do really think I have as much
 reason to hope for good from  my present labors as  from any in
 which I was ever engaged.   I  have a difficult  navigation,  as diffi-
 cult as the first  few years of my Secretaryship.   Whether I shall
 have such help as to be able to ride out  the storm, remains to be
 seen; but, if that can  be the case,  I feel fully  convinced that a
 glorious  voyage  awaits the craft, and that  she will  scatter  rich
 freight upon  a  thousand shores  long after the  stone  has  been
 fastened to my feet, and I have been thrown overboard.   But there
 is one gloomy idea that haunts my mind, and  it is one which can
 find no remedy or hope.   I  feel every day more and more keenly
 that I must soon retire  from the field of action, while at the same
 time my zeal grows and glows to continue the contest with evil.   I
 love the  good causes more  than ever; more than  ever  I want to
 fight for them :  and the most painful idea connected writh death is
 that I must bo at most a looker-on, and cannot be a participator.
 How do you feel ?  Are you willing to retire ?   Are you patient
under the long delays of  Providence?  Some  one  says, "God is
never in a hurry."  Well, if with him a thousand years are as one
day, he can afford to wait.   But we — how can we  be  expected to 
500
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
 wait ?  I know it is in vain to struggle with destiny.   It seems to
 me just as vain to struggle against this vehement desire to see the
 contest out.
    Mr. Pennell has left us, — a  great loss to us.   He has gone
 into the high  school at St. Louis at a salary of $2,500 a year!
 " The world does move, though."   I went out there last spring to
 attend a State  Educational  Convention, and form a State Teachers'
 Association.   I found  the city teachers,  who are  mostly Eastern
 men, all alive  on the subject.   They were like dry fuel, fitly laid,
 and only needing  a breath  to  kindle them.  It was my good luck
 to be that breath,  and they are now  shining brilliantly.   The city
 have not only  voted this  $2,500 for  the principal of their high
 school, but the same sum for the salary of  a principal of a Normal
 school; and  they gave me carte blanche to appoint both.  Whom
 can I find for the Normal school ?
   I am writing to Mr. -----probably for the last time.   Since  his
 prosperity, he has changed his whole manner and relationship to me.
 I exerted myself as a brother to help him up.   Up, he forgets me.
 So goes the world, — at least many persons in it.  God help us to
 make the world better !
   With  best love  from Mrs.  Mann and  myself  to  Mrs. Pierce
 and the Nestor of schoolmasters,
                       I am,  as ever, yours,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                  Yellow  Springs, Sept. 5, 1856.
   My  dear  Mr. Craig, — I  have received  your late letter ex-
 tinguishing all  my hopes.   I have no doubt of your being able to
 justify to your own conscience the conclusion to which you have
 come.  It would, indeed, be most lamentable, if, to the indescriba-
 ble evils consequent upon your  decision,  that  of  any conscious
 interference of choice with duty were  added.
   I will now say in strictest confidence to  you what I have never
 said to any living being before, not  even to  my wife,—that  the
 probability  of my continuing for any length of time in my present
position is very slight.
  Mr.  Pennell is about to leave  us; and  there goes  one of the 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
501
corner-stones of the  college.   He came here  from a  sahry of
$1,300, with an assurance that it should soon be raised to $1,500.
He afterwards  had an  offer of  $1,600, which  he refused.   Last
spring he had  an  offer of $2,000 ; which also,  for the sake of the
cause here and for my sake, he declined.  And  now he yields to
an offer of $2,500 from St. Louis.   Things were  assuming such a
desperate aspect here, that I did not think  he ought to hazard the
means of supporting his family longer, either for  his personal friend-
ship for me, or for the sake of our doubtful  enterprise here.
   The  trustees have  just closed  their annual  meeting.   Mr.
Zachos is turned out; Mr. B-----put  in his place, — one of the
best men we could have  giving place to — another.  Clandestine
measures had been most extensively and thoroughly taken to preju-
dice the minds of the trustees against Mr. Zachos;  and  they  came
with a resolution which no arguments or expostulations  that  I, or
those of us who were on the ground, could overcome.  They could
hardly have found a more objectionable man than their  appointee.
It would  have  the appearance of rashness, and perhaps of passion,
had I resigned at once ;  and  I shall  do nothing which  will tend
to prejudice the institution after I  leave it.
   On the other hand,  there is now a chance that our debts will all
be paid by the first of next January.   [This hope proved  falla-
cious. — Ed.]  . .  .
   Prospects before us, or rather before me, lower as  with ven-
geance.   I know not what will come ; but one thing I mean,  at all
events, to do, — to keep  a conscience void of offence  towards God
and man.              Your always friend,
                                 J               HORACE MANN.

                                 Yellow Springs, Jan.  24, 1857.
   My  dear Sumner,— I read  with avidity  every thing I see
about you ; but, while  all that  pertains to your enduring interests
exceeds what  even a sanguine friendship  would dare to hope, I
grieve that your health and physical resources remain as they are.
 You must be  careful.  Should Boreas get into a shepherd's pipe,
would he not rend it  into a thousand splinters ?  Heal your body,
and your soul  will do well enough. . .  . 
502
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
  When you have time and  strength, do write to me ; and mean-
while believe me, as ever,
                     Most truly yours,          HORACE MANN.

                                               April 6, 1857.
  My dear, ever  dear Mr.  Craig, — Your letter from  Cairo
reached us thc^ day our term opened.   Since then, the number and
character of  my  duties in  launching  our craft  for another term
have crowded me half way to insanity.   But  to-day we are under
sail,  and all posts are manned or woraaned. . . .
  I  should have written  you  on some  points;  but  Mrs. Mann
has said them better than I could.  Ponder them, — for Antioch's
sake, for humanity's  sake,  for  God's  sake,  ponder  them.   The
bird's wing was not made for the air, nor our eye for the light, any
more than  you for Antioch  College.  Why will you  keep things
apart that were made for each other?
  If I could feel that you would be my successor here, I should be
ready at any time to  say with  old Simeon,  " Now, Lord,  lettest
thou thy servant  depart in peace."
  May God bless and let me direct you !   Is that wicked ?
                         As ever, yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                 Yellow Springs, July 3, 1857.
  My dear Mr. Craig, —  A new crisis has come to our affairs.
  First,  however, let  me say that we  have had a glorious  Com-
mencement.*  Governor Chase  was here, ?nd he says  it surpassed
any thing he ever saw in Ohio.   Rev.  Dr. Gannett was here from
Boston;  and he says, that, in all the particulars that affect a moral
and  accountable being, they  never have had any thing to compare
with it at the East.
  . .  . The Board has met, and elected  a new  Board.   Antioch
College has " failed."   All its property is assigned for the payment
of its debts.  The whole scholarship system will be abolished.  All
the professors, including your humble servant, were decapitated by

  * The Commencement of the first class that was graduated from the college. 
' LIFE OF  HORACE  MANN.               503
 the old Board   The new one, however, did replace the president's
 head before the flesh and nerves had become wholly cold and life-
 less; so that, wfth care, they may stick together once more.
   A new faculty is to be  formed.   Doherty and Allen  are very
 sure not to be re-appointed; and this will leave the cabinet a unit
 in sentiment and purpose.         ,
   Always much, but now more than ever, must the Rev. Austin
 Craig come to the rescue.  His  services are indispensable, —first,
 as chaplain, to  preach half the day on Sunday, having no connec-
 tion with  the village but that of cordiality and reciprocity of good
 works; and second, that of teaching, more or less  as health may
 permit.
   Now, my dear friend, we  have a chance for a college such as
 was never known before.  In my "Baccalaureate," on Wednesday,
 I laid down the great doctrine, that the power of knowledge ought
 never to be added to the power of vice; that, up to the time of en-
 tering a college-class, the  most  vicious and abandoned should be
 educated; and the more so, the  more so.  But, after that, none but
 the  virtuous,  the earnest, those who give confident  promise  of
 righteousness or right-doing,  should  be  invested with the  preroga-
 tives and  enchantments of knowledge.
   Now, my dear friend,  I feel God-authorized  to  say you  must
 come and work with us, and, when my mantle falls off, take it upon
 your shoulders.  I see no  alternative but this.   Blooming Grove,
 compared with  this, is but  the tiniest islet to the Western conti-
 nent. .  . .
                Yours in the Lord and Antioch,
                                                HORACE MANN.

                                 Yellow Springs, June 7, 1857.
   My dear Mr. Craig, — The vision forever flits before my mind,
that, if  I am to be at Antioch  College, you are to be here  too.  It
cannot be  selfishness.   It is genuine  heart-belief that nowhere else
can you do so much good as here . .  . Now be a good boy!  Don't
be over-modest.  Trust in God some, in  Austin  Craig also, and
listen to this request, and make  it prophecy now, and history here-
after.              Yours as ever, most truly,
                                               HORACE MANN. 
504             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
                              Antioch College, July 4, 1857.
  My dear Mr. Craig, — Although the ink is hardly dry on the
last letter I wrote you, yet, having a chance to send oy your friends,
I improve it.
  I hardly know what I wrote you bef6re ; yet I know I wrote what
was nearest my heart, and therefore it must have been  about your
coming here.  If you would do so, I know it would be the turning-
point in the history of this  institution.   It will make a difference
of many students; and, what is better, it will make a difference in
the moral and religious character of all.  How gladly would I help
you work here ! how rejoicingly I would leave you  here when I am
called  away!   I know we  have  a chance for  an  institution here
such as exists in no other part  of the earth, — one founded on the
love of truth  and  righteousness.  We  have the power of saying,
and of maintaining the doctrine, equally new  and great, that we
will graduate  none but  true, exemplary youth; and this will push
the world along half a century at one impulse.  But, to all the
good things I plan,  you appear in the foreground of the  pic-
ture.  ...
   Pray let me hear  from you soon. . . . These matters must be
settled without delay.
                 Yours as ever, and more so,
                                            HORACE MANN.

   It was the moral superiority of  the  college rather than
a literary  one to which Mr. Mann looked forward with so
much hope  and confidence.   He felt, indeed, that where
study was pursued conscientiously, and with higher mo-
tives  than the  principle of emulation (which he  consid-
ered an unholy  one), it would secure superiority there;
but he had fed his imagination with the conception of  a
practical religious life to be inspired into or evolved out
cf the young, to which  he thought the generous heart of
youth would respond warmly, if it could be disconnected
from  a religionism whose  features make the young turn
 away,— not because the natural  heart is altogether evil, 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
505
but because it is a narrow rather  than a broad religious
culture wbich is inculcated.   His young friend whom he
so long  and  earnestly importuned to come to his assist-
ance was to him the type of what  all the young might be;
and the  fruits of  his experiment during  the last few
years had satisfied  him that his plans were not Utopian,
as many of bis friends wished to make him believe.  He
saw that the young could  work together  for  their  own
and each other's improvement witbout the  stimulus of
rivalry or any base motive,  but in true brotherly love.

                               Mackinaw, Mich., Aug. 6, 1857.
   My  dear Downer, — Here we all  are in Mackinaw, and enjoy-
ing ourselves too well not to tell you about it, and to wish you were
with us.   The climate, the air, &c,  perform the promise made last
year;  and, as all the family are with me, I  enjoy it vastly more
than I did last year.  I never breathed such  air  before; and this
must be some that was clear out of Eden, and did not get cursed.
I sleep every night under sheet, blanket, and coverlet; and no day
is too warm for smart  walking and vigorous bowling.  The children
are crazy with  animal spirits, and eat  in such  a way as to demon-
strate the epigastric paradox, that the quantity contained may  be
greater than the container.   I  verily  believe, if you would spend
one summer here, — say from about the middle of July to the mid-
dle of  September, — it would make your brain as good as Samuel
Downer's brain ever was since it occupied its present cranium; and
that is saying a great  deal.
   In  the  first place,  you would  analyze,  and, morally speaking,
pulverize and sift,  the whole island in four days.
   In the  second place, you could not  get a mail but once a week.
And,
   Thirdly, you would then  have nothing  to do  but to use your
senses on the beauties of water and sky, and see that you had daily
food for two or three common rations.
   I ain getting more weaned from Boston every day, and wish you
did not love it so well. ... I shall want the dividends promptly; 
506
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
for I am in very close quarters as to money.  The breaking-up of
the  college as it did, without  paying me a cent on  about half a
year's  salary  (besides the general indebtedness to me on the old
score), has left me a sort of beggar. .  . .
  I want a good long letter from  you, — long enough to let me
know all about your health, and how  much  you are released  from
the  weight and care of business, and  how deeply you are still in-
volved in it;  because these things  have the directest bearing upon
your health.  Tell me all the news. . . .
                 Yours as ever, most truly,
                                          HORACE MANN.


  The climate of Mackinaw proved to Mr. Mann's tempe-
rament the  most delicious one he ever enjoyed.  With his
family around him, including  even a faithful, devoted, and
well-trained cook; with the beautiful lake at his feet, its
plashing waters soothing his wearied nerves to sleep every
night, the golden  beach enlivened every morning by the
tents  of  the Indians who  came  at daybreak from the op-
posite shore with their fish and fruits; with quiet boating
with  his  children, long walks  with them in the lovely
woods, — he seemed almost to renew his youth.  He knew
terrific labors awaited him on his return; but, for the  first
time  in his life, he turned his  thoughts away, and went to
sleep  on Mother Nature's bosom. He perhaps, of all  per-
sons on the island, was glad when the mail-boats did  not
arrive; for they brought echoes  of past and elements of
future toil to him.  He read  aloud heart-inspiring books,
— Whittier's  poems, and  other  works which he had only
known before by their titles ;  and actually wrote a lecture
he had in his head in verse.   On one side of the island, a
luxurious wood covers a declivity of one or two hundred
feet.   He found a steep path through this wood, across
which ran a gigantic root, which he forthwith made  his
study.  Thither he escaped every morning with his port- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
507
folio and pencils, challenging  his  children to find him,
which  they did at last;  but they were not often allowed to
invade his quiet there.   Their turn came later in the day.
With nothing in view but the beautiful lake and sky, and
the music of the pines and the birds in his ear, he actual-
ly rested.  A noble friend, Mr. Ward of Detroit, proposed
to build  a house upon the island, in which he  invited him
to spend all his summer vacations; and he felt as if, with
such repose as that would be, he  might  yet  work  many
years: for temporary rest in which to recruit for more
labor was all that ever  dwelt in his imagination.
   On his return, he was required, as a condition of future
existence to the college, to take the financial affairs into
his own  keeping.  Every thing was to be organized anew,
as it were.  But  there were some encouraging circum-
stances  in  the  prospect, that promised  to  lighten  the
burden,  as his letters will show.
                               Antioch College, July 18,1857.
   My dear Mr. Craig, — Yours of the  11th instant has  reached
me to-day.  The  delay has  given me restless  sleep  and horrid
dreams; but your letter promises a pleasant morning  after a dreary
night.
   First, I send  you a catalogue:  second, I am afraid you want
more exactness of detail than it will be possible for  me, in our
present disorganized state,  to give ;  but I can make one assurance
8Ure> — that we love you too well, and believe that  the Lord has
too much for you to do hereafter for Antioch College, to allow us
to put your health  in peril.
   I feel as though I could yet, in desperate  circumstances,  perform
a great amount of labor,  and so does R----; and what you can't
do, I hope we can.   What is wanted is, that you, temporarily, should
All Mr. ----'s place.  The college and school  are so utterly dis-
satisfied with him,  that it is said the whole  of  our to  be  seniors
would leave if he is retained, and at least half of all the other college-
classes.   The case, therefore, is desperate. 
508
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
  .  . . Six thousand dollars are to be raised by subscription, which,
with the expected income from tuition and rooms, is thought to be
sufficient to pay the teachers at about the same rate as heretofore;
and I think you should be paid according to the proportion of your
labors.  But on this point, my dear friend, you must trust to the
Lord a little, and, while you are reasonably careful about earthly
treasure, lay up something in  the upper treasury, whose  officers
never  embezzle or defalcate.    You will be worth ten  thousand
dollars to the moral interests of the college ; and all this will, I have
no doubt, be transferred to your account in the book of life.   As to
the  future,  you know what I hope and intend for you.
                      Yours as ever,
                                           HORACE  MANN.

  Mr.  Craig  yielded to the demand made upon him at
this time, and came to share  the labors of the  new col-
lege, as it in  effect was, though there was little outward
change.   The absence of two members of the faculty, who
had made its meetings a scene of unhappy feeling so long,
lightened the hearts of all the little cabinet:  indeed, the '
members  had refused to  serve with one of the ejected
parties any longer, since he had not only falsified the rec-
ord of which he had unfortunately been  made  secretary,
but had broken  faith with them as  a body repeatedly, and,
regardless of their honor as  a faculty, voted one way at
their  meetings,  and reported  his votes  falsely outside, —
secure in  the knowledge that the rest would  keep  their
word  to  let  the  final vote  upon any subject stand as  a  »
unanimous one.   Mr. Mann  often  said no words  could
describe  the  changed feeling  with which he  stood upon
the  platform  of the chapel, and did not encounter that face
in his audience.   But he was  not  destined to  enjoy that
immunity long.   Although rejected from the faculty with
every token  of moral disgrace, the obnoxious ex-member
returned  after two months' absence, obtruded himself into
all  the gatherings of the students in  the chapel, and often 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
509
in the recitation-rooms even  of his  own  successor  (al-
though  she was  a lady, and  a stranger to him) ; and,
" squat like a toad," remained there through the  greater
part of  the year, sowing dissension  among students  and
villagers, interrupting the harmony that existed  between
the college and the village church, and at  last, actually,
by the most violent, dishonorable, and unscrupulous pro-
ceedings, causing a schism in the latter, whose wounds
were never again healed during Mr. Mann's life.   At the
end of the  year, he published  a slanderous and most false
account of college and church affairs  in a large octavo
volume, which he spent a part of the next year in cir-
culating,  and  in  some  cases  peddling,  through  the
" Christian " churches of the West.    The effect of this
was to alienate the interest of that denomination so far as
to stop nearly all  the supplies which earnest and self-
sacrificing  agents had been promised for the final redemp-
tion of the institution ; the  sale having been  postponed
for two years, in order to give time for its friends to rally.
Mr. Mann  and other members of the faculty decided, after
a time, that it was best to answer this libellous production;
and each one wrote his own defence, and published them
together in a small volume.   It is doubtful if the reply
ever reached a tithe of the persons upon whom the libel
was assiduously forced ; and  therefore the influence  of
the latter remains this day to prejudice many of the  so-
called " Christians "  against  the  college, future  as well
as past.  The expense as well  as labor involved  fell chiefly
upon Mr. Mann.  The labor was one of  the  drops too
much that  filled his last cup of life.

                 Antioch College, Yellow Springs,  Sept. 17, 1857.
E. Conant,  Esq.
  My dear Sir, — It is  not a pleasant task to answer the letter
which your grandson put into  my hands yesterday. Nevertheless, 
510
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
I will do it frankly and directly, and, I trust, in a mi nner satisfac-
tory to you.
  The college was founded upon a rotten basis.   By no  possibility
can a student be educated here for six dollars a year,  or for six
times that  sum.  It was intended  to obtain four or five  times as
many scholarships as  there would  be  scholars; but that, though
intended, was never effected.
  The consequence was, that the college has been running deeper
and deeper into debt ever since it was opened.   There was  the most
deplorable mismanagement  in the building of it, as  has  since  been
ascertained, on the part of Mr.  M-----, so  that  it ran  in  debt
greatly;  and, since it  opened, those  debts  have been  increasing.
Effort after effort has  been made  to pay off the debts; but  they
have all failed.   We  have thought  from  time to time that  they
would  succeed; but we  have  been deplorably disappointed.   At
last it became apparent that the indebtedness of the college would
not only require all the scholarship-fund for its payment, but would
render  every scholarship-holder liable  for  an additional  amount
beyond his scholarship, and equal to  it; that  is, every owner  of a
scholarship would  not  only lose his scholarship, but be liable for
a hundred dollars besides.  This, of course, would never do.  The
only alternative, therefore,  was to transfer the  college property for
the payment of its debts, and begin  anew on the basis of tuition.   I
say there was no alternative but this, or an entire  breaking-up  of
the school, and an abandonment of the property to the creditors.
The friends of the institution chose the  former; and, though a mis-
fortune, it was the least of the misfortunes before them.   This they
have  done.  Members of  the Board of Trustees and others  have
subscribed six thousand dollars to help carry on the school this year;
and we hope to meet the residue of the expense from tuition-fees
and other resources.   I have made  the above statement  as that  of
the trustees; in which, however, I  fully concur.    I have not yet
stated, that, every year since I have been here, I have made  more
sacrifice for the college than the sum which you have paid.  I am
willing to make more if it can be saved for education, and a liberal,
unsectarian Christianity.   Are you not ready, my dear sir, to  do
the same ?   What better use can we make of our means ?    We now 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
511
know the worst of it.  This assignment cancels all the debts.   Now
we can start  anew.   Should  a company be  formed to buy in the
college, and carry it on on the new basis (say to be  owned in shares
of five hundred dollars each), would you not still,  for so great  an
object,  take one of the shares ?  The college has done immense good
already.  I trust the Lord has friends enough to sustain it for the
still greater good it may do hereafter.
                        Ymrs most truly,
                                               HORACE MANN.


                                Mackinaw, Mich., Aug. 7, 1857.
   My  dear Mr. Craig, — A steamboat which carries the  mail lies
at the wharf, but will start in a few minutes.   I seize the moment
to say that I  have  seen your letter to Mr.  Fay. ... I look  upon
your assistance  as  almost, or  rather  I ought to  say absolutely,
essential to carry out the plans in regard to Antioch which  have
now been announced.   After all that has been said  and done, it
will be an immense affair  to hold the college up to that standard of
moral  elevation which has now been  officially promulgated.   For
that grand purpose, the  highest and noblest  practical enterprise
which  any man in the country can undertake, I know that you
would  be the best instrument the  good God has yet made.   Is it
not an object in which all merely personal considerations should be
merged?   You must  break  through  all ordinary impediments,
therefore, to meet this God-appointed exigency.  . .  .
   Farewell, and God bless you !   Remember you  are Heaven and
not committee appointed to such a work for  education as was never
undertaken before.               #
                                               HORACE MANN.

                               Antioch  College, Sept. 17, 1857.
   My  dear Mr. Craig, — I saved  the college by going to Bloom-
ing Grove,  and securing your services in it;  but I came near losing
myself.  For thirty-six hours after I left you,  I was more ill than
I  have been for years.   I lay by  at Dunkirk over Sunday; and
was just able to reach  home, semi animus, on Monday.  Well, I 
512              LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
had this to console myself  with, — if I got you, though I killed
myself, I had made a great bargain.
   Our school opens grandly with about a hundred new students,
and a better-looking class of students than we have ever had before.
These  students have all been brought here by our reputation : they
hav3 not come to save six  dollars a year on a scholarship.  They
evidently come from the more  intelligent class in the community,
and thereby show where  our  strength is growing.   I have great
expectations from  your connection with the college.   I understand
there is great jubilation among  the students, — a double jubila-
tion indeed, — one for those who are to come to  help us, and  one
on  account of those who are not.  Your  presence  is  looked for
most anxiously.   The contrast between you and your predecessor
in this branch will be  immense. . . .
   We  are  all well.   I have  had a dreadfully hard time since  I
returned.   I want to tell you how the ungodly were caught in their
own snare ; but  this must be  when you get here.   Our arms are
all  open to receive you. . . .
                          Your friend,          HORACE  MANN.

                                 Yellow Springs, Oct.  16, 1857.
   My  dear Downer, —...  We are  going on grandly with  the
college.  Notwithstanding the abolition of the scholarship system,
which  many thought  would extinguish  us,  we have  nearly three
hundred students to-day, and more in the college-classes  than ever
before.  There must be some reason that draws  so many students
here, notwithstanding  the horrid  pecuniary death we have been
dying  for  four  years, and n<ftwithstanding every  student who
came was not without  some reason to believe  that the college would
tumble down on  his head.
   ...  I am living on short allowance; have not had a cent from
the college  for a  year and a half; and it costs me about  $2,000  a
year to keep up my " public house." . .  .
              Love from all to all,             HORACE MANN. 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
513
                     Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Oct. 23,1857.
Rev. Daniel Austin.
   My  dear Sir, — I acknowledge with many thanks the receipt
of yours of the 15th inst., enclosing  a check for fifty dollars.  It
is most timely.   I have been called upon to the full extent of my
means; and yet  we have meritorious  young people here whom it is
a great delight to assist.   Your gift will give many joyous hours.
   Our college has been revolutionized within the last three months.
The scholarship system has been abolished, and a system  of tuition
substituted.  The one was  almost free:  the  other is  somewhat
expensive.   Yet we  have lost very few in point of numbers.   That
so many shouhl resort here  while  there  is a chance that the col-
lege will tumble down  over their heads;  that so many should
become members of our college-classes while there  is any chance
that the  institution  will have  no name  or existence  ten  years
hence,  —proves,  as it seems to me, the reputation we have acquired
for scholarship and discipline.  Indeed,  I think it is now acknowl-
edged  on all hands that  we  have the best institution  for learning
and good  morals  this side   the mountains.  The bigots are say-
ing all manner of evil things about  us; but we hope to survive
their anathemas.
   Have you seen Dr. Gannett's article about us in the last number
of the  " Unitariau Quarterly Journal  "?   He came out here Saul:
he went back Paul. . . .          Yours most truly,
                                                     H. MANN.

                                    Yellow Springs, Jan. 13, 1858.
Rev. 0. J. Wait.
   My  dear Sir.  . .  . With many thanks for your proposed atten-
tions and civilities, permit me to say that all my feelings and habits
would  be far more gratified to be allowed, on my arrival at Cincin-
nati, to go quietly to a hotel, than to be surrounded with all the
pomp and circumstance belonging  to  a king.  I propose  to stop at
my usual place when  in  the city, — the Burnet House.  There,
when it is convenient, I shall be most  happy to  see  you and  your
friends, and my friends if I have any.  . .  .
     In the mean  time, I remain very  truly yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.
             33 
514
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN7.
                  Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Feb. 27, 1858.
  My dear Mr. May, — I was many times glad to hear that you
had so far recovered  your  health as to return to your home and
your duties agaih.   Has that  terrible  fellow  they  call Old Age
got held of you yet ?  Occasionally I think I hear the sound  of his
footsteps.   I  dread him  greatly;  not  so  much, however, for what
he does, as for what he will prevent me from  doing.   There are a
few causes — such as universal peace and universal freedom, and
education, the parent  of them all—in wi:ch I have become intensely
interested, and want to fight in their ranks at least a hundred years
before being summoned away.  I fear the chances are against me.
  During  the  ensuing fortnight's vacation, I  propose  to recreate
myself on a lecturing  tour this side and the other side of the Missis-
sippi.
  Internally  our establishment  goes  on  beautifully;  but abroad
the trump of doom is sounding in our ears.   Some of  our Eastern
friends arc anxious for us;  but it is impossible for them to compre-
hend the  significance of  such an institution  here : and so a great
calamity may come upon the world, which the possession of one
idea would have averted.   This Great West has been  conquered,
religiously speaking, from Black Hawk to John Calvin.  So  far as
the religious  dogmas  are concerned, I  would  rather it would be
Black Hawk's again.   The people of the West  are open, receptive,
mouldable.   The ministers have a cast-iron epidermis, —so opaque
and impervious, that no sunlight can get into them ;  so absorbent,
that  none is  reflected from them, or  all  that strikes upon them is
swallowed  up and lost.   The  stronger minds, which  break  away
from Orthodoxy as the  common  rule, find  no stopping-place this
side of general scepticism.  In this great State of Ohio, with nearly
three millions of people, there are but three Unitarian societies;
and these  are small.   All the colleges of a first-class character have
a strong infusion of Calvinism mingled with their  daily  food.
  Although our first commencement was  held  last year, we  grad-
uated more than the average of the  first eleven colleges in  Ohio;
and our numbers exceed those of any other, with the exception of
Oberlin, and we have  a far larger number than that had at our age.
More than a thousand  students, cither from the collegiate or the pre- 
                   LIFE OF HORACE MANN.               515

juratory department, have left us ; and among them all, scarcely one
who had been with us long enough to imbibe the spirit of the  place
has left us a dogmatizer or a bigot.   Many have left for the minis-
try ; but it is the ministry of truth, and not  of  a sect.  There is a
strong but  a  sober spirit of attention to  religious interests among
our students.   Their moral character and conduct correspond.
   On the east side of our grounds, and immediately adjoining them,
is a farm of four hundred acres, with garden, vineyard, and orchard
of  twenty  or  thirty  in  addition.   On  the north-west, Judge Mills
has a  large  flower  and  fruit  garden.*  On  the   south-west,^ a
hundred and  fifty rods from our doors, a  Frenchman raises choice
fruits for  the market.   Not one  of these for two years has lost an
apple or  peach or  grape.  . . . Our  dormitory, nearly  filled with
male students, has no tutor or proctor or overseer.  In study-hours,
it is as quiet  as your house.  We have no  rowdyism, no drinking
of intoxicating liquors, no gambling or card-playing; and we have
 nearly succeeded, notwithstanding the inveteracy of these  habits
 at the West,  in exorcising profanity and tobacco.
    You know my views of emulation.   It may make bright scholars;
 but it makes rascally politicians and knavish merchants.
    All of our faculty now, except myself, are  young (and I feel so),
 and  are well qualified  for  their places, and filled with  a  generous
 enthusiasm.   Five  of  them are members of the Christian Church,
 two  of the Unitarian Church.   Two  of our professors  are  ladies.
 Audi alteram partem.
    The whole college property is  advertised  to be sold at auction on
 the second day of June next I  The Presbyterians have been contem-
 plating the erection  of a college for some years, and have collected
 funds°for the purpose.  A year  ago, they located one at West
 Liberty, about forty miles north from here.  Hearing of our disasters,
 they suspended  all preparations  for building; and, this present
 week, a  body of them, or  committee  rather, made us a visit of ex-
  amination.   It is said all around that they  will give  sixty thousand
  dollars for this, - some say eighty thousand.   No doubt they would
  be willing to give a few thousands extra for the sake of the omen.
    * The  students had at  all  times the privilege of  crossing his domains iu
  every direction. 
516
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
  What a chance for any one who stands at the door of wealth  to
say,  " Open sesame!"   Would not  the very gates  (f heaven
stand wider forever afterwards?  Let  this  chance pass by, when
will such an institution,  in  such a working condition,  re-appear?
You may have the brick and the mortar; but

        " Where is the Promethean fire that will that light relume ? "

  Excuse this long outpouring.  My heart is full of the subject, —
not at  all, be assured, for any selfish reason; for  I have not re-
ceived money enough from the institution, since I came here, to pay
my family expenses : but that " man cannot live by bread alone "
is as true of your old and dearly loving friend, Horace Mann, as of
anybody else.

  Mr. Mann now threw himself into the final  effort to save
the institution to liberal education, secular and religious,
with a zeal  and intensity that alarmed those who watched
over him, whose eyes were not holden by their own selfish
aims.   He was involved in a perfect network of the lat-
ter.   Men who had pretended  enthusiasm  for him and
for learning at first, fell away and became  hostile when
the failing fortunes of the college disappointed their desire
to coin gold out of their unsold lands.  They cared not who
occupied the ground if these could be sold.  Many dishon-
est men took refuge in the excuse that they were  involved
in college debts.   Some men pretended to be in his confi-
dence  who were not so, and used his good name to cover
up their evil deeds.   Mutual animosities between parties
connected with the college prejudiced the minds  of those
who  looked on from  without, and could not understand
the complications thus entailed upon its interests.  There
seemed to be but one possible way in which to extricate
it even from outward difficulties:  this was for its friends
to purchase it outright, and set it upon  an independent
basis,  freed  from all previous  entanglements.   A few 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
517
more  letters  describing the labors of a few more months
will bring the sad narrative to a close.

                                 Yellow Springs, March 3,1858.
   My  dear Mr. Craig, — You have not yet been gone two days,
and we are all homesick for you already.  My ears tingle to know
what you are saying and doing at Stafford to-day.
   . . . Doubtless  it will be  given you in that selfsame hour what
you shall say:  but, among the things which you do say, I trust
you will  not omit to dwell with earnest, apostolic unction upon the
character of our students; their freedom from almost all the vices
and evil  habits  which are commonplace in other colleges; the secu-
rity of gardens and orchards and vineyards  wholly from any dep-
redations of theirs; on the fact that both the men and women of
the village  have  been  watching the  past  season  for  offenders
against the temperance  laws, yet never has suspicion rested  on
one of our students of having so much as visited a drinking-saloon
or other  similar resort;  the feeling with which the young men
are regarded by the  ladies  of the  place;  the high, elevated, and
often religious  tone of theh exercises, whether for  exhibition  or
class compositions;  and what I think will  strike your audience
verv forcibly, —the fact that, among all who have gone out from here
from all  the classes, J-----J-----is  the only bigot I know of.*
They go  out, generally, deeply impressed with the importance  of
religious  truth,  but inquirers, not dogmatizers.
   And now, my dear, very dear friend, may peace and blessing at-
tend you all the days  of your life !
   I know Mrs. Mann would  send indefinite  quantities of love if
she wete here, and so would the childers.
                     Ever and truly yours,
                                               HORACE MANN.

                                 Yellow Springs, May 18, 1858.
   My  dear Mr. Combe,—I  received your letter  of March  18
about a week ago ; and it would have given me unmingled satisfac-

  * The man here alluded  to entered with hostile feelings and bigoted views
deeply rooted. 
518
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
tion but for an expression at the close.   In this you intimate that
we have become  forgetful  or unmindful  of you, and  say you are
unconscious of having done any thing to  forfeit our esteem.   My
dear friend, I am  exceedingly sorry that any such suspicion or
suggestion should ever  have come consciously into your mind.   I
assure you  it represents no truth.   My consciousness affirms this.
There is no man of whom I think so often;  there  is no  man of
whom I write  so  often; there is no man who has done me so much
good as you have.  I see  many of the  most  valuable truths as I
never should have seen  them but for you,  and  all truths better than
I should otherwise have done.   If I could do it, I  would make a
pilgrimage to see  you ;  and, if you would come to America, I would
take care of you till one or the other of us should die.   You  must
find, and I can give, other and unanswerable  reasons why I do not
write to you so ^ften as I  would.   The administration of the col-
lege is  very engrossing.   I teach political economy, intellectual
philosophy,  moral philosophy,  and natural theology, one class all
the year, and, one-third of  the year, two classes.   I  take the whole
charge of the Sunday school, which  almost all our mature scholars
attend voluntarily; and, with their eager and inquisitive minds, they
demand substance, and will not be satisfied with form.  The entire dis-
cipline of the institution devolves upon me.  With such of our young
people as need the curbing  of the  propensities, and to  have "their
energies withdrawn from theh  present channels and directed into
new ones, I spend a great deal of  time, privately.   I cannot get at
the heart in social addresses as I can in private  appeals.   When I
have an interview  with a  reckless or perverse student,  and pass
into his consciousness, and  try to make him see mine, I always shed
tears;  I cannot help it: and there is a force  in honest teaw not to
be found in logic.  This labor is  diminishing as the  spirit of  the
school, its animus, improves.  And we really have the most orderly,
sober,  diligent, and exemplary institution  in  the  country.   We
passed through the last  term, and  are more than half  through  the
present; and I have not had occasion to make a single entry of any
misdemeanor in our record-book, — not a case for any serious  disci-
pline.
   There is no rowdyism in the village, no nocturnal rambles muk- 
                   LIFE OF  HORACE  MANN.              519

ing night  hideous.  All is quiet, peaceful; and the women of the
village feel the presence of our students, when met in the streets in
the evening, to be a protection rather than an exposure.   It is now
almost five years since I came here,  and as yet I have had  no
" practical joke " or " college prank," as they are called, played
upon me, — not in a single instance.  Think you it has not required
some labor to superinduce this state of things on %j free and easy
manners of the  West ?
   We are in the midst  of a great community, ferociously Orthodox,
In  this great State  of  Ohio,  already having  a population of more
than two millions and a half, there are but four Unitarian churches.
Calvinism has  terrible sway,  and its  whole artillery  is levied
against us.  We take  it broadsides, and  work on.  If we can go
on, we will make a breach in the Chinese Wall, and let in the light.
   But here the question arises, Can we  go  on ?   Our institution
was begun when money was  superabundant, when everybody felt
rich and  generous.   The time for opening was  proclaimed a year
in  advance.  Then  came disaster.  All  materials, labor, stock,
rose from thirty-three to fifty per cent.  Interest became exorbitant.
The accounts were  not well  kept; and  when I came, though it
was not known  to me for more than a year afterwards, the college
was bankrupt, and has been  bankrupt  ever  since.   From time to
time,  new plans have been devised for  raising money : they have
failed.  And now, unless help comes from some  quarter, we shall
disband, and leave the old schools and the old theology to take  our
place  on  the first of July next.   Oh, if we had a tithe  of the
wealth that the world is squandering every day, what unspeakable
o-ood we could do with  it!  I know, if you could find and send us
$100,000, it would  be the happiest act  in your long and useful
life.
       Mv dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe, good-by!
         J                                    HORACE MANN.

   It  was not  long after this letter was wrftten  that the
intelligence of Mr. Combe's death came.   Mr. Mann was
hardly prepared for  it even by Mr. Combe's own anticipa-
tion.   The greatest consolation for the loss was in the 
520
LIFE OF  HORACE MANN.
feeling of joyful sympathy with that great consciousness
which he had the  happiness of believing would open his
vision in another sphere of progress in a way which he did
not himself anticipate.   All Mr. Combe's imagination had
been able to compass was the future progress of the human
race on earth ; and glorious and inspiring that imagination
was, for glorious and inspiring was his  conception of its
capacities  for earthly improvement.   Mr. Mann enjoyed
both.  He, too, believed its destiny in this world was scarce-
ly yet comprehended by the loftiest earthly conceptions;
but he looked upon this world in its best estate as but a
school for the cultivation of faculties which were to ripen
in nearer  consciousness of God, in  spheres where fuller
conceptions  of his omnipotence would be vouchsafed to
tire soul that had been faithful  to  its earthly  trust, and
where the search into causes would be forever prosecuted
without the drawbacks  imposed by the earthly body.

                           Yellow Springs, Ohio, July 3,1858.
  D. Cromyer, Esq. —... I often tell our young people, that, if
they can be equipped for the business of life at thirty, they have
done well.   Let two young people enter upon  the active stage of
life, one at twenty years of age and the other  at thirty, in every
other respect alike, save that the latter has spent his ten years in
preparation, and, at the age of forty-five, the latter will be ahead of
the former in wealth, position, character, and all the means of hap-
piness.
  I hate debt as badly as Dr. Franklin did ; and yet there are two
things for which I would not hesitate a moment to incur it, — to
save my life and to get an education, and for the latter as soon as
the former.
  A year after graduating is worth two years before.   It is there-
fore a saving of fifty per cent of life.   Is not this a good as well as
an honest speculation ?   This favors borrowing.
  But school-keeping and manual labor offer themselves  as means 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
521
of support.   Many of the young men in our college support them-
selves wholly or partially in  one of these ways.   The  most menial
services about our  buildings are  performed by our students;  and
they are not respected less, but more, on this account.*
   There is  a great demand also  in  this vicinity for well-qualified
teachers.   After all,  I should be  governed more by the spirit of the
young man you refer to  than by his external circumstances all  put
together.   Has he an irrepressible desire for knowledge, and for
the  uses of  knowledge  in benefiting his  fellow-men?   Is he
prompted by a selfish  and ignoble,  or by a generous  and lofty
ambition ?   Does he  think of the world which he can benefit by his
own attainments and talents?  or does he desire  attainments and
talents that he may make the world, through their influence, benefit
him ? .  . .
   These, and such things as these, are the  data I should ask for, —
the premises on which I should form my conclusions, far more  than
on circumstances of age or poverty.
                         Yours very  truly,
                                                            H. M.

                                   Yellow Springs. July 10,1858.
   My dear Downer, — I suppose you will call me a  fool; but we
shall see better how that is when  we get to the " new Jerusalem."
   It was absolutely  necessary to raise about twenty-one thousand
dollars  here by subscription, or  else the  college was remedilessly
lost.   We got all its friends to be present  at  commencement whom
we could prevail upon to come, hoping to make a strong rally.   But
those who  were most bound to step  into  the breach shrunk and
skulked, and would do nothing.   The thing looked utterly irretriev-
able.  I then did what  I suppose you will blame me for: -but it
really was a question, whether this  one liberal  institution in  the

   * In more than one instance,  when talented and estimable young men feared
not to be able to remain in the  institution  as long as they wished, from being
unable to command the employment that would give them the means, purses wore
secretly made up by other pupils better off in  this respect, and put into the presi-
dent's hands for their relief; while the object of it was spared the pain of a depend-
ent feeling by not knowing the individuals. In some instances, the stimulus of this
testimony to their worth was  very ennobling as well as  animating to the subjects
ui it. — Ei>. 
522
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
midst of a world of intolerance;  whether this one institution open
for the  equal education of woman; whether this one  institution,
where alone the doctrine is promulgated and sustained in practice,
that no immoral young man shall  add tho attractions of learning to
the seductions of profligacy,—it was, I say, a question, whether this
institution should be sacrificed,  or whether  I should  be.   I chose
the latter; in consequence  of which it is necessary for mo to raise
four thousand dollars by the first  of  August next.   I hope  I can
make some turn out here for the whole, or at least for a part of it.
My security here will avail if I can find the money;  but, if I can-
not, then I shall have to put my property at  the East into the market
or under the hammer. .  . .  Out of some of  these resources I must
raise the  money there, if I cannot here.   I shall know in a few days
just how much I must have; and then I want to rely upon you  to
raise it out of some of my means at any sacrifice.*
   We have passed and  are passing through hard times; but, the
Lord willing, I think we will make something out of our opportuni-
ties yet.  I shall be detained here all summer, looking after college
affairs.    I am worked down, but am otherwise very well, and hope
to fight the Devil for some years yet.   With love from all to all, I
remain, as ever,
                       Yours most truly,
                                             HORACE  MANN.

   P. S.— Oh, if  some  of those old fellows, who are rich to the
peril of their souls, only knew what was good for them !

   The subject of the peculiar discipline of the  college has
often been adverted to in these pages ; but the opportunity
to speak of Mr.  Mann's efforts to bring the youngest class
of boVs in the preparatory school to a  sense of  their duties
toward each other and to themselves  should not be lost.
Several  very bad children  had been sent  to his care by
parents  who  had found themselves baffled Ivy their per-
versity; and one or two of them  had introduced specifical-
ly, and enforced with much plausibility in the opinion of
  * Mr. Mann concluded to subscribe five thousand dollars.
hope about the success of the institution.
Mr. Downer had lost 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
523
some  of their  companions, ideas of  rebellion against
parents and the constituted authorities, secret associations,
signals for gathering  together, places  of  meeting,  &c.
Mr. Mann's suspicions became strongly excited.  He  lost
no  time in  investigating  the matter.   He  knew  the
influence for  evil that one or two talented and unscrupu-
lous boys could exercise, and  thought  heroic  measures
were called for.  He-invited the boys to his  room in  the
college, and  also the parents  of those who lived in  the
town, the professors, and the teachers of the  preparatory
school.   Quite a large party  assembled; and Mr. Mann
thoroughly explained his views of the relations the pupils
of a school should hold to each other and to their teachers.
He found it far  easier to make an impression  upon  the
boys than he had formerly been able to do upon the young
men of the older classes, the better portion of whom  had
filially coincided with  and acted upon his views;  for
the boys had not become  so  possessed  with  the current
notion, that it is honorable, under all circumstances, to
stand up for one's companions, right or wrong.  He asked
them if they should not think  it  their duty to tell their
parents if their brothers were indulging in any wrong-
doing which was injurious  to themselves or others, when
they knew that  they could be kept  from evil  by timely
warning.   Loving  childhood  answered, "  Yes."   Could
they not look upon  their teachers as if they were parents,
and upon all their companions as brothers?  He told them
he took the place of a parent when he undertook the care of
a boy whose parents were absent; and did not their position
as companions impose a kindred duty upon them ?  Would
it be true friendship to let one of their number perish,
when he might be saved by the influence of  those in whose
care he was placed? and was he not in their care  as  well
as in his ? and, if they could not persuade  him to desist 
524
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
from wrong-doing, would it not be right to come  to him,
or to some other teacher who might persuade him ?  Before
he demanded a response, he  made  it perfectly clear to
them that he did not approve of tale-bearers;  that it was
only in  the  spirit of love that  he wished them  ever to
speak to him of the faults of another ; that, if they did it,
they must not do it secretly, but openly, towards the faulty
companion, who would then know that it was done out of
good-will, and not out of ill-will, — out of true friendship,
and not out of enmity.   He also  enforced the duty of
answering inquiries  truthfully  when he  or  the  other
teachers felt it  to be their duty to investigate  cases  of
wrong-doing; showing them that scholars were bound by
responsibilities toward  their teachers as truly as teachers
were so bound to their scholars, on the ground that  all
men are bound  to help  others to do right when they can,
and especially when thrown together for purposes of edu-
cation.   If  they did not  feel willing, or were  not  strong
enough in moral  courage, to  come unbidden  for  advice
in such cases, they could surely see the obligation  to  tell
the truth when asked.   So strongly, so movingly, in behalf
of the erring and the weak, did he enunciate to them  the
Christian duty  of saving souls, that every breath was
hushed, and many a lip quivered.
  He  then  proposed to take  a vote.   Many hands went
up, but not all.   For the moment, at least, the appeal was
almost irresistible.
  He  told them he understood the doubt.  Some good
boys whom  he saw there doubted.  He did not condemn
them.   He knew it  might seem  ungenerous at  the first
thought; but he had little doubt they would all say they
were willing to  be told of.  He would take a vote upon
that.
  Every hand went  up but those of the  three bad boys,
whom he well knew. 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
525
  After a repetition of some of his former arguments, he
proposed a vote upon the previous question again.   Every
hand went up but one besides the three delinquents'. He
invited this one to come and talk with him again privately ;
telling him he knew him to be a  good boy, and he thought
he could convince him.
  He then addressed the culprits'; told them he knew them,
knew their habits, knew the evil  influences they had tried
to exert, which he analyzed and  scathed  as demoralizing
to character, and then forbade them to have any thing to
do with the boys who wished to  do their duty ; forbade
them to go to their rooms, or to play with them  at recrea-
tion-hours, but designated  -them as " rotten sheep," who
must not be allowed  to infect the flock.   They were  only
fit for the society of each other.
  The faults of these boys  had been gross indecency and
profanity;  falsehood ; combinations against college-rules ;
secret societies for  rebellious  purposes,  sustained by
pledges, and penalties for their violation ;  the introduction
of bad books, and even intemperance, young as they were.
  Old and  young went home with the feeling that  a  new
view of duty had been taken ; for it had been long since
the public opinion of the college in regard to this  matter
had been established among older classes, and there had
been  no occasion for a  re-enunciation  of  the  principle,
except in some individual cases.
  The immediate effect was the breaking-up of all  combi-
nations ; and the parents who resided in  the village  kept
their  children  more at home  in  recreation-hours, not
allowing them to mix so freely with the strangers.  Re-
newed vigilance was exercised in regard to the regulations
about  study-hours, at which times  no students were al-
lowed, except by special permission, to go into each other's
rooms.  The '- rotten sheep " kept out of everybody's way 
523
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
for a time, and were soon withdrawn from the college by
their friends.  .
   One  cause of peculiar annoyance to Mr. Mann may
easily be understood to have flowed out of the peculiar
nature  of the college, wliich was more liberal in its views
of female education, even, than others of the same kind.
   A class of women was'attracted to the institution who
would fain have set at nought  all regulations conducive
to propriety of deportment as conceived by Mr. Mann.
They were not vicious, but wanting in what he consid-
ered womanliness, so far as to think, for instance, that, if a
young man could be allowed to walk down into the village
alone to do  a little necessary.shopping in the evening, a
young woman  might do the same, although the  village
shops were filled with idle and rude men and boys at that
time, and with many who would have been glad to fix a
stigma upon  a liberal institution; or that the young ladies
might be allowed to exercise on the gymnastic  apparatus
that stood near the gentlemen's hall.  One of these young
women tried the experiment of taking her books to a gen-
tleman's apartment one evening "  to study with him," by
which she nearly lost her chance of further residence on
the premises ; but she was saved by Mr. Mann's conviction
that it was  in support of  a theory rather than with any
evil intent.  In that case, the  other party or parties (for
there were two), were gentlemen  not only in name, but
in reality: they understood  the young lady's fanaticism,
but were candid enough to express their dissent from her
views in a friendly  spirit, and prevent the recurrence of
the act.
   Mr. Mann made the  way of such transgressors hard,
and was always glad when they turned their backs upon
the college  with  disgust,  as  was  sometimes  the case.
Outside, " women's-rights" women  of an  ultra  stamp 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
527
increased  the difficulties  for him by coming upon the
premises,  and promulgating their heresies against  good
manners.
  On one  occasion, when the faculty had decided that it
was best that the young ladies and gentlemen of the lite-
rary societies should no longer hold their  ordinary meet-
ings together, but should meet separately, except on their
public days, some women of this class felt that their rights
were denied them, — "rights" being sometimes interpret-
ed to mean, just what I choose to do.   To avenge  their
wrongs, they induced the whole society to appear dressed
in deep mourning  on a very public occasion, when  their
united literary  societies were  addressed by  a stranger.
The faculty took no notice of it except by a good-natured
smile, thinking  the most  salutary punishment would  be
to leave them to the public ridicule, without giving  them
the  solace  of   being  martyrs.  The   most  prominent
offender soon concluded  to leave an  institution where
she was subject to  such oppression.
  As an attempt has been made to give  a true history of
Antioch College, it is fitting to  give what  few exceptions
occurred to mar the beauty of its  ordinary good behavior.
It is remarkable how few of these there  were.  The only
one  that gave Mr. Mann  any real and permanent  pain
took place towards the close of his administration of it.
On the day of commencement in 1858, a very impertinent
and  even  scurrilous  paper was  scattered broadcast  in
every one's path.   It  lampooned  some of  the  faculty,
though  not Mr. Mann himself.    It had been instigated
and carried through by a young man who had been under
severe censure; and a few others,  who had also offended
and been reprimanded, aided him.  After much falsifica-
tion, in  the vain hope of defending  or  screening them-
selves, they were expelled.   They refused to leave the 
528
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
hall.   After being several times told to go, the super-
intendent, then a very worthy man, proceeded to remove
their furniture.   Mr. Mann happened to be in the college
premises, and heard there were threats of violence toward
this official.  He and another  member  of  the faculty
walked over into the gentlemen's hall, and stood quietly by
while the furniture was carried  out.   In the evening, at
the close  of a lecture, Mr. Mann was publicly arrested in
his chapel by order of those young men, and held to bail
for violating the rights  of domicile !  He succeeded  in
putting off the trial for  a  few weeks, thinking it best to
make it an occasion for establishing the principle, that the
faculty of a  college had a right to enforce the by-law, that
no  persons  not connected  with the college should remain
on the premises, or, in other words, should have the control
of the college-buildings.   The Hon. Thomas  Corwin was
retained for counsel, and  did  the work ably and wittily.
But the circumstance was a very painful one to Mr. Mann,
especially as it occurred at the same period as  the libellous
attack of the discomfited ex-professor.  Undoubtedly, the
disrespectful and impertinent act was aided and abetted
— it certainly was sympathized with — by the aggrieved
literary ladies and their champions.  At such times all
malecontents  take  courage, and  strengthen  each other.
Mr. Mann could  no longer say that  there were none  of
these  in his  little kingdom; and this  grieved  his  fatherly
heart.
                               Yellow Springs, Aug. 18, 1858.
E. Conant, Esq.
  My  dear Sir, — I acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the
15th inst., enclosing  a bank draft for  one  hundred dollars on be-
half of all those connected with the administration of the college.  I
assure you, it will be gratefully received.
  You speak of a draft for two hundred  and fifty dollars, sent to
me  (as you say) about two years ago.  That was not sent to me; 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.               529
but I find it entered on the college-books on the 8th of September,
1856.
  In all institutions like ours, there must  be  two departments, —
the educational and the financial.   In ours,  the educational has pros-
pered beyond any thing that I have ever known or heard of.  The
financial has been as disastrous  as it could  be.   I have  had as
much heretofore as I could possibly do in  attending to the educa-
tional :  I have now taken hold of  the other.   If its affairs are not
greatly  improved,  and that, too, without much delay, I shall leave
both.
   The  college was bankrupt on  the  day it  opened, — miserably
bankrupt: but its moneyed accounts had been kept in such a man-
ner, that the fact of its utter bankruptcy was  not then known, and
could not be to any but its agent;  and, if he knew it, he kept it to
himself.
   The  scholarship system as here undertaken was a ruinous and
suicidal  system.   It undertook to  give a college education  perpet-
ually, without interruption, for six dollars a year!   The children
learning A B C in this town have paid that sum per quarter since I
have been  here.
   The  only  scholarship system  that  possibly  can be  successful
would be one where the capital or price of  the scholarship is five or
six hundred dollars, or where the scholarships are so  numerous
that not more  than one of them  in four  or fiye is represented by
students at the same time.   Then the  ones unused would help to
support the ones used.
   Now, the  college being  bankrupt, secretly so, when  it was
opened, and  the scholarships being too few in number to bear one-
half its  expenses, the' trustees administered it for four years, hoping
that donations, &c, would rescue it, but  running in debt  all the
time.  At last, all plans for its relief having failed,  and  the public
havin"- lost all confidence in  its pecuniary management,  so that all
donations ceased, there  seemed to  be  no  alternative but to assign
the property for the payment of its  debts.
  This, of course, was a failure.   It was  just like  the  failure of
any railroad or bank  or  manufacturing  company.  The stock-
holders  lost their shares : that was the  whole of it.    But you know
              34 
530
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
that  honest creditors must  have their  pay, though stockholders
do lose all their stock.   This is  all that has  been done.   I, being
one of the  creditors, am a great  loser by the failure.   While it has
cost  me every cent  of my  salary to  live here  in the  expensive
though economical way in which I live, yet I have  received  but
about half of that salary. Must I refund what I have received, that
stockholders may get back what they have paid on their scholarship-
notes ?  Will  other  bond-fide creditors do this ?   It is a bad spec-
ulation, as  everybody knows; but,  in such a case, must the honest
creditors of a company lose,  or the shareholders in the company?
If the company  had been  successful,  it would have been their
gain.  If  unsuccessful, must it not be their  loss ?  That  there  has
been bad management, there  is no doubt; but the radical defect was
the viciousness of the plan of scholarships,  and the irresponsibility
of the men or man originally employed to carry on the work.
   But, my dear sir, we have hopes of  a change.   A company is
now being formed, consisting of  the friends of the college, and  the
" Christian " * friends of those under whose auspices it was erected,
to purchase it, and put it upon  a new financial basis.  The shares
will  be five hundred dollars  each.   Such is the  plan.  We should
be very glad if you would become the proprietor of  a share.  The
new company will have no  legal connection  with the old.   They
expect to pay for the property as much as anybody will pay.  They
expect to administer it under the same moral and religious auspices.
They mean to take precautions that it shall be better managed in
its pecuniary affairs than the old one has been.  A gift of five hun-
dred dollars will entitle you and your successor indefinitely to take
part in its management.
   Excuse this long letter.   I feel an interest that you should see
these pecuniary relations as they really are, and have no unkind
feelings towards those who do not deserve them.
          I am, dear sir, yours very truly,
                                                HORACE MANN.

   The following  letters to  the Rev. 0. J. Wait, a  clergy-
man of  the " Christian   denomination,"  so called, are in
* This term in here used denominationally. 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
531
reply to one from that  gentleman informing Mr. Mann
that the time  had  come when the  support of Antioch
College by that denomination depended upon his personal
views upon the subject of religious conversion and regen-
eration.  He therefore begged him to make a statement
of those views, to be presented at a " Christian" conven-
tion soon to be assembled.   It may well be asked, How
could  Mr.  Mann retain any further connection with so
bigoted and inquisitorial a people ?   The answer is, That
he considered himself placed there to repel precisely such
assaults upon freedom of thought.  He knew, that, if he
left the place, it would fall into the hands of  those who
had no conception of what unsectarian education meant;
and he was too deeply interested in its furtherance to give
it up lightly.  He had had abundant  proof that the young-
people who were enjoying  the advantages  his persistent
stay afforded  them  appreciated them, and would make
noble  use of them.   He well knew, too, that no pains had
been spared by malignant enemies to throw this firebrand
in his path.  It  is heart-sickening to  read the evidence of
this in the voluminous correspondence of college-agents,
friends, enemies, and victims; but  it is the  history of
bigotry the world over.
   Mr. Mann was one of those men, who, like the Chris-
 tianized Brahmin, Rammolfun Roy, believed in Christian-
 ity on other grounds than through the miracles recorded
 of  it.   Rammohun  Roy translated  only the precepts of
 Jesus for  the conversion of his countrymen : for, as he
 said, the Christian miracles  did not compare  in  marvel-
 lousness with those recorded of  Pagan deities ; and the
 Godhead of three persons in one, preached  by the Chris-
 tian  missionaries, was, in principle, the same with the
 thirty thousand in one of the Indian religion.  He wished
 his students to look at the precepts  of him who first pro- 
532             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
mulgated the Fatherhood of God as the principle of ethics ;
for it was  this  truth  which he  believed  distinguished
Christianity from all other systems, — a truth conveyed in
no form  of metaphysical abstraction, but in  the  winged
words of an unspoiled human being, whose first recorded
utterance is, " Wist ye  not that I must  be about my
Father's business ? "
  Mr. Mann labored  ever to make this thought the inspi-
ration of all who  came under his religious instruction ;
for to act upon it he felt sure would criticise in the legiti-
mate manner all the creeds among which they were edu-
cated, and preclude narrowness of mind, and bigotry of
feeling,  while  it would engage  all  the  energies of the
heart and imagination.  For what is " the Father's busi-
ness " ?   The  universe answers  with all  the sciences,
and history with all the arts, rising through the mechani-
cal and aesthetic and  social to the  art of arts, which has
for its end the salvation of man, not only as an individ-
ual, but as nations and as a race.  With such an  ideal
as this as manifest destiny, he knew that the interest of
every sect would fade into nonentity.
  Religion in its widest and most all-embracing sense was
the native atmosphere of Mr. Mann's soul.  Sometimes he
had worshipped darkly, and then the universe was clouded.
It often takes  the  whole of life to solve  the  problem of
why we suffer.  Gradually, as it solves itself to an eye open
to the subject, the  desire becomes more and more intense
to help others in their analysis.  " Why  I suffer " at last
grows clearer; and those minds that reach the  solution
gain the peace that  it brings: but  most souls only ap-
proach this, so easily is the vision dimmed  and the  mind
swayed  by the  circumstances immediately surrounding
us.  The " mists of the affections," though they may be
compared to the beneficent dews  that sustain the other- 
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.              533
wise parched and withered earth, often make  all things
loom to the intellectual sight;  and we must wait till they
are dispelled by the sun  of truth before  we can reason
clearly.  Gradually man learns to wait for this illuminat-
ing process, distrusting his own  heart meanwhile.   The
universe became all alight to  Mr. Mann at last.   There
remained no dark, inexplicable evils.   His subtle causal-
ity penetrated one  after another,  and a flame  of enthusi-
asm was kindled within him to point out the light; and
the might of self-sacrifice which is born out of love carried
him through labors that would  otherwise have been in-
tolerable.
                                   Yellow Springs, Sept. 22, 1858.
Rev. 0. J. Wait.
   My  dear Sir,  — Though I owe you many apologies for so late
a reply, yet I am  rich in all the best materials for an apology.
   For the last fortnight, my engagements have not left me an hour
of leisure.   The  commencement of a term is always a very busy
time with me ; but this year, owing to  the changes which have been
made,  and to the  fact that we have  an entering-class  larger than
ever before, I have had more than enough to fill  hands and head.
   First, I thank you for the kind and friendly spirit in which your
letter appears to have been written.
   Your first two questions are substantially this : whether there has
been any opposition, open or secret, direct or indirect, on the part
of myself, or to my knowledge on  the part  of any member of the
faculty, against Rev. Mr. Doherty or Prof. Allen, on account of
theh supposed religious views;  and whether they have not,  for
some such reason, been left out of the present faculty.
   I answer this inquiry in every form in which it can be put, in
whole or in part, genetically and specifically, with the most decided
negative.   I deny the imputation for myself, and, so far as I have
ever known, for every other member of the faculty; and, if I knew
of any other more positive or comprehensive way of denying it, I
would use that way.   There  are many here who would not regret
to be constrained to give the true reasons  why those professors left. 
534               LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
  Your next question relates to Prof. II----- and his leave of
absence.
  To this I answer, That  though I  advised  Prof.  II-----  to go
abroad, and study for the duties of his chair, yet that I did it with
none but the most friendly feelings and motives; and that the  idea
of his  religious views never came into my mind in that connection.
The personal relations between Prof.  If-----and myself, up to the
time when he requested me to  present his application for leave of
absence, were of the most intimate and agreeable kind.   There had
never been any coldness  between us for any reason.  We conversed
frequently together on religious  subjects, and there was much sym-
pathy between us.   If inquired of, he will  ratify this statement, I
doubt not.
  Your next four  questions so run into each other, that I can ex-
press my opinion on the whole subject more briefly,  more intel-
ligibly, and, I trust, more satisfactorily to you, by a general state-
ment, than by a specific yes or no.  This I do as follows : —
  I repudiate the Trinitarian's view of  the  Holy Spirit.   I do not
believe it to be a third person in, or a third part of, the Deity.
  In  my  opinion, God's Holy  Spirit is his will, his influence, an
emanation  proceeding from him, and pervading every  part of the
moral  universe, in the same manner as his  omnipotent power  per-
vades all space.
  I do not believe that God's Spirit acts spasmodically or convul-
sively, but that it is as strong, steady, and immutable as its Author,
universally surrounding  every moral  agent, just as the  atmosphere
surrounds our bodies, yet not in such a way as to destroy our free
agency.
  We are born with  natural appetites and  passions which have no
relation whatever to God's holy law, to religion, or to duty.  This is
the " carnal heart " of the  Scriptures. This is the " carnal mind,"
which, as St. Paul says  to the  Romans, and through them to all
mankind,  is "enmity against God; for it is not subject to his  law,
neither can be."
  Afterwards  our  rational and moral powers  are  developed:
" That is not first which is spiritual, but that which  is natural, and
afterwards that which is spiritual."   By these rational  and moral 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               535
powers, and such other instrumentalities as God gives us, —parents,
schools, the gospel and its ministrations, &c, — we learn something
of what God is; and, just in proportion to our correct ideas of his
nature and attributes, we see  and feel  that we ought to love and
obey him.  But this  " carnal mind " does not love and obey him.
Now  comes the  struggle.   On the one side are  all our animal
and worldly  desires,  propensities, lusts; on the other, our reason
and  conscience, with all  the  persuasions,  appeals, urgencies, of
God's character, influence, or spirit, forever surrounding our souls,
and acting upon them, as the  sea surrounds  the  creatures that in-
habit  it.   If the former prevails, then, at the end of every struggle,
we become more hardened in sin, more  callous to the  entreaties of
the gospel, more alienated from God, and defiant of his power and
judgment.  But if the  latter  prevails,  then  the will  or determin-
ing powor of the mind ranges itself on the side of Jehovah, resolves
to seek for and to obey  his will, and begins in heavenly earnest-
ness to subdue  and control all the natural  impulses which  lead to
disobedience and sin; and not  only so, but from day to day to con-
form ourselves, that is, our thoughts, wishes, lives, more and  more
" unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
   The manner in which I have often expressed myself is this: We
are to imitate the painter  or sculptor, who seeks  first to become ac-
quainted with the most perfect  model; and he then strives to copy
or transfer that model, feature  by feature, lineament by lineament,
expression by expression, to his canvas or his marble.  So we,  bav-
ins: decided, under the influences above mentioned, that it is our
duty, and our highest interest,  and our only freedom,  to love  God
with all our heart and understanding and mind and strength, and
our neighbor as  ourself, should strive to  grow up into  the likeness
of God and Christ, eradicating  something here, supplying something
there; moulding, shaping, conforming, until it may be said without
blasphemy, that man  is in the image 91 God.
   The occasion's of this first resolve or determination to live a right-
eous life, and  to dedicate ourselves to the  service  of our  Maker,
may be as various as  all the events of our outward life, or as all the
conscious  mental experiences  of our inward  souls.  It may be a
funeral or a bridal,  a  birth or a death-bed, a prayer or a sermon, a 
536
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
 lonely walk in the woods or a crowded  religious meeting.   It may
 be a remembered word uttered by a mother to our childhood; or it
 may be a blasphemous oath uttered  by ourselves, which  God hurls
 back to rive the heart that conceived it, as  the lightning rives the
 oak.   God  is not confined to  one method: yet  I believe some
 methods are far more  likely to be successful than  others ;  and we
 must learn which are the best methods  of doing these holy things,
 just as men have learned the best methods of doing natural things.
   Sometimes the  change is sudden, as in the case of St. Paul.
 Sometimes the change is so gradual, that the subject of it can him-
 self fix no  point of time when he said (to quote your expression),
 " Self is wrong, and  Christ is  right," as  was  the case  with  Dr.
 Chalmers and many other pious men.
   You  ask me, whether, " if my lectures  should move the whole
 school  to devotion and tender solicitude for their salvation, I would
 oppose  such results."   Well do you say that you "do not hesi-
 tate at my answer."   Had you not  added  this,  I  should have ex-
 claimed, " May God pardon you  for such a question !"   The most
 rapturous moments of my life are when  young people come to me in
 private, or write to me, saying that their whole view and  plan  of
 life, their ideas  of duty and of destiny,  have been changed by what
 they have heard from me.   Thanks be to God, the occasions of this
 kind are not few, but many; and  there is scarcely a week in my life,
 when, by letter or otherwise, I have  not some such assurance.
  I have now, my dear sir, attempted to answer, not merely your
inquiries, but your inquiring mind.  I believe I have covered every
point, and made a wide margin besides.  I may not have used your
technical expressions; but my expressions grow out  of my system
of belief, and belong to it.  I have a great desire that what I have
said may be satisfactory to you, because I believe you to be a candid,
honest, and sincere man.
  But, having now endeavorf d to reply to your inquiries because I
respect your motives, I have something to add on my own account.
  I think no man, or body of men, has a right  to  propound such
questions to me.  My life belongs to the world;  and I hold myself
at all times answerable to it for my conduct: but  my opinions are
between God and myself, and, except so fir as I wish to avow thein, 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
537
are sacred and inviolable.   The old inquisitorial torture does not
differ one whit in kind, but only in degree, if a man can be held to
answer anybody's questions in religious matters, under  penalty of
loss, whether of money or character or position.
   While, therefore, I am rather glad of an opportunity to say thus
much to you, and have no objection against this letter's being seen
and scanned by proper persons, — that is, persons actuated by a right
motive, —yet can you suppose for a moment, my dear sir, that I am
going to place myself on a public stand for such men as Mr. M-----
or  Mr. L----- or Parson L——  to catechise, or  those who may
keep out of sight, but instigate them to  inquiry ? I  am not for sale.
I am not in quest of any political office.  I have a duty to perform
in maintaining the inviolability of religious opinions ; and, if I yield
to the " question," I set the example by which others may be  co-
erced  into yielding.   I occupy my present position at great  per-
sonal and social sacrifice.   Released from this, I can earn, during
three months in the year, at least a thousand dollars more than my
salary, and  have the other nine months to myself.   I am here an
exile from all the personal friends of my youth and life, and deprived
of almost all those abundant means of literary and scientific delight,
which, until four years ago, constituted so important a part  of my
legitimate and laudable enjoyments.   I  had  learned from books,
and was told when  I was invited  to come here, that the " Chris-
tian connection " looked at life, and not  at creeds.   Confiding in
the truth of this statement, I was requested  to write some account
of the plan and scope of this institution,  to be published in its first
prospectus.   I  did  so.   I sent  copies of it in manuscript to Mr.
Merrifield, to Mr. Holmes, to Mr.  Edmunds of Boston,  and to Mr.
How of New Bedford, &c.   It received their  unanimous approval.
It  was afterwards published, — a large  edition, — and was  sent
throughout the whole  " connection."   If any exception was taken
to it by any one, I never heard of it.   Herewith I send you a copy
of  it, that you may see in its  closing pages what was said in  regard
to sectarian teaching and to dogmatic theology.   But, when I came,
I soon found that I was never among a  more sectarian people in my
life than no inconsiderable number of these were.  The whole interest
which some of them manifested in  the school was, whether I would 
538
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
say their religious hie, hcec, hoc, after them.   One  man wanted to
know if all  the teachers belonged to the Christian denomination;
and on being answered,  " More than half, but not  all," he wished
to know if his child coald not  be taught by those only who  did
belong to it.
   Mr. Merrifield gave me the fullest assurance that the school  was
not to be a sectarian school; yet, after I came here, I found he  had
been at work, for months before  those assurances were given me, to
ingraft a biblical school — that  is, a theological school — on it at
this place.   In February, 1854, Dr. Bellows came out here,  and
met the then Board of Trustees; and the whole matter was opened
and discussed.  He promised the contributions of the Unitarians if
the sectarian character or idea of the theological school should be
abandoned; and it was  explicitly renounced by a vote.  In conse-
quence  of this, the New-York Unitarians gave twenty-five thousand
dollars; which the college has accepted and used, and now demands
that it  shall be denominational, — not merely denominational,  but
metaphysically and  transcendentally so.   You heard the question
put  by Mr. L----- to  Mr.  J-----, when, at the  conference,  the
latter was testifying from personal knowledge and observation to
the religious character  and highly favorable religious  influence of
the school:  " Whether the  religious teachings  at  the college  did
not tend to make the students live pure and virtuous lives, and do
good to their fellow-men, rather  than to love God through  faith in
Jesus Christ, as applied by the  Holy Spirit? "  Can any thing in
" Punch " beat this?
   Yet,  on a moment's reflection, you cannot  but see that  you  are
asking me to appear in a newspaper conducted by one  of  this com-
bination of men, and there surrender myself to the confessional.
   You  heard some of their alleged causes of offence at  the late  con-
ference.  One was that they  had not been invited to the commence-
ment-dinner given  in part by the graduating class.  Another  was
that I did not go  to Mr. L-----, and  reconcile  him to our course
at the college (against which he  took exceptions), instead of waiting
to let him come to me.
   But I have said  enough to show you,  I trust, that  it would bo
unworthy of me to submit myself to the  public in the manner  pro- 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
539
posed, and that the time necessarily occupied in answering questions
respecting the agency of the Holy Spirit in the conversion  of men,
respecting the atonement, the resurrection, &c., is time that I ought
rather to devote to the manners, morals, and literary progress of our
students.   This is not a theological school;  and therefore theologi-
cal questions do not come within the scope of its administration.   I
trust, that, on reflection, you will give an affirmative answer to this
view of the subject.
   One word on another subject, and I will relieve your patience.
   It is said we  have  no revivals here.   The reason  of  this is  the
serious and thoughtful character of our students on religious subjects.
Take a set of drinking, gambling, swearing, blaspheming,  and god-
less students, come upon them suddenly, make them  see their sin-
ful condition, and they will be frightened into as vehement a demon-
stration of theh alarms as they had before given of  their  profligacies
and revellings.  But this  effect  can never  be  produced  upon  a
company of thoughtful, serious young  people, whose minds have
been systematically turned  in  the direction of their  religious  con-
dition, and to whom  the  ideas of their  duty  and their  destiny are
famihar, and who have led an exemplary life.   This is precisely the
case with our students.  They do not receive religious  excitements
hke savages, but like men of intelligence and morals, and generally
pure and  correct purposes.  This is the true explanation of  the
complaint made against us.
   I mourn that this most unjust and unwise movement will tend to
alienate more or less  of the " Christians" from us,  and thus deprive
them of advantages they so much need.   I pray God that the folly
of men may no longer stand in the way of the improvement of their
children.
   With great personal regard, yours very truly,
         6    r         a     J        •>         HORACE MANN.
                                         Yellow Springs, Sept. 28.
Rev. 0. J.  Wait.
  Mr dear  Sir, — I thank you for your kind, frank, whole-souled
letter.   Having had the pleasure of only a very slight personal ac-
quaintance with you, I had no indications whatever of the character
• 
540
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
of your religious views on the points suggested.   I had made up my
mind, therefore, to the probability that I was, by my own act and
my own statement,  building up a  wall  of partition  between  us,
which, so far as the interests of the college  are  concerned, might
array you against its present administration forever.
   But I  had no  alternative.   You seemed  entitled  to  know  the
truth ; and I took the risk of giving it.   Truth never yet failed to
stand by my conscience; and I hope I never shall fail  to  stand  by
that.
   I have read your letter again and again, and thought it all through
many times again.  I have the greatest desire to comply with your
wishes.   They prevail upon me so strongly, that I have  several
times been brought up at  least  within sight of consent.  But  the
combined  operation  of  all  my faculties, the  conclusions  of  my
judgment, interpose  a  negative.    I find the  following  points
coming out in large stature and with a clear outline in my mind: —
   1.  The grounds suggested by you, and urged by them,  are  not
the true grounds of opposition.   I should, therefore, be just  as  far
from satisfying their minds afterwards as before.   If not invited  to
the next college-dinner, or  if 3ir. L----'s skin should be ruffled,
and I should not leave my three hundred  pupils to go  and  smooth
it, I  should have my peace all to make over again.   Mr. S-----'s
first, and so far only, cause of complaint  against me (as  he after-
wards told me himself in  an interview which I sought) was, that,
when I was to perform the chapel-services on Sunday, I did not  go
down and give him a special invitation to  attend.  You speak well
about a  class of men not  competent to have the direction of a potato-
patch.  My dear sir, there arc souls so small, that, if a million  of
them  were sprinkled  on the  polished surface of a  diamond, they
would not make  it dusty.   As this imputation is not the real point
of the objection,  I shall not answer the objection by answering this.
  2.  If I answer this, I shall have a battery of others to answer.   I
shall have set the example of answering, and shall, with some plau-
sibility,  be held to follow it.   Should I indorse  in any satisfactory
manner  up to any point,  and stop there, there would be tho  begin-
ning of my heresy.  I cannot well carry on a theological discussion
or controversy and Antioch College at the same  time.
• 
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
541
  3. Was there ever such a thing required or expected of any
other president of a college ?  What would be  thought of such a
course at Amherst, at Williams, at Harvard, or  at Yale ?   The
very publication of the thing would inflame and  arouse the jealousy
of hundreds, which jealousy is now asleep.
  4. I feel, and cannot get the feeling out of my bones, as though
I should always be exposed to the unworthy imputation of having
answered in order to  retain my  place.  Though nothing would be
farther .from the truth,  yet how would that truth be made to ap-
pear ? *
  To those who may  have read in Weiss's Life of Theodore
Parker the letter  to Dr. Howe written from Europe on
occasion  of Mr. Mann's death, — a  letter wliich  betrays
all  those traits  of mind  and  heart which  Mr. Parker's
friends least like to remember, — the foregoing letters to
Mr. Wait will be very satisfactory.    They are a complete
answer to the charge of having concealed from the leading
members of the "Christian" sect  his differences  of opinion
from  them; on which assumption, Mr. Parker proceeds to
draw the inference that " Mr. Mann  did not know that  a
straight line  is  the  shortest way between  two points in
morals  as well  as  in mathematics."    They arc but  a
sample of his plain dealing  with  them all on proper occa-
sions.   To that extraordinary letter, so self-contradictory,
as well as so inconsistent with the tone of all Mr. Parker's
letters to Mr. Mann, many of which have been inserted in
these pages, this whole volume is an answer more forcible
than  any special pleading could  be.   The  last letter Mr.
Mann wrote to  Mr. Parker  is the following introduction
of a " Christian " minister:  —
                                             March 1, 1858.
To Rev. Theodore Parker.
  My dear Mr. Parker, — I take great pleasure in introducing to
your acquaintance one of my dearest friends, and one of the best and
truest  of men, — the Rev. Austin Craig.
* The manuscript letter is incomplete. 
542
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
  You and he may not agree in exegesis; but I know no two men,
who in all matters of duty to man, or love to God, would be more
in unison.
  I commend him to your fellowship ; and remain, as ever,
                      Most truly yours,
                                             HORACE  MAXN.

  Its generous confidence and comprehensive charity are
in very  striking  contrast with the letter  of Mr. Parker.
But it is perhaps fail- to remember, that, when Mr. Parker
wrote his chaotic letter, he was  so enfeebled in  mind  by
illness, as to be scarcely  responsible.
  At this juncture, Mr.  Mann  was  urged to go to New
York to attend a meeting held  in the interest of the col-
lege.
                                     New York, Oct. 7, 1858.
  The Christian Convention  has been in session to-day, and I have
been present almost all day.   This afternoon, Antioch has been up
for discussion, and we have had a good time. .  . . Mr. Fay and Mr.
Haley made speeches;  and certainly they were received with a de-
gree  of favor for which I was not at all prepared.   The discussion
is not closed yet, and in the  morning we mean to have Dr. Bellows
himself present  and speechifying.  Mr. S----, who used to be at
Yellow Springs, was present, and as full of evil as the first original
serpent;  but as yet he  has made no impression.
  Oct. 10. . . . We had a capital convention so far as results were
concerned.  I think all  opposition  was quenched.  Mr. Holmes
came out very fervently for Antioch.   Mr. S---- did his pret-
tiest  against us, but dared to do nothing openly,  and was  balked
at every point.   He found no party to co-operate with him.

                  Antioch College, Yellow  Spuings, Oct. 20, 1858.
Rev. Daniel Adstin.
  Dear Sir, — I have the pleasure  of  acknowledging the receipt,
this day,  of a check on the Rockingham Bank, Portsmouth, N.H.,
for fifty dollars; for wliich please accept my thanks. 
LIFE  OF HORACE MANN.
543
  I wish I could respond as you desire  to your friendly suggestion
about my health.  I have been and am still doing the work of two
men, — a necessity occasioned by the lowness of our finances. All
my vital organs are in good working order, except my brain.  That
is overtasked, and threatens to give way before, its time ;  and I may
yet be an example of a violation of the laws I have so  much sought
to expound.   Do you ask me how I can reconcile this to my sense
of duty ?  I answer, Only because I am engaged in a work worth
more than a thousand such men as I am;  and I must not lose that
to save myself.
                    Yours in great haste,
                                             HORACE MANN.


                                    Yellow Springs, Nov. 8, 1858.

   My dear  Downer, — I have  just received yours.  ...
   I am rejoiced to hear that  you have at  last  found  a  " pocket."
Perhaps I should prefer that  you  should open this rich vein rather
than any other man after myself.  I do not think  it is  "foolish,"
as you say, to make money: the folly generally consists in  spend-
ing it.
   I am very sorry to hear of Parker's illness.   If his  great head
breaks down, why should not my small one? . .  .
   Don't be alarmed if you hear great reverberations about us.  We
expelled four of the boys engaged in the paper, and suspended two.
... I presume it will make a great show in Orthodox papers.  My
brain is, I fear, worse than yours.  The last year's work, with last
vacation's work on the back of it, was too much; and I am suffering
severely.
                      Yours most truly,
                                    J                  H. M.

   From this time, the tired  brain  knew no  more respite.
Labors accumulated, because a failure of the funds that
had  been  privately  subscribed  to  pay  the  faculty and
teachers obliged some of  them to leave  their duties for
employment  that would  pay their current expenses; and 
544
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
 this threw more work upon those who were left.  Again
 Mr. Mann implored Mr. Craig to stand by the institution,
 and sustain it with his valuable influence as long as it
 floated upon the  waves of uncertainty, which were ren-
 dered more boisterous than ever by contending elements.
 But Mr. Craig had lost hope, and would fain have plucked
 his friend away.   He felt that he  was working  at  too
 great a disadvantage,  and that either  tho  community
 around him must be more sympathetic with the move-
 ment, or the college  must be  sustained  by ample  funds,
 to enable it to act independently of the evil influences
 that abounded.   He heartily  approved of  Mr. Mann's
 measures, but did not like to see him sacrificing himself
 so utterly.  It seemed, indeed, like " casting pearls before
 swine " to throw so rich an experience into the  midst of
 a  people who could not see  the difference  between a
 great and a  small  man, and who did not know a good
 man when they saw one.  But  Mr. Mann resisted every
 entreaty to turn his back upon  an enterprise from which
 he had hoped such great results.  If he had not been
 influenced by his own purity of motive in this persistence
 to believe that  the motives of others who wished to cling
 to him and to the institution were as pure as  his own,
 he might  have seen clearly that the  hour  had come
 when renunciation  of  the long-cherished  hope  would
 be the path of wisdom for  himself, unless he felt ready
 to fall a sacrifice  to it.   He was reminded of the warn-
 ing given him by  his  friend  Mr. Combe, who begged
 him on a former occasion to save himself for a watchman
 in the march of improvement, that the fruits of his expe-
 rience might not  be lost prematurely ;  but, although he
 was not without fears that his  strength was  failing,  he
fondly hoped success would restore his energies.  He had
of late been obliged to withdraw, more  than he  had pre- 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
545
viously allowed himself to do, even for purposes of rest,
from  social intercourse with his coadjutors, although he
was aware that outside influences were plied to estrange
them.   Even his children had to be guarded from dis-
turbing his short intervals of rest; for they still retained
their love for their wonted place upon his knee, and he
still extended his  arms for them when  they appeared
ready to pour  out their confidences  and their questions.
He would say, " Let me have the house quiet;" " I must
go and hide in the glen, for I am not able to see com-
pany " (and at last he could not bear even the children's
company in such walks) ;  " Soothe  me, for I  am too
tired;" and he would fall asleep the  moment the press-
ure of engagements was lifted.  He  shrank from contact
with persons who  pained  him, whether  by their own de-
pression or apprehension, or  by their  association with
painful circumstances.  He found repose in not seeing
faces.   Yet he did not yield :  he would breast the pos-
sible wave that was to break over the institution, and was
always ready to spring to the rescue when any call  to act
in its  interests came to him.
  The magnetism of his own zeal and devotion to a cause
he thought to be so important had stimulated his Eastern
friends, who rallied nobly, headed by the venerable Josiah
Quincy;  and they nobly redeemed their pledges when the
hour  came; but  the West had  failed.   One last  effort
was made by his family to induce  him to resign, but in
vain.   He felt that the experience he had gained in these
laborious years, added to earlier experience so  dearly
bought, would enable him to effect what no other man,
even of superior  ability, could do so well in that place
and under the  circumstances.   Some friends, who knew
what would be the consequences  if he must still bear the
burden of the pecuniary difficulties of other years of debt
               35 
546             LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
and anxiety, were firm in the conviction that the college
should not be purchased by those, who remained true to
it  under  such disadvantageous prospects;  there being
not a dollar  in  the exchequer to carry  it on after pur-
chase.  In consequence of their remonstrances, temporary
provision for its support was made ;  but it was not money
deposited  in the bank, and  no one who  subscribed to it
was responsible to any tribunal but his own conscience.
The  promissory  notes,  however,  some of which proved
as good as bullion, were put  into Mr. Mann's  hands, to
be paid on  his  demand.  The Rev.  Mr. Fay, for one,
hazarded all he was worth upon the hope of future suc-
cess.  The college was  bought in June,  at the appraise-
ment price;  there being not  one bid from  any other quar-
ter.  Circumstances were now so far changed, that  an
independent body of men, a close corporation, owned the
premises.  This  was so  much more  respectable  a basis
than the former one, which had  not  a single feature to
recommend it, that, to Mr. Mann's mind, all other obsta-
cles promised to vanish.  It was, in reality,  to be a new
birth.  The  sectarian  feature of the charter, that two-
thirds of the trustees and two-thirds of tho college faculty
should be of the " Christian"  denomination,  still  re-
mained  in it, it  is  true; but the present owners were
disposed to be liberal, and he hoped further consideration
might lead to a change in this illiberal charter.
  The discussion, the purchase, and all the collateral ex-
citing circumstances, were  followed in a  few days by the
commencement exercises of  the graduating  class of that
year.  It  has already  been  said  that the three months
previous  to  this meeting of the  trustees, which caused
such an unwonted excitement of feeling, had been a  pe-
riod of extraordinary toil as  well as anxiety.   Two of the
professors were still absent; one ill, the other preaching 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
547
for  his daily bread.  The whole care  of the graduating
class was left upon Mr. Mann's hands.  They wanted sub-
jects for their  graduating  exercises ;  they wanted criti-
cisms upon their productions.
  No members were chosen  from the class, as in  other
colleges, to receive special honors; but as many speakers
as the time would allow took part, and all who chose  to
prepare had equal claims to attention.   Many of them were
very far from  home, or from any other literary aid ; and
Mr. Mann attended to them  all.   Unfortunately, all his
children were  ill, one at a great distance, the other two
at home, requiring constant care and  attendance:  there-
fore he was not only left unwatched, when, as it afterward
proved, he most needed watching, but he was  anxiously
watching others.
  On the appointed day of public exercises and  jubilation,
he sat down early in the morning to finish the " Baccalau-
reate," which  he had hastily prepared for the occasion,
and which he-carried to chapel, without having had time
to read it over himself.
  He could not preside over such a scene unmoved.  He
knew all that  had been hoped, dreaded, and suffered  by
many.  He would fain have been silent with his joy, and
have found  his rest in it.   But no : he must be the most
active participant in the common rejoicing, after so many
weary days  and restless nights.  He was described to the
invalids at home  as looking "too happy, but very tired."
The festivities of  the day, commencing at seven in the
morning, lasted twelve  hours ; and the public adjourned
in heavy numbers  from  the college-dinner to his house,
where a crowded levee was held till late at night.
  The next day he was nearly speechless with fatigue;
but instead of being laid quietly away  in a darkened
chamber, and  all sounds shut out, an  important commit- 
548
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
tee meeting was pending, which lasted substantially two
days longer.  It was feared that paralysis would follow
such a strain as this had been: but, instead of that, a burn-
ing fever raged in his veins, which there seemed not then
coolness enough on earth to assuage ; and sleep, his only
restorative,  was no more  for  him in  this world.  He
struggled with it several weeks, fighting it at every step,
instead of yielding to it, — not consciously perhaps, not
deliberately, but feverishly.  The weather was intensely
hot.  The very soil was turned into burning sand.   Only
hot winds blew.  He roamed about the house, extending
himself, now on the sofa, now on the floors, praying for
rain, mourning over the  time he was losing for prepara-
tion of duties to come, but conscious only of suffering, not
of near death.   How could such vitality cease ?  Ill  as he
was, he did not resign himself a prisoner to his apartment
but three days; and, when he could no longer rise, he
saw grouped before him the things to be done.  His last
expression of interest in the world, outside his immediate
sphere, was  his desire to hear what Kossuth  was doing in
Italy.  When  he heard  the treaty of Villa-Franca  read,
he made a sign that he could hear no  more.  It excited
him too deeply, sending the blood surging  to his  brain.
It was well; for the next sentence would have produced
a revulsion  of  feeling more dangerous to bear than any
joy could be ;  and he was never told the sad reverse.
   Nature began to give  way more  perceptibly.  At last
he  begged for  profound  silence,  " except George's  hum-
ming: do not  stop  that."  He  loved  music from the
human  voice; it soothed  and diverted his  busy and fe-
vered thoughts from affairs.  But he  could not listen to
words even when  sung: they wakened too  many associ-
ations.   One day,  while   thus  soothed,  he  heard drops
fall thick and fast upon the tin roof of the piazza.  It was 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.             549
a month- since a rain-drop had fallen.   He said, " Stop
a moment,  and let  me  listen to that  music!" — "It
is heavenly music,"  one replied.  " Yes ! " he said very
emphatically ; and  after a long pause, during which his
countenance beamed with a  delighted smile,  as he lis-
tened to a copious shower, he whispered, "I am making
agricultural  calculations: I cannot  help it."   The rain
did no.t last long, and then he wanted the earthly strain
again.     *
  For many days, no  food passed his lips but a  little
strained gooseberry-juice.  He could not swallow a drop
of water without  pain: but relays  of  devoted students
brought him fresh draughts  every hour from the only
cool well in the neighborhood ;  and  the only physical
pleasure left to him was rinsing his mouth with it, and
letting it " percolate over his  lips."   It seemed strange
that no  special  revelation occurred to  show what would
quench such internal fires as consumed  him.  He had no
confidence  in any medical treatment that was at  hand,
and his brain was morbidly active upon  the subject; but
when told  that  he must resign all care, even of himself,
he tried to obey.  At last a flash of lightning pain passed
over him, wliich, he  was sure, had disorganized his very
substance.   It was  too  true.  But, after the rest of his
frame could suffer  no more, the brain  continued preter-
naturally active for  two days; and  all his former life
passed in review before him, — its joys, its sorrows, and
its trials.
  Loving and devoted  students  had watched  over him
and his sick children all the nights of many weeks. Where
so many served lovingly, no one can be mentioned with
prominence, without doing injustice  to  others.  But the
Rev. Mr. Fay, upon whom the coming calamity was already
doing fearful work, allowed himself neither sleep nor res- 
550
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
pite ; forgetting that he, too, was mortal.   To no other in-
dividual out of his own family did the death of Mr. Mann
so alter the world.  Indeed, such was the effect of his in-
consolable grief and anxious watching, that his own health,
both of body and mind, was long after  hanging upon  a
thread ; and even now he shrinks from a review of those
painful hours of alternate hope  and dread.  If the im-
parting of his own  vitality would have  availed to snatch
his friend  from his doom, he could not have given it more
freely ; but not even his assiduous magnetism could meet
the case.   All arts of man seemed unavailing.
  Dr. Pulte arrived the evening before the last day.   He
gave but faint hope.  Mr. Mann had not expected him;
and, when he went to his bedside, he looked at him pene-
tratingly,  and begged, him to let him feel his head, which
he playfully examined with his hands, in his own spright-
ly way pronouncing it good and able, and then resigned
himself to the examination.  Dr. Pulte did not express
his fears to him, but was obliged to return immediately to
Cincinnati, after  giving directions for a last attempt to
save him.
  The next morning, after a restless and troubled night,
he begged for quiet  in earnest but gentle words.
  " Let the college gate be fastened open, that I may not
hear it swing;  let  there be no  step, no rustling dress,
no face, but your own ; communicate with others, not by
words, but by slips of paper.   Let me rest."
  All was hushed for a little while.  But  he could not
sleep.  Could such  a man be allowed to die unawares ?
Pain was soothed : he was evidently unconscious that liis
hours were numbered.
  When he was told, he opened his  eyes quickly; but his
countenance  only changed to an  illuminated expression,
that made it difficult not to  rejoice  with him that he was 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.             551
soon to tread the glorious path which so often^lindled his
imagination, instead of the thorny one of this world.
  " Ask Dr. C. how long," he said.
  " Three hours at most," was the answer.
  " I do not feel it to be so," he replied;  "but, if it is so,
I have something to  say.  Send  for  B----" (a student
who had given much anxiety).  The head which had long
been covered with the damps of death became  hot as  a
cannon-ball as he roused himself.   After  speaking  a few
tender words to his family, he turned  to  the young man
as he entered the room, followed by others who had heard
the sad rumor, till the apartment was filled with people,
some of whom, in   the fashion  of  that country,  were
strangers.  He spoke earnestly to  his young friend, and
called one after another of his students and his friends to
him, and for two hours poured forth his great heart and
soul in inspired words, with a depth of voice, and vigor of
muscle, wonderful to behold in one lately so prostrate.  It
was as if he drew strength  from the fountain of future
life into which he was about to plunge.  He  abode ever
in the palace of Truth ; and from its portals he now said
to each one an appropriate word, tenderly but sincerely,
and so discriminatingly, that one trembled to listen. The
hours can  never be  forgotten, either by those who were
warned not to abuse, but only righteously to use, the ex-
ceeding riches of God's goodness, or  by those over  whom
he poured his unbounded love and blessing.
  Many saw duty in  a new light as he again and again
uttered  the words, "Man, duty,  God!"  and prefigured
by his  appeals to them what they might do with such
powers as he described them to possess.  But no repeti-
tion of his  words can convey the fervor of his spirit, the
tenderness  of his love, as expressed to all around him.
  At last he said to  Mr. Fay, " I should like to have Mr. 
552
LIFE OF HORACE  MANN.
 Fay mak"a short prayer, low, peaceful, grateful! " after
 which he again addressed those who stood  round him, and
 sent affectionate messages to the absent, — to his son, to
 his sister, to Mr. Craig, and to other old friends.   Promi-
 nent among those he remembered was Prof. Cary.*
   " Dear Cary ! — solid, steadfast, well-balanced, always
 wise, always right, always  firm, — tell him how much I
 loved him ! "  And again he murmured, " Good, reliable,
 judicious, firm, gentle, beautiful Mr.  Cary! "  his voice
 gaining energy again as he  went on.   " And  those  good
 young men, Mr. Fay, who have always done their duty,
 — how I love  them !   Tell them how I love them.    No
 words can express how I love them! "
   When asked if he was not exhausting himself, he  said,
 " No:  it rests  me."
   More than once he exclaimed, " Oh, my beautiful plans
 for the college !   I meant  that Mr. Fay should prepare
 himself to be the president of this college ;  for I know no
 man living  who will take it, who will carry it on  as well
 as  he."   To  Mr.  Fay, who  did not  hear this,  he  said,
 " Preach  God's  laws,  Mr.  Fay; preach  them, preach
 them!" — his  voice  rising  each  time he repeated  the
 words, his  trembling arm  raised aloft as if  to invoke
 Heaven's blessing upon him,  his whole frame  quivering
 with emotion.   " You have more power over the public
 mind of the West than any man I know," he added after
 a  pause.   Then  most  energetically  he  repeated   his
 entreaty that he would use it;  for  the world needed it.

   * This gentleman  had taken the place in the college of his beloved nephew, Calvin
Pennell.  Mr. Cary soon filled Mr. Pennell's place of appreciative co-operator and
counsellor.  He never needed to be told what were the peculiar requisites of a
professor in an institution founded on the plan of educating young men and women
together.  His  presence created order: his manners precluded opposition, and
inspired the right sentiment for the occasion, without word or remonstiance.
It would be difficult to describe his value to Mr. Maun or to the institution. 
LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
553
" 0 God!  may he preach them till the light  drive out
the darkness ! "
  To  his  children  he said, " When you  wish to  know
what to do, ask yourselves what Christ would have done
in the same circumstances."
  It is impossible to record all his words, uttered in a clear,
musical voice, that rang out strong as in  his  best days,
now to his family, now to his students, now in memory of
the absent.  At last he again asked for quiet, and thought
he could sleep.  Motioning gently with his hand, he said,
" Will not the friends fall  back ? "   He wanted air and
repose; but the crowd  inconsiderately lingered, render-
ing the close of his noble life a struggle for breath instead
of a peaceful slumber.  He could not even speak to his
much-loved  nephew,  Mr.  Pennell, who arrived at that
moment.
  The chills of death shook him painfully; and he asked
for blankets, which  were heated and wrapped round him.
Stimulants were  administered, which brought  no  relief,
but gave  him  temporary delirium, in  which he uttered
exclamations that showed  how deeply he felt, and how
keenly he remembered, some of the heart-trials that had
been instrumental in cutting him off thus prematurely.
  The strong brain found it hard  to  die.  At last, God
mercifully gave him rest;  but "death" is  not the word
for such a translation.
  It was on the 2d  of August, 1859, that he left us ; and
his earthly form now reposes in the North Burial-ground
of the city of Providence, where his  family and  friends
have  erected a monument  modelled  after the beautiful
" Obelisk of the Vatican."
  I close this Memoir with his own  last words spoken in
public, which  no  one can  read without feeling that they
were  unconsciously prophetic : — 
554
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
              BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS  OF 1859.

 Young Ladies and Gentlemen of the  Graduating  Class, —
   After  journeying together for  so  many years on  our passage
 through life, we are about to part.  Another day, ay, another hour,
 and we separate.   Would to God I could continue  this journey
 with you through all its future course !   There is no suffering of a
 physical  nature  which I could  survive, that  I would not gladly
 bear, if thereby I could be set back to your starting-point, — to the
 stage of life where you are now standing.   When I think, after the
 experience of one life, what I could and would do in an amended
 edition of  it;  what I could and would do, more  and better than
 I  have done,  for  the  cause  of  humanity, of temperance, and  of
 peace ; for breaking tho rod of the oppressor; for tho  higher edu-
 cation  of the world, and especially for the higher education of the
 best part of it, — woman:  when I  think of these things, I feel
 the Phoenix-spirit glowing within me; I pant, I yearn, for another
 warfare in behalf of right,  in  hostility to wrong, where, without
 furlough, and without going into winter-quarters, I would enlist for
 another fifty-years' campaign, and fight it out for the glory of God
 and the  welfare of man.   I would volunteer  to  join a  " forlorn
 hope " to assault the very citadel  of Satan, and carry it by storm,
 and bind the old heresiarch  (he is the worst  heresiarch who does
 wrong) for a thousand years; and if in that time he would not re-
 pent, of which I confess myself not without hope, then  to give him
 his final quietus.
   But alas ! that cannot be;  for, while the Phoenix-spirit burns with-
in, the body becomes ashes.   Not only would the sword fall from
my hand;  my hand would fall from the sword.
   I cannot go with you.  You must pursue your conquering march
alone.
   What, then, can I do ?  Can I enshrine my spirit in your hearts,
so that when  I  fall in the  ranks (as I hope to fall  in the very
front ranks of this contest), and when  my arm  shall no longer
strike,  and my voice no longer cheer,  you may pursue  the conflict,
and win the victory ? — the victory of righteousness under the ban-
ner of  Jesus Christ.    This transferrence of my enthusiasm, of the 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
555
results of all my experience and study, into your young and ath-
letic frames, is what I desire to do ; what, as far as my enfeebled
strength allows, I shall now attempt to do.
   But, first, the new circumstances under which we assemble to-day ;
the new men whom I see  on this stage occupying the seats of official
dignity and honor; or, where the  individual men are not new, the
new functions they have come  here to execute;  in fine, the new
auspices under which this commencement is held, — demand a word.
   This is Antioch College still, the same as  we have known and
loved it heretofore; but,  according to the doctrine of metempsycho-
sis, it  is  by the transmigration of the  old  soul  into a new body.
The old body, with its works (that is, its scholarships and its debts,
and its promises to pay  without paying), is dead ; and in its stead
we have the resurrection of a new and  glorified body, — a body
without scholarships, without debts or pecuniary trespasses  of any
kind.
   But this beneficent change has not been  accomplished without a
great struggle.  In contests where the antagonist powers of good and
evil come into collision,  especially where the conflict is waged on a
conspicuous arena,  the  respective  combatants will  summon theh
auxiliaries from above and  below.  We feel as if, during the last
two years, our enemies had enlisted their most potent allies against
us, but such as bore no  tokens of coming from above.   We feel as
if the  cause of right and truth had at last triumphed; and therefore,
though ready to forget and forgive, we feel as if we have a right to
congratulate ourselves, and as if it were a duty to thank Heaven for
our success.
   Our opponents remind me of a half-crazed Italian philosopher,
who, many years ago,  invented a seismometer  (a  seismometer  is
an instrument for measuring the force of earthquakes) ; and, when
Vesuvius was in blast, he went up its sides, thinking to measure the
intensity when the mountain shook, just as a physician feels a sick
man's pulse.    The concussion and the lava and the thunder came,
but a  little harder  than had been expected;  and experimenter,
seismometer, and all, were exhaled into everlasting deliquium.
   In one of the old Latin authors, of which my young friends here
will be hkely to have a fresher  recollection  than I, I remember the 
556
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
story  of one  C. Flavius  Fimbria, who stabbed Q. Scasvola at the
funeral of Marius.   But Scajvola recovered of his stabbing :  where-
upon the assassin commenced a prosecution against him in the Roman
courts because he did not die of his wounds.   To make  the  cases
parallel, we must  expect  a prosecution  against  Antioch College
for  not having died when  it was poisoned by calumny and  false-
hood.
  But I return to my purpose of striving to transfuse  into  your
bosoms, for the life-work that is before you, some of the thoughts
and emotions that have animated me.
  Answer  these questions! 0 youth just  starting on your earthly
and your immortal career: —
  What  are the sources of my welfare?   What,  also, are the
sources  of  my  misery?
  There  are two sources of human happiness.   There are two also
of human misery.
  There  is the  happiness that alights upon us without any agency
or forethought of our own.  It comes to us, or wells up within us,
ready-made and complete; and our first consciousness of it is in the
joy it bestows.   Such is the spontaneous, unbought happiness  of in-
fancy and childhood; the happiness which a mother's beaming face
sends thrilling through the  frame of a babe ; the happiness which is
felt when a father's strong arm rescues a child  from  danger and
from fear;  the  happiness which we have in the natural gratification
of all our senses and faculties.
  The other kind of happiness is that which  comes through our
own procurement or co-operation, where, while  God  does his  part,
he leaves us to do our  part;  and  so our  gratification  is the  joint
product, of  both divine and  human agencies.
  Hence, of human happiness,  there are two sources, the Heaven-
derived and the self-derived, — Heaven supplying us  with the
means: or, what is far more common, our happiness is the  result
of the interflow and commingling of both, — Heaven's bounty and
our effort or instrumentality;  the first  performing the incompara-
bly larger  share  of the work, though  the latter  an indispensable
share.
  So there are two sources of human misery.   One kind befalls us. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
557
         It comes upon us as an aerolite might fall out of the skies  upon a
         man's head; as the tortoise which the eagle carried aloft in its talons,
         and dropped upon the bald cranium of iEschylus,  and cracked it;
         as hereditary diseases come upon children; or as all the curses of a
         bad government or  a false religion descend  upon innocent  genera-
         tions ;  or as Adam's fall, whether we understand  it literally or al-
         legorically, plunged the human race into unmeasured depths of woe.
         A child is born blind, or deaf  and dumb, or shallow-pated, or with
         faculties more askew than limbs and features can be : unspeakable
         misery results; but it comes in the  course  of Providence,  and the
I         victim must submit and  endure,  trusting to the remunerations of
         eternity.
                        " For God hath marked each anguished day,
                          And numbered every secret tear;
                         And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
                          For all his children suffer here."

            The  second source of misery is, like the second  source of happi-
         ness, self-derived.   It is the  result of  voluntary ignorance  or
         crime ;  though in regard  to  misery, as  in regard to happiness,
         vastly the  larger  portion results from  an  admixture  of  the two
         causes, — the providential and the personal.  Now, both  for  such
         results of happiness and misery as spring from our own character
         and conduct, we must take care of our own character and conduct.
         By so doing, we can  obtain a maximum of the one, and avoid all
         but a minimum of the other.   For such results as are exclusively
         of  divine origin, we  must learn to obey God's laws;  for a perfect
         knowledge and a perfect  obedience  of God's laws  would introduce
         all possible happiness into the world, and eliminate  all possible
         misery from it.
            And, for this purpose,  it is among our highest privileges to know
         that God operates by uniform  rules.   No matter if theologians and
         metaphysicians do  divide God's providential dealings with men into
         the  natural and the  supernatural: each must fall  under the do-*
         main of law.  This  is so, because it is impossible  to conceive of a
          being, possessed of such glorious attributes as we ascribe to the
          Almighty, who should act otherwise than uniformly;  because  he
          must  always act out of  his own unchangeableness.   Hence fixed- 
558
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
ness and  certainty must pervade the supernatural not less than the
natural domain.  This fixedness  and uniformity of operation are all
that is meant by law.   Hence a knowledge of his  laws is attain-
able by man; and if  a knowledge  of, then  also  a conformity
to them.   To  an intelligent apprehension, the Deity seems moving
onward from  everlasting to everlasting, not  with  devious, zig-zag
motions, but in one right lino ;  not with  mutability and fluctuation
of purpose, but upon  one vast  plan,  so perfect in the beginning,
that it needs no revision, addition, or expurgation.
   To those who  regard either the natural or the supernatural as
not regulated by law, the Deity must seem adroit only, and not wise ;
as rescuing his own system from  ruin  by expedients  and make-
shifts, such as a bungling craftsman resorts to to operate a bungling
machine.
   But why any evil or misery in the world at all ?  Why not  uni-
versal  impassibility  to  pain?   Why not man  necessitated to be
happy ? — every nerve of his sensitive nature  pervaded by delight,
as every corpuscle of his  body  is by gravitation.   Why  not his
soul a compound of spiritual joys as his body  is of chemical ingre-
dients?  Nay,  why not  happiness, passive  and spontaneous,  con-
genital, anti-natal,  eternal,  without effort  or wish  for  good, or
resistance  of evil,  on our part, and man made virtuous  and saintly
in this life, and carried  into immortality and  transcendent  bliss in
another, as a dead-head, and all  the saints only so many spiritual
lazzaroni ?
   Had  not God begun at zero in creating the race,  where should
he have begun ?   Should he  not have bestowed lano-uajre on chil-
           es                                      o  o
dren at birth, so that they might have  told  their mothers  the  seat
of their pains,  and thus have taken only one medicine, instead of
all in the pharmacopoeia ?  Should  not children  have had  enough
knowledge of metals to abstain  from eating arsenic  for its sweet-
ness?   Should they not have  possessed enough knowledge to keep
out of fire and water, and to count a hundred, and thus have fallen
outside  of Blackstono's definition of a fool ?
   But  suppose all men to  be born at a certain advanced  point of
development, at a certain height in the  scale above zero, would they
not then be  encompassed with a new circle  of inconveniences  ajid 
                   LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.               559

privations,  quite as serious  and annoying, and quite as earnestly
demanding the  manus emendatrix,  tho  "amending  hand,"  as
Sir Isaac Newton called it ?  And so,  at whatever degree along the
ascending  scale man  might be launched into being, he would,  at
that point, feel an apparent necessity of having been started at a
higher point, until nothing  could  satisfy his demands but to have
been created with the  infinite perfections of a God.   Surely this is
as strong as the mathematicians' reductio ad ahsurdum.  The  only
uncomplaining point to begin at is to begin so low, that there is no
ability to complain.   Hence man is created at the  point of blank
ignorance,  that he may have the felicity and trie glory of ascending
the whole way.   Had he been set up  any number of steps in the
stairway of ascension,  so much as he rose to higher elevations would
have been lost from the perceptions of  contrast and the emotions
of sublimity.   A mountain can never appear so grand to one born
bn its top as to one who was cradled  in the vale, but has climbed
to its summit.
   Here, then,  we  see  how evil  comes upon our race.  We are
created with numerous appetences; all like so many eyes to desire,
and like so many hands to seize, their related objects in the exter-
nal world.   The external  world superabounds with objects fitted  to
gratify  and inflame  these internal appetences.  And  now these
beino-s, fervid and aflame with these desires, are turned loose among:
these objects, without any knowledge  of what kind, in what quan-
tity, at what  time, they  are to be taken and enjoyed, but  with
free agency to take what, when,  and as much as they please.  Bring
these four elements  into juxtaposition,—the thousand  objects
around, the inward desire for them, the free will to take them, and
complete ignorance of  consequences, — and how is it possible to avoid
mistakes,  injuries, errors, crimes ?  With only one radius in which
to go right, with the whole circumference  of three hundred  and
sixty degrees in which to go wrong, and without innate  knowledge
of what is  right and  what wrong, —for a  being so circumstanced
never to err is just as impossible  as for an infinite number of  dice
to be thrown an infinite  number of times, and always to come up
sixes.   Take  any one man  out of the  thousand millions  of  men
now on the earth,  and his appetite  for  food  and  drink is  not 
560               LIFE OF HORACE MANN.
adapted merely  to  one aliquot thousand-millionth part of all the
viands and fruits and beverages upon the earth: it is  adapted to all
edibles and drinkables alike ; and  without  knowledge, and some-
thing more  than knowledge, he will  seize them where he can find
them.
  Consider  all the  property of the world — gold, gems, palaces,
realities, personalties—as aggregated in one mass.  Our natural love
of this property  is not  confined to one quotient, using all mankind
as a divisor; but it  is adapted to the  whole  dividend, and without
knowledge, and  something more than knowledge,  will demand it.
" Male and female created He them."  One man to one woman, one
woman to one  man,  is the law.   But  each of one sex to all of the
other is the adaptation;  and without knowledge, and  something
more than knowledge, chemistry has no affinities,  mathematics have
no  demonstrations, more  certain  than  that polygamy, Mormonism,
Freeloveism, with all their kindred abominations, will be the result.
Among all the young sparrows ever hatched, shall " never one of
them fall to the ground without your Father."  And, because one
does fall, shall we say  God's system is  imperfect ?   Does not the
Preacher  say,  '' Shall those who remove stones not be hurt there-
with, and they  who cleave wood not be endangered thereby?"
Who could foreknow that  nettles would sting, until some person
made a very sudden and  perhaps improperly worded  report  of the
fact ?  Shall all  mankind use edge-tools, and no man's fingers ever
be cut ?   How is an ignorant colony to avoid a malarious  district
until the fever shall have scorched and the ague shall  have  shaken
enough witnesses to swear that region  in open court to be the puta-
tive father of quotidian, tertian, or quartan ?  Why shall the conve-
nience of lead  service-pipes be abandoned, until the poisoned water
shall have been caught, flagrante delicto, scattering colics and para-
lyses? After seeing the harderring effect of fire on clay, how can a
man tell, without experience, that it will not produce the same  ef-
fect on wax ?  That is, in physical matters, how shall  an agent, free
to do what he will, and  ignorant of what he ought, escape error, and
consequent damage ?  With an impelling force behind and no guid-
ing light  before, and with  one only goal to be reached,  how shall
the engineer avoid  fatal  deviations  right  or left, or  a no less fatal 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
561
crash against obstacles  in his path ?  How should the first builder
of houses, as  a defence against cold  and storm, foresee disease
through loss of ventilation ?
   In matters of pure intellect, how could the first generations un-
derstand all astronomy by looking into  the heavens,  or all geogra-
phy  and geology by seeing the surface of the  earth ?   Why should
they not accredit the evidence of their  own senses in regard  to the
diameter of the sun and moon, and therefore believe that a man
could carry one of  them under one arm, and the other  under the
other arm to balance it ?   Why not explain eclipses of sun and moon
by saying that a great dragon had swallowed them ? Why not believe
in all the chimeras  and  absurdities of astrology ?  Why not believe
that the whole framework  of the heavens rotates  daily about the
earth, as it seems to do ? If a man cannot see around the curvature
or rotundity of the globe, nor  penetrate downward through its nu-
merous strata, why not believe it to be flat and thin, and to have
four corners, and to have  been  made,  with  all its appendages, in
six secular days ?  And, if the muscles of man grow weary by labor,
why not suppose that the  Deity grew  weary also, and ordained a
sabbath for bodily rest ?  And when the passions flash their intense
light of love or hate, of admiration or  of disgust, upon the objects
around us, can reason be always achromatic, and blend the wholo
emotional prism of  rays into that white light through which alone
the divine complexion and features of truth can be truly seen ?
   Still less in  divine affairs could it be expected that a  new-born
bein"-, occupying but a  point in space, should fathom  the depths of
immensity; or, occupying but a  point in time, should comprehend
the  eternities  before and after.  And  when this frail child of an
hour hears the thunder's roar, and sees the heavens ablaze, and feels
the earth  shake, and the forests bend,  and oceans toss, and he is
unable to form a conception of a spiritual God,  why should he not
fall  down and worship the first thing which  his own ignorance
makes mysterious ?
   Oh beautiful idolatry, when it springs from a devout  and rever-
ent  soul as yet unilluminated by knowledge !  for, when the true
God shall be revealed to such  souls, they will cover the  earth with
the beauty of  holiness,  and  fill the heavens with the fragrance of
               36 
562
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
worship.  Polytheism  grew up because men had not  minds large
enough to conceive of  one God capable of all these terrestrial and
celestial marvels,  and  therefore they  had to  divide his attributes
among thousands,  even millions, of deities.
   And, with all the numerous appetites and propensities innate in
every man, how shall he maintain an equilibrium of exercise and  of
indulgence between them, and how a subordination of  the lower to
the higher, until the errors and miseries of the wrong  paths,  rising
up before him like fire, shall have turned him back again and again
to seek the right one ?   How should a man know, until some one
shall have tried the experiment, that fire will burn, or water drown,
or that alcohol will intoxicate, and opium narcotize, or that the only
difference between a filthy tobacco-user and a vile green  tobacco-
worm is, that, while the worm never comes up towards the man, the
man constantly goes down towards the worm ?  How, before trial
or experiment,  could it be known that  dyspepsia is a non-conductor
of knowledge,  and that next to the calamity of being non compos
in the  brain is that of being non pos in the stomach '(   How, before
observation, could it be known  that  avarice,  among  the  worldly
passions, is the most destructive  to every sentiment of honor and
nobleness in the heart of man, and that bigotry, beyond all other
spiritual crimes, destroys most thoroughly all  mercy and godliness
in the  soul; that a man may be a thief, and yet, according to the
proverb, have some vestige of honor ;  that he may be a robber, and
not despoiled of all generosity ;  that he may be a libertine,  and yet
have some filial or  social affections; that an  epicure can  be gener-
ous after  dinner,  and  a conqueror  have  a  circle of  favorites?
And again:  we know that the heathen pagans and savages open their
heaven to the good man, come wheucesoever he will;  but  a  miser
would  keep the Omnipotent at work through  all eternity creating
wealth for himself, and the bigot  would harry him with prayers  to
invent  new tortures for heretics, and both remain surly with disap-
pointment.
   This combination then, I say, of inward  appetites reaching out-
ward, of innumerable outward objects  adapted to the inward appe-
tites, with free will and with ignorance  of consequences before trial,
necessitates  mistakes which are  physical  evil, necessitates errors 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.               563
which are intellectual evil, and necessitates these violations of God's
law which are moral evil.  This  theory vindicates the providence
of God in the creation and government of  man for the existence of
what we call evil, by showing that, with beings at once finite and
free, it was inevitable.
   But, if evil is inevitable, how  is man accountable for it ?  If
moral evil must  be, is it not absurd  to  call men wicked ?   Nay, is
it  not  monstrous forcibly to set a man  down in a certain place, or
to put him in a  given state of mind, and then pronounce him sinful
for being there ?
   This is our solution of  that Sphinx riddle :  Though evil  be inev-
itable, it  is remediable also ; it  is removable,  expugnable.   Nor
does it at all follow, because  evil necessarily now is, that  it must
necessarily always  be; nor because it must  continue  for  a  given
period, longer or shorter, that it must  continue forever.   Most of
the evils of mortals are terminable because they are exterminable.
A farmer can rotate his crops:  he can root  out brier and thorn,
and cultivate wheat.  Legislatures make laws to prevent the recur-
rence of evils, to bar them Out, to abolish  them.  Satirists  lash the
evil-doer with their  terrific  thong, and force him to desist from
shame when he will not from principle.  Oppressed nations invoke
God, and dethrone the oppressor.  Pioneers hunt out wild  beasts.
   Nor is it with  great evils only, such as threaten life or limb,
wealth or good name, that men combat.   They take cognizance of
the  smallest annoyances,  and remove  or remedy them.  They
assuao-e hunger and thirst: in heat they seek the shade; in cold, the
fire.   Every man seeks to take a mote out of his eye, or to banish
a  fly from his nose ;  and, if  his soul were large enough, he could
 just as well remove or abolish the evils of war, intemperance, big-
otry,  oppression, as to drive a snake from  his path.
   This, then, is the conclusion of the matter: Men are not respon-
sible  for the evils they have not caused, and cannot  cure ; but
they are responsible for the  evils they consciously cause,  or have
power to cure.   I am no more responsible for what Cotton Mather
and his  coadjutors did  at  the time of the Salem witchcraft, or
for what Pharaoh did at the  time of the  Israelitish  exodus, or for
 what Vj very much respected but unfortunate  great grandparents, 
564
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
Adam and Eve, did in the Garden of Eden at the time of tho inter-
view  with a distinguished stranger in  disguise, — I am no more
responsible for any of these things than I am for the law of mathe-
matics, by which, if unequals be added to equals, the results will be
unequal,  or  by which, if the  dividend is  not a multiple of tho
divisor, you must have a fraction in the  quotient.
   But our power to  diminish evils, to extirpate evils, one after
another, creates  the  obligation to  diminish and to extirpate.  This
duty is oftentimes coincident with selfishness or self-love ; that is,
it is both our duty and our desire  to gratify some natural appetite
or propensity.  But sometimes  our duty conflicts with the appetites
or propensities of the lower nature.  In either case,  the  duty is no
less sovereign.   In either case, obedience  is indispensable  to  our
permanent well-being.   In all  cases, God commands the perform-
ance of duty at all  hazards and all sacrifices.   As, if matter is to
exist, there must be extension and  solidity; so, if rational happiness
is to exist, there must be a knowledge of God's laws, and an obedi-
ence  to  them.   AVhenever one perceives a law in Nature or in
Providence, it is  as  though the heavens opened, and a voice from
the Most High came  audibly down, calling us by name, and saying,
"Do! " or "Forbear!"  Not the children of Israel ouly, but every
man, stands at the foot of Sinai, and must hear the commandments
of the Lord ; not ten only, but  ten thousand ; not Decalogue only,
but Myrialogue;  and must obey them, or die.   For God's  law is
omnipotent as well as eternal, and  we are co-eternal subjects of it.
Nor is it to be supposed that ho has one law of  cause and effect for
this world, and another law of cause and effect for the next world,
but that there is no law of cause and effect between the two worlds.
Better and far nearer the truth would it be to say that  this world
is  cause, and the  next world  effect.  Shall  the acts of a man —
great virtues or  great crimes — live forever upon earth in their
good  or evil consequences, but shall the actor,  the man himself,
perish ?    Shall a grain of wheat buried in the  integuments of an
Egyptian  mummy two thousand years  ago,  if now  exhumed and
planted,  germinate,  and connect  the reign  of  Sesostris with  the
nineteenth century, but shall the soul of him whose body was buried
with that kernel  of wheat pass into nonentity ?  Shall a diamond 
LIFE  OF  HORACE MANN.
565
adornin^ the shroud of some ancient  king of Persia be restored to
the lio-ht in our day, and again flash and blaze in the sunbeams, but
shall the soul of the king himself live no more forever ?  God's laws
abide forever, and we  abide forever under them; and hence it is our
highest conceivable interest as well as duty to conform, to inoscu-
late our lives, our characters, ourselves, to them.  In many things,
the average of human knowledge  shows  this to be true already:
additional enlightenment  will demonstrate its truth in all things.
A man inherits houses or lands.  If  his estate  needs rounding out
at any point, he adds  to it, and symmetrizes its boundaries ;  and, if
disproportioned in its kinds of production, he turns forest  into til-
lao-e, or tillage into forest:  if his house offends taste, or frustrates
convenience, he  modernizes  it into beauty and fitness.  So if a man,
on waking  up  to  conscious  comparisons, finds himself abnormal,
or  distorted from the common type, — afflicted, for instance, with
strabismus, or non-coincidence of the optic axes, — he applies to the
surgeon, has tho contracted muscle cut, and  ho no longer squints:
so, if club-footed, or  suffering under  any other  pedal malformation,
he goes to an orthopedist, who, by  the wonders of his art, reshapes
the foot into simulation  to the  common  pattern.   If we  have an
unsightly or distorted feature, does not the  smallest  modicum of
common  sense  teach us to cure  or at  least  to palliate  it?  If
wounded or diseased  in body, do we not seek to be healed or cured,
and submit to privation aud pain to  bo made whole ?  See one of
America's noblest and brightest sons', for an injury to the brain,
which mud  brutahty  in the  council-halls of the nation  had sacrile-
giously inflicted on him, — see  him seeking restoration in foreign
lands, and  going to the terrific moxa, the fire-cure, as to his daily
meals; and why?  Because he hoped, from these fire-thrills through
all his nerves,  for a rehabitation  of the  brain, and then  for that
other and hallowed fire in the cause of freedom and humanity such
as touched Isaiah's  lips.   And if all this is  done and borne for
 intellectual recuperation,  nay, for the body  that perishes, what
 ought not the scholar,—he who is indoctrinated into the knowledge
 of cause and effect,  into the wondrous and  saving knowledge  of
 God's, laws, —that knowledge which fuses the  two worlds into one, 
566
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
and makes death only an  event in hfe, — what ought not he to do
or dare for the exaltation and grandeur of the soul ?
   And  this brings me  to the second stage  of my inquiry : How
shall we obtain happiness, how avoid misery ?
   I answer, in the briefest and  most comprehensive formula,  By
knowing and obeying the law  of God;   for, in regard to  all  the
higher forms of happiness, his plan seems to be to  make  men earn
their own; he furnishing them with an outfit of capital and imple-
ments, or, as a business-man would express it, stock and tools.
   The babe recognizes  God's laws.   Before it has any conception
of divine  attributes or a Divine Being, before  it can articulate the
Holy Name, it recognizes one of the most central of all laws, — that
by which, under like circumstances, like  causes will produce like
effects.  One well-executed burning of its fingers in a taper's blaze
is  sufficient: it  needs no second lesson  in  that  liturgy  forever.
Let a morsel of delicious food stimulate the papillae  of its  tongue,
and old age cannot obliterate its memory.  So,  but contrariwise, of
the caustic or bitter.   How soon the infant learns  to  call for water
when  it is thirsty, or to turn to the fire when it is  cold !  The  boy
learns the law of his sports.  Sir  Isaac Newton did not understand
the law of resistance better than  the slinger.  A ninny farmer
knows that, though he should sow the sea with acorns, and harrow
them  in with the north wind, he could not raise  a  forest  of oaks
upon its surface.   A man may own all the  coal-fields of Pennsyl-
vania, or all the wood of the Hartz Mountains; but, without  oxygen,
he will freeze in the midst of them all.  If a man will turn  his bars
of railroad iron into  natural magnets, his road  must run  north and
south.  It may lie  east and west to all eternity without their polari-
zation.  To create a visual image, the light must  come  to a focus
on the retina of the eye,  and not on the tympanum of the ear.
Shadows are not projected towards the illuminating body, nor does
an echo precede the sound that awakes it.
   Not less true is  it, that if a man will enjoy health,  strength,  and
longevity, he must know and observe the hygienic conditions  of
diet, air, exercise,  and cleanliness.  A sound brain cannot  be elab-
orated from a hypochondriac or valetudinarian body, nor  systems 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
567
of sound philosophy be  constructed in an unsound brain.   Good
digestion is part and parcel of a good man; though it does not fol-
low from this that  pigs  are  Christians.   Rum-blasted  or tobacco-
blasted nerves become  non-conductors of volition; and a porous and
spongy brain can no more generate  mental fire than a feather can
beget lightning.  Weak parents can no more be blessed  with strong
children than wrens can hatch eagles;  and it is as impossible  for a
child  to detach himself from the qualities  of his ancestry, as impos-
sible wholly to break  the entail  of hereditary qualities,  as it would
be in a court of law to prove, at the time of his birth, the alibi of
himself or his mother.   Ezekiel notwithstanding, personal qualities
are descendible ;  and, if  the fathers will eat sour  grapes,  the
children's teeth will bo set on edge.   It has been objected to  Swe-
denborg, that he once  introduced the Divine Being on an unworthy
occasion.   He says, that, when once  dining  in his chamber, the
Adorable Majesty appeared before him, and said, " Swedenborg, do
not eat so much."  Was this an unworthy occasion? — a dignus
non vindice  nodus ?   I  deny the justness of the criticism.   It is
one of the wisest revelations which that coffee-inspired prophet ever
had.  If a company of one hundred families  would set themselves
to-day profoundly and  devotedly .to the work of exemplifying God's
physiological laws,  they would,  in  five  generations  of continued
fidelity to them, govern the world.
   These conditions of prosperity, of achieving  good and avoiding
evil,  pervade the  intellectual  and  moral world.    A  man  must
know his faculties; he must know the subordination of the  lower
to the hio-her, and his practice must accord with his knowledge.
   There  are two grand laws  respecting mind-growth, more  im-
portant than  the laws of Kepler.  The first is  the law of symmetry.
The faculties should be developed in proportion.  Their circumfer-
ence should be round,  not polygonal; they should be balanced, not
tilted.  Every faculty  is firmer  set when  it receives support  from
all the others.   Every faculty  acts with indefinitely  more  vigor
when the other faculties sympathize and  co-operate.   A man who
has one arm spliced to the other, giving him  the length of both in
one, while  the armless fingers  are attached to the scapula; a man
who  is  Daniel  Lambert on one side, weighing seven hundred 
568
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
pounds,  and Calvin Edson, weighing  only forty pounds,  on the
other, — is not more deformed than a man who is all intellect and no
sentiment, or all sentiment and no intellect.   Heretofore the king-
dom of knowledge  may have  been enlarged by a distortion of the
faculties, — by concentrating  a sufficient energy  upon one  power
and in one  direction to achieve a discovery which could not  have
been achieved  had  that energy been equally distributed among all.
But hereafter  an entire realm of new  discoveries will be opened
and the errors of former discoverers rectified by that brighter illumi-
nation, when the rays of all the faculties shall converge to a focus
upon  the object of inquiry, — as in that  remarkable  case  which
occurred in  Boston  as but yesterday, where the laws of music and
of electricity were  invoked to solve an acoustic problem in the
heart's beatings which had baffled all the science of Europe.
   It is this  relative disproportion  of the faculties which has given
rise to  so many of the  errors and even the crimes of  the race, indi-
vidual  and  national.   If a body of seventy-two city brokers were
now appointed to publish a septuagint edition of the New Testa-
ment, they would leave out the  four Gospels, and  insert  in  their
stead  the last best  edition of the most approved interest  tables.
It is this accumulation of all  excellence around one  egotistic idea
which makes an Englishman believe that Divine Providence always
operates  in  subserviency  to the  British Constitution.  It  is  this
same exaggeration of a national sentiment which leads the French
nation to look forward to a judgment-day, when men will be sepa-
rated to the  right hand  and to the left, not because they have or
have not given food or drink or clothes to the needy, not because
they have visited  or failed to  visit the  sick or the imprisoned, but
according as they have been or have not been  soldiers in the Grand
Army.  The descendant of the Puritan is disposed to believe iii the
doctrine  of  vicarious atonement,  because this getting every thin^
and giving  nothing is sucli a sharp bargain, — very much the same
plan on which the Puritan ancestor  treated the Indians.   So the
national  foible  or infirmity of our people — its over-grown vanity
and pride — stands on a paraTel with the haughtiness of the Span-
iard, the vainglory of the Frenchman, and the egotism  of  the En-
glishman. 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
569
  The first  grand law of the faculties, as a whole, then, is the law
of symmetry.   An obedience to this law will yield immense happi-
ness, and avoid immense misery.
  The next law is as important as the first.   It is that all our fac-
ulties grow in power and in skill by use, and that they dwarf in
both by  non-use.    By growth, I mean that they pass out of one
stare into another, as a grain of corn grows or passes from tho em-
bryo germ to the plumule, from  the plumule to the  stalk, to the
flowering tassel, to the bountiful ear.
   What was Benjamin Franklin at birth ? Would he have sold for
any thing in any Christian market ?  Could he have been forced upon
a debtor as a legal tender, even for the smallest charge in the debt ?
Would any artist have purchased him for his studio, or any philoso-
pher  for his cabinet  of natural history?  No chemist could  have
turned him  to any account in his retorts.   He was destined for far
other  retorts than  theirs.   But he  grew.  From being a lump of
flesh weighing so many pounds avoirdupois, he took on other quali-
ties and  attributes, each transcendent, culminating over the preced-
ing.  By and by he  became Benjamin Franklin plus the English
alphabet, then Benjamin Franklin plus the multiplication-table.  By
industrious  days and  laborious nights, by observation and reflection,
by noble abstinence from foul excesses, by divine energy of will  in
temperance, in diligence, in perseverance (better than the theologic
perseverance of the saints, because  it was his own), he  gathered
knowledge, accumulated stores of experience, grew wise on obser-
vation and lucubration, until soon he became that Benjamin Frank-
lin whose name the lightning blazons from one part  of the heavens
unto  the other, and  to whom every summer cloud in all the zones
and to the end of time shall thunder applause.  See the offshoots  of
this growing man at this point of his development!  Morse, House,
Field, are his own brain-begotten children.  The lightning is nimbly
at work  to-day in  the shops of ten thousand  artificers.   It strikes
alarm-bells, and warns sleeping cities that conflagration and a fiery
death  are at their doors.  It measures longitudes as no geometer or
astronomer  could ever measure  them ; and before  another twelve-
month shall have  passed, by a new application  of  that elemental
force  whhh ran along Franklin's kite-string, a cable shall unite tho 
570
LTFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
Eastern and Western  Hemispheres, along  whose ekntric threads
shall fly to and fro such " winged words" as Homer never dreamed
of.   Then he grew into that Benjamin Franklin who signed the
Declaration of American Independence ; then into that Benjamin
Franklin who signed the treaty of peace  that  acknowledged the
independence  and sovereignty of these United States; an act ex-
torted from a sovereign, which made him more than sovereign, —
the pater  patriae of a country peopled with sovereigns.  Then he
became  Benjamin Franklin plus  the  Constitution of  the United
States.
  What growth was here ! what excelsior strivings and triumphs
from day to day ! what ascension from glory to glory !  not to cease
even' with  death; for in all Christendom there is not now, nor ever
hereafter will be, a child born of woman, who has not and will not
have more of well-being and  less of ill-being  on earth because
Benjamin  Franklin  lived ; that is, because of his industry, fidelity,
and temperance when he was a boy; because of  his integrity, wis-
dom, and  philanthropy when a man.
  Now, each class and profession of men has a different stand-point
from which it surveys the world, and to which, in its peculiar posi-
tion, the world presents its immense variety of aspects.   To a hack-
driver, the living freight which a steamboat or railroad-train pours
into a city are worth twenty-five or fifty cents apiece.   The barber
feels ties of brotherhood, and the gates of his soul  open with  wel-
come, towards that part of the human race that shaves.   The manu-
facturer of playing-cards thinks it terrible  Puritanism  to condemn
what Burns calls the "Devil's pictured buiks;" and the printer of
Bibles is  a  most zealous member of  the Bible Society.   When a
shoemaker is requested to fit a tiny pair of shoes to an infant's feet,
he sees a row of prospective and gradually enlarging shoes stretch-
ing out into futurity.   So  the tailor  sees  a lengthening  vista of
coats, and the hatter of hats, for all their customers.   All these are
seen as clearly as iEneas saw  Marcellus far away in  the coming
generations.
  So it is easy to take  an ancestor who lived a thousand years ago,
and see his lineal descendants  diverging  and radiating from him,
children and grandchildren, — each line or lineage reaching in solid 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
571
rank and file down to  the present  time;  one  branch honorable,
another proud, another base.   These are realities.
  But in view of this law of growth, and of the rapidity of its incre-
ments, no less real to me is the spectacle presented by every young
man,  especially by  every young man who'receives the  nutriment
and invigoration of  a college-life.  Radiating from every such young
man as from  a central point, I seem  to  see long-extended lines of
the forms of  men, — such  forms as he may enter and  occupy, and
so become the men  they represent.  It is as though these lines shot
out from him as from a centre to a circumference; only there is no
circumference, for the lines lengthen outward into  endless perspec-
tive.   Stand  up, young man, and let us behold  the forms of men,
noble or ignoble, lofty or mean, saintly or satanic, which beleaguer
you, and into which your  soul enters  as you pass on in your life,
from glory to glory, or from shame to shame !   Here,  shooting out
in on*1 direction, I see an ascending  series,  an upward gradation of
noble forms,  figures of lofty stature and mien.  Health and strength
are in all their limbs; fire, ardor, aspiration, gleam from every eye ;
the light of virtue shines from every face; each life is pure.  What
a throne for majesty is every brow !   Beneficence is in every hand.
See how each individual in that long-extended rank excels the last,
as  it rises and towers,  and is lost at last to our  view, but lost only
where earth meets heaven !
   But what do I  see  on  the other side?  Another line, compact
like the former, shooting outward from the same centre, but stamped
and branded with all those types of  infamy that can be developed
from  the appetites, — gluttony, intemperance, sensuality, debauch-
ery, agony and  ignominy unspeakable.   0 God !  I  rejoice that
I can  see no  farther into the  perdition  beyond.   These, these,
young  man,  arc the forms which you may grow into and bc.-ome.
Choose  to-day whether you will  pass  through  this  succession  to
honor and bliss, or this to shame and despair.
   This young man proposes to be  a lawyer.   Shooting outwards
from him on either hand are compact files of those who disgrace or
those who honor the noble  profession of the law.  This line begins
with a pettifogger,  a chicaner, a  picaroon, — one whose study and
life it  is to throw the cloak of truth over the body of a lie, like that 
572
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
lawyer of whom a malefactor  said, " I have  counted the chances,
and concluded to commit the crime, for I know he can get me off; "
and it ends in an Old-Bailey  or  Five-Points  solicitor, sold to the
service of Safan, content to take half his pay in money, and the rest
in pleasure of wickedness, — like the man who was a great lover of
swine's  flesh, who said he wished  he were a Jew, that  he might
have the pleasure of eating  pork  and committing a sin at the same
time.  Another radiating file begins with examples of honor, equity.
truth-loving, and ends in a  chief  justice  such as Holt or Marshall
or Shaw.
  Another means  to be a public man.   His first transformation
may be  into a demagogue, half-sycophant, half-libeller, a pimp  and
pander of power, a peculator, an  embezzler,  a robber of mails or
mints, a polyglot liar;  or he may  pass into  those types whose  sys-
tems of political economy have humanity for  their end, and wealth
for their means  only;  who know  no castes or classes or nobility,
excepting those who bear God's patent of intelligence and virtue.
  This young man looks to the sacred desk.   Next to him, on one
side, stands  the chameleon preacher, the color  of whatever  he
touches.  His soul  is  a  religious  earnera-obscura, reflecting back
only the souls  of those  who pay  his salary.  He cannot preach
against  the crimes of to-day, — the crimes that flout heaven, the
crimes that crush life out of the human heart.   He can only preach
against the "  exceeding sinfulness  of sin," —  now and then hurling
a terrific bolt  at Jeroboam or Judas.  They are personages not very
likely to disturb the  sacred  quiet of his parish.   But what a glo-
rious column  of  the forms of men  stands  on the other side ! — true
disciples of Jesus  Christ, constituted of piety,  philanthropy,  and
wisdom, — men who, for truth's sake, can bear revilings and a crown
of thorns, can look without  shrinking upon the cross, nay, can die
upon the cross if need be.   But, oh! when the sanctifying hour of
death  has passed, then  the  revilings become world-wide  homages;
the crown of thorns, a crown of amaranth, blossoming forever in the
air of heaven: even  the  accursed  cross  is made  sacred in the eyc-i
of men.
  Thus  it ever is when men make  sacrifices  in the cause of duty.
First comes the temptation; which if resisted, the transfiguration 
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
573
follows.  The stern fulfilment of duty enrages the wicked, and they
execute crucifixion; and then comes the ever-glorious ascension:
and even the memory of the  Joseph of Arimathea who cared for the
dead body of the martyr is gratefully and forever embalmed in the
hearts of men.
   Crowding thick around you,  my  young friends who  go forth
from here to-day, I see these  various classes and characters of men
whom I have  attempted to portray.    Select which  you please.
Transmigrate through the forms of one class into ever-increasing
nobleness and dignity, ascending to all temporal honor and renown,
to end in the glories of immortality; or plunge through the other,
from degradation to degradation,  to a perdition that is bottomless.
   I need not carry out the parallel with regard to the young ladies
who are before  me, and who  are  candidates for graduation to-day.
For them, if they will have the courage to lift themselves out of the
frivolities  of a fashionable and a selfish life, each one, in her own
sphere and in her own way, may  become another  Isabella, securing
an  outfit for another Columbus for the discovery of another hemi-
sphere .wherewith  to  bless  mankind, — more  honorable to  the
queenly helper than to the bold navigator. . . .
   The  last words I  have to say to you, my young  friends, are
these : —
   You are  in the kingdom of a Divine Majesty who  governs his
realms according to law.   By his laws, it is no more certain that fire
will consume, or that water  will  drown, than that sin will  damn.
Nor is it more sure that  flame will  mount,  or the magnetic needle
point to the pole, than it is that a righteous man will ascend along
a path of honor to glory and  beatitude.   These laws of God  per-
vade  all things,  and they operate with omnipotent force.    Our
free agency  consists merely in the choice we make to put ourselves
under the action of one or another of these laws.  Then the law
seizes us, and sweeps us upward or downward with resistless power.
If you stand on the  great table-land of North America, you can
launch  your boat  on the head  waters  of  the  Columbia, or  the
Mackenzie, or the St. Lawrence, or the Mississippi; but  the boat,
once launched, will be borne  towards the selected one  of the  four 
574
LIFE  OF  HORACE  MANN.
points of the compass, and from all the others.   If you place your
bark in the Gulf Stream, it will bear you northward, and not south-
ward ;  or though that stream is as large as three thousand Mississip-
pis, yet you can steer your bark across it, and pass into the region of
the variable or the trade winds beyond, to be borne by them.
   If you seek suicide from a precipice, you have only to lose y«.im-
balance over its edge, and gravitation takes care of the rest.   So
you have only to set your head right by knowledge, and your heart
right by obedience, and forces stronger  than  streams or winds or
gravitation will bear you up to celestial blessedness, Elijah-like, by
means  as visible and palpable as though they were horses of fire
and chariots of fire.
   Take heed to this, therefore, that the law of God is the supreme
law.  The judge may condemn an innocent man; but posterity  will
condemn the  judge.  The United  States are mighty;  but they are
not almighty.   How sad and how true  what Kossuth said, that
there had never yet been a Christian government on earth!   Before
there can be  a  Christian government, there must  be Christian men
and women.  Be you these  men and women!   An unjust govern-
ment is only a great bully;  and though it should wield the navy in
one fist  and  the army in the other, though it should array every
gun in the armories of Springfield and Harper's Ferry into one  bat-
tery, and make you their target,  the righteous  soul is as secure
from them as is the sun at its zenith height.
   While, to a certain extent, you are to live for yourselves  in  this
life, to a greater extent you  are to live  for others.  Great boons,
such as can only be won  by great  labors, are to be secured; great
evils are to  be vanquished.   Nothing to-day prevents this earth
from being a paradise but error and sin.   These errors,  these sins,
you must assail.   The disabilities of poverty;  the pains of disease;
the enervations and folly of  fashionable life; the brutishness of ap-
petite, and the  demonisms of passion ; the crowded vices of cities,
thicker than  their inhabitants; the retinue of calamities that come
through  ignorance ; the physical and moral havoc of war; the  woes
of intemperance; the wickedness of oppression, whether of the body
or  of the soul; the Godlessness and Christlessness of bigotry,— 
LIFE  OF HORACE  MANN.
575
these  are  the hosts against  which a war of extermination is to be
waged, and you are to be the warriors.  Never shrink, never retreat,
because of danger : go into the strife with your epaulettes on.
   At the  terrible battle of Trafalgar, when Lord Nelson, on board
the "Victory," the old flag-ship of Keppel  and of Jervis, bore
down upon the combined fleets of France and of Spain, he appeared
upon  the quarter-deck with his breast all blazing with gems and
gold,  the insignia of the " stars " and " orders "  he  had received.
His officers, each a hero, besought him not thus  to present himself
a shining  mark for the sharpshooters of  the enemy, but to conceal
or doff the tokens of his rank.   "No," replied Nelson : " in honor
I won them, and in honor I'll wear them! "   He  dashed  at the
French line, and grappled with the "Redoubtable" in the embrace
of death.  But, when the battle had raged for an hour, a musket-ball,
shot from the mizzen-top of the enemy, struck his left epaulette, and,
crashing down through  muscle and bone and artery, lodged in his
spine.  He knew the blow to be  fatal;  but as he lay writhing in
mortal agony, as the smoke  of battle at intervals cleared away, and
the news  was brought to him that one after another of the enemy's
ships—the " Redoubtable," the " Bucentaur," the "Santa Anna,"
the " Neptune," the  "  Fougueux " — had struck their colors, bis
death-pangs were quelled, joy illumined his face,  and for four hours
the  energy of  his will  sustained his vitality;  and he did not yield
to death until the fleets had yielded to him.
   So, in the  infinitely nobler  battle in which you are engaged
ao-ainst error  and wrong, if ever repulsed  or stricken down, may
you always be  solaced and cheered by the  exulting cry of triumph
over some  abuse  in  Church or State, some vice or folly in  society,
some  false  opinion or  cruelty or guilt which you have overcome !
 And I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these" my parting
words: Be ashamed to die  until you have won some victory for
 humanity. 
 
APPENDIX.
A.
    PROCEEDINGS OF  THE BOSTON COMMITTEE.

   A year after Mr. Mann had been elected to Congress, and while he
was absent at Washington, some friends of the cause of education in
the legislature of  Massachusetts, who were  not before particularly
acquainted with the pecuniary sacrifices which he  had made for it,
(among whom was the Hon.  Charles W. Upham of  Salem, the Chair-
man of the Joint  Committee on Education), became apprised of the
extraordinary devotion of his means, as well as  of himself, to the cause
that had been intrusted to him; and through  their  agenc-y this com-
mittee was instructed " to ascertain what  sums, if any, were paid  by
the late Secretary of the Board of Education, out of his private means,
for the erection of Normal schoolhouses, and for other purposes of a
public nature, with power to send for persons and papers."
  In March following, the committee made their report, which con-
sisted mainly of statements, made by various individuals, of such facts
as they personally knew concerning the pecuniary contributions made
by Mr. Mann  out of his own private means to carry forward the
              37                            557 
578
APPENDIX.
public work with which he had been charged.   From  this report, and
the statements  it contains, we shall quote largely.   Biographies are
rarely swelled by any great accumulation of similar details.
  The committee first introduce a letter from Mr. Mann himself, dated
Washington, Feb.  9, 1849, from which we make  the following ex-
tracts : —
  " The  order  empowers the  committee to  send for  persons  and
papers. You are pleased to put your requisition upon me in the imper-
ative mood; though doubtless for no other reason than that of over-
coming a  repugnance I might be supposed to feel against  speaking
upon the subject. .  . .
  " You must permit me to say, in the first place, that, until the receipt
of your  letter, I was entirely ignorant  that any such movement  had
been made, or  was contemplated, by any one.  I  could never  have
brought myself to  ask, nor even to ask a  friend to  ask, any remu-
neration for the sacrifices made or  the expenses incurred in promot-
ing the objects of my office.   However much it may prejudice the end
you have  in view, I must, nevertheless, say that those sacrifices  and
expenses were  incurred without any expectation of re-imbursement.
When I left a lucrative profession for the  Secretaryship, I cheerfully
surrendered all hopes  of wearlth  or promotion; and, from the  day
when I accepted that office,  I held  myself personally responsible for
the success of the  enterprise; and though it might cost me my means,
my health, my life, or a hundred lives, if I had them, I held the tri-
umph of the cause  to be paramount to them all.
  " On entering upon the office, it is well known that numerous^and
in some cases  heavy expenses were connected with it, such  as never
had been  contemplated  either by the framers of the law or by my-
self.  Not a cent has ever been allowed me for  clerk-hire or office-rent
At first, no provision was made for postages or stationery.  Since  pro-
vision was made for these latter items, I  have never charged half  their
cost, lest the expenses of the  office might excite  opposition against it.
Whatever  books I needed, either in our own or other  languages, I
have been obliged to purchase and pay for myself. For other expenses
incurred in travelling over the State for the first five years, — occupy-
ing about  four months each year, — no  allowance has ever been made
me.
  " What  I have paid for clerk-hire must, of course, be known to those
who have  received it; and what I have spent  for educational works
and documents to  be  distributed  over  the State must be known to
those who have furnished and who have received them.   If there have 
APPENDIX.
579
 been still other expenses, perhaps they had better come under the rule
 of not letting the left hand know what the right hand doeth.  . . .
   " In what I have already said, although said at your  request, I may
 be thought by some to be  treading on  delicate  ground.   This move-
 ment did  not originate with me.  I cannot present myself in the form
 of a petitioner,  asking for a return of what was voluntarily  given.  I
 must take care of my honor.  The State is the proper judge of its own.
 If the State chooses to consider any part of the sums I have paid as
 paid on its account, — as  paid  for property of which it now has the
 benefit, or now enjoys the actual use and possession,—it will be grate-
 fully received, both as a token of its approbation, and as the refunding
 of moneys I must otherwise lose-  But, let what will come, no poverty,
 and no estimate of my services, however low, can ever make me repine
 that I  have sought, with all  the means  and the  talents at my com-
 mand, to lay broader and  deeper the foundations of the prosperity of
 our Commonwealth, and  to  elevate its  social  and moral  character
* among its confederate States and in the eyes of the world.
    " With the most respectful regards for yourself and your colleagues
 on the committee, and with an earnest  request, that, in whatever you
 may deem it right to do  in relation to this movement, you will take
 care of my honor, whatever may become of my purse,
                                                  " I remain, &c."

    The Hon. A. Hale, then a member of Congress, in  whose place of
 residence — Bridgewater — one of the  Normal schoolhouses had been
 erected, made, among other things, the following statement:  —
    " The Board then advertised for proposals for  the  erection of the
 [Normal-school] buildings  according to the  plans and  specifications
 which had been furnished by the Board.
    " The proposals  being very much above the amount at the  disposal
 of the Board for that object, alterations were made  in the  plans and
 specifications, reducing the expense of the buildings very considerably;
 but still  the Board could not find any person to  erect the buildings for
 the sum  in their hands, and it seemed that the  enterprise must be
 abandoned.  Under these circumstances, Mr. Mann came forward, and
 gave his private obligation to pay the excess of the cost of  the build-
 ings over and above the amount at the disposal of the Board.  With
 this indemnity, the Board caused the buildings to be  erected; and, on a
 settlement of the bills, it was found that the excess amounted to about
 seven hundred and forty dollars, of which an individual of the  town of
 Bridgewater paid a hundred dollars, and Mr. Mann  the residue." 
580
APPENDIX.
  The following fa^ts were detailed by the Hon. Josiah Quinry, jun.,
then Mayor of Boston : —
  " I cannot withhold my testimony as to the  disinterested liberality
with which Mr. Mann has endeavored to forward the great cause of
public education.
  " I shall confine myself to pecuniary sacrifices on advances made by
him of a comparatively large amount.
  " Five or six years ago, Mr.  Mann applied to me for a  loan, on his
law-library, of some five or six  hundred dollars, for the purpose of  fur-
nishing the  lodging-house of the Normal School at Lexington.  Know-
ing his circumstances, I endeavored to dissuade  him from giving so
much to the  public, and refused, on that ground,  to lend  him the
money.  The result was, he  sold his library, and furnished the house ;
losing, I have no doubt, in the result, the whole amount.
  " Shortly after this,  the land  and schoolhouse  at  West  Newton
were given to the public,* with the understanding that the citizens of
that  place  and the friends of  education  would fit up the building in *
the most approved style.
  " Some months after the building was completed, I learned acciden-
tally that the necessary funds had not been raised, and that Air. Mann
and  Mr. Pierce had expended  and paid a large amount of their own
money (a thousand three  hundred dollars) for the repairs.  A meet-
ing of friends of the cause was immediately called at my house, with-
out the knowledge  of either of  the gentlemen, to provide means for its
payment. .  . .
  " Massachusetts  owes  the existence of two of her Normal-school
buildings to the advances made by two gentlemen to complete  the first.
  '- After the  erection  of the  schools at Westfield  and Bridgewater,
Mr. Mann applied  to me for a loan of two thousand dollars.   On in-
quiry, I found that the appropriations for these buildings fell short of
the contract prices ; and, rather than run the risk of  losing  them,  Mr.
Mann had  made himself personally liable for  the difference.   He in-
sisted on borrowing the money, and giving security for it;  and forbade
my applying  to any individuals or to the State on the subject.  As it
was a business transaction, I  have never mentioned it; and should not
have done it now, except aUthe order of the State.   He gave as secu-
rity  almost, I believe,  all his  personal  property, and still owes the
debt."

  * This donation was made by Mr. Quincy himself; though, from his letter, one
would never surmise it. 
APPENDIX.
581
  Mr.  George B. Emerson enumerated various  items, varying from
forty to six hundred and forty dollars at a time, of whose payment by
Mr. Mann from time to time, for the promotion of the  cause, he hap-
pened to be personally cognizant;  and then adds : —
  " The expenses of printing  the papers he has written in defence of
the cause  of the  Massachusetts Board of Education fell principally
upon him, and must have amounted to a very large sum. . . .
  " It has  always seemed to  me, that giving, as he did, his life to this
work, and having made a very great personal sacrifice, in a pecuniary
point, by accepting  the office  of Secretary to the Board of Education,
he  was less bound  than any other individual to contribute towards
these objects from his private  purse.  But he was  in the habit of doing,
at his own  expense, what he  saw  was necessary  for the cause, when-
ever no one else came forward to do it."

  M >ssrs. Dutton & Wentworth, printers to the State, volunteered to
send the chairman of the committee the following letter: —
  " Dear  Sir, — Learning that a movement is  about to be made in
the Legislature to make some remuneration to the Hon. Horace Mann,
late Secretary of the Board of Education, for personal and other ex-
penses incurred during his term of office, we beg leave to volunteer in
his  behalf.   During the twelve years of  his term of office,  all the
reports of the Board and its  Secretary have been printed by us.  In
regard to the printing he has ordered, he has always had it done in the
most economical manner; and we wish to bear our testimony to the fact.
Whenever  he has wanted, for  distribution, extra copies of his reports,
he has ordered them printed on his private account, and paid for them
himself: we are unable to state the exact amount he has paid us for
these  documents, but should  say it  must  have been seventy-five or a
hundred dollars.  The documents he has purchased of us were his oim
reports, school-abstracts, lectures, &c, besides circulars he has issued
for  teachers' meetings, where  add»esses were to be delivered by him-
self and others.  The amount stated  above, we are aware, is not large;
but the spirit of the transaction is more than the amount.  He never
would take a sheet or a copy,  belonging to the State, at any  time.  If
he wanted  copies for distribution, he  has ordered them, and paid for
them out of his own purse.  In the matter of postages, he has also not
been less scrupulous and conscientious; having  always  paid  the ex-
presses for letters and  proof-sheets  to and from himself when he was
in tho country while his reports were printing.  In every thing in re-
latioi to the duties of his office, he has always been very exaet; situ- 
582
APPENDIX.
pulous and uniform in the discharge of his duties, so far as the matter
of printing is concerned.  We  believe the State owes Mr.  Mann a
great debt;  and, if the simple facts here stated will help his cause, we
feel we are  only doing an act of justice to  him as an officer of the
strictest integrity.
         " With sentiments of respect and esteem,
                     " Your obedient servants,
                                   " Duttox & Wextwoutit,
                                                  " State Printers."
  On this letter the Report remarks: —
  " The  letter from Messrs. Dutton &  Wentworth is quite remarka-
ble, as proving the scrupulous  sense  of justice  and  honor  that has
marked Mr. Mann's discharge of his late office.  To use an expression
which bears the stamp of his own  peculiar richness  of illustration, he
has been careful 'to shake the gold-dust from his garments whenever
he has had occasion to go into the  public mint.'"*

  William B. Fowle, Esq., bookseller, and publisher of the " Common-
school Journal " during the last six years of the time  that Mr. Mann
was its editor, being called upon for information by the committee, at-
tested as follows: —
  " It alwa3*s appeared to me  that Mr. Mann had set his heart  upon
the great work of resuscitating the school-system, at any sacrifice to
himself of ease or property.  I  never knew what resources he had; but
I often wondered at the liberality,  or what to me  seemed the prodigal-
ity, of his donations;  and yet the expenditure of his  money must have
been to him  a trifle,  compared with the outlay of strength  which I
often witnessed.  I often warned  him  of his danger when I  saw him
suffering from an overworked brain: but he never desisted, though he
admitted  the danger;  for the work was to be done,  and if neglected,
though beyond  human strength,  the community, not knowing this,
would  consider  him unfaithful.  This was his greatest sacrifice in the
cause of education; but, as no pecuniary estimate can be set upon this,
perhaps I should not have alluded  to it.  I have known him for weeks

  * WhMe Mr. Mann was a candidate for the office of Governor of Massachusetts
(as before mentioned), he was informed that an emissary of one of the political
parties opposed to him had been at the State House for three days, overhauling
the accounts and official  records made  by him while Secretary of the  Board of
Education, in hopes to find or create some pretext for impeaching his conduct.
"Let him get a microscope," said Mr. Mann, "and blind himself with looking.
He will not only find no stain in  my official conduct, but I hope the examination
of it will make him an honester man." 
APPENDIX.
583
to be unable to sleep.  When Mr. Mann entered upon his duties, it
was evident that his efforts would be very restricted if he did not con-
trive to scatter the information he collected.  Indeed, the law required
that he should both collect and distribute; but the State made no pro-
vision  for the distribution!   As the most  popular  and economical
method of complying with the requirements of the law, Mr. Mann com-
menced the ' Common-school Journal.'  At the end of the fourth year,
when I became the publisher, the receipts had fallen short  of  the ex-
penditures.  Since that time, viz. for six years, the loss has not fallen
upon Mr. Mann; but he has continued to edit the ' Journal,' because he
considered it essential to the success of the great cause.
  " The volumes  contain many valuable documents which it was im-
portant to scatter widely over the State.  It was Mr. Mann's custom
to print extra numbers of these, and distribute  them gratuitously to
the schools.  I recollect three or four cases in which he sent a copy
to every district, of which there  must have been  three or four  thou-
sand. . . .
  " Probably each of these donations  cost him  seventy-five  dollars.
Many single volumes of the ' Journal,' and sometimes whole sets, were
given away for the general good; but of this I have no record, though
I kriow the volumes amounted to hundreds.
  " The compilation of the volume of abstracts was a heavy task : but,
besides making this, he actually paid  for the making of the index;
which, I know (for I made one of them), is no slight affair. . . .
  " Two other items have occurred to me; and they should be men-
tioned, as helping to illustrate  the perfect forgetfulness of self which
marked the official course of Mr. Mann.
  " Three or four years ago, when outline maps began to be used in
schools, it became proper that the pupils of the Normal schools should
be taught how to  use tbem.  As the  Board of Education had no funds,'
Mr. Mann paid for three sets, one for each school.  The price is twen-
ty-five dollars a set.
  " Before Mr. Mann went to Europe, I had frequent conversations
with him on the subject of European schools; and he regretted that he
had not that personal knowledge which would enable him to compare
them with our own, and to propose such improvements as would really
advance our own.  I think this was his only motive in going; for he
visited nothing but schools, and returned as soon as possible.  The ex-
penses of his visit must have exceeded his salary ten or fifteen hundred
dollars; and, on his return, I proposed to him to put his notes into the
form of a book, and let me publish them, assuring him that the copy- 
584'
APPENDIX.
right would  produce more, than he  had expended beyond his salary.
His reply was, that he was a public officer, and went  for the public,
and the public were entitled to the information, free of any such tax.
His remarks, therefore, were thrown into his Seventh Annual Report,
and given to the State."

  After paying  a merited tribute of respect to the  Hon. Edmund
Dwight for his well-known liberality in the same cause, the committee
close their report with the following paragraph, and with a resolve for
paying out of the treasury of the Commonwealth "the  sum of two
thousand dollars in favor of Horace Mann, late Secretary of the Board
of Education :" —
  " The committee do not propose, as they feel confident that it would
not be  agreeable  to Mr. Mann, to make out an exact account of  what
the State may owe him in dollars and cents.   He does  not desire, and
would not be willing, to be fully re-imbursed ; but, before all money that
the treasury of the Commonwealth contains, he prefers to cherish  the
happy  and noble thought, that he has labored  and suffered in her
behalf.  Be asks for nothing, and  has had no voluntary agency in this
movement.  Nothing would be more repugnant to his well-known sen-
sibilities than to hive a claim urged upon the State- for  an exact settle-
ment of his  accounts with it upon  mere business principles.  What he
has done, he meant, at the time, for a gift; and the committee do not
propose to deprive him of the title of a benefactor.  They do not pro-
pose to pay Mm. off; but, under the circumstances, they are of opinion
that the passage  of  the following  resolve, although not, amounting by
half to what, upon a strict computation, is equitably due to him, would
be more agreeable to his feelings than a more precise remuneration."

  From authentic information, we are able to say that this sum was but
a very  small part of what had  been paid by Mr.  Mann from his own
pocket, in furtherance of the cause of education, while he was Secreta-
ry of the Board;  but, inadequate  as a remuneration though it was, it
was in the highest degree honorable both to giver and receiver.  Before
any one complains of" Massachusetts for not. doing more, let him  point
to a single State in our Union, or to a single government in the world,
wliich  under such  circumstances, and  for such  a clays  of services,
would have done as much. We believe the resolve was  passed in both
Houses without a dissenting vote. 
APPENDIX.
585
                              B.

      "CODE  OF HONOR,"  FALSELY SO  CALLED.

  At a convention  composed of delegates from colleges in the State
of  Ohio,  assembled  at Columbus,  Dec. 29,  1856,  the following
resolutions, designed to promote the internal  tranquillity, the  literary
progress, and the exemplary conduct, of students, were unanimously
adopted; and  a  committee, consisting  of the Hon.  Horace  Mann,
President of Antioch College, the Rev. Jeremiah  Hall, President of
Denison University, and the Rev. Dr.  Solomon Howard, President of
Ohio University, were appointed to prepare an address to the faculties
of colleges in the  State of Ohio, setting forth more fully and argumen-
tatively the subject-matter of the resolutions,  and to cause  the same to
be printed and distributed: —

  Whereas  a  sentiment very  generally  prevails in  colleges  and
schools, that students ought, as far as possible, to  withhold all informa-
tion, respecting the misconduct of their fellow-students, from  faculty
and teachers;
  And  whereas this sentiment is often  embodied in what is  called a
code of honor, by  whose  unwritten,  and therefore  uncertain  pro-
visions,  students are often tempted or  constrained, under fear of ridi-
cule or contempt or violence, to connive  at the offences of their fellow-
students beforehand, or to screen them from punishment afterwards;
  And u-hereas a  bounty is  thus offered for the commission of wrong,
in the impunity which is secured to the wrong-doer: therefore
  Resolved,  That a college or school is a community,  which, as an
essential condition of its prosperity, must, like  any other community, be
governed by wise and wholesome laws  faithfully administered.
  And  farther resolved, That  as he  is a good citizen, and  in  the
highest  degree  worthy  of the  gratitude of the community, where he
dwells, who, knowing that an offence is about to be.committed, promptly
interposes to prevent it; and  as  he is a  bad citizen, and worthy the
condemnation  of all good  men,  who, knowing that an  offence  has
been committed, withholds testimony or suborns witnesses to shield  the
culprit from the  consequences of his  crime :  so, in  a college  or in  a
school, he is a good student, and a true friend  of all other students, who
by any personal influence which  he  can exert, or by any information
wliich he can impart, prevents the commission of offences that are medi-
tated, or helps to  redress the wrongs already committed; and  that he
is a bad student, who, by withholding evidence, or by false and evasive
testimonv, protects offenders, and thereby encourages the repetition of
offences; and further,  that as civil society cannot  attain  those ends
of* peace and prosperity for which it was constituted if it should suffer
accomplices in crime or accessories, either before or after the fact, to
remain or go at large among its members:  so no college or school  can
ever reach the nobTe purposes of its institution should it permit con- 
586
APPENDIX.
 federates or accessories in vice or crime to remain  enrolle il among ita
 members.
   And whereas one great object of penal  discipline is the reformation
 of the offender : therefore
   Resolved, That just in proportion as the students of any institution
 will co-operate with its government in maintaining order and <*ood
 morals, just in the same proportion should the government of such insti-
 tution become more lenient and parental, substituting private  expostu-
 lation for public censure,  and healing counsel for wounding punish-
 ments.
   The committee  appointed at the convention above named, to pre-
 pare an address to the faculties of  the colleges above referred to, have
 attended to the duty assigned them, and submit the following

                            REPORT.
   Unhappily, no person needs to be informed that a feeling of antago-
 nism towards teachers often exists among  students.  The hostile rela-
 tion of distrust and disobedience  supplants the filial one  of trust and
 obedience.  Such  a relation necessitates more or less of coercive disci-
 pline ; apd discipline, unless when administered in the highest  spirit of
 wisdom and love, alienates  rather than  attaches.   Though  it may
 subdue opposition, it fails to conciliate the affections.
   A moment's consideration must  convince the  most simple-minded
 that the idea of a  natural hostility between teachers and  pupils  is not
 merely wrong, but ruinous.   Without sympathy, without mutual affec-
 tion, between  instructors and instructed, many  of the noblest purposes
 of education are wholly baffled and lost.   No student can ever learn
 even the most abstract science from a teacher whom he dislikes as well
 as from one whom he loves.   Affection is an element  in which all the
 faculties of the mind as well as all the virtues of the heart flourish.
   Springing from  this deplorable sentiment of a  ratural antagonism
 between teachers and students, an actual belligerent  condition ensues
 between them.  One party promulgates laws :. the other disobeys them
 when it dares; or, what is an evil only one degree less in magnitude
 than actual disobedience, it renders but a formal or compulsory compli-
 ance, — there being, in  strictness, no obedience but that of the  heart.
 One party enjoins duties: the other evades or grudgingly performs
 them.   Prohibitions are clandestinely violated.  A rivalry grows up
 between the skill and vigilance that would detect, and the skill and
 vigilance that would evade detection.   Authority on the one side, and
fear on the other, usurp the place of love.   Aggression and counter-
aggression, not friendship and co-operation, become the motives of con-
duct ; and the college or the school  is a house divided against itself 
                           APPENDIX.                       587

  We gladly acknowledge that there are practical limits both on the
side  of faculties and  of students to these  deplorable results.   Still,
students do bear about a vast amount of suppressed and latent opposi-
tion  against  faculties and teachers, which, though never developing
itself in overt acts of  mutiny or indignity, yet mars the  harmony, and
subtracts from the usefulness, of all  our educational institutions.
  Though all students do not partake of this feeling of hostility towards
teachers, or in the practice  of disobedience to their requirements, yet,
as a  matter of fact, the wrong-doers have inspired the right-doers with
something  of their sentiments, and coerced them as auxiliaries into
their service.  A feeling almost universally prevails throughout the
colleges and schools of our country, that the students in each institution
constitute of themselves a kind of corporation, and that this corporation
is bound to protect and defend, with the united force of the whole body,
any  individual member who may be in peril of discipline, although that
peril may have been incurred by his own misconduct.   If, then, there
is a  corporation bound together by supposed collective interests, it is
certain that this body will have its laws; and, as laws will be ineffica-
cious without penalties, it will have its penalties also.  These laws, by
those who are proud to uphold  and prompt to vindicate  them, are
called  the  code  of  honor, —a,  name which  at once arouses the
attention and attracts the sympathies of ardent and ingenuous youth.
Bein<- unwritten laws, with undefined penalties, both law and penalty
will, at all times, be just what  their framers and executors choose  to
make them.   But unwritten laws  and undefined penalties are of the
very essence of despotism;  and hence  the sanctions for violating this
code of honor, so called, are often terrible, — so unrelenting  and inex-
orable, that few, even of the most talented  and virtuous members of our
literary institutions, dare to confront and brave them.   Often they are
the  very reverse of the old Roman  decree of banishment; for that only
deprived a citizen of fire and water, whereas these burn or drown him.
They often render it impossible for any supposed offender  to remain
among the students whose vengeance he has incurred.
   The requisitions of this code are different in different places and at
different times.   Sometimes they are simply negative, demanding that
a student shall take care to be absent when any thing culpable is to be
committed, or silent when called  on as  a witness for its exposure.
Sometimes they go farther, and demand evasion, misrepresentation, or
even falsehood, in order to  screen a fellow-student or a  fellow-conspir-
ator from  the  consequences of his misconduct;  and  sometimes any
one  who exposes  not merely a violator of college regulations, but  an 
588                       APPENDIX.
 offender against the laws of morality and religion, in order that he may
 be checked in his vicious and criminal career, is stigmatized as an " in-
 former," is pursued with the shafts of ridicule or the hisses of contempt,
 or even visited with some form of wild and savage  vengeance.
   It is impossible not to see, that, when  such a  sentiment becomes the
 "common  law" of a literary institution, offenders will  be  freed  from
 all salutary fear of detection and  punishment.  Where witnesses will
 not testify, or will testify falsely, of course the culprit  escapes.   This
 security from exposure becomes a premium on transgression.  Lawless-
 ness runs riot when the preventive police of virtuous sentiment and of
 allegiance  to order is blinded and muzzled.   Thus, at the very outset,
 this  code of honor  inaugurates  the reign  of dishonor and shame.
 Judged, then, by its fruits, what condemnation  of  such  a code can be
 too severe ?
   But, in the outset, we desire to  allow to this feeling, as  we usually
 find it, all that it can possibly claim under any semblance of justice or
 generosity.  When, as doubtless it  sometimes happens, one student
 reports the omissions or  commissions of another to a college faculty
 from motives of private ill-will or malice ; or when one competitor in
 the race  for college honors, convinced that he  will be outstripped  by
 his rival unless he can fasten upon that  rival some weight of suspicion
 or odium,  seeks to disparage  his character instead of surpassing his
 scholarship; or when any  mere tattling is done for any mean or low
 purpose  whatever, — in all such cases,  every one must acknowledge
 that the conduct  is reprehensible and  the motive  dishonoring.   No
 student can gain any advantage with any honoraBIe teacher by such a
 course.   The existence of any  such case supplies  an occasion for ad-
 monition which no faithful  teacher will  fail to  improve.  Here, as in
 all other eases, we  stand upon the axiomatic truth, that the moral
 quality of an action is determined by the motive that prompts it.
   But suppose, on the other hand, that the opportunities of the diligent
 for study are  destroyed by the disorderly, or  that public  or private
 property is wantonly sacrificed or destroyed by the maliciously mischiev-
 ous; suppose  that indignities  and  insults are  heaped  upon  officers,
 upon fellow-students, or upon neighboring citizens; suppose  the laws
 of the land or the higher law of God is broken, — in these cases, and in
 cases kindred  to  these, may a  diligent  and exemplary  student, after
 finding that he cannot arrest the delinquent by his own friendly counsel
or remonstrance, go to the  faculty, give them  information  respecting
the case,  and cause the offender to be brought  to  an account ? or, if
called before the faculty as  a witness, may he testify fully and  frankly 
-  APPENDIX.
589
to all he knows?   Or in other words, when a  young man, sent to
college for the highest of all earthly purposes, — that of preparing him-
self lor usefulness and  honor,— is wasting time, health, and character
in wanton mischief, in  dissipation, or in profligacy, is it dishonorable in
a fellow-student to give information to the proper authorities, and thus
set a new instrumentality in motion, with a  fair  chance of redeeming
the offender from ruin ?   This is the question.   Let us examine It.
   As set forth in the resolutions,  a college is a community.   Like
other communities, it has its objects, which are anions the  noblest: it
has its laws indispensable for accomplishing those objects;  and these
laws, as  usually framed,  are salutary and impartial.  The laws are foi
the benefit of the community to be governed by them ;  and without the
 laws, and without a general observance of them, this community, like
any other, would accomplish its ends imperfectly, — perhaps come to
 ruin.
   Now, in any civil community, what class of persons is it which arrays
 itself in opposition to  wise and salutary laws?   Of course, it never is
 the honest, the virtuous, the exemplary.   They regard  good laws as
 friends and protectors.   But horse-thieves, counterfeiters,  defrauders
 of the custom-house or post-office, — these, in their several departments,
 lea"-ue together, and  form conspiracies to  commit  crimes beforehand,
 and to protect each  other frbm punishment afterwards.   But honest
 farmers, faithful mechanics, upright merchants, the high-toned profes-
 sional man, — these have no occasion for plots and perjuries; for they
 have no offences to hide, and no punishments torfear.  The first aspect
 of the case, then, shows the paternity of this false idea of " honor "
 amon" students.  It  was borrowed from rogues  and knaves and pecu-
 lators and scoundrels  generally, and not from men  of honor, rectitude,
 and purity.   As it regards students, does not the analogy hold true to
 the letter ?
   When incendiaries or burglars, or the meaner gangs of pickpockets,
 are abroad, is not he by whose vigilance and skill the perpetrators can
 be arrested, and their depredations stopped, considered a public bene-
 factor '(   And if we  had been the victim of arson, housebreaking, or
 pocket-picking, what should we think of a witness,  who, on  being sum-
 moned  into  court,  should refuse  to give  the  testimony  that would
 convict  the offender ?  Could we think any thing better of such a dumb
 witness  than that he was an  accomplice, and  sympathized with the
 villany?  To meet such cases, all our courts are invested with power
 to deal with such contumacious witnesses in a summary manner.  Re-
 fusing to testify, they are adjudged guilty of one of the grossest offences 
590
APPENDIX.
a man can commit; and they are forthwith  Imprisoned, even without
trial by jury.  No community could subsist for a month,  if every-
body, at his own pleasure, could refuse to give evidence in court.  It
is  equally certain that no college could subsist as a  place for the
growth of morality, and not for Its extirpation, if its students should
act, or were allowed to act, on the principle of giving or withholding
testimony  at their own option.  The same principle, therefore, which
justifies courts in  cutting off recusant witnesses from society, would
seem to justify # college faculty in cutting off recusant students from a
college.
   Courts,  also, are armed with power to punish perjury; and the law
justly  regards this  offence as one of the greatest that can be  com-
mitted.  Following close after the offence of perjury in the courts is
the offence of prevarication or falsehood in  shielding a fellow-student
or accomplice from the consequences of his misconduct;  for, as the
moral growth keeps pace with the natural, there is Infinite  danger that
the youth who tells falsehoods will grow into the man who commits per-
juries.
   So a student who means to conceal the offence of a fellow-student,
or to divert investigation from the right track, though he may not tell
an absolute  lie,  yet Is in  a lying state of mind,  than which many a
sudden, unpremeditated lie, struck out by  the  force of a  vehement
temptation, is far less  injurious to character.   A lying state of mind in
youth  has its  natural- culmination in the falsehoods and  perjuries of
manhood.          ^
   When students enter college, they not only continue their civil rela-
tions, as men, to the officers of the college, but they come under new
and special obligations to  them.   Teachers assume much of the pa-
rental  relation towards students, and students much of the  filial rela-
tion towards  teachers.  A student, then, is bound to assist and defend
a teacher  as a parent, and a teacher is bound to assist  and defend a
student as a child.  The true  relation between  a college  faculty and
college students is  that which  existed between  Lord Nelson and his
sailors: lie did his  uttermost for them, and they did their uttermost
for him.
   Now, suppose  a student should see an incendiary, with  torch In hand,
ready to set fire  to the dwelling in which any one of us and  his family
are lying in unconscious slumber: ought he not, as a man,  to say  noth-
ing of bis duty as a student, to give an alarm, that we  may arouse and
escape?   Might we not put this question to anybody but the incendia-
ry himself, and expect an affirmative answer ? But if vices and crimes 
APPENDIX.
591
should become the regular programme, the practical order of exercises,
in a college, as they would to a great  extent  do if the vicious and
profligate could secure impunity through the falsehoods or the volunta-
ry dumbness of fellow-students; then, surely, all that is most valuable
and precious in a college would be destroyed in the most  deplorable
way; and who of us would not a hundred times rather have an incen-
diary set fire to his house while he was asleep, than to bear  the shame
of the downfall of an institution under his charge through the miscon-
duct  of its students?   And, in the eyes of all righfc«ninded men, It Is
a far  lighter offence  to  destroy a mere  material dwelling of wood or
stone than to  destroy that  moral fabric which is implied by the very
name of an educational institution.
   The student who would inform me  if he saw a cut-purse  purloining
the money from my  pocket, Is bound, by reasons still more cogent, to
inform me if he sees any culprit or felon destroying that capital, that
stock-in-trade, which consists in the fair  name or reputation of the col-
lege over which I preside.
   And what is the true relation which the protecting student holds to
the protected offender ?  Is it that of a real friend, or that of the worst
enemy ?    An offender tempted onward by the  hope  of impunity  is
almost certain to repeat his offence.  If repeated, it becomes habitual,
and will be repeated, not only with  aggravation in character, but with
rapidity of iteration ; unless, indeed, it be abandoned for other offences
vf a higher type.   A college-life filled with the meannesses  of clandes-
tine arts,  first spotted, and then  made  black all over  with omissions
and commission^  spent in shameful escapes from duty, and in enter-
prises of positive wrong still more shameful, Is not likely to culminate
in a replenished, dignified, and honorable manhood.  Look for such
wayward students after twenty years, and you would not go  to the high
places of society to find them, but  to the  gaming-house  or prison, or
some  place of infamous resort; or if reformation has intervened, and
an  honorable  life  falsifies the  auguries of a dishonorable  youth, no-
where will you hear the voice of repentance and sorrow more sad or
more  sincere than from the lips of the moral wanderer himself.  Now,
let us ask what kind of a friend is  he to another, who, when he sees
him just entering on the high road to destruction, instead of summon-
ing natural or  official guardians to save him, refuses to give  the alarm,
and thus clears away all the obstacles, and supplies all the facilities, for
his speedy passage to ruin ?
  If one student sees another just stepping into deceitful waters where
he will probably be  drowned, or proceeding along a pathway which 
592
APPENDIX.
 has a pitfall  in its track or a precipice at its end, is it not the impulse
 of friendship to shout his danger in his ear ?   Or if I am nearer than
 he, or can for any reason more probably rescue the imperilled from his
 danger, ought he not to shout to me ?  But a student just entering the
 outer verge of the whirlpool of temptation, whose narrowing circle and
 accelerating  current will soon ingulf him in the vortex of sin, is in direr
 peril than any danger of drowning, of pitfall, or of precipice; because
 the spiritual  life is more precious than the bodily.  It is a small thing
 to die, but a grt^t one to be depraved.  If a student will allow me to
 co-operate with him to save a fellow-student from death, why not from
 calamities which  are worse than death ?  He who saves one's character
 is a greater benefactor  than he who saves his life.   Who, then, is the
 true friend, — he who supplies the immunity which a bad  student de-
 sires, or the saving warning or coercion which he needs ?
   But young men are afraid  of being ridiculed if they openly espouse
 the side of progress, and of good order as one of the essentials to prog-
 ress.   But which is the greater evil,—the ridicule of the wicked, or the
 condemnation of the wise ?

            " Ask you why Warton broke through every rule ?
             'Twas all for fear that knaves would call him fool."

   But the student says, " Suppose I had been the wrong-doer, and my
 character and fortunes were in the hands of a fellow-student: I should
 not like to have him make report or give evidence against  me; and I
 must do as I ivould be done by." How short-sighted an<J one-sided is this
 view!  Suppose you had been made, or were  about to be made, the
 innocent victim of wrong-doing, would  you not then wish to have the
 past Injustice redressed, or the future  injustice averted?   Towards
 whom, then, should  your Golden  Rule be  practised, — towards the
 offender, or towards the party offended ?   Where a wrong is done,
 everybody is  injured, — the immediate  object of the wrong directly,
 everybody else indirectly; for every wrong invades the  rights and
 the sense  of safety which every individual, community, or body politic,
 has a right to enjoy. Therefore, doing as we would be done by to the
 offender, in such a case, is doing as we would not be done by to every-
 body else.  Nay,  if we look beyond  the present deed and the present
 hour, the kindest  office we can  perform  for the offender himself  is to
 expose and  thereby arrest him.  With such  arrest, there is great
chance that he will be saved; without it, there is little.
   Does any one still insist upon certain supposed evils incident to the 
APPENDIX.
593
     practice, should students give information of each  other's  misconduct,
     we reply, that  the practice itself would save  nine-tenths of the occa-
     sions for informing, and thus the evils alleged to belong to  the practice
     would  be almost wholly prevented  by it.  And  how much better is
     antidote than remedy!
       But  again : look at the parties that constitute a college.   A faculty
►    is selected from the community  at large for their supposed  competency
     for  teaching and training youth.  Youth are  committed to their care
     to be taught and trained.   The two parties are now together, face to
     face,— the one ready and anxious to impart and to mould, the other in
     a receptive and growing condition.   A case of offence, a case of moral
     delinquency, — no matter what, — occurs.  It is  the very point,  the
     very juncture, where the wisdom, the experience, the parental regard,
     of the one, should be brought, with all their healing influences, to bear
     upon the indiscretion, the rashness,  or the wantonness of the other.
     The parties were  brought into proximity for this identical purpose.
     Here  is the casus foederis.   Why  does not  one of them supply  the
     affectionate counsel, the preventive  admonition, the heart-emanating
     and heart-penetrating reproof, perhaps even the salutary fear, which
     the other so much needs? — needs now, needs to-day, needs at this very
     moment, — needs as much as  the fainting man needs a cordial, or a
     suffocating man air, or a drowning man a life-preserver.   Why is  not
     the anodyne, or the restorative, or the  support, given ?   Skilful phy-
     sician and desperate  patient are close together.  Why, then, at this
     most critical juncture, does not the living rescue the dying ?  Because a
     friend,  a pretended friend, holds it as a point of honor, that, when
     his  friend  is sick,—sick with a soul-disease, now curable, but in
     danger of soon becoming incurable,— he ought to cover up his malady,
     and keep the  ethical healer blind and far away !  When Cain said,
     '* Am I my brother's keeper ? " it was a confession of his  own  crime.
     But even that crime, great as it was, fell short of encouraging Abel to
     do wrong, and then protecting the  criminal that he might repeat his
     crime.
                                     " When we disavow
                  Being keeper to our brother, we're his Cain."

       Such is the whole philosophy  of that miserable and wicked doctrine,
     that it  is a point of honor  not to " report" — though from the most
     humane and Christian motives — the misconduct of a fellow-student to
     the faculty that has legitimate jurisdiction  over the case, and is bound
     by every obligation of  affection, of honor, and of religion,  to exercise
                  38 
591
APPENDIX.
 that jurisdiction with a single eye to the good of the offender  and of
 the community over which it  presides.  It is a foul doctrine.   It is a
 doctrine which every parent ought to denounce wherever ho hears it
 advanced,—at his table, his fireside, or in public.  It is  a doctrine
 which every community of students ought, for their own peace, safety,
 and moral progress, to abolish.  It Is a doctrine which every college
 faculty ought to banish from its halls, — first  by extracting it from its
 possessor, and expelling it alone; or, if  that severance be impossible,
 by expelling the possessor with it.

   The practicability of carrying out the views above presented is not
 an untried experiment.  In an institution with  which one of your
 committee  is officially connected  (Antioch  College),  the  doctrines
 above set  forth were  announced at  its  opening, and have now been
 practised upon for  a period of more than three years;  and they have
 been attended with the happiest results.   Such a degree of order, of
 regularity, and of exemplariness of conduct, has been secured, that for
 more than fourteen months last past, and with between three and four
 hundred students in attendance, not a single serious case for discipline
 has occurred.
   In some  respects, the experiment here referred to has been  tried
 under more than an average of favoring circumstances;  in  other re-
 spects, under less.  The institution was new.   There was no tradition-
 ary  sentiment  in regard to the  so-called  code of  honor  to  break
 down. In that organism the distemper was not chronic. And further:
 a  large portion  of  its  early members were of mature age, — persons
 who came  to college instead of being sent there, — whose head and
 hands were alike unsullied by idea or implement of rowdyism, and who
 looked with a high-minded disdain upon all  those brainless exploits
 which cluster under the  name  of college  " pranks " or  " tricks "  or
 " practical jokes."  We call them brainless, because there has scarcely
 been  a  new one for  centuries; the professors in these arts  bein-*
 compelled  to imitate, because they have too  little genius to invent.
 Indeed, their best palliation is that they are too witless to know  better,
 or that they suffer  under the misfortune of having silly fathers and
 silly mothers, who have  permitted their minds to remain in that simia
stage  of development through which they were passing  up towards
manhood^ for, at this stage, quadrumana and bimana will act alike.
   Another point in which the college referred to has enjoyed a great
advantage,  in regard to the motive-power actuating its students, ha9
been the presence of both sexes.  Each  sex has exercised a salutarv 
APPENDIX.
595
influence upon the other.  Intellectually  they have stimulated, .mor-
ally they have restrained, one another; and it is the opinion of those
who have administered the institution, that no other influence could,
in so short a time, have produced so beneficial  an effect.  To this, per-
haps, it should also be added, that this college discards all artificial
systems of emulation by prizes, parts, or  honors, as they are  called;
so that one of the  most powerful temptations to degrade  the standing
of a fellow-student, in the hope of advancing one's own, is removed.
   But, on the other hand, it is obvious that  an attempt by a single
college  to revolutionize  a public sentiment so  wide-spread, so deep-
seated, and so fortified by wicked purposes acting under  the disguises
of honor and magnauimity, must be an arduous and a perilous enter-
prise.  So true is this, that a hundred individual attempts successively
made, though followed by a hundred  discomfitures, would  supply no
argument against  the triumphant  success  of a combined and simulta-
neous  assault, by all our literary institutions, upon  the flagitious  doc-
trines of the " code of honor."  For while the virus of the code exists
in other seminaries, and in the public  mind generally, every new  stu-
dent must be placed, as it  were, in quarantine; and even  this  could
afford no adequate security that he would not  introduce the contagion.
It is  only when moral  health prevails  in the place  from which he
comes that we can be sure of maintaining it in the  place he enters.
   In the experiment here spoken of, the general doctrines set forth in
the resolutions, though announced and vindicated on  all proper occa-
sions, were not incorporated  into the college statutes, nor were they
presented to new students for signature  or  pledge;  but, when  any
student  fell  under censure,  he was then  required, under penalty of
dismission,  to yield an affirmative  acquiescence  to the  soundness
of these doctrines, and to make an express promise to abide by them.
 Only a single case of contumacy under this requirement has occurred
 for more than three years; and, so far as known, not a case of non-
fultilment of the promise.  Indeed, but few cases are left for the prom-
 ise to act upon.
   In conclusion, the committee would  express a confident opinion  that
 the proposed  revolution in public sentiment Is entirely practicable.
 The evil to be abolished  is an enormous one.  The reform would be
 not only relatively, but positively, beneficient.  The precedent already
 established, if it does not enforce conviction, at least affords encour-
 agement.   The  committee, therefore, recommend the doctrines set
 forth in the above resolutions to  the  faculties of all colleges, — espe- 
596                      APPENDIX.
cially to those In the State of Ohio, whom they more particularly rep-
resent, — for practical and immediate application.
                    On behalf of the committee,
                                                 HORACE MANN.


  The same  convention,  at the same  meeting,  also  unanimously
adopted the following resolutions : —■
  Whereas, Vicious and criminal men become more potent for mischief
in proportion  to the education they receive ;
  And ichertas,  If a man will be a malefactor, it is  better that he
should be an ignorant one than a learned one : therefore
  Resolved, That it be recommended to all the colleges in the State of
Ohio  summarily  to dismiss or expel students, who, without the per-
mission of their respective teachers, use any kind of intoxicating bev-
erages.
  Resolved, That it be recommended to all the colleges In the State of
Ohio  to prevent, by the most efficacious means within their power,
the  kindred, ungentlemanly, and foul-mouthed vices of uttering pro-
fanity and  using  tobacco.
                               O.

        LNTEMPERANCE,  PROFANITY,  TOBACCO.

  At  a meeting of the Ohio State Teachers' Association, held  at Co-
lumbus, Dec. 27, 1856, a committee — consisting  of the  Hon. Horace
Mann, II. H. Barney, Esq., Prof.  Marsh, Prof. Young, and G. E.
Howe, Esq. — was appointed to recommend some action respecting the
use of intoxicating liquors, profane  swearing, and  tobacco,  in the
schools and colleges of the State.
  The committee  afterwards submitted the following


                   REPORT AND RESOLUTIONS.

  Within  the crowded hours  of  the  association, it is  impossible for
your committee to make  an extended report.  Nor is it necessary for
them to do so.  On the first point, particularly, — that of using intox-
icating liquors, — what occasion have they to dwell ?  It is not any
far-off* calamity, removed to the other side of the  globe, or  hidden
In the recesses of antiquity, escaping assault and overtasking descrip-
tion ;  but  it  is among us and of us, a present, embodied, demoniac
reality, smiting as no pestilence ever smote, and torturing as  fire can-
not torture, destroying alike both body and soul.   It invades all ranks
and conditions of  men, and its retinue consists of every form of human 
APPENDIX.
597
misery.   In all  the land, there  is scarcely a family, there is not one
social circle, from which it has not snatched a victim : alas, from many,
how many !   No other vice marshals and heralds such  hosts to perdi-
tion.  It. besieges and makes captive the representatives of the people
in legislative halls, and  there gets its plans organized into law, where,
first and ehiefest, they should be  annihilated. It usurps the bench, and
there, under the guise of the sacred ermine, it suborns  the judiciary to
deny the eternal maxims and verities of jurisprudence and  ethics, and
to hold those prohibitions to be unconstitutional, and invasive of natu-
ral rights, which only conflict with their own artificial constitution and
acquired duly habits;  and it ascends the  sacred altar, and  when the
ambassador of God should speak like one of the prophets of old, or like
an inspired apostle, against drunkenness and drunkards, it lays the fin-
ger of one hand upon his lips, with the other it points to some wealthy.
somnolent  inebriate below, and the ambassador forgets his  embas-
sy, and  is silent.  No other vice  known upon earth has such potency
to turn  heavenly blessings into hellish ruins.  It is no extravagance to
say, that the sum-total of  prudence, of wisdom, of comfort, of exem-
plary conduct, and of virtue, would  have been to-day sevenfold what
they are throughout the world but  for the existence  of intoxicating
beverages  among men : and that the sum-total of poverty, of wretch-
edness,  of crime, and of sorrow, would not  be  one-tenth part  to-day
what they now are but for the same prolific, ever-flowing, overflowing
fountain of evil.   Youth, health, strength, beauty, talent, genius, and
all the susceptibilities of virtue in the human heart, alike perish before
it.   Its  history is a vast record,  which, like  the roll seen in the vision
of the prophet,  is written within and without, full of lamentation and
mourning and woe.
   No one  can  deny that intemperance carries ruin everywhere.   It
reduces the fertile farm to barrenness.   It suspends industry in  the
shop of the mechanic.   It banishes skill from the  cunning hand of the
artisan  and artist.  It  dashes to  pieces the locomotive of  the engineer.
It sinks the ship of the mariner.   It spreads sudden night over the solar
splendors of* genius at  its full-orbed, meridian glory.  But  nowhere is
it so ruinous, so direful, so eliminating and expulsive of all good, so ex-
pletive and redundant of all evil, as in the school and the college, as
upon the person and character of the student himself.   Creator of evil,
destroyer of good! — among youth, it  invests its votaries with the ful-
ness of  both prerogatives, and sends them out on the career of life to
suffer where they should  have  rejoiced,  to curse where they should
have blessed.
   Nor do the committee feel called upon to make any extended re-
marks upon the  vice of using profane language.   It is an offence em-
phatically  without temptation and  without reward.  It helps  not to
feed a man, nor to clothe him, nor to shelter  him.  It is not wit, it is
not music, it is not eloquence, it  is not poetry; but, of each of these, it
is the opposite.   Let a man swear ever so laboriously all his life, will
it add a feather to the softness ot his  dying bed ? will it give one solace
to the recollections of his dying  hour ?  No ; but even the most reck-
less man will acknowledge that  it will add bitterness  and anguish un-
speakable.   Were profanity as  poisonous to the  tongue as it is to the 
598
APPENDIX.
soul, did it blacken and deform the lips as it does the character, what a
ghastly spectacle would a profane  man  exhibit!  Yet to  the eye  of
purity and innocence, to the moral  vision of every sensible and  right-
minded man, lips,  tongue, and heart of every  profane swearer do look
ghastly and detbrmed as disease and iinpiety can make them.  How
must they look to the infinite purity of God !
   What an  ungrateful, unmanly, and ignoble  requital  do we make to
God, who gave  us these marvellous  powers of speech wherewith  to
honor  and adore, when we pervert the selfsame powers to dishonor
and blaspheme the name of the Giver!   Perhaps the most beautiful
and effective compliment anywhere to be found in the  whole  circle  of
ancient or modern  literature is  that which was paid by Cicero to the
poet Arc-bias, in the exordium of  the celebrated defence which  he
made on the trial of that client.  In brief paraphrase, as cited from rec-
ollection, it  was  something like this:  If, says  he, there is  in me any
talent, if I  have any faculty or power of  eloquence, il' I have  made
aught of proficient  y in those liberal and  scholarly studies wliich  at  all
times of my life  have been so grateful to me, this Arehhs, my client,
has a right to the command of them all; for he it was who taught them
tome:  he first inspired me with the ambition of being an advocate,
and he imbued me with whatever gifts of oratory I may possess.   It is
his right, then, to command the tribute of my services.
   If the great Cicero, standing in the presence of all the dignitaries  of
Rome, felt bound to acknowledge his obligations to the man who had in-
structed his youth, and helped to adorn the riper periods of his life, only
in a single department, how much more imperative the obligation upon
every ingenuous and noble  soul to praise and  honor  that great Being
who has endowed us with all we possess, and made possible whatever
we can rightfully hope for !
   There are certain situations  where none but the lowest and most
scandalous of men ever suffer themselves to swear.    Amongst all
people claiming  any semblance to decent behavior, the presence  of
ladies  or the presence of clergymen bans profanity.  How distorted
and abnormal is that state of mind  in which the presence of man can
suppress a criminal oath, but not the omnipresence of God !  A Chris-
tian should  be afraid to swear; a  gentleman should  be ashamed to.
Every pupil, as he approaches  the captivating confines of manhood,
should propose  to  himself  as a distinct  object to be a gentleman,  as
much as to  be a learned man; otherwise  he  is unworthy the sacred
prerogatives of learning.
   Your committee  have but brief space and time for the consideration
of the remaining topic.


   Among the reasons  against  the use of tobacco, they submit the fol-
lowing : —

   1. Tobacco is  highly injurious to health; being pronounced by all
physiologists and toxicologists to be among the most active and virulent
of vegetable poisons.  That consumers of tobacco sometimes live many
years does not disprove the strength of its poison, but only proves the
strength of the constitution that resists it; and that strength, instead of 
APpENDIX.
599
being wasted in resisting the poison, might be expended in making the
life of its possessor longer and more useful.
  2. It Is very expensive.   The average cost of supplying a tobacco-
user for life  would be sufficient  to purchase a good farm, or to build a
beautiful and commodious  house, or to buy a fine library of books.
Which course of life best comports with the dignity of a rational being,
— to puff and spit this value away, or to change it into garden and culti-
vated fields, into a nice dwelling", or into the embalmed  and glorified
forms of genius?   What  a difference it  would  make to the United
States and  to  the  world,  if the four hundred  thousand acres, now
planted with tobacco  within their limits, were  planted to  corn or
wheat!
   3. Tobacco-users bequeath weakened brains,  irritable nerves,  and
other forms  of physical degeneracy, to their children.   The factitious
pleasures of the parent inflict real pains upon his offspring.   The in-
dulgences of the one must be atoned for by the sufferings of the other;
theinnocent expiating  the offences of  the guilty.  Nor, in regard to
these personal and  hereditary injuries to the mind, would the commit-
tee stand merely upon the principle laid down by the physician, who,
when asked if tobacco Injured the brain, replied promptly in the nega-
tive ; for, said he, people who have brains never  touch it. _
   4. Tobacco-users are always filthy ; and we read of an infinitely de-
sirable kingdom into which no unclean thing can ever enter.
   5. Tobacco-users are always unjust  towards others.   They pollute
the atmosphere which other men desire  to breathe and have a right to
breathe in its purity.   A smoker or chewer may have a  right  to a lim-
ited circle of the atmosphere  around his own person: but he has no right
to stench the air for a rod  around him,  and half a mile behind  him ;
he has no right to attempt a geographical reproduction of river and lake
by the artificial pools and streams he  makes in steamboat and car.
   6. A tobacco-user is the common enemy of decency and good taste.
His mouth  and  teeth, which  should be the cleanest, he makes the foul-
est  part of him. When one sees a plug of nasty, coarse, liver-colored
tobacco, he pities the mouth  it  is destined to enter; but, when one sees
the mouth,  he pities the tobacco.
   7. The old monks used to  prove the pollutions of tobacco from Scrip-
ture ; ibr, said they, It is that which cometh out of the mouth that de-
fileth a man.
   8. It has been argued that the adaptation  of means to ends, which
characterizes all the  works of creation, intimates that snuff* should
never be taken; for, had  such been the design of Nature,  the  nose
would have been turned the  other end up.
   !). It may be fairly claimed,  that, if Nature had ever designed that
man should chew or smoke  or snuff, she would have provided some
place where the disgusting process  could be performed  systematically,
and with appropriate accompaniments;  but no such place or accompa-
niments have ever  yet been discovered.   Tobacco is unfit for the par-
 lor ; for that is the resort of  ladies, and should therefore be free from
 inspissated  saliva and putrefied odors.  It Is not befitting the dining-
 room, where its effluvia may be absorbed or its excretions be mingled
 with viand  and beverage.  Still less  does it befit the kitchen, where 
600
APPENDIX.
those culinary processes are performed which give savor and flavor to
all the preparations that grace the generous board.   It should not be
carried into the stable; for that is the residence of neat cattle.   And
the occupants of the sty itself would Indignantly quit their  premises,
should one more lost to decency than themselves come to befume or
bespatter or besnuff them.  There is no spot or place among animals
or men which the common uses of tobacco would not sink to a lower
defoliation.
  10. Swiftly tending to destruction as is the use of intoxicating bev-
erages ; vulgar, ungentlemanly, and sinful as are all the varieties of
profanity;  unjust and unclean as are the effusions and exhalations of
tobacco, — yet their separate and distinctive evils are aggravated tenfold
when combined and co-operating.  How abhorrent  to the senses and
the heart of a pure and upright man Is the wretch who abandons him-
self to them all! Physiology teaches us, that, as soon as alcohol is taken
into the stomach, Nature plies all her enginery to expel the invader of
her peace.   She does not wait to digest it and pass it away, as is done
with the other contents of the stomach; but she opens all her doors,
and summons all her ibrces, to banish it from the realm.  She expels it
through the lungs, through the mouth and nose, through the eyes even,
and  through  the seven  million pores of the skin.   So let tobacco be
taken into  the mouth, or drawn up, water-spout fashion, into the nose,
and  firemen  never worked more vehemently at a  fire, nor soldiers
fought more  desperately in a battle, than every muscle and  mem-
brane, every  gland  and emunctory, now struggles to wash away the
impurity.   Every organ, maxillary,  lingual,  labial,  nasal, even the
lachrymal,  pour out their detergent fluids to sweep the nuisance away.
Not a fibre or cellule, not a pore or sluiceway, but battles as for  life to
extrude the foul and fetid  intruder.   Hence expectoration, salivation,
the anile tears of the drunkard, and the idiot drool of the tobacco-user,
all attest the desperation  of  the efforts  which Nature is making to
defecate herself of the impurity.  When people first begin to drink or
chew or smoke, outraged Nature, as we all  know, often goes  into
spasms and convulsions through the vehemence of  her conflict for
escape.  Finally she succumbs, and  all  that constitutes the life of a
man dies before death.
  The apostle enjoins his disciples to keep their bodies pure  as a tem-
ple of the  Holy Ghost.  But, in such a body, what spot is there, what
space so large as a mathematical point, which the Holy Ghost, descend-
ing from the purity and sanctity of heaven, could abide in tor  a mo-
ment ?  Surely, when a man reaches the  natural consummation to
which these habits legitimately tend; when his whole commerce with the
world consists in his pouring  alcohol in and pouring  the impieties of
profanity and the vilenesses of tobacco out, — gurgitation and re<rurf>i-
tation, the  systole and diastole of his being, — he presents a spectacle
not to be paralleled in the brute's kingdom or in the  Devil's kingdom,
on the earth or " elsewhere."

  Your committee  submit the following resolutions: —

  Resolved, That school-examiners  ought never, under  any circum-
stances, to give a certificate of qualification to teach school to any per- 
APPENDIX.
601
son who habitually uses any kind of intoxicating liquors;  and  that
school-officers, when other things are equal, should systematically give
the preference to the total-abstinent candidate.
  Resolved, That all school-teachers should use their utmost Influence
to suppress the kindred, ungentlemanly, and foul-mouthed vices of ut-
tering profane language and using tobacco.
                   On behalf of the committee,
                                                 HORACE MANN.
                              JO.

                LETTER FROM MR.  COMBE.

  The following extracts from a letter of Mr. George Combe to the
Hon. Horace Mann and  Dr. Samuel G. Howe show in what  a sweet
spirit he received friendly criticisms: —

                       Gorgie Cottage,  Slateford, Dec. 31, 1840.
  My very dear Friends,— I have received your letters of the 28th
and 29th November, and esteem them as the highest and purest marks of
friendship which you could have bestowed on me.  Receive my cordial
thanks, and rest assured, that, painful as these  communications were,
they have  bound both of you to my affections with cords of double
strength.  It is only a real friend who will tell one disagreeable truths^
and I know well how to appreciate  such sincerity. I have written'and
printed an  Introduction, which I send to you partly as an  answer to
your letter.  And now for the remainder of the answer, which I could
not put in types, being  private in its nature.  I sent your  two letters
and my first volume to my brother, Dr.  Andrew Combe. He is a severe
judge in relation to my works, because  he values my reputation highly,
and he condemns freely.  He had read all the proofs; but I solicited a
reperusal of the volume under the new lights communicated by you : and
I told him that I was ready to burn the whole impression (the cost of
which was at that time $1,250), but that I could not write a better
work;  and asked his opinion, first, whether the work would do good in
Britain ; and secondly,  whether it would damage my reputation here.
He gave the whole a serious consideration, and expressed his  opinion,
that it would prove useful here, and that it would not damage my re-
putation, although it  would not advance it.   He regarded it  as just
such a book as a person acquainted  with my mind would  expect  from
me in the circumstances in which I was placed.  Here, then, I  have 
60'2
APPENDIX.
great authorities on opposite sides; and, as my own country naturally
claims a preference, I have decided to proceed  with the publication,
and  to sustain meekly all the  chastisement which will be inflicted on
me on your side of the Atlantic.   In  this view, your corre -tions are
highly valuable; and I have written to Dr. Bell  to give effect to them
all, except the remark about the license law, page 88.   I got that
from a Boston lawyer, a member of the Legislature, and a very able
and  excellent man;  and I am bound to state both sides.   I shall now
answer the only points that seem  to me to require notice;  keeping in
view that Dr. Bell will give effect  to all  your corrections, except that
relative to page 88. . . .
   The Introduction  will stand  in types here until you  answer this
letter, and I shall be happy to introduce all amendments and additions
that you may suggest.  I solicit your future corrections and remarks
as freely as you  like, and that you will  send them to Dr. Bell.  He
will  omit whatever you desire.  And  now, my very valued and dear
friends, accept of the best wishes and grateful thanks of
                        Yours most sincerely,
                                                   GEO. COMBE.

                         Gorgie Cottage, Slateford, Dec. 31, 1840.
To the  Hon. Horace Mann.
   My much-valued  Friend.— The prefixed is an epistle for you
and Dr. Howe jointly; and now let me thank you personally and in-
dividually for your truly friendly letter.   The only point for which I
blame you is for not seeing what I told you personally, that, in hoc statu,
I am not capable of  writing a better book.  My mind was constantly
occupied by phrenology.   My  individuality is small,  and my mental
processes are performed  slowly.  Hence I  could do no  more than I
have done.  I could not devote  two  years to study and to sending my
manuscripts to America, because in June I go to  Germany in the great
cause; and, as soon as this journal is  completed, I shall commence a
serious study of German, with a view to lecture in that language next
winter.  This brooks no delay;  for the braiu at  fifty-two is stiff,  and
every year renders it less capable of receiving new impressions. 
INDEX.
                  A.
Abolition of slave-trade in District  of
  Columbia, 275.'
Abolitionism. —Letters  to S. J. May,
  1GS-170.
Abstract of school returns, 120,151.
Adams, J. Q., death of, 259.
Adams, \V. J., 232.
Address of J. C.  Calhoun in 1818 on dis-
  union, 2*3, 274, 203.
Admission to bar, 32.
Advocate teachers, 251.
Almack's ball, 190.
" American Notes," by G. Combe, 137,
  145, 148, 150.
Ammon, Hof-prediger, 207.
Amsterdam. — K. Sybrandi, 213.
Antislavery letters and speeches, 350.
Antislavery. — Southern excitement  in
  1818, 253.
Antioch College: —
    aid to students, 493, 497.
    appointment  as president, 383.
    appointment  of teachers, 448.
    baccalaureate, 547, 554.
    Badger's recollections, 452.
    buildings, 404.
    Christy's eulogy, 450.
    " Code of Honor," 514.
    Commencement  day of 1857, 502.
    correspondence with Rev.  A. Craig,
     407, seq.
    difficulties of an institution for both
     sexes, 423.
    discipiinc, 439, 515, 518, 519.
    discipline of preparatory school-
     boys, 503.
    first Faculty-meeting, 386.
    inauguration, 400.
    incidents of domestic life, 418.
Antioch College: —
    inconveniences of  new buildings,
      405.
    intemperance, 411.
    invitation to Rev. A. Craig to Chris-
      tian Church, 481, seq.
    lecturing tour, 470.
    letters to O. J. Wait, 531, seq.
    morals of the institution, 411.
    pecuniary affairs, 500-573.
    prejudice against color, 443.
    removal to private residence, 415.
    resolutions of student s for order, 437.
    sectarian difficulties, 431, 450.
   ' teachers for college, 395, 429.
    tobacco, 410.
    trouble in the Faculty, 598.
    uncultivated state of society, 409.
Archbishop Whately, 182, 100.
Arithmetic, 351.
Arnott, D., 184.
Athseneum, 78.
Attack  upon   Board  of  Education  iu
  Boston Recorder, 209.
Austin, Daniel, 188, 483,  403,  497, 513,
  542.
Austin, J. T., 290.
Austria, education in, 207.
Aztec children, 390.

                  B.
Baden-Baden dungeons, 210.
Badger, H. C,  452.
Bailey, G., 993.
Baker, (I.E., 343,344.
Baltimore, visit to, 120.
Bar, admission to, 32.
Barnard, Dr. II., 372, 373.
Barnard, Kev. Chas., 114.
Bates, Hon. Win., 233.
                         303 
 604


 Beecher, II. W., as a lecturer, 387.
 Beggars in Prussia and Saxony, 208.
 Bellows, Rev. H. W., 538, 512.
 Benevolent institution»of Holland, 212.
 Bequest of Mr. Tuttle, 246.
 Berlin, 109.
 Bills.   Abolition of slave-trade,  D. C,
      275.
    California.
    Canada corn, in Parliament, 185.
    fugitive-slave, 320, 329, 333, 357.
    Omnibus bill defeated, 311, 312.
    Palfrey's speech, 275,313,319,323,325.
    temperance, 302.
    Territories, 276, 291, 318, 320.
 Bingen, 211.
 Biography for children, 376.
 Blind institution, 09.
 Blue-coat school, 185.
 Board of Education : —
    attack in 1814, 225.
    attack on by school-book makers, 227.
    attack on in Boston Recorder, 109.
    attack on in Legislature, 122.
    failure of attack, 125.
    meetings, 103.
    organization, 72, 83.
    second attack, 147,150.
    secretaryship, 70, 76, 78, 80.
 Bodleian Library, 223.
 Bohemia, Mr. Noel, 207.
 Boston Bee, 327.
 Boston, removal  to, 39.
 Boston schoolmasters, 231, 236, 240, 246.
 Botanical gardens, Leyden, 214.
 Briggs, Gov., 117, 242.
 Brimmer, Martin, donation of, 166.
 Brown, Wm. J., 282.
 Brougham, Lord, 67.
 Brown University, tutor at, 29.
 Brussels school-laws, 216.
 Buchanan, J., 354, 489.
 Buckland, Dr., 224.
 Burlingame, A., speech of, 383.
 Burns, Anthony, 461.
 Bushnell, D, as a lecturer, 387.

                  C.
Cabell, M. C, from Florida, 356.
Cabinet. Pierce's, 309.
Calhoun, J. C.: —
    speech, 273, 274.
    death, 203, 298.
 Campbell, Dr., 287.
 Canada corn bill in Parliament, 185.
 Carlisle plea in  Drayton case, 271, 272.
 Carlsruhe, 210.
 Carlyle, Thomas, 180.
 Cary, G. L., 552.
 Cass,  L.,  bid for presidency, 337,  353,
  304.
 Cathedral at York, 101.
 Chadwick, E., 181.
 Chambers, Saxony, 206.
 Channing, Dr., 44, 52.
    effect of sermon by, 38, 52.
    his ministry, 70.
    letter from,  88.
    memoir of, 270.
    on Mr. Combe, 145, 156.
 Character, legal  and political, 33, 42.
 Charlottenberg mausoleum, 200.
 Chester cathedral, 177.
 Childhood, 10.
 Christ's hospital, 185.
 Christy, extract  from eulogy by, 451.
 Church of St. Ursula at Cologne, 212.
 Cincinnati,  127.
 Clap, E. W., correspondence with,  2M,
  285, 289, 345, 346, 370.
 Clay, IL, 282, 288, 289, 292, 309, 371.
    character of, 282, 288, 309, 303.
    on Texas, 337.
 Clemens of Alabama, 381.
 Cobb, Howell, 283.
    committees appointed, 285.
    Speaker in 1849, 283.
 Coblentz, 211.
 " Code of Honor," 585.
 College: —
    Antioch (see Antioch College).
    graduation from, 28.
    national training, 181.
    preparation  for, 21.
Cologne, Doni church, 211.
Color, prejudice  to, 443.
Colored school in Washington, 355.
Commencement, lirst, 502.
Combe, Dr. A.: —
    death of, 257.
    memoir, 336.
Combe, George,  47, 105, 131.
    article in " Edinburgh Review," 207.
    "Constitution of  Man," 71.
    death of, 519.
    *' Moral Philosophy," 137. 
INDEX.
605
Combe, George : —
    " Notes on America," 139, 601.
Common-school Journal, 106,108.
    for 1841, extracts, 161.
    for 1842, 159.
Compromise measure, remarks on, 346.
Conant, E., correspondence with, 509,
  528.
Congressional morals, 333.
    life, 336.
    life in 1848, 277.
Contest for President in 1852, 353, 356,
    358, 363, 370, 372, 376.
Controversy: —
    Boston schoolmasters, 231.
    Common-school, 225.
    Episcopalian. 225.
    Matthew Hale Smith, 255.
    Phillips, 391.
Conventions at: —
    Barnstable, 120.
    Barre, 136.
    Bridgewater in 1840, 135.
    Dedham, 120.
    Franklin County, 136.
    Greenfield  in 1839, 107.
    Nantucket iu 1837, 88.
    New Mexico, 303, 304, 322, 323.
    New-York State School,  239, 244,
      248.
    Pittsfield, 136.
    Plymouth, 120.
    Salem, 91.
    Springfield in 1838, 105.
    Syracuse, N. Y., of State schools,
      239, 244, 248.
    Taunton, 105.
    Topsfield, 105.
    Utica, 1842, 162.
    Various places, 105, 107, 118, 165.
    Wellfleet, 135.
Corcoran libeiality, 395.
Craig, Rev. A.: —
    character, 468, 471, 473, 474, 470, 479,
      480, 481, 483, 480, 490, 491, 408, 500,
      502, 503, 504, 507.
    connection with Antioch, 508.
    correspondence with,  350,  382, 386,
      387, 390, 447, 405, 466.
    crime, remarks on, 306.
    withdraws from  Antioch,  511, 517,
      514.
Cromyer, D., letter to,  520.
                  D.
Dallas, Vice-President, 354.
Darmstadt schools, 209.
Davis, A. J., 390.
Davis, Jeff., 399.
Deaf mute school in Berlin, 198.
Deaf mute  school in Groningen, 214,
  290.
Death of first wife, 37, —
    D. P. King, 309.
    Dr. A. Combe, 257.
    Dr. Messer, 40.
    G. Combe, 519.
    H. Clay, 371.
    J. C. Calhoun, 298.
    J. Q. Adams, 259.
    Robert Rantoul, 378.
Debating society, letter to, 349.
Dedham, Fourth-of-July oration, 33.
Dedham, life in, 35.
Delegation from Free Church in Scot-
  land, 229.
Discipline of prisons, 187.
Disunion, 315.
Dix, Miss, 57, 189, 326, 330, 334. 380, 381,
  395.
Doherty, Wm. H., 498, 503, 533.
Donation to Normal schools, 101.
    of M. Brimmer, 106.
Douglas, S. A.,  354.
Dow, Neal, 348, 364.
Downer, Samuel, correspondence with,
  47, 296, 304, 310, 3!2, 313, 314, 315, 317,
  319, 326, 327, 329, 335, 341, 356, 359, 377,
  384, 393, 401, 444, 445, 450, 451, 458, 459,
  461, 475, 476, 408, 505, 512, 521, 543.
Drayton and Sayres, 260, 265, 269, 270,
  271, 275, 280, 379, 400.
Dresden Gallery, 202.
Dresden green-rooms, 202.
Dungeons of Baden-Baden, 210.
Dutton & Wentworth, 581, 582.
Dwight, Edmund, 07, 70, 78,100,102, 584.

                  E.
Early habits, 15.
Eaton Hall, 175.
Edinburgh schools, 192.
Education: —
    at the West, 251.
    importance  of, 520.
    in other States, 143, 257. 
606
INDEX.
Education: —
    in Austria, 207.
    in England, 177.
    of liis own children, 257, 259.
Educational report, first, 08.
Educator, Mr. Mann as, 59.
Emerson, G. B., 581.
Emerson, R. W., 51, 9G.
Emmons, Dr , 13.
English education, 177.
Eulogy by Christy, 454.
European tour, 175.
Everett, Edward, 395.

                  F.
Fay, Rev. E., 365, 308, 546, 549, 551, 552.
Fifth annual report, 160.
Fillmore, M., 308, 310, 328, 362, 395.
Fire, incendiary, 72.
Fisher, Rev. G., 27.
Follen, Dr. C., opinion of Combe, 156.
Forbes, R. B., 254.
Foundling-hospital in Paris, 218.
Fourth-of-July oration in Boston, 143.
    iu Dedham, 33.
France, Normal schools of, 218, 361.
Franke institution at Halle, 201.
Free-soil discussions, 267, 282, 286, 290
    nomiuation of Mr. Mann, 272.
Frye, Mrs. E., 189.
Fugitive-slave law, 461.

                 G.
Gannett, Dr., on Antioch, 502, 513.
Garrison, W. L., 288.
    Gallaudet, 290.
Glasgow: —
    Normal school, 196.
    observatory, 107.
    poor, 106.
    royal insane asylum, 196.
    university, 197.
Gorgy, law school of, 357.
Gould, Judge, 30.
Graduation from college, 28.
Graham, Dr., 154.
Grant, Dea., 09, 72.
Green-rooms in Dresden, 202.
Greenwich hospital, 179.
Greenwood, Grace, 380.
Groningen deaf mute school, 214.
Guilford, Nathan, 127.
                  H.
Habits, early, 15.
Halle, Franke institution at, 201.
Hamburg, 108.
Hanwell lunatic asylum, 184.
Harrison, Gen., 127,140.
Health in England, 195.
Health, poor, 109, 121.
Hill, Thos., 442.
Uitclicook, Dr., discourse on  the  res-
  urrection, 451.
Hodgden, .Mr., 246.
Holbrook, S., 40.
Holland, benevolent institutions, 212.
Home, visit to, 102.
Home and colonial infant school, 184.
Hopkins, Dr., influence on Channing, 44
Horner, Leonard, 181.
Hospital for insane at Worcester, 56.
Hospital, Greenwich, 179.
Houston, Sam., 358.
Howe, Dr. S. G., 44, 461.
    at Columbia, S. C, 158.
    at Frankfort, 209.
Humphreys,  Dr., 107, 110.
Hutchinson, Dr., 1%.

                  I.
Idiot school,  N. Y., 475.
Improvability of the race, 284.
Inaugural, I'ierce's, 399.
Indians, Chapoquiddic, 88.
Indians, Marshpee, 8!).
Insane, bill for lands for, 302.
Insane Hospital at Worcester, 56.
Insane royal  asylum at Glasgow, 196.
Insane, treatment of at Paris, 217.
Institution for the blind, 09.
    Dr. Howe's excursions, 158.
" Intemperance, profanity, and tobacco,"
  596.
Intolerance, religious, 89.
Ireland, 253,  254, 255.
Irish rents, 230.

                  J.
Jackson, Andrew, challenge to Scott, 350.
Japanese museum, Leyden, 214.
Jardin des Plantes, 218.
Jarvis, Dr. E., letter to, 224, 266, 332.
Jones, Gen.,  281.
Journal, 65. 
INDEX.
607
                  K.
Key, District Attorney, 271, 281.
King, D. P., death of, 309.
King, T. Starr, letter from, 465.
Knapp, Elder, 248.
Konigstein and Lilienstein, 205.
Kossuth, 345, 350, 359, 371, 373, 376.
Morton, Gov., 122, 132.
Mott, Mrs., 392.
Museum, Japanese, Leyden, 214.
Muzzey, B. B ,  356.
    prosecution for libel, 400.

                  N.
National education at the West, 251.
National training college, 181.
Navy-yard, visit to, 7-S.
Nebraska bill, 459.
New  Mexico, convention, 303, 304, 322,
  323.
New  Orleans,  educational interests of,
  108, 159.
Normal school: —
    appropriation for, 161.
    at Glasgow, 190.
    at Lexington, 115, 119.
    at London, 181.
    house at West Newton, 228, 233,234,
      235, 248, 249, 250, 2S7.
    of France at Versailles, 318, 361.
Northern recreancy, 342.
Norwood and Newgate, 190.
" Notes on America," criticism, 139,145,
  148,150.

                  O.
O'Brien, Smith, 309.
Observatory, Glasgow,  197.
Ohio, removal  to, 402.
Omnibus bill, 311, 312.
Oration in Boston, 263.
    in Dedham, 33.
Oxford, 222, 223.

                   P.
Palfrey, J. G., 160, 275, 445.
Paris, treatment of insane at, 217.
    prisons, 219.
 Parker, T., religious views of, 463.
    correspondence, 250,  280, 282, 295,
      300, 301,  325, 350,  373, 376, 377. P85,
      390, 399,  400, 401, 445, 451, 459, 460,
      487,541,512,513.
Pecuniary misfortunes, 03.
Peirce, Rev. Cyrus, 110, 170, 228, 232, 234,
   240, 243, 244,  250, 200, 324, 341, 357, 360,
   375, 430, 499.
Pennell, C, 500.
 Pennell, Misses, 152.
 Pentonville Prison, 186.
                  L.
Law practice, 33.
     remarks on, 77.
     school, 31.
     study of, 29.
Lectures, 100, 104.
Lecturing tour, 470.
Legal character, 33.
Leipsic, 203.
Lexington Normal School, 115,119.
Leyden, 214.
    botanical gardens at, 214.
    Japanese museum at, 214.
Livingston,  Jon., sketch of Mr. Mann,
  33.
Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, 194.
Lunatic asylum, Pima, 204.
Luther,  Martin,  visit to his monastery,
  208.
                  M.
Mackinaw, letter from, 491, 505.
Mticonochi", Capt., 232, 237.
Magdeburg, 198.
Maine, Board of Education in, 251.
Marriage, first, 35.
     second, 175.
Marylebone workhouse, 190.
Mason, Lowell, 429.
Mass.  Temperance Society, 71.
May, Rev. S. J., 164, 165,  166, 163, 171,
  227,  23S, 244, 248, 251, 268, 271, 300, 331,
  347,  350, 350, 35S, 385, 475, 5.4.
Melancthon, 20S.
Melville, Major, 56.
Merrifield, A. M., 448, 538.
Message, Pres. Taylor's, 1850, 288.
Messer, Dr., death of, 29, 40.
Mexico, treaty with, 274.
Miller, Capt., 190.
 Misfortunes, pecuniary, 93.
 Monteagle. Lord, 191.
 Moral Philosophy, 137.
 Morals, Congressional, 333
 Morton, 390.
     political, 352. 
608                              INDEX.
Perry, Rev. M., 89.
Phillips controversy, 394.
Phillips, Jonathan, 96.
Pierce, Cyrus, 114, 103.
Pierce, President, Cabinet of, 399.
    inaugural, 399,
Pierpont, John, 147.
Pirna lunatic asylum, 204.
Pittsfield Institute, 243, 244.
Place de  la Concorde, 218.
Political campaign of 1856, 489.
    character, 34.
    morals, 352.
Politics in old and new world, 279.
Polk, 380, 381.
Potsdam Royal Orphan Home, 200.
    schools, 198.
Practice of law, 33.
Preparation for college, 21,
Presidential contest of 1852, 353, 376.
Primary  school teachers' meeting, 99.
Prisons of Paris,  210.
    for young offenders, Rotterdam, 216.

                  Q-
Quincy, Josiah, 545.
Quincy, Josiah, Jr., 235.

                  R.
Rantoul's death, 378.
Recorder, Boston, 109.
Re-election in 1850, 339.
Religious influences, early, 13.
    instruction  in schools, 237.
    intolerance, 89.
    qualifications of teachers, 261.
Removal to Boston, 39.
    Ohio, 402.
Remuneration for State services, 576.
Report, annual, 1844, 240.
    educational, first, 08.
    seventh Liverpool edition, 246.
Resolutions of Ohio State teachers, 596.
Rice, Dr., 185.
Riot among the Irish, 74.
Royal Orphan Home, Pottsdam, 200.
Russell, Win., 99.

                  S.
Sans Souci Palace, 198.
Saxon chambers,  206.
Saxon Switzerland, 204.
Saxony, 203.
  Schmid director, 203.
  School, blue-coat, 185.
     deaf mute, Berlin, 198.
     for boys, city of London, 182.
     Groningen deaf mute, 214.
     home and colonial infant, 184.
     returns, abstract, 120, 151.
  Schoolmasters, Boston, attack of, 231.
     Scotch, 107.
  Schools and schoolmasters,  106.
     Edinburgh, 192.
  Scotch delegation from Free Church, 229.
  Scott,  Gen.,  declines  Jackson's  chal-
   lenge, 350.
     candidate for Presidency, 351, 356,
       358, 364, 371, 374, 378.
  Sears, B., 287.
  Sectarianism, 366.
  Sedgwick, Miss, 105, 154, 393.
  Seward, Wm. H., 344.
  Shaw, Judge, 401.
     J. A., 108, 159.
  Shuttleworth, Kay, 181.
  Simpson, Jas., work on education, 85.
  Slade, Gov., 251.
  Slavery, 460.
  Slave-trade in District of Columbia, bill
   to abolish, 275.
  Smith, Gerrit, 473, 477.
  Smith, Matthew Hale, controversy, 255.
  Smithfield Market, 176.
  Southern excitement in regard to anti-
   slavery in 1848,. 200.
  Speech, Aug. 17, 380.
     Aug. 28, 581.
  Stofford House, 183.
  Storrs, Dr. E., 109.
  Stowe, Mrs., 389.
,     Prof.,  lecture on  religious instiuc-
       tion, 232.
  St. Paul's singing rehearsal, 183.
  Stuart's defence of Webster, 301.
  Sumner, Hon. C, correspondence with,
   45. 54, 91, 246, 249, 265, 275, 347, 348,
   379, 381,459, 486, 495, 501.
  Sybrandi, K., 213.
  Syracuse, convention at, 239.

                   T.
  Table-tipping, 376.
  Taft, Dr., 66.
  Tallmadge, speech by, 375.
I  Tariff party, 331,335. 
INDEX.
609
  Taylor, Gen.: —
     administration of, 305, 323.
     conversation with, 292.
     death of, 307.
     message of, 1850, 288.
     nomination, 264.
  Taylor, Rev. E., 71, 81, 188.
  Temperament, 32.
  Temperance, 469.
     bills, 55.
     lecture  in New York, 348,  358, 360,
       364.
     society, 71.
  Tenth report, 252.
  Territorial government of Oregon, 269.
  Texan debt, 303.
     boundary bill, 311, 329.
  Thackeray, lectures by, 393, 395.
  Thaxter, Rev. M., 88.
  Thompson,  329.
  Tilden, Miss, 212, 243.
 Tillinghast, 436.
 Todd, Dr., 47.
 Tracts for the South on Territorial bill,
   294.
 Triumphal arch, 219.
 Tuttle, 246, 247.

                   U.
 Underwood, 323.
 Union workhouse, Gray's Inn Lane, 186.
 University, Glasgow, 197.
 Upham, C. W., 577.

                  V.
 Vaughan, J. C, 130.
 Venable on colonizing Liberia, 332, 392.
 Versailles, —Louis Philippe, 220.
 Von Turk, 200.
                  W.
 Wait, Rev. O. J., 513, 530, 533, 539.
 Walker, Dr.  J., 100.
 Ward, J., 507.
 Washington, first visit to, 125.
Waterston, Robert C, 45.
Watt, Sir Jas., 197.
Webb, Seth,  91, 383.
Webster, Daniel: —
    against freedom in  the Territories,
     316.
               89
  Webster, Daniel: —
     as Secretary of State, 308.
     attack upon Webster, 310.
     chance for Presidency in 1850, 330.
     const, on trial by jury, 305.
     "Dedham  Gazette"  against Web-
       ster, 313.
     letters from Franklin, N. IL, of Oc-
       tober, 1850, 340.
     Mr. Tallmadge's assertion  concern-
       ing, 375.
     nominated for President by native
       Americans, 373.
     political character, 347.
     Prof. Stuart's defence, 301.
     promise of tariff, 304.
     relation to Whig party, 350.
     retrospect of speech, 303.
     Rev. T. Parker's views of, 394.
     speech of 1837, 377.
     seventh-of-March  speech, 293, 297,
       299, 300.
     tariff party, 331, 335, 33a
 Westminster Abbey, 178.
 West Newton Normal schoolhouse, 228,
   233.
 Whately, Archbishop, 182, 183, 190,191.
 White, Rev. D., 201.
 Whittier's lines in Common-schoolJour-
   nal, 247.
 Wife, first, death of, 37.
 Wilbur, Dr. E., 475.
 Willson, E. B., Rev., 251.
 Wilmot Proviso for Territories, 288.
 Wilson, Hon. Henry, 384.
 Windsor Palace, 183.
 Winthrop, R. C, Senator, 310, 330.
    Speaker, 277, 283, 284,  285, 286, 289,
      310, 330, 355.
 Woman's rights, 391.
 Woodward, Dr., 47, 57, 71.
 Worcester insane asylum, 56, 71.
 Wyse, Mr., M. P., 184

                  Y.
 York Cathedral, 191.

                  Z.
Zachos, Prof., 501. 
 
 
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