Major Leaders of Education Reform

Major leaders and their accomplishments.

One remarkable leader of the education reform was Horace Mann of Massachusetts. Mann spent his childhood partly at work and partly at a poor school. Mann declared, "If we do not prepare our children to become good citizens, . . . If we do not enrich their minds with knowledge, then our republic must go down to destruction, as others have gone before it". In 1837, Mann became the first secretary of the Massachusetts board of education. In 12 years of service, Mann established a teacher training program and instituted curriculum reforms. He also doubled the money states spent on schools. Other reformers focused on teaching people with disabilities. Thomas Galludet developed a method of education for people who were hearing impaired and opened the Hartford School for the deaf in Connecticut in 1817. At about the same time, Dr. Samuel Howe advanced the cause of those who were visually impaired. He developed books with large raised letters so the people with vision impairments could "read" with their fingers. Howe headed the Perkins institute, a school for the blind, in Boston.