biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1796–1859)
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| biography:
| Educator and public official, born in Franklin, Massachusetts, USA. He overcame limited educational opportunities, attended Brown University, and practised law in Dedham and Boston, MA (1821–37). As Massachusetts state representative, senator, and senate president (1827–37), he worked to establish the first state hospital for the mentally ill, and a state board of education. As head of the new board, his 12 annual reports (1837–48) comprehensively established the basis for universal, nonsectarian public education. Using his legal skills he established public high schools, built teacher-training schools, curbed child labour, gained acceptance for women teachers, and fended off opposition from religious and business interests. After serving in the US Congress (Whig, Massachusetts, 1848–53), he became president of Antioch College (1853–89), which was nonsectarian and open without regard to sex or race. The public-school system he established in Massachusetts served as the nation's model, hence his appellation, ‘the father of American public education’. |
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