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HORACE MANN, SR.: ACCELERATING “THE AGENDA OF THE ALMIGHTY” “I look upon Phrenology as the guide of Philosophy, and the handmaid of Christianity; whoever disseminates true Phrenology, is a public benefactor.” — Horace Mann, Sr. “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Horace Mann, Sr. HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1796 May 4, Wednesday: Friend Elias Hicks surveyed the land of Thomas Titus and John Titus. Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, son of Thomas Mann and Rebecca Stanley Mann.1 NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT 1. (You’re to understand he wasn’t addressed as “Sr.” when born.) HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1809 June 9, Friday: Horace Mann, Sr.’s father made his will. He left Horace enough to finance a college education, although later, in the grip of the “log cabin” school of greatness, the great Mann would assert that he had been provided only with an “example of an upright life” and a “hereditary thirst for knowledge.” – Since he was encouraging everyone to be like him and rise like him, it would hardly do to tell the truth. Carl Axel Trolle-Wachtmeister became Prime Minister for Justice of Sweden, while Lars von Engeström became Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 9 of 6 Mo // Early this morning a Packet arrived from NYork & brought the Melancholy intelligence of the Sudden departure out of time of Francis Mallone at the City of Washington he died the 4th of this Mo dropt down in the Street as he was walking to Church with his brother Senator E R Potter & died without a Struggle - My mind has through the day been much occupied on the above melancholy acct, I hope it may prove a solemn warning & help to keep me in rememberance of my final change - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS June 20, Monday: Horace Mann’s father Thomas Mann died. Carl, son of King Adolf Fredrik, ascended the throne of Sweden as Carl XIII. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 3rd day// Again much occupied at trade. I hope by outward cumber I may not loose what little I seem to have gain’d a few weeks past but the longer I live the more I am confirmd that the mann must be gathered daily — Father & Mother R - widdow Mumford & brother David & wife took tea with us ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Horace Mann, Sr. HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1810 July 22, Sunday: Horace Mann’s brother Stephen at the age of 17 or 18 prophaned the Sabbath by going swimming in Uncas Pond, and drowned, and at his funeral the Reverend Nathaniel Emmons offered this as a cautionary lesson.2 Learned Lesson Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 22nd of 7th Mo// I have had some hidden exercises today, but was favor’d this forenoon with a pretty good meeting in which our frd D Buffum was as much favord in testimony as I think I ever hear him - In the Afteernoon we were silent & to me more roving than in the forenoon - Visited the work & Alms houses & took a walk around the Point After meeting, & in the eveng called at D William’ E Hosier’s & father R’s — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE 2. Parsing the text of JOHN 14:15, “If you love me, you will obey what I command,” the Calvinist reverend was able to derive not only “Obedience to God is the most infallible evidence of sincere and supreme love to Him” but also, in combination with the concept of a jealous and vengeful deity, “Sure, go swimming on My Day — I’ll be glad to drown you.” HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1816 Fall: Horace Mann, Sr. matriculated at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island as a sophomore. Early New England frosts killed the crops before they could be harvested. A letter from a despairing farmer details the impact of this: HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1817 April 15, Tuesday: After federal funding had been denied, the New York Legislature created a fund for the construction of the Erie, Champlain, and Hudson Canal. Ground was 1st broken at Rome on the 4th of July, and it would be completed on the 26th of October, 1825. ERIE CANAL The institution which would become the American School for the Deaf was founded in Hartford. This was the first American school for those who could not hear. (Many schools available, of course, for those Americans who would not hear.) It had been in the early years of the 19th Century that the Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet of Hartford CT had tried to teach Alice Cogswell, the deaf daughter of a surgeon. The Reverend Gallaudet had then visited the French National Institution for Deaf-Mutes and persuaded Laurent Clerc to come to the United States. On the 52-day voyage back across the Atlantic, Gallaudet had helped Clerc with English while Clerc had helped Gallaudet with sign language. Clerc was himself a tolerant man, but he would die in 1869 and his successors would not be tolerant, they would be “oralists” of the stamp of Horace Mann, HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. Sr. who would attempt to intercept the teaching of sign language to the deaf. The impaired were to be forced to learn to make sounds even if the sounds which they produced were just awful because they themselves could not hear these sounds. Their speaking teacher would not need to know anything about sign language and would not need to have any previous experience with deaf children, any more than a teacher would have needed to have previous experience with idiots before attempting to manage them. The impaired would be forced to “learn to read lips” even if the best that could ever be achieved by “lip- reading” techniques due to the inherent ambiguity of mouth shaping was the understanding of but one sentence in ten. It would become a discipline problem, it would become a matter of training in obedience. Eventually, during our own lifetimes, if these children were caught trying to sign to each other behind their speaking teacher’s back, the teacher was instructed to draw lines upon their offending hands with a ruler. HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Horace Mann, Sr. HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1819 September 1, Wednesday: Horace Mann, Sr. graduated as valedictorian of his class at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, delivering the sort of orotund speech on behalf of progress which one might have expected on such an occasion. He would soon begin a legal apprenticeship in the office of Josiah J. Fiske of Wrentham, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. Here is Horace as he would eventually be memorialized by his widow Mary, perhaps with some degree of nostalgic exaggeration: DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Horace Mann, Sr. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1820 February: Horace Mann, Sr. returned to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island as a tutor in Latin and Greek (later he would serve in addition as college librarian). At the Rhode Island general assembly, George Field of Cranston introduced a bill for the establishment of a free school system throughout the state. After a brief discussion, the matter was postponed to a future session so that the assemblymen might sound out their political supporters in regard to such an innovation. PUBLIC EDUCATION HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1821 Horace Mann, Sr. entered the law school at Litchfield presided over by the late Judge Gould. He was elected by his fellow students as attorney-general of their weekly moot court. Upon leaving this academy, Mann would get work in the office of the Honorable James Richardson of Dedham, “once a law partner of Fisher Ames.” W.E. Forster (who would go on to become England’s counterpart to America’s Mann), was the 3-year-old son of Quaker missionaries, and was sitting with his nurse in a coach. As he later told it, he was approached by a “Kind Old Gentleman” or “KOG”: KOG: “Where is your Papa, my dear? WEF: “Papa is preaching in America.” KOG: “And where is your Mama?” WEF: “Mama is preaching in Ireland.” THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Horace Mann, Sr. HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1822 February: Horace Mann, Sr. attended Tapping Reeve's Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut. HDT WHAT? INDEX HORACE MANN, SR. HORACE MANN, SR. 1823 December 21, Sunday: Waldo Emerson to his JOURNAL: Who is he that shall controul [sic] me? Why may not I act & speak & write & think with entire freedom? What am I to the Universe, or, the Universe, what is it to me? Who hath forged the chains of Wrong & Right, of Opinion & Custom? And must I wear them? Is Society my anointed King? Or is there any mightier community or any man or more than man, whose slave I am? I am solitary in the vast society of beings; I consort with no species; I indulge no sympathies.
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