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Letter to the Editor:
by James C. Johnston Jr.
What has the Franklin School Committee done? Apparently these worthies have no feeling for the Town of Franklin’s history. Horace Mann was born in Franklin on May 4, 1796, and came of age here in a time when he was challenged philosophically and intellectually by the extreme unkindness show to him by the local establishment. I guess that things haven’t changed very much in that regard. When his brother Stephen died by drowning on a hot Sunday after skipping Sunday School, Rev. Nathaniel Emmons preached in the boy’s funeral service that, “Stephen Mann burns in Hell today because he profaned the Lord’s Day!”
Horace Mann’s mother passed-out in reaction to Emmons’ words, and had to be assisted from the Congregational Meeting House as a result, and Horace Mann dedicated himself to educating the nation’s youth in a fight against prejudice of all sorts. For the rest of his life, Horace Mann fought to make this country a far better place to live in as: a lawyer, Massachusetts State Official in many capacities including as a Member of the Great and General Court, first Secretary of Education, as a Congressman, and President of Antioch College.
Horace Mann was honored in 1900 by being elevated to The Hall of Fame in New York, and in 1940 when the United States Post office selected him as one of the thirty-five most important Americans of all time. The government honored Horace Mann by placing him in the “Famous American” Series of thirty-five stamps of great Americans as an outstanding educator. Now in 2025, the Franklin School Committee has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to remove Horace Mann’s name from the only school named for him in his home town of Franklin, Massachusetts.
The Franklin School Committee has decided to banish the great Horace Mann to oblivion. What is the matter with these people, who have been elected to The Franklin School Committee, who are attempting to manage this community’s educational needs? Why have they shown such marked disrespect and contempt to our own Horace Mann? Do these nice people actually know anything about Horace Mann? One might actually doubt it.
Horace Mann was an individual who had great intellectual curiosity and questioned everything. Horace Mann believed that the unexamined life is not worth living. Horace Mann believed in community service, pursued education, and became a lawyer and most of all, he was the first truly great educational leader in our national history, serving in an official capacity, who was interested in abolishing one-room schools with their narrow curricula, and he believed in educating a whole class of professional educators. When Japan was open to the Western World by the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854, the Imperial government sent officials to Massachusetts to study the schools established by Horace Mann for the education of teachers. And the Japanese forever revered Horace Mann as a major contributor to the quality of modern Japanese Education. They have even honored him with a statue in Tokyo. Franklin really should be ashamed that we have removed his name from any educational institution in his home town.
Horace Mann was also a great social reformer, abolitionist, strong advocate of women’s’ rights, an advocate for Native American Rights, and supported and promoted the rights of Americans of Color with total equality before the law, and as I mentioned, he was the founder of Massachusetts’ professional schools for the preparation of teachers. Horace Mann was later president of Antioch College, and as president, he opened that institution of higher learning to: women, Americans of Color, Native Americans, and all others on a basis of the recognition of the intellectual equality of all members of the human race. Considering that this was all taking place in the America of “Just before the Civil War”, this is all rather remarkable.
So my dear members of the Franklin School Committee please consider this simple proposition. Name the Middle School Complex, as it shall exist, for Franklin’s most famed Native Son or consider giving us your resignations, because if you refuse to honor Horace Mann, you would then seem to be so ignorant of the history of this community that you shall have forfeited your right to serve on the Franklin School Committee as competent members in the Town of the Birth of the Greatest Educational Advocate of all time. As I have stated, not only is Horace Mann honored with a statue in Boston, Mass. in recognition of his impact in Professional education, but he is also honored with a statue in Tokyo, Japan as the Honorary Father of Japanese Education.
Every Franklinite should know Horace Mann’s most noble injunction to all of us, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” I hope that the Franklin School Committee thinks about the greater implications of its decision to drop Horace Mann’s name from our school buildings.
James C. Johnston, Jr., a frequent contributor to the Observer, is a lifelong resident and former Selectman and Town Council member who spent his career as an educator in the Franklin Public Schools.
