Common-Schools Pioneer

Background.

With the possible exception of Horace Mann, no nineteenth-century figure had such a profound and lasting impact on American education as Henry Barnard. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, on 24 January 1811, Barnard graduated from Yale College in 1835 and spent two years touring Europe, surveying the latest developments in education and studying firsthand the Pestalozzian methods then winning adherents among leading educational reformers. ( Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was an early-nineteenth-century educator who emphasized observation, experimentation, and reasoning.) Forsaking a promising career in law, Barnard committed himself, over the next forty years, to maintaining the common-schools ideal in American national life. Barnard brought energy, commitment, and creativity to his role in establishing public education systems in Connecticut and Rhode Island before midcentury, providing educators outside the Northeast with models that would be widely emulated. His unwavering commitment to teacher training did much to make the normal...