Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (/ˈhɒrəs/ or /ˈhɔːrəs/), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintillian regarded his Odes as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."

Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (Sermones and Epistles) and caustic iambic poetry (Epodes). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrings".

His career coincided with Rome's momentous change from Republic to Empire. An officer in the republican army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, and became a spokesman for the new regime. For some commentators, his association with the regime was a delicate balance in which he maintained a strong measure of independence (he was "a master of the graceful sidestep") but for others he was, in John Dryden's phrase, "a well-mannered court slave".

Horace Mann

Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 – August 2, 1859) was an American politician and educational reformer. A Whig devoted to promoting speedy modernization, he served in the Massachusetts State Legislature (1827–37). In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Historian Ellwood P. Cubberley asserts:

Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens, Mann won widespread approval from modernizers, especially in his Whig Party, for building public schools. Most states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for "normal schools" to train professional teachers. Mann has been credited by educational historians as the "Father of the Common School Movement".

Early life

Education

Horace Mann was born on May 4, 1796. His father was a Yankee farmer without much money. The son's frugal upbringing taught him habits of self-reliance and independence. From ten years of age to twenty, he had no more than six weeks' schooling during any year, but he made use of the town library. At the age of 20, he enrolled at Brown University and graduated in three years as valedictorian (1819). The theme of his oration was "The Progressive Character of the Human Race." He then studied law for a short time at Wrentham, Massachusetts; was a tutor of Latin and Greek (1820–22) and a librarian (1821–23) at Brown University. During 1821–23, he also studied at Litchfield Law School and, in 1823, was admitted to the bar in Norfolk County, Massachusetts.