Reading Response # 1

In the "Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education" written in 1848 Horace Mann talks about five different types of education. Physical, Intellectual, Political, Moral, and Religious. What Mann is trying to say is by developing these types of educations better it could eventually better our society. He wants to push these five types of education in every school because he believes that this is the ticket to help make our society run better. This Article was written for the Massachusetts Legislature. 

When Mann talks about the Physical education, he wants people/students to learn the reasons why we should be healthy lives, instead of creating our death bed sooner than later."To diffuse a knowledge of these beautiful and beneficent laws of health and life throughout the length and breadth of the state; to popularize them; to make them, in the first place, the common acquisition of all, and , through education and custom, the common inheritance of all, sop that the healthful habits naturally growing out of their observance shall be inbred in the people...,"(118). Mann explains intellectual education as removing poverty and having more equality in the educational school system. He wants everyone to be able to get the same education available to the middle and even upper-class students. "The distance between the two extremes of society is lengthening, instead of being abridged"(119). What he means by political is that he feels that people living in a society should understand and know what is going on in their government that they live in. They should get the know the real truth instead of the lies that the government actually feeds us. "Yet they must, if citizens of a republic, understand something of the true nature and functions of the government under which they live"(121). Moral education as Mann explains, is a necessity of social existence. He is saying that you need moral values and family ties to explain who you are, and have something to fight and work for. " A community without a conscience would soon extinguish itself"(123). When he says religious he means that people should have a religious back ground whether they practice that or not. He just thinks that if you actually going to practice it you should learn about it. " no community will ever be religious without a religious community"(124).

I really enjoyed reading this article because I agree with a lot of what he says. The three parts I liked the most is the most were the intellectual, Political, and Moral. First the intellectual because this deals with creating equals in society which I agree with a great deal, everybody should be granted the same education no matter what house hold or where ever in the world you come from. Second, the political, we all chose to live in the country we live in and should be granted the freedom to know what is actually happening in that society  Having lies fed at us is not something that we deserve. Lastly the moral, everybody needs there morals and values to even survive. If you don't know where you came from and having nothing worth fighting for whats the point. Morals is one of the most important things in my opinion because you need to value the things in life that got you to where you are today. Teaching all five of these in schools should be required and the fact that he stated this in 1848 and some have still not been enforced as much yet is a little upsetting.