It was not until he was appointed head (1837) of the newly created board of education of Massachusetts that he began the work which was soon to place him in the foremost rank of American educationists. He held this position, and worked with a remarkable intensity, holding teachers' conventions, delivering numerous lectures and addresses, carrying on an extensive correspondence, introducing numerous reforms, planning and inaugurating the Massachusetts
normal school system in
Lexington and
Bridgewater, founding and editing
The Common School Journal (1838), and preparing a series of Annual Reports, which had a wide circulation and are still considered as being "among the best expositions, if, indeed, they are not the very best ones, of the practical benefits of a common school education both to the individual and to the state" (Hinsdale). Most importantly, he worked effectively for more and better equipped school houses, longer school years (until 16 years old), higher pay for teachers and a wider curriculum.
In 1852, he supported governor
Edward Everett in the decision to adopt the
Prussian education system in Massachusetts.
Shortly after Everett and Mann collaborated to adopt the Prussian system, the Governor of
New York set up the same method in twelve different New York schools on a trial basis.
The practical result of Mann's work was a revolution in the approach used in the common school system of Massachusetts, which in turn influenced the direction of other states. In carrying out his work, Mann met with bitter opposition by some Boston schoolmasters who strongly disapproved of his
pedagogy and innovations , and by various religious
sectarians, who contended against the exclusion of all sectarian instruction from the schools. He is often considered "the father of American public education".
