Schoolhouses are our fortifications

Statue of Horace Mann outside the Massachusetts State House. In 1852, the state enacted the nation’s first mandatory public school attendance law, in large part because of Mann’s campaigning for it

“Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.”

“Forts, arsenals, garrisons, armies, navies, are means of security and defense, which were invented in half-civilized times and in feudal or despotic countries; but schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications, and if they are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach.”

— Horace Mann (1796-1859), American education reformer, slavery abolitionist and Whig politician best known for his commitment to promoting public education. He was born in Franklin, Mass.

From the time he was 10 to when he reached 20, he had no more than six weeks' schooling during any year, but he made copious use of the Franklin Public Library, founded in 1790 as the first public lending library in America. At the age of 20, he enrolled at Brown University and graduated in three years as valedictorian. Franklin was named after Benjamin Franklin (1707-1790), who gave the town 116 books, which of course ended up in its its library.

The current Franklin Public Library, opened in 1904.

— Photo by Swampyank