In this paper, I attempt to see how Horace Mann (1796-1859) understood a child as an educatee, and also to investigate Mann's basic attitude for education. First, I will discuss Mann's main ideas about children. The first point is that Mann's idea for children was derived from English empiricists, John Lock in particular, who regarded a child like a piece of white paper and emphasized environment. In other words, children were seen as having the potential to be corrupted, so guidance and training became necessary. The second point is that Mann also regarded children as naturally good. Therefore, in his idea, parents and teachers must be guides who encourage children's natural potentials for goodness. (It might be considered that, for Mann, the goodness meant Protestant ethics.) The third point is that he saw children through his very humanistic eyes. Children are seen as the subjects of learning, and the process of learning and developing is emphasized rather than knowledge acquired by children as a result. It is sure that Mann developed this idea after his educational tour in Europe. Secondly, I try to see how these three viewpoints of children were coordinated in the mind of Mann. Because, strictly speaking, in the first and second viewpoints, education is considered as an interest in a nation or a society, while in the third viewpoint, it is captured as an interest in children. Therefore, it might be said that these two kinds of interests are paradoxical. Through the idea of the improbability of the human race, Mann optimistically believed that the problem of contradiction which existed in these two paradoxical interests was solved. However, was this problem truly solved? So, I also try to find the answer from my own point of view.
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