Henry Barnard

Henry Barnard (born January 24, 1811, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.—died July 5, 1900, Hartford) was an educator, jurist, and the first U.S. commissioner of education (1867–70). With Horace Mann, he shared early leadership in improving the U.S. educational system.

Born into a wealthy family, Barnard graduated from Yale in 1830 and then studied law. As a Whig member of the Connecticut state legislature (1837–39), he was instrumental in legislation that created a state board of common schools. Serving as secretary of that board, he founded and edited the Connecticut Common School Journal and Annals of Education (1838–42) and established the first teachers’ institute (1839).

In 1843 Barnard was called to Rhode Island to make a study of that state’s schools, and in 1845 he became the state’s first commissioner of education. At his urging, appropriations were increased, teachers’ wages were raised, buildings were repaired, and teaching and supervision were much improved. In 1849 he returned to Connecticut as state superintendent of education and principal of the normal school at New Britain. He instituted reforms similar to those in Rhode Island, but eventually the job proved too strenuous for him, and in 1855 he retired. In that same year he helped found the American Association for the Advancement of Education and the American Journal of Education. He edited 32 volumes of the Journal (1855–81), spending so much of his fortune that he died a virtual pauper.

Barnard made several European tours to confer with writers and educators, among them William Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, and Thomas Carlyle. He was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1858–61), and president of St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. (1866–67).