Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet. With heart that beat a charge, he fell forward as fits a man,īut the high soul burns on to light mens feet, One might well imagine Horace Mann reading from the lines on that statue by St. Gaudens statue of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the colored 54th Regiment of Massachusetts infantry. There they stand, facing the historic Boston Common and the St. When one approaches the front entrance of the Massachusetts State House, one sees on either side the statues of two illustrious sons of Massachusetts-Daniel Webster and Horace Mann. Birch, and upon his order, it was reproduced in bronze in the same foundry, by the son of the man who had cast the original. Here, after the passage of years, the model was rediscovered by Mr.
It is the only replica of the original which was modeled by Emma Stebbins in Rome and cast in bronze in Munich. He furnishes to us today tangible evidence of Horace Mann’s inspiration and influence, which the simplicity and usefulness and nobility of his own life exemplify. He knew and shared the friendly life of the President’s home. Hugh, his youngest son, soon became the playmate of Benny Mann, and the youthful comrade of Horace Mann. In 1856, at Mann’s invitation, Erasmus Birch moved to Yellow Springs. He was an early Trustee of the College, and gave to it large tracts of land, assistance which materially sustained and encouraged Horace Mann in his difficult financial problems. Birch is the son of Erasmus Mitchell Birch who as a young teacher in eastern New York knew Horace Mann. They unite in a vivid and very real way Horace Mann’s life with the national commemoration of his work which begins here today. Hugh Taylor Birch is an alumnus of the College, and his associations with it and its first President are most cherished. It is appropriate, not only because it is a magnificent statue of the first President of Antioch College, but also because of the one who gives it. IT IS with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude that I accept on behalf of Antioch College this beautiful and appropriate gift. Based on the address reprinted below, Corry had clearly done his homework as any good lawyer would do.įrom Educating For Democracy: A Symposium, Antioch Press, 1937. He also describes the setting for the original Mann statue outside the Massachusetts Statehouse, and gives perhaps the most useful description to be found for the statue’s rather remote location. In contrast to Birch’s lofty, devotional speech about his hero Horace Mann, Corry delivered a straight, factual recounting of Mann’s life and career. Corry served the first of many terms on the Antioch Board of Trustees beginning in 1917, and spent the rest of his career pursuing financial security for the College so that its president could concentrate on the real business at hand, the education of young people.Īt the dedication ceremony for the statue of Horace Mann in Glen Helen, held in 1936, Corry followed the remarks made by Hugh Taylor Birch, reprinted in the preceding Songs From The Stacks. After the war he joined a law firm in Springfield that was for many years the primary legal representative of Antioch. Corry enlisted in the military during the first world war, where he rose from infantry private to an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s office.
Corry (at right) about to make remarks accepting the gift of the Horace Mann Statue from Hugh Taylor Birch, October 1936.Īfter a brief career as a high school principal in both Enon and Yellow Springs, he studied law at The University of Chicago and Ohio State where he was also briefly a member of the law school faculty.
0 kommentar(er)
