Horace Mann Junior

Horace Mann Jr. (February 25, 1844 – 1868) was an American botanist, son of Horace Mann. His mother was one of the famous Peabody Sisters Mary Tyler Peabody Mann. Mentored in botany by Henry David Thoreau, whom he accompanied on an expedition to Minnesota, Mann took classes in zoology with Louis Agassiz and assisted William Tufts Brigham botanize the Hawaiian Islands. Mann was to have headed the botanical garden at Harvard, but died of tuberculosis at age twenty-four. His own herbarium was purchased by Cornell University and became the basis of that university's collection. He is credited with the discovery of more than 100 species. Early years Horace Mann Jr. was born in Boston on February 25, 1844. He was the eldest of three sons of education reformer Horace Mann and his second wife, Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, and the grandson of Nathaniel Peabody. Mann was educated by his parents, who believed in teaching through hands-on study, at home in West Newton, Massachusetts. In 1853, the family moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where the elder Horace Mann established Antioch College. Although not old enough for college enrollment when first they arrived, young Horace had an inquisitive mind and was exposed to state of the art scientific learning. As a youth, Horace's interests ran to science, exploration and travel. After completing his first year of college at Antioch in 1859, Mann spent several weeks in the Boston home of Samuel Gridley and Julia Ward Howe.