Friday, May 4

    Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

   It's the birthday in 1796 of Horace Mann, the Father of American Education. Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, the son of a poor farmer. Growing up, he never received more than six weeks of schooling a year, but he did make use of the local library and at age 20, entered Brown University. He went into the law at first and was soon elected to the state legislature. He was interested at first more in building canals and suppressing lotteries, but eventually took a job as secretary to the new state Board of Education, the first such in the nation.

    Education up to that time in the U.S. had been a mish-mash of private and religious schools, all charging tuition. Mann travelled to Europe to study the school systems there and was especially impressed with the Prussian System. That sounds bad, but the goal of the schools there was to help the individual develop. The aristocracy was against it so you know it must have been good for the common man.

    Mann's main tenants were that schools should be free, non-religious, and that teachers should be professionally trained. The new normal schools for teachers provided careers for women. Of course there was resistance from hidebound traditionalists. After losing the race to become governor of Massachusetts in 1852, Mann became president of the newly formed Antioch College in Ohio, He appointed the first female faculty members in the country. They received equal pay. At his last commencement speech he said, "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

He died in 1859 at the age of 63.

    It's also the birthday in 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania of Keith Haring, graffiti artist extraordinaire. His father was an amateur cartoonist and encouraged Harings love of art. He was religious as a youth, but left that behind to hitchhike to the west coast, selling vintage t-shirts and experimenting with drugs.  He returned east to study commercial art but soon lost interest in that. In 1978 he moved to New York and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts, working as a busboy in a dance club. His professors found it difficult to grade his loose style that was mixed in with social activism.

   He first started receiving public attention with his white chalk drawings on unused subway advertising backboards. He said, "I consider the subway my laboratory." He moved on to painting murals all over the world and became involved in the Aids Awareness movement. Movement is the key element of his brightly colored radiant babies, flying saucers and deified dogs.

   Some criticized him when he opened a store selling reasonably priced reproductions of his works. He responded, "I could make more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the prices." His goal was always to break down the barriers between high and low art." He died in 1990 at the age of 31 of AIDS related complications.

    Today's poem is by myself, Chairman Joe:

Next Year

My team is a mediocre team.

We always beat the awful teams

and sometimes beat the good ones.

A meeting with our equals

Is pretty much a wash.

The gents in church

Sport the team's colors

The ladies too.

The kids wear the names

Of our quarterback

Or wide receiver,

Even if he's black.

       Come back Sunday for more squibs from @jmcdonnell123.