Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Barnard, Henry
BARNARD, Henry, LL.D., born at Hartford, Connecticut, Jan. 24, 1811; A.B. (Yale College), 1830. After extensive travel in the United States, he made a two years' tour of Europe (1835–37), giving special attention to educational institutions and methods. He was from 1837 to 1840 a member of the Connecticut Legislature, and carried through that body a complete reorganization of the common school system, and was for four years (1838–42) a member and secretary of the Board of Education created by it. Displaced by a political change in 1842, he spent more than a year in an extensive educational tour through the United States, with a view to the preparation of a History of Public Schools in the United States. He was called from the prosecution of this work to take charge of the public schools of Rhode Island; and after five years returned to Hartford, 1849. In 1850 a State Normal School was established in Connecticut, and he was appointed Principal, with the added duties of State Superintendent of Public Schools. After five years of severe labour he retired from this work, but soon commenced the publication of the American Journal of Education, Hartford, in 1855, which is still continued. He has been President of the American Association for the Advancement of Education, was elected in 1856 President and Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, which office he resigned in 1859; was President in 1865–7 of the St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, and United States Commissioner of the Department of Education in 1868–70. His contributions to educational literature have been so numerous, that but few of them can be mentioned here:—"Education in Factories," 1842; "National Education in Europe," 1851; "Normal Schools in the United States and Europe," 1851; "Tribute to Gallaudet with History of Deaf Mute Instruction," 1852; "School Libraries," 1854; "Hints and Methods for the Use of Teachers," 1857; "English Pedagogy," 1862; "National Education," 1872; "Military Schools," 1872; "American Pedagogy," 1875.