This report led to widespread improvement .of education through the educational theories of Pestalozzi, Herbart and eventually Froebel. Mann asserted that education was a natural right for every child. It is a necessary responsibility of the State to insure that education was provided for every child. This report led to the adoption of the first State law requiring compulsory attendance in school in 1852. He presented a rationale for the support of public education through taxation.
Society improves as a result of an educated p ublic.
He argued for non-sectarian schools, so the taxpayer would not be in the position of supporting any established religion with which he might disagree in conscience. Horace Mann resigned in 1848 to take a seat vacated in the United States Congress. In 1853 he assumed the Presidency of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He became President to implement his educational ideas in higher education. This college was coeducational and non-sectarian.