MANN
Vll
MANNA
all rational hopes respecting the future brightened. It is obvious that these glowing anticipations were born of something more, if not better, than reading, writing, and aritlimetic." Juliication was, in Mann's view, a word of mucli higher import than that popularly given to it. " Its function is to call out from within all that was di- vinely placed there, in the proportion requisite to make a noble being." It was one of his maxims, however, that " every human being should determine his relig- ious belief for liimself." " It seems to me," he saj's, " that a generation so trained would have an infinitely better chance of getting at the truth than the present generation has liad." Herein lay the greatest defect of the system he sought to establish in our schools. Stamping with the name of bigotry all religious views that did not coincide with his own, regarding ortho- doxy as the great thraldom by which man was enslaved, he would introduce a system of Christian ethics and doctrine respecting virtue and vice, rewards and penal- ties, time and eternity, constituting the basis of his theories and schemes of popular education, which meant nothing else than the substitution of natural religion for revealed. How far Mr. Mann succeeded in this attempt we may judge by the prevalence of the doctrines of the so-called "liberal theology" in the Eastern States, par- ticularly in Massachusetts. In the West he must cer- tainly have been disappointed. Though more than a thousand students sat at his feet in Antioch, he was only in a very moderate degree successful in spreading " a religionism from whose features the young would not turn away." But if Mr. Mann failed in meeting that success which a person of his indomitable will, imcom- mon energy, and rare acquirements must have looked for and desired, we would not in the least detract from the value of his labors in behalf of education among the masses, and the greatness of his services to common- school education in America.
Besides his annual reports, a volume of lectures on education, and voluminous controversial writings, his principal work is Slavei-y : Letters and Sjjeeches (Boston, 1851). Since his decease all his writings have been collected and published by his wife, under the title The Works of Horace JSIann (Cambridge, 1867 sq., 2 vols. 8vo). See Life of Horace 3fann, by his wife (Boston, 1805, 12mo) ; Thomas, Diet. Biog. and Mythol. ; Prince- ton Review, 1866 (January) ; reprinted in the Brit, and For. Evan. Eevietv, 1866 (August). (J. H, W.)
Mann, WilliaTn, D.D., an American educator of note, was born in Burlington County, N. Y., about the j'ear 178-t. When quite young he was placed in a print- ing-office, where he remained until his fourteenth 3-ear. Though unable to attend school a single daj-, he ac- quired a thorough education by private study. He was converted in liis iod year, joined the Methodist E()isco- pal Church, and shortly after became a local preacher. The principal part of his life after this time was devoted to teaching. He was for some years principal of Mt. Holly Academy, in his native state. Subsequently he removed to I'hiladeljihia, where he maintained a high reputation for his success in teaching the classics. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Dickinson College. He died in Philadelphia July 4, 1867. — New Am. Cyclop. 1867, p. 567.
Man'na ("'O, man, according to Gesenius, a portion, from the Arabic ; but a different derivation is alluded to in the passage where it first occurs [see Thym, I)e ori- ffine I'ocis Manna, etc.,Vitemb. 1641]), the name given to the miraculous food upon which the Israelites were fed for forty years during their wanderings in the des- ert. The same name has in later ages been applied to some natural productions, chiefly found in warm, dry countries, but which have little or no resemblance to the original manna. This is first mentioned in Exod. xvi. It is there described as being first produced after the eighth encampment in the desert of Sin, as white like hoar frost (or of the color of hdellium, Numb, xi, 7),
round, and of the bigness of coriander seed (ffad). It fell with the dew every morning, and when the dew was exhaled by the heat of the sun, the manna appeared alone, lying upon the ground or the rocks round the encampment of the Israelites. "When the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, What is it ? for they knew not what it was" (Exod. xvi, 15). In the authorized and some other versions this passage is in- accurately translated— which, indeed, is apparent from the two parts of the sentence contradicting each other (" It is manna ; for they wist not what it was"). The word occurs only in Exod. xvi, 15, 31, 33, 35 ; Numb, xi, 6, 7, 9; Deut. viii, 3, 16; Josh, v, 12; Neh. ix, 2(1; Fsa. Ixxviii, 24. In the Sept. the substance is almost al- ways called manna (jxavva, and so the N.Test. always: John vi, 31, 49, 58; Heb. ix, 4; Kev. ii, 17; also the Apocrypha, Wisd. xvi, 20, 21) instead of man {fiav, Exod. xvi, 31, 33, 35). Josephus {Ant. iii, 1, 6), in giving an account of this substance, thus accords with the textual etymology : " The Hebrews call this food manna {(idvva), for the particle man {nav) in our lan- guage is the asking of a question, ' What is this V (Heb. N^ln""|^, man-hu)." Moses answered this question by telling them, " This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." We are further informed that the manna fell every daj-, except on the Sabbath. Every sixth day, that is on Friday, there fell a double quantity of it. Every man was directed to gather an omer (about three English quarts) for each member of his fomily ; and the whole seems afterwards to have been measured out at the rate of an omer to each person : " He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered httle had no lack." That which remained ungathered dissolved in the bent of the sun, and was lost. The quantity collected was intended for the food of the cur- rent day only, for if any were kept till next morning it corrupted and bred worms. Yet it was directed that a double quantity should be gathered on the sixth day for consumption on the Sabbath. It was found that the manna kept for the Sabbath remained sweet and wholesome, notwithstanding that it corrupted at other times if kept for more than one day. In the same man- ner as they would have treated grain, they reduced it to meal, kneaded it into dough, and baked it into cakes, and the taste of it was like tliat of wafers made with honey or of fresh oil. In Numb, xi, 6-9, where the de- scription of the manna is repeated, an omer of it is di- rected to be preserved as a memorial to future genera- tions, " that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed j'ou in the wilderness;" and in Josh, v, 12 we learn that after the Israelites had encamped at (iilgal, and "did eat of the old corn of the land, the manna ceased on the morrow after, neither had the children of Israel manna any more."