Horace Mann is a pretty amazing guy if you’ve never heard of him. Among being a pillar of education reform in the 19th century he was also a very early abolitionist.

He was chosen president of the newly established Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio. There he taught economics, philosophy, and theology; he was popular with students and with lay audiences across the Midwest who attended his lectures promoting public schools. Mann also employed the first woman faculty member to be paid on an equal basis with her male colleagues, Rebecca Pennell, his niece. His commencement message to the class of 1859 to “be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity” is repeated to the graduating class at each commencement. He collapsed shortly after the 1859 commencement and died that summer. [via wikipedia]