BARNARD, HENRY I-1900), American education alist, was born in Hartford, Conn., Jan. 24, 1811. He graduated at Yale in 183o, and in 1835 was admitted to the Connecticut bar. In 1837-39 he became a member of the Connecticut legislature, effecting in 1838 the passage of a bill, framed and introduced by himself, which established a board of "commissioners of common schools" in the State, as secretary of which he worked indefatig ably till its abolition in 1842. In 1843 he was appointed by the governor of Rhode Island agent to examine the public schools of the State, his work resulting in the reorganization of the school system two years later. He was the first commissioner of public schools there (1845-49), and then returned to Connecticut, where he was for some years "superintendent of common schools" and principal of the State normal school at New Britain. From 1859 to 186o he was chancellor of the university of Wisconsin and agent of the board of regents of the normal school fund : in 1866 67 he was president of St. John's college, Annapolis, Md., and from 1867 to 1870 he was the first U.S. commissioner of educa tion, in which position he laid the foundation for the subsequent useful work of the bureau of education. His chief service to the cause of education, however, was rendered as the editor of the American Journal of Education. He also edited the Connecticut Common School Journal and the Journal of the Rhode Island In stitute of Instruction. He died at Hartford, Conn., on July 5, 1900. Among American educational reformers Barnard is entitled to be classed with Horace Mann of Massachusetts.
See a biographical sketch by A. D. Mayo in the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1896-97, further tributes in the Report for 1902, W. S. Monroe's Educational Labours of Henry Barnard (1893) and his Bibliography of Henry Barnard (1897) ; also the article in the Cyclopedia of Education and B. C. Steiner's Life of Henry Barnard in the Bulletin of the Bureau of Education, No. 8