Each day is a golden opportunity. Each sunrise, each sunset are miraculous quotation marks around the passionate paragraph of today. LIVE!

A true visionary, Horace Mann (1796-1859) was born in Franklin, Massachusetts. The Father of American Education, he dedicated his life to improving the quality of public education and making education available for everyone.

"Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence," he once said. "If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year."

Self-educated, he graduated with honors from Brown University, became a lawyer, then State legislator. With passion, this educational pioneer dedicated his life to creating solid educational principles.

"Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men -- the balance-wheel of the social machinery," Mann said.

He revolutionized the school system and helped improve the quality of teacher training and work conditions. With his Common School Movement, every child was guaranteed basic education, funded by local taxes.

"It is well to think well; it is divine to act well," said Mann, who became the founder and president of Antioch College in 1852.

Celebrate the sun! Make each day matter!