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Henry Barnard, detail of a portrait by an unknown artist; in the University of Wisconsin … (credit: Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, Madison)

(born Jan. 24, 1811, Hartford, Conn., U.S. — died July 5, 1900, Hartford) U.S. educator. He studied law and entered the state legislature, where he helped create a state board of education and the first teachers' institute (1839). With Horace Mann, he undertook to reform the country's common schools; he was an innovator in instituting school inspections, textbook reviews, and parent-teacher organizations. As Rhode Island's first commissioner of education (from 1845) he worked to raise teachers' wages, repair buildings, and obtain higher-education appropriations. In 1855 he helped found the American Journal of Education. He was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin (1858 – 61). In 1867 he became the first U.S. commissioner of education, in which post he established a federal agency to collect national educational data.

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