Sarmiento and Mary Mann Recruit Teachers for Argentina

Chile sent Domingo Faustino Sarmiento to study foreign school systems in 1845. He became interested in Horace Mann's work on teacher training. [3]

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento renewed an old acquaintance in 1865 when, as Argentina’s minister in the United States, he wrote to Mary Peabody Mann. He had stayed with her and her husband, the education reformer Horace Mann, in Massachusetts in 1847. Their new correspondence would continue for nearly twenty years. [3]

Sarmiento wanted American teachers to work in Argentina, and Mary Mann helped recruit them while translating his book Facundo into English and promoting his educational plans. Applicants were expected to stay for at least three years. [3]

One recruit, Mary Elizabeth Gorman, reached Buenos Aires but hesitated to continue to San Juan. In November 1869, Sarmiento, now president, told Mann that alarming accounts of the journey and the interior had made Gorman reluctant to proceed. She never took up the intended post there, although other teachers followed. [3]

In November 1869, Sarmiento described money already spent on provincial schools and complained that war with Paraguay absorbed resources. [3]

Related Diplomats

1. Mary Tyler Peabody Mann [1] [2]
2. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento [3]

Related Reading

• Argentina and the United States