John Swett (July 31, 1830 – August 22, 1913) is considered to be the "Father of the California public school" system and the "Horace Mann of the Pacific".
Biography
John Swett was an only child born July 31, 1830, in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, to Lucretia (born French) Swett and Ebenezer Swett, who were Congregationalists. He died August 22, 1913, in Alhambra Valley, near Martinez, California. He married Mary Louise (Tracy) Swett on May 8, 1862, in Sonoma, and they had 6 children. During his life he was a close friend of Sierra Club co-founder John Muir. Swett arrived in California in 1853 to mine gold but quickly sought work as a teacher in San Francisco. In 1862 he became a Freemason, joining San Francisco's Phoenix Lodge No. 144.
In 1863 he was instrumental in founding the California Educational Society, which would become the California Teachers Association, the largest teachers' union in the state of California. Running in 1863, during the Civil War, as a National Union Party (Republican) candidate he was elected California State Superintendent of Public Instruction and served until 1867. Other positions he held were Deputy Superintendent of the San Francisco Public Schools (1870–1873), Principal of the Denman School (1873–1876) and Girls High School (San Francisco) (1876–1889); the School Board there was dissatisfied with his administration because he had taken no steps toward its accreditation by the University of California and because no women had been sent to the university since 1884.
In 1890 he was elected superintendent of the San Francisco Public Schools on the Republican and Reform Democratic tickets.
