Education
He was graduated from Yale University in 1830.
He was graduated from Yale University in 1830.
He passed his Connecticut bar examination in 1835, was a member of the Connecticut legislature from 1837 to 1839, and secretary of the state Board of Commissioners of Common Schools from 1838 to 1842. In 1842 he was appointed by the governor of Rhode Island as agent to study the state schools and, from 1843 to 1849, he was first public-school commissioner of that state. The Rhode Island school system was entirely reorganized as a result of his work. He then returned to Connecticut where he was superintendent of common schools, as well as principal of the State Normal School, New Britain, Conn. (1850-1854).
Barnard worked tirelessly for practical reforms both in the legislature and in his educational assignments. He served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin (1858-1860) and president of St. John's College, Annapolis, Md. (1866-1867). Barnard, as the first United States Commissioner of Education (1867-1870), organized the United States Bureau of Education and introduced numerous educational methods. Through his Connecticut Common School Journal, the Journal of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, and especially the American Journal of Education, which he founded (1855) and edited, and his articles in the American Library of Schools and Education, he exerted widespread influence.