Ira Mayhew

Ira Mayhew was an American educator of the nineteenth century, a leader of the common-school movement in Michigan. He served as the state's superintendent of public instruction around 1845 to 1849 and again in the late 1850s, promoting free public schools, teacher training and the health of pupils. At the request of the Michigan legislature he wrote Popular Education, published in 1850, which set out his view of physical, intellectual and moral education. He later founded a commercial college in Detroit and wrote textbooks on bookkeeping.