Nathaniel T. Allen's life (1823-1903) offers insights into 19th century professionalization of education in the United States. His independent political views set him apart as a strong-willed and dauntless supporter of equal education opportunity. Appointed by Horace Mann as principal of a model school connected with the first public normal school in the United States, Allen later ran his own school for 50 years. He attracted students from throughout the world and promoted racial integration, coeducation, kindergarten, nature studies, and physical education. As an agent of Henry Barnard, he studied European education. Correspondence with Mann, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Lucy Stone, Wendall Phillips, and various students portray Allen as an educational pioneer who opposed typical 19th century apolitical entrepreneurship among educators and administrators. Allen's work was summed up by the Massachusetts Schoolmasters Club which referred to his school in 1903 as the best in New England--a place where every new idea advanced by a sane pedagogy was worked out. (Author/KC)