The purpose of this study was to compare a traditional biography, Burke A. Hinsdale\u27s Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States (1900), and a revisionist biography, Jonathan Messerli\u27s Horace Mann: a Biography (1972), within a neutral frame of reference to determine which author made the more logical use of evidence to support his argument.;David H. Fischer\u27s Historians\u27 Fallacies (1970) and Richard E. Neustadt & Ernest R. May\u27s Thinking in Time (1986) were used to formulate a neutral frame of reference within which to analyze the two biographies.;Hinsdale\u27s explanation was found to consist of a series of generalizations few of which were supported by credible relevant evidence. Thus, while Messerli\u27s explanation in part relied on the assumption that such evidence as has survived is adequate to justify using psychological and sociological theory to explain the formation of Mann\u27s personality, his explanation otherwise generally uses credible relevant evidence to support the generalizations he makes. Therefore, it was concluded that Messerli made the more logical use of evidence to support his argument.;Since making generalizations about the traditional and the revisionist genres based on a single sample of each is tenuous, additional studies are needed to justify extending the conclusions of this study to the genres
