Horace Morrison Hale (March 6, 1833 – October 24, 1901) was an American educator and academic administrator who served as the second president of the University of Colorado from 1887 to 1892.

He previously served as Colorado's first State Superintendent of Public Instruction from August 1876 to January 1877.

Hale soon obtained a new teaching position in Detroit, Michigan, where he also began to study law.

On the advice of his physician, he moved to the home of his brother Albert Hale in Central City, Colorado.

Over the next five years, Horace Hale engaged in physical outdoor labor until he had fully recovered.

[1][6] In 1873, he was appointed Colorado's Territorial Superintendent of Public Instruction by Governor Samuel Elbert.

[1] During his four-and-a-half-year term in office, he worked to build public support and lobbied for increased state funding.