Her grandfather, Reverend John Andrews, was pastor of the Unitarian First Religious Society Church and Parish Hall in Newburyport.
She attended the Putnam Free School in Newburyport and was part of a small writing group run by Unitarian minister and author Thomas Wentworth Higginson that also included Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford and Louisa Parsons Stone Hopkins.
In 1860, she was able to open a small primary school in her home, where her students included author Ethel Parton, suffragist Alice Stone Blackwell, and chemist J. Lewis Howe.
Influenced by Mann's theories, her teaching was advanced for its day, with its emphasis on student experimentation and observation, involvement in the learning process, and societal responsibility.
The book was immensely popular; it sold nearly half a million copies over the next century and was translated into Chinese, German, and Japanese.