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William Holmes McGuffey, creator of the Eclectic Readers
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Learning to read opens the world to a child. Learning to read great works of literature, as well as acquiring such values as industry, thrift, and kindness can change a person’s life.
That lesson was transformed during the 19th century by a Washington County native into the most popular textbooks in the United States.
McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, a series of books to teach children vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, morality and philosophy, were authored by William Holmes McGuffey.
Born in September, 1800 on a farm in West Finley Township, McGuffey moved with his family to the Ohio frontier when he was two years old. McGuffey learned very early the importance of education. His mother taught all her children reading and arithmetic. Though it proved a challenge on the frontier, she always looked for more educational opportunities for her children.
Because his family couldn’t always afford books, William would copy by hand the book he wanted to own. An example is a Hebrew grammar text, copied letter for letter by his own hand, in the Buhlman Archives, Washington & Jefferson College Library.
Astonishingly, McGuffey received a certificate at age 14 to become a teacher and opened a subscription school in Calcutta, Ohio. Two years later he began studies at the Greersburg Academy in Darlington, Beaver County, in preparation for college.
In 1820, McGuffey found his way back to his native Washington County to study at Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College). Working his way through Washington College, in 1825 McGuffey moved to Paris, Kentucky, to teach.
While there he met Dr. Robert Bishop, president of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Bishop was taken with McGuffey’s intelligence and offered him the position of Professor of Ancient Languages at Miami University. It was while McGuffey was teaching at Miami University that a publisher invited him to write books for school-age children who lived on the frontier and rural areas of the West and the South.
The first two readers, published in 1836, were quickly followed by the next two. His younger brother, Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, wrote the last two, and many changes and additions were made over the years. They also added a primer and a spelling book.
McGuffey touched the lives of the millions of young students whose education came from McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers. During the early 19th century, textbooks and teachers trained in instructional methods were scarce in frontier and rural schools. McGuffey Readers offered an engaging and standardized way for these children to learn to read.
Jeanine Head Miller, curator of domestic life at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, says the magic of McGuffey was that “he was a man who had attended frontier schools as a young child and taught in them as a young man. McGuffey knew what would inspire children, connect with their personal experience, and give them a window on the world. As a skilled educator, he knew how to structure these textbooks,” Miller explains. “He knew that including stories of everyday life and illustrations would engage the students, making it easier for them to learn. In his Readers, these children found stories about their own daily lives and then moved on to writings in literature, philosophy and history.”
The books are filled with stories, poems, and selections from great literature. Students who began with the early books learned to read and spell and pronounce words, gradually improving their vocabulary, reading and penmanship skills. By the time they were using McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader, they were exposed to the writings of William Shakespeare, Patrick Henry, Washington Irving, John Milton, Edmund Burke, Edgar Allan Poe, Benjamin Franklin and, of course, the Bible. The students completed their high school work with the latter books.
A Moral Education
Moral lessons abound in the stories, reflecting the Presbyterian values which McGuffey held dear. In later revisions, much of the religious overtones were softened. Character lessons on responsibility, honesty, fairness and charity remained. Students responded to the books, teachers liked their content, and publishers marketed the books aggressively, making them bestsellers.
McGuffey earned only $1,000 for the books that sold more than 122 million copies between 1836 and 1920. The number sold rivals that of the Bible. The books can still be found today in bookstores and online. They continue to be used in some areas and are frequently included in home-schooling studies.
One student of the McGuffey Readers, and a great devotee of McGuffey, was the industrialist Henry Ford.
According to Rebecca Keenan, W&J College archivist, Ford was a friend of W&J President Ralph Cooper Hutchison (1931-1945). “Ford made several visits to the W&J campus and donated a reproduction of the McGuffey Reader series to the college,” she says, adding that Ford also led the annual W&J Cotillion at the George Washington Hotel. None of this surprised Miller, who noted that “McGuffey was one of Ford’s heroes.”
The McGuffey Readers left such a lasting impression on Ford that he acquired the log home that had been McGuffey’s birthplace. He moved the ramshackle home to his Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford in 1932, and two years later erected a monument to McGuffey at the original location of the homestead.
