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Title: A History of the McGuffey Readers

Author: Henry Hobart Vail

Release date: April 7, 2005 [eBook #15577]
Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF
THE MCGUFFEY READERS ***

A HISTORY
OF THE
McGUFFEY READERS.

William H. McGuffey

A HISTORY
OF THE
McGUFFEY READERS.

By
HENRY H. VAIL.

WITH THREE PORTRAITS.

THE BOOKISH BOOKS—IV.
New Edition.

CLEVELAND
THE BURROWS BROTHERS CO.
1911

Copyright, 1911, by Henry H. Vail.

[Transcriber's Note: At the top of each page in the original is a header line briefly describing the
content on each page. In this document, these header lines have been removed from the text flow, but
are visible if the mouse is hovered over the page number markers on the right side of the document.]

A History of the McGuffey Readers

THE BOOKS.

Before me are four small books roughly bound in boards, the sides
covered with paper. On the reverse of the title pages, two bear a copyright
entry in the year 1836; the others were entered in 1837. They are the earliest
editions of McGuffey's Eclectic Readers that have been found in a search
lasting forty years.
They represent the first efforts in an educational and business enterprise
that has for three-quarters of a century called for the best exertions of many
skilled men, and in their several forms these books have taken a
conspicuous part in the education of millions of the citizens of this country.
But what interest can the history of the McGuffey Eclectic Readers have
to those who did not use these books in their school career? Their story
differs from that of other readers since in successive forms, adjusted more
or less perfectly to the changing demands of the schools, they attained a
wider and more prolonged use than has been accorded to any other series.
By custom and under sanction of law certain studies are pursued in the
common schools of every state. Spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic,
geography, history, grammar, civics and physiology are the subjects usually
taught. The school authorities select the textbooks which shall be used in
each subject. The readers are the only texts used in all schools affording
opportunity for distinct ethical teaching. The history of our country should
give ideas of patriotism; the civics should contain the primary notions of
government; the physiologies should instruct the pupils in the laws of
health; but the reader should cover the whole field of morals and manners
and in language that will impress their teaching indelibly upon the mind of
every pupil. While the chief aim of the school readers must be to teach the
child to apprehend thought from the printed page and convey this thought to
the attentive listener with precision, these efforts should be exerted upon

thoughts that have permanent value. No other texts used in the school room
bear directly and positively upon the formation of character in the pupils.
The school readers are the proper and indispensable texts for teaching true
patriotism, integrity, honesty, industry, temperance, courage, politeness, and
all other moral and intellectual virtues. In these books every lesson should
have a distinct purpose in view, and the final aim should be to establish in
the pupils high moral principles which are at the foundation of character.
The literature of the English language is rich in material suited to this
intent; no other language is better endowed. This material is fresh to every
pupil, no matter how familiar it may be to teacher or parent. Although some
of it has been in print for three centuries, it is true and beautiful today.
President Eliot has said, "When we teach a child to read, our primary aim
is not to enable it to decipher a way-bill or a receipt, but to kindle its
imagination, enlarge its vision and open for it the avenues of knowledge."
Knowledge gives power, which may be exerted for good or for evil.
Character gives direction to power. Power is the engine which may force
the steamer through the water, character is the helm which renders the
power serviceable for good.
Readers which have been recognized as formers of good habits of action,
thought, and speech for three-quarters of a century, which have taught a
sound morality to millions of children without giving offense to the most
violent sectarian, which have opened the doors of pure literature to all their
users, are surely worthy of study as to their origin, their successive changes,
and their subsequent career.
The story of these readers is told in the specimens of the several editions,
in the long treasured and time-worn contracts, in the books of accounts kept
by the successive publishers, and in the traditions which have been passed
down from white haired men who gossiped of the early days in the
schoolbook business. Valuable information has also been furnished by
descendants of the McGuffey family, and by the educational institutions
with which each of the authors of the readers was connected.
For half a century the present writer has had personal knowledge of the
readers. At first, as a teacher, using them daily in the class room; but soon,

as an editor, directing the literary work of the publishers and owners. It
therefore falls to him to narrate a story "quorum pars minima fui."
For more than seventy years the McGuffey Readers have held high rank
as text-books for use in the elementary schools, especially throughout the
West and South. But during this time these books have been revised five
times and adjusted to the changed conditions in the schools. In each one of
these revisions the marked characteristics of the original series have been
most scrupulously retained, and the continued success of the series is
doubtless owing to this fact. There has been a continuity of spirit.
The First and Second Readers were first published in 1836. In 1837 the
Third and Fourth Readers were printed. For reasons elsewhere explained
these books were "improved and enlarged" in 1838. In 1841 a higher reader
was added to the series which was then named McGuffey's Rhetorical
Guide. In the years 1843 and 1844 the four books then constituting the
series were thoroughly remodeled and on the title pages were placed the
words "Newly Revised" and the Rhetorical Guide was annexed as the Fifth
Reader. Ten years later the entire series was made over and issued in six
books. These were then called the New Readers. From 1853 until 1878 the
books remained substantially unchanged; but in the latter year they were
renewed largely in substance and improved in form. These readers as
copyrighted in 1879 were extensively used for more than a quarter of a
century. Changing conditions in the school room called for another revision
in 1901. This latest form now in extensive use is called The New McGuffey
Readers.
Each of these revisions has constituted practically a new series although
the changes have never included the entire contents. In the higher readers
will be found today many selections which appeared in the original books.
The reason for retaining such selections is clear. No one has been able to
write in the English language selections that are better for school use than
some written by Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, and other early writers. The
literature of the English language has not all been written in the present
decade nor in the last century.
As at first published, the lower books of the McGuffey Readers had no
trace of the modern methods now used in teaching the mastery of words—

even the alphabet was not given in orderly form; but the alphabetic method
of teaching the art of reading was then the only one used. The pupil at first
spelled each word by naming the letters and then pronounced each syllable
and then the word.
The following stanza is copied from page 61 of the edition of 1844 to
illustrate the method of presenting words:

I like to see a lit-tle dog,
And pat him on the head;
So pret-ti-ly he wags his tail
When-ev-er he is fed.

The First Reader was mostly in words of one syllable. In this book we
find the story of the lame dog that, when cured, brought another lame dog
to be doctored: of the kind boy who freed his caged bird; of the cruel boy
who drowned the cat and pulled wings and legs from flies; of Peter Pindar
the story teller, and the "snow dog" of Mount St. Bernard; of Mr. Post who
adopted and reared Mary; of the boy who told a lie and repented after he
was found out; of the chimney sweep who was tempted to steal a gold
watch but put it back and was thereafter educated by its owner; of the
whisky boy; and of the mischievous boy who played ghost and made
another boy insane. Nearly every lesson has a moral clearly stated in formal
didactic words at its close.
In the Second Reader we find the story of the idle boy who talked with
the bees, dogs, and horses, and having found them all busy, reformed
himself; of the kind girl who shared her cake with a dog and an old man; of
the mischievous boys who tied the grass across the path and thus upset not
only the milk-maid but the messenger running for a doctor to come to their
father; of the wise lark who knew that the farmer's grain would not be cut
until he resolved to cut it himself; of the wild and ravenous bear that treed a
boy and hung suspended by his boot; and of another bear that traveled as a
passenger by night in a stage coach; of the quarrelsome cocks, pictured in a
clearly English farm yard, that were both eaten up by the fox that had been
brought in by the defeated cock; of the honest boy and the thief who was
judiciously kicked by the horse that carried oranges in baskets; of George
Washington and his historic hatchet and the mutilated cherry-tree; and of

the garden that was planted with seeds in lines spelling Washington's name
which removed all doubt as to an intelligent Creator. There were also some
lessons on such animals as beavers, whales, peacocks and lions.
The Third Reader will be remembered first because of the picture, on the
cover, of Napoleon on his rearing charger. This book contained five
selections from the Bible; Croly's "Conflagration of the Ampitheatre at
Rome;" "How a Fly Walks on the Ceiling;" "The Child's Inquiry;" "How big
was Alexander, Pa;" Irving's "Description of Pompey's Pillar;" Woodworth's
"Old Oaken Bucket;" Miss Gould's "The Winter King;" and Scott's
"Bonaparte Crossing the Alps," commencing "'Is the route practicable?' said
Bonaparte. 'It is barely possible to pass,' replied the engineer. 'Let us set
forward, then,' said Napoleon." The rearing steed facing a precipitous slope
in the picture gave emphasis to the words. There were also in this reader
several pieces about Indians and bears, which indicate that Dr. McGuffey
never forgot the stories told at the fireside by his father of his adventures as
an Indian scout and hunter.
In the Fourth Reader there were seventeen selections from the Bible;
William Wirt's "Description of the Blind Preacher;" Phillip's "Character of
Napoleon Bonaparte;" Bacon's "Essay on Studies;" Nott's "Speech on the
Death of Alexander Hamilton;" Addison's "Westminster Abbey;" Irving's
"Alhambra;" Rogers's "Genevra;" Willis's "Parrhasius;" Montgomery's
"Make Way for Liberty;" two extracts from Milton and two from
Shakespeare, and no less than fourteen selections from the writings of the
men and women who lectured before the College of Teachers in Cincinnati.
The story of the widow of the Pine Cottage sharing her last smoked herring
with a strange traveler who revealed himself as her long-lost son, returning
rich from the Indies, was anonymous, but it will be remembered by those
who read it.
These selections were the most noteworthy ones in the first editions of
these readers.
The First and Second Readers of the McGuffey Series were substantially
made new at each revision. A comparison of the original Third Reader with
an edition copyrighted in 1847, shows that the latter book was increased
about one-third in size. Of the sixty-six selections in the early edition only

forty-seven were retained, while thirty new ones were inserted. Among the
latter were "Harry and his Dog Frisk" that brought to him, punished by
being sent to bed, a Windsor pear; "Perseverance," a tale of kite-flying
followed by the poem, "Try, try again;" the "Little Philosopher," named
Peter Hurdle, who caught Mr. Lenox's runaway horse and on examination
seemed to lack nothing but an Eclectic spelling book, a reader and a
Testament—which were promised him; "The Colonists," in which men of
various callings offered their services, and while even the dancing master
was accepted as of some possible use, the gentleman was scornfully
rejected; "Things by Their Right Names," in which a battle was described
as wholesale murder; "Little Victories," in which Hugh's mother consoled
him for the loss of a leg by telling him of the lives of men who became
celebrated under even greater adversities; "The Wonderful Instrument,"
which turned out to be the eye; "Metaphysics," a ludicrous description of a
colonial salt-box in affected terms of exactness designed to ridicule some
forms of reasoning. Those who used this edition of the third reader will
surely remember some of these selections.
In the Fourth Reader printed in 1844 there were thirty new selections—
less than one-third of the book; but some of these were such as will be
remembered by those who read them in school. There was "Respect for the
Sabbath Rewarded," in which a barber of Bath had become so poor because
he would not shave his customers on Sunday, that he borrowed a half-penny
to buy a candle Saturday night to give light for a late customer, and was
thus discovered to be the long-lost William Reed of Taunton, heir to many
thousand pounds; "The Just Judge," who disguised himself as a miller and,
obtaining a place on the jury, received only five guineas as a bribe when the
others got ten, and who revealed himself as Lord Chief Justice Hale and
tried the case over in his miller's clothing; Hawthorne's "The Town Pump;"
Mrs. Southey's "April Day."

"All day the low-hung clouds have dropped
Their garnered fullness down.
All day a soft gray mist hath wrapped
Hill, valley, grove and town."

Bryant's "Death of the Flowers;" Campbell's "Lochiel's Warning;" and
the trial scene from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. All these became

favorite reading exercises in later years.
As late as 1840 the Bible was read daily in all the schools of the West.
Although sectarian or denominational teaching was not permitted, religious
instruction was desired by the great majority of school patrons.
Even up to the opening of the Civil War, whatever the faith or the
practice of the adult inhabitants of the country, the Bible story and the Bible
diction were familiar to all. The speeches of the popular orators of that day
were filled with distinct allusions to the Bible and these were quickly and
clearly apprehended by the people. It may be questioned whether popular
speeches of the present day would have equal force if based on the
assumption that everybody knows the Biblical stories. Indeed it is a
common remark made by professors of English in the higher institutions of
learning that pupils know little of the Bible as a distinctly formative and
conservative element in English literature. In the texts authorized for the
study of English classics, Biblical allusions are very common. These have
little meaning to pupils who have not read the Bible, unless the passage is
pointed out and hunted up.
From the pages of these readers the pupils learned to master the printed
word and obtain the thought of the authors. Without conscious effort they
received moral instruction and incentives toward right living. Without intent
they treasured in their memories such extracts from the authors of the best
English Literature as gave them a desire to read more.
In one of his sermons Dr. David Swing of Chicago said: "Much as you
may have studied the languages or the sciences, that which most affected
you was the moral lessons in the series of McGuffey. And yet the reading
class was filed out only once a day to read for a few moments, and then we
were all sent to our seats to spend two hours in learning how to bound New
Hampshire or Connecticut, or how long it would take a greyhound to
overtake a fox or a hare if the spring of each was so and so, and the poor
fugitive had such and such a start. That was perhaps well, but we have
forgotten how to bound Connecticut, and how to solve the equation of the
field and thicket; but up out of the far-off years come all the blessed lessons
in virtue and righteousness which those reading books taught; and when we
now remember, how even these moral memories have faded I cannot but

wish the teachers had made us bound the States less, and solve fewer
puzzles in 'position' and the 'cube root' and made us commit to memory the
whole series of the McGuffey Eclectic Readers. The memory that comes
from these far-away pages is full of the best wisdom of time or the timeless
land. In these books we were indeed led by a schoolmaster, from beautiful
maxims for children up to the best thoughts of a long line of sages, and
poets, and naturalists. There we all first learned the awful weakness of the
duel that took away a Hamilton; there we saw the grandeur of the Blind
Preacher of William Wirt; there we saw the emptiness of the ambition of
Alexander, and there we heard even the infidel say, 'Socrates died like a
philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God.'"
This public recognition of the influence of these readers upon the mind
and character of this great preacher is again noted in Rev. Joseph Fort
Newton's biography of David Swing in which the books which influenced
that life are named as "The Bible, Calvin's Institutes, Fox's Book of Martyrs
and the McGuffey Readers;" and the author quotes David Swing as saying
that "The Institutes were rather large reading for a boy, but to the end of his
life he held that McGuffey's Sixth Reader was a great book. For Swing, as
for many a boy in the older West, its varied and wise selections from the
best English authors were the very gates of literature ajar."
One of the most eminent political leaders of the present day attributes his
power in the use of English largely to the study of McGuffey's Sixth Reader
in the common schools of Ohio.
At a dinner lately given in New York to Marquis Ito of Japan, the
marquis responded to the toast of his health returning thanks in English. He
then continued his remarks in Japanese for some eight minutes. At its close
Mr. Tsudjuki, who was then the minister of Education in Japan, traveling
with Marquis Ito as his friend and companion, and who had taken shorthand
notes of the Japanese speech, rose and translated the speech readily and
fluently into good English. One of the guests asked how he had learned to
speak English so correctly. He replied that he had done so in the public
schools of Japan and added, "I learned my English from McGuffey's
Readers, with which you are no doubt familiar."

It is not unusual to see in the literary columns of a daily newspaper
inquiries as to where certain poems may be found of which a single stanza
is faintly recalled. Many of these prove to be fragments of pieces that are
found in the McGuffey Readers. Quite lately Theodore Roosevelt made the
public statement that he did not propose to become a "Meddlesome Matty."
This allusion was perfectly clear to the millions of people who used the
McGuffey Readers at any time after 1853.
When the Fourth Reader was issued in 1837 it contained a preface of
three closely printed pages setting forth and defending the plan of
McGuffey's books. In this he said: "In conclusion, the author begs leave to
state, that the whole series of Eclectic Readers is his own. In the preparation
of the rules, etc., for the present volume he has had the assistance of a very
distinguished Teacher, whose judgment and zeal in promoting the cause of
education have often been commended by the American people. In the
arrangement of the series generally, he is indebted to many of his friends for
valuable suggestions, and he takes this opportunity of tendering them his
thanks for the lively interest they have manifested for the success of his
undertaking."
The sole author of the four readers first issued as the Eclectic Readers
was William Holmes McGuffey. He was responsible for the marked
qualities in these books which met with such astonishing popular approval
in all these years. What these qualities are is well known to those who have
used the books and the users are numbered by millions.
The Rhetorical Guide was prepared by Mr. A.H. McGuffey, and his name
alone was on the early editions. In 1844 the book was revised by the author
and Dr. Pinneo, and was given the alternate title "or Fifth Reader of the
Eclectic Series." The work of revision occupied two years. The title page
carried the name of its author until, for reasons of his own, he asked to have
it removed.
As usual when revisions of schoolbooks are made, the older edition was
continued in publication so long as a distinct demand for it existed. But the
issuance of a revised edition always suggests the question of change, which
competing publishers promptly seek to bring about. The publishers of the
"Newly Revised McGuffey Readers," therefore, sought to replace the older

edition wherever it was in use and to displace competing books wherever
possible. The edition of 1843 acquired large sales over a very wide territory
in the central West and South. It is the edition generally known by the
grandfathers of the school boys of the present day.
It may be interesting to name some of the selections in this Rhetorical
Guide issued in 1844 since in modified form the work has been the highest
reader of the series.
As a guide toward rhetorical reading the book contained a carefully
prepared collection of rules and directions with examples for practice in
Articulation. Inflection, Accent and Emphasis, Reading Verse, for the
Management of the Voice and Gesture. These pages were intended for drill
work, and in those days the teachers were not content with the dull
monotonous utterance of the words or with mere mastery of thought, to be
tested by multitudinous questioning. If the pupil obtained from the printed
page the very thought the author intended to convey, the pupil was expected
to read orally so as to express that thought to all hearers. If the correct
thought was thus heard, no questions were needed. The test of reading
orally is the communication of thought by the reader to the intelligent and
attentive hearer, and the words of the author carry this message more
accurately than can any other words the pupil may select.
The selections in the Rhetorical Guide were made, first of all, to teach the
art of reading. There was therefore great variety. Second, to inculcate a love
for literature. Therefore the selections were taken from the great writers,—
poets, orators, essayists, historians, and preachers. The extracts are
wonderfully complete in themselves,—one does not need to read the whole
of Byron's Don Juan to appreciate the six stanzas that describe the thunder-
storm on the Alps. Of the poetical extracts all the users of this book will
remember Southey's "Cataract of Lodore" with its exacting drill on the
ending,—"ing," Longfellow's "Village Blacksmith" and the "Reaper and the
Flowers;" Bryant's "Thanatopsis" and "Song of the Stars;" Wolfe's "Burial
of Sir John Moore;" Gray's "Elegy;" Mrs. Hemans's "Landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers;" Cowper's "My Mother's Picture;" Jones's "What Constitutes a
State;" Scott's "Lochinvar;" Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris;" Drake's "American
Flag;" and Mrs. Thrale's "Three Warnings." As an introduction to the
thought, imagery and diction of Shakespeare, there were "Hamlet's

Soliloquy," "Speech of Henry Fifth to his Troops," "Othello's Apology,"
"The Fall of Cardinal Wolsey" and his death, the "Quarrel of Brutus and
Cassius" (often committed to memory and spoken) and Antony's Oration
over dead Caesar. The extracts from orations were chosen largely for their
relation to great events in history. There were Patrick Henry's "Speech
before the Virginia Convention," Walpole's "Reproof of Mr. Pitt," and Pitt's
reply. Who cannot remember "The atrocious crime of being a young man,"
and go on with the context? There were extracts from Hayne's "Speech on
South Carolina," and Webster's reply defending Massachusetts; a part of
Burke's long speech on the Trial of Warren Hastings prefaced by
Macaulay's description of the scene; Webster's "Speech on the Trial of a
Murderer," ending with "It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is
no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession;" Webster's
speech on the Importance of the Union with its concluding sentiment,
"Liberty and Union, now and forever; one and inseparable." There was also
Fox's "Political Pause" with its wonderful requirements of inflection to
express irony; Sprague's "American Indians," "Not many generations ago,
where you now sit, encircled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized
life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole
unscared." Did you not commit it to memory and speak it? Then there was
Webster's Speech in which he supplied John Adams from his own fervid
imagination that favorite of all patriotic boys, "Sink or swim, live or die,
survive or perish; I give my hand and my heart to this vote." At its close, "it
is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying
sentiment; independence now, and independence forever."
From the essayists there was Lamb's "Eulogy on Candle Light;" that
delightful "Eulogy on Debt" from an unknown author; Addison's "Allegory
on Discontent," and "Westminster Abbey;" and Jane Taylor's "Discontented
Pendulum." Only seven selections were taken from the Bible; but one of
these was Paul's Defense before Agrippa. There were, however, quite a
number of articles of strongly religious tendency, like Dr. Spring's
"Observance of the Sabbath."
The book contained two hundred and thirty-five selections and of this
number nearly one-half appeared in all subsequent revisions.

This Rhetorical Guide or Fifth Reader is the book that by its careful
selection of specimens of the best English literature in prose and verse
contributed most to the training of its readers toward the appreciation of
true beauty in literature. It contained many pieces of solid and continuous
worth,—many that relate closely to the great historical eras of the United
States.
In the latest revision of the highest reader, made in 1879, one hundred
and thirty-eight selections composed the book. Of this number sixty-one
were in the original book as prepared by Mr. A.H. McGuffey.
It was an admirable collection of much material that is still prized and
which, when carefully read by pupils hungry for thoughtful language, made
a deep and lasting impression. In many cases the inmost thought of the
author may not have been at once fully apprehended by the young readers;
but with advancing years and wider experience in life the stored words
became instinct with thought and feeling.

THE AUTHORS.

Dr. William Holmes McGuffey was born September 28, 1800, on the
southern border of Washington county, Pa. The family descended from
William and Anna (McKittrick) McGuffey who came from Scotland, and
landed at Philadelphia. They made a home in the southern part of York
county, at which, during the Revolution, General Washington often stopped
to refresh himself. In 1789 this family removed to Washington county, Pa.
Alexander McGuffey, the father of Dr. McGuffey, was six years old when
the family came to America in August, 1774. In 1790, when he was twenty-
two years of age, he and his friend, Duncan McArthur, afterward a governor
of Ohio, were selected from five young men who volunteered to act as
scouts against the Indians in Ohio who were then threatening the frontier
settlements in the western part of Virginia and Pennsylvania. These two
young men were selected after tests by Samuel Brady to find which could
run the fastest, shoot most accurately, and were least afraid of Indians.
Alexander McGuffey served in the army three years, venturing his life with
small bodies of scouts in the Indian country. He took part in several fights
with the Indians. When General St. Clair in 1792 marched north from

Cincinnati to meet the Indians, this body of scouts was one day concealed
in a swamp near the spring of Castalia, Ohio. There they saw great numbers
of Indians passing to meet General St. Clair, and three of the scouts
hastened through the Indian country to inform the general. They traveled
only at night and hid during the day. One night they marched forty miles.
They told General St. Clair what they had seen and again went out to watch
the collecting Indians. Three days later St. Clair was defeated. These scouts
were then twelve miles away but the retreating soldiers soon overtook them
and then the "woods were alive with Indians." The scouts turned eastward
and in due time reached Logstown, near Wheeling.
The next year McArthur, McGuffey and George Sutherland were again
sent out by General Wayne to spy the Indians. When only seven or eight
miles from Wheeling and west of the Ohio river, they came upon a trail
which led to a deer lick. Just at dusk McGuffey, who was leading the party,
saw in the path the gaily decorated head-dress of an Indian. It had been
placed there by the Indians who were in ambush close by and were ready to
shoot any white man who should stop to pick it up. McGuffey saw through
the stratagem instantly; without halting, he gave it a kick and shouted
"Indians!" Several Indians fired at once and one of the balls smashed
McGuffey's powder horn, and passed through his clothing, but did not
wound him. The three scouts retreated in safety, and the Indians did not
follow them.
The wars with the Indians in that region closed in 1794, and Alexander
McGuffey then married Anna Holmes, of Washington county, and became a
settler. His eldest son was William Holmes McGuffey. When this son was
but two years old the family moved to Trumbull county, Ohio. Here, in the
care of a pious mother and father, he spent the years of childhood and of
early manhood, performing the labors falling upon the eldest son in a large
family of children dwelling in a log cabin on the frontier. From the heavy
forest, fields were cleared, fenced and cultivated, roads were made and
bridges were built, and in all these labors the sturdy son of the famous
Indian scout took part.
During the first eighteen years of W.H. McGuffey's life he had no
opportunities for education other than those afforded by the brief winter

schools supported by the voluntary subscriptions of the parents in the
neighborhood.
In 1802 Rev. Thos. Hughes, a Presbyterian clergyman, built at
Darlington, Pa., the "Old Stone Academy" for the education of young men,
having obtained the necessary funds by traveling on horseback throughout
Pennsylvania and eastward even to Newburyport, Mass.
This seminary of learning was conducted on lines of the utmost economy
to meet the needs of the boys living on the frontier. The tuition was only
three dollars a year and the charge for board was seventy-five cents a week.
The food was simple. For breakfast, bread, butter, and coffee; for dinner,
bread, meat, and sauce; for supper, bread and milk. The only variation
allowed in this bill of fare was the occasional omission of sauce or coffee.
At the close of a summer day in 1818, Thomas Hughes was riding
horseback through Trumbull county. The dust on the highway deadened the
sound of his horse's feet. While passing a log cabin, half hidden from the
road by intervening trees and shrubs, he heard the plaintive voice of a
woman who was in the garden, out of sight. The clergyman stopped his
horse and listened. He heard the woman earnestly praying that some way
might be opened for her children to obtain such education as should fit them
for the duties of life. Riding on, the clergyman inquired at the next house
regarding the inmates of the log cabin. He was informed that a Mr.
McGuffey lived there. Turning back he sought the prayerful mother and
learned from her the circumstances of the family. The doors of the "Old
Stone Academy" were opened to William H. McGuffey and he there
obtained his first start in a preparation for college. But his labor could not
be wholly spared on the farm so lately won from the surrounding forest. He
worked in the fields in summer, continuing his studies and walked many
miles once a week to recite his lessons to a kindly clergyman.
W.H. McGuffey's father was too poor to aid his son in obtaining a
collegiate education, and the latter soon turned to teaching as a means of
obtaining money to support himself in college. When prepared for college
he went back to his native county and entered Washington College. He was
in his twenty-sixth year when he graduated with distinguished honors from
that institution.

It was at Washington College that W.H. McGuffey first met with a great
teacher and former of character,—Dr. Andrew Wylie, then the president. It
was considered by Dr. McGuffey one of the most fortunate events of his life
that he came at that time under the influence of Dr. Wylie's forceful mind
and elevated character.
Dr. McGuffey was obliged to suspend his collegiate course for a year to
earn more money for his support. He taught a private school at Paris, Ky., in
1823 and 1824. There he met Dr. Robert H. Bishop, the president of Miami
University at Oxford, Ohio. Dr. Bishop was so impressed with the character
and mental power of the young teacher that on March 29, 1826, even before
McGuffey received his bachelor's degree from Washington College, he
received his appointment as professor of Ancient Languages at Miami
University.
He graduated in 1826 and began his labor at Oxford, Ohio, at the opening
of the fall session. He at once took high rank in a faculty consisting of
strong men, and, young as he was, won the respect and homage of the
students. In 1832 he was transferred to the chair of Mental Philosophy. To
make this subject interesting and valuable to beginners requires, on the part
of the teacher, wide reading, clearness of thought, and simplicity and
directness of speech. These qualities Dr. McGuffey had. He had become
well read in philosophy, especially of the Scottish school, Brown being his
favorite author. But he had fully assimilated the matter and had thought
independently. He also had a fund of fresh and suggestive illustrations
coming within the daily experience of men, which brought his lectures
close to the minds of the students. Whatever positions of honor or of trust
his pupils held in their later careers, they never ceased to feel the impulse
which came from Dr. McGuffey as a teacher.
On March 29, 1829, he was licensed as a preacher in the Presbyterian
church, and from that date he became a frequent public speaker. He never
had charge of a parish as minister, but usually preached on Sunday in the
college chapel to the students and to such of the public as could obtain
space to sit or to stand. The preacher's unassuming manner, the clearness of
his thought, and the simplicity of his language produced impressions that
were enduring. He never wrote his sermons. He simply thought them out
rigorously, and his mind worked so logically and in such definite lines that

he could repeat on request a sermon, preached years before, in a form
recognized by his hearers as substantially the same.
After ten years spent in teaching and preaching at Miami University, Dr.
McGuffey resigned, August 26, 1836, and accepted the presidency of
Cincinnati College.
This institution was chartered in the winter of 1818-1819 by the
legislature of Ohio, largely at the solicitation of Dr. Daniel Drake. It was
partially endowed by the gifts of the public-spirited citizens of Cincinnati.
But its collegiate functions had been allowed to drop, although a school on
the Lancastrian system was maintained.
The election of Dr. McGuffey as president of this college was a result of
renewed activity on the part of the leading men in the city to found a
genuine college of high character in that city. They believed that if well
conducted such an institution would bring to its doors students enough to
support the college by their fees.
A medical department was organized in June, 1835, with eight competent
professors, a law department with three professors, and a faculty of arts
with seven teachers. In this faculty, William H. McGuffey was president
and professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, O.M. Mitchell was
professor of Mathematics and Astronomy, and Edward D. Mansfield was
professor of Constitutional Law and History. Dr. McGuffey accepted the
presidency with a full knowledge that the work was experimental. A trial of
three years demonstrated that a college could not be sustained without an
invested endowment. Cincinnati College "was endowed with genius, and
nothing else."
In 1839, Dr. McGuffey accepted the presidency of the Ohio University at
Athens, Ohio, which office he held for four years. During these years his
faculties were at their fullest development. He had become an experienced,
scholarly teacher and a popular speaker on religious and educational
subjects. The students at Athens held him in the highest esteem, and the
influence of his teaching became deeper as years rolled by and experience
emphasized his lessons.

In 1839 he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Laws conferred
upon him by the Indiana University, of which his former teacher and friend,
Dr. Wylie, was then president.
The income of the Ohio University came chiefly from the rents of two
entire townships of land which had been given it for an endowment. This
land was lawfully revalued at the end of ten years. The revaluation was
contested in the courts by the tenants. The Supreme Court decided in favor
of the university; but the farmers induced the legislature in 1843 to pass a
law which fixed the income of the university from these lands at a sum so
low as to cause the doors of the institution to be closed for five years.
Dr. McGuffey returned to Cincinnati and was for two years a professor in
Woodward College, now Woodward High School.
In 1845 he was appointed professor of Natural and Moral Philosophy in
the University of Virginia. This position he filled with credit to himself and
with great acceptance to the students in that institution for more than a
quarter of a century and until his death on May 4, 1873.
Dr. McGuffey's classes in the University of Virginia were well attended.
His lectures were delivered extempore, in language exactly expressing his
thoughts. His illustrations were most apt. He taught "with the simplicity of a
child, with the precision of a mathematician, and with the authority of
truth."
A portion of the lecture hour was given to questioning the members of
the class. In this he used the Socratic method, leading the pupil by a series
of questions to the discovery of the incorrectness of his reasoning or the
falsity of his grounds. By this process the students were led to question their
own reasoning, to think clearly and to express their thoughts accurately.
Dr. McGuffey once told a pupil that he had preached three thousand
sermons and had never written one. Until late in life he had never written
his lectures. Shortly before his death he began the preparation of a book on
Mental Philosophy. This was never completed.
Dr. McGuffey was twice married. By his first wife. Miss Harriet
Spinning of Dayton, he had several children. One daughter, Mary, married
Dr. William W. Stewart of Dayton; another, Henrietta, married Professor A.

D. Hepburn who was for a time president of Miami University. Professor
Hepburn's son, in turn inheriting his grandfather's faculty of teaching, is a
professor in the University of Indiana.
In 1837 Professor Calvin E. Stowe went to Europe to investigate the
organization and method of elementary schools. On his return he published,
in 1838, his report on the Prussian system. Subsequently Dr. McGuffey
labored in Ohio with Samuel Lewis and other public-spirited men for the
passage of the general school law under which the common schools of Ohio
were first organized. He carried to Virginia the same zeal for the education
of all the children of the state to prepare them for the duties of life. One of
his first acts on assuming the duties of his professorship in the university
was to make a tour of the state advocating the introduction of a public
school system in Virginia. To this first appeal for common schools, open
alike to rich and poor, there was then but a feeble response; but, twenty-five
years later, Dr. McGuffey had the satisfaction of seeing the public schools
organized with one of his own friends and a former pupil at its head,—Hon.
W.H. Ruffner.
Dr. McGuffey was a man of medium stature and compact figure. His
forehead was broad and full; his eyes clear and expressive. His features
were of the strongly marked rugged Scotch type. He was a ready speaker, a
popular lecturer on educational topics, and an able preacher. He was
admirable in conversation. His observation of men was accurate, and his
study of character close.
After the Civil War and while the reconstruction was in progress it was
extremely difficult in the North to obtain a correct view of the situation in
the South. State governments had been established in which "carpet-
baggers" had more or less control. Nearly all the whites in the South had
taken part in the war. They were largely disfranchised and their former
servants often became the legal rulers. The Klu Klux Klan had begun their
unlawful work, of which the papers gave contradictory reports.
As business men, the publishers of McGuffey's Readers desired to learn
the truth about the situation of the South and its probable future. They asked
Dr. McGuffey to take a trip through the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and
Mississippi and make report to them at Cincinnati. This he did, visiting all

the larger towns where he was usually the honored guest of some graduate
of the university. He saw the legislatures in session, met the governors, and
studied the whole situation. He then came to Cincinnati and told his story.
He had made no notes, but he never hesitated for a name. He repeated
conversations with unquestioned accuracy and described with humor the
gross ignorance and brutality of some of the southern legislators, the looting
of the capitol at the end of the session, the indirect robbery that was under
way, the reversal of all the conditions of life, and the growing unrest of the
men who had heretofore been the rulers.
It was such a picture as at that time no Northern paper would have dared
to print—it was the truth. For days he held his listeners captive with the
story—the writer never heard a more interesting one.
While Dr. McGuffey was still at Oxford, Ohio, he took part in the
formation of probably the first extended Teachers' Association formed in the
West. There had been a previous association of Cincinnati teachers
organized for mutual aid and improvement. This was about to be given up;
but at their first anniversary on June 20, 1831, Mr. Albert Pickett, principal
of a private school in Cincinnati, proposed a plan for organizing in one
body the instructors in public and private schools and the friends of
education. Circulars were sent out and the first meeting of the College of
Teachers was held October 3, 1832. A great number of teachers from many
states of the West and South attended these meetings and took part in the
proceedings. Throughout its continuance Dr. McGuffey took an active part
in the work. In the years 1832-1836 fifty-seven addresses were delivered to
the College by thirty-nine speakers. Of this number Dr. McGuffey prepared
and delivered three.
The proceedings of the College of Teachers were published in annual
pamphlets which together formed two large octavo volumes. The topics
which were then under discussion are best shown by the titles of a few of
the addresses, with the name of the speaker and the year of delivery:
On Introducing the Bible into Schools, Rev. B.P. Aydelott, 1836;
Importance of making the business of Teaching a Profession, Lyman
Beecher, D.D., 1833; The Kind of Education Adapted to the West, Professor
Bradford, 1833; Qualifications of Teachers, Mr. Mann Butler, 1832;

Physical Education, Dr. Daniel Drake, 1833; On Popular Education, John P.
Harrison, M.D., 1836; On the Study and Nature of Ancient Languages, A.
Kinmont, 1832; On Common Schools, Samuel Lewis, Esq., 1835; On the
Qualifications of Teachers, E.D. Mansfield, Esq., 1836; Reciprocal Duties
of Parents and Teachers, Rev. W.H. McGuffey, A.M., 1835; General Duties
of Teachers, Albert Pickett, 1835; Philosophy of the Human Mind, Bishop
Purcell, 1836; Utility of Cabinets of Natural Science, Joseph Ray, 1836;
Agriculture as a Branch of Education, Rev. E. Slack, 1836; Education of
Emigrants, Professor Calvin Stowe, 1835; Best Method of Teaching
Composition, D.L. Talbott, 1835; Manual Labor in the Schools, Milo G.
Williams.
Some of these topics are still engrossing the attention of teachers at their
annual meetings for the discussion of live educational questions.
While Dr. McGuffey was at Oxford, teaching mental philosophy to the
pupils in Miami University, he prepared the manuscript for the two lower
readers of the graded series which bore his name. To test his work while in
progress, he collected in his own house a number of small children whom
he taught to read by the use of his lessons.
It is evident that these readers were prepared at the solicitation of the
publishers and on such a general plan as to number and size as was desired
by the publishers. Dr. McGuffey was selected by them as the most
competent teacher known to them for the preparation of successful books.
He did not prepare the manuscripts and search for a publisher.
On April 28, 1836, he made a contract with Truman & Smith, publishers
of Cincinnati, for the preparation and publication of a graded series of
readers to consist of four books. The First and Second readers were then in
manuscript, the Third and Fourth readers were to be completed within
eighteen months. They were both issued in 1837. Dr. Benjamin Chidlaw,
then a student in college, aided the author by copying the indicated
selections and preparing them for the printer. He received for this work five
dollars and thought himself well paid.
These four books constituted the original series of the Eclectic Readers
by W.H. McGuffey which in all the subsequent revisions have borne his
name and retained the impress of his mind.

The First Reader made a thin 18mo book of seventy-two pages, having
green paper covered sides; the Second Reader contained one hundred and
sixty-four pages of the same size. The Third Reader had a larger page and
was printed as a duodecimo of one hundred and sixty-five pages. The fourth
Reader ranked in size with the Third and contained three hundred and
twenty-four printed pages. Each was printed from the type, which was
distributed when the required number for the edition came from the press.
By the terms of the contract the publishers paid a royalty of ten per cent
on all copies sold until the copyright should reach the sum of one thousand
dollars, after which the Readers became the absolute property of the
publishers. It must be remembered that in those days this sum of money
seemed much larger than it would at the present time, and it may be
questioned whether this newly organized firm of publishers commanded as
much as a thousand dollars in their entire business. At any rate the contract
was mutually satisfactory and remained so to the end of the author's life.
Right here it seems proper to remark that although the McGuffey readers
became the property of the publishers when the royalties reached one
thousand dollars. Dr. McGuffey was employed by the publishers in
connection with important revisions so long as he lived and the contracts
specify a "satisfactory consideration" in each case.
When, after the Civil War, these readers attained a sale which became
very profitable to the firm then owning the copyrights, the partners, without
suggestion or solicitation, fixed upon an annuity which was paid Dr.
McGuffey each year so long as he lived. This was a voluntary recognition
of their esteem for the man and of the continued value of his work.
Before Dr. McGuffey completed the manuscripts of the Third and Fourth
readers he left Oxford and went to Cincinnati. Here he found himself in
close touch with a community fully alive to the claims of education.
Cincinnati, in 1837, was the largest city in the West excepting New Orleans
and was the great educational center of the West. The early settlers of
Cincinnati were generally well educated men and they had a keen sense of
the value of learning. The public schools of Cincinnati were then more
highly developed than those of any other city in the West. Woodward High
School had been endowed and Dr. Joseph Ray, the author of the well known
arithmetics, was the professor of mathematics there. The Cincinnati College

was then bright with the promise of future usefulness. Lane Seminary was
founded and Dr. Lyman Beecher was inducted professor of Theology on
December 26, 1832, and became the first president. He went to Cincinnati
with his brilliant family. His eldest daughter, Catherine, had already won a
high reputation as a teacher, acting as principal of the Hartford (Conn.)
Female Institute. His younger daughter, Harriet, married, in January, 1836,
Calvin E. Stowe, then one of the professors in Lane Seminary. It was while
in Cincinnati that she gathered material and formed opinions which she
later embodied in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In 1834 Henry Ward Beecher
graduated at Amherst College. He and his brother, Charles, then went to
Cincinnati to study theology under their father. While pursuing his studies
Henry Ward Beecher devoted his surplus energies to editorial work on the
Cincinnati Daily Journal. These were some of the people of Cincinnati
interested in the problem of education who took part with Dr. McGuffey in
the discussions of the College of Teachers and labored zealously for the
promotion of education in every department. While president of Lane
Seminary. Dr. Beecher was also the pastor of the Second Presbyterian
Church in Cincinnati where W.B. Smith was an attendant.
Dr. McGuffey left Cincinnati in 1839, and when the publisher, Mr.
Winthrop B. Smith, found it necessary to add to the four McGuffey's
Readers another more advanced book, he employed for its preparation, Mr.
Alexander H. McGuffey, a younger brother of Dr. McGuffey. Mr. Alexander
H. McGuffey had, in 1837, prepared for Messrs. Truman & Smith the
manuscript of McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book, and although the nature
of this task was very different from the preparation of a reader for the
highest grades in the elementary schools, the result showed that the
publishers judged wisely in selecting a man competent to prepare a
selection from English literature.

Alexander H. McGuffey

Mr. Alexander Hamilton McGuffey was born August 13, 1816, in
Trumbull County, Ohio. He was sixteen years younger than his brother,
William, and when only ten years of age was placed under charge of his
brother at Oxford, Ohio. There he studied Hebrew before he had any
knowledge of the grammar of his mother tongue. He was a brilliant student,
and he graduated from Miami University at the age of sixteen. Soon after
graduation he was appointed Professor of Belles Lettres at Woodward
College. In this field of labor his knowledge of English literature was
broadened and he acquired a love for the classic English writers that lasted
through life. But Mr. McGuffey determined to become a lawyer and, while

still teaching English literature in Woodward College, he read law. He was
admitted to the bar as soon as he reached his twenty-first year, and became
a noted and wise counsellor. His labor for his clients was in keeping them
out of the courts by clearly expressed contracts and prudent action. He was
seldom engaged in jury trials; but was expert in cases involving contracts
and wills. In such suits his knowledge of the principles of law and his
power of close reasoning were valuable. He was often placed in positions of
trust, and was for more than fifty years the watchful guardian of the
interests of the Cincinnati College.
He prepared the manuscript of the Rhetorical Guide after the close of his
labor as a teacher. The work probably occupied his leisure time in a law
office before he acquired remunerative practice in his profession.
The contract between Mr. A.H. McGuffey and W.B. Smith, dated
September 30, 1841, provided for the preparation within eighteen months,
of the manuscript of a book to be called McGuffey's Rhetorical Reader, or
by any other appropriate name which Mr. Smith might select. It was to
contain not less than three hundred and twenty-four duodecimo pages nor
more than four hundred and eighty. Mr. Smith paid five hundred dollars for
it, in three notes payable in three, twelve, and eighteen months after the
delivery of the manuscript. The book was issued in 1844 as McGuffey's
Rhetorical Guide. Its material, revised by its author, later became, in
modified form, the Fifth Reader in the five-book series, and again much of
the same material was used in the Sixth Reader published first in 1855.
Mr. A.H. McGuffey died at his home on Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati, on June
3, 1896. He was twice married. His first wife, married in 1839, was Miss
Elizabeth M. Drake, daughter of the eminent Dr. Daniel Drake. After her
death he married Miss Caroline V. Rich of Boston. He had a large family. A
son, Charles D. McGuffey. Esq., lives at Chattanooga, Tenn.
Mr. A.H. McGuffey was a noteworthy figure in any assemblage of men.
He was tall, slender and erect. His manner was urbane and reserved. He
served on many charitable and educational boards and was attentive to his
trusts. He was an active member of the Episcopalian Church, being many
years a warden in his parish, and frequently a delegate to the Diocesan
Convention, where he was a recognized authority on Ecclesiastical Law.

In a life of nearly eighty years in which he was active in many
educational and beneficent enterprises his early work in the preparation of
the Rhetorical Guide probably exercised the widest, the best, and the most
enduring influence. Many of the newspapers in all parts of the country
published notices of his death, recognizing in kindly terms the service that
had been rendered the writers by the schoolbook of which he was the
author.

THE PUBLISHERS AND EDITORS.

Since the McGuffey Readers became at an early day the absolute
property of their publishers, they became responsible for all subsequent
revisions and corrections of the books.
The firm of Truman & Smith was organized about 1834 by William B.
Truman and Winthrop B. Smith. Both had had some experience in the
business of selling books. It is highly probable that this firm became for a
short time the Western agent for some schoolbooks made in the East. But
Mr. Smith soon perceived a distinct demand for a series adapted to the
Western market and supplied near at hand. He had the courage to follow his
convictions.
Mr. Winthrop B. Smith was born in Stamford, Conn., September 28,
1808, the son of Anthony and Rebecca (Clarke) Smith. He was, in his
youth, an employee in a book-house in New Haven. At the age of eighteen
he went to Cincinnati, declaring that he would not return to his home until
he was independent. He labored there fourteen years before he returned, not
rich, but established in an independent career. He often declared that until
1840, he was "insolvent, but no one knew it."
Before entering business, Mr. Smith received a sound common school
education. This, grounded on a nature well endowed with common sense,
great energy, and strong determination, qualified him for success in
business. He became a man of great originality, clear-headed and far-
sighted. Toward his employees he was just, but exacting. He was a good
judge of the character and qualities of other men, and was thus able to bring
to his aid competent assistants who were loyal and effective.

Mr. Smith married in Cincinnati on November 4th, 1834, Mary Sargent.
He died in Philadelphia, December 5th, 1885, in his 78th year. Of his
family, one son is a banker in Philadelphia.
The firm of Truman & Smith published several miscellaneous books,
mostly reprints of standard works likely to have a steady sale. Their first
venture in a copyrighted book was "The Child's Bible with Plates; by a lady
of Cincinnati," which was entered on June 2, 1834. On June 21st of the
same year the firm entered the titles of three books: "Mason's Sacred Harp,"
a collection of church music by Lowell Mason of Boston, and Timothy B.
Mason of Cincinnati; "Introduction to Ray's Eclectic Arithmetic," by Dr.
Joseph Ray; and "English Grammar on the Productive System," by Roswell
C. Smith. Of these four books the arithmetic was issued on July 4, 1834. It
was the firm's first schoolbook. In revised and enlarged form it later became
the first book in the successful series of "Ray's Arithmetics."

W. B. Smith

But even in those early days, books would not sell themselves unless
their qualities were made known to the public. Agents had to be employed
—and at first Mr. Smith was his own best agent. There were expenses for
travel and for sample books, for advertising, as well as for printing and
binding.

The Truman and Smith team did not always pull together. Mr. Truman
was not versed in the schoolbook business. Mr. Smith was.
It is said that Mr. Smith went early one morning to their humble shop on
the second floor of No. 150 Main street, and made two piles of sample
books. In one he put all the miscellaneous publications of the firm, big and
little—the Child's Bible and Sacred Harp among them—and on top of the
pile placed all the cash the firm possessed; in the other, were half a dozen
small text books, including the four McGuffey Readers. When Mr. Truman
arrived, Mr. Smith expressed the desire to dissolve the partnership, showed
the two piles and offered Mr. Truman his choice. He pounced on the cash
and the larger pile and left the insignificant schoolbooks for Mr. Smith, who
thereupon became the sole owner of McGuffey's Readers.
This separation of the partnership took place in 1841 and although there
is no documentary evidence of the exact method in which it was brought
about, the division of assets was in accord with the spirit of the incident as
handed down by tradition.
Mr. Truman's apparent disgust with the schoolbook business may have
come in part from a lawsuit in which his firm was made a defendant.
Sooner or later, publishers are quite likely to obtain some elementary
instructions as to the meaning and intent of the copyright law through
action taken in court. Messrs. Truman & Smith took a lesson in 1838.
On October 1st of that year Benjamin F. Copeland and Samuel Worcester
brought suit in the court of the United States against Truman & Smith and
William H. McGuffey for infringement of copyright, alleging that material
had been copied from Worcester's Second, Third, and Fourth Readers and
that even the plan of the two latter readers had been pirated.
A temporary injunction was issued December 25, 1838; but before that
date the McGuffey Readers had been carefully compared with the
Worcester Readers and every selection was removed that seemed in the
slightest degree an invasion of the previous copyright of the Worcester
Readers. As these McGuffey books were still not stereotyped, it cost no
more to set up new matter than to reset the old. On the title page of each
book appeared the words, "Revised and Improved Edition," and two pages
in explanation and defense were inserted. In these the publishers stated that

certain compilers of schoolbooks, in New England, felt themselves
aggrieved that the McGuffey books contained a portion of matter similar to
their own which was considered common property, and had instituted legal
proceedings against them with a view to the immediate suppression of the
McGuffey books and in the meantime had provided supplies of the
Worcester books to meet the demand of the West.
No objection was raised to meeting these compilers on their own
grounds; but for both parties there was another tribunal than the law. "The
public never choose schoolbooks to please compilers." They stated that to
place themselves entirely in the right and remove every cause for cavil or
complaint they had expunged everything claimed as original, and
substituted other matter, which, both for its fitness and variety would add to
the value of the Eclectic Readers. Throughout this preface, after stating the
facts regarding the suit, there was a strong claim for the support of Western
enterprise.
Although in this appeal the publishers stated that the correspondences
between the two series were "few and immaterial," a careful comparison of
the early edition of the Second Reader with the "Revised and Improved
Edition" shows that Mr. Smith took out seventeen selections and inserted in
their places new matter. To an unprejudiced examiner it appears that the
new matter was better than the old. The old marked copy of Worcester's
Second Reader, preserved for all these years, shows ten pieces that were
used in both books. It thus appears that the publisher took this opportunity
to improve the books as well as to make them unassailable under the
copyright law. In three months between the bringing of the suit and the
granting of an injunction, Mr. Smith had made his improved edition safe
and rendered the injunction practically void.
The court proceeded in the usual manner and appointed a master to
examine the books and make report to ascertain what damage had been
inflicted on the owners of the Worcester Readers. But Mr. Smith was an
attendant in church and doubtless had heard Dr. Beecher read, "Agree with
thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him, lest at any time
the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and thou be cast into prison," and he had no desire to remain there
until he had "paid the uttermost farthing."

When the master, in the leisurely execution of his duty, made his report
nearly two years later, the court found that the defendants had removed
from their books the pirated parts and that the suit had been settled by
paying the plaintiffs two thousand dollars. There was no further contest
about the plan of the two books.
The Worcester Readers had a short and inconspicuous life. When this suit
was brought, their publishers were Richardson, Lord and Holbrook of
Boston. In 1836 Charles J. Hendee published them, and in 1854 they
appeared with the name of Jenks, Hickling & Swan of Boston. These
several publishers were probably gobbled up by some imaginary Book
Trust sixty years ago.
Dr. McGuffey undoubtedly inserted these selections innocent of any
wrong intent and supposed them to be in common use.
As early as 1848 the success of the Eclectic Readers was sufficient to
excite imitation and in the First Reader of that year Mr. Smith printed four
preliminary pages warning his patrons not to be deceived by "Newman's
Southern Eclectic Readers."
In the first century after the settlement of this country the New England
Primer had a history which in some respects resembles that of the
McGuffey Readers. In that case, the settlers were widely removed from the
source of supply which had in past years served their needs. The Primer was
strongly religious and fully in accord with the faith of the people. It served
as a first book in reading and was followed by the Bible. This Primer was
not protected by copyright and any enterprising bookseller or printer in a
remote town could manufacture an edition to supply the local demand. The
excessive cost of transportation was thus avoided.
Somewhat similar causes contributed to the widespread use and long-
continued demands for Webster's Spelling Book, which was copyrighted.
This book had the support of the authority of Webster's Dictionary—an
original American work; and it soon became a staple article of merchandise
which was kept in stock in every country store. It supplanted the New
England Primer and became the first book in the hands of every pupil. Less
marked in its religious instruction, the speller spread through the South and
into regions where the people were not trained in the Puritan doctrines. The

wonderful sales of Webster's Spelling Book remained for many years after
the War; but have now dropped to insignificance. It is not probable that
other books will under present conditions repeat the history of these books.
There is now no wide region of fertile country rapidly filling with settlers
and separated from their former sources of supply by great distance and by
mountain ranges unprovided with passable roads. Even the more newly
settled regions of the country are reached by railroads and the parts early
settled are covered by a network of railroads, of telegraph and telephone
wires which bring the consumer and the producer near together.
In the manufacture of books as with most other articles, machinery has
taken the place of hand work. When W.B. Smith carried on his business in
the second story over a small shop on Main street, Cincinnati, nearly every
process in the manufacture of a book was mere hand labor. The tools
employed were of the simplest character. Now a book-factory is filled with
heavy machines of the most complicated kind, which in many cases feed
themselves from stocks of material placed upon them. New machines are
constantly being invented to cheapen and perfect the manufacture. Thus a
very large investment of capital is now required to set up and maintain a
plant which can produce books economically and with perfect finish in
every part. Books are seldom manufactured in places remote from the large
cities and very few of the publishers of schoolbooks make the books which
they sell. They contract for them with printers and binders.
The first four editions of McGuffey's Readers were printed from the
actual type, as all books were once printed; but before 1840 the readers
were produced from stereotyped plates. The use of such plates enabled the
publisher to secure greater accuracy in the work and also enabled him to
present books that in successive editions should be exactly the same in
substance as those already in use. Since that date electrotype plates have
displaced stereotypes, as they afford a sharper, clearer impression and
endure more wear.
In a First Reader printed in the fall of 1841 there are two pages of
advertising matter in which Truman & Smith claimed to have sold 700,000
of the Eclectic Series. This book is bound with board sides and a muslin
back and a careful defense of this binding is made, claiming that the muslin
is "much more durable than the thin tender leather usually put upon books

of this class." This statement was unquestionably true. The leather referred
to was of sheepskin and of very little strength, but it took very many years
to convince the public of the untruth of the saying, "There is nothing like
leather."
It is said that Mr. Smith, in the early days of his career as a publisher,
himself made the changes and corrections which experience showed were
needed; but, about 1843, he employed Dr. Timothy Stone Pinneo to act
under his direction in literary matters.
Dr. Pinneo was the eldest son of the Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, an early
graduate of Dartmouth College, who was for more than half a century
pastor of the First Congregational Church in Milford, Conn. Dr. Pinneo was
born at Milford in February, 1804. His mother was a woman of culture,
Mary, only daughter of the Rev. Timothy Stone of Lebanon, Conn., a
graduate of Yale College. Dr. Pinneo graduated at Yale in the class of 1824.
A severe illness in the winter after his graduation made it necessary for him
to spend his winters in the South until his health was sufficiently restored to
enable him to pursue the study of medicine. He taught for a time in the
Charlotte Hall Institute, Maryland, and then removed to Ohio. He acted one
year as professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Marietta
College. He studied medicine in Cincinnati and received the degree of
Doctor of Medicine from the Ohio Medical College in 1843. On June 1,
1848, he married Jeanette Linsley, daughter of Rev. Dr. Joel H. Linsley, at
one time president of Marietta College. Dr. Pinneo was for eighteen years a
resident in Cincinnati. In 1862 he went to Greenwich, Conn., where he was
occupied in literary work and in the conduct of a boys' boarding school. In
1885, after his wife's death, he removed to Norwalk, Conn., where he died
August 2, 1893. Two daughters and a son survived him. Dr. Pinneo
contributed materially to the revisions of McGuffey's Readers made in 1843
and in 1853; but both these revisions passed through the hands of Dr.
McGuffey, then at the University of Virginia, and were approved by him. It
does not appear that Dr. Pinneo exercised any personal authority over the
readers. He was employed, for moderate amounts, to prepare revisions
which were satisfactory to both publisher and author. In the revision of
1843, his work was confined to the Third and Fourth readers. The First and
Second readers were remade by Daniel G. Mason, then a teacher in the
schools of Cincinnati. In the revision of 1853 the entire series passed

through Dr. Pinneo's hands. He probably corrected the proof sheets. Dr.
Pinneo's latest work on the McGuffey Readers was done in 1856.
After leaving Cincinnati, Dr. Pinneo prepared, and Mr. Smith published,
a series of grammars—the Analytical, issued in 1850, and the Primary, in
1854. He was also the author of a High School Reader and of Hemans's
Young Ladies' Readers. These books had for some years a considerable
sale.
As early as 1853 Mr. Obed J. Wilson was in the office of Mr. Smith as an
employee. Mr. Wilson was born in Bingham, Maine, in 1826, and earned
his first money as an axman in the pine forests which were in that day near
his native town. He obtained, in the common schools, sufficient education
to become a teacher and he never ceased to be a student, thus acquiring a
broad acquaintance with English literature. He taught in the schools of
Cincinnati when he first went West. There his abilities soon attracted the
attention of Mr. Smith, who employed him. For some years he traveled as
an agent, chiefly in Indiana and Wisconsin, introducing the books of the
Eclectic Series. He gradually became Mr. Smith's trusted assistant,
particularly in the direction of the work of agents and in the selection of
new books, and their adaptation to the demands of the field. He married
Miss Amanda Landrum, who was also a skilled teacher in the Cincinnati
schools. Mrs. Wilson was responsible for a revision of the McGuffey First
Reader made in 1863. She also at that time corrected the plates of the higher
numbers of the series. For many years thereafter Mr. Wilson was the chief
authority for Mr. Smith and his successors in literary matters, and few men
excelled him in breadth of reading and in discriminating taste.
Mr. Wilson lives in his home near Cincinnati which is filled with the
choice books which he has read and studied so faithfully, and he still has the
companionship of the wife who has been his constant helpmate for more
than half a century.
Mr. Winthrop B. Smith was the sole proprietor of the McGuffey Readers
and his other publications from 1841 until about 1852. He then admitted as
partners, Edward Sargent and Daniel Bartow Sargent, his wife's brothers,
and the firm name became W.B. Smith & Co.

While books could be manufactured in the West even in the early years
cheaper than they could be delivered in the West from the better organized
establishments in the older cities of the East, it was not possible to deliver
books in New York from Cincinnati so cheaply as the books could be made
in the East. The cost of transportation constituted a very considerable
element in the price of schoolbooks. Mr. Smith therefore made an
arrangement with Clark, Austin & Smith, of New York, to become the
Eastern publishers of the McGuffey Readers and other books, and a
duplicate set of plates was sent to New York. From these plates, editions of
the readers were manufactured, largely at Claremont, N.H., bearing on the
title page the imprint of Clark, Austin & Smith, New York.
The Smith of this firm was Cornelius Smith, a brother of Winthrop B.
Smith. Cornelius Smith withdrew from this firm before 1861. In that year
the war broke out, and this New York firm, which as booksellers and
stationers had a large trade in the South, lost not only their custom in that
section, but were unable to collect large amounts due them for goods. Clark,
Austin, Maynard & Co. failed and Mr. W.B. Smith bought, in 1862, all their
assets for the sum of $6,000, placed Mr. W.B. Thalheimer in charge of the
business and resumed control of the duplicate plates of the McGuffey
Readers.
From the location of Cincinnati on the Ohio river, then affording the
cheapest means of distributing goods to all parts of the South, Mr. Smith
had obtained, before 1860, a very considerable part of the schoolbook trade
in the Southern states of the Mississippi Valley. The opening of the Civil
War swept this trade away and left on the books of the firm in Cincinnati
many accounts not then collectible. The continuance of the war and the
constant fluctuations in the price of materials, due to the use of paper
money, joined to advancing age and ill health, all combined to lead Mr.
Smith to withdraw from business.
A new firm, Sargent, Wilson & Hinkle, was organized April 20, 1863,
with Edward Sargent, Obed J. Wilson and Anthony H. Hinkle as general
partners, and with W.B. Smith and D.B. Sargent as special partners.
These active partners had long been in this business, Mr. Sargent as a
partner and bookkeeper, Mr. Wilson as literary editor of skill and judgment

and also a forceful manager of agents, Mr. Hinkle as a thoroughly skilled
binder and manufacturer.
Winthrop B. Smith and D.B. Sargent remained as special partners,
furnishing capital but taking no part in the direction of the business.
The Confederate States, at the opening of the War, had within their limits
no publisher of schoolbooks which had extensive sales. Nearly all of the
schoolbooks used in the South were printed in the North. But there were
printing offices and binderies in the South. The children continued to go to
school, and the demand for schoolbooks soon became urgent. To meet this
demand, a few new schoolbooks were made and copyrighted under the laws
of the Confederacy; but others were reprints of Northern books such as
were in general use. The Methodist Book Concern of Nashville, Tenn.,
reprinted the McGuffey Readers and supplied the region south and west of
Nashville until the Federal line swept past that city. This action on the part
of the Methodist Book Concern had the effect of preserving the market for
these readers, so that as soon as any part of the South was strongly occupied
by the Federal forces, orders came to the Cincinnati publishers for fresh
supplies of the McGuffey Readers. This unexpected preservation of trade
was of great benefit to the firm of Sargent, Wilson & Hinkle.
In 1866 the special interests were closed out, and Mr. Lewis Van Antwerp
was admitted as a partner. On April 20, 1868, the firm of Sargent, Wilson &
Hinkle was dissolved. Mr. Sargent retired and the new firm, Wilson, Hinkle
& Co., bought all the assets. At this date Mr. Robert Quincy Beer became a
partner. Mr. Beer had long been a trusted and successful agent and he was
put in charge of the agency department. Under this partnership the business
gradually became systematized in departments. One partner had in charge
the reading of manuscripts and the placing of accepted works in book form,
one had charge of the manufacture of books from plates provided by the
first, and one of finding a market for the books. At the first organization of
the firm of Wilson, Hinkle & Co., Mr. Wilson was the literary manager as
well as the director of agency work. Mr. Hinkle was the manufacturer,
having control of the printing and binding, and Mr. Van Antwerp had charge
of the accounts. Mr. Beer was brought in to relieve Mr. Wilson in the
direction of agents. But Mr. Beer died suddenly, January 3, 1870, and the

surviving partners soon sought for another competent and experienced man
to take his place.
Mr. Caleb S. Bragg had for years acted as the agent for a list of books
selected by him from the publications of two or three publishers and was a
partner in the firm of Ingham & Bragg, booksellers of Cleveland, Ohio. Mr.
Bragg sold his interest in the business in Cleveland and became a partner in
Wilson, Hinkle & Co., on April 20, 1871; and at the same time Henry H.
Vail and Robert F. Leaman, who had for some years been employees, were
each given an interest in the profits although not admitted as full partners
until three years later. Mr. Hinkle's eldest son, A. Howard Hinkle, was
brought up in the business, and the contract for 1874 provided that he
should be admitted as a partner, with his father's interest and in his place,
when that contract expired in 1877. The contract of 1874 was preparatory to
the voluntary retirement of both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hinkle. Consequently,
on April 20, 1877, the firm of Wilson, Hinkle & Co. was dissolved and the
business was purchased by the new firm. Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co., of
which Lewis Van Antwerp, Caleb S. Bragg, Henry H. Vail, Robert F.
Leaman, A. Howard Hinkle, and Harry T. Ambrose were the partners. This
firm continued unchanged until January 1, 1892, except for the untimely
death of Mr. Leaman on December 12, 1887, and the retirement of Mr. Van
Antwerp, January 2, 1890, just previous to the sale of the copyrights and
plates owned by the firm to the American Book Company.
This sale, completed May 15, 1890, did not then include the printing
office and bindery belonging to the firm. These were used by the firm of
Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. until January 1, 1892, in manufacturing books
ordered by the American Book Company. The American Book Company
became, on May 15, 1890, the owners, by purchase, of all the copyrights
and plates formerly owned by Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. The four active
partners in that firm, each of whom had then been in the schoolbook
business some twenty-five or thirty years, entered the employ of the
American Book Company. Mr. Bragg and Mr. Hinkle remained in charge of
the Cincinnati business, Mr. Vail and Mr. Ambrose went to New York; the
former as editor in chief, the latter was at first treasurer, but later became
the president.

Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. issued many new and successful books and
remade many, including the McGuffey Readers and Speller, Ray's
Arithmetics and Harvey's Grammars. Most of these met with acceptance
and this was so full and universal throughout the central West as to give
opportunity to the competing agents of other houses to honor Van Antwerp,
Bragg & Co. with such titles as "Octopus" and "Monopoly," names that
were used before "Trusts" were invented. They also called the firm in
chosen companies, "Van Anteup, Grabb & Co." These were mere playful or
humorous titles in recognition of the fact that this firm had, by its industry,
skill and energy, captured a larger share of the patronage of the people than
was agreeable to its competitors, and they, in despair of success by fair
means, resorted to the old-fashioned method of calling their antagonist bad
names. The best books, if pressed vigorously and intelligently, were sure to
win in the end, and the people who used the books cared little what name
appeared at the foot of the title-page.
In all important book contests the firm that holds possession of the field
is much in the situation of the tallest man in a Kilkenny Fair. His head
sticks up above the crowd and therefore gets the most knocks.
The latest revision of the McGuffey Readers, five books, was prepared
and published by the American Book Company in 1901, under the same
general direction as the revision of 1878; but the actual work was done by
Dr. James Baldwin who was the author of the Harper Readers and of
Baldwin's Readers. Even in this latest edition there are in the higher books
many selections that appeared in the earliest. Care was taken to maintain the
high moral tone that so clearly marked Dr. McGuffey's work and to bring in
from later literature some valuable new material to displace that which had
proved less interesting and less instructive. These books acquired at once a
large sale, and the sales of the previous editions are still remunerative.
Of the men connected with these successive owners of these copyrights it
seems proper to name those who directed the revisions which took place. It
is evident that none were undertaken without long and anxious discussions
as to the need of revision and of its nature. In such decisions all partners
would take part; but finally the actual direction must come into the hands of
some one partner whose experience and qualification best fitted him for
literary work.

As has been seen, Mr. Winthrop B. Smith was for a few years, while the
business was still in its infancy, the sole owner and the manager of every
part of his business. Mr. Pinneo contributed aid from 1843 to 1856; but
even before his work was finished Mr. O.J. Wilson's skill became
recognized and his mind was dominant in literary matters so long as he
remained a partner—until 1877. But in the meantime he had carefully
trained a successor in the editorial work, and from 1877 until 1907 the
responsibility fell upon him.
The story of the revisions of 1843 and 1853 has been told. The books
were apparently in satisfactory use in a large part of the West; but about
1874 the firm thought it wise to exploit a new series. At its request Mr.
Thomas W. Harvey prepared a series consisting of five books. This series
was published in 1875; but the experience of a few years with the Harvey
Readers showed that the people still preferred the McGuffey Readers and
after long discussion and hesitation it was agreed that these should again be
revised. This determination was hastened by the publication of the Appleton
Readers in 1877, and by the incoming of a number of skilled agents pushing
these books in the field that had for many years been held so strongly for
the McGuffey Readers as to baffle the best endeavors of two or three
Eastern publishers who had tested the market.
The Appleton Readers were prepared by Mr. Andrew J. Rickoff, then
superintendent of the Cleveland schools; Mr. William T. Harris, then
superintendent of the St. Louis schools, and Professor Mark Bailey of Yale
College. They were largely aided in the lower readers by Mrs. Rickoff.
These books, with this array of scholarly and well-known authors,
illustrated with carefully prepared engravings, well printed and well bound,
became at once formidable competitors for patronage and went into use in
many places where the McGuffey Readers had served at least two
generations of pupils. The Harvey Readers stood no chance in this
competition.
On April 9, 1878, the firm of Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. determined
upon making a new series of readers bearing the well-recognized title of
McGuffey's Eclectic Readers and distinguished as a "Revised Edition."
Some details of the plan as presented by the partner having literary matters
in charge were agreed to. The method of teaching in the first reader was to

be adjusted to a phonic-word method, and the gradation was to be
improved. The selections of the older books were to be retained except
where they could be improved.
In accordance with this resolution the editor invited four persons to aid,
during the summer, in this work. These were Thomas W. Harvey of
Painesville, Ohio; Robert W. Stevenson, of Columbus; Edwin C. Hewett, of
Bloomington, Ill.; and Miss Amanda Funnelle, of Terre Haute, Indiana.
Each was a teacher of wide experience.
To these assistants assembled in Cincinnati the plan of revision was fully
explained and the work was alloted. Miss Funnelle and Mr. Stevenson took
charge of the first three readers, Mr. Harvey and Dr. Hewett of the three
higher books. All were perfectly familiar with the old books and in a few
days substantial agreement was reached as to the changes needed. By two
months of constant and intelligent labor the manuscripts assumed
approximate form. The opening of the schools called the assistants back to
their homes and the editor of the firm shaped the manuscripts for the text
and procured the necessary illustrations. These were made, regardless of
cost, by the best artists and engravers to be found in the country. When the
plates were finished, the publishers printed several hundred copies of each
of the three smaller books and distributed them as proofs to selected
teachers in many states, asking them for criticisms and suggestions. The
answers made were of great value. The First Reader was entirely re-written
by the editor and the plates of other readers were made more perfect. In this
revision the three lower books were almost entirely new. The Fourth was
largely new matter, while in the Fifth and Sixth such matter as could not be
improved from the entire field of literature, was retained. The Fifth and
Sixth readers furnished brief biographies of each author and contained notes
explanatory of the text. These were new features and they proved valuable
at that date.
As soon as these books were completed, large editions were printed and
they were most vigorously exploited not only to take the place of the older
edition of McGuffey Readers, but to supplant the newly introduced
Appleton Readers.

This book-fight was a long and bitter one. Every device known to the
agency managers of the houses engaged was employed. Even exchanges of
books became common. It was war; and like every war was carried on for
victory and not for profit. It is perhaps fortunate that such contests cannot in
the nature of things last long. In the long run business must show a profit or
fail. Contrary to popular opinion, a book war is not profitable in itself; but it
is a form of competition that has existed for fully a century. It presents no
novelties even now.
The two chief combatants at length withdrew with one accord. Neither
firm could claim entire victory; but the McGuffey readers came through
with much the larger sales and these increased for years. By this contest the
firm of Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. won a reputation as fighters that
protected them in after years from ill-considered attacks by its competitors.
The revised edition of the McGuffey Readers, having no author's name
on the title page, designed and compiled under the direction of the
publishers, but retaining the moral excellences and literary qualities that had
been affixed to the series from its origin, attained the largest sales that have
as yet been accorded by the public to a single series of books. Of the Sixth
Reader, which must have the least sale, over a million copies have been
distributed, as shown by the edition number. Of the First Reader more than
eight million copies have been used.
At no time in the history of these readers have they been without
formidable competition. Pickett's Readers were published in Cincinnati as
early as 1832. Albert Pickett was at one time president of the College of
Teachers and his books were published by John W. Pickett, who was
probably his brother. Later some additional books were prepared by John
W. Pickett, M.D., LL.D., and published by U.P. James in 1841, and by J.
Earnst in 1845. These readers were vigorously pushed into the market for
several years, but in the end were unsuccessful.
The Goodrich Readers published by Morton & Griswold in Louisville,
Ky., were perhaps the most constant competitors with the McGuffey
Readers in the early years throughout the states of the Mississippi Valley.
These were prepared by S.G. Goodrich, the author of the then popular
"Peter Parley Tales." The readers were originally published in Boston and

some copies bear the imprint of Otis, Broaders & Co. They were first
copyrighted in 1839 and were frequently revised. They finally became the
property of the Louisville publisher. Mr. Smith and Mr. Morton kept up a
most vigorous schoolbook war, especially in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky in
the years from 1845 to 1860. Cobb's Readers, copyrighted in 1845, were
published for some time in Cincinnati by B. Davenport. These were once
widely introduced but soon went out of use.
It was very much the custom in those early days, before the railroads
made transportation quick and cheap for Eastern publishers to furnish a set
of plates to some enterprising bookseller in the West or to print an edition
for him with his imprint.
Ebenezer Porter's Rhetorical Reader copyrighted in 1835 was sold largely
in the western market by William H. Moore, of Cincinnati, and in 1848 the
books bore his imprint. Thus there was ample competition for the market
even at this early date. The Pickett Readers, Cobb Readers, Goodrich
Readers, and even the excellent Rhetorical Reader of Ebenezer Porter were
all swept out of the schools by the superior qualities of the McGuffey
Readers and the persistent energies of their publishers.
In these books the publishers found space for a little advertising of their
wares. In Pickett's Readers there is printed conspicuously at the top of a
page a warm commendation of Pickett's Readers, written in 1835 by
William H. McGuffey, Professor at Miami University, in which he
"considers them superior to any other works I have seen." That was before
he made his own readers. Mr. Smith responded by publishing a strong
commendation of one of his books signed by Mr. Albert Pickett. Life is
seldom devoid of the lesser amenities.
The Willson Readers, published by the Harper Brothers, were vigorously
pushed into the schools of Ohio and Indiana about 1867. The first supply
was usually sold to the school authorities by agents who operated on the
commission plan. Thus the agents had an interest in the introduction sales,
but cared nothing about the continuance of sales in after years. Booksellers,
meanwhile, kept the McGuffey Readers in stock, and whenever new readers
were desired these were easily obtained. In a few years the Willson Readers
were out of the schools. Of course, there was no lack of traveling agents

and of circulars which freely criticised these Willson Readers, which were
constructed to teach not only reading but science. After a short time the
children wearied of reading about bugs and beetles they had never seen and
gladly welcomed the books that had a single aim.
In the eyes of a publisher a good schoolbook is one that can be readily
introduced and one that will stay when it is put in use. The officials who
adopt a schoolbook are not the users of the book. They are adults long past
the school age. Cases have been known when in important adoptions the
majority of the adopting board had not seen the inside of a school room for
twenty-five years. Of course such men are far behind the schools. They are
governed by their own past experience. When the teachers are allowed to
have a voice in the way of advice, the real needs of the pupils obtain more
consideration. But the final real judge of the merits of a schoolbook is the
boy or girl who uses it. If the book is truly pedagogical, adjusted in every
part to the average mental development of the child, it becomes a valuable
tool in the school room. If on the other hand it is a mere collection of
novelties such as catch the eye of inexpert judges and impress merely the
imagination, the books may be introduced; but they won't stay.
The McGuffey Readers had staying qualities. Teachers often became so
familiar with their contents that they needed no book in their hands to
correct the work, but to each child the contents of the book were new and
fresh. It is the fashion of the present day to exalt the new at the expense of
the old. But the child of today is very much such as Socrates and Plato
studied in Greece. The development of the human mind may be more
generally understood than it was then; but it may be doubted whether the
mass of teachers are today wiser in the results of child-study than were the
philosophers of ancient days. Child nature remains the same. At a given
stage in his upward progress, he is interested in much the same things. He is
led to think for himself in much the same way, and the whole end and aim
of education is to lead toward self activity. The readers that deal simply
with facts—information readers—may lodge in the minds of children some
scraps of encyclopedic information which may in future life become useful.
But the readers that rouse the moral sentiments, that touch the imagination,
that elevate and establish character by selections chosen from the wisest
writers in English in all the centuries that have passed since our language
assumed a comparatively fixed literary form, have a much more valuable

function to perform. Character is more valuable than knowledge and a taste
for pure and ennobling literature is a safeguard for the young that cannot be
safely ignored.
The success of the McGuffey Readers was due primarily to their
adaptation to the general demand of the schools and secondarily to the
energy and skill of their publishers.
The books in their first form were strongly religious in their teaching
without being denominational. If a selection taught a moral lesson this was
stated in formal words at the close. The pill was not sugared. Thus at the
close of a lesson narrating the results of disobedience, the three little girls
assembled and "they were talking how happy it made them to keep the Fifth
Commandment." There was in the books much direct teaching of moral
principles, with "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not." In the later revisions this
gradually disappeared. The moral teaching was less direct but more
effective. The pupil was left to make his own deduction and the formal
"haec fabula docet" was omitted. The author and the publishers were fully
justified in their firm belief that the American people are a moral people and
that they have a strong desire that their children be taught to become brave,
patriotic, honest, self-reliant, temperate, and virtuous citizens.
In some of these books the retail price is printed. In 1844 the retail price
of the First Reader was twelve and a half cents. It contained 108 pages. In
the same year, the Second Reader of 216 pages was priced at 25 cents. The
Fourth Reader cost 75 cents, and contained 336 pages.
These prices were in a market when the day's wage of a laboring man
was only fifty cents. Relatively to the cost of other articles, schoolbooks
were not nearly so cheap as they are now.
When Truman & Smith began publishing, the copyright law required the
deposit of titles and copies of the several books in the office of the Clerk of
the District Court. At first such deposits were made in Columbus, Ohio, but
later in Cincinnati. When Congress organized the Copyright Bureau in
Washington, the several clerks were required to send to the Library of
Congress all the sample copies deposited; but these had been carelessly kept
and many were lost. A duplicate set was for years required to be sent to the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington. These were also passed into the

custody of the Librarian of Congress; but this collection had been carelessly
preserved and the files of the McGuffey Readers at Washington are now
quite defective for the earliest issues. The Library seems to have no copy of
any number of the first edition except possibly the Second and Fourth. The
copy of the Second was deposited December 12, 1836. The Fourth bears
date of July, 1837. All the other early copies found in that library are of later
dates and are "Revised and Improved."
It may be well to indicate in a general way the progress that has been
made in illustrating schoolbooks. The first editions of the McGuffey
Readers as issued in 1836 and 1837 did not contain a single original
engraving. All seem to have been copied from English books. The nice little
boys wear round-about jackets with wide, white ruffled collars at the neck.
The proper little girls have scoop bonnets and conspicuous pantalets. Most
of the men wear knee breeches. The houses shown have the thatched roofs
of English cottages. In one picture a boy has a regular cricket bat. Other
schoolbooks of that date show similar appropriations of English engravings;
but even at that time there were a few wood engravers in America. When
the second general revision was made in 1843 some original illustrations
appeared and in the edition of 1853 notice was given on the title page that
the engravings were copyright property that must not be used by others.
As pictures are closely studied by children, some of the users of these
early books may remember the cut showing vividly the dangers of "whale
catching." Two boats are thrown high in the air by one sweep of the
animal's tail and one seaman is shown head downward still in the boat.
Another represented Jonah being cast overboard from the ship toward the
whale below whose mouth is manifestly large enough to accommodate
Jonah.
But the engravings in this edition of 1853 had no considerable artistic
quality and they were very coarsely engraved. In 1863 came the first
employment of a genuine artist in wood engraving. This was Mr. E.J.
Whitney who had made a reputation by work done for New York
publishers. His engravings were to take the place of some then in the books
and their sizes were precisely determined. The drawings were most
carefully made by Mr. Herrick with pencil on the whitened boxwood
blocks, and sent to the publisher for examination. These, when approved,

were returned to the engraver who followed precisely the lines of the
drawing. When the engraving was finished, a carefully rubbed proof on
India paper was sent to the publisher. If this was satisfactory, the block was
delivered and from it an electrotype was made for printing. The block itself
was preserved as an original. Mr. Whitney's work was thoroughly good. He
was a wood engraver of the old school.
When the revision of 1878 was decided on, the publishers of the
McGuffey Readers realized that much improvement must be made in the
illustrations. About this time the magazines were placing great stress upon
pictorial work and a new school of engravers came into existence. The
wood engravers had already departed from the painful reproduction of each
line of a pencil drawing and had become skilled in representing tints of light
and shade if placed on the whitened block with a brush. This gave greater
freedom of interpretation to the engraver. The next step was to have the
drawing made large and reproduced on the block by photography. By this
method most of the engravings were made for the edition of 1878. Care was
taken to employ artists of reputation and the engravings were usually signed
by the artist and by the engraver.
Before the last edition came out in 1901, photo-engraving had nearly
supplanted wood engraving. By this process the artist's drawing with the
brush is reproduced in fine tints which, when well engraved and carefully
printed, produce effective results. Pen and ink drawings are also reproduced
in exact facsimile. By this process the hand work of the engraver is nearly
eliminated. The blocks are sometimes retouched to produce effects not
attained by the process work. The skill of the artist in making the drawing
thus becomes all important.
The introduction of color work in the schoolbooks intended for young
children resulted from the invention of the three-color plates. From nature,
or from a colored painting, three photographs are taken—one excluding all
but the yellow rays of light, one for the red rays, and one for the blue. From
these photographs three tint blocks are made which to the eye in many cases
look exactly alike. From one of these an impression is made with yellow
ink, exactly over this the red plate prints with red ink and this is followed
by an impression from the blue plate. If the effects of the color screens of

the camera are exactly reproduced by the printer's inks and with exactly the
right amount of ink, the result is wonderfully satisfactory.
What are the qualities in these McGuffey Eclectic Readers that won for
them through three-quarters of a century such wide and constant use?
The best answer to this question may be drawn from the many newspaper
articles which appeared in Western and Southern papers after the death of
one of the authors. There is general recognition on the part of the writers of
these articles that while the books served well their purpose of teaching the
art of reading, their greatest value consisted in the choice of masterpieces in
literature which by their contents taught morality, and patriotism and by
their beauty served as a gateway to pure literature. One editor, who used
these books in his school career, said, "Thousands of men and women owe
their wholesome views of life, as well as whatever success they may have
attained to the wholesome maxims and precepts found on every page of
these valuable books. The seed they scattered has yielded a million-fold. All
honor to the name and memory of this excellent and useful man."
One of the wise men of the olden time cared not who wrote the laws if he
might write their songs. Among a people devoid of books the folk-songs are
early lodged firmly in the mind of every child. They influence his whole
life. The modern schoolbooks—particularly the readers—furnish the basis
of the moral and intellectual training of the youth in every community. The
McGuffey Readers, from their own peculiar inherent qualities, retained
their hold upon the schools until in some states laws were passed which in
their operation caused schoolbooks to be regarded as commodities
estimated almost solely upon the cost of paper, printing and binding. The
value of these material things can easily be ascertained and compared; but
unless the print carries the lessons that help to form a life the paper is
wasted and the pupil's most valuable time is misspent. The teaching power
of a schoolbook cannot be weighed in the grocer's scales nor measured with
a pint cup. In the field open to free and constant competition, the books best
suited to the wants of each community will in the end succeed. It was under
such conditions that the McGuffey Readers won and held their place in the
schools.

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