McGuffey

Yet another "nerd" book for me!  I loved A History of the McGuffey Readers by Henry H Vail. Yes, this is a book about a book (or rather, a set of books).  What I have found special about the McGuffey Readers is that the aim was not only to promote reading, but to build character.  We used one of the readers last year in our homeschool and had some wonderful conversations along with it.  We stopped using it as I didn't quite know how to continue. I hope to bring our McGuffey Readers back...especially after reading this book.

There are several different versions of the McGuffey Readers and this book helped to explain the versions and also clarified how the McGuffey Readers were used back in their time.  They were the readers used all across the United States.  Sure, there were others (such as the New England Primer), but none appear to be as widely used as these.  This book also shed light on the history of American education.  So, now to the quotes!

"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."   (Page 2)

"As late as 1840 the Bible was read daily in all the schools of the West." (Page 7)

"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." (Page 7)

"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." (Page 7-8)

"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." (Page 11)

"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."  (Page 46)

"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 ever community." (Page 51)

Other People Mentioned in this book (contemporaries):
Dr Joseph Ray - Ray's Arithmetic (Page 24)
Dr. Lyman Beecher - father of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Page 25)
Dr. Timothy Stone Pinneo - grammar books (Page 34)
Mr W.B. Thalheimer - history books (Pg 37)
Willson Readers - to teach reading and science - (Page 45)



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