A History of the McGuffey Readers Part 2

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 inst.i.tution 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.

Mitch.e.l.l was professor of Mathematics and Astronomy, and Edward D.

Mansfield was professor of Const.i.tutional 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."

[Ohio University]

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 towns.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.s a law which fixed the income of the university from these lands at a sum so low as to cause the doors of the inst.i.tution 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.

[University of Virginia]

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 inst.i.tution for more than a quarter of a century and until his death on May 4, 1873.

Dr. McGuffey's cla.s.ses in the University of Virginia were well attended.

His lectures were delivered extempore, in language exactly expressing his thoughts. His ill.u.s.trations were most apt. He taught "with the simplicity of a child, with the precision of a mathematician, and with the authority of truth."

[Method of Teaching]

A portion of the lecture hour was given to questioning the members of the cla.s.s. 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.

[Interest in Public Schools]

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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.suming the duties of his professors.h.i.+p 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.

[Trip Through the South]

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.

[College of Teachers]

While Dr. McGuffey was still at Oxford, Ohio, he took part in the formation of probably the first extended Teachers' a.s.sociation formed in the West. There had been a previous a.s.sociation 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, princ.i.p.al 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.

[Topics Discussed]

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 t.i.tles 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.scripts and search for a publisher.

[The Copyright Contract]

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 ma.n.u.script, 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 const.i.tuted 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.

[Later Contracts]

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.

[The Beecher Family]

Before Dr. McGuffey completed the ma.n.u.scripts 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 princ.i.p.al of the Hartford (Conn.) Female Inst.i.tute. 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.

[Alexander H. McGuffey]

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 ma.n.u.script 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.sic 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.