An Artifact from the 19th Century Schoolhouse: The McGuffey Reader

Abstract

David E.Vocke is professor at Center for Professional Teacher Education at University of Texas at Arlington. The McGuffey Readers are repre sentative of schoolbooks used in a typical one-room school in middle border states during late nineteenth century. While other textbooks could certainly be found in rural schools during this time period, it has been suggested that McGuffey 's Readers were most popu lar and most widely used; a total of 120 million copies were sold between 1836 and 1920 (Westerhoff, 14). Swanson contends that half of school children in United States used Readers be tween 1836 and 1900. Such figures sup port notion that students in middle border states were likely to encounter Readers during their formal schooling. Fuller, in The Old Country School, states that Readers served as core of one-room school curriculum and were suited to times and needs of rural Mid westerners. The series of Read ers, which provided students with the best writing in English language (17) gave provincial schoolchildren a com mon core of knowledge. William Holmes McGuffey compiled first four Readers between 1836 and 1837. By 1845 there were six Readers in McGuffey series, but fifth and sixth Readers were developed by McGuffey's younger brother (Westerhoff, 70). Over years there were numerous reprintings and revisions but McGuffey had no hand in editions after 1857. The original editions of Readers contained material McGuffey gathered from other schoolbooks and from selections of Standard literary works, including Bible (Westerhoff, 45). His purpose in compil ing texts was to teach English and correct moral behavior through stories that schoolchildren read aloud. McGuffey suggested that students retell each story in their own words and answer questions at end of lesson. Spelling and vocabulary words, as well as rules for reading, can also be found in Readers. Schoolchildren were expected to prog ress through series of Readers during course of their formal schooling. As Gulliford points out, however, before 1870 children who attended regularly in primary grades achieved reading level ofMcGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader (51). Westerhoff suggests that most rural schools were able to get by with only first two in series (57). In McGuffey and His Readers, Wester hoff maintains that changes in various editions of Readers were repre sentative of changes that were taking place in public school curriculum. He earnestly contends that revised empha sis in each new edition signaled decline of influence of traditional Protestant values and rise of secularism and middle-class civil religion (19). Although a bit strident in his compari son of two editions, Westerhoff clearly distinguishes between themes of McGuffey's original collections and revised 1879 edition: By 1879, theistic, Calvinist world view so dominant in first editions