Passionate teachers can light a flame in their students that will burn long into the future. Few of them, however, can claim to have helped shape the destiny and moral character of a nation.
A Child of the Frontier
Like so many people of his time who left their imprint on the culture—Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the most famous example—McGuffey was a child of the frontier. Born in a log cabin in Western Pennsylvania and the second of 11 children, he, at a young age, moved with his family to Ohio. His Scots-Irish heritage embedded in him a fierce belief in Calvinism and the importance of education, banners that guided McGuffey his entire life. From his father, he gained a thirst for adventure and the idea that a man should make his own way in the world, while his mother, who taught him reading, writing, and arithmetic, encouraged him in his formal education. She arranged a tutor for him in ancient languages and enrolled him in a private academy in Youngstown, Ohio, 6 miles from their home. Even in his adolescence, McGuffey was an excellent learner endowed with a prodigious memory, proven by his ability to learn by heart entire books of the Bible.At age 14, with the blessing and encouragement of his teacher, McGuffey opened a subscription school, where 48 students paid to sit in his classroom. Lacking textbooks, they brought their Bibles to the classroom for reading purposes. In these humble circumstances, McGuffey frequently worked 11 hours a day six days a week to ensure they were receiving a good education.
In addition to teaching, for the next several years McGuffey helped with the family farm and attended Washington College, a Presbyterian school in Pennsylvania. Eventually, he completed his education at Ohio’s newly founded Miami University, where he joined the faculty as an instructor in classical languages and taught for 10 years. It was here that he wrote his four progressive readers, a series with increasingly difficult material that was later supplemented with two more volumes by his brother Alexander.
The Man Behind the Accomplishments
Though this brief account of McGuffey’s life may seem to reveal a hardened moralist, such was not the case. He was a loving husband who cared for his first wife during the illness that led to her death. Known as “Old Guff” to his Virginia students, he was “athletic, loved children, had a sparkling sense of humor, and enjoyed a good joke.” During the hard times of the Civil War and afterward, he gained a reputation for helping Charlottesville’s poor and African Americans.His life illuminates all the forces that created this maker of American virtues. His parents, his teachers, his experiences in the rough-hewn schools of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, his readings from the Bible and Shakespeare, his studies of the Greek and Roman classics—all contributed to the formation of William McGuffey.
But the greatest of McGuffey’s monuments are his “Readers.” Their impact was deep and profound, which raises this question: Might not our educators and writers of curricula benefit our students, and indeed our culture, by taking a look at the design and meaning of the “Readers” and incorporating those concepts into our modern textbooks?