The Washington times., 1936-08-05
Human Side of the eNeWs
In McGuffey's Day Moral Education Was
AS Important as Factual Education
BV EdUin C.. Hill


that there was nothing stuffy
about the old primers:
Caleb, the son of Nun,
And Joshua, the son of Jefuri,
Were the only two that ever
got through
To the land of milk and honey.
1t was a little over a hundred
years ago that Horace Mann
pioneered public schools in
America. Mass education that day
was a daring and revolutionary
experiment which caused Euro
pean Tories to reach for their
smelling salts. Around rs per cent
of our population was rural In
that day, and the little red school.
house took on a highly deserved
institutional character as the
matrix and the mould of a new
nation.
Oxford, Ohio, does well to honor
the memory Of William Holmes
McGuffey as, with all the changes
and new techniques in education,
scholars find McGuffey essentially
as modern as any educator of to.
day.
Up to his day, education was
confined in class or secular
bounds, and the bold project of
universal education for the new
democracy was a clean break with
all academic tradition. McGuffey
deserves our gratitude. He was a
skilled and unfaltering skipper on
uncharted seas.
He knew one thing which js
the sum and essence of Just about
the most important technique Of
education today. Before leading a
child into a specialized, detailed
interest, he would engage its at
tention by a human, generalized,
universal interest which would
arouse its desire to know more.
Thus, his readers were the epit-
ONE of live, immediate, Stimulat-
ing concerns of the adventure of
conquering the wilderness.
ME4hODS ChANGE
McGuffey did his job well:
there's no doubt of that. But he
no doubt would be amazed if he
could drop into a schoolroom to-
day, one Of the Winnetka system.
perhaps, under Carleton Wash.
burne. The letter is no longer the
unit in learning to read-no more
ABC stuff. The word is the unit,
and the mental picture of the
word is left to be shared by some
spontaneous interest Of the child
not to be rubbed in by the
teacher.
Furthermore, nobody worries if
the child is eight or nine years
old before he learns to read. In
the ultramodern schools, there
are demonstrably bright children
of nine who can't read. But in a
year or two they always come
through, sometimes with amazing
facility, learning in a few weeks
what used to require two or three
years.
That seems dubious business to
us old-timers, recalling that a
bright youngster was supposed to
have read the Bible through at 8,
back in McGuffey'S day. But the
pedagogueS have sound, 100 per
cent American antecedepts for
this. Witness the story of Thomas
Alva Edison-and there's a name
which denotes Americanism!
Young Thomas was considered a
bit of dummy, poring over his
McGuffey Reader and getting
flunked every day. At the age Of
8, he couldn't read a word.
But, from the age of four, he
had been tinkering with wires and
spoolS and busted clocks. He be-
gan to identify the signs of places
which sold material he needed.
Piecing together these word-pic.
lures he blossomed out as a fluent
reader almost overnight.
Certain pioneers in modern edu.
cation got their cue from the story
of young Edison. So we tradition.
alistS may be reassured-and get
McGuffey, Edison and modern
progress educators all in the same
picture without jarring the shin
giles off the little red schoolhouse.
copyright 1896. by King Features
Syndicate, Inc