Evening star., 1950-09-10
Personalities and Impressions
By Jessie Font Evons

are ringing throughout our land
marks the 150th anniversary of
william Holmes McGuffey, COM
piler of the famous "McGuffey
Readers" which constituted the
chief educational and cultural
force in millions. Of American
families during the last two--
thirds of the nineteenth century.
McGuffey. about whom a dis
tinguished United States Senator
is reported to have said, "Is he
. person? I thought he was a
book" was born near Washing
ton, Pa. September %, 1900. He.
came Of staunch Scot forebears.
who gave Revolutionary War
service to the country of their
adoption. Family legend has it
that George Washington4 several
times stayed the night in the
McGuffey household while the
war was in progress.
McGuffey's background amidst
the ambitious, struggling pio-
neers gave him an understanding
Of what was needed IN a set of
readers to meet the challenge of
his time.
Extensive College Connections.
Quite apart from his readers,
his life was one of broad spiritual
and educational. service. A Pres
byterian clergyman who. preached
over 5000 sermons and delivered
many religious and educational
addresses, he was president of
Ohio University and of Cincin-
natl College, was q member of
the faculty Of Miami University,
Oxford, Ohio. and of Woodward
College in the same State. The
hast 2S years Of his 1ifesw spent.
~ professor Of Moral Philosophy
In the University of Virginia,
where he died on May 4, 1873.
BE Is buried in the University of
Virginia Cemetery. His Sunday
school class for men, conducted
In the rotunda of the classic JEFF
fersonian Temple of the Univer-
sity Of Virginia, was famous and
widely attended. He lived to see
free. public State education, for
which he zealously crusaded, in
both Ohio and Virginia.
Today, public school buildings
In Ohio and Virginia, societies and
clubs. museums and memorials in
universities. and at his birth site
commemorate William Holmes
McGuffey's name and service to
education.
His first four readers and the
fifth and sixth in the series COM
piled by his youngest brother, AL
exander H. McGuffey, are now COL
lector's items. First published by
the firm of Winthrop B. Smith, |
their sales are estimated to have |
totaled 122 million. although Nc
Guffey is supposed to have been
little enriched by them. His great
est compensation undoubtedly lay
IN his consciousness that the text
IN his readers was having a forma-
tive influence upon the American
youth who were to become this
nations leaders.
influence Widely Acknowledged.
Historians, sociologists and such
educational groups as the National
Education Association, of which
his thinking was, an embryo, ac-
knowledge the tremendous inf1u-
ence Of the simple stories in the
McGuffey Readers in shaping ma
tional thinking, especially in the
midwest and western frontier !
Hugh Fullertone even considers
Or. McGuffey "a co-author of ath-
letics in our public school system
because his readers provided so
many games for children, although
the author of them never en-
gagged in any athletic sports him
self"
Hamlin Garland in his "Son of
the Border" is one of many home
spun Americans to pay eloquent
tribute to the McGuffey Readers
for their influence upon his life,
90 is Will Rogers and President
william B. Mckinley. DR.. Harvey
w. Wiley. successful crusader as
chief Of the Bureau of Chemistry,
United States Department of Ag-
riculture in behalf of national
legislation for pure food and
drugs, refers to being graded by
McGuffey Readers" in his auto
biography. Mark Sullivan in Our
Times" says: "McGuffey's Read
ers are to the average American
NH