The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1961-11-07
". 0. We,kr,en

LII Tie BOOu Olu uayS, We
Americans used to agree on the
basic standards of right and
wrong. At home, we set a high
mark for our young ones to toe.
and we insited upon their toeing
it. We expected our school to
teach these standards to our
offspring-with the assistance Of
a hickory switch. if necessary.
But now. Americans are go
ing to law-to keep the schools
FROM teaching right from
wrong-or from using the pledge
of allegiance to the American
flag. or from mentioning God
to these impressionable youngs-
tiers.
No longer are stern religious
standards taken for granted. To-
days schools must satisfy not
only Jew and gentle. Roman
Catholic and Protestant. but
also atheists. Morality has lit
tie place in modern textbooks.
This new point of view may be
at the seat of a commotion
which is now unsettling affairs
in Twin Lakes. Wisconsin. The
storm centers around the use of
a set of reading textbooks writ
ten by DR.. W. H. McGuffey. in
the middle of the last century.
The Twin Lakes school board
likes these readers. whether as
texts or as supplemental read
ers. But the Wisconsin state
school authorities have passed
the word to Twin Lakes that the
use of the McGuffey readers
must be discontinued.
The Twin Lakes school board,
however. takes dim view of
Estate Dictatorship" and is de-
Tending its productivity position
on grounds Of local autonomy"
Who is this guy McGuffey?
What's wrong with the stuff in
his readers-is it immoral? In
flammatory? Subversive?
The author of these now-con-
troversial readers was a Scotch
Irish frontiersman who worked
his way through many years of
schooling, finally graduating
from Washington College, with
honors, in 1926. Besides teach
ing ancient languages at Miami
University in Oxford, Ohio. he
took a great interest in helping
develop the public schools of Ok
ford. He served as the president
of Cincinnati College, and then as
president of Ohio University.
During this time, DR.. McGuffey
was one of the founders of the
common school system of Ohio.
In l845 he was elected to the
chair of mental and moral phi
losphy in the University of Vir-
ginia, which he filled with dis
tinction until his death in 1873.
Nothing much seems to be
wrong with this picture of a
hard working American scholar
and educator. Let's peek at his
books:
While DR.. .McGuffey was in
Ohio, he wrote four school
readers. AS schools spread
throughout the Mississippi reg
ion and the south, so did McGuf-
fey's readers. BY 1925, more
than 122 million copies had been
sold.
Here's a tattered copy Of Nc
Guffey's eclectic Second Read
err" worn out by generations
Of grimy young fists. AS we flip
through this little volume we
are startled by the Exercises"
teaching both spelling AND pro-
nunciation. These are to be
practiced as the publil also used
to practice the multiplication
tables.
The first little sotry is called,
The Man Who Could Not Read"
1t describes the predicament of
a man who could not read the
road-signs, and consequently got
hopeleSSly lost. The so try ends
with this motivating comment to
the young reader:
Il hope my young readers will
not forget this story. l know you
must study hard, if you wish
to learn to read; but the boys
and girls who can not read must
go through the world like the
man on his journey. They will
never know whether thew arc