Ohio History Journal

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THE CLEAN CONSCIENCE OF A DIRTY SWEEP:

THE CLEAN CONSCIENCE OF A DIRTY SWEEP:

McGUFFEY'S "LITTLE CHIMNEY SWEEP" AND ANOTHER

 

by GEORGE L. PHILLIPS

Assistant Professor of English, San Diego State College

When by good fortune I come upon a story about a little chimney

sweeper, one of Lamb's "tender novices, blooming through their

first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the

cheek," going sturdily about his business of cleaning soot out of

foul chimneys, my heart misses a few beats as I follow him, on the

printed page, carrying out his fuliginous duties all day, until, with

a few coppers in his pocket, he staggers under his soot bag at

evening to his master's cellar, where, after he has chewed some

coarse bread and gnawed a meatless bone, he falls asleep between

two bags of soot until the matutinal crowing of the cock sends

him, unwashed and unfed, back to his tortuous flues. And if one

of these "dim   specks-poor blots-innocent blacknesses" happens

to be an American urchin, native or naturalized, then my interest

in his career is doubly tender, for we do not have in this country

so many sweep boys in our literature that we can afford to let one

pass without a respectful inquiry into his origin and his activities.

Some years ago in the 1853 edition of McGuffey's Newly Revised

First Reader1 I met a little sootikin in "The Lit-tie Chim-ney Sweep"

who, by valiantly withstanding Satan's snare to steal a handsome

gold watch, won kind words and good deeds from the owner.

Very recently I came upon another sweep boy who underwent the

same trial successfully and received in consequence the protection

of a generous patroness; only this little fellow was called "The

 

1 William H. McGuffey, Newly Revised Eclectic First Reader: Containing Pro-

gressive Lessons in Reading and Spelling (Cincinnati, 1844), Lessons LII and LIII,

pp. 94-96. The story also appears in the same work with copyright of 1853.

Harvey C. Minnich in William Holmes McGuffey and the Peerless Pioneer McGuffey

Readers (Oxford, Ohio, 1928) lists the story as No. XL in the First Reader; and

Life, July 20, 1942, states that it appeared in McGuffey's New Second Reader.

However, an examination of The Newly Revised Eclectic Second Reader, Third

Reader, Fourth Reader, and The New Fifth Eclectic Reader, all published in Cin-

cinnati by Sargeant, Wilson, and Hinkle and copyrighted in 1853, except for the

last, which bears the year 1857, has failed to reveal "The Lit-tle Chim-ney Sweep."

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