Ohio History Journal

BOOK REVIEWS

 

Old Favorites from the McGuffey Readers. Ed. by Harvey C.

Minnich. With Illustrations from the McGuffey Readers.

(New York, American Book Company, 1936. 482p. $3.50.)

William Holmes McGuffey and His Readers. By Harvey C.

Minnich. With Photographs and Old Drawings. (New

York, American Book Company, 1936. 203p. $2.25. The

set, boxed, $5.00.)

One hundred years ago the first McGuffey Readers made

their appearance in Cincinnati, Ohio. They found immediate pop-

ularity in the West. In the course of a few years they became

virtually an institution in the American educational system, es-

pecially in the West and South.

That they were an influence in American life can scarcely

be challenged. It was estimated in 1920, that 122 million McGuffey

books had been published up to that time. By 1890, it was figured

that 107 million had been printed.¹ For three-quarters of a cen-

tury or more the McGuffey publishers enjoyed a real monopoly

on common school texts for spelling and reading. Probably there

has been an inadequate emphasis placed upon the influence of the

McGuffey books by socio-historians and sociologists.

Millions of Americans have had the same educational back-

ground, the same introduction to good literature. It is not sur-

prising to find many of them fondly recalling the Readers as they

dream of scenes of their youth. The longing for the return of

youthful days is at least one explanation of the development of

the "nostalgic cult" of McGuffeyism. The year 1936 was a mem-

orable one for the cult. McGuffey Associations all over the coun-

try celebrated the birth of the famous Readers and sang praises to

their author. It was for this cult that the books under review

were written.

 

1 Harvey C. Minnich, "William Holmes McGuffey and the Peerless Pioneer Mc-

Guffey Readers," Miami University, Bulletin, XXVI, no. 11, (July, 1928), 92.

(293)

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294    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

The volume of Old Favorites from the McGuffey Readers

is an anthology of selections chosen by Dean Harvey C. Minnich

and a group of associate editors, among whom are Henry Ford,

James M. Cox, Hamlin Garland, Mark Sullivan, and Simeon D.

Fess. Most of the selections are chosen from the Fourth, Fifth

and Sixth Readers, and are, on the whole, well selected to illustrate

McGuffey's moral teachings and social objectives. The volume

is set up in the format of the Readers themselves, and contains

many of the interesting and lively pictures of the original books.

For McGuffeyites this anthology will be a fascinating volume.

Surprisingly little study of a scientific or objective nature

has been done on the Readers or on their author. Minnich's

William Holmes McGuffey and His Readers can hardly be said to

meet the demand. The volume is neither a complete and accurate

picture of William Holmes McGuffey nor an adequate study of the

influence and value of the Readers. It is rather a sort of outline

of McGuffey's life, a too cursory examination of the life of the

time, and an unsatisfactory evaluation of the books themselves.

The analysis of the Readers is a contribution and is the best

portion of this volume. The Eclectic Readers introduced to the

uncultured West a "world of the best literature." McGuffey

adopted new methods in his books which made them popular and

useful. The Readers are relatively free of theological mysticism,

the fear of death, and supposed evidences of immortality. But

they are not entirely free of Puritan emphases. For example,

McGuffey used the conscience and mystical fear to scare young

people into being honest.

McGuffey's books are an evidence of the influence of the

West. New England Puritans and Virginia Cavaliers, Scotch-

Irish democrats and thrifty Germans, all formed the new society

of the West. It was a conglomeration of nationalities and cul-

tures. Harmony depended upon compromises between the cultural

groups, and in producing this harmonious relationship McGuffey's

Readers played an important part. Minnich has pointed out that

there was enough of the Puritan in them to satisfy the New

Englanders who had migrated to the Northwest; there was enough

of the Cavalier to attract the aristocracy of Virginia and the

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BOOK REVIEWS                      295

Carolinas; there was enough individualism to interest the Scots,

and enough of a code of thrift to meet the demands of both the

Scots and the Germans. McGuffey was influenced by the break-

down of cultures in the West, and in turn, his Readers served to

unite the various culture groups and mold them into one.

Considerable attention has been paid to the moral teachings

of the Readers. Among these are honesty, accuracy, obedience,

thrift, and good sportsmanship. McGuffey's emphasis on personal

kindness led Minnich to remark: "Personal kindness seems to be

a vanishing human trait in these days."² The McGuffey books

likewise stressed sentiments of freedom and patriotism. Comment

upon this again side-tracked the author into making a comparison

of the McGuffey age with today: "In a cynical age these senti-

ments seem foreign to the emotional life of the young men today."3

The McGuffey cult seems to look back upon its childhood as a

sort of millenium. Minnich writes:

It is believed by many that a return to this epoch-making series of

readers in the public schools would assure a more dependable social life

in the United States; that if these lessons that once established a virile,

law-abiding, and devout citizenry were again taught in the schools, the

social evils of our day would be corrected.4

Such is not the statement of an objective historian who has

carefully analyzed the influence of the McGuffey Readers. Who-

ever makes it has forgotten that the period when McGuffey

morality flourished was an age of individual and sectional strife

which led to a bitter fratricidal war. Statesmen reared in the

McGuffey atmosphere bled their southern brothers in the Recon-

struction Era and restricted their civil and political rights in order

to retain radical control in Congress and to legislate in behalf of

certain economic interests. It was men trained in the McGuffey

school whose fame as captains of industry rests more on their

unethical conduct than altruistic activities. It was men reared

on McGuffey Readers who robbed the coffers of local, state, and

national governments, and who deliberately misgoverned in behalf

of themselves or other interests. The critic, or cynic as some may

call him, does well to question the McGuffey moral influence, and

Minnich has done nothing to lift the doubt.

 

2 William Holmes McGuffey and His Readers, 96.

3 Ibid., 111.

4 Ibid., 112.

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296     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Minnich's life of McGuffey has not pre-empted the subject.

It is written from a frankly partisan point of view. "It is the

purpose of this book to reveal as far as possible the character of

William Holmes McGuffey as a distinguished humanitarian."⁵ And

to that purpose the author has devoted himself at the cost of ac-

curacy and completeness.

While McGuffey's capacities as teacher and preacher were

great, his ambitions led him beyond the bounds of ethical conduct.

Although he is recognized as a great moral teacher, his own in-

tellectual honesty is open to considerable question. While at Miami

University, his ambitions led him to a bitter and unfair attack

upon the administration of Robert Hamilton Bishop.⁶ Bishop

tried to appease McGuffey by granting him the professorship of

mental and moral philosophy. But McGuffey was not satisfied,

and soon began an attack which he aimed especially at Bishop's

liberal policy of discipline.

Scarcely an act of discipline or general management but was made

the ground of exception and ill-natured remark against the Dr. [Bishop]

. . . Indeed it seemed as if he [McGuffey] was disposed to look upon

nothing which the Dr. did with a favourable eye, and to interpret nothing

in a charitable manner.7

A number of incidents occurred especially in the years 1833-

1836, which finally brought the crisis to a head. McGuffey always

stood firmly for strict discipline in the faculty meetings, yet "he

has on the other hand to the students appeared the magnanimous,

clever fellow in faculty who was not 'prying out little things, and

bringing students to justice for them.'" Professor John W. Scott

said:

I have myself observed a very great difference between the tone as-

sumed by Mr. McG. respecting a young man in secret Faculty session, and

when the young man himself was present before us. In the one case it

has sometimes been harsh, laconic, & denunciatory in the extreme;--in the

other smooth as oil.8

McGuffey's position on the Miami faculty became such that

he welcomed an opportunity to leave. On taking the presidency of

Cincinnati College, he became the tool of a group of Cincinnati

 

5 Ibid., viii.

6 James H. Rodabaugh, Robert Hamilton Bishop (Columbus, 1935), Chap. IV.

7 John W. Scott, Statement, September 1, 1836, to the Board of Trustees of

Miami University, John W. Scott MSS. (in Miami University Library).

8 Ibid.

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BOOK REVIEWS                          297

 

politicians who chose this moment to agitate for the transfer of

Miami to Cincinnati. McGuffey was an opportunist. While at

Oxford, he had held that a small town was the ideal spot for a

college; at Cincinnati, he maintained that the large city was the

most advantageous. "Perhaps," a student suggested at the time,

"he will be an abolitionist, when the community in which he lives

requires him to be one."9

The loss of McGuffey meant little to Miami, unless it ac-

counted for a return of harmony in the faculty. The university

flourished and expanded far beyond its size during the McGuffey

period. One of the students expressed the attitude of those at

Miami when he wrote:

When I look on the flourishing condition of Miami University, at

this time, and at the peace and harmony with which every thing goes on

and at the hope of our future prospects, I feel no delacasy [sic] in saying

that McGuffey going away from here is one of the greatest blessings [that]

ever happened to Miami University.10

McGuffey utterly lacked the ability to get along with people.

Even in the University of Virginia where he served for twenty-

eight years, he failed in his relationships with other men. A

biographer of him in that period has said that McGuffey "cut

himself off voluntarily" from association with others. "The lack

of wholesome reactions which arise from daily contact with our

fellow-workers soon began to affect his temper and his acts. He

grew arbitrary and exacting." As at Miami, he refused to coop-

erate with other members of the faculty, and "ran his school by

self-made rules and paid little attention to the general laws and

usages ordained for the government of the University."¹¹ Although

his ambitions directed him into college administration, the chroni-

cler of Woodward College where McGuffey taught from 1843 to

1845, wrote, "With all his great abilities he had not the genius or

taste for the direction of college affairs."12

The year 1836, McGuffey's last at Miami, found him pub-

 

9 Wilson C. and Robert H. Hollyday to their Parents, November 22, 1836, Robert

H. Hollyday MSS. (in possession of Miss Elizabeth Moomaw, Miami University);

Joel Collins to R. H. Bishop, July 4, 1851, Joel Collins MSS. (in Miami University

Library).

10 Robert H. Hollyday to His Family, December 26, 1836, Robert H. Hollyday

MSS.

11 William M. Thornton, "The Life and Services of William Holmes McGuffey,

etc.," University of Virginia, Alumni Bulletin, Series 3, X (1917), no. 3.

12 Old Woodward (Cincinnati, 1884), 69.

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298    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

lishing his famous Readers. In this production McGuffey's intel-

lectual honesty is certainly questionable. On September 20, 1838,

Salmon P. Chase filed suit against McGuffey and his publishers

in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, at Cincinnati, on

behalf of Samuel F. Worcester, who had produced a series of

school books prior to McGuffey's and similar to them. The charge

was made that McGuffey had copied many of Worcester's original

articles, rules, directions, notes, questions and exercises, and had

adopted the same general plan as that of the Worcester Readers.13

Minnich has represented this as an attempt on the part of

eastern publishers to prevent western publishers from entering

the text-book business.14 While there may be an element of truth

in this argument, it does not deny the plagiarism indulged in by

McGuffey, who not only re-copied selections by other authors

which had been adapted by Worcester in his works, but who de-

liberately stole original articles from Worcester's books, and copied

word for word or in substance rules, questions and lists of errors

from the Worcester volumes. Suffice it to say, the court indicated

a reaction favorable to Worcester, and McGuffey's publishers

settled out of court for the sum of $2000. The publications al-

ready begun were halted and adequate revisions were made.

Minnich's volume lacks the definiteness that is needed as to

authorship of the McGuffey Readers. We are permitted to assume

that the Primer was produced by McGuffey himself, although

there are claims that it was the work of his wife. Alexander

McGuffey prepared the Speller of 1838, and the Fifth Reader of

1844;15 yet Minnich fails to make clear the distinction when he

writes: "In the Fifth of 1844 McGuffey opens," etc.16 The ques-

tion of authorship became more involved as new editions appeared

throughout the century. How much of the moral teaching of the

Readers of 1857 or of 1879 is the work of McGuffey?

Finally, the Minnich volume does not contain an adequate

survey of McGuffey's endeavors in other fields, especially of his

work in behalf of common school education and of the training

 

13 Manuscript record of case in United States District Court, Southern Dis-

trict, Western Division, Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio.

14 William Holmes McGuffey and His Readers, 57.

15 Ibid., 7.

16 Ibid., 75

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BOOK REVIEWS                     299

of teachers. After the Civil War, McGuffey's publishers sent him

through the South to investigate conditions. His known southern

sympathies opened the way to him in that region. On his return,

he made a blistering verbal report in Cincinnati. Yet nothing

of this act is reported in the present volume.

The field is still open for a definitive biography of William

Holmes McGuffey.

JAMES H. RODABAUGH,

Ohio State University

 

The Life and Times of Giles Richards. By Ophia D. Smith. Ohio

Historical Collections, VI. (Columbus, The Ohio State Ar-

chaeological and Historical Society, 1936. 130p. $2.00.)

This book, in a sense, is a companion volume to Colonel

A. W. Gilbert, Citizen-soldier of Cincinnati (edited by William E.

and Ophia D. Smith and published by the Ohio Historical and

Philosophical Society, Cincinnati, 1934), which is a story of ante-

bellum Cincinnati and of an Ohio officer's experiences in the

Civil War. Both volumes are made up largely of manuscript

materials including many letters found a few years ago in the

attic of Elland (near Venice, Ohio), the home of Giles Richards,

a pioneer textile manufacturer. Elland was named for Richard's

wife El-eanor and his daughter El-izabeth, and later (from 1873

to 1900) became the home of this daughter and her husband,

Alfred W. Gilbert. The volume here reviewed discusses the

background of the family--with its fairly substantial interests in

the textile industry--in the neighborhood of Boston. Giles' sister,

Sarah, married Amos Lawrence, the father of Amos A. Lawrence

whose name was to be intimately connected with the early history

of Kansas. After the War of 1812, Giles and two of his brothers

moved westward to the vicinity of Cincinnati. There they engaged

in the commission business and in various manufacturing enter-

prises.

As has been suggested above, most of the volume is not,

strictly speaking, a biography, but rather a collection of letters.

These reveal many interesting facts and give intimate glimpses into

business practices, social and religious life in Cincinnati (1838-

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300    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

1848), and the work of the Ohio Female College at what is now

College Hill, Ohio. Incidental attention is given to the activities

of the New Jerusalem religious society (Swedenborgian) with

which the Richards family was affiliated.

FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER,

Ohio State University.

 

Charles Osborn in the Anti-slavery Movement. By Ruth Anna

Ketring. Ohio Historical Collections, VII. (Columbus, O.,

Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1937. 95p.

$2.00.)

No other study of Osborn approaches this one in compre-

hensiveness and a discriminating estimate of his work, which was

largely confined to the Society of Friends, of which he was a

minister. Miss Ketring's brochure shows that Osborn was one

of the men who bridged the gap between the early anti-slavery

movement in the South and the later one in the North; that he

was already deeply concerned for "the poor oppressed black peo-

ple" by 1814; that during the following score of months he started

manumission societies among the Quakers of eastern Tennessee

and central and western North Carolina, which spread widely in

these sections; that he began the publication of the Philanthropist

at St. Clairsville, Jefferson County, Ohio, August 25, 1817, already

an anti-slavery center, and ceased his editorship of the paper

early in October, 1818, but that neither in St. Clairsville nor in

the South did he advocate immediate emancipation, other writers

to the contrary notwithstanding. Osborn is given credit, how-

ever, for opposing the American Colonization Society and for

spending much of his time until 1840 in preaching-journeys in

the United States, Canada, England, and on the Continent.

Osborn was deeply opposed to slave-labor products and helped

to form free produce associations, constantly exhorting Friends

to remember "those in bonds, as bound with them." Needless to

say, he sided with the Anti-slavery Friends, when the rift

came between them and their more conservative brethren during

the years 1838 to 1841. He wrote that it was "one of the bitterest

draughts" he ever had to drink when he "saw Friends taking such

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BOOK REVIEWS                     301

a decided stand against abolitionists, anti-slavery meetings, and

lecturers." He was one of eight members of the Meeting for Suf-

ferings of the Indiana Yearly Meeting who was disqualified for

further service on October 4, 1842.

In this year the Indiana State Anti-slavery Society chose Os-

born as its delegate to the World Anti-slavery Convention to be

held in London, England, in June, 1843, and paid part of his ex-

penses. Although sixty-eight years old, he spoke for an hour

and a half with great power at the first regular Indiana Yearly

Meeting of Anti-slavery Friends in September, 1843, and served

that body in various offices and committees. The conservatism

of the other Indiana Yearly Meeting soon began to give way

under the pressure of the abolition movement and the aggression

of the slave power. Osborn wrote some of his last words in

condemnation of the Compromise of 1850, which, he said, could

not "fail to bring great additional infamy and reproach upon the

people of our whole nation." Would not retribution fall with the

greatest weight upon the pro-slavery clergy "in that awful,

approaching day, when inquisition will be made for blood"?

Osborn was not to witness the greater struggle of the decade

just preceding the inquisition for blood. Miss Ketring's brochure

shows that he was an anti-slavery leader among the Quakers

thirty-six years, during which period "he lost no opportunity to

preach or speak in behalf of the slave."

WILBUR H. SIEBERT,

Ohio State University.

 

The Social History of American Agriculture. By Joseph Schafer.

(New York, Macmillan Co., 1936. 302p. $2.50.)

Joseph Schafer, superintendent of the State Historical Society

of Wisconsin, presents in printed form the substance of his lec-

tures as lecturer on the Commonwealth Foundation at University

College, University of London. He has written one of the most

complete surveys of the subject, handling his material skillfully

and that without the tedious use of statistics. A list of the chapter

titles will give an idea of the scope of the work: "Land for

Farmers," "Primitive Subsistence Farming," "Big Business Farm-

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302    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

ing," "Improved Farming," "Professional Farming." "Social

Trends in Rural Life," "Political Trends in Rural Life," and "The

Outlook for Farmers."

Showing the ways by which land was early taken up by the

colonists and first settlers in their gradual conquest of the con-

tinent, the author follows up by tracing the development of the

farming industry from one which did no more than make a living

for the farmer's family to one which took on the cloak of "big

business," even engaging in the ruthless exploitation of land and

other resources, which the term implies.

With the development of special markets and the coming of

improved methods of transportation, came specialized farming and

improved farming methods. This gave rise to the agricultural

periodical, farmer's institutes and societies, special colleges and

experiment stations. With experimentation and scientific research

farming took on a professional aspect and at this point a number

of individuals rise from the ranks to make their contribution.

Among them are Stephen Moulton Babcock with his cow-feeding

experiments, Edmund Ruffin with his soil-revitalization work,

Joseph Harris and George E. Waring and their work with drain-

age, fertilizer and general scientific approach to the soil.

One of the best chapters is that on social trends where are

discussed the development of planter aristocracy as known in the

South, and the "laboring" farmer as found in the Middle West,

where "men of every class and condition became farmers . . . and

all . . . if they had not known the virtue of physical labor, learned

it in the new land." Here, contrary to the European sentiment,

labor took on dignity which developed the democratic spirit char-

acteristic of American life.

The last chapter deals with the problem of the share-cropper,

the influence of good roads, motorization and the policies of the

New Deal, which bring the subject to date. The book is without

propaganda, filling a definite need, and designed as a starting

point for further study. It is well-documented and indexed, and

is illustrated with maps reproduced from Charles O. Paullin's

Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States.

C. L. W.

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BOOK REVIEWS                     303

Military Posts and Camps in Oklahoma. By William Brown

Morrison. (Oklahoma City, Harlow Pub. Corp., 1936. 180p.)

This is a thoroughgoing study of the subject, told in entertain-

ing manner. The author, who is professor of history at South-

eastern Teachers College, states in the Foreword that he "has long

been impressed with the rather striking part military posts have

played in the history of this state." This idea is borne out by

the mass of information he has so deftly woven together. Nearly

every movement of importance is touched on, such as the arrival

of the various Indian tribes not indiginous to the region and their

settlement in the territory; the clash between Indians and squatters

and the role of the Government; the devastating effect of the

Civil War and the participation of the redman; the reconciliation

and reestablishment of trust in the Government upon the scrapping

of old treaties; the coming of the railroads and the business of

reconstruction after the war; the cattle era and the establishment

of farming; and finally the coming of statehood in 1907.

A parade of colorful characters march through the pages--

both men and women, Indians and whites, soldiers and civilians.

Intimate glimpses of camp life, the loss of life from disease, the

discovery and development of remarkable personalities, the stories

of treachery, bravery, and tragedy--pageantry of life in the raw--

all bring vividly to the present-day reader a fuller realization of

his heritage.

There is a bibliography and the book is adequately docu-

mented and indexed. Artistic illustrations in sepia, the greater

number being portraits, enhance its value.

C. L. W.

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