The McGuffey Readers
by Walter Havighurst
The Readers went west in freight wagons and
with emigrant caravans; traders packed them
into Indian reservations; they turned up in
sod schoolhouses on the prairie, in cow towns
on the plains, and mining camps in the
Rockies and the Sierras. Between 1870 and
1890 the series sold sixty million copies. They
were the basic schoolbooks in 37 states. Except for New England, where they never got
started, the McGuffey Readers blanketed the
nation.
Fifteen sets of school readers were published in America between 1820 and 1841,
but for some reason the McGuffey series ran
away with the race.
Perhaps the clue is in the first lesson -- A is
for Ax. While children learned those letters
the ax was ringing in every clearing, it was
hewing logs for cabins and schoolhouses, it
was changing the mid-continent. Thud, thud,
thud -- in the sound of the ax the future of
America was beating like a pulse. The picture
showed a boy not as tall as the ax helve
leaning against a stump. It was a real ax, from
the child's real world, the roughhewn, hopeful, equalitarian world of the Jacksonian
West. After ax cam'e box, cat, and dog; nut,
ox, and pig; vine, wren, and yoke -- all homely, familiar things. The lessons were alive with
children at work, at play, at school: boys with
hoops, kites, skates; girls with dolls, sleds, and
jumping ropes. Reading could be fun.
American Heritage Library Table of Contents
|
