McGuffey’s Readers

Excerpt from my new book, "Color Me Green: Ways the Irish Influenced America."

William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873) was born in Pennsylvania to Scots-Irish immigrants in 1800. By 1802, his family had moved west to Ohio where his mother made sure that he learned to read even though his family lived in a windowless log cabin. By the time he was 14 years old he was teaching 48 children in a one room school while continuing his own schooling at Greersburg Academy. For a while, he was also one of the many transient educators who would travel the mid-western territories teaching, sometimes one or two students at their own, and other times for a classroom of several more students.

In 1835 a publisher asked McGuffey to create a series of basic teaching books and he did. His books were so effective that he continued to design more advanced material for higher elementary grades. They were welcomed by both teachers and parents.

The McGuffey’s Readers concentrated on good spelling, phonics, speaking skills and oral reading, but they also provided traditional stories, poems, fables and writings by famous authors and well-known individuals.

A wonderful asset of the books was that they did not stop at reading, spelling and speech. There was an appropriate Bible verse at the end of each lesson. Every page promoted absolutes of morals, honesty, truth, goodness and ethics. The fascinating stories for children told logic and wisdom, good manners and respect for honest labor.

For almost one hundred years, well into the 20th Century, the McGuffey Reader was the textbook most used in schools, actually building a breed of courteous, honest, considerate American generations. They grew up to revere God, Country and the American Flag as well as Mom and the Apple Pie. People even opened doors for ladies and helped blind men to cross the street.

McGuffey had a firm belief that the proper education for young people was a wide diversity of subject matters and real-world information. McGuffey’s Readers are still being used in some schools and are a blessing to parents who home school their children.

May your pockets be heavy,

And your heart be light,

And the angels protect you,

By day and by night.

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To read more stories like this one about the Irish influence to America, order my new book, "Color Me Green: Ways the Irish Influenced America" by Helen Walsh Folsom.

Over the next several weeks, I will be publishing, with the aid of my daughter, Bettse Folsom, a series of answer & questions & snippets about Ireland that many people have asked me during events where I have attended. If you have a question, please contact me by email and I will be happy to address it.

Thank you for reading my blog!