A History of the McGuffey Readers

by Henry Hobart Vail

At the close of a summer day in 1818, Thomas Hughes was riding horseback through Trumbull county. The dust on the highway deadened the sound of his horse's feet. While passing a log cabin, half hidden from the road by intervening trees and shrubs, he heard the plaintive voice of a woman who was in the garden, out of sight. The clergyman stopped his horse and listened. He heard the woman earnestly praying that some way might be opened for her children to obtain such education as should fit them for the duties of life. Riding on, the clergyman inquired at the next house regarding the inmates of the log cabin. He was informed that a Mr. McGuffey lived there. Turning back he sought the prayerful mother and learned from her the circumstances of the family. The doors of the "Old Stone Academy" were opened to William H. McGuffey and he there obtained his first start in a preparation for college. But his labor could not be wholly spared on the farm so lately won from the surrounding forest. He worked in the fields in summer, continuing his studies and walked many miles once a week to recite his lessons to a kindly clergyman.

W.H. McGuffey's father was too poor to aid his son in obtaining a collegiate education, and the latter soon turned to teaching as a means of obtaining money to support himself in college. When prepared for college he went back to his native county and entered Washington College. He was in his twenty-sixth year when he graduated with distinguished honors from that institution.

It was at Washington College that W.H. McGuffey first met with a great teacher and former of character,—Dr. Andrew Wylie, then the president. It was considered by Dr. McGuffey one of the most fortunate events of his life that he came at that time under the influence of Dr. Wylie's forceful mind and elevated character.

Dr. McGuffey was obliged to suspend his collegiate course for a year to earn more money for his support. He taught a private school at Paris, Ky., in 1823 and 1824. There he met Dr. Robert H. Bishop, the president of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. Dr. Bishop was so impressed with the character and mental power of the young teacher that on March 29, 1826, even before McGuffey received his bachelor's degree from Washington College, he received his appointment as professor of Ancient Languages at Miami University.

He graduated in 1826 and began his labor at Oxford, Ohio, at the opening of the fall session. He at once took high rank in a faculty consisting of strong men, and, young as he was, won the respect and homage of the students. In 1832 he was transferred to the chair of Mental Philosophy. To make this subject interesting and valuable to beginners requires, on the part of the teacher, wide reading, clearness of thought, and simplicity and directness of speech. These qualities Dr. McGuffey had. He had become well read in philosophy, especially of the Scottish school, Brown being his favorite author. But he had fully assimilated the matter and had thought independently. He also had a fund of fresh and suggestive illustrations coming within the daily experience of men, which brought his lectures close to the minds of the students. Whatever positions of honor or of trust his pupils held in their later careers, they never ceased to feel the impulse which came from Dr. McGuffey as a teacher.

On March 29, 1829, he was licensed as a preacher in the Presbyterian church, and from that date he became a frequent public speaker. He never had charge of a parish as minister, but usually preached on Sunday in the college chapel to the students and to such of the public as could obtain space to sit or to stand. The preacher's unassuming manner, the clearness of his thought, and the simplicity of his language produced impressions that were enduring. He never wrote his sermons. He simply thought them out rigorously, and his mind worked so logically and in such definite lines that he could repeat on request a sermon, preached years before, in a form recognized by his hearers as substantially the same.

After ten years spent in teaching and preaching at Miami University, Dr. McGuffey resigned, August 26, 1836, and accepted the presidency of Cincinnati College.

This institution was chartered in the winter of 1818-1819 by the legislature of Ohio, largely at the solicitation of Dr. Daniel Drake. It was partially endowed by the gifts of the public-spirited citizens of Cincinnati. But its collegiate functions had been allowed to drop, although a school on the Lancastrian system was maintained.

The election of Dr. McGuffey as president of this college was a result of renewed activity on the part of the leading men in the city to found a genuine college of high character in that city. They believed that if well conducted such an institution would bring to its doors students enough to support the college by their fees.