William Holmes McGuffey

With high school students graduating this week (and the rest of the month), it's a great time to learn about William Holmes McGuffey! Not only was Mr. McGuffey named after the school district, but he made great strides in education. He still remains one of the most influential people in the nineteenth century. His famous McGuffey Reader impacted young minds all over the world, and his maintained his mission to educate as many people as he could as well as himself until the day he died. The information for this article came from sources like explorepahistory.com.

Born in 1800 near Claysville, McGuffey essentially grew up with the nation, when the evangelical fervor of the Second Great Awakening was at its peak. When McGuffey was a child, his family moved to a farm near Youngstown, Ohio where he learned to work the land. Piety and criousity were encouraged as a child, and he had the hunger for knowledge. While his mother was educated and literate, his father was illerate but well spoken. As a result, McGuffey was encouraged to finish his education, rather than leaving school early to work on the farm. In addition to his public school education, he received education in the classical languages.

After his high school graduation, McGuffey worked to earn money to attend Washington College, where he graduated in 1826. Once he graduated there, he began his long career as a popular college professor and established author at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. He resigned from that position in 1836 to take the position of president at Cincinatti College and that same year his first McGuffey Ecletic Reader  first debuted. The idea for the ecletic reader from his latest Europe education, the "ecletic" reader could be used by teachers for new commen American standards for children across the United States. The readers taught from poems, stories, scripture and other various forms to teach children what he considered to be the principles of "right living."

These readers sold over 120 million copies and for a long time remained the required reading for school children across the United States long after his death. Henry Ford was a great collector of the author's work and McGuffey's childhood home was moved to the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. In 1998, a landmark was placed near the farm where McGuffey was born along with a stone marking the home.

McGuffey's Readers still sell today and he is still considered one of the most pivitol educators in America's history. Though McGuffey's principles are a little different than how children learn today, few can argue that he made a difference in the way children learned.