McGuffey Readers - Author

Author

The editor of the Readers, William Holmes McGuffey, was born September 23, 1800, near Claysville, Pennsylvania, and moved to Youngstown, Ohio with his parents in 1802. McGuffey's family had emigrated to America from Scotland in 1774, and brought with them strong opinions on religion and a belief in education; as a result, education and preaching the Gospel were McGuffey's passions. He had a remarkable ability to memorize, and could commit to memory entire books of the Bible. McGuffey became a "roving" teacher at the age of 14, beginning with 48 students in a one-room school in Calcutta, Ohio and at a seminary in the town of Poland, Ohio. The size of the class was just one of several challenges faced by the young McGuffey. In many one-teacher schools, children's ages varied from six to twenty-one. McGuffey often worked 11 hours a day, 6 days a week in a succession of frontier schools, primarily in the state of Kentucky. Students brought their own books, most frequently the Bible, since few textbooks existed.

Between teaching jobs, William McGuffey received a classical education at the Old Stone Academy in Darlington, Pennsylvania. He went on to study at Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College), where he graduated in 1826. That same year he was appointed to a position as Professor of Languages at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In 1827, McGuffey married Harriet Spinning, and the couple eventually had five children.