VIEWS FROM MCGUFFEY ECLECTIC READERS, SOME EVEN PROGRESSIVE PART 2

YESTERDAY, WE STARTED STUDY OF MCGUFFEY’S ECLECTIC READERS, USING its annotated version edited by Stanley W. Lindberg.

Today in Part 2 we continue with a lesson that’s a fundamental one indeed. 

McGuffey’s Second Reader: Lesson XLIV. How the World was Made. Similar to other lessons, this one is accompanied by a set of questions; this time, particularly profound ones: For example, “1. What do we see as we look around us?” “2. Were these always so?” 

Lindberg recounts, “The dating of the Creation here is based approximately upon the calculations of the Irish prelate James Ussher (1581-1656), who had used biblical chronology to date the moment of Creation in 4,004 B.C. This date was so commonly accepted that mathematics textbooks in McGuffey’s era often included such problems as ‘How many minutes have passed since the creation of the world?’ ”

I leave this as an exercise to the reader.

Lindberg notes, “The McGuffey Readers continued to employ Bishop Ussher’s date from the first edition in 1836 through the 1850s—despite the new geological hypotheses of Sir Charles Lyell and the discoveries of the bones of prehistoric monsters. After Darwin’s Origin of The Species (1859), however, a modification became necessary. So, in the 1865 edition the reference to ‘Six thousand years ago’ became merely ‘Many thousand years ago….’ And in 1879, the entire lesson was silently removed from the series.”

I wonder what Texas would do about this today.

New Sixth Reader: CXLVII. Impeachment of Warren Hastings. This particular item catches my eye because Warren Hastings was impeached for “maladministration.” 

Hmm….

Lindberg describes the series’ matter of attribution: “When this selection first entered the McGuffeys in the 1844 Fifth Reader, it carried a brief attribution to the Edinburgh Review. When it was elevated to the Sixth Reader in 1857 (the edition reproduced here) there was no attribution. [This was typical of McGuffey Readers: Even Shakespeare’s works were free of attribution.] But in subsequent editions from 1866 to 1920 the author is acknowledged to be England’s Thomas Babington Macaulay.”

Lindberg recounts, “Macaulay (1800-1859) was a child prodigy who became an essayist, historian, poet, statesman, and orator—one of the most influential men of his time…. Macaulay’s writings are characterized by delightfully gratuitous value judgements (e.g., ‘The Puritans hated bear-bating, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.’ ”

Lindberg also cites “a reluctant admission in the author’s note of the 1920 edition: ‘He has sometimes been charged with sacrificing facts to fine sentences.’ ”

Ha. I wonder if sixth-grade readers were as amused as I am by this comment. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026