Conservative Values: Piety

The McGuffey Readers promoted a moral order to life, which subtly challenged the New England Primer's Puritanical theology. In a way, the McGuffey Readers contributed to the secularization of American life, although religious elements remained in the Readers. Yet, with every revision, and as the Readers became more successful, the religious content of the books decreased. McGuffey was himself a Presbyterian minister and was quoted as saying, "The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our notions on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions. From no other source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. From these extracts from the Bible I make no apology."

Religion was central to the McGuffey Societies. Church services were held at each annual convention, and many of the Society's songs were religious in nature. McGuffeyites' services often read the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer directly from the Reader instead of the Bible.

• In 1927 Hugh Fullerton wrote, "For seventy-five years his [McGuffey's] system and his books guided the minds of four-fifths of the school children of the nation in their taste for literature, in their morality, in their social development and next to the Bible in their religion." (1)
  
• In the 1986 McGuffey Societies' commemorative booklet, George Crout wrote, "In McGuffey's Readers were incorporated, through stories and maxims, the basic tenets of the Judeo-Christian religion. Children were indoctrinated with moral and religious values through the McGuffey Readers which one writer called the 'American Bible.'" (2)
  
• An undated brochure, "Oxford, Ohio: The Home of the McGuffey Readers," put out by the Federation reads: "If people will not go to the churches where such training is to be dispensed - the Circuit Rider of old must take the training to the people - also, it must be placed in the hands of the public school children. Surely it will be the pleasure of the McGuffeyites, now that we are a National Organization, to put concerted action back of the movement to demand good spiritual training for our Youth." (3)