Hero Worship: McGuffey the Pioneer

People celebrate heroes because they are perceived to embody ideals. In McGuffey's case, the Readers, which bore his name, symbolized a simple yet heroic America of the pioneer era and the values that era symbolized. Just as coonskin caps became popular as icons of the frontier during the 1950s, the McGuffey Readers and their author seemed to represent a similar pioneer heroism.

The McGuffey Readers indeed were suited to pioneer life. As Walter Havinghurst said, "Perhaps the clue is in the first lesson - A is for Ax." (1) The Readers seemed to contain quaint pioneer wisdom that ennobled the freedom and self-sufficiency of the pioneer. McGuffeyites' idealization of pioneer individualism may have assuaged some people's fears of collectivism in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

However, it is unlikely that McGuffey have described himself as a pioneer. He built one of the first brick houses in Oxford, rode in a carriage to church, and angered fellow church members by preaching, dressing, and acting pretentiously. Nevertheless, McGuffeyites associated their nostalgic imaginations of the pioneer with McGuffey himself:

• One 1948 article said, "Like many great men of Ohio history, William Holmes McGuffey was born in a one-room log hut." (2)
  
• In his biography of McGuffey, William E. Smith wrote, "Hungry for learning, [McGuffey] walked miles to borrow a book to read by the light of a candle or a pine-knot fire." Smith also said, "In the fall, McGuffey rode into Oxford with his saddlebags stuffed with books on philosophy, the ancient languages, and the Bible." (3)
  
• At the 1934 memorial dedication, Ford's representative said, "McGuffey came naturally by his pioneer spirit, for he was the son of pioneers. His Scottish grandparents adventured across the sea for a new life in an unsettled land. His father pioneered ahead of the armies of General St. Clair and Anthony Wayne. And when the son in his turn pioneered the reform of educational methods... it was by the same vision and the same adventurous courage that led his grandfather into the Revolution and his father into Indian warfare. The first three American generations of the McGuffeys present a logical progress of pioneering energy... The pioneer had a joy we little know. He had a shining goal which refreshed his spirit and energized his action. He saw the forest fall before his ax. The log house in the clearing had every element of home...And there was no privation of the elements which give firmness and strength and character to life. The discipline of the frontier must be judged by its fruits - by men like Lincoln and McGuffey, and a host of other stalwart souls." (4)
  
• A great-grandson of McGuffey at the 1934 memorial dedication said, "In his day Doctor McGuffey was a pioneer in a new land. The land is older now and the forests are gone, but we still have need of pioneers. We still have pioneers. One such modern pioneer has become the spiritual successor to William Holmes McGuffey. The man who has made this occasion possible, Henry Ford." (5)
  
• Ford particularly liked to champion McGuffey's pioneer spirit. He moved McGuffey's log cabin to Greenfield Village and at the Federation of McGuffey Society's third annual meeting in Dearborn, Michigan Henry Ford screened a short motion picture, "Born of the Frontier: a story of the early life of William Holmes McGuffey."
  
• Historian Walter Havinghurst wrote of McGuffey: "One of eleven children of a Scotch-Irish farmer who had settled in New Connecticut (northeastern Ohio) and chopped out his own road to the village of Youngstown, McGuffey had struggled for an education." (6)
  
• Most biographies of McGuffey portray him heroically riding into Oxford Ohio. For example, Hugh Fulleron said, "One hundred-sixteen years ago a tall but stooped young man rode into the village of Oxford, Ohio, to revolutionize the educational system of the United States by the simple process of adapting the textbooks and the teaching to the mental age of the students." (7)
  
• An article that appeared in 2000 reflected similar misconceptions about McGuffey: "The simplicity of his books reflected the straightforward times in which he lived. He traveled by horse from Oxford to Dayton to court the woman he married, chopped down trees, tilled the soil, served as a Presbyterian minister, and from 1826 to 1836 taught at Miami University." (8)