McGuffey's Readers were some of the first textbooks used in the common school system in the United States that taught subjects such as the alphabet, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, articulation, and morality to students in grades one through six. When describing the writings in McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader from 1836 and its teachings, the textbook tells that all students must have "a distinct articulation, which is the first requisite for good speaking" (Fraser, 76). This statement shows the emphasis that these textbooks had on teaching the youth of America how to be great speakers.
William Holmes McGuffey, the original author of the McGuffey Readers, adopted the ideas of Horace Mann when creating a common curriculum for all students within his textbooks that included stories from the Bible in order to please those who wanted their children to have a formal education that included their faith and talked of God. Members of the North in the United States, "Democrats and Whigs, workingmen and capitalists, and country folk and urban dwellers joined forces...to create what many consider to be the indispensable institution of American democracy" (Urban, 105). McGuffey's Readers played a massive role in uniting these Americans to support the idea of a common school in the United States.
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December 2019
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