In 1836, William Holmes McGuffey published his first Reader, launching what would become the most influential textbook series in American history. By 1960, over 122 million copies had been sold. These weren’t just reading primers; they were systematic courses in moral reasoning, teaching virtue as methodically as mathematics.
A child progressing through McGuffey’s six Readers encountered a carefully scaffolded moral vocabulary, learning to distinguish between courage and recklessness, thrift and miserliness, honor and pride.
Today, we struggle to define these terms ourselves, much less teach them to our children. We’ve retained the vague desire to raise “good kids” while abandoning the linguistic framework that makes goodness articulable.
The McGuffey Readers understood something we’ve forgotten: virtue isn’t intuitive but learned, and like any complex knowledge, it requires its own vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. A typical lesson might present a story about a boy finding a wallet, followed by questions that weren’t seeking feelings but definitions.
What is honesty? How does it differ from mere rule-following? What is the relationship between honesty and honor?
Students were expected to parse moral concepts as precisely as they would diagram sentences. They learned that “integrity” wasn’t just being good but being whole, that “temperance” wasn’t abstinence but balance, that “prudence” wasn’t caution but practical wisdom.
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