"Schoolmaster of the Nation"

The above title was given to William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873). He was an American educator, was the president of Ohio University, professor at the University of Virginia and the department chairman at the Miami University of Ohio. McGuffey published the first edition of his McGuffey’s Reader in 1836. This was the mainstay in public education in America till 1920. It became one o f the most widely used and influential textbooks of all time and millions of American children learned to read and write from that reader.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that a number of these readers have been reprinted and were to be found in one of our local bookstores.

As a sample of the instruction given, one can turn to Lesson 37 of McGuffey’s Eclectic First Reader which is entitled “Evening Prayer.”

At the close of the day, before you go to sleep, you should not fail to pray to God to keep you from sin and harm. You ask your friends for food and drink and books and clothes; and when they give you these things, you thank them and love them for the good they do you. So, you should ask your God for those things which he can give you and which no one else can give you.

You should ask him for life and health and strength, and you should pray to him to keep your feet from the ways of sin and shame. You should thank him for all his good gifts and learn, while young, to put your trust in him; and the kind care of God will be with you, both in your youth and in your old age.

These were the kind of lessons many of our parents and grandparents learned on a daily basis and the results were evident in our society.

I’m thankful for William Homes McGuffey and others like him who seek to guide aright the steps of our children.

Incidentally, what are your children being taught? Can you think of a better place for them to be than in Bible Class?

John Gipson
Living: Principles on Living
the Christian Life (p. 325)

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The writings of John Gipson address, in an elegantly terse manner, issues that are biblical, theological, philosophical, and intersecting, from time-to-time, with apologetics. His writing is extremely practical and polished. Though published January 3,  2002, the above article is as relevant to today as when first written. It is one of 300 articles included in the commemorative volume, Living: Principles on Living the Christian Life—A 50 year Collection of Articles, published in 2019 by the Jenkins Institute.