Conservative Values: Why Remember McGuffey?

Inspired by more than mere nostalgia, McGuffeyites remembered McGuffey for present-minded purposes as well. A representative for Henry Ford demonstrated this at a 1934 memorial dedication at McGuffey's birthplace:

"Ladies and gentlemen, something more than sentiment, something more than a wistful yearning for a day that is past, has moved us to gather in this meeting: - we are all wishing that in our day also public education might be made the means of moral training and character formation that it was in McGuffey's time... Be you the men your fathers were, get you the sons your fathers got, and national righteousness in school and government and factory and bank will soon return to this bewildered land. And if the system itself will not change, let individuals who have the vision open up schools in which the culture of character will go hand in hand with the information of the mind." (1)

Nostalgia is a patently conservative reaction to the present. In periods of rapid change, the traditions of the past provide a model with which to resist. According to sociologist Fred Davis, "the nostalgia of the elderly acts, politically and historically, to conserve and restore much of value in the culture." (2) Some individuals used the conservative values of the McGuffey Readers from the 19th century to critique what they perceived to be the materialistic 1920s, the radical and collectivist changes of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and the anxieties of the early Cold War. The post World War II boom gave rise to an extensive conservatism that strengthened the McGuffey movement by endorsing their values. To many McGuffeyites, McGuffey's conservative values seemed to be steadying forces to which America should return.

McGuffey was a 19th century conservative. As historian Walter Havinghurst said, the Readers propagated "the spreading myth of democratic, practical, middle-class America: work, strive, persevere, and success will follow. Virtue is its own reward, more precious than riches." (3) As William E. Smith said, "William Holmes McGuffey and his brother Alexander were not 'political reformers.'" (4) The Readers were fundamentally conservative. According to William E. Smith, the Readers "sought to teach love and respect for parents, patriotism and morality. Their religious philosophy was based on the Bible; their political faith on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States; their economic theory on private enterprise in a democracy." (5) This section explores the values of individualism, patriotism, piety, and morality that McGuffeyites celebrated and endorsed.

• According to the McGuffey Societies' Constitution, "The Federation of McGuffey Societies of America is composed of groups of men and women who believe in the social code of McGuffey, who believe if these principles were propagated wherever the children of America are educated, that a dependable order of social control would be re-established and that confidence and trust would again abide among men." (6)
  
• The purpose of the McGuffey societies, in addition to bringing together McGuffeyies, was to promote the values of the Readers. In the by-laws of the Oklahoma McGuffey Society, the fourth object of the society was "To further the moral and social principles taught in the McGuffey Readers." The sixth purpose was "To establish a memorial in Oxford, Ohio, the site of the residence of William Holmes McGuffey while compiling the peerless readers which gave to the youth of American the philosophy of human behaviour best suited to build a stable and contented social order." (7)
  
• According to historian Neil Baldwin, "Throughout his life, Henry Ford expressed indebtedness to McGuffey's teachings. He was proud of his early exposure to this unadorned brand of book-learning, which reinforced an ordered, rigid, and straightforward view of a world where white was white and black was black. Known familiarly as 'McGuffeyland,' this was a pure and pastoral domain, where a boy worked with his own two hands and benefited directly from the products of hard labor, far removed from urban dens of cosmopolitan iniquity." (8)
  
• One McGuffeyite wrote a letter to the Vice President of the Federation saying, "I heard a television program (Borax) on children and discipline, the Old Ranger held a McGuffey reader and made the statement that if the McGuffey readers were used in the schools we would have no delinquencies. The field is large and the McGuffey readers are the answers if McGuffeyans would only get busy." (9)