This public recognition of the influence of these readers upon the mind
and character of this great preacher is again noted in Rev. Joseph Fort
Newton's biography of David Swing in which the books which influenced
that life are named as "The Bible, Calvin's Institutes, Fox's Book of
Martyrs and the McGuffey Readers;" and the author quotes David Swing as
saying that "The Institutes were rather large reading for a boy, but to
the end of his life he held that McGuffey's Sixth Reader was a great
book. For Swing, as for many a boy in the older West, its varied and
wise selections from the best English authors were the very gates of
literature ajar."

One of the most eminent political leaders of the present day attributes
his power in the use of English largely to the study of McGuffey's Sixth
Reader in the common schools of Ohio.

[How a Japanese Learned English]

At a dinner lately given in New York to Marquis Ito of Japan, the
marquis responded to the toast of his health returning thanks in
English. He then continued his remarks in Japanese for some eight
minutes. At its close Mr. Tsudjuki, who was then the minister of
Education in Japan, traveling with Marquis Ito as his friend and
companion, and who had taken shorthand notes of the Japanese speech,
rose and translated the speech readily and fluently into good English.
One of the guests asked how he had learned to speak English so
correctly. He replied that he had done so in the public schools of Japan
and added, "I learned my English from McGuffey's Readers, with which you
are no doubt familiar."

[The Authorship]