Method of Teaching Composition, D.L. Talbott, 1835; Manual Labor in the
Schools, Milo G. Williams.

Some of these topics are still engrossing the attention of teachers at
their annual meetings for the discussion of live educational questions.

While Dr. McGuffey was at Oxford, teaching mental philosophy to the
pupils in Miami University, he prepared the manuscript for the two lower
readers of the graded series which bore his name. To test his work while
in progress, he collected in his own house a number of small children
whom he taught to read by the use of his lessons.

It is evident that these readers were prepared at the solicitation of
the publishers and on such a general plan as to number and size as was
desired by the publishers. Dr. McGuffey was selected by them as the most
competent teacher known to them for the preparation of successful books.
He did not prepare the manuscripts and search for a publisher.

[The Copyright Contract]

On April 28, 1836, he made a contract with Truman & Smith, publishers of
Cincinnati, for the preparation and publication of a graded series of
readers to consist of four books. The First and Second readers were then
in manuscript, the Third and Fourth readers were to be completed within
eighteen months. They were both issued in 1837. Dr. Benjamin Chidlaw,
then a student in college, aided the author by copying the indicated
selections and preparing them for the printer. He received for this work
five dollars and thought himself well paid.

These four books constituted the original series of the Eclectic Readers