to lead toward self activity. The readers that deal simply with
facts--information readers--may lodge in the minds of children some
scraps of encyclopedic information which may in future life become
useful. But the readers that rouse the moral sentiments, that touch the
imagination, that elevate and establish character by selections chosen
from the wisest writers in English in all the centuries that have passed
since our language assumed a comparatively fixed literary form, have a
much more valuable function to perform. Character is more valuable than
knowledge and a taste for pure and ennobling literature is a safeguard
for the young that cannot be safely ignored.

The success of the McGuffey Readers was due primarily to their
adaptation to the general demand of the schools and secondarily to the
energy and skill of their publishers.

[Moral Teaching]

The books in their first form were strongly religious in their teaching
without being denominational. If a selection taught a moral lesson this
was stated in formal words at the close. The pill was not sugared. Thus
at the close of a lesson narrating the results of disobedience, the
three little girls assembled and "they were talking how happy it made
them to keep the Fifth Commandment." There was in the books much direct
teaching of moral principles, with "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not."
In the later revisions this gradually disappeared. The moral teaching
was less direct but more effective. The pupil was left to make his own
deduction and the formal "haec fabula docet" was omitted. The author
and the publishers were fully justified in their firm belief that the
American people are a moral people and that they have a strong desire
that their children be taught to become brave, patriotic, honest,