self-reliant, temperate, and virtuous citizens.

In some of these books the retail price is printed. In 1844 the retail
price of the First Reader was twelve and a half cents. It contained 108
pages. In the same year, the Second Reader of 216 pages was priced at 25
cents. The Fourth Reader cost 75 cents, and contained 336 pages.

These prices were in a market when the day's wage of a laboring man was
only fifty cents. Relatively to the cost of other articles, schoolbooks
were not nearly so cheap as they are now.

[Copyright Files]

When Truman & Smith began publishing, the copyright law required the
deposit of titles and copies of the several books in the office of
the Clerk of the District Court. At first such deposits were made in
Columbus, Ohio, but later in Cincinnati. When Congress organized the
Copyright Bureau in Washington, the several clerks were required to send
to the Library of Congress all the sample copies deposited; but these
had been carelessly kept and many were lost. A duplicate set was for
years required to be sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
These were also passed into the custody of the Librarian of Congress;
but this collection had been carelessly preserved and the files of the
McGuffey Readers at Washington are now quite defective for the earliest
issues. The Library seems to have no copy of any number of the first
edition except possibly the Second and Fourth. The copy of the Second
was deposited December 12, 1836. The Fourth bears date of July, 1837.
All the other early copies found in that library are of later dates and
are "Revised and Improved."