William H. McGuffey was born in 1800 in western Pennsylvania, but at the age of two his family moved to a farm near Youngstown, Ohio. As a frontier boy, Billy helped with the farm work, rode horseback, hunted with his father, and carried on other rugged activities. Once he rescued an injured baby fox from a trap, hid it in a deserted cabin in the woods, and nursed it back to health.

Billy's mother taught him to read and write and he manifested an early aptitude for learning. When he was eight years old he started to school but could attend only a few months each year, because he was needed at home. Even so, he became an avid reader and had an excellent record as a pupil. At the age of thirteen, he was offered a teaching position in a one-room country school.

As a teacher at this early age, he was handicapped because he was younger and smaller than many of the pupils. Accordingly at the end of the term, he returned home disheartened and discouraged. Soon, however, he regained confidence and decided to continue his education. He attended several schools, terminating with Washington College in Pennsylvania from which he graduated in 1826.

In that same year McGuffey was appointed professor of ancient languages at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, where he remained for ten years. During this period he became interested in preparing new readers for children to use in school. He spent much time writing and collecting selections for the readers and finally had them published as the famous Eclectic Readers in 1836.

Afterwards McGuffey held a number of other positions. He became president of Woodward College in Cincinnati, Ohio, then president of Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. Finally he became professor of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, where he terminated his career. In addition to being an educator, he was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church and preached for several years.

As an educator McGuffey made great contributions to the public school systems of Ohio and Virginia. Chiefly, however, he is remembered as the author of popular readers from which millions of children learned to read during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The stories and poems in these readers, which included some of the best literature available, exerted great moral and cultural influence on the children of America.

From the dust jacket