Foto de l'autor

Harvey C. Minnich

Autor/a de Old Favorites from the McGuffey Readers

2 obres 9 Membres 1 crítiques

Obres de Harvey C. Minnich

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Gènere
male

Membres

Ressenyes

William Holmes McGuffey assembled the first four McGuffey Eclectic Readers for a Cincinnati textbook publisher. Those readers became the nation's most popular textbooks in the 19th century and have kept a place in the America’s social and education history. Harvey C Minnich, a professor at Miami University and an expert on McGuffey wrote this dual biography in 1936, one hundred years after the publication of the first Reader. I call it a “dual biography” because Minnich covers the life of both McGuffey and the American textbook intended to teach children to read, the Reader.

Less than half of the book deals with McGuffey and it fails to bring him alive, it makes the attempt but for the most part fails at humanizing him and simply presents an outline his work and his family in a lifeless narrative. The biography of the American Reader works out much better although it finally degenerates into a chapter of the authors favorite quotes from the McGuffey Readers. If someone is researching early textbook use in the United States this might be a very useful source of information.

I read this book hoping to information on McGuffey, his brother Alexander, and Alexander’s father-in -law, Daniel Drake. The book was useful for my purposes but, because it lacks adequate footnotes verifying Minnich’s analysis is difficult. The book does have a detailed and extensive bibliography which should allow researchers, myself included, to gain a deeper insight to the subjects that interest us.

I read a library copy but the book is also available in full text on Archive.org at http://archive.org/stream/williamholmesmcg00minn#page/n7/mode/2up
… (més)
 
Marcat
TLCrawford | Jun 15, 2012 |

Estadístiques

Obres
2
Membres
9
Popularitat
#968,587
Ressenyes
1
ISBN
3