OXFORD - For years, William Holmes McGuffey was like a campus ghost: His past hung limply in the air, but few people could see it clearly.

        In 1971 and 1997, the U.S. Postal Service rejected campaigns to honor him with a stamp. In 1961, a House bill went nowhere when introduced to honor the Rev. McGuffey, who taught at Miami University and compiled his famous Eclectic Reader series there in the 1830s.

POETRY

The lark is up to meet the morn,     The bee is on the wing,     The ant its labors has begun,     The woods with music ring.     — William Holmes McGuffey

        For years his old Federal style home, used as the McGuffey Museum since 1960, was little more than an afterthought in this Butler County city. Its gorgeous but then dirt-black wooden shutters were stored in the attic with other artifacts.

        But not anymore. Finally, respect has arrived.

        After two years and a $750,000 restoration project, the museum is now open six days a week for the first time in its history. The National Historic Landmark will be rededicated — and commemorated with an Ohio historical marker — at 10 a.m. Sunday.

        “There's an enormous interest in this house,” curator Beverly Bach said. “We've had 650 people visit since we reopened in June. This is a wonderful place to use the McGuffey collection for the educational experience.”

        The Rev. McGuffey (1800-1873) defined the educational experience in 19th-century America. The educator and Presbyterian minister came to Miami in 1826 as a professor of ancient languages and literature and the school's librarian. He built the house in 1833, the year a Cincinnati publisher asked him to write a series of readers for the new public schools. By the time he left Oxford for Cincinnati in 1836, his name was becoming nationally known for the series.

        He wrote the first of its six editions in the two-story brick house at 410 E. Spring St., now in the heart of the sprawling campus.

        The series taught lessons in reading, spelling and civic education through personal respect, hard work and thrift.

        “McGuffey was an innovator,” Ms. Bach said. “His work set the pace for nearly the next century. Critics say he had the best marketing behind him, and maybe that's so. But you had to have quality, too.

The McGuffey Museum in Oxford, Ohio. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        “The series was the dominant schoolbook in the nation until the 1920s. His work had a profound influence on the youth of America.”

        Homage to an icon

        The museum honors the Rev. McGuffey and his era faithfully with period antiques, light-yellow walls with white woodwork and artifacts owned by Miami leaders in the 1800s.

        The house features one of the largest collections of the Rev. McGuffey's works and some items he once owned, including two small chairs (made in Oxford in 1830), a wooden lectern, a three-part secretary and an intriguing octagonal desk, personally designed by the Rev. McGuffey and crafted by a local cabinetmaker. On top of this eight-sided desk, the professor compiled his first edition.

        The school managed to restore the house with money generated by an endowment and various government grants. But the non-profit museum will continue to be supported by donors.

        The house was smaller in 1836, when the professor wrote his first edition by flame. The Cincinnati publisher, Truman and Smith, published the Eclectic First Reader in 1836. Fate did the rest.

        “Unfortunately, he sold the rights to his work for only $1,000, and missed lucrative royalty payments,” Ms. Bach said.

        Historian and former Miami president Phillip R. Shriver said the teacher experimented by inviting neighborhood children to hear lessons on the front porch. He wanted to write the series, Dr. Shriver said, because he was disturbed by the “overwhelming pessimism” of the era's schoolbooks and their preoccupation with death.

        “McGuffey planned to infuse his lessons with the optimism of the frontier, with the belief that a good life could be earned in the here and now as well as in the years to come, and with a code of honor and morality stressing the rewards of honesty, virtue and industry,” Dr. Shriver said.

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