McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader

McGuffey's Primer #2

by William Holmes McGuffey (Editor), H.F. Farny (Illustrator), F. Beck (Illustrator)

Since 1836, children have been delighted by these volumes filled with exotic adventures, exciting tales, beautiful poems, and funny fables. The Second Eclectic Reader includes stories, word lists, poems, and handwriting exercises.

Genres: Education, Classics, Childrens, Nonfiction, Historical, Poetry

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1836

About the author

William Holmes McGuffey (September 23, 1800 – May 4, 1873) was an American professor and college president who is best known for writing the McGuffey Readers, one of the nation's first and most widely used series of textbooks. It is estimated that at least 122 million copies of McGuffey Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, placing its sales in a category with the Bible and Webster's Dictionary.

Reviews

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best classic readers ! I use these for teaching reading in my homeschool and they are wonderful. They are also free online which makes it even better. Highly recommend

[Willow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love using these classic readers with my kids! We use them for reading practice, copywork, and prepared dictation. The language is a bit old-fashioned, but not so much to be hard to understand. Challenging for modern kids, though. But I want them to acquire the ability to read and understand writings from great thinkers of the past, so these books are a great introduction to reading things like that on their own.

We're using two editions of McGuffey's simultaneously: The Original Eclectic edition and the Eclectic Christian School edition. This has worked well for us because it eliminates competition/feeling bad about progress (or lack thereof) in my students working on the same level reader but with different ages/grades/skill levels/learning challenges. I sent them both through the second readers but since they had their own copies of different editions, they didn't struggle much with, "so-and-so's ahead of me!"

Because I previously thought that the editions were pretty much the same, I do want to point out that the same readers (in this case, the Seconds) of these two different editions have completely different stories and poems from each other. (This, I think, is what made our previously mentioned strategy so effective.) I don't necessarily prefer one edition over the other; they're both good. I love the hardcovers, but our set only goes up to the Fourth reader; our Christian School ones are paperbacks but include the books up to Sixth. The Christian School Edition features occasional passages of "Slate Work" printed in a cursive script that is a style unlike that which my kids have learned, so it is hard for them to read. I just tell them that everybody writes cursive differently anyway, so it's good practice for reading people's handwriting later.

On a side note, somewhere I came across a system for assigning these readers to loose grade levels (it's NOT Reader 2 in 2nd grade, Reader 3 in 3rd, and so on.) In case you find it helpful (I did!), I thought I'd include it here:

Primer: Preschool-K-1st grade
Reader 1: 1st-2nd grade
Reader 2: 3rd-4th grade
Reader 3: 5th-6th grade
Reader 4: 6th-7th-8th grade
Reader 5: 9th-10th-11th-12th grade
Reader 6: 11th-12th-College

Keep in mind that these are approximate, and kids will have different skill levels that may not match a "grade level" label. Also, since the books are sort of cumulative in that the child progresses as he/she gains the skills and confidence to move on, rather than starting books based on grade level, you would want to start with a book that is a little challenging but not so far above their skill level that they're frustrated. At least, this listing gives a general starting point.

We plan to use these until further notice. I highly recommend them. :-)

[Christabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still happy with these for my now 8-yr-old. It has been a wonderful fit!

[Ava C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems and short stories from picturesque 19th century America are compiled into this book. McGuffey Readers were the basic school curriculum used in one room school houses all across the United States. Now, replica prints of the original books are sold at historical sites, with all the same poems, short stories, and drawings.

Although this book was far below my reading level, I still found the book interesting. While I was reading, it was fascinating to compare how the education system works now and how it worked back then. The book was basically expected a child to learn the new words on their own; A set of long and short sounds, dipthongs, and other verbal sounds were in a chart in the front. The students were expected to memorize the symbols (something I don't even know now) and use them at the beginning of each story. Every story had all the new words a child would be learning with the proper pronunciation marks, and that way each child would be able to sound out and use context clues to figure out the word. The poetry in the book was very old, but not always simple; one of the last poems in the book was actually by Tennyson! When I was seven, I know I would probably not been able to read Tennyson without a lot of questions and plenty of help.
All in all though, I think it's charming, and I would highly recommend any book from this series.

[Don Heiman · Rating 5 out of 5]

McGuffey's 1879 "Second Eclectic Reader" (revised) with copyrights granted four times ending in 1920 was a principle book of early instruction for my grandparents and their children. The "Second Eclectic Reader" emphasizes diction, written thought, and handwriting with reliance on easy to understand verbal forms and word construction --such as simple derivatives adding only one or two letters to words if the primitive word form is not given. The book's illustrations greatly add to the stories which are engaging, poetic, and full of imaginative animation.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed reading the McGuffey reader books for nearly a decade now. They are great books for children to read to their parents/grandparents to build proficiency in reading and vocabulary while enjoying great stories and poems from the 1800s. These are books I’ll remember fondly, am unlikely to donate after my kids have moved away, and I envision myself reading with my grandchildren one day.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

🖊 Very good book; I enjoyed this.

📕Published in 1836.

જ⁀🟢The e-book version can be found on the Project Gutenberg website.
✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎
CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTORY MATTER.
ARTICULATION
PUNCTUATION

SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND POETRY.
LESSONS.
1. Evening at Home
2. Bubbles
3. Willie's Letter (Script)
4. The Little Star
5. Two Dogs
6. Afraid in the Dark
7. Baby Bye
8. Puss and her Kittens
9. Kittie and Mousie
10. At Work
11. What a Bird Taught
12. Susie Sunbeam
13. If I were a Sun beam
14. Henry, the Bootblack
15. Don't Wake the Baby (Script)
16. A Kind Brother
17. My Good-far-nothing
18. The Kingbird
19. Evening Hymn
20. The Quarrel
21. The Bee
22. The Song of the Bee
23. The Torn Doll
24. Sheep-shearing
25. The Clouds
26. Patty and the Squirrel
27. The Sparrow
28. Sam and Harry
29. The Little Rill
30. The Boat Upset
31. Mary's Letter (Script)
32. The Tiger
33. The Fireside
34. Birdie's Morning Song
35. Willie and Bounce
36. Willie and Bounce (Concluded)
37. The Kitchen Clock
38. The New Scales
39. The Bear and the Children
40. The Little Harebell (Script)
41. The Fishhawk
42. What the Leaf said
43. The Wind and the Leaves
44. Mamma's Present
45. Mary's Story
46. Ralph Wick
47. Coasting down the Hill (Script)
48. The Fox and the Ducks
49. Pretty is that Pretty does
50. The Story-teller
51. The Story-teller (Concluded)
52. The Owl
53. The Owl (Concluded)
54. Grandfather's Story
55. God is Great and Good
56. A Good Old Man
57. The Greedy Girl
58. A Place for Everything
59. My Mother (Script)
60. The Broken Window
61. The Broken Window (Concluded)
62. Frank and the Hourglass
63. March
64. Jenny's Call
65. Poor Davy
66. Alice's Supper
67. A Snowstorm
68. Bessie
69. Bessie (Concluded)
70. Cheerfulness (Script)
71. Lullaby

[Laurie Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great moral lessons. Some errors can be easily corrected through discussion. For example the story of George Washington and the cherry tree can be the springboard into the details that it was simply a moral lesson written in the 19th century, in fact near my own home.
Amazingly there is a full on discussion of Intelligent Design that is easy to understand.
Also amazing was a biography of Lafayette, which is seldom seen today. No wonder so many knew of him in the 19th century.
This reader completes the teaching of fluency at the 3rd to 5th grade level (in today's terms).
At the end of the book are glowing reviews of the day for it's morality training and for being suitable for the age of the learner. These readers were considered to be an improvement from previous versions.

[MomoDong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life is short,improve it well.
The sand moves by little and little,but it moves all the time.
when you look at the hands of the clock,you think they go very slowly, and so they do, but they never stop.
While you are at play, the sand is running, grain by grain. The hands of the clock are moving, second by second.
This because they keep work every minute.They do not stop to think how much they have to do, and how long it will take them to do it.
Study all the time. Never stop to ask how long it will take to learn it. You will be able to say it very soon.

[Jeremy Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's definitely fascinating to flip through a book of morality-based stories that are meant to teach young children proper behavior as they also learn to read. But fascinating only goes so far. Reading it in 2022, this primary textbook is little more than a snippet of historical, educational information from times long past. And to that end, it serves its purpose.

[Karie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love old teaching; however, the errors in here are unfortunate. LOTS of errors. And the punctuation? *Sigh*......

[Cookav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems and short stories from picturesque 19th century America are compiled into this book. McGuffey Readers were the basic school curriculum used in one room school houses all across the United States. Now, replica prints of the original books are sold at historical sites, with all the same poems, short stories, and drawings.

Although this book was far below my reading level, I still found the book interesting. While I was reading, it was fascinating to compare how the education system works now and how it worked back then. The book was basically expected a child to learn the new words on their own; A set of long and short sounds, dipthongs, and other verbal sounds were in a chart in the front. The students were expected to memorize the symbols (something I don't even know now) and use them at the beginning of each story. Every story had all the new words a child would be learning with the proper pronunciation marks, and that way each child would be able to sound out and use context clues to figure out the word. The poetry in the book was very old, but not always simple; one of the last poems in the book was actually by Tennyson! When I was seven, I know I would probably not been able to read Tennyson without a lot of questions and plenty of help.
All in all though, I think it's charming, and I would highly recommend any book from this series.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful in character formation. For example, some time is spent addressing the connection between beauty and pleasantness (Lesson 6 and Lesson 12).

Lesson 33 implies that hard work was more pleasurable than playing with cousins. While I appreciate the emphasis on the satisfaction that comes through work, I don't think there's an either-or choice between leisure and profitability. Playing with cousins is good, and knitting is good.

Lesson 57 takes a blunt stance on gluttony. It's an important message (practice self-control), but may be offensively worded for some people.

Lessons 60–61 were about a boy who broke a window and decided not to run away but rather to confess and offer to pay for it. The story prompted Kate to confess to ruining Aunt Analeisa's hat when we were at Kiawah a month ago. At the time, she had not said anything when people were asking how the hat got ruined. I thanked Kate for her honesty, and she apologized to Aunt Analeisa over FaceTime.

I also liked Lesson 70, which emphasizes cheerfulness.

[Awjtf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting reading how much was taught in the schools back when these were used!