Publisher: PublicAffairs; New Ed edition
(December 17, 2002)
Buy from Amazon
Buy from PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1586481630
Buy from Amazon
Buy from PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1586481630
A bright and chilly fall morning, 1879. Henry
Ford and his teenaged pals have gathered early before another day of
lessons at the Miller School in rural Springwells Township, northeast
of Dearbornville, Michigan. Henry, wiry and slight of build, is
crouched down at the muddy slope of a ditch draining behind the
schoolhouse, busily assembling a miniature waterwheel to run in the
dammed stream. Just as the stream begins to rise-the wheel hooked up to
an old coffee mill with a rake handle serving as a connecting rod-the
bell rings, summoning the reluctant boys to abandon their work and
enter the one-room cabin crammed with ten rows of wooden double-desks
and stuffy from the heat of an old wood stove. That night, the
waterwheel would jam and the ditch would overflow, flooding the
neighboring farmer's potato patch.
For the moment, it was time to continue reading in Lesson LIX of McGuffey's New Fifth Eclectic Reader: "Shylock, or The Pound of Flesh." The boys are instructed by their burly, moustachioed teacher, a former barrel cooper named John Brainard Chapman, to "stand and read so loud and distinctly, that [I] may hear each syllable."
"I
am sorry for thee," the judge, Doctor Balthasar (Portia disguised as a
"learned man"), says to Antonio, the seafaring businessman who has lost
his ships. "Thou art come to answer a stony adversary, an inhuman
wretch, incapable of pity." Enter the "unfeeling" moneylender Shylock,
to plead his case. "By our holy Sabbath," here is a man who will "give
no reason" outwardly for his deep-seated misanthropy and "lodged hate"
of Antonio. This Jew is stubborn, principled, adhering to the letter of
the law. "There is no power in the tongue of man" can sway him. Shylock
will exact his collateral, a pound of Antonio's flesh. He will not take
even twice or thrice or six times three thousand ducats in exchange.
The knife is at the ready. Antonio's apologies are futile.
But before the spot nearest Antonio's heart can be cut, Doctor Balthasar warns Shylock that he must not "shed one drop of Christian blood ... nor cut less nor more, than just one pound" even to the weight of a hair, otherwise his lands and life will be forfeited to the State of Venice. Shylock, realizing he is trapped by the very law he craves, attempts to withdraw-but there is a further penalty. As an "alien" who has attempted to take the life of a citizen, half his goods are subject to confiscation by Antonio, as the aggrieved party; half must go to the state; and the Jew's life is at the mercy of the court.
Shylock pleads for death, because his funds and possessions, "the means" through which he truly values life, are worth more to him than anything in the world. In a twist of irony, the judge takes the compassionate path, showing the state's "mercy" on the Jew, allowing him to survive among the very people he so despises.
"Why did Shylock choose the pound of flesh rather than the payment of his debt?" the McGuffey exercises inquire of the student at the conclusion of the selection. "What does he mean by saying 'my deeds upon my head'? In whose favor does the judge decide? How does he eventually relieve Antonio from his danger?"
And finally, Henry Ford and his classmates are asked to discuss, "How is Shylock punished? Was his punishment just? Why?"
Elsewhere in the Fifth Reader, the students read of "Paul's Defense before King Agrippa," in which the apostle laments the fact that despite his wide-ranging efforts to spread the gospel of repentance at Damascus, Jerusalem, and along the coasts of Judea, "the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me."
In his Fourth Reader, young Henry had already been forewarned that "Jewish authors were incapable of the diction and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel." Rather, although the Jews had their "own sacred volume" known as the Old Testament, they misguidedly failed to heed within it "the most extraordinary predictions concerning the infidelity of their nation, Jesus' coming, and the rise, progress, and extensive prevalence of the gospel truth of Christianity." In his Third Reader, Henry had learned that the unfortunate Jews never accepted that "the Bible is a Christian book...the Scriptures are especially designed to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."
Henry had also read McGuffey's instructive tale of "The Good Son," in which a jeweler's child will not sell his diamonds to a group of Jewish elders because in order to obtain the key to the merchandise chest the lad would have to awaken his sleeping father. "At my father's age," the boy explains solemnly, "a short hour of sleep does him a great deal of good; and for all the gold in the world, I would not be wanting in respect to my father, or take from him a single comfort."
For nearly a century, William Holmes McGuffey's anthologies were the dominant textbook in American schools. More than 122 million copies were sold between 1836, when the first two volumes of primers were published by the venerable firm of Truman and Smith of Cincinnati, and 1921, when the American Book Company brought out the New Sixth Eclectic Reader.
"The Old Guff" was born in western Pennsylvania in 1800, second in a family of eleven children. He taught in the country schools of the Ohio Territory, then attended Greersburg Academy and Washington College, both in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1826. He went on to positions at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, was appointed president of Ohio University, and distinguished himself further as one of the founders of the common-school system in Ohio.
Under a gargantuan ash tree on the West Lawn near Colonnade Alley at the University of Virginia, where he served as professor of mental and moral philosophy from 1845 until his death in 1873, McGuffey would assemble parties of children and teenagers and read to them from selections he was planning to include in revised editions of his Readers. Those passages generating interest and excitement were published, while others that failed to ignite the young people's imaginations were rejected. Thus did this "modest, self-effacing teacher bear the torch of education to light the wilderness," setting out singlehandedly to establish the moral (more than intellectual) agenda for American youth at mid-century.
First and foremost, according to this "messiah of education," Protestant Christianity was the only true religion in America, "closer to Puritanism than Unitarianism.... God was omnipresent. He had His eye on every child every moment of the day and night, watched its every action, knew its every thought." The deeply ingrained "sublime chorus of truths" of the Bible could not be questioned. Equally, the quotidian world was built simply upon a Calvinist structure of reward and punishment. Hard work, thrift, and rugged conformity were the ideals. Success was desired. Failure was shunned.
In the later Readers, excerpts from literary works took the place of many homiletic, homespun parables: John Dryden, Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott, Washington Irving, and William Shakespeare.
Throughout
his life, Henry Ford expressed indebtedness to McGuffey's teachings. He
was proud of his early exposure to this unadorned brand of
book-learning, which reinforced an ordered, rigid, and straightforward
view of a world where white was white and black was black. Known
familiarly as "McGuffeyland," this was a pure and pastoral domain,
where a boy worked with his own two hands and benefited directly from
the products of hard labor, far removed from urban dens of cosmopolitan
iniquity.
As an adult, Ford could quote spontaneously line-for-line from McGuffey. He was an obsessive collector of McGuffey first editions and reprinted all six Readers from 1857, distributing complete sets of them, at his own considerable expense, to schools across the United States. In 1934, Ford had McGuffey's whitewashed log cabin birthplace, complete with all its furnishings, disassembled from the Pennsylvania hill country and moved to Greenfield Village, Ford's exhaustive museum of Americana at Dearborn, Michigan. In 1936, Ford served as an associate editor-along with colleagues Hamlin Garland, John W. Studebaker, William F. Wiley, and several others-of a collection of Old Favorites from McGuffey Readers. The 482-page volume was dedicated to Ford, "lifelong devotee of his boyhood Alma Mater, the McGuffey Readers."
Although myriad excerpts appeared in Readers over the decades-Othello, Henry IV Part I, Henry V, Henry VIII, and Richard III, among others-only three selections from Shakespeare were chosen for inclusion by the editors: Marc Antony's speech over Caesar's body in Julius Caesar; Hamlet's report to his friends on sighting his father's ghost; and Shylock's ignominious defeat from The Merchant of Venice.
In May 1914, the local Detroit advisory committee of the fledgling B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, under the chairmanship of Temple Beth El Reform Rabbi Leo Franklin, undertook as its first order of business a vigilance campaign to eliminate the required study and teaching of The Merchant of Venice in local public schools. Indeed, the charter of the ADL made a commitment to urge "proper authorities ... to remove books which maliciously and scurrilously traduce the character of the Jew." In a vehement letter to ADL founder Sigmund Livingston in Chicago, Rabbi Franklin insisted that the image of "the avaricious, revengeful and bloodthirsty Jew" must be banished from classroom discourse. The following fall, the ADL sent a circular to school superintendents in all cities with a population of ten thousand or more itemizing why The Merchant of Venice was not fit for the classroom. Among the complaints listed, "It serves to increase misunderstanding of Jews by non-Jews ... because Shylock is erroneously pictured as typical of all Jews ... [and] Shylock has become an unhappy symbol of Jewish vindictiveness, malice and hatred."
To Henry Ford, Rabbi Franklin's friend and neighbor in Detroit, this national lobbying action was nothing less than a personal affront to his revered mentor, William Holmes McGuffey.
For the moment, it was time to continue reading in Lesson LIX of McGuffey's New Fifth Eclectic Reader: "Shylock, or The Pound of Flesh." The boys are instructed by their burly, moustachioed teacher, a former barrel cooper named John Brainard Chapman, to "stand and read so loud and distinctly, that [I] may hear each syllable."
"I
am sorry for thee," the judge, Doctor Balthasar (Portia disguised as a
"learned man"), says to Antonio, the seafaring businessman who has lost
his ships. "Thou art come to answer a stony adversary, an inhuman
wretch, incapable of pity." Enter the "unfeeling" moneylender Shylock,
to plead his case. "By our holy Sabbath," here is a man who will "give
no reason" outwardly for his deep-seated misanthropy and "lodged hate"
of Antonio. This Jew is stubborn, principled, adhering to the letter of
the law. "There is no power in the tongue of man" can sway him. Shylock
will exact his collateral, a pound of Antonio's flesh. He will not take
even twice or thrice or six times three thousand ducats in exchange.
The knife is at the ready. Antonio's apologies are futile.But before the spot nearest Antonio's heart can be cut, Doctor Balthasar warns Shylock that he must not "shed one drop of Christian blood ... nor cut less nor more, than just one pound" even to the weight of a hair, otherwise his lands and life will be forfeited to the State of Venice. Shylock, realizing he is trapped by the very law he craves, attempts to withdraw-but there is a further penalty. As an "alien" who has attempted to take the life of a citizen, half his goods are subject to confiscation by Antonio, as the aggrieved party; half must go to the state; and the Jew's life is at the mercy of the court.
Shylock pleads for death, because his funds and possessions, "the means" through which he truly values life, are worth more to him than anything in the world. In a twist of irony, the judge takes the compassionate path, showing the state's "mercy" on the Jew, allowing him to survive among the very people he so despises.
"Why did Shylock choose the pound of flesh rather than the payment of his debt?" the McGuffey exercises inquire of the student at the conclusion of the selection. "What does he mean by saying 'my deeds upon my head'? In whose favor does the judge decide? How does he eventually relieve Antonio from his danger?"
And finally, Henry Ford and his classmates are asked to discuss, "How is Shylock punished? Was his punishment just? Why?"
Elsewhere in the Fifth Reader, the students read of "Paul's Defense before King Agrippa," in which the apostle laments the fact that despite his wide-ranging efforts to spread the gospel of repentance at Damascus, Jerusalem, and along the coasts of Judea, "the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me."
In his Fourth Reader, young Henry had already been forewarned that "Jewish authors were incapable of the diction and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel." Rather, although the Jews had their "own sacred volume" known as the Old Testament, they misguidedly failed to heed within it "the most extraordinary predictions concerning the infidelity of their nation, Jesus' coming, and the rise, progress, and extensive prevalence of the gospel truth of Christianity." In his Third Reader, Henry had learned that the unfortunate Jews never accepted that "the Bible is a Christian book...the Scriptures are especially designed to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."
Henry had also read McGuffey's instructive tale of "The Good Son," in which a jeweler's child will not sell his diamonds to a group of Jewish elders because in order to obtain the key to the merchandise chest the lad would have to awaken his sleeping father. "At my father's age," the boy explains solemnly, "a short hour of sleep does him a great deal of good; and for all the gold in the world, I would not be wanting in respect to my father, or take from him a single comfort."
For nearly a century, William Holmes McGuffey's anthologies were the dominant textbook in American schools. More than 122 million copies were sold between 1836, when the first two volumes of primers were published by the venerable firm of Truman and Smith of Cincinnati, and 1921, when the American Book Company brought out the New Sixth Eclectic Reader.
"The Old Guff" was born in western Pennsylvania in 1800, second in a family of eleven children. He taught in the country schools of the Ohio Territory, then attended Greersburg Academy and Washington College, both in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1826. He went on to positions at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, was appointed president of Ohio University, and distinguished himself further as one of the founders of the common-school system in Ohio.
Under a gargantuan ash tree on the West Lawn near Colonnade Alley at the University of Virginia, where he served as professor of mental and moral philosophy from 1845 until his death in 1873, McGuffey would assemble parties of children and teenagers and read to them from selections he was planning to include in revised editions of his Readers. Those passages generating interest and excitement were published, while others that failed to ignite the young people's imaginations were rejected. Thus did this "modest, self-effacing teacher bear the torch of education to light the wilderness," setting out singlehandedly to establish the moral (more than intellectual) agenda for American youth at mid-century.
First and foremost, according to this "messiah of education," Protestant Christianity was the only true religion in America, "closer to Puritanism than Unitarianism.... God was omnipresent. He had His eye on every child every moment of the day and night, watched its every action, knew its every thought." The deeply ingrained "sublime chorus of truths" of the Bible could not be questioned. Equally, the quotidian world was built simply upon a Calvinist structure of reward and punishment. Hard work, thrift, and rugged conformity were the ideals. Success was desired. Failure was shunned.
In the later Readers, excerpts from literary works took the place of many homiletic, homespun parables: John Dryden, Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott, Washington Irving, and William Shakespeare.
Throughout
his life, Henry Ford expressed indebtedness to McGuffey's teachings. He
was proud of his early exposure to this unadorned brand of
book-learning, which reinforced an ordered, rigid, and straightforward
view of a world where white was white and black was black. Known
familiarly as "McGuffeyland," this was a pure and pastoral domain,
where a boy worked with his own two hands and benefited directly from
the products of hard labor, far removed from urban dens of cosmopolitan
iniquity.As an adult, Ford could quote spontaneously line-for-line from McGuffey. He was an obsessive collector of McGuffey first editions and reprinted all six Readers from 1857, distributing complete sets of them, at his own considerable expense, to schools across the United States. In 1934, Ford had McGuffey's whitewashed log cabin birthplace, complete with all its furnishings, disassembled from the Pennsylvania hill country and moved to Greenfield Village, Ford's exhaustive museum of Americana at Dearborn, Michigan. In 1936, Ford served as an associate editor-along with colleagues Hamlin Garland, John W. Studebaker, William F. Wiley, and several others-of a collection of Old Favorites from McGuffey Readers. The 482-page volume was dedicated to Ford, "lifelong devotee of his boyhood Alma Mater, the McGuffey Readers."
Although myriad excerpts appeared in Readers over the decades-Othello, Henry IV Part I, Henry V, Henry VIII, and Richard III, among others-only three selections from Shakespeare were chosen for inclusion by the editors: Marc Antony's speech over Caesar's body in Julius Caesar; Hamlet's report to his friends on sighting his father's ghost; and Shylock's ignominious defeat from The Merchant of Venice.
In May 1914, the local Detroit advisory committee of the fledgling B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, under the chairmanship of Temple Beth El Reform Rabbi Leo Franklin, undertook as its first order of business a vigilance campaign to eliminate the required study and teaching of The Merchant of Venice in local public schools. Indeed, the charter of the ADL made a commitment to urge "proper authorities ... to remove books which maliciously and scurrilously traduce the character of the Jew." In a vehement letter to ADL founder Sigmund Livingston in Chicago, Rabbi Franklin insisted that the image of "the avaricious, revengeful and bloodthirsty Jew" must be banished from classroom discourse. The following fall, the ADL sent a circular to school superintendents in all cities with a population of ten thousand or more itemizing why The Merchant of Venice was not fit for the classroom. Among the complaints listed, "It serves to increase misunderstanding of Jews by non-Jews ... because Shylock is erroneously pictured as typical of all Jews ... [and] Shylock has become an unhappy symbol of Jewish vindictiveness, malice and hatred."
To Henry Ford, Rabbi Franklin's friend and neighbor in Detroit, this national lobbying action was nothing less than a personal affront to his revered mentor, William Holmes McGuffey.
