The True Citizen: How to Become One — A Closer Reading

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In Category - Metaphysics

Authors: Markwick, William Fisher, 1848-1911, Smith, William Alexander, 1866- Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Readers -- Citizenship; Citizenship -- Problems, exercises, etc.; Conduct of life -- Problems, exercises, etc. Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 72,346

Reading time 315 min

Text sections 7

For The True Citizen: How to Become One — A Closer Reading, the stored edition analysis reports 72,346 words, 5 hr 15 min estimated reading time, and 7 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 20.8 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Readers -- Citizenship,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #6158

An editorial note examining the structural design of Markwick and Smith's 39-chapter reader for seventh and eighth graders, focusing on its weekly memory gems, anecdotal method, and special illustrations of historical figures as a framework for moral and civic education.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg6158

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Indian had not even seen the one he described. He asked the Indian how he could give such a minute description of a man whom he had never seen.

"I knew the thief was a little man," said the Indian, "because he rolled up a stone to stand on in order to reach the venison; I knew he was an old man by his short steps; I knew he was a white man by his turning out his toes in walking, which an Indian never does; I knew he had a short gun by the mark it left on the tree where he had stood it up; I knew the dog was small by his tracks and short steps, and that he had a bob-tail by the mark it left in the dust where he sat."

The poet Longfellow has also dwelt upon the power of observation in the early training of Hiawatha. You will perhaps recall the lines:

"Then the little Hiawatha Learned of every bird its language, Learned their names and all their secrets, How they built their nests in summer, Where they hid themselves in winter, Talked with them whene'er he met them, Called them 'Hiawatha's Chickens.'"

The most noted men of every land and age have acquired their fame by carrying into effect ideas suggested by or obtained from observation.

The head of a large commercial firm was once asked why he employed such an ignorant man for a buyer. He replied: "It is true that our buyer cannot spell correctly; but when anything comes within the range of his eyes, he sees all that there is to be seen. He buys over a million dollars' worth a year for us, and I cannot recall any instance when he failed to notice a defect in any line of goods or any feature that would be likely to render them unsalable." This man's highly developed power of observation was certainly of great value.

Careful observers become accurate thinkers. These are the men that are needed everywhere and by everybody. By observation the scholar gets more out of his books, the traveler more enjoyment from the beauties of nature, and the young person who is quick to read human character avoids companions that would be likely to lead him into the ways of vice and folly, and perhaps cause his life to become a total wreck.

In 1828 a wonderful book, "The Birds of America," by John James Audubon, was issued. It is a good illustration of what has been accomplished by beginning in one's youth to use the powers of observation. Audubon loved and studied birds. Even in his infancy, lying under the orange trees on his father's plantation in Louisiana, he listened to the mocking bird's song, watching and observing every motion as it flitted from bough to bough. When he was older he began to sketch every bird that he saw, and soon showed so much talent that he was taken to France to be educated.

He entered cheerfully and earnestly upon his studies, and more than a year was devoted to mathematics; but whenever it was possible he rambled about the country, using his eyes and fingers, collecting more specimens, and sketching with such assiduity that when he left France, only seventeen years old, he had finished two hundred drawings of French birds. At this period he tells us that "it was not the desire of fame which prompted to this devotion; it was simply the enjoyment of nature."

A story is told of his lying on his back in the woods with some moss for his pillow, and looking through a telescopic microscope day after day to watch a pair of little birds while they made their nest. Their peculiar grey plumage harmonized with the color of the bark of the tree, so that it was impossible to see the birds except by the most careful observation. After three weeks of such patient labor, he felt that he had been amply rewarded for the toil and sacrifice by the results he had obtained.

His power of observation gave him great happiness, from the time he rambled as a boy in the country in search of treasures of natural history, till, in his old age, he rose with the sun and went straightway to the woods near his home, enjoying still the beauties and wonders of Nature. His strength of purpose and unwearied energy, combined with his pure enthusiasm, made him successful in his work as a naturalist; but it was all dependent on the habit formed in his boyhood,--this habit of close and careful observation; and he not only had this habit of using his eyes, but he looked at and studied things worth seeing, worth remembering.

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The True Citizen: How to Become One opens with a preface that lays out a precise pedagogical architecture: thirty-nine chapters, one for each week of the school year, each prefixed with five memory gems—one for each school day. The authors explicitly position the book as a supplementary reader for seventh and eighth graders, aiming to address what they see as a neglected intersection of ethics and civics. Rather than a continuous argument, the work proceeds through a series of discrete thematic units, each anchored by a “special illustration” set in bold type and accompanied by a brief bibliography. This structure suggests a classroom rhythm of weekly moral lessons punctuated by biographical case studies.

Weekly Architecture and Memory Gems

The book’s most visible structural feature is its division into thirty-nine weekly chapters, each opening with five memory gems. These short quotations or aphorisms—one per school day—function as mnemonic anchors for the chapter’s ethical theme. The preface notes that “especial care has been taken to use only such language as will be perfectly intelligible” to the target age group, indicating a deliberate effort to match the gems to the reading level of pupils. This weekly pattern imposes a predictable, ritualized frame on the content, turning each chapter into a self-contained unit that can be absorbed in daily increments. The gems themselves, drawn from a range of sources, serve as a kind of distributed epigraph system, priming the reader for the lesson that follows.

Anecdote as Instructional Engine

The authors state that “the largest possible use has been made of anecdote and incident, so as to quicken the interest and hold the attention to the end.” This is not merely decorative; the anecdote is the primary vehicle for ethical instruction. In the excerpt on self-respect, a brief story of a young man declining a questionable entertainment is used to illustrate a principle, followed by a quotation from Samuel Smiles’s Character. The anecdote is short, dialogic, and morally unambiguous—the young man’s reply, “I want to respect myself,” crystallizes the lesson. This pattern recurs throughout: a concrete, often historical or fictional vignette is presented, then glossed with a maxim or authorial comment. The method assumes that moral truths are best grasped through narrative example rather than abstract precept.

Special Illustrations and Biographical Depth

Into each chapter dealing with “the development of the natural faculties, or the moral powers,” the authors insert a “special illustration” clearly marked by a bold-faced title. The excerpt includes the illustration of Sir Walter Scott, which runs several paragraphs and covers his birth, education, literary career, financial ruin, and deathbed statement. This is far more detailed than the typical anecdote, offering a miniature biography. The preface explains that these illustrations are meant to “bring the pupil into direct contact with these greater minds,” suggesting a belief that sustained exposure to exemplary lives can inspire emulation. The inclusion of a bibliography for each illustration points to a further pedagogical layer: the teacher or student is invited to pursue a fuller study of the character independently.

Movement Between the Abstract and the Concrete

The book’s structure enacts a deliberate oscillation between general ethical principles and specific human examples. A chapter might open with memory gems that state a maxim, move into a short anecdote that dramatizes it, then expand into a special illustration that provides a full biographical case study. The Scott illustration, for instance, begins with a general claim about self-respect, then traces Scott’s life from childhood to his heroic effort to pay off debt. This movement from the abstract to the concrete and back again is reinforced by the authors’ own voice, which frequently interjects with summarizing statements like “To have lived such a life as he lived is more than to have reigned over a kingdom.” The effect is a layered reading experience where the same moral idea is encountered in multiple registers: aphoristic, narrative, and biographical.

Readers approaching The True Citizen should attend to how its formal structure—weekly chapters, memory gems, anecdotes, and special illustrations—creates a cumulative moral curriculum. The book does not argue a single thesis but builds character through repeated exposure to exemplary figures and concise ethical lessons. Noticing the interplay between the brief gems and the longer biographical sketches can reveal the authors’ assumptions about how moral education works: through rhythm, repetition, and the force of living example.

Leafing through the old reader’s memory gems, I recalled how its careful architecture once gave me a quiet sense of order. That feeling returned, oddly, while pondering Aether and Gravitation — Text and Context; both books seem to hold a classroom’s hush, inviting you to sit with their patient, structured explanations, like afternoon light on a familiar desk.