“I, Pencil” and “The Tuttle Twins and the Miraculous Pencil”

In 1958! Leonard Read wrote his famous essay, I, Pencil. You can get a PDF or hardcopy from the Foundation for Economic Education here. Or watch an animated video here.

Recently the Tuttle Twins enterprise offered a nice package, an “updated” version of Mr. Read’s work. It is good material, like almost everything the company publishes.

Conner Boyack is a good publisher, and his objectives are clear. He, like several other publishers and writers, has provided a great service to students and those teaching them. We do note, though, his publications tend to be a bit oversimplified (oriented to very young children, without much material for older, better-taught children. And too “cartoonish” and “imaginative” in many ways.

We know that the radio program Odyssey pioneered (or at least popularized) the idea of modern children (or teens) traveling back in time and interacting with real historical people, but there is one serious drawback: it subconsciously gives the idea that it is all fiction – that the real history is as made-up as the time-travelers, especially for young children. And much of Conner’s material is derivative, based on others’ work. As is the case with this set. This is an issue many teachers face: when cartoons or caricatures are used to teach about a subject (especially history), the young students see it as no different from a Tom and Jerry or Grizzy and the Lemmings episode.

Still, such materials are valuable, if used by wise, perceptive and careful teachers. It certainly is better than learning history from a Zinn textbook or from the pages of Das Capital. Or from pure comic books.

The topic is very important, as we are constantly bombarded by media telling us (and the young) that greater socialism is the wave of the future. And that what we have today is pure free markets, and therefore tainted. These memes are pushed, ironically enough, by both the right and the left. And all too often, the libertarians fall into the same error.

Leonard Read’s “I, Pencil” is an excellent, short piece of writing with important lessons to teach, and done in a way that sticks in the minds of young and old. We used that essay to teach our sons at a very young age, and they understood it easily. I’m sure the Miraculous Pencil tale is great, and of course has plenty of nice pictures and such, but perhaps the best way to teach those lessons doesn’t require a $30 book package, or even that cute video. Just a lead pencil and reading out loud and discussing it parent to child.

And there are many things that parents and grandparents can use to teach the young about liberty, justice, and the formerly American Way. Not just the bad things, as too many government-run and tax-funded institutional textbooks do. The ideals, the goals, and the successes (as well as the failures) are important for young people to learn, and older people to remember. And so many of the recent generations (the 20-40 year group) have been taught lies that even they can and must be taught. (Remember, one way to lie is to tell only part of the truth.)

Pencils (and pens and other writing utensils) are not produced by a fat, happy CEO of a massive, vertically-integrated mega-corporation, but by an almost unconscious cooperation effort between tens of thousands of individuals exercising free will. There is no “Office of Pencil Production and Distribution” located somewhere in the US Department of Commerce or some other alphabet federal agency. But through individuals responding to the needs (and wants) of consumers, there are plenty of pencils available in every corner of these united States.

Can we apply this lesson to other important matters of everyday life? And even emergencies and disasters?

Of course we can. But… will we?

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