How Goofus and Gallant shaped generations of kids

 Nearly 80 years after its creation, Goofus and Gallant still spark debate over morality and parenting

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Do you remember reading Highlights for Children? It was—and still is—a popular U.S.-based children’s magazine that provides important reading, writing and critical thinking skills for young, developing minds. After recently seeing a few older issues in a small bin of items being given away not far from my home, it got me thinking about its decades-long impact on children and parenting.

Highlights for Children was launched in 1946 by the husband-wife duo of Garry Cleveland Myers and Caroline Clark Myers. The two American educators based in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, had written articles, lectured and served as co-editors of the magazine Children’s Activities from 1940 to 1946. They decided to start their own magazine and create a personal education brand for children between the ages of three and 12 years old.

It almost didn’t work.

The Myers struggled and lost money in the magazine’s first six months. The financial situation was so dire that they asked their son, Garry Jr., to help them wind down the business. He came up with a better plan. Doctors and dentists across North America were encouraged to purchase a magazine subscription and place it in their office waiting rooms.

This was just what the (ahem) doctor and dentist ordered, and it helped turn the magazine’s fortunes around. Highlights for Children acquired Children’s Activities, launched several new magazines like Highlights High Five under its umbrella, founded Boyds Mill Press to publish children’s books, and more.

There are several regular features in each monthly issue of Highlights for Children. This includes Hidden Pictures, The Timbertoes, Check and Double Check, Brain Play and the ever-popular Goofus and Gallant.

The latter feature is a comic strip that compares the words and actions of two young boys. Goofus is often bad and does most things wrong, while Gallant is often good and does most things right. While different illustrators, from Maurieta Wellman to Leslie Harrington, have drawn this strip, there has been little deviation from its original theme.

Here are three basic examples of Goofus and Gallant in the magazine, written by Garry Myers and drawn by its longest-tenured illustrator, Marion Hull Hammel. In the first strip, Goofus’s mother is holding a broken plate and he tells her, “I just found it that way, Mother,” whereas Gallant says in the same situation, “I broke it, Mother. I’m sorry.”

In the second strip, Goofus is holding a razor with a small cut on his face and tells his mother, “I tried to see how it works,” while Gallant says, “I’ll tell Dad where his razor is.”

In the third strip, Goofus is opening a gift intended for his mother and telling a young girl sitting next to him, “Let’s see what it is,” which is far different from Gallant’s reaction, “Let’s wait till Mother opens it.”

On the bottom of the page was a short message, “Seeing Goofus’ bad behaviour leads children to want to be like Gallant.” There have been several similar messages over the years promoting Gallant’s ethical and moral standards as compared to Goofus’s naughty and selfish actions. While it’s fair to say some children didn’t agree with Myers’s assessment, the hope was that most would.

Goofus and Gallant has often been depicted as an example of a didactic comic. What does this mean? According to Cambridge Dictionary’s astute definition, it’s “intended to teach people a moral lesson.” In this case, helping young children distinguish between what’s good and evil, and what’s right and wrong.

Although the strip has never been properly collected in a book edition (save for one small 13-page volume released in 2012), it’s been the subject of several fascinating academic and mainstream studies.

Here’s one example. “The boys are prepubescent, but their exact age is unclear, as is their relationship to each other,” Julie Beck wrote in The Atlantic on June 28, 2023. “Though the style of their illustration has changed over the years (they were briefly elves with pointed ears before transforming, unannounced, into human boys), they have always been essentially identical to each other. Are they twin brothers? Friends? The same kid in alternate universes? Or is it more of a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation?”

These are good observations on the surface, but Beck shifts the conversation in a different direction. “It doesn’t really matter. Goofus and Gallant are symbols more than characters. In every issue, they play out a sort of Calvinist destiny. Their essential nature was preordained by a higher power long ago—Goofus forever doomed to be a screwup, Gallant to be a smug little do-gooder. What can they do but play the roles that were laid out for them?”

Fair enough. It’s also relevant to contrast this analysis with the viewpoints of Highlights for Children’s editor-in-chief, Christine French Cully.

“The feature is designed to be a part of our work to help kids become their best selves,” she told Beck in an interview. “It’s about helping kids develop character and moral intelligence.” Moreover, Cully pointed out, “We try really hard now, and have for a long time, to be clear that Goofus is not all bad, and Gallant is not all good.” This focus on “social-emotional learning” has not only become a hallmark of Goofus and Gallant’s messaging but also reflects the changes in parenting techniques from a strict moral code to a somewhat balanced outlook on a child’s actions and reactions.

“So even if Goofus and Gallant will always be the devil and the angel sitting on kids’ shoulders, nowadays, you might say, there is a little more sympathy for the Goofus,” Beck wrote in her piece. It’s up to readers to determine whether this development has been a goof … err, good thing.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.