Montco School Stirs Controversy In Cutting 'Huckleberry Finn' From Class

The book widely considered to be among the greatest works in the history of American fiction has been cut from a Montgomery County high school English class.

The administration of Wynnewood’s Friends Central School reportedly said they made the decision to cut Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from its 11th grade English class after a meeting with students and faculty.

“We have all come to the conclusion that the community costs of reading this book in 11th grade outweigh the literary benefits,” principal Art Hall said in a letter to the school community, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Students apparently told teachers that the book’s use of the N-word indicated that the school “was not being inclusive enough,” the report states.

Twain’s use of the N-word in the book has made Huck Finn one of the most widely, and thoroughly misunderstood, banned books in the history of American literature.

The view of N-word in Huck Funn as being derogatory toward African-Americans runs contrary to nearly every serious academic critique of the novel ever published.

The novel was seen as revolutionary upon its publication for its use of colloquial language, streaming thoughts directly from the narrator’s head and employing local vernacular in a way that most critics agree is stylistically groundbreaking.

Indeed, renowned American writer Ernest Hemingway famously said “All American literature begins with Huckleberry Finn.”

In droves, alumni took to the school’s Facebook page with a mix of awe, disbelief, and fury.

David Callner, who currently works at Shinshu University Japan and is a graduate of the class of 1974, had mostly the latter to offer:

I am a graduate of FCS, class of 74. The sheer ignorance of your Mark Twain decision is astonishing. “Huckleberry Finn” is not a treatise on race in America, it is a masterpiece of American literature (not to mention that as a portrait of humanity, “Huckleberry Finn”, if read, or taught, with any intelligence at all, is a splendid CONDEMNATION of racism). I remember with pride how, in my day, the FCS faculty and administration worked nobly for our right to read “The Catcher in the Rye”, “offensive” as it was, in our American Lit. class. Why the turnaround? Shame! Please remove my name from the FCS mailing list until this pitiful decision is reversed.

Others were worried about the precedent that such a banning might set. Peter Finarovsky chimed in with the following:

The administrators and educators of this school should be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed for banning the literary classic Huckleberry Finn.. As 1984 shows us, this is how censorship and authoritarianism starts. Emotions apparently are more important than dissent, truth, social commentary and intellectual honesty. We as a society must be absolutely clear that we will not tolerate the suppression of uncomfortable truths!

Parents of former students chimed in as well. Mary Lisbeth Bartlett noted that the book had a positive impact on her own child:

As a former Friends Central parent of a National Merit Scholar who benefited greatly from reading and studying Mark Twain’s HUCKLEBERRY FINN, I am stunned and saddened by the news that you have pulled the book from your 11th grade curriculum. This boycott is censorship and it is shameful. Even with all its conundrums and N words, the book is a masterpiece and would be a terrific opportunity for students of ALL colors to discuss a myriad of profound themes and issues, including racism. This is an embarrassment to the extended FCS community. I thought FCS had more character than this.

School officials reportedly said that Huck Finn will remain in the Friends library.