On Banning Huck Finn: Free Speech Group Writes Letter To Local School

A Montgomery County school’s decision to cut Huckleberry Finn from the curriculum continues to draw significant criticism.

In the immediate wake of the decision by Friends Central School in Wynnewood, alumni spoke out aggressively against the move, expressing shock and disbelief that their alma mater would remove the American classic from their school’s classrooms.

Author Samuel Clemens, who used the pseudonym Mark Twain when he published, wrote what Ernest Hemingway would later call the source of “all American fiction” in 1884.

Now, a week later, the National Coalition Against Censorship has published an open letter to the school, expressing their hopes they will reverse their decision.

Their letter details that the reasons the school gave for banning the book are precisely the reasons to keep it in the curriculum.

The staff at the NCAC quote Nobel-Prize winner Toni Morrison’s defense of the book. “The brilliance of Huckleberry Finn is that it is the argument it raises.”

Read Patch’s original reporting on the controversial decision here.

Clemens’ own famous words would indicate, however, that he might even agree with the banning of his prized novel, or at least would not be very offended by it.

”I never let my schooling interfere with my education,” he said.

The full letter is included below: