The English philosopher, John Locke, in his Thoughts concerning Education, written in 1690, says the method of teaching children to read in England at that time was always "the ordinary road of Horn-book, Primer, Psalter, Testament, and Bible." These, he said, "engage the liking of children and tempt them to read." The road was the same in New England, but it would hardly be called a tempting method.

The first book from which the children of the colonists learned their letters and to spell, was not really a book at all, in our sense of the word. It was what was called a hornbook. A thin piece of wood, usually about four or five inches long and two inches wide, had placed upon it a sheet of paper a trifle smaller, printed at the top with the alphabet in large and small letters; below were simple syllables such as ab, eb, ib, ob, etc.; then came the Lord's Prayer. This printed page was covered with a thin sheet of yellowish horn, which was not as transparent as glass, yet permitted the letters to be read through it; and both the paper and the horn were fastened around the edges to the wood by a narrow strip of metal, usually brass, which was tacked down by fine tacks or nails. It was, therefore, a book of a single page. At the two upper corners of the page were crosses, hence to read the hornbook was often called "reading a criss-cross row." At the lower end of the wooden back was usually a little handle which often was pierced with a hole; thus the hornbook could be carried by a string, which could be placed around the neck or hung by the side.

When, five years ago, was published my book entitled Customs and Fashions in Old New England, I wrote that I did not know of the preservation of a single hornbook in America; though for many years eager and patient antiquaries, of English and of American blood, had vainly sought in American historical collections, in American libraries, in American rural homes, for a true American hornbook; that is, one studied by American children of colonial times. The publication of my statement has made known to me three American hornbooks. The first is the shabby little treasure owned by Mrs. Anne Robinson Minturn of Shoreham, Vermont, found hidden under the dusty eaves of a Vermont garret. The illustration shows its exact size. On the back is a paper coarsely stamped in red with a portrait of Charles II., king of England, on horseback. This may indicate its age, but not its exact date. The young colonist who owned it was by this print taught loyalty to the Crown, though in a far land.

The second hornbook is owned by Miss Grace L. Gordon of Flushing, Long Island. It is a family heirloom, having come to its present owner through a great-uncle who was born in 1782, and stated that it was used by his father, who was born in 1736. The tablet is of oak, and the back is covered with a red paper stamped with the design of a double-headed eagle. The third, owned by Mrs. John W. Norton of Guildford, Connecticut, is almost precisely like Miss Gordon's, and is equally well preserved.

From these shabby little relics and from thousands of their ill-printed, but useful kinsfolk, childish lips in America first read aloud the letters, pointed firmly out by a knitting needle in some dame's hand. Undisturbed by kindergarten inductions and suggestions, unbewildered by baleful processes and diagrams, unthreatened by scientific principles of instruction, did the young colonists stoutly shout their a-b abs, did they spell out their prayer, did they read in triumphal chorus their criss-cross row. Isn't it strange that these three lonely little ghosts of old-time schooling should be the only representatives of their regiments of classmates? Wouldn't it seem that tender association, or miserly hoarding, or even forgetful neglect would have made some greater salvage from the vast number of hornbooks sent to this country in the century after its settlement; that by intent or accident many scores would have survived? But these are all; three little battered oaken backs and stubby handles, three faded paper slips, a splintered sheet or two of horn, a few strips of brass tape, a score of tiny hand-wrought nails—all poor things enough, but shaping themselves into precious and treasured relics. Another of their kindred, a penny hornbook, proved its present value at a sale in London in 1893, by fetching the far from ignoble sum of sixty-five pounds.

One of these little hornbooks filled in its single self what has become a vast item in public school expenses. As Mr. Martin wittily expresses it, "it was in embryo all that the Massachusetts statutes now designate by the formal phrase 'text-books and supplies.'"

The knitting needle of the schooldame could be dignified by the pompous name of fescue, a pointer; and something of that nature, a straw, a pin, a quill, a skewer of wood, was always used to direct children's eyes to letter or word.

There certainly were plenty of these humble little engines of instruction in America; old Judge Sewall had them for his fourteen children at the end of the seventeenth century, as we know from his diary; he wrote in 1691 of his son Joseph going to school "his cousin Jane accompanying him, carrying his horn-book." Waitstill Winthrop sent them to his little Connecticut Plantation nieces in 1716. It is told of one zealous Puritan minister that hating the symbolism of the cross he blotted it out of the criss-cross row of a number of hornbooks imported to Boston.

"Gilt horns" were sold in Philadelphia with Bibles and Primers, as we learn from the Pennsylvania Gazette of December 4, 1760, and in New York in 1753, so says the New York Gazette of May 14, of that year. Pretty little lesson-toys, these gilded horns must have proved, but not so fine as the hornbooks of silver and ivory used by young misses of quality in England. Scores of pictures by seventeenth-century artists—on canvas and glass—show demure little maids and masters with hanging hornbooks. Even the pictures of the Holy Family show the infant Christ, hornbook in hand, tenderly taught by the Virgin Mother.

The hornbook was called by other names, horn-gig, horn-bat, battledore-book, absey-book, etc.; and in Dutch it was the a-b-boordje. They were worked in needlework, and written in ink, and stamped on tin and carved in wood, as well as printed, and Prior tells in rhyme of a hornbook, common enough in England, which must have proved eminently satisfactory to the student.

To this day in England, at certain Fairs and in Kensington bake-shops, these gingerbread hornbooks are made and sold in spite of the solemn warning of British moralists—"No liquorish learning to thy babes extend." Still

I have seen in New England what were called "cookey-moulds," which were of heavy wood incised with the alphabet, were of ancient Dutch manufacture, and had been used for making those "koeckje" hornbooks.

The sight of an old hornbook must always be of interest to any one of any power of imagination or of thoughtful mind, who can read between the irregular lines, the ill-shapen letters, its true significance as the emblem, the well-spring of English education and literature. This thought of the symbolism of the hornbook is expressed in quaint words on the back of a shabby battered specimen of questionable age in the British Museum:—

"What more could be wished for even by a literary Gourmand under the Tudors than to be able to Read and Spell; to repeat that holy Charm before which fled all unholy Ghosts, Goblins, or even the Old Gentleman himself, to the very bottom of the Red Sea; to say that immortal Prayer which seems Heaven to all who ex animo use it; and to have those mathematical powers by knowing units, from which spring countless myriads."

For a fuller account of the hornbook, readers should go to the History of the Hornbook, by Andrew W. Tuer, two splendid volumes forming one of the most interesting and exhaustive accounts of any special educational topic that has ever been written.

The printed cardboard battledore was a successor of the hornbook. This was often printed on a double fold of stiff card with a third fold or flap lapping over like an old pocket-book. These battledores were issued in such vast numbers that it is futile to attempt even to allude to the myriad of publishers. An affine of the hornbook is seen in the wooden "reading-boards" which were used a hundred years ago in Erasmus Hall, the famous old academy built in 1786 in Flatbush, Long Island. It is still standing and still used for educational purposes. These "reading-boards" are tablets of wood, fifteen inches long, covered on either side with time-yellowed paper printed in large letters with some simple reading-lesson. The old fashioned long s in the type proves their age. Through a pierced hole a loop of string suspended these boards before a class of little scholars, who doubtless all read in chorus. Similar ones bearing the alphabet are still used in Cornish Sunday-schools. They were certainly used in Dutch schools, two centuries ago, as the illustrations of old Dutch books prove.

A prymer or primer was specifically and ecclesiastically before and after the Reformation in England a book of private devotions. As authorized by the Church, and written or printed partially or wholly in the vernacular, it contained devotions for the hours, the Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, some psalms and certain instructions as to the elements of Christian knowledge. These little books often opened with the criss-cross row or alphabet arranged hornbook fashion, hence the term primer naturally came to be applied to all elementary books for children's use. A, B, C, the Middle-English name for the alphabet in the forms apsey, abce, absie, etc., was also given to what we now call a primer. Shakespeare called it absey-book. The list in Dyves Pragmaticus runs:—

The book which succeeded the hornbook in general use was the New England Primer. It was the most universally studied school-book that has ever been used in America; for one hundred years it was the school-book of America; for nearly another hundred years it was frequently printed and much used. More than three million copies of this New England Primer were printed, so declares its historian, Paul Leicester Ford. These were studied by many more millions of school-children. All of us whose great-grandparents were American born may be sure that those great-grandparents, and their fathers and mothers and ancestors before them learned to read from one of these little books. It was so religious in all its teachings and suggestions that it has been fitly called the "Little Bible of New England."

It is a poorly printed little book about five inches long and three wide, of about eighty pages. It contains the alphabet, and a short table of easy syllables, such as a-b ab, e-b eb, and words up to those of six syllables. This was called a syllabarium. There were twelve five-syllable words; of these five were abomination, edification, humiliation, mortification, and purification. There were a morning and evening prayer for children, and a grace to be said before meat. Then followed a set of little rhymes which have become known everywhere, and are frequently quoted. Each letter of the alphabet is illustrated with a blurred little picture. Of these, two-thirds represent Biblical incidents. They begin:—

and end with Z:—

In the early days of the Primer, all the colonies were true to the English king, and the rhyme for the letter K reads:—

But by Revolutionary years the verse for K was changed to:—

Later verses tell the praise of George Washington. Then comes a series of Bible questions and answers; then an "alphabet of lessons for youth," consisting of verses of the Bible beginning successively with A, B, C, and so on. X was a difficult initial letter, and had to be contented with "Xhort one another daily, etc." After the Lord's Prayer and Apostle's Creed appeared sometimes a list of names for men and women, to teach children to spell their own names. The largest and most interesting picture was that of the burning at the stake of John Rogers; and after this a six page set of pious rhymes which the martyr left at his death for his family of small children.

After the year 1750, a few very short stories were added to its pages, and were probably all the children's stories that many of the scholars of that day ever saw. It is interesting to see that the little prayer so well known to-day, beginning "Now I lay me down to sleep," is usually found in the New England Primer of dates later than the year 1737. The Shorter Catechism was, perhaps, the most important part of this primer. It was so called in contrast to the catechism in use in England called The Careful Father and Pious Child, which had twelve hundred questions with answers. The Shorter Catechism had but a hundred and seven questions, though some of the answers were long. Usually another catechism was found in the primer, called Spiritual Milk for Babes. It was written by the Boston minister, John Cotton, and it had but eighty-seven questions with short answers. Sometimes a Dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil was added.

The Shorter Catechism was the special delight of all New Englanders. Cotton Mather called it a "little watering pot" to shed good lessons. He begged writing masters to set sentences from it to be copied by their pupils; and he advised mothers to "continually drop something of the Catechism on their children, as Honey from the Rock." Learning the catechism was enforced by law in New England, and the deacons and ministers visited and examined families to see that the law was obeyed. Thus it may plainly be seen that this primer truly filled the requisites of what the Roxbury school trustees called "scholastical, theological, and moral discipline."