The New England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American Colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in colonial American and the early days of United States history.
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History
The New England Primer was first published between 1687 and 1690 by English printer Benjamin Harris, who had come to Boston Massachusetts in 1686 to escape the brief Catholic ascendancy under James II. Based largely upon the The Protestant Tutor, which he had published in England,[1] The New-England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American Colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in colonial and the early days of United States history.
While the selections in the New England Primer varied somewhat across time, there was standard content for beginning reading instruction. Included were the alphabet, vowels, consonants, double letters and syllabariums of two letters to six letter syllables. The 90-page work contained religious maxims, woodcuts, alphabetical assistants, acronyms, catechisms, and moral lessons. Many of its selections were drawn from the King James Bible and others were original. It embodied the dominant Puritan attitude and worldview of the day. Among the topics discussed are respect to parental figures, sin, and salvation. It was made with a thin sheet of horn or paper shellacked to a wooden board. The board was transfixed with a handle. Some versions contained the Westminster Shorter Catechism; others contained John Cotton's shorter catechism, known as Milk for Babes; and some contained both.
The primer remained in print well into the 19th century and was even used until the 20th century. A reported 2 million copies were sold in the 1700s. No copies of editions before 1727 are known to survive; earlier editions are known only from publishers' and booksellers' advertisements.
Contents of the Primer
Two of the most famous example verses are as follows
- Now I lay me down to sleep,
- I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep;
- If I should die before I wake,
- I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
—1784 ed.
- In Adam's Fall,
- we sinned all.
The text for L is alluded to in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: . . . "like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold" . . .
Editions and reprints
There have been many reprints of the New England Primer.
- New England Primer: Improved for the More Easy Attaining the True Reading of English: To Which Is Added the Assembly of Divines, and Mr. Cotton's Catechism (1991, WallBuilders; note that this is the 1777 edition). ISBN 0-925279-17-X
- New England Primer: 1996, A Family & Homeschool Textbook. The 1843 Updated Edition with Lesson Plan. (© 1996, Richard E. Klenk Sr.; ISBN 0-9648958-0-3) A book, orig. a prayer book, used in teaching children to read or spell; hence, an elementary textbook. [1]
See also
References
- Paul Leicester Ford, The New-England Primer (NY, 1899)
- Smith, N. B. (2002) American reading instruction / Nila Banton Smith ; [with prologue by Richard D. Robinson, epilogue by Norman A.Stahl, and history of reading since 1967 by P. David Pearson].
- Monaghan, E. Jennifer (2006) Learning to Read and Write in Colonial America.
Notes
- ^ A Famous Book -- "The New England Primer", The New York Times, November 14, 1897
External links
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