"My New Battledore"
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:—
"I have inke, paper and pennes to lode with a barge,
Primers and abces and books of small charge,
What Lack you Scollers, come hither to me."
Reading Board. Erasmus Hall
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:—
"In Adam's fall
We sinned all,"