It is apparent that much of the horn-book is incorporated in the “New England Primer,” although the development of the latter may be considered independently. The Primer is an indispensable part of Puritan history in America, despite the fact that its source extends as far back as the time of Henry VIII, when it was probably regarded more in the light of a devotional than of an educational book. The earliest mention of it in New England was that published in the Boston Almanac of 1691, when Benjamin Harris, bookseller and printer, called attention to its second impression.[20] Before that, in 1685, Samuel Green, a Boston printer, issued a primer which he called “The Protestant Teacher for Children,” and a copy of which may be seen in the library of the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Massachusetts. The title would indicate also that in America the primer for children at first served the same purpose as the morality play for adults in England; it was a vehicle for religious instruction.
The oldest existent copy of the New England Primer bears the imprint of Thomas Fleet, son-in-law of the famous Mrs. Goose, of whom we shall speak later. This was in 1737. Before then, in 1708, Benjamin Eliot of Boston, probably encouraged by earlier editions of primers, advertised “The First Book for Children; or, The Compleat School-Mistress”; and Timothy Green in 1715 announced “A Primer for the Colony of Connecticut; or, an Introduction to the True Reading of English. To which is added Milk for Babes.” This latter title suggests the name of the Reverend John Cotton, and, furthermore, the name of Cotton Mather, one of the austere writers, as the titles of his books alone bear witness.
Six copies of the New England Primer lay before me, brown paper covers, dry with age; blue boards, worn with much handling; others in gray and green that have faded like the age which gave them birth. The boy who brought them to me wore a broad smile upon his face; perhaps he was wondering why I wished such toy books, no larger than 3¼″ × 2½″. He held them all in one hand so as to show his superior strength. Yet had he been taken into the dark corridor between the book stacks, and had he been shown the contents of those crinkly leaves, there might have crept over him some remnant of the feeling of awe which must have seized the Colonial boy and girl. What would he have thought of the dutiful child’s promises, or of the moral precepts, had they been read to him? Would he have shrunk backward at the description of the bad boy? Would he have beamed with youthful hope of salvation upon the picture of the good boy? It is doubtful whether the naughty girls, called “hussies,” ever reformed; it is doubtful whether they ever wanted to be the good girl of the verses. That smiling boy of the present would have turned grave over the cut of Mr. John Rogers in the flames, despite the placid expression of wonderful patience over the martyr’s face; his knees would have trembled at the sombre meaning of the lines:
“I in the burial place may see
Graves shorter far than I;
From death’s arrest no age is free,
Young children too may die.”
The New England Primers[21] were called pleasant guides; they taught that the longest life is a lingering death. There was the fear instead of the love of God in the text, and yet the type of manhood fostered by such teaching was no wavering type, no half-way spirit. The Puritan travelled the narrow road, but he faced it, however dark the consequences.
Sufficient has been said to give some idea of the part occupied by these early publications—whether horn-book, chap-book, or primer. They bore an intimate relation to the life of the child; they were, together with the Almanack, which is typified by that of “Poor Richard,” and with the Calendar, part of a development which may be traced, with equal profit, in England, Scotland, France, and Germany. Their full history is fraught with human significance.