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New England Primer

Dictionary of American History | 2003 | Copyright

NEW ENGLAND PRIMER

NEW ENGLAND PRIMER. The New England Primer, first published about 1690, combined lessons in spelling with a short catechism and versified injunctions to piety and faith in Calvinistic fundamentals. Crude couplets and woodcut pictures illustrated the alphabet, and the child's prayer that begins "Now I lay me down to sleep" first appeared in this book. The primer fulfilled the purposes of education in New England, where Puritan colonists stressed literacy as conducive to scriptural study. For about fifty years, this eighty-page booklet, four and

a half by three inches in size, was the only elementary textbook in America, and for a century more it held a central place in primary education.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crain, Patricia. The Story of A: The Alphebetization of America from the New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000.

McClellan, B. Edward. Moral Educaiton in America: Schools and the Shaping of Character from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Teachers College Press, 1999.

Harry R.Warfel/s. b.

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New England Primer, The

The Oxford Companion to American Literature | 1995 | | Copyright

New England Primer, The, Calvinist school book, compiled and published by Benjamin Harris, probably in 1683 and certainly before 1690. In its frequent revisions, it is estimated to have sold more than 5,000,000 copies. Besides the letters of the alphabet, illustrated by crudely rhymed couplets and woodcuts, the book contained simple moral texts based on Old Testament history and wisdom, and the prayer Now I lay me down to sleep.

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James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "New England Primer, The." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 26 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "New England Primer, The." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 26, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-NewEnglandPrimerThe.html

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "New England Primer, The." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 26, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-NewEnglandPrimerThe.html

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