New-England Primer, The

History and Context

The first primers were called “primary manuals” and contained prayers for Christian church services. As England became more Protestant than Catholic and as Puritans separated from the Church of England in the 16th century, Puritans began printing their own primers, which also contained alphabets and catechisms intended for religious instruction. Shortly after Puritan Christians of New England founded public schools in 1647 with the explicit intention of promoting both literacy and scriptural knowledge, The New-England Primer began its long dominance in colonial schooling. Although some printers changed the title to appeal to local customers—such as the New York Primer—The New-England Primer remained the best-selling and most popular edition.

The title page of a 1777 edition of The New-England Primer. Earlier editions of the primer have not survived.

Source: The New-England Primer (1777). Boston: Edward Draper.

Content and Pedagogy

All New-England Primers contained an alphabet and lines denoting the vowels and the consonants. Following the alphabet was a section of [Page 1616]combinations of letters known as a “syllabarium,” which increased from syllable combinations (ab, ac, ad) to one-syllable words (are, air, add) to four- and sometimes six-syllable words. The 1727 edition includes up to five syllables (admiration, beneficial). After the syllabarium was a series of woodcut illustrations of each alphabet letter and an accompanying rhyme (A: In Adam's Fall / We sinned all; B: Thy Life to Mend / This Book Attend). There was also an “Alphabet of Lessons for Youth,” which were moral teachings with each alphabet letter starting a new paragraph (“A wise son makes a glad Father, but a foolish Son is the heaviness of his Mother”). Sometimes other prayers and lessons intervened, as well as lists of numbers, the Ten Commandments, and the books of the Bible. The Primer always contained the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, a poem about martyrdom attributed to John Rogers, and Puritan catechisms such as the Westminster Short Catechism (Question: What is the chief end of man? Answer: Men's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever).

Words of five and six syllables in a syllabarium from The New-England Primer

Source: The New-England Primer (1777). Boston: Edward Draper.

Students were expected to memorize and be able to recite the contents of the Primer. E. Jennifer Monaghan has noted that The New-England Primer was intended to be more theological than pedagogical, and that starting in the 1730s it was more common to teach reading and writing with the spelling book. Historian Joel Spring has also noted that the Primer's content emphasized submission to authority, which may have helped reinforce distinctions of social class.

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