The New England Primer

10 Oct
The New England Primer
The New England Primer

Douglass Phillips calls the New England Primer, “the single most influential Christian textbook in history.” First printed in 1690 the little New England Primer became the educational foundation of our nation’s founding fathers and the nation itself. The New England Primer is not just American education at its best, it is also chock full of Christian teaching and the 1777 edition contains two catechisms.

The 1777 edition, printed in Boston, begins with three prayers for young children written by a Reverend Watts. It includes the alphabet and examples of letters using Bible stories or doctrines, “A: In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” or one of my personal favorites, “H: My Book and Heart must never part.” The primer continues to show examples of letters by using Bible verses. The Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and another prayer by Dr. Watts follows with several other Gospel poems after that. At about the middle of the book there is an engraving of the martyrdom of John Rogers in 1554. This is followed by Rogers’ godly advice to his children. After a few more prayers, the Westminster Shorter Catechism is printed. Another catechism, written by John Cotton follows. The 1777 edition closes with these words from Nathaniel Clap: “Good children should remember daily, God their Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; to believe in, love and serve him; their parents to obey them in the LORD; their Bible and catechism; their baptism; the LORD’s day; the LORD’s death and resurrection; their own death and resurrection; and the day of judgement, when all that are not fit for heaven must be sent to hell. And they should pray to God in the name of Christ for saving grace.”

The magnitude of the affect this little book had on America cannot be truly known. Our founding fathers were taught to read and write with this book and the taught their children with it. The New England Primer is a small, elementary textbook that changed the course of history. This was the foundation of early American education and we cannot help but admit that our nation was founded by men who grew up learning to read and write with the Biblical knowledge that they gained in the New England Primer. With two catechisms this textbook was not just teaching children to read and write, it was teaching them theology.

2 Replies to “The New England Primer

  1. A good post Jace. What a fine foundation the New England Primer provided in education in the formative years of the United States; and how great it would be to see such publications in today’s schools!

    I am currently reading your book, American History 1754-1860. What’s easy about it? Reading it! What’s hard about it? Putting it down! Congratulations on this first in the series.

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