Punishment in Rhymes
In rhyming couplets featured in poems, prayers, and scriptures, the slim, 100-page book immersed children in themes of sin, death, punishment and salvation and respect for authority. Punishment, for example, is demonstrated in these rhyming couplets for the letters F and J:
“The idle fool is whipt at school.”
“Job feels the rod, yet blesses God.”
And there’s this cheerful couplet for the letter Y:
“Youth forward slips/death soonest nips.”
While the Primer seems morbid to us, it’s a good idea to remember it was written well before Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau began espousing his ideas on childhood innocence. And Puritan families in this time period probably wouldn’t find this book morbid because they embraced the idea of original sin, which held that all human beings, beginning with Adam, are born in sin. Death was considered the bridge to heavenly bliss, so these teachings helped alleviate anxiety and fear of death.
The political and religious climate of this time fueled the rise of this book. And when Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, they hoped to form a society based on the English Reformation, full of the fundamental precepts embodied in the Bible. The push was on to teach people to read so they could follow the Christian scriptures. By 1635, the Boston Latin school was founded, and students were immersed in Greek and Latin and thus prepared to attend the newly established Harvard University. There, they were to study to become ministers or magistrates.
By 1642, Massachusetts law required that all children, servants, and apprentices be taught to read. With the passage of the 1647 Old Deluder Satan Act, townships with more than 50 households were required to hire a teacher.
For kids, learning came in the form of a hornbook, which was a sheet printed with the alphabet that was attached to a wooden paddle. The hornbook was usually accompanied by The New England Primer, which really came into its own during this period. Whipping was the most common form of discipline, but sometimes a yoke was also used to tie miscreants together like oxen. On occasion, those who talked out of turn got the whispering stick — a stick placed in the child’s mouth and tied with a string.
The Primer was reproduced by a number of publishers and more than 450 editions were released by 1830. Adaptations were geared towards different geographic regions and different ethnic groups. There was even The Indian Primer, printed in 1781 in both the Mohawk and English language. With every new edition came changes in the content, although each still contained the illustrated alphabet and religious doctrine in one form or another. The couplet for the letter A remained constant: “In Adam’s fall/We sinned all,” but other verses changed to reflect emerging political or religious ideas. Once the U.S. gained independence from Britain, the corresponding couplet changed from “Our king the good/No man of blood,” to “The British King/Lost states thirteen,” and finally to “Queens and kings/Are gaudy things.”