Country and has promised to ye next orphans Court to Sign Indentures for that effect. (March, 1703.) (3) Upon the Peticon of John Swain praying that Elizabeth Swain his sister an Orphane Girle bound by the Precinct Court of Chowan to John Worley Esq' May in time of her service be taught to read by her said Master Ordered, that she be taught to read. (November, 1716.) 201. A New England Indenture of Apprenticeship (Stiles, H. R., The History of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut, vol. 1, p. 442. Such agreements as the following were very common in all the colonies in colonial days. This shows well the relations which existed between master and apprentices in Connecticut. This Indenture witnesseth that Jonathan Stoughton, son of Thomas Stoughton of Windsor in the county of hartford and Coloney of Connecticut in new england, with his father's consent hath put him selfe an apprentice to Nathan day of the aboue sd windsor county and coloney: blacksmith and white smith to Learn his art, trade or mystery after the manner of an Apprentice to serue him until the sd Jonathan Stoughton attaines the age of twenty-one years, during all which time the sd apprentice his master faithfully shall serue, his secrets keep, his Lawfull commands gladly obaye he shall not do any damage to his sd master nor see it don by others without giveing notice thereof to his sd master. he shall not waste his sd master's goods or Lend them unLawfully to aney, he shall not commit fornication nor contract matrimony within the sd terme. at cards, dice or any other unlawfull game he shall not play whereby his sd master may suffer damage. he shall not absent himself day nor night from his master's service without his leave. nor haunt ale houses, Taverns or playhouses butt in all things behave himselfe as a faithfull apprentice ought to do during ye sd terme, and the sd master shall do his utmost to teach and Instruct ye sd apprentice In the boue mentioned blacksmith and white smiths trade and mistery and to teach or caus the sd apprentice to be Taught the art of Arithmatick to such a degree that he may be able to keep a book well, and provide for him meat, drink, apparel, washing and lodging and phisick in sickness and health suitable for such an apprentice during the sd terme, and att the end of sd terme the sd master shall furnish the sd apprentice with two good new suits of apparel boath wooling and lining for all parts of his body suitable for such an apprentice besids that apparel he carrieth with him and for the performance of all and every the sd covenants and agreement either of the sd parties bind themselves unto the other by these presents in witness whereof they have interchangeably put their hands and seals this first day of September in the year of our Lord god, 1727. 202. The New England Primer (Abstract of a reprint of an edition of about 1785-90 reproduced recently by Ginn & Co., Boston. Original in the library of Mr. G. A. Plimpton, of New York) This famous little schoolbook first appeared about 1690, and for the next century and a quarter it was the chief school and reading book in use among the Dissenters and Lutherans in America. It went through many editions, and was altered somewhat from time to time to suit the peculiar religious views of the publisher's patrons. A little book of but eighty-eight pages, three and a quarter by four and a half inches in size, it expressed so well the gloomy religious atmosphere of Calvinistic New England that it was retained in use long after better reading matter had appeared. Unlike the early Protestant Primer of Melanchthon (Wittenberg, 1524), or the Orbis Pictus of Comenius (1654), both of which had contained some secular reading matter, The New England Primer was religious throughout. Even the illustrated alphabet, which in early editions was secular in tone, was later revised so as better to express the prevailing religious conceptions of the period. A brief analysis of the contents of this famous Primer will prove interesting, as showing the nature of the instruction in reading and religion given in the colonial schools. Each copy contained on its first leaf a rude woodcut of the ruling monarch, and later of some Revolutionary hero, and a page of Proverbs relating to filial duty and serving God. Sometimes a religious poem was printed for the latter. Then followed the title-page. In the edition at hand this was followed by a poem on "Good Boys at their Books" (1 page); the letters, vowels and consonants (1 page); two pages of easy syllables (ab, abs); words of one syllable (1 page); words of two to six syllables (2 pages); the Lord's Prayer and the Creed (1 page); an illustrated alphabet (2 pages); the rhymed alphabet (4 pages, of which the first is given in the illustrated page printed here); ten half-page pictures of animals, with a rhyme under each, of which the following is an example: "The Butterfly in gaudy dress, The worthless Coxcomb doth express." Next comes a two-page poem of "Praise for Learning" to read, the first page of which is reproduced here. Then follows an al Watt's beautiful "Cradle Hymn," beginning: Holy angels guard thy bed." "Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, is also reproduced. The next two and a half pages contain phabet of "Lessons for Youth," of three pages, the first of which one finds the old familiar and four pages of rhymed prayers and admonitions, among which This is followed by three and a half pages of Verses for Children, "Now I lay me down to sleep." stake at Smithfield, in 1554, and which was bequeathed by him ten by John Rogers, a London minister, who was burned at the Next comes a seven-page rhymed "Advice to Children," writ In Adam's Fall We finned all. Thy Life to mend, The Cat doth play, A Dog will bite A Thief at Night. Praife to GOD for learning to Read. That I was taught and learnt fo young An Eagle' flight 2 That I was brought to know Is out of fight. The idle Fool A PAGE OF THE ILLUSTRATED ALPHABET The Danger I was in, 3 That I was led to fee I can do nothing well; And whether thall a Sinner Hee A PAGE OF THE READING MATTER FIG. 42. TWO SPECIMEN PAGES FROM "THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER" to the wife and nine children he was about to leave. After a page picture, showing the event, the poem begins: "Give Ear my Children to my Words, for you to look upon, That you may see your father's face, when he is dead and gone." This was evidently a much-prized poem. Next comes a page of "Instructive Questions and Answers," of which the following are illustrative: This was followed by the pièce de résistance of the whole book, "The Shorter Westminster Catechism," the first page of which is reproduced as Figure 131 in the accompanying History. This required twenty-four pages of the book. Next comes a famous native production of nine and a half pages, by John Cotton, the first page of which is reproduced on page 315. The volume is now concluded with a nine and a half page rhymed dialogue between Christ, a Youth, and the Devil, which also was a great favorite in New England. The Youth declares: "Those days which God to me doth send, The Devil expresses great pleasure at the decision, while Christ entreats the Youth not to obey the Devil's voice. The Youth, though, will not listen until too late. After a long argument, Christ finally, out of patience, calls Death to come and take the Youth "before he has half lived out his days." The Youth, terrified, now begs to be spared, but Christ is obdurate; Death takes him; and the poem ends with the following words: DEATH "Youth, I am come to fetch thy breath, THE CONCLUSION "Thus ends the days of woful youth, Many don't live out half their days This Primer exercised a great influence on the New England character. It was used by both church and school, the schoolmaster drilling on the Catechism in the school, and the people reciting it yearly in the churches. Every home possessed copies of the book, and it was for sale at all bookstores, even in the smaller places, for a century and a half. It was also used extensively outside of New England, it being essentially the book of the Dissenters in the American colonies. Sometimes it was printed under the title of The Columbian Primer, The American Primer, or, The New York Primer, but the public preferred The New England Primer to any other title. Its total sales have been estimated to have been at least three million copies.1 It was used in the Boston Dame Schools as late as 1806, and in the country districts still later. The cities abandoned it first, and gradually it was replaced everywhere by a new type of secular reading book which developed in America, after the rise of a na 1 "For one hundred years this Primer was the schoolbook of the dissenters of America, and for another hundred, it was frequently reprinted. In the unfavorable locality (in a sectarian sense) of Philadelphia, the accounts of Benjamin Franklin and David Hall show that, between 1749 and 1766, that firm sold 37,100 copies of it. Livermore stated, in 1849, that within the last dozen years '100,000 copies of modern editions have been circulated.' An over-conservative claim for it is to estimate an annual average sale of 20,000 copies during a period of one hundred and fifty years, or a total sale of 3,000,000 copies." (Ford, The New England Primer, p. 45.) |