Hello, I'm Richard Nicholas Nimz, prospector of the written word. Not long ago, I released my review of Goody Two Shoes and made clear my own religiosity. Now I want to talk about a related book, a nonfiction book. This was a primer written for children in Puritan New England, and through the years it became an example of changing attitudes in children's education. This is The New England Primer*.
*Pronounced prim-er, not prime-r. Older versions of English are weird like that.
The New England Primer. (1777). Retrieved from: http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/nep/1777/
Summary: It's a primer, focusing on reading and religion. The letters of the alphabet are given, along with syllables, several words of varying length, and sentences illustrating a word that begins with that letter. Most of the book, however, consists of verses of moral education, with a very Calvinist tone. The rest of the book contains various prayers, including the famous "Now I lay me down to sleep," prayer.
Thoughts: It's very interesting as an adult. I'm a born Roman Catholic Christian, and I didn't get much instruction in my late Grandmama's Presbyterian Church (which is a Calvinist/Reformed denomination). However, as an example of common religious practices from the American Revolution, it's very interesting. There is a lot of theology in this book, including Jewish Guilt, anti-Catholicism (the Whore of Rome analogy is used), and the idea that infants could be damned (which has long since been purged of many sects of Christianity, my own included). At the very end of the book is the story of a child who is delivered to death by Jesus because he would only grow up to sin more (the Calvinist views of unconditional election and limited atonement, maybe, but I don't know that).
However, this isn't just fire and brimstone. It may be my own Christian prejudices showing, but along with "Liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone", there is also "Come unto Christ all ye that labor and are heavy laden and he will give you rest". In the middle is a summation of Christianity (heck, Judaism and Islam, too, at the least) and my favorite line in the book: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivereth them out of them all."
There were many editions of this book, and according to Stephanie Schnorbus, they combined illustrate an interesting trend. The earliest editions were firmly Calvinist. The writers were afraid that telling the children too much might cause a contradiction that could lead an already sinful child into damnation (again, not a part of modern Catholic or many Christians' theology). As a result, pictures were an afterthought and there is a lot of focus on telling children what not to do. However, as time went on, the books borrowed from a school of thought called Lockean epistemology. This philosophy believed that children were a blank slate (a tabula rasa) that needed to have multiple senses stimulated in order to have one sense confirm what another was telling it. Thus, pictures became more important and more positive messages were written into the book (2010).
This book's usefulness as a primer seems to be ended. There are other ways of teaching reading and it certainly isn't for anyone who doesn't fit its theology. However, it's also a source of many good quotes that still apply to Christian life, and should be quite interesting to adult Christians who are ruminating on their faith. However, I'd recommend the Westminster Confession of Faith to people who want to know more about Calvinist faiths today, as well as a good interpreter.
References:
Schnorbus, S.(2010). Calvin and Locke: Dueling Epistemologies in The New-England Primer, 1720–1790. Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8(2), 250-287. University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved July 31, 2015, from Project MUSE database.
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