For more than a century the New England Primer, first published, perhaps as early as 1688, by Benjamin Harris, was the leading textbook for elementary education in early America. "The little Bible," as it came to be known, combined religious instruction with lessons in grammar. The eighty-page booklet taught the alphabet with the help of crude woodcuts, moral texts, and couplets of the selection below. The child's prayer, "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep," also first appeared in the Primer, probably in 1748.
In Adam's fall
We sinned all.
Thy life to mend
This Book attend.......
.....
Source new England Primer
Just in case you also thought the Christians didn't influence the school system in America.
Chris |
