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THE TRADITION OF DIDACTICISM IN
AMERICA'S EARLY READING TEXTBOOKS, 1780-1830

presented by

Douglas Alan Jones

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THE TRADITION OF DIDACTICISM IN

AMERICA'S EARLY READING TEXTBOOKS, 1780-1830

BY

Douglas Alan Jones

 

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirments
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1990

 

.wmvmb I QVQ

 

 

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

ééiéc -~ 5594;,

THE TRADITION OF DIDACTICISM IN
AMERICA'S EARLY READING TEXTBOOKS, 1780—1830

BY

Douglas Alan Jones

Didacticism, a moralistic instructiveness centering on
religious and social values, pervades the pages of
virtually all early American school books. The authors of
reading textbooks, in particular, often plainly stated that
their goal in presenting lessons for reading was not only
to offer literacy skills, but to provide moral examples for
the students' lives.

This dissertation documents and analyzes the didactic

 

content in the reading texts published for beginning
students during the half-century following the
Revolutionary War, the time when an American consciousness
and identity began to emerge, and a time of proliferation
of reading texts. These fifty years are notable for the
rise of several significant reading texts (i.e. Murray,
Webster, Bingham) that broke from the set pattern of the
New England Primer. Yet, the content of the textbooks in
most cases adheres to the tradition of didacticism
established early on in religious primers.

The primers, spellers, and grammars examined in this
study include didactic lessons that fall into three basic
categories of content: religious, social, and

nationalistic. Thematic emphases within the religious

 

 

 

didacticism include lessons devoted to a belief in God,
doctrinal or church-related teaching, Bible stories, and
lessons dealing with death from a spiritual perspective.
The social didacticism branches into several themes, as
well, offering lessons devoted to virtuous behavior,
excessive behavior, family matters, community awareness,
industriousness, and literacy. The nationalistic
didacticism is approached by shifts in word choice within
the lessons to favor America, patriotic orations, and
examples of moral virtue drawn from the lives of famous

Americans.

 

 

Copyright by
DOUGLAS ALAN JONES
1990

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My appreciation and thanks go first to my doctoral
committee members. Stephen Tchudi, my committee chair, has
given me careful attention to detail, invaluable editorial
advice, and patient encouragement. His guidance and
friendship throughout my doctoral studies have provided me
with a deeper understanding of professional commitment and
excellence. Similarly, Marilyn Wilson has offered her
support, her time, and her expertise to make this
dissertation a completed and satisfying task. My other
committee members, Arthur Athanason and Michael Lopez, I
thank for their support and encouragement.

I also want to acknowledge the cheerful assistance
given me by the staff of the Special Collections Department
of the Michigan State University Library. In particular,
Anne Tracey's expert suggestions and untiring efforts to
locate dusty, old textbooks were invaluable to me during my
primary research.

My colleagues at Andrews University have provided me
with encouragement and support as I have worked on this
project. I particularly want to thank Meredith Jones and
Delmer Davis, who as chairs of the English Department have
made it as easy as possible for me to teach full—time and

V

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

make progress on my dissertation. Georgina Hill and Bruce
Closser have provided me with critical readings and
suggestions as well as with invaluable computer assistance.
I also thank three students-~Kenneth Ursin, Jonathan
Peters, and Julie Hill--who have assisted me in library
searches and proofreading.

In addition, I want to thank my friend Nancy Johnson
at Seattle Pacific University for her critiques of early
drafts and for all her enthusiastic encouragement during my
doctoral studies.

Finally, I must acknowledge my deep appreciation for
my family's encouragement and understanding as I have
worked on this dissertation. My sons, Ethan and Nicholas,
have grown up in the shadow of my doctoral work and
dissertation, and to them I owe a great debt. My wife,
Janell, has always supported my studies with understanding

and confidence. I thank her for her patience and love.

vi

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTIONOOOOOO0.00000000000000000000000.00.00.0.08

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

PRIMARY

1. A REVIEW OF LITERATURE.. ........... .....21
2. METHODOLOGY ............................. 48
3. RELIGIOUS DIDACTICISM ................... 66
4. SOCIAL DIDACTICISM...... ........ . ....... 88
5. NATIONALISTIC DIDACTICISM .............. 144
6. CONCLUSION ............................. 160

SOURCESOOOO0.0.0....0.0.0.0000...0.0.00.000172

BIBLIOGRAPHYOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.0.0....0.0.0.0000000000180

Vii

 

 

 

 

:4

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

But with your learning always virtuous be,
Or else in vain you learn the a, b, c.

--Moral Stories. Written for the
Instruction of Young Minds (1806)

Somewhere within the vast cerebral storehouse known as
the collective American consciousness lie bits and pieces
of educational fact and fancy, remnants of this country's
early schooling. A few elder sages today recall stories
their grandparents told them about going to school in the
past. One—room schoolhouses, dunce caps, hickory sticks,
and ink wells--stock elements of the stories-~all feed into
a romanticized vision of schooling in early America.

Much of the aura of our nation's early days in school
is preserved in well known early literary pieces. For
example, nursery rhymes like "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
provide simple-—if not comically idealized--pictures of
early American education. Washington Irving's popular
short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" offers insight
into the state of the people's education in common schools.

Perceptions of the early Republic's schoolrooms and
pedagogy are also undoubtedly colored by an acquaintance

with a few surviving textbooks used by the teachers and

 

 

 

students. Current popular knowledge of early reading
textbooks ranges from the McGuffey readers of the
nineteenth century back to the New En land Primer, the
standard literacy text of colonial America. The school
book-~particular1y the reading textbook--was very much a
part of everyday school life for young students.

The American consciousness, early on, embraced the
reading book and awarded it a place of honor. In the mid-
nineteenth century, Herman Melville incorporates an oblique
reference to one respected title deep in the text of M921
Dick:

"This way comes Pip-—poor boy! would he had
died, or I; he's half horrible to me. . . . and
look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly

idiotic face. Stand away again and hear him.
Hark!"

"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look,
they look."

"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's
Grammar! Improving his mind, poor fellow! . . .
(434)

 

By including Ahab's passing reference to Murray's Grammar
in this most literate of American books, Melville presents
the reading textbook as an icon of American culture.
Further, Melville underscores the influence these reading
texts had in (and perhaps over) educated American society.
The reading textbook also held great influence for

7

people at the other end of society. Frederick Douglass

maintains that it was a textbook written by Caleb Binghaml

that first showed him the way to freedom:
I got hold of a book entitled "The Columbian

Orator." Every opportunity I got, I used to read
this book. Among much of other interesting

 

 

10
matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master
and his slave. . . . The slave was made to say
some very smart as well as impressive things in
reply to his master--things which had the desired
though unexpected effect; for the conversation
resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the
slave on the part of the master. (83)
Not only did Douglass hone the reading skills necessary to
function as a free man in American society by reading this
textbook, but he gained a knowledge of freedom as well:
"The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power
of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. . . .
The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal
wakefulness" (Douglass 84).

That Frederick Douglass felt he gained a moral or
learned a lesson from the textbook is not surprising. The
reading textbooks of the early Republic are characterized
by didacticism--a moralistic instructiveness centering on
religious and social values. This didacticism pervades the
pages of virtually all early American school books.
Authors of reading textbooks often stated plainly that
their goal in presenting lessons for reading was not only
to offer skills in reading, but to provide moral examples
for the students' lives. For example, in Easy Lessons in
Reading; For the Use of the Younger Classes in Common
Schools (1825), the textbook author Joshua Leavitt explains
in his preface, that "the selections will be found to
contain many salutary precepts and instructive examples,

for the life of piety and morality, of activity and

usefulness" (5).

 

 

 

 

11

America's collective intellectual and popular
consciousness rightly ascribes to these reading books an
awareness of the didactic moralism their lessons
underscore. But while students of social and educational
history regard the didacticism found in reading textbooks
published approximately between 1780 and 1830 as a given in
their studies, the didactic content--its tradition and
intent—-have rarely received in-depth analysis or
discussion. This may be so because the didactic reading
textbooks of this period are positioned between--and
eclipsed in popularity by--the two more noticeable
phenomena of early American textbooks: the New England
Primer and the popular McGuffey readers.

It is this era, an interim period between the New
England Primer and McGuffey, that saw Lindley Murray, Noah
Webster, Caleb Bingham, and other writers rise in influence
and popularity by publishing their textbooks--primers,
readers, spellers, and grammars--that further confirmed the
tradition of didacticism in America's reading instruction
for beginning readers. In addition to these better-known
authors' works, scores of lesser-known writers published
texts, providing American school children with innumerable
didactic charges from which they could gain reading
proficiency, knowledge, and--most importantly--moral
rectitude.

Significantly, it is with the use of these early

reading textbooks published for beginning students that

 

 

 

 

 

12
perceptions of literacy, in general, and reading, in
particular, were often established in the hearts and minds
of the American public. Just as an individual's early
experiences with texts tend to influence, or set, his or
her attitudes and expectations about reading, I maintain
that the early trends and experiences in reading
instruction created a collective expectation for reading
and literacy in an emerging nation.

Throughout my research I have explored the possibility
that the early primers and reading texts shaped the
nation's view of literacy. Certainly the biblical
injunction to "train up a child in the way he should go"
that appeared so often on the title pages of the reading
textbooks of the period was intended to apply to the young
readers individually. These early lessons served to
instruct the younger citizens of the United States, yet
they also set up expectations within the national
consciousness about the benefit of reading. In many cases
the domineering didactic tone of the early reading texts
may even have served to limit or color the collective
consciousness of the young Republic as it thought about
reading.

In this dissertation I document and analyze the
didactic content in the early reading textbooks of the
half-century following the Revolutionary War, the time when
an American consciousness and identity began to emerge, and

a time of proliferation of reading texts intended for

 

 

 

 

 

 

l3
beginners. My study examines the tradition of didacticism
found in American reading textbooks and explores the
expectations of an educational orientation steeped in
instructive precepts and moral edification.

An examination of the reading textbooks requires an
understanding of the earliest of American textbooks, the
New England Primer, and it is necessary to explain the
background to this landmark text to provide a setting to
the tradition of didacticism in America's early reading
texts.

Soon after the Puritan settlement of English colonies
in North America (1620) reading instruction (other than
that initiated within the home) had become an issue for the
leadership of the community to consider. In most cases,
the educational system that developed in the colonies
resembled that of England. Young people received
instruction in basic literacy-~reading and writing-~in
school. But basic literacy was not the only concern of
early colonial education; formal learning was meant to be
instructive in religious matters as well. The reading
materials were typically the Bible or those textbooks--
primers, usually-~brought with the settling families from
Europe, or those which were commercially imported. The
primers were compact textbooks that covered the basic
elements of reading. They typically followed a format
consisting of an abecedarian, or alphabet; often a

syllabarium, or syllabary, in which syllables and consonant

 

 

 

 

 

 

14
pairings were presented; and a brief catechism of church
doctrine (Ford 23-24; Smith 30, 35).

The most notable, and indeed the dominant, reading
text found in colonial America was the N§w_England Primer.
The forerunner of this well-known (and now rare) book was
printed and published in England, as early as 1607, under
the title of the Protestant Tutor, a religious primer,
according to Charles Carpenter (23). It was published
periodically in England, and by 1679 Benjamin Harris had
printed it again before leaving for Boston where he
subsequently printed the text around 1685 (Ford 16,
Carpenter 23, Smith 18). The New England Primer's format
and relatively standardized text (as it is popularly
thought of today) evolved from the Protestant Tutor through
various textual changes that caused its users to regard the
work to be a school text as opposed to a religious primer

(Ford 16, Carpenter 23). While the New England Primer that

 

was used to instruct colonial students was one printed in
England expressly for import to the colonies early on, over
the course of several years it was eventually produced in
the American colonies, probably circa 1685 (Carpenter 23).
This textbook endured throughout numerous printings,
publishers, and revisions, but essential to its various
manifestations is its didactic tone. Underscoring its
instruction in basic reading skills, the New England Primer
introduced the tradition of didacticism into American

reading school books. In perhaps the Primer's most

 

 

 

 

15

 

memorable epigram illustrating the letters of the alphabet,
the Puritans' Calvinistic doctrine was imprinted on the
minds of its young learners: "In Adam's fall / We sinned

all."

The New England Primer was an enormously successful

 

textbook, selling 37,000 copies in America between the
years 1749 and 1766 alone, according to Paul Leicester
Ford's introduction to his classic study, The New-England

Primer: A History of Its Origin and Develonment. Its use

 

 

as the quintessential textbook of colonial and
Revolutionary America is undisputed. But historians
generally agree that 1780 is the date of its decline in
popularity as a contemporary textbook.2 By 1814, one
publisher described the New England Primer as outdated:
"The New-England Primer of latter time, having become
almost useless, unless on account of the Catechism, .

it appears . . . likely to become nearly if not quite
obsolete" ("Preface" in Beauties of the New-England Primer
ii). Rudolph Reeder says that the New England Primer made
a "brave fight to maintain its place and influence . . . as
a school book," but that more and more publishers in the

last decades of the eighteenth century looked to more

 

"attractive" texts to promote (19).

This decline in the Primer's popularity came about
because of a new generation of reading texts, many of which
Reeder describes as "trifling little books in paper covers,

three or four inches square" (41). Educational historian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16
Monica Kiefer adds that "most of these books were published
in the middle states, particularly in the cities of
Philadelphia and New York" (139); another educational
historian, Rosalie Halsey, adds Boston to that list of
textbook publishing centers (100). These new reading
textbooks were authored by various educators: Noah Webster,
Caleb Bingham, and Lindley Murray, among the most
prominent. The new, contemporary reading textbooks for
elementary learners seemed to subsume the New England
Primer, yet they were cast in the same tradition of
didacticism. This was a more sophisticated, controlled
didacticism, however, that served a variety of concerns,
chiefly nationalistic themes that I will explore in greater
depth. For example, the New England Primer had seen basic
changes in its didactic tone regarding the establishment of
a nation independent of England.3 This shift to a
nationalistic spirit was characteristic of most popular
media during the Revolutionary War period, and the
textbooks published during this time are no exception.

Soon after 1800, the extreme nationalistic didacticism
in the reading textbooks began to even out and blend with a
social, or moralistic, didacticism that had been present
all along. American educators and textbook writers took
great pains to indoctrinate young readers with their
expectations of a model citizenry. It is during this
period that the content of the primers, readers, and

spellers dictated to the young citizens of America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17

'appropriate social behavior, manners, and attitudes in
league with standardly acceptable religious thought and
patriotic virtue.

In this dissertation I explain the tradition of
didacticism in early America's beginning reading textbooks
and document the occurrence and affective position of
didacticism in reading instruction during the years 1780 to
1830, the era often called the National period.

In Chapter 1, I discuss the general body of research
that addresses early American reading textbooks, pedagogy,
and didacticism. I offer a review of general studies of
early American reading instruction as well as more specific
research into the areas of early American literacy,
literature for children, textbook authorship and
publication, and the tradition of didacticism.

In the second chapter, I explain my method of
research, outlining the procedures and practices I used in
examining the primary texts. I also delineate and justify
the boundaries of my research. In this chapter I also
discuss the methods of reading instruction upheld by the
various textbook authors as well as examine their
pedagogical attitudes and didactic intentions by analyzing
the prefaces and introductions to the textbooks.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 classify and document the various
types of didacticism found in the early reading textbooks.
Three general categories of didacticism emerged in my

analysis of the contents of the readers' and primers'

 

 

 

 

 

 

18
lessons and exercises, coupled with my survey of authors'
various pedagogical intentions as mentioned in their texts'
titles, prefaces, and forewards.

Chapter 3 explores perhaps the most obvious category
found in the old textbooks, that of religious didacticism.
This emphasis, of course, is not surprising when one looks
back at the New En land Primer, the books' forerunner, and
its church-related use.

Perhaps very closely related to religious didacticism
is a type of social didacticism, by which young readers
were instructed in the ways of "good" social behavior.
Chapter 4 expands on socially moral instructiveness as an
outgrowth of the tradition of didacticism. Among various
issues growing out of the period's concept of social
virtue, this chapter also charts the era's increasing
attention to temperance and sobriety, as well as to
learning and literacy, elements which are obvious in
various reading lessons.

Chapter 5 continues to explore the three-pronged
classification of didacticism by examining the
nationalistic bias at work in the texts published during
the National period, documenting the didactic tone that
emphasized American patriotism and superiority throughout
the reading lessons. Chapters 3 through 5, which classify
and analyze the types of didacticism, document major
emphases in content and illustrate how these emphases

overlap throughout the fifty years of publication.

 

 

19
The sixth and final chapter offers an overview and
summation of the tradition of didacticism in the early
reading texts and its effect on the national consciousness.
In this chapter I raise questions for further research into
America's collective expectations about reading based on
the tradition of didacticism in reading textbooks and

instruction.

 

 

20
Notes

1Buell establishes 1797 as the specific publication
date for The Columbian Orator, the textbook that taught
Douglass to read (138).

2Although the New England Primer was losing its place
as the premier reading textbook in America at this time, it
still was published and presumeably used. The Rosenbach
Collection of Early American Children's Books includes over
30 editions of the New England Primer published between
1780 and 1833 with publishing locations ranging from
Walpole, N. H., and Concord, Mass., to Baltimore and
Pittsburgh. Charles Frederick Heartman's The New England
Primer Printed in America Prior to 1830: A Bibliographical
Checklist corroborates this claim, indicating that over 230
editions of the New England Primer were published
throughout the United States between 1780 and 1830.

 

3The New England Primer's epigram for the letter K is
a good example of the colonies' chafing under and shifting
away from Great Britain's authority. According to
Rosenbach, editions of the Primer that appeared in America
before the Revolution featured a K epigram that reads "Our
king the good / No man of Blood" (41) while a 1780 edition
seems to chide the former British authority: "The king
should be good / No man of blood" (n. pag.). By 1796 the
New England Primer's nationalistic tone is Victoriously
American: "The British King / Lost States Thirteen" (n.

pag.)

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

My son! now in thy youth attend to instruction,
and season thy mind with the maxims of truth.

--Wisdom in Miniature (1796)

 

In Tradition and Reform in the Teaching of English: A
History, Arthur N. Applebee (1974) presents the antecedents
of the modern academic discipline of English in the schools,
establishing the tradition of didacticism-—a conscious,
morally instructive pedagogical stance—~as a basic aim in

the teaching of reading in early America (4). He addresses

 

the use of the New En land Primer, Webster's Grammatical
Institute, and the popular McGuffey readers of the mid-
ninéteenth century and maintains that these three school
books, "early educational giants," supplied the young nation
with "a common background of culture and allusion . . . a
sense of an ethical and cultural heritage . . ." (5).
Lawrence A. Cremin (1961) discusses the tone and intention

of the American common schools of the early nineteenth

 

century in The Transformation of the School: Progressivism

in American Education. Significant to students of
didacticism in American reading instruction, Cremin sees "an

inextricable relationship between education and national

21

 

 

 

 

22

progress" (8) as the hallmark of the popular education of
early nineteenth-century America.

Nila Banton Smith (1965) provides an overview of the
state of reading instruction, starting with sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century England as background to the American
colonial approach to reading (American Reading_Instruction).

She maintains that English primers were essentially church

 

books and that a book known as an ABC was developed to serve
the educational needs--as well as the religious needs--of
young students (8-9). She explains that content was more
important than pedagogy, especially during the period of
religious emphasis in reading instruction (34). Smith
delineates the transition from religious motivation in
reading instruction to a nationalistic motivation around the
time of the Revolutionary War. This stress on nationalism,
she contends, includes an emphasis on moralistic
didacticism: "In some instances the moral aim of reading
instruction constituted a part of the more inclusive
nationalistic aim of making good citizens for the United
States" (39). Smith further explains the evolution of
religious didacticism in the textbooks to one of moralism:
For generations reading had been looked upon as an
instrument for promoting "the good life." The
broadened interests of the people of this period
led them to forsake strictly religious reading
instruction as too narrow a program to meet their
expanding needs. Many of them, however, still
believed that one of the most important functions
of education was to make children "good"--in other
words, to build character. The method which they

considered the most effective in promoting this
aim was that of impressing on young minds the

 

 

 

 

 

23

ideals of virtue and moralism: hence, the readers

were eagerly seized upon as carriers of moralistic

content. This was but the natural transition from

the religious motive of the colonial period to the

secularized motives of succeeding periods. (39)
Smith offers further descriptions and explanations of the
practices and expectations at work in early American reading
instruction. Most significant, her distinction among
religious, nationalistic, and moralistic didacticism forms
the base on which I rely to classify didacticism in the
following chapters of this dissertation. While Smith's
study does not readily offer a clear-cut separation between
the nationalistic and moralistic, I contend they are
distinct thematic entities.

Historical studies of literacy in general are pertinent
to this dissertation's overview of America's early reading
textbooks. Harvey J. Graff (1987) establishes backgrounds
to literacy in Western culture and society in his study The
Legacies of Literacy. Particularly significant, Graff deals
with literacy in North America during colonization and early
nationhood, outlining various literacy rates and discussing
underlying premises and reasons for the statistics in
readership and reading instruction. Similarly, Kenneth A.
Lockridge (1974) defines and describes the colonists'
abilities in reading and writing; yet he focuses on New
England, the region in which most of the reading textbooks

were written and produced in the early Republic (Literacy in

Colonial New England).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

24
William J. Gilmore (1989) also limits his study to

the New England region as he illustrates the impact of
literacy--particularly reading--on rural Americans in the
years following the Revolutionary War (Reading Becomes a
Necessity of Life). This expansive study provides a
detailed portrait of an emerging Age of Reading in America:
"Literacy was promoted as a way of sustaining the new nation
in its perilous republican experiment and as a means of
insuring individual salvation and a 'Bible Commonwealth' by
the inculcation of enduring Christian values and behavior"
(35). Gilmore narrows his examination to the Upper
Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire,
suggesting that this region typifies, for virtually all of
the early Republic, the changes brought about by
commercialization of daily life and rapidly developing print
communication. Specifically, Gilmore discusses the rise of
literacy within the context of school and home, stating that
between the ages of four and eighteen children and youth
were taught to read (119), suggesting a target audience for
the textbooks in question in this dissertation. Gilmore
also documents the instructional sequence and emphasis most
early American schools promoted in teaching basic literacy
skills:

Signing one's name, written letter and word

formation, oral pronunciation of letters and

words, spelling, and elementary reading (first of

sentences then of short paragraphs) were

introduced quickly--within 20-30 school days.

Moreover, as instruction proceeded, basic grammar,

writing (of what was being learned), and further
reading were introduced. (124)

 

 

 

 

25
Gilmore substantiates the tradition of didacticism in early
reading textbooks as he refers to "moral maxims and tales,"
explaining that the knowledge imparted in reading lessons
"accumulated in two well-understood areas, the sacred and
the secular" (124).

More pointedly, E. Jennifer Monaghan and E. Wendy Saul
(1987) find a disparity of pedagogical emphasis given
reading and writing instruction in the American educational
system, with reading receiving the majority of attention for
various political and social reasons ("The Reader, The
Scribe, The Thinker: A Critical Look at the History of
American Reading and Writing Instruction" in The Formation
of School Subjects, edited by Thomas S. Popkewitz).

Monaghan and Saul explain that early on in New England,
Puritan parents "felt morally and spiritually obliged to
teach their children to read" so they could obtain salvation
through a reading of Scripture (86). In 1647, the
curriculum in Puritan schools included both reading and
writing (i.e. penmanship); however, writing was taught as a
survival skill for males "with ministerial or commercial
ambitions" while females were typically taught sewing over
writing (86). Monaghan and Saul explain that instruction in
literacy in early American classrooms did not generally
emphasize individual creativity or any bent to critical
thinking on the part of the students, but it served to
instill a law-abiding conformity in the young students, with

reading and listening the preferred methods for

 

 

 

 

 

 

26

indoctrination (91). This disparity in favor of reading
instruction is significant in that it underscores the impact
of values and didacticism in early American attitudes about
education.2

Through a study of literary climate, one is able to see
early American reading instruction and texts, as well as the
nation's expectations of readership, in an affective light.
As Lawrence Buell (1986) gives a comprehensive picture of
the New England region's perceptions of literacy and

literature, he refers to various textbook authors as

components (and proponents) of literary culture (New England

 

Literary Culture: From Revolution Through Renaissance).
Cathy N. Davidson (1986) provides valuable insight into

literacy and readership, in particular. The first half of

 

her book Revolution and the Word: The_Riee_of the Novel in
America offers an in-depth study of the early nation's own
perception of its literacy--its roots and its boundaries.
Davidson explains that literacy took on a moral value in the
United States' early years, that it was "a test of the moral
fiber of [the] nation" (58). Davidson studies the
readership of the national period, presenting a dual
readership, the formally educated and the unprivileged—-
especially women (10). Davidson probes and delineates the
opposition to novel-reading prevalent in the traditional
education system, establishing the then-contemporary
preoccupation with a didactic orientation in America's

reading expectations.

 

 

 

27

Even during the nineteenth century, many researchers
described, categorized and analyzed the school textbooks of
the early national period in America. One notable
researcher, Alice Morse Earle (1899; rpt. 1930), accounts
for various aspects of childhood in colonial America,
providing a familiarly expressive overview of the state of
primary schooling and popular textbooks (Child Life in
Colonial Days). Without establishing documentation, Earle
portrays the social milieu of the students that the colonial
primers and readers address, as well as dealing with the
hornbook and religious thought and training. For example,
New England law required families to learn from the
catechism, which was included in the New England Primer;
Earle points out that the Primer fulfilled the requirements
that local "school trustees called 'scholastical,
theological, and moral discipline'" (132).

Soon after the turn of the century, Clifton Johnson
(1917), in an amiable study of American schooling, supplies
historical background to education in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries (Old-Time Schools and School-Books).
Johnson maintains that reading texts--beyond the primer
stage--that were geared for children were scarce prior to
1825 (233) and that spellers had to fill in the gap:

Advanced readers were in the market in the early
years of the republic, but readers for the
beginners seem to have been thought unnecessary.

Thus the spellers of the fore-fathers did double
duty as spelling-books and primers . . . . (185)

 

 

 

 

 

28
Johnson further deals with the New England Primer and its
profound influence on colonial readership; he also addresses
the problem of scriptural interpretation within the New
England community,1 before discussing Noah Webster's
spelling book in light of its moral readings.

In another wide-ranging study of old American
textbooks, John A. Nietz (1961) explains that from colonial
times religious sectarian didacticism was present in
America's school books, but that this religious emphasis was
eventually questioned and that it subsequently waned by 1850

due to Constitutional encouragement to separate church and

state (Old Textbooks: Spelling, Grammar, Reading,
Arithmetic, Geography, American History, Civil Government,
Phyeiologyy Penmanship, Art, Music--As Taught in the_Common
Schools from Colonial Days to 1900 53-55). Nietz also
includes spellers in his discussion of reading texts,
maintaining that the earliest spellers often included simple
reading selections that students could use before reading
primers were generally available (67). Nietz discusses the
popular series approach in nineteenth-century reading
textbooks and offers general coverage of best-known text
authors.

Rudolph R. Reeder (1900) offers in-depth discussion of
the landmark textbooks throughout the history of American
education (The Historical Development of School Readers and

of Method in Teaching Reading). He describes three

forerunners of the primers and readers: the hornbook, a

 

 

 

 

29
single page (made up of the alphabet, vowel and consonant
couplings, and a prayer) that was protected by a thin,
transparent sheet of horn tacked to a wooden paddle; the
battledore in England, a paddle alphabet similar to the
hornbook, but which doubled as game equipment for
shuttlecock; and the colonial sampler, an embroidery cloth
on which young women practiced their needlework by stitching
the alphabet, along with various designs and moralistic
aphorisms. Reeder also discusses the New England Primer,
and he goes on to describe and analyze most notably the
textbooks by Webster, Bingham, and Murray, as well as
textbooks written later-—after 1830--by John Pierpont and
Lyman Cobb. Reeder explains the pedagogical shift from
individual reading texts to the serialized, or graded,
readers that dominated the nineteenth century (and later)
instruction. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Reeder
explains, textbook publishers began to adapt the reading
lessons in the readers and primers to the reading and
interest levels of children (43). This action led to a
gradation of lessons based on the students' capabilities to
learn. Reeder spells out the evolution of serialized
reading textbooks. At the turn of the nineteenth century,
series made up of two or three reading textbooks were

published--without any numbering designation (such as First

 

Reader, Second Reader, etc.). Instead, the books were
named, with the second book standing as the designated

title. The first book in the series was titled the

 

 

 

 

30
"Introduction," and the third book the "Sequel."3 Reeder
indicates that primers and spellers often completed such a
"series":
Two and three-book series began with the
[nineteenth] century. These were not numbered,
but named-~the middle book of a three-book series
[received] the characteristic name . . . as now
designated; the first book was called the
"Introduction," and the third the "Sequel," as
with the Murray readers. . . . A primer and the
spelling-book usually filled out the series (44).
Charles Carpenter (1963) also provides a study of
textbooks and their development (History of American
Schoolbooks). He discusses the history and development of
English language skills textbooks, with an extensive
treatment of primers and the evolution of readers, ranging

from the New England Primer to the McGuffey Reader series of

the mid-nineteenth century. Of particular interest in

 

 

Carpenter's general study of textbooks is his indication
that later editions of the New England Primer included
"story" lessons for young students (29), indicating a
developing sensitivity to pedagogical needs on the part of
the publishers. And Carpenter asserts that the first
American reader per se was Noah Webster's Grammatical
Institute of the English Language, Part 3, published in
1785: "Although the word 'reader' was not in the title of
the first edition, the book was specifically a reader, a
manual intended basically as a text from which to learn to
read" (58).

R. R. Robinson (1930) illustrates the changes in reader

content throughout the early periods of American history

 

 

 

 

31
(Two Centuries of Change in the Content of School Readers).
He indicates the strong influence of the clergy in the make—
up of the reading selections for reading classes during the
colonial period4 and how that influence wanes with the rise
of nationalism in the post-colonial period. Robinson
delineates the conscious change from the religious to the
secular in the nation's reading textbooks due to anti-
sectarian legislation which brought about a secularization
of the educational system. He argues that "the gradual
decline of religious material in the readers tells of the
losing fight of the church in its attempt to control the
content of school readers" (17). Along with charts and
graphs to substantiate his study, Robinson offers an
exhaustive bibliography of primary texts, with the earliest
dating 1557 and the latest dated just prior to his own
study's publication date of 1930.

Richard L. Venezky (1987) also addresses the changes
that can be traced in American reading texts over 300 years
of publication ("A History of the American Reading
Textbook." The Elementary School Journal). He explains that
reading instruction in America has traditionally centered
around lessons made up of reading selections and that these
readings tender a "conservative, narrow representation of
society and the child's role in it" (247). Changes in the
reading passages' content, he says, came about primarily
due to society's evolving attitude about young students as

well as society's expectations of schools as vehicles to

 

 

 

 

 

32
impart specific skills and competencies (247). Venezky
maintains that throughout the development of American
reading instruction "skill in reading, as a general
competency, has always been comingled with inculcation of
what to read . . . " (253).

Using data from spellers, primers, and readers, Ruth
Miller Elson (1964) sheds further light on the changes in
reading textbook content in Guardians of Tradition: American
Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century. Although the study
encompasses school texts from various academic disciplines,
Elson relies extensively on reading texts to illustrate the
didacticism that prevailed throughout the nineteenth
century. She states that the textbook authors and compilers
were overtly concerned with morals and that their textbooks'
didacticism was drawn to produce a religious, nationalistic,
and virtuous attitude in their readers' minds: "Most text-
book writers had an exalted idea of their function. . . .
They were much more concerned with the child's moral
development than with the development of his mind" (1).
Elson's thesis maintains that this "moral development" is
the divinely appointed tradition that American school books
set out to foster and guard:

Throughout the [nineteenth] century values and
actions approved by the textbook writers are
assumed to be blessed by God; conversely,
disapproved values and actions are cursed by God.
Unethical behavior is not only socially
undesirable but sinful. God is a firm and
inexorable judge who not only metes out punishment

after death, but who gives earthly punishments for
men's actions on earth. (42)

 

 

 

 

 

 

33
Elson outlines the dominance of religious didacticism in the
early nineteenth century, explaining that virtually all of
the reading texts "devote[d] the greater part of their space
to the subject of God's relationship to the universe, to
man, and to the child himself" and that by degrees more
secular material found its way into the lessons, "but a
religious tone is evident throughout the century" (41). She
further delineates the assertion of nationalism in the
textbooks' didactic tone, explaining that fostering
nationalism5 was a major function of schooling in America
(313-14) and that the nationalistic ideals were guarded by
the textbooks:
In a nation as diverse as the United States,
loyalty to the ideals theoretically held in common
by the nationality make up nationalism. In a
sense the schoolbooks are guardians of what their
authors consider those national ideals to be. In
defining proper attitudes and behavior for
American youth they spell out the ideals seen by
their authors as those of the American
nationality. By the quality and quantity of
pieces on this subject, the authors of schoolbooks
clearly saw nationalism . . . as a primary value
to be developed in youth. (285)
To further the nationalistic aura, Elson explains, textbook
authors used American heroes as models of positive behavior
to inspire the country's youth (186). George Washington, in
particular, was designated to foster a patriotic and moral
citizenry: "The virtues assigned specifically to him are
usually filial obedience, prudence, modesty, courtesy,

charitableness. He is always described as profoundly

religious" (Elson 202).

 

 

 

 

34

Of course, the New England Primer set the early
standard of "what to read" in early America. Numerous
studies have been done of the Primer, but none so
outstandingly succinct as that by Paul Leicester Ford in
1897 (The New-England Primer: A History of Its Origin and
Development; reprinted in 1962). In the introduction to a
facsimile of a 1727 edition of the Primer, he traces the
background and variations of the text, providing comment on
the textbook's evolution over more than a century. Ford
documents the primer's eventual secularization and
imitation, from which it never quite rallied: "The New
England Primer made a brave fight, but it was a hopeless
battle. Slowly printer after printer abandoned the printing
of editions of the little work, in favor of some more
popular compilation" (51-52). Ford says that "it is
impossible to measure the work the Primer accomplished" (52)
in its overwhelming popularity as a text of literacy and
moral virtue; he also compares it to the popular school
books by Noah Webster which helped to supplant the Neg
England Primer, by stating that the two could share the same
epitaph--the one eventually written of the Spelling Book:
"It taught millions to read, and not one to sin" (53).

Of the several notable reading textbook writers of the
period following that of the New En land Primer, Noah
Webster has received the most attention from researchers.
In his nineteenth-century biography Noah Webster, Horace E.

Scudder (1885) documents Webster's textbook publishing

 

 

 

 

35
record, quoting Webster as to the origins of his Grammatical
Institute spelling books:
"In the year 1782, while the American army was
lying on the bank of the Hudson, I kept a
classical school in Goshen, Orange County, State
of New York. I there compiled two small
elementary books for teaching the English
language. The country was then impoverished,
intercourse with Great Britain was interrupted,
school-books were scarce and hardly attainable,
and there was no certain prospect of peace." (33)
Scudder explains that Webster chose to write his texts
because he did not necessarily like the spelling text by
Dilworth that was commonly in use at the time and, perhaps
more significantly, because of the political rift with
England, he thought the new nation was ripe for its own
separate literature and language (34—35).

Among contemporary Webster scholars, Edith Jennifer
Monaghan (1980) focuses on Noah Webster's spelling books as
principal reading texts from the late 1700's to the mid-
1800's and explores the Webster spelling books' success.

She explains that the spellers taught beginning students

"letter-sound correspondences" and that it is in this aspect

 

that the books were most influential in initial reading
instruction. She documents Webster's spellers' popularity
and durability, claiming that ten million copies had been
published by 1829. Monaghan portrays the spellers' success
as a result of several variables (in relationship to
competitive spellers), not the least of which were webster's

marketing skills, his national reputation and his

   

 

 

 

 

 

WI

t:

pi

SI

 

 

 

36
innovations in reading methodology ("Noah Webster's Speller,
1783—1843: Causes of Its Success as Reading Text").

Abraham Blinderman (1976) further establishes the
commercial success of Webster's BluerBack Speller,
explaining that approximately one hundred million copies of
the Blue-Back Speller were sold.6 He calls the speller
"America's most widely read school book" and argues that
Webster carefully cultivated a didactic tone in his
textbook: "Webster filled the little book with patriotic
passages designed to instill an intense nationalistic
sentiment in the minds of his young readers" (Three Early
Champions of Education: Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush,
and Noah Webster 25). Blinderman also offers an interesting
portrayal of Webster as a man of paradox, stating that
Webster believed that religious training should be a part of
schooling and that the clergy should be included in the
education of children (29). Yet, according to Blinderman,
Webster was opposed to Bible reading in the schools because
he thought that too frequent use of the Bible would lessen
its meaningfulness to the students; he considered it "'a
prostitution of divine truth for secular purposes'" (28).
Blinderman also notes that Webster reduced the religious
content in his textbooks and that teachers and parents

eventually objected to Webster's text The Little Reader's

 

Assistant, which was first published in 1790, because of its

waning religious emphasis in subsequent editions (31).

 

 

 

 

 

 

37
Lynne Alvine (1987) portrays Webster as a "staunch
patriot whose single-minded vision that American political

unity and the preservation of American liberty depended upon

 

the development of a uniform American language" ("Noah
Webster: The Legacy of 'The Prompter,'" 52). Alvine
contends further that Webster "worked . . . to shape a unity
of national culture with the influence of his pen" (57) and
that he saw school readers and spellers as an ideal channel
to foster nationalistic sentiment in a controlled
educational setting:

Webster's somewhat simplistic theory of learning
can be seen in one of his 1783 observations found
in the reprint of his "Letters to a Young
Gentleman": "The rudiments of knowledge we receive
by tradition, and our first actions are, in a good
degree, modeled by imitation. Nor ought it to be
otherwise" (Webster, 1783, as reprinted in
Babbidge, 156). If people learned by imitation of
whatever was set before them, then Webster was
determined that what was set before young
Americans in their school textbooks should be
solid moral teachings and patriotic ideals. . .
(54-55)

 

The strong early American tradition of religious
instruction that was infused into academics and,
specifically, into the textbooks is the province of William
Bean Kennedy's The Shaping of Protestant Education (1966).
Kennedy addresses the pervasive religious didacticism in so
many school books when he explains that during the larger
National Period--from 1789 to 1860--"American Protestants
adopted a general strategy of education that depended

heavily upon the public school and alongside it utilized the

 

 

 

38
Sunday School as the major church-related instrument for
Christian education" (11).

Similarly, Douglas Sloan's comprehensive history (1973)
of the age of revival in America offers background to
American education's didactic tradition and its effect on
contemporary educational institutions (The Great Awakening
and American Education: A Documentary History). Sloan
contends that religious and moral didacticism in American
education was further entrenched as revivalists set up their
own academies and schools for the fostering of revivalism
and conversion (24-25). Sloan illustrates the far-reaching
trend that had begun even before the mid-eighteenth century:

Jonathan Edwards, who extended the plea for
revivalist-oriented education even to the
elementary level[,] . . . also proposed
"establishing and supporting schools in poor towns
and villages," not only "to bring children up in
common learning," but also to prepare them for
conversion. (25)
Although Sloan does not deal directly with didacticism in
reading textbooks, he does offer a collection of primary
sources pertinent to religious and moral instruction and its
effect on American education.

Claiming that children's literature reflects the mores
of society, Kathleen Connery Fitzgibbons (1987) outlines the
role of didactic literature written for Puritan children.
She examines the changes in the moralism found in the early
children's literature in America. Of particular

significance to this dissertation is her examination of the

New England Primer, for which she offers the span of 1669-

 

 

39
1885 as the years the Primer was published. Not focusing on
other textbooks, Fitzgibbons does discuss A Token for
Children (1700) and various Peter Parley selections (1827—
1856), both works published in the commercial press that
complemented the early reading textbooks ("A History of the
Evolution of the Didactic Literature for Puritan Children in
America from 1656-1856"). Edgar Osborne (1958; rpt. 1975)
explains that the moral tone of reading material for
children in the early nineteenth century appeared in both
prose and in verse, and he comments on the textbooks'
didactic forerunners: "It is all too true that the
discouraging wave of eighteenth-century piety produced a
flood of painfully didactic stories and heavily moral tales.
Sometimes these tales taught religion, sometimes they
informed and educated" ("Introduction" in The Osborne

Collection of Early Children's Books, 1566-1910: A

Catalogue. Ed. Judith St. John, xx).

Anne Scott McLeod's research (1975) into the moral tone
found in early— to mid—nineteenth-century children's fiction
provides a valuable base for this dissertation's focus on
the tradition of didacticism. She explains that overt
moralizing was an expected element in virtually all

nineteenth-century media:

The relentless moralizing of this literature
oppresses most twentieth-century adults who read
it, and some have assumed that nineteenth-century
children must have been equally oppressed by it.
But such judgments are both unhistorical and out
of keeping with what we know of children and their
moral attitudes--unhistorical because the morality
in children's books was not more omnipresent nor

 

 

 

 

40
more insistent than that in most fiction, drama,
and poetry for adults; a fervent concern with
morality was simply part of the nineteenth-century
outlook, and presumably nineteenth-century people
found the emphasis unobjectionable. (A Moral Tale
15)
McLeod (1978) says in another study that developing the
moral character of American children was of vital concern
because Americans believed "that the permanent support of
democratic institutions lay in public virtue and . . . that
public virtue depended upon the character of private
citizens" (“Children's Literature and American Culture" in
Society and Children's Literature, edited by James H. Fraser
15). McLeod explains:
The whole point of childhood training as
children's authors saw it . . . was to develop in
children that sensitive conscience, that
internalized set of principles that would make
them morally self-sufficient. Then, and only
then, could American society live with its freedom
without descending into social anarchy.
("Children's Literature" 23)
As to the matter of the authors' unflinchingly sober
attitude toward their young audience, McLeod defends the
writers' attitudes, explaining that "however much they may
have overestimated children's interest in ethical questions,
the authors took them seriously as moral beings" and that
they were "more willing to acknowledge a child's human
dignity than, say, the sentimental vision that dwelt upon
children's charm and innocence, or the condescending View of

them as 'cute' and amusing to adults" ("Children's

Literature" 23).

 

 

 

 

 

 

41
Monica Kiefer (1948) examines various aspects of child

life as revealed in the contemporary juvenile literature of
early America (American Children Through Their Bookei 1700-
1§;§). While she does not limit her study to reading
textbooks, she does indicate the changing status of the
American child during the colonial and early national
periods; for example, Kiefer says that the child's rights
"as a distinct personality" were not truly recognized until
around 1835 (1). This perception of the child's "submerged"
position in society is, of course, significant to a study of
early American reading instruction. Kiefer also provides a
clear picture of the decline of Puritanism and the
secularization of education and early textbooks:

The waning of Puritan fervor and the ferment of

skepticism about the middle of the eighteenth

century caused the emphasis in juvenile literature

to shift from works of a purely theological

character to more practical books of moral

instruction in which stern dogma was supplanted by

humorous examples of right living. (11-12)
Kiefer outlines the use of didacticism in children's
reading, commenting on its variations, but most significant
is her outlining the transformation of doctrinal content in
the juvenile works to a content that stressed primarily good
conduct and moralizing.

Like Kiefer, Rosalie V. Halsey (1911) traces the

occurrence of didactic sentiment in children's literature
in Forgotten Books of the American Nurser , dividing the

books into various classes of amusement and instruction.

She discusses "toy-books," small, inexpensively published

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

42
works--laced with didacticism-~intended to amuse as well as
to teach the basic rudiments of reading, which may have been
used in schoolrooms, but which were most typically read at
home (147-50). Many of these works have been difficult to
classify solely as textbooks or as books for entertainment,
but Halsey explains that "while it is often difficult to
draw the line where amusement begins and instruction sinks
to the background, the title-pages can usually be taken as
evidence at least of the author's intention" (106). Halsey
also discusses significant British women textbook writers
who enjoyed immense popularity in America--especially Mrs.
Anna Letitia Barbauld whose Easy Lessons for a young
relative were reproduced in countless editions both in
England and in America, and Maria Edgeworth, an eighteenth-
century "literary star" who portrayed the triumph of good
over evil in the everyday lives of youthful characters like
Harry and Lucy in her collection of tales The Parent's
Assistant (147-64). Because "school-books were scarce and
dear during the Revolution,“ Halsey explains, "the tendency
in the United States had been all this time . . . to reprint
English books, either exactly, or with very slight
modifications to suit republican taste" (125). Halsey also
comments on the late-eighteenth-century tradition in reading
textbooks and on America's eventual swell in domestic
textbook production: "In England books were written; in
America they were reprinted, until a religious revival left

in its wake the series of morbid and educational tales whidh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

43
the desire to write original stories for American children
produced" (142-43).

Perhaps some of the most valid and disinterested

VieWpoints on didacticism in America's early reading texts
come from book collectors who have a particular interest and
expertise in antique children's works and textbooks.
Several collectors' guides, catalogues, and bibliographies
have surfaced in my research, and these works often provide
a larger scope of the educational and publishing trends in
the early American textbook trade. For example, Katherine
H. Packer's catalogue (1954) shows that the New England
Primer was still a popular publishing item in Boston at the
turn of the nineteenth century but that it was competing
against a spate of new primers and spellers geared for
young, beginning readers (Early American School Books: A
Bibliography Based on the Boston Booksellers' Catalogue of
legg). Collectors' guides also provide valuable insight
into the publishing histories of the more notable textbooks
that enjoyed widespread use and esteem. For example, Eric
Quayle (1983) explains that Lindley Murray's English Grammar
experienced "phenomenal" commercial success, becoming the
schools' definitive grammar text: "Well over one hundred
editions of the work appeared, and it was still in print as
late as 1871. An abridgement of the text was issued in
1797" (Early Children's Books: A Collector's Guide 91).

Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach (1933; rpt. 1966) is

another book collector who stands out in my research--

 

 

 

44
because he has put together an immense and invaluable
collection of children's books (which is now reproduced on
microfiche for wider use). Rosenbach provides an expert's
description of over 900 juvenile works in the catalogue to
his collection--which contains many early reading textbooks
(Earlv American Children's Books). In his introduction,
Rosenbach illustrates the prime importance and validity of
examining the often-long-forgotten artifacts that chronicle
early America's early literacy:
Not only do [children's books] have as much
scholarly and bibliographical interest as books in
other fields, but more than any class of
literature they reflect the minds of the
generation that produced them. Hence no better
guide to the history and development of any
country can be found than its juvenile literature.
(xxvi-xxvii)

The collected impact of the literature devoted to
textbooks and early reading instruction in American history
is significant. The literature--as presented in this
critical summary—-easily spans a century. It represents a
variety of scholarly perspectives and agendas. But, in
general, the body of literature on early America's beginning
reading texts only slightly substantiates claims and
theories by offering in-depth documentation and analysis of
the primary texts. Gilmore, writing in 1989, contends that
research into the "contents of popular texts used as agents
of literacy in homes and schools" in early America is now
needed (418). A close examination of the didactic lessons

and exercises of representative textbooks published in the

50 years following the Revolutionary War period will

 

 

45
undoubtedly document the forces that have shaped--and
continue to shape-~Americans' expectations of reading

instruction and literacy.

 

46

Notes

1As to the problem of scriptural interpretation within
the New England community, Johnson explains that reading and
religious instruction continued in tandem through the use of
primers:

No other way could have been devised to mould the
religious thought of the people so effectively.
The need of guiding public sentiment on this
subject was plainly apparent; for those who
studied the Bible did not understand its teachings
alike, and printing no sooner gave the Scriptures
a wide distribution that divergent opinions
multiplied. . . . The primers were an especially
valuable medium. . . . Their precepts were
instilled in minds as yet unformed, and the
children were drilled to believe what they were to
think out for themselves when they were more
mature (69-70).

2Monaghan and Saul also trace technical problems as a
reason for emphasizing reading instruction over writing
instruction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries:

The quill pen, virtually the only writing tool in
use . . . , was a difficult instrument to manage.
The feather's tip had to be repeatedly sharpened.
Schoolmasters, no doubt reluctant to entrust a
knife to inexpert fingers, usually performed this
task for their students. . . . Ink, too, was a
messy business" (87).

Monaghan and Saul also point out that widespread U.S.
production of lead pencils did not begin until about 1827
(87).

3In his discussion of the named series of readers,
Reeder refers to the texts compiled by Lindley Murray. For
example, Murray's text The English Reader was preceded by
his Introduction to the English Reader and followed by
Sequel to the English Reader. This named series was
published with a variety of printing dates over two or three
decades, but Carpenter establishes the following initial
publication dates for the Murray set: The English Reader,
1799; Sequel to the English Reader, 1801; and Introduction
to the English Reader, 1805. Carpenter adds that Murray's
The English Reader went on to become the most popular of the
various readers on the market "throughout most of the first
half of the nineteenth century, until about the time the
McGuffey texts appeared" (62—63).

 

 

47

4Robinson explains that nearly all the readers
available during this time were religious and brought to the
colonies from Europe. He offers data that indicates 85% of
the material included in readers was of a religious type
(14).

5Elson documents the first use of the word nationality.
Elson quotes from Segpel to the Analytical Reader (an 1828
reader by Samuel Putnam) and then goes on to explain the
burgeoning concept: "'Nationality is used by some writers in
America, but is a new word and not to be found in the
dictionaries.‘ But the idea had long preceded the word; it
was represented before by the word 'nationa,' commonly
defined as 'a distinct people'" (101).

6Lynne Alvine documents Webster's publishing success
with his spelling text:

Five million copies of the volume had been sold by
1803. In the year 1807, 200,000 copies were sold,
and by 1837, the total had reached 15 million. By
1880, when the William H. Appleton Company took
over publication, Webster's "Blue-backed Speller"
was selling a million copies a year, and was
second only to the Bible in annual sales.
Eventually, the text had gone through six editions
as A Grammatical Institute, 254 editions as Tpe
American Spelling Book, and 128 editions as TEE
Elementapy Spelling Book. (57)

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2

METHODOLOGY

It is while the inclinations are yet flexible,
that the most lasting impressions are likely to
be made. . . .

--Anthony Benezet. The

Pennsylvania Spelling-Book,
pp YouthLeyfriendly

Instructor and Monitor (1779)

The area of methodology becomes a significant issue in
a dissertation such as this. An awareness of both the
specific process of inquiry and of the methods used in the
study offers a more complete understanding of the context
and limitations of the research. In this chapter I outline
the procedure I used in examining the textbooks used by
American pupils for beginning reading instruction from 1780
to 1830. I thus also delineate and justify the boundaries
of my research.

Methodology, however, takes on greater dimensions as
one studies the textbook writers' intentions in regard to
reading instruction and didacticism. Specifically, how the
writers viewed their subject made an obvious impact on
their work. In many of the reading textbooks, the authors
included a preface or an introduction; these editorial

sections establish the authors' methodological biases and

48

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

49

pedagogical practices, but more importantly, they establish
an acceptance and, in fact, an overt endorsement of the
tradition of didacticism in the early reading textbooks.
The second half of this chapter is, therefore, devoted to
an examination of the textbooks' methodological orientation
as it encompassed didacticism, illustrated by the writers'
and publishers' own editorial comments.

Throughout my reading of secondary sources that
discuss didacticism in early American textbooks—-and
specifically reading textbooks--all the authorities agree
that didacticism pervades the school books (Kiefer; Reeder;
Venezky). After examining a wide variety of secondary
sources, I began my search for the actual textbooks.
Originally, I thought my dissertation would cover reading
textbooks from the entire nineteenth century; however, I
was soon drawn to the fifty years following the
Revolutionary War period as an era of transition in
publishing reading textbooksl. This period has as its
boundaries the waning popularity of the New England Primer
in 1780 and the rise of the successful McGuffey readers
around 1830--both landmark publications of literacy texts
that have greatly influenced American education. These
fifty years are notable for the rise of several significant
reading texts by Murray, Webster, Bingham, and scores of
reading texts by lesser known writers. These fifty years,
however, are transitional in terms of textbook publication

because the reading texts began to break from the set

 

 

 

 

 

50
pattern of the New England Primer to experiment with
methodology and content, in recognition of various
educational theories that established the child's
educational "rights as a distinct personality" (Kiefer 1)
and in recognition of challenges to sectarian teaching
(Nietz 53). Yet, the content of the textbooks in most
cases is presented in keeping with the tradition of
didacticism established early on in religious primers and,
of course, in the Ney_§pglepg_2pimep.

With significant scholarship available on the Ney
England Primer and with an equivalent amount of research
devoted to the McGuffey readers, I decided to focus my
research on the school texts that represented the tradition
of didacticism in reading instruction between the two
publications. Narrowing my primary research dates to the
fifty years between 1780 and 1830 came after examining some
200 volumes from the mid-to-late eighteenth century to the
late nineteenth century found in three university library
special collections-—Notre Dame University, Andrews
University, and Michigan State University. It was the
extensive textbook holdings in the Special Collection at
the Michigan State University Library upon which I relied
most heavily in my examination of primary texts. In
addition, I depended heavily on the Rosenbach Collection of
Early American Children's Books which is on microfiche.
This microfiche collection, which represents the extensive

collection of children's works held at the Free Library of

 

 

 

 

 

51

Philadelphia, is available at the library at Michigan State
University. It provided me with a wider variety of
beginning reader texts than did the special collection
holdings. The many primary works I analyze in this
dissertation in no way encompass the entire range of
reading textbooks published between 1780 and 1830; however,
they are representative of the reading textbooks available
throughout the nation for use in beginning reading
instruction--both in the common school and within the home.

In determining what types of textbooks I would include
in my study, I first decided that they must have been
prepared for beginning readers and published in the United
States between 1780 and 1830, the time when textbooks by
American writers began to appear on the textbook market
(Reeder 5). American authorship was not a limiting
criterion, however, as many of the textbooks were American
editions of texts published earlier in England. I include
them as well in my research because of the place of
publication and subsequent availability to beginning pupils
in American schools.2

Originally, I intended to look only at primers;
however, I soon learned that spellers were often used in
many schools in place of primers (Venezky 250) and,
therefore, took on the function of the primer3. I also
found that early readers-—textbooks devoted to longer
reading passages—~were intended to be used by beginning

readers. For the sake of uniformity, I decided to look for

_____l

 

 

52
a distinguishing similarity in the reading texts that I
included in my research, and I found that similarity in the
various texts' inclusion of an alphabet. If the primer,
speller, or reader included an alphabet--often called an
abecedarian--at the beginning or at the end of the book, I
considered that textbook to have been designed for pupils
learning to read and therefore included it in my study.
However, many of the alphabet books do not include any
reading lessons as such. For example, there are
textbooks--such as The Young Child's A, B, C (1820)-—that
are designed for beginning reading students, but which have
no lessons to read along with their abecedarians and
individual words in lists. Because these books do not
offer any format for didactic content, I did not include
such textbooks in this study of the tradition of

didacticism.

Early in my examination of the primary texts, I

 

included grammar texts as beginning literacy schoolbooks.

But I eventually excluded them from my group of primary

 

works because their emphasis was not so much on decoding
and making meaning as it was on explaining form4.
The procedure I used to examine each of the reading
textbooks began with an inspection of the title page and
verso to determine authorship, date and place of
publication, and any other points of interest. I then

looked over the table of contents and read the preface of

each book, if these were included. I scanned the book's

 

 

 

 

 

53

contents, noting alphabet, short reading drills,
illustrations, chapter titles (if any), and longer reading
lessons. I also noted the presence of a catechism if the
text were an early one. Then I selected and carefully read
examples of lessons, drills, and exercises that were
notably didactic to use in my chapters that document and
analyze the didacticism in relation to religious, social,
and nationalistic attitudes. It is important to note that
not every lesson or exercise in the reading textbooks that
I examined was didactic--many were not. But because my
purpose is to examine the didactic content of the early
reading texts, I primarily note those selections that
promoted the tradition of didacticism in school books.
And, it is also important to note that I have not included
all the didactic passages in the textbooks I examined, but
that I have provided a balanced representation of the
didactic lessons I found in the primary works.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of the dissertation document and
analyze the three main classifications of early reading
textbook didacticism--religious, social, and nationalistic.
Within each of the chapters I then categorize the varieties
of the particular strain of didacticism. For example,
under the main classification of religious didacticism in
Chapter 3, I discuss its subcategories--didacticism dealing
with God, doctrine, Scripture, and death. I explore these
subcategories in chronological order, beginning with

lessons from the textbooks published earlier and working my

 

 

 

 

 

54

 

way through to the more recently printed works within the
period of time from 1780 to 1830.

In a few cases, I have examined multiple editions of

 

the same text. In some instances, subsequent publication
of a text provides quite a bit of revision while other
subsequent editions reveal relatively little editorial
change. In many cases, the progression, or evolution, of a

particular didactic attitude can be easily charted through

 

the subsequent editions and revisions of one particular
text or of one particular textbook author.
Throughout the dissertation I have also remained

faithful to the spellings and capitalization schemes of the

 

textbook titles as they appear on the title pages in order
to preserve the "typographical flavor" of the period. In
addition, very often spellings of words within the reading
lessons and selections vary from current form. Whenever
this occurs, I stay consistent with the original text;
however, in some cases to avoid typographical confusion, I
have indicated spelling irregularities through the use of
brackets. Along this line of typography, the majority of
primary texts I examine in this dissertation employ what
may appear to be a random italicization of words; again, to

preserve the original typography of the texts, I have

 

remained faithful to the original italicization schemes.
Just as I have felt compelled to offer a rationale for
my method in this research project, so did many of the

textbook writers feel that an explanation of their

 

 

 

55
intentions and theories was in order. So, in many cases
the reading textbooks begin with an introduction, a
preface. Occasionally this section was called "A Note to
Teachers," in which the author explains his or her
methodology.

While a study of the textbook authors' attitudes about
didacticism as they are revealed in their prefatory remarks
is particularly significant, an examination of their
specific theories about reading instruction also offers a
greater understanding of the period's educational milieu.
According to Susan Walton, an "alphabetic" or "spelling"
approach to reading instruction prevailed throughout
American education from the mid—seventeenth century to the
early nineteenth century (L9). This prevailing theory of
reading instruction dominates Maria Edgeworth's 1805 reader
Harpy and Lucy, Part I. Her preface typifies the
alphabetic or spelling method: "Little children, who know
the sounds of all letters, can read words, and can
understand what is told in this book" (5). Closely related
to the alphabetic theory, says Walton, "rote memorization
of texts was also assumed to help children gain
understanding, because once children memorized something,
they would have time to think out the meaning later" (L9).
Walton maintains that textbook authors had little concern
with their students' comprehension: "Whether children
really understood what they read or not was of minimal

concern" (L9). These attitudes and theories are crucial to

 

 

 

56
the reading instruction that pervaded American common
schools of the time, and they explain the approach taken in
virtually all the beginning reading textbooks from 1780 to
1830. These concepts explain why so many pages of the
textbooks were devoted to mastering the alphabet, consonant
blends, and syllables.

The textbook prefaces and introductions offer a
glimpse of the methodological concerns the authors felt
were important. In some of the prefaces, the textbook
writers focused on the physical qualities of their books.
Their methodology of including engravings in the textbooks
to pictorally illustrate the lessons apparently required
some justification. The author of Johnson's New
Philadelphia Spelling-Book (1809) explains his pedagogical
rationale for using illustrations in the text:

. . . the attention, even of dull children, is
sometimes excited by well engraved cuts,
representing objects familiar to them; and, not
unfrequently, those of small capacity might be
induced to take the first steps on the threshold
of literature by this pleasant route, when
otherwise, perhaps, the rod or the dunce cap

would be necessarily employed to urge them
forward. (ii)

 

However, unbelievable as it may sound today, some critics
of the textbooks published around the turn of the
nineteenth century objected to illustrations in the
textbooks for children. Detractors claimed that
illustrations would divert the young readers' attention.

In response to this sort of criticism, the anonymous author

of the The New-York Preceptor (1812) uses the preface as an

 

 

 

 

 

57

opportunity to defend his or her theory of illustration and

counteract the negative criticism:
The natural propensity of children, is the love
of amusement; and is it not better that this
should be gratified by the examination of
pictures which furnish a resemblance of some real
object, than by an indulgence in their usual
activity in idle play? . . . Those who have had
experience in "rearing the tender thought," will
acknowledge the importance of using every
suitable method to allure the mind to
application, by carefully combining entertainment
with labour. (3-4)

The editor of Beauties of the New-England Primer, an
1814 reprint of passages from the New England Primer, uses
the preface to explain the object of his edition,
underscoring pedagogical theory while charging the earlier
Primer's out-dated educational status: "The New-England
Primer of latter time, having become almost useless, unless
on account of the Catechism, which is likewise printed in a
separate pamplet [sic], it appears to likely to become
nearly if not quite obsolete" (ii). The editor explains
further that children should become acquainted with "and
afford an opportunity to gather some good hints from a work
that for generations has been a first book for their
forefathers" (ii).

Methodological intention is the focus for the preface,
or "Advertisement," that opens Anna Letitia Barbauld's
Lessons for Children of 1818. She explains that "this
little publication was made for a particular child, but

[that] the public is welcome to the use of it" (iii). On

the following page Barbauld justifies the work of the

 

 

 

 

 

 

58
textbook writer, claiming: "The task [of educating
youngsters] is humble, but not mean; for to lay the first
stone of a noble building, and to plant the first idea in a
human mind, can be no dishonour to any hand" (iv).

Often the preface gives the textbook author a chance
to account for where in a sequence of texts the particular
work fits, as Lindley Murray explains the correct placement
of his 1818 primer A First Book for Children in his
textbook sequence: "This little volume, in its enlarged and
improved form, is intended to prepare the learner for the
author's English Spelling-Book, and is particularly
calculated to assist mothers in the instruction of their
young children" (v). The preface also permits Murray to
promote other titles in his textbook sequence.

I include a passage from the preface of The Columbian
Reader (1818) by Rodolphus Dickinson to illustrate a
predominant concept of reading instruction in the early
nineteenth century. The textbook's subtitle--Comprising a
New and Various Selection of Elegant Extracte in Prose and
Poetry. For the Use of Schools in the United Statee. To
Which Is Prefixed and Introduction on the Arts of Reading
and Speaking--indicates that the textbook is not intended
for an audience of beginning pupils. However, Dickinson's
"Introduction" is an apt illustration of the predominant
methodology that equated reading with oral presentation:

By the art of reading, I mean the art of correct
and articulate pronunciation; or, of

intelligibly, emphatically, and impressively .
repeating what is written in any language: or, in

 

 

 

 

 

 

59
other words, the art of reading well, consists in
pronouncing the thoughts of others, or our own,
exhibited in visible characters, as if the same
had their full and proper operation, on our
minds, and were the result of our own immediate
conception. (ix)
This preoccupation of equating reading with oral production
explains why so many of the reading textbooks mark the
reading lessons with hyphens to emphasize syllables and
even incorporate diacritical markings to indicate correct
pronunciation.
The idea of correct pronunciation gives rise to the
larger notion of proper behavior--a goal of the didacticism
at the heart of many of the reading textbooks from 1780 to
1830. Correct methodology and proper educational goals in
the texts dictate the theme of Caleb Bingham's "Preface"5
to The American Preceptor of 1811. Bingham refers to
himself in the third person as he explains, how as the
compiler of the textbook, he was careful to guard and
encourage moral conduct and attitudes in his selections:
Convinced of the impropriety of instilling false
notions into the minds of children, he [Bingham,
the compiler] has not given place to romantic
fiction. Although moral essays have not been
neglected; yet pleasing and interesting stories,
exemplifying moral virtues, were judged best
calculated to engage the attention and improve
the heart. Tales of love have not gained
admission. (ii)

Bingham's concerns are typical of the didactic intentions

at work throughout all the textbooks examined in this

dissertation. While his concerns about moralism find ample

implementation in the texts' lessons and exercises, the

 

 

 

 

 

 

60
various authors' intended use of didacticism is clearly
delineated in their prefaces and introductions.

John Ely's preface to The Child's Instructor (1793)
defends the writing of children's textbooks and equates the
task--along the same lines as Barbauld's earlier thought
and wording--to laying "the foundation of a noble building"
(iii). He explains that "the first impressions on the
mind, are those which last longest; they grow with our
growth, and strengthen with our strength" (iv). Ely's
preface concludes with an endorsement of the didactic
approach to teaching reading: "Of how much importance is it
then, that the first impressions be good!" (iv).

In most cases, the authors were devoted to supplying
"fit" reading material to instill virtuous attitudes in the
young readers. Venezky claims that reading instruction
during this time was concerned with more than just
literacy: "Skill in reading, as a general competency, has
always been comingled with inculcation of what to read,
that is, attitude toward or preference for particular types
of printed materials" (253). Reading pedagogy typically
paired decoding instruction with a desire to reform thought
and behavior6. The preface from Wisdom in Miniature (1796)
explains the volume's selections, revealing the author's
perceptions of children and morality. ‘The preface also
defends the author's dependence on the tradition of
didacticism:

There is no kind of writing better calculated to
form the minds of youth--to give them a just

 

 

 

 

 

61
conception of things--to reform their loose and
vicious habits--to improve their morals, and set
vice and virtue in their proper colors, tha[n]
what is contained in the following pages. . .
(iV)
Samuel Willard, too, explains his primer's reading
selections. The "Introduction" to The Franklin Primer
(1802) provides the author's recognition of his high
calling as a textbook writer as well as an enumeration of
the didactic concerns his reading selections address:
Considering it an object of the highest
importance in the instruction of little children,
to endeavor to inculcate in their tender minds a
sense of morality and piety--a due observance of
the injunctions imposed on them by their
teachers--to honor and respect the commands of
their parents--a love of their play-mates; and
above all, the duty they owe to their Creator,
has induced the compiler to issue this
publication. . . . (vii)
The author-compiler explains that he has interspersed "such
moral lessons and sentences as . . . conceived to be
adapted to the capacity of children" (viii). Also in his
preface of the textbook Willard indicates the nationalistic
inclination in the book, offering the life of Benjamin
Franklin as a model of American virtue.

That overt inclusion of nationalistic sentiment is the
thrust of Noah Webster's preface in An American Selection
of Leesons in Reading and Speaking (1804). Referring to
the selections he uses in this reader didactically designed
for late primary readers, he explains that the lessons

"contain general ideas of morality" and then demonstrates

more specifically his nationalistic agenda: "A love of our

 

 

 

62
country, and an acquaintance with its true state, are
indispensible: They should be acquired early in life" (3).
Throughout virtually all of the prefatory sections
included in the reading textbooks, the writers' discussion
of methodology centers on their selection of morally
virtuous lessons for study. The anonymous author-compiler
of The Columbian Reader of 1815 upholds the practice:
In making selections for the following pages,
an uniform preference has been given to such
pieces as were calculated to instil [sic] into
the minds of youth the principles of virtue and
morality. . . .
An excellent writer has very truly remarked,

that "a virtuous education is a better
inheritance for children than a great estate."

(3)
In Lindley Murray's 1823 edition of Introduction to the
English Reader, an early reader intended (according to its
title page) to "properly conduct the young learner from
the Spelling Book to 'The English Reader,'" the author
indicates the period's overriding emphasis in the reading
textbooks. According to Murray, the goal of his texts
is “to season the minds of children with piety and virtue
. . . to improve them in reading, language, and sentiment"
(5). His basic methodology corresponds to that of his
contemporaries:
To imbue the tender mind with the love of virtue
and goodness, is an especial object of the
present work: and with this view the pieces have
been scrupulously selected; and, where necessary,
purified from every word and sentiment that could

offend the most delicate mind. (5)

In his preface to Easy Lessons in Reading (1825),

Joshua Leavitt discusses the period's expected pedagogy for

 

 

63
teaching reading from his textbook. His method relies on
word recognition and oral reading drill. He addresses the
common practice of using the Bible as a reading text,
saying that using the New Testament was admirable but that
it should come after students had developed the "habit"
of reading. Leavitt explains that his reading textbook
was better suited to the vocabulary of the child, and
he maintains the tradition of expecting appropriate
content in the reading lessons: "The selections will be
found to contain many salutory precepts and instructive
examples, for a life of piety and morality, or activity and
usefulness . . ." (5).

Whether or not the prefaces and introductions of the
various textbooks were read by beginning readers is
undeniably not an issue. The early reading textbook
authors and compilers included these prefatory sections for
a variety of reasons, the least of which was a child's
attention. Rather, the prefaces offer teachers and parents
an overview of the pedagogical concerns in the textbooks;
they provide a witness to the educational expectations of
the post-Revolutionary War period. Clearly, the prefaces
and introductions serve as an articulation and endorsement
of the pervading tradition of didacticism found in the
reading textbooks from 1780 to 1830--allowing for a
diversity of emphases that would include religious, social,

and nationalistic didacticism.

 

64

Notes

lReeder maintains that "this first period of American
school-book authorship is characterized by erratic efforts
and random shots in many directions" (41). He explains
that the publishers of reading textbooks were more
concerned with "public demand" and "commercial success"
than with pedagogical theories:

The result was that many single and isolated
primers, spellers and readers were published and
used for a brief period within a limited area.
Many of these primers were trifling little books
in paper covers, three or four inches square,
containing the alphabet rudely illustrated, a
syllabarium, a few pages of spelling, and
sometimes, but not always, a few exercises in
reading. (41)

2Elson explains that many of the textbooks provided
for American students were merely unrevised British books
used for "physical and economic reasons . . . well into the
nineteenth century, even though they embodied British
nationalism" (6).

3Venezky establishes the use of spelling books as
early reading textbooks:

After the middle of the eighteenth century, most
students in the grammar schools might have begun
reading instruction in a spelling book that, in
spite of its name, was used until almost the
middle of the nineteenth century to teach both
reading and spelling. . . . Thomas Dilworth's A
New Guide to the English Tongue (1771), which was
first published in England in 1740 . . . was
first printed in American in 1747 and went
through at least 76 editions. . . . (250)

4The grammar books offer many examples of didacticism
in their exercises and drills. For example, in Caleb
Alexander's 1814 Grammatical System of the English Langpage
a subtle didacticism surfaces in a section titled "False
Grammar," in which errors in possession occur: "Content is
the poor man riches, and desire the rich man poverty; Money
is the misers god, which he salutes at an humble distance,
but dares not approach.--Woman chastity is woman glory"
(67-68). While these sentences do not readily illustrate
the tradition of didactic method in early reading
instruction, a closer study will reveal a very subtle use

65

of didacticism embedded in the sentences to correct.
Whether or not this inclusion of didacticism was a
conscious act on the part of the textbook author could be
debated; nevertheless, it underscores the period's reliance
on moral tone and model in its pedagogy.

5This preface is dated "Boston, May, 1794."

6Venezky explains the didactic goals of reading
instruction in early American history:

For the early colonist, reading was taught for
theological ends: to read and interpret
Scriptures as required by Calvinist doctrine. In
the post-Revolutionary period, reading was the
route to good character, particularly as defined
by the prevailing Protestant morality. (253)

Kiefer parallels Venezky's claims. She elaborates on what
she labels the "theological age" in American education: "An
era of stern pietism--during which the child was constantly
impressed with the fact that he 'was born not to live but
to dy,‘ and that his time and talents were to be focused on
the prOper fulfillment of this eternal end" (1). Kiefer
ascribes "the influence of a utilitarian philosophy" to the
post-Revolutionary War period: "This trend, stressing the
value of industry and wisdom, fostered a more benign and
worldly view of life--one which humanely permitted the
child a certain amount of legitimate pleasure en route to
his heavenly home" (2).

 

 

 

CHAPTER 3

RELIGIOUS DIDACTICISM

Awake, awake, you graceless children all.
And hear the Lord in time, while he does call.

--The Re robate's Reward or

a Looking-Glass for
Disobedient Children (1798)

Happy the child, whose tender years
Receive instruction well;
Who hates the sinner's path, and fears
The road that leads to hell.
--Lindley Murray. Intro-

duction to the English Reader
(1823)

From their earliest introduction in America,
children's textbooks were characterized by a religious
didacticism calculated to uphold the religious doctrine of
adult society, with little evident concern about children's
interests (Venezky 248). Historical studies of the
textbooks of the colonial period indicate that the
educational milieu was indeed a progeny of the church and
that reading textbooks were made up almost entirely of
religious and moral content1 (Robinson 13-14).

The forerunner of American textbooks--the New England
Primer--was the embodiment of religious epigrams and
doctrinal lessons. Earle says it was "so religious in all

66

 

 

 

67

 

 

 

its teachings and suggestions that it has been fitly called
the 'Little Bible of New England'" (128). In like manner,
the reading texts, which were used by primary students
during the years following the Primer's strong hold in
American schools, are steeped in the tradition of religious

2

didacticism. For example, in 1779 Anthony Benezet's The

Pennsylvania Spelling-Book, or Youth's friendly Instructor
and Monitor relies on religious themes for instruction in
"short word lessons":

The eye of God is on us, all the day;

My son, do no ill, pay to God his due:

We do no act but he can see it.

If we go in or out, his eye is on us.

God can see us in all we do.

Go not in the way of bad men.

Do not lie, nor do ill to any.

Bad men go in the way of sin. (12)

The tradition of presenting religious attitudes and
values is thus firmly established in American education by
the post-Revolutionary period. Yet, Robinson indicates
that by the end of the Revolution the strength of religious
didacticism in the early reading textbooks "begins to give
way to the secular" (14) due to changing religious, social,
and political attitudes in the country. This decline of
religious didacticism, however, is at first hardly
perceptible; the religious emphasis is definitely still a
significant force in the early reading textbooks during the
years 1780 to 1830.

Although the inclusion of religious themes in the

textbooks was generally held to be "blessed by God" during

 

 

 

68

the period (Elson 42), my intention in this chapter is not
to describe the religious didacticism as monolithic.
Rather, I document the didactic sentiment and show that the

lessons offer a range of religious themes.

A Belief in God's Divinity and Sovereignty
A belief in God--in God's divinity and sovereignty--is

the first major element of the religious didacticism
apparent throughout the reading textbooks. Benezet's 1779
text illustrates that this element of religious
instructiveness was established--and expected--in the early
textbooks:

God is kind to all those who seek him;

It is in and by him I live and move;

He knows what is best for me,

To him let us look for help in need. (16)
God's sovereignty and the individual's submission to it
were subjects suitable for young readers' attention. In a
1793 text, The Child's Instructor, on the same page that
asks, "How many vowels are there?" students found questions
posed in (nearly all) single-syllable words that demand an
attention to God's dominance in early American thought:
"George! do you know who made you? / Yes Sir: God made me,
and takes care of me. He loves good boys and good girls,
and we must love him. God is very good to take care of us"
(Ely 10). The Child's Spelling Book, published in 1802,
also offers short, numbered lessons early in the book that

emphasize a strong traditional belief in God:

5. God will judge us at the last day: as our
deeds have been in this life, so our lot will be

 

 

 

69

in the next: And woe to those who die in their
:inGreat is the peace of those who love God, and
walk in his truth. (21)

Another text published in 1802, The Franklin Primer-—
which Rosenbach says was written by Samuel Willard and
"became very popular and ran into many editions" (113)--
further establishes a religious didacticism that emphasizes
God. In a section titled "Moral Sentences, consisting of
words of one syllable," Willard provides a list of
religious directives and aphorisms:

Love God, for he is good. Fear God, for he is

just. Pray to God, for all things come from him.
Fools make a mock of sin, but he that is wise

will be good. . . .
The child that does the best he can,
Shall gain the love of God and man. . . .
We can hide no work from God; for it is the
Lord God that hath made us, and he knows all that
we do. (19)
Four years later (1806), Willard published his revised
textbook The Franklin Famil Primer, and in it he included
the above "Moral Sentences," but altering the words to more
greatly emphasize the concept of God and his sovereignty:
"Fools make a mock at him, but he that is wise will be
good" [italics mine]; Willard follows that line with an
added line to a newly italicized stanza:
God loves the child, whose words are mild.
The child that does the best he can,
Shall gain the love of God and Man. (23)
One little book published in Philadelphia around 1810,
Kimber and Conrad's ABC Book, includes the apparently

obligatory lines that are God~oriented, but somehow the

book does not seem as completely devoted to instructing

 

70

young readers in God's ways as it is to selling copies of
subsequent textbooks. The line "The eye of God sees us all
the day" is followed by "Now go to Kimber and Conrad's
Store, No. 93, Market-Street, and buy the Universal Primer"
(n. pag.).

A more fully developed portrayal of God appears in an
1818 edition3 of Lindley Murray's A First Book for
Children. In a section of the textbook titled "The care
and goodness of God," Murray provides a brief description
of a shepherd,
of a mother, and of a king. Following each of the
descriptions, he draws a short comparison between the
subject and God:

But who is the shepherd's shepherd? who takes

care of him? . . . God is the shepherd's

shepherd. (67)

But who is the parent of the mother? who . . .
watches over her with tender love, and thinks of
her always? . . . God is the parent of the

mother. . . . (68)
But who is the king of the king? who commands

him what he must do? . . . God is the king of
the king. . . . He is King of kings, and Lord of
lords. (69)

The following passages from an 1821 text for beginning
readers, Johnson's Philadelphia Primer, offer two common
characterizations of God. The first underscores the belief
in a divine omniscience: "The eye of God is on us all the
day. We do no act but he can see it" (19). The second
attributes to God the power of creation: "Let us call on

the name of the Lord, for it is he who made the world"

(21) .

 

71

Belief in God and obedience to him--as doctrinal
concepts--seem to further dominate the View of God in the
textbooks of the 1820's. Midway in his Introduction to the
English Reader (1823), Murray addresses the "younger
classes of learners in reading" and includes a lesson in
"Didactick Pieces" that explains "ingratitude to our
Supreme Benefactor is highly culpable" (47). The three-
paragraph lesson (which must have been intended for
intermediate readers) relates how Artabanes, a young man
"distinguished with peculiar favour by a wise, powerful,
and good prince" (47) is insensitive to the bounty and
privilege accorded him. Murray draws a comparison of
humans' ingratitude for God's beneficence:

You have rioted in the profusion of nature,
without suitable emotions of gratitude to the
sovereign Dispenser of all good: and you have too
often slighted the glorious converse, and
forgotten the presence of the Omnipotent Being,
who fills all spaces, and exists through all
eternity. (47-48)

The omnipotence and omniscience of God--along with a
mandate for humans' recognition of them--are seen again in

William Bolles's A spelling book (1827):

All that we have comes from God;

He takes care of us by day, and by night;
And without him we could not live;

We must love him with all our soul. (23)

A Knowledge of Doctrine. A Respect for the Church

Doctrine, in general, and reference to the church, in
particular, make up a second theme in the religious

didacticism found in the beginning reading texts of early

 

72

America. Of course, religious instruction and literacy
instruction have long been entwined--with the Bible often
being used solely as a primary-level reading text. But
various clergy and teachers were not convinced that a
facility with rudimentary reading would guarantee the young
readers' "preservation of . . . religious beliefs and
practices," explains Kiefer, so "they prepared numerous
catechisms containing interpretations of important biblical
passages as well as points of dogma and rules of conduct"
(110). Reeder explains that in early American schools,
three classes of instruction dominated:
The first class, or beginners, read from the
Psalter which contained the Psalms, the Proverbs
and the Nicene Creed. The second class was known
as the Testament class; the third as the Bible
class. Near the close of the seventeenth century
the Catechism was incorporated into the New
England Primer. (28)
In fact, study in the New England Primer with its Shorter
Catechism4 was required by law, and "deacons and ministers
visited and examined families to see that the law was
obeyed" (Earle 132).

The catechism format, made up of questions and
supplied answers, was used quite widely in various reading
textbooks. Isaac Watts, whose works were included in
scores of reading texts in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, employs the catechism technique in
his 1791 text. WWW

Children, according to Rosenbach, was "one of the most

popular catechisms for children, and a standard work in

 

73

both America and England until past the middle of the
nineteenth century" (65). It is a good example of a
catechism without an abecedarian, but nevertheless intended
as a literacy text (Rosenbach 65). Watts's catechism
conveys doctrinal instruction through a series of numbered
(and italicized) question/answer sequences:

14. Q. And what must you do to be saved from
the anger of God which your sins have
deserved?

A. I must be sorry for my sins, I must pray
to God to forgive me what is past, and serve
him better for time to come.

15. Q. Will God forgive you if you pray for it?
A. I hope he will forgive me if I trust in
his mercy for the sake of what Jesus Christ
has done, and what he has suffered.

16. Q. Do you know who JESUS CHRIST is?

A. He is God’s own Son, who came from
Heaven to save us from our sins, and from
God’s anger. (8-9)

Matters of doctrine and the established church appear
throughout the reading texts. John Ely's 1793 The Child's
Instructor presents proper attitudes for the young readers
to emulate:

Good boys and good girls go to church. Did you
go to church? Billy went to church, and so did
Betsy. The church is the house of God; and God
loves little children when they go to church.
When you go to church you must sit still, and
hear what the preacher tells you; he tells you to
be good children, and love your parents, and then
God will bless you. (17)
The "Billy" lessons were a popular method of

incorporating didacticism into the reading lesson books. A

late-eighteenth-century edition of the New England Primer

(The New-England Primer; much improved 1796) included the

typical material found in the Ppiwep (epigrams,

 

74

syllabarium, catechism, the John Rogers martyrdom
narrative) as well as a series of reading lessons about a
five-year-old boy named Billy, "a very good boy"--saintly,
in fact--as a model for young readers. The usefulness of
these lessons for promoting acceptable attitudes concerning
religion was not overlooked: Billy could be counted on to
say his prayers, his catechism, and the Lord's prayer, in
addition to keeping in mind his Creator. After a break
from the unnumbered Billy pages, readers studied lessons on
Arabic and Roman numerals. But in a later lesson they
encountered Billy again, this time as the five-year-old
instructed Harry, another little boy, on the sovereignty
and goodness of God and Jesus (The New-England Primer; much
improved n. pag.).

The complete title of an 1802 speller--The Child's
Spelling Book: Calculated to render Reading Completely Easy
to Little Children; To Impress upon their minds the impor—

tance of Religion, and the advantages of Good Manners--
indicates that the tradition of religious didacticism
flourished at the turn of the nineteenth century. The
element of doctrine is taken up in various lessons:
1. Man was at first made in a state of bliss;
but by sin he fell from that good state into
a state of woe and misery.
2. Christ, our blessed Lord, came down from
heaven, to save man from sin, and to give

life to the soul; a life that will never
end. (37)

As the lessons in the textbooks progress, the overt

doctrinal didacticism seems to find a story line of sorts:

 

 

75

If Charles will learn to be good, then God will
take care of Charles; for God loves all good

children; and when they are sick, and put into
the pit hole, he will not let them forever die;
but will take them up to Heaven, and make them

happy. (54)
Further into the text, the religious didacticism dealing
with doctrine, its tone and intention still quite
pronounced, is incorporated into a conversation: "A
Dialogue on Theving [sic]." A Mr. Ferguson and his son,
working together outdoors, are thirsty. The son says that
he could sneak into the nearby fenced orchard and get some
pears to eat. But Mr. Ferguson firmly declines his son's
offer on the grounds that the pears do not belong to them.
Meanwhile, another young boy does steal some apples in
another orchard and is summarily attacked by a dog. An
observer exclaims: "See how his leg bleeds. . . ." to which
another observer counters: "It is a pity the dog did not
tear his leg off, and that would have taught him to steal
apples again" (82). If the narrative had stopped there,
the didacticism would have been plain--simplistic as it
is--but the textbook author pushes the illustration to
embody certain doctrinal values as well. The son asks Mr.
Ferguson: "Papa would the dog have bitten me, if I had
taken the pears?" Mr. Ferguson's reply is telling:
"It is very likely that some mischief would have
befallen you; for God, my dear child, orders
everything that passes upon earth. . . . If God
had not punished [the boy who stole the fruit],
he probably would always have continued in sin.
This lesson may bring him to repentence. . . .
In this we may see the hand of Providence;--for

our merciful Creator never chastises us, but to
make us become better." (83)

 

 

 

76

The doctrinal view of an immediately judgemental and
punishing god surfaces in many of the religious passages in
the textbooks. According to Elson, within the lessons of
the textbooks, "God does not wait for the after-life to
distribute rewards and punishments; He metes them out
inexorably, not simply in pangs of conscience and remorse,
but in things of this world" (213).

In contrast, many of the textbooks exhibit a religious
didacticism that serves to keep before the young reader an
ongoing, but casual, attitude conducive to doctrinal
instruction. These appear as religious "artifacts"--
typically short stanzas that, I think, underscore the
pervasive religious sentiment in every—day early American
life. For example, Juvenal Poems, or the Alphabet in
Xepee, an 1808 primer, illustrates various nouns in
alphabetical order with short stanzas that describe
particular aspects of the nouns:

ANT
How wisely and frugal
The little Ant plies.
Come hither, ye sluggards,
And learn to be wise. (5)
This verse is followed by a stanza that illustrates the
letter B:
BIBLE
Within this sacred book,
The words of life are given,

Wherein should all men look,
And learn the way to heaven. (6)

 

 

 

—_—__ ,WY“

77

Not all of the stanzas in this verse alphabet are
religiously didactic. For example, the verse illustrating
the letter G offers a morally neutral sentiment:
GRAPES
See here are the grapes,
Which Reynard did want;
Tho' nimbly he leaps,
Yet catch them he can't. (11)
The textbook author, however, does keep before the young
reader the occasional short religious stanza in order to
maintain an attitude conducive to religious instruction:
TEMPLE
Holy temples were design'd,
For each pure and humble mind,
To pray and praise the Lord most high,
Who all their wants can satisfy (23)

Whether or not the concept of gratitude to God for
affliction is doctrinal could be argued; but I include an
example of that sentiment because it is a religious
sentiment that seems to surface occasionally in the
textbooks. An American edition of the English reader Neey
Lessons in Reading by Joshua Leavitt (1825) provides the
story of "The Hedge of Thorns," in which a boy pushes his
reluctant little sister through a hole in a thorny hedge so
she can get to some apple trees. As a result of the
thorns, the little girl is covered in blood. When their
father discovers the children, he reprimands his son and
tells him that on the other side of the hedge is a deep

ditch of black water where the little sister could have

drowned:

 

78

"Are they not blessed thorns then?" said my
father. "Do you not now thank GOD for this Hedge
of Thorns? I trust, my son, that the time will
come, that you will thank GOD for every
affliction, however bitter, which he makes use of
to keep you from sin." (82-85)
The theme of gratitude for affliction is taught in this
story through the boy's resentment of the thorns keeping
him from a short-cut to the apple trees, yet preventing his
sister's possible peril.

I do not attempt to trace the doctrinal concepts as
they appear in the reading textbooks to any one specific
religious group. While the doctrinal themes undoubtedly
reflect the text-writers' own religious affiliations, the
concepts illustrate generic doctrine acceptable to
Protestant American society at large during the period.

Thus, biblical doctrine is featured quite often in the
textbooks through short, simple paraphrases of Scripture.
In The Elementary Spelling Book (1829), Noah Webster
succinctly offers what seem to be doctrinal truths as a
matter of course: "God created the heavens and the earth in
six days, and all that was made was very good. / God will

destroy the wicked" (29). A simple, rhymed paraphrase of

the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament appears in The

 

Little Primer (c. 1830):

1. Thou shalt have no more gods than me.

2. Before no idol bow thy knee.

3. Take not the name of God in vain.

4. Do not the Sabbath-day profane.

5. Give both thy parents honour due.

6. Take heed that thou no murder do.

7. Abstain from words and deeds unclean.

8. Steal not though thou art poor and mean.

 

 

79
9. Nor make a wilful lie nor love it.
10. What is thy neighbour's do not covet. (7)
Although primers and spellers by the late 1820s and early
18305 relied less and less on doctrinally didactic lessons,
a religious tone continues, according to Elson (41) and to

my own observation, throughout the nineteenth century.

Bible Stories and Scriptural Lessons

Much of the religious didacticism--in fact, a third
theme of the religious didacticism--apparent in the reading
textbooks from 1780 to 1830 takes shape as retellings of
Bible stories, undoubtedly already familiar to young
Christian readers. For example, in The Franklin Primer
(1802) and its revised version The Franklin Family Primer
(1806), the author Samuel Willard includes, along with the
customary catechism and songs by Watts, five standard Bible
stories: Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, Moses in the
Basket, the Nativity of Jesus, and the Crucifixion.

I believe the textbook writers assumed their young
audience was acquainted with Bible stories and characters
through an exposure to them at home and in church. The
authors capitalized on this acquaintance, often relying on

biblical stories in alphabet drill. Horner's The Silver

 

Penny, published in 1806, is an example:
J JUDAS j

JUDAS was he that by a kiss,
Did lose a more substantial bliss;
First sold his Lord for paltry pelf,
Then sneak'd away, and hang'd himself. (13)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

80

The more obscure New Testament characters Ananias and
Sapphira are the focus of a lesson, found amid pages of
reading lessons on the seasons and domestic animals, in the
1809 Johnson's New Philadelphia Spelling-Book:
Have we not known, nor heard, nor read,
How God abhors deceit and wrong?
How Ananias was struck dead,
Caught with a lie upon his tongue?
So did his wife Sapphira die,
When she came in and grew so bold,
As to confirm that wicked lie,
Which just before her husband told. (24)
By retelling the story from the Bible, the textbook
reaffirms the Bible as a moral authority and it strikes a
didactic tone in warning its readers against the dire
consequences of telling falsehoods. This method of
underscoring a moral/religious truth with a story from
Scripture finds its way into many of the textbooks. A
reader from 1812 portrays Christ and His disciples
(following a short, descriptive paragraph about the wolf
who "sallies out, by night, and destroys the sheep and
lambs") using the not unexpected didactic approach and
Biblical wording: "Christ said to his servants, 'Behold, I
send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye,
therefore, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves'" (The
New-York Preceptor 41).
Another textbook from around 1812 promotes the Bible
itself as a source of truth--but with a commercial twist:

"The bible is the best of all books. Children who can read

in the bible, may go to Kimber and Conrad's Store and buy

 

 

81

one for themselves" (A Picture Book, for Little Children
n. pag.).

As one might expect, many of the reading textbooks
take their lessons directly from the Bible--often in
paraphrase. A primer from 1814, The Instructive Alphabet,
includes "Our Saviour's Golden Rule," a rhymed paraphrase
from the book of Matthew: "Be you to others kind and true;
/ As you'd have others be to you; / And neither do nor say
to men, / Whate'er you would not take again" (n. pag.).
Webster's The American Spelling Book of 1815 offers
straight Scripture as suitable reading lessons--for
example: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet Solomon, in
all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these" (72).

This use of Bible stories and Bible texts as lessons
in the primers, readers, and spellers is consistent in the
religiously didactic works examined in this study. William
Little's Reading made Easv (1818) includes the New
Testament parables of the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan,
and the Unjust Steward among various reading lessons. Ten
years later (1828)--as religious didacticism seems to be on
the wane--the Lord's Prayer is included among the lessons,
word lists, and engravings of animals (M'Cartv's American
Primer). By 1830 much of the overt religious didacticism
dealing with Scripture has faded away in the texts.
However, it is occasionally apparent, as in A Pleasing

Tovrefor Girl or Boy (1830), a primer that illustrates

 

 

 

82

the alphabet with pictures and text. An opened volume
(with the words holy and Bible written on the pages) is
portrayed under the boldly capitalized word BIBLE, and a
four-line stanza of didactic text under the illustration
reads: "Within this sacred Book, / The words of life are
given, / Wherein all men should look, / And learn the way

to heaven" (5).

Death and the Transcience of Life
I have included concepts of death and the transcience

of life as a fourth element of religious didacticism in the
reading textbooks. I include these concepts in the section
dealing with religious didacticism because, I believe, they
imply a general religious attitude. The 1796 text Wisdom
in Miniature, a short collection of "divine and moral"
sentences for reading drill, concludes with an insistent
sentiment on the subject of death:

The state of no human being can be determined

till death closes the scene;--and the last end of

the good only can be happy.--Emulate their

virtues, and, doubtless, you shall share in their

felicity. _ . .

For as the silk-worm in due time taketh Wlng,
and mounts into the air; so the souls of the
just, when called from hence, shall take the
wings of the morn--and ascend into heaven. (30)

Ideas concerning the insistence of death and the
fleeting span of life make up many of the lessons found
within this aspect of religious didacticism. Short lessons
in the 1812 reader The New—York Prece tor typify this pre—

occupation: "Swift as the arrow from the bow, our time doth

fly away. Make much of time" (30), as does the alphabet

83

couplet in an "easy-reader" the following year (1813): "Q
is a queen, all bespangled with gold; / But she'll die like
the rest; and be cover'd with mould" (The Wonderful Historv
of an Enchanted Castle 22).

The sureness of death-—and its untimely appearance—-
are dire attitudes found in the textbooks' didacticism.

Beauties of the New-England Primer, an updated and edited
selection of the Primer's more memorable passages
(published in 1814), offers the following sobering lesson
early in its pages:

I in the burying place may see
Graves shorter far than I;

From death's arrest no age is free,
Young children too may die.

My God, may such an awful sight,
Awakening be to me!

Oh! that by early grace I might
For death prepared be.

Our days begin with trouble here
Our life is but a span;

And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man.

Then sow the seed of grace while young,
That when thou com'st to die,

Thou may'st sing forth that triumph song,
"Death, where's thy victory?" (8)

Another text of 1814, The Instructive Alphabet, emphasizes
the passage of time, the sureness of death, and heaven as a
final reward. The alphabetized stanzas devoted to every-
day objects sound an insistent tone:
I The Inn
Inns are the weary travellers['] home,
While journeying on the road;

This world's too an inn for us,
While travelling to our God. (n. pag.)

 

84

This stanza is followed by prose information about inns,
and within a couple pages the primer's didactic tone again
takes up the theme of fleeting life and ultimate death:
M The Mower
Time cuts us down as on we pass,
As doeth the Mower cut the grass:
Though now we're young, and in our bloom
We're hast'ning daily to the tomb. (n. pag.)
The prose lesson that follows is especially direct in its

instructiveness:

Time is the universal Mower! with his scythe he
levels men and all their works, with the ground.
Young man! thou art now full of vivacity; youth
sparkling in thine eye, and health mantling on
thy cheek. . . . This will not always be the

case. (n. pag.)
Directness is again the tone of the religious sentiment
about death found in The American Spelling Book (1815) by
Noah Webster. The line "The time will come when we must
all be laid in the dust" (49) seems somewhat startling as
it is positioned just after lists of words for
pronunciation (easy words like arm, jar, and halt, ranging
to more advanced words like cimetar, contemplative, and
aggrandizement).

Later textbooks maintain a certain preoccupation with
didacticism dealing with the passage of time and death.
William Bolles's speller of 1827 illustrates: "The days
that are past, will return no more; / Those to come, may
not come to us; / The present time alone, we can call ours;
/ We must improve it as well as we can" (25). And late in

the decade, M'Cartv's American Primer (c. 1828) presents

 

85

the concept of death as coming full-circle to be
incorporated into the theme of God and His sovereignty:
All of us, my son, are to die.
If we do no ill, we go to joy.
Go not in the way of bad men.
The eye of God is on us all the day;
And he can see us in all we do. (14)

Although the erosion of the dominance of religious
education in beginning reading textbooks was occurring
during the years 1780 to 1830, the authors included scores
of examples of didacticism that illustrate the period's
overriding Protestant values and beliefs in their lessons
and exercises.

By today's standards, the religious commentary in the
textbooks appears parochial. In general, the sentences and
lessons devoted to instilling reverence and homage to God
seem stern and unbending; the inclusion of doctrinal and
biblical passages seems calculated to serve a variety of
Protestant purposes. The reading selections devoted to the
inevitability of death and the passing of time often strike
modern readers as quaintly intense.

Yet, the religious sentiment found in the early
reading textbooks evoked little of today's reactions when
the books were being used because readers of the period
expected that religious orientation. After all, reading
the Bible, according to Gilmore, "was the most common
reading experience in rural New England through 1835"
(257).5 The New England Primer, too, with its overt

religious orientation, was the standard for many years by

 

 

 

86

which reading instruction was compared. Virtually all the
pupils using the various reading textbooks would have come
from homes in which these practices and attitudes existed.

Thus, the lessons devoted to themes of God's
sovereignty, doctrine and church, Bible stories, and death
would not have seemed unusual in their overt religious
stance. Certainly these textbooks met with the approval of
parents and ministers because they promoted Christian
principle. And undoubtedly beginning readers aproached the
reading lessons already conditioned to expect and accept
spiritual admonition. The lessons provided young students
an opportunity to learn to read while fortifying their
minds with spiritual precepts.

But these lessons, for the most part, point to a more
socialized religious attitude. Interestingly, the Great
Awakening of religious fervor in eighteenth-century America
brought around a more republican engagement with religion.
Robinson says that "the great awakening under Whitfield and
Edwards [brought] a more democratic spirit into church
affairs" (13). The religiously didactic lessons in the
early reading textbooks, thus, prepare the way for a more
generalized social moralism that would eventually supplant

the religious teachings in America's primers, spellers, and

readers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

87

Notes

lRobinson offers data to indicate that 85 per cent of
the reading textbook content from the colonial period is
religious material.

2This religious instructiveness pervading the
textbooks' lessons can be classified under a variety of
sub-headings. However, because many of the religious
themes tend to overlap, it is often difficult to separate
the sub-classes. Therefore, this chapter discusses four
distinct types of religious didacticism as separate
entities, but it is important to note that often these sub-
classes of didacticism blend into one another, even within
individual lessons and exercises.

3This text was apparently first published in 1815 as
that date is found on the title page; however, publication
data found within the actual text I examined indicates it
to be an 1818 edition.

4Earle says Cotton Mather called the Shorter Catechism
"a 'little watering pot' to shed good lessons" (131). She
explains that Mather encouraged school teachers to use
sentences from the catechism as examples in their
handwriting drills and that he "advised mothers to
'continually drop something of the Catechism on their
children, as Honey from the Rock'" (131-32).

5Gilmore explains that families in New England
"shared a rich core of knowledge, based on the Bible. . .
At least three—quarters of all families with holdings of
printed matter retained a Bible--often referred to as a
sacred encyclopedia-—as the centerpiece of their library"
(258).

 

 

CHAPTER 4

SOCIAL DIDACTICISM

Good boys and good girls will do as they are bid.
They will love to read good books and to hear
good folks talk, but they must not talk too much
themselves.

--Johnson's Philadelphia
Primer (1821)

Spend your time well.
Live in peace.

Shun all strife.

Do good to all.

-—A Spelling Book (1827)

Social didacticism is by far the most pervasive form
to be found in the early reading texts of America. In a
society that believed "childhood was wholly preparation,
entirely a moral training ground for adult life" (MacLeod,
"Children's Literature" 20), reading lessons devoted to
social virtue found fertile ground in the early textbooks
and undoubtedly spring from the pervasive religious
didacticism explored in the previous chapter. In fact,
social didacticism typically grew up alongside the
textbooks' religious didacticism. Even before 1780, this
element of tandem content in didacticism was expected in

reading textbooks. A speller by Anthony Benezet, published

88

 

89

in 1779, indicates this to be so as it follows its "easy
lessons" devoted to God's sovereignty ("The eye of God is
on us, all the day . . .") with various directives to
improve the child's social bearing:

Wash thy face; then mind thy book,

Play with good boys; talk not so loud,

Hold up thy head; go to thy seat,

Come in at two; go home at four. (16)

The social didacticism found in the early reading
textbooks is dominated by one insistent preoccupation:
moral virtue exhibited through behavior and manners.
Society at large and reading textbook writers in particular
"believed that one of the most important functions of
education was to make children 'good'—-in other words, to
build character" (Smith 39). "The method which they
considered the most effective in promoting this aim,"
according to Smith, "was that of impressing on young minds
the ideals of virtue and moralism; hence, the readers were

eagerly seized upon as carriers of moralistic content"

(39).

Moral Virtue and Behavior
A preoccupation with social behavior is aptly
illustrated in Tom Thumb's Folio. for Little Giants, an
interesting departure from the numerous stuffy alphabet

texts derived from the New England Primer. This popular

book published in 1780 for beginning readers1 concludes

with a relatively up-beat, if not strained, verse:

 

 

90

On a pretty bay nag,

Here comes Tommy Tag,

Who ne'er knew deceit,

Nor wou'd lie nor wou'd cheat,

But was honest and good,

As all of you shou'd:

And listen'd and learn'd, when his friends did
advise,

And so became wealthy, and happy, and wise. (32)

The lesson inculcates in its learners that acceptable, or
proper, social behavior (in this case, honesty and a
willingness to listen to advice) results in a desirable
outcome.

Much of the commentary regarding moral Virtue takes
the form of negative example in the textbooks. By showing
what it is to be bad, the authors intended for their young
audience to strive for the opposite direction. The Child's
Instructor, published in 1793, devotes many lines of small
type to a "Description of a BAD BOY":

A Bad Boy is undutiful to his father and mother,
disobedient and stubborn to his master, and ill-
natured to all his play-fellows. He hates his
book, and takes no pleasure in improving himself
in any thing. He is sleepy and slothful in the
morning, too idle to clean himself, and too
wicked to say his prayers. (83)
The lesson continues to describe the boy's "mischief" and
then explains that the boy does not even consider stealing
to be a crime and ignores God's watching his actions (83).
The last paragraph of the lesson summarizes the boy's folly
and suggests the final outcome of his wrong-doing:
He will steal whatsoever comes in his way; and if
he is not catched, thinks it no crime, not con—
sidering that God sees whatsoever he does. . .
In short, he neglects every thing that he should

learn, and minds nothing but play or mischief, by
which means he becomes as he grows up, a

91

confirmed block—head, incapable of any thing but

wickedness or folly, despised by all men of sense

and virtue, and generally dies a beggar. (Ely

84)
This same text, however, does alter its heavy—handed
tactics and offers more positive didactic messages in the
form of short proverbs. A sampling from one page of
Chapter 30 follows:

Correction betimes prevents many crimes.

Diligence gains time.

Even a fool, if he hold his tongue, may be

thought wise.

Gentleness begets friends.

Knowledge is no burthen.

Keep sacred your promise.

Look before you leap.

Manners make the man. (68)
Such straightforward, brief statements illustrate many of
the textbooks' didactic directness. Following the alphabet
and lessons in vowels, syllables, words and sentences, the
1794 version of Tom Thumb's Folio states: "The first lesson
is to be Good" (23). Within two pages appears this poem:

The boy who counsel does despise,

And will not listen to the wise,

But stubbornly pursues his will,

May run his nose against a mill. (25)
On the remainder of the page follows a story about Wat
Wilful, "a very naughty boy" who, after being warned, gets
in the way of a mill and is thrown "with great violence
into the muddy pond" (25).

The antithesis to the wilful child featured above is

Billy, a model for young readers already introduced in the

previous chapter of this study. Along with exhibiting a

remarkable capacity for Christian piety, this boy who

 

92
appears in a 1796 revision of Tpe_New:Epglepd_Ppiwep also
functioned as an example of morally social virtue.
Throughout the book's first eight lessons, readers
discovered that Billy was good-natured, "obedient to his
parents and loving to his brothers and sisters," "tender-
hearted," and kind to animals. He "loved his book, and his
school," could "spell all the hard words in his lesson,"
had pity for poor children, and washed his face. Just
before the Primer's section of alphabet epigrams, young
readers found a kind of conclusion to the Billy lessons:
"Now, Billy, as you have said your lessons so well, you may
go and play; but do not be rude to your playfellows; nor
play with wicked boys" (n. pag.).

Early in America, children were "admonished to be good
in order to escape by the narrowest margin the eternal
pains of hell," according to Kiefer; however, during the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries "such
precepts . . . gave way to counsels cautioning the young to
be virtuous because such conduct made for a successful life
in this world" (14). The 1802 text The Child'eygpelling
Begk emphasizes the social necessity of good works and good
manners. In short verses the author's didactic intentions
come close to-—and, in fact, overlap-—the religious
didacticism so prevalent in the texts. In the first lesson
of the speller, young readers were instructed at once in
the bond between good behavior and religious affirmation:

The child who does what good he can,
Will gain the love of God and man.

93

Soon to bed, and soon to rise,
Will keep thee well, and make thee wise. (17)

And while the text includes many other lessons, they all do
not necessarily go to great pains to connect the religious
with the socially correct and, rather, concentrate on the
more immediately practical and, presumably, acceptable: "Do
not spit on the floor. / Spit in the corner" (56).
The story of Harriet Haughty, titled "The Cure of
Pride," in The American Primer (1803) illustrates what
certainly must have been overstated didacticism on the part
of the unnamed author:
Harriet Haughty had been bred up in high notions
by her parents, who fed her with the expectation
of a great fortune, but some accidents happening
to them, they found that the high notions they
had instilled into her young mind, had made her
much more lofty-minded than they themselves
intended. (29)

To save money, her parents decide to bring Harriet home i

from boarding school. But "she fretted, grew sullen, and

undutiful, and at last quitted them, intending in a silly

romantic manner, to seek her fortune" (29).
But she had not long wandered from her father's
house before she met with some strollers who
striped [sic] her of her clothes, and gave her
theirs in exchange. Distressed, lost and
famished, not knowing where she was, she applied
for assistance at the first farm house she came
to, where she told her story, to which the people
gave little credit, but allowed her victuals and
drink, on condition of serving them, and feeding
the hogs. (29)

Harriet, who now has repented of her ungrateful attitude,

spends her days in tears as she tends the farm animals.

But by coincidence her luck changes: .

 

 

 

94
Oh! with what joy, about a month after she had
entered on her place, did she see a cousin come
by the door, who knew her: She flew to him! he
acknowledged her, took her from the farmer's, now
she was sufficiently humbled, and conducted her
to her parents' house, where she intreated [sic]
forgiveness for her folly, and resolved to live
contented in her station. (30)
The story of Harriet--as exaggerated as it is--typifies they
tradition to include in the textbooks lengthy stories with
a socially didactic purpose. .. ~
Although not a textbook per se, An Elegv on the Death
and Burial of Cock Robin (1805), was a popular book used by
primary school children. It features a didactic selection

titled "The Farmer's Daughters,"2

which emphasizes, again,
the moral virtue of behavior and manners. It is the story
of two daughters: Fanny, the older, is pretty and vain;
Sally, the younger, had been pretty before small pox
spoiled her beauty. The book's descriptions of the two
girls set up the necessary contrast between sisters: Fanny
was "very affected, and proud of being . . . she loved none
but herself, was hard hearted to the poor, and unmannerly
to every one" (19) while Sally "was loved by all the
neighbours; for she endeavoured to oblige every body, and
frequently deprived herself of bread to give to the poor"
(20). The story progresses as a rich, young gentleman is
struck by Fanny's beauty. Fanny, of course, is pleased
with the prospect of becoming the gentleman's wife and
moving into London. Meanwhile, a poor woman needs money,

but Fanny rebuffs her request: "Go your way woman, one can

never be quiet for you beggars" (21). At that point,

 

 

 

 

 

95

 

Fanny's sister Sally gives the poor woman a shilling (all
she has). When the gentleman hears that Sally gave away
all the money she had saved, he says that he will give both
Fanny and Sally four guineas. Fanny eagerly accepts and
buys ribbon and lace; Sally declines but asks him to give
the money to the poor woman. It occurs to the gentleman
that Fanny's "behaviour was very forward and he observed
she was hard—hearted and selfish; but then she was so
handsome he could not help excusing her“ (23). His servant
notices Fanny's selfishness as well and suggests that if
he, the servant, were to dress as a duke, Fanny would
undoubtedly be attracted to him. The gentleman agrees to

the scheme; and when Fanny's behavior falls into line just

 

as the servant had predicted, the gentleman finds he is

 

more attracted to Sally.

Meanwhile Fanny, who was quite captivated with
the thoughts of becoming a duchess, was prevailed
upon, by the flattery of the newfangled duke, to
desire him to ask her father's consent before the
other gentleman came. She was much surprised on
there [sic] return to find her lover at her
father's; however, when he reproached her with
inconstancy she had the boldness to tell him that
she had never love[d] him, and, [in] a scornful
insulting manner, bid him take her sister to
comfort him. The gentleman thinking this good
advice, immediately offered his hand to Sally,
which she, in a very modest manner, accepted,
assuring him she esteemed him more for his virtue
than his riches. (25-26)

Then Fanny discovers the duke is a fake:

This disappointment threw Fanny into dispair
[sic] which lasted as long as she lived; and, as
she grew old her disposition was so disagreeable
that she was despised by every body; whereas
Sally lived in the greatest happiness with her

 

 

96

husband; was admired by all her acquaintances for
her good nature and affability. (26)

It is curious to note that the virtuous sister Sally is the
one who is not beautiful, suggesting the evils of pride and
a tension between moral rectitude and the inherent vanity
of beauty. This tension between physical beauty and pride
appears in another popular primer, The Silver Penny by J.
Horner (1806), in which the letter P provides a didactic
platform:
P PEACOCK p
How would the PEACOCK be admir'd
(Like fops) in various colours drest,
But that thro' every shade we find,
That pride which men of sense detest. (19)
This textbook also offers other examples of didacticism
devoted to social virtue, with an emphasis on correct
behavior. Horner appears to appeal to a social conscience
at the conclusion of a stanza representing the letter G:
G GOLD g
GOLD when to virtuous hands 'tis given,
It blesses like the dew of heaven:
Like heav'n then hear the orphan's cries,
And wipe the tears from widow's eyes. (11)
And appropriate social behavior--to make good use of time—-
is also emphasized in the following stanza by Horner:
T TIME t
Make much of TIME if you are wise,
As time it will for no man stay;
For you may lose it in a trice,
Then while the sun shines make you hay. (23)

A very subtle shade of instruction appears in The Post

Boy (c. 1807) as the understated sentiment of generosity is

 

 

 

 

97

sandwiched between prosaic sentences made up of single—
syllable words:

She went one day to see the camp.

He clad the poor and lame old man.

She put the fish in a red pan. (n. pag.)
This understated commentary is not consistent in The Post
Boy, however. Later in the text young readers encountered
a more direct tone in another single-syllable lesson: "If
we be led by bad boys, we may do ill. . . . It is bad for
a lad to say as bad boys say, or do as they do. . . . A
rod is for a bad boy, but a new book for a good boy, who
does as he is bid to do" (n. pag.).

The well worn theme of vanity in appearance surfaces

again in Pretty Poems. Song. Etc. (1808):

The butterfly, in gaudy dress,

The worthless coxcomb does express,

Who, not regarding, whence he rose,

Is proud of what?--of his fine cloaths" (23).
This text exhibits several examples of social didacticism
appealing to moral/Virtuous behavior. Just underneath an
illustration of a grotesque woman's face and torso, is the
title "The Scold" which is followed by a stanza admonishing
young readers to speak kindly:

Scylla is toothless, yet when she was young,

She had both teeth enough, and too much tongue;

What shall we then of toothless Scylla say,

But that her tongue has worn her teeth away."

(17)
And later on in the text, the author makes a call for
prudent youth:

See Master Heedless at his shadow run,
A strange career in life he has begun:

 

98

Be you more wise, and to advice attend,
For prudence is a never failing friend" (28).

Johnson's New Philadelphia Spelling-Book (1809)
provides a storehouse of maxims reminiscent of Benjamin
Franklin's sayings: "He that does a kindness to a good man,
does a greater to himself" and "In the morning, think what
thou hast to do; and at night ask thyself what thou hast
done" (45). The text, in fact, is connected with Franklin,
according to Rosenbach, in that it incorporates a story
authored originally by Franklin (152). The three—page
story is titled simply "The Whistle," and it relates a
lesson taken from Franklin's childhood:

When I was a child . . . my friends on a holiday
filled my little pockets with coppers. I went
directly to a shop where they sold toys for
children; and being charmed with the sound of a
Whistle, . . . I voluntarily offered, and gave
all my money for one.

I then came home, and went whistling all over
the house, much pleased with my whistle; but
disturbing all the family. (77)

When they discover what kind of "bargain" young Benjamin
has made, his brothers, sisters, and cousins explain to him
that he has paid too much money:

This put me in mind what good things I might have
bought with the rest of the money. And they
laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried
with vexation; and the reflection gave me more
chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.

This, however, was afterwards of use to me;
the impression continuing on my mind, so that
often when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary
thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for
the whistle. And so I saved my money. (77—78)

This part of the narrative is followed with several

examples taken from Franklin's later life. Franklin's

 

99
story then draws a parallel between these later experiences
and his youthful lesson in frugality: "When I grew up and
came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I
thought I met with many, very many who gave too much for
the whistle" (78). Thus, the textbook promotes morally
acceptable attitudes and behavior by supplying these
didactic examples of moral virtue based on Franklin's
observations. The text quotes Franklin:

When I saw one too ambitious of court favours,

sacrificing his time, in attendance at levees,
his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps

his friends to obtain it, I have said to
myself, This man gives too much for his
Whistle. . . .

If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine
furniture, fine houses, fine equipage, all above
his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and
ends his career in prison; alas! say I, he has
paid dear, very dear for his whistle.

In short, I conceived that great part of the
miseries of mankind were brought upon them by the
false estimates they had made of the value of
things, and by their giving too much for their
Whistles. (78—79)

Caleb Bingham's The American Preceptor of 1811, a
significant early—nineteenth—century reading text3 for
younger students emphasizes socially correct behavior.
This early reader begins with six pages of "Select

Sentences," a list of 43 extended maxims of virtue. The

twenty-third typifies this textbook's ideal of moral virtue
through behavior:

When thou dost good, do it because it is good;
not because men esteem it so. When thou avoidest
evil, flee from it because it is evil; not
because men speak against it. Be honest for the
love of honesty, and thou shalt be uniformly so.
He, who doth it without principle, is wavering.
(10)

 

 

100

Bingham follows these "Select Sentences“ with a variety of
more developed stories that serve as models of socially
moral behavior for young readers. In "The Test of
Goodness" he tells the story of three sons with an elderly
father who has a diamond to give to the son who performs
the best actions. One of the sons does not cheat a man in
a business transaction; another son saves a child's life;
another son pulls his enemy from a precipice. It is the
third son who wins his father's approval for his actions
and receives the diamond--because his behavior goes beyond
the expected actions arising out of justice and mercy
(137). In addition, many of Bingham's chapter titles, in
themselves, illustrate a variety of aspects of moral
behavior and attitude: "The Child Trained Up for the
Gallows," "On the Duty of School Boys," "The Art of
Pleasing,“ "On Profane Swearing," "The Triumph of Virtue."

In the few, unnumbered pages of the little primer A
Picture Book, for Little Children (c. 1812) various
directives for moral behavior are evident: "Children obey
your mother" and "Do not rob the poor farmer of his fruit"
(n. pag.), for example. This small text is notable in that
it is one of very few of the period to indicate an
awareness of minorities: "Do be kind to the poor black boy"
(n. pag.). A Picture Book, for Little Children is also
notably interesting because of the following, unexpected
and, again, didactic reversal. Where most of the

didacticism in the textbooks is directed at children's

 

 

lOl
behavior and manners, this one targets older people's
attitudes: "Old folks should never forget they were once
young" (n. pag.).

The tradition continues in the 1813 textbook Epe
American Primer. Direct imperatives make up the section
"Moral precepts proper for Children": "Speak the truth and
lie not" and "Live well, that you may die well" (17). This
imperative tone continues in a longer sequence on the next
page: "Love good boys, and play with none that swear, or
lie, or steal, or use ill words, or do ill things, for fear
you learn their ways, and be as bad as they" (18). The
forceful tone seems excessive, and one wonders how
effective these lessons could have been, directed at young
readers who must have chafed under such a demanding
attitude:

The sun is up, rise out of bed, pray to God, wash
your face, comb your hair, get your book, go to
school, take your seat, strive to learn, mind
your book, keep your seat, get your task, then go
home. The sun is set; wash your feet, go to bed,
pray to God. You nod as you sit; you sit too
low; you run all the day; you are a bad boy. (30)

In a reader intended for late primary pupils, Ipe
Columbian Reader, published in 1815 and modeled after the
popular texts by Bingham, the lesson titles alone indicate
the intense preoccupation with moral behavior:

"Disrespect to Parents in No Case Allowable"
"On Good Breeding"

"Honesty the Best Policy"

"The Excellency of Charity"

 

 

102

"Hospitality and Gratitude"

"Ill Effects of Bad Habits"

"In Praise of Virtue"

"On Modesty"
Deep within its contents is also found "An Address to Young
Persons," in which the unnamed author defends the serious
business of moral instruction:

I intend, in this address, to show you the

importance of beginning early to give serious

attention to your conduct. As soon as you are

capable of reflection, you must perceive that

there is a right and a wrong in human actions.

(63)
The author goes on to explain that, although a person may
be born with natural advantages of moral inclination, it is
through a person's conduct whereby virtuous success is
achieved or forfeited (63—64).

An 1815 edition of The American Spelling Book by Noah
Webster plainly lays out for young readers what is expected
by way of moral behavior through negative example: "He is a
fool that does not choose the best boys when he goes to
play; for bad boys will cheat, and lie, and swear, and
strive to make him as bad as themselves" (50). Then
immediately after the negative example, Webster uses the
imperative approach to achieving moral behavior: "Slight no
man, for you know not how soon you may stand in need of his
help" (50). Webster incorporates moral instruction into

virtually all the lessons in The American Spelling Book.

 

In a lesson whose subject is fruit, Webster cannot resist i

an opportunity to moralize:

 

103

William loves fruit. See him picking
strawberries—-bring him a basket--let him put the
berries in a basket--and carry them to his mamma
and sisters. Little boys should be kind and
generous-—they should always carry some fruit
home for their friends. (70)

The reading lesson then discusses cherries, pears, and
peaches, eventually picking up its pace of didacticism,
advocating socially virtuous attitudes of gratitude: "Such
are the bounties of nature, bestowed on man to please his
taste, preserve his health, and draw his grateful heart
towards the Author of his happiness" (70). Later in the
book, Webster offers an amusing and pleasantly worded
narrative of "The Country Maid and her Milk Pail":

When men suffer their imagination to amuse them,
with the prospect of distant and uncertain
improvements of their condition, they frequently
sustain real losses, by their inattention to
those affairs in which they are immediately
concerned. (85)

After Webster has introduced his theme, he launches into
his story, providing his young audience with a memorable
and enjoyable lesson:

A country Maid was walking very deliberately with
a pail of milk upon her head, when she fell into
the following train of reflections: The money for
which I shall sell this milk, will enable me to
increase my stock of eggs to three hundred.

These eggs, allowing for what may prove addle,
and what may be destroyed by vermin, will produce
at least two hundred and fifty chickens. The
chickens will be fit to carry to market about
Christmas, when poultry always bears a good
price; so that by May day I cannot fail of having
money enough to purchase a new gown. Green--let
me consider-—yes, green becomes my complexion
best, and green it shall be. In this dress I
will go to the fair, where all the young fellows
will strive to have me for a partner; but I shall
perhaps refuse every one of them, and with an air

104

of disdain toss from them. Transported with this

triumphant thought, she could not forbear acting

with her head what thus passed in her

imagination, when down came the pail of milk, and

with it all her imaginary happiness. (85-86)
Webster concludes The American Spelling Book with "A Moral
Catechism," in which he asks "WHAT is moral virtue?" His
supplied answer underscores the period's overriding concern
with moral behavior: "It is an honest upright conduct in
all our dealings with men" (156).

In contrast to the unflagging didacticism of Webster,

Anna Letitia Barbauld4 does not exhibit an overt moral
instructiveness. Lessons for Children, written by
Barbauld, relies mostly on short, easy-reading lessons:
"The sun shines. Open your eyes, little boy. Get up. /
Maid, come and dress Charles. / Go down stairs. Get your
breakfast. / Boil some milk for a poor little hungry boy"
(7). Typically, Barbauld's commentary is mild in
comparison with that of Bingham, Webster, and the other
writers. Her tone is slight: "Little boys must always come
when mamma calls them" (8) or "Good boys do not cry" (18).
But Lessons for Children (1818)5 tells the following
uncharacteristically didactic story about a naughty little
boy who wouldn't give a cold robin a crumb of bread.
Instead, the boy pulled the robin's tail and hurt it which
made it die. This same boy's parents soon went away and he
found that he could not take care of himself. So he asked
the neighbors for food, but nobody wanted to help him: "No,

we shall give you none, for we do not love cruel, naughty

 

105
boys" (46). The boy then gets lost in the woods, sits
down, and cries. Barbauld curtly sums up the story: "and I
believe the bears came and eat him up in the wood, for I
never heard any thing about him afterwards" (46).

Barbauld also includes the lesson of the school boys
who receive cakes from their mothers: One boy--Harry-—
devours his cake quickly before anyone can see that he has
received a treat and then turns sick. Peter, another
student who receives a cake, decides not to eat up his cake
at once and thus hoards it. The cake turns mouldy, dry,
and mice nibble at it. Billy, the third boy, shares his
cake with friends as well as with an old, poor, blind man.
"Billy was more glad than if he had eaten ten cakes. Pray
which do you love best? Do you love Harry, Peter, or Billy
best?" (82).

In contrast to the questioning tone of Barbauld, the
imperative is the mode for the social didacticism in
William Little's Reading Made Easy (1818). Again, the
tone is direct and unswerving as it serves to indoctrinate
young readers in acceptable social behavior and attitudes.
Yet these moral directives are found alongside other
sentences obviously written to appeal to children. Compare
the imperative sentences of Lesson 29 with those of Lesson
30:

Lesson 29
Be a good child. Love your book.

Speak the truth. Fear a lie.
Strive to learn. Read your task.

 

 

106

Pray to God. Do no harm.
Mind your book. Love your school.

Lesson 30

Sing a song. Run a race.

Spin the top. Beat the hoop.

Trot the horse. Fly the kite.

Play a tune. Toss the ball.

Wipe your face. Warm your hands. (23)

This text is particularly interesting in that its placement
of the sentences tends to compartmentalize moral virtue,
keeping it apart from other activities--flying kites,
tossing balls--that would undoubtedly have been more
appealing to young readers.

The 1818 edition of Lindley Murray's A First Book for
Children (first published in 1815) exemplifies selflessness
and charity for the unfortunate in a short narrative titled
"The Charitable Little Girl":

A little girl, about four years old, had a great

desire to taste a hot muffin. When she heard the

muffin man go by her mother's door, crying

"Muffins! Muffins! hot muffins! Ho!" she asked

her mother to give her a penny to buy one. (64)
After her mother gives her the money, she runs to the door
and buys a muffin. However, at the door the girl meets an
old woman who asks for a penny so she can get something to
eat. The little girl explains that she does not have any
money of her own, but that she will ask if her mother has a
penny to spare:

She ran up stairs, and soon came back, and said

to the poor woman, “My mother has no more pennies

to give me, But here is a muffin for you; and it

is hot too!"

The little girl never told anybody that she

had given away her muffin. And though she heard
the man call, muffins! two or three times that

 

107

night, she did not ask her mother again to buy
one for her. (64-65)

This pleasant story would undoubtedly have appealed to
children learning to read, as it provides an example of
social charity--interestingly, without the period's typical
heavy—handed morality driven home through examples of
children's suffering for their misdeeds.

Introduction to the English Reader (1823), a textbook
designated for beginning readers, is one title in Lindley
Murray's textbook sequence, and in it he strikes a familiar
didactic stance in his directives for social virtue: "Avoid
all harshness in behaviour: treat every one with that
courtesy which springs from a mild and gentle heart. Be
slow in forming intimate connexions: they may bring
dishonor and misery" (19). Murray later presents a poem
titled "To a Child Five Years Old" in which childhood and
moral behavior are floridly portrayed and sentimentalized:

1. Fairest flower, all flowers excelling,
Which in Milton's page we see:
Flowers of Eve's embower'd dwelling,
Are, my fair one, types of thee.
2. Mark, my Polly, how the roses
Emulate thy damask cheek;
How the bud its sweets discloses--
Buds thy op'ning bloom bespeak.
3. Lilies are by plain direction
Emblems of a double kind;
Emblems of thy fair complexion,
Emblems of thy fairer mind.
4. But, dear girl, both flowers and beauty
Blossom, fade, and die away:
Then pursue good sense and duty,
Evergreens, which ne'er decay. (140)
By including the poem (and others with similar sentiment),

Murray continues to reinforce the theme of moral obligation

 

 

108
and social behavior. Throughout many of his reading
selections and lessons, he keeps before his readers a sense
of virtuous attitude and, thus, vaguely suggests a socially
acceptable behavior:

The human heart ne'er knows a state of rest;
Bad leads to worse, and better tends to best.
Be humble; learn thyself to scan:

Know, pride was never made for man. (107)

A socially acceptable behavior is more than suggested
in Joshua Leavitt's Easy Lessons in Reading; this text from
1825 is overt in its teaching young readers what kind of
behavior and manners are expected from them. A poem "The
Good Child" appears early in this reader intended for early
primary school students as an ideal that stresses

acceptable conduct:

0, that it were my chief delight,
To do the things I ought!

Then let me try with all my might
To mind what I am taught.

Whenever I am told to go,
I'll cheerfully obey;

Nor will I mind it much, although
I leave a pretty play.

When I am bid, I'll freely bring
Whatever I have got;

Nor will I touch a pretty thing,
If mother tells me not.

When she permits me, I may tell,
About my pretty toys;

But if she's busy, or unwell,
I must not make a noise.

And when I learn my hymns to say,
And work, and read, and spell,

I will not think about my play,
But try and do it well.

For GOD looks down from heaven on high,
Our actions to behold,

And he is pleas'd, when children try
To do as they are told. (16-17)

 

 

r—_—,———

Lea‘
II SCI
tex
Bar
and
boa
II II
sz
wi
ab

bu

109

Leavitt also includes a variation on the well—worn
"schoolboys and their cakes" lesson that appears in various
texts of the period, notably those by Anna Letitia
Barbauld. His story is titled "Greedy Harry and His Cake,"
and it centers around young Harry who had done well at
boarding school and was rewarded by his mother with a cake:
"It was very large, and stuffed full of plumbs and
sweetmeats, orange and Citron; and it was iced all over
with sugar" (21). When the boy saw the cake, he "jumped
about for joy; and he could not stay for a knife to cut it,
but gnawed it, like a little dog" (21). He hid the cake in
his room, eating at it whenever he had a chance. "His bed
fellow said that he laid his cake under his pillow, and sat
up in the night to eat some" (21). Within a short time,
greedy Harry was taken ill. "So they sent for Dr.
Camomile, and he gave, I do not know how much, bitter
stuff. Poor Harry did not like it at all; but he was
forced to take it, or he would have died, you know" (22).
Two lessons later in the textbook, Leavitt supplies a
continuation of the schoolboys and cakes story titled
"Covetous Peter and His Cake," in which another student,
whom "the boys used to call . . . Peter Careful" (23),
received a cake from his parents:

Now Peter thought with himself, "I will not make

myself sick with this good cake, as silly Harry

did; I will keep it a great while.["] So he took

the cake and tugged it up stairs . . . and he

locked it up in his box, and, once a day he crept

slily up stairs and ate a very little piece, and
then looked his box again.

 

 

 

Withi
His (
exam]
shar
arou
save
the
fid
upc
III]

Bil

110

So he kept it several weeks . . . but, behold!
the mice got into his box and nibbled it. And
the cake grew dry and mouldy and at last was good
for nothing at all.

So he was obliged to throw it away; and it
grieved him to the very heart. But nobody was
sorry for him, because he had been so selfish and
stingy. (23)

Within two more lessons, the story of "Generous Billy and
His Cake" surfaces, to present the virtuous Billy as an
example of moral generosity and behavior. He readily
shared his cake from home with his schoolmates who "came
around him like a parcel of bees" (24), but he decided to
save the last piece for himself to eat the next day. As
the boys were out at play, an old, bearded and blind
fiddler with a little dog "came into the yard, and sat down
upon a stone and said, 'My pretty lads, if you please, I
will play you a tune'" (24). The boys gathered around him;
Billy, noticing that the old man is crying, asked why.
And the old man said, "I am very hungry. I have
nobody to give me any dinners, or suppers. I
have nothing in the world but this dog, and I
cannot work. If I could work, I would."

Then Billy went, without saying a word, and
fetched the rest of his cake, which he had laid
up for to-morrow, and he said, "Here, old man,
here is some cake for you." (25)

This segment of the narrative ends similarly to the earlier
Barbauld version: "Pray which do you like best? Do you
like Greedy Harry, or Covetous Peter, or Generous Billy
best?" (25).

Later, Leavitt's textbook features a three-page

dialogue in which a young boy and a Mr. L explore the topic

0f Contentment and further establish the theme of virtue

 

 

 

rewards
catChes

CORVBIE

Then

expl

abou

 

 

111
rewarded. After Mr. L's horse runs away and the young boy
catches it by the bridle, Mr. L initiates the following

conversation:

Thank you, my good lad! (said he) you have caught
my horse very cleverly. What shall I give you
for your trouble? (putting his hand into his
pocket.)

Boy. I want nothing, sir.

Mr. L. Don't you? so much the better for you.
Few men can say as much. But pray what were you
doing in the field?

B. I was rooting up weeds, and tending the
sheep that are feeding on the turnips, and
keeping the crows from the corn.

Mr. L. And do you like this employment?

B. Yes sir, very well, this fine weather.

Mr. L. But had you not rather play?

B. This is not hard work; it is almost as

good as play. (61)
Then Mr. L asks who has sent him out to work, and the boy
explains that his father has. Mr. L asks more questions

about the boy--his name and age:

B. Peter, sir . . . I shall be eight at
Michaelmas. . .

Mr. L. How long have you been out in this
field?

B. Ever since six in the morning, sir.

Mr. L. And are you not hungry?.

B. Yes sir, I shall go to my dinner soon.

Mr. L. If you had six-pence now, what would
you do with it? .

B. I don't know, I never had so much in my
life[.] .

Mr. L. Have you no play-things?

B. Play-things! what are they? (62)

When the man explains about balls, marbles, tops, and other
toys, the boy responds that he is content with what he
has--a hoop, stilts, traps for birds. The man asks:

And do you want nothing else?
B. No. I have hardly time for those; for I

always ride the horses to the field, and bring up
the cows, and run to the town on errands, and

that is as good as play, you know.

 

 

 

To 1:
abou
that

home

112

' Mr. L. Well, but you could buy apples or
ginger-bread at the town, I suppose, if you had
money.

. B. O--I can get apples at home; and as for
ginger-bread, I don't mind it much, for my mammy
gives me a piece of pie, now and then, and that
is as good.

Mr. L. Would you not like a knife to cut
sticks?

B. I have one--here it is--brother Tom gave
it me. (62)

To light on a suitable reward for his good deed, Mr. L asks
about other needs the boy might have. The boy explains
that his shoes are adequate and that he has a good hat at

home for Sunday.

Mr. L. What do you do when you are hungry
before it is time to go home?

B. I sometimes eat a raw turnip.

Mr. L. But if there are none?

B. Then I do as well as I can; I work on and
never think of it.

Mr. L. Are you not dry sometimes, this hot
weather?

B. Yes, but there is water enough.

Mr. L. Why, my little fellow, you are quite a
philosopher!

B. Sir.

Mr. L. I say you are a philosopher, but I am
sure you do not know what that means.

B. No sir-~no harm I hope.

Mr. L. No, no! Well, my boy, you seem to
want nothing at all, so I shall not give you
money to make you want any thing. But were you
ever at school?

B. No sir, but daddy says I shall go after
harvest.

Mr. L. You will want books then.

B. Yes sir, the boys have all a spelling-
book, and a testament, and Easy Lessons.

Mr. L. Well then, I will give you them--tell
your daddy so, and that it is because I thought
you a very good, contented boy. So now go to
your sheep again.

B. I will sir. Thank you. (63)

The didactic intentions in this lesson certainly stress the

theme of virtuous action rewarded, and Leavitt as well

 

 

 

 

 

pursue
accep‘
note

in_3§
schoc

cond:

lear
ear]

impe

OtI
"T(
we
me

CC

113
pursues the theme of being content with what you have as
acceptable social attitude. But it is also interesting to
note the inclusion of the textbook's own title Easy Lessons
in Reading (generic as it is) in Peter's list of necessary
school texts as perhaps a primitive form of subliminal
conditioning.

Sheer repetition seems to be the mode for moral
learning in A Spelling Book by William Bolles (1827). The
early lessons take the direct approach by offering
imperative sentences made up of one-syllable words:

Be a good child.
Mind your book.

Love your school;
And try to learn. (16)

 

Other directives in the lesson include "Strive to do good,"

 

"Tell no tales; / Call no ill names," and "Spend your time
well" (16). Many of these imperative directives' didactic
messages are then repeated later in the textbook, but
couched in a more approachable tone. The didactic style of
the sentences in "A Short Description of a Good Boy" is not
subtle, but it is neither insistent. Rather, the
instructive element conveyed to the reader is simply

declarative:

A good boy will do as he is bid; he will mind his
book, and try to learn.

He will always mind his parents, and love his
brother, and sisters.

A good boy will always learn his lesson before
he goes to play.

He chooses the best boys when he goes to play,
for he will not go with bad boys.

When he goes to bed he will pray to God, and
do the same when he gets up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tone
expe
boil
kind
boy

(28'

in
qee
abi
Wi

at

114
When he gets up he will wash his hands and
face clean, and comb his hair.
If he has done wrong, he will own it, and take
care to do so no more.
He will not play in the dirt, but keep clean
and neat.
If he has any thing which his brothers or
sisters have not, he will give them a part.
A good boy will do to others, as he would have
others do to him. (27—28)
Tone and style aside, the didacticism of the sentences is
expected, even, and reasonable. Essentially, moral virtue
boils down to behavior; yet the base (for the most part) is
kindness to others--as seen in the last sentence: "A good
boy will do to others, as he would have others do to him"
(28) O
Kindness is again the theme of the social didacticism
in the 1827 reader Story of William and Ellen. This text
geared for primary to intermediate readers includes a story
about a bad boy named John Newman who would frighten young
William and Ellen by hiding and making threatening noises—-
after telling them stories of "wolves, bears and
apparitions" (4). Soon the two young children hear various
sounds (once just a cat caught in a gate, but that William
thought was one of John's creatures). After hearing
various frightening sounds, William and Ellen start to
run--and in doing so, drop a china doll, break a pitcher of
milk, sustain cuts on their hands, and eventually trample
flower beds. Later John hides himself within the curb of
an old well and makes "the most most frightful noises he

could invent. The stone on which he stood being loose,

slipped, and down he fell with the stone to the bottom of

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the r
frigl
John
with
cone:
reco

his

app:
("PI
in t
of 5
did:
the:
the
pre
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Dr

to

 

—_—:: 1‘; ______ _‘

115

the well" (11). And, although Ellen runs from the scene in
fright, stumbles, and bruises her hand, it is the tormenter
John Newman who suffers more. He is taken from the well
with a fractured skull and a broken leg. The story
concludes with a moral example as John, during his
recovery, reflects "upon the wickedness and impropriety of
his past conduct" and apologizes to William and Ellen (11).

Although the overt directives, or rules, for
appropriate behavior discussed earlier in this chapter
("Pray to God, wash your face, comb your hair") were common
in the reading textbooks, various authors pursue the method
of supplying examples of good behavior as a means of social
didacticism. MacLeod explains that "nineteenth-century

theorists of child nurture were tireless in pointing out

 

that children learned much better by example than by
precept" ("Children's Literature" 16). Thus, she
maintains, "early nineteenth-century authors were equally
tireless in their efforts to provide the examples which
would edify the young" ("Children's Literature" 16).
Another reader, Good Examples for Children (1828)--as
its title suggests--establishes expectations of acceptable
social behavior and manners in the minds of young readers
by presenting narratives in which a moral lesson is
obvious. But the anonymous author of this text seems to
understand the reading needs of children as he or she
presents concisely written stories of children who learn

moral lessons from everyday encounters. Good Examples for

 

 

 

 

Childr
is ill
qualit
a litt
mirrOJ
the 5'

littl

 

ball:

Once

brea

Thi
Che
be

th

 

116
Children contains six moral, two-to—three-page stories and
is illustrated with original cuts of excellent technical
quality. On a page partly taken up with an illustration of
a little boy with a paddle and a ball standing next to a
mirror leaned backwards against a wall, young readers found
the story of "The Boy and the Looking Glass," in which a
little boy whose parents had left him alone decided to play
ball:

Before he began to play, he had turned the back
of the looking—glass towards him, for fear he
should break the glass.--It would have been
better, if he had gone out of doors to play at
ball. As he was not a careless boy, I wonder he
was not afraid of breaking the windows as well as
the looking-glass; but I suppose he did not think
of that.

Whilst he was playing, and, perhaps not
thinking at all about the looking-glass, his ball
struck the wooden back, and broke the glass.

When he saw the mischief he had done, he was very
sorry; and, I believe, he was afraid his father
and mother would be displeased with him. (6-7)

 

 

Once his parents come back home, the boy confesses to
breaking the mirror and says how sorry he is.

His father looked kindly at him, and said, "I
would rather that all the looking-glasses in my
house, should be broken, than that one of my
children should tell an untruth."

The little boy hearing his father say this,
and seeing that he was not angry, felt comforted;
though I suppose, he wished very much that he had
not broken the looking-glass. After that time
when he met with an accident, he confessed it;
and would not on any account, tell an untruth.

(7)
This story is remarkable in that it accepts the main
character's behavior as a normal child, not belaboring the
boy's playing with the bat and ball inside the house and

then breaking the mirror. Rather, the author emphasizes

 

 

 

 

the b0)
In this
the ch:
handed
to alw
come f
the fa
crafte
1

end of

stylis

Noah I

Using

in vi:

Stole

and i

 

 

117
the boy's admitting to the accident and telling the truth.
In this example, young readers who undoubtedly relate to
the character's situation are not "scolded" by a heavy-
handed didactic tone but, rather, are admonished positively
to always tell the truth. Not only does this encouragement
come from the boy's good example, but it is underscored by
the father's gentle and kind acceptance in this subtly
crafted narrative.

The moral didacticism in one more textbook from the
end of the 18205 is memorable primarily because of its
stylistic effect. In The Elementarv Spelling Book (1829)
Noah Webster concludes with several fable-like stories.
Using this stylistic format, he instructs his young readers
in virtuous behavior and attitudes. In "Of the Boy that
Stole Apples" Webster relates a tale of willful contempt
and its consequence set in the familiar orchard:

An old man found a rude boy upon one of his trees
stealing apples, and desired him to come down;
but the young sauce-box told him plainly he would
not. Won't you? said the old man, then I will
fetch you down; so he pulled up some turf or
grass and threw at him; but this only made the
youngster laugh, to think the old man should
pretend to beat him down from the tree with grass
only.

Well, well, said the old man, if neither words
nor grass will do, I must try what virtue there
is in stones: so the old man pelted him heartily
with stones, which soon made the young chap
hasten down from the tree and beg the old man's

pardon.

MORAL

If good words and gentle means will not
reclaim the wicked, they must be dealt with in a
more severe manner. (140-141)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the d
the I
the e
exces
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this
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118

Moral Virtue and Excessive Behavior
Undoubtedly, social decorum in behavior and manner is
the dominant strain of the social didacticism present in
the reading textbooks from 1780 to 1830. In fact, much of
the social didacticism illustrates the ill effects of
excessive behavior. Typically, these didactic lessons
focus on excesses like eating and drinking, eventually
serving to promote the fledgling temperance movement.
Early on, lessons devoted to moderation in all things
surface in the social didacticism. An early example of
this is the 1794 primer Easy Lessons for Young Children in
which vivid lessons that emphasize excessive behavior--like
over-eating and crying--are interspersed with lessons
stressing neatness, frugality, industriousness, and
kindness. The consequences of excess in one's behavior
were sure to have made an impression on beginning readers.
For example, one lesson, made up of only one-syllable
words, discusses a girl who ignores her aunt's advice and
eats too many sweets: "Miss Page did not chuse to mind what
her aunt said . . . and [her teeth] grew quite black" (24).
The textbook author explains the consequences of her
behavior:
Miss Page would have been glad if they had dropt
out, for she had a tooth ache, which is a sad
pain; and could not eat in the day, or sleep by
night, but would lie in bed and cry, "0 that I
had not eat sweet things to spoil my teeth!"
(25)

The story explains that the girl had to have her teeth

pulled and that "she mumpt and mumpt with her bare gums

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

like a
a que:
exces

would

the e
lust;
"Tom
aggru
pois
the
the
clai
glut
him
Ten)
his
any
tha
con
the
grc
rei
th:
th
he

Ar

 

119

like an old woman" (26). The reading lesson concludes with
a question designed to require reflection on the girl's
excessive behavior: "Who that had sense and good teeth
would eat sweet things to be like Miss Page?" (27).

Excessive behavior, or intemperance, is the theme of
the social didacticism in Moral Stories. Written for the
Instruction of Young Minds in 1806. The didactic tone of
"Tom Tipler, or The vices of intemperance" begins
aggressively: "Intemperance in eating or drinking is the
poison of human life. It is not only a direct inlet to all
the diseases of the body, but to all the vices that degrade
the character of man" (24-25). As illustration of these
claims, the lesson introduces Tom Tipler, "who became a
glutton and a rum-drinker when but a very boy, which gained
him the sir-name of Tipler--His natural name was Tom
Temperance" (25). This once-promising child was coddled by
his parents--"blind to a fault" (25)--and was given
anything he wanted. He grew "peevish and dainty . . . so
that at the age of seven years, Tom’s appetite may be
considered never to have known true relish" (25-26). By
the time Tom was in his teens, he "was permitted to visit
grog-shops with his companions, to stay late at night, and
returning home, become riotous in the streets" (26). At
this point in the lesson, the author intrudes, establishing
the lesson's overt authority: "Reason and prudence are
never more out of office, than when the body is filled with

ardent spirits. Thus it is truly said, When wine is in,

 

my.

 

 

 

 

 

 

wit is
his dr
pears
they i:
start:
to es:
shook
(28) .

man)

Soor
he I
don
the
cor

OVI

up:

120
vit is out" (27). The story resumes, telling how Tom and
his drunk friends on their way home one night steal some
pears from a tree. After eating all the pears they want,
they begin to throw them at windows, when a large dog
starts to chase them. Just as Tom was going over a fence
to escape, "the dog laid hold of his leg, and gripped and
shook so severely, that he tore the flesh to the bone"
(28). The dog's owner (apparently a kind and forgiving
man) comes to Tom's rescue and summons a surgeon,
who, on examining the wounds, pronounced them
very dangerous; as the flesh of his leg was not
only much torn but the sinews injured. It being
then about the first of September, the weather
was very hot; and in three days signs of
mortification appeared. (30)
Soon the surgeon declares that in order to save Tom's life,
he must amputate the injured leg: "This accordingly was
done, to the distraction of his overfond parents, and to
the making a cripple through life of their son" (31). The
consequences of excessive behavior are undoubtedly
overstated: nevertheless, the lesson's social didacticism
upholds the virtue of temperance:
_Let all boys, therefore, who would live sober,
temperate and honest [lives], avoid the evil
habits of Tom Tippler; who, heated with strong
liquor, and with unprincipled dispositions, in
the very flower of life, was made an awful
example of his folly and wickedness. (31)
Compared to the didacticism of the "Tom Tipler"
lesson, the instructive quality of The New-York Preceptor

(1812) is reserved. The didactic sentiment is restrained

in reference to temperance: "Grapes grow on a vine. From

 

 

 

 

 

them, wi
In this
a concer
descrip1
picture
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time an
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early 1
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becaus

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More
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Shou

MQan

fOCt

121
them, wine is made, which should be used sparingly" (62).
In this text the issue of smoking tobacco also surfaces as
a concern of the fledgling temperance movement. In a
descriptive alphabet, the letter P is illustrated with a
picture of a pipe and the following paragraph: "Smoking the
pipe and segar is a kind of amusement that destroys much
time and property; and injures the health of many" (67).
Temperance is also at issue in the alphabet featured

in The Wonderful History of an Enchanted Castle (1813), an
early reader in which a couple of young boys read an
descriptive alphabet written in gold letters on the castle
wall. Among the lessons presented to them, three stand out
because of the their focus on the virtues of temperance:

D is a drunkard both ugly and black,

And such are all those who follow his track.

(16)

G is a glutton who eats till he's sick,

But the doctor and death will soon play him a

trick. (17)
V is a vine, which revives every heart,
But the juice, if ill-used, will soon make you
smart. (24)

Undoubtedly, the didactic intention of the "V is a vine"
couplet is lost if readers interpret the word smart to mean
more intelligent; the intended denotation of smart would be
sting. Likewise, the word black in the first couplet
should not be read as to suggest race; rather, the intended
meaning would suggest that the drunkard deserves dishonor.

Excessive behavior in the form of gluttony is the

focus of one lesson in Story of William and Ellen, a primer

 

 

 

 

 

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and d
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freqt
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fathc
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122

published in 1827. Again, the consequences of not heeding
an older person's advice are dire, yet the didacticism
rests on a tenuous connection between excessive behavior
and drastic result. The lesson describes how Emma, who
"never paid attention to what was said to her, and would
frequently act in opposition to the commands of her
parents" (14), eats a large amount of fruit from her
father's garden "until she could scarcely move" (15). When
she sees an especially nice peach, however, "she hastily
plucked it; but just as she had put it into her mouth, she
was stung in the most dreadful manner, by a bee that had
settled unperceived by her on the other side" (15-16). As
far as the didactic stance goes, the bee sting is a
convenient reward for Emma's excessive behavior; yet the

connection between the two has little substance.

Moral Virtue and The Family

Although a family setting or situation is not an
unusual element in much of the didacticism, lessons which
directly focus on family relationships are not overabundant
and do not appear in the textbooks I researched until after
1800. Prior to that date, didacticism emphasizing the
family was typically couched in religious terms. The
Reprobate's Reward, a chapbook from 1798 that undoubtedly
was used for beginning reading instruction, direly
illustrates the child's divine mandate to honor his or her

parents:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The to
well a
flmrm
MacLe«
for a
neces

be ta

subs:
are '
:g;_
illt

"The

 

Just as the holy scriptures doth say,

He that his parents dear doth disobey,

A prey shall be to every bird that flies,

The ravens likewise shall pick out his eyes (8).

The tone of the lesson and its evocation of scripture--as
well as the young "reprobate's reward"—-were sure to
impress upon the young reader the importance of obedience.
MacLeod states: "Obedience was the most fundamental virtue
for a child to acquire. . . . because it provided the
necessary framework within which all other morality could
J
jbe taught" ("Children's Literature" 20).
1 Within the paradigm of social didacticism are the
\
subsequent moral lessons of family unity and support. They
are the themes of the first lesson in The Book of Books,
for Children, an easy-reader from 1801. The unnamed author
illustrates the lesson, then offers a concluding moral in
"The Father and the Son":
A Father who had several Sons that were always
quarrelling among themselves, took this method to
reconcile them.

He brought a bundle of rods firmly tied
together, and desired them to break them: they
all tried but were not able; he then untied the
bundles, and gave each a single rod, which they
easily snap[ped] in two.

Behold! (says the father) the power of unity!
while you keep together, none shall be able to
hurt you, but when you fall to variances, you
become an easy prey to every enemy.

MORAL
When difference arise among those, who should
live together in love and friendship, they bring
upon themselves their own ruin. (2-4)

Another easy-reader promotes family harmony. One

illustration in Little Prattle over a Book of Prints (1808)

 

 

portray

girls.

m

the 1

In t
read

dome

124

%portrays two older girls sketching portraits of two littler

Lgirls. The following text explains:

* Here is a charming picture! Sophia and Caroline
drawing their little sisters, Lucy and Charlotte,
in a chaise.

‘ How kind and affectionate are the elder girls,
i and how pretty and cheerful the little ones

\ appear.

2 When they reached home, Caroline being

\ fatigued, asked Charlotte to take her bonnet up

; stairs and put it in the band box; which small

‘ request the little girl refused. But at night,

, when she recollected her sister's kindness in

i drawing her in the chaise, and her own ill-

‘ nature, she could not sleep. Quitting her bed,
she went gently over to that of Caroline, and
kissing her, said, Dear sister, forgive me. I
never will be cross to you again. The delighted
Caroline returned her kisses with eagerness.

(n- Pag~)

Johnson's New Philadelphia Spelling-Book (1809) looks to
the natural world for another model of domestic harmony:
Birds in their little nests agree;
And 'tis a shameful sight,
When children of one family
Fall out, and chide, and fight. (19)
In both the above examples of social didacticism, young
readers were certain to be impressed with the ideal of
domestic harmony.

The dire consequences of parental disrespect and
family disquiet are again presented in 1815 in Noah
Webster's The Americanfi§p§llinq Book. As in the earlier
The Reprobate's Reward of 1798, Webster's book literally
Spells out, in simple syllables, the outcome of dishonoring

one's parents: "The eye that mock-eth at his fath-er, and

scorn-eth to o—bey his moth-er, the ra-vens of the val—ley

 

 

 

 

shall pic
(65).
J05]
L§§§91Ei_
lessons
lessons
fable-1i
not to l
foolish
care of

falls p

wolf's

AS in
farmya
The fc
feudi,
hardly
other
all b
may
Parag
and s

125
shall pick it out, and the young ea-gles shall eat it"
(65) .

Joshua Leavitt's text for younger readers, Easy
Lessons in Reading (1825), contains good examples of
lessons promoting family accord that grow out of object
lessons from nature. For example, "The Silly Lamb" is a
fable-like story of a lamb who ignores her mother's advice
not to wander away from the fold. "She thought, as many
foolish children think, that she was big enough to take
care of herself" (15). As might be expected, the lamb
falls prey to a wolf and is carried off and eaten by the
wolf's cubs. The lesson concludes with the expected moral:

Little Children should always mind what their
parents say to them, and remember that those who
are older, know better than they do, what 15 good
for them. Children who do what their parents
forbid them, or what they tell them they had

better not do, very often get hurt by having
their own way. (16)

As in "The Silly Lamb," Leavitt draws on the familiar
farmyard for a moral endorsement of domestic tranquillity.
The fourth chapter of the text6 is a fable about two
feuding chickens from the same hen's brood: "They were
hardly out of the shell, before they began to peck at each
other; and as they grew bigger, they fought till they were
all bloody. If one picked up a barley corn, the other

always wanted it" (17). Clearly overstated, the concluding

Paragraph deals with the issue of family harmony: "Brothers
and sisters who quarrel, are always unhappy, and often

doing each other harm instead of good; and those who

 

 

 

 

indulge i
be sure t
(18).

The
period p1
married I
rarely f
seldom a
the inte
particip
relative
context
centuriw
life is
However
textboc

mi

inelude

Socia]
didacj
early

1eSso:

  
 

126

indulge in malice and revenge, and other evil passions, may
be sure to bring trouble upon themselves as well as others"
(18).

The idea of family harmony in the reading texts of the
period presupposes a positive attitude to marriage and
married life. Yet, surprisingly, examples of didacticism
rarely feature the idea of marriage. Perhaps marriage is
seldom an issue found in early reading textbooks because of
the intended audience's personal distance from
participation in the subject; perhaps it is due to the
relative stability of the institution within the social
context of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. At any rate, the idea--or ideal--of married
life is rarely an issue promoted per se in the didacticism.
However, it does find its way into at least one of the
textbooks included in this study, in the form of verse.
Pretty Poems, Song, Etc., an easy-reader published in 1808,
includes the following stanza, titled "The Happy Pair":
Thrice happy is the marry'd life.

As sages gravely say,

With mutual aid when man and wife
Agree to draw one way" (15).

Moral Virtue and the Community

I found few examples of didacticism that illustrate a
social awareness beyond the scope of the family. Social
didacticism rarely explores the concept of community in the
early reading textbooks. Although many of the didactic

lessons are set in a community context, the focus is not on

 

 

 

civil dyn
town or a
setting.
respons '11
The larg'
textbook
sentimen
social c
brief 53
nations
“All me
sentime
/ a mar
COUplet
unfortn
the ha]
conclu

didact

 

 

127
civil dynamics. Rather, the community--usually a small
town or a farming community--acts solely as a physical
setting. In this sense, the concept of social
responsibility within a community is addressed--but subtly.
The larger idea of community, however, does surface in one
textbook that addresses the issue of equality. The
sentiment in The Instructive Alphabet (1814) asserts a
social conscience at the end of the text in a grouping of
brief slogans and verse: "He hath made of one blood all
nations of / them that dwell on the face of the earth" and
"All men are born FREE and EQUAL" (n. pag.). The equality
sentiment is further pursued with the short verse "Am I not
/ a man, and a / brother!" (n. pag.) which is followed by a
couplet that points to society's responsibility to the
unfortunate: "Ah! pity human misery! human woe / 'Tis what
the happy to th' unhappy owe" (n. pag.). The primer

concludes with "The Negro's Complaint," an example of

 

didactic verse that opposes slavery:

Forc'd from home and all its pleasures,
Afric's coast I left forlorn;

To increase a stranger's treasures,
O'er the raging billows borne.

Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold,

But, though theirs they have have enroll'd me,
Minds are never to be sold. (n. pag.)

Didacticism dedicated to the downtrodden appears in
later textbooks in the occasional reference to poor people
and one's responsibility to them. An example of this type
0f social didacticism is the line in Johnson's Philadelphia

Brine; of 1821: "When thou givest to the poor, let not thy

 

 

 

 

 

 

left 11:
relati'
with p
indust
didact
textbc
perio«
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text
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on
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re

128

left hand know what thy right doeth" (24). Perhaps the
relative vacuum of didactic empathy for those afflicted
with poverty stems from the era's attitudes about
industriousness and thrift, as illustrated in the social
didacticism of the reading textbooks. As background to the
textbooks' scant discussion of poverty, Elson explains the
period's attitude: "To remain in poverty in America is a
moral wrong and indicates a lack of virtue in the

individual" (253).

Wtriwsnm

Thus, the well established Puritan values of industry
and thrift are represented in many of the early reading
textbooks through a variety of lessons. These lessons on
industriousness seem to grow out of a religious attitude or
commitment: "The Christian duty of employing time to the
best advantage was one of the first moral lessons taught
the children . . ." (Kiefer 97).

In The American Preceptor (1811) Caleb Bingham draws
on nature7 to illustrate the virtue of industry: "The Bee
is a noble pattern of industry and prudence" (31). Once he
has established the connection between the bee and
industriousness, Bingham draws a parallel for his young

readers' edification:

Like the industrious insect . . . we should learn
to make every occurrence of life serviceable to
us; for nothing is so small or minute but it may
be made of use; nothing so bad in nature, but we
may draw from it some profit or instruction.

(32)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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morali
evil,
hopes
I
often
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129

 

Bingham then takes his reader back to a religious base by
moralizing: "Thus, by choosing the good, and avoiding the
evil, we may purchase to ourselves peace here, and the
hopes of a brighter reward hereafter" (32).

Didacticism dealing with industry-—the use of time-—
often overlaps with the didacticism concerned with the
transcience of life, already discussed in Chapter 3. Thp
New-York Preceptor (1812) blends the two concerns subtly:

i"Swift as the arrow from the bow, our time doth fly away.
Make much of time" (30). A few pages later, the textbook
1writer more directly states his lesson on industry: "To
drive the plough, is a wholesome, innocent, and useful
employment" (52).

The Americanygpelling Book by Noah Webster (1815)
provides many examples of social didacticism emphasizing
industry and thrift. In a lesson on "Words not exceeding
three syllables, divided," beginning readers learned that
"I-dle-ness will bring thee to pov-er-ty; but by in-dus—try
and pru-dence thou shalt be fill—ed with bread" (64). The
religious connotations of industry are echoed in Webster's
"Select sentences": "We may as well expect that God will
make us rich without industry, as that he will make us good
and happy, without our own endeavors" (97). Webster's
thoughts on thrift are apparent in "Domestic Economy; or,
the History of Thrifty and Unthrifty" in which he compares
two farmers, one named Thrifty and the other named

Unthrifty (151-154).

 

 

 

 

 

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addresses
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Murray's primer A First Book for Children (1818)
addresses the idea of industriousness after several pages
of alphabets, consonants, vowels, and one-word lists. The
first instance of didactic tone in this textbook is
presented simply in one—syllable words: "I will make the
best use of my time" (30). Murray's later textbook
Introduction to the English Reader (1823), which was
‘intended for primary students not yet ready to read from
The English Reader, offers a lengthy story titled
"Ingenuity and Industry rewarded" in which a wealthy farmer
gives his two sons--Edmund and Moses-~two apple trees to
take care of: "'They will thrive as much by your care, as
they will decline by your negligence; and their fruit will
reward you in proportion to your labour'" (29). The

younger son Edmund, explains Murray, was industrious: "He

busied himself in clearing his tree of insects . . . and he
propped up its stem. . . . He loosened the earth about
it. . . . His mother had not tended him more carefully in

his infancy, than he tended his young apple-tree" (29).
His brother, on the other hand, was not industrious:

He spent a great deal of time . . . throwing
stones at the passengers in the road. He went
among all the little dirty country boys in the
neighbourhood, to box with them; so that he was
often seen with broken shins and black eyes. .

In short, he neglected his tree. . . . till
one day in autumn, he, by chance, saw Edmund's
tree so full of apples streaked with purple and
gold. . . . (29)

Moses then expects to find his own tree loaded with fruit,

but is disappointed: "He saw scarcely any thing, except

 

 

branch:

leaves

The f
compa
tree,
then
“Mosr
wisd

brot

In-

131
branches covered with moss, and a few yellow withered
leaves" (30).
Full of passion and jealousy, he ran to his
father, and said; "Father, what sort of a tree is
that which you have given me? It is as dry as a
broomstick; and I shall not have ten apples on
it. My brother you have used better: bid him at
least share his apples with me."

"Share with you!" said his father; "so the
industrious must lose his labour, to feed the
idle! Be satisfied with your lot: it is the
effect of your negligence. . . . (30)

The father then explains to Moses why his tree does not

compare to Edmund's. He tells him that he may have another

tree, but that he must listen to his brother's advice and

then follow it "to make amends for your fault" (30).

"Moses felt the justice of his father's sentence, and the

wisdom of his design" (30) and paid attention to his

brother's instruction:
He applied cheerfully to work: and, in autumn, he
had the pleasure of seeing his tree fully answer
his hopes. Thus he had the double advantage, of
enriching himself with a splendid crop of fruit;
and, at the same time, of subduing the Violous
habits he had contracted. (30)

In this example, not only is virtue rewarded, but the

lesson of industry as acceptable virtue is extolled.

"Lazy Lawrence" is a dialogue from Leavitt's Eggy
L§§§QQ§_12_B§§QLQQ (1825) in which lazy Lawrence and
industrious Jem debate working for money vs. asking their
Parents for money. Lawrence starts the conversation: "See
What I got from father to—day, because I asked him just at
the right time, when he was good-natured; then, I can get

any thing out of him that I want" (78). The outcome of the

 

 

 

 

 

lesson
“Lawre
and wt
think

and t<
overS'
refer

COHSG

The

illt
behz
stat

alw

In
db
30

Ilh

132
lesson belabors the virtues of industry and thrift:
"Lawrence soon spent his money for apples and gingerbread,
and when those were all gone, he had nothing to do but to
think of Jem's four and seven-pence [which Jem had earned],
and to wish he was as rich" (80). Yet the lesson finally
overstates the notion of those virtues as religious tenets,
refering to the Ten Commandments and warning of extreme
consequences:
From breaking the tenth commandment, by coveting
what was his neighbour's, this idle boy at length
became so wicked as to break the eighth, and
steal Jem's hard earned treasure, for which he
was tried and sent to prison; a warning, both to
parents and children, that Idleness is the root
of much evil. (80)
The chapter following "Lazy Lawrence" is a didactic poem
illustrating the effects of haste, an aspect of social
behavior not unrelated to industry and thrift. In eleven
stanzas of "Nimble Dick," Leavitt portrays a character
always in a hurry:
He'd never wait; was always late,
Because he was so quick. _
This shatter-brain did thus obtain
The name of Nimble Dick" (80).
In the course of the poem this character foolheartedly
drenches his clothes with water, scalds his mouth with hot
soup, and finally sets out to run a race, showing how
"haste makes waste":
All in despatch, Dick made a match,
To run a race with Blll.
"My boy," said he, "I'll win you'll see,
"I'll best you, that I will!"
With merry heart, now off they start,

Like ponies, full in speed,
Soon Bill he pass'd, for very fast

 

 

m
up th

indus

 

The
a F3
been
nos
(92
foc
81!
0f
en

Pd

 

133

This Dicky ran indeed.

But hurry all, Dick got a fall,
And whilst he sprawling lay,

Bill reach'd the post, and Dicky lost,
And Billy won the day.

MORAL.

Still show and sure, success secure;
And be not over-quick:

For method’s sake, a warning take,
From hasty Nimble Dick. (81)

Along the same lines, idleness is under attack in A

spelling book by Bolles (1827). The virtues of work make
up the theme of a poem titled "Idleness," and, again,
industry is portrayed closely akin to religious piety:

You, who never needed to labour for bread,
And indolent always have been:

Does it never so much as come into your head,
That, wasting your time is a sin?

For man was created for useful employ,
From earth's first creation till now.

And 'tis good for his health, his comfort, and

joy ,
To live by the sweat of his brow. (91)
The poem is followed by a section titled "Summer morning in

a Flower Garden," in which the writer describes the

beautiful scents and sights, asking, "And is not this a
most engaging inducement to forsake the bed of sloth?"
(92). Idleness, the theme of the preceding verses, is the
focus then: "Who would lie dissolved in sensless [sic]

Slumbers, while so many breathing sweets invite to a feast

Of fragrancy?" (92). Just under an octogonally framed

engraving of a man at work in a formal garden, a succ1nct

Paragraph, emphasizing the social virtue of industry,

answers this question: "See the gardner! how diligently he

works; how pleasant his task" (92).

 

 

 

Th
the soc
relied
indust:
1830 o

one's

indol
mess:
educ
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1110

at

 

134
The bee is again featured as a model of industry in
the social didacticism of the textbooks. Just as Bingham
relied on the bee to illustrate the virtue of
industriousness in 1811, A Pleasing Toy, for Girl or Boy of
1830 offers the insect as an example of moral commitment to
one's social environment:
BEES.
The Bees, industrious, swarm around the hive,
And for support most diligently strive:

So let us labour in the state we're plac'd,
Because by indolence we are disgrac'd. (11)

Moral virtue and Literacy

The last line of the preceding poem-~"Because by
indolence we are disgrac'd"--could very well apply to the
message promoted in the social didacticism dealing with
education. Throughout the textbooks, a strong current of
didacticism stresses the need for students to try hard in
school, to learn to read, and to achieve success through
literacy. Although a strong emphasis on formal learning
stems in part from a deep-rooted Puritan attitude, I place
my discussion of it in this chapter devoted to social
didacticism (rather than the previous chapter on religious
instructiveness) because I believe it conforms more closely
to the general expectations of social attitude and behavior
in the reading textbooks of 1780-1830.

Davidson explains that literacy was equated with
morality in early America: "Literacy is not simply the

ability to decode letters upon a page, the ability to sign

 

 

 

 

 

a name
(53).

reader
burgeo
litera
For e)
sets a
chaptu

anony

From
equ;
sucl
of
for
Kir
acc
(1!
is

re

 

135
a name instead of making a mark. Literacy is a value"
(58). Many of the textbooks endeavor to induce young
readers to value literacy and thus attend to their
burgeoning ability to read. As Davidson points out,
literacy is "a test of the moral fiber of a nation" (58).
For example, in 1780, Tom Thumb's Folio, For little Giants
sets an attitude for acceptance of literacy. In the
chapter "How Tom became a greater Man than his Mother," the
lanonymous author states:
Before we attempt to prove [how Tom became a
greater man than his mother], we must enquire
what makes a great man. Is it a great head? No.
Is it a long arm? No. Is it a big body? No.
Is it a large leg? No. But I'll tell you what
it is: It is a wise head and good heart that
constitutes a great man. It is wisdom and
virtue, and they only, which can make us great
and happy. (3)
From the very beginning of this text, readers are led to
equate greatness with wisdom and learning. The "folio" as
such begins on page 19, and it sets the stage for the idea
of literacy: "In composing the History of Tom Thumb, we
forgot to recite one circumstance, which gave the giant
King and all his court a great inclination to become
acquainted with letters, modern learning and religion"
(19). Thus, literacy-~or learning to read--becomes the
focal point of the anticipated plot. At this point, young
readers are undoubtedly ready to pursue the story, which
explains how Tom Thumb taught a court philosopher, "who

never knew the use of letters" (19), how to read and how in

turn the philOSOpher taught the giant to read. The story

 

 

 

 

is fol]
instrut
and nut
(22) w
vowels
The 16

title<

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the
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136

is followed by "Learned Lessons, composed for the
instruction of the great giant in the Kingdom of Cuckows,
and may be read by all the little giants upon the earth"
(22) which instruct in capital letters, little letters,
vowels, and syllables, later covering words and sentences.
The lesson eventually culminates with a didactic verse
titled "Tom Thumb teaching the Alphabet":
He who ne'er learns his A, B, C,
For ever will a Blockhead be;
But he who to his Books inclin'd,
Will soon a Golden Treasure find. (26)

The paradigm is not so elaborate in subsequent
textbook examples of didacticism regarding literacy and
learning. However, the positive attitude about schoolwork
is nevertheless pursued throughout the didacticism.

That positive approach to learning is established by a
negative example in Easy Lessons for Young Children in
1794. One of the lessons tells about Miss Eliza Blisset, a
girl who "did not love her Book, and thought it quite a
Hard-ship to be asked to read e-ven a di-vert-ing Stor-y"
(91). When Eliza's mother takes her to Sunday School where
the children are all reading very well and saying their
catechism, one little girl wants to read to Eliza, who is
older, but needs help on some of the longer words. Eliza
is chagrined to be of no help since she herself has not
learned to read any better: "She did not know how to di-
vide e-ven a Word of three Syl-la-bles, and in attempting

to teach the Child, made her read Non-sense. On this Mrs.

Blis-set mild-1y said, 'Leave off teaching, E—li—za, I must

 

 

 

 

 

find a
another
pleads
textboc
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readin
where
‘l
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acqui
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1806

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to j

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[5'

 

137

find a Teacher for you'" (96). Then the mother asks
another little girl to teach Eliza. Embarrassed, Eliza
pleads with her mother to go home. The next lesson in the
textbook is a continuation of Eliza's story: She has
decided to learn to read, and in a month's time she is
reading "ve-ry well in-deed" and goes back to Sunday School
where she is a success at reading aloud (98-101).

The author of Wisdom in Miniature (1805) takes a
straightforward approach and explains that gaining an
education is serious business: "Knowledge will not be
acquired without pains and application . . ." (6). The
didactic focus is on the moral applications of learning:
"There is nothing good or evil, but virtue or vice; so that
knowlege is of all things the most precious, which guides
us in the paths of truth, piety, and righteousness" (6).

"Lessons in Verse" in The Franklin Family Primer of
1806 by Willard indicates the period's predominant
pedagogical theory that maintained spelling was the avenue
to reading:

Salute every person as to school you do go,
When at school, to your master due reverence
And ifs;::;can't read, pray endeavor to spell,
For by frequently spelling you'll learn to
read well. (24)
That pedagogical alliance between spelling and reading is

also the message in the following didactic lesson from The

American Primer of 1813: "If you do not take pains to

 

Spell, you will not know how to read, but will be a great

dunce" (28). That misguided pedagogical notion is

 

 

 

 

parallei
develop]
1815.
learn h
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intentf
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138

parallelled by another misinformed notion about children's
development in Webster's The American Spelling Book of
1815. One short lesson claims that "a wise child loves to
learn his book, but the fool would choose to play with
toys" (51). Following that lesson, Webster pursues a well-
intentioned, but possibly elitist, attitude about reading:
"If you want to be good, wise and strong, read with care
such books as have been made by wise and good men; think of
what you read in your spare hours . . ." (51). He goes on
to add: "Be brisk at play, but do not swear; and waste not
too much of your time in bed" (51).

In the same text, Webster provides a negative example
of why a child should appreciate school and learning in
"The Boy that went to the Wood to look for Birds' Nests,
when he should have gone to School" (100). The lesson
tells how Jack decided he would rather spend the day
robbing eggs from bird nests than go to school. Jack found
a nest at the top of a tree, took the eggs, and on his way
down the tree caught his shirt on a branch: "At this time
he would have been glad to be at school; for the bird in a
rage at the loss of her eggs, flew at him and was like to
pick out his eyes"KL100). A kind man helped Jack get down,
"and from that time forth [Jack] would not loiter from
school; but grew a good boy and a wise young man; and had
the praise and good will of all that knew him" (100). The
connection between Jack's actions and his eventual high

regard for school seems tenuous; nevertheless, the story

 

 

 

   

leaves
school
enrage¢
I
consci
Lindle
(1818)
sente1
quest
“Sit
my bc
(39).
to k!
begit
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Mur
tec
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Ti

 

139
leaves the young reader with the impression that being in
school is somehow more desirable than being attacked by
enraged birds.

Introducing his young readers to a "literate
consciousness" is the underlying objective of much of
Lindley Murray's didacticism in A First Book for Children
(1818). Sprinkled throughout the reading exercise
sentences are short imperatives, declarations, and
questions that keep the idea of literacy before the reader:
*"Sit down. Read to me" (34); "I love to learn. Where is
my book?" (36); "I know how to read. I wish I could write"
(39). These brief sentences act as near-subliminal prompts
to keep a positive attitude toward reading before the
beginning reader. Murray's lessons further underscore
social attitudes and expectations of literacy.
"Promiscuous Reading Lessons" points to acceptable social
values regarding reading:

Come to me, Charles. Come and read.

Here is a new book.

Take care not to tear it.

Good boys do not spoil their books. (49)
Murray continues with sentences devoted to reading
technique--"Stand still. Do not read so fast. Mind the
stops" (50)—-and then takes pains to further establish a
positive literate consciousness in his readers by
incorporating a basic recognition of objects of literacy
with his didacticism:

Charles has read a whole page now.

This is a page. This is a leaf.
A page is one side of a leaf.

 

 

 

This meth
learning
textbooks
read orai
textbook
(1821) s
(18). I
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140

Shut the book. Put it by.
Now give me a kiss. (50)

This method of keeping a positive idea of reading and
learning before the young students surfaces in several
textbooks. For example, after brief instruction on how to
read orally (the dominant approach to reading in the
textbooks) the author of Johnson's Philadelphia Primer
(1821) states: "It is a pleasant thing to learn to read"
(18). As noted, throughout the textbooks an obvious

attempt to inculcate positive attitudes about literacy and

 

learning exists in the didacticism. Although many of the
textbooks may stress learning theories that by current
standard seem misinformed, the attempts to portray reading
and learning as positive moral virtues solidly place these
lessons in the tradition of using didacticism to promote
acceptable social values.

Social didacticism in all its various manifestations
was an outgrowth of the religious didactics that pervaded
primary-level reading textbooks in America before (and to a
certain extent, during and after) the Revolutionary War
period. As the holds of sectarian education loosened in
America following the Revolution, social dictates--
essentially an overt preoccupation with moral behavior--
assumed a prominent place in the tradition of didacticism
in reading textbooks.

Through directives, narrative examples, and verse,
authors incorporated a broad emphasis of socially

acceptable teaching into their textbooks. But this general

 

 

 

didacti
focused
specif i
Republ:
arose,
indust
admoni
in the
const:
socia'

theme

141
didacticism of social virtue was often punctuated by more
focused and defined elements of moralism that more
specifically addressed social concerns of the early
Republic. Issues of family life and community obligation
arose, as did other issues rooted in Puritan thought like
industry and thrift. Interestingly, morally charged
admonishments to pursue literacy and learning also surface
in the didacticism. These more pointed social concerns
constitute an undercurrent for the larger category of
social didacticism and underscore the firmly established

theme of moral virtue as typified in social behavior.

 

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142
Notes

1This book would not have typically been used as a
traditional textbook as it was prepared for a more popular
market. Nevertheless, I include it in this study (as well
as its subsequent 1794 edition later on in this chapter)
because it undoubtedly was used as an aid to reading
instruction (but probably on a casual basis) and it shows
that the didactic approach pervaded the popular reading
fare for children.

2Rosenbach explains that the story of "The Farmer's
Daughters" is also found in other works: The Sugar Plumb
and The Wisdom of Crop the Conjurer. However, the story is
titled "The Farmer and His Two Daughters," and the
daughters' names in those works are Betsey and Laura (123).

3Nietz explains that Bingham's two readers Egg
American Preceptor and The Columbian Orator were popular
because they satisfied the time period's two main goals of
teaching reading: "the teaching of morals, and of elocution
or speaking" (65).

4Barbauld, the popular writer of children's textbooks
in England, was often published in America between 1780 and
1830. Although the social context of her reading books is
English, she was read widely by school children in the
United States and is therefore included in this study of
the tradition of didacticism in early reading textbooks.

5This edition of Lessons for Children is a later
printing of Barbauld's popular textbook, which was first
printed in America in 1788 by B. F. Bache, Benjamin
Franklin's grandson (Rosenbach 56). The text of 1818
includes many of the earlier Barbauld lessons, such as the
story of the three schoolmates and their cakes. I examined
several earlier Barbauld texts printed in America, all
forerunners to the 1818 edition used in this dissertation:
Lessons for Children, from two to four years old.
(Philadelphia: B. F. Bache, 1788); Lessons for Children of
Four Years Old. Part II. (Philadelphia: B. F. Bache,
1788); Lessons for Children from four to five years old.
(Philadelphia: B. F. Bache, 1788); Lessons for Children
from four to five years old. (Wilmington, Del.: P.
Brynberg, 1801); and Lessons for Children, Part II. From
four to five years old. (Wilmington, Del.: James Wilson,
1803).

Interestingly, Mrs. Barbauld's reading textbooks in
their own time were not exempt from negative criticism.
Agnes Repplier, in a late-nineteenth-century Atlantic

\Monthly discusses the criticism: "Even Mrs. Barbauld's
highly correct and righteous little volumes are not quite
right in [her critics'] eyes" (509). Repplier reveals the
critics' concerns:

 

 

 

 

 

61
entitl:
“The S
Barbau
that t
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direct
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143

Evil lurks behind the phrase "Charles wants his
dinner," which would seem to imply that Charles
must have whatever he desires; while to say
flippantly, "The sun has gone to bed," is to
incur the awful odium of telling a child a
deliberate untruth. (509)

   
  

6Both this lesson in Leavitt's Easy Lessons in Reading
entitled "The Two Cocks--A Fable" and the preceding lesson,
"The Silly Lamb," appeared in earlier texts by Anna Letitia
Barbauld (1801, 1803) but without the fable-like format in
that the animals do not speak to each other. Neither story
in Barbauld's Lessons for Children texts concludes with
direct application to family harmony, nor does either end
with a stated moral.

7Elson explains that nineteenth-century thought
incorporates a "moral character" into the universe and
later discusses the textbook authors' use of the natural
world within the context of didacticism: "All nature as
well as man is invested with morality; animal and plant
life both follow moral law. In schoolbooks, when ants
store up food they do so as an act of moral responsibility
rather than as instinctual behavior" (338).

 

 

 

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CHAPTER 5

NATIONALISTIC DIDACTICISM

Washington was not a selfish man. He labored for
the good of his country, more than for himself.

--Noah Webster. The

Elementary Spelling Book
(1829)

The moral education served by the religious and social
didacticism found its strongest and most practical appeal
in its application to the young citizens of the United
States of America. Beginning reading students were the
(perfect target of didactic commentary devoted to fostering
a moral climate in the new nation, and American textbook
authors took great pains to indoctrinate them in an
acceptable concept of American citizenship and patriotism.
"The sentiment of patriotism, love of country, vies with
the love of God as the cornerstone of virtue,” Elson
explains (282). Because "permanent support of democratic
institutions lay in public virtue" and because that virtue
"depended upon the character of private citizens," MacLeod
maintains, ". . . only the firm establishment of exemplary
character in the rising generation could secure the future
of the republic" ("Children's" 15). Therefore, textbook

authors relied on the tradition of didacticism to promote a

144

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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145

 

nationalistic spirit in their young audience, keeping in
mind the biblical mandate "to train up a child in the way
he should go."

Most of the literature that is devoted to early
reading textbooks in America stresses the emphasis on
nationalism and patriotism that occurred during the post-
Revolutionary period (Robinson; Applebee; Elson; Venezky;
Smith; Earle; Kiefer). Didactic lessons promoting
nationalistic attitudes stand out in comparison with the
general moralistic examples of social and religious virtue
in the textbooks--probably because the content is so
pointed and obvious. Yet, while this focus is apparent in
the primers, spellers, and readers, my research turned up
relatively few examples. In saying that, I do not mean to
imply that the researchers noted above are wrong. Their
work accurately reflects the upsurge in nationalistic
commentary in the textbooks, but the research suggests (for
the most part) that the nationalism completely took over
the textbook lessons when, in fact, nationalistic comment
is added to the existing lessons and, in some cases,

partially supplanting the religious commentary.

An American Perspective

The very fact that the didactic lessons' settings
began to shift from England to America indicates a subtle
nationalistic mood in the textbooks. Many of the readers

and primers were American printings or American revisions

 

 

 

 

of Engl
the Eng
trend 1
with a
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146
of English texts, and, therefore, the books often retained
the English locale of the original lessons. However, the
trend in the American textbooks-~especially those published
with a mind to promoting nationhood--was to set their
stories and reading exercises in a familiar American
environment. The primer Eggy_Lp§§pp§_fp§_Xgppg_thlgpep
from 1794 provides an example in a lesson that introduces
two- and three-syllable words: "I shall take you to Phi-la-
del-phi-a, Wil-li-am, said Mr. Chand-ler to his son . . ."
(58). The reading exercise continues as the two travel to
Philadelphia and visit the city library, the museum, and a
Market Street meeting house. By the end of the lesson the
Chandlers have gone to the "Con-gress-hall [to see] the
Pre-si-dent de-li—ver an ad—dress to both hou—ses of con—
gress a-midst ma-ny fine gen-tle-men" (61). The setting of
this lesson is significant in that it represents a
utilization of American locale to promote a geographical
awareness in young readers. It is also significant in that
the lesson discusses American government in passing, thus
acquainting readers with certain institutions and thereby
establishing them as the norm.

Webster, also, incorporates specifically American
concerns in a lesson designed to acquaint young readers
with American monetary standards, thus further establishing
a specifically American outlook. Webster sets up a near-
catechism format in The American Spelling Book of 1815,

POSing a question, then answering it:

 

 

 

Although
constitut
nationali
the peri<
against ‘
on Ameri
system c
shilling
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England
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A
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America
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money .
Webste
99°qra
this 1
(Mgr:
Ratio;
namin

“Vent

 

 

147

WILLIAM, tell me how many mills make a cent?

Ten.--How many cents a dime? Ten.--Tell me the

other coins of the United STates. Ten dimes make

a dollar, ten dollars an eagle, which is a gold

coin, and the largest which is coined in the

United States. (69)
Although the preceding example from Webster does not
constitute didacticism as such, it does illustrate the
nationalistic perspective apparent in many of the texts of
the period. This perspective often plays the American
against the British. Several pages following the dialogue
on American currency, Webster discusses the U.S. dollar
system over the old values of English currency--the pound,
shilling, and penny--explaining that their values differ
from state to state: "English money is called Sterling--One
dollar is four shillings and Sixpence sterling—-in New
England and Virginia, it is six shillings--in New York and
North Carolina, it is eight shillings . . ." (113).

A preference for American over British constitutes a
subtle nationalism, as Webster points to a coming change in
America's monetary system: "But these differences give
great trouble, and will soon be laid aside as useless,--all
money will be reckoned in dollars and cents" (114).
Webster's spellers typically present quite a bit of
geography, with an emphasis on American place names. In
this text he keeps before the young reader American
geographical coinages that have grown in use along with the
nation. The nationalistic attitude is maintained in lists

naming peOple coming from various states. For example,

"Vermonters" come from the state of Vermont, and

 

 

 

 

 

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"Bostonians" come from Boston (120). Again, these uses of
Americanisms do not constitute didacticism, but their use
does maintain the nationalistic intentions in the textbooks

that didacticism further established.

American vs. English

Much of the nationalistic didacticism represents an
overt reaction to the English monarchy that of course grew
out of the American Revolution. Rosenbach charts the shift
in thinking about the monarchy as it appears in the Egg
England Primer, illustrating how editions of the Primer
published in America before the Declaration of Independence
presented a benign attitude about the king. He explains
that the couplet illustrating the letter K earlier read:
"Our king the good / No man of Blood" (41). By 1780,
however, a revised edition of the Primer had altered the K
couplet, indicating a subtle ideological defiance: "The
king should be good / No man of blood" (The New-England
Primer. For the more easy attaining the true Reading of
English n. pag.). A 1782 edition of The New-England Primer
removes the definite article the before king, softening its
Specific criticism of George III and directing it at
monarchy in general by pluralizing king: "Kings should be
gOOd / Not men of blood" (n. pag.).

While the choice of words in these couplets varies the
effect, the intent still is evident. But word choice was a
concern for the textbook writers as they prepared their

lessons after the American Revolution. In The A. B. C.

 

 

 

 

The
in '
tex
and
in

ati

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17

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149

with the Church of England Catechism (1785) the author
recognizes the need for different wording in a catechism to
be used with American students. On the verso of the title
page, under an alphabet and syllabarium, the text's author
explains: "The Blanks left in Page 6, were formerly filled
with the Words King, and him; but as that Form of
Expression does not suit our Republican Governments, the
Teacher will be pleased to fill up the Blanks with what
Words he may deem Expedient." Upon turning to page 6,
readers found the following lesson from the catechism:

Q. What is thy Duty towards thy Neighbour?

A. My Duty towards my Neighbor, is to love

him as myself, and to do to all Men as I would

they should do unto me; to love, honour, and

succour my Father and Mother; to honour and

obey the , and all that are put in

authority under ;" (6)
The choice of words to determine a more nationalistic tone
in the New England Primer continued to be a factor in the
text's publication history throughout the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, since the Primer was often still
in use throughout America. The dominating nationalistic
attitudes found in it, therefore, are relevant to this

study of the tradition of didacticism. And, again, the

Primer's illustration of the letter K in an edition from

 

1796 shows the overriding preoccupation with American
nationalism-—in reaction against England: "The British King

/ Lost States Thirteen" (The New-England Primer; much

AEEEQYQQ n. pag.).

 

 

 

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150
An American Superiority

The nationalistic didacticism found in the reading
textbooks does not all necessarily oppose just England;
however, Britain is the only nation singled out by name.
More often than not, America's qualities of democracy and
freedom are showcased in contrast to European nations in
general. Elson explains that the textbooks, in part,
shaped American attitudes about other nations:

] The majority of voters in the United States met
[in the textbooks] their first and only formal
presentation of most other nations, and they
memorized what they read. From such estimates of
national character and behavior they probably
formed latent opinions easily called into
consciousness by current international events.
(103)

At the heart of much of this kind of nationalistic

didacticism is a sense of superiority in being American. A

certain intolerance for other nations and peoples is often

evident, as in Little Prattle over a Book of Prints (1808).

In this reader geared for early-to-intermediate students,

an obvious anti-foreign attitude surfaces in the lesson

titled "The Hungry Dog," which is illustrated with a

picture of a man raising a stick to a dog that has tipped

over a pot on an outdoor fire. The text that follows calls

Upon the man not to beat the dog because it is just hungry,

digressing then to inculcate a prejudiced and ethnocentric

attitude:

I should think this man is a gipsy. These people
travel about in large companies, and dress their
food in the open air, as you see in this print.
They are accused of stealing poultry, and taking
linen which is left on the hedges to dry.

 

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1804 or
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151

How much better it would be, if these gipsies
would settle, and work for their living, instead
of wandering from place to place, telling
fortunes, which is only a pretence for stealing.
(n. pag.)

Rosenbach explains that the textbook in which the above
lesson appears was a copy of a London edition printed in
1804 originally (145). However, because the lesson does
appear in the later reader published in Philadelphia in
1808, it would undoubtedly have been perceived as being
acceptably American. As a result, its ethnocentricity and
anti-foreign bias would have become enmeshed with the
overriding nationalism that appeared in so many of the
early American reading textbooks written for beginning
readers from 1780 to 1830.

"Columbia," a poem in Bingham's 1811 primary-level
reader The American Preceptor, showcases American virtues
in contrast to European traits. The second stanza of the
poem addresses the young nation:

To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire, .
Whelm nations in blood and wrap Cities in fire,
Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend,
And triumph pursue them, and glory attend.

A world is thy realm: for a world be thy laws, .
Enlarg'd as thine empire, and just as thy cause,
On freedom's broad basis thy empire shall rise,

Extend with the main, and dissolve with the
skies. (43)

Patriotic Orations

Patriotic speeches served the nationalistic goals of

the textbook authors well. In 1787 Webster stated:
erly addresses of Congress,
ment of the late

h noble sentiments of

"Several of those mast
written at the commence
Revolution, contain suc

 

 

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152

liberty and patriotism, that I cannot help
wishing to transfuse them into the breasts of the
rising generation. . . ." (quoted in Robinson
21)
Although these speeches do not seem suited to the reading
levels of beginning students, in An American Selection of

Lessons in Reading and Speaking (1804) Webster includes
"ORATION, delivered at Boston, March 5, 1774, by the
honorable JOHN HANCOCK, Esq. in commemoration of the
evening of the Fifth of March 1770; when a number of the
citizens were killed by a party of the British troops,
quartered among them in the time of peace," a lengthy
speech that reminds young Americans of the Revolutionary
War and calls them to an appreciation of their recently won

independence:

Patriotism is ever united with humanity and
compassion. This noble affection, which impels
us to sacrifice every thing dear, even life
itself, to our country, involves in it a common
sympathy and tenderness for every citizen, and
must ever have a particular feeling for one who
suffers in a public cause. (144)

Bingham includes several patriotic speeches in The American
Preceptor (1811). "Extract from the Oration of Thomas
Dawes, Esq. Delivered at Boston, July 4, 1787" promotes an
American education to foster a stronger nation:

. . . in a government where the people fill all
the branches of the sovereignty, intelligence is
the life of liberty. An American would resent
his being denied the use of his musket; but he
would deprive himself of a stronger safeguard, if
he should want that learning which is necessary
to a knowledge of his constitution. . . . (107)

 

 

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153

A clear call to patriotism is the theme of "Extract from
Mr. John Q. Adam's Oration, Delivered at Boston, July 4,
1793":

. . . should the voice of our country's calamity

ever call us to her relief, we swear by the

precious memory of the sages who toiled, and of

the heroes who bled in her defence, that we will

prove ourselves not unworthy of the prize which

they so dearly purchased; that we will act as the

faithful disciples of those who so magnanimously

taught us the instructive lesson of republican

virtue. (145)

American Lives of Virtue
Perhaps the most obvious form of nationalistic
didacticism found in the textbooks (other than the anti—
British attitudes of the New England Primer revisions) is
the material that relies on the lives, actions, and
reputations of famous figures from American history. Elson
describes the early textbooks' portrayal of such American
notables: "America's prominent, great, or heroic men always
radiate an inner virtue not to be found in the great men of
other countries" (187). As Elson suggests, the textbook
authors romanticized the figures' lives; in this romantic
portrayal, however, they establish these figures as models
of moral virtue, thus promoting an attitude of national
glory in the minds of their young readers.
Christopher Columbus finds a place in the early

reading textbooks as an example of moral virtue, thus a
hero to promote American nationalism. Chapter 21 of

Webster's An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and

Speaking (1804) is titled "HISTORY of COLUMBUS"; it

 

 

 

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154
establishes Columbus as a figure worthy of young readers'
attention: "Every circumstance relating to the discovery
and settlement of America, is an interesting object of
inquiry" (77). Bingham's "Account of Columbus" in Ihg
American Preceptor (1811) holds up the explorer as a model

of virtue:

In the life of this remarkable man, there was no
deficiency of any quality, which can constitute a
great character. He was grave, though courteous
in his deportment, circumspect in his words and
actions, irreproachable in his morals, and
examplary in all the duties of religion. (43)

In the case of The Franklin Primer, published in 1802,
the American statesman's name in the title purportedly
lends an aura that recommends the book's nationalistic
virtue. The primer's introduction, as well, typifies the
attitude the textbook writers held about using prominent
American figures to inculcate nationalistic values:

The compiler has introduced the BUST of Doct.
FRANKLIN for a frontispiece--a man whose manner
of life from his youth up, is worthy [of] the
most minute observation, and imitation of the
rising generation. (vii)

"The Whistle," a didactic story related by Franklin,
has already been discussed in the chapter on social
didacticism. But its inclusion in Johnson's New
Philadelphia Spelling-Book (1809) is significant in that
it derives some of its attraction and effect from
Franklin's reputation, thus establishing a certain brand of

nationalistic authority and endorsement in its didactic

intentionsl. As soon as the reading lesson begins-~"When

 

 

 

 

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155
I was a child at seven years old, says Dr. Franklin, my
friends on a holiday filled my little pockets with coppers"
(77)--readers were aware that this lesson was not just
another story, but a story coming from a great American,
and they would be wise to pay attention. So, although the
story's moral in itself did not give rise to any sort of
nationalistic sentiment, its author's name and reputation
color the moral in shades of national virtue.

Although Columbus and Franklin were often used to
further nationalistic objectives in the reading textbooks,
they did not enjoy the pOpularity accorded to George
Washington in the school books. A late—eighteenth-century
edition of the New England Primer (1796) features a
portrait titled "G. WASHINGTON" opposite the title page.
Under the wood-cut is the following caption: "Love
righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth: think of the
Lord with a good heart, and in simplicity of heart seek
him" (n. pag.). Obviously, the caption is more religious
in nature than nationalistic; however, it is startling in
its juxtaposition to the portrait, offering a near-sanctity
to Washington. Later editions of the New Enqland Primer
incorporate Washington into their illustrated alphabets.
Where the letter W in 1762 had been illustrated with the
epigram "Whales in The Sea, / God's Voice obey," in Primers
published in 1800 (and later in 1814) the letter W was
synonymous with Washington: "By Washington, / Great deeds

were done" (14).

 

 

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156
Joshua Leavitt's §g§y_Lg§§pp§_ipngggipg (1825) sets
up George Washington as a model for young readers to
emulate. In a lesson boldly titled "GEORGE WASHINGTON"
Leavitt allows his young readers a chance to relate to a
young George, incorporating into the story a moral on
sharing and forgiveness. The author starts the lesson: "On
a fine morning in the fall of 1737, Mr. Washington, having
little George by the hand," (142) invite a cousin and a
friend to walk through his orchard, which was "strewed with
fruit: and yet the trees were bending under the weight of
apples, which in clusters, like grapes, and vainly strove
to hide their red cheeks behind the green leaves" (142).
Upon looking out at the bounty, Mr. Washington reminds his
son of a past incident:
"Now, George, . . . look here, my son! don't you
remember, when this good cousin of yours brought
you that fine large apple last spring, how hardly
I could prevail on you to divide with your
brothers and sisters; though I promised you that
if you would but do it, God Almighty would give
you plenty of apples this fall?" (142)
George does not reply, "but hanging down his head, looked
quite confused, while with his little naked toes he
scratched in the soft ground" (142-43). His father asks
him to look out through the orchard at how God blessed him:
"Wherever you turn your eyes, you see the trees loaded with
fine fruit" (143). The young boy does not say anything but
looks at the orchard, "then lifting his eyes filled with

shining moisture, he said, softly, to his father, 'Well,

 

 

 

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(1821

157
Pa, only forgive me this time, and see if I ever be so
stingy any more'" (143).
Earlier in the textbook, Leavitt offers Washington as
a model for admiration in the reading lesson "He Would Be a
Soldier," a dialogue between Charles and his father Mr.
Ashton, in which they discuss Charles's becoming a soldier:

Mr. A. And pray what in the history of the
American Revolution, makes you wish to
be a soldier? Do you like the idea of
so much fighting with Americans and Indians,
who will shoot you down from behind fences
and trees . . .

Char. Oh! dear, no sir; I would not have fought
against the Americans. It is General
Washington that I admire so much. Father,
don't you think he was a good man, though he
was a soldier? (Leavitt 73-74)

The father answers that he does admire Washington, but
explains that not every soldier can live up to Washington's
qualities, to which Charles answers: "Yes, but as you say,
sir, what man has been, man can be; and if I am a soldier,
and try hard, perhaps I shall be as good a man as he,--
almost" (Leavitt 74).

Presumably, George Washington was a figure to admire
because of the good example his life had set. The story of
YOUDg George and the cherry tree has become legendary;
undoubtedly, the inclusion of this piece in the reading

textbooks has much to do with that fact. The story

surfaces in several of the early reading texts, including

the preceding Leavitt reader. Good Examples for Children

(1828) includes the story with the title "Truth Commended"

as the f

lesson b

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as Ge
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158
as the first of six moral stories. The short, two-page
lesson begins:
When GEORGE WASHINGTON, the late President of the
United States, was about six years of age, some
one made him a present of a hatchet. Being, like
most children, immoderately fond of his weapon,
he went about, chopping every thing that came in
his way, and going into the garden, he unluckily
tried its edge on an English cherry-tree,
stripping it of its bark, and leaving little hope
of its recovery. (4-5)
When young George's father later finds the tree--one of his
favorites—-he announces that he would not have even taken
money for the cherry tree. But no one can tell him who
ruined it.

At length, however, came George, with the hatchet
in his hand, into the place where his father was,

who immediately suspected him to be the culprit.
"George," said the old gentleman, "do you know
who killed that beautiful little cherry-tree
yonder in the garden?" (5)
The moral virtue——the good example-—becomes apparent
as George "nobly" answers: "'I can't tell a lie, father;--
YOU know that I can't tell a lie, I did cut it with my
hatchet'" (5). The elder Washington's response then
articulates the moral lesson: "Run to my arms, my boy . .
run to my arms! I forgive you for destroying my tree,
Since you have had the honesty and manliness thus to tell
the truth respecting it" (5). The qualities of honesty and
manliness, then, become synonymous with national virtue,
and the example of George Washington promotes a

' - ' ' ' ' the
natlonalistic conSCiousness 1n the didactiCism of

reading lessons.

lllThe ‘
textbooks .
Preceptor 0'

 

 

 

159
Notes
1"The Whistle" is a popular selection in many of the

textbooks. Bingham also includes it in The American
Preceptor of 1811.

 

 

 

 

I
twentj
pOStUI
Per10¢
eXerc

tone

tenol
expel
85-3
Vari

lite

 

 

 

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

What matchless skill is in the quill,
Pluck'd from a goose's wing;

By this the wise their maxims teach,
By this the poets sing.

—-Juvenal Poems. or the
Alphabet in Verse (1808)

 

 

Books are delightful things: they tell us of
pleasant countries, and of good men and women.
They teach us how to be useful, good, and

happy.

 

--The New-York Preceptor
(1812)

It is easy, I think, for us at the end of the
twentieth century to be unduly critical of the didactic
posturing found in the textbooks from the early National
period. The overt moralizing in the reading lessons and
exercises seems forced and unnatural to us; the didactic
tone sounds uncomfortably parochial to modern ears.

What we must keep in mind, however, is the moral
tenor of the period. Readers-~young and old, alike--
expected a moral orientation in their reading (Carpenter
85-86; McLeod, A Moral Tale 15). The orientation took
various forms. In much of the general children's
literature--apart from textbooks-~the moral instruction

160

 

 

took a semi:
attests: A_

account of

Eighteen C'.
the genera
allegoric,
children's
Idle and 1
hfliurai_t

inatentic

 

style and
is apparc
decades.
Fro
the dida
Social ,
recani:
the rel
belief
Stories
Perspe<
themes
behavi
awaren
0f hat
Promo]

goal

 

161

 

took a somber turn as the following title of an 1806 book
attests: A Memorial for Children; being an authentic
account of the Conversion, Experience and happy Deaths of
Eighteen Children. On the other hand, the didacticism in
the general books prepared for children was often more
allegoric, if not light-hearted, as the title of another

children's book from 1806 suggests: The History of Jacky

 

Idle and Dicky Diligent, exhibiting a strikingcontrast
between the different consegpences arising from indolent

inatention [sic] and laudable perseverance. Whatever the

style and tone of the didacticism, the didactic tradition
is apparent in the reading of the post-Revolutionary
decades.

From the beginning of my research I have categorized
the didacticism in the textbooks as essentially religious,
social, or nationalistic. Within these three categories1 I
recognize a variety of themes. Thematic emphases within
the religious didacticism include lessons devoted to a
belief in God, doctrinal or church—related teaching, Bible
stories, and lessons dealing with death from a spiritual
perspective. The social didacticism branches into several
themes, as well, offering lessons devoted to virtuous
behavior, excessive behavior, family matters, community
awareness, industriousness, and literacy. The didacticism
of nationalism is presented differently. Its basis is the
promotion of national values and identity. This didactic

goal is approached via a number of formats, notably shifts

 

 

 

 

 

in word t
patrioti
the live

We
reading
opportur

behavio:

. younges

teachin
doctrir
the yea
didact
textbo
slight
appear
with 1
the p.

Chang
offer
natic
the
for
Soci

this

 

 

162
in word choice within the lessons to favor America,
patriotic orations, and examples of moral virtue drawn from
the lives of famous American figures.

Overall, the tradition of didacticism in the early
reading textbooks provided the textbook authors with
opportunity to impress concepts of correct and appropriate
behaviors and attitudes upon the minds of America's
youngest citizens. With the tradition of religious
teaching already firmly entrenched in the primers,

doctrinal instruction was easily introduced. However, in

 

the years following the Revolutionary War, the religiously
didactic material appears to loosen its hold in the

textbooks. This letting-go, it must be pointed out, is

 

slight, however; religious comment in the textbooks does
appear consistently. Yet, it shares the textbook pages
with the emerging social and nationalistic commentary of
the period.
' As the didactic content in the beginning reading texts
changed from overtly religious to socially virtuous, the
affective content began, as well, to turn toward
nationalism. Literature in the field primarily recognizes
the shift in emphasis from religious to nationalistic, and
for the most part scholarship downplays the strong flow of
social didacticism that grows up with it. Smith notices
this duality:

The stress on nationalism is so startling and

conspicuous at first sight that it overshadows a

second and independent point of emphasis which is
revealed upon closer study. This second emphasis

 

 

 

host of
overshad
the did:
readers
textboo
social
didacti
overem]
the in.
textbo
natior.
the tr
teach:
textb
being
high]
schc]
the j
spel
text
Sent
01d:
Web:

tex

163

 

is moralism, an influence which permeated reading
instruction quietly and unassumingly but so
persistently and universally as to claim an equal
rank with nationalism in our characterization of
the period. (38-39)
Most of the research describes social moralism as being
overshadowed by the rise of nationalism. My research into
the didactic content of the early primers, spellers, and
readers does not support such a conclusion, however. The
textbooks I examined offer two times as many examples of
social didacticism as instances of nationalistic
didacticism. I can speculate on reasons for the scholars'
overemphasis on nationalism. First, as Smith describes it,
the inclusion of overtly national sentiment in the
textbooks is "startling and conspicuous" because the
nationalism is the first issue to have found its way into
the texts. In other words, where earlier religious
teaching, as a given, was expected in the reading
textbooks, the new concept of nationalism was consciously
being applied to the content, and examples of it were
highly conspicuous. A second reason I can think of for the
scholarly attention centered on nationalism has to do with
the level of textbook. In my examination of the primers,
spellers, and readers, I focused primarily on beginning
texts. Although I found several instances of nationalistic
sentiment in them, I believe that textbooks geared for
older readers held far more examples of nationalism. Noah
Webster's works are traditionally recognized as the primary

texts of this period that are devoted to national values;

 

 

 

 

 

yet his 1
typicallj
compared
research
typical]
levels .
substan
for old
emphasi
works;
textbo
didact
any r:
the e:

readi

gene]
the
envi
out}
of 1
sto
arc
hOI
801
he
16

it is

yet his textbook formats and lessons are what would be

164

typically prepared for more intermediate pupils (as
compared with many of the other beginning texts). The
research into the area of early American textbooks
typically covers elementary, intermediate, and secondary
levels of instruction, and the research finds its most
substantial examples of nationalism in the books prepared
for older students. Perhaps that is due to the stronger

emphasis on reading selections given in the more advanced

 

works; perhaps it is because Webster and his contemporary
‘textbook authors consciously endeavored to balance their
didactic moralizing with basic literacy instruction. At
any rate, the examples of social didacticism far outnumber
the examples of nationalistic didacticism in the beginning
reading textbooks I examined.

Regardless of the didactic theme, the lessons
generally offer an idealized picture of life. Typically,
the stories are set in a comfortable, middle—class
environment; both indoors and out, the settings reflect the
authors' idealized concept of American life. An attitude
of physical and material contentment often underlies the
story line in the lessons as the stories' action centers
around physical objects like furniture, books, and other
household items. The lessons set outside usually focus on
some sort of horticultural scene. Orchards, gardens, and
hedgerows seem to be particularly popular settings for

lessons. By looking carefully at the clues in the stories,

 

 

 

one could
lessons '1:
sense of
this is d
texts we:
hand, peJ
were mor:
course,
obvious
to promc
of a st:
attenti.
story 0
Philade
Tr
textbo<
simpli-
texts
a11 ba
later
texts
contr
Selfi
Child
“18hr
exgmj

and

 

165
one could speculate that the physical settings of the
lessons in the textbooks more accurately reflect an English
sense of place than an early American environment. Perhaps
this is due to the fact that many (but not all) of the
texts were revised editions of British books; on the other
hand, perhaps American textbook authors‘ sentimental ideals
were more akin to a middle-class English existence.2 Of
course, there are exceptions to this attitude, the most
obvious being those lessons whose didactic intentions are
to promote nationalistic goals. However, only one example
of a story that included a named American place came to my
attention during my primary research, and that was the
story of the boy and his father who traveled to
Philadelphia (Easy Lessons for Young Children [1794]).

The settings of the lessons notwithstanding, the
textbook authors typically presented an idealized and
simplistic view of children in the lessons. The earlier
texts generally portrayed children as either all good or
all bad. For example, the character Billy that appears in
later revisions of the New England Primer, Barbauld's
texts, and other lessons is remarkably righteous. In
contrast, Billy's classmates in the boarding school are
selfish, greedy, and intemperate. other lessons feature
children stealing fruit, going against their parents'
wishes, and neglecting their studies. In addition to the
examples of naughty children, names like Harriet Haughty

and Wat Wilful, of course, are caricatures; nevertheless,

 

 

 

 

they feed
writers.
undoubted]
children.
In 1:
appear to
capable o
intended
response.
chops dm
his erro
response
BY
Styles,
have pm
Period':
early r
during
GStabli
America
social‘
bEIiev.
Valued
tOday,
P
the SI

Amery,

 

 

166

they feed into the simplistic view held by many of the text
writers. Such examples of children‘s wrongdoing
undoubtedly reflect their authors' limited understanding of
children.

In later textbooks, the children in the story lessons
appear to be more realistically drawn. The characters are
capable of both good and bad behavior; perhaps that is the
intended moral--that "bad" action requires a "good"
response. Young George Washington, for instance, willfully
chops down his father's cherry tree, but he does admit to
his error. His bad action is absolved in his good
response.

By examining and analyzing the didactic themes,
styles, and intentions of the various textbook authors, I
have provided a more fully drawn perspective of the
period's expectations of reading. I contend, too, that the
early reading textbooks published for beginning students
during this critical period in America's history
established, in part, the perceptions and attitudes of
Americans toward reading. The authors‘ overt religious,
social, and nationalistic didacticism in the textbooks, I
believe, may have done much to condition how Americans
valued reading—~and, to some extent, how they perceive it
today.

Although I can only offer conjecture at this point,
the speculation that early textbook content affected

Americans' valuation of reading is worth further study.

 

 

 

 

Just as a I
degree est
later on i
(i.e., Du]
collectiv:
practices
text that
child in
it.") in.
inpressi
and Chri
nation's
further
indoctr
eXpecta
early 1

a "nor:
of rea

N.

other

a can

Secta

Signi

authc

relic

be t

soci

 

 

167
Just as a child's early experiences with print to a large
degree establish his or her attitudes related to literacy
later on in life, according to a wide range of experts
(i.e., Durkin; Taylor; Trelease; Leichter), America's
collective valuing of literacy was affected by its early
practices and expectations of reading. Just as the Bible
text that opened so many of the early primers (“Train up a
child in the way he should go and he will not depart from
it.") indicated the authors' intentions to instill in
impressionable young minds a long-lasting love of virtue
and Christian morality, so can it apply to the young
nation's consciousness. This speculation leads me to ask
further questions: Does early American society's

indoctrination by textbook didacticism color society's

 

expectations of reading and its affective milieu? Did
early American didacticism condition readers to always seek
a "moral" in their reading? Does that earlier expectation
of reading still prevail to some degree within America?

My study of textbooks from 1780 to 1830 raises several
other areas of interest for further inquiry. For instance,
a careful examination of the religious didacticism from a
sectarian or denominational point of view could be
significant, especially if that study would pinpoint the
authorship of the various lessons and texts, establishing
religious affiliation. Another area for examination would
be the authors' conscious shift from religious sentiment to

social instruction in the individual authors' revisions of

 

 

specfic textb
within the WC
the shift be
The text
further atter
culminate in
agenda for t
inclusions c
the concerns
nineteenth <
My stu:
the notable
successful
015 the more
POpular Wo]
“'10 in the
Altho
during the
as the Bar
h'eaW‘hanc'
has” boo}
in America
Perh
Practice
sentelites
Many cf 1

reading I

 

168
specfic textbooks. How does the evolution come about
within the work of one author? Can the forces producing
the shift be established and quantified?

The textbooks' social didacticism, as well, deserves
further attention. What are the social forces that
culminate in the textbook lessons? What was the social
agenda for the didacticism? How conscious were the
inclusions of didactic examples that heralded attention to
the concerns of the temperance movement of the later
nineteenth century?

My study of the reading textbooks includes several of
the notable authors' popular, and, therefore, commercially
successful works, but I wonder about the commercial success
of the more obscure titles. How did they fare against
popular works like Webster's speller or Murray's reader?
Who in the common schools decided on the reading textbook?

Although many of the textbooks published in America
during the period were reprintings of British texts--such
as the Barbauld Easy Lessons--they do not contain such
heavy-handed didacticism as that appearing in the American—
based books. Does this suggest a propensity for moralism
in American society as opposed to British society?

Perhaps most engaging is the problem of--or, at least,
practice of—-the various authors and compilers who borrowed
sentences, lessons, and exercises from previous textbooks.
Many of the lessons (especially the "Select Sentences" for

reading instruction) incorporate stock sentences that

 

 

 

 

 

appear with 501
cases, the tex
imitations and
It seems, too,
from one anott
to describe t]
development .
imbue, impres
indicate the
instructive 1
changes and \
various edit;
and analysis
literary her
The ear
between 178(
t0 Anterican
like Murray
designed f0
tethooks w
educators,
textbooks a
instructive
textboOk 1,
in their y
ReV°1ution

consciousr

 

169

appear with some regularity from text to text. In many
cases, the texts' longer lessons, or stories, are
imitations and adaptations of previously published works.
It seems, too, that the textbook authors borrowed language
from one another-—or, at least, they selected similar terms
to describe their intentions to instruct students in moral
development. The prefaces of the textbooks use words like
imbue, impress, instill, and inculcate over and over to
indicate the authors' obligation to include morally
instructive reading material. I have charted some the
changes and variations in text that I have noticed in the
various editions, but a more comprehensive documentation
and analysis would be significant for future research into
literary borrowings and copyright practices.

The early reading textbooks published in America
between 1780 and 1830 constitute significant contributions
to American education. In several cases, notable authors
like Murray and Webster were responsible for these works
designed for beginning readers; in more cases, the
textbooks were published by now-long—forgotten printers and
educators. Whatever their publication history, these
textbooks all endorsed the tradition of didactic
instructiveness at a critical period of time. These
textbook lessons that were designed to instill moral truths
in their young readers appeared during the post-
Revolutionary period--a time when the national

consciousness was being formed. They continued in the

 

 

 

tradition of ‘3
Primer, and tr

expectations <

fir-

170
tradition of didacticism established by the New England
Primer, and they further established the young nation's

expectations of moral learning as an outgrowth of literacy.

 

 

 

 

1A5 I ha\
overlap—-with
For example, i
didactic that
and the inev i'
the context 0
and thrift: "
fly away. Ma

2Possibl
the fact that
1745 and live
England in 1'.
never return:
(Rosenbach 2|

 

171
Notes

1A5 I have noted, the three types of didacticism often
overlap-~with one lesson emphasizing more than one concept.
For example, the lessons I have categorized as religiously
didactic that have to do with the transitory nature of life
and the inevitability of death can easily be read within
the context of social didacticism that emphasizes industry
and thrift: "Swift as the arrow from the bow, our time doth
fly away. Make much of time" (The New-York Preceptor 30).

2Possibly significant to this item of speculation is
the fact that Lindley Murray was born in Pennsylvania in
1745 and lived in the United States until he emigrated to
England in 1784. He settled near York and lived there,
never returning to America, until he died in 1826
(Rosenbach 209).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alexander,
Langua

 

Speak:
10th c

The America

Young
(Micn

 

W
and R.
1813.

Barbauld, .

five
(Micr

 

PRIMARY SOURCES

The A. B. C. with the Church of England Catechism. To

which is annexed, Prayers used in the Academy of the
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Alexander, Caleb. Grammatical System of the English
Language: Comprehending a Plain and Familiar Scheme
of Teaching Young Gentlemen and Ladies the Art of

Sneaking and Writing Correctly Their Native Tongue.
10th ed. Keene, N. H.: John Prentiss, 1814.

 

The American Primer, calculated for the Instruction of
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---. Lessons for Children from four to five years old.
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---. Lessons for Children. In Four Parts. Philadelphia:
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~-~. Lessonsyfor Children of Four Years old. Part II.
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172

 

 

Benezet, 1am:j
12131115
Elana:
my;
Readinc
of Ortt
their 1
More pa
Guardi:
privatl

Domest
Cruksh

Bentley, Re
sontau'
111m
the U:
Usefui
with '

Co.,

 

 

 

Bingham, C
Selec

 

173

 

Benezet, Anthony, comp. The Pennsylvania Spelling-Book, or
Youth's friendly Instructor and Monitor: On an easy
Plan, for exciting the Attention, and facilitating the
Instruction of Children and others in Spelling and
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of Orthography, Pointing, Etc. As also, training
their Minds to early Sentiments of Piety and Virtue.
More particularly calculated for the use of Parents,

Guardians and others, remote from Schools; in the

private Tuition of their Children, and illiterate
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Crukshank, 1779. (Microfiche.)

Bentley, Rensselaer. The Pictorial Spelling_Book:
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the Use of Pictures: Interspersed with a Variety of
Useful and Interesting Reading Lessons, Illustrated
with Numerous Engravings. New York: Pratt, Woodford &
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Bingham, Caleb. The American Preceptorr_Being a New
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Designed for the Use of Schools. 42nd ed. Boston:
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---. The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of
Original and Selected Pieces; Together with Rules:

Calculated to Improve Youth and Others in the

Ornamental and Useful Art of Elogpence. Boston: Caleb
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---. Juvenile Letters: beingya Correspondence between
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Bolles, William. A spelling book: containing exercises in
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The Book of Books, for Children, To teach all good boys and

Girls to be wiser than their school-fellows. Salem,
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The Child's First Step up the Ladder of Learning; or, Easy

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The Child's Spelling Book: Calculated to render Reading
Completely Easy to Little Children; To Impress upon

their minds the importance of Religion; and the
advantages of Good Manners. 4th ed. Hartford:
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Cobb, Lyman °
for Pro

/

Pen .:

obb's
Penn.:

0

 

The Columbi:
collec
Pathet
with S
which

esi r

l

 

 

 

 

 

1:

L11
2‘

Dickinson,
New a
and P
State
Arts
& C.

 

 

 

 

Douglass,
Doug

Easy Less
1794

[Edgewort
m
Joht

W
g9

Eng
Jot

174

Cobb, Lyman. Cobb's Spelling Book, Being a Just Standard
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---. Cobb's Toy§l_Second Series. nos. 1-11. Lewistown,
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The Columbian Reader; containing a New and Choice
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Designed for the Use of Schools. Cooperstown, N. Y.:
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Dickinson, Rodolphus. The Columbian Reader, Comprising a
New and Various Selection of Elegant Extracts in Prose

 

 

and Poetpy, For the Use of Schools in the United
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& C. Williams, 1818.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick
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Easy Lessons for Young Children. Philadelphia: W. Young,
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An Elegy on the Death and Burial of Cook Robin. With the
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The Tragical Death of an Apple-Pye. Philadelphia:
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[Ely, John.] The Child's Instructor: Consisting of Easy
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Hendley, George. A Memorial for Children; being an
authentic account of the Conversion. Experience and
happy Deaths of Eighteen Children. New Haven:
Sidney's Press, 1806. (Microfiche.)

 

 

 

 

 

Drrflieterr_:
strilcre
arising
parser!

(Microf

The Instruct

—————_‘-

N. pag.

hiurrmfitll
Path t
1809.

Johnson's F
child;
(Micrc

Juvenal Poe
Enter'
other
(Micr

 

 

Kimber and
Phila
(Mic:

Leavitt, i
tire;
[Tit
Vern

hhaflsLl:
thl
(Mic

The_Litt;
(M1.
Little,

§D§
Ben

M
mpg

1m]

 

175

The History of Jacky Idle and Dicky Diligent, exhibiting a
striking contrast between the different consegpences
arising from indolent inatention [sic] and laudable
perserverance. Philadelphia: John Adams, 1806.
(Microfiche.)

The Instructive Alphabet. New York: Samuel Wood, 1814.
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Juvenal Poems, or the Alphabet in Verse. Designed for the
Entertainment of all good Bovs and Girlsy and no
others. New Haven: Sidney's Press, 1808.
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Kimber and Conrad's ABC Book. with Pictures for Children.
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the Younger Classes in Common Schools. 6th ed.
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Vermont: 1825.]

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Benjamin G. Jansen, 1818. (Microfiche.)

M'Cartv's American Primer. Being a selection of words the

most easy of pronunciation. Intended To facilitate the
Improvement of Children in Spelling. Philadelphia:
M'Carty and Davis, 1828. (Microfiche.)

Melville, Herman. Moby—Dick or The Whale. Evanston, Ill.:
Northwestern Univ. Press and The Newberry Library,
1988.

Moral Stories. Written for the Instruction of Young Minds.
Dedham: H[erman] Mann, 1806. (Microfiche.)

 

 

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an
Shorter. Humblv offered for instructing the Yo
Ignorant. Philadelphia: R. Aitken, 1780.
(Microfiche.)

 

Murray, Lindley. A First Book for Children. Philadelphia:
Benjamin Warner, 1818. (Microfiche.)

---. Introduction to the English Reader: Or, a Selection
of Pieces, in Prose and Poetry: Calculated to Improve
the Younger Classes of Learners in Reading; And to
Imbue their Minds with the Love of Virtue to Which Are
Added, Rules and Observations for Assisting Children
to Read with Proprietv. Boston: Lincoln & Edmans,
1823.

The New-England Primer. Philadelphia: Charles Cist, 1782.
N. pag. (Microfiche.)

The New England Primer. For the more easy attaining the
true Reading of English. Philadelphia: R. Aitken,
1780. N. pag. (Microfiche.)

The New-England Primer Improved. For the More Easy

Attaining the Reading of English. Boston: S.
Kneeland, 1762. (Microfiche.)

The New—England Primer, Improved, for the More Easy
Attaining the True Reading of English. Hartford: John
Babcock, 1800. (Microfiche.)

The New-England Primer, Improved; Or, an Easy and Pleasant
Guide to the Art of Reading. Pittsburgh: Cook and
Schoyer, 1833. (Microfiche.)

The New-England Primer; much improved. Containing, a
Variety of easy Lessons. For Attaining the true
Reading of English. Germantown: n.p., 1796. N. pag.
(Microfiche.)

The New-England Primer: much improved, Contaning [sic], A
Variety of easy Lessons, for Attaining the true
reading of English. Philadelphia: Johnston and
Justice for [Robert] Campbell, 1792. N. pag.
(Microfiche.)

The New England Primer. Or, an Easy and Pleasant Guide to
the Art of Reading. Alsoi the Assembly of Divines and
the Episcopal Catechism. New York: C. W. Bunce for
Samuel A Burtus, 1814. (Microfiche.)

Osbor
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177

The New-York Preceptor: or, Third Book. New York: Samuel
Wood, 1812. (Microfiche.)

The Orphans. or. Honesty Rewarded. Philadelphia: Bennett
and Walton, 1808. (Microfiche.)

Osborne, Henry. An English Grammar. adapted to the
capacities of children. Charleston, S. C.: Burd &
Boden, 1785. (Microfiche.)

The Penny Primer. New York: Mahlon Day, 0. 1830.
(Microfiche.)

A Picture Book, for Little Children. Philadelphia: Kimber
and Conrad, c. 1812. N. pag. (Microfiche.)

A Pleasing Toy, for Girl or Boy. Wendall, Mass.: J.
Metcalf, 1830. (Microfiche.)

The Post Boy. Philadelphia: Jacob Johnson, c. 1807.
N. pag. (Microfiche.)

Pretty Poems. Songs. Etc. In Easy Language. for the
Amusement of Little Boys and Girls. By Tommy
Lovechild. Litchfield: Hosmer and Goodwin, 1808.
(Microfiche.)

The Reprobate's Reward, or, a Looking—Glass for Disobedient
Children, being A full and true Account of the
barbarous and bloody Murder of one Elizabeth Wood,
living in the city of Cork. by her own Son. as she was
riding, upon the 28th day of July, to Kingsdale
market. How he cut her throat from ear to ear; as
also how the murder was found out by her apparition or
ghost; the manner of his being taken; his dying words
at the place of execution; with a true copy of verses
written with his own hand in Cork jail, being a
warning to all disobedient Children to repent, and
obey their Parents. Philadelphia: n. p., 1798.
(Microfiche.)

The Silver Penny; or New Lottery-Book for Children.
Philadelphia: John Adams, 1806. (Microfiche.)

Story of William and Ellen. Wendell, Mass.: J. Metcalf,
1827. (Microfiche.)

Tom Thumb's Folio, For little Giants. To which is prefixed,
An Abstract of the Life of Mr. Thumb. And an

Historical Account of The wonderful Deeds he
performed. Together with Some Anecdotes respecting
Grumboi the great Giant. Boston: T. and J. Fleet, c.
1780. (Microfiche.)

 

 

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178

Tom Thumb's Folio: Or. A new Threepenny Plaything for
Little Giants. To which is prefixed. an Abstract of
the Life of Mr. Thumb, and an Historical Account of
the Wonderful Deeds he performed. Together with some

Anecdotes respecting Grumbo, the great Giant. Boston:
Samuel Hall, 1794. (Microfiche.)

The Uncle's Present, A New Battledoor. Philadelphia: Jacob
Johnson, c. 1810. N. pag. (Microfiche.)

Watts, Isaac. Dr. Watts' Plain and Easy Catechisms for
Children. Exeter: Henry Ranlet, 1791. (Microfiche.)

Webster, Noah. An American Selection of Lessons in Reading
and Speaking: Calculated to Improve the Minds and

Refine the Taste of Youth. And also to Instruct Them

in Geog., History, and Politics of the United States.
To which are prefixed, Rules in Elocution, and
Directions for Expressing the Principal Passions of
the Mind. Being the Third Part of a Grammatical

Institute of the English Language. Exeter, Conn.:
Edward Little & Co., 1804.

---. The American Spelling Book: Containing an easy
standard of pronunciation. Being the first part of a
Grammatical Institute of the English Language. 5th
ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews,

1793. (Microfiche.)

---. The American 8 ellin Book° Containin the Rudiments

of the English Language, for the Use of Schools in the
United States. Rev. ed. Boston: Bradford & Read,

1815.

---. The Elementar S ellin Book: Bein an Im rovement on

the American Spelling Book. New York: G. F.
Cooledge, 1829.

[Willard, Samuel.] The Franklin Family Primer: containing
A new and useful selection of Moral Lessons. Adorned

with a great variepy of Cuts. calculated toystrike a

lasting impression on the Tender Minds of Children.
Boston: J. M. Dunham, 1806. (Microfiche.)

---. The Franklin Primer. Containing a new and useful
selection of Moral Lessons. Adorned with a great
variety of Elegant Cuts: calculated to strike a

lasting impression on the tender minds of children.
Boston: J. M. Dunham, 1802. (Microfiche.)

Wisdom in Miniature: or the Young Gentleman and Lady's
Magazine--Being a collection of Sentences. Divine and

Moral. Hartford: J. Babcock, 1796. (Microfiche.)

 

 

 

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2

179

Wisdom in Miniature: or the Young Gentleman and Lady's
Magazine. Being a Collection of Sentences, Divine and
Moral. Philadelphia: John Adams, 1805. (Microfiche.)

The Wonderful History of an Enchanted Castle, kept by Giant

Grumbo, the most humane and tender—hearted giant in
the known world. Albany: E. and E. Hosford, 1813.

(Microfiche.)

The Young Child's A, B, C: Dr, First Book. New York:
Samuel Wood, 1820. (Microfiche.)

 

 

 

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