A bustling New England village in 1688, with a small schoolhouse at its center where children eagerly gather to learn their ABCs, their voices blending with the sounds of daily colonial life, from blacksmiths' hammers to the chatter of the marketplace.
“In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.”
~ George Eliot, Silas Marner (Chapter 14, 1861).
Here is the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on The New England Primer. For many Settlers & Colonists, it served as the principal textbook for their early childhood, & for some 150 years or so, it remained the main pedagogical text.
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1.64 New England ABC