HoB_ABCs

Title Hornbook C. 1800A

Brief description 3 printed leaf under horn face, fastened by 9 tacks to wooden paddle base. About 1/3 of horn covering is missing. Text: 26 letter alphabet in lower and upper case; left hand column of one line of vowels and three lines of syllables beginning with vowels a

Full description This hornbook is an excellent example of literacy tools in the early 17th century. It displays an alphabet in both capital letters and lower case, including a set of vowels, and the two most common passages a child would know: the Incantation and the Lord's Prayer.

While hornbooks are very much the same in their overall makeup and design, there are some variables to both the materials and the text. For example, this hornbook's wooden frame is unevenly cut, suggesting haste or unskilled creation. This piece was perhaps created from remainders of wood, rather than selected and cut for this purpose. The tacks themselves are rough, suggesting they were also handmade.

While the alphabet is printed, the horn covering is missing, suggesting that little care was given to the object, showing this item was used often with little regard for preservation. This is further suggested by marks that show originally nine tacks were used and only five remain on the piece. The horn is lifting where it was not torn and there are stains beneath the protective covering.

Though the hornbook is beaten and battered, the information contained within might have been all the education a child received in his or her lifetime. As such, despite its crude appearance, a hornbook was a family heirloom and a widely respected literacy tool.

Literacy This hornbook indicates a change in the dissemination of literacy throughout the early 19th century. Due to colonial law, which enforced basic education, many children learned to read and write at a very young age. While the level of competency differed from household to household due to social class, proximity to schools, and other variables, an increasing percentage of the population became familiar with the concept of literacy. The inexpensive hornbook materials indicate that the privileged class no longer had sole access to some form of education. As the concept of childhood and children's education became more scrutinized in the early 1800's, tools like the hornbook emerged as a growing number of families sought to educate their children and promote literacy as a commonplace occurrence. As a result, the hornbook became a very popular tool for educating children who were increasingly expected to participate in skills including fundamental writing and arithmetic.

Childhood During the early 17th century, a growing number of citizens in Britain and America became increasingly concerned with literacy and education for children. Earlier philosophies had preached the child as a sinful creature of vice, easily given to their baser nature. However, emerging schools of thought began painting the child as redeemable and impressionable, with a need for moral and spiritual guidance. As such, tools like this hornbook were created to assist with the educational needs of 18th and 19th century children. The simple materials of wood or leather, small papers, and horn were easily obtained and thus, almost every household could attain a fundamental grasp of letters and literature. This hornbook differentiates not only the alphabet but vowels and the two most common religious passages: the Incantation and the Lord's Prayer. Every English speaking child was familiar with these fundamentals. However, this particular book is uneven and hastily put together, suggesting a lower class or a disregard for this tool. This provides evidence that those of the lower or working class were also concerned with children's education. Childhood at this period in time had almost universal conformity in early literacy and teaching tools, regardless of class or income.

Iconography Like many artifacts that emerged from the late 17th and early 18th century, the hornbook has an iconography that is both spiritual and somber. The culture of Europe and New England was concerned with the spiritual state of a child and mortality and afterlife were a major concern. Items like the hornbook are starkly reminiscent of a grave or tombstone. The lines of the Incantation and Prayer, which would likely have been said several times daily, are literally carried with the child and likely passed down within the family.

There are no pictures and almost no ornamentation, which is in line with a society that cares little for the aesthetic and instead focuses on lessons and facts to be drilled and sometimes, as Joseph Zornados illustrates in the section of his book on "The Puritans," beaten into them. This is also echoed by the paddle shape of the hornbook, which harkens to the corporal punishment aspect of lessons that was encouraged by philosophers and educators at the time. In this way, the hornbook symbolizes the chief concerns of a child's education while hinting at potential consequences to both the body and the soul.

Production The creation of the hornbook likely had little to do with the publishing industry as a commercial enterprise. Instead, it is more than likely that this item was created on a much smaller scale and likely as a result of an individual family's need for a literacy tool.

Hornbooks were generally handmade as they could be made by individuals or in small numbers. However, there is still evidence of print work. The alphabet backing appears to be printed on paper, leading one to believe that even among the less wealthy populations, paper would eventually come into use.

The mere fact that the hornbook exists is proof that there was an increased demand for educational tools that may serve to disseminate literacy among all different social classes. This in turn is indicative of the fact that a growing population in need of literacy tools, which would later become a demographic sought after by printing manufacturers and books dealers throughout Europe and the United States.

The hornbook is an early literacy tool and thus, not a huge concern for printers at the time, for whom it would have been an easy enough item to print, in any case. It does serve as a form of foreshadowing for what would eventually come to be a thriving market for literacy tools and techniques throughout the western world.