religious ideas when teaching the alphabet.

It is not by any means certain that the first edition of this great
primer of our ancestors contained illustrations, as engravers were few
in America before the eighteenth century. Yet it seems altogether
probable that they were introduced early in the next century, as by
seventeen hundred and seventeen Benjamin Harris, Jr., had printed in
Boston "The Holy Bible in Verse," containing cuts identical with those
in "The New England Primer" of a somewhat later date, and these pictures
could well have served as illustrations for both these books for
children's use, profit, and pleasure. At all events, the thorough
approval by parents and clergy of this small school-book soon brought to
many a household the novelty of a real picture-book.

Hitherto little children had been perforce content with the few
illustrations the adult books offered. Now the printing of this tiny
volume, with its curious black pictures accompanying the text of
religious instruction, catechism, and alphabets, marked the milestone on
the long lane that eventually led to the well-drawn pictures in the
modern books for children.

It is difficult at so late a day to estimate correctly the pleasure this
famous picture alphabet brought to the various colonial households. What
the original illustrations were like can only be inferred from those in
"The Holy Bible in Verse," and in the later editions of the primer
itself. In the Bible Adam (or is it Eve?) stands pointing to a tree
around which a serpent is coiled. By seventeen hundred and thirty-seven
the engraver was sufficiently skilled to represent two figures, who
stand as colossal statues on either side of the tree whose fruit had
such disastrous effects. However, at a time when art criticism had no