Part 12 (2/2)

C accoue, and in 1553 appeared the first Protestant A B C and Catechis It is after this date and the accession of Elizabeth that we find a iven to elementary literature; and the press from 1553 onward teemed with A B C's of all sorts; as, for instance, ”an a b c for children, with syllables, 1558;”

”an a b c in Latin,” 1559; ”the battle of A B C,” 1586; ”the horn a

b c, 1587;” and even the title itself grew popular, not only for ns and ballads There was ”the agedman's A B C”

Subsequently to the A B C of 1553, there see actually extant of this nature till we co A B C_ of Thomas Johnson, 1590, which I have not been able to inspect, but as to which there was a litigation between two publishers in the following year, see to shew its popularity and a brisk demand for copies

A few years later (1610) there is _A New Book of Spelling, with Syllables_, a series of alphabets, followed by the vowels, alphabetical arrangements of syllables, and remarks on vowels, in the course of which the writer furnishes us with an explanation of the virtue and force of the final _e_ in such monosyllables as _Babe_

Fro, where he animadverts on the abuse of the _w_ for the _u_ He then presents us with the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Decalogue, &c, as orthographical theses

At the end of the Scriptural selections we arrive at this curious heading: ”Certain words devised alphabetically without sense, which whosoever will take the pains to learn, he lish book that is laid before him” These words are divided into two classes, dissyllables and words of three and four syllables, and introduced by a few lines of introduction, in which the words are divided by way of guidance

The spelling-book of 1610 was printed for the Stationers' Company, by which it had been perhaps taken over; and as the Coned to it any stock except old copyrights, there is little doubt that there were earlier impressions At any rate, it is a Shakespearian volume, and, as the only manual for children or illiterate adults except the Protestant A B C of 1553, it becoreat poet himself may have had a copy in his hands of some edition, if at least his scholastic researches ever went beyond the Horn-book and the Abacus

The volulish orthography and pronunciation; and when the author propounds that you ue, he does nothing more than follow in the steps of all teachers of that tie and country down to almost yesterday

While I have the book before es a specimen of it:--

kach, kech, kich, koch, kuch, kash, kesh, kish, kosh, kush, kath, keth, kith, koth, kuth

And so it runs through the alphabet In the Lord's Prayer and other selections the syllables are also divided for the convenience and ease of the learner

The biographer of Dean Colet mentions that Mr Stephen Penton, Principal of St Edmund's Hall, Oxford, in the days of Charles II, published a Horn-book or A B C for children This, which Knight oddly characterises as a piece of humble condescension on the part of so worthy and noted a man, I have not yet seen

In Russia they have, or had very lately, the _stchoti_, a kind of Abacus, a s with horizontal wires, on which slide a series of ivory balls, each wire representing a certain value from the kopeck upwards This piece of machinery is used in all commercial transactions, whether they take place in shop, -house, or bank; and familiarity and practice enable the parties concerned to calculate the amount payable or receivable with equal ease and rapidity

There is a si the natives of British India, and also forthe science of numbers in the schools

III It is said to have been John Rightwise, second head-master of St

Paul's, and son-in-law of Lily, who introduced into his predecessor's book the _Propria quae Maribus_ and _As in Praesenti_, to which were subsequently joined the Rules of Heteroclites or Irregular Nouns, probably digested from Whittinton by Robertson of York This last section, fro words, cohtwise, was the origin of _Johnny quae Genus_

But an early authority[3] clai written the _Propria quae Maribus_ and _As in Praesenti_, and inforlossary

In some of the schools the course seems to have been to commence with the A B C and Catechism, and then proceed to the Primer At the end of the A B C of 1757 are these lines:--

”This little Catechisht), The PRIMER next coht”

When I speak here of the _Priuish between the Service-book so styled and the Manual for the young It is singular enough that the e of Elizabeth, and includes not only the Catechism, but ”the notable fairs in the Calendar,” as ht unto children”

This type of Primer is very rare till we arrive at coned to fulfil was one precisely calculated to hinder its trans children's books on some more than usually substantial material is not so modern as a for the use of the Ger there over the Russian or Polish, on paper closely reseularly durable texture; and this little voluenerations before such a systeland