OCR Text |
Show Horn Books. Occasionally in reading of old 'times in England mention is made of the Horn-book, but so little is said about it that its appearance appear-ance and use seem to be left to the imagination, imagina-tion, says Harper' Young People. As this is a busy faculty, it goes to work at wondering: wonder-ing: "Were these books really made of horn? And did they have leaves? And what was printed in them?" In an old poem by Shenstone, called "The Schoomis-trees," Schoomis-trees," it is said of the children: Their books of stature small they take in hand, Which with pellucid horn secured are. To five from flngres wet the letters fair. To say that books are "of stature small" has a very comical sound, as it seems much easier to call them small books; yet it is a quaint old-time expression that harmonizes with "pellucid horn." It Is easy to understand under-stand from the poem that the horn-book was a primer, although it is often supposed to be a kind of almanac and the "pellucid horn," very' thin and transparent, covered and protected the single leaf, which was all that the book contained. On this leaf, headed by a cross, was the alphabet in old English and Roman letters, makiDg it very hard to learn, followed by a small batch of two-lettered words like ab; then came an ascription as-cription of praise to the Holy Trinity; and the Lord's prayer finished the literary part of the book. solid oak, with a frame and short handle of the same, and in shape it resembled a hand mirror. Sometimes it was pasted on horn, without any protection from "the fingers wet" that were expected to make havoc with the lettering; and such a "book" could be bought for the moderate sum of two English pennies. From the cross and the alphabet on it, the hornbook was commonly called the "Christ Cross Row," and this degenerated degener-ated into "Criss-cross Row." which name has been given to a very old book at Oxford. Hornbooks were used as primers until rather more than a century ago; and in their time school children had no use for satchels, as the one book usually bad a hole at the end of the handle for a string to - pass through, by which it was fastened to the w aist or girdle. 8ome old pictures of children chil-dren show the ancient primer thus attached. These books are now very rare, but there is a copy in the British mueun that was found some years ago In the walls of an old farmhouse by a laborer who was polling them down. It is one of the best specimens, In a frame of black oak, with the horn cover in front, and the back has a portrait of King Charles I. on horseback. ) ' ' " " '.', ' . 1 |