The New England Primer

The New England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in 17th-century colonial United States and it became the foundation of most schooling before the 1790s.

Boston: Printed by S. Kneeland & T. Green

• In Adam's fall
  We sinnèd all.

  The same proverb existed in German; Agricola, Proverbs, no. 254:
  So Adam reutte, und Eva span,
  Wer war da ein eddelman?

• My book and heart
  Shall never part.

• Peter denies
  His Lord and cries.

• Xerxes the great did die,
  And so must you and I.

• Zacheus he
  Did climb the tree
  His Lord to see.

Boston: Printed by Edward Draper

• My Book and heart
  Must never part.

• Young Obadias,
  David, Josias, —
  All were pious.

• Peter denyed
  His Lord, and cryed.

• Young Timothy
  Learnt sin to fly.

• Xerxes did die,
  And so must I.

• Zaccheus he
  Did climb the tree
  Our Lord to see.

• Our days begin with trouble here,
     Our life is but a span,
  And cruel death is always near,
     So frail a thing is man.

• Now I lay me down to take my sleep,
  I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
  If I should die before I wake,
  I pray the Lord my soul to take.

• His wife, with nine small children and one at the breast, following him to the stake.

  Martyrdom of John Rogers: burned at Smithfield, 14 February 1554

• Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), pp. 872–3