The English philosopher, John Locke, in his _Thoughts concerning Education_, written in 1690, says the method of teaching children to read in England at that time was always "the ordinary road of Horn-book, Primer, Psalter, Testament, and Bible." These, he said, "engage the liking of children and tempt them to read." The road was the same in New England, but it would hardly be called a tempting method. The first book from which the children of the colonists learned their letters and to spell, was not really a book at all, in our sense of the word. It was what was called a hornbook. A thin piece of wood, usually about four or five inches long and two inches wide, had placed upon it a sheet of paper a trifle smaller, printed at the top with the alphabet in large and small letters; below were simple syllables such as ab, eb, ib, ob, etc.; then came the Lord's Prayer. This printed page was covered with a thin sheet of yellowish horn, which was not as transparent as glass, yet permitted the letters to be read through it; and both the paper and the horn were fastened around the edges to the wood by a narrow strip of metal, usually brass, which was tacked down by fine tacks or nails. It was, therefore, a book of a single page. At the two upper corners of the page were crosses, hence to read the hornbook was often called "reading a criss-cross row." At the lower end of the wooden back was usually a little handle which often was pierced with a hole; thus the hornbook could be carried by a string, which could be placed around the neck or hung by the side. [Illustration: Hornbook owned by Mrs. Anne Robinson Minturn] When, five years ago, was published my book entitled _Customs and Fashions in Old New England_, I wrote that I did not know of the preservation of a single hornbook in America; though for many years eager and patient antiquaries, of English and of American blood, had vainly sought in American historical collections, in American libraries, in American rural homes, for a true American hornbook; that is, one studied by American children of colonial times. The publication of my statement has made known to me three American hornbooks. The first is the shabby little treasure owned by Mrs. Anne Robinson Minturn of Shoreham, Vermont, found hidden under the dusty eaves of a Vermont garret. The illustration shows its exact size. On the back is a paper coarsely stamped in red with a portrait of Charles II., king of England, on horseback. This may indicate its age, but not its exact date. The young colonist who owned it was by this print taught loyalty to the Crown, though in a far land.