Used from about the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, a hornbook helped young children learn to read, spell, and sometimes recite religious texts. It usually consisted of a wooden paddle with a printed page covered by polished animal horn, which protected the paper from wear. In poetry, “hornbook” often symbolizes the dull, demanding beginnings of formal Education or childhood’s inevitable move from play into discipline.

The “horn” in hornbook refers to a thin, translucent sheet of animal horn, not to an instructional book about horns. Hornbooks commonly displayed the alphabet in upper- and lowercase letters, syllables, numbers, and a short prayer such as the Lord’s Prayer. The word can also be used figuratively for an elementary guide or introduction to a subject, as in “a hornbook of grammar.” Related terms include primer, spelling book, alphabet book, and schoolroom. Unlike a modern textbook, a hornbook was usually a single protected sheet mounted on a handle.