The Patriot’s Monitor

It’s back to school season! To celebrate, this month’s Collections Corner features the Institute’s director of education, Stacia Smith, discussing The Patriot’s Monitor, an 1810 American primer written by Rev. Ignatius Thomson of Pomfret, Vermont. As this textbook was “designed to impress and perpetuate the first principles of the Revolution on the minds of youth,” Thomson selected key documents of America’s founding, from the Declaration of Independence through the inaugural addresses of the first four presidents of the United States, along with other moral and patriotic lessons. Adapted for the use of schools, each paragraph of each text is numbered to facilitate recitation and reading aloud in a classroom.