"Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook."
Love's Labour's Lost (V, i)
In Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, his character Moth, a page, is attesting to the learning of the schoolmaster Holofernes. Shakespeare must have enjoyed his opportunity to poke fun at the pedantic tediousness of schoolmasters, teachers of the sort he most likely endured in his boyhood years at the King's New School in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Far more than anything else, the school's curriculum consisted of Latin, Latin, and more Latin.
A great deal of rote learning was also involved. It's entirely possible that such an emphasis on memorization helped Shakespeare during the years he spent on the London stage himself, learning all the nuances of his craft. He and his fellow actors would need good memories to keep up with the prolific pace of their own ever-changing repertory: it was not at all unusual for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later the King's Men, to perform several different plays over the course of just a few days.
Pictured above is a modern, loosely-based reproduction of a 16th-century child's primer for study called a hornbook. It is so called because of the protective layer of durable transparent animal horn or mica that was used to cover both the lower and upper-case letters of the alphabet, along with the Lord's Prayer and various vowel and consonant pairings that the pupil was expected to learn while he nervously grasped the handle of the hornbook, hoping he wouldn't be called upon. Sheets of transparent horn were also a precursor to the widespread use of glass in small windows, in lanterns, and a variety of other useful objects.
As artifacts go, authentic hornbooks that were actually used in Shakespeare's day are rare. This may be in part due to the wear and tear that such objects must have received as class after class of rambunctious schoolboys used them, perhaps to beat each other over the heads with when the schoolmaster wasn't looking. If for nothing else, the handle must have been handy for that.
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