Ne Æsopum quidem trivit.

He has not been taught even the fables of Æsop, was used to be said of persons totally illiterate; whose education has been so neglected, that they had not been initiated in the rudiments of literature; "he has not read his horn-book or his primer," or "does not know his alphabet," we say on similar occasions. The horn-book, it is known, is a piece of board six or seven inches long and four or five broad, on which is pasted a strip of paper containing the alphabet in capital and small letters, covered with a plate of transparent horn, to guard it from the fingers of the young subjects, to whose use it is dedicated: this description may seem superfluous at present, but horn-books are now so little used, that, it is probable, should the name of the contrivance continue, the form and fashion of it will in a short time be lost. To the same purport is: "Neque natare, neque Literas" (Erasmo, 0313).