Though we now teach reading and writing at the same time, during the early modern period children were taught to read before they were taught to write. In part this was a financial matter, as learning to read required fewer resources than learning to write – one slate or hornbook for teaching basic letters and a few psalters or saints’ lives or parts of the Bible for mastering whole words and sentences, as compared with many slates and then paper and ink and pens for writing. In part this was also a philosophical issue, for political and religious authorities regarded the most important function of education as teaching children the ideas of others, not having them express their own.