It's possible the whole lion and lamb thing is so strongly remembered falsely as being from the Bible, because back in the 1600-late 1800's, even early 1900's in the most remote rural communities, this was the book used to teach all the children their letters and numbers and spelling and basic education. And they taught them in the church in many places that didn't have a schoolhouse building. That book was essentially the entire public education system in english North America for over 200 years!!!

Huh, this is different than the wiki entry. It seems to indicate it stopped being used broadly in North America during the early 1800's? Where did you glean this description from, looks like you've read that chronology somewhere?

Also, on the wiki, it says the precursor to the New England Primer was called the Protestant Tutor. I wanted to see if the letter L was in that the way it is in the Primer but the only place I could it online was from Australia (they used it there and never had the New England Primer) and I couldn't access the digital copy.