Noah Webster and American Cultural Independence

Sources

Schoolmaster . Noah Webster was graduated from Yale College in 1778, and while he prepared himself for a career in law, he supported himself by teaching school.

Webster was admitted to the bar in 1781, but he would practice law only briefly, devoting his real energy to a career in education. As a schoolteacher Webster noted how difficult it was for children to learn spelling. “It is now the work of years for children to learn to spell; and after all, the business is rarely accomplished. A few men, who are bred to some business that requires constant … writing, finally learn to spell most words without hesitation,” but most people “make mistakes, whenever they take up a pen,” and would “never attempt to write a letter, without frequently consulting a dictionary.”

Barriers. A student’s problem with spelling also made for difficulty in pronunciation. Foreigners found it difficult to pronounce English words, as the spelling and pronunciation often varied; Americans living in different areas spoke much differently, and these regional dialects Webster saw as warning signs for a country not fully united. Unless Americans all spoke the same language and could understand one another fully, trouble was ahead.

Solution. Noah Webster had a practical solution to this problem of spelling. First, he would eliminate all silent letters. For instance, the “a” in “bread” and the “gh” in “night” and “eight” could be dropped. Second, for words such as “mean” and “near” and “speak,” he would substitute an “e” for the “a,” making them read “meen,” “neer,” and “speek.” This would bring their spelling into line with their pronunciation. Finally, for vowels with either long or short pronunciations, Webster would add a small stroke to indicate the difference. These changes would make it easier both to write and to learn the language “and would render the pronunciation uniform, in different parts of the country, and almost prevent the possibility of changes.”

Uniformity. Webster had practical as well as ideological reasons for proposing this simplicity. The most practical reason was that the reform would make it easier to learn the language, and with fewer letters books and newspapers could be shorter, thus saving paper and allowing more space for expressing ideas. (Webster estimated that his reform would eliminate one letter out of every sixteen or eighteen and thus would save one page out of every sixteen or eighteen, cutting ten pages from a 180-page book.) More importantly, Webster hoped these changes would make the pronunciation of the language as uniform as the spelling in books. This would make all Americans speak the same language and eliminate potentially dangerous regional and class differences in the spoken language, replacing prejudice and animosity with “mutual affection and respect.”

Independence. This change would foster not only unity but also national independence. It would be necessary for all books to be printed in America, rather than England, and so Americans could become intellectually as well as politically independent. A national language, Webster wrote, “is a band of national union. Every engine should be employed to render the people of this country national.… However they may boast of Independence, … yet their opinions are not sufficiently independent; an astonishing respect for the arts and literature of their parent country, and a blind imitation of its manners, are still prevalent among the Americans. Thus an habitual respect for another country, deserved indeed and once laudable, turns their attention from their own interests, and prevents their respecting themselves.”

A Grammatical Institute. Webster’s reform proposal was enthusiastically endorsed by Benjamin Franklin, who had proposed a similar measure some years earlier. Webster was unsuccessful, though, in fully purging English of silent letters and making for uniform pronunciation. His spelling book, A Grammatical Institute, of the English Language (1783), had much more success in creating a national system of education. The first edition’s five thousand copies were exhausted within a year, and by 1837 Webster estimated that fifteen million copies had been printed. A Grammatical Institute, or the “blue-backed speller,” replaced Thomas Dilworth’s A New Guide to the English Tongue (1770), written in England and full of the wrong values, Webster believed. His book was for Americans and has been called a literary declaration of independence. In it Webster advised American schoolchildren on proper pronunciation, and if he could not forge a single national dialect, he could try to purge regional variations, advising children not to drop the final “g” in “-ing,” or pronounce “spirit” as “sperei.” He also insisted on pronunciation of “-tion” and “-cion” as one syllable (“-shun”) rather than the traditional two syllables. In 1788 Webster changed the name of his speller to An American Spelling Book.

Part Two . Webster followed his speller with A Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1784), which attempted to codify and reform American grammar. Webster, with his experience as a schoolteacher, taught the language as it was spoken rather than teaching grammar through memorization of rules. Webster blasted earlier grammarians for their “stupid opinion” that the English language rested on Latin and that only by learning Latin could people understand the rules of English. Instead, English rested on a Saxon base. Webster advised reform and simplification, but his A Grammatical Institute of the English Language was less popular than his speller.

Other Activities . Webster’s speller was published in Hartford; if Webster did not secure a copyright in every other state, printers outside of Connecticut could sell the book without paying Webster a cent. He visited all thirteen states to secure copyrights; this experience convinced him that the United States needed a uniform copyright law, and to secure this law, which would be the only way to create a national community, the country needed a stronger Constitution. He was a fervent advocate for the Constitution in 1787, writing one of the first pamphlets in its defense. Webster was a staunch Federalist in the 1790s, engaging in political questions as editor of various newspapers and magazines. In the wake of the 1797 yellow fever outbreak he compiled A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases (1799), which sorted through the existing knowledge on the causes of disease. He remained fascinated by the American language, though, and in 1806 published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, a forerunner of his 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language. Though Webster failed to simplify American English or to create a single national community, he led the way to America’s cultural independence.

Sources

Rena L. Vassar, ed., Social History of American Education, volume 1, Colonial Times to 1860 (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1965);

Harry R. Warfel, Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America (New York: Macmillan, 1936).

Noah Webster

Noah Webster (1758-1843), American lexicographer, remembered now almost solely as the compiler of a continuously successful dictionary, was for half a century among the more influential and most active literary men in the United States.

Noah Webster was born on Oct. 16, 1758, in West Hartford, Conn. In 1774 he entered Yale, sharing literary ambitions with his classmate Joel Barlow and tutor Timothy Dwight. His college years were interrupted by terms of military service. After his graduation in 1779, he taught school in Hartford, Litchfield, and Sharon, read widely, and studied law. He was admitted to the bar and received his master of arts degree in 1781. Dissatisfied with the British-made textbooks available for teaching, he determined to produce his own. He had, he said, "too much pride to stand indebted to Great Britain for books to learn our children."

Schoolmaster to America

Webster devised the first of his long series of American schoolbooks, a speller ponderously titled A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, Part I (1783). Known for generations simply as The Blue-back Speller, it was in use for more than a century and sold over 70 million copies. His book's effect on students is said to have been unparalleled in the history of American elementary education. Part II of the Grammatical Institute, a grammar, reprinted often under various titles, appeared in 1784. Part III, a reader, in the original 1785 edition included excerpts from yet-unpublished poetry by Dwight and Barlow. Though the reader had shorter life and more vigorous competition than other parts of the Institute, it set a patriotic and moralistic pattern followed by rival books, some of which were thought to attract attention because more religiously orientated. Webster stressed what he called the "art of reading" in later volumes, including two secularized versions of The New England Primer (1789, 1801), The Little Reader's Assistant (1790), The Elementary Primer (1831), and The Little Franklin (1836).

Copyright Reform

Webster toured the United States from Maine to Georgia selling his textbooks, convinced that "America must be as independent in literature as she is in politics, as famous for arts as for arms, " but that to accomplish this she must protect by copyright the literary products of her countrymen. He pleaded so effectively that uniform copyright laws were early passed in most of the states, and it was largely through his continuing effort that Congress in 1831 passed a bill which ensured protection to writers. On his travels he also peddled his Sketches of American Policy (1785), a vigorous Federalist plea. In Philadelphia, where he paused briefly to teach school and see new editions of his Institute through the press, he published his politically effective An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (1787).

In New York, Webster established the American Magazine (1787-1788), which he hoped might become a national periodical. In it he pled for American intellectual independence, education for women, and adherence to Federalist ideas. Though it survived for only 12 monthly issues, it is remembered as one of the most lively, bravely adventuresome of early American periodicals. He continued as a political journalist with such pamphlets as The Effects of Slavery on Morals and Industry (1793), The Revolution in France (1794), and The Rights of Neutral Nations (1802).

Language Reform

But Webster's principal interest became language reform. As he set forth his ideas in Dissertations on the English Language (1789), theatre should be spelled theater; crumb, crumb; machine, masheen; plough, plow; draught, draft. For a time he put forward claims for such reform in his readers and spellers and in his Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings (1790), which encouraged "reezoning, " "yung" persons, "reeding, " and a "zeel" for "lerning"; but he was too canny a Yankee always to allow eccentricity to stand in the way of profit. In The Prompter (1790) he quietly lectured his countrymen in corrective essays written plainly, in simple aphoristic style.

After his marriage in 1789, Webster practiced law in Hartford for 4 years before returning to New York to edit the city's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva (1793-1798). Tiring of the partisan controversy brought on by his forthright expression of Federalist opinion, he retired to New Haven to write A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases (1899) and to put together a volume of Miscellaneous Papers (1802).

The Dictionaries

From this time on, Webster gave most of his attention to preparing more schoolbooks, including A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language (1807). But he was principally concerned with compilation of A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806); its abridgment, A Dictionary … Compiled for the Use of Common Schools (1807, revised 1817); and finally, in two volumes, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). In range this last surpassed any dictionary of its time. A second edition, "corrected and enlarged" (1841), became known popularly as Webster's Unabridged. Conservative contemporaries, alarmed at its unorthodoxies in spelling, usage, and pronunciation and its proud inclusion of Americanisms, derided it as "Noah's Ark." However, after Webster's death the rights were sold in 1847 to George and Charles Merriam, printers in Worcester, Mass.; and the dictionary has become, through many revisions, the cornerstone and bulwark of effective American lexicography.

Webster's other late writings included A History of the United States (1832), a version of the Bible (1832) cleansed of all words and phrases dangerous to children or "offensive especially to females, " and a final Collection of Papers on Political, Literary and Moral Subjects (1843). Tall, redheaded, lanky, humorless, he was the butt of many cruel criticisms in his time. He died in New Haven on May 23, 1843.

Further Reading

Webster's Letters were edited by Harry R. Warfel (1953). Biographies include Emily E. (Ford) Skeel, Notes on the Life of Noah Webster (1912); Ervin C. Shoemaker, Noah Webster: Pioneer of Learning (1936); and Harry R. Warfel, Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America (1936). See also Robert K. Leavitt, Noah's Ark, New England Yankees, and the Endless Quest (1947), a history of the first century of Merriam-Webster dictionaries. □

WEBSTER, Noah [1758–1843]. American teacher, writer, editor, lexicographer, lecturer, and lobbyist, born in West Hartford, Connecticut, educated at Yale College (1778), and admitted to the bar (1781). His best-known works, The American Spelling Book (the ‘Blue-Back Spelling Book’, 1783) and An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), greatly contributed to lessening US dependence on British models of the standard language. His career as a schoolmaster led to the publication of A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, which included The American Spelling Book (1783), a grammar (1784), and a reader (1785). The speller was particularly popular, notably for its moral and patriotic flavour as opposed to the religious orientation of earlier texts. The grammar was less popular; it was criticized for being too advanced for schoolchildren and for overemphasizing elocution. Webster's achievement with A Grammatical Institute was in separating spelling, grammar, and reading into individual texts, a strategy which may have influenced other text-writers to stage the learning process for children. His vigorous lobbying to protect his work from piracy led to the institution of the first federal copyright laws in 1790.

Webster's lexicographical career began with the compilation of A Compendious Dictionary (1806), which was marked by innovations in spelling and by adherence to New England educated speech for pronunciation. Public criticism of the innovations eventually led to the ‘dictionary wars’ in which Joseph Emerson Worcester, who favoured BrE norms, led the opposition. Webster modified his stance in An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828, 1840), and considered its etymologies to be the most important aspect of his work. He adhered to the Biblical account of the origin of languages, claiming that all languages derived from ‘Chaldee’. The inclusion of technical terms and an attempt at precision in definitions distinguished this dictionary, but few Americanisms were included.

Some of Webster's recommendations for spelling reform, suggested as early as his Dissertations (1789), survived modification in later editions of his texts. The principles behind his reforms were analogy, etymology, reason, and usage. He was most concerned about superfluous letters and indeterminate sounds and characters. Although most of his early suggestions were retracted, the US spelling of such words as honor, center, defense, public can be attributed to his choice of them rather than honour, centre, defense, publick. He recognized that language influences people and he sought to ensure that American texts reflected American values as he understood them.

Noah Webster 1758–1843, American lexicographer and philologist, b. West Hartford, Conn., grad. Yale, 1778. After serving in the American Revolution, Webster practiced law in Hartford. His Grammatical Institute of the English Language, in three parts, speller, grammar, and reader (1783–85), was the first of a list of publications which made him for many years the chief American authority on the English language. The first part, often revised, was his famous Elementary Spelling Book, or "Blue-backed Speller," with which he helped to standardize American spelling. Pioneer families on the frontiers taught their children to read from it; in the schools it was a basic textbook, and in settlements and villages its lists were read out for lively spelling matches. By 1850, when the total population of the United States was about 23 million, the annual sales of Webster's spelling book were some 1 million copies, and the figures increased yearly.

An active Federalist, Webster became a pamphleteer for centralized government and wrote his Sketches of American Policy (1785), proposing the adoption of a constitution. The difficulty of copyrighting his works in 13 states led Webster to agitate for many years for a national copyright law; it was passed in 1790. In 1793 he left Hartford to support Washington's administration by editing the New York's first daily newspaper, American Minerva (later the Commercial Advertiser ); he was also editor, at various times, of several magazines. Webster also wrote scholarly studies on a great diversity of subjects, including epidemic diseases, mythology, meteors, and the relationship of European and Asian languages.

During most of his later life he lived in New Haven, Conn., and Amherst, Mass., and was a member of the first board of trustees of Amherst College. Deriving his income from his schoolbooks, he devoted most of the rest of his life to compiling dictionaries. After his Compendious Dictionary was published in 1806, he worked on another, the two-volume The American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), which included definitions of 70,000 words, 12,000 of which had not appeared in such a work before—many were unique to American English. Its definitions were excellent, and the dictionary's sales reached 300,000 annually. Webster's foremost achievement, the work helped to standardize American pronunciation. He completed the revision of 1840, and the dictionary, revised many times since, has retained its popularity. See also dictionary .

Bibliography: See his letters, ed. by H. R. Warfel (1953); biographies by H. E. Scudder (6th ed. 1971) and J. Kendall (2011); E. J. Monaghan, A Common Heritage: Noah Webster's Blue-Back Speller (1982); E. Skeel, A Bibliography of the Writings of Noah Webster (ed. by E. H. Carpenter, Jr., 1958).

Webster, Noah (1758–1843), lexicographer, journalist, educator.Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Webster grew up on a small New England farm. His father made great sacrifices to send Noah to Yale, from which he graduated in 1778. Failing to establish himself as a teacher or lawyer, Webster turned to writing. From 1783 to his death, he produced school books, political essays, scientific research, and dictionaries.

Webster's reputation as “the schoolmaster of America” rests primarily on his Spelling Book (1783), which enjoyed huge sales. He also produced a grammar and a reader that were sold as a set with the speller. Between 1785 and 1806, Webster wrote incessantly—on politics, language, and science, and also edited two influential periodicals, the American Magazine and the Minerva, which provided further outlets for his decidedly Federalist political opinions. His conservatism was particularly apparent in his essay The Revolution in France (1794).

After 1806, when Webster published his Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, he focused his energies on language theory and dictionaries. His much expanded American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) made the words “Webster” and “dictionary” virtually synonymous.

Webster's impact on American thought and culture was broad and long‐lasting. Once considered primarily a literary nationalist intent on limiting the influence of English books on Americans, he is better understood as a conservative force and partisan of New England habits and values. Increasingly alarmed by the growth of democracy and the decline of deference to the Federalist elite, Webster sought to use language to defend the virtues of a Calvinist, rural New England that was in nearly full retreat as America became more heterogeneous and cosmopolitan.
See also Antebellum Era; Early Republic, Era of the; Education: The Public School Movement; Federalist Party; Language, American; Nationalism; Whig Party.

Bibliography

Richard M. Rollins , The Long Journey of Noah Webster, 1980.
Richard J. Moss , Noah Webster, 1984.

Richard J. Moss

Webster, Noah (1758–1843), Connecticut lexicographer and philologist, after graduation from Yale (1778) began his career with the publication of A Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1783–85). The first part of this work became his famous Spelling Book, which was designed to meet American needs and long played a fundamental part in American education by its aid in standardizing spellings that differed from the English. It was so widely used that by 1890 this work, with its various revisions, had sold more than 60,000,000 copies. His attempts to obtain a copyright for his book led Webster into politics as a zealous Federalist, for his need to obtain the proper legislation in 13 states caused him to champion a strong central government that could control matters of this sort. His ideas on a federal union were set forth in Sketches of American Policy (1785). Between periods of school‐teaching and legal practice, he edited the Federalist journals American Minerva (1793–1803) and Herald (1794–1803). He also wrote graceful essays, works on economics, science, and medicine, edited the Journal of John Winthrop (1790), and, prompted by Franklin, wrote Dissertations on the English Language (1789), with radical views on reformed spelling, although his other orthographical works were on the whole traditional. His Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) was a forerunner of his scholarly work, An American Dictionary of the English Language (2 vols., 1828). At the time of its publication, there raged a “War of the Dictionaries” with the rival lexicographer Joseph Worcester, but Webster's work, adding some 5000 words not before included in English dictionaries, making use of Americanisms, and basing its definitions on the usage of American as well as English writers, soon became the recognized authority. In 1840 Webster revised his work to include 70,000 words instead of the original 38,000, and it has remained a recognized American authority in the many revisions made since his death.

Webster, Noah (1758–1843) US lexicographer and writer. He completed his monumental, two-volume American Dictionary of the English Language, containing 70,000 words, in 1828. A second edition appeared in 1840, and the work has continued to be revised regularly since then.

Webster, Noah (1758–1843), American lexicographer and philologist, is remembered for his great and scholarly An American Dictionary of the English Language (2 vols, 1828). (See also dictionary.)