Webster, Noah (1758–1843)

Noah Webster was an energetic educator whose strong belief in American nationalism, individual self-sufficiency, and popular government was reflected in his distinctive approach to crafting early spelling books, grammar guides, writing and speaking texts, and eventually his 70,000-entry An American Dictionary of the English Language. By 1790, Webster had authored six instructional books that were used regularly by parents, tutors, students, and schoolteachers as educational texts and reference guides. He had also successfully tackled the widespread problem of plagiarism by traveling to the 13 states to convince legislators to pass copyright laws; he extended his lobbying to the First U.S. Congress, which passed the Copyright Act of 1790. In the area of educational reform, he can be credited with bringing the practice of a particularly American version of the English language to citizens and schools.

Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, to a middle-class farming family, at age 16 Webster entered Yale College, a campus heady with student activists consumed with revolutionary zeal. After graduating in 1778, Webster taught school and studied law; and, although admitted to the bar at Hartford, he found no suitable employment in that crowded profession. He initiated several failed schools in Connecticut, always emphasizing literature and the proper uses of grammar and pronunciation, areas he found sorely lacking in American education. One of his schools was a unique progressive venture in Hartford with tuition based on economic status. One by one the schools failed. At the same time, his essays appeared in various New England and New York periodicals, mostly aimed at promoting strict American nationalism and supporting the break with all vestiges of British rule.

Webster's career as an instructional writer aiming to improve education and correctness in the English language began when he moved to Goshen, New York, in 1782. He produced a uniquely American spelling book that served his patriotic commitment by replacing the available British spellers, The Grammatical Institute of the English Language. Webster's spelling choices began new and enduring traditions by veering from British examples.Honour, gaol, publick, and musick[Page 937]became honor, jail, public, and music. His innovations generally favored simplification; and he also peppered the book with stories and advice on the goodness of books, study, hard work, and general American citizenship. Unique to Webster's book was a pronunciation guide, which Webster felt necessary to promote national unity and end the habits of localism that highlighted regional differences. Although he had difficulties finding a publisher and managed to obtain one only by taking nearly no royalties, Webster established himself as an educator with the Blue Back Speller, as the book became known. Almost immediately, it sold 20,000 copies a year and went into continual new editions. By 1829, an estimated 20 million copies of Webster's spellers had been purchased.

Webster quickly produced the grammar and the reader he had planned for the series that began with the speller. He vigorously marketed his volumes throughout the 13 states and then used his platform as a notable to embark on a wide variety of publishing projects, such as: Sketches of American Policy (1785), The New England Primer (1798), A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases (1799), and The Little Reader's Assistant (1790). Typical of Webster's nationalistic philosophy and moralistic determination was his title for the 1797 edition of his reader: An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking, Calculated to Improve Minds and Refine the Taste of Youth. Webster believed that American citizens should not wait to come to patriotism; they should be taught patriotism while being taught to read and write. Selections in that edition emphasized the founding of the nation, the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, and his vision of a nation of distinct manners and language. Interestingly for a savvy salesman with a national market, but appropriate for his own abolitionist commitment, he included a selection unfavorable to slavery. For Webster, young minds were meant to be shaped in the direction of correct thought and behavior, rather than instructed toward informed choices.

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