Noah Webster, American Language, and Webster’s Speller American Cultural History, Topic 4

Living History

Background: Noah Webster In the early republic, no man did more than Noah Webster ( ) to promote an education in the emerging American culture. Webster, a one-time deist who embraced evangelical Christianity at midlife, was born in West Hartford Connecticut and served briefly in the War of American Independence before becoming a lawyer and schoolmaster. As a deeply committed Federalist (one who favored the creation of a strong central government), he wrote a well-received pamphlet, Sketches of American Policy (1785), and founded two newspapers, The Minerva (later The Commercial Advertiser) and The Herald (later The Spectator) to advance the cause of his party.

Seeing History Samuel F. B. Morse, Noah Webster (n.d.) at Yale University (in the public domain at wikimedia.org)

Background: American Language Having received a broad education at Yale University, he also wrote many works on politics, economics, biology, education, religion, and physical science, helped to found Amherst College, and published a “common version” of the Bible. He is most famous, however, for his contributions to nationalistic education, which promoted a distinctly American identity through standardizing American language in works such as Webster’s Elementary Spelling Book, also known as The American Spelling Book or The Blue-Backed Speller (1783), A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806), and American Dictionary of the English Language (1828, enlarged in 1840).

Seeing History Andrew Balet, Noah Webster's New Haven, CT, Home (2 July 2006) in Its Relocated Position in Michigan (published by the copyright holder under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license at wikimedia.org)

Reason from the Background What principles or lessons stand out to you from the history covered by the preceding slides? What one word would you choose to describe the history covered by the preceding slides? Please explain. What is the biggest question that you have about the history covered by the preceding slides?

Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “The Prophet Joseph Smith deepened our understanding of the power of speech when he taught, ‘It is by words … [that] every being works when he works by faith. God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ Joshua spake, and the great lights which God had created stood still. Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain. … All this was done by faith. … Faith, then, works by words; and with [words] its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed.’ Like all gifts ‘which cometh from above,’ words are ‘sacred, and must be spoken with care, and by constraint of the Spirit’” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, May Ensign 2007).

Background: Education and Freedom Webster’s speller and dictionaries had such a profound impact on American culture because of the widespread belief in the early republic that education was the key to maintaining freedom. Unlike in England, where conservative aristocrats feared that educating the masses would lead to discontent and revolt, in the new American nation, intellectuals and civic leaders believed that the widespread education of white males was essential. The existence of the republic, they asserted, depended on the virtue and intelligence of the voting populace, which necessitated making access to knowledge a top priority in the emerging nation. As Webster said, education had to be “the most important business in civil society.” Ignorance led to tyranny, argued the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, and “wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the people, … are necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties.”

Background: A Hunger for Education This line of thinking led to a flood of speeches and writings on the importance of education in the early republic. In 1776, there were only nine colleges in the United States; within twenty-five years, sixteen more would join them. Seventy-five percent of all American books and pamphlets published between 1637 and 1800 were produced between 1765 and Between 1786 and 1795, Americans created twenty- eight magazines—six more than those established in the entire colonial period. Publicly supported libraries sprouted up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Reading clubs, lecture series, and debating societies flourished, and, though rare prior to the Battle of Lexington and Concord, American newspapers proliferated so quickly during the early republic that Americans soon became the largest body of newspaper digesters in the world. In short, in the name of maintaining the republic for which they had fought so diligently to secure, the emerging nation developed an insatiable hunger for education.

Background: Cultural Unity For leaders of the nascent nation, consciously establishing federal culture was paramount. As George Washington explained, “The more homogeneous our citizens can be made … the greater will be our prospect of permanent union.” To make Washington’s vision a reality, Webster stressed “uniformity & purity of language” to unite Americans in a common linguistic culture, and Thomas Jefferson discouraged going abroad to receive higher education, admiring, instead, those “who have been educated [at home in America], … whose manners, morals, and habits are perfectly homogeneous with those of the country.” As historian Michael Kammen has assessed, “They all hoped to achieve a common citizenship based upon cultural unity and well-ordered liberty. The free American would sensibly subordinate his identity to the larger, singular character envisioned for the nation. Collective individualism, it might be called.”

Background: Cultural Independence Having won political independence from England, Washington and Jefferson now desired cultural independence from the former “mother- country” and dreamed of distinctly American contributions to the western world’s literary masterworks. They saw the United States as the final, culminating stage of civilization: the “last and greatest theatre for the improvement of mankind.” Such soaring nationalism led to patriotic education in the new American culture being one of the foremost objectives of education in the early republic.

Background: Patriotic Education American schoolchildren were to understand the world through the newness and possibility of the great American lens—not through the time-worn traditions of their European heritage. They were to think nationalistic, American thoughts and unite with their countrymen in a federal, American culture. Helping the populace to feel personal attachment to the new nation was even more important than simply securing it on fields of battle because doing so fostered permanence: the type of cultural commitment that would keep the union of states together.

Seeing History USDA, ARS, Scott Bauer, American Cultural Icons (n.d.) (in the public domain at wikimedia.org)

Reason from the Background What principles or lessons stand out to you from the history covered by the preceding slides? What one word would you choose to describe the history covered by the preceding slides? Please explain. What is the biggest question that you have about the history covered by the preceding slides?

Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “‘He who invades the domain of knowledge must approach it as Moses came to the burning bush; he stands on holy ground; he would acquire things sacred,’ said President J. Reuben Clark Jr. (1871–1961), a member of the First Presidency, speaking at the inauguration of a new president of Brigham Young University. ‘We must come to this quest of truth—in all regions of human knowledge whatsoever, not only in reverence, but with a spirit of worship.’ As Latter-day Saints we believe in education, and we have a philosophy about how and why we should pursue it. Our religious faith teaches us that we should seek learning by the Spirit and that we have a stewardship to use our knowledge for the benefit of mankind” (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Apr. Ensign 2009).

Background: Webster’s Speller Webster believed that this sort of shaping of the American identity had much to do with creating an American language. “As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government,” he said. As such, his Blue-Backed Speller, as well as a grammar and a reader (which would form, along with the speller, his Grammatical Institute of the English Language), championed a simplified, uniform, and Americanized English that rejected some British conventions of spelling, grammar, and pronunciation.

Background: A “Cultural Declaration” For example, words such as “honour,” “colour,” and “labour” lost their silent “u.” Words like “theatre” became “theater”, and “plough” became “plow.” The speller also contained a preface that set forth its nationalistic purpose in what has been called a “cultural Declaration of Independence,” stating that “the country must, in some future time, be as distinguished by the superiority of her literary achievements, as she already is by the liberality of her civil and ecclesiastical constitutions.” Due to its almost universal use, the speller would become the most influential tool for advancing the cause of American nationalism. It would eventually sell over 100 million copies, making it the best-selling book—other than the Bible—in the history of American publishing.

Background: Webster’s Dictionaries Webster’s dictionaries of American English further advanced the cause of an independent American linguistic culture. His 1806 school dictionary was republished in so many editions that, in 1828, Webster enlarged it, making it the national standard for American definitions, spelling, pronunciation, and word usage. For historians, it also provides a priceless window into the world of distinctly American ideas in the young nation. For example, by 1828, Webster defined “gentleman” merely as a courtesy title that could apply to all “men of education and good breeding, of every occupation.” Such a definition was a radical departure from the English tradition of social hierarchy.

Background: American Identity As historian Gordon Wood has commented, “‘Of every occupation’—that was the key to the transformation [of American culture]. Traditionally gentleman did not have occupations; they were not in trade or business, and they did not work for money. Even artists and members of the professions who wished to be gentlemen [in colonial days] tried to regard their activities as something other than their source of income.” In America, however, achievement through one’s own work was honored and encouraged due to the belief that “all men are created equal” and, as such, should have an equal opportunity to prove themselves and become gentlemen. American culture celebrated individual worth and becoming, and Webster’s dictionary captured such features of the American identity.

Background: Webster’s Definitions It also embraced 5,000 new, American words— such as “tomahawk” and “rattlesnake”—and contained 12,000 more words and 40,000 more definitions than any previous English dictionary. As a reflection of the Biblical worldview of the nation in which he lived, these definitions contained numerous references and examples from the Bible. Though his etymologies were not entirely precise by modern standards, his concise, pithy definitions have remained models of lexical style.

Background: Father of Am. Education Also, by including thousands of technical and scientific definitions, Webster laid the foundation for the comprehensive—rather than purely literary— dictionaries of the modern age. The enlarged 1840 version of his 1828 dictionary has continued to appear in revised editions to this day, though the definitions have changed to reflect the respective American cultures of their times. The dictionaries’ contributions to American culture through the formation of distinctly American English have, along with the similar contributions of the Blue- Backed Speller, led to Webster being called the “Father of Scholarship and Education in America.”

Seeing History Noah Webster's Handwritten Drafts of Dictionary Entries (c ) in the Webster Family Papers at Yale University (in the public domain at wikimedia.org)

Seeing History Noah Webster, Engraved by H. B. Hall and Sons, Title Page from A Dictionary of the English Language (c ) at the Yale University (in the public domain at wikimedia.org)

Seeing History Root and Tinker Print of Noah Webster: Schoolmaster of the Republic (18 April 1886) at the Library of Congress (in the public domain at wikimedia.org)

Reason from the Background What principles or lessons stand out to you from the history covered by the preceding slides? What one word would you choose to describe the history covered by the preceding slides? Please explain. What is the biggest question that you have about the history covered by the preceding slides?

Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “Husbands, you have been entrusted with the most sacred gift God can give you—a wife, a daughter of God, the mother of your children who has voluntarily given herself to you for love and joyful companionship. Think of the kind things you said when you were courting, think of the blessings you have given with hands placed lovingly upon her head, think of yourself and of her as the god and goddess you both inherently are, and then reflect on other moments characterized by cold, caustic, unbridled words. Given the damage that can be done with our tongues, little wonder the Savior said, ‘Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.’ A husband who would never dream of striking his wife physically can break, if not her bones, then certainly her heart by the brutality of thoughtless or unkind speech…. Today, I speak against verbal and emotional abuse of anyone against anyone, but especially of husbands against wives. Brethren, these things ought not to be.” 

Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “In that same spirit we speak to the sisters as well, for the sin of verbal abuse knows no gender. Wives, what of the unbridled tongue in your mouth, of the power for good or ill in your words? How is it that such a lovely voice which by divine nature is so angelic, so close to the veil, so instinctively gentle and inherently kind could ever in a turn be so shrill, so biting, so acrid and untamed? A woman’s words can be more piercing than any dagger ever forged, and they can drive the people they love to retreat beyond a barrier more distant than anyone in the beginning of that exchange could ever have imagined. Sisters, there is no place in that magnificent spirit of yours for acerbic or abrasive expression of any kind, including gossip or backbiting or catty remarks. Let it never be said of our home or our ward or our neighborhood that ‘the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity … [burning] among our members’” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, May Ensign 2007).

Reason from the Source What indications of the speller’s widespread adoption and use does Webster mention?

Reason from the Source What does Webster say about his conscious creation of American standards for uniformity in orthography (spelling) and pronunciation?

Reason from the Source Along with the rudiments of American English, what else does Webster—through his speller— hope to instill in the minds and hearts of American students? Provide examples.

Relate the FACE Seven Principles How does the document relate to FACE Principle #7: The Christian Principle of American Political Union: “Internal agreement or unity, which is invisible, produces an external union, which is visible in the spheres of government, economics, and home and community life. Before two or more individuals can act effectively together, they must first be united in spirit in their purposes and convictions”?

Relate the Anchor Scriptures How does the document relate to Omni 1:14-19? ◦ “And they discovered a people, who were called the people of Zarahemla. Now, there was great rejoicing among the people of Zarahemla; and also Zarahemla did rejoice exceedingly, because the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah with the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews. Behold, it came to pass that Mosiah discovered that the people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon. And they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth.” 

Relate the Anchor Scriptures How does the document relate to Omni 1:14-19? ◦ “And at the time that Mosiah discovered them, they had become exceedingly numerous. Nevertheless, they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator; and Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them. But it came to pass that Mosiah caused that they should be taught in his language. And it came to pass that after they were taught in the language of Mosiah, Zarahemla gave a genealogy of his fathers, according to his memory; and they are written, but not in these plates. And it came to pass that the people of Zarahemla, and of Mosiah, did unite together; and Mosiah was appointed to be their king.”