American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, editor, author
Often called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education", Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, editor and writer.Noah Webster was born on October 16, 1758 in West Hartford, Connecticut. His father, Noah Sr. (1722–1813), was a descendant of Connecticut Governor John Webster; his mother Mercy (née Steele; 1727-1794) was a descendant of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony.
His father was mainly a farmer though he was also deacon of the local Congregational church, captain of the town's militia, and a founder of a local book society, a precursor to the public library. After American independence, he was appointed a justice of the peace. He never attended college but valued education. His mother spent long hours teaching Noah and his siblings spelling, mathematics and music.
At the age of 14, he was tutored in Latin and Greek by his church pastor to prepare for entrance to Yale College. He enrolled at Yale shy of his 16th birthday, studying during his senior year with Yale's president, Ezra Stiles. His four years at Yale overlapped with the American Revolutionary War. He served in the Connecticut Militia.
Webster did not have firm career plans after graduating from Yale in 1778. He briefly taught school in Glastonbury, found the working conditions to be harsh and the pay low. He left to study law to increase in earning power. While studying law under the mentorship of Oliver Ellsworth, the future U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, Webster held a full-time job teaching in Hartford, a schedule he found grueling, and impossible to sustain.
He quit his legal studies for a year. Depressed, he eventually found another practicing attorney to mentor him, completing his studies and passing the bar examination in 1781. With the Revolutionary War ongoing on, he could not find employment as a lawyer. He picked up a masters degree from Yale for giving an oral dissertation to the Yale graduating class. He opened a small, private school in western Connecticut later that year. It was an instant success, but he quickly closed it and left town.
Webster turned to literary work as a way to overcome his losses and to channel his ambitions. He began writing a series of well-received articles for a prominent New England newspaper justifying and praising the American Revolution and arguing that the separation from Britain was permanent.
He then founded a private school catering to wealthy parents in Goshen, New York, and by 1785, he had written his speller, a grammar book and a reader for elementary schools. The proceeds from continuing sales of the popular blue-backed speller enabled Webster to spend many years working on his famous dictionary.
His books taught generations of American children how to spell and read, and made their education more secular and less religious. His name became synonymous with "dictionary," especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. It became a standard textbook in American schools, containing 70,000 words, then considered the largest English dictionary published.
He died May 28, 1843.
Video Credit:
Noah Webster. en.wikipedia.org / Public Domain. A 1932 statue of Webster by Korczak Ziółkowski standing in front of the public library of West Hartford, Connecticut.
Resources:
- Clark, John, (Ed.) Illustrated Biographical Dictionary. London: Chancellor Press (1978).
- Noah Webster. Accessed October 16, 2012. -- http://www.bartleby.com/228/0233.html
- Noah Webster History. Accessed Oct 16, 2012. --- http://noahwebsterhouse.org/discover/noah-webster-history.htm
(c) Tel Asiado. Written for InspiredPenWeb.com. All rights reserved.
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