Few names are more widely recognized than Noah Webster, or at least Webster. Few authors can claim to have their work, revised or otherwise in continuous print for almost two hundred years.

Noah Webster was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1758. One of five children, his childhood was typical and uneventful. His father farmed and worked as a weaver and his mother worked at home. In an age when few went to college, Webster's love of learning was such that his parents allowed him to attend Yale, Connecticut's only college. He left for New Haven in 1774 when he was sixteen, one year before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Despite the privations and interruptions caused by the war, Webster graduated in 1778. He then studied law and was admitted to the bar at Hartford in 1781.

Money restrictions prevented Webster from entering a career in law, and so he took up teaching to earn a living, first in Glastonbury and later back in Hartford. It was here that he became exposed to the condition of education in America and formulated a desire to improve it. In the late 18th century, most Americans were taught in one room schoolhouses, but there was often little money for books or qualified teachers. What books there were came from England, and with the Revolution recently concluded, Webster believed that American children should be taught from American Books. He also declared government was responsible to "Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political and religious duties."

Perhaps his views at the time could be expressed in his own writing: "Principles, Sir, are becoming corrupt, deeply corrupt; & unless the progress of corruption, & perversion of truth can be arrested, neither liberty nor property, will long be secure in this country. And a great evil is, that men of the first distinction seem, to a great extent, to be ignorant of the real, original causes of our public distresses."

Webster wrote a series of textbooks, starting with a spelling book published in 1783 called Webster's Elementary Spelling Book. It was published with a blue cover, and it immediately became known as the Blue-Backed Speller. He followed up with two other additions, grammar and reading. But his spelling book, the Blue-Backed Speller is by far the most famous. It was the most popular American book of its type at the time, and it is reported than Ben Franklin used it to teach his granddaughter how to read. A century later it has been estimated that over sixty million copies had been sold, and with revisions, it is still in print.

When the Constitution was being debated, Webster wrote pamphlet to encourage its adoption. He is largly credited with being responsible for Article I, Section 8. An ardent Federalist, he founded two newspapers both of which supported the Federalist Party. After a brief time in New York, Webster settled in New Haven and sold the newspapers.

In 1789, Webster married Rebecca Greenleaf and they eventually had eight children. He enjoyed fatherhood, and often carried raisins and candies in his pockets for the children to enjoy. The Webster's lived in New Haven, and then moved to Amherst, Massachusetts where he helped to found Amherst College. Later, the family moved back to New Haven.

In 1825, having devoted more than 20 years to the study of the English language, and having traveled to both England and France, Webster started writing the first American Dictionary. His travels showed him that Americans in different parts of the country spelled, pronounced and used words differently. Webster believed that Americans should not speak and spell like the British, but like Americans. However his main belief was that "Education is useless without the Bible."

His Monumental American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828. He used words like "color" instead of the English "colour" and "music" instead of "musick". He also added words that weren't in the English dictionaries, like "skunk" and "squash" When completed, his work had 12,000 more words, and 40,000 more definitions than any earlier dictionary of the English language. In the preface to this great work, Webster stated "In my view, the Christain religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed."

Despite his years of effort in education, Webster's believed that the first thing that must be taught is religion. He wrote, "It is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion."

Webster did many things in his life. He worked for copyright laws, wrote other textbooks, and edited magazines. And yet his true beliefs showed what was most important to him. "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed," he wrote. "No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."

Noah Webster died in 1843 at the age of 85, and was considered an American Hero. Just before his death, he publicly professed, "I know whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep which I have committed to Him against that day."

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