Noah Webster

Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in the Noah Webster House in western Hartford, Connecticut Colony, during the Colonial Era. The area of his birth later became West Hartford, Connecticut. He was born into an established family, and the Noah Webster House continues to highlight his life and serves as the headquarters of the West Hartford Historical Society. His father, Noah Webster Sr. (1722–1813), was a descendant of Connecticut Governor John Webster; his mother Mercy (Steele) Webster (1727–1794) was a descendant of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony. His father was primarily a farmer, though he was also a 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.

Webster's father never attended college, but placed a strong emphasis on education. Webster's mother spent long hours teaching her children spelling, mathematics, and music. At age six, Webster began attending a dilapidated one-room primary school built by West Hartford's Ecclesiastical Society. Years later, he described the teachers as the "dregs of humanity" and complained that the instruction was mainly in religion. Webster's experiences there motivated him to improve the educational experience of future generations.

At age fourteen, he received tutoring from his church pastor in Latin and Greek to prepare him for entering Yale College. Webster enrolled at Yale just before his 16th birthday, and during his senior year studied with Ezra Stiles, Yale's president. He was also a member of Brothers in Unity, a secret society at Yale. His four years at Yale overlapped the American Revolutionary War and, because of food shortages and the possibility of a British invasion, many classes were held in other towns. Webster served in the Connecticut Militia. His father mortgaged the farm to send Webster to Yale, but after graduating, Webster had little contact with his family.

Webster lacked clear career plans after graduating from Yale in 1779, later writing that a liberal arts education "disqualifies a man for business". He taught school briefly in Glastonbury, but due to harsh working conditions and low pay, he resigned to study law. While studying law under future U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, Webster also taught full-time in Hartford—a grueling experience that ultimately proved unsustainable. He quit his legal studies for a year and lapsed into a depression; he then found another practicing attorney to tutor him, and completed his studies, and passed the bar examination in 1781.

With the American Revolutionary War still ongoing, Webster was unable to find work as a lawyer. He received a master's degree from Yale by delivering an oral dissertation to the graduating class. Later that year, he opened a small private school in western Connecticut, which initially succeeded but was eventually closed, possibly due to a failed romance. Turning to literary work as a way to overcome his losses and 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 would be a permanent state of affairs. 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. Proceeds from continuing sales of the popular blue-backed speller enabled Webster to spend many years working on his famous dictionary.

Webster was by nature a revolutionary, seeking American independence from the cultural thralldom to Europe. He aimed to create a utopian America, free from luxury and ostentation, and a champion of freedom. By 1781, Webster had an expansive view of the new nation. American nationalism was superior to European nationalism due to the perceived superiority of American values.

America sees the absurdities—she observes the kingdoms of Europe, disturbed by wrangling sectaries, or their commerce, population, and improvements of every kind cramped and retarded, because the human mind like the body is fettered 'and bound fast by the chords of policy and superstition': She laughs at their folly and shuns their errors: She founds her empire upon the idea of universal toleration: She admits all religions into her bosom; She secures the sacred rights of every individual; and (astonishing absurdity to Europeans!) she sees a thousand discordant opinions live in the strictest harmony... it will finally raise her to a pitch of greatness and lustre, before which the glory of ancient Greece and Rome shall dwindle to a point, and the splendor of modern Empires fade into obscurity.

Webster dedicated his Speller and Dictionary to providing an intellectual foundation for American nationalism. From 1787 to 1789, Webster was an outspoken supporter of the new Constitution. In October 1787, he wrote a pamphlet entitled "An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia", published under the pen name "A Citizen of America". The pamphlet was influential, particularly outside New York State.

In political theory, Webster emphasized widespread property ownership, a key element of Federalism. He was also one of the few early American thinkers who applied the theories of the French theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau in America. He relied heavily on Rousseau's Social Contract while writing Sketches of American Policy, one of the earliest, widely-published arguments for a strong central government in America. He also wrote two "fan fiction" sequels to Rousseau's Emile, or On Education (1762) and included them in his Reader for schoolchildren. Webster's Reader also contains an idealized word portrait of Sophie, the girl in Rousseau's Emile, and Webster used Rousseau's theories in Emile to argue for the civic necessity of broad-based female education.

Religion

In his early years, Webster was a freethinker, but in 1808 he became a convert to Calvinistic orthodoxy, and thereafter became a devout Congregationalist who preached the need to Christianize the nation. Webster viewed language as a means to control disruptive thoughts. His American Dictionary emphasized the virtues of social control over human passions and individualism, submission to authority, and fear of God; they were necessary for the maintenance of the American social order. As he grew older, Webster's attitudes changed from those of an optimistic revolutionary in the 1780s to those of a pessimistic critic of man and society by the 1820s.

His 1828 American Dictionary contained the greatest number of Biblical definitions given in any reference volume. Webster said of education,

Education is useless without the Bible. The Bible was America's basic text book in all fields. God's Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct.

Webster released his own edition of the Bible in 1833, called the Common Version. He used the King James Version (KJV) as a base and consulted the Hebrew and Greek along with various other versions and commentaries. Webster molded the KJV to correct grammar, replaced words that were no longer used, and removed words and phrases that could be seen as offensive.

In 1834, he published Value of the Bible and Excellence of the Christian Religion, an apologetic book in defense of the Bible and Christianity itself.