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Show Noah Webster as a Pioneer How the First Maker of American Dictionaries Traveled About Por-suadlng Por-suadlng Printers to Adopt His Ideas of Orthography. Many persons, probably naturally, hare the mistaken opinlop that the Qrst maker of American dictionaries, Noah Webste-, and Daniel Webster were of kin. They were not of kin, however, unless the relationship was very remote. Noah Webster had colonial co-lonial forebears and Daniel Webster had not. Noah Webster was a descendant de-scendant on the maternal side of the second governor of Plymouth Colony, Governor Bradford. Noah Webster's home was at New Haven, Conn., for many years, and one of the traditions associated with his career is that he wrote "Webster's Spelling Book" while living in a little frame house of colonial architecture near New Haven green. That classic however, was written a full fifteen years before Webster removed to New Haven and while he was a 6chool teacher in New York state, although it was published at Hartford, Conn. A few years prior to the Civil war there still lived In New Haven several sev-eral citizens of venerable years who well remembered Noah Webster. "He was a very tall man, somewhat slender, but very erect," said one of , those old citizens. "I remember that he had a very kindly face, and I know that with us in New Haven he had, in my earlier days, a higher reputation as the maker of 'Webster's Spelling Book' than as the compiler of 'Webster' 'Web-ster' Dictionary,' and that was so because be-cause we were all taught spelling from Webster's speller, and there were told wonderful stories about the way that book was selling. "I have always heard that Noah Webster was a sort of subscription agent for his own speller soon after it was published. He was accustomed to travel about the country, stopping, whenever convenient, at towns where there was a printing office. He would enter the printing office and pass a few pleasant words with the proprietor, proprie-tor, or the general printer, or even the printer's devil; he was a familiar figure in the printing offices of New Haven and Hartford. Then, -having by his kindly ways ingratiated hSn-self hSn-self into the other's good favor, Mr. Webster would say: " 'My friend, I observe that you are accustomed to spell the word "honor" with a "u," and that It is also your habit to spell the word "labor" with a "u." Now, I want to say to you that that. In my opinion, is not the American Ameri-can way to spell these words. That Is the English way. The "u" is not needed.' need-ed.' "So, Noah Webster would go from town to town, visiting the printing offices, of-fices, to persuade the printers of that time to adopt his form of spelling. And I have sometimes thought that he did more by this method to secure acceptance of hi3 ideas of spelling than at first he did with his spelling book." Noah Webster must, then, have been the first American advocate of the now so-called modified or simplified form of spelling. It used to be said by some of his descendants in New Haven that in all about fifty million copies of his spelling book were sold, and it is a well-known fact that, although al-though the royalty which he received upon each copy was a little less than one cent, nevertheless this Income was sufficient to support him and his family during the twenty years when he was engaged in the compiling of his great dictionary. (Copyright, 1911. by E. J. Edwards. All Rights Reserved.) |
