Webster, Noah

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

Noah (1758-1843), a noted American lexicographer. A native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale College, class of 1778. He became a teacher in Hartford and studied law, but was led by the distressed condition of business to defer entering the profession. He began writing by preparing schoolbooks. He had a patriotic notion, quite prevalent at the close of the Revolutionary War, that America should cease to import textbooks from England. He prepared a Grammatical Institute of the English Language, to consist of three parts, a spelling book, a grammar, and a reader. These books became popular. A royalty of a trifle less than a cent a copy on the speller allowed him by the publishers soon supported his family. Many million copies of Webster's spelling book have been sold. The revised speller is selling yet. To the widespread use of this speller we owe in large part the uniformity of pronunciation which prevails in this country. In 1789 Webster opened a law office in Hartford and became one of a circle of young men with literary tastes. In 1793 he was induced to go to New York to establish a weekly political paper. This connection led to the writing of a number of political tracts which have been forgotten in his larger fame. Webster removed to New Haven in 1798, and in 1807 began the compilation of The American Dictionary of the English Language. The first edition contained 12,000 words and 30,000 to 40,000 definitions and meanings not to be found in any other dictionary of the time. The first edition in a single volume appeared in 1828. A second came out three years later in two volumes. During the preparation of this dictionary Webster lived for a time at Amherst. He was a member of the first board of trustees of Amherst College . He also visited Paris, London, Oxford, and Cambridge to consult scholars and make use of libraries. Webster was a man of prodigious reading, a hard worker, and a scholar of sound judgment. Much of his work, admirable as it was, has been revised, but that does not detract in the least from the esteem to which his labor is entitled. Various names as the Revised, the Unabridged, and now the International have been adopted to distinguish successive revisions. The last edition published by the G. & C. Merriam Co., of Springfield, Massachusetts, contains not less than 400,000 words and phrases with their meanings and definitions.