History Book: The architect of American language

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Monday, December 16th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, the WORLD History Book. On this day in 1785, Noah Webster—the original American dictionary guy—so he’s good with words he sits down to write a letter to George Washington.

REICHARD: Webster is twenty-seven. In his letter, Webster invites himself to live at Mount Vernon with Washington and his family. Who does that?

EICHER: Apparently, Noah Webster. Washington is just one of dozens of the most powerful people in the Colonies he’s surrounding himself with. Here’s WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde with the rest of Webster’s story.

CALEB WELDE: Noah Webster likes to push it, but is this too far? He says in his letter, “Sir, I can start objections even on your part…” But he nevertheless asks Washington if he can live at Mt. Vernon … to pursue his own writing, and to tutor Mrs. Washington’s grandkids.

The letter is not totally out of the blue– Webster has already had dinner with the General twice at Mt Vernon.

UNGER: He got on his horse, rode to Mt Vernon, and had the chutzpah to knock on George Washington’s door.

Biographer Harlow Unger there for a 1999 “Book TV” program.

UNGER: He didn’t know Washington, but he showed him a letter from president of Yale, and from the governor Trumble of Connecticut, and then he showed Washington this book.

The book was a small spelling and grammar book written by Webster. Webster makes the case that if people are going to independently govern themselves, they need to be educated. Beth Ballenger is founder of the Noah Webster Educational Foundation.

BALLENGER: He didn't think that you necessarily had to have a school to be well educated.

Webster tells Washington his self-teaching book will help unify America. Washington actually agrees to Webster’s request to live at Mt. Vernon on the condition Webster will also be his full-time secretary. Webster writes back saying, in so many words, that he has too many other priorities, and is actually too busy.

So who is this twenty-seven year old– and what’s driving him? He grew up on a farm in Connecticut, yet, got into Yale at sixteen with the help of a family pastor friend. That’s where he made his first connections. He’s been upwardly mobile ever since.

By the time the Constitutional Convention rolls around, he knows, at least by acquaintance– two thirds of the delegates at the Convention. His trick is to get the last famous guy to write a letter of introduction to the next famous guy. He seems to especially enjoy Benjamin Franklin– who is becoming a sort of mentor. Washington and Madison come to his house to talk during the convention.

BALLENGER: But not only that, he would visit the taverns. Webster would visit the taverns where he knew the delegates would be dining and discussing and would contribute to the discussion as well.

He also meets Rebecca Greenleaf that year in Philadelphia. They fall in love quickly. After three months, he tells her that her friendship and esteem are his “only happiness.” family is also very well connected, and they marry in 1789.

Webster spends the next two decades studying law, traveling for speaking tours, writing and continuing what we might call networking today.

BALLENGER: When he lived in Connecticut, he was a congressman. He was in the legislature. He was actually a peace officer, and he served on the Chamber of Commerce. He was an extremely active man.

Then, a seismic shift, a year shy of his fiftieth birthday. Across New England, there's revival meetings going on in homes and churches. Webster doesn’t like them. He says it’s emotionalism. He believes in “rational religion.”

WEBSTER: My wife, however, was friendly to these meetings…

His family starts regularly attending the meetings. Webster’s religion has been very self-focused up to this point. His beliefs very much mirror Benjamin Franklin’s.

WEBSTER: I had doubts respecting some of the doctrines of the Christian faith, such as regeneration, election, salvation by free grace, the atonement and the divinity of Christ.

His “reliance,” in his own words, are in good works “as the means of salvation.” He begins examining doctrines more closely with a pastor. A battle rages on.

WEBSTER: I continued some weeks in this situation, utterly unable to quiet my own mind.

Then, in his words, one day he wakes up.

WEBSTER: I closed my books, yielded to the influence, which could not be resisted or mistaken, and led by a spontaneous impulse to repentance, prayer, and entire submission and surrender of myself to my maker and redeemer.

Now he says he believes, “reliance on our own talents or powers is a fatal error, springing from natural pride and opposition to God.”

WEBSTER: I am particularly affected by a sense of my ingratitude to the Being who made me, and without whose constant agency I cannot draw a breath, who has showered upon me a profusion of temporal blessings and provided a Savior for my immortal soul.

He begins to “relish” many parts of the Bible which had made no sense to him before. He’s especially taken with, or by, the Holy Spirit.

WEBSTER: I cannot think without trembling on what my condition would have been had God withdrawn the blessed influences of His Spirit, the moment I manifested opposition to it, as he justly might have done, and given me over to hardness of heart and blindness of mind.

As for Rebecca…

WEBSTER: You may easily conceive how much she was affected, the first time she met her husband and children at the Communion.

Most people know Webster for his dictionary. He’d just begun the project when God saved him. He doesn’t just dive right into defining things. He begins by brushing up on his college Latin, Hebrew, and Greek then on French and German. Then he dives into Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Welsh, and Persian. He learns twenty or more.

Picture him, in the upstairs of the family home, standing at a semi-circle desk. Twenty or thirty dictionaries and grammar books in various languages all within arms reach.

BALLENGER: He would take one word at a time and go straight around that horseshoe shaped table, studying it, and his definitions show where his heart is, because often times he would use scripture.

From his definition of grace:

WEBSTER: Appropriately, the free, unmerited love and favor of God, the spring and source of all the benefits men receive from him. “And if by grace, then it is no more of works.” Romans 11:6.

He stays at it for twenty-one years. When he’s done, he has written seventy thousand entries.

Here’s part of his definition for, “fortitude.”

WEBSTER: That strength or firmness of mind or soul which enables a person to encounter danger with coolness and courage, or to bear pain or adversity without murmuring, depression or despondency.

Webster has also been making notes in his King James Bible these two decades where he sees words and grammar that people don’t use anymore. Five years after the Dictionary, he publishes a revised version. He writes in the preface he thinks the Bible should be read, and understood, in the common language.

Webster brings a stack of these Bibles to his and Rebecca’s fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration. Webster knows it’ll be the last time they’re all together. At the end of the night, the eighty-four year old calls the meeting to order. He kneels, and everyone follows his example. Webster asks God to bless the family– his children, and his children’s children “to the last generation”. Then he gives each of them a Bible with their name inside. He tells his daughter after…

WEBSTER: It was the happiest day of my life, to see us all together, so many walking in the Truth.

He closes the night singing “Blessed Be the Tie the Binds,” surrounded not by the rich and powerful, but by a devoted family, worshiping God.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. My thanks to voice actor Kim Rasmussen. I’m Caleb Welde

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