Webster’s Dictionary creator and Founding Father, Noah Webster was born this day back in 1758, in Hartford, Connecticut, then known as British America. But not for long, BABY!
His pastor started teaching him Latin and Greek at 14, and by 16 he was enrolled at Yale and also served in the Connecticut Militia during the Revolutionary War. No doubt if he were alive today he’d be bigtime impressed that when you finally got around to dragging yourself down to the DMV as an 18 year-old junior in high school, it only took you 3 tries to pass the written portion. Totally worth that musket ball grazing, right, Webby?
Noah, a freedom-loving Federalist and outspoken supporter of the new at the time Constitution, “dedicated his Speller and Dictionary to providing an intellectual foundation for American nationalism.”
He believed “American nationalism was superior to Europe because American values were superior” and wrote that:
America sees the absurdities—she sees 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.
For more on this spectacular fella, click below and enjoy a great 11-min episode of “Drive Thru History” on Webster hosted by a guy in an H1 Hummer…
Exit consolation: Don’t feel too bad that you’re a slacker based on comparison to most everyone who lived before you while not having electricity or indoor plumbing. You had things to do…
Yeah, you’re doing good…
(h/t wiki)