Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster, Jr.was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His blue-backed speller books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read, secularizing their education. According to Ellis, he gave Americans "a secular catechism to the nation-state."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 October 1758
CountryUnited States of America
The Moral Law is summarily contained in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments; written by the finger of God on two tablets of stone, and delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai.
The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.
A national language is a band of national union.
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.
The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws . . . The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and his Apostles . . . This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.
The reasonableness of the command to obey parents is clear to children, even when quite young.
Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties.
The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe, which serve to support tyrannical governments, are not the Christian religion, but abuses and corruptions of it. The religion of Christ and his apostles, in it primitive simplicity and purity, unencumbered with the trappings of power and the pomp of ceremonies, is the surest basis of a republican government.
The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper and in schools is read with nearly the same degree of respect.
No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
But while property is considered as the basis of the freedom of the American yeomanry, there are other auxiliary supports; among which is the information of the people. In no country, is education so general - in no country, have the body of the people such a knowledge of the rights of men and the principles of government. This knowledge, joined with a keen sense of liberty and a watchful jealousy, will guard our constitutions and awaken the people to an instantaneous resistance of encroachments.
The heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
The causes which destroyed the ancient republics were numerous; but in Rome, one principal cause was the vast inequality of fortunes.