A Grammatical Institute of the English Language: Comprising an Easy, Concise and Systematic Method of Education : Designed for the Use of English Schools in America ... Part Second ...

by Noah Webster

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

134 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Noah Webster, Jr. (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843), was a 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 (1979) he gave Americans "a secular catechism to the nation-state".

Webster's name has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. He is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the nation.

Reviews

[Brent Woo · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you need to know what Noah Webster is all about, just read the intro to this "Institute". He lays out all his strong opinions that the British "neglect" their own language with "ridiculous practices", on the proper way to teach children to read, and how all other existing dictionaries fall short. It is interesting to see the supposed progression here: apparently schoolkids are supposed to know words like "effulgence" and "testatrix" by page 40 in order to figure out syllables. The list of cities and populations is funny. This would probably be a fun piece to read next to other dictionary essays like "Authority and American Usage" in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays.

Also it preſents an occaſion for the modern reader to practice reading ſome long S and catchwords!