Talk:Noah Webster

Please provide a reference

I see you have reasonably accurately quoted the first line of Lesson 1 of Webster's Blue-backed Speller, and indeed, you could quote more if you desire.

However, please provide a reference, since what you state is a FACT, and can be backed up.

-- Crew (talk) 03:39, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of the claim that the Blue-backed Speller was secular

I see that one of the things that the recent editor has done here is eliminated the claims based on Ellis that the Blue-backed Speller was secular.

While I am inclined to disagree with Ellis, I do not think you can base any rejection of his claims simply on Table VIII, Lesson 1, because I believe Ellis is making his claims by comparison with the New England Primer which made heavy use of Biblical material throughout, as far as I can see.

However, with the Blue-backed Speller, while there are Biblical references (to God and sin, etc) in early lessons, they are muted and disappear for a while until you get to Table XXV, Lesson 1.

My view is that Webster's more pedagogic approach resulted in the speller we see, and has nothing to do with Secularism. It will take some research, however, to substantiate that.

It should also be noted that similar claims are made in the article on History of education in the United States.

I suspect also that there should be a note that orthographic differences will make the material at the reference hard to read. (Another version is here as well: http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/402/402files/noahspell.html)

Finally, I reformatted that material a little, but am still not happy with the way it looks.

--- OldCaliber (talk) 14:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)