of the author, and it is his
highest ambition to deserve the approbation and encouragement of his
countrymen." His spelling-book, accordingly, in its early editions
contained a number of sharp little warnings in the form of footnotes,
which imply that he seized the young nation just in time to prevent the
perpetuation of vulgar errors, since these, if they once became
universal, would have compelled the hereditary Webster to make them the
basis of orthoepic canons. Thus, _ax_ is reprobated when _ask_ is
intended; Americans were to say _wainscot_, not _winch-cott_; _resin_,
not _rozum_; _chimney_, not _chimbly_; _confiscate_, not _confisticate_.
Since these warnings disappeared after a few years it may be presumed
that he regarded the immediate danger as passed; but the more
substantial matters of good morals came to have greater prominence, and
in addition to the columns of classified words, which constitute almost
the sole contents of the earliest edition, there came to be inserted
those fables and moral and industrial injunctions, with sly reminders of
the virtue of Washington, which have sunk into the soft minds of
generations of Americans. There was a Federal catechism, and a good deal
of geographical knowledge regarding counties and county towns, to be
taken economically in the form of spelling lessons. The successive
editions became way-marks of the progress of the nation, and so
important did the book rapidly become that though its compiler was fast
throwing off the bondage of Anglican spelling, he never dared to make
the book conform to his own principles; venturing only to hint in his
preface at the orthographic reform which he longed to make. "The
spelling," he says, "of such words as publick, favour, neighbour, head,
prove, phlegm, his, give, debt, rough, well, instead of the more natural
and easy method: public, favor, nabor, hed, proov, flem, hiz, giv, det,
ruf, wel, has the plea of antiquity in its favor; and yet I am convinced
that common sense and convenience will sooner or later get the better of
the present absurd practice."

The pictures which came to bring art as an adjunct in impressing the
young mind were of the order already familiar in the New England Primer,
ingenuous in their simple straightforwardness and of uncompromising
faithfulness to nature. The fable of the Boy that stole Apples, which I
have never been able to trace back of Webster, but through him has
become a part of our mental furni