uperior to his own. It is the very thing I
have so long wished for, being much dissatisfied with any spelling-book
I had seen before. I now send you the book, and request you to let John
take it to his master, with the enclosed letter; for I am determined to
have him instructed upon this new, ingenious, and, at the same time,
easy plan. There are, you will see by the Introduction, two more parts
to come to complete the plan. I am a stranger to Mr. Webster, but I
intend, when I can find leisure, to write him on the subject, using the
liberty (which he requests) to suggest some little matters which may be
altered and improved in his next edition, for I think the work will do
honor to his country, and I wish it may be perfect. Many men of
literature might think it too trifling a subject; but I am of a
different opinion, and am happy that a gentleman of Mr. Webster's genius
and learning has taken it up. All men are pleased with an elegant
pronunciation, and this new Spelling-Book shows children how to acquire
it with ease and certainty."[6]

Pickering's letter helps us to get behind "Webster's Spelling-Book" in
1783, instead of looking at it from this later vantage-ground of an
accumulated American literature. There runs through the correspondence
of that day a tone which we easily call provincial, but is nevertheless
a distinct expression of the consciousness of the young nation. The
instinct of literature is toward self-centring, and the sense of
national being was very strong in men who had been giving their days and
nights to the birth of a new nation. To understand the state of things
in 1783 we should look at the literary ventures, inclusive of
educational, within the boundaries of the Southern States during the War
of 1861-1865. There the interruption of commerce with the North
compelled a resort to home production in school-book literature, and
intensity of feeling upon sectional questions found frequent expression
in spelling-books and arithmetics. "Webster's Elementary" was reprinted
at Macon, without illustrations and some of the diacritical marks,
_mutatis mutandis_ The reader finds the morals of the book and the
earlier patriotism unchanged, but remembers its latitude when he reads:
"The Senate of the Confederate States is sailed the Upper House of
Congress: The President of the Confederate States is elective once
every six years: The Confederate States have a large extent of
sea-coast, and many parts of the Co