Tag: Webster

Noah Webster & the Wisdom of Earlier Ages

  

I spent a number of years researching Noah Webster, who became the subject of my doctoral dissertation. He’s known primarily for two things: his Speller, which taught Americans to read and write correctly; his dictionary, a monumental effort of about twenty years of his life, and which defined terms in the context of his Biblical worldview. Webster started out his career as a devotee of the Enlightenment, that movement of the eighteenth century that gave far more credit to human… Read more »

Snyderian Truism #6

  

When I teach history, the emphasis is not on statistics, charts, or graphs, helpful as they all are. Instead, I concentrate on individuals and their impact on events. I believe history is a story, which includes themes, plots, and character development. As we begin to delve into the events of history in class, I reveal to my students another Snyderian Truism that I hope will make them see a significant distinction: Personality and character are not the same: the first… Read more »

Education & the Corruption of Principles

  

Chicago public school teachers are out on strike. They’ve been treated so unfairly there was just no other option. After all, in a city where the median income is $47,000 per year, they make only $76,000. Sure, they get all their benefits on top of that, but since they are the most important people in the city, they deserve more. So you can understand why when they were offered a measly 16% raise, they hit the roof. How insulting. Wouldn’t… Read more »

Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America

  

Yesterday I encouraged those of you who need more information on how the Bible views government to purchase a copy of my book If the Foundations Are Destroyed: Biblical Principles and Civil Government. Today, let’s focus more historically. My doctoral dissertation was on a man who was highly influential in America’s formative years: Noah Webster. That dissertation was published as Defining Noah Webster: A Spiritual Biography. I’ve always thought the title was rather clever, given that Webster’s primary work for… Read more »