The Portland daily press., 1863-01-08
Winter school-webster,s Dictionary.

As the winter schools are about to open.
when teachers, parents and scholars will be in
search of the most valuable books both for
the school-room and for permanent use, per-
nit me to recommend IVebster's Dictionary,
as above all others complete and satisfactory
1t is school and school master in ITSELF and
kept at hand, and consulted as it then must
be, would alone educate those who thus use it.
Even newspaper cannot be read nor CONVEX
sation In the family be maintained for a day,
without questions and doubts coming up,
whose solution demands an appeal to the die
tlonary. or how many words are we in doubt
IN regard to the pronunciation, often as we
have read them. The pious father is often
perplexed as he reads his Bible morning
and evening in his family; and even the
minister hesitates, and is uncertain and afraid,
almost every time he performs the same duty
in the pulpit. In the definition of words there
is often the same doubt, controversy, or igno-
rance, which can be removed only by a resort
to the same authority.
A dictionary, therefore. should be at hand
not only in the school, but in the family, which
would silently but eflectually and pleasant
ly, and at the same time without expense be
educating all the members, the parents and
children alike. The derirdtion of ,rords is
also an interesting and curious study, as the
changes in words are followed out i'm the prog
ress OF ages and in the process of adoption by
the study of fossil remains can hardly be of
greater interest than the study of the genea-
logy of words, and the skeletons in which
they are often disenterred. Thus the consul
tation of good and ample dictionary not on
ly imparts a vast amount of positive knowl-
edge, but disciplines and educates the mind
like schoolroom which is never closed, or a
master who is never dismissed. Like the BIZ
Bile, it should be in every house; like that it
SlOuIu he in substantial and aft fnr
and then like that, though for different ends,
il would be turned every day --
To meet all these demands, Webster's Die
tionary is without rival. 1t is the fruit of
lifelong labor, such as no other American
scholar ever performed; and it was labor un-
der the direction of such comprehensive
knowledge, and sound and discriminating
judgment, united with good taste, that the
work it produced was in all respects as near
perfection as human powers permit. Nor is
the character of this gigantic work established
in our own country through blind partiality
and self-love; for long since the same verdict
was rendered in England and Europe, where
Webster has displaced johnson and other lex
icographers, as well as here. 1t is an interest
ing fact, which may be named in this connec-
ton, that while Commodore Perry opened
Japan with its thirty or forty millions of peo-
pie to commerce, Noah Webster opened it to
the English, or they first called il, the
american language, by his great Dictionary,
which was used by the first japanese youth
who mastered our language, and is now used
in Jeddo, and will continue to be used in all
coming time as a standard authority by a pop
ulation equal to our own and as fond of books
aud as well furnished with common schools
This is no small honor to the author, and to
our country and name.
The noble volume of the Dictionary una
bridged contains no less than serenteen hun
dred and fifty pages. The pictorial iiiustra-
tt0ns are new feature in dictionary, pleas
ing the eye, and at the same time giving more
correct ideas of various objects and subjects
than any definitions or descriptions could do.
The varions tables at the end are of great val
ue, and some Of them of practical utility =
while the learned and elaborate introduction
will be of rare interest to the more advanced
and general scholar. Every .fanaily should
possess copy of the unabridged and every
scholar copy of the abridged, containing
about five hundred pages, and all the tables OF
the most Importance in the large Dictionary
The paper and type could hardly be Improved,
while the binding is so strong and substantial
as to be capable of injury only from violence.
Let every family and scholar possess a Die
tionary, and let that Dictionary be the best,
and then it will be WEBsTER's-ICorresp
ent Portsmouth Journal, Nov Is.