DISSERTATIONS
ON THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
WITH NOTES,
HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.
To which is added,
BY WAY OF APPENDIX,
AN ESSAY ON
A
REFORMED MODE OF SPELLING,
WITH
DR. FRANKLIN'S ARGUMENTS ON THAT SUBJECT.

BY NOAH WEBSTER, JUN. ESQUIRE.

----PRIMA DISCENTIUM ELEMENTA, IN QUIBUS ET
IPSIS PARUM ELABORATUR. TACITUS.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY,

Benjamin Franklin, Esq; LL.D. F.R.S.

Late President of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,

The following DISSERTATIONS

Are most respectfully Inscribed,

By His Excellency's

Most obliged and most obedient Servant,

The Author.

Dedications are usually designed to flatter the Great, to acknowlege their services, or court their favor and influence. But very different motives have led me to prefix the venerable name of Franklin to this publication.

Respect for his Excellency's talents and exertions, as a great Philosopher and a warm Patriot, I feel in common with all the lovers of science and freedom; but my peculiar admiration of his character, arises from considering it as great in common things.

His Excellency has not labored to perplex himself and confound his countrymen with ingenious theories in ethics, and unintelligible speculations in theology and metaphysics. He has not compiled volumes to prove or disprove the probability of universal salvation, or the eternal duration of future punishments; content with a plain doctrine, taught by philosophy and common sense, and confirmed by christianity, that virtue and happiness, vice and punishment, are inseparably connected, and that "if we do well here, we shall fare well hereafter." In the most elevated stations of life, his Excellency has never been above a constant application to some useful business; thus complying with that precept of the fourth command, "six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work," which is as positive an injunction, and as binding upon all men, as the first article, "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

In his philosophical researches, he has been guided by experiment, and sought for practical truths. In the world, he has been industrious to collect facts, (which compose all our knowlege) and apply them to the most useful purposes of government, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, rural, domestic and moral economy. In communicating his ideas he does not sacrifice truth to embellishment. His stile is plain and elegantly neat; and his remarks are not so general as to leave his ideas indefinite and obscure. His pen follows his thoughts, and consequently leads the reader, without study, into the same train of thinking. In short, he writes for the child as well as the philosopher, and always writes well, because he never takes pains to write.

Violently attached to no political party, he labors to reconcile contending factions in government. Convinced, by the experience of a long life, that all men are liable to err, and acknowleging "that he has often found himself mistaken, and had occasion to change his opinions," he consents to measures which his judgement tells him are theoretically wrong, when the voices of a majority declare them to be practically right.

He never attempts to usurp the divine prerogative of controlling opinions; never charges another with ignorance, knavery and folly, nor endeavors to stab his reputation, for not subscribing a particular creed; much less does he ever assume a dictatorial authority, and sentence to final damnation, those who have the same chance of being right as himself, and whose conduct, whatever may be their opinions, is regulated by the rules of moral and social virtue.

For these reasons, as well as for the age, the eminent rank and public merits of this illustrious defender of American freedom, I revere a character equally known and respected in this and foreign countries.

Hartford, May, 1789.