How many of these words do you know how to spell, know the definition of or have even seen before?
Contumelious, ichthyology, bronchotomy, loquacious, mendacity, armigerous, vertiginous, oleaginous, acanthus
I was a spelling champion in elementary school and never were any of these words even mentioned. The above are all words that come from an elementary spelling book written in 1783 and used for over 150 years. It was known as Webster’s Blue Back Speller.
Prior to the 1920s when adolescence was invented and expectations for children were lowered, there are quite a number of examples of young people excelling.
John Quincy Adams was eight while drilling with the MA minute men; at eleven he accompanied his father abroad as his secretary; at thirteen he traveled to Holland to attend Leiden University; at fourteen he was secretary and French interpreter for the American ambassador to Russia; at sixteen he was secretary to the American in France who were negotiating the peace treaty to end the Revolution.
When Benjamin Rush, father of American medicine, was fourteen he was graduating Princeton.
When Thomas Jefferson was nine he began his study of Latin, Greek and French; at sixteen he entered William and Mary College. (It was common for American youth to know at least three languages and enter college between the ages of thirteen and sixteen.)
When Maria Mitchell was eleven she was a teaching assistant and studying astronomy; at twelve she helped calculate the exact the of a forthcoming solar eclipse; at seventeen she headed her own academy, training women in astronomy and science.
When John Marrant was thirteen he became the first black American to successfully evangelize Native Americans.
When Annie Oakley was nine she was already earning a living for her family with her shooting skills.
Sadly, people like John Dewey and Stanwood Cobb (people who ‘knew better’) vastly lowered the expectation for children in the 1920s. And now many of us don’t know the words mentioned at the beginning of this article.
Well written, Tom. I did not realize all of that!