M.E. Pearson. The Kansas Speller. Kansas State Printing Plant, 1918.
Gift of Kenneth Sterbenz Special Collections, Hale Library Kansas State University PE 1145 .P33 1918 “Not to be able to spell accurately those words one has occasion to write is a disgrace. It has caused many young people to fail to secure positions for which they were otherwise well fitted, and has caused others to lose positions once obtained. . . your own self-respect, not to mention your desire to hold your own in the race of life, should compel you to equal these averages.” --The Kansas Speller The Kansas Speller, published in 1918 by the Kansas State Printing Plant in Topeka, was the first Kansas primer that introduced first year schoolchildren to literacy. M.E. Pearson, the superintendent of city schools in Kansas City, authored this deeply Midwestern-tinged abecedary. |
The tradition of American spellers dates back to 1783 when Noah Webster, the national language reformer, published the first American Spelling Book. A champion of the American Revolution, Webster’s ambition was to construct a national American language free from dialects (to ensure an undivided union) that clearly voiced the distance to the ‘fatherland’ England. “As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own,” Webster proclaims in his essay Linguistic Independence, “in language as well as government.” Pearson’s Kansas Speller redefines Webster’s ideas, making education a key to local self-awareness and distinction: children learning with The Kansas Speller were drilled to be proud of their state: “Kansas books, and Kansas press, Kansas prose and rhyme; Kansas more but never less, Kansas all the time,” they could read and learn by heart on page zx for example.
One such child that learned reading and writing with the newly minted Kansas Speller was Bernice Hamilton. You can see her name and address scrawled on the inside cover of our copy of The Kansas Speller. Bernice grew up in El Dorado, Kansas, just two hours south of Manhattan and 30 minutes outside of Wichita. Bernice’s parents, Credence and Cora Hamilton, were first generation Kansas settlers who never went to school but who are recorded in the 19xx Census as were somehow able to read and write. Crede and Cora raised a family of nine from the meager income that farming the difficult prairie soils provided; yet, they made sure that sent all of their seven children, including Bernice (their youngest) went to school and were fully literate. Bernice was six the year that The Kansas Speller was published, making her the very first owner of this important local schoolbook. Bernice experienced first-hand the promises of education: she distinguished herself not only as a Kansan, but as a literate, intelligent, female Kansan woman from the Midwest who would succeed. This is ultimately the story of The Kansas Speller: not living and learning lessons as you go, but taking those lessons and building a better life.
One such child that learned reading and writing with the newly minted Kansas Speller was Bernice Hamilton. You can see her name and address scrawled on the inside cover of our copy of The Kansas Speller. Bernice grew up in El Dorado, Kansas, just two hours south of Manhattan and 30 minutes outside of Wichita. Bernice’s parents, Credence and Cora Hamilton, were first generation Kansas settlers who never went to school but who are recorded in the 19xx Census as were somehow able to read and write. Crede and Cora raised a family of nine from the meager income that farming the difficult prairie soils provided; yet, they made sure that sent all of their seven children, including Bernice (their youngest) went to school and were fully literate. Bernice was six the year that The Kansas Speller was published, making her the very first owner of this important local schoolbook. Bernice experienced first-hand the promises of education: she distinguished herself not only as a Kansan, but as a literate, intelligent, female Kansan woman from the Midwest who would succeed. This is ultimately the story of The Kansas Speller: not living and learning lessons as you go, but taking those lessons and building a better life.
Malorie Wagner
To see what Malorie Wagner found out about The Kansas Speller
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Spelling Kansas | |
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