>That thing's just a syllable divider.

no, it actually is meant to show the major empha'sis... follow the link for "pronuncia'tion" I gave above.

>That include schwas? [innocent face]

gee, I'm so glad you mentioned the schwa (in innocence): [insouciant glee]
Landau goes on, "He [Robert Secrist] even dares to question the almost universally praised adoption of the schwa in dictionary pronunciation systems, on the ground that it is unnecessary and is used as a catchall for a variety of different sounds... and is in reality neither phonetic or phonemic...." (hi bill!)

p.s. - I just had a revelation! WO'N's original question about the apostrophe wasn't in regard to sci'ence but rather Webster's(!) and he was just too magnanimous to point out my misapprehension. Webster's Dictionary of 1828 is indeed the last actual dictionary from Noah Webster (except for a second edition, published in 1841, two years before his death).

p.p.s. - In 1830 Joseph Worcester published the Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language. he was accused a few years later of plagiarizing by Webster. Worchester had worked on the 1828 dictionary, but was able to prove that he had been working on his own before he began abridging Webster's and show considerable differences between his work and Webster's.