If any one is fortunate enough to have a first-class proof-reader in his employ, he will be foolish to let that reader go, if money—within reasonable bounds—will keep him. Fifty men may try to fill the place and fail before another really competent man is found.
A large proof-room should have its own foreman—not merely a head reader, but one actually in authority, just as any foreman should be, and with higher pay than the other readers have, and also with the chief responsibility. The room must, of course, be subject to the general foreman with regard to many details, whether it has a separate foreman or not; but, whoever is in charge, the readers should not be too much restricted in small, formal matters. An extreme instance that will illustrate practically what is meant by this arose through strict orders not to change anything from copy, too literally obeyed. A letter was missing from a word always spelled the one way, and the reader queried its insertion. He was an ordinarily good reader, too, who certainly had not the natural habit of doing anything stupid.
Undoubtedly better work will be turned out where there is no possibility of such queries being made, for the necessity of making them, under orders, imposes upon the reader an unfair burden of useless watchfulness that inevitably rivets his attention where it is not needed, and draws it away from matters that demand the utmost care.
CHAPTER II.
SOME PRACTICAL CRITICISM FOR PROOF-READERS.
A PERIODICAL highly esteemed in literary circles, in reviewing a book, said: “The proof-reading is so bad that we infer that its author could not have seen the proofs.” The publishers of the book do their own printing, and probably think their proof-reading is as good as possible, though they may realize that it is not as good as it should be. Many employers have had trying experiences in their efforts to secure good proof-readers, and such experience may have operated in favor of poor workmen, through sheer discouragement of their employers.
An inference that “its author could not have seen the proofs,” while possibly natural, is hasty; for, while many authors examine their proofs carefully, and are reasonably quick to perceive and correct errors, most authors are not good proof-readers.
Errors in print were quite as common as they now are when “following copy” was common, as it was in New York, for instance, about thirty years ago. One of the best offices in which a man could set type was Alvord’s, flourishing at the time mentioned. In it the compositor measured for his bill absolutely everything for which a customer paid, be it a cut, a blank page, or anything else. There, likewise, he was seldom called upon to change a letter or a point except to make it like his copy. Certain large offices in New York now are like Alvord’s only in the fact that their proof-reading is not good—and the authors see most of the proofs. In one important matter these offices are utterly unlike Alvord’s—no compositor can earn decent wages in them.
Employers are largely responsible for the common poorness of our proof-reading, because they have not recognized the real nature of the work, and have insisted upon classing it as mechanical. Proof-reading will never be what it should be until the proof-reader ranks with the editor both in importance and in pay. With no more pay than that of the good compositor, and sometimes with less than the first-class compositor’s pay, the proof-reader’s position will not be adequately filled. Properly qualified proof-readers seldom remain long at the reading-desk, because they can and will do better elsewhere.
Something should be done to keep the best readers as such, for they are all climbing up into other fields of labor where they find stronger inducements, both in credit and in pay. Even in the case of our large dictionaries and encyclopædias, almost every one of which is decidedly bettered by the work of some one special proof-reader, there is little acknowledgment of the fact, and so there is little encouragement for the proof-reader to remain a proof-reader.