Pupils who have access to large libraries should consult J.W. Holtrop’s Monuments Typographiques des Pays-Bas and Samuel Sotheby’s Principia, both of which contain many excellent reproductions of very early printing. Sotheby’s book is commonly referred to as above, but is published under several different names in editions which vary but little. Perhaps the best is entitled Typography of the Fifteenth Century.

SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS AND INSTRUCTORS

The following questions, based on the contents of this volume, are intended to serve (1) as a guide to the study of the text, (2) as an aid to the student in putting the information contained into definite statements without actually memorizing the text, (3) as a means of securing from the student a reproduction of the information in his own words.

A careful following of the questions by the reader will insure full acquaintance with every part of the text, avoiding the accidental omission of what might be of value. These primers are so condensed that nothing should be omitted.

In teaching from these books it is very important that these questions and such others as may occur to the teacher should be made the basis of frequent written work, and of final examinations.

The importance of written work cannot be overstated. It not only assures knowledge of material but the power to express that knowledge correctly and in good form.

If this written work can be submitted to the teacher in printed form it will be doubly useful.

QUESTIONS

1. What interesting fact is noted about most great inventions and what is the reason for it? 2. Give some well known instances. 3. How does this condition apply to the invention of printing? 4. Why may we question De Vinne’s decision? 5. Why was the discovery of typography inevitable about 1450? 6. What was the condition of England and France at this time? 7. What was the condition of Italy? 8. What was the condition of Germany, Spain, and Portugal? 9. What was the condition of the church? 10. What important movement was made possible by these political conditions? 11. Name some important events in the movement. 12. What had all this to do with book-making? 13. What were the shortcomings of manuscript books? 14. What materials were already invented and ready for the printer? 15. Tell what you can about each. 16. What is typography? 17. What were the earliest predecessors of typography? 18. Tell of some later methods of making impressions. 19. What early attempts at printing were made by the Chinese and their neighbors? 20. Did these attempts develop into typography, and why? 21. What devices took the place of books among the poor before the invention of printing? 22. What were image prints, and how made? 23. What were the two lines of development from the image prints? 24. How did these developments suggest typography? 25. How were early playing cards made, and what was their relation to block printing? 26. Name some of the places where and persons by whom typography is said to have been invented. 27. Tell the story of Waldfoghel, and what we conclude about it. 28. Tell the Coster legend. 29. What do we know about Gutenberg before 1450? 30. What was his contract of that year with Fust? 31. How did it work out? 32. What do we know of Gutenberg after 1455? 33. Give the main points of the Gutenberg legend. 34. What are the clear facts about early Mainz printing? 35. What are the three classes of historical evidence? 36. What can you say, with this distinction in mind, about the evidence concerning the invention of typography? 37. What evidence of the first class is there coming from Haarlem? 38. Why do we claim that this evidence comes from Haarlem? 39. Why did the printer use so many fonts of type for so few books? 40. What internal evidence is there for the date of these books? 41. What are the peculiarities of these books? 42. What do these peculiarities show? 43. What piece of evidence of the second class have we which bears on these books? 44. What pieces of evidence of the third class have we which bear on these books? 45. What does all this evidence seem to show as to who invented typography, where, and when? 46. What do the printed pieces attributed to Gutenberg show? 47. What does the Helmasperger document show? 48. What does the patent of Adolph II show? 49. What does Zell’s statement show? 50. What can you say of the early statements that Gutenberg invented typography? 51. Compare the results of the work of Coster and of Gutenberg. 52. How did the Haarlem invention get to Mainz? 53. What did Gutenberg really do? 54. What was the outcome of his work? 55. How does this theory explain the doubtful or conflicting evidence? 56. What can you say about Coster’s type? 57. How were the first types made? 58. What two important inventions in type-making do we owe to Gutenberg and his associates? 59. What can you tell about the first type faces? 60. Why are the early books so beautiful? 61. Describe Gutenberg’s press and the first improvements upon it. 62. What has the first period of about twenty-five years of typography been called, and why?

TYPOGRAPHIC TECHNICAL SERIES FOR APPRENTICES