Stories of Useful Inventions

by S. E. Forman

FIG. 9.

FIG. 10.—A BLOCK PRINT CONTAINING THE ALPHABET USED BY CHILDREN WHEN LEARNING TO READ.

In the second place, printing was invented. On a strip of transparent paper write the word post. Now turn the strip over from right to left and trace the letters on the smooth surface of a block of wood. Remove the paper and you will have the result shown in Figure 9. With a sharp knife cut out the wood from around the letters. Ink the raised letters and press upon them a piece of paper. You have printed the word "post" in precisely the way the first books were printed. In the 13th century fancy designs were engraved on wood and by the aid of ink the figures were stamped on silk and linen. In the 14th century playing cards and books were printed on engraved blocks in the manner the word "post" was printed above. (Fig. 10.) The block-book was the first step in the art of printing.

The block-book decreased the cost of a book, for when a page was once engraved as many impressions could be taken as were wanted, yet it did not meet the necessities of the time. In the middle of the 15th century the desire for reading began to resemble a frenzy and the books that could be got hold of "were as insufficient to slake the thirsty craving for religious and material knowledge as a few rain drops to quench the burning thirst of the traveler in the desert who seeks for long, deep-draughts at copious springs of living water." To meet the demand of the time book-makers everywhere were trying to improve on the block-making process and by the end of the century the book as we have it to-day was being made throughout all Europe.

In what did the improvement consist? First let us call to mind what the book-maker in the early part of the 15th century had to begin with; he had paper, he had printing-ink, he had skill in engraving whole pages for block-books, and he had a rude kind of printing-press. The improvement consisted in this: Instead of engraving a whole page on a block, single letters were engraved on little blocks called types, and when a word or a line or a page was to be printed these types were set in the position desired; in other words, the improvement consisted in the invention of moveable types. The types were first made of wood and afterward of metal.

The great advantage of the moveable types over the block-book is easily seen. A block containing, say, the word "post" is useless except for printing the word post; but divide it into four blocks, each containing a letter: now you can print post, spot, tops, stop, top, sop, sot, pot, so, to and so forth.

The exact date of the invention of moveable types cannot be determined. We can only say that they were first used between 1450 and 1460. Nor can we tell who invented them. The Dutch claim that Lawrence Koster of Harlem (Holland) made some moveable types as early as 1430, and that John Faust, an employee, stole them and carried them to Mayence (Germany), where John Gutenberg learned the secret of printing with them. The Germans claim that Gutenberg was the real inventor. Much can be said in behalf of both claims. What we really know is that the earliest complete book printed on moveable types was a Bible which came from the press of John Gutenberg in 1455.

Since 1450 there has been no discovery that has changed the character of the printed volume. There have been wonderful improvements in the processes of making and setting type, and printing-presses (Fig. 11) have become marvels of mechanical skill, but the book of to-day is essentially like the book of four hundred years ago. The tablet of the memory, the knotted cord and notched stick, the uncanny picture-writing, the clumsy picture-sign, the alphabet, the manuscript volume, the printed block-book and the volume before you bring to an end the story of the book.