Great Inventions and Discoveries

by Willis Duff Piercy

The old civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia, in which the art of book-making originated, sprang up, flourished, and decayed, burying from the sight of men precious secrets in the arts and sciences. The beautiful flower of Greek culture budded, bloomed, and withered. Passing on from east to west, civilization knocked at the door of Rome and awakened there such military and legal genius as the world had not yet seen. Then a horde of wild barbarians poured over the mountains of northern Italy and overthrew the mighty city on the Tiber. The sun of civilization was setting, at least for a time. Night was coming on, the night of the Dark Ages, a night without a star of human thought or achievement, a night full of the noxious vapors of ignorance and superstition.

About the beginning of the fifteenth century after Christ there came over the world a great intellectual awakening. The human intellect began to awake, to stretch itself, to go forth and conquer. One of the first signs and causes of this intellectual awakening was an event that happened at Mainz in Germany or at Haarlem in Holland, or possibly in both places at the same time. Of all the events that have made for civilization and have influenced the progress of the human race, this event at Haarlem or Mainz is the most important. It is the invention of printing. Before this time, ever since man began to record his thoughts, whether on plank, stone, or papyrus, on bark of tree, skin of animal, or tablet of wax or paper, every letter was made by hand. The process was necessarily slow, books were rare and costly, and only the few could have them. But with the advent of a process that would multiply books and make them cheap, learning was made accessible to the multitude. The clang of the first printing press was the death knell of ignorance and tyranny.

An Advertisement of Caxton, the First Printer in England

Before the invention of printing with movable, metal types, a kind of block printing was used. The words or letters were carved on a block of wood; the block was applied to paper, silk, cloth, or vellum, and thus impressions were made.

It has always been a matter of dispute as to who invented printing. It is fairly clear that printing, both with blocks and with movable types, was practised in China and Japan long before it was in Europe. There is a tradition that as far back as 175 A.D. Chinese classics were cut upon tablets of stone, that these tablets were placed outside the university, and that impressions were made from them. However, we are not indebted to China or Japan for the art of printing. The real invention of printing, so far as the civilized world is concerned, occurred in Europe in the latter part of the fifteenth century. The inventor is often said to be Johann Gutenberg, of Mainz, Germany. Another strong claimant for this honor is Lourens Janszoon Coster, who lived at Haarlem, in Holland.

Concerning the lives of Coster and Gutenberg little is known. Coster was born at Haarlem, Holland, about 1370 A.D. He was a member of the Haarlem Council, assessor and treasurer. He probably perished in the plague that visited Haarlem in 1439-40. Gutenberg was born of noble parents at Mainz, Germany, in 1410. He had an active mind and gave attention to the manufacture of money, the polishing of stones, and the making of looking-glasses, besides his efforts in printing. He died in February, 1468, poor, childless, and almost friendless.

The first printed book, so far as can be determined, was made at Mainz, Germany, and bears the date of 1454 A.D. From certain legal records it is supposed that Gutenberg was the maker of this book and the inventor of printing. On the other hand, there is a story that Coster, while walking in the woods one autumn afternoon, chanced to make for his little grandchild some letters from the bark of a tree; that these letters suggested to him the idea of metallic types; and that he, and not Gutenberg, was the inventor of printing. As the story goes, a slave stole Coster's types and ran away with them from Haarlem to Mainz; and the books which, it is supposed, were made at the latter place came really from Coster's types, not Gutenberg's. The fact cannot be known. It has hopelessly gone with the years.

This first book, which was printed in two different editions, consisted of certain letters written by Pope Nicholas V in behalf of the kingdom of Cyprus. By about 1477 A.D. printing had extended from Mainz to all the chief towns of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and England. By the beginning of the sixteenth century it had spread to all the principal places of Europe.

In the type of the early books the various letter forms were not fixed as they are in modern books, but the type for each book was made as much as possible like the writing of the original manuscript. As printers moved from place to place introducing their art, it seems that not one carried away the types of his master but each made his own anew. Type was originally made and set up by hand, piece by piece, so that even the production of printed books was very slow. Various mechanical devices have been invented from time to time, quickening and cheapening the making of books and other printed matter, so that to-day printers turn out books and papers in large quantities in an amazingly short time.