The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-28
PRINTING IN CHINA.


what the Orientals had already done in the
way Of the multiplication of works of art at
time when monks in the West were toiling at
the reproduction of manuscripts
Klaproth in his treatise on the Compass
KemoSre sur la B0usSoLe-says that the fl st
use of wooden blocks for printing dates from
the middle of the tenth century of the Chris
tian era. He says:-"Under the reign of
Ning-tsong, Of the dynasty of the later Thang,
in the second of the years Tohang-hing (932
A. d., the Ministers Fong-tao and Li-yu
proposed to the Academy Koue-tseu-kien to
revise the nine King, or canonical books, and
to cause them to be engraved on blocks in
order that they might be printed and sold.
The Emperor adopted the proposition: but it
was not until the time of the Emperor Thai
tsou, Of the dynasty of the latter Tcheou, in
the second of the years Kouang-chun (952 A.
d. }, that the engraving of the King was ac-
complished. They were then published and
distributed throughout all the oantons of the
empire" The same author adds:-"Print-
ing, originating in China, might have been
known in Europe $50 years before it was
discovered there if Europeans could have
read and studied the Persian historians; for
the method employed by the Chinese is pretty
clearly explained by the Djemma'a el-tewarikh
of Rachid-eddin, who completed his immense
work about the year 1910 A. D."
The subject has again come before the
world through the labors of NJ. Stanislas
Julien and M Paul Champion, chemist
who has spent some time in China in order to
compare the industries of that country with
the accounts found in native works, and to
give the European world practical and sci
entific account of the methods there en-
ployed. Their work is entitled Industries
Anciennes ct Modernes de FEmpire Chinois,
par M. Stanislas Julien, accompagnees de
Notices par M. Paul Champion, etc. paris,
Lacroix).
NM Julien and Champion go beyond M.
Klaproth and say that Europeans might have
known printing $50 years before they did had
they been in relation with China few years
before the commencement of the seventh
century. With the process then known, i'm
perfect as it was, it would have been possible
to reproduce, at small cost, the master-works
of Greek and Roman antiquity, and to have
preserved great number from the loss that
is now irreparable
II this be true, engraving on wood for the
reproduction of text and drawings in China
is infinitely more ancient than has been hith-
erto believed. The proofs are numerous. In
the Chinese Encyclopedia, ''Ke-tchi-king-
youen," book xxx, fol. 2, is the following
passage: the eighth day of the twelfth
month of the thirteenth year of the reign of
Wen-ti, founder of the dynasty of the Soul
(593 A. d. }, it was decreed that all drawings
graved on wood in order to be published"
'"This, adds the Chinese author, ''was the
commencement of printing by means of
wooden blocks and it will be seen that it oc-
CURED long before the epoch of Fong-ing-
wang or Fong-tao, by whom it is said to have
been invented about the year 932 A. D."
According to Chinese encyclopedia, enti-
tied "Po-tong-p -lan," book xxi, fol- 10,
which cites an earlierwork, called 'Pi-tsong,"
printing with wooden blocks commenced in
the reign of the Soul as early as 5S1 A. D.,
advanced sensibly under the Thang (619 to
904 A. d., increased rapidly under the five
petty dynasties (907 to 960), and reached it's
full development under the dynasty of the
Song, between 960 and 1878. Now, supposing
that the Chinese authors quoted did not all
draw upon their imagination for the facts in
question, this is startling evidence. Another
Chinese writer, who lived in the middle of the
eleventh century of our era, says positively
that the invention of printing by means of
wooden blocks dates back full 400 years be-
fore the time of Fong g-ing-wang, to whom
many Chinese writers, and Europeans after
them, have attributed it. 1t appears indeed,
that it was already known and in use before
the year 593; for in that year the Emperor
ordered certain things to be printed with
out anything being said about the art being
new.
Between the invention of wooden blocks
for printing and that of movable types came
printing from stone-an invention believed
to be unknown hitherto to the missionaries
and sG0Gnts af Europe. AS early as the
middle of the second century of the Christian
era, il was the custem in China to engrave
ancient texts on stone tablets in order to
guard against the errors that crept in through
the carelessness or ignorance of scribes.
In the biography of Tsai-yong, in the
annals of the latter Han, is the following
passage:-'In the fourth year of the period
A-ping (175 A. d., Tsai-yong presented
memorial to the emperor, praying him
to cause the text of the six canonical books
to be revised, corrected, and settled; it was
subsequently written by the memorialist him
self, in red characters on stone tablets, and
able artists were employed to cut away all the
blank portion of the stone, leaving the char
acters in relief These tables were placed
without the doors of the grand college, and
the EterGt of all ages went daily to consult
these tablets in order to correct their copies
of the precious books. OF course, there
was originally nothing in these tablets more
connected with printing than the Egyptian
obelisks or the Damietta stone. Their OBJ
ject was simply the preservation of the sacred
writings.
Towards the end of the Thang dynasty,
about the year S04 A. D., the idea of using
stones for reproduction arose, and texts were
cut for this purpose, with the characters re-
Vsrsed. In this case the proceeding was the
opposite of the former, the characters were
lncised, aad, consequently, the printing was
white on Slack ground. The practice of
printing from wooden blocks had it seems
either never been largely practised or had
fallen into dlsuse, for Eou-yang g-sieon, in his