Tama County Republican. (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1867-1872, 1872-02-22
Typography a Representative.
BY J. R. STEWART.

/ Who can look at good specimen
of the printing OF our times and say
it IS not beautiful? It is almost impos
sib!e to choose another Of the many
things we see and handle daily which
art has rendered at once so perfect
and cheap. In the present, pratical
mode o: thinking, it matters nothing
who may have been the inventor ol
the noble and divine art its pertec.
tion, utility and beauty concern us
more. The probability is,-as is true
Of the arts in general, as we now find
them-,hat it would be impossible to
ascr,be the invention to any one per-
son in particular, but rather to the
genius Of numbcrless tollers, work
ing through long years under a host
OF difficulties which created their own
necessities. and thus became mother
to auxiliary inventions.
! Ii the Chinese did indeed possess
the art thousand one hundred years
before Christ, as some affirm, the fact
is OF no use to us except in so tar as
it goes to establish the truth that
civilization can never pass certain
point without the aid OF the press" "
and that the Middle Ages were the
gloomy, graceless period they are
pictured to us, manly tor want of its
humanizing influence. Whatever the
early printing may have been, it
served purpose, doubtless, which
nothing else could have served SO
well, just as Mohammedanism has
been vastly useful to the world be-
cause Of its aiartedness to tho wants
and capacities OF the nations cmbrac
ing it. Mohammedanism gathered
up the best of the beliefs and teach.
iugs OF heather people ana the very
last remains IN the morality of a
Christian people, and, out OF this col
lectcd material, constructed sys-
TEN, the one clear declaration of
which was "rhere is one God"
and in so far Mohammedanism was
good. But it could not rest upon
one slight element OF good, II it
W :uld be useful to world tull of
developing thought. 1t did so rest,
however, and nov the world has no
longer any need tor it among the
systems OF religion which the restless
human mind must needs work out
tor itself Still the earliest printing
aud the religion OF Mohammed are
both samples OF human crudities, so
tar representative as they have a
spark Of the divine in thcm-some-
iaing tl.at must live when the crude
and imperfect is shaken off. The one
gives way to the more ample and RI,
,ional religion Of to-day, the other
yields its angular forms and heavy
shades to the clear outlines and taste.
iul co!orings OF our marvelously va.
ried and perfect modern Typography.
Both have been left behind by the
spirit of progress-a very inspiration
in which men mount upward over
the dead past, and transform the old
into the improved aud better new.
1t is signal evidence of the de-
mand of the age for the beautiful in
art, that printing has so far out run
many other, in fact all other, arts !;
that even pressmen have become real
artisans; anI that job printers decide
what is good taste and propriety, in
a given case, almost with the skill OF
a painter at his canvass. Everything
about the art has grown into a sort
OF perfection. We have excellent
tinted paper, comfortable and re
freshing to the eye, and "nelther too
thick nor too thin, but a Just medium;
jet black ink-conveying no idea of
SCOT or spongy suriace-but Hat, sol.
id, as if it was spirit rising out of
paper, and clear. sharp unbattered
type OF graceful tormsr-all this, be.
cause public taste daily improves, and
perfection in machinery affords both
elegance and cheapness. We buy q
child's book now, itself thing OF
beauty, for few cents or dollar at
most. Printing in colors enables the
poor to enjoy what once the rich on
y could afford, d,Whiiethe power press,
by us wonderful celebrity, puts the
daily paper, with its news by tele-
graph from all quarters of the globe,
within reach Of the poorest man who
will but husband his earnings. The
press il great leveler No other
agency is doing 50 much to annih,late
the sham distinctions which wealth
creates umong men. Mother Goose
is done tor the nursery in the style
which represents in the aggregate, as
much skill as was necessary to pro.
duce the best paintings OF the old
masters. The y-laborer's child
thus enjoys as much elegance as the
millionaire's child fifty years ago.
Modern printing exhibits the culmin
alton OF host of typographical
achievements, each a little more PER,
feet than any that preceded it. So it
is perfection always approached by
degrees.
Our Grandtather's Bible wore the
best dress allowed to a book in tha.