The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-05-21

MODERN times which begin so
IVA variously in different fields,
date above all from the year 1856,
when Gutenberg and other Ger
mans began to print from movable
types.
The Middle Ages had not re-
manned stagnant in the matter of
making books; it had transmitted
the ancient methods Of copying
works by hand. but it had added
to these the art of the illuminated
manuscript" with carefully sculp-
tred letters. colored initials of
Gothically intricate design, and
bindings Of firm material bound
with clasps Of precious metal.
The passage from these beautiful
and personal products to the me-
chanically made book of the fiji
teepth century was symbolical of
the transition from feudal aristoc-
racy to a commercial, industrial and
democratic regime; quantity in
volved some sacrifice of quality, but
made it possible to rest civilization
on a broader basis of literacy and
knowledge than had ever been
known before. Without printing,
universal suffrage would have been
ridiculous and impossible; now at
least it is possible.
Manuscripts had sufficed when
only a few had leisure to read; but
the rise of a prosperous middle class
opened a new market for the writ
er's wares and provided the demand
that mothers most inventions. Man
uscripts were expensive; the SIM
plest Of them cost the modern
equivalent of several hundred dol
lars, and the majority of them cost
more.
Parchment was so difficult to OBJ
tain that ancient classics were
washed away to make room for &C.
clesiastical eXhortations. Perhaps
the real invention was the discovery
Of new and economical methods of
making paper.
TYPE had been used frequently
Il during the Middle Ages, as re-
verSed letters carved on metal or
wood for the signatures of prelates
or kings; it was short step from
this to the carving of individual let
tiers; and if the step was delayed, it
was because no low-priced material
had been found for printing books
in such quantity as would repay the
cost of making type.
The Chinese had made paper
from silk in the second century be-
fore Christ; the Arabs learned the
art from the Chinese at Samarkand
in the eighth century; the Moors of
CASTLE adapted this knowledge to
the making of paper from hemp
and flax; and in the thirteenth CEN
tury these methods spread slowly
from Spain through Europe.
When the new mode of making
books appeared the copyists protest
ed and rebelled, as the Weavers of |
Lancashire we're to rebel against
textile machines in the early nine
tenth century. Aristocrats opposed
the innovation because it threat
ened their monopoly of culture; they
saw in the multiplication of books
the beginning of a new distribution,
first of knowledge, then of power
The clergy opposed it as likely to
disseminate new ideas and under
mine sacred beliefs.
For a time the practice had to
grow by insinuating itself amid
these hindranceS; the first printers
were adventurous peripate5.cs, who
went from city to city to Go what
work might come to them, very
much as the Sophists had peddled
wisdom in ancient Greece.
BY 1900 Italy alone had printed
1887 books. The greatest produc-
tor of any single press came from
the shops of AlduS Manutius of
Venice, who issued splendid editions
of the Greek and Roman classics at
fifty cents a volume.
To mediate between old habits
and new, he chose for these books
a type resembling script, which has
ever since been called italic, from
the home of its origin. Many valu-
able texts would have been lost for
ever had they not undergone this
timely resuscitation by ''the great
est publisher that ever lived"
y n =
TINE effects by the new invention
j. were endless. 1t facilitated the
accumulation and dissemination Of
science, and the cooperation of the
scientists; it aided that passage
from art to science which is one
result of the passage from agricul-
ture to industry, and one cause Of
the decay of the Renaissance. It
made possible the printing of the