THE PRINTING PRESS.

The times have changed since King Solomon's day. The art of printing has been discovered. Now it would be possible to make not merely one copy but thousands of copies, not only of the sacred books of the Jews in the time of Solomon, but of the entire Bible as we have it to-day. Not in the months required by the Jewish scribes, but in a single month, thousands of copies of the whole Bible could be printed from the type set in a single establishment in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. Surely, before the art of printing one might truly say, "Of making books there is no end." But to-day our modern press sends out its volumes by millions, so that no longer is there any truth in this apparently wise statement of Solomon. It was true in his day, but times have changed.

Two visitors were wending their way through Machinery Hall at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. Clatter, clatter, clatter—clatter, clatter, clatter—jigger, jigger, jigger—jigger, jigger, jigger. What was that great machine that they were approaching? It was the Walter press, invented in London for the London Times,—"The Thunderer." Well, well! the press does thunder, literally, does it not? It was printing that day's issue of the New York Times, and there were coming from that press about twelve thousand copies of the double-size sheet in an hour. Well might it make a racket if it accomplished such a work as that.

After the visitors were done admiring it they passed on, and a little beyond came suddenly upon another printing press which was doing its work in comparative silence. Before them stood a double Hoe perfecting press, printing the Philadelphia Times, turning off thirty thousand copies per hour. These came out from the machine, folded ready for the wrappers or for the newsboy to take upon his arm and run out into the street to sell! So marvelous was the work of the American press. The original invention was surprising, but the progress that has been made in making type, setting it, electrotyping and inking, and making paper, as well as in the presswork, is beyond the power of description.

There are vague, indefinite stories of printing by the Chinese a thousand years before Christ. The Greeks and Romans made metal stamps with characters engraved in relief. It was not, however, until about the middle of the fifteenth century that movable types were made with which books could be printed. The period between 1450 and 1500 witnessed a rapid advance of civilization in Europe. It was marked by a great revival of classical learning and art, and announced the dawn of modern civilization. At that time Europe began to come out into the light of reason, learning, and both civil and religious liberty. The mariner's compass had been invented; gunpowder had been discovered; and now the art of printing came into use. It would seem that no one man invented this art in the way that Stephenson invented the locomotive and Whitney the cotton gin. It grew up, one man doing a little, and another something more, until the system was brought to its present wonderful efficiency.

It has been said that Coster of Haarlem, Holland, invented wooden types about 1428 and metal types a little later. About 1440 John Faust did a little printing, and others also have claimed the invention. John Gutenberg is the only claimant who is known to have received honor during his life time as the true inventor. The evidence would seem to show that he was engaged in his secret process before the year 1440. He certainly had a printing office in 1448 at Mentz. About this time Faust came into possession of this printing office and managed it until his death. Among the earliest books printed were, "Letters of Indulgence," two editions of the Bible, and a Latin dictionary.

John Baskerville, an Englishman, devoted his life and fortune to the improvement of printing. He was born in 1706 and died in 1775. He published an edition of Vergil in royal quarto, which was then and is still considered a wonderful specimen of beautiful printing. His English Bible, Book of Common Prayer, and editions of various classics are still admired and greatly sought. A Baskerville classic is difficult to find in these days and it commands a high price; when one is found it shows great skill, judgment, and taste.

Baskerville made types much superior in distinctness and elegance to any that had previously been used. He improved greatly the lines of the letters, their style and appearance, making them as artistic as possible. To this end he planned in detail the style of all type which he used. He experimented also in the manufacture of ink to get that which had the most permanent color. He superintended the manufacture of the paper he used in order to obtain a finished surface best adapted to receive the impressions of the type.

Printing in America during the colonial days was subject to much difficulty. The first printing press in our country was set up at Cambridge in the house of the president of Harvard College, Rev. Henry Dunster, in 1639. Eliot's Bible in the Indian language was printed upon this press between 1660 and 1663. This same printing establishment is still in existence and has been known for many years as the University Press.

The first Bible printed in America in any European language was a German Bible issued in 1743 by Christopher Sower in Germantown, Pennsylvania. This was a wonderful work for those early days. It was a large quarto Bible, consisting of 1,284 pages, and it took four years to complete the printing of it.

How quaint the early printing press would appear to us of to-day! It was used with very little change for one hundred and fifty years. The "forms" of type were placed upon wood or stone beds surrounded by frames called "coffins," moved in and out by hand with great labor, and after each impression the platen which had pressed the paper down upon the type had to be screwed up again with a bar. The presses which Benjamin Franklin used were made with wooden framework of the simplest possible construction. Iron frames were first used in England just one hundred years ago.

Franklin, in his Autobiography, tells the story of his attempt to set up a printing establishment in Philadelphia. At first he found it difficult to obtain any work, but finally he was given the job of printing forty sheets of a "History of the Friends." The price offered was low, but Franklin and his partner, Meredith, decided to accept it as a beginning.

Franklin set up the type for a sheet each day, while Meredith "worked it off at the press" the next day. The type had to be distributed every evening in order that it might be ready for the next day's composition. Therefore it was often late at night before Franklin finished his day's task, perhaps eleven o'clock or even later.

Other little jobs came in to delay the printers, but Franklin was determined to do a sheet a day of the history. One night, just as his work was done, one of the forms was accidentally broken, and two pages "reduced to pi." Franklin, late as it was, distributed the pi and composed the form again before going to bed.

Such industry and perseverance were sure to bring success in the end. Though, in the clubs and markets, every one was saying that the establishment must fail, since the two other printers in town had barely enough to do, yet Dr. Baird was nearer right; he used to say: "The industry of that Franklin is superior to any I ever saw of the kind; I see him at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed."

To-day we have a great variety of printing presses which embody both science and art in skillful fashion. These range from the smallest size of hand presses, through numberless grades, varying in size, strength, power, rapidity, and ease of running, to the modern newspaper press and folder and the wonderful color printing press. One of the newspaper presses will print at one impression, from a single set of stereotype plates, papers of four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen pages, at the rate of twelve thousand per hour, all cut at the top, pasted, and folded, with the supplement inserted at its proper place. With duplicate sets of plates, it will print sets of four, six, or eight page papers at the rate of twenty-four thousand per hour.

Let us look for a moment at the method of inking the type. Until a comparatively recent date the inking was all done by hand, by means of an inking pad. The ink is now spread over the type with almost perfect regularity by means of flexible rollers.

Great improvements have been made in typesetting. Several late inventions largely take the place of the old-fashioned setting by hand. One of these which is much used in newspaper work, and to some extent upon books and magazines, is called the linotype. By pressing the key of the proper letter upon a keyboard arranged something like a typewriter, the letter is pushed down, and when a line of letters and words has been completed, and the words properly spaced, this matrix is pressed down upon the melted type metal. The line is already stereotyped for use.

The recent processes of stereotyping and electrotyping have added greatly to the cheapness, accuracy, and beauty of printing. Nearly all books formerly printed from movable type are now either stereotyped or electrotyped, so that edition after edition may be printed from the same plates.

The art of printing has been called the "Divine Art." It is "the art preservative of all arts." To a large extent all civilization depends upon the art of printing.