Gutenberg
Lived from 1400-1468
I
While Joan of Arc was busy rescuing France from the English, another
wonderful worker was busy in Germany. This was John Gutenberg,
who was born in Mainz.
The Germans--and most other people--think that he was the inventor
of the art of printing with movable types. And so in the cities of
Dresden and Mainz his countrymen have put up statues in his memory.
Gutenberg's father was a man of good family. Very likely the boy
was taught to read. But the books from which he learned were not
like ours; they were written by hand. A better name for them than
books is "manuscripts," which means "hand-writings."
While Gutenberg was growing up a new way of making books came into
use, which was a great deal better than copying by hand. It was
what is called block-printing. The printer first cut a block of
hard wood the size of the page that he was going to print. Then he
cut out every word of the written page upon the smooth face of his
block. This had to be very carefully done. When it was finished
the printer had to cut away the wood from the sides of every
letter.
Pages:
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212