Alpha Book

Yet this very
printing, which seems so commonplace to us now, has had, in all, but a
comparatively brief existence. From the earliest recorded history up to
less than five hundred years ago every book in Europe [Footnote: For an
account of early printing in China, Japan, and Korea, see the informing
article "Typography" in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th
edition, Vol. XXVII, p. 510.] was laboriously written by hand,
[Footnote: It is interesting to note the meaning of our present word
"manuscript," which is derived from the Latin--_manu scriptum_
("written by hand").] and, although copyists acquired an astonishing
swiftness in reproducing books, libraries of any size were the property
exclusively of rich institutions or wealthy individuals. It was at the
beginning of modern times that the invention of printing revolutionized
intellectual history.
Printing is an extremely complicated process, and it is small wonder
that centuries of human progress elapsed before its invention was
complete.


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