History of Printing and Paper-Making - E-book - Multi-format

The art preservative of all arts it has been rightfully called. Before its birth generation after generation of the human family lived and died, and each was but little wiser, and but little better than its predecessor. Tradition was the misty, vague, and sometimes wholly false dependence of the living, and the experiences of mankind were, in the words of an eminent writer, but like the stern lights of a vessel, which only illumined the pathway over which each had passed.
But printing gives to the present the cumulative wisdom of the past, and marks a great era of growth in civilization. It conserves and preserves man's thoughts and makes them immortal, so that each generation comes into existence with a richer legacy of ideas, and is guaranteed a higher plane of existence, and a more exalted destiny. Printing from letters engraved on blocks of wood is an ancient art, having had its origin in China many centuries before the Christian era.
The Chinese method, which is still followed, was to write their characters with a brush on a sheet of paper, and while still wet, the piece of paper was laid face downward on a smooth piece of board to transfer the ink lines, and then all except the ink lines on the board was cut away. Thus they have one type plate for each book page. Printing with movable type, i. e., with a separate type for each letter, which may be repeatedly set up into forms of varying composition, is practically the beginning of the modern art of printing.
This invention is usually ascribed to Johann Gutenberg, of Mentz, about 1436. In the earliest printing presses the form was locked up in a tray, and placed upon a platform, and the platen was then brought down upon it by turning a screw in a cross bar above. The first printing press of this type was made by Blaew, of Amsterdam, in 1620, which had a spring to cause the screw to fly back after the impression was taken.
The press upon which Benjamin Franklin worked in London in 1725 is of this pattern, and is to be seen in the National Museum at Washington.