500th Anniversary I
Of Movable Type
? - ' ? I
An anniversary is worthy of ob
servance, not so much for the event
it commemorates as for the conse
quences of that original impetus and
the extent o^ its achievement. The
year 1940 will be observed, by com
mon consent, as the 500th Annivers
ary of the Invention of Printing
from Movable Type because the
printed word has contributed more
than anything else to the spread of I
knowledge and the progress of Sivili- J
zation. ? s
Two other miletones in typograph
ical history will also be commemorat
ed at the same time. Printing was
introduced into the New World at I
Mexico City in 1539, and the first I
book produced in what is now the I
United States was the "Bay Psalm
Book" from Staephen Daye Press at
Cambridge in 1640.
All these events are rich in me
chanical, utilitarian, and historical
connotations, but they also represent
the major factor in human progress.
The two American moments were I
relatively local and their observance
is influenced, in a sense, by pride and
sentiment; "the original emergence of I
a new medium of communication was
universal in concept and application.
The invention of printing from
movable type five hundred years ago
was a triumph of mechanical ingenu
ity but that was the least of its
merits. It is the printed word, in
circulation and use, that has moti
vated and developed throughout the
past five centuries. No other materi
al -'unction has affected so many ac
tivities or radiated so widely 'to in
fluence humanity. It has replaced
ignorance with knowledge, supersti
tution with intelligence, mental my
opia with cosmic vision.
The products of printing have
made history and recorded it, learn
ing has erected a wall of proven da
ta fact by cumulative fact, intelli
gence has woven a pattern of truth
and imagination, emotions have been
stimulated and" brought into poise,
taste cultivated and directed?all by
- the agency of type and press. The
word of mankind today, the com
plex fabric of mental reality and
physical being, exists by virtue of
the printed word.
Therefore the fundamental theme
of ~ this five hundredth anniversary
is "THE RELATION OP PRINT
ING TO LIFE".
H 500 Years of Printing
? ... 1-4-4-0 ? 1-9-4-0
I (Continued from page 1, 2nd See.) I
was arrested at sight of a blinS
? youth in beggar's garments, who atj
the crunch of approaching footsteps I
stretched out his hands in mute ap- I
? peal for the, passing stranger's pity.
Valentine Hany was a man with a I
heart of gold, as he could never re-1
sist the supplications of the destitute, I
he led the lad home with him to give J
? him food and shelter for the night.
For this act of kindness, Francois
Lesueur showed so much gratitude
I that he was given permanent em
? ployment. in Hauy's household. One
day while sorting papers of his bene- j I
? factor's desk, he came across a print- ?
ed card that had been too heavily in- 1
? dented by the type. He showed his 1
master that ha could decipher several la
letter from it by touch, and when j
I Hauy traced other letters on paper I
! s*ith the handle of hfa pen the iboy .
read them also, and the result was <1
? raised printing. In 1894 Louis fl
? Braille simplified this method to such jfl
? an extent that a blind person mayjfl
I BOW keep memoranda, write music [?
or carry on correspondence. Among i
? recent improvements in printing for i
I the blind is the Braille typewriter,!.
I ^)Pnulk i
? JSC r?n ?A,-. ? *? . ? ' ; 1,1
h- bwlcXzQc^E in m aywr A)MML . m* .vi J /
T^aiiBU -IVi? , I
press, built for the London Times,
having ten feeding rolls and attain*
ing a speed of 20,000 impression an
Lloyd's Magazine, a press, which by
hour. In 1908 the Hoes built for
er, produced 60,000 complete 32 page
magalines an hour?with the folding
inserting, cutting,, pasting and cover
ing all done with the same machine.
In 1927 the Walter Scott Company
has produced a system' combining
several presses as units of .one ma
chine, and such a press, functioning
as two sextuples, one octuple and
a quadruple, has already attained
the unprecedented speed of 192,000
twelve page sheets of 2,S04,00a pages
in one hour.
The earliest application of chem
istry to printing seems to have been
made by Tomasco Finiguerra, an ar
tist of Florence, during the lifetime
of Gutenberg. Finiguerra, the father
of etching, employed the first chem
ical process for making engravings.
Etching is still employed by illustra
tors as an artistic medium, but its
commercial value has long ago been
nullified by the invention of more
rapid processes.
In 1794, chemistry was again util
ized by Alois Senefelder in the in
vention of lithography. Senefelder,
an impoverished playright of Mun
ich, learned to do his own printing
and one day, while engaged in pol
ishing a stone slab on which he
ground inks, his mother entered the
shop and desired him to write her h
bill for the laundress. No paper be
ing at hand, the bill was computed
on the stone. Some time afterward,
when about to wipe the writing from
the stone, the idea occurred to Sene
felder to try the effect of aqua for
tis on the ink. The result was that
at the end of five minutes he found
the writing so much elevated that
from it he was able to take a satis
factory impression. Thus, alchemy
again triumphed. And though, to be
sure, it was not the long sought
philosopher's stone that Senefelder
had found, he had brought to light
one equally as~ valuable, for upon his
discovery, he had brought to light
one equally as vauable, for upon his 1
discovery has been built the modern ;
lithographing industry?filling the i
world with brightly colored pictures
and giving employment, to many i
thousands of workers.
In 1815 F. C. Accum initiated some
experiments in the distillation of :
coal tar, then a waste product of In
dia rubber manufacture; and these <
experiments, tfao apparently far 1
afield from printing, were neverthe
less to lay the foundation for the |
later invention of color photography
and color printing. Forty one years j
afterward Sr. W. H. Perkins diseov- -
ered in coal the first of the aniline 1
dyes . . . Perserving chemists later <
succeeded in coaxing from the ebony <
mineral a veritable rainbow of bril- I
liant hues?thereby making possible <
the profuse variety of chemical ool- i
org today employed in printing and
the manufacture of orthochromatic '
plates. 1 . - <
Mungo Ponton later discovered ?>
that certain substances could be ren- 1
dered insolxxable by exposure to light, i
and by this discovery he is entitled <
to be called the father of photo- <
graphic engraving. The halftone <
process, thru which it became pos- i
sible to .develop a photograph on a .1
metal plate, originated in Munich
about 1846, where Meisenbach first i
brought it to commercial notice; but j
and P. E. Ives, by the introduction 1
of light filters, are responsible for i
its present day perfection* <
Among the other, processes of \
:hemical engraving that followed 3
Pen's discovery, -only photogravure, i
>r the etching of photographs, has t
ranked in importance with the,-half- I
tone. In its crude state, this pro- I
who^kept it a aeciflt 1
jy Goup3, Sr. Joseph Swan, and oth- t
iOk En 1895, Kal Klietsch, of Vien- t
Ikii^ ' ; V ??i 1 IIMHH 11 ,1 #>4<A |vM
aa, sogreatly v improved . phoebr ?i
jravure, that he may be credited r
vith having invented an entirely ne-f
MfAffWVIlM ?>? riAaoa gAlaU ' IJQQ^ 4lmo I r
AotogratWi^ action '- wf Sunday jr
? . # - - . ? i
^pr'CiTitltr\^ flTlPSr ? cj
?PWpptiymp) ^yiyuuwpy imwv j p
WILLIAM H. DUKE
Mortician at the Parmville Fun
eral Home, received his training
in the New Fork School of Em
balmers and the McAllister
School of Embalming.
1
which photographs or drawing are I
being conveyed by radio between!
points as far distance as San Fran-1
cisco and London- In the very year I
of the telegraph's birth, K. A. Stein-1
heil, of Munich, advocated wireless I
communication; in 1897 Marconi de-1
veloped Steinheil's theories as wire-1
less telegraphy?later making poe-l
sible wireless telephony or radio; and I
on July 6, 1924 the firsft photo, radio ?
picture was transmitted across the!
Atlantic, being a photograph of Sec- I
retary Hughes. '
In 1848 the stereotype process, !
which had in crude form been used ?
in Edinburgh as early as 1739, and ?
which Jedediah Howe had introduced ?
into the United States in 1817, was I
perfected in France. Inconspicuous I
at the time of its origin, the stereo- U
type has in the 20th century become ?
lone of the most useful vehicles of I
?printing?especially in the field of I
(newspaper illustration. . . . From the I
triginal idea has developed the, pa- I
per matrix, by which practically all I
Syndicated features are now distrib- I
luted to newspapers, and which is I
Kothing more than a piece of card- I
Board impresed with words or pic- I
tures while in a wet state, and af- I
Iterwards 4ri?d.
I Marvelous new inventions are in- ?
evitably lurking just, around the I
corner. Herp pre a few of them: I
Television . . . the recording tele- I
?graph . . . the book reading machine. I
Eooks will pne day bp punished in I
Eudible, as well as in visual, form. ?
For an evening's reading, the tired I
Business man of the future will have I
Simply to turn on his favorite hook I
Br newspaper hy means of phono- I
?graphic,, ra4?, or perfrated paper ?
?control; tors down his light and I
Battle back with his eyes'closed- I
I Microscopic and microphonic books. I
?The bookworm of the future m*fr I
Barry an entire library in his pocket, I
Bonn; reproducible by eight or sound
magnification similar to the present I
iay sound magnification of the re* I
liio amplfier. The cheapest editions.
Ef books, not to mention newsapeft I
ind magazines, will be rilled with a
fe x^olK^cSp^B^
Invention, words spoken into the die- ?
he*"imaT^Ie ^ure^^^^
ED. NASH WARREN1
President FanjiviHe Rotary Club.
*..rr,r. .ti..-,, -j ,
J. H. MOORE
Superintendent Farmville Graded
School.
of miles and use but one dialect; but
when-thought transmitting machine?,
will also be standardized in thisuni
versjri language. - *
Truly the mechanics of duplication
have progressed a long way since
Gutenberg; but it is ndt unreason
able to think that they will eon- i
tinue to multiply with increasing mo
mentum, and tha therd will be more
splendid possibilities. realised in the
next fifty years than th4*re were
realised during t^e fifty centuries
preceding tjierp.
Regardless of what growth thf 1
census shows for Farmville the loy- .
al boosters will.be able to abow you
a few thousand - additional inhabi-11
JNO. T. THORNE j ?
A member of the stock company 'n
which founded "The Enterprise"; a \
Director of the North Carolina Cottpn <
Growers Cooperative Association and <
owner of Pecan Grove Dairy. <
: ?
W. S. RdYSTER ?
'President of The Farmville Tobac* _
co Board of Trade. -
I 11 " " 11 ?
DYNAMITE IN FIREWOOD
? -
Webster City, lows.?When a
large chunk of wood would not go
through the furhaca door, Dr. U P.
Biddleman pulled 'It out and, to hia
surprise found a fuse attacked to
a dynamite cap In a knothole. The
doctor thought it had been placed
TiaveTMoney |
And Have a New Home
STOP OUTGO ... start mi INCOME. Don't waft ;?
until "next year" ... do it TODAY. J!
Before you know it you will have a sufficient sum of <[
money to buy that home you have been wanting. \ \
Keep your money safe in our bank. ? o
START SAVING REGULARLY NOW > ? j!
We Welcome Your Banking Business <?
SAFETY of our Deposits Is INSURED j>
by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to $5,000 < ?
for Each Depositor. ||
THINK!
HAVE MONEY!
The Bank o f
Farroville
Farmville, N. C.
THam- I
Mfember Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, t
_ ?
?UB Ir Orfi ?/ i
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