Charles Knight

“ This invention, a true intellectual sun, has mounted above the horizon, first of the European Christians, and then of the people of other climes and other faiths, to an ever-enduring morning. It has made the return of barbarism, the isolation of mankind, the reign of darkness, impossible for all future times. It has established a public opinion, a court of moral judicature common to all civilized nations, whatever natural divisions may separate them, as much as for the provinces of one and the same state. ”

“ For three days the population of Mentz was kept in a state of high excitement; and the echo of the excitement went through Germany,—and Guttenberg! Guttenberg! was toasted in many a bumper of Rhenish wine amidst this cordial and enthusiastic people.
And, indeed, even in one who could not boast of belonging to the land in which printing was invented, the universality of the mighty effects of this art, when rightly considered, would produce almost a corresponding enthusiasm. ”

“ The masses, who are yet more imperfectly educated than some of their own class, and most of the class above them, would not consider, as they have never yet considered, solid and instructive reading "value for their money." Unquestionably "books to please the million must not only be good but attractive." The chief popular labour of the last quarter of a century has been to convert the ponderous ores of learning into the fine gold of knowledge. ”

“ If Burke had lived in times when there are fourteen hundred thousand buyers of cheap weekly sheets, whose readers probably amount to five millions, would his great philosophical mind have said, as modern legislation says, Do whatever you can to prevent this reading going in a right direction; you cannot stop reading, but you can keep the cheap literature debased, by denying the people access to the great original thinkers who would lift them out of their intellectual twilight into a brighter day? ”

“ But I am of the belief that the press will never work but for the great and the learned, to any purpose of profit to the printer. How can we ever hope to send our wares abroad? We may hawk our ballads and our merry jests through London; but the citizens are too busy to heed them, and the apprentices and serving men too poor to buy them. ”

“ The whole aspect of the humbler press has changed within these few years. Unquestionably the people have changed. Visit, if you can, the interior of that marvellous human machine, the General Post-Office, on a Friday evening, from half-past five to six o'clock. Look with awe upon the tons of newspapers that are crowding in to be distributed through the habitable globe. Think silently how potent a power is this for good or for evil. ”

“ But when laymen in humble life were enabled to procure books, the pride of aristocracy took an absurd course, insomuch that at one time it was deemed derogatory for a nobleman if he could read or write. Even scholars themselves complained that the reputation of learning, and the respect due to it, and its rewards, were lowered when it was thrown open to all men; and it was seriously proposed to prohibit the printing of any book that could be afforded for sale below the price of three soldi. ”

“ Be that as it may, England literally gave nothing towards the statue of a man whose invention has done as much as any other single cause to make England what she is. The remoteness of the cause may also have lessened its importance; and some people, who, without any deserts of their own, are enjoying a more than full share of the blessings which have been shed upon us by the progress of intellect (which determines the progress of national wealth) , have a sort of instinctive notion that the spread of knowledge is the spread of something inimical to the pretensions of mere riches. ”

“ The fine statue of Guttenberg was opened amidst an universal burst of enthusiasm. Never were the shouts of a vast multitude raised on a more elevating occasion;—never were the triumphs of intellect celebrated with greater fervour.
Passing his life amidst the ceaseless activity that belongs to the commerce of literature in London, the writer of this volume felt no common interest in the enthusiasm which the festival in honour of Guttenberg called forth throughout Germany ”

“ Defending what he calls "the invaluable habit of resorting to books for pleasure," as the main desire of those who "have grown up in a want of instruction, {312} and in a carelessness of their own improvement," he says—"If we would generate a taste for reading, we must, as our only chance of success, begin by pleasing.... In the higher and better class of works of fiction and imagination, duly circulated, you possess all you require to strike your grappling-iron into their souls, and chain them, willing followers, to the car of advancing civilization." ”

“ They meet the eye on every railway stall and in every stationer's window, glittering in green and crimson. But we also sometimes hear of large stocks of unsaleable ventures, and of consequent evil-fortune, in spite of one or two profitable undertakings. We have great confidence in the largest sale of the cheapest edition of an attractive book by an author of reputation; but we have no confidence in the large individual sale of a great number of such distinct books, each jostling the other in the race for popularity. ”

“ A successful Grammar is a fortune. He who can produce sensible and amusing Reading-Lessons is better paid than a Secretary of State. Does the Government bestow any gratuities upon such services? Certainly not. But it does not discourage and annihilate them. It does not, as our Government does, interfere with competition by attempting to regulate prices. It does not do the silly thing which M. Louis Blanc wished to do in France for "the organization of literary labour." It has established no manufactory of school-books, produced cheaply, by the tax-payers helping the production. ”

“ It is pleasant to us to believe that William Caxton, the first English printer, in his day opened the ports of one great trading community to another great trading community. When he, the mercer's apprentice, stamped the merchant's mark upon his master's bales, he knew not, he could not have divined, that by this process of stamping, carried forward by the ingenuity of many men into a new art, there would arise consequences which would change the face of the world. ”

“ Macaulay has contributed nothing to positive knowledge. Mr. Dickens has gone into a large garden, and made a bouquet of the flowers, although he paid no wages to the man who raised them. He who makes a book uses the common property of mankind, and all he furnishes is the workmanship. Mankind has, therefore, a right to say to the authors, whenever they seek an extension of their privileges, "Be content, my friends; do not risk the loss of a part of what you have, in the effort to obtain more." ”

“ The entertainment which is now presented to all, whether it be in the shape of a shilling novel or a penny journal, is not debasing; it may enfeeble the intellect, but it does not taint it. How are we to deal with this universal desire for amusement? Not, we think, by any direct efforts at its counteraction, either by individuals or societies. We have before us three volumes, just completed, of a most excellent penny weekly publication of 'The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,' entitled 'The Home Friend.' It is cheap, even by comparison with the cheapest of the class. ”

“ But had this story been true, Caxton would not have been robbed of his glory. He would still have been what Leland, writing within half a century of his death, calls him, "Angliæ Prototypographus"—the first printer of England. For it is not the man who is the accidental instrument of introducing a great invention, and then pursues it no further, who is to have the fame of its promulgation. ”

“ The goodness without the cheapness might have produced little change in the market; the cheapness without the goodness might have been more influential But, with the truest combination of these qualities, there is nothing so easy or so common as to over-rate a demand in the commerce of books. The price of a book aspiring to the greatest popularity can only be settled by an estimate of the probable number of readers at any one time in the community, and by a still more difficult estimate of the sort of reading which is likely to interest the greatest number. ”

“ A ready access to instructive books, and amusing books, is the desire which most naturally suggests itself to the young people who have left the schools which the State recognizes, however imperfectly. The desire cannot be gratified except through some occasional benevolence. Thus the neglected mind first grows listless—then corrupt. Dangerous excitement begins the career which ends in habitual degradation. There could be nothing easier that to make the National School a Free Library also. ”

“ No doubt a century of printing in England had greatly lowered the price of all books that were essential instruments in the learned professions, or for the conduct of school education. But in the reign of Elizabeth the class of general readers had arisen; a class far more extensive than that of the clerks and noble gentlemen to whom our first printers addressed their translations of the classics, their French and Italian romances, their 'Gesta Romanorum,' their old chronicles, and their early poetry. ”

“ But surely in these chivalrous books Caxton had an honest purpose. He exhorts noble lords and ladies, with all other estates, to read this said book, "wherein they shall well find many joyous and pleasant histories, and noble and renowned acts of humanity, gentleness, and chivalries; for herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after the good, and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renown." ”

“ The modes in which a large population displays its enthusiasm are pretty much the same throughout the world. If the sentiment which collects men together be very heart-stirring, all the outward manifestations of the sentiment harmonize with its real truth. Thus, processions, and orations, and public dinners, and pageantries which in themselves are vain and empty, are important when the persons whom they collect together have one common feeling which for the time is all-pervading. We never saw such a popular fervour as prevailed at Mentz at the festival of August, 1837. ”

“ The Rhine has seen its pretty fortresses crumble into decay;—Ehrenbreitstein is more strong than ever. But even Ehrenbreitstein will fall before the power of mind. The Rhine is crowded with steamboats, where the feudal lord once levied tribute upon the frail bark of the fisherman; and the approaches to the Rhine from all Germany, and from France and Belgium, have become a great series of railroads. Such communications will make war a game much more difficult to play; and when mankind are thoroughly civilized, it will never be played again. ”

“ When it became his fortunate lot to multiply editions of the Canterbury Tales, and to render them accessible to a much larger class of the people than in the days when he himself first knew the solace and the delight of literature, he applied himself to the task with all the earnestness of an early love. ”

“ The bas-relief upon Thorwaldsen's statue of Guttenberg exhibits the first printer examining a matrix. But all the difficulties in the formation of the first matrix overcome, we may readily see that, at every stage, the art of making fusile types would become easier and simpler, till at length the division of labour should be perfectly applied to type-making, and the mere casting of a letter, as each letter is cast singly, exhibit one of the most rapid and beautiful pieces of handiwork that the arts can show. ”