Sara Ware Bassett

“ Paul opened his eyes.
"What did they print on, then?"
"They didn't have printing presses, either," answered Mr. Cameron. "Long ago people did not care so much for reading as we do now. Most of them hadn't education enough to read a book or a paper if they had had one. In fact, many kings, bishops, and persons of rank could neither read nor write. Charlemagne could not sign his own name. The era before the Renaissance was an age of unbelievable ignorance. It is a marvel that with the turmoil of war and the utter lack of interest in anything intellectual any learning came out of the period." ”

“ Melville regarded his friend with undisguised admiration.
"You'll make it a go, Kip!" he cried. "I feel it in my bones now. Hurrah for the March Hare! I can hear the shekels chinking into our pockets this minute. Put me down for the first subscription. I'll break the ginger-ale bottle over the treasury."
"Shall it be a dollar, a dollar and a quarter, or an out and out one-fifty?"
"Oh, put it at one-fifty. We're all millionaires and we may as well go in big while we're at it. What is one-fifty for such a ream of wisdom as we're going to get for our money?" ”

“ That is why I should like to control a newspaper, that I might make it the mouthpiece of all that is highest and noblest. To my mind only persons of splendid ideals should be entrusted with the [161] publishing of papers. If the editor is to form the opinion of the masses, he should be a man worthy of his mission."
Paul toyed with his cuff-link.
"So, son," concluded Mr. Wright, "you've got to be a very good person if you aim to be a newspaper man—at least, that's what I think. Any printed word is like seed; it is liable to take root you know not where. ”

“ When all these details have been decided upon there is yet another important factor in book-producing—the item of expense. Books being no longer the property of the few, they must be within the reach of the many, and the book-manufacturer's business is to make them so. It is precisely because we have such a large reading public that America has attained her high intellectual average. ”

“ But for the most part the book came back to its original purpose and took its place as a mouthpiece of literature."
"Do you mean that books became cheap?" asked Paul.
"Not what we should consider cheap—that is, not for a long time. You see, the thing that makes a book cheap is not alone the material put into it, or the price for which it can be obtained of the author; it is largely the size of the edition printed that reduces the expense of production. It is practically as much work to print fifty copies of a volume as several hundred. ”

“ History, philosophy, the thought of all the ages is ours. That is what I mean when I say there is no excuse for persons of our era being uninformed. We are reaping the results of many unfoldings and can see things with a degree of completeness that our ancestors could not; they looked at life's problems from the bottom of the hill and got only a partial view; we are seeing them from the top, and understanding—or we should be understanding—more fully, their interrelation."
"I suppose," mused Paul thoughtfully, "that those who come after us will see even farther than we." ”

“ Sometimes the public will be caught by a story and it will become popular not only to the amazement of the bookseller, but to the surprise of both publisher and author as well. One cannot always prophesy what readers will like, especially if an author is new. It is a great gamble. But usually an author whose work is known and liked can safely be calculated upon to sell."
"Is it much work for a publisher to get a book ready for the market after he once gets the manuscript from the author?" asked Paul. ”

“ China had long been successful in printing because of the fine texture of her paper. Italy, the home of the arts, caught up Gutenburg's invention and [87] brought not only lettering but paper-making to a marvelous degree of perfection."
"Italy and China always seem to be doing things," laughed Paul.
"Both nations were inventive and original," answered Mr. Cameron. "The difference between them was that while China locked all her discoveries up within her own walled cities, Italy shared her knowledge with the rest of the world and made it and herself immortal." ”

“ Nothing walks with aimless feet, in my opinion. It is all part of a gigantic, divine plan. The small beginnings of the past have been the seed of to-day's harvest. We thank Gutenburg for our books. We thank such men as Nicholas V and many another of his ilk for the Vatican Library, the British Museum, the numberless foreign museums; we owe a debt to our nation for our own Congressional Library, to say nothing of the smaller ones that, through the public spirit of generous citizens, have opened their doors to our people and done so much to educate and democratize our country. ”

“ We certainly read only a very small proportion of them."
"I know I don't read many," said Paul soberly.
"You will read more as you grow older, son," returned his father kindly. "But most of us are intellectually lazy; even grown-up persons devote a good part of their short lives to reading things that profit them nothing."
"Things like the March Hare, for example," suggested Paul facetiously. ”

“ We seem to think we have unlimited time before us, and that there is no hurry about reading the good things we mean to read before we die; so we waste our precious moments on every sort of trash—cheap novels, worthless magazines, newspaper gossip, and before we know it, our lives are gone. I overlook your being so foolish; but for me it is inexcusable. The Italians of the Renaissance did not give themselves over to such folly. They put their hearts seriously into building up their age and generation. ”

“ Wright. "The printing of a paper is a wonderful process to see. I have a great admiration and respect for a fine newspaper, anyway. When one considers how widely it is read and the influence it possesses for good or evil, one cannot but take off his hat to it. No agency in the community can more quickly stir up or allay strife. Public opinion to no small extent takes its cue from the papers. ”

“ If you consider, you can readily see that as a nation we consume an unbelievable amount of paper and ink in a year. That is why the shortage of these materials during the war caused such universal inconvenience. And not only do we demand a great deal of paper, and ink, and printer's skill in every department of our business, but being a country alert for education, we annually use a tremendous number of schoolbooks. Hundreds, thousands, millions of schoolbooks are printed each year for the purpose of educating and democratizing our growing citizens."
Paul stirred in his chair uneasily. ”

“ Paul said.
"Don't forget it, for it is the backbone of the business," replied Mr. Hawley. "All that part of our work is conducted as systematically as the rest. Each editorial writer and reporter is detailed to his particular work and must have [175] his copy in promptly; he must know his facts and write them up with accuracy, charm, and spirit, the articles must also have the punch that will carry them and make people interested in reading them. A writer who can't turn out this sort of stuff has no place in the newspaper world. ”

“ Those who write for publication find a typewriter practically imperative. Editors will not fuss to decipher hand-penned copy. The time it takes [104] and the strain on the eyes are too great. A professional writer must now turn in his manuscript neatly typed and in good form if he expects to have it meet with any attention. The old, blotted, finely written and much marked-up article is a thing of the past. Typewriters are so cheap in these days and so simply constructed that there is no excuse for people not owning and running them."
"I wonder who thought out the typewriter, Dad," mused Paul. ”

“ Paul brightened.
"I could ask somebody's opinion, couldn't I?" he declared.
"Of course. Or you could consult with your staff."
"My staff! Pooh! They wouldn't know any more about it than I did," chuckled Paul. "But you would, Dad, and so would Judge Damon. I shall come straight to you if I get stuck."
"Two heads are often better than one," responded Mr. Cameron kindly. "Bring your problem home, my boy, if you find it too big for you. ”

“ Paul murmured.
"I'll bet I could nail most of the Juniors. I'd simply stand them up against the wall and tell them it was their money or their life—death or a subscription to the—what are you going to call this rich and rare newspaper?" he inquired, suddenly breaking off in the midst of his harangue and turning to his companion.
"I hadn't got as far as that," answered Paul blankly.
"But you've got to get a name, you know," Melville declared. "You can't expect to boom something so hazy that it isn't called anything at all. Don't you want to take our class paper won't draw the crowd. ”

“ It was, as Paul declared to his colleagues, a triumph of teamwork.
It had never, perhaps, come to the minds of the boys that teamwork was a term that could be applied to work as well as to play. Business and sport seemed vitally different fields of activity. Yet here they were—a group of boys pulling together, each at the post assigned him—toiling for the success of the whole body. Was it such a different thing from football or baseball after all? Business managers, authors, advertising agents, were working quite as hard to do their part as ever they had worked at right or left tackle ”

“ Cameron. "Elegant persons refused to use anything so cheap. Snobbery existed among the ancients, you see, quite as extensively as in our own day, and a possession was only valuable while it was the property of the fortunate few. The instant it came within the reach of everybody it was no longer desirable in their eyes. Your snob always treasures a thing less for its intrinsic value than because other people cannot have it. ”

“ There is no question, though, that typewriters accord with our generation much more harmoniously than do painfully penned manuscripts. In our day the problem is to turn out the most work in the shortest time, and the typewriter certainly does that for us. It is a very ingenious device—a marvel until one sees a modern printing press; then the typewriter seems a child's toy, a very elementary thing indeed."
"I'd like to see a big press sometime," Paul observed. "I have been trying to get my nerve together to ask Mr. Carter for a permit to visit the Echo printing rooms." ”

“ Even their aristocracy felt it no disgrace to toil to perfect a fine art. To make that which was excellent more excellent still was the aim of rich and poor. Nobles, artisans, barefooted friars worked together towards that common goal. It was an Italian prince, Nicholas V, a man who afterward became Pope, who founded the Vatican Library and collected five thousand books, at a time, you must remember, when a book was a rare and almost priceless treasure. To him we owe the preservation of many a valuable old manuscript that might otherwise have been destroyed. ”

“ Between the public, and the printer, and the bookbinder the publisher is torn in many directions. And then there is the author, who, as I say, does not like his text tampered with. Firms differ greatly about this. Some publishers feel perfectly justified in going ahead and remodeling a writer's work to suit themselves; others regard an author's manuscript as a sacred possession and never change so much as a punctuation mark on it without asking permission. They may suggest changes but they will not make them. It is a point of honor with them not to do so. ”

“ You see, I don't really know much of anything about printing a paper. All I am actually sure of is that often the making up of a page is a big puzzle. I've had enough experience to find that out."
"That is sometimes a puzzle for us, too," smiled Mr. Hawley. "Fitting stuff into the available space is not always easy. Usually, however, we know just how many words can be allowed a given article and can make up our forms by estimating the mathematical measurement such copy will require. ”

“ Naturally the book—not alone the story but the style and choice of words—is assumed to be his. If he is a careful worker he has probably weighed every word that has gone into the phrasing. He therefore does not relish having his style meddled with, even for such a technicality as the filling out of a short line."
"Is it really better to heed this printer's edict?" laughed Paul. ”

“ We live in an age and a country of freedom. But the world has not always been so easy or so comfortable a place to live in as it is now."
Mr. Cameron touched the manuscript before him daintily with his finger, betraying by the gesture the reverence of the true book-lover.
"This book," he remarked, "is, as you see, done on vellum. Most of the illuminators of ancient books preferred that material for their work. Papyrus such as the Romans used was too brittle to be folded or sewed, and therefore could not be bound into book form; it had to be rolled on rollers, and even then was liable to crack. ”

“ The man who prepares the metal solution and keeps it at just the proper degree of temperature for casting is the person to whom the printer owes no small measure of his success. When we go downstairs, we shall see how the forms that are set here are cast in two large metal sections that fit on the two halves of the cylindrical rollers of the press. A mold of the form is first made from a peculiar kind of cardboard, a sort of papier-mâché, and by forcing hot metal into this mold a cast, or stereotype, of the page is taken. ”