PRINTING

PRINTING

The debt that civilization owes to the art of printing is beyond calculation. Books keep the records of our history, the data of our sciences; books are the medium of education, of the exchange of ideas. Until the fifteenth century, books were written by hand and there were not many books in the whole world.

The ability to read and write was the privilege of a few people, and knowledge in a broad sense was confined to the few who had access to the libraries of hand written books. The invention of printing made it possible to produce books by hundreds and thousands, in less time than is required to copy a sigle book by hand. It put books within the reach of everybody, enormously stimulated popular education, and put new tools in the hands of philosophers and scientists.