I
While Joan of Arc was busy rescuing France from the English, another
wonderful worker was busy in Germany. This was John Gutenberg,
who was born in Mainz.
The Germans--and most other people--think that he was the inventor
of the art of printing with movable types. And so in the cities
of Dresden and Mainz his countrymen have put up statues in his
memory.
Gutenberg's father was a man of good family. Very likely the boy
was taught to read. But the books from which he learned were not
like ours; they were written by hand. A better name for them than
books is "manuscripts," which means _hand-writings_.
While Gutenberg was growing up a new way of making books came into
use, which was a great deal better than copying by hand. It was
what is called block-printing. The printer first cut a block of
hard wood the size of the page that he was going to print. Then
he cut out every word of the written page upon the smooth face of
his block. This had to be very carefully done. When it was finished
the printer had to cut away the wood from the sides of every letter.
This left the letters raised, as the letters are in books now printed
for the blind.
The block was now ready to be used. The letters were inked, paper
was laid upon them and pressed down.
With blocks the printer could make copies of a book a great deal
faster than a man could write them by hand. But the making of the
blocks took a long time, and each block would print only one page.
Gutenberg enjoyed reading the manuscripts and block books that his
parents and their wealthy friends had; and he often said it was a
pity that only rich people could own books. Finally he determined
to contrive some easy and quick way of printing.
He did a great deal of his work in secret, for he thought it was
much better that his neighbors should know nothing of what he was
doing.
So he looked for a workshop where no one would be likely to find
him. He was now living in Strasburg, and there was in that city
a ruined old building where, long before his time, a number of
monks had lived. There was one room of the building which needed
only a little repairing to make it fit to be used. So Gutenberg
got the right to repair that room and use it as his workshop.
All his neighbors wondered what became of him when he left home in
the early morning, and where he had been when they saw him coming
back late in the twilight. Some felt sure that he must be a wizard,
and that he had meetings somewhere with the devil, and that the
devil was helping him to do some strange business.
Gutenberg did not care much what people had to say, and in his
quiet room he patiently tried one experiment after another, often
feeling very sad and discouraged day after day because his experiments
did not succeed.
At last the time came when he had no money left. He went back to
his old home, Mainz, and there met a rich goldsmith named Fust
(or Faust).
Gutenberg told him how hard he had tried in Strasburg to find some
way of making books cheaply, and how he had now no more money to
carry on his experiments. Fust became greatly interested and gave
Gutenberg what money he needed. But as the experiments did not
at first succeed Fust lost patience. He quarreled with Gutenberg
and said that he was doing nothing but spending money. At last
he brought suit against him in the court, and the judge decided
in favor of Fust. So everything in the world that Gutenberg had,
even the tools with which he worked, came into Fust's possession.
[Illustration: GUTENBERG AT WORK]