ciently to direct the production of as simple a thing as a book. And inasmuch as such direction usually consists of checking bids on the setting of a certain number of words to be printed on a specified paper, it permits almost any youth to qualify. The production man in another publishing house stated that whatever the traveling salesmen reported as popular with the trade, was what he wanted to get into his books.

Once in a while, some youth who has been given a job in the production department, instead of the one he had sought in the manuscript-reading, will come to realize that there may be something in the making of books beside the listing of figures. Then he may begin to wonder whether he really is endowed to direct, leaving out the possibility of making a contribution. And well he may doubt, for usually he has an appreciation of literature, an interest in ideas expressed in words, but with no especial attraction to visual mediums of expression, even assuming that he is conscious of them and of their qualities. Thus type, a visual medium of expression, is

usually at the mercy of individuals not at all visually minded. To expect a man who lacks visual interest to direct visual work, is to give the leading of an orchestra to a tone deaf man. That it is often attempted we have the books to prove.

A knowledge, of the possibilities and limitations of the visual mediums, i. e. the graphic arts, is only one of the three necessary qualifications. Scholarship and craftsmanship and taste are the qualities in their proper order. Altho taste is placed last, it is the most important. But taste is a subtle quality, difficult to describe or to define. To exist, it must be exercised, it cannot be passive or dormant. That is why it follows craftsmanship, for it comes into active being when it is applied. Oddly enough, taste frequently contributes by elimination; to know what to leave out and when to stop is often more important than adding. Bad taste is a misnomerlacking taste is the proper expression. A person either uses taste or has none.

Scholarship means a knowledge of work that has been done, and of the movements

that have influenced it. Craftsmanship is the application of knowledge to the immediate job, with infinite patience and attention to detail. Even genius has been defined as ninety-five percent perspiration to five of inspiration.

However, if publishers were to realize the desirability of having well-grounded men to direct the making of their books, such men are hardly to be found. Nor will they be, until the publishers realize some obligation and responsibility for their training.

A few weeks of a carelessly planned course in the New York University will do little more than make clear the necessity for something better. Nor is the reading of several articles in The Publishers' Weekly, or elsewhere, any short-cut. The ideal course would be directed by a man who combines in himself the qualities of a good book-maker-scholarship, craftsmanship, and taste-and in addition, a pedagogical interest; a man to the measure of D. B. Updike, if he could be gotten. It would be altogether too much to attempt

now an outline of a plan for such a training. But it must begin by making sure that the entrants are of the visual type necessary for proper response.

This course could be subsidized by the different publishers with scholarships, to which they might have the privilege to make appointments. Here is an opportunity for cooperation of the most constructive sort. If the publishers show the interest, plants occupied in the making of books will not be far behind. As soon as manufacturers realize that there is an interest in what can be added to a book, rather than in what can be taken from it, then improvements will appear. And when publishers have done something towards solving the problem of creation, they will find that it lessens the one of distribution. It is much easier to sell an article well designed and carefully made, and it is certainly infinitely more satisfactory to each participant.

There are plenty ready to applaud and reward let us have more producers of better books.

406-426 WEST 31st ST., NEW YORK

Composition-Electrotyping—Printing-Binding

From Manuscript to Bound Book

Efficient Workmanship.

Prompt Service.

A

NUMBER of amazing things occurred in the Eighteen Nineties. Some of them were new and many were old matters garbed in fresh finery but, whichever they were, they found in the spirit of the time an enthusiastic response. New and old, fine or tawdry, well done or mediocre, they commanded attention and the public roused from long lethargy and Some took notice.

of those occurrences were important and of far-reaching effect. One, at least, was epochal and that one was causal to our present subject. They called it "the revival of great printing" then; nowadays we say "fine printing" and mean something slightly different, tho the idea is identical. Some authorities date the revival from

1844, when

tion of 1888. And they all talked and talked and talked about the lack of beauty and the need of it (Printing was bad in those days). About the same time William Morris made his first definitely practical move by superintending the printing of "The House of the Wolfings" at the Chiswick Press. Because the protest of the insurgent group was directed largely against the characterless type designs then available, a special type was used, based on an old Basel font.

O come then, let us join
The heavenly host
To praise the Father, Son,
And Holy Ghost

This was followed, at the same press in 1889 and 1890, by "The Roots of the Mountains" and "Gunnlaug Saga." In the former, tho the same type was used, the page design was changed and shoulder-notes substituted for head-lines. Of the latter, seventy-five copies were run off in order to use up some Whatman paper left over from the former. It was printed in "a blackletter copied from one of Caxton's fonts;" probably the one cut by Vincent Figgins for his Caxton reprints. This was a period of experiment, transition, and preparation.

rediscovered Caslon types, but the first

definitely apparent stirrings of revolution antedated the Nineties by only a few years.

Herbert P. Horne and Selwyn Image gave considerable thought and care to the typography of The Hobby Horse, a magazine which first appeared in 1886. Emery Walker contributed an essay on printing to the catalog of the Arts and Crafts exhibi

In the same years, beginning in December, 1899, Morris was working out his own

ideas of type design and on January 31, 1891, the first trial page was printed and the Kelmscott Press was born. Since that press is to have a special chapter, as are also the Doves and the Daniel presses, further detail is omitted here. It may seem illogical not to have led up to this period thru the Daniel Press, most lovable of them all, which had been active since 1845 and, importantly from 1880, but it was so peculiarly personal and private that it had no part, at the time, in the revival and can be fairly dealt with only in its own chapter.

William Morris at the Kelmscott Press not only inaugurated a new era―he created it. For present-day knowledge of and interest in private presses (and largely in typography) dates from that press, stimulated by those which immediately followed it (After interest was aroused, we began to inquire if there had ever been such fascinating things before and the search was delightfully rewarded by finding Horace Walpole, Dr. Daniel, and the rest). Morris was well known and highly regarded as a designer of distinction. He was a force in whatever he did and his activities were news. Charles Ricketts was also in the public eye and his early efforts, beginning in 1889, added fuel to the blaze tho the Vale Press, as an entity, was not formed until 1896, the year that Morris died.

The initial production of C. H. St. John Hornby at his Ashendene appeared in 1894, a little later Lucien Pissarro began issuing his delightful Eragny Press volumes, and the Essex House and Pear Tree presses were started, all by 1899. And if we follow the momentum of the Nineties over the turn of the century, we find 1900 ushering in an outstanding figure and a famous achievement, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and the Doves Press. He, too, requires individual comment, which is to follow.

There is another man who, tho he never maintained a private press, was so closely associated with the movement that he cannot be disregarded. In fact, his contributions to the accomplishments of the period have never been fairly acknowledged. We hear of him in connection with Kelmscott, Vale, Ashendene, and Doves, but always in the background. Yet Emery Walker, commercial printer as he was (and still is), an inexhaustible source of experience, taste.

was

and enthusiasm from which they all profited.

He was a friend and neighbor of Morris in Hammersmith and they were "in daily communication." S. C. Cockerell says that, "tho not concerned with the financial side of the enterprise, he was virtually a partner in the Kelmscott Press from its first beginnings to its end, and no important step was taken without his advice and approval." It was a perfect combination of artist and technician, because both had the same ideal. Just how actively he assisted Charles Ricketts at the Vale Press is a question, but they were certainly in close contact and sympathy. These three men, Morris, Walker, and Ricketts, are authoritatively bracketed as "masters of the revival of great printing."

Mr. Walker also, with Sydney Cockerell associated, later designed the Ashendene type and he alone has credit for the finest type of the period, perhaps of all periods, the Doves. His actual influence can never be measured in concrete quantities, but it is not too much to say that he was the patron saint of those private presses which made history.

So much for the sequence of beginnings. It must be borne in mind that what really happened was a revival of interest in good printing. That would have continued, under any circumstances, but because Morris turned to a private press instead of continuing to have his plans executed at a commercial plant, he added the personal element, always a source of fascination, and created the private press vogue. Not only were his books full of new methods and fresh beauty, but they were delightful. Somewhere he has said that he wanted to produce "jolly books."

The Kelmscott, Vale, and Doves presses were best known in their own time and still retain their importance in perspective. Each has its distinct quality. Morris was pre-eminently a creative artist, with untiring energy and power of accomplishment. Ricketts, on the other hand, was more the aesthete, with "a temperament which was assertively personal and essentially individual." Comparison of the two men can hardly be better phrased than Holbrook Jackson's: "The Kelmscott books not only look as if letter and decoration had grown one out of the other; they look as if