Class XVII.] STATIONERY, PRINTING, Ac.—SUMMARY OF EXHIBITORS.
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Some articles, though having no claims either to aPrize Medal or an Honourable Mention, contained, never-theless, some merit, which justified the Jury in noticingthem in their Report. They do not profess to express anopinion upon every article exhibited, notwithstanding thecare they have taken in making a critical examination ofthe whole ; thus their Report lias reference to the generalmerits of the goods exhibited, as illustrative of the presentstate of the Paper Manufacture, Printing, and Book-binding , as pursued in various countries, and the con-tributions of any individual Exhibitor are neither com-mented upon, nor is any allusion made to them, except inillustration of the Report.
In the appreciation of the articles of this Class, theproducts of which deeply interest all grades of society—contribute to their moral, intellectual, and social civiliza-tion, and give activity and employment to so many mindsand hands—it would have been gratifying to the Jury,had they been able to draw a faithful picture of the actualstate of all those branches of industry which have occupiedthe most ingenious inventors, to trace their gradualdevelopment, and to indicate their probable future growth.The Jury feel how imperfectly they have succeeded inattaining this end; they have, however, given a rapidhistorical sketch of the origin and progress of Printing, ofPaper Manufacturing , &c., in order to facilitate a com-parison between the past and the present, and to enablethe reader in some degree to judge of the real extent ofthose branches of industry, in various countries, as repre-sented at the Great Exhibition .
The Reporters express their thanks to their Chairman,M. Van de Weyer, for his assistance and contributionsin the drawing up of the Report; also to their colleague,Mr. IIenry Stevens, for the information he has given onthe state of Type-founding and Paper Manufacture in theUnited States , as well as for his article on “ Printing forthe Use of the Blind.”
The number of exhibitors of all nations in this Class isr>59, of which 212 belong to Great Britain; 124 to France ;1 to Algiers ; 24 to the Zollverein States, including Prussia.Baden, and the United States of Northern Germany ; 23to the Grand Duchy of Baden , and the West Provinces ofPrussia and Electoral Hesse; lOtoBavaria; lOtoSaxony;7 to Wurtemburg ; 8 to Fraukfort-upon-the-Maine; 18 tothe Grand Duchy of Hesse; 1 to Nassau ; 3 to Hamburgh;
1 to Hanover; 6 to the Netherlands; 1 to Persia ; 1 toSmyrna; 2 to Portugal; 2 to Rome; 5 to Russia ; 2 toSardinia; 1 to Spain; 5 to Switzerland; 2 to Tuscany ;3 to India ; 2 to Malta; 5 to Canada; 1 to New SouthWales ; 1 to Van Diemen’s Land; 23 to America ; 19 toAustria; 17 to Belgium; 3 to China; 2 to Denmark ;
The Jury, in conclusion, express their hope that theunion of all nations, evidenced by the Exhibition of 1851,may hasten the peaceful solution of a question whichconcerns at once the rights of justice, of literature, of thesciences, and of typography. Property, the unalterablebasis of society, can never be less sacred in works ofgenius than in material concerns. Printers and booksellers,whose complaints unite with those of artists and literarymen, have shown that the unrestrained reprinting ofworks, without regard to moral considerations, is generallyattended, in every quarter, with greater inconveniencethan advantage. The recognition of literary propertywithin proper limits will give more intellectual life, andmore creative imagination to countries in which thereprinting of foreign works now stifles the development ofnative literature and science.
The Custom-houses, now obliged to establish a search,frequently hostile, will relinquish the impediments tocommerce and literature, and works will no longer bereprinted in haste, replete with errors, or mutilatedaccording to the will of speculators, and iu emulation ofeach other.
Lastly, the certainty of a wider market will be anencouragement to writers of talent, and to publishers, whoare frequently prevented from commencing great under-takings by the fear of seeing their work immediatelypirated. Universal co-operation is indispensably necessaryto insure the success of great literary and scientific
enterprises, which could not fail to flourish in a higherdegree if the rights in literary property were recognized.
I. PRINTING.*
After an interval of four centuries, the date of theGreat Exhibition of the world’s industry is coincidentwith the anniversary of that of the invention of printing.It seems as if all nations were assembled in the capitalof England to celebrate the centennial birthday of thePress—the most powerful instrument of their civilization.It is by the aid of printing that different nations haveimparted to each other their thoughts and their feelings,and have received in some degree a combined existence.Without this marvellous bond, they would have been leftto the ignorance and prejudices which foster nationalwarfare, and could never have presented this admirabledisplay of universal harmony and of generous emulation.
When we consider the great costliness of manuscriptsat a former period, the difficulty of procuring them, andall the benefits of which society was devoid before thediscovery of printing, every friend of study and of exaltedintellectual speculations should deem himself fortunatein living at a period when so many stores of instructionare placed within the reach of all.
Iu every age, and in all countries, printing denotes thestate of civilization, of which books are the reflex, andthe history of the human mind is written in the progressof bibliography. Thus the first printed books of Ger-many were almost all devoted to theology and scholasticphilosophy, while at Paris ancient literature occupied anequal rank with theology ; thus also at Rome , where theremembrance of ancient literature maintained a stillstronger empire, printing under the guidance of theBishops of Aleria and Teramo, principally reproducedthe master-pieces of classic times. In France , however,under the influence of the chivalrous reign of Francis I.,a great number of works upon chivalry soon appeared,and the desire of becoming acquainted with narrativesso much in conformity with the prevailing taste, was onecause of the introduction of printing into England. Ofthe sixty-two works printed in London by Caxton, thoseupon theology do not amount to ten, the remainder beingdevoted to chivalry, to history more or less romantic, toliterature, and to manners and customs. Without ex-patiating upon this subject, we will confine ourselves toobserving that at the period when the Pope founded atRome the celebrated printing-office for the “ Propagationof the Faith,” there was no corresponding activity onthe subject in London ; and that at the present day,whilst the great printing establishment of the “ Pro-paganda ” remains inactive, England every year sendsforth to the world a million of Bibles and New Testa-ments .
Soon after its first origin, the art of printing hadattained a great degree of perfection, and it was not tillthe second half of the last century, that owing to theefforts of Ibarra, in Spain : of Baskerville and of Bulmer,in England; of the Foulises and the Ruddimans, inScotland; of Bodoni, in Italy ; and of the Didot family,in Paris , any real progress can be pointed out. Thetypes were better cut and better cast, the ink as good asthat of the earliest printers, the paper was improved inits make, and the press-work more uniform.
At that time the greatest admiration and astonishment
* “ I participate in the encomiums bestowed by allformer eulogists on this transcendant art, which may justlybe considered as the nurse and preserver of every speciesof knowledge; and while I look into history for an ex-amination of the benefit which mankind has already de-rived from it, I feel equal, or even still more pleasure inanticipating that which it is yet capable of effecting, when,by being perfectly unfettered all over the globe, it willgive rise to and promote a system of universal education,and when, as a certain consequence of that education, allsocieties will direct their strenuous efforts towards bringinginto complete operation that divine morality' which has forirs basis this simple but sublime maxim. ‘ Do unto anotherthat which you would wish another should do unto you.’ ”— On the Art of l J rinthit /, hy the late Charles , third PariStanhope.