410

IMPROVEMENTS IN EMBOSSED PRINTING IN ENGLAND, Sec.

[Class XVII.

of 70 square inches. The leaves are not pasted together.The subscription price of the volume was one guinea, butit was subsequently sold for 6s. Gall was very sanguineof the entire success of his noble enterprise, and, proba-bly, had he chosen a less angular character, and one alittle more resembling our common alphabet, as lie hassince done, he would soon have seen his books used inevery institution in the country. His alphabet was thechief objection raised to his system. His printing wasclear, sharp, and permanent, and his books in everyrespect were a great improvement on Hauy’s andGuillie’s. He published live or six other little elemen-tary books in 1834, at the time he issued his chief work ;but his system seems not to have come into extensiveuse. It is to Mr. Gall, perhaps, more than to any otherman that the interest in the education of the blind wasawakened throughout Great Britain and America . Norhas he allowed his exertions to flag. In 1837, he pub-lished “The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Ephe-sians , printed for the Blind, on the largest type.” Theshape of the characters is similar to that upon which theGospel of St. John was printed, but instead of beingsmooth the letters are fretted or serrated. It is a smalloctavo volume of 72 pages, 17 lines to a page ; 250 copieswere printed at the price of Is. Grf. It is printed in thelower-case letters without capitals. The Epistle to thePhilippians was also printed, in octavo, price Is. G d. Thefollowing year he again modified and improved hisalphabet by bringing it back to a still greater resem-blance to the common alphabet, but unfortunately heyielded to the suggestion of the Society of Arts of Edin-burgh by introducing the use of capital letters at thebeginning of sentences and proper names. His next bookwas “ The Gospel according to St. Luke, printed on thecommon alphabet, for the use of the Blind, and capableof being read by any blind person, 1838. Printed forthe British and Foreign Bible Society, London . Printedby James Gall, 22 Niddry-street, Edinburgh .” This isa well-printed volume of 158 pages, 28 lines on a page of70 square inches; price 5s. The same year the Acts ofthe Apostles were printed in the same serrated letter in150 pages, price 5s. Besides these books Mr. Gallprinted a series of tracts for the blind for the LondonTract Society, in 1837, price 6d. each. It is a matter ofsurprise that these excellent and well-printed books ofMr. Gall are not more generally used. With the excep-tion o-f the school at Abbey Hill, near Edinburgh , it isbelieved they are adopted by no public Institution inGreat Britain. It is still a question if the roughness ofthe serrated character possesses any advantage over thesmooth, sharp embossing. Old and used books are fre-quently preferred by the blind to new and fresh ones.

While Mr. Gall was thus engaged at Edinburgh , theRev. Mr. Taylor, of York, displayed an intelligent andactive interest in the education of the blind. In 1828, hepublished the Diagrams of Euclid's Elements of Geometryin embossed or tangible form, in 8vo. This was done onBristol board, but was found too expensive. His mode ofembossing, we believe, was forciug the paper, by meansof heavy pressure, into the deep cut lines of a copperplate. It was not successful. He published also a mapof England and Wales . In 1836, he printed in raisedcharacters “Selections of Psalm Tunes and Chants” inoblong 4to. Also a short history of Elijah the Prophet,and of Naaman the Syrian ; and the History of Joseph.

The efforts of Mr. Alexander Hay, in the cause of em-bossed typography, deserve mention, although an entirefailure. He devised an alphabet of 26 arbitrary charac-ters, which by certain combinations could represent theabbreviations and double letters ; so that in all, he had 58characters. He procured types and other printing appa-ratus, and in 1828 or 1829, issued a prospectus for pub-lishing the Gospel of St. Matthew, at 7s. 6 d. The bookwas never published.

The public interest in the blind became so great, thatin 1832 the Society of Arts of Edinburgh offered a goldmedal of the value of 20/. “ for the best communicationon a method of printing for the blind,” and the resultwas that between the 9th of January 1832, and the 25thof February 1835, no less than 19 different alphabets

were submitted, of which 16 were in a purely arbitrarycharacter. The grand problem was to produce an alpha-bet that would unite cheapness and legibility.

While the puzzling question of an alphabet best adaptedboth to the fingers of the blind and the eyes of theirfriends, was under warm discussion on this side the At-lantic, Dr. Howe was developing his system at Boston , inthe United States . In 1833, the Perkins Institution forthe Blind was established at Boston , and Dr. S. G. Howe,a gentleman distinguished through a long series of yearsfor his philanthropic labours, was placed at its head. AsGall had done, Dr. Howe took Hauy’s invention as thebasis of his system, and soon made those improvementsand modifications which have rendered the Boston pressso famous. He adopted the common Roman letter of thelower case. His first aim was to compress the letter intoa comparatively compact and cheap form. This he ac-complished by cutting off all the flourishes and pointsabout the letters, and reducing them to the minimumsize and elevation which could be distinguished by thegenerality of the blind. He so managed the letters thatthey occupied but a little more than one space and a halfinstead of three. A few of the circular letters were modi-fied into angular shapes, yet preserving the original formssufficiently to be easily read by all. So great was thisreduction, that the entire New Testament , which, accord-ing to Ilaiiy’s type would have filled nine volumes, andcost 20/., could be printed in two volumes for 16s. Earlyin the summer of 1834 he published the Acts of theApostles . Indeed, such rapid progress did he make in hisenterprise, that by the end of 1835 he printed in relief,the whole of the New Testament for the first time in anylanguage, in four handsome small quarto volumes, com-prising G24 pages, for four dollars. These were pub-lished altogether in 1836. The alphabet thus contrivedby Dr. Howe in 1833, it appears, has never since beenchanged. It was immediately adopted, and subsequentlybecame extensively and almost exclusively used by theseven principal public institutions throughout the coun-try. It is now the only system taught or tolerated in theUnited States , and deserves only to be better known inGreat Britain and elsewhere to be appreciated. In Ame-rica , seventeen of the States have made provision for theeducation of their blind, and as universal education is thepolicy of the country as 'well as its proudest boast, thesebooks for the blind soon became in great demand. Dr.Howe some time since proposed a library for the blind,and with a view of increasing the number of books asrapidly as possible, arrangements have been made be-tween the several institutions and presses to exchangebooks with each other, and not to print any work alreadybelonging to the library of the blind. This harmony ofaction, together with the uniformity of the typography,presents so many obvious advantages, that the Jury cau-not but wish a similar system were pursued by the Insti-tutions of Great Britain aud the continent of Europe .We subjoin a list of the books printed at the press of thePerkins Institution in Boston (see Tables p. 417).

From this list it appears that, exclusive of the threevolumes not fully described, 7,903 pages, containing onan average 77 square inches, have been printed at thispress, or more than 12 times the quantity of matter con-tained in the New Testament . Almost all the books arestereotyped, and small editions are struck off as they arerequired. They are sold at the actual cost, the cost ofthe larger works being averaged on an edition of 250copies. The above prices include the binding; 50 percent, discount is made for books sold in sheets. Thebooks are embossed in the Institution under the superin-tendence of Dr. Howe himself, by means of a powerfulpress, built for the purpose. The sale of books in 1851amounted to 427 dollars. This, however, is exclusive ofthe Scriptures. The American Bible Society , which nowuses the stereotype plates of the Bible described above,distributed last year 149 volumes of the Bible . In short,the Boston books possess a neatness, clearness, sharpness,and durability of impression peculiar to themselves. Theseventh volume of the Cycloptedia is already printed, andthe Jury leant with pleasure that the printing of theremaining volumes will be resumed and probably be