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In that same year of King Charles' Pragmatic Sanction , though yet unknown to warring princes and wrangling churchmen, John Gutenberg, in a little German workshop, had evolved the idea of movable type, that is, of modern printing.
His partners, tired of supplying funds to an enterprise which, for want of perfection, was not then remunerative, refused to persevere in the ungrateful occupation. Gutenberg begged them not to abandon him at the very moment that fortune and glory were within his grasp.
We now come to the great epoch of printing I mean the complete introduction, if not actually the first invention, of movable metal or fusile types. This took place at Mainz, in or before 1450, and the general consent of Europe assigns the credit of it to Gutenberg. Of a man who has conferred such vast obligations on all succeeding ages, it may be desirable to say a few words.
"Gutenberg invented the printing press," explained Zimmern, fearing I might not comprehend. "Yes," said Hellar with a curling lip, "and Gutenberg was a German, and so am I. He printed a Bible which he believed, and I wrote one which I do not believe."
These articles, which found sale at the fair of Aix-la-Chapelle, kept up the funds of the association, and assisted Gutenberg in the secret expenses reserved for accomplishing and perfecting his design.
On May 10th, 2008, 496 books were completed, 653 books were in progress and 91 books were being proofread. As stated in the Project Gutenberg FAQ, "the public domain is the set of cultural works that are free of copyright, and belong to everyone equally", i.e. that books that can be digitized to be freely available on the internet.
His father, Friel Gensfleisch, married Else von Gutenberg, who gave her name to her second son John. It is probable that if Mainz, his country, had not been a free city, this young gentleman would have been unable to conceive or to carry into execution his invention.
Later on, it is hoped machine translation software will be able to convert the books from one to another of 100 languages. In 2004, Project Gutenberg was in touch with a European project studying how to combine translation software and human translators, somewhat as OCR software is now combined with the work of proofreaders. He considers himself a pragmatic and farsighted altruist.
On the morrow, like a man who possesses a treasure, and knows neither rest nor sleep until he has hidden it safely, Gutenberg left Haarlem, hastened up the Rhine until he reached Strasburg, shut himself up in his work-room, fashioned his own tools, tried, broke, planned, rejected, returned to his plans, and again rejected them, only to return to them again; and ended by secretly executing a fortunate proof upon parchment with movable wooden types, bored through the side with a small hole, strung together and kept close by a thread, like square beads on a chaplet, each with a letter of the alphabet cut in relief on one side the first printer's alphabet, coarse, but wonderful the first company of twenty-four letters, which multiplied like the herds of the patriarchs, until at last they covered the whole earth with written characters, in which a new and immaterial element human thought became incarnate.
It was at the time when the trades, scarcely known, were confused with the arts, and when the most humble professions produced their earliest masterpieces, which, on account of their novelty, were looked upon as prodigies. Gutenberg travelled alone, on foot, carrying a knapsack containing books and clothes, like a mere student visiting the schools, or a journeyman looking for a master.
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