8i6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



smooth for future sei-i-ice; so this combination lacked none of the 

 advantages of the slate and pencil. The master wrote words for 

 the boys to copy, and often held beginners' hands; the letters were 

 sometimes cut deep in the wax, so that the boy could easily trace 

 them with his stylus. A set of wax tablets with verses from 

 Menander, evidently the furnishing of a schoolmaster, has been 

 found in a grave in Egypt. One of these tablets has the approval 

 " Diligent." 



Though the tablet was cheaper and more common in daily life, 

 both papyrus bark and the hides of animals (parchment) were used. 

 Herodotus mentions the use of paper made of the bark of the Egyp- 

 tian papyrus plant called " Bihlos," our Bible, which not only means, 

 from its Greek use, '" the Book," but farther back in its history is the 

 name of this papyrus plant. The stalk, about three feet long, was 

 cut lengthwise, and the different layers of bark, generally about 

 twenty in number, were carefully severed with a pin and afterward 

 plaited crosswise, pressed, and perforated with limewater till the re- 

 quired consistence was obtained. The finest paper was obtained from 

 the innermost layer; the outer layer was used in making rope. The 

 use of the hides of goats and sheep was fully as ancient, and differed 

 from the papyrus in allowing writing on both sides, while the bark 

 paper allowed it only on one side. 



Pens of split and pointed r6eds with black and red inks were used 

 on the papers. Quintilian prefers the tablet and stylus, and objects 

 to the pen and paper, as the frequent dipping into the ink tends to 

 distract continuous thought — apparently a queer objection, but our 

 greatest American essayist. Holmes, in his Over the Teacups, makes 

 the same comparison between the steel pen and the stylographic : 

 " And here let me pay the tribute which I owe to one of the humblest 

 but most serviceable of my assistants, especially in poetical composi- 

 tion. I^othing seems more prosaic than the stylographic pen. It 

 deprives the handwriting of its beauty and to some extent of its indi- 

 vidual character. . . . But abuse it as much as you choose, there is 

 nothing like it for the poet, for the imaginative writer. Many a fine 

 flow of thought has been checked, perhaps arrested, by the ill be- 

 havior of a goose quill. Many an idea has escaped while the author 

 was dipping his pen in the inkstand. But with the stylographic pen, 

 in the hands of one who knows how to care for it and how to use it, 

 unbroken rhythms and harmonious cadences are the natural products 

 of the unimpeded flow of the fluid which is the vehicle of the author's 

 thoughts and fancies. . . . Its movement over the paper is like the 

 flight of a swallow, while the quill pen and the steel pen and the gold 

 pen are all taking short, laborious journeys, and stopping to drink 

 every few minutes." 



