( "ii ) 



This great edifice was founded on oral tradition. Later 

 on written tradition, and still later printed tradition took its 

 place. When society comes to depend upon the one it in large 

 part ceases to depend upon the others, and in changing its 

 methods it is itself changed. Contrast, for instance, the period 

 in the life of each one of us when we ceased to remember the 

 affairs of daily life and gave our memory into the keeping of 

 ink and paper. Although much was gained in the inevitable 

 change, something was lost. Until recently there have been 

 many people in this country, there are probably a few now, 

 who, unable to read or write, can remember the details of 

 complicated accounts in a manner astonishing and impossible 

 to those who possess these accomplishments. We see that 

 when society in any age has come to depend upon printing it 

 will be through printing and not in other ways that it will 

 contribute its chief share to the social edifice; and this is not 

 a mere truism, for that age will have lost in large measure 

 other powers which would have been developed in earlier 

 times, powers which would still develop if printing did not 



exist. 



Our American friends who enter so thoroughly into the 

 essentials of a subject whenever they direct their attention to 

 it, have not, so far as I am aware, made any determined attack 

 upon this problem. Indeed, the majority of the scientific 

 works, which they so freely and generously place at the dis- 

 posal of students in other lands, are printed upon material, — I 

 will not call it paper,— constructed of the felted fragments of 

 wood, or of a thin paper backing overlaid and loaded with 

 china-clay. The latter class are abnormally heavy, the former 

 abnormally light. 



This is a matter so important that it ought not to be left to 

 the President of your Society to sound the warning. It is a 

 matter which it would have been well if the Royal Society or 

 the British Association had taken up years ago. It is not 

 creditable to have left to our artist brethren a subject of such 

 paramount importance to ourselves ; for to them belongs the 

 honour of having made the only serious attempts to improve 

 our practice and to call attention to the evil. 



To the trades concerned I would say that it is strange want 



