PRINCIPAL 



PRINTING 



407 



was tlie scene of a battle between the British 

 \inder Colonel Mawhood and the Americans under 

 Washington, in which the former were defeated ; 

 here the Continental Congress sat in 1783 ; and from 

 Princeton Washington dated his farewell address 

 to the army. Princeton, however, is chiefly cele- 

 brated as the seat of the College of New Jersey, 

 popularly known as Princeton College, which, 

 founded by charter in 1746, under the auspices of the , 

 Presbyterian Synod of New York, held its first com- 

 mencement under its second charter at Newark in 

 1748. Liberal subscriptions were obtained both in 

 America and in Britain, the Bishop of Durham 

 l>eing among the contributors, and the General 

 Assembly of the Church of Scotland ordering a 

 national collection. In 1756 the college was trans- 

 ferred to Princeton, on the erection of a hall 

 named Nassau Hall in honour of William III. 

 Within it hangs a portrait of Washington. The 

 College of New Jersey has had several distin- 

 guished Presbyterian divines for its presidents, as 

 Jonathan Edwards and Dr James M'Cpsh. Since 

 the civil war lnefactions have poured in upon the 

 college; during the twenty years of Dr M'Cosh's 

 presidency these exceeded $3,000,000. Port-gradu- 

 ate courses have been introduced, and the stall' of 

 instructors raised to about eighty ; the number of 

 students is now about 1 100. Among its graduates 

 have been James Madison, fourth president of the 

 United States, and many very eminent men. The 

 college possesses a school of science and muse- 

 ums, laboratories, observatories, and libraries with 

 180,000 volumes. In 1896 it was transformed into 

 Princeton University. The theological seminary, 

 founded in 1812, is the oldest and largest ( nearly 

 200 students) of the Presbyterian Church in Amer- 

 ica. With it was associated the fame of the Biblical 

 Repertory and Princeton Rtvieia ("old school"), 

 founded in 1825, but afterwards united with the 

 Presbyterian Quarterly (" new school "), which was 

 succeeded by the American Presbyterian Jterieir. 

 See (anon.) Four American Universities: Harvard, 

 Yale, Princeton, and Columbia (1895). 



Principal. See AOENT and SURETY; also 

 ACCESSARY. 



Prilljjle, THOMAS, minor poet, was born at 

 Blaiklaw (near Kelso), Roxburghshire, 5th January 

 1789. Lame from childhood, dyspeptic, devout, he 

 went at seventeen to Edinburgh University, and 

 found bread if not contentment of mind as clerk in 

 the Scottish Public Records Office. He took to 

 writing at an early age, and, besides other literary 

 schemes and ventures, started the Edinburgh. 

 Monthly Magazine, the parent of Blackwood, in 

 which his own most important article was on 

 the Gypsies, from notes supplied by Scott. In 

 1820 he set sail with a party of twenty-four 

 emigrants of his father's family for Cape Colony. 

 He travelled into the interior with the party, 

 and had his heart stirred within him to see the 

 inhumanity practised towards the natives by Eng- 

 lish and Dutch residents alike. For three years he 

 lived at Capetown as librarian of the government 

 library at a salary of 75 a year. He started the 

 South African Journal, and fought a brave light 

 for the freedom of the press. But he was bullied 

 by the tyrannical and petty-minded governor of the 

 day, Lord Charles Somerset, his schemes crushed, 

 and himself reduced to poverty. He returned to 

 London in 1826, and liecame secretary of the Anti- 

 Slavery Society. He died in London, 5th Decem- 

 ber 1834. His Ephemerides ( 1828) was a collection 

 of graceful verse. Those poems that related to 

 South Africa the best ' Afar in the Desert ' 

 were reprinted in the volume of African Sketches 

 (1834), a series of glowing sketches of South 

 African scenery. Pnngle's Poetical Works were 



edited, with a florid eulogium, rather than a life, 

 by Leitch Ritchie (1839). 



Printing is the art of taking, by pressure, 

 prints or copies in reverse of an original design 

 of a suitable character, coated with a pigment or 

 ink. The word has a very wide application, and is 

 used, for instance, in connection with such different 

 processes as photographic 'printing,' in which no 

 pressure is required, and calico-printing. A defini- 

 tion based upon pressure alone would bring within 

 the category of ' prints ' such operations as mould- 

 ing, stamping, and embossing. The word has, 

 however, acquired conventional limitations of 

 meaning, and is now applied usually to the three 

 methods of copperplate printing (see ENGRAVING), 

 Lithography (q.v. ), and letterpress printing. The 

 first two being already described, the present 

 article will be confined to a description of the 

 latter. 



There is no doubt the Chinese practised printing 

 in some senses of the word many centuries before 

 it was known in Europe, as has been noticed at 

 CHINA, Vol. III. p. 196. The method commonly 

 used down to the present time is one originally 

 adopted by Foong Taou in the 10th century. A 

 piece of pear-tree wood is cut up into boards of 

 about half an inch thick, and these into blocks large 

 enough for two pages of the book to be printed. 

 The blocks are planed, squared, and sized or var- 

 nished. The design to be engraved is drawn or 

 written on thin transparent paper, and transferred 

 to the surface of the block by rubbing. The en- 

 graver next cuts away the field, leaving the trans- 

 ferred letters in high relief. Lalxmr being cheap, 

 a block of this kind can be cut at about tlie same 

 expense as it could be set up in movable metal types, 

 and it needs no proof-reading or correction. For 

 printing no press is used, the. block being adjusted 

 on a table, before which the printer stands, having 

 a bowl of fluid ink on one side and a pile of paper 

 on the other. In his right hand he has two flat- 

 faced brushes, fixed on the opposite ends of the 

 same handle. One brush is dipped into the ink 

 and swept over the face of the block, on which a 

 sheet of paper is placed ; the back of the paper 

 is then swept lightly but firmly with the dry brush 

 at the other end of the handle. This is all that is 

 needed to fasten the ink on the paper which is 

 soft, thin, pliable, and a quick absorbent of fluid 

 ink. Printing from movable types was, according 

 to Professor Douglas, probably practised in China 

 as early as the 12th or 13th century, as there are 

 Corean books printed from movable clay or wooden 

 types in 1317. But the Chinese still prefer block- 

 printing ; and printing from metal types in China 

 is mainly practised for circulating the Bible and 

 for newspapers, according to methods invented by 

 Europeans. About 6000 Chinese characters suffice 

 for a missionary printing-office ; but for magazine 

 work about 10,000 are necessary. For the baseless 

 tradition that Marco Polo brought the knowledge 

 of block -printing thence, see POLO. 



The art of printing by the use of movable 

 types was invented in Europe about the 

 middle of the 15th century ; but no more definite 

 statement concerning its origin can be made with 

 confidence. The name of the country in which the 

 invention took place, the name of the inventor, the 

 year of the invention are, up to the present time, 

 matters of dispute. Modern researches have com- 

 pletely disposed of as a mere legend the wide- 

 spread belief that the invention of movable metal 

 types, cast in a mould from a matrix the essen- 

 tial principle of typography was preceded by or 

 was the outcome of the use of wooden types, 

 which it was formerly thought formed the link 

 between the block-books common in the early 

 part of the 15th century (see WOOD-ENGRAVING ) 



