[574] 



PROTOTYPOGRAPHY. 



Read hy Rev. Dr. Scadding, at the Caxton Celebration of the Canadian Institute, 

 Toronto, June 13, 1877. 



We contemplate with some astonishment the facility with which 

 little children acquire a language, the quickness with which they 

 catch the right use of words, of peculiar expressions and idioms; 

 And when at a later stage, the processes of reading, writing and 

 ciphering are proposed to them, we are equally struck with the readi- 

 ness with which, in most instances, these processes are mastered"; a 

 readiness such that after the lapse of a few months or years, skill in 

 these arts seems to the possessor and to others the result almost of 

 intuition. 



The reason of all this is : the certainty, now proved by long experi- 

 ence, that there is in the human mind, naturally, a predisposition 

 and preparedness to form language, first simple, then complex ; and 

 to make it, when thus formed, visible and permanent in some way. 

 And similarly in regard to numbers ; there is, without doubt, a like 

 predisposition and preparedness, first to use them, and then to reduce 

 them, for convenience, to visible shape. 



Printing, it is manifest, is an ultimate development of these innate 

 human tendencies. The germ of the discovery was in the Race ; but 

 its evolution was deliberate, and regulated by conditions; and so, in 

 natural order, first came the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 

 in the ear. In short, the history of printing is a repetition of that 

 of language itself, of writing, of numbers, of painting, of music; each 

 of which took centuries to attain to the degree of excellence in which 

 we now are so fortunate as to receive them. Signet rings and 

 stamps of all kinds were a species of printing apparatus. The 

 scarabsei, made of hard stone, found in the tombs of Egypt, bear on 

 their under side elaborate inscriptions, evidently intended to be trans- 

 ferred — and that, too, probably through the medium of a pigment — 

 to the surface of fitting substances. The dies of coins and medals in 



