Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/539

Rh the art of making paper from linen rags. This article took the place of the costly parchment, and rendered it possible to place books within the reach of all classes.

The first book printed from movable types was a Latin copy of the Bible, issued at Mentz, in Germany, between the years 1450 and 1455. The art spread rapidly, and before the close of the fifteenth century presses were busy in every country of Europe, multiplying books with a rapidity undreamed of by the patient copyists of the cloister.

It is needless to dwell upon the tremendous impulse which the new art gave, not only to the humanistic movement, but to the general intellectual progress of the European nations. Without it, the Revival of Learning must have languished, and the Reformation could hardly have become a fact in history. Its instrument, the press, is fitly chosen as the symbol of the new era of intelligence and freedom which it ushered in.