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262 a book which has been claimed by Dutch historians as the first production of the newly invented art of typography.

The irregular manner in which all the early xylographers drew and engraved letters on the block is fairly shown in this fac-simile of the imprint of Conrad Dinckmut, of Ulm, who affixed it to a Donatus printed by him in 1480. It will be seen that parallel lines ruled between the printed lines would interfere with almost every ascending or descending letter.



The Donatus clearly shows the retrogressive tendencies of the teachers of that age. It was originally written for scholars who spoke in Latin, and who, when the book was first placed in their hands, knew the meaning of almost every word. In the fifteenth century Latin was a dead language, but the book that had been written a thousand years before received no modification adapting it to the capacities of the German or Dutch boys, to whom Latin was as strange as Chinese. The