imatur=--let it be printed. If
printing had never been invented, it is easy to conceive that the
enormous learning and intellectual power of a few men in each generation
might have gone on increasing so that the world might to-day possess
most of the knowledge that we now enjoy; but it is certain that the
masses could never have been enlightened, and that therefore the gulf
between the wise few and the ignorant many would have exceeded anything
known to the ancient world, and inconceivably dangerous in its appalling
social menace. Whoever first printed a page of type is responsible for
many crimes committed in the name of literature during the past four
centuries; but one great book in a generation or a century, like a grain
of radium in a ton of pitchblende, is worth all it has cost; for like
the radium it is infinitely powerful to the wise man, deadly to the
fool, and its strange, invisible virtue so far as we know may last
forever.

[Illustration]

DESIGNED BY BRUCE ROGERS AND PRINTED FROM MONOTYPE CASLON TYPE BY
WILLIAM EDWIN RUDGE AT MOUNT VERNON NEW YORK IN DECEMBER 1921.

OF THIS EDITION ONE HUNDRED COPIES ARE ON FRENCH HAND-MADE PAPER AND
FIVE HUNDRED ON ANTIQUE WOVE PAPER.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note: This text uses both today and to-day.

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John Rothwell Slater

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