ut I cannot help it."

Poor Watt! He had traveled with bleeding feet along the same thorny
path trod by the great inventors and benefactors of all ages. But, in
spite of all obstacles, he persevered; and, after ten years of
inconceivable labor and hardship, during which his beautiful wife died,
he had a glorious triumph. His perfected steam engine was the wonder of
the age. Sir James Mackintosh placed him "at the head of all inventors
in all ages and nations." "I look upon him," said the poet Wordsworth,
"considering both the magnitude and the universality of his genius, as,
perhaps, the most extraordinary man that this country ever produced."

Wealthy beyond his desires,--for he cared not for wealth,--crowned with
the laurel wreath of fame, honored by the civilized world as one of its
greatest benefactors, the struggle over, the triumph achieved, on
August 19, 1819, he lay down to rest.

HOW THE ART OF PRINTING WAS DISCOVERED

"Look, Grandfather; see what the letters have done!" exclaimed a
delighted boy, as he picked up the piece of parchment in which
Grandfather Coster had carried the bark letters cut from the trees in
the grove, for the instruction and amusement of his little grandsons.

"See what the letters have done!" echoed the old man. "Bless me, what
does the child mean?" and his eyes twinkled with pleasure, as he noted
the astonishment and pleasure visible on the little face. "Let me see
what it is that pleases thee so, Laurence," and he eagerly took the
parchment from the boy's hand.

"Bless my soul!" cried the old man, after gazing spellbound upon it for
some seconds. The track of the mysterious footprint in the sand excited
no more surprise in the mind of Robinson Crusoe than Grandfather Coster
felt at the sight which met his eyes. There, distinctly impressed upon
the parchment, was a clear imprint of the bark letters; though, of
course, they were reversed or turned about.

But you twentieth-century young folks who have your fill of story
books, picture books, and reading matter of all kinds, are wondering,
perhaps, what all this talk about bark letters and parchment and
imprint of letters means.

To understand it, you must carry your imagination away back more than
five centuries--quite a long journey of the mind, even for
"grown-ups"--to a time when there were no printed books, and when very,
very few of the rich and noble, and scarcely any of the so-called
common people, could read. In