ss marked in its religious instruction, the
speller spread through the South and into regions where the people were
not trained in the Puritan doctrines. The wonderful sales of Webster's
Spelling Book remained for many years after the War; but have now
dropped to insignificance. It is not probable that other books will
under present conditions repeat the history of these books. There is
now no wide region of fertile country rapidly filling with settlers and
separated from their former sources of supply by great distance and by
mountain ranges unprovided with passable roads. Even the more newly
settled regions of the country are reached by railroads and the parts
early settled are covered by a network of railroads, of telegraph and
telephone wires which bring the consumer and the producer near together.

In the manufacture of books as with most other articles, machinery has
taken the place of hand work. When W.B. Smith carried on his business in
the second story over a small shop on Main street, Cincinnati, nearly
every process in the manufacture of a book was mere hand labor. The
tools employed were of the simplest character. Now a book-factory is
filled with heavy machines of the most complicated kind, which in many
cases feed themselves from stocks of material placed upon them. New
machines are constantly being invented to cheapen and perfect the
manufacture. Thus a very large investment of capital is now required to
set up and maintain a plant which can produce books economically and
with perfect finish in every part. Books are seldom manufactured in
places remote from the large cities and very few of the publishers of
schoolbooks make the books which they sell. They contract for them with
printers and binders.

[Stereotyped Editions]

The first four editions of McGuffey's Readers were printed from the
actual type, as all books were once printed; but before 1840 the readers
were produced from stereotyped plates. The use of such plates enabled the
publisher to secure greater accuracy in the work and also enabled him to
present books that in successive editions should be exactly the same in
substance as those already in use. Since that date electrotype plates
have displaced stereotypes, as they afford a sharper, clearer impression
and endure more wear.

In a First Reader printed in the fall of 1841 there are two pages of
advertising matter in which Truman & Smith claimed to have sold 700,000
of the Eclectic Series.