ow to make metal weapons instead of the
stone weapons which early men used were great inventors too; and those
who discovered how to grow crops of corn and wheat, and so gave new
food to the human race. But all this happened in times long past,
before men had any idea of writing down their records, and so these
inventors have not left their names for us to admire.

But in historical times, and especially in the centuries since the
Renaissance, there have been many inventors, and it will be
interesting to see how the things they invented got their names. The
word _inventor_ itself means a "finder," and comes to us from the
Latin word _invenio_, "I find."

The greatest number of inventions have been made in the last hundred and
fifty years. The printing-press was, of course, a great invention of the
fifteenth century, but it was simply called the _printing-press_, and
did not take the name of its inventor. Yet this was a new name too, for
the people of the Middle Ages would not have known what a printing-press
was.

Several early printers have, however, had their names preserved in the
description of the beautiful books they produced. All lovers of rare
books are admirers of what they call _Aldines_ and _Elzevirs_--that
is, books printed at the press of Aldo Manuzio and his family at
Venice in the sixteenth century, and by the Elzevir family in Holland
in the seventeenth century.

We speak of a _Bradshaw_ and a _Baedeker_ to describe the best-known
of all railway guides and guide-books. The first takes its name from
George Bradshaw, a map engraver, who was born in Manchester in 1801,
and lived there till he died, in 1853. In 1839 he published on his
own account "Bradshaw's Railway Time Table," of which he changed the
name to "Railway Companion" in the next year. He corrected it a few
days after the beginning of each month by the railway time sheets, but
even then the railway companies sometimes made changes later in the
month. In a short time, however, the companies agreed to fix their
time tables monthly, and in December 1841 Bradshaw was able to publish
the first number of "Bradshaw's Monthly Railway Guide." Six years
afterwards he published the first number of "Bradshaw's Continental
Railway Guide."

The famous series of guides now called _Baedekers_ take their name
from Karl Baedeker, a German publisher, who in the first half of the
nineteenth century began to publish this famous series.

Members of Parliament