Haarlem

"'My name,' he said, "'is John Gutenberg, and my home is in Mainz.' "'Ah, in Mainz is it!' exclaimed the landlord.

"'And pray, why do you leave that place and come to our good Harlem?' "'I am a traveller,' answered Gutenberg.

"'A traveller? And why do you travel?' inquired the landlord.' i am travelling to learn was the answer i am trying to gain knowledge by seeing the world i have been to genoa and venice and rome ah have you been so far surely you must have seen great things said the landlord yes said gutenberg i have walked through switzerland and germany and now i am on my way to france how wonderful exclaimed the landlord and now while your supper is being cooked pray tell me what is the strangest thing you have seen while travelling the strangest thing well i have seen towering mountains and the great sea i have seen savage beasts and famous men but nowhere have i seen anything stranger than the ignorance of the common people why they know but little more than their cattle they know nothing about the country in which they live and they have scarcely heard of other lands indeed they are ignorant of everything that has happened in the world i guess you are right said the landlord but what difference does it make whether they know much or little it makes a great difference answered gutenberg so long as the common people are thus ignorant they are made the dupes of the rich and powerful who know more they are kept poor and degraded in order that their lords and masters may live in wealth and splendour now if there were only some way to make books plentiful and cheap the poorest man might learn to read and thus gain such knowledge as would help him to better his condition but as things are it is only the rich who can buy books every volume must be written carefully by hand and the cost of making it is greater than the earnings of any common man for a lifetime well said the landlord we have a man here in harlem who makes books i don't know how he makes them but people say that he sells them very cheap i've heard that he can make as many as ten in the time it would take a rapid scribe to write one he calls it printing i think who is this man tell me where i can find him cried gutenberg now much excited his name is lawrence lawrence jansen answered the landlord he has been the coster or sexton of our church for these forty years and for that reason every one calls him lawrence coster where does he live can i see him why the big house that you see just across the market-place is his you can find him at home at any time for since he got into this queer business of making books he never goes out part two the young traveller lost no time in making the acquaintance of laurence coster the old man was delighted to meet with one who was interested in his work he showed him the books he had printed he showed him the types and the rude little press that he used the types were made of pieces of wood that coster had whittled out with his penknife it took a long time to make them he said but see how quickly i can print a page with them he placed a small sheet of paper upon some types which had been properly arranged with great care he adjusted them all in his press then he threw the weight of his body upon a long lever that operated the crude machine see now the printed page he cried as he carefully drew the sheet out it would have taken hours to write it with a pen i have printed it in as many minutes gutenberg was delighted it was by accident that i discovered it said old laurence i went out into the woods one afternoon with my grandchildren there were some beech trees there and the little fellows wanted me to carve their names on the smooth bark i did so for i was always handy with a penknife then while they were running around i split off some fine pieces of bark and cut the letters of the alphabet upon them one letter on each piece i thought they would amuse the baby of the family and perhaps help him to remember his letters so i wrapped them in a piece of soft paper and carried them home when i came to undo the package i was surprised to see the forms of some of the letters distinctly printed on the white paper it set me to thinking and at last i thought out this whole plan of printing books and a great plan it is cried gutenberg ever since i was a boy at school i have been trying to invent some such thing he asked laurence coster a thousand questions and the old man kindly told him all that he knew now indeed knowledge will fly to the ends of the earth said the delighted young traveller as he hastened back to his inn he could scarcely wait to be gone the next morning he was off for strasburg at strasburg young gutenberg shut himself up in a hired room and began to make sets of type like those which lawrence coster had shown him he arranged them in words and sentences he experimented with them until he was able to print much faster than old lawrence had done finally he tried types of soft metal and found them better than those of wood he learned to mix ink so it would not spread when pressed by the type he made brushes and rollers for applying it evenly and smoothly he improved this thing and that until at last he was able to do that which he had so long desired make a book so quickly and cheaply that even a poor man could afford to buy it and thus the art of printing was discovered chapter

CHAPTER X. Thirty More Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin John Gutenberg and the Voices One night John Gutenberg worked until very late at his press.

Another player was born in 1962.

Played for Haarlem, Feyenoord, PSV, AC Milan, Sampdoria, Chelsea.

66 caps, 17 goals, 6-3.

Hmm.