THe Chinese were driven to print by the extension of education in the T'ang dynasty leading to the universal establishment of school', as also by the spread of the Buddhist and Taoist monastic system, rendering necessary the provision of liturgical books for the use of the monks in their services, consisting of daily worship, and of payers for the dead and for rain. Printing waa talked about long before it was seriously undertaken, being one of those inventions which are ea simple that it suggested itself several centuries before it became a practical reality. When the first seal was applied to a paper or parchment document, that was printing. The first cutter of a seal might have cut. wooden blocks for a book, No different mechanical act was needed. An expansion of the some idea was all that was required, We do not wonder therefore when we bear that there was printing on & emall
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.