a press and a few fonts of type, secures a chattel mortgage and a fire insurance policy, and bids him godspeed to earn the interest and premium.

If he is in a town where good prices are obtainable, he makes his presence known by beginning to cut under the prevailing standard. By working before the sun is up and after the moon has set he finds that he is earning about as much as he used to get for eight hours in his journeyman days, and imagines himself on the high road to business success. But the price cutter never advances. His type wears out and his presses need rebuilding. He knows nothing of depreciation. His income is stationary or declining. He pays himself a salary as a mechanic, ignoring the fact that it is worth something to be a boss. He has lots of work and his establishment exhales an air of industry, but he is continually losing ground because he is doing work without knowing what it costs. When his creditors finally close him up he leaves behind him quotations on printed matter that make his former customers regard every cost system printer as a highway robber. Don't start in business if you must turn over to the supply man a mortgage and a fire insurance policy to get a plant. Don't open a shop until you have capital enough to keep moving until you have built up a good paying trade. Don't begin by being compositor, pressman, feeder, bookbinder and errand boy. Don't ask any one to work more than eight hours. Don't leave the mechanical department and enter the selling field until you have studied and mastered the cost system, and if you feel that you are properly equipped, be sure that you have the courage to turn down a job that doesn't show a profit.

Many of the most successful printers have had small beginnings, but they had other qualities besides mere mechanical ability. They were good enough business men to understand that turning out large quantities of cheap printing meant wear and tear to machinery and type out of all proportion to the financial gain, and early in their careers decided that to make $10 out of two jobs was more sensible than to make the same amount out of four. If you would succeed, study modern business methods. Lots of good compositors and pressmen have failed in business where a man with no technical knowledge has succeeded. When you go in business, make up your mind that part of the day you are going to sit at a desk instead of working in your shop, and the part so spent will be the most profitable if it is devoted to an examination of your cost records and applying the knowledge they give you to the conduct and management of your plant.

We have in the cost system information that the average employer of today acquired only after years of experience. It is of inestimable value to the craft and to the journeyman about to embark in business. It is a part of the trade, It reaches into every department, and every man in the printing business should know all he can about it and make the best use of the knowledge.

Tonight we have made a beginning in the study of this question. There are many other points that are of value which we can take up at our next

meeting, and I hope you will continue to display the interest you manifested this evening.

After reading the paper questions were asked and answered, and it was unanimously decided by those present that the study of the cost systems should be continued, and another meeting will be held on Wednesday evening, May 10, to take up other phases of the question.

THE Canadian industrial disputes investigation law (known as the Lemieux act), for the adjustment of labor disputes, has proven a complete failure in settling the strike of 10,000 coal miners in British Columbia and Alberta province. The miners refuse to be bound by the arbitration provisions, and declare that while they desire to respect Canadian laws at all times, they believe in the trade agreement method of settling such disputes.

THE label committee of Madisonville (Ky.) Union No. 659 reports that the theaters of that city and Earlington patronize union ticket printing firms exclusively, the manager of the Temple Theater saying he found the work satisfactory, and that he would continue to patronize fair concerns. He also asserted that the well-paid, workman meant a fatter pocketbook for the theater managers, which we might add holds good in all classes of business.

ONE of the iniquities of the present convict labor system is the spreading of disease, particularly tuberculosis, among all classes of society. Organized labor has for years waged a vigorous and unceasing fight against this pernicious system, and lately the contest has been augmented by the assistance of the National Committee on Prison Labor. While the organization has many supporters outside the ranks of the labor movement, the executive committee is largely composed of officers of the different unions whose members are the most seriously affected by the manufacture of prison-made goods. The best way for the individual to assist in the movement is to demand the union label on everything purchased.

Ar the April meeting of Denver Typographical Union, the following resolution was opted, with the request that it be published in this magazine:

Resolved, That Denver Typographical Union No. 49 hereby declares itself unequivocally opposed to either a bonus or piece scale of wages.

NEW HAVEN UNION NO. 47 reports that it is now 100 per cent in the newspaper field, with a good scale, and at the April meeting a committee was appointed and money appropriated to secure the same conditions in the book and job branch. This organization has just placed in force increased scales in both newspaper and book and job offices, negotiated at the same time, without the loss of a man or a former union office.

THE governor of Massachusetts has signed the Morrill bill, providing that if an employer during a strike or lockout publicly advertises for employes or solicits persons to work for him to fill the places of the strikers, he shall explicitly set forth in such advertisements that a strike, lockout or other labor disturbance exists. The new law carries with it a penalty of $100 for each violation of its provisions. It is said this measure will be of immeasurable assistance to the organized labor movement. Perhaps. It may be of some help between the time when the law goes into effect and the time when it is declared of no effect.

HATRED of organized labor has always been one of the cardinal principles of the Pennsylvania Railroad. For the past several weeks the company officials have been weeding out those employes in its shops known to be affiliated with unions on the plea that it was necessary to retrench for the reason that business was slack. The American Federation of Labor has taken action that may result in preventing further discrimination against employes who are members of unions. It is expected that the combined influence of the federation and the railway brotherhoods will bring about an understanding that will prevent such high-handed methods on the part of the officers of the company in the future.

FROM the meager reports received on this side of the water, the London printers are making good headway in their struggle for a shorter workday.

DURING the past month Kalamazoo Union No. 122 unionized the large printing plant of Ihling Bros. & Everhard, one of the most extensive printing concerns in that section of Michigan. The plant had been non-union for many years. The KennedyBrown-Hall Printing Company, of Jacksonville, Fla., has also made peace with Typographical Union No. 162. This is an important addition to the list of union printing concerns in Florida.

Linotype Matrices and Borders.

The Mergenthaler Linotype Company, up to the present time, has completed no less than 600 different faces of matrix fonts, ranging in size from 5-point, for use in directory and similar work, to the large 42point faces adapted to newspaper display heads, advertisements, etc.

In order to keep the price of the finished product within reasonable bounds, as well as to maintain the absolute accuracy necessary, the work has been so systematized as to reduce manufacturing cost to a mininum. This has been achieved by the invention of scores of machines, which are the exclusive property of the company, and have been specially constructed for the purpose. About a hundred million completed matrices are now in stock in America and Europe, those in this country alone representing an investment of more than half a million dollars. This one item alone gives the linotype a commanding prestige in the field of automatic composing machines.

The company has issued a booklet showing linotype borders in more than 700 combinations. A glance through its pages demonstrates that the number of combinations that can be made with a limited variety of borders is practically endless. Most of the borders are 6-point, though some of them are 51⁄2-point, and others 8, 10 and 12-point. By combining two or three slugs borders of practically any size can be made. These border matrices sell for 10 cents each, or $2.50 for a set of twenty-six,

THE book and job scale of Buffalo Union No. 9 has been advanced $1 a week, bringing the figures up to $19.

AN increase of $2 a week all around in the scale of Newark (Ohio) Union No. 69 has been negotiated with the assistance of Max S. Hayes.

A NEW wage scale has been negotiated by Ashtabula (Ohio) Union No. 474, with the assistance of Max S. Hayes, providing for an increase of $1 a week for operators, bringing the pay up to $16.

SECRETARY GOULD, of Ogden (Utah) Union No. 236, writing headquarters, says: "We have signed a label agreement with the Wasatch Printing Company, and that concern now employs two card

men.

THE new scale of Peoria Union No. 29 for the newspaper branch provides for an increase of $1.20 per week for all employes from February 1, 1911, to February 1, 1912, and a further advance of $1.20 from the latter date until February 1, 1916. The new scale has been signed by all the newspaper publishers.

ACCORDING to advices received from Charles H. Rafferty, the publishers of the two dailies of Olean, N. Y., the Times and the Herald, have agreed to a new scale presented by Typographical Union No. 345. Under the terms handmen are advanced from $12 to $14 per week, makeups and stonemen from $12 to $15, and foremen from $14 to $16.50.

In compliance with an agreement signed by the scale committee of Evansville (Ind.) Union No. 35 and a committee from the Ben Franklin Club of that city, covering a period of two years, book and job compositors will receive $18 per week; machine operators, $22.50 for day and $24 for night work; foremen, $20. This is an increase of $2 per week.

OTTUMWA (IOWA) UNION No. 73 was recently given jurisdiction over Albia. The secretary reports the unionizing of the town, as follows: "President McLaughlin and myself were in Albia yesterday and secured the signatures of the proprietors of the Albia News and the Albia Union, both weekly papers and job offices, to the Ottumwa scale, thus making Albia a 100 per cent union town -the Republican having signed some six weeks ago."

THE five daily newspapers of New Haven, Conn., have signed agreements with Typographical Union No. 47, operative from May 1, 1911, until May 1, 1916. The new wage scale provides for an ultimate increase of $2 per week for all employes; an advance of $1 to go into effect at once, 50 cents additional to be paid on May 1, 1913, and another 50 cents per week to be added on May 1, 1915. This will bring the newspaper scale to $23 per week for day work and $26 for night work. In the book and job branch the following compromise was negoti ated in nearly every office in the city: April 10, 1911, to October 8, 1911, $18.50; from the latter date to April 9, 1912, $19 per week, after which period the scale will be $19.50. The old scale in New Haven was $16.50 per week. An immediate increase of $2 per week and two advances of 50 cents each gives New Haven the highest job scale in New England outside of Boston. Otto E. Brandenburg and E. R. Ottarson served as chairman and secretary of the scale committee, respectively, and with the assistance of the other members of the committee, together with Robert S. Maloney, International representative, are entitled to great credit for the patient and devoted manner in which they handled the proposition before the book and job employers and newspaper publishers of New Haven. President James M. Lynch assisted in conducting negotiations with the latter.

By the terms of the new wage agreement arranged with the assistance of Michael Colbert, the following scale will be in force under the jurisdiction of Muskegon (Mich.) Union No. 168 for the ensuing two years: Ad and job men (day), $15 per week, an increase of $1.50; machine operators (day), $16, no increase asked; foremen, $18, an increase of $1.50. Foremen (night), $20; operators, $18, and admen, $16.50 per week.

SECRETARY MORAN, of New London (Conn.) Union No. 159, reports that the scale for floormen has been increased from $15 and $18 per week to $18 and $21, the ad machine scale from $18 to $19 per week, and the day machinist scale from $19 to $21 for day work.

AN increase of $1 per week for all members of Norwalk (Conn.) Union No. 529 has been secured, with the assistance of Robert S. Maloney, International representative.

BERLIN (N. H.) UNION No. 640 has increased its scale 50 cents per week, making the wage $14 per week.

[This department is conducted by the International Commission on Supplemental Education. Inquiries regarding the International Typographical Union Course in Printing and the work of the commission should be addressed to The International Typographical Union Commission, 632 Sherman street, Chicago, Ill.]

AS VIEWED IN AUSTRALIA.

"Cowans" is the name of a pretentious house organ issued by the principal type and machinery supply house of Australia. The January issue of "Cowans" contained a hand-lettered and illuminated frontispiece which "stuck out" from the other typography in the periodical. Underneath was a line saying the work had been done by Frank Lee, after seven lessons in the I. T. U. Course. There is no doubt about the distinctiveness of this student's work as compared with that of other Australian compositors-it would be distinctive in America, and is a fine illustration of how the course expands the field of operations for compositors.

"Cowans" is well printed and up to date in every respect. Being Australian, it pays much attention to trade education, about which it has excellent opportunities of becoming informed, and in the issue before us we find the following eulogistic and lucid comment on our work:

About a year ago we called attention in our columns to the excellent work that is being done by what is termed the I. T. U. Course of Instruction in Printing, which is conducted in the United States by the Inland Printer Technical School, under the direction of the I. T. U. Commission on Supplemental Trade Education, and we are now in receipt of a booklet that justifies our praise of the system, as it contains the opinions of many students who have taken the course and benefited thereby.

The International Typographical Union Course of Instruction in Printing is designed to overcome some of the evil effects of specialization in the printing trade by teaching compositors the principles of display and decorative typography. Though the instruction is imparted by correspondence, practical work is required, as the student learns by doing. Hand-lettering is taught, as are also the principles of design and color harmony as applied to typography.

After students have acquired the scientific conceptions embraced in these lessons they are given work in all kinds of display composition.

The

marked proofs (or sketches, where a student can not obtain type to do his work) are returned, accompanied by letters giving reasons for the marks on lesson sheets. The chief instructional value of the course is in these letters of advice and the work required of students. The course is open to printers only.

The testimonials given in the booklet above referred to should be most gratifying to the promoters of the course.

LESSONS ON DESIGN NOT "DRAWING." There is a misapprehension in the minds of many as to what is meant when we speak of the principles of design. Some are of opinion that these lessons require the student to study and produce decorative designs. Such is not the case, though the principles of design apply to such work as well as to that of the most advanced artists. Indeed, while studying at the Art Institute, Chief Instructor Trezise attended lectures by eminent artists like Alphonse Mucha, of France, who is a big man and admits that he uses mathematical methods to place his spots or figures on the canvas. The principles that guide Mucha when he is planning a picture that will sell for thousands of dollars are applicable to the work of the composiThe measurements that get the great artist his "center of attraction" serve for the printer, who is appealing to the same sensuous faculties as the artist. The last-named deals with faces, buildings or mountains, as the case may be, while the compositor is concerned with the arrangement of lines and masses of type. Both aim to produce a result that is pleasing to the eye, and in which the subjects are giving appropriate emphasis by being properly placed.

tor.

The buildings erected during the middle ages and the printing of later centuries are held to be more truly artistic than that of today, and the fact that the most beautiful type faces we have now were first cut two centuries ago are indications that while printers were few in number they were excellent in quality, for it must be conceded that to withstand the test of centuries in a progressive industry means success. The superiority of the ancient craftsman was due to the fact that the artist and the mechanic were combined in the same person. The industrial order as we know it, with its factories and subdivision of labor, divorced the mechanic from the artist. Always there has been a feeling of regret at this by the foresighted and humane, but Profit and Property saw more money in the limitation of manhood than in its development, and so the man-cheapening process went on and on.

With the growth of estheticism the idea of applying art principles to the crafts has gained strength, until now it is accepted not only as desirable, but some think it may be turned into profit, which, of course, gives it an interest in influential quarters it would not otherwise enjoy.

In developing the I. T. U. Course one of the . problems the chief problem-was the application of the principles of design-the principles that guide the artist-to typography.

Mr. Trezise did so, and his doing so did not mean that the typographer's work would become

more complex, or ornate.

Contrariwise, it meant that the compositor would learn that unity and simplicity are the sources of beauty in printing as in everything else. So the I. T. U. Course lessons on design do not call for any "drawing," but are principally devoted to an exposition of balancing measures, proportion, shape harmony and tone harmony. After this the student is required to arrange lines and masses of type so that the instructors may know whether he has mastered the principles taught in this group. The work with pencil or pen is slight indeed, and may be of the crudest description. As a matter of fact, the compositor is designing every day, but if he does not know the principles governing the laws of design he is working in the dark and in a haphazard way. Men are worrying over their work and wondering why they can not be more successful, whose worries would be over if they knew what the I. T. U. Course teaches on the subject of design, and in learning the lessons they would not be required to do any more of the dreaded "drawing" than the average jobman does every day.

LETTERING AND ART.

That an innovation should be met with a spirit of indifference amounting to almost positive opposition is to be expected. Such an indifference the promoters of the I. T. U. Course have had to contend with in urging printers to take up the study of hand lettering. The scoffers have scoffed, the indifferent have shook their heads and the wiseacres have laughed long and loud, but three years of experience in successfully teaching this work to an enrollment of printer-students, which now numbers more than 2,100, has proved the wisdom of introducing such a course of study in connection with the printing trade.

The different attitudes which doubting printers take in regard to this innovation may be classified into three divisions: First, those who are actually prejudiced; second, those who are indifferent; third, those who are hesitant-who are neither prejudiced nor indifferent, but who are unable, as yet, to decide either way.

In the face of all arguments and examples explaining and illustrating the desirability of printers taking up the study of lettering, those who are still prejudiced may be likened to the old farmer, who, in spite of all newspaper reports and the evidence of eye-witnesses, would not believe in aerial navigation. While working in his garden one day the old fellow heard a peculiar popping sound, and looking up he saw not far away a large bird-like machine guiding swiftly and easily through the air. Only for an instant did he look, then muttering the words, "I don't believe it," resumed his work. Such a spirit is anything but progressive, and it is but a needless waste of time to try and convince these people that they are wrong.

Those who are still indifferent, but who are not actually prejudiced, will undoubtedly change their viewpoint in time. They are now laboring under the delusion that lettering is unnecessary and of no advantage to printers. A more widespread

practice of lettering by printers will make it almost necessary to take up the study, and to keep out of the "has been" class these indifferents will surely come into the fold.

Those who we have classed as hesitators may, perhaps, be unable to distinguish the difference between lettering and art. They would take up the work had they the "artistic ability." A short discourse on this subject might reveal a difference which the hesitators fail to see.

Art, as we refer to it in this connection, is the drawing of forms having length, breadth and thickness. In making a pictorial representation of any form of this kind, no matter how simple it may be, one must embody the principles of perspective and light and shade. A thorough, working knowledge of either of these principles requires as much study, if not more, than all the principles of roman, italic or text-letter construction combined. This may seem to be rather a strong statement, but those who have studied both art and lettering agree as to the truth of the assertion.

The fundamental principles of light and shade or perspective are, in theory, easy to understand, but the application of these principles requires long training and the development of a so-called artistic ability. Every object calls for a different treatment according to its form, the material of which it is made, or in the way the light strikes it. In lettering, however, one does not have to contend with such variations. As in art, the underlying principles can be mastered in a very short time, but unlike art, the treatment of letter forms is the same no matter in what position they are placed or of what size, shape and form they may be.

The hardest part of learning hand lettering lies in the development of proficiency in the construction and inking in of letter forms. This may

seem rather tedious and discouraging to some who are not naturally clever in handling a pen or pencil, but patience, perseverance and persistent prac tice will overcome all of these difficulties. Some of our students who seemed unusually poor at first are now doing excellent work.

In comparing the pictorial representation of objects with the treatment of letter forms, art principles are much more difficult to apply. No "artistic ability" is necessary in the construction or treatment of letter forms, aside from the ability to make smooth lines with pen or pencil.

From the very first we have maintained that any one who can write can learn to letter, and today this assertion is stronger than ever. We have proved it to hundreds of printers and can prove it to you, providing you follow our instructions faithfully. W. E. STEVENS,

Associate Instructor I. T. U. Course.

EXCESS of wealth is cause of covetousness.-Marlowe.

IGNORANCE of one's misfortunes is clear gain.Euripides.

WRITE me as one who loves his fellow men.Leigh Hunt.