LATEST EDUCATION NEWS WIRE UPDATES
- 2nd largest UVM freshman class beginning classes (AP, 8:18 a.m.)
- Student-run bank teaches money matters in Conn. (AP, 12:08 a.m.)
- Florida woman decapitated; boyfriend arrested (AP, 8/27/10)
- SC agency finds 35 illegal workers at school sites (AP, 8/27/10)
- School's race rule prompts mom to pull kids out (AP, 8/27/10)
LATEST K-12 EDUCATION NEWS
- Conn. offers guide to prevent underage drinking (AP, 10:38 a.m.)
- NJ schools chief fired after Race to the Top gaffe (AP, 8/27/10)
- Pa. yearbook marred by alleged Hitler quote (AP, 8/27/10)
- Former Conn. high school coach pleads not guilty (AP, 8/27/10)
- Woonsocket school uniform policy still unresolved (AP, 8/27/10)
LATEST HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS
- Q&A Cover story (Boston Globe, 8/27/10)
- Neb. education groups urged to fight health reform (AP, 8/27/10)
- Calif. budget delay creates trouble for colleges (AP, 8/27/10)
- UMaine freshman class grows 2 percent over 2009 (AP, 8/27/10)
- Incoming UConn freshmen a superlative group (AP, 8/27/10)
Cover story
The first printed books came with a question: What do you do with these things?
In the beginning, before there was such a thing as a Gutenberg Bible, Johannes Gutenberg laid out his rows of metal type and brushed them with ink and, using the mechanism that would change the world, produced an ordinary little schoolbook. It was probably an edition of a fourth-century grammar text by Aelius Donatus, some 28 pages long. Only a few fragments of the printed sheets survive, because no one thought the book was worth keeping.
“Now had he kept to that, doing grammars...it probably would all have been well,” said Andrew Pettegree, a professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews and author of “The Book in the Renaissance,” the story of the birth of print. Instead, Gutenberg was bent on making a grand statement, an edition of Scripture that would cost half as much as a house and would live through the ages. “And it was a towering success, as a cultural