\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Only about a decade ago, six of us comprised a team that presented two-week journalism workshops each summer for high school seniors at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Though NAU was the host institution, we selected applicants from some dozen states. We thought the faculty represented good balance: some of us were brought up in the old green-eye-shade school; others, the theoreticians, we called the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chi squares,” because of the countless surveys they conducted and the standard deviations they wrestled with.<\/p>\n
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 In our number was an instructor who had worked for newspapers in the days when the process was performed with hot lead. My own experience at the Optic, both as a paperboy and later as a reporter, introduced me only generally to the monstrous equipment in the back shop. However, I never dared operate a Linotype machine.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The green-eye-shade member of the faculty taught a daily course, and one of his requirements was that the students, 16, 17 and 18 years old, learn how to set type. Now waaiitt a minute. Linecasting machines became obsolete during the youth of the students’ parents. The art of typesetting died when something called offset printing was born. Offset printing died the minute the silicone chip was invented.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Many an after-class session was devoted to trying to persuade our colleague that a general knowledge of hot type is desirable, but to teach the craft would be tantamount to going back to the abacus and the slide rule. Five of us argued in vain that there was no case in which conditions would be so primitive that our high schoolers would need to resort to operating such complex equipment.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Optic employees and visitors of yesteryear may be old enough to remember the atmosphere of the typical newspaper back shop. The machines were gas-and-electric, and the finished type came from a 28-pound lead-and-antimony cylinder called a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pig.” It melted into a vat, and while still in liquid form, was forced into molds to form the type.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The composing room was generally smoke-filled, and only years later have people paid serious attention to the substances people must have inhaled. Another hazard of the hot-type era was the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153squirt.” If machine operators failed to insert \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spacers” at regular intervals, several ounces of molten lead would squirt out. The lead appeared to have a mind of its own, as it almost never spewed out unless the linotypist’s bare ankle was nearby. A German inventor named Mergenthaler refined the Linotype, which for its day was a marvel. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d read that each Linotype had 10,000 moving parts. To confirm this information, l asked one of the operators, Bob Phillips, if that 10,000 figure was accurate. He replied, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I’ve never taken the time to count them.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Where are the linecasting machines that we used to put out the Optic now? In scrap heaps, probably.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Where is the Goss Cox-O-Type flatbed press that used to give fits to pressmen and printers like Carlos Crespin, Ralph Martinez, Dan Gonzales and Pete Garcia? That press literally was buried on the spot. Clarence Falvey, long-time mechanical superintendent, paced off a 20-foot-by-20-foot area into which tons of concrete were poured to cover up the behemoth.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently the thinking at the time was that to keep the press around, if only for the sake of antiquity, would be costly. Besides, the Optic needed to make room for a modern rotary press, which was bought used and has been around for some 40 years.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 A working linotype had been salvaged by our counterparts in Flagstaff, and it inspired the teacher to justify the old-school approach toward required typesetting by using the old standard: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What if the students are stranded on a desert isle and don’t have a computer?” Good point.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 That argument is universal in education circles. Ever since the advent of the hand-held calculator, math teachers have been divided on whether that tool would actually prevent students from learning their times tables and their gazintas.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Always on the side of technology, I believe students ought to be encouraged to use calculators. The student needs to learn the sequence of operations in order to derive an answer, and that presupposes a rudimentary knowledge of math. When the slide rule made its appearance, traditional mathematicians despaired that the old, proven way of doing math was being compromised and the process was being made too easy.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The notion of required courses, which don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deal directly with one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s course of study, has been a much-debated issue. How much \u00e2\u20ac\u0153other stuff” or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153older stuff” do people need to study before they can focus on their major? Whereas it’s appealing to have knowledge of the way things used to operate, the exposure ought only be tangential, enough to give an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153appreciation” of the subject.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But yet, when we observe people unable to make change, figure a 15 percent tip, learn how to reset a digital clock, or change a tire, we wonder how far we’ve departed from the basics.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s a subject for another column.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Only about a decade ago, six of us comprised a team that presented two-week journalism workshops each summer for high school seniors at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Though NAU was the host institution, we selected applicants from some dozen states. We thought the faculty represented good balance: some of us were brought up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}