INCUNABULA PRINTING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19260, 26 August 1924, Page 4

INCUNABULA PRINTING.

to the editor. Sir, —ln your issue of Tuesday last there, is a reference to tho “incumhular” style of printing. The word “ineumbular” conveys no meaning. Tho actual word (highly descriptive to n Latin scholar) is “incunabula." When applied to printing as an adjective it describes the cradle style when printing,— figuratively speaking—was an infant. I need hardly point out that this stylo was the old black letter style and dates back five hundred years and more. It uses both Latin and the English of that period. I possess a specimen of “Incunabula" both in Latin and 15th century English.—l am, etc., J. F. Morris. FOUR UNIVERSITIES OB ONE? TO THU EDITOR. g rßi —J (hink it is always to be considered a nily that, when a body such as (ho Court of ‘ Convocation of Otago University, whose members run into hundreds, holds a meeting cl which 20 arc present. the opinion of a majority of these 20 should go forth to the world as (lie opinion of the Court of Convocation itself. Therefore, as one whoso work prevented his presence at the meeting this week, I should like to bo allowed the use of vour columns la register my opinion in favour of the proposal that four universities should be set up in the near future. My chief reason for urging this point of view is that in all accepted senses of the term except (he legal one, there already exist four universities m ihe four centres. A university is a band of students and professors, not an office in Wellington. I remember as a bov in Wellington years ago seeing an office upstairs in a building nn Lambton quay with its windows branded “University of New Zealand.” This always puzzled me, as 1 had been taught that a university had students and their teachers, and I never saw any going into this office. And I am 'still puzzled! There is likely to ho a considerable amount, of decentralisation in government during the next SO yea is nr so. Such is in the path ot progress'. Let. the, universities be the first to begin (his! With regard lo the value of degrees abroad - New Zealand or local ones—my own experieneo was that they were not worth any more than they are in Now Zealand as a iinnl: ef education or standing. In England nr elsewhere I found that, if you could conduct yourself as nn educated man, and speak as such, as such you were received, oven if you wore a private's uniform. (i refer, of course, to people cut of the army.) Our students will bo received abroad if we can make (hem educated men; but if not, nil the degrees in (ho world are but as sounding brass and as a. tinkling cymbal, and avail nothing.—l am, etc., J. Johnson. Opohn, August 21.