At the time Froben began his work, the methods of carrying on a printing-office, and the machinery for the production and distribution of books, were still to be established. Type-setters, pressmen, and correctors were all to be trained, and every technical detail of the work of book-making called for the personal supervision and often for the individual inventiveness of the master. Upon him came also of necessity the responsibility for the selection of the work to be undertaken, the securing of text for “copy,” the collation and preparation of the “copy” for the type-setters, and an unremitting watchfulness over each page as put into type. It is to be borne in mind that nearly all the earlier books were printed in Latin, which for the majority of the Swiss or German compositors was an unfamiliar tongue, a circumstance that very seriously increased the risk of type-setting errors. It is surprising that in the face of difficulties of this kind, the books of the fifteenth century present, with rare exceptions, a fairly correct text. Froben’s first publication was a Latin Bible in convenient octavo form. The several earlier Bibles had been issued in folio, and this less costly edition won for itself at once a widespread appreciation. Froben’s undertakings were restricted to books in Latin and Greek--that is, to works addressed to scholars. He left to later publishers the task of preparing books in the vernacular for the unlearned reader. In fact, the interest of the latter in 1492, was in the main limited to almanacs, horn-books, legends, and such picturesque compendiums as the _Sachsen-Spiegel_. For general literature, the common folk was not yet ready. The educational influence of the Reformation was required to arouse the intelligence of the people and to induce a popular demand for reading-matter.