In Germany the Gothic lettering had been used when the writing was done by hand and Gutenberg copied this style in printing the first book. When the art of printing spread to the different countries the Gothic alphabet, of course, came with it and was accepted as the correct style of letter. The Romans, however, still believed their Alphabet to be the better and cut their printing type after the Roman model. So a great quarrel sprang up between the different countries as to which Alphabet should be used, the Roman or the Gothic. In Italy a man called Manutius tried to settle the quarrel by making a letter which all the printers would use and he called his style of lettering the Italic. The printers who used the Gothic and Roman letters also used these Italic letters, but were not willing to give up their own style and use the Italic entirely. We are so used to seeing and using the Alphabet today that we never ask ourselves how the letters came to look the way they do now. Look at Plate I, which shows a beautiful Alphabet of Gothic letters made by a famous German artist, Albert Duerer. There are twenty-nine of them, all entirely different, but still you can see that they are all brothers and sisters in one big family. Do you wonder how this came about? Look at Plate II and you will learn. The first letter _i_ is made by putting together a number of small squares in a certain way. Can you see the way the other letters are made from this letter _i_?--the _n_ is made by putting two _i_'s together; the _m_, three _i_'s, and the _r_, one _i_ and an extra square at the top. Go through the rest of the Alphabet and see if you can find out the way it is made. Now look at Plates III, IV, V, VI, and VII showing another Alphabet by the same artist, which he patterned after the Roman letters. He found that they were made according to a certain rule and proportion, and it was these he worked out in making his Alphabet. Here you see the pattern is a large square, and the letters are drawn very carefully in them. Did you know before there was as much figuring and measuring done in the making of the Alphabet as there is in building a house? Look at the letter _E_, for example, and all the circles and squares that have been measured and drawn to make it. You will find that every letter is made just as carefully. Here are the three _A_'s that you see in Plate III. You will find that they are not exactly alike. Can you see the difference between them?--_A_, 1, is cut off in a curve at the top, _A_, 2, goes straight up in a sharp point, and _A_, 3, is cut off flat. Do you notice, too, the difference in the thickness of the letters? [Illustration] Look at the other letters in this Alphabet (Plates III, IV, V, VI, and VII) and see if you can tell me about them in the way I have told you about the _A_'s.