It has always been a matter of dispute as to who invented printing. It is fairly clear that printing, both with blocks and with movable types, was practised in China and Japan long before it was in Europe. There is a tradition that as far back as 175 A.D. Chinese classics were cut upon tablets of stone, that these tablets were placed outside the university, and that impressions were made from them. However, we are not indebted to China or Japan for the art of printing. The real invention of printing, so far as the civilized world is concerned, occurred in Europe in the latter part of the fifteenth century. The inventor is often said to be Johann Gutenberg, of Mainz, Germany. Another strong claimant for this honor is Lourens Janszoon Coster, who lived at Haarlem, in Holland. Concerning the lives of Coster and Gutenberg little is known. Coster was born at Haarlem, Holland, about 1370 A.D. He was a member of the Haarlem Council, assessor and treasurer. He probably perished in the plague that visited Haarlem in 1439-40. Gutenberg was born of noble parents at Mainz, Germany, in 1410. He had an active mind and gave attention to the manufacture of money, the polishing of stones, and the making of looking-glasses, besides his efforts in printing. He died in February, 1468, poor, childless, and almost friendless. The first printed book, so far as can be determined, was made at Mainz, Germany, and bears the date of 1454 A.D. From certain legal records it is supposed that Gutenberg was the maker of this book and the inventor of printing. On the other hand, there is a story that Coster, while walking in the woods one autumn afternoon, chanced to make for his little grandchild some letters from the bark of a tree; that these letters suggested to him the idea of metallic types; and that he, and not Gutenberg, was the inventor of printing. As the story goes, a slave stole Coster's types and ran away with them from Haarlem to Mainz; and the books which, it is supposed, were made at the latter place came really from Coster's types, not Gutenberg's. The fact cannot be known. It has hopelessly gone with the years. This first book, which was printed in two different editions, consisted of certain letters written by Pope Nicholas V in behalf of the kingdom of Cyprus. By about 1477 A.D. printing had extended from Mainz to all the chief towns of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and England. By the beginning of the sixteenth century it had spread to all the principal places of Europe.