It was only a small proportion of the actual workmen who were able to study books; the rest picked up the new manner from such foreigners as they met, from work which they saw as they moved about, and occasionally, perhaps, from verbal description. Some worked all their lives on the old lines. One result of the difficulty of imbuing the workmen with the requisite knowledge was that some of the men whose duty it was to overlook buildings--the surveyors--made a point of studying the new style either through books or by foreign travel or both. They rendered themselves familiar with classic detail, and were thus enabled to give the desired character to the buildings under their charge. They gradually became more and more responsible for design in the various branches of the building trades, and thus grew to be architects as well as surveyors. The inevitable tendency was for architectural design to become more personal, and for its results to become less like a spontaneous growth of the land. The number of architectural books published was not in reality very great; they were mostly of foreign production, and probably few copies found their way into England. The earliest were printed in Italy during the closing years of the fifteenth century. By the middle of the sixteenth century there were, perhaps, half a score in existence, some in Italian, some in French. These were obviously of no use to unlettered workmen, but they were appreciated by men of learning, and were studied by some of the surveyors of the time. One or two Englishmen had produced treatises on architecture by the end of the century, but their direct effect on English design can hardly be traced. It is, indeed, unwise to look to any of the books of the time for direct and immediate influence; their effect seems to have been gradual. As may be supposed, it would be the illustrations which would have the greatest weight, for they would be intelligible to men unacquainted with the language of the text. The more important treatises confined themselves largely to drawings of the orders, but a few smaller books, published by Germans and Dutchmen, gave many illustrations of particular features such as doorways, windows, and so forth, and these appear to have appealed more powerfully to English workmen and to have influenced in some degree the appearance which they imparted to their details.