The honor of being this center clearly belongs to Mainz. How did the art get there? Probably not through the treachery of a dishonest apprentice. That is one of the legendary features of the Junius story, explained by the fact that in his time everybody knew that the center from which printing spread was Mainz and that the first two printers were John Gutenberg and John Fust. We may at this point accept Zell’s account as the true one. Some of Coster’s work found its way to Mainz, together, probably, with some general, unscientific statements as to how it was produced. Acting on this hint and with these models before him, Gutenberg reinvented the art, that is, he worked out from the finished product and a general idea of how it was made what was to all intents and purposes an original process superior to the one by which the work in his possession had been produced. His association with Fust, the business man, and Schoeffer, the craftsman, was the means whereby the invention became profitable to the world, though not to Gutenberg. There is no reason to suppose that Fust was an unprincipled schemer who stole Gutenberg’s invention and profited by it. He was a business man who made a contract with another man for the carrying on of a certain manufacturing process, setting his capital against the other man’s labor for an equal share in the profit. There was not only no profit, but the working partner did not live up to his side of the contract. Fust sued, obtained a judgment, and under this judgment took over a great part at least of the equipment which his money had paid for. While the criminal procedure of this age was of a very harsh and primitive sort the judgments of the German courts in civil cases appear generally to have been fairly just. When we consider Gutenberg’s record of financial slipperiness there seems no reason to doubt that it was just in this case. On obtaining the business Fust associated with himself the young journeyman, Peter Schoeffer, who had learned the business in the Gutenberg and Fust establishment and had married Fust’s daughter. He was an excellent workman and his skill, backed by Fust’s capital, set the new invention on a practical basis and insured its future. In deciding against the claims of Gutenberg to the invention we by no means deprive him of all share in the glory. The reinvention with improvements was nearly if not quite as creditable a task as the invention, especially when we remember how simple a step the actual inventor took in going from his block book to his type-set book. The invention of Coster was sterile. The reinvention of Gutenberg was fruitful. It was Mainz and not Haarlem which actually gave printing to the world.