TO REDUCE THE COSTS OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE

Mr. Herriot, Mr. Painlevé, Mr. François-Albert, and Mr. Justin Godart inaugurate the printing press of the Presses Universitaires de France

The constant rise in printing rates and the price of paper threatened to seriously compromise the intellectual life of the country. "After bread," said Danton, "education is the first need of the people." It was becoming obvious that after having satisfied their material needs, the people no longer possessed the resources necessary to give their minds the culture they wanted. The danger was serious, and academics decided to undertake an effective fight against the perils that threatened French thought.

Mr. Pierre Marcel, director of the Presses Universitaires de France, gave us a brief history of the founding and development of the work undertaken by French intellectuals to safeguard French culture.

A certain number of technical works and periodicals are printed in very small numbers, Mr. Pierre Marcel tells us; they are intended to fuel scientific reflection and are aimed at the intellectual elite of the civilized world; their publication naturally entails costs that a limited sale cannot cover; the constant rise in prices made the sacrifices imposed on scientists who, very often, are not rich, impossible; scientific societies were paralyzed, could no longer publish bulletins or memoirs, it was necessary to react at all costs,

A commission that "achieves"
The academics, continues Mr. Pierre Marcel, therefore decided to first create a commission responsible for studying the means of dealing with this crisis; however, the commission was not long in succeeding, the fact is rare in the history of commissions, and the Cooperative Society of Printing and Publishing was founded in 1922, and took the name of "Presses Universitaires de France"; a practical concept that was to be fruitful in results had just been developed by scholars, capable, as we see, of committing themselves to purely economic work and of effectively combating the high cost of living.

"We only had to follow the example of the English universities; each of them has its University Press, printing press, publishing house, bookstore and stationery store, which provides professors with the means to publish scholarly books that commercial houses are not inclined to deal with. Teachers and students, thus helped, are freed from the serious material worries that the current crisis would aggravate every day.
"Thanks to the cooperation of the participants (three thousand academics), the elimination of intermediaries, and the limitation to a maximum rate of interest on invested capital, the University Presses make it possible to significantly reduce current production prices and to allocate a significant portion of the profits to the development of the business or to the work carried out."

The Fontenay-aux-Roses printing works
The University Presses already own, at 49, boulevard Saint-Michel, a major publishing house, stationery shop, and bookshop; today, the President of the Council, the President of the Chamber, the Ministers of Public Instruction and Labor, inaugurate the model printing works installed in Fontenay-aux-Roses.
The official guests are received by Mr. Gide, professor at the Collège de France, who welcomes them on behalf of the cooperative, by Mr. Coullery, professor at the Sorbonne who speaks on behalf of the Board of Directors; Messrs. Appell, Rector of the University of Paris, Paul Painlevé, Justin Godart and Herriot also speak.

The printing works is equipped with model equipment; it has already received three rotary presses, ten blank machines, five monotypes and stitching and assembly machines; the surface area of ​​the buildings will allow the number of machines currently in service to be increased tenfold; under the active and intelligent direction of the master printer Louis Bellenaud, warmly congratulated by Mr. Herriot, the establishment of Fontenay-aux-Roses allows the work of the Presses Universitaires de France to perfect and extend the results obtained; during the visit, some medals are awarded to old printers,

Education, therefore, a social necessity, will soon be less expensive than bread, thanks to the active goodwill, the perspicacity of intellectuals.
This is again a lesson, a great lesson, that they give us; without noise, without fanfare they have discovered the real causes of the crisis from which they were suffering, They have fought, they have fought intelligently and rightly succeeded.