An inference that “its author could not have seen the proofs,” while possibly natural, is hasty; for, while many authors examine their proofs carefully, and are reasonably quick to perceive and correct errors, most authors are not good proof-readers.
Errors in print were quite as common as they now are when “following copy” was common, as it was in New York, for instance, about thirty years ago. One of the best offices in which a man could set type was Alvord’s, flourishing at the time mentioned. In it the compositor measured for his bill absolutely everything for which a customer paid, be it a cut, a blank page, or anything else. There, likewise, he was seldom called upon to change a letter or a point except to make it like his copy. Certain large offices in New York now are like Alvord’s only in the fact that their proof-reading is not good--and the authors see most of the proofs. In one important matter these offices are utterly unlike Alvord’s--no compositor can earn decent wages in them.
Employers are largely responsible for the common poorness of our proof-reading, because they have not recognized the real nature of the work, and have insisted upon classing it as mechanical. Proof-reading will never be what it should be until the proof-reader ranks with the editor both in importance and in pay. With no more pay than that of the good compositor, and sometimes with less than the first-class compositor’s pay, the proof-reader’s position will not be adequately filled. Properly qualified proof-readers seldom remain long at the reading-desk, because they can and will do better elsewhere.
Something should be done to keep the best readers as such, for they are all climbing up into other fields of labor where they find stronger inducements, both in credit and in pay. Even in the case of our large dictionaries and encyclopædias, almost every one of which is decidedly bettered by the work of some one special proof-reader, there is little acknowledgment of the fact, and so there is little encouragement for the proof-reader to remain a proof-reader.
No one is surely fit to be trusted with proof-reading on particular work without having learned by practical experience. The best proof-readers must have as a foundation a natural aptitude, and they should have at least a good common education; but even these are not sufficient without practical training. One of the poorest compositors on a New York morning paper was very helpful in the proof-room occasionally, while some of the best compositors were not so good at reading. It is undeniable that printers themselves make the best proof-readers when to their technical knowledge they add scholarship.