Although many printing-offices and publishers issue their own handbooks or manuals, and although there is, in addition, a large number of volumes—textbooks and others—dealing with the general subjects of typography, punctuation, grammar, syntax, rhetoric, including all the matters here discussed, this book would seem to be justified, at least, by two or three facts.
1. No such manual has been issued by the printing-office at which the "Atlantic" and many Atlantic books are printed; indeed, the character of the work done there is so varied that it would be impossible to formulate rules which would apply to more than a small part of that work. The special force assigned to work on the "Atlantic" is supposed to follow Atlantic usage, under the direction of the experienced proof-reader in charge. Other Atlantic books are printed at different offices, whose typographical usages often vary, and never agree in all points with Atlantic usage.
2. The "Atlantic" is being used, to an ever-increasing extent, in connection with regular instruction in English, in schools all over the country.
3. The "Atlantic" is frequently honored by communications, from teachers and others, calling attention to matters of punctuation, or what not, which seem to them worthy of comment; sometimes in a critical vein, sometimes merely
