century administrator they would have been asked to find out 
whether the new teaching machine, the printed book, could do 
the full educational job. Could a portable, private instrument 
like the new book take the place of the book one made by hand 
and memorized as one made it? Could a book which could be 
read quickly and even silently take the place of a book read 
slowly aloud? Could students trained by such printed books 
measure up to the skilled orators and disputants produced by 
manuscript means? Using the methods the testers now use for 
radio, film, and TV, our testers would have reported in due 
course: “Yes, strange and repugnant as it may sound to you, 
the new teaching machines enable students to learn as much 
as before. Moreover, they seem to have more confidence in the 
new method as giving them the means of acquiring many new 
kinds of knowledge.”