Page:The practice of typography; correct composition; a treatise on spelling, abbreviations, the compounding and division of words, the proper use of figures and nummerals by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/170

for side-headings in dictionaries, catalogues, and educational books. The lighter faces of antique lower-case, of title letter, and other styles of plain type are now preferred even in books intended to have the severest simplicity. Small capitals are rarely used to indicate the emphatic words of a text. The taste which forbids the too free use of italic is equally severe on small capitals. Typesetting machines of old form, which are without any provision for italic or small capitals, are a still more effective agency for their suppression. Readers have been slowly and somewhat unwillingly taught that the emphasis of italic and the modified display of small capitals are not really needed for the comprehension of printed matter. Yet it is not probable that small capitals or italic will ever go out of use. Of small service for display within a text, they are of real value when used with discretion in differentiating some of the different divisions or features of a book.