er from the outside.

[Illustration: THE PUDDING STICK]

This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on
the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address
Editor.

It does not surprise me to find a number of bright girls asking for
directions about the entrance to the difficult road of authorship. It is
quite common for young people to think that nothing on earth can be so
delightful as to write songs and stories, and have them published for
the world to read. The fact, dear girls, that many of you overlook, is
that no trade or profession or business is ever learned without time,
study, and effort--what I might call the serving of an apprenticeship.
Very few authors succeed at the beginning, although there is a contrary
impression. Even those who seem at once to achieve eminence have really
been getting ready for their work all their lives. You can see what I
mean if you will read Miss Alcott's _Life and Letters_, or Mrs.
Burnett's story of _The One I Knew the Best of All_, or, better than
either, a charming little essay by Robert Louis Stevenson, in which he
describes the books he read as a boy, and the pains he took to cultivate
a good and clear style.

It is perfectly right for any reader of the ROUND TABLE to wish to
become an author. In days to come the youthful Knights and Ladies for
whom Kirk Munroe, Ellen Douglas Deland, W. J. Henderson, Captain Charles
King, and your friend of the Pudding Stick are now writing, will be
grown men and women, and some of them will be furnishing the literature
of the next generation. I cannot say too strongly to all my
correspondents, who are interested in this subject, be patient, be
fearless, be thorough. Do not be in haste to send some busy editor the
story which you have just written. Never send anything to an editor
until you have written it four or five times over, and are satisfied
that it is the very best thing that you can do, and that it is expressed
in the briefest possible compass. A very good school for aspiring young
authors is found in the beautiful little amateur papers which many young
people publish for circulation among their friends. The several school
and college literary papers are also excellent fields for beginners in
journalism. Among the rising authors of the day I know a half-dozen
whose first laurels were gained in school and college