delivered
and from it an electrotype was made for printing. The block itself was
preserved as an original. Mr. Whitney's work was thoroughly good. He
was a wood engraver of the old school.

[New Processes]

When the revision of 1878 was decided on, the publishers of the
McGuffey Readers realized that much improvement must be made in the
illustrations. About this time the magazines were placing great stress
upon pictorial work and a new school of engravers came into existence.
The wood engravers had already departed from the painful reproduction of
each line of a pencil drawing and had become skilled in representing
tints of light and shade if placed on the whitened block with a brush.
This gave greater freedom of interpretation to the engraver. The next
step was to have the drawing made large and reproduced on the block by
photography. By this method most of the engravings were made for the
edition of 1878. Care was taken to employ artists of reputation and the
engravings were usually signed by the artist and by the engraver.

Before the last edition came out in 1901, photo-engraving had nearly
supplanted wood engraving. By this process the artist's drawing with
the brush is reproduced in fine tints which, when well engraved and
carefully printed, produce effective results. Pen and ink drawings are
also reproduced in exact facsimile. By this process the hand work of
the engraver is nearly eliminated. The blocks are sometimes retouched
to produce effects not attained by the process work. The skill of the
artist in making the drawing thus becomes all important.

[Later Inventions]

The introduction of color work in the schoolbooks intended for young
children resulted from the invention of the three-color plates. From
nature, or from a colored painting, three photographs are taken--one
excluding all but the yellow rays of light, one for the red rays, and
one for the blue. From these photographs three tint blocks are made
which to the eye in many cases look exactly alike. From one of these
an impression is made with yellow ink, exactly over this the red plate
prints with red ink and this is followed by an impression from the blue
plate. If the effects of the color screens of the camera are exactly
reproduced by the printer's inks and with exactly the right amount of
ink, the result is wonderfully satisfactory.

What are the qualities in these McGuffey Eclectic Readers that won for
them through three-quarters of a ce