drawings were most carefully made by Mr. Herrick
with pencil on the whitened boxwood blocks, and
sent to the publisher for examination. These, when
approved, were returned to the engraver who fol-
lowed precisely the lines of the drawing. When the
engraving was finished, a carefully rubbed proof on
India paper was sent to the publisher. If this was
satisfactory, the block was 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.
  When the revision of 1878 was decided on, the pub-
lishers 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 al-
ready 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 re-
produced 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-en-
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