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 followed 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.

[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