THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
93 
geometry several times, laying the lines 
down with the utmost accuracy and deli- 
cacy that is possible. Give special atten- 
tion to the more difficult and intricate 
problems ; study the different tests for the 
accuracy of your work and apply them 
carefully. In addition to this, study the 
construction of your tools and the special 
points which enable you to do good work. 
Learn by practice to handle them with 
great delicacy. For example, practice 
until you can mark points on the paper 
with the legs of your compasses so deli- 
cately that the marks, though visible, do 
not injure the paper, and see how many 
circles, arcs, etc., you can strike from one 
centre before that centre disfigures the 
drawing. 
After having acquired a knowledge of 
the properties of lines, and skill in laying 
them down, proceed to make copies of any 
good architectural or machine drawings 
that you can find. Having laid them all 
down carefully, in pencil, proceed to ink 
them in with China ink, and afterwards to 
color them with the proper colors. Try 
also to acquire the art of shading and 
flat tinting by means of lines drawn in 
ink with the ruling pen. This method of 
finishing a drawing is very neat, but to 
beginners it is exceedingly difficult. They 
cannot get the lines at the proper dis- 
tances apart. Some lines are too far apart 
and some too close. The lines also are 
of unequal strength. This gives an ir- 
regular or clouded api3earanceto the draw- 
ing, and is very offensive to an experienced 
eye. Practice alone will enable the student 
to acquire the necessary skill and avoid 
these defects, though a good deal will de- 
pend upon certain manipulations of tools 
and ink, for which, unfortunately, direc- 
tions are not usually given in the books. 
For the purpose of aiding the self-taught 
student we shall devote some attention 
to this in a subsequent article. 
What we have said thus far, both as 
regards free-hand and instrumental draw- 
ing, refers, of course, almost wholly to the 
making of copies, either from other draw- 
ings or from the natural objects them- 
selves. This, though a comparatively low 
step in the art, is an important one, and 
one that should be thoroughly studied. 
The higher departments, in which original 
design comes into play, requires far more 
thorough training and a wider range of 
knowledge. To make a drawing of a steam 
engine as it stands is one thing ; to design 
an engine which shall have new and valu- 
able features is another, and perhaps the 
latter should not be referred to the depart- 
ment of drawing, but to a separate and 
distinct branch. That which is very ob- 
vious in the case of the steam engine, 
however, is not so clear when we come to 
consider mere ornamental matters, and 
hence we find that most untrained per- 
sons who speak of drawing and advocate 
its introduction into our schools, do so 
because they believe that the pupils will 
at once be able to produce new designs 
which will be of great value in the arts. 
It is hardly necessary to say that in nine 
cases out of ten this hope will prove fal- 
lacious, and then will come a reaction and 
a great outcry about the uselessness of all 
such instruction. 
Those who desire to acquire the ability 
to produce original designs which will 
have any value, either financially or 
otherwise, must devote themselves to the 
subject as to a life-work. The mind must 
be trained by long cultur-e to appreciate 
that which is truly beautiful, and with 
most minds the extent of study required 
is very considerable. It is only the half- 
taught student that thinks he has acquired 
it all. In addition to this training, as re- 
gards perception of the beautiful, the 
student must lay up a large store of forms 
in their various combinations. The pencil 
must be kept in constant practice, seizing 
upon little bits of artistic work and fixing 
them so that they may be laid aside and 
afterwards worked into other combina- 
tions. Nature must be ransacked for new 
and beautiful forms, and the air, the earth, 
and the waters must be compelled to yield 
their tribute to the artist's portfolio. Even 
those regions which have hitherto been 
a sealed book to the multitude must be 
carefully studied, for Nature seems to 
have reserved for her lowest forms of life 
the finest work in this direction. The 
exquisitely beautiful forms of diatoms, 
desmids, polycystina, foraminifera, and 
other microscopic organisms afford a 
most extensive and hitherto totally un- 
worked field for the designer. 
