Miss B. B. M'Laren, a lady in Edinburgh, who has interested herself in the instruction of young women in wood-engraving as a pleasant and remunerative profession, does not speak very hopefully on the subject, in a small pamphlet which she has issued. Her words are worth quoting: 'In some of the novels of late years, in which a heroine is suddenly thrown on her own resources for maintenance, she at once becomes an engraver on wood, the profession being invariably acquired in the course of a year! Accuracy had to be sacrificed for the exigences of the tale, and anything can be accomplished on paper; but in real life _several_ years of daily work will pass before proficiency is acquired. This does not mean to say that a proficiency very pleasing to the amateur may not be reached at a much earlier period, and pictures for admiring friends to praise grow under her hands; but the amateur standard and the professional one are widely apart. Partial training has been the ruin of many attempts to gain new employment for women. It is often spoken of as desirable that they should do "a little" work, but the "little" which is meant to apply to the matter of quantity, is easily transferred to that of quality, and this effectually bars the way to success. It is very undesirable to see a lowered standard for women's work, and yet what reason is there to expect the attainment of the higher one in any way but with the same amount of time and labour given by young men? No one asks for more. It is sometimes said that girls "take up things" more quickly than boys; but even where this is the case, the intuitive quickness of perception which rapidly obtains some knowledge of art, will not do away with the need for that time and experience which alone will give the power to practise it.'