To be able to picture simple objects correctly is not only a source of great pleasure, but the foundation of many accomplishments and industries. The first rude attempts of the child with pencil and slate or paper show the natural desire of the race for pictorial effects.

Drawing helps the student express her love of beauty, educates her taste, and gives her hand skill, delicacy, and force. And there is no reason why she should not begin to draw at home, and fit herself to work with colors or to become a pupil in some of the industrial arts, schools for which have lately been established in this country. In these they are taught to design patterns for carpets, wall-paper, wood-carving, stained-glass, inlaid wood panels, silverware, jewelry, lace, embroidery, and book-covers. And there is no other road to any of these avocations, to drawing from nature or the human form, or even to the highest compositions of the artist, than through the training of hand and eye by painstaking practice.

Our maiden, having taken drawing-paper and a box of pencils, selects one moderately soft, and begins by drawing slowly, from left to right, a line as nearly perfectly straight as she can make it, - not an easy thing to do. A succession of others is made parallel with each other, and the lessons continued until the fingers are obedient servants of the eye. Then she practises making right, acute, and obtuse angles.

There is a series of inexpensive drawing-books by Waltef Smith, containing the steps by which the pupil may practise in her own room ; but all figures are based upon straight or curved lines, - the only kinds in nature. Checkered and diamond patterns come next, and geometrical figures of squares, triangles, and irregular forms.

It may seem easy to make even a rough circle. Try it, also different curves and ellipses ; then take simple objects, such as boxes, cups, utensils, tools, and bits of fences, or the side of a house with its windows and doors. Criticise your work, and go over it carefully until it seems well done, taking up new forms slowly. You will now want to take a leaf, or the single petal of a flower, avoiding every thing complicated. In schools of industrial art, pupils are obliged to draw the leaf of some selected plant from every point of view, - sideways, twisted, and reversed, - till they can reproduce it from memory. The petal of its flower is then treated in the same way, followed by the whole blossom, proceeding to its stem, leaves, and roots, as a whole, and to its seed-vessel cut in two. And there is no true excellence in art which is not based upon skilful drawing.

All this while, our amateur has observed the proportions of objects ; that is, she has kept the respective size of all parts of her pictures. But she has not shaded, or undertaken perspective drawing, having treated only flat surfaces, as if all parts were the same distance from the eye, and equally in the light. But in reality no two sides of any object are equally illuminated or distant. She will still continue to make delicate, firm outlines, but shade with parallel strokes the sides opposite that on which the light falls. She perceives, that, as there are one or more small points of brilliant light on all objects seen in daylight, so on the opposite sides there is a point of deepest shadow, while between, range different depths of shade. Some artists, like Rembrandt, have been successful in displaying these gradations, securing great dignity and character to their work. The style of shading, too, marks the quality of the limner.

An important fact to be noted here is, that there is not only direct light shining on all things, but there are reflected rays, which make the opposite side less dark than it would otherwise be.

We are familiar with the law that all objects apparently diminish in size as their distance from the observer decreases ; but it is another thing to express it correctly on paper. Perspective drawing indicates space and distance by lines tending to a common centre, and by shading, which diminishes in force as it approaches the background. A long training of the eye is here necessary, and a knowledge of certain rules which are observed by all artists. As we look on a landscape, there is a point where the sight ends, and a line where sky and earth seem to meet. That horizontal line is called the "line of the horizon;"and the point where all lines converge is the"vanishing-point."Here the straight lines which seem to run from above and from below the horizon, and on either hand, end ; and it is upon that horizontal line named. Within these converging rays, all parts of a picture must relatively decrease as they recede. We must also calculate the distance which the amateur is supposed to stand from the scene which she pictures: from her point of view, the "vanishing-point"must be exactly opposite. Observation, study, and practice, with some treatise at hand to furnish hints for obtaining the perspective, will enable the young student to enjoy sketching from nature, and be a preparation for more ambitious work. If she desires to design for any practical purpose, she has had at home the necessary elementary training. If she has access to a good library, she will consult Owen Jones's"Grammar of Ornament,"and"Racinet's Polychromatic Art,"and study all collections and museums within her reach.

On the contrary, if more modest in her desires, she will still find great utility in her capacity for drawing any object which can better be described with lines than words. It is no useless accomplishment to draw the plan of a house, the objects of a room, to express sentiment or humor on a card with a few telling strokes of the pencil, to give interest and amusement in a thousand ways. Still better, a knowledge of the foundation principles of art, which are universal in their application, serves to give exquisite enjoyment of forms and hues in nature and art in a thousand ways; while the uncultivated eye and untrained hand are powerless to see and grasp that loveliness which makes of beauty a"joy forever."