. American architecture . t, with equal force, though with-out any official sanction. To be ungrammatical, notto adopt a particular phase of historical architecture,and not to confine ones self to it in a design, was therethe unforgivable offence, even though the incongruitiesthat resulted from transcending it were imperceptible toan artist and obvious only to an archaeologist. A de-signer thoroughly trained under either of these systems,and then transferred to this country as a practitioner,must feel, as many such a practitioner has in fact felt,that he was suddenly unshackled, and that his e
. American architecture . t, with equal force, though with-out any official sanction. To be ungrammatical, notto adopt a particular phase of historical architecture,and not to confine ones self to it in a design, was therethe unforgivable offence, even though the incongruitiesthat resulted from transcending it were imperceptible toan artist and obvious only to an archaeologist. A de-signer thoroughly trained under either of these systems,and then transferred to this country as a practitioner,must feel, as many such a practitioner has in fact felt,that he was suddenly unshackled, and that his emanci-pation was an unmixed advantage to him ; but it is nonethe less true that his power to use his liberty wisely camefrom the discipline that was now relaxed. The academ-ic prolusions of the Beaux Arts, or the exercises of adraughtsman, have served their purpose in qualifyinghim for independent design. The advocates of the cur-riculum of the English public schools maintain that, ob- GLIMPSES OF WESTERN ARCHITECTURE 209. PORCH IN ST. II. Stem, Aicliitect. solete as it seems, even the practice of making Latinverses has its great benefits in imparting to the pupilthe command of Hterary form and of beauty of are many examples to sustain this contention, aswell as the analogous contention that a faithful studyand reproduction of antique or of mediaeval architectureare highly useful, if not altogether indispensable, to cul-tivate an architects power of design. Only it may be27 2,Q AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE pointed out that the use of these studies is to enablethe student to express himself with more power and gracein the vernacular, and that one no longer reverts to Latinverse when he has really something to say. The mon-uments that are accepted as models by the modern worldare themselves the results of the labors of successive gen-erations. It was by a secular process that the samestructural elements employed at Thebes and Karnacwere developed to the perfection
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