WILLIAM ROBERT WARE. 867 



professional architectural growth in America, when his talents could 

 most avail. 



How well he builded in laying out the plan of architectural study at 

 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when in 1865 he was 

 called upon to organize what was practically^ the first school of archi- 

 tecture in the United States, is shown by the fact that this scheme, as 

 shaped and modified in his hands, has stood the test of time, has shown 

 itself admirably adapted to American needs, and is still the basis of 

 the American method of architectural education. His wise foresight 

 is revealed in the way this plan has shaped itself to meet the larger 

 development of professional life which has come with the growth of 

 the country. 



One of the most difficult problems of professional ethics which 

 American architects have been called upon to solve has been that of 

 competition among themselves: how to avoid the injustice, and the 

 waste of professional time and talent, which was the inevitable result 

 of the informal, unregulated and uncompensated submission of com- 

 petitive designs. Very early the American Institute of Architects 

 (founded in 1857) and its affiliated professional bodies attacked this 

 difficult c[uestion. Gradually, for the irregular and demoralizing 

 scramble which was formerl}^ common if not usual, has come to be 

 substituted the formal, paid competition, subject to definite rules, 

 controlled by a professional adviser and impartially decided by this 

 adviser or in its later form by a professional jury. The submission of 

 competitive sketches under other conditions is now regarded as 

 unprofessional. 



In the development and gradual improvement of this scheme 

 Professor Ware's good judgment, far-sighted wisdom and absolute 

 and universally recognized impartiality was invaluable. He was 

 more often called upon to act as professional adviser in competitions 

 than any other man, indeed nearly all the important competitions 

 during his period of fullest activity came under his control, and he 

 did more than any other one architect in securing the general recogni- 

 tion of, and the confidence of the building public in this form of regula- 

 tion. His lucid reports and his fair mindedness and impartiality made 

 the advantages of proper regulation and control so clear that his 

 activity greatly tended toward the steady reduction in the number of 

 badly regulated or unregulated competitions. At the same time while 

 he recognized the advantage which the competition in certain cases 

 offers to the owner and to the public and often on that account advo- 

 cated it, his influence was always thrown against the competition when 



