and improvement. Natural taste, like natural genius, may exist to a certain deo-ree; 

 but without study, observation, and experience, they lead to error." " The requisites 

 of taste," says another distinguished writer, " are, first, a lively imagination ; second, 

 the power of distinct apprehension ; third, the capacity of being easily, strongly, and 

 agreeably affected with sublimity, beauty, harmony, and correct imitation, (fee; fourth, 

 sympathy, or sensibility of heart ; and, fifth, judgment, or good sense, which is the 

 principal thing." 



Every day we witness what vagaries " men of taste," without knowledge or expe- 

 rience can perpetrate in the way of building. They desire to erect a tasteful and 

 beautiful house, — something that will arrest attention as well as excite admiration. 

 They call in the service of an architect, perhaps, to give advice and draw a " plan." 

 This architect may be a very competent man, and give sound and excellent advice ; 

 but the chances are otherwise. When his plan is drawn and submitted for examina- 

 tion, the misfortune is, his patron does not comprehend it ; the size alone is intelligible 

 to him. Yet he has some cherished notion of his own, which, right or wrong, must 

 be carried out ; and so some addition or alteration is made, and whatever proportion 

 and harmony existed in the design before, is probably destroyed, the whole structure 

 deformed, and very likely made ridiculous. There are others, again, who dispense 

 entirely with the services of an architect. They have searched and found some 

 building which they take as a model : but some of its parts are not quite to their 

 taste, and they and their builder adopt some improvement; and this spoils the whole. 

 It takes but a very trifling alteration or addition to make an excellent design a lauo-h- 

 ing-stock, just as the finest portrait may, with the slightest touch of the brush, be 

 converted into a disgusting caricature.* 



Thus the architecture of the country suffers the moment that any thing beyond the 

 plainest and simplest structures are attempted. Out of the large cities it is difficult 

 to find really skillful, tasteful, well-trained architects. Indeed, there is little use for 

 them, because most of the country people design and superintend the building of 

 their own houses, with such aid as they can get from a master builder • and the few 

 who do employ an architect, are scarcely willing to pay enough to compensate an 

 artist for the mechanical execution of the drawing, to say nothing whatever of the 

 mental labor performed in studying the design. Hence it is that so many of our 

 country houses are without harmony and proportion in their parts, simply rectangular 

 boxes, destitute of a single feature that can impart an idea of the beautiful. 



On all these accounts, therefore, and regarding architecture as of great importance, 

 not merely in an economical point of view, but as calculated to exercise a great influ- 

 ence on the aspect of the country, and on the taste and habits of the people, we desire 

 to see it studied and taught in our common schools and academies. Drawing is 

 wofuUy neglected in the course of ordinary education, and yet is one of the most 

 useful and delightful acquirements; — useful in all pursuits that men engage in; and 

 delightful, as aftbrding in all places an opportunity ^o take accurate notes of objects 

 which we wish to preserve in our memory. If people generally possessed some know- 

 ledge of drawing, they would be vastly more competent to examine and understand 



of the most conspicuons and costly private dwellings in a city not far from where we write — a square 

 as a dome large enough for a cathedral, and a light iron veranda, that has the appearance of wire 

 cuted caricature that every body laughs at. Yet, every man to his taste. 



