Vlll 



Preface 



Sarah Norton (letters to her father Charles Eliot Norton) ; 

 and the Vaux family, who have aided the editors of Mr. 

 Olmsted's papers in every possible way, Mr. Bowyer Vaux 

 especially, and given permission for the publication in Vol. 

 Two of several very illuminating letters from Calvert Vaux 

 to Mr. Olmsted, in 1864-65, which formed a turning point in 

 the latter's career. 



The present volume of Mr. Olmsted's papers is intended 

 as an introduction to a series covering his main activities as a 

 Landscape Architect. The writings are to be arranged by 

 large groups, according to the nature of the works in connec- 

 tion with which they were written, — public parks and park 

 systems, town plans, land subdivisions, grounds for public 

 and semi-public buildings, private estates, and so on. This 

 somewhat arbitrary rather than sequential arrangement is 

 adopted perforce because Mr. Olmsted's writings — illuminat- 

 ing as they are in regard to principles of wide application — 

 relate, with few exceptions, directly to some specific prob- 

 lem or set of conditions, dealing with the case now from the 

 point of view of aesthetics, now from that of utility and con- 

 venience or economy, sometimes from that of the sociologist, 

 sometimes from that of the administrator or that of the 

 artisan. 



Mr. Olmsted wrote not primarily to set forth general 

 theories but to show how to get satisfactory results under 

 actual specific circumstances and requirements as he found 

 them, or to carry conviction of the wisdom of certain courses 

 of action which he advised. 



In this connection it is interesting to compare his profes- 

 sional writings with those of A. J. Downing, — whose friend- 

 ship unquestionably did much to stimulate and develop Mr. 

 Olmsted's interest in landscape matters, and whose activities 

 in the Central Park campaign and in bringing Calvert Vaux 

 into relations with Mr. Olmsted led the latter so unexpectedly 

 into the profession. It is very striking to note the contrast 

 between Downing's somewhat doctrinaire and a priori 

 method of discussing landscape problems, and Mr. Olmsted's 

 habitual method, which was frankly to envisage the peculiar 

 facts of each situation as an individual problem to be solved 

 on its own merits in its own individual way, and then to test 

 and perhaps correct his conclusions by reasoning back to find 

 principles consistent alike with the facts and artistic intui-* 

 tions present in this particular case and with other principles 



