648 MODERN ARCHITECTURE 



are tending more and more in the same direction. How far is this 

 system applicable to architecture, which has taken on more and 

 more the character of a liberal profession? In France, Germany, 

 and Austria architecture is now taught according to this theory in 

 great schools of art, but with a strong surviving element of the 

 apprenticeship system in the methods of the atelier. In America 

 the methods of the university and technological school prevail more 

 completely; in Great Britain they have only lately begun to be 

 introduced to any noticeable degree. Which is nearest right? How 

 far should the schools attempt, and how far forbear, to teach the 

 practical practice of the profession, and how far leave this to the 

 offices? What should be the requirements for admission to the 

 schools? What should be the place in these schools of studies of 

 pure culture or liberal discipline, and what the relative proportion of 

 time assigned to the actual training in design? What should be the 

 relative importance and the proportion of time assigned to abstract 

 drawing and to distinctively architectural draughtsmanship? In 

 teaching design, should the emphasis be placed on abstract design- 

 problems, to cultivate the powers of imagination and invention, or 

 upon more practical problems, in order to give anticipatory experience? 

 These and other like questions press for an answer. Different schools, 

 in different environments, will give different answers. As time goes 

 on, changing conditions will bring about different answers in the 

 same school, and there will always be a place also for men trained 

 in no school but the school of office experience. Of course we can 

 make here and now no final answer to these questions. One or two 

 things are, however, clear. The increasingly exacting and complex 

 duties of the modern architect have made what was once a fine art, 

 and only an art, a profession of exceeding difficulty and importance, 

 requiring for its worthy practice a training which is almost a liberal 

 education in itself. The architect needs the broad view, the generous 

 grasp of a wide range of ideas, good sense and varied knowledge, as 

 well as artistic training and office experience. His education must 

 lay foundations of discipline, taste, and knowledge broad enough 

 to enable him to meet all the varied exigencies of changing methods 

 and conditions. 



I would fain enlarge upon these considerations, and discuss at 

 greater length the relative claims of technical and artistic training. 

 the relative share of the school and office in preparing the architect 

 for his work, and the question of general or specific discipline in 

 design; but I am warned that my time is spent, and I must draw to 

 a speedy close. I have said little about the problem of style, because 

 I believe in any ago in which architecture is a vital art. - as I believe 

 it is with us, in spite of the influences that tend to stifle the breath 

 of its artistic life. this problem settles itself, as I believe it is doing 



