106 MAS.SACHUSr-;TTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



landscape architecture there may be in the land, but finally we want 

 to know what there is in it that is Amei'ican. 



The Field of Criticism. 



Were it possible to do it, we should find it altogethei wise.^nd 

 proper to begin our inquiry on the basis of what has been done in 

 America. We would go over the finished works of landscape 

 architecture to analyze, classify and criticise them one by one. 

 However, the present moment does not supply the opportunity for 

 a detailed and critical examination of materials; but we must at 

 least assume the critic's point of view. It is a point of view which 

 we have seldom (almost never) yet attained, but a point from which 

 matters of large import may be seen. 



It will be quite worth our while to consider for a moment what 

 relation criticism bears to art — the critic to the artist. We do 

 this of course with our own special art in mind, but we must take 

 our instruction chiefly from what has been done in other fields. In 

 the field of landscape architecture criticism is almost unknown; 

 and this fact presents unquestionably the greatest handicap under 

 which the art labors. The landscape architects themselves appear 

 to be not only blind to this defect, but they seem almost to present 

 an organized o])position to every improvement in this direction. 



Consider first of all the refinement to which criticism has been 

 brought in the field of literature. The authenticated works of 

 Shakespeare may be printed in a comfortable pocket volume, but 

 the books about Shakespeare and his works would fill all the 

 Carnegie libraries between Hyannis, Massachusetts, and Walla 

 Walla, Washington. These treat every conceivable phase of the 

 poet's life and work viewed from every possible angle, from the 

 Grecian structure of his plays to the rambles with Ann Hathaway 

 on Sunday afternoons along the shady field paths of Warwick. 

 Homer has been dead some thousands of years. His nation is 

 dead and the language in which he wrote is dead; but there meet 

 daily in many class rooms thousands of boys and girls to discuss his 

 ((ualities of style and to wonder what made Helen act so. A volrme 

 of criticism even greater in proportion to the apparent need washes 



