108 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



spondence I have been as polite as my unhopeful expectations 

 could teach me to be; and my direct questions have been as few 

 and as mild as was consistent with getting any information at all. 

 Some data and some valuable expressions of opinion have indeed 

 been secured; but the big result of the whole investigation is to 

 show the very general and hearty suspicion in which all such 

 inquiries are held. 



Some landscape gardeners politely but firmly refuse to give any 

 information regarding their own works or anybody's else. With 

 rare exceptions, information, if given at all, is given grudgingly, 

 as though a favor had been presumptuously and unwarrantably 

 asked. This being the attitude toward the giving of information, 

 what is to be ex]5ected when these men are asked for an expression 

 of opinion? The majority of them refuse flatly to give it. It 

 seems to be considered a crime to say that ]Mr. Brown's design for 

 the public park is good, and Mr. White's design for the college 

 campus inadequate. Indeed some of these good men appear to feel 

 that it is unprofessional and ungentlemanly to think about such 

 things. 



Let us understand now and evermore that this attitude is Avrong 

 and harmful. The right way is to welcome and assist criticism. 

 Well-informed, intelligent criticism will clear the air, will set a 

 standard of taste, will foste ' a wider and better appreciation of our 

 gracious art, will tend to the improvement of technique, will set 

 higher ideals before our professional workers, and in a thousand 

 ways will help both the makers and the enjoyers of landscape 

 pictures. 



In the field of landscape architecture the critic meets certain 

 practical difficulties which do not exist in other fields or which 

 elsewhere offer less serious obstacles. It is quite possible to read all 

 the works of almost any popular or classic writer and to know 

 what his entire output has been. The experienced art critic has 

 seen practically all the works of the masters; and before he writes 

 about Dewing's paintings or of St. Gaudens' sculpture he will 

 have seen a majority of the artist's productions. Now it is practi- 

 cally impossible for any critic to know the work of any landscape 

 architect in this complete fashion. Each man's work is scattered 

 all over the continent, from coast to coast and from Canada almost 

 to the Gulf. 



