A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 21 



port, which looks like the minareted and domed residence of a Per- 

 sian Shah though its orientalism is rather put out of countenance 

 by the prim and puritanical dwellings of the plain citizens within 

 rifle shot of it. A citizen of fortune dies, and leaves a large sum to 

 erect a " large plain building " for a school to educate orphan boys 

 which the building committee consider to mean a superb marble 

 temple, like that of Jupiter Olympus ; a foreigner liberally bequeaths 

 his fortune to the foundation of an institution " for the diffusion of 

 knowledge among men" and the regents erect a college in the 

 style of a Norman monastery with a relish of the dark ages in it, 

 the better to contrast with its avowed purpose of diffusing light. 

 On all sides, in our large towns, we have churches built after Gothic 

 models, and though highly fitting and beautiful as churches, i. e., 

 edifices for purely devotional purposes are quite useless as places 

 to hear sermons in, because the preacher's voice is inaudible in at 

 least one-half of the church. And every where in the older parts of 

 the country, private fortunes are rapidly crystallizing into mansions, 

 villas, country-houses and cottages, in all known styles supposed to 

 be in any way suitable to the purposes of civilized habitations. 



Without in the least desiring to apologize for the frequent viola- 

 tions of taste witnessed in all this fermentation of the popular feeling 

 in architecture, we do not hesitate to say that we rejoice in it. It 

 is a fermentation that shows clearly there is no apathy in the public 

 mind, and we feel as much confidence as the vintner who walks 

 through the wine cellar in full activity, that the froth of foreign affec- 

 tations will work off, and the impurities of vulgar taste settle down, 

 leaving us the pure spirit of a better national taste at last. Rome 

 was not built in a day, and whoever would see a national architec- 

 ture, must be patient till it has time to rise out of the old materials, 

 under the influences of a new climate, our novel institutions and 

 modified habits. 



In domestic architecture, the difficulties that lie in the way of 

 achieving a pure and correct taste, are, perhaps, greater than in civil 

 or ecclesiastical edifices. There are so many private fancies, and 

 personal vanities, which seek to manifest themselves in the house of 

 the ambitious private citizen, and which are defended under the 

 shield of that miserable falsehood, "there is no disputing about 



