Aims and Methods 



reach it. We have learned certain archi- 

 tectural truths, and we respect them theo- 

 retically even though we may often err in 

 their application. We do not expect to 

 build a good house without an architect to 

 help us; we do not expect him to begin 

 without a clear idea of the kind of house 

 we want — of the special site it must occupy, 

 the special needs it must fulfil, the special 

 tastes it must meet. We are not content if 

 he designs it by throwing together a number 

 of pretty features regardless of harmony in 

 the result. Nor do we buy our furniture 

 bit by bit as passing whims dictate, or pile 

 it casually about in our rooms. At least 

 there are not so many of us who do these 

 things as there were twenty years ago, and 

 we are all aware that they ought not to be 

 done. 



Yet they are just the things which almost 

 everyone does outside his house. If he has 

 *^no taste for Nature" himself, he puts his 

 grounds into the hands of a gardener, with- 

 out inquiring whether he has any qualifica- 

 tions beyond a knowledge of how to make 

 plants grow. And if he has such a taste 

 29 



