133 
PARK AND CEMETERY . 
EDUCATION in LANDSCAPE DESIGN and CONSTRUCTION 
When this country was first discov- 
ered and for centuries after, the for- 
est was regarded as an enemy to be 
vanquished and replaced by arable 
land from which the struggling far- 
mer could extract a living. When 
the mineral and other resources be- 
gan to be discovered and developed, 
bot-h they and the forests were re- 
garded as commercial assets, to be 
converted into as much money as 
possible with no thought of their 
being of any other value or of their 
possible exhaustion. 
As society developed and people 
began to have wealth and leisure 
enough to feel the need for educa- 
tion beyond that of providing for 
daily needs, they began to see that 
there were other uses for the forests 
than lumber, for grass than hay, for 
land than farming, and that the 
bushes and flowers of everyone’s 
knowledge were something more than 
mere brush and weeds. They came 
to see that these things could be 
combined to make the space about a 
house an inseparable part of the ex- 
pression of a home. They began to 
see that the lawns, flower beds, 
bushes and paths of a suburban lot, 
as well as the woods and meadows 
with the roadsj buildings and rocks of 
the everyday extended view could be 
created, combined and modified into 
an expressive and coherent whole, 
each in its proper scale; and that 
these things were as fit and proper 
materials for the use and insight of 
the artist as the colors of the painter 
or the bricks and stone and timber 
of the architect. 
As this perception grew there arose 
a demand for men who knew how to 
compose these materials into some- 
thing which, even if not a work of 
art, should at any rate be pleasing to 
their possessor. Thus came into 
being the landscape architect. For 
many years the notable and influen- 
tial men were few in number and 
partly or entirely self-taught like 
Downing, Olmsted and Vaux. But 
when their numbers multiplied, it be- 
came necessary to collect and corre- 
late the principles of their art and to 
establish means of studying and teach- 
ing them and a standard of attain- 
ment. Thus the American Society of 
Landscape Architects was formed, 
and later the course in landscape ar- 
chitecture at Harvard University. 
Since then, courses of instruction in 
outdoor design have been established 
at Cornell University, the University 
of Illinois, the University of Michi- 
gan, Ohio State University, the Uni- 
versity of California, Lowthorpe 
School at Groton, Mass., and the Mis- 
souri Botanical Garden at St. Louis, 
Mo. 
Like any other artist, the land- 
scape man must have a good work- 
ing knowledge of the principles of 
design as they relate to his particu- 
lar branch of art, and he must be 
able to think in terms of his ma- 
terials; he must have that easy in- 
timacy with them that comes from 
actual and continual contact and ex- 
periment with them. A design must 
not present itself to him first of all 
as a number of marks on paper or 
as a result of formulae learned from 
books, but as a mental picture com- 
posed of the elements he is able to 
control. He should know nursery 
stock and cultivation as the nursery- 
man knows them. He should know 
the general principles of architecture 
and construction, land surveying, for- 
estry, certain branches of engineer- 
ing, botany, freehand drawing and 
many other things, not as those who 
specialise in them know them, but up 
to the limit of his needs, he must 
have them at his fingers’ ends. It will 
be interesting to look over the bul- 
letins of the institutions referred to 
and see how they endeavor to effect 
this kind of training in those wJro 
would become more or less thor- 
oughly acquainted with landscape 
architecture. In order to show what 
is expected of students in a college 
course, we cannot do better than 
quote completely the plans of study 
for undergraduates of the best in- 
struction now to be had in this coun- 
try, that at Harvard University, to be 
found on pages 7,* 8 and 9 of the Offi-' 
cial Register of Harvard University, 
Department of Landscape Architec- 
ture, of which Frederick Law Olmsted 
is the head. 
PLANS OP STUDX 
For Uudergrraduates. 
With the best technical training-, the pro- 
fessional success of a landscape architect 
must depend largely upon his ability to 
understand the wide range of purposes and 
ideals which he is sure to find among his 
clients, and in no way can this ability be 
fostered more, effectively than by the broad- 
ening infiuende. of' a college education. 
It Is therefore urgently .^recommended to 
the undergraduate who wduld fit himself 
for the practice of landscape architecture 
that he take a four years’ college course of 
general studies, devoting about half of his 
time, however, to subjects of direct in- 
terest to landscape architects. Among ^uch 
subjects are the principles of design in the 
Fine Arts, freehand and projection draw'- 
ing, and elementary Physics, Geology and 
Botany. A substantially equal amount of 
study should be devoted to distinctly differ- 
ent fields of knowledge, determined by the 
needs and interests of the individual. 
In addition to these studies which form 
reasonable parts of a general college edu- 
cation, the undergraduate who looks forward 
to becoming a landscape architect ought to 
take the summer course in topographical 
surveying at the Harvard Camp, or its 
equivalent, and should become well ac- 
quainted with the common trees and shrubs. 
If he has had the opportunity of getting a 
first-hand acquaintance with the soil and 
plants through the common work of prac- 
tical farming or some kindred occupation, 
he will find it, in the long run, helpful to 
a remarkable degree. 
While the above outline indicates the 
subject matters of study with which a 
student of landscape architecture should be 
familiar when he begins his definitely pro- 
fessional work, it is of still more importance 
that he should have acquired a facility in 
the understanding and use of those means 
of expression by which his further study 
must be conducted. Any intelligent student 
will appreciate that he must have a good 
command of English, since an essential part 
of a landscape architect’s duties must be to 
explain clearly and convincingly to 'others 
the reasons for his advice to them. In ad- 
dition it is very desirable that the student 
should be able to use French and German 
books with tolerable facility. 
What is not so generally realized by 
students in advance, is the vital importance 
to the landscape architect of facility in 
graphic expression. He must be able to 
draw readily a simple, straightforward and 
accurate representation of the forms w'hich 
he sees or wishes to describe, whether by 
sketches, plan or section; and the alphabet 
of this graphic language, which he must 
use all his life, ought to be learned early 
and practised constantly; as, for instance, 
in connection with the countless occasions 
in every student’s work where diagrams 
and sketches can Vje used to illustrate and 
explain. 
Thus the foundation which is advised as 
a preliminary to the professional training 
of a landscape architect, for all those w^ho 
tan possibly command it, is an A. B. degree 
or its equivalent; a good grounding in the 
principles of design in art, and an intelli- 
gent acquaintance with architectural forms 
and their use by architects; a sound ele- 
mentary knowledge of physics, of geology 
and' of botany; some experience in topo- 
graphical surveying; a familiarity with the 
common trees and shrubs of New England; 
and, finally, a respectable proficiency in 
English composition and in accurate free- 
hand and architectural drawing. This 
foundation can be obtained by a good stu- 
dent in the course of four years at Har- 
vard College by a moderate amount of dili- 
gent special work outside of that directed 
to the A. B. degree, and without impair- 
ing the breadth of intellectual and social 
interests which it is the main purpose of 
a college course to awaken. This implies 
that the student should take each year one 
course in addition to the College require- 
ments, that he should take a course in sur- 
veying during one of the summers, and 
that he should interest himself in the study 
of trees and shrubs especially during the 
leisure of the other summers. One w'ho 
is unable to accomplish this amount of 
work successfully during four years is ad- 
vised to extend the time of preparation to 
five, in which time he should be able to 
advance himself still further along the lines 
indicated. 
On the basis of the above preparation a 
student can obtain a good professional 
equipment by three or even by two years 
devoted solidly to technical w^ork. No def- 
inite programme is here laid down for such 
a post-graduate course, because it can best 
be fitted to the needs of the individual; 
but it would always include two years of 
practice in general landscape design and 
details of construction, continued study of 
plants and planting design, and, so far as 
