House & Garden 
“ A N Official Building for a County ” is to 
/\be this year’s subject for design in the 
examinations for the John Stewardson 
Memorial Scholarship in Architecture. The 
building is to face upon the main street of a 
typical American countv-seat and is to have 
accommodations for the law courts and 
administrative offices, beside including a jail. 
This test of a competitor’s ability to design 
is to be preceded by an examination in the 
usual academic and technical branches, and 
all the work is to be completed by May 23. 
Candidates must be under thirty years of 
age, and are required to have practised or 
studied architecture in the State of Pennsyl¬ 
vania for a period of at least one year im¬ 
mediately preceding the examinations. The 
successful competitor will receive one thou¬ 
sand dollars to be used in a year’s travel and 
study abroad. Intending competitors may 
be interested to learn that this year they may 
exercise their choice in preparing their final 
drawings either at the School of Architecture 
of the University of Pennsylvania or at the 
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 
The vacancy in the Managing Committee of 
the Scholarship, caused by the death of 
Walter Cope, has been filled by the appoint¬ 
ment of Mr. George B. Page. 
T HK city administration of Philadelphia 
has just authorized the construction of an 
avenue, 300 feet wide, starting at a point four 
and one-half miles north of the City Hall 
and traversing the northeastern section of the 
city to the suburb of Forresdale on the Dela¬ 
ware River front. In conjunction with 
Hunting Park Avenue, already existing, a 
continuous drive, ten miles long, will then be 
provided across the northern part of the city. 
Since the term “boulevard” has been applied 
to this improvement, it should be clearly 
pointed out that the thoroughfare just 
authorized is quite distinct from the boule¬ 
vard or parkway project of a monumental 
avenue extending from the City Hall diag¬ 
onally to Fairmount Park. The Torresdale 
boulevard does not aim primarily at an 
organic change or improvement in the City’s 
plan except in so far as it will develop a 
territory hitherto remote, and will give a 
pleasant entrance to the city from a direction 
whence one is needed. The avenue, as now 
proposed presents many awkward angles, and 
is to have as its important feature an electric 
railway “ handsome in its appointments.” 
In its minor details, the thoroughfare may be 
made architecturally imposing, but its posi¬ 
tion on the street-plan is not of that essential 
importance as in the case of a boulevard 
running direct from the City Hall Plaza to 
the Park. This project has already been fully 
presented in these columns, and it is under¬ 
stood will soon be seriously considered by 
the City Councils, with what result remains 
to be seen. In the near future, House and 
Garden will present all the projects of the 
last five years which have had for their pur¬ 
pose the esthetic improvement of Philadel¬ 
phia. 
I N compliance with a request of Mr. Willis 
Polk we beg to inform our readers that to 
both the owner of the property and to Mr. 
George H. Howard, architect, the design of 
“ Beaulieu,” published in our December 
number, primarily belongs. After Mr. 
Howard had commenced the work, it was 
continued, according to his drawings, by 
Mr. Polk. 
T HK element of time is so dominant in 
human lives that the means of recording its 
passage never fails to awaken curiosity and 
interest. In “Sun-dials and Roses of Yes¬ 
terday is to be found so much that is 
valuable and entertaining upon sun-dials 
alone that it would have been unnecessary 
to lure the reader on by strewing his path 
with roses. The way that Mrs. Earle points 
out is a pleasant one, and leads us through 
the centuries, discovering antique as well as 
modern dials and how time was measured by 
those not fortunate enough to possess any 
dials at all. The insertion of roses in the 
title of the book leads one to suppose the 
author would deal only with dials existing 
among flowers. But this is not the case. 
Noon-marks, by which the Indian learned 
the hour of midday by a shadow before his 
tent, or the housewife by a golden ray on her 
chimney-piece, are described, as well as nat- 
1 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday, by Alice Morse Earle, 461 pp., 
12mo, 237 ills, in half-tone and line. New York and London, Mac¬ 
millans, 1902. Price, $2.50 net. 
49 
