House and Garden 
interested can easily acquaint himself with it through the medi¬ 
um ol the Committee of Education. 
1 he Paris Prize competition is a yearly mile-stone in the 
progress of the Society and the competition which has lately 
been held has brought forth a quality of work on the part of 
the students which is of surprising excellence. The drawings 
shown in this competition would have been impossible even 
as recently as five years ago in this country. They rank well 
up with the best that has ever been seen in the exhibition of the 
Ecole-des-Beaux-Arts in Paris. The prize was awarded this 
year to Mr. F. C. Hirons, reproductions of whose drawings 
illustrate this article. Mr. Hirons will shortly go to Paris in 
the first class of the Ecole-des-Beaux-Arts and there carry on 
his work as a disciple of the Beaux-Arts Society in America, 
studying at the mother school. 
There seems to be a misunderstanding on the part of the 
public as to just what study at the Ecole-des-Beaux-Arts does 
for a man. We will assume that he goes to the Ecole-des- 
Beaux-Arts because he believes that it is only in that school that 
he can obtain the best technical training available, that it is 
only there that he can learn something of the language and 
manner of a modern live architecture. He goes there to learn 
how to think and to think rationally and logically. He should 
go there to learn how to honestly and carefully express in his 
design the architectural function and usage of a building. 
Scientific training is necessary to this honesty of expression. 
Architecture means primarily integrity of design, effective¬ 
ness of mass, beauty of proportion and propriety of detail. A 
building can be good architecture if it suits all these conditions. 
Eo this, however, beauty must be added to make a building live. 
The predisposition shown by many of the students of the 
Beaux-Arts to servilely copy existing French monuments, or to 
indiscriminately imitate European forms, or to Parisianize 
American architecture is certainly to be deplored, for that is far 
from the intention of the school teaching. It is not meant that 
we should adopt Erench ideas too literally as the final archi- 
tecturrd word; this would take us from the broad highway of 
progress and put us in a special narrow road which leads in the 
end nowhere. 
1 he successful architect of to-day cannot become a specialist 
without ruining his influence and usefulness. Individuality 
and personality in architects’ work should not be confounded 
with the specialize!'. A pow^erful personality like Michael 
Angelo, or Gamier, or Richardson found its best expression in 
the use of certain special architectural forms wdiich each shaped 
to his own individual needs and ideals. While these men have 
left behind them w'onderfully interesting and noble monuments, 
they themselves have made little or no impression upon the 
world’s architectural development. Their individuality died 
with them because their methods w^ere not based upon a 
communicable tradition. They were essentially innovators. 
They were the Shakespeares of architectural history. 
As we look back over the history of art in a broad sense we 
are struck by the importance of two things. On the one side 
we see the geniuses who owe everything to nature and who 
seem to spring forth at the beck of destiny. On the other 
hand we see the schools striving to impart to the general mass 
of toilers a modicum of professional education in order that one 
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