complain today are due to faulty educational methods. Modern methods will need to be very largely revised. In the leading article in this issue this important topic is very thoroughly discussed by Mr. C. H. Blackall. Without doubt there will be a very general agreement with Mr. Blackall’s presentation of this subject and concurrence with the measures he proposes for the improvement of present methods.
Tom P. Barnett, in a communication printed on another page, makes the admirable suggestion that our rich men could find a very useful opportunity for a great and valuable work in the founding of schools of craftsmanship in Europe for American men and women. The immense amount of good that would be derived, especially during the next five years, from the establishment of such schools, is too apparent to need further urging. Along certain well-developed lines, the American Academy in Rome has been for years carrying forward a work of this nature. If this valuable institution were more liberally endowed and placed on the most practical basis, it could at once take control of these trade schools and make them, in the field of craftsmanship, as valuable to the American student as it now is in the higher field of the Beaux-Arts.
The successful future of architecture will depend more largely on the successful development of craftsmanship than is at once apparent. If some group of liberal donors will generously provide for these trade schools in Europe, they will do more to advance the progress of architecture, and that is
art, in this country, than by the hoarding of collections or the endowment of classic memorial museums and libraries.
A
PERFECTED and smoothly working organi
zation always produces results if energetically administered. But any body representative of certain fields of endeavor can reach its goal only when it receives co-operation from those it endeavors to serve. Organized architecture in this country has seen many vicissitudes and in spite of its handicaps has accomplished a certain measure of good results. But it has been almost entirely in the hands of certain men who, day and night, have labored to serve, and who have in many cases become disheartened by lack of support, unwarranted criticism and cold indifference. We shall have to make the profession more democratic, and we shall have to make its organization more truly representative.
There is as pressing a need for two organizations, state federated societies and the Institute, as there is for two parties in our national Government. Until this has been brought to consummation, we can hope for little, if any, practical result. With correct educational methods, methods that will be based on the counsel of practicing architects, with two well organized parties, each striving to outdo the other in effort for the common good, we shall have an organized profession that the Government in future crises will not ignore, for the very good reason that it will be impossible to do so.
Tom P. Barnett, in a communication printed on another page, makes the admirable suggestion that our rich men could find a very useful opportunity for a great and valuable work in the founding of schools of craftsmanship in Europe for American men and women. The immense amount of good that would be derived, especially during the next five years, from the establishment of such schools, is too apparent to need further urging. Along certain well-developed lines, the American Academy in Rome has been for years carrying forward a work of this nature. If this valuable institution were more liberally endowed and placed on the most practical basis, it could at once take control of these trade schools and make them, in the field of craftsmanship, as valuable to the American student as it now is in the higher field of the Beaux-Arts.
The successful future of architecture will depend more largely on the successful development of craftsmanship than is at once apparent. If some group of liberal donors will generously provide for these trade schools in Europe, they will do more to advance the progress of architecture, and that is
art, in this country, than by the hoarding of collections or the endowment of classic memorial museums and libraries.
A
PERFECTED and smoothly working organi
zation always produces results if energetically administered. But any body representative of certain fields of endeavor can reach its goal only when it receives co-operation from those it endeavors to serve. Organized architecture in this country has seen many vicissitudes and in spite of its handicaps has accomplished a certain measure of good results. But it has been almost entirely in the hands of certain men who, day and night, have labored to serve, and who have in many cases become disheartened by lack of support, unwarranted criticism and cold indifference. We shall have to make the profession more democratic, and we shall have to make its organization more truly representative.
There is as pressing a need for two organizations, state federated societies and the Institute, as there is for two parties in our national Government. Until this has been brought to consummation, we can hope for little, if any, practical result. With correct educational methods, methods that will be based on the counsel of practicing architects, with two well organized parties, each striving to outdo the other in effort for the common good, we shall have an organized profession that the Government in future crises will not ignore, for the very good reason that it will be impossible to do so.