Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/154



T is to be supposed that all who take any interest in the progress of architecture in America, have watched with pleasure the recent indications that the profession is tending to that unity of aim and purpose without which no art can make any impression on its time. But, whether there be watchers or not, it is certainly true that, within a very few years, architecture has taken on a new phase in America; not only has the number of architects increased, the number of thoughtful, studious, and earnest men in the profession has also increased, and all the signs promise that, if we have not seen the last of bad building—whether that term imply ugly, unmeaning design, or unsound construction, or both—we have, at least, seen the beginning of good building. It could easily be shown that this improvement, although the signs of it are, as yet, somewhat scattered, is the result of conviction and effort, not of accident; that it is a growth, and not a fashion. If it should appear on examination, to spring from the thought and labor of several men working quite independently, and not from the influence of any single one, to be diffused, and not the work of a clique or school, this ought to please us better and to be more reassuring to us; it would prove that the public is being educated, and that the growth is from a root, and not a mere implanted graft.

Perhaps some will think it is too early to hunt for signs of Spring, and will declare that the bluebird we announce has sung out of season, and that these crocuses are over bold; but objectors will remember that we do not say the Spring is come, but only that, as the up-country people have it, the back of the Winter is broken. Our bluebird may die, perhaps, and build no nest; these flowers may be covered with an April snow; but, for all that, the bird and the flower belong to the Spring, and when they come she is near. The record of what has been done here in architecture already, would, no doubt, prove an interesting study, and would be worth reading. Indeed, it is a great pity that some of our wealthy young men with a taste for architecture that, at present, is only dangerous to the community, because it teases them perpetually to try their hand at what they call "original" work—it is a pity that some one of these gentlemen would not put us all under obligations to him by visiting the older-settled portions of our country, and measuring the few interesting examples of brick and wooden architecture that the vandal hand of "taste," and the less cruel hand of time, have left us. There is an old church in Hingham, Massachusetts, if not the oldest, then among the oldest, churches in the country. It ought