Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/160

150 To-day, it seems to us, the architects are again in advance of the public. The architects have taken a great stride in the last fifteen years. Mr. Downing taught the general public; he hardly influenced a single architect. The sudden growth in the profession is owing to several causes. First, individual minds were powerfully, stimulated by Ruskin. Then there came over seas a few strong, able, individual men who taught by word and work. Calvert Vaux, Leopold Eidlitz, Wrey Mould—there is a great debt of gratitude due these men. Then there was the general stimulus of competition and of intercourse, the enlarging effects of travel, photographs and books, our young, ambitious men sharing in the new-born enthusiasm of their contemporaries in England and France.

The architects, then, such of them as deserve the name—and their number is quite respectable—are becoming established in good methods of building, in true principles of design; they are studious, reflecting, ambitious to link their names to worthy work; already many of them have done so. But the public has not so high a standard, and seems to care very little for good work. Here it is, to speak candidly, that the negative influences of Downing's work are felt almost as positive evil. He did not throw his weight strongly, clearly on the side of good, faithful architecture. He was eager, first of all, for pretty, tasteful results, and showed how they might be produced at the least expense to serve temporary ends. We firmly believe that had he lived he would have come to think differently; but we know, too well, that this was what he thought and what he taught. This is why his books are outworn so soon, and why the young architects to-day hold them in small esteem. They served a certain use, but they lacked the vitality that is given by a principle. In the case of Pugin, it is true he left no monumental work, true that he set up for admiration a bad period, a dull and tasteless time; but his vitality consists in the fact that he is identified with the teachings of good principles; he stood for earnest, truthful work; he was always hammering away at the necessity for sound, honest construction. The particular application of his principles is of no account with us to-day, but his principles are everlasting; they are opposed to all sham and deceit.

It is true that our architecture is in a bad way. We are building as badly as we can, and as ugly as we can. The other day they took down and carted off two old landmarks of New York—St. Thomas' Church and Stuyvesant Hall. Certainly these were ugly structures; but are the buildings that will go up in their places like to be a whit better? Miss Jones gives yesterday's bonnet to her maid, and laughs to herself at the figure the creature will cut in "the horrid old thing." Are we to suppose that to-day's fashion which Sophie Sonst or Marie has just opened has any advantage over the discarded top-knot, except that of newness? Look at the