An Informal Thatched Shelter

Nowhere is the profession of landscape architecture developed so highly as in the United States. Although in Germany two societies have been formed in this field, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Gartenkunst and the Verband deutscher Gartenarchitekten, and in Japan a professional landscape architectural society pub lished a magazine from 1925 to 1927 edited by Prof. Uyehara of Tokyo, nevertheless in England and France there have been no similar national organizations, while the American Society of Landscape Architects founded in 1899 contains 215 members (1928). Admission to this society is controlled by an examining board, guided by fixed standards as to professional qualifications. The society has published a code of ethics governing professional practice, and also a circular on methods of charges, which requires the fees of members to come from professional advice only and not from profits on construction. In several important regions, chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects have been constituted. The co-operation of architect, landscape archi tect and sculptor on the National Commission of Fine Arts appointed by the President of the United States has been an important factor in raising the national standards in the fine arts.

Training for professional practice of landscape architecture is now well organized in the United States. The leading graduate school (course established in 1900) is at Harvard university. In addition, Cornell university, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Massachusetts Agricultural college, Iowa State college, Ohio State university, University of California and University of Pennsylvania maintain schools; graduates are eligible (1928) to compete for the prize fellowships in the American academy at Rome. Harvard offers annually a travelling fellowship in land scape architecture and the Lake Forest institute, a collaborative travelling fellowship. The professional schools of landscape archi tecture exclusively for women are the Cambridge school and Lowthorpe-Simmons. National competition among both men and women students is promoted by the "Landscape Exchange" prob lems. Many colleges give courses in appreciation of landscape architecture or elementary problems, some of which join with the professional schools in the National Conference on Instruction in Landscape Architecture (founded 192o) which meets annually and works with the American Society of Landscape Architects in improving standards of instruction. The subject is not recognized by the profession as capable of being adequately taught by corre spondence. Study tours in landscape architecture are conducted annually by officers of recognized American professional schools.

In France, where the number of professional practitioners is small, students are taught in ateliers. In Belgium a course of professional instruction in landscape architecture was established (1927) in the Institut superieur des Arts decoratifs de FEW_ In Germany instruction in Gartenkunst is offered largely in schools of horticulture as at Pillnitz and Dahlem, but men trained primarily as architects are frequently concerned with the formal design of home grounds and parks.

In America public interest in landscape improvement—both of public areas and of home grounds—and in landscape preservation has been promoted by "Extension Services" maintained by State universities, by national organizations such as the American Park and Outdoor Art Association, now merged into the American Civic Association, the American Scenic and Historic Preservation So ciety, the Garden Club of America, the State federations of garden clubs, and above all by the Government's National Park Service and the National Conference on State Parks. In England there are the National Trust, Scapa, the Commons and Footpaths Pres ervation Society and the recent Council for the Preservation of Rural England ; on the Continent, such organizations as the Rheinische Verein fur Denkmalpflege and Heimatschutz and the Dutch Vereenigung tot Behoud van Natuur en Stedenschoon. In France and Belgium the movement, prior to the World War, for national preservation of landscape as distinct from historic monuments which were already cared for by their national Gov ernments, has since merged into general planning programmes fostered by the Union Internationale des Villes. Too much em phasis cannot be laid on the importance of preserving and restoring typical natural landscape all over the world for the public benefit and for the true development of landscape architecture as an art.

Of ancient gardens, Egypt supplies records of the earliest examples: in the fertile Nile valley even in the 4th dynasty horticulture and design of decorative enclosed gardens flourished. Ancient Persia and Assyria later developed in great hunting grounds an artistic treatment of nature from which sprang the conception of the park. Enclosed gardens too were cherished; and at Babylon trees and flowers crowning a lofty palace site are supposed to have formed the famous "Hanging Gardens." Al though we know the Greeks had palace gardens in the Mycenaean age, few records remain except such as Homer's famous descrip tion of the gardens of Alcinous. Sacred groves were numerous. In the great age philosophers frequented quiet, shaded public gardens, as the Lyceum in Athens. Influenced by Greece and Asia Minor, Roman gardens blossomed with Lucullus into lavish magnificence, then flourished, with classical restraint, as villa urbana and villa rustica, pictured in Cicero and in Pliny's descrip tion of his splendid Laurentine and Tuscan establishments. The remains of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and murals at Pompeii reveal to-day the importance of gardens in Roman life.