The apprentice system of education for the architect as thus developed was not unlike that adopted in the earlier days in the training of artists in other fields, and with such modifi cations as are natural in relation to the com plexity of modern life it has persisted even to our day in many lands. In England a large proportion of the eminent architects of the day have been educated in this manner, and until within a generation in this country no other system of training for the architect was avail able.
A similar apprentice system obtained in the training of lawyers and doctors until a late period when special schools of law and medi cine became established. The success of these schools called attention to the fact that, from a certain point of view, the architect is as clearly a professional man as the doctor or lawyer, and that the weaknesses in the train ing of doctors and lawyers under the appren tice system, which had led to the establishment of their special schools, existed also in con nection with the study of architecture.
These weaknesses need but to be stated to be apparent to all. Evidently the teaching a busy architect can give to his pupil must vary greatly in quality and amount as the demands of his practice vary. Evidently his teaching is likely to be unsystematic; and it is certain to be biased by his individual taste, a matter which is of importance in relation to certain subjects, to be referred to below, where the broadest catholicity is of importance.
Thus following the example set in other professions, there have been established schools of architecture in which an effort is made to give the student a systematic training which shall not vary in quality and amount from year to year, and which shall avoid the unfortunate influences which are liable to obtain under the apprentice system. It will be generally con ceded that the schools as a rule have been rea sonably successful in this effort, if general re sults are considered, if particular instances are not overemphasized.
But the abandonment of the apprentice sys tem of training in the law and medicine car ried with it a loss which was generally over looked. The newer method tended to minimize if not to eliminate the inspiration which comes to the student as the result of contact with the living master in the active practice of his pro fession. Nowadays students in law and med
icine appreciate this loss and are supplementing their school training with practice under the guidance of men of reputation in their special fields.
But the loss to the student of architecture who fails to come under the influence of a practising master can scarcely be overstated. For the artist such an influence is of vital im portance; under it he will absorb, as it were, stores of lore peculiar to his art which can never he expressed in the alien words of the lecturer, or upon the pages of a textbook. Fortunately the architects themselves are be ginning to see that in one way or another the architectural student must be brought to feel this influence. What was valuable in the ap prentice method of education, and has been in many cases lost, must be regained. In no inconsiderable measure it has been regained in the atelier system as developed in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and fortunately a distinct movement in the same direction is noted in the later developments of the schools existing in this country.
Granting then that there is a vital something of supreme importance to the architectural student which the school training cannot give, let us ask what he can gain in the schools, with economy of his time and labor, in connection with the training which we have seen to be desirable in the three directions above spoken of, which for convenience we shall treat in re verse order.
Business The architect's busi ness training cannot be materially advanced in the architectural school. The general educa tion, and the influences which produce the reliable, accurate and farseeing business man, can best be gained quite apart from the school course, in the practising architect's studio. In this connection it may be noted that, while the artistic side of the architect's life must always be first considered, it is easy to under estimate the importance of his business career. The student fresh from the schools too often thinks that he may at once undertake import ant commissions without the business expe rience which a long-established practice brings. He will tell you that this can be purchased ready made by the employment of others to attend to this drudgery so repugnant to a man of artistic temperament.