But in this view there lurks a hidden danger to the art of architecture itself. As has been said above, the confidence of the client must be obtained by the man who is to spend the cli ent's money, and if the skilled designer is not one who inspires this confidence the control of great constructions will surely go to men of less artistic ability, and the skilled designer will find himself directed. rather than the director of the work necessary to the embodi ment in solid form of the ideas which his imagination creates. Nothing can be more dangerous to progress in architecture as an art than the establishment of a belief that the architect's function ends with the creation of designs on paper; his art product is in the constructed building, and if effective artistic result is to be gained he should actually direct the construction in all particulars and to the very end, and should train himself to assume all the labor and responsibilities this direction involves.
Technical We may now turn to the consideration of the architect's technical training, which in the first place must result in the mastery of methods of representing his conceptions so that they may be understood by his clients, and comprehended by the work men who are to be employed to embody them in material form. This means in the main the attainment of skill in technical draughting; and this can very clearly be better and more quickly gained by the concentrated effort possible in a school than in the course of the routine work in an architect's office. The student should be warned, however, that a danger is connected with the attainment of this skill if he comes to look upon his drawings, which are no more than tools of his trade, as works of art in themselves; for these drawings are necessarily on plane surfaces, and if he gives too much thought to their perfection he is liable to over look the importance for him as an architect of thinking in solid dimensions.
The general principles governing the repre sentation of details of, and the writing of speci fications descriptive of, the work to be done can also be learned in the schools, but little more than these general principles; the student must not hope to gain facility in these im portant matters without the experience of actual office practice.
Artistic Training.— It is true of all artists, as it is of poets in particular, that they are born and not made; and surely unless all op portunity is lacking the born architect of genius will show his power whatever his training may be. Nevertheless there arc certain matters which even the genius must learn by his own often bitter experience, or else from those who have practised his art before him; and these matters may in some particulars be learned most quickly and surely in a school. It will be agreed for instance that each artist should un derstand well the nature of the medium in which he is to express his measure of genius. The medium of the artist-architect is construc tion in masonry, in iron and in wood; and a thorough knowledge of the principles of con struction is most important to his progress.
This knowledge is the ground work of engi neering, and clearly can best be gained in a school. In relation to this special study it may be said, on the one hand, that the most thorough training in engineering cannot injure an archi tect provided it does not take from the time to be given to other equally important matters to be referred to below. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that the architect's func tion is not merely building as such, but build ing in a manner that shall stimulate in his fellows the sense of beauty. This molding of constructional forms into shapes which are beautiful is a matter of difficulty which has been attained by architects in the past only through numberless trials, with their failures and successes; through the elimination of the ugly, and the repetition with ever increasing improvement of that which has shown itself to be pleasing. The architect has thus always worked with, and upon, established modes of construction, and he always will ; and this dis tinguishes his work from that of the engineer, whose function it is to devise special modes of structure to meet special structural demands. It is apparent then that the training of the architect in relation to his structural medium differs from that to be given to the engineer, in that the architect does not need to gain more than a thorough understanding of the princi ples of structure which he is to use in his work, and this does not necessarily involve so pro longed or detailed a study of the sciences as is needful for the engineer.
The Architect as a Designer.— We may now turn to the consideration of what is of the highest importance to the architect, namely, his training as a designer. As we have suggested above, no amount of training can give to a man that measure of genius which constitutes him an artist. None the less the greatest genius will gain much if he learn the lessons taught by the experience of the masters of the past, and the man who is less than a genius were stupid if he did not welcome this teaching. The masters of architecture of the past have left us a record of the forms and relations of parts which after long series of studies and experiments they have found to be most beautiful. This record is not found in writ ten word, but in the great monuments which have been left to us; and the study of these monuments after a certain method constitutes the history of architecture. The student should gain as thorough a knowledge as possible of this history, with especial reference to the vital development of the various greater and lesser styles, giving particular attention to those forms in which the highest perfection has been attained in the past, and making a special study of those forms which appeal to him as most likely to be of service to him under the con ditions which surround him. He should also gain a considerable acquaintance with the other arts, especially with those most closely related with architecture, namely, sculpture and paint ing.