e square with their noisy reverberations?

I think I may safely assert that such designs and architectural fashions
are not the exponent of "high art;" and, while they may please for a
time a people always alive to novelty, they will ultimately be set
aside, on the ground of their unworthiness when measured by the standard
of common sense. It has been said of common sense applied to building
that "when and wherever architecture has been practised as a living art,
as an outgrowth of the wants of the people who practise it, especially
in those periods which are generally reckoned by the educated as the
purest, this quality is everywhere recognized. From the rock-hewn cave
and rude hut to the stateliest edifice, this principle will be found to
exist; and, though a common-sense building may have no artistic beauty,
a building which sets common sense at defiance will fail to please the
intelligent observer."

Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste,--'tis sense,
Good sense, which only is the gift of heaven,
And, though no science, fairly worth the seven.

Critical writers, in reviewing architectural publications, have
frequently remarked that the authors of such works, particularly those
which profess to deal with the aesthetical side of the profession, while
severely censuring the prevailing taste for what they term "debased
art," and denouncing all methods adopted since the birth of the
Renaissance, rarely offer us any formulas by following which we may
advance the tone and sentiment of architecture. When they do offer any
advice, it is too often in vague terms, scarcely to be understood by the
general reader. Thus, one tells us that to follow taste alone is a
delusion, and that architecture, to be worthy of its name, should be a
logical development of the constructive sciences based upon man's
necessities and the requirements of social life. In short, instead of
offering a grammar of architecture suited to the wants of the general
and unprofessional reader, these authors offer theoretical reasoning of
an advanced order; instead of art-instruction, severe censures upon
existing forms. The system by which architectural students are educated
and prepared for the duties of professional life has much to do with
their lack of readiness in formulating in after-years practical theories
for the improvement of their art.

But the establishment of architectural schools at the Bo