country. We are also too prone to forget that the
United States, though continental in its proportions, is after all but
a single nation, enjoying the same institutions and speaking
practically one tongue; and this of necessity introduces an element of
sameness that must be absent from the continent of Europe with which
we are apt to compare it. If we oppose to the United States that one
European country which approaches it most nearly in size, we shall, I
think, find the balance of uniformity does not incline to the American
side. When all is said, however, it cannot be denied that there _is_ a
great deal of similarity in the smaller and newer towns and cities of
the West, and Mr. W.S. Caine's likening them to "international
exhibitions a week before their opening" will strike many visitors as
very apposite. It is only to the indiscriminate and unhedged form of
M. Bourget's statement that objection need be made.

Architecture struck me as, perhaps, the one art in which America, so
far as modern times are concerned, could reasonably claim to be on a
par with, if not ahead of, any European country whatsoever. I say this
with a full realisation of the many artistic nightmares that oppress
the soil from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with a perfect recollection
of the acres of petty, monotonous, and mean structures in almost every
great city of the Union, with a keen appreciation of the witty saying
that the American architect often "shows no more self-restraint than a
bunch of fire-crackers." It is, however, distinctly true, as Mr.
Montgomery Schuyler well puts it, that "no progress can result from
the labour of architects whose training has made them so fastidious
that they are more revolted by the crudity of the forms that result
from the attempt to express a new meaning than by the failure to make
the attempt;" and it is in his freedom from this fastidious lack of
courage that the American architect is strong. His earlier efforts at
independence were, perhaps, hardly fortunate; but he is now entering a
phase in which adequate professional knowledge cooeperates with good
taste to define the limits within which his imagination may
legitimately work. I know not where to look, within the last quarter
of a century or so, for more tasteful designs, greater sincerity of
purpose, or happier adaptations to environment than the best creations
of men like Mr. H.H. Richardson, Mr. R.M. Hunt, Mr. J.W. Root, Mr.
G.B. Post, and Messrs.