[Illustration: XI. The Principal Doorway to the Cathedral at Conversano,
Italy.]




#Advice to Young Architects.#


Prof. Aitchison's Royal Academy Lectures upon Architecture should be
read by all students who can obtain access to them, and this is not
really very difficult to accomplish, as they are always reported at
length in the English architectural periodicals, and then usually
reprinted without credit by one or more of the American papers. The
latest one, reported in the _Builder_ of Feb. 16, is that delivered on
Feb. 4, under the general title "The Advancement of Architecture." It
deals in a common-sense fashion with the aesthetics of architecture, and
contains many valuable suggestions upon the study and practice of
architecture as an art. The three following quotations are well worth
attentive reading:--

"Swift, in his 'Letters to a Young Clergyman,' says: 'I cannot forbear
warning you in the most earnest manner against endeavoring at wit in
your sermons, because, by the strictest computation, it is very near a
million to one that you have none.' Perhaps that would be good advice to
all who consciously seek for what is called originality, which is mostly
attained by exaggeration, disproportion, and oddness of arrangement;
real originality only comes from original minds, and will in that case