[Footnote 1: Delivered before the Society of Arts, London,
November 28, 1887. From the _Journal_ of the Society.]

BY H.H. STATHAM.


LECTURE I.

Judging from the nature of the correspondence on architecture and the
duty of architects which is frequently seen in the columns of the daily
papers, the _Times_ especially, it would seem that the popular notion of
architecture now is that it is a study mainly of things connected with
sanitary engineering--of the best forms of drain pipes and intercepting
traps. This is indeed a very important part of sound building, and it is
one that has been very much neglected, and has been, in fact, in a
comparatively primitive state until very recent times; and therefore it
is not surprising that there should be a reaction in regard to it, and
that newspapers which follow every movement of public opinion, and try
to keep pace with it, should speak as if the drain pipe were the true
foundation of architecture. I have a great respect for the drain pipe,
and wish to see it as well laid and "intercepted" as possible; but I
think, for all that, that there is something in architecture higher than
sanitary engineering. I wish to consider it in these lectures as what I
think it essentially is, what it has evidently been in the eyes of all
those of past days who have produced what we now regard as great
architectural monuments, namely, as an intellectual art, the object of
which is to so treat the buildings which we are obliged to raise for
shelter and convenience as to render them objects of interest and
beauty, and not mere utilitarian floors, walls, and roofs to shelter a