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From U. S. Post Office, Joliet, Ill.

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REAT changes have come over Harvard in the last twenty years. The far-sighted policy of the president has raised the college to the standard of a true university. The undergraduate department is in many ways the least important branch of educational work; and post-graduate courses are giving Harvard a position which ranks her at once among the seats of learning.

Numerical growth has come with these changes, and many new buildings have been erected to meet the new demands. The majority of these, especially the new dormitories, are private investments and not the property of the university, but a considerable amount of building has been done for the university itself, and it is interesting to note the phases through which the architecture of Harvard has passed. The dignified simplicity of the earlier buildings which so long sufficed for the needs of the college was most unfortunately unappreciated two generations ago, and Harvard but followed the general downward tendency of the time in her buildings. Gray's is not as good as Holworthy; Thayer's is not as good as Gray's; Weld and Matthew's, chiefly through being more pretentious, are not as good as either of the others. These marked, however, the turn of the tide, and the last thirty years of the century have been a constantly increasing excellence in building. Memorial Hall, with all its defects, is yet

an enormous advance upon Matthews and Weld. Its general mass and the proportion of the halls within are good, and its weak points are in the handling of a half-understood mediæval style. The gymnasium, following the lines of later English work, is far better, and is moreover in closer harmony with the old buildings. Sever and the Law School mark yet another phase of development, a side-current in the general movement. With all their fine qualities, it is more than doubtful if either of these buildings will retain a permanent place in the memory of the graduates.

Few can leave Harvard without being impressed and having their higher instincts touched by the quiet simplicity and complete dignity of University, but one doubts if Sever ever has roused or ever will rouse any such sentiments. This is after all a pretty fair touchstone for good work.

Since then nearly all the work done for the university has been more or less on the lines of the old work and with the distinct aim of preserving a feeling of harmony.

The recent buildings show an intelligent sympathy with the good old work and some appreciation of what is worthy the greatest of American universities. One cannot be too thankful for this turn in the tide, for the influence of surroundings on men is a very powerful one, and the general

education of the college graduate is lamentably lacking on the side of the fine arts. Not, indeed, through any lack of educational opportunities, but owing to a lack of interest and a lack of initial knowledge which shall make the study of the fine arts of some avail. A boy who has grown up in the average American city and with the ordinary surroundings of an American family has not as a rule even the A, B, C of an art education. He knows nothing of painting, sculpture or architecture, and generally would class them, with a knowledge of law or medicine, as things to be acquired later if needed, but not as a neces sary part of a well-educated man's knowledge.

Under such circumstances his material surroundings at college are of very great importance, and it is well for him to know, even if he does not appreciate, the older college buildings. To pass through the great gate with Massachusetts and Harvard on either hand makes a memory worth having. The Fogg Museum must insensibly train the eye to recognize good architecture. To go daily to Randall Hall must certainly help one to some artistic knowledge. The Soldiers' Field, with its gates and lodge and the Cary Building, brings good architecture in touch with the athletic life, and the new boathouse will do the same. It seems a thousand pities that the daily memories of chapel and library should not be equally good.

Probably no one architectural feature could do more for good or evil than the great west gate, for it is in such constant evidence. It is therefore doubly fortunate that it should so perfectly fill its place and fulfil its function. Well designed, well placed, and executed with a thoroughness of artistic intelligence which is very rare, it stands a constant reminder of what good work should be

Far simpler than the west gate, but dignified and restful, are the gates at the north leading out to Memorial Hall. They are good, but not to be compared with the west gate. This is not because they are less extensive and less elaborate, but simply because they are not so well designed nor so well executed. The quick ramps of the coping of the lower flanking walls against the posts is not pleasant, and it injures the lines of the posts which are the keynote of the composition. The iron work has not the artistic quality of execution which makes the other so interesting, and which is even more important in a simple design than in a more elaborate one. At present, portions of the familiar old rail are coming down to make way for new gates and new railing. The latter promises to be in accord with the fine precedent of the great gates, and as far as one can judge the new gates will follow on the same lines. On sentimental grounds one will miss the homely old

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boundary, but in this case the new is surely better, and new associations will soon grow around it.

The Fogg Museum is a dignified classic design. All Mr. Hunt's later work bears the impress of the scholar and the experienced architect, who, without any personal initiative, without the imaginative qualities, which so often lead astray, is content to follow well-established precedent. If his earlier work was full of architectural vagaries, such as his Beacon street houses on the hill, his later work was wholly scholastic.

The Fogg Museum is an excellent example of the later tendency. Quiet, restrained, dignified, a harmonious composition, correct, well detailed and well executed. It is a Prix-de-Rome drawing carried out by an experienced architect. It has, however, no touch of sympathy with other Harvard work, nor has it any hint on the exterior that it is designed for a museum. There is room for two opinions as to how far it meets the needs of the fine-arts department; it was built for the use of this department, but in opposition to the wishes and ideals of those who had the department in charge. It certainly is not well planned nor well lighted for the display of statuary or pictures, but it was not intended to rival, or parallel the work of the Boston Museum. The interior has the same fine architectural quality as that which distinguishes the exterior.

The whole tenor of college life has changed during the last thirty, or, one may say, twenty years. Classes no longer bind men together as they did. Clubs and so、ieties are more numerous. Brooks Hall meets what is now a real need, but which then had no existence. Under its roof are gathered those religious and social organizations which have a semi-collegiate or public character. The building, while retaining much of the quiet dignity of the other buildings, has yet a distinct character of its own. No attempt has been made, as was done in the gates, to soften the hard, unsympathetic quality of the culled common brick, and therefore the building has a certain rawness which time will eventually remove. The uni

formity of the brick is repeated in the monotony of the black slate roof. Any one who is familiar with the delightful color quality of the variegated and mottled Vermont slate must wonder why architects so often seem to prefer the cast-steel deadness of the black slate. Even the green seems preferable when roofing a brick building. Apart from these trifling matters, Brooks is a thoroughly attractive building and looks quite at home in its place near Stoughton, Holworthy and Hollis. The interior is equally good and needs only a few years of use to give it the homelike look which such a building should have.

There seems to have been a growing tendency

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of late years to study and follow the lines of English work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Various things have contributed to this. The study of medieval and late Gothic work has led in natural sequence to the study of the style which succeeded them. Pugin, Scott, Street and the other Gothicists have been followed by Gotch, with his delightful study of the seventeenth century domestic work, and this, in turn, is followed by Belcher & Macartney's volumes of eighteenth century work. Such men as the late John Stewardson, of Philadelphia, have done much to encourage the study of both these periods, and executed work which ranks easily with the best modern English work. The dormitory of the University of Pennsylvania and the new Law School show that thorough grasp of the spirit of the earlier times which makes individual work possible without any trace of the mere copyist. Others have followed with more or less knowledge and ability, and with the greater popularity of the style it is perhaps needless to add that others have followed feebly in their wake and threaten the style with disrepute by their ignorant handling-just what happened to Richardson's romanesque.

Randall Hall belongs most distinctly to the first class. It is a dignified, quiet design, based on the simpler and better English eighteenth century work. It has good proportion, a clear exterior expression of the great hall within, and a very clever subordination of the kitchen and offices, the necessary accessories. Good red brick and white limestone look better than anything else among the Cambridge elms. The detail is well studied and well executed. The carving quite in the spirit, very decorative, of the late eighteenth century work; though one doubts if

the carver who did the swags on the Winchester School would have been content to model one bit of one swag and then duplicate it for the remainder. The gables do not approximate sufficiently closely to the outline of the roof, and suggest screens rather than gable ends, but they are pleasantly studied outlines and one forgives the touch of insincerity. One cannot, however, be reconciled so readily to the niggardly economy of wooden cornices, painted to match the stone. On the sides, where it forms the eaves, it is not so evidently disagreeable, but on the front it is inexcusably cheap-looking. Already the wood has split in places, and the channels of the tryglyphs. are almost lost in their coats of paint. Constant care and more paint can alone keep up even a semblance of the imitation, and this will in time quite ruin the fine lines of the detail. If such work must be of wood it should be designed to carry without injury the successive coats of paint ; but one cannot but feel that it would be more dignified for a building of this semi-monumental and permanent character if the design were kept within limits which would admit its being executed in right materials.

Other important buildings are now under way, the Architectural Building and the Harvard Union; and the Semitic Museum and the final portion of the University Museum are likely to be undertaken very shortly. All of these follow the general line of the good old precedents of the college, so that the architectural outlook of the university is full of promise. Graduates will return to Harvard to add new delights to the pleasant associations of their own college days, and one may feel sure that the students of the present day will take away with them some knowledge of and appreciation for good architecture.