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No subject at present occupies so important a place in the thoughts of American architects as that of architectural education, if the space given to it in recent publications is an indication of its importance.  The proceedings of the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects, held last autumn in New York, have just been published, and no less than five papers are included which deal with one or another phase of this subject.  The later numbers of the professional journals also contain several noteworthy contributions to the discussion.  Mr. Barr Ferree’s criticism in The Architectural Review, of the methods of training pursued in the School of Fine Arts in Paris, have led to several papers by adherents of the French system and to a well-considered editorial in the same paper.  But the most important contribution to the question is that of Mr. Henry Rutgers Marshall in the last number of The Architectural Record, which also contains a descriptive article upon the Royal Polytechnicum at Berlin and its course of study.

There is very little in any of these articles which adds to the existing knowledge on this largely discussed subject; it is what might be considered a rethreshing of old straw, and the main value of all of the articles is in the presentation, which may appeal to readers who have not before thought of the matter in all of its bearings.  The papers read before the convention begin with the report of the committee on education, by Mr. Henry Van Brunt.  In this Mr. Van Brunt advocates the careful and systematic study of architectural history; and it was the purpose of the report to bring out discussion which might lead to valuable suggestions to the architectural schools upon the study of this subject.  Mr. Geo. B. Post, of New York, Professor Ware, of Columbia College, and several others took part in the discussion which resulted in merely recommitting the question to the committee on education, as it was not considered advisable to take any definite action which would bind the Institute to a settled policy on this question.  Mr. Louis H. Sullivan, of Chicago, in a thoughtful paper complained that education stifles and kills the spirit of modern architectural work, and that the natural and spontaneous love for beauty found in all human beings gives place, under our modern systems of instruction, to the dry formalities of reproducing old and dead styles.