Although his schools, hospitals, libraries, railroad stations, and banks were also admired, Bacon's memorials and monuments seemed to embody best the classical ideals he brought to his work. Among them are the base of the memorial to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in New York and the memorial to Charles Parnell in Dublin, Ireland, one of several on which he collaborated with Saint-Gaudens. Bacon believed that these memorials ought to inspire reverence and mystery in the viewer and often set his monuments in secluded areas, "for then, in quiet, and without distraction of the senses or mind, the beholder is alone with the lesson which the object is designed to teach and inspire." He began preliminary work on the Lincoln Memorial in 1911, chosen because of his extensive training in Beaux- Arts architecture during his association with McKim, Mead and White. With its row of fluted Doric...