West-Jersey pioneer., 1871-07-07
History and Mission of Architecture.
BY ELIHU BURRITT.

~-~SOAASSobeAl
such shaping influence upon civilization
as architecture. This art opened up and
handed down normal school for all ages
and races of mankind, in which their per-
ceptions of beauty and ideals of luxury and
happy life were educated from stage to
stage OF refinement. 1t is truly the mother
OF all the other arts, and embraces them all
in it's own development. 1t links the ages
together more continuously than any 9th
er human capacity or attainment. 1t links
two thousand years long, the chain of its
history comes down to the latest and grand
est editice built on earth from the founda-
tion-stone of Gains little oity under the
breaking dawn of historic time. Through
the flood it comes; for the waters that COW
cred the earth did not drown single art or
thought, worth any thing to man, that liv-
ed before the deluge. The best antediluvi-
an house Noah carried fresh in his memory
and in his ark he tested on the flood, and
transferred to all mankind to be, the first
conception and model of the floating archi-
| lecture, the sea. From his day to this, the
human race has chronicled it's ages and
stages of progress in this handwriting of
Tubal Gains pens in wood, brick, and
stone. These have been the most instruct
i've and enduring. syllables that man has
written upon the earth. Every village and
hamlet built for permanent residence has
been paragraph in his history, translated
into every language. The migratory tent
of skins or cloth had no civilizing power.
1t did not attach a single human heart to
the earth on which it was planted for the
night, week, or month. 1t put forth no
spores or tendlils of home localize life and
it's enjoyments, hopes, and affections to one
permanent centre of action and experience,
AS the rolling stone gathers no MOSS SO
the moving tent could not gather nor leave
any of time or radiance of civilization 1t
was not until the more intelligent families
of mankind began to plant themselves by
communities in houses Of wood, brick, or
stone, which they could not remove, that
home life and social intercourse and fellow
ship, could put forth those feeble primitive
germs of taste and genius that have been
developed into the brilliant culture of the
present day.
The progress of architecture will make
one of the most interesting studies in the
world to mind given to historical predi-
lections. One does not need to adopt any
portion of the Darwinian system, nor to
lower the starting point of the human race,
cognizing what they owed to the exam
pie and instruction of beasts, birds, fish,
and inanimate nature in learning all the
arts that have come to their perfect salts
faction. The inverted birds nest evident
ly served as the first suggestion and model
of the first conical tent or hut. Caves or
holes in the brows of rocky hills or noun
tains, partially improved by wild beasts,
supplied the models for houses of stone.
The fish with tails and fins, and fitness of
its shape for swift and easy movement in
the water, suggested the best fashioning
and faculties of a vessel with rudder and
oars When the great row galley was found
heavy pulling for mems sinews alone, the
eagle OR dove dropt it's suggestion into the
human mind, and two or three canvas
wings were given to the vessel, and the
wind was caught and famed and harnessed
to it, like horse broken to the shafts
Now, Darwin ''to the contrary notwith
standing, " it does not lower the dignity of
mans origin nor of the dawn of his intellect
that he learned SO much of birds, beasts.
and fish. Whih he had to put his thoughts
to the school of instinct, taught by these
lower creatures, he is not whit nearer the
ape in his capacity of mental progress than
at this hour. If any monkeys existed be-
fore the flood they knew as much then as
the best of their race know now. The an
tediluvian birds built them as perfect houses
as their posterity build now. They spoke
the same language and sang the same tunes
as we hear in our tree-tops.
Nor is it any discredit to mans intellect
that he had to work slower by reason than
his first teachers, the birds and beasts
worked by instinct. He had to adopt their
ready-made models by the opposition of
thought to thought. It cost him more
strenuous mental exercise still to improve
on these models, and to improve Oh his own
improvements, to use the terms common to
modern inventions. But slow as was his
progress, it was sure and ceaseless. Men
have died on the long march of human life,
and marked it out into short stages with
kta.,r Will p,,k l.,
never died since Adam was set living soul
on the earth. As being with such soul,
he has lived from that day to this, and will
live as long as the earth exists. The graves
of hundred generations, the wrecks and
rubbish Of fallen empires and all the thick
strewn mortalities that choke the pathway
of nations, have not broken the continuity
Of his existence and progress as being
with living soul in him. If single indi-
yidual of the race had lived through all the
thousands of years since Adams death,
and if he carried in his mind that mankind
have learned within the space, he could not
impart to us any science, art, taste, knowl-
edge, or genius that we do not now possess.
The progress of all of these faculties of per-
ception and execution has been as continu-
GUS as if the earth never took to it's bosom
a human grave.
Sacred history is the oldest as we'll as the
most authentic record that we have of the
progress of architecture, and all the other
arts. It gives us more detailed account
Of their development and application than
perhaps all other ancient histories put to-
gether. 1t invests each and all with dig
nity..which no other histories ascribe to them.
1t gives them divine origin or inspiration.
1t was God who s'made coats Of skins for
Adam and Eve. 1t was God who gave to
Noah the model of the ark, and every mi
mute detail Of its structurs, even to pitch
ing 1t, to make it water tight. It was God
who inspired the builders Of the tabernacle
and 'sflled them with the spirit Of God, in |
wisdom and Understanding, in al manner
of workmanship. fxa dAvirA csynniyO vunrl |