The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-22

! ln6 fldCc NlthC4iiN 4io pFiAN HNSti etCQ by it's column, the Place de Ia Con corde by it's fountains and pedestals i and the Piazza Navona at Rome by its | fountains and its obelisk. All these. he says. only form interesting points without hiding the composition of the squares themselves.
 When the question of monuments and statues come up, to which l have already alluded there is much to be said-much more than l can even touch upon IL is worthy of notice | that in our day the monuments which commemorate events are comparative ! ly rare. while those which commem- crate men are very common some might say too common. Now these latter monuments are ordinarily little i else than statues of some kind, with minimum of pedestal or other archi- i tectural accessories, and consequently are not of very great size considered as monumental structures. It is quite re- markable how much any of these smaller monuments and especially sta | tues gain by being set in we'll defined space. one that is not too large, and one that is if possible bounded by buildings or other architectural cori- | positions In Paris the statue of Louis XIV in the Place des Nictoires, or that of Henri Quatre on the Pont Neuf are certainly more satisfying than those which are placed in the middle of vast space. The Marcus Aurelus at Rome and the statue of Ferdinand in the Piazza del rAnnun- ziata at Florence are good and well known examples of this and perhaps the most notable of all is the Colleone at Venice, remarkable both as sculp- ture and architecture and so wonder | fully framed by the little square in which it is set. the whole so perfect | in its way that it looks almost like a scene in a theater.
 I have but one more view to show you, which it seems to me illustrates in way how charming a result may be obtained by a disposition of build ings around a small square: an ar rangement which is neither abs olu;ely | formal nor the contrary, and which is undeniably picturesque. This Is the Zwinger in Dresden, with its curious I baroque architecture. It has to me an undeniabe individual charm of i,s own.
 It is very fortunate thing Cor .he architects that other and doubtless wiser heads are called in to tell h W all these projects are to be carr-ed out; or else we should be so frightened that we should never dare to put down what we conceived on paper. How ever can take courage In thinking how many such projects that have seemed visionary have proved quite otherwise, both in this and other countries One of the earliest If our own schemes. that of the city of Cleve- land, has passed through all the stages of it's being First it was impossible and chimerical; then it was simply im- practicable in the near future and now It Is an accomplished fact. The property has been acquired. the w5rk is under way.
  tain cases however we may learn a useful lesson. In London. where the Kings Highway has just been com pleted at a cost stata,l to ne over $20,- 1 000000 the council was permitted to acquire great deal Nf :he abu. ing property and to disposs of the same when the improvement was ma le. By af h. ;,,,, stca ba prices of this property lncaua,Nl So largely, that it Is said the entire out lay will be recovered by the city, and this splendid street w;ll have been built, in a thickly populated district, for nothing. The same thing has hap pened in Rio Janeiro where an avenue over a mile long has been built with the same result financially. If we can only repeat these achievements here, we may we'll expect the millennium in municipal progress ar,l embellish ment
 There is one other matter to which wish to call your attsn;'cr and that Is the extreme importance of provid- ing some way of preventing careful and we'll considered plans--plaus in which generally all the different parts are to some degree lntardependeht- from being set at nauyht some fine days in a moment of un"eason It is so easy to do something which may nullify the whole result from want of understanding or want of good advice. and it is very 1iscuieung thing that at this early moment, when we are just beginning olr work, this black cloud has made it's appearance not once put several times.
 The first time was when a very de- termined effort was made to change the alignment of the building for the Department of Agriculture in Wash 1 ington. The result of this would have been to change very materially the layout of the so-called mall--the most important single feature of the city plan. Every effort was made against this proposed change by nearly every artistic society in the country; and fin- ally these efforts were successful. It is only the other day that another on- slaught was made in Washington, the object being to change the proposed site of the Grant Monument and we are now engaged in a repetition of the former battle. with I am glad to say good hopes of a renewed success. But is it not an unfortunate thing that such conflicts should be already the order of the day, and that we must depend on the goodwill the good faith and the intelligence of our con- script fathers to sustain the results of skill and time and study, in field es- sentially not their own special one.
 In. St. Louis, where a grouping of public buildings was laid out by a commission of thre architects appoint ed by the mayor to act with certain public officials, this group, one of the principal features of which was the