The farmer and mechanic., 1911-10-17

and study there to great advantage
They satisfy the conventions Win
such comradeship and can live al
most as cheaply as one person; the
same siting-room. fire and light does
for both, Each stimulates the other.
if they be congenial and neither gets
lonesome L lived that way for
years for s25 a month, and that didn't
mean in an attic, deprived of all the
delights of Paris. We went to the
opera and received regularly in our
little menaSe.
1T was while there that I got the
BeauX Arts open to women. mao
stormed Officially at it for years then,
quite by accident, l happened to meet
at our pension member of the
Cham Der of Deputies. I said to him
one day in a sort of halfjoke. for l
had given up my attempt in despair
Why don't You introduce law per
hitting women to enter the Beaux
Arts and make France once more
the most gallant of nations?' He
said he would try. A few weeks
later he appeared before US in after
noon dress, with silk hat in hand,
wearing all his decorations, and in
vited us to have an ice with him at
La Dame Blanche We hurriedly
put on our Sunday clothes, feeling
somehow it was to be an occasion.
Then he told us the good news, that
the Assembly had that very day pass
for women in the future. The silk
hat, ice-cream and decorations ex-
pressed the Frenchman's love Of cere-
mony.
do you expect women to attend
the Beaux Arts now in large num-
bers?"
by no means. because in remov-
ing the barriers Of sex, they have
not lowered the standards of excel
lence The stiff entrance-ex -examina-
ton has still to be written in French
by both native and foreigner. Every
thing educational in France has a
classic severity and thoroughness.
much time moaning over the OBJ
stacles they have to overcome and
too little in equipping themselves to
a degree they have to overcome and
too little in equipping themselves to
a degree of excellence that will in
itself enable them to get on
Severe as are the exactions of the
Beaux Arts, there is no doubt that
We Americans over-estimate the value
Of European architectural study. The
prestige that it gives to the architect
here is ridiculous, when you remem-
Der. I told you they recommend
Pratt in Paris. In Europe they
study eternally and when they come
to their time of belated production
are always intimidated by the archi-
tectural magnificence of the past
not that we are SO terribly original.
Nearly every big building of note in
our country has been lifted and
certain tower that New York says is
the very incarnation of the spirit of
their city-well, it is a duplicate Of
one in Toledo. Spain.
Here we are anxious to get on the
job at once-to see the building go
ing up-and that is the test Of the
architect, not the design on paper,
but it's actual projection in brick and
mortar. You can draw an Alladin's
palace and then discover, when you
are putting it up, that you have for
for the steam pipes. With us, the
utilitarian is the only thing consid-
cred in our architecture. We have
no aesthetic conscience as the
French, where the observance of the
skyline in Paris has passed into
where it's prohibitory to alter the ia
cade of the old palaces in the Grand
Canal; all additions and modern i'm
provements must be put on the rear.
us there any special field in archi-
lecture where woman might try
her hand without being swamped at
the start by all this masculine utili-
tarianism
There is a splendid and ever in
creasing opportunity for woman
dTcnltect IN putting up dwellings,. In
the erection of our homes, we have
a real awakening to beauty. City
people are going in droves to the
country. Bungalows from $4,000 up
are the rule now, and these people of
small means are very keen for the
beautiful, and want their little nest
to be a daily feast to the eye. We
have even advanced so far that We
are coming to the Italian villa idea,
where the house and garden are laid
out, each with a thought to the 9TH
er. This is shown too, in the new
dignity the profession Of landscape
artist has taken on and the far
greater remuneration it now receives
While we can never have the brill
liantly colored cement villas of the
Mediterranean, because we have not
a suitable climate or the colorings in
sea or sky for them to copy, we are
however, dOtting our suburbs with