Front Matter

Publisher's Note

T HE chief object of this little book is to stimulate youthful readers. It is believed that it will help to form correct judgement and taste and that its elementary presentation of the leading styles in Architecture, and their setting in time and place, will be welcomed by many who have hitherto sought in vain for just such information in compact form.

Its brief summaries of principles, periods, and styles; its glossaries of terms and lists of proper names pronounced and explained and its classified lists of buildings in many cities, should make it useful as a reference book for the home and school. It brings together a body of knowledge on an important subject in readable form in a way not attempted before, and is suited to use as a reader, or as a handbook for classes, clubs or reading circles. The occasional intimate biographical matter is intended to interest in the same way as that containd in "Famous Pictures" by the same author, which has proved widely popular.

Competent authorites have read and approved the manuscript.

       Architecture can want no commendation where there are noble men, or noble minds.

—Sir Henry Wotten.

       Architecture is a species of language. It tells us as much of Greece as Homer did, and more of the middle ages than has been expressed in literature.

—Eidlitz.

       Architecture is the printing press of all ages, and gives a history of the state of society in which it was erected.

—Morgan.

       The more you spend on architects, the less you will have to spend on prisons.

—John Burns.

       Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun. . . . We cannot look at works of art but they teach us how near man is to creating. Michaelangelo is largely filled with the Creator that made and makes men. . . . Meantime be it remembered, we are artists ourselves, each one, competing with Phidias and Raphael in the production of what is graceful and grand.

—Emerson.