I was absent when your letter to our firm of the 11th instant was received, and for some time afterwards. As this letter had been written in some manner personally, and as a reply to it involved a duty or a class of duties in which I have had an unusual personal experience, it was thought best that an answer to it should await my return.

You ask for a “perfectly free expression of opinion,” and it is obvious that you realize that such an expression will be a difficult and delicate duty. In fact, there are few matters of art as difficult to be dealt with wisely or which are as often dealt with in a way afterwards regretted, as that of placing sculptural works in suitable positions when they are required to be disengaged from stately buildings. There are two purposes to be had in view in these cases and they are often conflicting. They are, first, that of placing the sculptural work where it will be seen to the best advantage for the work itself; second, that of placing it where it will be seen to the best advantage as a subordinate element of a comprehensive scenic composition.

The ultimate public verdict in the case of the greater number of all [831]works of sculpture that have been set up in public places in Europe and America, for a century past, has been one of very imperfect satisfaction.

In New York so many works, offered as free gifts to the city, were, in early days, accepted by the Commissioners of the Central Park that the newspapers fell into the habit of making fun of the alleged disposition to give this pleasure ground the character of a rural cemetery. At length two works of sculpture were removed from the positions originally given them at the request of their donors, and placed where they would be less conspicuous; and, a few years afterwards, by-laws were adopted, providing as follows:- First, that no offer of a free gift of a bust or statue or other sculptural work commemorative of any person should be so much as taken under consideration before the person commemorated had been at least five years dead; second, that the name of the person or persons giving the work to the city should not be conspicuously displayed; third, that no proposition to give a place to a work of sculpture offered as a gift to the public should be considered by the Commission before a complete model of the work in question had been prepared and had been submitted to the consideration, and had obtained the acceptance, of a special Board acting independently of the Park Commission. This Board was, if I remember rightly, to be composed of the President, for the time being, of the American Academy of Design, the President of the American Art Museum, and the President of the American Institute of Architects. Since this action most of the works of sculpture that have been offered as gifts to the city have been declined and most of such as have been accepted have been placed in other and less conspicuous positions than those desired by the givers of them.

The same lesson is taught elsewhere. For example, here in Boston, a sculptured fountain offered as a gift to the city was accepted by the City Council and ordered to be set up in a public ground not under the management of the Park Commission. One not very conspicuous feature of this work was a bust of the giver of it. This particular feature was so much lampooned that by order of the City Council the bust was afterwards removed. But even after its removal the work as a whole continued to be so much ridiculed that at length the City Council (not the Park Commission) was constrained to order it taken away, and the place where it stood is now plain greensward.

There are other works of sculpture in the public grounds of Boston which are so commonly made fun of that those who gave them to the city would probably be glad if their gifts had been declined.

In London a costly monument to the Duke of Wellington became so much an object of ridicule that, after occupying for twenty years a conspicuous position at the entrance of a public park, it was taken down. When I was last there those of whom I inquired could not tell me what had been done with it. It had probably cost $30,000.00.

Judging solely by the experience which has been had within our knowledge through the action of those placed in charge of public grounds, we are of the opinion that nothing at all commemorative of a man who has been [832]lately living should be accepted as a gift with the condition that it stand on a public ground, and that no work of sculptural art should be given a place on a public ground the value of which, as a work of art, has not been formally attested by persons holding positions to which they have been appointed because of their possession in a rare degree of qualities fitting them for so difficult and delicate a duty.

Yours Respectfully

A reply to your letter of 18th instant has been, to our regret, delayed because we have not been able to reconcile some of the instructions which it gives with our convictions of what will ultimately be found desirable. We have been dissatisfied with the studies that we have made with that intent and, at last, we think that we ought to frankly tell you this, and to ask whether a reconsideration of some of your instructions may not, perhaps, be best?

The first of your propositions to which we must refer we feel to be one of some delicacy. Only as a professional duty should we venture to bring it at all into question. It is stated in your letter as follows:-

“In the further part of the grounds is a hill around the top of which there have been planted a tree by and for each of the eighteen bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the name of Bishop’s Hill given to it all. The large dot in the centre is the real centre as nearly as I could determine it. The smaller dots indicate approximately the eighteen trees.”

Under the arrangement thus had in view the eighteen trees will stand on the circumference of a tilted circular plane. On one side of this position of the trees, the surface of the ground, being the bed of a road, will be hard, dry and not readily penetrable by rains. On the other side the surface of the ground will slope irregularly and in a manner unfavorable to the placing of any buildings symmetrically and conveniently near the circle. The position of the trees will be one of great exposure; their roots can develop only on one side, and that side will be a steep slope declining from their trunks. The soil in which they are to root will be excessively dry. The arrangement of the trees on the ground will be formal but it is improbable that all of them will develop in such a manner that a consistent circle of foliage will result. It is not unlikely that some of the trees will become feeble and some die prematurely because of disease or attacks of vermin. It is not unlikely that, standing at so defiant a point, one or more of them will by-and-bye be struck by lightning, or up-rooted in gales. Some of the trees of the Capitol grounds in Washington have been [834]struck by lightning; some have been killed by vermin, and several of the old avenue trees were years ago up-rooted in storms. Large limbs were blown off from others, destroying their symmetry. We are informed that there is no point in the District which is not likely to be visited by a gust of wind of cyclonic force at least once in twenty years, which will badly dilapidate if it does not uproot some trees of any cluster of trees upon it. All things considered we do not believe that the trees that have been planted in a circle are likely to remain unbroken for many years after they shall have grown large enough to make the circle of importance in the landscape. It has been a rule in our practice that memorial trees are not to be placed where the loss of one or more of them would seriously mar general effects. In the planting of grounds in connection with institutional buildings with which the sentiment of veneration may hope to be ultimately associated, we consider it important to avoid attempting effects which the loss or serious dilapidation of one or two trees might at any time in the future make unsuccessful.

Will you please instruct us definitely if, as we have understood, it is intended that all the buildings of the University shall be heated from a common source? Very boysterous gusts of wind often sweep from the North down the Potomac Valley during the Winter and the University site will be raked by them. If a furnace large enough to keep all the main buildings of the University fairly well heated, is to be set, as we have understood to be expected, at a point well down the hill to the northward of the buildings, is there not danger that, even with a very high and capacious chimney, the smoke from this furnace will, at times, be a serious nuisance to all occupying the buildings, as well as to those moving on the ground, to the leeward of it. The cheapest fuel in Washington will be bituminous coal brought in canal boats from the Upper Potomac. Might not the smoke from this coal at times make some of the buildings almost useless for their intended purposes because of clouds obscuring their windows?

May it not be better to place the great chimney stack that will be necessary at some other point than that from which the strongest and most common winter wind will come upon the University? Are furnaces to provide engine power for electric lighting to be combined with those of the heating plant? If an engine for electric lighting is to be kept at work during the summer, may it not be advisable to have this engine also operate a ventilating apparatus, following in this respect what is now a well established custom in the management of large hospitals? What would promote the recovery of health in this respect would be favorable to the retention of health and increase the working capacity of students and professors.

We observed last year, while on a tour in France, that the Roman Catholic schools of that country, even those attached to cathedrals, had lately been provided with fields equipped for athletic exercises, and that sheds, open at the sides, had been built on the borders of these fields and stocked with simple apparatus, so that even in stormy weather such exercises need not be [835]intermitted. This indicates the adoption in France of an adjunct to educational institutions already largely used in all the Protestant countries of Europe. Large provisions for bodily exercise are now provided for students at Harvard, Amherst, Yale, Princeton and other American colleges. In our judgment a properly equipped athletic field will soon be thought an essential part of every educational institution. In laying out the University ground we should fear that it would prove to have been unwise to allow no room for this purpose. The best place in which to provide for it would be on high ground.

We submit these observations for your consideration, and are

Very Respectfully Yours,