I have hesitated to recur to the matter of my former brief note, but submit that the credit of the profession your journal represents is enough concerned to justify the publication of a fuller statement of the facts which prove to be in question. The case is this: The Institute of Architects had published an interesting paper prepared by its Secretary for a national and international occasion, and which was likely to be preserved abroad and at home as an abstract of the history of architecture in America. Its compiler, living in New York, had given special consideration to the work of his contemporaries of that city, which he registered by decades. Half the space of the sixth decade he thought proper to appropriate to the Central Park, in the account of which I [325] was credited with all that is respectable of the general design, and Mr. C. Vaux as holding a consulting and somewhat questionable position with reference to the architecture only.

Regarding this account as defective from inadvertence, I could not do less than supply the brief correction which you published on the 14th ult. It appears, however, from the note which it has drawn out, that there was no inadvertence, and that it is still believed that in all particulars of special interest to architecture the record is authentic and complete.

In my judgment, if the design of the park has any special interest to architects at all, it lies in a few circumstances which have been thus wholly lost sight of, and which, to relieve them for the moment as much as possible from any personal bearing, I will narrate as follows:—

Years ago a young English architect, returning from a professional tour on the Continent, contributed drawings to an exhibition in London, the subjects of which and their treatment led to his being sought out by Mr. A. J. Downing, at whose invitation he soon afterward came to and established himself as an architect in America. He here became not only the intimate friend but the professional partner of Mr. Downing, a man who more than any other in my knowledge possessed the attributes of genius both in the art of landscape-gardening, and in that of conveying to others an understanding of the conditions of success in that art. It was through the exertions of Mr. Downing that the project of a park in New York first became popular; and when five years after his lamented death a plan for the Central Park was wanted, there was no man to whom it came more naturally, properly, and in due sequence of a strictly professional career, to undertake to provide it, than to the architect who had been his chosen disciple, and enjoyed the privilege of aiding him in his latest and best work.

In due time with the co-operation of an associate whom he had selected, invited, and with some difficulty persuaded to join him, a study was produced, which being submitted in competition was adjudged the best of thirty-three which had been offered in conformity with the rules prescribed, all but two or three of the remainder being the work exclusively of men untrained in architecture. The design was adopted, and though many details have been introduced in an outlay since made of over eight millions of dollars, it has been substantially adhered to. After nearly twenty years of growth following labor, and labor waiting on growth, the intended landscape effects are beginning to be disclosed. They are found worthy of praise in an architectural record; but all the circumstances above indicated, by which they are more directly related to the interests of architecture as a professional pursuit, are forgotten.

There is a popular impression about architects, on account of which, if there were no other reasons, it is proper they should be recalled. I mean the impression that the special training of an architect, and his habit of dealing [326] almost exclusively with rigid materials, disqualifies him for co-operating intimately, cordially, and successfully, in works of landscape design.

For the same reason, testifying now as the associate of Mr. Vaux in the design of the Central Park, I personally owe it to his profession to say that in his discussion even of such matters as the shaping of embankments, the disposition of rocks, the outlining {of} shores and of plantations, and in determining the exact adjustment to natural conditions of roads and walks, with the purpose of bringing means of convenience relatively large into tolerable subordination to means of developing picturesqueness through objects necessarily restricted in breadth and in detail, methods of study acquired in the training of the architect proved not only no obstacle to satisfactory results, but manifestly a great furtherance.

You will see by the accompanying copy of the London Garden that I have before now been led by the conviction thus expressed, in addressing those who stand for the other side of the question, to urge that architects should always be associated in the general design of important landscape undertakings; and in the public works in which I have been engaged since my partnership with Mr. Vaux expired, I have secured such co-operation.

And I may properly add that a gentleman who has had a wider range of practice, and been connected with more important works in landscape than any other in Europe, has, since this publication in the Garden, privately advised me that his own experience has led him to place a similar estimate in this respect on the value of architectural training as an auxiliary element in landscape design.

There is a second question as to which I will, if you please, at another time state facts which have equally been forgotten with those mentioned in this letter. What I have now said must make it sufficiently clear that in an architectural minute as to the design of the Central Park, if but one man’s name is to be mentioned, it is courtesy overmuch to make it that of your obedient servant.