not approached.

Although the graduates from the full four years' course are comparatively few, no other school can count so many of its former students in prominent positions in the profession, and the Institute is deservedly proud of its record in this direction.

The Brochure Series

of Architectural Illustration.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY

BATES & GUILD,

6 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS.

Until the present year no American student of architecture has ever been honored with the diploma of the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but on June 14 the degree of the school was conferred on three Americans—Messrs. J. Van Pelt, J. H. Friedlander, and D. Hale. The first diplomas were awarded in 1869, before that date there being no official recognition of the completion of any required course in the school, except the awards in the various concours, all leading up to the Grand Prize of Rome.

There are a number of Americans now in Paris who intend to present theses for the diploma, and doubtless other awards will follow those already made. Any present or former student of the school who has reached the required standard in his work is allowed to submit a thesis in competition for the diploma.

At the entrance examination of the Ecole this year sixteen American students of architecture were received. Last year there were but eight, which up to that time was the largest number recorded.

The Chicago Architectural Club has given evidence this year of very great activity, and its work has been directed in many channels and with good effect. Its lectures, classes, competitions, smokers, Bohemian nights, receptions, ladies' nights, expeditions to places of interest, and finally its exhibition of last month have all been excellently chosen to instruct, interest, and amuse its members, and incidentally promote the general cause of architectural education. The long list of attractions has held the interest of its members without flagging. In the classwork it has had the services and advice of the best and most competent men connected with the profession; and in all directions it is to be congratulated upon the good work done.

Books.

Æsthetic Principles: By Henry Rutgers Marshall, M. A. Macmillan & Co. 1895. 201 pages. $1.25.

Probably many readers of The Brochure Series have struggled as has the writer (and possibly some are still in an unsettled state of mind in consequence) over the abstruseness of the current works upon the philosophy of art, trying to find some obscure foundation on which to build for themselves a theory of æsthetics. To such, and to all others who have any wish to reason connectedly on art matters, Mr. Marshall's little book will be interesting and instructive reading. It is remarkably clear and understandable even to a reader with no special training in metaphysical reasoning, and in point of literary style and carefully considered use of language it is a genuine treat. Its object is to explain, in as direct and simple language as possible, the nature and origin of our ideas of the beautiful, and the logical deduction to be made from the premises, which will guide us in the practice of the fine arts, or the production of beauty of some special type.

As Mr. Marshall is an