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In this garden we have a highly developed plan showing points of interest and beauty from which radiate avenues and walks. We can not question but that L'Enfant was familiar with this piece of landscape architecture, and it, together with the suggestion of Wren, we may reasonably assume, induced L'Enfant to try the same idea in the building of a city, instead of a garden, with radiating avenues; and also influenced him in the principal and most imposing feature of the Mall. Although Washington had never been across the ocean, he was undoubtedly the man to study the maps of existing cities, from which, as has been already shown, that he could have found but little to influence him as suggestions for the final plan of Washington City. Washington was familiar with the cities in this country, and strange as it may seem there are suggestions in two of the small cities of the United States which may have influenced him in approving and modifying the scheme submitted by L'Enfant.

Annapolis has two focal points from which several streets radiate. (Fig. 2.) It is stated in the older accounts of Annapolis that the plan was copied from Sir Christopher Wren's plan of London. This is probably a fact, taking a small section of London as a basis. It is most probable that Washington was familiar with the fact.

Williamsburg, Va., had a mall, a dignified tract of green around which imposing colonial buildings were grouped and toward which the principal streets converged. Washington was familiar with these two cities and undoubtedly appreciated the pleasing effect of their plans. He was thus ready to appreciate and indorse a suggestion of similar treatment, multiplied by numerous additional focal points, with vistas. from one to the other, with the principal buildings located at the most prominent intersections, with a mall around which was to have been grouped many of the principal edifices.

Although I have endeavored to call attention to the data to which L'Enfant could and did have access and the surroundings which may have had their influence in the formulation of a plan for the city of Washington, I do not mean in any way to detract from his fame. All great artistic achievements have been a system of evolution and growth, usually a growth of long periods of time. It is truly remarkable, and proved L'Enfant a man of genius, that he evolved in a short period, and from the meager suggestions which he must have possessed, such an excellent and artistic scheme for a new and a great city.

The design (fig. 3) indicated a comprehensive study of the streets, so arranged as to make effective distant vistas of the buildings, columns, fountains, and arches which were proposed, as well as to give the most direct access for business or pleasure; parks so located as to enhance the buildings and other art structures and give an opportunity for pleasing views upon near approach; the grouping of buildings along the Mall so as to produce harmonious and artistic effects as well as

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the best service for utilitarian purposes. I beg leave to quote from my "History of the United States Capitol:" (Senate Doc. No. 60, Fifty-sixth Congress, first session.)

The more the scheme laid out by Washington and l'Enfant is studied, the more forcibly it strikes one as the best. It is easy to imagine a vista through green trees and over a green sward, 400 feet wide, beginning at the Capitol and ending with the Monument, a distance of nearly a mile and a half, bounded on both sides by parks 600 feet wide, laid out by a skilled landscape architect and adorned by the work of capable artists. Looking from the center open space across the park a continuous line of beautiful buildings was to have formed the background. They were not to have been deep enough to curtail either the artistic or natural beauties of the park or to encroach upon the people's right to an air space. By this time such an avenue of green would have acquired a world-wide reputation if it had been carried out by competent landscape architects, artists, and sculptors, consulting and working in harmony with each other.

The beauties and possibilities of this plan for the Mall and grouping of buildings were apparently forgotten after the days of Madison. Some seven years ago, while studying the location of buildings in connection with my "History of the Capitol," the remarkable beauties and utilitarian features of the plan were first called forcibly to my attention. They were so attractive that I felt constrained to write an article for the Architectural Review, in Boston, on the subject, and in 1900 published another paper on the same subject urging the feasibility and desirability of reinstating this plan and building future Government buildings on the lines suggested.

At the meeting of the American Institute of Architects in this city in December, 1900, a number of prominent architects and artists were requested to read papers on the future treatment of parks and the groupings of buildings. They were asked for their individual ideas. It was a surprising fact that they all accepted the fundamental scheme of L'Enfant as the best, and only enlarged upon or suggested variations in detail.b

Last June the Senate District Committee appointed a commission, consisting of D. H. Burnham, C. F. McKim, Augustus St. Gaudens, and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., among the most prominent men in their professions in the country, all of whom have proved by their work a capacity equal to the best in the world to-day. After a thorough study of the subject for six months we hear that they think a return to the plan of L'Enfant in the treatment of the Mall and the future location of Government buildings is the proper thing. The changes

a Selection of Sites for Federal Buildings in Washington. The Architectural Review, Boston, Mass., Vol. III, No. IV, 1894. Suggestions for the Grouping of Buildings, Monuments, and Statuary, with Landscape in Washington. The Architectural Review, Boston, August, 1900.

b Papers Relating to the Improvement of the City of Washington. Read before the American Institute of Architects December, 1900. (Doc. No. -.) Government Printing Office, 1901.

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made in the water line and by sale of Government property and the erection of inartistic structures located at haphazard will require many modifications and skilled handling, but we may only expect a successful outcome from the commission. Let us hope that Congress will see fit to approve their suggestions and return to the fundamental scheme as laid down by Washington and L'Enfant. When executed there will be no city in the world to equal Washington in its beauty and artistic results.