DIPLOMAS IN ARCHITECTURE AT CAMBRIDGE

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(“Education differs from technical training.”—Expert opinion in a letter to the Times.)

Not in vain with quaint devices
Infants of the age of four
Build their mimic edifices
All upon the nursery floor;
Neither is the presage missed
By the Educationist,
When he doth the fact recall
How that Balbus built a wall!

Thus I mused on such-like theses,
While my errant fancy swam
Through the circumambient breezes
To the silver streams of Cam,—
There observed with pleased surprise
Ancient Universities
Still in touch at every stage
With the Progress of the Age;

There, released from sloth and coma
(Alma Mater’s chief defect),
There they grant a new Diploma
To the budding Architect,
Take the blighted Builder’s art
To their academic heart,
Hope it may in time become
Part of their curriculum:

There they tell their College Porters
Not to think it strange or odd
When a load of bricks and mortar’s
Dumped within the College quad;
No indignant Tutor hauls
Him who scales the College walls,—
Plying on that airy perch
Architectural Research!

Thus I sang: I seemed to see an
Epoch made, the Future’s guide;
But my glad exultant pÆan
Was not wholly justified:
Men whose names we all revere,
Stars in Architecture’s sphere,
Phrases used which don’t imply
Any genuine sympathy:

Ch---mpn---ys, Bl---mfield, T. G. J---cks---n,
Hushed my lyre’s triumphant string—
Said in limpid Anglo-Saxon
What they thought about the thing:
“Seats of learning are designed
For to Educate the Mind,
Not to teach a craft or trade,”
That was what these persons said!

What! and must a thwarted Nation
Draw the obvious inference?
What! a Liberal Education
Doesn’t mean the quest of pence?
(Really, this extremely crude
Obscurantist attitude
Isn’t quite what one expects
From distinguished Architects!)

Here’s another dear illusion
Reft away and wholly gone:
O the spiritual confusion
Of the pained progressive Don!
If the facts are quite correct
As regards the Architect,
Comes the question, plain and clear,
How about the Engineer?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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