it has the merit of satisfying prevailing tastes; but the architect, who is designing only as well as popular tastes will permit, suffers under one serious disadvantage.  There are hundreds of his associates who can do it just as well; and he is necessarily obliged to face demoralizing competition.  Inasmuch as it is not his work itself that counts, he is obliged to build up his clientele by other means.  He is obliged to make himself personally popular, to seek social influence and private “pulls”; and his whole life becomes that of a man who is selling his personality instead of fulfilling it.  His relations with his clients suffer from the same general condition.  They have come to him, not because they are particularly attracted by his work and believe in it, but, as a rule, because of some accidental and arbitrary reason.  His position, consequently, is lacking in independence and authority.  He has not enough personal prestige as a designer to insist upon having his own way in all essential matters.  He tends to become too much of an agent, employed for the purpose of carrying out another man’s wishes, instead of a professional expert, whose employer trusts his judgment and leans loyally on his advice.

Take, on the other hand, the case of the exceptional architect who insists upon doing his very best.  Assuming sufficient ability and training, the work of the man who does his very best is much more likely to possess some quality of individual merit, which more or less sharply distinguishes it from that of other architects.  He has a monopoly of his own peculiar qualities.  Such merit may not be noticed by many people; but it will probably be noticed by a few.  The few who are attracted will receive a more than usually vivid impression.  They will talk, and begin to create a little current of public opinion favorable to the designer.  The new clients who come to him will be influenced either by their appreciation of the actual merit of the work or by this approving body of opinion.  They will come, that is, because they want him and believe in his work.  His own personal position, consequently, becomes much more independent and authoritative than is usually the case.  He is much less likely to be embarrassed by ignorant and irrelevant interference.  He can continue to turn out designs genuinely expressive of his own individual purpose.  If he be an intelligent as well as a sincere and gifted designer, his work will, up to a certain point, grow in distinction and individuality; and as good or better examples of it become more numerous, it will attract and hold an increasing body of approving opinion.  The designer will in this way have gradually created his own special public.  He will be molding and informing the architectural taste and preference of his admirers.  Without in any way compromising his own standards, he will have brought himself into a constructive relation with a part at least of the public, and the effect of his work will soon extend beyond the sphere of his own personal clientele.  In so far as he has succeeded in popularizing a better quality of architectural work, he would be by way of strengthening the hands of all of his associates who were standing for similar ideals and methods.