With regard to the churches, it may be said that the spirit of the Puritans was entirely opposed to anything like the ornamentation of their churches, and that, indeed, these were not churches in the usual sense of the word, but were merely meeting houses. Hence there was not the same impulse to make them beautiful as lifted the Spanish Americans into their magnificent expressions of architectural beauty. On the other hand, there are other buildings in regard to which, if there had been any real culture in the minds of the English Americans, we have a right to expect some beauty as well as usefulness. If we contrast for a moment the hospitals of English and Spanish America the difference is so striking as to show the lack of some important quality in the minds of the builders at the north. Spanish-American hospitals are among the beautiful structures with which they began to adorn their towns early, and some of them remain at the present day as examples of the architectural taste of their builders. They were usually low, often of but one story in height, with a courtyard and with ample porticos for convalescents, and thick walls to defend them from the heat of the climate. In many features they surpass many hospitals that have been built in America until very recent years. They were modelled on the old mediaeval hospitals, some of which are very beautiful {334} examples of how to build places for the care of the ailing. Contrast for a moment with this the state of affairs that has existed with regard to our church buildings and our public structures of all kinds in North America, down to the latter half of the nineteenth century. We have no buildings dating from before the nineteenth century that have any pretension to architectural beauty. They were built merely for utility. Some of them still have an interest for us because of historical associations, but they are a standing evidence of the lack of taste of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. The English poet, Yeats, said at a little dinner given to him just before he left this country ten years ago, that no nation can pretend to being cultured until the very utensils in the kitchen are beautiful as well as useful. What is to be said, then, of a nation that erects public buildings that are to be merely useful? As a matter of fact, most of them were barracks. The American people woke up somewhat in the nineteenth century, but the awakening was very slow. A few handsome structures were erected, but it is not until the last decade or two that we have been able to awaken public taste to the necessity for having all our public buildings beautiful as well as useful.