In this reaction there is a possibility of less than justice being done to some of these quasi-Beaux-Arts architects. Many of them have been men of exceptionally fine taste. They raised the standard of taste in the community, accustomed the public to consider beauty as well as utility, and added greatly to the dignity and beauty of the externals of life. They played not only an excellent part but a necessary one in the evolution of architecture in America. They will be looked back to as the men of the transition, who established the recognition of architecture as an art, fostered higher standards of taste and compelled a public that was chiefly interested in commercial expansion to begin to regard art as an indispensable element in progress. =Influence of Chicago Exposition.=--The opportunity of propagating these ideas on a large scale was furnished by the International Exposition at Chicago in 1892-93. Already the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876 had awakened manufacturers to a need of artistic design, if their products were to compete successfully with those of the older countries. Moreover, innumerable persons had found their imaginations stimulated by the varied display of the Department of Fine Arts. The ground was thus prepared for the organised effort in the direction of an object lesson in beauty, such as that of “The White City” at Chicago. Here the Directors virtually gave free hand to the Committee of Architects, in the lay-out of the grounds and the disposition of all the buildings. The result was an ensemble on a scale, not only more magnificent than ever had been attempted before for such a purpose, but complete in its union of variety and harmony. It represented, on the one hand, what could be accomplished by the co-operation of the allied arts of landscape and garden design, architecture, sculpture, and painting, and, on the other, an extraordinary lesson in the desirability of beauty as a practical asset. The impression that it made was nation-wide. Everywhere the dry bones of indifference to beauty began to quicken into a living interest in beauty as the fit and natural expression of the nation’s progress in civilisation. It has found abundant activity during the past twenty-five years in Federal, State, Municipal, and commercial buildings, in the development of parks and boulevards and, more recently, in the increased attention given to the scientific and artistic planning of cities.