We shall not be far wrong in ascribing seventeenth century buildings, almost without exception, to the capable and resourceful craftsman who not only preserved conscientiously the traditions he had learned as an apprentice or journeyman in the Mother Country and faithfully perpetuated them by his practice as a master carpenter or joiner in a new land but also showed himself possessed of ready wit and keen perceptive faculties by the alacrity with which he modified and adapted traditional methods and precedents to new conditions and requirements of climate and environment. So far as he could consistently do so, he held by preference to tradition in plan, methods of construction and choice of materials. When necessity or common sense, however, dictated a departure from established usage he was quick enough to follow the promptings of expediency and devise satisfactory substitutes for the deficiencies of past practice. Hence were originated local types without any conscious attempt on the part of the agents to be original. The methods followed by the seventeenth century American builder showed a close relationship with the practices of mediæval joiners and masons. Furthermore, these early workmen showed an all-round mastery of their own craft, an intelligent understanding of related crafts and a thorough knowledge of the properties and uses of materials that their modern successors would do well to emulate. They respected their calling and took a proper pride in the excellence of their craftsmanship. Hence the work of their hands, however plain and simple, still possesses a dignity and honest beauty that plainly proclaim how they put their hearts into what they were doing and, at the same time, command our reverence and admiration. The old buildings have lasted so well and assumed such an atmosphere of grace because the artisans acted upon the principle that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well and set much store by honest workmanship instead of regarding their occupation as a job to be got through with at a maximum of wage for a minimum of time spent in labour. They got the best out of their materials because they knew and respected the peculiar qualities of their materials. Whether English or Dutch, Welsh or Swedish, the handiwork of these seventeenth century builders, wholly without pretence as it was, expressed faithfully the aggregate of the contemporary phases of the domestic architecture in the countries whence they came and also evidences both the beginnings and development of our own several vernacular manifestations, all of which, to a certain degree, were obscured and discounted by the expansion and increasing popularity of eighteenth century Georgian modes. To the carpenter-architects of the seventeenth century we owe a great debt of gratitude for their faithful preservation of time-honoured tradition in plan and manner of building so that we may easily trace our