So it goes. One might multiply instances indefinitely to show how architecture was a faithful mirror of contemporary life and manners and how the public buildings of the day represented the classic elegance of taste, then prevalent, that found expression in a thousand other ways. We shall also learn why it was that New England, with all its ready abundance of stone, preferred to rear structures of combustible wood while Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, with all their vast and varied wealth of timber, chose to build of brick or stone, often at the cost of great inconvenience and expense. Our patriotic, historical and genealogical societies have done much to make us regard the men and women of by-gone years with a keener veneration than we, perhaps, formerly paid them. This book, it is hoped, in the same way, will be of some avail to increase our appreciation of the architectural wealth back of us. We have a history of which we may well feel proud and we have an architectural heritage, dating from the time when that history was in the making, which we may view with deep and just satisfaction. The worthy record of structural achievement during our Colonial period ought to fill us with high respect for the ability and energy of the men who, while they were building a nation and subduing a wilderness, found time also to rear [Illustration: SENATE HOUSE, KINGSTON-ON-HUDSON, N. Y. Exemplifying early Dutch peculiarities. Built 1676.] [Illustration: Copyright, 1912, by Baldwin Coolidge. WARD HOUSE, NEAR SALEM, MASS. Characteristic of seventeenth century New England type.] [Illustration: HOUSE AT YORKTOWN, VA. Showing steep pitch roof and outside chimneys proper to the Southern Colonial style.] [Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE LEE HOUSE, MARBLEHEAD, MASS. Representative of the second phase of New England Georgian. Built 1768.] a vast aggregate of structures, both domestic and public, that to-day command our unfeigned admiration and are fit to afford us no small degree of inspiration for our own architectural guidance.