In 1806, Benjamin Henry Latrobe wrote to Robert Mills,
“The profession of architecture has been hitherto in the hands of two sets of men. The first of those [gentlemen] who from traveling or from books have acquired some knowledge of the theory of the art, know nothing of its practice, the second of those [mechanics] who know nothing but the practice, and whose early life being spent on labor, … have had no opportunity to acquire the theory. The complaisance of these two sets of men to each other, renders it difficult for the architect to get in between them, for the building mechanic finds his account in the ignorance of the gentleman-architect, as the latter does in the submissive deportment which interest dictates to the former.:”