It is possible, of course, to work on extant or projected buildings where either architect or owner will explain their necessities so that the student may get ``the feel'' of real interior design demands. Unfortunately, the purely synthetic problem is the rule.

It is like medical schools in India where, in that fairy land of religious inhibition, the dissection of dead bodies is frowned upon. Instead they learn their dissection on the bulbs of plants. Thus technical efficiency is achieved at the expense of actual experience.

In the earlier years of training certain phases of the work must be covered and the synthetic problem has its use. But to continue to divorce advanced students from reality is inexcusable.

Consultation with architects, clients, real estate men, fabric houses and furniture companies is essential to the proper development of class problems just as in actual work. Fortunately, although only a few years ago they held the student at arms length, today the business houses welcome the opportunity to aid the student, not only from an increased sense of community responsibility but also from the realization that the student of today is the interior designer of tomorrow -- that the student already is ``in the trade.''

Even the ``history of furniture'' can hardly be taught exclusively from photographs and lantern slides. Here, too, the reality of actual furniture must be experienced.