Did Alister MacKenzie, George Crump, Alan Wilson, C.B. MacDonald, Walter Travis, George C. Thomas, Billy Bell, and the list goes on ad infinitum go to design school? While I agree that school in every case would benefit to some degree, it is no different then going to a school where say....Well lets not use any particular architect from today as an example, that is unless they were a student of the sport that studied exactly what the greats did in fact study in probably the greatest classroom of them all, UGSA (The University of Golf, Old Course At St. Andrews...)
But I will admit that is dinosaur thinking.
The problem is that so much has changed in terms of laws and liability since FLW's time. Also the way things are constructed and affordability. Why he was a brilliant man when it came to architecture, but some of his practices became sort of bad in the terms of longevity. For example, in a great many of FLW's houses where he used his trademark tiles of different shapes and structures, the grout that he used for those tiles was carefully concocted out of sand that was existing on the site--allowing the color to match that of the surround nature. Unfortunately, some of those sands were not pure and good for grout. The problem today is that a great many tiles are falling off of these magnificent buildings because of it. I could use Holly House here in LA as an example, where one day I was up there looking at this magnificent structure and literally could have walked of with four or five of the tiles that were laying in the planter that had fallen off. Pretty sad really.
If FLW had the use of computer analysis, I'm sure he would have been able to come up with a suitable grout that would match that color. The funny thing about it he could have probably got it at Home Depot.