 He trained for two years in his father’s architectural offices.His parents intended him to study at the Royal Academy Schools under Richard Phené Spiers, but Spiers advised him instead to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.Burnet's parents were at first reluctant to send their son to a Catholic country which had been subject to the political turmoil of the Paris Commune that year, but in 1872 he began studying under Jean-Louis Pascal, Spiers' former teacher.