

THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



NOVEMBEE, 1904. 



THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE. 



Ry WM. HARPER DAVIS, 

 Lehigh University. 



r I ^HE first International Congress of Arts and Science has passed 

 -*™ honorably into history. What may have been a philosopher's 

 dream is now also a fact accomplished. Not that with the successful 

 completion of the program the living influence of the congress has 

 ceased. Rather, indeed, is it certain to continue and possibly to yield 

 increase beyond foretelling. This is really implied in the statement that 

 the undertaking was a success, as must appear to all who are cognizant 

 of the unique purpose and the correspondingly definite plan of the 

 whole. With this our readers may be assumed to be in a general way 

 familiar. In this article some attempt will be made to sketch, unhap- 

 pily in an all too fragmentary fashion, the actual operation and course 

 of the congress and to indicate, in a manner necessarily inadequate, a 

 few tentative impressions as to its outcome and probable value. No 

 single man, least of all one who had the pleasure of attending the 

 congress in blissful ignorance of the reporter's task which was in store 

 for him, can hope to do justice to a program so vast and so varied as was 

 that which filled the week from the nineteenth to the twenty-fifth of 

 September last at St. Louis. 



The great exposition now in progress is notable not only for its 

 material illustration of the arts and industries of the world, but 

 chiefly because in its conception the place of first importance has been 

 given to education. This means the explicit acknowledgment of the 

 sovereignty of mind in human progress to a degree unprecedented in 

 similar undertakings. It was therefore peculiarly fitting that the 

 management should make a special effort to assemble a congress of the 

 world's leaders in the acquisition, elaboration and application of knowl- 

 edge, as a worthy spiritual capstone to the magnificent material edifice 



