io4 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

 EXPOSITION. 



An international exposition offers 

 certain advantages and certain draw- 

 backs as a place of meeting for an 

 international congress. The drawbacks 

 — both physical and mental — are suffi- 

 ciently obvious. They are perhaps 

 given more weight than they deserve, 

 and thus a new obstacle is set up. 

 With a comparatively small change in 

 the conditions that have ordinarily 

 prevailed, an exposition and a congress 

 should help each other. They have in 

 many ways the same ends in view. 

 As civilization advances science and 

 the arts become an increasing part of 

 life. The St. Louis exposition, all the 

 way from the Pike to the International 

 Congress of Arts and Science, over- 

 laps continually with the objects and 

 the field of this magazine. It would 

 be satisfactory if we could give an ade- 

 quate appreciation and criticism of the 

 exposition, but this does not appear to 

 be feasible. It may, however, be worth 

 the while in a number of the Monthly 

 devoted to the International Congress 

 to give some illustrations showing its 

 material setting, and to devote a few 

 words to the exposition itself. 



The magnitude of the exposition, its 

 hundreds of buildings, measured by the 

 acre, and the tens of millions of dollars 

 that it cost have been duly advertised; 

 and allowance is made by sensible 

 people for crudeness, flimsiness and 

 heterogeneity. A certain architectural 

 unity has been given to the whole 

 scheme by the fan- like radiating avenues 

 or plazas which converge towards the 

 central festival hall. At night, under 

 the electric illumination, the effects are 

 marvelous and beautiful. It can 



scarcely be claimed, however, that any 

 significant advance has been made be- 

 yond the Chicago exposition. It seems 

 that the limits of magnitude and uni- 

 versality have been reached, and that 

 subsequent international expositions, 

 should they occur, must aim to sur- 

 pass their predecessors in complete- 

 ness in some particular direction. 



In the classification of the St. Louis 

 Exposition education was given the 

 central place, and the fact that the 

 new buildings of Washingeon Univer- 

 sity were occupied also emphasized 

 higher education. Germany made a 

 fine educational exhibit, and an Indian 

 school and other schools were shown in 

 operation. It would have been well if 

 the buildings of ^Yashington Univer- 

 sity could have been used to show a 

 national or international university in 

 operation with the speakers of the 

 International Congress as the teachers; 

 but this would doubtless be asking too 

 much. Anthropology, directly and in- 

 directly, should occupy a prominent 

 place in an international exposition. 

 At St. Louis the Philippine exhibit was 

 timely and well arranged, with its 

 native villages and the thousand repre- 

 sentatives of the different peoples. 



The progress of the applied sciences 

 since the Chicago exposition is doubt- 

 less the most notable feature of the 

 period, and this was adequately repre- 

 sented at St. Louis. The names of the 

 buildings — agriculture, machinery, elec- 

 tricity, mines and metallurgy, etc. — ■ 

 make it clear that an exposition is 

 practically an exhibit of applied sci- 

 ence. The advances in America dur- 

 ing this period have probably been un- 

 surpassed, but the exhibits of Germany 

 and Japan show that they are not 

 unrivaled. 



