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Laboratory building. Just stating this fact means nothing! But 
when one entered the front door of the building and stepped into 
the rotunda, he would almost have thought that this array of 
vegetables, potted plants, cut flowers, window boxes, canned vege- 
tables, garden charts, pictures and diagrams was a part of a real 
country fair exhibit. The rotunda itself made a wonderful set- 
ting for the children’s exhibit. Many a person, who came to 
view the products, could scarcely believe that this was work done 
by children. Everything in the exhibit was either the direct or 
indirect work of the young exhibitors. About ten thousand 
children of this borough entered into this exhibit. It hardly 
seems believable that from the small beginnings of six years ago 
there could have come such a fine display! This year’s exhibit 
represented the tireless efforts of years of training boys and girls 
and schools to exhibit properly. 
The standards used are exactly the same as those used for 
adult displays. Every vegetable has to be cleaned and polished. 
A child must bring exactly the right number of beets or asters, 
let us say, or his exhibit is thrown out. To illustrate this point, 
let me say that Friday, the nineteenth, was supposed to be the 
day when all the exhibits were to be brought in, and at four 
o'clock that afternoon they were to be judged; but on Thursday 
the first exhibit came in. This exhibit consisted of one small boy 
very much excited and very hot, who held in his hands a paper 
bag. Inside of it were seven green tomatoes and one red one. 
When he was told that the red tomato, the black sheep of the 
flock, would spoil his entire exhibit, and that he should have had 
eight green ones, all of the same size, he was quite nonplussed. 
He measured up his tomatoes with his eye and finally said that 
he would get that other green tomato over here before the judges 
came the next day, and so he did. Just this one example shows 
the seriousness with which the boy and girl of our elementary 
school takes the exhibit. I believe that if. such a display had 
been held in some little city or country town almost every man, 
woman and child would have been there, but unfortunately for 
the boys and girls and for their display, Brooklyn is such a large 
city that it is difficult to build up any feeling of united interest. 
We are doing it steadily year by year with the boys and ues, 
but the adult is more difficult to arouse. 
