THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS 27 



progress, and problems of which the Congress was assembled to 

 consider. 



Mr. Skiff spoke as follows : 



The division of exhibits of the Universal Exposition of 1904 has looked for- 

 ward to this time, when the work it has performed is to be reviewed and discussed 

 by this distinguished body. I do not, of course, intend to convey the idea that 

 the international congress is to inspect or criticise the exhibitions, but I do mean 

 to say that the deliberations of this organization are contemporaneous with and 

 share the responsibility for the accomplishments of which the exhibitions made 

 are the visible evidences. 



The great educational yield of a universal exposition comes from the intellec- 

 tual more than from the mechanical processes. It is the material condition of the 

 times. It is as well the duty of the responsible authorities to go yet further and 

 record the thoughts and theories, the investigations, experiments, and observa- 

 tions of which these material things are the tangible results. 



A congress of arts and science, whose membership is drawn from all educational 

 as well as geographical zones, not only accounts for and analyzes the philosophy 

 of conditions, but points the way for further advance along the lines consistent 

 with demonstration. Its contribution to the hour is at once a history and a 

 prophecy. 



The extent to which the deliberations and utterances of this congress may 

 regulate the development of society or give impulse to succeeding generations, it 

 is impossible to estimate, but not unreasonable to anticipate. The plans of the 

 congress matured in the minds of the best scholars; the classification of its pur-' 

 pose, the scope, the selection of its distinguished participants, gave to the hopes 

 and ambitions of the management of the Exposition inspiration of a most exalted 

 degree. At first these ambitions were not without reason regarded as too 

 high. The plane upon which the congress had been inaugurated, the aim, the 

 broad intent, seemed beyond the merits, if not beyond the capacity, of this hitherto 

 not widely recognized intellectual centre. But the courage of the inception, the 

 loftiness of the purpose, appealed so profoundly to the toilers for truth and the 

 apostles of fact, that we find gathered here to-day in the heart of the new Western 

 continent the great minds whose impress on society has rendered possible the intel- 

 lectual heights to which this age has ascended and now beckon forward the stu- 

 dents of the world to limitless possibilities. 



While international congresses of literature, science, art, and industry have been 

 accomplished by previous expositions, yet to classify and select the topics in sym- 

 pathy with the classification and installation of the exhibits material is a step 

 considerably in advance of the custom. The men who build an exposition must 

 by temperament, if not by characteristic, be educators. They must be in sym- 

 pathy with the welfare of humanity and its higher destiny. The exhibitions at this 

 Exposition are not the haphazard gatherings of convenient material, but the out- 

 come of a plan to illustrate the productiveness of mankind at this particular time, 

 carefully digested, thoroughly thought out, and conscientiously executed. The 

 exhibit, therefore, in each of the departments of the classification, as well as in the 

 groups of the different departments, are of such character, and so arranged as to 

 reflect the best that the world can do along departmental lines, and the best that 

 different peoples can do along group lines. The congresses accord with the ex- 

 hibits, and the exhibits give expression to the congresses. 



Education has been the keynote of this Exposition. Were it not for the educa- 

 tional idea, the acts of government providing vast sums of money for the up- 

 building of this Exposition would have been impossible. This congress reflects 

 one idea vastly outstripping others, and that is, in the unity of thought in the 



