Uses of Industrial Exhibitions. 155 
taste, we might learn wherein lay our weakness, and where 
our strength, and make ourselves ready to apply our indus- — 
trial energies to those branches that might be found espe- 
cially adapted to the country, and to ourselves, and avoid 
wasting our exertions on subjects in which nature denies us 
success. | 
The best and highest object of the Exhibition was thus one 
of a practical and national character. There was necessarily 
associated therewith the very important object of shewing to 
the public at large the great results of industrial invention, 
the triumphs of skill, and ingenuity, and taste—the highest 
points attained in ministering to material civilization in the 
several countries, which few can see, and which, even if seen 
isolatedly, cannot be appreciated, or their importance felt, as 
when aggregated in such a Grand Temple of Industry as the 
Exhibition formed. But naturally where the richest and 
most important manufactures of England, of France, of Ger- 
many, were displayed, the local element of the Exhibition 
became circumscribed, and to some extent overlaid, the more 
so as, from our industrial results being as yet but limited in 
variety and in extent, and also from a somewhat exaggerated 
spirit of hospitality, putting forward in all prominent places 
the productions of British and foreign contributors, rather 
than Irish works, the true amount and value of the products 
of our own country was not at first seen, and could not be 
fully appreciated by ordinary visitors. To those, however, 
who examined into the contents of the Exhibition with proper 
knowledge and care, the specially Irish portions, whether as ' 
raw materials or as finished productions, afforded satisfactory 
proof of the abundant means for industrial employment with 
which Providence has blessed our country, and of the capa- 
bility of our people to carry out industrial pursuits, if properly 
directed. 
It will be thus seen that we regard the object of the Exhi- 
bition to have been essentially that of instruction ; and, in 
fact, we must consider all those accessories which distracted 
attention from that main and practical object to have been 
so far injurious to the proper object of the Exhibition. 
‘They were, of course, indispensable to its success and popu- 
