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this essay do not admit of an extended discussion of this subject; but I can not forbear to raise the question, whether our common, lazy statement that European education is best for the Europeans and American education is best for the Americans, is as true as we think it is. For my own part, I am convinced that we have much to learn from Europe and that Europe has much to learn from Great expositions are forceful teachers, not alone of the differences in practice between ourselves and others, but also of the principles which underlie practice.

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The supreme object of an educational exposition is not comparison of school exercises, or school curricula, or school methods, or even manifestations of school spirit. Indeed, such comparisons may be harmful. The supreme benefit of an exposition like the one described in this volume is in its suggestiveness. What is my neighbor doing? What is he doing better than I am doing the same? Why is his work better than mine? These are the questions which the visitor should ask.

The work which the schools are doing is, of course, not writing exercises or making models or drawing pictures; but the work of the school is the development of power, the increase of knowledge, the evolution of character. If the exhibits here described have promoted these ends, the time and labor and treasure bestowed upon them have not been so bestowed in vain, but will bring rich returns in every schoolroom in which their influence is felt.

THE LESSONS OF THE EXPOSITION.a

BY HOWARD J. ROGERS, CHIEF OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND DIRECTOR OF THE CONGRESSES OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION.

In an exposition the directorate proposes, but the exhibitor disposes. The classification may be perfect in its logic and comprehension, the space for installation and time of preparation ample in extent, the plan of arrangement thoroughly approved and appreciated; and yet the right-hand member of the equation, composed as it is of a great number of factors varying in time, money, capacity, and interest, and all involved with that variable quantity, human nature, renders its solution extremely difficult. Probably the perfect educational exhibit will never be made till some benevolent person provides at least a half million or more for the purpose, so that material may be collected and installed about a well-defined plan and under the guidance of a single mind. This would be an educational museum. It is doubtful, after all, whether that would have the popular attraction and human interest of an exposition, where variety rules and where the limitations of one exhibit bring into bolder relief the excellencies of another.

In this brief discussion of the St. Louis educational exhibit I am estopped officially from drawing comparisons, inasmuch as the jury of awards has yet to pass upon the exhibits, and the States and nations here assembled are still in a sense our guests. Some general observations may, however, be of interest. First, at the risk of some repetition of former statements, I must sketch the object of the exhibit. Not everything can be shown in an educational exhibit. It is a common expression that you can not exhibit the finer parts of education— that you lose the spirit and personality of the class room. It is true that you can not exhibit this. I sometimes wonder, in the present days of ticktack routine, if our teachers would recognize it if we could. But neither in an agriculReprinted from the Proceedings of the National Educational Association, meeting of

tural exhibit can you exhibit the rural peace and environment of field and forest which mold the nature and the labor of the farmer. In education, as in agriculture, we can exhibit the course of study as well as the rotation of crops, the methods of instruction as well as the methods of planting, the machinery and the equipment for the work, the products of the laborer and the comparative results of his labor. We can exhibit enough to be of interest and value to the student and establish a clearing house for suggestive ideas whose influence will be carried to every quarter of the world.

The great results which have followed educational exhibits in England, in France, and in America are the best demonstration of their value. In the preparation of the educational exhibit at St. Louis there were two points made prominent-the participation of foreign nations, in order that a comparison might be instituted between the educational systems of the various countries of the world noted for educational progress, and the thorough presentation of every phase of education in the United States, as exemplified in our public schools, our colleges and universities, our technical and professional schools, art, agriculture, defectives, and special forms of education.

In the preparation of the classification, made with the advice of a special committee consisting of Doctor Harris, Doctor Butler, and Superintendent Jones, of the National Educational Association, the field of education was divided into eight groups, as follows:

Group 1-Elementary education.

Group 2-Secondary education.

Group 3-Higher education.

Group 4-Special education in fine arts.

Group 5-Special education in agriculture.

Group 6--Special education in commerce and industry.
Group 7-Education of defectives.

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Group 8-Special forms of education: Text-books, school furniture, school appliances. In its comprehensiveness the participation in the exhibit fully reaches our expectations. Thirty-three States and Territories, four cities, and fifteen foreign nations have contributed to the elementary and secondary groups. Twentyeight colleges and universities and eight professional and technical schools are exhibitors in Group 3. Seven of the best art schools of the country have, for the first time, made a classified exhibit. The agricultural and mechanical colleges, under a special grant of $100,000 from Congress, have made a collective exhibit, which you are invited to examine carefully as upholding in every detail the high grade of special instruction given in our farm laboratories. In Group 6" Commercial and industrial education "—the business college and commercial high schools and industrial and trade schools have contributed many exhibits. In Group 7-“ Education of defectives "--the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf and the American Association of Instructors of the Blind have combined to maintain a working exhibit, in order to demonstrate to the general publie the thorough work which is being done for children deprived of all their normal faculties, and further to demonstrate the fact that the results of this instruction are so beneficial as to warrant the same care and maintenance on the part of the state as for normal children. In Group 8" Special forms of education: Publishers and school equipment "—the exhibits are many and instructive. We feel, therefore, that we have gathered here a basis for comparisons and generalization from which inferences and truths of value may be derived.

We regret to say that the strenuous life of the preparatory days of an exposition has not permitted us to make a careful study of the exhibits, but in the examinations we have made two things seem to us to stand forth so prominently

at every turn that they can be termed the pivotal points of the exhibit. The first is the similarity of the exhibit from every State and city in the United States, demonstrating the fact that we have a national system of education, and the second is the subordination of the humanities to industrial instruction in the exhibits of foreign nations. I hinted at something like this three years ago at Chicago, as inferences from the Paris Exposition, but they were not then so clearly borne in on my mind, nor did they then occupy so completely the objective points of vantage.

Concerning the first point, it is impossible for any person to go from State to State in this exhibit and detect any radical distinction in the work presented or the methods illustrated. Such as does exist is entirely local in its reason, and is the evidence of the personality of the superintendent or the progressiveness of the community. There is no greater difference between Syracuse and Los Angeles than between Syracuse and Binghamton. It is a satisfactory and gratifying condition. The simultaneous advance along any line of progress of a nation vast in extent and power is an impressive fact. It indicates a flexibility of the mind and a solidarity of purpose which would be irresistible applied to any problem. There are the same elements of strength in the union of ideas and mental training of every section of a great country as in its physical and constitutional union. At the same time, I would not have it understood that there is a stereotyped form of processes in exhibits. There is enough originality and expression of experiment to insure against any possible danger of machine routine.

If it were asked why the educational systems of forty-five States, each under a separate, independent government, separated by tradition, clime, and culture, show such unity, I would assert that it is due to two causes: First, to the United States Bureau of Education, under the able guidance of its great chief, Doctor Harris; and, second, to the influence of the National Educational Association. The Bureau of Education can not arbitrarily shape the policy of any State or section, but so wisely has the power of suggestion been used, so forcibly has the inference from statistics been drawn, and so clearly has the comparison of systems, foreign and domestic, been set forth, that our educational policies from East to West have by force of logic formed in parallel columns. Nor should we omit to mention, as a most directive force in this regard, the personal influence of the United States Commissioner of Education.

The second reason advanced for this unity-the influence of the National Educational Association-is very apparent. Drawing its constituency from every part of the Union, meeting once a year in numbers, and twice a year through its superintending officers, there is a constant interchange of criticism and information which holds in close relation every component factor. The special investigations of its committee of fifteen and committee of ten show in the curriculums of hundreds of elementary and secondary schools. There is no need to dwell on this point. The arguments are apparent as soon as it is mentioned, but its practical demonstration seems set forth so clearly in the exhibits about you as to form a great and accepted fact. I ask your careful examination of the exhibits with this point in view, and your acceptance or criticism of the statement.

The other main point emphasized by the exhibit-the subordination in foreign countries of the humanities to special industrial instruction--can be proved by preponderance of evidence, if by no other means. Three nations participating in the exposition have thought it advisable to portray their educational system in a foreign land, and in comparison with other systems, in no other group than

in technical and industrial education. In two others the predominance of the exhibits of this class serves to accentuate the main point. In the remainder the relative proportion is greater, with the exception of one, and in this one only is there something of a balance maintained between the two great lines of the mental development of the child. It is not my province at this time to discuss the tendencies of European and American elementary instruction. They are based on different theories of national maintenance, founded on different aspirations and traditions, and require comprehensive treatment. The statement that the illustration of this difference is found in the exhibits all about you is sufficient for this purpose.

These are to me the two main points of the educational exhibit.

A minor point is the scientific character of the exhibits and the exploitation of lines of research. This is, of course, a scientific age, and exhibits of the universities would naturally assume that form; but the tendency of each institution to lay stress upon some few lines of investigation is striking. Perhaps in this connection it may be said, without being open to the charge of discriminating between exhibits, that the exhibit of the German university laboratories in chemistry, physics, and biology is one of the most thorough and instructive displays ever made. Everything has its reason, and this exhibit seems to me a magnificent attempt on the part of Germany to demonstrate that in the field of special training, particularly in biology and medicine, her universities are still the foremost in the world. In view of the marvelous advance of American universities in this respect in the last fifteen years, and the acceptance of the idea that it is no longer necessary for American students to be trained abroad, the exhibit assumes a new and interesting aspect, even if it may not be assumed to become historic.

In the scientific group our own most noteworthy exhibit is that of the agricultural and mechanical colleges of the country, which have made a collective exhibit under the special appropriation of $100,000 made by the Congress of 1903. If there can be demonstrated to the public the great ulterior economy in the liberal maintenance of these institutions, a most important benefit to the country will have been insured.

In the same spirit has been undertaken the collective exhibit of the Association of the Schools for the Blind and the Schools for the Deaf, in which working classes will be maintained throughout the exposition. No greater lesson could be taught the great public than to demonstrate beyond a doubt that the education of those defective in some physical respect is as much a duty of the State as the education of those normally endowed, and remove forever from their thoughts the idea of its being in any wise a charity.

Such are some of the more general lessons of the exhibit. There are scores of minor ones apparent to your close observation, which you are cordially invited to make. The exhibit has many strong points; it has some weak ones. There are some exhibits of institutions concerning which, to use the remark of our humorist philosopher, “it would have been money in their pocket if they had never been born." But, as an average, we believe the exhibit is high, and we ask for it your careful study and frank criticism.

In conclusion I beg to express publicly my thanks for the sympathetic cooperation of foreign countries in promoting the exhibit; for the magnificent support of the States and cities, and for the loyal assistance of the colleges, universities, and technical schools, many of which acted either through personal friendship or from a sense of duty in supporting an educational enterprise.

THE EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT AT ST. LOUIS.@

BY ANNA TOLMAN SMITH, MEMBER OF THE JURY OF AWARDS.

An exposition to be successful must be spectacular. This is the quality that attracts the people, and it is only when the attendance rolls up in the hundred thousands that the enterprise pays. It has thus come to pass that the original purpose of expositions, which was instruction, has given way to display for commercial ends and sensational effects.

At Paris in 1900 the educational idea again prevailed and at St. Louis it has been made supreme. Said Mr. Skiff, in an address outlining the enterprise at its inception: "Modern man is the theme of the St. Louis classification. Its grand departments represent what man has accomplished up to this time with his faculties and the natural resources at his command in the environment in which he has been placed. Therefore we find in this classification that education is given the leading position, because through education man enters life's activities."

In pursuance of the purpose thus expressed a special building was erected for education, the first time in the history of expositions that the chief collective activity of civilized peoples has been thus honored. The site chosen was a commanding one and the building, though a departure from classic styles, preserved the true spirit of Corinthian beauty. It had been planned in advice with the director of the department, Mr. Howard J. Rogers, to whose practical suggestions were largely due its admirable adaptations to its specific purpose and the skillful disposition of its varied material.

The interior of the building was divided into a central court surrounded by broad corridors. In the allotment of space the north corridor was assigned to our State and city exhibits, the west corridor to colleges and technical schools, the east to schools for special classes, the south corridor to the exhibits of social economy, and the central court to American universities and the exhibits of foreign countries. Thus space and system combined to enhance the beauty of the separate installations; so striking indeed were many of these that it was difficult to fix attention upon anything else; even experts wandered up and down in the mere satisfaction of gazing at harmonious outlines and coloring. All styles of installment had been employed, the closed pavilions offering broad façades for decoration, the open alcoves marked off by low railings or slender columns with free access for light, and ingenious combinations of the two extremes. Indeed, the first and most lasting impression made by this department was that of the art of display as applied to the exhibit of an ideal process. In a survey of the varied subjects comprised in this collection, higher education comes first to mind possibly because of its commanding position in the general arrangement. Entering by the northwest door from the grand plaza, one came directly upon the imposing exhibit of the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts and experiment stations, prepared under the direction of a Government board and with the aid of an appropriation by Congress of $100,000.

The purpose of the exhibit "to represent those features of education and research which differentiate" the colleges named "from other educational and scientific institutions" was thoroughly maintained. It was arranged in two great sections, i. e., agriculture and mechanic arts, each subdivided into departments. Centrally located in the exhibit was an office around which were grouped exhibits of the Bureau of Education and of the Office of Experiment Stations, which represent the United States in its relations with these particular colleges and stations.

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Reprinted by permission from the Educational Review for December, 1904.

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