Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1904 — THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION [ARTICLE]

THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION

The Achievements of Individuals end Nations Faithfully Recorded by This Encyclopedia of Society. By PREDEKICK J. V. SKIFF, Director of Exhibit., World’s Fair. “The wisdom of all ages Is none too great for the world’s work.* In this single salient sentence, uttered In his famous address at Buffalo In September, 1901, President McKinley described the object and the result of expositions. A modern universal exposition is a collecUon of the wisdom and achievements of the world, for the inspection of the world, for the study of its experts, by which they may make comparisons and deduction and develop plans for future Improvements and progress. Such a universal exposition might well be called an encyclopedia of society. It constitutes a classified, compact, indexed compendium of the achievejnents and ideas of society in all phases of Its activity, extending to the most material as well as the most refined. It offers Illustrations covering the full field of social performance, from the production of the shoes on our feet and the pavement beneath them to a presentation of the rarest and most delicate creations of the brains and hands of men in what are called the fine -arts of civilization. The Universal Exposition in St Louis in 1904 will be such a social encyclopedia in the most comprehensive and accurate sense. It will give to the world in revised and complete details “a living picture of the artistic and industrial development at which mankind has arrived” and will actually provide “a mew starting point from which all men may direct future exertions.” It will present for the Inspection of specialists in all lines of Industrial and social endeavor and for the public an assembly of the best which the world has done and has to show in industry, art and science, and, what is very Important, it will offer these achievements of soeieti’, these trophies of civilization. In a highly selected, accurately classified array. The creators of the St. Louis Exposition have had the experience of all previous great expositions by which to plan and effect its high organization. The continuous and repeated burden of the message of experience handed down by all expositions has been more perfect, more effective classification and arrangement of exhibits. The classification of the St Louis Exposition has been prepared to present a sequential synopsis of the developments that have marked man’s progress. On its bases will be assembled the most highly organized exposition the world has yet seen. The St Louis classification is divided into 16 departments, 144 groups and 807 classes. These grand departments in their order will record what man has accomplished at this time with his faculties, industry and skill and the natural resources at his command in the environment in which he has been placed. At the head of the Exposition siflcatlon has been placed Education, through which man enters social life. Second comes Art. showing the condition of his culture and development Liberal Arts and Applied Sciences are placed third, to indicate the result of his education and culture, illustrate his tastes and demonstrate his Inventive genius, scientific attainment and artistic expression. These three departments equip him for the battle and prepare him for the enjoyments of life The raw material departments. Agriculture, Horticulture, Mining and Forestry, show how man conserves the forces of nature to his uses. The Department of Manufactures will show what he has done with them; the Department of Machinery the tools he has used. The Department of Transportation will show how he overcomes distances and secures access to ail parts of the world. The Department of Electricity will indicate the great forces he has discovered and utilized to convey power and intelligence. And so through the several departments to Anthropology, in which man studies man; and to Social Economy, which will Illustrate the development of the human race, how It has overcome the difficulties of civilization and solved problems In which society is involved. Last is placed physical culture, in which man, his intelligence having reached the supreme point is able to treat himself as an animal, realizing that his intellectual and moral constitutions require a sound physical body to prompt them to the proper performance of their function. Education Is thd keynote of the Universal Exposition of 1904. Each department of the world’s labor and development will be represented at St Louis, classified and Installed in such manner that all engaged or Interested in such branch of activity may come and see, examine, study and go away advised. Each of the separate sections of the Exposition will be an equivalent of—or, rather, will be in actuality a comprehensive and most effective object lesson in—the line of industrial and social achievement and progress which its presents.