tical lessons, relating to the theoretic questions treated in the papers submitted to the conference. After the pupils are dismissed, these lessons are criticised by those present. Over sixty per cent. of the teachers who begin in a commune finish their life-work in the same commune. You can readily infer the devotion and pride they bring to the advance of their schools, and the power of their influence over the community.

The commune provides also a garden where the elements of agriculture taught in school are practically explained and demonstrated. The trees and flowers planted are placed under the protection of the pupils, and, while contributing to their æsthetic development, promote also a respect and guardianship for public property. More might be said of their professional training, their continuation schools, their intensive study of agriculture; but the time limit forbids.

In the three countries of France, Austria, and Italy the industrial training stood forth pre-eminent. France, it is true, gave in charts and printed volumes a full record of the work of her primary, secondary, and higher instruction; but, unfortunately, it was not so installed as to be easily studied, and all information obtained had to be dug for. Her attractive and carefully considered exhibits came from the higher professional primary schools maintained by the cities and under the supervision of the ministry of commerce and industry. The exhibits of the art and industrial schools of Austria and Italy have never been surpassed on American soil, and were at once the admiration and despair of American critics. The exhibits of both nations were limited to Groups IV and VI, Art and Industrial Education. The international jury on Group IV said:

We feel, as jurors, that it is a part of our duty to call the attention of American educators to these excellent exhibits [referring particularly to Austria], as showing that art is not only an ornament, but an excellent investment when properly directed. These schools, as well as the excellent schools of Great Britain and Ireland, are under the direct control of the government, and opportunity is given pupils to perfect themselves in all art-industrial pursuits; special training being supplied for those who are fitting themselves for foremen and directors of manufacturing establishments wherein an art-knowledge is necessary. Special attention is given in various schools to local industrial demands.

The art schools of Great Britain and Ireland have been mentioned in the foregoing extract, but the typical feature of the English exhibit was the selection of certain features of schools, or of class work, and their presentation in a most attractive manner. This policy accorded very well with the unorganized and varied educational efforts, public and private, state and church, which are to the American mind inextricably interwoven in English educational administration. It certainly had the merit of clearly setting forth many admirable features of English schools.

From the Orient the great exhibit was from Japan, whose statistical charts set forth in a most graphic way the marvelous growth of education in that country since 1867, when the old system of education gave way to the western system. The development in the last ten years has to be seen to be credited.

The percentage of elementary-school attendance is nearly 92 per cent. Every group in the official classification contained Japanese exhibits, but, in accordance with the theory of the country's development, great stress was laid upon art as applied to the trades and industries. The exhibit of the University of Tokio was specially remarkable in the field of applied science. It was very easy to note the marks of American influence in every field of administrative effort.

The exhibit of the Chinese commission was interesting from two facts. It was the first exhibit of Chinese education ever made, which gave it, as coming from the oldest recorded civilization, an intense historical value; and, second, the interesting comparison between the old education and that introduced by means of foreign schools in the seaport towns. Little progress has been made by the latter compared with the field of possibilities, and the contrast with the supremacy in Japan of western methods is striking.

The exhibits of the Latin-American nations were attractive and instructive, particularly Cuba, where the steady growth from the impetus given by American occupation is gratifying, and in Argentina, where the progress of public instruction in the more thickly settled section, and the growth of normal schools, are highly creditable. Brazil showed great unevenness, ranging from the excellent administrative system of the province of San Paulo to practically nothing in the northern provinces but unorganized private effort. The same may be said of Mexico, but in each of the four countries were many beautiful and progressive exhibits from higher educational institutions.

Such is a brief résumé of the more prominent features of the foreign exhibits. Those of you who attended the exposition know well their wealth of material, to which could have been given months of careful study; and their installation, which was characteristic in a high degree of the individuality of the nation. We feel confident that an opportunity has been given for comparative study which will not occur again in our generation, and we shall rest highly content if the educational public deems it worthy in a remote degree of the high ideals which governed the inception of the Exposition of 1904.

II. THE AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT, EXCLUSIVE OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

ELIPHALET ORAM LYTE, CHAIRMAN OF GROUP ONE AND OF THE DEPARTMENT JURY, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, AND MEMBER OF THE SUPERIOR JURY There is a limit to the utility of the laboratory method in acquiring the art of teaching. Experience is a dear teacher often, and always when the experiment must be made upon the growing and aging mind. What has been accomplished by others blazes the way for us. All exhibitions of the products of man are educational, both in teaching us what has been done and in showing us what may be done, and thus saving time and energy that

we might otherwise expend in doing again what has been done, or in trying to do what cannot be done.

The most striking characteristic of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was the predominance of the educational idea, not only in the Educational Department, but also in most other departments. While the exhibits of school work in the Educational Department seemed in many cases to be almost too exhibitional—if I may use the word-it is true that many of the exhibits in the various other departments of the exposition were largely educational. The erection of a separate building in the most conspicuous part of the exposition grounds devoted to educational purposes was in harmony with the dominant idea seen and felt in all departments. The incarnation of this idea at St. Louis was one of the most flattering testimonials which the world has offered to the profession of teaching, and its effects will be seen in the greater dignity with which the vocation of teaching will be regarded in the twentieth century. World's fairs crowd upon us so fast that the recollection of one has not lost its vividness before the next one treads upon its heels. The changes made in any department of progress can consequently be seen without effort. In some respects St. Louis repeated Chicago, which in turn repeated Philadelphia. But there were many new and striking features in the educational department at St. Louis. The rural-school exhibit stood out as never before, as witness Indiana and Pennsylvania; the great high schools of the great cities commanded respect and admiration; and many other institutions devoted to general education and numbers of special schools showed new methods and marked improvements on older ways. Too much credit cannot be given to Hon. Howard J. Rogers, chief of the Department of Education, for his labors in providing a suitable building for education, in arousing the country to the importance of the exposition, in securing from all classes of educational institutions representative products of their labor, and in the intelligence and skill displayed in so arranging the entire exhibit that it was easy for a student to obtain an intelligent idea of it. The division of the exhibit into eight groups and twenty-six classes enabled the student to find what he desired to see without waste of time. These eight groups consisted of:

Group I, Elementary Education, with its four classes: (1) kindergarten; (2) elementary grades; (3) training and certification of teachers; (4) continuation schools, including evening schools, vacation schools, and schools for special training.

Group II, Secondary Education, two classes: (5) high schools and academies, manualtraining high schools, commercial high schools; (6) training and certification of teachers.

Group III, Higher Education, five classes: (7) colleges and universities; (8) scientific, technical, and engineering schools and institutions; (9) professional schools; (10) libraries; (11) museums.

Group IV, Special Education in Fine Arts, two classes: (12) art schools and institutes; (13) schools and departments of music, conservatories of music.

Group V, Special Education in Agriculture, one class: (14) agricultural colleges and departments, experiment stations, instruction in forestry.

Group VI, Special Education in Commerce and Industry, four classes: (15) industrial and trade schools, evening industrial schools; (16) (a) business and commercial schools,

(b) higher instruction in commerce; (17) education of the Indian; (18) education of the negro.

Group VII, three classes: (19) institutions for the blind, publications for the blind; (20) institutions for the deaf and dumb; (21) institutions for the feeble-minded.

Group VIII, five classes: (22) summer schools; (23) extension courses, popular lectures and people's institutes, correspondence schools; (24) scientific societies and associations, scientific expeditions and investigations; (25) educational publications, text-books, etc.; (26) school furniture, school appliances.

One could not help receiving the impression from some of the exhibits that the serious purpose of the Department of Education was possibly not fully appreciated by all exhibitors. Some exhibits seemed to have been. hastily gathered together, without a well-defined thought of the real object of the exposition Many exhibits seemed to show that the intention of the exhibitor was to exhibit a finished product, with the steps in the process of making the product hidden, instead of laying bare, or revealing the processes by which the exhibit was brought to the state in which it was shown. Some exhibits might almost be said to have been too perfect for school exhibits. But many of the exhibits were illuminating in clearness, and gave the educator an opportunity of learning what was done in the different fields of educational activity, that left little to be desired.

The public high schools of the country have made remarkable progress in the past decade, and, as exhibited at St. Louis, present lines of work that indicate that the molders of these "people's colleges" are fully alive to the increasing demands made upon them by the busy business world. It was natural that in an exhibition of school work, manual training, color-work, and photographs should be largely in evidence. The reasons for this are obvious. Manual training, drawing, and photography mix the mental and the physical, and easily lend themselves to the exhibitor's art; while the more purely mental subjects are less easily displayed in cases or charts. If one did not remember this fact, one would think that time is wasted in our public schools in manual training. And yet a careful examination leads one to see that probably manual training does not receive an undue share of school time. Much of the work in manual training deserved praise; some was excellent, as, for example, the exhibits from Philadelphia and one or two other places; some was mediocre; and a few exhibits were uneducational in both purpose and execution. Two or three leading manual-training schools showed products of so great value that it was easy to see that the old apprentice system of learning a trade has been most admirably supplanted by the training in wood- and iron-work given by the public schools of manual training and mechanic arts of our large cities. But this side of manual training, as shown at St. Louis, is not the important side. One could see that this branch is used, with the other branches of school work, to develop the youth, to train his creative and artistic powers, and to give his mind control of his body, to teach his physicial powers to obey his mental powers.

It s impossible, of course, to show in an exhibition more than a small part

of the real work of a college or university. But even here the scientific spirit of the age made itself felt, and there were fine displays of equipments for laboratories in which the secrets of nature were revealed to the student, for engineering, for medicine and surgery, etc. The literary side of college work was shown by the volumes exhibited by professors and students by charts, histories, photographs, etc. Permit me to quote from an article in the Educational Review for December, by Miss Anna Tolman Smith, a member of the jury of one of the leading groups in the Department of Education:

The complete models of site and buildings presented by several universities, notably by the University of Wisconsin, Washington University, and the University of New York, excited universal admiration. Harvard showed a fine model of its students' stadium and, on the scientific side, a remarkable representation of intestinal digestion as seen under the Röntgen rays, and a case of the exquisite Blaschka glass models for botanical study; Columbia, a model of the beautiful new library building, with the majestic statue of Alma Mater in the foreground; and Yale suggested the highest outcome of university life by portraits of famous alumni. For æsthetic effect, pure and simple, the exhibits of the University of Michigan and of Columbia University surpassed all their sisterinstitutions, while the University of California excelled in photographic representations. The transparent views of her mining school, including class, laboratory, and field operations, afforded the highest example of this mode of exhibit as regards technical finish and illumination.

But the special value of the university exhibits was in the conditions they illustrated rather than in their actual material. The lavish equipments answer to the expansion of knowledge and man's increased control over the forces of nature; beauty of environment and of architecture, to the hunger of the spirit for ideal things. Lessons such as these could not fail to be caught by the mere casual observer, while the nature of the subjects selected for representation brought clearly to mind the lines of recent progress in matters and methods of university instruction.

The American exhibit of special education in fine arts, while it showed that we have something to learn from foreign countries, was highly creditable to us. In the entire exhibit one could not help noting with pleasure the growing tendency to combine the beautiful and the useful, or rather to beautify the useful, so that many objects of utility were clothed in a beautiful dress, thus showing, as quoted by my distinguished predecessor on the program, that "art is not only an ornament, but an excellent investment when properly directed." To quote from the report of the chairman of the jury of Group IV to the department jury:

In our own schools we find the same strivings as in foreign countries, but, lacking government support, and working without the same sympathy and help, they have as yet been unable to produce that perfection of workmanship and execution which we find in some of the foreign schools. This does not mean that we do not find the most excellent results in the handicrafts, as taught in the American schools, but opportunity is not here offered on the same terms to young workers in the art industries by which they may perfect themselves in their trade or profession.

A volume might be written upon the exhibit in Group V, Special Education in Agriculture. Let me quote from the report made by the chairman of the group jury: