Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/110

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106
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY
Ground Plan of the Exposition.

There is not a single visitor who does not regret the shortness of the existence of this great exposition; who did not feel his interest in it increasing daily, while in attendance; who would not welcome an opportunity of returning to it for more instruction and inspiration; who was not moved to wish that every living man and woman might receive the benefits this exposition was intended to convey and to disseminate.

All expositions are schools of learning of the most practical sort. International expositions are the universities in which the different nations teach each other. The exhibits, carefully selected and arranged in groups, represent the achievements of many years, the results of many years of study and labor, in a predigested form and ready to enter the understanding without requiring any effort on the part of the observer, except that he be in a receptive mood. There was a time when the attributes of usefulness on the part of the high arts and sciences were regarded as detracting from their value; when the beauty of an object was thought to end where its usefulness began; when sciences, we were told, had a right to exist for their own sake and regardless of their usefulness to mankind. Human physiology itself, during its juvenile development in recent years, had become so precociously independent as to barely recognize its ancient relationship to mother Medicine. What a remarkable change of front in this general attitude has been made in a few years, was perhaps never better shown nor more efficiently demonstrated than in the "Internationale Hygiene Exposition, Dresden, 1911," where one great, intelligent, strong mind succeeded in gently pressing the fruits of every known art, science and industry into the service of humanity. Disciplined, orderly cooperation toward one common and useful end and purpose was never and nowhere shown to better advantage than in the work of organizing, creating and