Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876 by Various
page 24 of 282 (08%)
page 24 of 282 (08%)
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Social and political questions like this point to a vast field of inquiry. For its proper cultivation the exposition provides data additional to those heretofore available. They should be used as far as possible upon the spot. At least, they can be examined, collated and prepared for full employment. To this end, meetings and discussions held by men qualified by intellect and study to deal with them are the obvious resort. There is room among the two hundred judges for some such men, but the juries are little more numerous than is required for the examination of and report on objects. For more abstract inquiries they will need recruits. These should be supplied by the leading philosophical associations of this country and Europe. The governments have all an interest in enlisting their aid, and the Centennial Commission has done what in it lay to promote their action. Ethnic characteristics, history, literature, education, crime, statistics as a science, hygiene and medicine generally are among the broad themes which are not apt to be adequately treated by the average committee of inspection. So with the whole range of the natural sciences. Dissertations based on the jury reports will doubtless be abundant after a while, but those reports themselves, being limited in scope, will not be as satisfactory material as that which philosophic specialists would themselves extract from direct observation and debate upon the ground. For the study of the commanding subject of education the provision made at the present exhibition is exceptionally great. In bulk, and probably in completeness, it is immeasurably beyond the display made on any preceding occasion. The building erected by the single State of Pennsylvania for her educational department covers ten or eleven thousand square feet, and other States of the Union make corresponding efforts to show well in the same line. The European nations all manifest |
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