REPOET OF MR. ADAMS.
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portant results from a successful world’s fair, than are now the people of this country. They are in no respect in the condition of the people of Austria; but it was impossible to examine the rare display at Vienna, without being deeply impressed with a sense of the educational results to be derived by America from a similar experience. As respects taste and artistic development,—in all the results of a higher and more thorough education,—our people are as yet sadly deficient; they need an impetus. No one could walk through the Exposition at Vienna and not experience a realizing sense of the fact., Should the Philadelphia Centennial lead to such results with us as the Exposition of 1851 did with the people of England,—should it leave behind it with us, as that did with them, a keener appreciation both of our national shortcomings and our possibilities,—it will not be otherwise than a brilliant success, even if it bequeaths us also a deficit as large as that which the Austrian authorities are now contemplating with disappointment and dismay.
These are not, however, matters which my colleagues or myself were especially directed to investigate. The objects for which a state commission had been sent to Vienna, and which we were necessarily to keep in view, were more particularly expressed in the language of the Resolve authorizing our appointment, which has already been quoted, and in the letter of instructions of April 10th, addressed to me by the governor, a copy of which is prefixed to this report. Recurring to these, it will be observed that the duty of aiding the Massachusetts contributors was especially imposed upon us. In this respect we found the field of our usefulness extremely limited. Had the commission been authorized and appointed a year earlier, the case might have been very different. The commissioners then would have organized the Massachusetts exposition, rvould have been familiar with the conditions under which the contributions were to be forwarded and displayed, and would have been somewhat advised both as to what was expected of them and what it would be in their power to accomplish. As it was, all that was done in the way of organization at all, had been done by the commissioners of the United States before our appointment was even contemplated. It was entirely out of the question, therefore,