REPORT OF MR. ADAMS.
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to do, or how it proposed to do it. The means appropriated to the end were ample; the matured design was wanting. In this and in every similar case all depends upon thoroughness of preparation. The course which should have been pursued is now perfectly apparent. The legislative action taken in February, 1873, should have been taken in February, 1872, and the Commissioners who were to carry the design into execution should then immediately have been selected. By them the State should have been thoroughly canvassed and its industries marshalled; those best representing its products should Rave been interested in the scheme, and their contributions collected and shipped, while the agents of the Commonwealth should have been upon the ground to receive them as early as January, 1873. Had this been done, no one at all familiar with the resources and results of her industry can for an instant doubt that the triumph of Massachusetts would have been as conspicuous as was the failure of the United States; her success would have redeemed the credit of the nation. It is idle to regret an opportunity lost, but, in future, it will be for Massachusetts to remember that it is better, much better, not to appear at all, than unworthily to exhibit herself at a world’s fair. A worthy appearance cannot be improvised; it implies labor, prevision and experience. Money even is less necessary than organization; unless this last is provided, both the State and its citizens had best stay at home.
All this, however, related merely to the Exposition as a mart,—to the sales-room only into which all countries brought their choicest products in competition with each other. But a no less pointed lesson of experience can be drawn from the manner in which we approach the Exposition as a school. It was not possible to look at the amazing results of science nnd skill there displayed, and not be impressed with the inexhaustible wealth of suggestion they contained for any American community. There is probably no other people w hich could draw so many benefits from it. But to secure those benefits it was necessary that the displayed, and yet more the hidden resources of the Exposition should be studied and developed by men who were masters of their subjects. As a rule, however, the men selected officially to represent