36
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
iant and essential a part in its great European prototypes will, it is true, necessarily be wanting. The mercantile element, however, which has*proved the great main-spring of all recent expositions, will there be present in a more than ordinary degree. Throughout the civilized world America is known as a great market; as a market in which fabulous prices are paid, especially for those things which are rich or rare. Accordingly, all the leading producers of the world, whether of objects of utility or of art, will wish to be represented. They will come with every conceivable product of human skill, and, more especially, with those a familiarity with which is in itself a liberal education, and the production of which oilers well-nigh unlimited fields for American development. The zeal and public spirit with which the city and state most immediately concerned have thrown themselves into the undertaking have been most creditable, and, unaided, should suffice to secure the happiest results. All that is needed is a thorough concentration, economy and direction of force. The vulgar ambition of unprecedented bigness should be made to yield to an educated appreciation of excellence. There can be no question that the devotion of those who have the Centennial in charge will create in it a wide-spread and sufficing interest. Mismanagement, arising from ignorance, incompetence and jobbery,—a repetition of the Vienna experience,—will be the great danger to be apprehended. If that experience can now be turned to an immediate profit in preventing its own recurrence, we shall have some cause not wholly to deplore it. This, however, can only come from action, both intelligent and prompt, on the part of the various state governments, who will be the leading participants. Should this be deferred to the last moment, and then hastily improvised, those who rashly implicate themselves will probably have as good ultimate cause for regret as did the vast majority of their countrymen, who, during the last summer, found themselves in any way officially connected with the national fiasco at Vienna.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Jr.