Year: 1874

Nothing more thoroughly typical of Am"ri-
can character and culture as whole could be
offered than the exhibition of the Franklin
Institute in Philadelphia. The display OF our
own American Institute partakes of the traits
of this city, and is more cosmopolitan. But
the Philadelphians, as everybody knows, cling
to ancient ways and individual usages, and
after all nationality is to be sought for in pro-
yincialism. The shrewdness and expertness
with which great open railroad depot has
been turned into halls for this exhibition is
an evidence of Yankee pluck and Pennsylva-
mia persistence. The wide spaces have been
translated into model drawing-rooms. art and
music galleries, and miniature lakes The
solid brick columns " came handy" for every
thing-tO fasten a picture on, or support an
enormous machine. But Frenchman would
have taken the step beyond this. Some deft
and dainty touch which we have not learned,
some second sight which we were born with
out, would have helped HIM to throw an air
and glamour of beauty and refinement over
the whole.


The machinery too, in its variety, its ex-
ouiste workmanship, its half-human skill. is
thoroughly American. No nation under the
sun has done so much to simplify and Tighten
drudgery as ours, and the machines in these
industrial exhibitions prove it. But wherever
we look beyond these useful inventions for
any comprehension of other needs in life, for
any appliance to satisfy aesthetic tastes, or to
give grace and color to luxurious living, we
are disappointed. There is lavish display of
costly gliding, wherever gliding is admissible;
there are gorgeous soda fountains and high
seasoned perfumery; there are model par
"lOrs,n with carpets, chairs and drapery all at
fierce war with each Other-and that is all
The most hopeful sign of progress we see is
that the staring, wandering crowds are nOtmOved
to admiration by these. Drab-cOlOred mObs
of Quakers, broad d-shouldered Jerseymen and
Delaware matrons and maids with marvellous
beplumed hats over their pretty faces, saunter
uncomfortably up and down, not understand
ing the machinery, and with q vague sense
that something is lacking which is not ma
chinery. A significant hint of what this some
thing is, lies in the fact that the crowd of
shad -bellied coats and waving feathers congre-
gates about any attempted expression of a
skill which is not useful. burly Dutchman
dressed in Dutchman's idea of an Indian.
and his assistant who wears q Chinese silk
apron over his coat and trOwsers, are sur
rounded day and night by crowds eager to sec
them cut doll furniture out of block of
wood; another mass gathers about life-boat
pitching to and fro in q stormy ocean twenty
feet square, and still another around woman
spinning fairy-llke ships and towers out Of
glass. There is something childlike and bar
barous, perhaps. in this undeveloped hungry
/ tasie something still more barbarous, too, in
the recognition Of it in hideous chromoa
offered to crafty it, as prizes to every pur-
chaser. But after all, there is comfort in the
fact that growth is certainty in all life, and
that while fifty years ago we thought our
selves attained to our full stature, we have
now within us the first wholesome prophecy
of growth, an uncomfortable consciousness of
how much we need it.