The comments and eulogiums of orators and press upon this first American World’s Fair were, of course, largely pitched in a tone that to-day is interesting only in contrast. It is archaic, primitive, embryonic, though not devoid of what has aptly been termed spread-eagleism. One writer, however, discussed the theme with memorable eloquence, and in a spirit of broad-minded philosophy that makes his almost every word as appropriate to the great fair of 1893 as to that of forty years before. “The exhibition,” he said, “must be particularly instructive to Americans, because it will furnish them with evidences of a skill in many branches of creation beyond their own, and of models of workmanship which are superior precisely in those points in which their own are most deficient. No one, we presume, will push his national predilections so far as to deny that, in the finer characteristics of manufacture and art, we have yet a vast deal to learn. Stupendous as our advances have been in railroads, steamboats, canals, printing presses, hotels, and agricultural implements--rapidly as we are growing in excellence in a thousand departments of design and handicraft--astonishing as may be our achievements, under all the difficulties of an adverse national policy--adroit, ingenious, and energetic as we have shown ourselves in those labors which have been demanded by the existing conditions of our society, we have yet few fabrics equal to those of Manchester, few wares equal to those of Birmingham and Sheffield, no silks like those of Lyons, no jewelry like that of Geneva, no shawls like those of the East, no mosaics like those of Italy. But, in our rapid physical improvements--growing, as we are, in prosperity, in population, in wealth, in luxuries of all kinds--these are the articles that we ought to have, and must have to give diversity to our industry, to relieve us from dependence upon other nations, to refine our taste, and to enable the ornamental and elegant appliances of our life to keep pace with our external development. Mere wealth, without the refinements of wealth--barbaric ostentation, prodigal display, extravagant self-indulgence--can only corrupt morals and degrade character. But the cultivation of the finer arts redeems society from its grossness, spreads an unconscious moderation and charm around it, softens the asperities of human intercourse, elevates our ideals, and imparts a sense of serene enjoyment to all social relations. Our common people, immeasurably superior to the common people of other nations in easy means of subsistence, in intelligence, as in the sterling virtues, are yet almost as immeasurably behind them in polished and gentle manners, and the love of music, painting, statuary, and all the more refining social pleasures.