The great West is here in full force, the states west of the Mississippi being especially prominent. It is not long since Kansas and Nebraska were both included within the limits of “The Great American Desert,” on whose sandy soil it was said not even grass could grow. But now from those same arid plains come the best of corn and wheat, and all the other cereals, with fruits and vegetables that are truly surprising. Such potatoes as Oregon and Colorado send need at least such hills as those in which eastern farmers raise similar crops. Think of potatoes ten inches long, six inches wide, and four thick. But time and space would alike fail to specify the abundance and variety of the horticultural and pomological products of the West, this including all west of the Alleghenies, and especially west of the Father of Waters.
One of the most important sources of national prosperity, growth, and riches is to be found in our mineral deposits. Here we see rich specimens of almost every known mineral, and all found within our own borders. Within the list are tin, zinc, copper, silver, gold, iron and coal, with unnumbered others; but these mentioned are the principal, and these are the factors which enter largely into all problems of modern progress and civilization; they add to the riches, if not the wealth of any people; and wisely used, they will add to the wealth as well as riches. The central and eastern portions of the Union abound in coal and iron; these give strength and stability to the enterprise and industry of a people. The Rocky Mountain range, in all its length, from its outlying spur reaching through Alaska to Behrings Strait on the north, to the Mexican border on the south, is full of gold and silver. These deposits excite the ambition and stimulate the energies of the people; and it is sure that the fact just stated will help the American people to find a solution to the disgusting problem presented by Mormons. The heart of the Rocky Mountains will not always be dominated by the most virulent enemies of all that is truly American and Christian. The forests, with the endless variety of woods they produce, never made a better showing than at this Exposition. From Maine to California, and from Florida to Dakota, various woods gathered from the plains, the mountains and the swamps show the abundant supply with which the country is provided. The specimens are prepared so that the trunk of the tree, with the bark covering it, the wood showing the grain polished, and varnished and unvarnished, can all be seen at a glance.
To most people of middle age or beyond, the collection of machinery is peculiarly interesting. Young people have no personal knowledge of the extraordinary progress of invention within the last twenty-five or thirty years. Thirty years ago and men and women were reaping the ripened grain just as the Greeks and Romans did 700 B. C., and just as the servants of Boaz did on the plains of Bethlehem 1100 B. C., and, in fact, just as Noah and his family did when they raised the first crop after they left the ark. But there has been a revolution in the implements of husbandry. A crooked stick is no longer used as a plow, but in the place of the stick are plows of all shapes and sizes, gold mounted and nickel plated, as ornamental as a parlor piano. The rude hoe is superseded by all sorts of cultivators. Planting is done by machinery, elaborate, exact, scientific and elegant. The great Daniel Webster when asked as to the best way to hang a scythe replied the best way he had ever found (and he was brought up on a farm) was to hang it over the limb of a tree. If he could see these mowers and the many other machines to make hay, he would conclude that he had reached the millennium as far as hay making is concerned. So, too, the sickle has given way to the machinery drawn by a span of horses, that can almost do the work required on a trot. The machine reaps, gathers up and binds the bundles. Not long ago all threshing was done by tying two straight sticks together with a string, the best string was an eelskin dried and tanned, and then the farmer, in dust and solitude, would pound away at the straw laid out upon the barn floor; but here is a machine that will thresh and winnow wheat as fast as six men can toss in the bundles to the man who feeds, and it will take as many more to remove and stack the straw. And so it is with the whole business of farming. What is true of the processes is equally true of almost every other manual industry. It is a revelation of wonders to walk about amid these exhibits of machinery, and remember that to all intents and purposes the results we behold are the achievements of the last fifty, and in most cases of the last thirty years. And it is equally remarkable that most of these inventions are the offspring of American thought.
It is most natural for every thoughtful person to ask, how is this and why? The ready and superficial answer is that “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and that the American people, by the conditions of life surrounding them, have been compelled to invent. But surely such an answer can not be considered satisfactory. There are two events in modern times that no philosopher, physicist, ethnologist or theologian has up to this time fully measured, and much less has been able to estimate their relation to the future of humanity. The first of these events is the vast migration of the peoples of the Old World to the New, by which, within the last sixty years 12,000,000 of human beings, most of them young men and women, have left Europe to make their homes in the United States. God only knows the importance and significance of this movement. The second marvelous event of these days in which we live is the sweep and triumph of invention. It is worth considering that the steam power of the United States represents more than the entire muscular force of all the able-bodied men in the world. And the improvements in machinery represent immeasurable conquests of mind in the realm of matter. It does not take omniscience to apprehend, to some extent, the fact that these things must affect the destiny of the whole family of mankind. With such thoughts as these in mind one walks amid these minute or ponderous contrivances for the application of power, with something of the reverence and wonder felt by Moses when he stood in the presence of the bush that burned but was not consumed. It is evident that God, the Eternal Ruler of all things, is in the midst of these “flying wheels.”
One of the most interesting exhibits is that made of the live stock. The spirited, clean-limbed trotting stock of Kentucky is here. The little Shetland ponies are side by side with the vast Normans. Some of the full grown ponies are so small that a strong man could easily toss one of them to his shoulders, but a Norman that weighs more than 2,000 pounds is altogether a different creature. The Clydesdales may be good for draft horses, but their enormous fetlocks so disfigure their feet and legs as to make them appear homely and uncouth. The Normans and Percherons do not have this disfigurement. They are magnificent in size, some of them black and glossy as anthracite coal, others are deep bay, almost a rich mahogany color, others are dapple gray, from very dark to very light, and two of them are as white as milk. To any one who loves horses this show is worth the travel of a thousand miles. It would make the heart of Rosa Bonheur glad to walk through the stables; and if the finest of the horses could be grouped together under her artistic eye she would have all she could wish for one of her famous pictures. These, or such as these, Job had in mind when he wrote: “Thou hast given the horse strength, thou hast clothed his neck with thunder. He mocketh at fear and is not affrighted, he rejoiceth in his strength.”
Nothing less, in every praiseworthy point, is the exhibit of horned cattle. Short Horns, Herefords, Devons, Jerseys, Holsteins, Galloways, vie with each other in size and beauty. One ox weighs 2,990 pounds, and many of them exceed 2,000 pounds. They are thoroughbreds, or carefully crossed, and it is doubtful if finer specimens could be obtained, even in the original habitats of the respective breeds. But I need not write of jacks and jennies, of mules, and sheep, and hogs, they are all here, after their kind, and worthy of admiration for the perfection they display as the result of painstaking skill.
The educational interests are variously represented, and many of the cities and educational societies, and even private or denominational schools find space to show the methods and results of each. The Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church makes a creditable display. The same is true of the American Missionary Society, and of several Roman Catholic institutions. The facts, however, seem to show that comparatively little progress has been made in the science of education in the last twenty years. Whether we have reached the ultimatum, so far as methods are concerned, is the question. The child is yet to be born who knows his letters without being taught them. The capital of each, at start, is nothing, and only one thing can be learned at a time, and the human brain is only capable of a certain amount of work. These are some of the limitations a good many educators are inclined to overlook, and yet they will continue to confront all practical people as long as the world stands. Would it not be well, at about this time, for visionary people, with all sorts of educational vagaries, to halt for a little while and inquire if a thorough, plain, fundamental education is not the desideratum for the great majority of the youth of every land. A good part of modern education partakes of the frivolous character of the times. Substantial, honest, common-sense education is vastly better than the illusions and flippancies of sentimental theorists.
Speaking of the Freedman’s Aid Society as above, reminds one that the colored people are admitted to participate in the Exposition. Well, the world moves. We are not where we were twenty-five years ago. We are coming up out of the wilderness. Shall we come “full as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?” Yes, if we come in God’s order. No, if we do not. It always pays to do right. It never pays to do wrong. No curse ever comes causeless. It is sometimes worth remembering that the 7,000,000 colored people in the United States own on an average property to the amount of $14, and it is not long since they started with nothing. They will send some missionaries to Africa, but most of them will live and die with us, and where we are buried there will they be buried. It is time we recognized the fact that our God is their God. Let us all rejoice that they have a place in the World’s Exposition in New Orleans. We need them, they need us. Why not recognize our brotherhood with them, and then together consecrate ourselves to the glorious task of making this land the first and foremost of all the world in the possession and exemplification of all Christian, and manly, and patriotic graces? And why not join all forces, North, South, East and West in one sublime and divinely led effort to carry the untold blessings of education, morality, freedom, and Christianity to all peoples who still sit amid the shadows of tyranny, superstition, poverty and ignorance? This World’s Exposition will reach its highest and grandest legitimate possibilities just in proportion as it shall help forward these desires of all good men and these plans and purposes of the World’s Redeemer.