It is often said that any town, no matter how small it is, may have a unique library. All that is necessary is to start and maintain a movement to bring together every book, pamphlet, broadside, or newspaper that will in any way throw light on the history of the town or the lives of its residents or past inhabitants. It may not only have a mass of local literature, but may add to this a museum of antiquities and other objects which illustrate the history or show the present products and interests of the town. Both of these things have been done in a most admirable manner in the public library of the beautiful little town of Lancaster, in Worcester County. But every town library may have a unique art collection. Poor indeed is a town without amateur photographers among its permanent or summer residents. With little trouble and at no great expense any town library may secure a valuable collection of local photographs. Preserve the remembrance of beautiful trees or groups of trees. The landscape changes from time to time as wood is cut or as alterations are made for utilitarian purposes. Have pictures taken to show how the town looks to-day. Get photographs of all prominent residents and, so far as possible, likenesses of former residents and of persons born in the town who have been important factors in adding to the prosperity of larger places. Take pictures of old houses. If a library, even in a very small town, should do this kind of work systematically and do a good deal of it every year, it would not be long before it would have a valuable and, as stated before, unique collection.

A town library may join a league like the one which the Forbes Library was asked to attach itself to.

Finally, traveling libraries of pictures are available. The Woman's Education Association of Boston has done excellent work in sending to small towns traveling libraries of books. It is now entering on the work of sending boxes of pictures to places where they are desired. It has already done work of this kind.

I will only add that considerable work of this kind is being done in the State of Wisconsin. Attention has for some time been attracted to that State by the excellence of the work which it has been doing by sending boxes of books to sparsely settled portions of the State. In a report recently issued by the Wisconsin Free Library Commission on "Free Traveling Libraries in Wisconsin" there is a very interesting account of good work that is being done by traveling boxes of pictures in Portage County.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI AND INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION, HELD IN OMAHA, NEBR., JUNE 1 TO OCTOBER 31, 1898.

Report of J. C. Boykin, Agent of the Bureau of Education, and Chief Special Agent of the Interior Department.

WASHINGTON, D. C., February 1, 1899.

SIR: In making a report of the participation of this Bureau in the TransMississippi and International Exposition, it may be well to give a brief history of the enterprise and a statement of its general features. Without this the bearings and surroundings of our own exhibit can not be well appreciated.

The credit of first effectively proposing an exposition to be held in Omaha is said to belong to Mr. Edward Rosewater, the editor of the Omaha Bee. He had been impressed by the success of the World's Fair at Chicago and by its advantages to that city, and his belief that a similar exposition would have a like effect upon Omaha had been strengthened by the experience of Atlanta, Ga., with its exposition of 1895. A convention had been called in 1895 to consider the commercial condition of the Trans-Mississippi States, and it was expected that steps would then be taken to extend the commercial importance of that section. The time seemed ripe to Mr. Rosewater for advancing his ideas as to an exposition, and he accordingly broached the subject to a number of influential men of the city, and published (November 25, 1895) an editorial in his paper earnestly advocating the idea. The proposition was taken up by the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress almost immediately afterwards, and the actual initiation of the exposition was the most important work accomplished by that gathering, its president, Hon. W. J. Bryan, introducing the following resolution:

Whereas we believe that an exposition of all the products, industries, and civilization of the States west of the Mississippi River, made at some central gateway where the world can behold the wonderful capabilities of these great wealthproducing States, would be of great value not only to the Trans-Mississippi States, but to all the home seekers in the world: Therefore,

Resolved, That the United States Congress be requested to take such steps as may be necessary to hold a Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha in the year 1898, and that the Representatives of such States and Territories in Congress be requested to favor such an appropriation as is usual in such cases to assist in carrying out this enterprise.

After the adjournment of the congress, active steps were taken to make the suggestion an accomplished fact. In January, 1896, the Trans-Mississippi Exposition Association was formally organized and incorporated. Its capital stock was fixed at $1,000,000, issued in shares of $10 each. Efforts were begun for securing Congressional and State recognition and, incidentally, appropriations. The sundry civil bill passed by Congress and approved June 10, 1896, carried an appropriation of $200,000 for a Government exhibit, and contained the usual provisions as to notification and invitation to foreign governments to participate and as to the admission of exhibits free of duty. Of the appropriation as it finally stood, $62,500

were to be used for the erection of a building and the remainder was to be for the preparation and care of exhibits. The Government exhibit was to be controlled by a board of management consisting of one representative of each of the Executive Departments and one each from the Smithsonian Institution and the Fish Commission.

The passage of this bill made the exposition a certainty. In a few months stock subscriptions were secured in sufficient amount to meet the provisos in the appropriation bill and in the articles of incorporation, and December 1, 1896, a meeting of the stockholders was held and a board of fifty directors was elected. These, in turn, formulated the permanent organization of the association and elected the following officers: Gurdon W. Wattles, president; Alvin Saunders, resident vicepresident; Herman Kountze, treasurer; John A. Wakefield, secretary; Z. T. Lindsey, manager department of ways and means; Edward Rosewater, manager department of publicity and promotion; F. P. Kirkendall, manager department of buildings and grounds; E. E. Bruce, manager department of exhibits; A. L. Reed, manager department of concessions and privileges; W. N. Babcock, manager department of transportation.

The final decision as to the location of the exposition was reached March 17, 1897, and the corner stone was laid with elaborate ceremony April 22.

THE GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS.

The site was an eligible one, about 2 miles from the center of the city. It was composed of three distinct "tracts," but these were so situated, and the arrangement was such, that each had its individuality. All were connected by streets and viaducts, and what might have been the cause of inconvenience and lack of harmony under less skillful management, was turned into a positive advantage.

What was known as the Kountze tract was a rectangular piece of ground 670 feet wide and about a half mile long, extending from Sherman avenue (Sixteenth street extended) to Twenty-fourth street. Here was situated the "grand court." A long, narrow lagoon, spread out at one end in the form of a trefoil, was surrounded by the principal exhibit buildings, recalling the court of honor at the World's Fair, the likeness being increased by the extensive use of white staff in construction and decoration. At the head of the lagoon stood the Government building with its gilded dome and impressive columns and sculptured groups. On the south were the buildings devoted to fine arts, liberal arts, and mines and mining, and on the north were those of agriculture, manufactures, and machinery and electricity. All these were connected by colonnades, which added much to the completeness of the plan and proved a positive boon in inclement weather.

THE EXHIBITS.

The exhibits in the Government building were materially different in most respects from those at previous expositions, the plan of the officials being to present fresh collections as far as possible at each succeeding exposition. Where it was necessary to use the same articles the difference in arrangement and decoration was such as to give them an entirely different aspect. If this were not kept constantly in mind the Government exhibits, after a few expositions, might become monotonous. But since the same departments, the same bureaus, and the same functions are to be exhibited every time, the task is not an easy one.

A partial enumeration of the articles shown filled 45 closely printed octavo pages in the official catalogue. From this the scope of the exhibits may be judged. The Fine Arts Building, or more properly buildings, for it was a double structure, contained a creditable collection of pictures. A feature which added greatly to its usefulness was a series of lectures by the director, Mr. A. H. Griffith, of Detroit, Mich., who in his talks passed from picture to picture and explained their

characteristics and those of the schools of art which they respectively represented. In lieu of the usual medals and diplomas, a fund of $5,000 was expended in the purchase of meritorious pictures, the idea being that artists would prefer a sale to any other form of award.

The Liberal Arts Building and the Manufactures Building faced each other from opposite sides of the lagoon. In the former among the most conspicuous exhibits were typewriters, pianos, billiard tables, artificial limbs, gramophones, writing papers, photographs, furs, and jewelry. Prominent exhibits in the manufactures building were of meats, pork and beef products, salt, shoes, whiskies and beer, oils, hats, clothing, watches, stoves, sewing machines, house furnishings, chocolate, etc.

The Mines and Mining Building was filled almost entirely with collective State exhibits of minerals. South Dakota, Missouri, Colorado, Montana, Minnesota, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Oregon, and Nevada made extensive exhibits in this department.

The building devoted to Machinery and Electricity occupied the position on the lagoon opposite to that of the Mines and Mining Building. The display of electrical machines and devices was excellent, but not extensive, and the exhibits of historical telephone and telegraph apparatus were noteworthy. In machinery other than electric the display was meager.

The Agriculture Building presented the appearance that has come to be considered inseparable from a building so named. With the exception of three or four excellent exhibits made by railroads, all the extensive displays were collective State exhibits. Naturally Nebraska and the neighboring States of Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri made the largest exhibits here, but New Mexico, Utah, Texas, Minnesota, Oregon, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Montana, and even Hawaii, were well represented. There was a good deal of sameness in these exhibits, since the States in that section all boast of similar products; but the lumber of Oregon, the flour of Nebraska, the forestry of Montana, the photographs of Hawaii, the wools of Minnesota, and the ingenious pictures and lay figures of the Burlington Railway served to give variety to the building and relief from the profusion of corn and grain.

The Horticulture Building and the Transportation and Agricultural Implement Building were very inconveniently placed, the former beyond the State buildings on the Bluff tract, and the latter almost at the extreme northern limits of the grounds. Neither building, therefore, received its just proportion of visitors on ordinary occasions. As in the Mining and the Agriculture Building, the exhibits of horticul ture were largely those of the State commissions. In the department of transportation the railroads naturally occupied the chief space. Powerful engines of the latest type, an elegant Pullman passenger train, refrigerator cars, and a historical engine and passenger car attracted probably the most attention in this section.

The most striking feature of western farming to an eastern man is the extensive use of machinery. So far as the work of the field goes, hand work is practically eliminated in western farming, and it is a fact that the old familiar hand tools are rarely seen. Naturally the display of agricultural machinery at this exposition was, as compared with either Atlanta or Nashville, very extensive, and many articles were exhibited with prospects of profitable sale which would be merely objects of curiosity in most parts of the East and South.

THE INDIAN CONGRESS.

The Indian act of July 1, 1898, carried an appropriation of $40,000 to enable the Secretary of the Interior to assemble representatives of different Indian tribes as a part of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition. The purpose of this