International Congress of Arts and Science Part 6

By mutual arrangement the Director of Congresses and the Executive Secretary divided the field of labor. The Director had, in addition to the general oversight of the Congress, special supervision of the local reception committee, the entertainment of the guests, official banquets and entertainments, and all financial details. The Executive Secretary took entire charge of the programme, a.s.signment of rooms in the dormitory, care and supervision of the dormitory, a.s.signment of halls for speakers, registration books and bureau of information. Dr. Howard arrived on September 1 to begin his duties, and remained until September 30.

WEEK OF THE CONGRESS

The opening session of the Congress was set for Monday afternoon.

September 19, at 2.30 o'clock in Festival Hall. The main programme of the Congress began Tuesday morning. The sessions were held in the mornings and afternoons, the evenings being left free for social affairs. The list of functions authorized in honor of the Congress of Arts and Science were as follows:--

Monday evening, September 19, grand fete night in honor of the guests of the Congress, with special musical programme about the Grand Basin and lagoons, boat rides and lagoon fete; this function was unfortunately somewhat marred by inclement weather. It was the only evening free in the entire week, however, for members of the Congress to witness the illuminations and decorative evening effects.

Banquet given by the St. Louis Chemical Society at the Southern Hotel to members of the chemical sections of the Congress.

Tuesday evening, September 20, general reception by the Board of Lady Managers to the officers and speakers of the Congress and Officials of the Exposition.

Wednesday afternoon, September 21, garden fete given to the members of the Congress at the French National Pavilion by the Commissioner-General from France. The gardens of the miniature Grand Trianon were never more beautiful than on this brilliant afternoon, and the presence of the Garde Republicaine band and the entire official representation of the Exposition, lent a color and spirit to the affair unsurpa.s.sed during the Exposition period.

Wednesday evening, reception by the Imperial German Commissioner-General to the officers and speakers of the Congress and the officials of the Exposition, at the German State House. The magnificent hospitality which characterized this building during the entire Exposition period was fairly outdone on this occasion, and the function stands prominent as one of the brilliant successes of the Exposition period.

Thursday evening, September 22, Shaw banquet at the Buckingham Club to the foreign delegates and officers of the Congress. Through the courtesy of the trustees of Shaw's Garden and of the officers of Washington University, the annual banquet provided for men of science, letters, and affairs, by the will of Henry B. Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, was given during this week as a compliment to the noted foreign scientists who were the guests of the city of St. Louis.

Friday evening, September 23, official banquet given by the Exposition to the speakers and officials of the Congress and the officials of the Exposition, in the banquet hall of the Tyrolean Alps.

Sat.u.r.day evening, September 24, banquet at the St. Louis Club given by the Round Table of St. Louis, to the foreign members of the Congress.

The Round Table is a literary club which meets at banquet six times annually for discussion of topics of interest to the literary and scientific world.

Banquet given by the Imperial Commissioner-General from j.a.pan to the j.a.panese delegation to the Congress and to the Exposition officials and Chiefs of Departments.

Dinner given by Commissioner-General from Great Britain to the English members of the Congress.

OPENING OF THE CONGRESS

The a.s.sembling of the Congress on the afternoon of September 19, in the magnificent auditorium of Festival Hall which crowned Cascade Hill and the Terrace of States, was marked with simple ceremonies and impressive dignity. The great organ pealed the national hymns of the countries partic.i.p.ating and closed with the national anthem of the United States.

In the audience were the members of the Congress representing the selected talent of the world in their field of scientific endeavor, and about them were grouped an audience drawn from every part of the United States to promote by their presence the success of the Congress and to do honor to the noted personages who were the guests of the Exposition and of the Nation. On the stage were seated the officials of the Congress, the honorary vice-presidents from foreign nations, and the officials of the Exposition.

At the appointed hour the Director of Congresses, Dr. Howard J. Rogers, called the meeting to order, and outlined in a few words the object of the Congress, welcomed the foreign delegates, and presented the members, both foreign and American, to the President of the Exposition, Hon.

David R. Francis.

The President spoke as follows:--

What an ambitious undertaking is a universal exposition! But how worthy it is of the highest effort! And, if successful, how far-reaching are its results, how lasting its benefits!

Who shall pa.s.s judgment on that success? On what evidence, by what standards shall their verdicts be formed? The development of society, the advancement of civilization, involve many problems, encounter many and serious difficulties, and have met with deplorable reactions which decades and centuries were required to repair. The proper study of mankind is man, and any progress in science that ignores or loses sight of his welfare and happiness, however admirable and wonderful such progress may be, disturbs the equilibrium of society.

The tendency of the times toward centralization or unification is, from an economic standpoint, a drifting in the right direction, but the piloting must be done by skillful hands, under the supervision and control of far-seeing minds, who will remember that the ma.s.ses are human beings whose education and expanding intelligence are constantly broadening and emphasizing their individuality. A universal exposition affords to its visitors, and these who systematically study its exhibits and its phases, an unequaled opportunity to view the general progress and development of all countries and all races. Every line of human endeavor is here represented.

The conventions heretofore held on these grounds and many planned to be held--aggregating over three hundred--have been confined in their deliberations to special lines of thought or activity. This international congress of arts and sciences is the most comprehensive in its plan and scope of any ever held, and is the first of its kind. The lines of its organization, I shall leave the Director of Exhibits, who is also a member of the administrative board of this congress, to explain. You who are members are already advised as to its scope, and your almost universal and prompt acceptance of the invitations extended to you to partic.i.p.ate, implies an approval which we appreciate, and indicates a willingness and a desire to cooperate in an effort to bring into intelligent and beneficial correlation all branches of science, all lines of thought. You need no argument to convince you of the eminent fitness of making such a congress a prominent feature of a universal exposition in which education is the dominant feature.

The administrative board and the organizing committee have discharged their onerous and responsible tasks with signal fidelity and ability, and the success that has rewarded their efforts is a lasting monument to their wisdom. The management of the Exposition tenders to them, collectively and individually, its grateful acknowledgments. The membership in this congress represents the world's elect in research and in thought. The partic.i.p.ants were selected after a careful survey of the entire field; no limitations of national boundaries or racial affiliations have been observed. The Universal Exposition of 1904, the city of St.

Louis, the Louisiana territory whose acquisition we are celebrating, the entire country, and all partic.i.p.ating in or visiting this Exposition are grateful for your coming, and feel honored by your presence.

We are proud to welcome you to a scene where are presented the best and highest material products of all countries and of every civilization, partic.i.p.ated in by all peoples, from the most primitive to the most highly cultured--a marker in the progress of the world, and of which the International Congress of Arts and Science is the crowning feature.

May the atmosphere of this universal exposition, charged as it is with the restless energies of every phase of human activity and permeated by that ineffable sentiment of universal brotherhood engendered by the intelligent sons of G.o.d, congregating for the friendly rivalries of peace, inspire you with even higher thoughts--imbue you with still broader sympathies, to the end that by your future labors you may be still more helpful to the human race and place your fellow men under yet deeper obligations.

Director Frederick J. V. Skiff was then introduced by the President as representing the Division of Exhibits, whose untiring labors had filled the magnificent Exposition palaces surrounding the Festival Hall with the visible products of those sciences and arts, the theory, progress, and problems of which the Congress was a.s.sembled to consider.

Mr. Skiff spoke as follows:--

The division of exhibits of the Universal Exposition of 1904 has looked forward to this time, when the work it has performed is to be reviewed and discussed by this distinguished body. I do not, of course, intend to convey the idea that the international congress is to inspect or criticise the exhibitions, but I do mean to say that the deliberations of this organization are contemporaneous with and share the responsibility for the accomplishments of which the exhibitions made are the visible evidences.

The great educational yield of a universal exposition comes from the intellectual more than from the mechanical processes. It is the material condition of the times. It is as well the duty of the responsible authorities to go yet further and record the thoughts and theories, the investigations, experiments, and observations of which these material things are the tangible results.

A congress of arts and science, whose membership is drawn from all educational as well as geographical zones, not only accounts for and a.n.a.lyzes the philosophy of conditions, but points the way for further advance along the lines consistent with demonstration. Its contribution to the hour is at once a history and a prophecy.

The extent to which the deliberations and utterances of this congress may regulate the development of society or give impulse to succeeding generations, it is impossible to estimate, but not unreasonable to antic.i.p.ate. The plans of the congress matured in the minds of the best scholars; the cla.s.sification of its purpose, the scope, the selection of its distinguished partic.i.p.ants, gave to the hopes and ambitions of the management of the Exposition inspiration of a most exalted degree. At first these ambitions were--not without reason--regarded as too high. The plane upon which the congress had been inaugurated, the aim, the broad intent, seemed beyond the merits, if not beyond the capacity, of this. .h.i.therto not widely recognized intellectual centre. But the courage of the inception, the loftiness of the purpose, appealed so profoundly to the toilers for truth and the apostles of fact, that we find gathered here to-day in the heart of the new Western continent the great minds whose impress on society has rendered possible the intellectual heights to which this age has ascended and now beckon forward the students of the world to limitless possibilities.

While international congresses of literature, science, art, and industry have been accomplished by previous expositions, yet to cla.s.sify and select the topics in sympathy with the cla.s.sification and installation of the exhibits material is a step considerably in advance of the custom. The men who build an exposition must by temperament, if not by characteristic, be educators. They must be in sympathy with the welfare of humanity and its higher destiny. The exhibitions at this Exposition are not the haphazard gatherings of convenient material, but the outline of a plan to ill.u.s.trate the productiveness of mankind at this particular time, carefully digested, thoroughly thought out, and conscientiously executed. The exhibit, therefore, in each of the departments of the cla.s.sification, as well as in the groups of the different departments, are of such character, and so arranged as to reflect the best that the world can do along departmental lines, and the best that different peoples can do along group lines. The congresses accord with the exhibits, and the exhibits give expression to the congresses.

Education has been the keynote of this Exposition. Were it not for the educational idea, the acts of government providing vast sums of money for the up-building of this Exposition would have been impossible. This congress reflects one idea vastly outstripping others, and that is, in the unity of thought in the universal concert of purpose.

It is the first time, I believe, that there has been an international gathering of the authorities of all the sciences, and in that respect the congress initiates and establishes the universal brotherhood of scholars.

A thought uncommunicated is of little value. An unrecorded achievement is not an a.s.set of society. The real lasting value of this congress will consist of the printed record of its proceedings. The delivery of the addresses, reaching and appealing to, as must necessarily be the case, a very limited number of people, can be considered as only a method of reaching the lasting and perpetual good of civilization.

In just the degree that this Exposition in its various divisions shall make a record of accomplishments, and lead the way to further advance, this enterprise has reached the expectations of its contributors and the hopes of its promoters. This congress is the peak of the mountain that this Exposition has builded on the highway of progress. From its heights we contemplate the past, record the present, and gaze into the future.

This universal exposition is a world's university. The International Congress of Arts and Science const.i.tutes the faculty; the material on exhibition are the laboratories and the museums; the students are mankind.

That in response to invitation of the splendid committee of patriotic men, to whom all praise is due for their efforts in this crowning glory of the Exposition, so eminent a gathering of the scholars and savants of the world has resulted, speaks unmistakably for the fraternity of the world, for the sympathy of its citizenship, and for the patriotism of its people.

In reply to these addresses of the officials of the Exposition, the honorary Vice-Presidents for Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, and j.a.pan made brief responses in behalf of their respective countries.

Sir William Ramsay of London spoke in the place of Hon. James Bryce, extending England's thanks for the courtesy which had been shown her representatives and declaring that England, particularly in the scientific field, looked upon America as a relative and not as a foreign country.

France was represented by Professor Jean Gaston Darboux, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, who spoke as follows:--

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--My first word will be to thank you for the honor which you have been so courteous as to pay my country in reserving for her one of the vice-presidencies of the Congress. Since the time of Franklin, who received at the hands of France the welcome which justice and his own personal genius and worth demanded, most affectionate relations have not ceased to unite the scientists of France and the scientists of America. The distinction which you have here accorded to us will contribute still further to render these relations more intimate and more fraternal. In choosing me among so many of the better fitted delegates sent by my country, you have without doubt wished to pay special honor to the Academie des Sciences and to the Inst.i.tut de France, which I have the honor of representing in the position of Perpetual Secretary. Permit me therefore to thank you in the name of these great societies, which are happy to count in the number of their foreign a.s.sociates and of their correspondents so many of the scholars of America. In like manner as the Inst.i.tut de France, so the Congress which opens to-day seeks to unite at the same time letters, science, and arts. We shall be happy and proud to take part in this work and contribute to its success.

Germany was represented by Professor Wilhelm Waldeyer, of the University of Berlin, who replied as follows:--

MR. PRESIDENT, HONORED a.s.sEMBLAGE,--The esteemed invitation which has been offered to me in this significant hour of the opening of the Congress of Arts and Science to greet the members of this congress, and particularly my esteemed compatriots, I have had no desire to decline. I have been for a fortnight under the free sky of this mighty city--so I must express myself, since enclosing walls are unknown in the United States--and this fact, together with the hospitality offered me in such delightful manner by the Chairman of the Committee on Congresses, Mr. Frederick W.

Lehmann, has almost made me a St. Louis man. Therefore I may perhaps take it upon myself to greet you here.

I confess that I arrived here with some misgiving--some doubts as to whether the great task which was here undertaken under most difficult circ.u.mstances could be accomplished with even creditable success. These doubts entirely disappeared the first time I entered the grounds of the World's Fair and obtained a general view of the method, beautiful as well as practical, by which the treasures gathered from the whole world were arranged and displayed. I trust you, too, will have a like experience; and will soon recognize that a most earnest and good work is here accomplished.

And I must remark at this time that we Germans may indeed be well satisfied here; the unanimous and complete recognition which our cooperation in this great work has received is almost disconcerting.

What can be said of the whole Exposition with reference to its extent and the order in which everything is arranged, I may well say concerning the departments of science, especially interesting to us. In this hour in which the Congress of Arts and Science is being opened, we shall not express any thanks to those who took this part of the work upon their shoulders--a more difficult task indeed than all the others, for here the problem is not to manage materials, but heads and minds. And as I see here a.s.sembled a large number of German professors--I, too, belong to the profession--of whom it is said, I know not with how much justice, that they are hard to lead, the labors of the Directors and Presidents of the Congress could not have been, and are not now, small. Neither shall we to-day prophesy into what the Congress may develop. The greater number of speakers cannot expect to have large audiences, but even to-day we can safely say this: the imposing row of volumes in which shall be given to posterity the reviews here to be presented concerning the present condition, and future problems of the sciences and arts as they appear to the scientific world at the beginning of the twentieth century, will provide a monumental work of lasting value.

This we may confidently expect. The thanks which we to-day do not wish to antic.i.p.ate in words, let us show by our actions to our kind American hosts, and especially to the directors of the World's Fair and of this Congress. With exalted mind, forgetting all little annoyances which may and will come, let us go forward courageously to the work, and let us do our best. Let us grasp heartily the open hand honestly extended to us.

May this Congress of Arts and Science worthily take part in the great and undisputed success which even to-day we must acknowledge the World's Fair at St. Louis.