At every important exposition held in this country during recent years, the United States Government has been a principle exhibitor. This policy was inaugurated at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia; it was followed at New Orleans, Cincinnati, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, and Omaha; it is now in force at Buffalo. A large building, which is itself a part of the display, is filled with objects illustrating the work, the functions, and the resources of the Government; making for the thoughtful visitor a veritable museum of public affairs.

Why should the Government enter upon this field of activity? To supply the public with a midsummer's amusement? Large appropriations are not made by Congress for reasons such as these. At every exposition the strict constructionist grumbles, saying, "This is the last time"; but precedent rules, and the next appropriation is more easily made than the one preceding. For Omaha, $200,000; for Buffalo, $500,000; more still, probably for the Government display at St. Louis; and so it goes. Is the expense justifiable, and, if so, on what grounds?

The welfare of a republic demands that the people shall understand and appreciate the Government which they have created. Every agency which contributes to this end deserves encouragement; every one is needed. In fact, the people know less of their government than they should know. They have patriotic faith, but that is not enough; they have printed reports, which few read; they seek other information. Only to a limited extent does the average citizen come in personal contact with governmental agencies. He may never see a ship or a fort; taxation touches him indirectly; of all the administrative forces the post-office alone falls under the general observation. An excusable ignorance is almost universally prevalent. What should a Nebraskan know of the light-house service? What does a Vermonter see of Indian reservations? The Department of Agriculture investigates the cotton-worm in Texas; but the citizen of Oregon must pay his share of the bill. New York harbor is improved, and Kansas is taxed for it. In each case the common welfare is at stake, but how is the machinery operated? On this point even a member of Congress may have strangely vague ideas, applying to one executive department for information which relates to the work of another. Every administrative office in Washington can tell of just such misconceptions.

An exhibit like that which the Government now has in place at Buffalo is a report to the people of its work. It is a report in the form of an object-lesson, which even the least-educated visitor can understand. It is more effective than the printed report, and equally legitimate as a means of disseminating information. The citizen who intelligently visits the Government Building at the Pan-American Exposition learns to appreciate the public service more highly than before, and he returns to his home a better American. The exhibit is a help to patriotism, a stimulus to national pride. Comparatively few of our people can ever visit Washington; but even there, at the very seat of Government, no such summary of its work can be found. There everything is scattered; at Buffalo it is condensed, prepared especially for exhibition, and labelled. Some things, like the work of the life-saving service and the coining of money, cannot be seen in Washington at all. At the Pan-American Exposition they are admirably represented; and attendants to explain the work furnish the arguments by which the present display is justified.

For the exhibit of the United States Government at Buffalo, the sum of $500,000 was appropriated; $200,000 being set aside for the erection of the buildings. The latter were constructed under the direction of the supervising architect of the Treasury Department; the exhibits themselves were placed in charge of a board consisting of twelve members representing severally the eight executive departments of the Government, the Smithsonian Institution, the Commission of Fish and Fisheries, the Bureau of American Republics, and the Department of Labor. This board, made up of men in regular public service, who receive no extra compensation for their added duties, has more than ordinary powers. It allots the appropriation among the several departments, considering no their official rank, but their importance as exhibitors; under it the exhibits are organized, installed, maintained, and finally returned. Seven of its members have had experience informer expositions, where they have learned to pull together and to subordinate individual preferences and the ambitions of single bureaus to the general welfare; and so a unity of effect has been developed which was lacking in Philadelphia and Chicago.

At Chicago the Government Building contained ten distinct exhibits under ten members of a board, each one regardless of the others in color-scheme, decorations, and methods of installation. At Buffalo the Government exhibit has the appearance of one fine display, and yet the individuality of the several departments is preserved. Exposition work has grown to be almost a profession by itself, and experience in it goes a long way toward securing satisfactory results. The essential continuity of the Government board from Chicago to Buffalo has contributed much toward the effectiveness of the present exhibition. Even the Government Building illustrates the same progress toward coherence of design. In the White City the United States was represented by a huge brownish structure, which was absolutely out of harmony with all its surroundings. At the Pan-American Exposition the building is part of the general architectural scheme, which was worked out by all the architects in repeated conferences. Unity of purpose, harmony of effect, and withal, an abundant diversity of detail are the products of this policy.

The magnitude of the Government exhibit is easily indicated, even though its size gives no hint as to its quality. The main building is essentially rectangular, measuring 418 feet by 130, and is connected by colonnades with two annexes, each 100 feet square. In round numbers about 75,000 square feet of floor space are thus available for exhibition purposes. But this is not all. On the shores of the Park Lake another structure houses a crew of the life-saving service, who demonstrate every day the nature of their duties. The life-boat is launched, the crew is drilled in its management, and a sailor is rescued by the lifeline from a mast, in order that the public may see, at ease and in comfort, the performance of a task which the same men may practise next winter on a stormy shore, with their own lives in danger and a wrecked ship close at hand. At the north end of the Government Building a mimic parapet, the copy of a modern fortification, protects a battery of guns, whose mechanism is shown in operation at stated intervals of time. The visitor has heard of the disappearing gun carriage; there it is, where he may behold its actual working. South of the building, a field hospital, complete in all its details, is exhibited; and there you can see how your friend in the Philippines will be cared for if he happens to be ill or wounded. A company of coast artillery and a battalion of marines are also encamped near by, to show the daily life of our defenders. All this is outside the main body of the Government exhibit, an overflow, so to speak, but none the less important for exposition purposes.

Upon entering the Government Building the visitor finds himself beneath an enormous dome. All around him are the exhibits of the several departments, and overhead are flags and draperies, which serve partly to mask the rough woodwork of the original interior. To appreciate fully what has been done one should have seen the structure before the work of installation began. The building itself was regarded by the supervising architect as the exhibit of his office, something which should hold its own in comparison with the other architecture of the exposition; and so his resources were mainly expended upon the exterior. Within, it was left rough and unfinished - a huge barn with undressed timbers, unpainted walls, and a general air of unsightliness. To transform this unpromising interior into something effective was the first problem of installation; and its solution, if not perfect, is fairly satisfactory. To make a background for the exhibits the walls were covered with dull red burlap; the rough wooden or iron posts were converted into decorative columns. The rawness was at least hidden, and a harmonious effect was produced. Throughout the building one color-scheme prevails, and that was chosen on the basis of past experience in various museums and at other expositions. The decoration of such a building is the foundation for a successful exhibit. A bad background might spoil everthing.

Returning to the exhibits proper, the first impression is one of extraordinary completeness. And yet many things are lacking. The census is unrepresented, for its director felt than an exhibit would be premature. The revenue service, the pension office, and the great accounting divisions of the Government are missing, for the reason that they had nothing which could be advantageously shown. Only those bureaus appear whose work is capable of being exhibited in something like concrete form - a rule to which there are a few exceptions that call for no discussion here. The philosophy of government and its clerical machinery do not admit of material display: material objects are the available features of an exposition. There is, nevertheless, abundant food for thought in one of those Government exhibits. A young man was shown through the Government Building in Atlanta by an attendant, who took pains to explain many things in detail. Upon leaving, the visitor said: "I have often thought that I should like to hold an official position in Washington, but I fear that I do not know enough." Everything he had seen impressed him with the idea that it represented the work of trained intelligence, and that in such a service the untrained man was of little value. He had received an object-lesson in the true significance of civil service reform. Every exhibit is the product of special knowledge, and the more carefully it is scrutinized the more apparent does that truth become.

If the visitor has been to former expositions, his next impression will be one of likeness to what he has seen before. Here are the same articles, shown in much the same way; and yet a closer inspection reveals differences. To a certain extent sameness is unavoidable. The Government, as represented in Buffalo, has changed little in the three years which have passed since the exposition at Omaha; and, although it has some progress to its credit, there are few novelties to present. Some things and some methods are new, however, and the installation is distinctly better. During the Omaha Exposition the United States was at war with Spain, and the exhibits of the army and navy were seriously crippled. Their resources were in use elsewhere; guns and equipment could not be spared for show; but the conditions which then ruled no longer exist, and the implements of warfare are now lavishly displayed.

The results of the war are also illustrated by a collection of articles from the Philippine Islands -- a collection which was gathered especially for this exposition by an agent of the board. It fills one-fourth of the space in the North Annex; and, although it is merely a beginning, it tells much concerning the peoples and products of our new possessions. Hawaii, also, is represented under the Bureau of Education by an exhibit from its schools, and under the Geological Survey by a relief map of the islands. Another relief map gives the topography of Porto Rico. Both models were prepared for use at the exposition.

Here we get a suggestion as to certain permanent gains to the Government which accrue through the medium of exhibits. At every exposition some new things are acquired, which are preserved afterward in Washington. The Filipino collection will go to the United States National Museum; the relief maps are but two of a large series which have been made at various times for exposition purposes. Nearly every department has something of like character to its credit.

For Buffalo the National Museum has had constructed the finest groups of Indian figures, family groups in most cases, which the world has ever seen; and in cooperation with the Geological Survey it has made a full-sized restoration of the skeleton of Triceratops, one of the gigantic extinct monsters whose bones were discovered by Marsh. This work is permanent, and remains the property of the people after exposition closes. The value of the exposition is not all transitory.

Upon looking at the exhibits still more closely another advance can be noted. Hitherto, with few exceptions, the display made by the Government has been fixed and motionless, like the collection in a museum. At Buffalo the proportion of "live" exhibits, of machinery in motion, of operations performed, is noticeably large. The aquarium of the Fish Commission has always been a feature of these exhibitions, and here it is more effective than ever. The South Annex is entirely devoted to the display of this bureau. Under the Department of Agriculture the process of meat inspection is shown by a group of young women, who, detailed from one of the packing houses, perform their regular work upon samples of suspected products. The coining process from the Mint is an old and familiar feature of these displays; and so, too, are the plate press of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the great revolving lenses of the Light-House Board.

Motion and activity are the characteristic features of the exhibit, and this fact is nowhere more forcibly illustrated than in the space assigned to the Department of the Interior. At Chicago, for instance, the Patent Office exhibited long lines of cases filled with motionless models, a collection which roused few visitors to enthusiasm. At Buffalo some models and some products are shown; but the space is mainly occupied by noteworthy inventions in full operation, doing the actual work for which they were devised. The telautograph, which transmits pictures by wire, the rival type-casting machines, and the voting machine may be mentioned as illustrations of the new policy. A live exhibit has replaced the dead one, and its greater significance is plain to everybody.

In methods of presentation the greatest novelty is offered by the Bureau of Education, which has heretofore been represented by "dead" exhibits of the least spectacular order. How could a subject like education be illustrated otherwise? This question was answered by invoking the help of the moving picture and the graphophone, which together show phases of education that could not be shown without their aid. Manual training, kindergarten exercises, gymnastics, the teaching of deaf mutes, and military drill are represented by moving pictures, while class-room work, such as songs and recitations, is reproduced by the graphophone. On the screen the naval cadets at Annapolis are seen to march, and the graphophone at the same time gives the music of the military band. Life and motion are brought before the eye, and the very sounds of the school-room are repeated to the ear. This is a new feature in exposition work, a new method of presentation which should be broadly applicable in the future. All manner of industrial activity may be recorded on the moving film, and all sounds can be preserved upon the phonographic cylinder. At Paris, last year, moving pictures were used by some French colonies to show phases of life abroad, but the exhibit at Buffalo is a step onward in the same direction. A new field of possibilities has been opened.

It is not my aim to catalogue the Government exhibit, nor is it desirable that I should record here too many of its details. It is enough to indicate thus briefly its essential character and purpose, and to bring out some of the points of difference between it and its predecessors. In nearly every department of it progress and improvement are manifested. May the advance continue in the future, and the next exhibition be better still.