e great expositions is of a most subtle kind, not
often to be traced, but there is a noticeable change in the estimation
in which Home Economics is held dating from the time of the Mary
Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit held at the Exposition in St.
Louis in 1905. This illustrated the application of modern knowledge to
home life, chiefly in economic and aesthetic lines, all bearing upon
the health and efficiency of the people. The Chicago Exposition in
1893 had its Rumford Kitchen, an exhibit under the auspices of the
State of Massachusetts. This practical illustration of scientific
principles modified the ideas of the world as to the place and
importance of cookery in education. Indeed, there seemed a distinct
danger that other lines would be neglected, so that when the
Exposition at St. Louis was determined upon this legacy of fifteen
years before was drawn upon to show the wide scope of the subject as
it had been developed.
Boards of Health might pave the way for a better understanding of
their rules and regulations if they would have temporary exhibits in
public places of some of the conditions known to them but unsuspected
by the average citizen and taxpayer.
Traveling exhibits may show local and temporary conditions and may
call attention to needs demanding immediate remedy--with the remedy
suggested.
Permanent exhibits in museums should, on the other hand, teach a
deeper lesson. They should always be constructive and should be
replaced when the conditions have changed. The modern idea of a museum
is a series of adjustable exhibits with distinct suggestive purpose.
Such are found in the Town Room, 3 Joy Street, Boston, the Social
Museum, Harvard College, the American Museum of Safety, and the
Sanitary Science Section, American Museum of Natural History, New
York.
The distribution of the printed word has become so universal that it
would seem as if every family might be influenced by it; but the
scientific title, or the size of the book, or the scientific terms
seem forbidding, and so the whole question is thrust aside.
In the past, newspaper science was largely discounted as sensational
and only one-tenth fact. Scientific workers were largely to blame for
this. They could not take the time to explain the meaning of their
work, and the few things they were ready to say were worked over out
of all semblance to truth by the writer who must have a "story" and
who had not the training in "suspension of ju
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