[Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition by Marietta Holley]@TWC D-Link book
Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition

CHAPTER VII
5/19

Aunt Pheeny had qualities, or Dotie wouldn't have loved her so well, and I felt it a great compliment that she seemed to like me.
Well, as observed heretofore we had took a hefty job that day, and we proceeded first to the Educational Buildin'.

It wuz a noble lookin' structure with a row of snowy pillows all 'round it; a good many think it is the handsomest buildin' on the Fair ground, and as I said to Josiah, it ort to be considerin' the greatness and importance of the work it displays, for our free schools, our educational advantages, are the pride and glory of our country.
"Yes, Samantha," sez he, "I hearn a man say yesterday education wuz the very bull work of our country, meanin' you know, Samantha, it wuz strong as a bull." "Oh, you hain't got it jest right, Josiah, bulwark don't mean jest that, but you've got the sperit of it," I hastened to say, for he don't love to be corrected.
And here in this buildin' we see everything relating to schools from kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music, agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering schools and institutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian and negro, evening industrial schools, business and commercial schools, people's institutes, and every way and manner of mind training.
Photograph, charts, maps, and not only all our own educational exhibits, but England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in short all the foreign countries.
We stayed a good while there and I would have loved to stay longer, but Josiah got worrisome and wanted to go on to Electricity Buildin' which wuz next in our programmy.

And here I took more solid comfort than in any place I'd been, beholdin' the marvelous works wrought by the greatest discovery of the ages.

That wonderful Force that has power to overcome space, save or slay.

It is intelligent, can talk over the ocean and under it, talk with wires, and if a wire hain't handy it will take a beam of light and talk on that, and it can git along without either one, for here is the biggest wireless telegraph station ever built; visitors can talk on it from city and city, jest throwin' their words out into the air and this onseen agency carries 'em along to the one sent to and nobody else--wonderful hain't it?
Wonderful to meditate on the great onseen forces all about us, mysterious viewless shapes, nigh to us, helpin' us, journeyin' on errents of mercy to and fro on paths we can't see, leadin' up and down from star to star from heaven to earth mebby.
And curious, hain't it, that the noble and ardent discoverers who have tried to git friendly with them Great Forces and introduce 'em to the world have been called ignorant and pagan, when if these scoffers knowed it there is no paganism or ignorance to be compared to that of bigotry and intolerance.
And we see there dynamos of all kinds, motors, storage batteries, all sorts of power machines.


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