I earnestly recommend this; and believing that Congress would second
this view, I directed that all Government exhibits at the Centennial
Exhibition should remain where they are, except such as might be injured
by remaining in a building not intended as a protection in inclement
weather, or such as may be wanted by the Department furnishing them,
until the question of permanent exhibition is acted on.
Although the moneys appropriated by Congress to enable the participation
of the several Executive Departments in the International Exhibition
of 1876 were not sufficient to carry out the undertaking to the full
extent at first contemplated, it gives me pleasure to refer to the
very efficient and creditable manner in which the board appointed from
these several Departments to provide an exhibition on the part of the
Government have discharged their duties with the funds placed at their
command. Without a precedent to guide them in the preparation of such a
display, the success of their labors was amply attested by the sustained
attention which the contents of the Government building attracted during
the period of the exhibition from both foreign and native visitors.
I am strongly impressed with the value of the collection made by the
Government for the purposes of the exhibition, illustrating, as it does,
the mineral resources of the country, the statistical and practical
evidences of our growth as a nation, and the uses of the mechanical arts
and the applications of applied science in the administration of the
affairs of Government.
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