them without jurors on most classes, and in the remainder with only a minority which, in voting on awards, had no weight, and the awards were thus in effect decreed by the few contiguous countries whose products filled the largest spaces. Written reports on the products were not usually made by juries, and, if made, were not generally published; consequently no person outside of the jury was informed on what ground awards were made.
The medals, when distributed, were as silent as the verdicts; moral responsibility for the decisions attached to no one, and the awards thus made conveyed as little useful information, and carried as little weight, as anonymous work usually carries.
Medals, at best, are enigmas. They express nothing exactly and definitely relative to the products exhibited; their allegorical designs doubtless have a meaning in the mind of the artist who makes them, but allegorical designs are primitive and feeble language, and the medal of to-day is no more than its predecessor, a schoolboy token—verdicts upon products determined by majority votes of juries in which the producing countries are often represented by useless minorities—awards based upon anonymous reports, or reports never published, and final decisions announced and recorded in the vague and mystic language of medals, have not proved satisfactory to producers nor to the public. As regards the diffusion of reliable and useful information, International Exhibitions have not come fully up to expectations and to the promise implied in the great labor and great expenses which they involved; and the wide-spread dissatisfaction which has uniformly followed the close of jury-work affords in itself strong evidence that the system is not well adapted to the purposes of International Exhibitions.
The method of awards adopted by the Centennial Commission differs from preceding systems. It dispenses with the International Jury, and substitutes a body of two hundred judges, one-half foreign, chosen individually for their high qualifications.
It dispenses, also, with the system of awards by graduated medals, and requires of the judges written reports on the inherent and comparative merits of each product thought worthy of an award, setting forth the properties and qualities, presenting the considerations forming the ground of the award, and avouching each report by the signature of its author.
The professional judgment and moral responsibility of the judges being thus involved, assure the integrity of their reports. As awards to exhibitors, such reports will be more valuable than medals, in proportion to the greater amount of reliable information which they convey to the public. Their collected republication, as hand-books, will form valuable guides for all classes to the most advanced products of every country, and, last and least, the sales of them can hardly fail to return to the Commission a good portion of their cost.
The success of this method obviously depends on the judicious selection of the judges, and to this point I desire to call particular attention.
In this connection it may be remarked that the best judges of products are not usually found among their producers, but among their consumers.
To select a wine, for example, of particular character, one would not apply to wine-growers, but to dealers and consumers. On the merits of an engine, you would prefer the opinion of the engineer who uses it, to that of the engineer who invented or made it. The sugars and coffees of Brazil, Cuba, Java, etc., are best judged in the great markets of consumption. In brief, the food-products of the world find their most accurate appreciations, as regards their inherent qualities and comparative merits, in the great consuming markets,
