1902 - wild west shows are educational... ?

The recent introduction of mechanical and other industrial lessons in the public schools shows that practical demonstration is much better than theory or oral teaching. So it is with the Wild West show, that is now moving westward on its way to the Pacific coast. Had not this remarkable exhibition been attempted, the present generation would have lost an object lesson of the greatest value. We would not have, as now, a realistic impression of the scenes and incidents of western life as it existed in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Wild West shows the half-tamed bare-backed ponies of the savage Indian, the bucking broncos of the mounted cattle herders, the emigrant train, settler's hut and the perils of stage coach traveling over the plains when the driver, guard and passengers were armed to the teeth against roving bands of red men. The Custer massacre, Buffalo Bill's duel with Chief Yellowhand, and many other striking and many other striking scenes have been so vividly reproduced that the spectator learns more in ten minutes with his eyes than could be gained be reading the descriptions for months. It is this educational force and character that is the secret of the Wild West's phenomenal success, for it has a value peculiarly and essentially its own. No one who has visited the Wild West left it without a broader sense of the heroism of the pioneers, their trials and perils. He may have gone for the amusement, but found himself educated in the history of his country by acquiring a realistic conception of the days when the west was a terra incognito.
          ....... The Wild West is therefore a school of history, a college of equestrianism, and a curriculum of the progress of warlike methods throughout the world during half a century. The exhibition will refresh the memory and fix more indelibly on the mind the wonderful and extraordinary changes that have taken and are taking place. The Wild West will one day be a tender reminiscence you will be glad to cherish...  

1902, June 28 The Minneapolis Journal