Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

IN THE WOMAN’S BUILDING. 95 Natural Study, in the common schools is almost wholly in the hands of women as supervisors and teachers, and it can not be •questioned that it is directed and presented with remarkable adaptation to the general need and the fostering of scientific methods of study, as well as a love of nature. Directly in the line of pure science is Mrs. Mary Hemenway’s undertaking in the department of archæology. Her southwestern archaeological expedition, with its resulting museum, literature, and historical collections, is an invaluable foundation for future ethno- logical research, and is fruitful already of great results for the original study of American history. The collection accruing to the expedition and investigations thus far lias been recently exhibited in Madrid, and proved prolific of results for so short a period. It is hoped that some permanent establishment of this museum of American archæology may be effected for the emulation of such, noble scientific work as that of the late eminent Egyptologist, Miss Amelia B. Edwards. It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the promise of all these signs of the times in. this brief résumé. It seems fitting that some flower of scientific expression, some emblem of the spirit of womanhood beautifying even the dry technicalities of the theme, should bring this paper to a close. We find this in a series of four hundred and twelve water-color paintings by Mrs. Charles S. Sar- gent of Brookline, prepared to illustrate the Jessup collection of North American woods in the American Museum of Natural His- tory of New York, for a volume written and furnished by her hus- band. These illustrations are drawn from nature, the size of life, and for outline, color, grace, beauty, and scientific detail they are beyond criticism. Professor Goodale of Harvard University declares them to be unique and admirable in the realm of both science and art; the very spirit of the trees stirs in them, and a revelation of beauty and harmony greets us in these inimitable and loving studies from nature. Mrs. Sargent’s drawings take the place in the delineation of native foliage that Audubon’s matchless and exhaustive sketches hold in the representation of the birds of North America. May we not assure ourselves tliat whatever woman’s thought and study shall embrace will thereby receive a new inspiration; that she will save science from materialism, and art from a gross realism; that the “ eternal womanly shall lead upward and onward ? ” Louisa Parsons Hopkins.