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

IN THE WOMAN’S BUILDING. 199 my humble judgment, the truest and noblest, because the most natural, part is to be found in philanthropic work. In conclusion, I venture to hope that the information upon the philanthropic work of British women which I have been able to present to the Chicago Exposition will not be unwelcome in the country for which it was collected. My personal feeling and knowledge, to quote once more from my preface to “Woman’s Mission,” have led me to believe that the past and present work of English women would have for the American people an attraction exceeding- any felt by other nations, however interested these may be in a common charity. In an unusual degree the blood of many races runs in our veins; but we are bound together in the one historic record of the English-speaking peoples. One language unites us; one Bible, one literature. The poetry and prose of past centuries, and the first achievements of Englishmen in the dim twilight of scientific discovery, are a common heritage of both nations. In the past fifty years the genius of both, sometimes divided, sometimes intermingled, has kept the light burning. To the sacred lamp of literature American authors have added a pecul- iar radiance of their own, and the field of discovery and invention has been illuminated by the splendid achievements of American research. And as in these two great branches of progress we are at once co-inheritors and fellow-workers, so the philanthropic work of English women, commingled by practice and example with the work of American women, must, I feel, have an absorbing interest for those who, like ourselves, liave drawn their national being from the Anglo-Saxon race. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts.