rican life than the
zeal, energy, and high and liberal intelligence with which social
service of this sort is being carried on in all the great cities. This
is a line of activity on which England and America are advancing hand
in hand, and however much one may deplore the necessity for such work,
one cannot but see in the common impulse which prompts and directs it a
symptom of the deep-seated unity of the two peoples. Nothing I saw in
America impressed me more than the thorough practicality as well as the
untiring devotion which was apparent in the work carried on by Miss
Addams in Chicago and Miss Lillian D. Wald in Henry-street, New York.
And in both Settlements I recognised the same atmosphere of culture, the
same spirit of plain living, hard working, and high thinking, that
characterises the best of our kindred institutions in England. A lady
connected with the University of Chicago, who is also a worker at the
Hull House Settlement, told me a touching little story which illustrates
at once the need for such work in Chicago, and the unexpected response
with which it sometimes meets. She had been talking about the beauties
of nature to a group of women from the slums, and at the end of her
address one of her hearers said, "I ain't never been outside of Chicago,
but I know it's true what the lady says. There's two vacant lots near
our place, an' when the spring comes, the colours of them--they fair
makes you hold your breath. An' then there's the trees on the Avenoo.
An' then there's all the sky." On another occasion the same lady met
with an "unexpected response" of a different order. She was showing a
boy from the slums some photographs of Italian pictures, when they came
upon a Virgin and Child. "Ah," said the boy at once, "that's Jesus an'
his Mother: I allus knows _them_ when I sees 'em." "Yes," said Miss
R----, "there is a purity and grandeur of expression about them, isn't
there--" "Tain't that," interrupted the boy, "it's the rims round their
heads as gives 'em away!"

Apart from the Settlements, there are many energetically-conducted
Societies in America for the social and political enlightenment of the
masses. I have before me, for instance, a little bundle of most
excellent leaflets issued by the League for Social Service of New York.
They deal with such subjects as _The Duties of American Citizenship, The
Value of a Vote, The Duty of Public Spirit, The Co-operative City_, &c.
They include an admirable abs