Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 witin funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/dramaticinstinctOOcurtricli THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION BY ELNORA WHITMAN CURTIS, Ph.D. WITH A FOREWORD BY G. STANLEY HALL, Ph.D., LL.D. i|:a^^ibf mcfT^rfgij BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY COPYRXGHT, 1914, BY ELNORA WHITMAN CURTIS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A TO MY PARENTS ii PREFACE A SMALL portion of this book was first given to the pubHc as a tentative study, under the same title, published in the Pedagogical Seminary (1908, vol. XV, pp. 299-346). Many of the subjects treated under the chap- ter headings were then far less in the public eye. Six years ago only the first of the playground congresses had been held; story-tellers' leagues and clubs in town and city were exceptions rather than the rule; dancing was utilized far less than at present, in schools and other institu- tions; and pageantry, in its modern form, was not yet introduced into this country. Also, con- ditions affecting public amusements were less subject to scientific investigation. The delay in publishing has, howevdi", had its advantages. The subjects have now become matters of popu- lar knowledge and interest. An effort has been made to present the dif- ferent phases in which dramatic instinct finds outlet, and to unify the many ordinary forms, perhaps unrecognized until brought into psy- PREFACE chological relation with those more commonly understood as its expression. The book is a plea for the intelligent compre- hension and immediate application of principles; the purpose is to stimulate by suggestion here and there, rather than to give formal rules. The author hopes that it may prove of use and inter- est to teachers, giving them greater insight into the needs of pupils and the value of uncurric- ularized forms in which such needs may find expression; also that it will appeal to persons interested in social betterment. Thanks are due to school principals, teachers, library assistants, and others too numerous to mention individually, who have rendered kindly assistance during the course of the work; but to the late Mr. Walter Small, Superintendent of Schools in Providence; the late Herr Direktor Ferdinand Klleinwachter, Berlin; Dr. D. P. Mac- Millan, Director of the Psychological Labora- tory of the Chicago public schools; and Dr. Louis N. Wilson, Librarian of Clark University, special acknowledgment is due. To the late Dr. Theo- date L. Smith, of Clark University, I am deeply indebted for much kindly assistance; and in the final preparation for the press, to Miss Czarnom- ska, my former professor at Smith College. To vi PREFACE President Hall I wish especially to express my gratitude for his unfailing interest and encour- "2'"'°'- E. W. C. Clark University CONTENTS Foreword. By G. Stanley Hall xi I. Introductory i II. The Theater-going of Children ... 5 III. Psychological Aspects of Dramatic En- tertainment 25 IV. Dramatiq^Work in Schools and Colleges 38 V. Constructive Efforts to Provide Good Drama 60 VI. Play 91 VII. Dancing no 1/ VIII. Story-telling 135 J IX. Moving Pictures 153 X. Marionette or Puppet Play 176 / XI. Pageantry 196 XII. General Summary and Conclusions . .217 Bibliography 225 Index 241 FOREWORD The dramatic instinct has innumerable outcrops in childhood and youth, and the present seems to be the psychological moment for its apprecia- tion and also for its utilization in education. What is it? More generically it is the propensity to express the larger life of the race in the indi- vidual, and more specifically, to act out or to see acted out the most manifold traits of our com- mon humanity. Thus no agency of culture is more truly or purely humanistic. The child is vastly older than the adult and also more generic and a better representative of the species, and growth and progressive individuation at best mean the specialization of some but the repres- sion of other and more racial traits. Children and youth, feeling unconsciously the ^'shades of the prison house" closing in upon them, often ask, "Why am I just I?" and often feel and say, "It is tedious and monotonous to be just myself," "Why must I always and forever be just Johnny Jones?" And so in their sportive moments they fancy themselves other real or imaginary persons xi FOREWORD or perhaps animals to supplement their own narrow limitations of time, place, duration, and occupation. I n the kindergarten they fl ^^like birds, hop like frogs, go on all fours like quad- rupeds, and mimic perhaps every creature, per- son, and vocation they know, and thus find en- largement and relief. The animal epos in the Middle Ages appeals to this stage of growth, for to the child animals are the embodiments of human traits. The fox, lion, snake, wolf, eagle, peacock, bear, goose, pig, raven, and many more are made the embodiments of single human qualities isolated and writ large; and in this primary stage of psychology to know is to get away from self, and to be and to act out other types of individuality. Here, too, are taught the first lessons of practical morality in terms of the life and characteristics of man's older animal brethren. Then comes the stage of getting into rapport with traits embodied in extreme if often cari- catured forms of human impersonation. In this repertory are the sot, who is always and only drunkenness embodied; the miser, who does nothing but hoard and count his gold; and so the hypocrite, coward, hero, wooer, saint, martyr, spendthrift, boor, fool, rowdy, slattern, prig, xii FOREWORD bulldozer, braggart, bookworm, ne'er-do-well, and all the vast and varied partial components of human nature, the one-quality personages, illustrating the elements that enter in our poly- morphic nature which children so keenly appre- ciate and which exist in all the myth, romance, story, drama, and which are themselves truer to life than life itself because factors are dissected out or shown in the most unrepressed form. It is the stage that in this way, perhaps best of all, holds up the mirror to nature and helps the \ child's growing self-knowledge, and thus moral k and social philosophy are dramatized. The dramatic instinct in children, so long ignored, is just beginning to reveal its poten- tialities. It makes for widened sympathies, in- creased power of appreciation, keeps the sutures of the soul from closing prematurely, and so augments docility and prolongs its nascent period. We have here great possibilities of psychic and moral orthopedics. If a dirty child is set to act the part of a fastidiously clean one, a rowdy that of a gentleman, etc., this sets up compensating and corrective agencies, as the records of the Children's Educational Theater abundantly show. On the other hand if a child acts the bad part, this may start the higher xiii FOREWORD cathartic activities by releasing the next superior power that represses the bad inclination. This may occur when a child has to assume a role that brings out only a little more emphatically its own predominant faults instead of their op- posites. Which of these methods is most effective is one of individual diathesis. All the effects of acting are brought out, if to a less extent, by seeing plays. Again, the more we know of the child soul, the clearer it is that for it doing is a better organ of knowing than is merely intellec- tual learning. -. V^ Rousseau first, and more emphatically and ^Y i^ f3.r greater detail child study later, have brought us a progressive realization that repres- sion is the tragedy of childhood, and that its spontaneities are its salvation. Sedentary book work is the most unnatural and yet the most extensive constraint ever inflicted upon the ris- ing generation, and is now happily yielding to better methods. Play, dancing, story - telling and hearing, the moving picture and pageantry and the theater are perhaps nearer to the inmost nature of children than anything else; and the clear, up-to-date, temperate presentation of these themes contained in this book should be known to every intelligent parent and teacl xiv FOREWORD It ought to be on the lists of every reading-circle, for it cannot be too emphatically said that this is the psychological moment for just these things, and every one of them has a future far greater than its past would suggest. Pedagogical danc- ing cadences the very soul and gives poise, con- trol, freedom, and is far and away the best form of bodily culture. It exhilarates, can represent at least symboHcally about every activity of all that lives, in a way genetic psychology is just beginning to realize. Play recapitulates the most essential characteristics of all our human forebears and . also anticipates nearly every active occupation ' of man. Story-telUng is the original form of all education and has transmitted all that we call the traditions of mankind. Nothing else so knits up all the component elements of the soul into a unity, and is so effective against dissociation or disintegration later, which is the chief form of psychic decay, all the way from puberty on, because the focalization of so many acts and persons contributes toward the one denouement. The power to use this charm is perhaps the very best single test of the teacher, born or made, that could be devised, while the possibilities of the moving picture appear to mark an educa- tional epoch of hardly less significance than the XV FOREWORD invention of printing itself. Pageantry best unites the old and young and all social classes, revives interest in history, creates local pride, breaks down prejudice, and gives a community both self-knowledge and self-respect. The Chil- dren's Theater, as begun by Mrs. Herts Heniger, conducted solely for the education of the chil- dren themselves, with every professional influ- ence excluded, which is such an effective school of morality; the Schiller Theater, in which all the school children in a great city who have ob- tained a certain, not too high mark, in the school study of plays, ancient and modern, can see and hear them performed by the best actors in a muni- cipal theater; the Cooper Union plan, by which some scores of thousands of subscribers can attend at half price plays, if only approved by institute censors, and which has thus made the success of not a few good and suppressed some bad plays; the almost pathetic enthu- siasm with which the Morris dances were lately revived in England because they teach and vitalize the past in much the same way that the arts and crafts movement inaugurated by Wil- liam Morris and Ruskin did; the remarkable playground movement, that has perhaps brought more of the joy of living and indirectly helped XV i FOREWORD the morals and health of the children in the country at large more than any other one move- ment; and the motion picture, that has brought more recreation to more people than anything else in our generation, and on the whole with ethical uplift and with a great wealth of infor- mation — these are the focal themes of this book. With our nearly half a million teachers, and nearly half a billion dollars annually expended for education, and with enough pupils of school age to make a continuous row, allowing each only a foot, from the northeast corner of Maine across to the southwest corner of California, it would be strange if the new extension of educa- tional ideas and methods herein contained should not contribute something for the im- provement of this greatest system of education the world has ever seen. The writer of this book is competent and has spared no pains or expense to be authentic. She has been abroad repeatedly and has seen nearly every institution and most of the leaders who conduct them, personally, in quest of her ma- terial; but even were she less competent, the theme itself ought to make her book in a sense almost privileged. I wish I had written it xvii FOREWORD myself, and I shall watch its reception with peculiar solicitude as symptomatic of a general interest in a subject which has so long been near my heart. G. Stanley Hall. THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION INTRODUCTORY The dramatic instinct is a prime force in civili- zation; the need to give vent to pent-up emotion, to express joy of living, to put in material form the ideas that vex his spirit, has driven man to imitate, to create. Primitive peoples have satis- fied this need in songs and pantomime-dances; the Egyptians and Assyrians by the powerful action of their temple bas-reliefs; Orientals by puppet performances and story- telling; ancient Hebrews by religious dances and grandly dra- matic odes ; the Greeks by religious processions, out of which came the drama, essentially as we have it now. Civilization restrains and suppresses the volun- tary expression of emotion that seeks outlet in these various ways. But it cannot be wholly stifled. The restraints of social life become at I DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION times too irksome to be endured. Man feels the need to throw off the "burden of civilization" and seeks excitement and emotional experience, sometimes in the mere satisfaction of morbid curiosity; as, for example, in witnessing accidents and executions, in attending funerals, taking part in revivals, etc., and particularly by theater- going. This is the response to a need and desire, felt everywhere and in all ages — the desire to feel what others are feehng, 'Ho get experience by proxy, to get the enjoyment of borrowed pain, to put into practice the Aristotelian principle of Katharsis.'^ All this, so true of man, is still more true of the child and youth, alive with sur- plus energy, possessed by a craving for excite- ment, seeking always for something new. Able leaders of men have always attained their ends by a more or less conscious exploiting of the dramatic instinct. It has been more or less unconsciously used in the training of children. Recently, as an outcome of the new enthusiasm for child-study, there has appeared in many schools, as well as in settlements, boys' clubs and public playgrounds, a conscious effort to exer- cise and develop it. It is time that this new movement, which apparently has come to stay, should be put on a sound psychological basis, 2 INTRODUCTORY and that the mistakes which vitiate it should be noted and made impossible for the future. The present work aims to show the need for such a movement, the work that has already- been accomplished, the natural origin and age- old value of the methods employed, and to draw a few conclusions that may be of immediate service. It was not formerly customary to study seri-. ously, in relation to educational problems, the emotional needs of children. Before Rousseau, little attention was paid to the psychology of feeling. Froebel's work made an epoch in the encouragement of self-expression in the child; since when, educators have shown an increasing tendency to consider the claims of the emotional nature, as well as those of body and intellect. The trend of modern opinion on this subject is well expressed by two of our educational author- ities. President Hall says: that the sentiments constitute three fourths of life; that teachers should be made to feel themselves guardians of emotional sentiment; that as the education of the past has been of the head, the education of the twentieth century will be of the heart. And President Eliot tells us: that the child is governed by sentiments and not by observation ; 3 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION and that acquisition and reasoning, material greatness and righteousness, depend more on the cultivation of right sentiments in children than on anything else. In the awakening and deepening of such sen- timents, the utilization of the dramatic instinct is of inestimable value. This utilization is of two kinds: active. and passive, or receptive grati- fication. When it urges the child to his mimic play, and the artist to his finest creations, it is active gratification. But it is also satisfied by vicarious experience; and this may be called its passive form. Under these heads we may classify the subjects treated in the following chapters. Play, dancing, story-telling, and participations in any kind of acting belong to the first, and mere attendance at any staged performance, moving pictures, puppet-play, or real drama, to the second. These are the tools by which teachers and settlement workers are proposing to utilize and direct the ever-present dramatic instinct, and thus to guard the emotional nature and educate the heart of the child. II THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN That the child's emotional sentiment, his love of self-expression, is strong, that he longs to see a show and to take part in one — to imitate either unconsciously as spectator, or consciously as actor or creator — finds countless illustrations. It may be noticed any day in his eagerness to see a fire, an accident, or a street parade, and by his attempts later to imitate much that he has witnessed. Nowhere is the craving for passive gratification more strongly manifested than by his love of attending theaters. Throngs of chil- dren attend regularly and exult in experiences uttei'ly unsuited to their needs or powers of comprehension. Teachers and settlement workers have long realized this, but only recently has the general public been awakened to the extent to which this need of the child has thus been seek- ing satisfaction. In fact, the excessive indul- gence of the theater-going habit among children is of comparatively recent date. Nor is the rea- son far to seek. Whereas a few years ago tickets 5 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION cost twenty-five or fifty cents apiece, admitting the bearer to the top gallery and more or less questionable company, or to standing - room only, the same amount or sometimes a mere fractional part of it now pays for the best seat in the theater. The vaudeville show has worked its way up to comparative respectability, and was from the start more reasonable in price than even the cheapest melodrama. Moving pictures, at first a part of the vaudeville, have now come to be independent entertainments. There has been an increase in the number of stock com- panies in different cities, small as well as large, due possibly to the competition of vaudeville houses and nickelodeons with legitimate drama and melodrama; for, the expenses of the road being eliminated, plays can now be produced in the smaller places at lower rates than was possible a few years ago. Thus different forms of dramatic entertainment have been brought within the reach of the poor man, and no longer rank either for himself or his family as luxuries. Other reasons for the increase in theater- going are that through immigration our popu- lation has now a larger percentage of people of Latin blood, naturally more vivacious than the 6 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN Saxon, and that shorter working - hours give greater opportunity for recreation. Not only has the theater ceased to be an event in the Hfe of the adult, but the same is true of the child; so that if it claims fewer hours than does the school, it is nevertheless exerting a more subtle though scarcely less powerful influence. Certain events and more or less recent investigations have brought out startling dis- closures. Only a few years ago, when in New York the law was enforced which prohibited children under sixteen unaccompanied by parents from patronizing theaters, eighty out of eight hundred and sixty theaters which had moving pictures were closed in one week. They were frequented at the time by from three to four hundred thou- sand people daily, seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand of whom were children. Ac- cording to some authorities, the theater for chil- dren in this country has become a veritable pas- sion and even disease. In Boston it has been found that nearly all children between the ages of ten and fourteen attend theaters of one variety or another occasionally, and that not less than ten per cent go as often as once a week. Some of the investigations by special com- mittees of various civic organizations have taken • 7 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION the form of theater-visiting in order to ascertain the hygienic conditions, character of material presented, age and general appearance of chil- dren attending, and the effect of the entertain- ment as shown by remarks overheard or deliber- ately brought out in conversation. In others, they have used the questionnaire method, and, through teachers, children of different schools have been examined as to their theater-going. As the result of an investigation of the latter type in Worcester, Massachusetts, made by the Public Education Association, it appeared that four fifths of the nearly five thousand children between the ages of eight and fifteen interrogated were theater-goers, about one half the number attending once a month or oftener, while some went as often as once a week. Of over seven hundred grammar-school children examined in Providence, Rhode Island, aged nine to seven- teen, two thirds were in the habit of going to theaters. Many children could not remember how often they had attended, saying, ''Too many times to count"; while others professed to have been twice a week, weekly, bi-weekly, and even nightly. In Chicago, an investigation of nearly five hundred children between the ages of eight and sixteen showed a theater attendance 8 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN of almost precisely similar proportion to that of Providence. Girls and boys were examined in nearly equal numbers. Theater attendance on the part of the boys was somewhat in excess; though, where afternoon performances, as in Chicago, were patronized to greater extent than were the evening, the difference was less marked. Though quite a large number of children said they were accustomed to going with older people, many went with young companions; and a con- siderable number, chiefly boys, said that they went alone. As for material presented, while classic and standard plays and old-time melodramas were among the number witnessed, the greater part was of highly sensational character, and while not absolutely immoral, was coarse, inartistic, and uneducational, if not distinctly detrimental, in influence. Though mention was made of Julius CcBsar, Hamlet, and Faust, and of the better sort of romantic dramas, such as When Knighthood was in Flower, as also of a few plays that entertain and at the same time im- press valuable truths or lessons, most, judging by names, were of a cheaper order, such as Lottie, the Poor Sales -Lady, The Hired- Girl's Millions, and Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak-Model. 9 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION Uncle Tain's Cabin, however, was a prime favor- ite, and other especially popular plays were The Night Before Christmas, Tony the Boot -Blacky His Last Dollar, Convict ggg, Two Orphans, and The Time, the Place, and the Girl. Answers to questions as to what was liked in the different plays brought out the fact that a large class of children were undiscriminating, either from confused memory or lack of descrip- tive ability. A large proportion failed to offer comments on what they had seen, saying they had '^ forgotten," or ''liked it all." Of those who did discriminate, by far the larger number of both girls and boys liked special scenes; next in preference came tricks and juggling (the choice of a number of boys but of few girls) ; then *' things that were funny"; then the performances of trained animals; and lastly, details that had aesthetic value, which appealed to few of either sex. In the special acts or scenes mentioned, the exciting or emotional led. Shooting and killing, train robberies, "thundering" and racing-scenes, all appealed strongly to both girls and boys, and in some cases a liking for the morbid was mani- fest. ''I liked best, the shooting of the Indians"; *' Where the Monkey-man escapes, and when he 10 I THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN fights with the villain and kills him"; ''I like where they gamble for the girl"; *'I like where the man kills his wife"; and similar verdicts abounded. A few showed a taste for the myste- rious and a large number for the melodramatic and pathetic. "I liked where the Man Monkey said, 'And if you shall kill me, the secret shall die with me' "; ''I liked the ghost [in HamletY'; *'I liked where Annie went out into the storm"; "I liked where little Eva went to heaven"; *'I liked the part where the young lady dies" were characteristic replies. Preference for music and dancing was shown, but without detail, as in ^'I liked singing, playing on instruments and dancing"; "I liked the singing"; '' I liked Robin Hood because they had fine music"; and appre- ciation for the comic was also expressed, but in general terms, no attempt at analysis being made. "I liked it because it was funny" was a more common form of expression. Animal per- formances were commented upon more in detail, indicating that this interest is of a somewhat deeper nature than that aroused by some of the other forms of entertainment. With the few children who showed aesthetic appreciation, state- ments were vague, on the order of ''I liked the scenery"; ''I liked it because it was pretty"; II DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION while the purely romantic affected few but the older pupils. In general, it may be said regarding prefer- ences that the comments showed the normal tastes and interests of children of the ages under question as well as the usual sex-differences ; girls liking more the serious plays, though showing the same liking for thrilling and exciting episodes and situations as the boys. Following the Worcester investigation, teach- ers in two of the public schools on the east side of the city were asked to have pupils write essays on what they had seen and liked at theaters. One of the papers is given here verbatim. It re- pays a reading. THE NEAPOLITAN'S REVENGE {Seen in Moving Pictures) At a table in a yard sat a man and woman talking. On a doorstep sat a small boy playing. The costume of the woman is a shirt-waist and a square piece of stiff cloth on her head from which fell a long thick veil. The man had tights and a \Adde girdle. Soon he went into the house and brought out a decanter and glasses. As he went in a man came and handed her a letter, which, as her husband came out she thrust into her bosom, but it slid out and when they 12 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN finished drinking she went into the house and the husband went off. The boy found the letter which dropped and his father took it away from him and read it. The letter read as follows: "Dear Solo: meet me on the rocks to-night. Lovingly, Ran- dolph." Scene 2. A field along the seashore, with a man standing near the water. The man's costume was an overalls turned up to the hips. Soon the woman whom we had seen in the yard came and he went to help her. They walked all around and finally came to a round, high and large, such as we see in deserts. Here he attempts to kiss her face but she won't let him, so they go on. But! we have not noticed the third man who has followed them all the way and heard all they 've said; who is he, and what has he in his hand? In his hand he has a dagger and he is her husband. But they are out of sight, where have they gone? Here they are just entering the home owned by him whom she has run away with. She brushes her dress as he on his knees makes love to her. Who is following still? Her husband. He goes in after the culprits. He forces a dagger deep into the man's heart and he lay on the floor writhing in pain and the husband takes a long rope and binds his wife to the chair so she can hardly breathe. He then takes clothes, straw, the lace draperies and soon the beautiful mansion was in flames. The man goes home, his son runs away. What joy has he now? 13 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION This picturesque narrative by a little girl in the seventh grade shows what might be the influ- ence of rightly chosen plays. To carry out the foregoing investigation more fully, the writer addressed a questionnaire to the teachers of schools in Providence and Chi- cago asking the number of absences traced to the- ater attendance, the effect of theater-going upon school work and composition, upon character, ideals, conduct and manners, and concerning the practice of giving school plays. These ques- tions brought forth chiefly negative results. Few, apparently, had given the subject thought, and most of those answering had noticed no direct eft'ects whatever upon pupils. Even among those who answered generously, offering interesting and suggestive comments and giving definite opinions, there was little unanimity. With the teachers who thought theater-going had had a bad influence, the criticism was rather of the material presented than of theater - going in general. Their remarks and observations related chiefly to the effect upon the language and man- ners of pupils; though the effect upon charac- ter, temperament and scholarship was also noted. Among these various opinions were the following: — 14 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN Less refined vocabularies and a great use of slang, one result of theater-going. Ideas not suited to childhood inculcated; forward- ness and bad manners the result. Children attending most frequently among the weakest in character and of low moral tone. It induces dreaminess or listlessness and inability to keep attention upon work. A feeling of unrest and a dislike for continued apphcation. Pupils, in some cases, were thought to have been influenced unfavorably by older members of a family of theater-goers. According to other teachers the noticeable effects were good. Larger vocabularies; greater power of expression; a wider comprehension of language. A better understanding of literary forms and a general "broadening" effect. Gain in ease of manner and pohteness; a sharpen- ing of the sense of right and wrong. These teachers said furthermore that the thea- ter-going children seemed more wide-awake than the rest. In their opinion dime novels and other trashy reading and the street as playground had a far more injurious effect upon character. In general, the teachers failed to correlate theater attendance with scholarship, and the 15 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION few reports upon this point disagreed. One teacher claimed that in every case where children made numerous visits to the theater, they were over age for the grade and extremely poor pupils; others stated that the most frequent attendants were good pupils both in work and conduct. Only a few absences due to theater - going were re- ported. A few girls had made attempts to repro- duce fancy steps, and boys athletic feats; though, as a whole, the result in imitation seems to have been rather slight. In boys, admiration of Wild West adventures increased. One teacher traced this directly in two pupils who had attended fre- quently; one presented her almost every day with a little picture of himself as cowboy, on foot or on horseback, and also gave her a picture of 'Convict 999"; the other boy came to school with a cowboy belt and a pistol-case. Although the results of this inquiry were thus inconclusive, doubtless owing to lack of system- atic observation on the part of the teachers, a possible good resulted from drawing their atten- tion to the problem. In contrast to such excessive gratification as mere spectators of theater performances, these children were found to have had little experience as actors. Less than a fourth of the number had 16 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN ever taken part in plays, either in school or else- where. Most of the teachers made no practice of having stories acted or of giving school plays, though, in the few instances where this was done, favorable results were reported. The usual rea- sons for considering such practice beneficial were given: as a means of impressing a lesson vividly so that it is not easily forgotten; teaching children to appear at ease in public; a method of insuring work on the part of pupils because of the interest aroused; affording a pleasing variety to the rou- tine of school work; and also, bringing teacher and pupil into closer fellowship. Of the unfavor- able conditions, it was mentioned that many lessons are not suitable for acting while others admit a few actors only; and, when all the chil- dren cannot take part, some in consequence are made unhappy, besides faihng to get the benefit resulting from participation in the acting. The danger, too, of making the more talented pupils conceited was touched on ; and also, as a possible harmful feature of dramatics, the general atmos- phere of excitement that prevails among the children throughout the school when preparations for a play are in progress, many of them seeming to feel offended when asked to open schoolbooks. A slight disposition to regard play-giving as a 17 •^N DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION means of rewarding good work and conduct, rather than as an instrument for securing the same, was evident, one teacher reporting school entertainments twice a year, when the "most deserving" pupils took part, "with beneficial results to themselves and to the school." In some cases, lack of time and a crowded curric- ulum were the excuses given for excluding the practice; but, in general, a certain degree of appreciation of its advantages was apparent, though not the enthusiasm which the writer has encountered when talking with teachers who make a special point of meeting the need in chil- dren for dramatic expression, and who recognize the splendid opportunity for it in connection with school work. Of those who had taken part, only a small proportion had failed to enjoy the experience. Where dislike of acting was expressed, the an- swer seemed to point to faults in the method of training and production (the play having evi- dently taken on too ostensibly the form of a task), as shown by the following: "I did not enjoy it, you have so many rehearsals and have to learn so much." These, however, were not the common grounds of complaint, which were seemingly the result of sensitiveness and self- i8 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN consciousness, as illustrated by: "No, I did not enjoy it because everybody looks at you, and talks about you; and if you make a little mistake they laugh at you"; while with a few children there seemed to be an unnatural fastidiousness in an aversion to dressing and making-up, black- ing hands and face, etc. The great majority of the children, however, showed thorough enjoy- ment of the experience, both the preparation and the actual giving of the performance. Pride in having a principal role entered into this enjoy- ment for some children, and love of praise; as also the feeling of conscious power, the fun of practicing, enjoyment of its impersonality, its amusing quality as a play, the novelty of speech and dress, pleasure in declaiming and in the company of other children of the same age. The comments of the children brought out various points of interest. Some lost themselves so completely in the story of the play that they failed to enter into particulars, but simply took pride in the impersonation of the part ; as shown by such expressions as ''I have taken part in a play myself." The egotistic desire for self-ex- pression came out, as in the following: "I did enjoy it. I had a great deal to do in all." In one case, a mercenary spirit was shown: "I did 19 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION enjoy it because I got lots of money and the best part." The dehght in '^ dressing up," so strong in almost all children, as well as enjoyment of the comic and the novel, was seen in remarks such as *'I took part in Singin Skewl ; I enjoyed it because we were all dressed up and had funny names, and a funny man was teacher and he said funny things." Some children showed recogni- tion of the benefit of training in expression, say- ing, ''Yes, I enjoyed it because it shows us some- thing and shows us how to talk," and ''Because I like to speak"; and gratification of the social instinct was indicated by "I enjoyed it because we had fun practicing"; and "I enjoyed it be- cause the other persons were about my age.*' A large proportion of the children showed the strength of the imitative instinct, for, in addition to the plays in which they had been trained in their parts, characters and scenes that had made an impression on them at the theater were re- produced spontaneously by them in their play. A number of children had taken part in plays in their own attics and cellars, imitating, pre- sumably, plays seen at the theater; as shown by the remark, "Imitating Gentleman Jim, the Diamond Thief, yes, I enjoyed it very much, there was killing in it" — which is typical, more- 20 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN over, of a class of scenes which appealed strongly to the imagination. While a few of the com- ments showed originality, the greater number gave again and again the same idea, sometimes in slightly varying forms of expression, but often in almost identical wording. Owing to the fact that children in some of the Chicago schools were told by teachers to rule out attendance at moving - picture theaters, while in others this was included in the reports, results on this point and inferences regarding preference for scenes and plays witnessed were invalidated for purposes of comparison with the reports from other cities. The fact also that teachers themselves in a few cases tabulated results in place of submitting original papers led to incompleteness. On the whole, however, only minor differences between the sets of answers were noticeable. The data obtained, giving the answers of but few teachers and results from the examinations of a comparatively small number of children, are offered not for quantitative or statistical value, but merely for their suggestiveness. Any one familiar with the questionnaire method will realize the difficulty of obtaining satisfactory replies from children. While in many cases an- 21 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION swers were 'evidently given with perfect sincer- ity, in others there was a lack of it, especially in questions relating to expense and number of performances attended. Children of widely different classes of society were represented by the schools chosen and some allowance had to be made for those of foreign parentage, who either misunderstood the questions or failed to express their meaning; also, for too vivid imagi- nation, marking the prolongation of the age when strict adherence to truth has not become ha- bitual. With one group of children, the uniformity of expression and the altruistic motives given for their enjoyment in taking part in plays had to be discounted; they indicated too plainly the guiding hand of the teacher in shaping the replies. A good deal of allowance, too, must be made for the inhibiting influence of the schoolroom, and for the giving-out of the questions much in the form of a school examination. One must bear in mind, moreover, how far behind their powers of comprehension is the ability of young children to express themselves. Some few children may have tried to hit upon the answer expected of them, but in most instances the answers were characterized by naivete. 22 THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN Yet inadequate though' the information is in some respects, certain generalizations seem safe and justifiable. Even though exact figures may be lacking, the great prevalence of the theater- going habit among children and the excessive frequency of attendance stand out with incon- testable plainness. Children's inabiHty to re- member names of plays seen, their often inde- finite answers and failure to discriminate clearly, indicate that too frequent theater-going surfeits rather than stimulates the imagination. More- over, the children's testimony shows the trashy character of the greater part of the material presented ; appetite for the exciting is ministered to in undesirable forms, criminal characters call- ing forth admiration by their daring and figur- ing as heroes ; while the cultivation of fine feeling and scruples is frequently incompatible with the general lesson conveyed. It also furnishes evidence of the laxity of officials in enforcing the laws regarding the attendance of young chil- dren unaccompanied by older people, and of the large proportion of children allowed by their parents to go to evening performances. It fur- nishes, besides, direct evidence of children's at- tempts to imitate what has been witnessed ; thus suggesting the force of the impulse to reproduce • 23 ^/ DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION and dramatize, and the necessity of providing good examples for imitation. From the acknowledged lack of previous con- sideration of the subject of children's theater at- tendance by many teachers and from the slight account taken of play-giving in school, we may learn how little the possibilities of the drama for educational purposes have been recognized, and how generally a great emotional force has been allowed to run to waste. Ill PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF DRAMATIC ENTERTAINMENT From the foregoing statements it is evident that the theater is a force to be reckoned with in the life of children. The means to which they resort in procuring entrance furnish added testimony. Settlement workers say that young people of their neighborhoods go supperless in order to buy tickets, and the United Hebrews Charities of New York is often asked to procure reduced- rate tickets for children apparently far more in need of food and clothing. In their great desire to see cheap shows, boys even resort to public begging. According to the manager of one of the large vaudeville houses of a New England city, they used to station themselves outside his theater and beg for pennies for tickets, till he was obliged to have a special officer detailed to keep them from his premises. Truant officers and those who come into con- tact with juvenile delinquents have frequent proof of this passion for the theater. Dr. D. P. ■ 25 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION Macmillan, director of the child-study depart- ment in the Chicago Public Schools, finds that "every child who comes in for a psycho-physical examination from the Juvenile Court, either on a charge of delinquency or truancy, is found to be a chronic frequenter of cheap theaters." J. Adams Puffer, formerly of the Lyman Reform School, in an article on boys' gangs, quotes from the truancy record, showing that thirty-six out of sixty-four boys went to shows, while twenty- four ran away to go to them. "Often," he says, "boys steal money or pick things out of the dump to sell, in order to go to shows." Says Miss Addams, "Out of my twenty years' experience at Hull House I recall all sorts of pilferings, petty larcenies, and even burglaries, due to the never- ceasing effort on the part of boys to procure theater tickets." One illustration that she gives tells of a boy who at seven took money from his mother for the Saturday evening play; and who, after he was ten, was furnished with it regularly. But the Saturday performance only "started him off like," and to attend twice again on Sun- day the money was procured in various unlaw- ful ways. These are a few of the instances which might be multiplied indefinitely to show the irresistible 26 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS attraction of the theater for youth and childhood. Even in the spring, when the impulse to be out of doors is strong, moving-picture shows will be found crowded with boys. Thus it will be seen that the theater meets a need; it satisfies natural curiosity, the craving for excitement, and the\ love of excursions into the world of the imagina- J tion. The more restricted and colorless the life^' the more this need is felt. In reality this demand for the dramatic isl^ only a demand for the expression of personality, ' — ''a push of the ego which finds its vent vicari- ously," — and the chance to escape from Hmi- tations, both natural and imposed, is eagerly sought and seized upon. Especially is this the case in narrow lives where the greater the monot- ony and the more filled with drudgery, the greater is the craving for variety and change — the reaction and revolt from the starved imagina- tion. But granting, as one must, the perennial at- traction of the theater, admitting that theatrical nutriment is beneficial or necessary for young , people, the question may well be asked, "How ^ can we render the theater educationally effec-^ live and make it a force for good?" To say that the theater does not occupy to- 27 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION day a high and dignified position is mere com- monplace; but what are we doing to improve its condition? For years various means have been suggested; but, until recently, they have led to little organized effort, and that Httle limited to few directions. It has been said that to elevate the theater the people must first be elevated, and that to elevate the people the theater must first be elevated. This reasoning in a circle is yet true, and efforts have been directed to both ends. Art theaters have been proposed that, freed from the spirit of commercialism, the thea- ter might provide only the best; while opposed to this solution is the belief that it is impossible to force upon the public what it does not want; and that the desire for something better is first to be created and the taste of the people culti- vated and uplifted. In reality, creating a finer public taste means the building of a finer public morality, for there is, indeed, as Coleridge said, an intimate connection between the two. In this whole question of public taste and morals the theater touches one of the educational problems of the day, namely, the old question of how far cultural studies may with impunity be crowded out of public-school work in order to give place to the so-called practical subjects 28 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS of the course. The schools educate the people who create the demand for drama; but how little they are educating them to appreciate the beau- tiful and artistic, the class of plays which appeal most to the general run of theater-goers offers convincing proof. It is, indeed, true that our public schools do little to develop the dramatic and aesthetic sense, or prepare children to exercise discrimination between good drama and what is essentially / coarse, between the artistic and the low-toned. The Katharsis (purification) of Aristotle, too, is almost entirely overlooked. Yet so long as the theater forms one of the chief amusements of the people, how else, if not in the common schools, is the great body of theater-goers to be trained to proper standards? Even when plays are stud- ied in school, which happens only in high schools or upper grammar grades, the greater part are read as literature; and as Professor Baker of Harvard has pointed out, pupils are seldom taught to feel or to see them as different from a story, though it is only in realizing the action that a play can be properly appreciated and judged. The theater is a dangerous force when left to itself. So far has it departed, in these days, from 29 s DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION its former high ideals that it is hard to realize how intimate was the connection which once existed between it and religion. All peoples have possessed some sort of drama, however crude; but far back in the beginnings of civilization, it developed out of religious practices and teach- ings. In ancient Greece the reciting of legends or hymns associated with certain reUgious observ- ances and rites and accompanied by dance and gesture developed into the accepted form of classic drama. Even after classic drama came into its definite and lasting form, it preserved for a considerable period the religious element, as is shown in fragments of the Neo- Greek drama. Again, in its mediaeval revival, it was used for educational and moral ends, when mystery plays became a direct means of spiritual and moral instruction, uplifting and educating the masses while seeming only to amuse. Monks and guild- players, going about in their two-storied carts, giving performances to the assembled crowds, so impressed the thought and lofty expression of their Bible plays upon the hearers that feeling was stirred and mind and character developed. To-day, opportunities for turning it to good account are as great as in olden times; and ap- pealing as it does to ear and eye alike, possess- 30 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS ing greater opportunities than other arts for moving the great mass of people it stirs emotions quickly, gives ideals and standards and shapes conduct, playing upon those especially suscep- tible to good or bad influence with beneficial or disastrous result. Indeed, it would be difficult to overemphasize the moral effect of drama for good or for evil, though the latter is more readily discerned. It may not be immediately apparent, since it is frequently too subtle to be traced definitely to its source. Nevertheless, we must remember that the theater is always educating either upward or downward, however little spectators are con- scious of it. In an article by Miss Elizabeth McCracken on ''Play and the Gallery," numerous interesting examples of the effect on individuals are given, showing how the remembrance of certain plays or characters of plays has helped them over crises in their lives. One girl, when asked how she Hked Cyrano de Bergerac, said she thought *'all the trouble came because they cared so much for looks"; later, this girl comforted a child who had been badly burned and was likely to be disfigured by saying, ''Well, it won't matter much, dear; looks ain't what count; it's what we 31 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION do that counts/' A woman who had seen the Merchant of Venice and remembered Portia's famous speech on mercy remarked, ''I don't want to be mean, 'cause of her." Another wo- man said that Othello believed everything he heard, and so remembering how he ended kept her from believing lots she heard. *' These peo- ple," says Miss McCracken, ''are unconsciously making a plea for the theater." She mentions certain plays whose influence has been harmful. A girl who had seen Nell Gwynn said, ''She was n't a good woman, was she? But in the play she seemed better than them; she gets along best. But even if she did n't, if they used to think her bad, why do they think her good now?" Of The Gay Lord Quex, a boy said: "The worst is the best and they gets out best." Miss McCracken remarks that the boy had seen Hamlet aright, and did so, probably, in this. With these examples of Miss McCracken's in mind, an attempt was made by the writer to find out what effect plays had produced on a cer- tain young working-girl who is an inveterate theater-goer. She was unable to give any in- stance of application in her own life of lessons gained at the theater, but some of her judgments and opinions are interesting. At first she could 3^ PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS not recall anything that had moved her particu- larly, except that, after seeing Uncle Tom^s Cabin, she "kept thinking of Eva's death all the next day." However, given time to think back, after a day or so she offered comments on other plays. As Ye Sow had made an impression. "Mr. St. John," she said, "was on the shore. He was to be married; all the guests had arrived, the bride was dressed for the ceremony, but a ship was in danger at sea, and he was willing to pledge his own life." It was a good lesson, she thought, in unselfishness. He had to put off the date of his marriage to rescue the people. After a tragedy she was affected for ten or fifteen min- utes. She criticized a certain actress in the role of Camille, "It was not as effective as it ought to have been." She had had more sympathy for the woman when reading the story. "But do you think you ought to have sympathy for her? " she was asked. "Well, I think I ought; if it was n't her fault — if she did n't have a mother, and was led in and had no one to lead her out." Thus i thousands of the masses are not only gaining to- day their ideas of propriety and conventionality, 1 but their interpretations of life, from the stage. The fact that what is seen at the theater so often becomes a moral guide, giving standards 33 n DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION for character and conduct and definite instruc- tions for daily living, makes the justification of crime upon the stage all the more serious. In an investigation reported by Miss Jane Addams, it was found that, in a majority of the four hun- dred and sixty-six theaters of Chicago visited one Sunday evening, revenge was the leading theme. It was estimated that one sixth of the entire population had attended the theaters on that day. In a series of slides popular in one of the five-cent theaters, a golden-haired boy of seven was represented as vowing vengeance upon house-breakers who had killed his father; and after the execution of each villain portrayed in all its horrors, the little fellow was pictured kneeling upon his father's grave, and thanking God for permitting this vengeance. Judge W. W. Foster, of the General Sessions .Court, New York, claims that the portrayal of ^ jcrime upon the stage is dangerous to morals and that it exercises a hypnotic influence upon spec- tators. But the essence of the drama is the por- trayal of conflict of some sort, whether, as in melodrama, the strife is between villain and hero, or, as in drama of a higher class, a moral conflict or a battle between ideas. The danger from the portrayal of crime upon the stage is really de- 34 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS pendent upon the purpose of the play and the method used in accomplishing it. The writer has been astonished, at times, at the craving shown by women theater-goers for lurid representations. One woman of mild and respectable appearance, whom she engaged in conversation during an intermission, intimated her indifference to the play, and confessed to a liking for one ''with killing in it." Such an in- stance would be discouraging if we did not know that though the theater too often gratifies the craving for morbid excitement, it becomes at times " a veritable house of dreams," where ideals are realized and the longing for romance and for mystery is in a measure appeased. The majority are best pleased by the play which takes them out of their sordid daily life ; and starved imagi- nations are led to accept the picturing of most improbable happenings. If its ministration on the side of good could but gain the upper hand, it is impossible to estimate all that could be accomplished in the line of moral and civic regeneration. The decisions of the officials who license shows are too often characterized by a disposition to- please and to act in accordance with the de- mands of the public will and taste, rather than 35 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION up to a cultural standard. But in their defense we must say that, from the very number of the plays submitted, the power of discrimination becomes weakened. Also a play may be chosen not for its intrinsic but its relative merits; in other words, it is found tolerably good compared with those that are more obviously vicious. In a certain New England city the president of a ^' Watch and Ward Society" tried to guard public morals against offensive bill-boards, and to in- form the police of things that were of improper character. Pictures in art stores were subject to investigation; and it was agreed that the society's representative should pass judgment upon penny pictures. The agent, a clergyman, who was also agent for a Temperance Associa- tion and a Public Purity Association, was em- ployed, besides, to go to theaters for the purpose of listening to and criticizing plays. It was under- stood that anything to which he objected should be cut out by the police. He said that many times actors had had their cue, and certain things usually included in a performance were sup- pressed when he was present. This agent is said to have stated, with *' evidence of pain," that his taste had become vitiated; and the chairman of the police commission would seem to have 36 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS corroborated this view, when, laughing about a controversy over some of ^the pictures, he told how he had thrown out twelve that the clergy- man had passed. If a clergyman and citizen of recognized good standing acknowledges a vitiation of his taste from constantly seeing vice depicted on the stage, it is well to realize the significance of its effect upon impressionable young minds and hearts. To face the problem of the day and guard the young, we must employ not destructive methods only, such as a more rigid censorship and the like, nor even keep chil- dren from the theater, but rather turn our ener- gies to work of more constructive character. IV DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES Within a few years there has been almost an epidemic of interest in dramatization as a part of primary-school work. In the lower grades of public schools, teachers have been setting chil- dren to act out stories previously read or told to them, for the purpose of gaining greater freedom "^ and spontaneity of expression. It is difficult to say where this practice started, but certain it is that it has had a phenomenally rapid rise. It is one of the most recent developments of interest in child nature, and follows naturally on that which was aroused in kindergarten work and school hygiene, and later by the establishment of playgrounds and oversight of children's play both in recreation and school hours. In many cities the introduction of this work, as well as the amount of time given to it, has been left largely to the discretion of individual teachers; in others, it is compulsory and has been reduced to a definite system. In a small city of Massa- chusetts, it has been introduced as part of a 38 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS method of teaching reading, the bare outline of which is as follows: first, the story; second, a Hst of rhymes to furnish the stock in trade of words ; third, pictures that illustrate the story; fourth, and last, dramatization, that is, the simple act- ing out of the story told by the teacher. The idea is to fill the children so full of the story that they will want to act it out, but not Jo le tjhem memorizein preparation. So long as the spirit and idea of the story are preserved, the children may use their own words to reproduce it. They need, at first, not only suggestion, but help in the work. Gradually, however, this is withdrawn, or should be if the teacher keeps in view the development of self-reliance in the pupil. Many teachers, entirely inexperienced in this work, at first meet with difficulties, and the ten- dency to render mechanical what should be spontaneous is all too common. There is great temptation to aim at a finished product, and many an excuse or apology is offered to visitors for crude performances. Those who best under- stand the aim and purpose of the work empha- size the points that the same story or poem should not be given out for dramatization too fre- quently, and that the same children should not be chosen for the same parts. The individual 39 ' DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION differences and mental attitude of the children are to be considered, the over-forward or super- cilious child judiciously dealt with, and the awk- ward, bashful, sensitive child particularly en- couraged, brought out, given confidence, and stimulated to wholesome competition. The influence of the schoolroom is almost invariably inhibitory, but repression and indif- ference disappear when the acting of a story is in progress. To see faces instantly kindle with animation, hands wave frantically when a teacher says, ''Now, would you like to act out something?" — to hear one voice say, "Oh, yes"; another, "Just love to"; to see the eagerness to be chosen for a part is to see interest aroused, such as is without rival during school hours — an interest which puts even that favorite school diversion of past generations, the spelling - match, far in the background. Disappointment inevitably ap- pears on the faces of those not chosen for roles, but it soon changes into sheer absorption in what the others are doing. Not infrequently all the children of a schoolroom can take part in a play; as in The Pied Piper, when, as rat or child, the motor energy of every young aspirant may find expression. Surely when one sees the 40 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS joy and delight this acting, considered merely as play or healthful exercise of mind and body, gives to the children, dramatization as a part of school work should find justification. But it is not yet universal. Many children are new to anything of the kind; what is yet more of an impediment to good results, teachers are also new to it; and some of them, because of the very lack of similar training in their own youth, are stiff and mechanical in method. It is the teacher, naturally, who must lead in breaking through the restraint-and conventionality of the school- room. To some, the opportunity for doing this is welcome. But the teacher who is not sensible of the advantages of delicate sentiment and sug- gestion, who bases her instruction on hard, def- inite statement of fact only, who would sacrifice spirit and originality for overexact reproductions of content, is little likely to succeed in work of this character. That some teachers are intro- ducing it because it is prescribed, treating it as a subject which they wish to bring up to the stand- ard of efficiency of other required school work, but the pedagogical importance of which they have not grasped, is sometimes very apparent, and is an inevitable result of an often too great mechanization in school curricula. Ask teachers 41 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION what effects they have noticed from the work, and, for some of them, the question seems to be raised for the first time. Others, however, say that they have noticed greater freedom in the use of English both in reciting and in conversa- tion. This would seem to be especially true of foreign-born children. According to one teacher two Norwegian boys, who had never amounted to anything in school, got their start from drama- tizing and had been able ever since to do good work. Some enthusiastic teachers are perhaps overemphasizing one phase of it, making such a point of expression as to produce a result, pos- sibly only ' temporary , verging on the unnatural or artificial. Doubtless the pendulum must swing far both ways before teachers adjust them- selves to a method for which natural endowment and education may have sparingly equipped them. As the grades ascend, one finds less and less dramatizing introduced into primary - school work, and in the grammar school the attention paid to it is almost nil. There are so many re- quired studies that time is lacking for work not yet standardized; and what is relatively unim- portant because not demanded for promotion can receive but scant attention. That the age of 42 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS self-consciousness begins after the first primary- school grades are passed is a reason, perhaps, why precisely the same sort of dramatic expres- sion should not find place in grammar schools; but that all dramatic work should cease until high school is reached (at which stage it is quite the practice in many cities to give school plays) is unpedagogical, since irregular and unsystema- tized practice is of little benefit. That there should be such a break and no tiding-over the awkwardness which frequently develops in later childhood, and that what has been gained in the first grades should be allowed to lose much of its effect through neglect, is to be regretted; since it is difficult, and in some cases impossible, to re- vive an instinct which has once degenerated by disuse. To bridge this self-conscious period, the literary study of drama might be introduced, the training of the imaginative and the analytical faculty, and the learning to read a drama not as a story merely, but so dramatically as to bring out clearly its purpose and action. Even the practice of play-giving in high schools, in many cities where it is the rule, often needs reconstructing. The best students in English are usually chosen for the play. Mildly suggest to a teacher who acknowledges this that the poor 43 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION students of English may be the very ones who most need this work, and the stereotyped answer is that these cannot afford the time for it. Then, too, the idea of the finished product is so much in mind that a play is cast with reference to it, V and with some justice, since regard must be had for the benefit to be derived by pupils who are spectators as well as by those who actively take part. To obviate this difficulty classwork for all, followed by competition and arrangement of parts, may be suggested. In one high school known to the writer there is an English club of limited membership, only the best students in English being chosen for it. Play-giving was found a necessary condition of the club's existence, as interest in its work could not be kept up otherwise. The teacher of the school in question states that the effect of the few members of this club upon her whole room is leavening; they act as leaders; and their good reading, marked by freedom and self-confidence, gives confidence to others. That a few teachers are fully alive to the value of dramatic work in education is as true as that many are indifferent to it. One has only to talk with grammar and high-school principals to dis- cover that at least three distinct attitudes are 44 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS evident: First, quite a large number of these principals have given the matter little thought and attention; second, some have considered it but are opposed to it; third, still others believe in the practice of play-giving in school, introduce it into their work, and, unhke some of the pri- mary-school teachers, are ready with their rea- sons for thoroughly indorsing it. In the first class may be mentioned a grammar-school prin- cipal of a New England city who, when inter- viewed, laughed and said in substance: "Why, yes, I believe in anything pupils can do that is pleasant; I do not object to anything in the line of school work which does not impede the natural development of the child. If under good influences he does nothing but play, it is all right. I agree with Hughes, of Toronto, ' that children have a good deal to contend with — who have to go to school.' " So very broad a view, however, can hardly be given as typical of any consider- able class of teachers. Of the second class, I cite a grammar-school principal who said that he did not believe in school plays nor theater-going, for the main rea- son that children's minds are already too much taken up with outside work. School work should be kept in steady lines, he thought; otherwise 45 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION there was dissipation of energy. Another prin- cipal said that he had a play given annually in his school, choosing one for its value in historical suggestion, moral influence, dramatic merit, etc., but he guards his young people carefully, as he has noticed elsewhere the bad effects upon adolescent boys and girls of practicing together. They have outgrown the innocent, unconscious age and need most careful oversight. It is a dangerous time to bring young people of oppo- site sexes together, nor does he believe in making artificial the emotion which should be the most sacred thing in life. He would stimulate young people to highest regard and love of the opposite sex, but by judicious teaching and restraint. A boy who had left school because of his inability, through interest in the other sex, or rather, in one of his girl companions, to apply himself properly to his studies, when re-admitted to the school, said he was ** over it." Taken at his word, he soon proved his ability to do good work. A premature love - affair had absolutely barred progress in school. There is always an element in every school that inclines toward the bad, and he does not believe in putting much that can be misinterpreted in the way of boys. In the third class may be placed a ninth- 46 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS grade grammar-school teacher and principal who said, in speaking of dramatic work, ''I think it revolutionizes a class as nothing else will, and that any teacher can find time in school for work that she really thinks important." On my visit to her school, this teacher had her class go to the assembly hall, where some of the pupils gave, for my benefit, scenes from several plays they had been studying. These pupils had never rehearsed together, as the teacher does not ordinarily throw boys and girls together for rehearsals. They had learned a great many parts, boys and girls taking those of men or women indiscrimi- nately. The scenes called for at this time were from the Merchant of Venice and Julius Ccesar. Two pupils were chosen for the same part, ar- ranging with each other where the first should leave off and the second begin. The order, facil-. ity, and alertness of the children in disposing of these and other preliminaries, and their ease in impersonating the different roles, showed plainly the effect of the work in developing initiative and giving confidence. Their enjoyment in the. whole proceeding v/as contagious. It brought vividly to mind, by contrast, other schoolroom scenes in which children had been distressed and even tearful because of a stranger's presence. 47 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION Some of the effects of the work are amusing as well as interesting. A mother said that so great was the interest of her child in dramatic work that everybody in the family had been made to act. The father could not get away for a trip to New York, the servant girl took part, and finally even the baby was made to represent "a dirty little pig/' In another family every- body had become interested in the dramatic work which was engrossing the child of the household; even the father, who was one day found in liis room reading the Merchant of Venice. In an- other case, a father who had been interested in the theater in his youth to the extent of being "super" for great actors on several occasions, after his marriage to a woman whose taste ran in different lines had lost his liking for high-class drama and had since gone to the theater only for amusement. But when one day his son began the speech of Antony, the father took it up, re- citing it to the end, and from that time showed an interest in the boy's progress and rehearsed his parts with him. Later, even the mother's interest was aroused and she did the same. Perhaps the most interesting case was that of an incorrigible schoolboy who scuffed his feet and did everything to annoy. There seemed to 48 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS be no way of appealing to him, and his teacher almost despaired. Finally he took part in a play and made a great success of his role — a comic one. The teacher laughed heartily at his per- formance, and from that time the boy was won. He lost his sullen look, and showed quite a dif- ferent side of his nature; and even after his pro- motion to high school, he remained the devoted friend of his earlier teacher. The enthusiasm shown by this ninth -grade teacher, and her manner of exhibiting the dra- matic work of her pupils to a visitor within regu- lar school hours, are almost paralleled in an inci- dent which especially impressed Mr. A. Caswell Ellis on his visit to French schools, and which I quote from his article. The principal of a com- mon school in Paris broke up several classes to have a large number of pupils go into the audi- torium and give a play they had themselves written of heroic and classic type. The children, aged from ten to fourteen, had planned the stage- setting, made helmets, breastplates, etc. They acted it out after their own ideas with great en- thusiasm and intensity. The principal of the school was most enthusiastic about it, and said, *'Ah, it takes a lot of time; but it is of more worth than the learning of whole pages of some 49 ^ DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION Kterature book. What we want is to make these boys sensitive to the things around them, to the beauties of plot, of expression, of thought; and this attempt to do something themselves and their appreciation of the beauties of their own work will make them more sympathetic and more sensitive to the beauties of the great masters." In the Pierce School, Brookline, Massachu- setts, thirty minutes are given each week to such dramatics, in which pupils may work out any- thing they please. In their play-giving the stage- setting is largely the result of their own inge- nuity. Children dramatize familiar stories and have an idea of the action required and know all the parts of the play. The work has proved valuable in giving an initiative which has mani- fested itself variously. In thus working together the children, it is claimed, lose all sense of class distinction, and the daughter of the scrub-wo- man and the little girl who comes to school in an automobile labor together, and so become friends. Mr. W. E. Chancellor is among the educators who are earnest believers in the value of drama- tizing school work. Lower-grade pupils will get valuable practice, he thinks, by dramatizing problems in arithmetic; and the telling or read- ing of a story, and letting children work it out 50 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS dramatically, he also considers especially useful in history and literature. In his Class Teaching and Management he says : — ■ Learning verbatim a good account of the battle of Gettysburg is quite a different thing from learning it dramatically in a lesson in which Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge are represented by rows of fur- niture and a charge of Pickett's men acted out by the learners themselves. In the first case, one learns the story and how to tell it in words. In the second instance, he feels the emotions of that great event. The difference is that between Uterary accomplish- ments and dramatic or practical efl&ciency. It is narrative, even picturing in words, over against reahzation. . . . The trend of modern educational method is so strongly in the direction of learning by doing, whenever this method of learning is feasible, that it is well to see clearly that this method amounts to a rediscovery of the place of working efficiency among the ideals of education. It had long been forgotten from an overcare for intelligence alone. The introduction of dramatic work into schools is not confined to the United States and France. Even in England, where until recently school regime was so seldom relaxed, dramatization of school lessons is sometimes practiced. In the Sompting Elementary School in Essex, for ex- ample, lessons by means of acting are made more 51 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION real and vivid for children whenever possible. Indeed, the "dramatic" method might be called the method of the school; and while it has been productive of excellent results, it is difficult to say how far these are due to the genius of the particular teacher in charge. In the teaching of history, scenes from historical novels and origi- nal plays, material for which is taken directly from books of history, are acted. Literature is learned by acting the content of a poem which has been either previously recited or given simply in dumb show; as also scenes from the Pickwick Papers, in which, according to Miss Finley- Johnston, head-mistress of the school, the intel- lect of a dunce has been sharpened by having him impersonate Mr. Winkle. In teaching geo- graphy, dialogue between inhabitants of different localities is resorted to, or pseudo-travelers im- part information while acting out appropriately the customs and occupations of the place de- scribed. For lessons in arithmetic, the question- and-answer method is employed, and the play involves buying and selling. Practice in com- position and letter-writing is obtained by means of a game in which one pupil, impersonating a merchant in need of an office boy, writes an advertisement, to which the other pupils each 52 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS reply. In nature study, flowers are made to talk; while in manual training, boys build the shed used in a particular game, excavate flints and marl from their playgroimd to form a garden, etc., while girls play at keeping dressmakers' shop in learning how to sew. Surely, this is carry- ing a method to extremes. In colleges and universities in recent years there has been a development of dramatic work that has tended to raise it from the level of mere amusement and pastime to an educational factor, and given it a dignity and importance which it has not hitherto possessed. For years students have been in the habit of giving farces for their own amusement and for the entertainment of their friends, and have had clubs which existed for the purpose. It has been customary, too, for different academic departments to give plays at intervals, and for graduating classes to make them features of their commencement programs. These attempts have been of increasingly ambi- tious character, and in many instances so credit- able in result as to receive approval and com- mendation from college faculties. Most of my readers will be tolerably familiar with work of the kind. Harvard has its societies which give old Eng- • 53 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION lish as well as French and German plays, and it was the first college to attempt a Greek play on an ambitious scale. The work of its Cercle Frangais has become well known. For nearly twenty years it has been giving French plays, and its reputation for them has been carried across the water. M. Gofflot, in his book Le Theatre au College du Moyen Age d nos Jours, has tried to show the decided influence of the theater on education, and claims that the Cercle Frangais of Harvard has done much to that end. At Yale, students take an active interest in play-giving. They have an association formed for the purpose which furthers in various ways the study of drama, procuring distinguished actors and students of drama as lecturers, engaging the Ben Greet Company to give performances, etc. It has, moreover, furnished a model for similar organizations throughout the country, and is said to fill a ^'distinct, legitimate educational func- tion." In the state universities of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and California, and in numerous others, there is great interest in play-giving and serious work and study in connection with it. The University of California has an outdoor theater, modeled on that of the Dionysius Theater in Greece, and • ■ "54 ■ ' '- DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS a professional actor in charge of dramatic train- ing; while at the head of the English department is a well-known student of drama. In a number of the colleges for women, plays are given by student societies during the year, and those of graduating classes are of a high order. The outdoor plays of Wellesley are now famous. Smith College, since it gave its Greek play more than two decades ago, has had each year a performance of ambitious character. A professional trainer is employed, and the senior dramatics have become an event which draws critics of drama annually. In many universities plays are among the pleasing features of commencement week, and represent careful and conscientious study, usually of a masterpiece ; for while faculties do not insist upon it, they of course favor the giving of some- thing of acknowledged educational worth. The character of some of the Hterary courses offered now by colleges is significant in this con- nection; for interest in the study of drama as a distinctive literary type has greatly developed in the last twenty years, as shown by the number of editions of early English and other plays now in the market; also by the fact that some of the imiversities include with the study of drama, 55 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION dramatic criticism and technique, the study of modern and contemporary plays, and practice in writing plays. The University of Minnesota gives practice in play-writing in its composition courses, and the two universities in California offer prizes for the writing of farces. In Tufts College the course in English includes the writ- ing of one, two, and three act plays, and that of Cornell, the study of dramatic structure and a weekly two-hour course in play-writing. At Bryn Mawr both graduate and undergraduate courses now include a study of dramatic technique and practice in dramatic composition. Professor Baker, of Harvard, and others introduce prac- tice in play-writing into their courses, and the study of drama has developed from tame interest into vigorous incentive. The value to students of substituting genuinely creative work for what is too often merely hypercritical and unproduc- tive is readily apparent, and already the practical results are most encouraging. Quite a number of plays written by students have been accepted re- cently by professionals, and in some cases have had a long and popular run. The possibility of developing in this way playwrights, who will help to shape what may one day become a national type of drama, is promising. S6 DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS In none of the colleges does the presentation i\\ of dramas yet find a recognized place in the cur- l| f riculum; and considering the ideas that have long prevailed in college faculties as to what is or is not "academic," one would scarcely expect that play-acting would find place in official cata- logues. Still, ideas of the scope of college work are broadening, so that under its own or a more euphemistic head it is not impossible that it yet may find recognition. Frequently, college in- structors in elocution and physical educators - coach the cast in the preliminary stages of train- ing, if not throughout the preparation of a play, but there has been no successful effort to gain ''credit" for students for work done in plays. [ In consequence, the full possibilities of dramatic 1 training as a college discipline have by no means \ been realized. The benefits have been confined to a comparatively few students; although usu- ally many more than those who actually take part in a given play take advantage of the training because of their enjoyment of it and realization of its value. Frequently those who have taken part in college dramatics look back in after years and acknowledge all that the training did for them; the beneficial results of it for voice, poise, j/ and movement, as well as of the dancing exer- 57 [ DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION cises, which are a part of a ^'Hmbering-up" proc- ess often so thorough as to tire the hardened football player, have been noted by many indi- vidual teachers. Members of the faculty fre- quently express their appreciation of what such training does for students; and it is often a mat- ter of surprise to them how many hitherto un- noticed members of their classes are ''brought out" by a play. Not only do they realize the value of the training as seen in mere outward expression, but they favor play-giving because of the students' gain through close acquaintance with the thought and purpose, the melodious and rhythmic phrasing, and the concise state- ment of great writers; lastly, because it serves y^ for the training of character in general. But certain additional reasons for the more systematic use of college dramatics suggest themselves, such as have long been recognized by the Jesuits, who in their colleges have made great use of the drama. They realize that stu- dents must have occupation for the mind apart from work, something besides the sterner studies for rehef and relaxation. They recognize that during winter months, when outdoor or athletic exercise is not always possible, the preparation for a play keeps young people interested and 58 w DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS! employed, giving an outlet for energies and / emotions such as would not be afforded by per- functory physical and mental training, and serv- ing also as a moral prophylactic. As time goes on, and more and more the value of dramatics as a many-sided culture and dis- cipline is realized, it is to be hoped that all col- lege students will benefit by privileges that are now reserved for comparatively few. Could the cast which presents the commencement play be but one of many that, during the four years' college course, have had the advantage of the high-grade professional training more and more engaged for "senior plays,'* then would the em- phasis be placed where it belongs, — on the edu- ( cational features of the work, rather than upon \ the production of a single performance however beautiful and inspiring in itself. CONSTRUCTIVE EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA We naturally look to Germany as a leader in matters pertaining to education; let us note what she is doing to satisfy the dramatic instinct and turn it to account educationally. In a country where the stage is less superficial than with us and more nearly approaches church and school as a great cultural factor, it is not surprising to find that greater actual provision is made for high-grade theater performances at moderate cost. In various German cities, during the season, a repertoire of half a dozen or more standard plays is given; and in most if not all of the German capitals, there are subsidized theaters belonging either to the State or to the Crown. BerUn among its forty or more theaters has three such play - houses, which by royal command regularly give performances at special rates for families of the working-classes. The expenses considerably exceed the receipts, but the Kaiser pays the deficit. In other cities certain theaters, 60 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA in accordance with the terms of their licenses, periodically give at reduced prices plays expressly chosen for children. Thus, instead of being left to seek the cheapest form of indiscriminate enter- tainment, children are taken from time to time by the principals of their schools or other teachers to the better class of performances. The attitude of German educators toward theater - going is peculiarly favorable; but it is largely due to the efforts of teachers' associations in the different cities that free performances for school children have become the rule. In Bremen and Hamburg, through their teachers' associations, private in- dividuals have been prevailed upon to defray the cost of classic plays given in the Stadt Thea- ter especially for pupils of the Volksschule; and in Dresden, a similar series has been established for pupils of the higher classes. To each play, sixty pupils chosen by lot are taken at a time. The performances are given regularly in the spring months, the time thus employed being deducted from that formerly devoted to the Ger- man language. Each teacher and child pays twenty-five Pfennige ($0.06), but the greater part of the cost is met by a royal subsidy of one thousand Marks ($250). In the higher schools surplus tickets for the best classical plays are 61 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION sold to pupils for one Mark ($0.25) each. In Berlin, for some years past the Schiller Theater has been able, through the cooporation of city officials, to give ten performances yearly to about twelve thousand pupils of the common schools. In this case, the cost is defrayed from the interest of a fund devoted to useful or artistic ends, and under the control of the Kultus Minister. In Charlottenburg, two plays yearly are given to twelve hundred pupils, and the cost is included in the annual school budget. This is the most decisive step yet taken to provide plays for school children at public cost ; but there is a grow- ing appreciation of the value of theater per- formances as a part of school work, and a feeling that parishes should introduce them in the free course, assume the duty of arranging with mana- gers for discount, and otherwise solve the prob- lem of ways and means. As in our own country the number of pieces suited to children in the German theater is very limited. Those usually given under the auspices mentioned, are by Schiller, Lessing, and Goethe; the plays most commonly produced being Wil- helm Tell, Jtmgfrau von Orleans, Minna von Barn- helm, Gotz von Berlichingen, and, in some cases, Maria Stuart. Even these do not seem in all 62 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA ways suited to children's comprehension; for as a result of the first experiment in this line, it v/as found that only one, Wilhelm Telly was approved by all the teachers. Besides these classics for older pupils, dramatized fairy-tales (such as ''Hansel and Gretel," and the ''Story of Goldie Locks") are sometimes given, to which younger children of the common schools are taken by parents and teachers at special school rates. These stories are not usually presented in beautiful or artistic fashion; in many cases they are of little worth; and between the dramatized fairy-tale and the higher drama there is a great gap. Struggles of the child soul — e.g., the awak- ening of feelings of honor and guilt, and the trials and difficulties of school life — have been treated by Robert Saudeck in a number of plays; but these do not reach the standard of true drama, and while they present the real psychological problems of child fife, they are not dramas for but about children — plays written for adults. The lack of drama for the young is in strong contrast to the wealth of tales; but the lack is due to the very nature of drama, which is above the in- telligence of the ordinary child. According to Raphael Lowenfeld, the well-known writer and director of the two Schiller theaters in Berlin, 63 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION the theater is not suited to young children; and the opportunity to attend performances should be offered only to those old enough to study a dramatic poem, i.e., to pupils in the upper classes of the common schools, where the teacher guides them to a comprehension of the treatment and meaning. He believes that if the child is not old enough to be taught to see character in the classroom, he is certainly not old enough to profit by the scene upon the stage. In his own words : — To children not so far advanced the stage says [nothing, or not the right thing. . . . The first visit ( to the theater must, for every normal child, be of ' overwhelming influence; but for that must be pre- supposed a great poem and ripe receptivity at the appropriate age. What the child has read stands before him again in light and color as he knows it in the actual world. Men of other times speak to him in the lofty speech of poets; deepest feelings find echo in the childish heart; and higher thoughts, which everyday life does not bring to him, now appeal to his understanding. ... In the positive experience y of the first day's impression lies the starting-point of a spiritual development and an increase in the ^ joy of living; and the negative result is of inestimable value for moral development. This is easily attain- ^ able for the children of the rich, who see too much rather than too little (which is unquestionably harm- 64 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA ful, for the impression becomes less strong), but for the poor, friends of art, education associations, and the municipality should provide. The same opinion, that everyday enjoyment of the theater is not suitable for children, is held by other German writers; among them, Dr. Rudolf Bliimner, of Berlin, who claims that it should be a special event; otherwise it takes away from the experience that ought to belong to later years. There is a common belief [he says] that children are not taken often enough to see classic pieces at the theater. This is a mistake. The too early introduction to the best is almost as dangerous as familiarity with Uterary worthlessness; for as Grill- parzar has said, ''The theater is no trivial school for the unripe." While we have nothing in the United States which parallels the work of the teachers' asso- ciations of Germany, various movements have originated here in the last few years, which, though differing in form, are similar in spirit, in that they recognize the psychological need of the child, the adolescent, and the adult for some form of dramatic entertainment. In 1897, the late Charles Sprague Smith founded in New York the ''People's Institute," the aim of which, 6s DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION according to its constitution, was "To furnish the people continued and ordered education in social science, literature, and other subjects, and to afford opportunities for the interchange of thought." Its dramatic department was begun in 1 90 1, when Marshall Darrach was engaged for Shakespearean recitals, which proved so popu- lar to East - Side hearers that they were given to constantly increasing audiences during three successive seasons. In consequence of this suc- cess, regularly staged plays of Shakespeare were next presented, the Ben Greet Company giving a series of performances, including a matinee for children (price of admission, twenty-five cents), the pupils of a single high school purchasing no less than seven hundred tickets. An attempt made to organize a company of members of the Institute to give plays under professional direction was abandoned after one trial; and the directors next turned their atten- tion toward what developed into one of the most important features of their work — that of in- teresting managers in giving reduced-rate tickets, not only for Shakespearean but for other good plays. The eagerness with which children and mem- bers of various groups — labor organizations, 66 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA department stores, etc. — availed themselves of such privileges, and the fact that as time went on an increasingly large number of plays was presented for approval, led to the definite or- ganization of a Dramatic Department. Com- mittees were made up of prominent men and women who visited theaters and reported upon plays; and a system was adopted for subjecting these to a standard test, A play might be re- jected for one group, though offered to others; as, for example, comparatively few suitable for adults could be recommended for school children of the lower grades. Thousands of wage-earners and children have taken advantage of these re- duced-rate tickets, distributed through librarians, school principals, heads of settlements and in- dustrial organizations; and not only has the sys- tem enabled people of limited means to see good performances at the price of poor ones, but it has served as encouragement to theater managers to offer better productions, and indirectly even made the success of certain plays. In the spring of 1910 the Dramatic Branch of the People's Institute developed into an in- dependent movement known as the "Wage- Earners' Theater Leagues." This organization v/as launched by theater managers themselves, 67 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION who recognized the advantage of the large audi- ence thus created from the wage-earning class, but chafed at the rejection of certain plays. They claimed that lack of indorsement by the com- mittee of selection meant the failure of such plays upon the boards. Accordingly the new asso- ciation leaves out this committee, except in the case of plays offered to children, which are chosen, as formerly, by representatives of the public schools. In several cities, organizations now undertake the censoring of plays for the purpose of raising the standard of the stage. Among these is the Drama League of America, founded in Chicago in 1 910, which numbered in the first year more than twelve thousand members, and now has twenty-seven branches of ''centers" in other cities. The earliest was in Boston, where for some years the Twentieth Century Club had been active in matters pertaining to the upHft of conditions in local theaters. Six of the larger branches are ''producing centers," which issue their own bulletins. The object of these leagues is to furnish a con- sensus of opinion as to plays especially worth seeing. Committees attend first-night perform- ances and issue bulletins recommending such 68 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA as have received their commendation. In this way parents and teachers may learn what plays are suitable and desirable for their young people. Bulletins of censure are not circulated; the spirit of hypercriticism is not encouraged; but when estimating the success attained by any given performance, an effort is made to discriminate in the credit given to playwright and actors. Thus is awakened an intelligent interest which will bring a strong, uplifting influence to bear upon the theater throughout the country. Pre- cisely such an influence came in New York from the MacDowell Club whose drama committee endeavored to "encourage dramatists to produce, and managers to present, artistic drama," and, to this end, pledged support during the first three weeks' run of any new production upon which a favorable report had been given; other- wise, plays out of the usual order might have been withdrawn without fair trial. This com- mittee is now merged in the Drama League of New York. The Drama Committee of the Twentieth Cen- tury Club of Boston, referred to above, for five years (or until 19 13) arranged for a series of high-school matinees, hiring for the purpose a local theater and taking nearly its entire seating . 69 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION capacity for a certain number of performances. It was hoped that the Boston School Department would eventually take the initiative, authorizing and arranging for similar productions, but as yet this hope has not been realized. In other cities it is possible to trace the beginning of a move- ment to recognize the importance of the drama as a part of children's public-school education. In New York, the School Committee has not only approved of a number of plays and arranged for the sale of tickets to pupils at a reduced price, but has planned a series of Shakespearean plays to be given in some of the large school halls by professional actors at a merely nominal price. In line with these really constructive efforts is the work of social settlements which, from the very beginning, have used play -giving as a method of education. It has been found that a play oftentimes furnishes the necessary incentive to effort on the part of young people and chil- dren, who will work for this as for nothing else. Many a settlement has its record of plays, more or less ambitious in character, which have been successfully produced. Classics, even, are at- tempted ; nor is this surprising in view of the fact that the personnel of settlements includes many college men and women imbued with the high 70 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA standards and the higher ideals, which have come to prevail in connection with college dra- matics. It is not possible here to go into the work of the different organizations, which, in their efforts to uplift and teach the masses, are making use in varying degree of dramatics as a means of accomplishing their ends ; but that of a few may be mentioned in order to indicate the character of what has been done. Many settlements have regular dramatic clubs, and others give plays occasionally. Hull House has several dramatic associations, senior, junior, and children's, which give plays of Shake- speare, Ibsen, and Shaw; melodramas, dramatized stories and fairy tales, according to the interest manifested by the several groups. One of special interest some years ago was a dramatization of Charles W. Chesnutt's story, *'The Wife of His Youth," given by a company of young people of his own race. Groups of Greeks and Italians have given plays in their native languages, the management beheving that the best way to con- vert members of our foreign population into good American citizens is to preserve and ennoble their national characteristics. Hull House has had for some years also a mov- 71 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION ing-picture show, or five-cent theater, wherein are presented fairy tales for children, foreign scenes to delight the immigrant population, inci- dents of stories which portray acts of heroism and convey moral lessons, and other things of interest. Settlement workers have recognized the ed- ucational value of drama for both sides of the footlights. Not only do they use it as whole- some entertainment, but as a means for training speech, manners, and taste, and of intellectual and moral development. One of the Hull House workers. Miss Madge Jennison, writing of her experience in play-coaching in an article in the j Atlantic Monthly, points out that the play is for ? the club, not the club for the play, and speaks of the harm that might result from the acceptance of failure in a part, and the benefit that comes when a child really "arrives," and does some- thing she was sure she could not do. She cites incidents to show how interest is aroused and conversation carried on in terms of the play, and of how taste has been influenced thereby; for though tears may be shed at the very idea of giving up a *' pompadour," or wearing an old- fashioned gown in place of one with a pretty yoke, yet, in the end, esprit de corps prevails and 72 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA the individual learns to subordinate herself in the interest of the group. In the dramatic work of the Henry Street Set- tlement, New York, the same ideal prevails of preserving the traditions of different nationali- ties. The children are trained to reproduce their various national festivals. On May Day they give their ancestral dances and customs, thus reviving the primitive rites by which man ex- pressed his joy in the rebirth of spring. Denison House, Boston, has done excellent work in dramatics, having given a number of Shakespearean plays and other classics with great success, not only in Boston proper, but in neighboring towns, as well as at Wellesley College. The Elizabeth Peabody Settlement of Boston has also made play-giving an important feature of its work. Its new building is provided with a well-equipped theater for its own dramatic per- formances and the use of neighborhood clubs. Similar in spirit to the dramatic work of settle- r Tits, but quite different in its inception and .. ^ganization, was that of the "Children's Edu- cational Theater," of the East Side of New York City, which represented a movement to counter- • 73 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION act the influence of cheap shows, by furnishing a substitute of educational value. It stood, how- ever, for something more than the mere sub- stitution of worthy for unworthy drama; for it furnished gratification for both the active and passive phases of the dramatic instinct, in that it aimed not only to meet the need of the child as spectator, but was alive to that of his growing imagination and unabsorbed energy, his need to express himself as creator or actor. It was started about a decade ago, under the auspices of a Jewish charitable organization, '^The Edu- cational Alliance," which has its headquarters in the Russian- Jewish section of the city. It accom- plished its good work very quietly at first; and only after several years was attention turned in its direction, when several magazine and newspaper articles awakened general interest. It received particular notice, also, when, in November 1907, during the run of The Prince and the Pauper, with which the theater opened its regular season, an invitation performance was given in honor of Mark Twain. On that occasion President Eliot and other guests made speeches; and letters from President Hall, Professor Brander Mc:*:- thews, Professor George P. Baker, and others, commending the work of the theater, appeared 74 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA upon the printed programs. Not long afterward it again attracted notice, when, on the enforce- ment of the Sunday law, its Sunday afternoon performances had to be discontinued. The theater owed its beginning to Miss Minnie Herts, who filled a vacancy on the entertainment committee of the Educational Alliance, and in an attempt to improve upon the character of the entertainments previously given, and at the same time furnish something of educational value, planned the training of young people of the neigh- borhood in plays, choosing The Tempest for the first experiment. A competent trainer was put in charge, and after much serious work and study the play was produced. The result surpassed all expectation. Not only was the performance highly creditable, even artistic, but the effect upon both actors and spectators was unmistakably good. It indicated to the management, that a work of real educa- tional and socializing influence had been started, that would react on the whole neighborhood. On street corners and doorsteps, in factory and tenement. The Tempest was discussed. It was even acted out in homes, and one thousand copies of a cheap edition of the book were sold in the locality. People who during the week diligently 75 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION plied their humble trades, toiling in sweat-shops or trundling push-carts along the narrow streets, responded to the many-sided appeal of a great drama. Their contracted horizons were all at once widened. No matter how sordid or dreary the surroundings, pictures of beautiful scenery remained in their minds, and new ideals stirred their imaginations. J That the interest which had been aroused by J this rich experience might be still further strength- ^ ened. The Tempest was followed by other fine plays produced in similar fashion. The Forest Ring, Ingomar, As You Like It, Snow White, and The Prince and the Pauper were given as Sunday matinees for these Jewish young people and children, with occasional evening perform- ances for adults, until the enforcement of the Sunday law made them impossible. Then a suc- cession of one-act plays for Saturday evenings was regularly substituted, to which flocked crowds of spectators, both children and adults, and their success was as great as that of The Tempest and its successors. Both actors and spectators entered fully into the spirit of the plays. The actors lived their roles during the many weeks of preparation and performance. The spectators showed their belief in the reality 76 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA of the scenes by their excited exclamations at critical junctures, their outcries of warning against danger, and their lamentations where these were disregarded. Furthermore, while they applauded the acting of relatives and friends, they longed also to take part themselves. Pre- paratory classes grew to number many more members than the cast of any piece demanded; and these classes became the foundation and strength of the entire work as it progressed. A play was first studied as a whole, then the dif- ferent parts taken in detail, and later the young people themselves made assignment of roles by vote; their choice being subject to the final deci- sion of those in charge. The possibilities in these classes for indirect teaching soon became apparent. Each play was studied with reference to its literary and dram- atic merit, and its historical teaching. Motives governing the characters were considered, be- havior analyzed, comparisons drawn, and, as far as possible, morals pointed and ethical principles inculcated. The choice of the play depended not alone upon its general educational value, but upon the particular lessons needed by members of the class in training, and by the spectators. Each part was studied by several young people, DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION so that, in case of a long run, the burden would not fall too heavily upon one cast; in this way, too, more would profit by the routine work. The thea- ter was run to some extent on professional lines, and a certain amount of business training in- cidentally resulted. The same methods which facilitate the smooth working of the business enterprise served for the training and develop- ment in various directions of many desirable qualities and characteristics. The young people learned the meaning of responsibility, and to systematize the part of the work which fell to their share. Frequently, when for some reason they were necessarily absent from the cast, the actors themselves trained the substitutes for their parts. They were made to feel that, in so doing, they must aim to make these substitutes outstrip their teachers. In one instance, a one- act play was even staged by the young people themselves; and the instructor, seeing it for the first time after it left classwork, found little to correct. Children had oversight of properties and costumes and the charge of the box ofiice; and an orchestra of children played between the acts, giving their services in return for regular instruction in music. They learned punctuality. In a neighbor- 78 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA hood where, it is said, the meaning of the word was previously unknown, great pride was taken in the fact that not once in the course of four whole years was the curtain rung up one minute late. Scene-shifters became so proficient in their work that one of the features of an invitation performance was an exhibition of their skill, the curtain being raised for the purpose during an intermission. They developed, too, a spirit of cooperation; and consideration of self yielded to zeal for the common good. If occasion demanded it, the hero of one play as a matter of course took a subordinate part in the next. Visitors were much impressed by the ease and grace of the young performers, and especially by their flexible English. Mrs. Burnett noticed it when she saw their presentation of The Little Princess ; and Mark Twain, who took active in- terest in the progress of the theater, commented upon it. He is reported to have said, *'It seems that we Americans may learn to speak the Eng- lish language from the East Side, nearly all of whose citizens came to this country unable to speak the tongue of which they have so soon become master." It was questioned whether the wearing of the fine clothes, necessary to some parts, might not 79 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION make poor children discontented with their own ; but this has been answered in the negative. It is claimed, moreover, that having to look after their stage costumes made the children more careful of their own. New standards of taste resulted from the staging, and even penetrated in some cases to the homes, where simpler fur- nishings replaced what had been gaudy and pretentious. Simpler dresses worn upon the stage were borrowed by parents, that children might wear them in place of their own cheap finery when having their pictures taken. The children learned, too, that some clothes are suit- able for certain occasions only, and for certain situations in Hfe. Wealth and rank tended to assume more nearly their proper place; it was the kind heart and feeling that were appreciated in the Little Prince, the Little Pauper, and in Little Lord Fauntleroy, under the change of circumstances they experienced. The outward change in the children wrought by the theater, both as to physique and facial expression, was among its good efTects. The little wardrobe mistress in charge of the dressing- room, a young girl who ruled her small domain with a firm hand, requiring method and order in all that came under her supervision, was a 80 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA striking example of the metamorphoses some- times accomplished. When one saw this alert, bright-eyed little business woman, it was diffi- cult to realize that, when she came to the theater, she was, as one of the force expressed it, *'one of the most weazened little creatures that ever was.'* To illustrate further what the Children's Theater may possibly have accomplished for this same child we may mention, that when one of her family was seized with a severe illness, and other members of the household proved unequal to the emergency, the little girl showed a cool- headedness and capability that impelled the physician in charge to ask, ''What training has she had? To what is all this due?" This is but one instance of many in which the training of the Children's Theater would seem to have given self-reHance and poise, and a better fitting for life. The Jews are a polite people and all these children are Jews; but surely the noticeably good manners in some cases may be traced to the in- fluence of the Children's Theater. There is no other conclusion to be drawn, when a small boy stands because Miss Herts is not seated, and explains that in the play of Little Lord Faunt- 8i DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION leroy he ^'noticed that the Earl of Dorincourt did.'^ Changes of this nature, however, which impress outsiders, important though they are, seem to members of the management who have witnessed the process of transformation less remarkable than those wrought upon character. To see erect carriage take the place of crooked shoulders and shambling gait because of awak- ened ambitions and new feelings of self-respect; to see faces beam with aspiration and interest hitherto undreamed of, was to behold the work of the Children's Theater. The transformation that some of the young girls underwent was well illustrated when ^Op-O^-Me-Thumb was put upon the boards. For the parts of laundry girls, the modulated voices, dignified carriages, and quiet manner that had been painfully acquired were now to be discarded; strident tones, loud laugh- ter, tilted and protruding chins, hip and elbow movements were to be assumed. In short, girls were to reproduce something very like recent personal history. For this reason, it was with no little apprehension that the play was se- lected. Fear was entertained also as to the pos- sible reception of scenes such as that between Amanda and the hero by the audience. Instead, however, of a cheap interpretation of the young 82 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA girl's attitude toward the trifler, the pathos of the situation outweighed all that was hurtful. A question frequently asked was, whether the training would not turn young people to the professional stage. This was never its aim, and apparently was not its tendency. Rather, it gave an outlet to the adolescent desire for dra- matic expression, frequently disillusioning the young aspirants for professional stage life, and, without withdrawing them from their vocations, fitting them to be better citizens. Not more than one out of a hundred was thought to have real dramatic talent. Stress was laid upon hard work and careful study to such an extent as might rob the stage of its attractiveness as an occupation for some, who might otherwise have thought only of its glamour. Miss Herts's secretary, a young girl of the neighborhood, who had made a great success as heroine of one of the plays, though urged by managers to enter the profession, re- fused their offers and returned quietly to her typing. Even the taking of debased parts by youthful actors, concerning the effect of which opinions are at variance, had a prophylactic value. One of the children, when asked whether she liked playing low parts as well as the more beautiful ■ 83 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION characters, replied, ^'I do, if the character is true." The question of the advisability of bringing young people of opposite sexes together in the more sentimental and romantic situations was also raised; but, according to the management, no bad results were noticeable. Though run as far as possible on business principles, and to crowded houses, the theater was, nevertheless, far from self-supporting. This is not surprising when the price of admission was but ten cents. The expense over and above re- ceipts was paid by the Educational AlHance; and when later the theater entered upon a new and independent existence, this organization con- tinued to lend its help by hiring the company for a series of plays, for which it paid a generous sum. The ''Children's Educational Theater" unfor- tunately no longer exists. After a successful record of five years, it was decided to enlarge the scope of its influence by removing it from Grand Street to East Eighteenth Street, where Mr. Robert Collier loaned a house for the purpose. With the change of locality, the theater became a regularly incorporated institution, under the name of ''The Children's and Young People's Educational Theater." Its board of directors was 84 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA made up of people who had earlier been attracted to the experiment, the management remaining practically the same. Under the new regime, it was proposed to dem- onstrate the methods of the theater by giving performances in other cities under the auspices of various associations interested in social and educational advancement. A group of children was actually sent to Boston, where they pre- sented The Little Princess. But after a brief period the whole undertaking perished for lack of financial backing. The experiment, however, can hardly be counted among the Hst of failures. It is something to have given inspiration to other cities. The idea is now in the air; it may be long before it materializes, but the first effort has shown what can be done with it as a recognized form of settlement work. Assuredly it stands out as one of the best sociological achievements of the last ten years. ^ An admiring German critic of the effort sug- ^ Lately an effort has been made to revive the Children's Educational Theater. It has been chartered under a new board of directors, and performances have been given in the Wash- ington Irving High School. Classes are held in various pro- ducing centers throughout the city. Two other organizations, the Educational Dramatic League and the Educational Players, are trying to do similar work. 85 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION gests that it should have gone a step farther, and that children should have constructed their own plays. All we can say in reply is, that this has already been done in a boys club started by Sid- ney S. Peixotto, an experienced worker with boys. Aiming at a high quality of self-expression, he discarded classic drama as beyond the reach of children, claiming that the long and tiresome rehearsals are in themselves bad. Starting from charades and various crude but spontaneous efforts, he tried to inspire the inventive faculty of the boys to the production first of single scenes, and later to more fully developed plays. These, for eight years, proved a real factor in character-building which other work of his club has aimed to emphasize. The boys discussed the play they were about to construct, and worked out the plot and dialogue for themselves; and the development from the coarse "rough-house" sort to "fascinating little comedies'' is said to have been remarkable. The working-out of costumes and scenery by the little actors themselves might often add to the value of play-giving were other children's theaters to be established. In one technical high school visited by the writer, this has been done with great success. 86 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA Many people suppose that a children's theater is an extremely modern institution. In reality, one was started in Berlin a little over fifty years ago, though for a different purpose and under widely different conditions. The originator was the poet. Baron Anton von Klesheim, author of the MailUjterl, a collection of folk-songs. His first attempt at drama was a child-comedy, Der Erdgeist und die Wasserfee, which he wrote in his fiftieth year, and for the production of which he chose Berlin. There were many difficulties in the way, for the Prussian capital was then a small city, very unlike the Berlin of the present day. He needed a hundred children, and they were not easy to obtain; for it was necessary that they should be beautiful both in form and face; also, out of the actors of first roles he wished to make miniature artists. The first performance was given in the theater- hall of one of the well-known hotels, and all the prominent people of Berlin were present. The price of the cheapest seat was four Marks. No expense was spared in producing the play, and the spectators were charmed with the acting. The Children's Theater became a topic of con- versation, and the content of the play was spread through all Berlin child world by these one hun- 87 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION dred children, and reproduced wherever half a dozen of them came together. Even in school at recess it was a favorite game. Parents became infected with the enthusiasm, and in prominent families it was considered a great honor to have the children chosen to be actors. Performances were continued during five months, meeting with continuous approbation, though, financially, the theater was not successful. Another German example, for which perhaps the name of Children's Theater would be too ambitious, is that of the plays afterwards given under the direction of an Alsatian pastor, Herr Pfarrer Siegfried, to meet a social need. Having asked the peasants why they ^^ carried on^' so in the village, one of them answered, *' Because there is no theater." Whereupon he trained schoolboys to present plays. Only in its adaptation to educational and sociological purposes, therefore, is a children's theater a modern invention. Queen Elizabeth maintained boy actors as part of her household, where they not only formed the essential part of her chapel choir, but gave plays and enter- tainments on secular occasions. Earlier still, Henry VIII employed children for dramatic rep- resentations ; and, as far back as the time of 88 EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA Edward IV, if not earlier, Children of the Chapel gave pageants and pantomimes for Christmas festivals. The extent of children's performances in the Elizabethan age was little known until recent investigations brought the facts to light. Half the plays of the period were produced by chil- dren's companies, and, in the reign of James I, more than half. Every great dramatist except Shakespeare wrote for them; some, like Chap- man, writing for no other. Moreover, most of the playwrights who wrote for both men's and boys' companies, gave their best efforts to the latter. The children, when they grew up, domi- nated the stage as actors, and were an influence in theater and drama for over fifty years. The moral tone of the children's plays was much the same as that of the others. Tragic parts were bombastic, comic parts frequently foul; and, while in some ways they may have suited the emotional needs of the young actors, no one thought of the effect upon them. Boys were mere puppets in the hands of their elders. In this matter of the dramatic training of the child as part of his education, America is far ahead of Germany, where the little ones still ^* speak pieces" on special occasions, or give a 89 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION stupid and awkwardly acted little play before adoring relatives. In this country we have digested FroebeFs maxim, '^ Learn by doing," while Dr. Blumner, before quoted, is still plead- ing with phlegmatic school directors. *' Capabil- ity to declaim a poem," he says, *'is not a talent turned toward acting; it is acting. The dramatic I art, of all arts, is the one that should be earliest ' cultivated. All little children are taught to recite poems; but attention has heretofore been directed merely to memorizing; while the slovenly speech and colorless expression that will hamper them in later years, especially in the professions, pass uncorrected." VI PLAY "Play is a certain natural joy or pleasure," says the Roman philosopher Seneca. Plato, before him, made it a means to an end, as we are try- ing to make it to-day: *'Let early education be a sort of amusement ; that will better enable you to find out the natural bent of the child." Ci- cero, adopting Plato's idea, considers the moral being as the chief end: ^'Only such plays should be allowed as never divert from righteous action." Of late we have begun in earnest to apply these sayings of the wise. New methods of psychology are giving greater insight into the important role of play in the field of the emotions, and a fuller sense of its significant relation to the moral aspect of the dramatic instinct. For the study of the nature, function, evolu- tion, development, and meaning of play, espe- cially with reference to this instinct, we have many valuable data. They come from three sources: the play of animals, the play of primitive peo- 91 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION pies, and the play of civilized children. For our present purpose we may omit the first. In the numerous studies of primitive peoples pubhshed in recent years, the authors dwell much more upon games than upon informal play; but it is from informal play that games have developed. The play of little Kaffir chil- dren, so charmingly described by Dudley Kidd, in his Savage Childhood, and many of the games of American Indian children are imitative of the pursuits of their parents ; and games of both chil- dren and adults, in the action and gesture with which occupations and customs are represented, give abundant evidence of the strength of the instinct for dramatic expression among savages and semi-barbarous races. The native Bushmen show in their games a fondness for masquerad- ing; they dramatize events, and assume the ap- pearance and imitate the cries of animals and birds with extraordinary accuracy; their women put on the heads and horns of animals, and in the evening appear suddenly in sport among a group of children; their masquerading serves in war to deceive their enemies, and in the hunt to attract their prey. The Fuegians invent burlesque scenes, and imitate the behavior and cries of animals; and the Forest Veddahs, Cen- 92 PLAY tral Australians, Esquimaux, and other races have a passion for mimicry, frequently making the white man and his doings the subject of imi- tation and ludicrous representation. Abel, in an account of play in Neu-Mecklenburg (New Ireland) in the South Sea; Walker, in his study of Sioux games; and Culin, in his description of Hawaiian and Philippine games, tell how the children with javeHns, whips, bows and arrows, wind-whirlers and popguns, dolls and doll-houses, imitate the doings of adults ; while some of their simplest baby-plays are distinctly imaginative. But most of our data are from material near at hand. We study the children of our own coun- try at different ages, that we may provide for their play interests, and in certain cases correlate play with school work. No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between what is fit for one age and what for another; the interests of one pass into the next, and some continue through life. Espe- cially is this true of the dramatic interest. Chil- dren's love of acting out their own ideas and of imitating begins, as everybody knows, in baby- hood. Even before they can speak, mimetic action is the natural means of communication; and they imitate the movements, expression, speech, and other sounds of their ciders. A little 93 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION later comes play with toys; and later still an infinite variety of dramatic and imitative plays of their own invention, which interest far more than formal games. Their play covers the entire range of their knowledge and experience. Even at the age of ten or twelve, when free active play gives way in great measure to formal games, dramatic and imitative ones have the chief place; and the circus, the minstrel show, and Indian-hunting are among the favorites. Then they begin to form secret societies, and have rituals and ordeals. They play at being bandits, and form gangs. Actual burglary and train- wrecking by children are examples of dramatic instinct gone wrong. Statistics show clearly that the more dramatic the games, the more popular they are. The study of their origin is profoundly interesting. *'Puss in the Corner," ** London Bridge," and many well-known ring games are full of dramatic ele- ments derived from old folk- tales and sagas, which vividly reproduced the real spirit and life of the people. Many are survivals of old cere- monies and beliefs; some are remnants of village customs and funeral rites; others of border war- fare, of courting and various forms of tribal mar- riage, as by purchase or capture. To the last 94 PLAY has been traced the game of "Three Dukes"; to the first, that of "Sleeping Beauty," derived from a drama of the spring myth. Guessing games are a survival of primitive philosophy, of the art of divination and sorcery; and imitation of animal sports and games of the chase and war go back to a remote past, where the destruction of prey and of human enemies was man's most important occupation. "The fighting and chas- ing instinct," says James, "must have been in- grained." The inherent force in all these games, that has made them persist from generation to generation, has been identified as "the dramatic faculty inherent in mankind." In recent years, progressive courses of plays and games adapted to different ages have been carefully worked out, and a great number of them published ; — in some cases by school depart- ments in connection with instruction in physical education, as in Boston and Providence. They include simple acts such as warming the hands, walking up hill, climbing, etc. A large number fall under the head of animal imitation, as a cat chasing a mouse, an elephant raising his trunk, the leaping of a kangaroo, the crowing of a rooster, the chirping and flying of birds. Industrial oc- cupations furnish a great variety, as of the farmer 95 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION picking apples, sowing seed, and harvesting; the carpenter sawing wood, driving nails; the engi- neer testing his throttle; the workman digging and shoveling; soldiers drilling and firing. Out- door sports and pastimes, such as ball-playing, swimming, rowing, golf-playing, throwing sticks into trees for chestnuts and apples, and picking flowers, are brought into the schoolroom. Chil- dren are even taught to imitate movements in nature, as the fluttering and whirling of leaves, the falling of raindrops, the swaying of tree- tops, a windstorm, flowing water, and many others in which an idea rather than an object is simulated. Good as all this may be, it nevertheless shows a tendency to direct the plays so far that they become stereotyped, and tend to repress rather than develop the dramatic instinct of the child. It has already been carried to extremes. For example, children playing at picking apples are told to raise themselves high on their tiptoes, stretch the right arm high and bend the head backwards, pick the apple, lower the heels, and bring the right hand down to the left across the chest. This is repeated several times; then the left hand and arm are brought into play, that uniform development may result. Evidently the 96 PLAY fact is here lost sight of, that, whereas physical exercise may profitably proceed according to well-defined rules, the same precision and direc- tion cannot be applied to play without robbing it of interest. One would scarcely venture to regulate each step and gesture of children taking part in a regularly staged drama; yet these imi- tative plays are of the nature of individual epi- sodes that might find place in any Httle acted scene. If the purpose of such imitative play, namely, to cultivate spontaneity and give emo- tional tone to healthful exercise, be kept clearly in mind, the advantage of directing the child's thoughts to the thing to be done, rather than to the method of doing it, will be readily per- ceived. But it is especially in the involuntary play that is all about us, irrepressible in every normal child, that the instinct for dramatic expression is clearly revealed. Almost every day on a cer- tain university campus, the writer sees examples of it. A bit of red cloth on one of the terraces is the flag of a portcullis, and a small toboggan projecting from the veranda and lowered and raised at intervals serves as drawbridge; and a boy who takes his turn at working it will only answer for weeks at a time to the name of ''Sir 97 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION Galahad/^ and can best be directed morally by appealing to his knighthood. Miss Luella Palmer, of the Speyer School, Teachers College, New York, tells of an invol- untary play carried out there one morning before the opening of school (it also shows how games originate). A little girl told her that some one had brought a rabbit. On investigating, she found some of the children forming a cage, while two others were impersonating rabbits, — one the mother, the other the baby rabbit. The principal actor made beheve to feed the rabbits, and stroked their heads. From this resulted a game regularly played afternoons, called *'The Wild and Tame Rabbit." Mrs. Gomme tells a story of her own little boy, who, when told to come out from under the table where he was rubbing his head against the pedes- tal, said: ''But I'm not a little boy, I'm a cow; and it's not a table, it's a tree, and I'm rubbing my horns." Mr. Jacob Riis has said that the dramatic tendency of the small child finds its food in New York chiefly in the drama of arrest; and Mr. Joseph Lee says that, in Boston, ''acting fu- neral" is one of the popular amusements; which proves two facts that must be taken into account 98 PLAY by educational institutions: (i) that city chil- dren are not without the dramatic instinct to make real to themselves the life about them, by acting it out; (2) that this very real force is at present being perverted, and therefore needs direction. These children want a fair chance, he says, and judicious suggestion, to turn their strivings for the realization of life in a better direction. The large imitative factor in the dramatic play of children makes it a rare edu- cational instrument, which, besides, emphasizes the oft - repeated lesson of the importance of the right environment for the child. That the interest in funerals as processions and as games is not peculiar to Boston is proved by numerous instances of the sort collected by many experts in child-study. It appears that death and fu- nerals, sometimes of cherished pets, elicit more specialized, detailed, and spontaneous accounts than any other subject; and it is evident that imitative, emotional, and dramatic elements here find expression. The interest of children in actual funerals is well illustrated by the remark of a small boy of four, whose home happens to be near a church; who, standing one day at the window, murmured sadly, "Nossing to do, no fun, no funerals.'' 99 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION In the Invisible Playmate, Mr. William Canton tells how his child had always to be seated on the same knee, as the opposite one was occupied in fancy by " another little girl " ; and how in a rail- way station he had to lift the child high up to the engine front, that she might ''stroke its dear head." *' Let's pretend," appeals to all, and needs no rules for young or old. Here imagination and imitation work together. With some few people, imagination is, unfortunately, lacking; others have it in rich abundance and retain it through life. The ability to imagine and pretend has helped people over many a sorry situation. Lieutenant Shackleton and his men, picturing savory menus, in their Barmecide feasts; Beau Brummel, in his days of poverty and desertion, trying to preserve appearances to himself; Mrs. Burnett's little heroine, Sara Crewe, forgetting hunger, cold, and loneliness in her attic chamber while she plays at being a princess, are illustra- tive instances from real life and fiction. Appeal to the dramatic instinct in play is one of the most powerful means of influencing boys in the pre- adolescent period. Many of the most successful Sunday schools have drills in which banners, swords, and caps play a part; and the appeal is lOO PLAY distinctly to the love of impersonation, ritual, mystery, and parade. These drills exercise the play instinct and afford opportunity also for the constructive, in making regalia, banners, swords, and various appurtenances. In the association for boys called '' Knights of Eang Arthur," orig- inated by Dr. Forbush, the boys gather about the Round Table, the king at the head with Mer- lin (the adult leader), and the various officers in their places, while a short and impressive ritual service is performed. So great is the interest of boys in initiations, that they will even forego a ball-game to take part. The "Brotherhood of David," on similar lines, is for younger boys, as is also the order of the ''Wood Craft Indians," devised by Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton ''to di- rect and systematize the fever for playing 'In- dian' during the so-called savage period of boy- hood." Another organization that utilizes the same principles and appeals strongly to the love of the dramatic, though by a more meager use of symbolism, is the "Boys' Brigade" started in 1883 by Lieutenant W. M. Smith, of Glasgow, who found that the power of accouterments, even though they consisted only of a cap and belt, over boys who could not otherwise be interested in Sunday school, was strong; and that many lOI DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION transformations of character were effected by turning boys into '^privates.'' The "Boy Scout" movement, of a more secu- lar character, also turns the love of dramatic action to definite account, by arousing the sense of chivalry and resourcefulness in practical and beneficial ways. Founded by General Baden- Powell some years ago, with the idea that boys in the home country might imitate the deeds of the real boy scouts at Maf eking, youngsters are taught to follow trails, pitch camps, render first aid, etc. ; so that in time of emergency, it is now not unusual to see uniformed boys appear, has- tily improvise a stretcher, and bear away the victim of an accident. There are a few move- ments for girls on similar lines, none of which, however, has as yet reached anything like the proportions attained by those for boys. Only recently have educators hit upon the way, long since pointed out by Plato: "Educa- tion should begin with the right direction of children's sports"; and, as usual, the Germans have been the first to enter it. They were aroused by the signs of race deterioration in army recruits, and set about devising means to prevent it. They have contributed more than any other people to the scientific knowledge of the subject; I02 PLAY but Americans have taken it up with ardor, and are fast popularizing it. In active propaganda they have outstripped their teachers. Several decades ago, they began a movement for general physical education. They established floating swimming - baths and vacation schools. They secured reservations in parks and in the slum sections of cities for play spaces and athletic fields, and, much later, some municipal play- grounds well equipped and supervised. They formed a National Playground Association, by means of which, together with local societies, the work has, within a few years, expanded enor- mously. It has been so exploited by periodicals and press that an extended review of its methods is unnecessary here. Suffice it to say that already it is recognized as one of the most efficient means of making good citizens that has yet been de- vised. One of the ways in which the Playground Association has rendered especially valuable service is in outlining a ''Normal Course in Play," useful in training social workers as well as teachers; since it gives insight into the impor- tance of play evolutionally, both on the physical and mental side, emphasizing its great function emotionally, and showing the general principles 103 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION which govern its educational uses and applica- tions. England, so long a leader in athletics, is mov- ing but slowly in this direction. Her schools have always provided for play under the guidance and encouragement of their masters. Her interest in municipal playgrounds has hitherto meant merely the provision of space for sports; but social settlement workers are now creating many of the American type. Glasgow is said to have founded the first municipal playground with full modern equipment in the world. She has now more than a dozen, and provides for their super- vision. In other countries the movement is well under way. In Italy, where as yet it is principally on paper, a congress was held in 1902 in Turin, when the Italian Minister of Education appointed well-known men to undertake it. France has done little more; but open playgrounds have been established in and about Paris and in some of the small manufacturing towns. The work is beginning in Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Den- mark, and Sweden, and even in far Japan. The supervision of play, so necessary in the public playgrounds and recreation centers in the slums, has reacted upon the schools. Teachers 104 PLAY and children now play together during recess in ring games, etc. But there is danger that super- vision may crowd out spontaneity and freedom of expression. To tell children ''to look as though they were enjoying it," "not to have so sour a face," ''to smile," etc., is to prevent the very results desired. A little suggestion, a little help and reassurance, and sympathy with the chil- dren's efforts to represent their own ideas are better than any admonition. Yet there is at times urgent need of fostering, even apparently of implanting, the play spirit. Work is sometimes as good as play for develop- ing the imitative and dramatic instinct. But city life has taken away so many opportunities for both work and play, that even the play spirit has to be revived. It has been found that the children of certain regions in the country, as well as in the city, show no inclination to play. Here is a fundamental problem to be dealt with in the attempt to create good citizenship; since lack of the play instinct too frequently means arrested development or is a symptom of men- tality below the normal. Children in institutions, such as orphan asylums, even where facilities for play may not be lacking, usually need super- vision and leadership in play and games. The 105 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION restricted life, the lack of family ajffection, the strict discipline, and monotonous routine all tend to deprive them of spontaneity and initiative; and they need to be aroused and stimulated, emotionally as well as physically. The chief ends to be sought are, oftentimes, forgetfulness of other days, happiness and contentment. In the treatment of defectives, various forms of play are of value. The influence of manual dexter- ity and physical exercise on mental development is well brought out in the study of such cases. For delinquent children it has also proved valuable. It has been found that the girls put into reform schools know almost nothing of play; and there is need of building up the body and implanting a desire for healthful recreation. The chief thing with such girls is to make them forget their past; but this is a psychological impossi- bility, unless you can crowd out old thoughts and ideas by suppl3dng new and interesting ones. Daily institutional life presents few spurs for the imagination; and for uneducated girls the appeal of art and religion, and the sublimation of old interests, is often impracticable. But play changes the trend of ideas, and furnishes mate- rial upon which the imagination may work with safety and profit. 1 06 PLAY It has been found, too, that most truant and reform-school boys do not know how to play as do others of their age; so that for delinquent boys, no less than girls, play may be made a powerful factor for awakening new ambitions and ideals, giving their thoughts an entirely new trend, and steadying the emotions. While results cannot as yet be given statisti- cally, there is a widespread feeling that the well- conducted playground is a means of lessening crime. A juvenile crime map of a section of Chi- cago, made at Hull House a few years ago by Mr. Allen Burns, gives the number of cases in the Juvenile Court before and after parks and play- grounds were established in a particular neigh- borhood; it shows a lessening of juvenile crime in a period of three years of about thirty per cent within a half - mile radius of the playground. Police officers testify that arrests are fewer after playgrounds have been opened. Gangs of boys that have been the terror of certain neighbor- hoods have been effectually broken up; and this one result is well worth the money appropriated for playground purposes. Naturally, juvenile- court judges are strong advocates of the play- ground movement. Employers realize that it is a paying invest- 107 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION ment to provide for laborers suitable opportuni- ties for recreation. In the same way, where play is plentifully interspersed with school work, the children accomplish much more than when their lesson periods are long, unbroken, and unen- livened. For delicate children, the gain is un- deniable. The Juvenile Protective League, founded in Chicago in 1909 to supersede the Juvenile Court Committee, recognizes the play instinct in its efforts to keep children from becoming delin- quents. It has divided the city into districts, in each of which a paid officer looks after the play and amusements of the children during their leisure hours, and thus removes them from the temptation and danger of the crowded streets. The idea was not original, for a similar attempt had been previously made in Basle, Switzer- land, and still exists. In studying the various phases of the new interest in play and the quickened sense of its value, one can but feel that the outlook is en- couraging. Undoubtedly in some cases there is a tendency to overcurricularize and overdirect plays and games, and a failure to discriminate between children who have no play initiative and those who do not require aid at every turn. 108 PLAY These mistakes are natural at the beginning of a movement, even when it is founded upon an enlarged understanding of its biological and psy- chological significance; but they compel the reminder that play cannot be correlated with all school subjects, nor can the spirit of play be brought into all appointed tasks; while a proper alternation of play and work is vital. Doubtless there will be more or less of a reac- tion from the excessive application of the play principle as a panacea for all the evils of the social system; yet this cannot affect the real issue, since the foundations upon which it rests are scientifically sound. VII DANCING Dancing is the rhythmic movement of the hu- man body, with or without the accompaniment of music. The regular recurrence of the same movement without break or jar is what is meant by rhythm. Nature moves in rhythms. The earth's rotation and revolution, the sequence of the tides, the birth, life, and death of plants and flowers, the unconscious activities of mind and body, are all rhythmic. No wonder, then, that conscious rhythmic expression is one of the earliest attainments of man, that it has held an important place in all nations, and appeals powerfully to every human being. With primitive peoples to - day, where lan- guage is more or less inadequate for the expres- sion of emotion, the dance with its accompany- ing gesture has an important role. It had the same in ancient times. It was closely bound up with daily life, and special dances were connected with almost every custom and event. Evil spirits were exorcised and gods propitiated, initiations, no DANCING marriages, and other tribal rites were solem- nized, to the accompaniment of the dance ; events of chase and battle were represented and com- memorated; victories celebrated; grief over fail- ure and defeat, and the most savage revenge, found their expression and relief. In their ghost- dance, the American Indians entered into com- munion with their dead; the Zuiiis celebrated the coming of the solstices with a ceremonial dance; and the Australians their victories with a corroboree, of which the movements were so care- fully formulated that the dancer who made a misstep was punished. Dancing was early associated with religion. The temple dances of the Egyptians imitated the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies. Those which formed a part of the festivals in honor of Isis and Osiris expressed joy and grati- tude after harvest. In Greece, dancing was from the first a form of worship, and, as is well known, played a part, through its union with music and poetry, in the development of the drama. Plato thought that it should be regulated by law. Authorities agree that it was an impor- tant factor in producing the noble Greek civi- lization. Greek dancing included exercises for strength and grace. Classic writers make men- III DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION tion of a great variety of forms, and, in addition, records are furnished by the drawings on Greek pottery and by Greek sculpture. It is even pos- sible to see survivals of the ancient dances to-day in Crete. For the most part, they were simple in character and gentle in movement. The Romans in their early history danced little, and that in rehgious rites, men only taking part. Later, they held military' and rural dances; and, later still, pantomimes and the mimetic dance came into great favor. Roman dancing never reached so high a development as that of the Greeks, although, as with the latter, it was a part of festivals. The more highly elaborated and refined dancing of the Augustan age was largely borrowed from the Greek. Dancing is frequently referred to in the Bible. Miriam danced at the fall of Pharaoh, and Da\4d danced before the Ark; Jephthah's daughter went out to meet her father in a dance of wel- come, and Herodias's daughter danced before Herod at feasts. In the Orient, too, we find dancing accessory- to religious ceremonies, as well as a feature of social life. All Oriental dancing has certain in- dividual characteristics. It consists largely of swaying and posturing, rather than of move- 112 DANCING ment from place to place. It is generally sym- bolic and mimetic; as an art, it is more highly developed than singing. In India, the oldest writings mention the danc- ing of girls in the sacred rites. Dancers were also employed for entertainment in private houses and for public festivals. They formed a separate class and began their training at a very early age. With peasants of every country dancing is the greatest of all pastimes. It is particularly the resource of oppressed peoples, whose monoto- nous and blank lives, without other inspiration, find in the dance an emotional relief. Nearly all their mental stimulus comes from it. It embodies their traditions; and, combined with the folk- song, has historic, literary, and patriotic value. In Scandinavia, dance-songs have come down from the time of the vikings. They are lively and picture very dramatically love and courtship. Over four hundred are still known. Peasant dancing in Russia is of ancient Slavonic origin. It represents a love drama in the form of a dance- song performed with great joy and abandon, though no instrument is used as an accompani- ment. In Spain, a great variety of ancient dances may be seen to-day in their own environment, 113 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION or as brought together at fair-time in Seville, when groups of men and women from all the different provinces perform their dance-songs. Vine-dressers, muleteers, water-carriers, goat- herds, fishermen, shepherds, and forest-dwellers go through dances of all grades, from the proud and stately movements of Castile to the wild, ^' hot -blooded" dances of the South, some of which overstep the bounds of decency. In Italy, dancing is a favorite diversion; the tarantella figures as prominently in the south as the sai- ler ello, or dance of the gardeners and vintners, in Rome. In Germany, especially in Bavaria, many interesting peasant dances are found. The Schuh plattler, with its forty or more varieties, is one of the principal pastimes in the highland regions. Doubtless the Angles and the Saxons brought their folk-dances with them to England. The ''morris" in the days of ''Merrie England" was one of the most common. According to some accounts, it was brought from Spain by John of Gaunt in the time of Edward III, and is of Moor- ish origin. It was connected with May -Day celebrations. The characters were usually taken from old English legends and romances, and varied according to the locality; though Robin Hood, Little John, the Hobby-horse, the Fool, 114 DANCING and Friar Tuck were generally among them. Dancing around the Maypole was practiced in London as well as in the country; and other of the folk-dances were adopted in the high circles of society. Dancing was a feudal custom. Judges danced annually on Candlemas Day at Ser- geants' Inn; and Benchers in the great Inns of Court held their privileges on condition that they danced about the fire, singing. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a great number and variety of dances were introduced. She herself was de- voted to the art and is said even to have kept an ambassador waiting while she finished her exer- cise. In the Middle Ages, the introduction of mys- tery plays brought dances again into the service of religion, and even into the cathedrals. But they soon fell into disrepute, and were banished from church and city, though the peasants still delighted in them. To a limited extent, in some Catholic countries, church dances were custom- ary as late as the seventeenth century; and in Seville, at high festivals to-day, boys in six- teenth - century costumes perform before the high altar a quaint, reverent and impressive dance to the accompaniment of beautiful minor strains. 115 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION The scenic or dramatic dances of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, called *' ballets," were stories set to music, and were independent en- tertainments very unlike the ballets of modern opera. They began in Italy, where in 1489, at the Duke of Milan's marriage with Isabella of Aragon, one was given in her honor. In France, many dances of other nations were adopted, refined, developed, and returned to their own countries to become generally the fashion. Dancing flourished there in the days of knight- hood, and some of the French queens were skilled performers. In the sixteenth century the slow and graceful movements of some of the figures, as of the minuet, became the very poetry of motion. In the eighteenth century in all countries, elaborate and dignified dances were replaced by simpler ones. Quadrilles and contra-dances came into favor, and many peasant dances were adopted by the upper classes and made the fash- ion. Such were the gavotte, a French provincial dance; the polka, introduced from Bohemia; and the waltz, a German modification of the Italian volta. So all peoples, high and low, have danced themselves down to the present day. Almost all 116 DANCING the old feudal and court forms have disappeared; but the dance of the people has been more per- sistent, and has supplanted in modern ballrooms the aristocratic forms. As a part of the recent revival of folk-art, many of the old dances are being sought out and revived. Since 1891, three international con- gresses have been held for the purpose of reviving and preserving national dances. More especially in England, France, and Sweden has the move- ment taken root. Bringing back these dances is, as one writer points out, but ''restoring to the people something of their own creation, an in- heritance of gayety and good will that by some mischance had been mislaid, . . . the unconscious expression of their very soul and character." —--j} At the same time they are, for the cultured classes, a vivid bringing back of the simplicity and freshness of days when village ballads and dances were the expression of pure emotion. Wherever they have been revived, they have made for health and cheerfulness. To shop- workers they have given a new plasticity, which has reacted favorably upon mind as well as body. Some of the working-girls, who have first learned these dances and then gone out to teach them to others, have been practically made over; and 117 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION all have improved in character and physique well-nigh beyond belief. The effect on the boy members of a club into which the dances were introduced, boys described as ''rowdy, good- humored Londoners, '^ is no less striking. Says one observer, ''They have been renewed by the exercise which they follow with untiring zest, from vague and turbulent people, a terror to the peaceful wayfarer, into at least the makings of responsible citizens"; and the children of the villages have been changed from "mute and unresponsive creatures into tuneful and eager ones." The head of an English school for training teachers in physical culture says that dances are bound to replace to a large extent certain forms of drill. "They bring every muscle into play, they are danced for the love of dancing, and more than all they are never dull." In the elementary schools, especially the Poor - Law schools, they bring freshness into school tasks and happiness into playtime, while in Quaker communities they have accomplished a revolution. In fact, all England, rich and poor, noble and simple, old and young, has taken to the dance. In the United States, both social dancing and folk-dancing have found place, and serve a good Ii8 DANCING purpose in preserving for immigrants the tra- ditions of their own countries. In Greenwich House Settlement, New York, on May-Day, chil- dren in costume perform various folk-dances upon the asphalt of the street, their elders look- ing on with great interest. Folk-dances have had their share in the development of the playground movement; and, in each of the congresses of the National Playground Association, groups of chil- dren going through their exercises have proved the most pleasing feature of the exhibitions, giving, according to one observer, more inspira- tion in a few minutes than did the addresses of an entire day. In the educational pageants that have lately come into vogue, folk-dancing has been promi- nent. For physical training, it is greatly in de- mand as a supplement to gymnastic work, bring- ing in an element of interest in exercises which afford no opportunity for emotional expression. Something is claimed for it, too, by way of illu- minating history and geography and other sub- jects in schools. While the value of teaching children these dances is for the most part undisputed, we hear an occasional remonstrance. A writer in the American Playground maintains that "the steps 119 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION and movements of such dances are as clearly out of sympathy with American instincts as their sentiment is out of sympathy with American ideas. . . . They fail to interest us because they are unfamiliar, and we can understand the pan- tomime only superficially. Moreover, European folk-dance is crude and gross, and representative of the life of the illiterate masses, containing the expression of an ideal that is foreign to our life, instinct, and education." He considers our own contra-dances immeasurat)ly superior, " the prod- ^uct of the drawing - room, rather than of the stable." They have to do with ideals rather than ideas, and are quite as valuable for exercise; containing all that the foreign dances do, but in more acceptable form. This criticism is not without just grounds. It is often true that in teaching folk-dances, no psychological connection is made with the past, and the training is merely mechanical. Miss Caroline Crawford tells of how a beautiful old mourning-dance was introduced into a school without any explanation of its meaning, and developed into a poise dance, purely gymnastic. She tells of a Maypole dance which she saw in a city park, and condemned as a stiff and mechan- ical performance, and contrasts with it a May- 120 DANCING pole party of a very different order. Studying the origin of the Maypole tree, in mythology and allegory, and its great fundamental symbolism of the origin of Hfe, she replaced the regulation ribbon-trimmed pole by a live blossoming tree, under which Uttle naiads and dryads acted a little drama, each planting a tiny tree and offer- ing gifts to it, one the sun, another the rain, a third the wind. The children worked out their own ideas of how the tree grew by means of these gifts, and what was best for it, developing under suggestion their own emotional expression before they danced out the story. Public schools are adding dancing to their courses in physical exercise. In Boston, formal gymnastics are restricted to the five upper grades. For the younger children, games, story- plays, and physical exercises so shade into one another that often one might be called the other. Here are introduced play and dancing appro- priate to each month in the year. Starting with simple rhythmic movements, such as hand-clap- ping and singing, to waltz and polka music, and hopping in time from one foot to the other, the pupils gradually advance to more difficult exer- cises. They roll imaginary marbles to measured time, stooping and rising together. The skipping 121 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION of jolly seamen, the rolling of a ship, the high- stepping of horses, the attitudes of dancing-girls, and the movements of skaters, are imitated; also the movements of swaying trees, the flow- ing of a brook, the fluttering of leaves, and the bending of meadow grass. In all this there is a great similarity to the exercises that find place in the attempts to curricularize play; but the point to be noted is, that a sense of rhythm is cultivated, and dancing-steps and miming are introduced. In the schools of Providence, Rhode Island, dancing is introduced under the head of '' Rhyth- mic exercises." In Chicago it is not yet an or- ganized part of public-school work, but it ap- pears in the curriculum of a number of private schools: in the Chicago Latin School for Girls; in the University of Chicago Elementary School, and in the High School of the same institution. The practice was begun in the Dewey School more than ten years ago. In the High School, it was introduced largely for sociological reasons, to counteract the clique spirit fostered by socie- ties and fraternities and by race prejudice. Folk- dancing is taught in the upper grades ; and while at first it was not popular with the older boys, they have since become the majority in the 122 DANCING classes. The results are seen in better manners, greater concentration, alertness, coordination of physical and mental powers, as well as in grace and suppleness of body. In the New York public schools, dancing has had a place since 1905. Afternoon classes for girls of the lower grades were first started as an experiment by philanthropic workers; teachers who volunteered their services received lessons, and gave instruction in their turn to pupils. The school board permitted the use of school gymnasiums. Classes for both teachers and pupils have been eagerly sought, and their number has rapidly increased. Many dancing-steps are taught in the grades in connection with the regu- lar physical exercises, so that children enter these afternoon classes prepared for the lessons there received. In addition, mixed evening classes have been organized and successfully carried out in recreation centers, where the school board furnishes buildings, piano, and pianist. Folk-dancing is especially valuable as a solu- tion of the problem of providing proper physical exercise for girls. Dr. Gulick points out that this is a very different problem from providing it for boys; for while much the same demands are now made on both sexes, the preparation has been 123 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION along entirely dissimilar lines. He reminds us that, besides the primary bodily differences, many others as to function and structure are to be noted; as, the difference in skeleton, muscle- fiber, and amount of oxygen required ; also that for centuries their respective occupations and activities have been distinct, boys being trained to hunting, throwing, striking, and running, while the muscles used in these exercises have not been developed to any extent in girls. This difference in training has led to different traits of character. Hence, in selecting dances, besides the physio- logical end in view, a sociological one is not lost sight of; group work that will cultivate cooper- ation and loyalty, traits not always found in girls, is advocated to offset the team-play which is of acknowledged value in the training of boys. Dancing seems to have found an assured place in gymnasium practice and dramatic work in colleges for women. Wellesley has made dra- matic dancing a special feature of her commence- ment entertainments. With a Greek myth for basis, or some other beautiful tale, the dancers weave their spell on some hill or dale of the beautiful grounds, while the sun is setting on a summer afternoon. One year, the spectators sat on a knoll facing a long level sweep of lawn. 124 DANCING A large fir tree at one side served for greenroom, from which issued individual dancers. From the far distance came a group representing the ocean, surging along in great waves of light- green drapery, falling upon the ground at inter- vals, the tossing and waving of their white scarfs, imitating the foam on wave-tops, and covering them as they fell. At another time, a young woman marvelously represented the wind as she sped furiously over the ground, making a picture to compare with some Greek statue with wind- swept garments. Once the dance dramatized the story of Narcissus and Echo. Wood and water nymphs in green and brown came in groups from over the hill above one of the campus pools ; now this group, now that, moving to the water's edge. Masses of color, blue, pink, lavender, and yellow, drew near over the green slope, gradually be- coming distinguishable as forms as they danced to its foot and were mirrored in the dark waters. Whatever the subjects chosen, they furnished scenes long to be remembered. A visit to the gymnasium of the college in winter shows the practice which leads up to the outdoor rehearsals in the spring. Here, Miss Hill, the instructor who introduced this aesthetic or ^'natural" dancing at Wellesley, put her pupils 12; DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION through their jive-finger exercises, so to speak, giving them in a few lessons the various notes, which, later, they were to combine. Very Httle actual teaching of steps was apparent. The girls seemingly followed in their movements the in- structor's leadership, or were guided by the character of the accompanying music. In similar manner pupils of Jacques Dalcroze, at Hellerau, near Dresden, interpret musical compositions by the dance; but they do so only after they have mastered a definite and carefully worked-out method known as "Eurhythmies." Originally intended for his music pupils, he now claims for his system a wider application. With the aid of the psychologist, M. Claparede, he is placing it upon a scientific basis, maintaining "that it trains the nervous and muscular sys- tems, bringing body and brain into closer coor- dination, developing powers of attention, con- centration, and will, giving understanding and self-reliance, and helping to regain natural powers of expressiveness." Almost every social settlement recognizes danc- ing as a powerful agency in counteracting the influences of the dance -hall. At Hull House dancing-classes have been held from the earliest days both for advanced pupils and beginners; 126 DANCING and in them the rules of conventional society are enforced. To quote from the Hull House Year- Book for 1906, ^'The residents of Hull House are increasingly convinced of the value of dancing as a recreative pleasure to young people engaged in the monotonous work of modern industry, too often entirely sedentary, or of a character which calls for the use of but few muscles. The well-regulated dancing-party affords an outlet for the natural high spirits of youth which have been repressed through the long day." Folk-dancing is a prominent feature of the physical training in Y.W.C.A. work. Even churches are making use of it. The annual report for 1908 of All Souls Church in Chicago showed that the work of its gymnasium department in- cluded such dancing, and in the last few years many more have introduced it. For many years the therapeutic value of danc- ing for the insane has been recognized; and weekly dances, confined, of course, to the milder patients, are given in most asylums. The value, too, of rhythm in training the feeble-minded has long since been acknowledged. So far, stress has been laid upon the value of dancing in the physical and mental training of the young. Rightly controlled it has, besides, a 127 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION place in the struggle against vice. The dangers of the dance-hall with its allurement to immorahty are too well known to need description; but to the girl who leads a dreary, monotonous life, they are so great a temptation that it takes a strong charm to counteract their influence. A well-known social worker in New York, Mrs. Charles Israels, has recognized that, far from attempting to do away with the dance, we must furnish more attractive opportunities for it. Accordingly she has been active in an effort to provide model public dance-halls in New York, where young people may have a good floor and good music and come under proper supervision and instruction. Ninety-five per cent of the working-girls of New York go to dance-halls, of which there are nearly seven hundred (counting ''dancing-academies"), with an average attend- ance of one hundred thousand a week. Ninety per cent of these girls are under twenty-one, and forty-five per cent under sixteen. Owing to the success, both in point of attendance and arrange- ment, of the dances in the park field-houses of Chicago, philanthropic societies, such as the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, advo- cate city dance-halls on the same lines as that of the field-house, and as easy of access as the 128 DANCING commercial dance - hall. Such halls might be- come self-supporting. The association has al- ready established one; playgrounds in Phila- delphia are to have them; and, in Milwaukee, municipal balls are now given under proper reg- ulation. Opinion in favor of the establishing of municipal dance-halls has been rapidly growing; in Cleveland there are already some which are self-supporting. If one asks, ''What educational value is there in the stage-dancing in vogue?" we answer, "At its best, that of a picture, a concert, or any other art product, — a passive, not an active value. It indicates an advance in ideals, and promises a new source of culture and enjoy- ment." In this renascence of the art, some few performers are returning to the old tradition of ballet - dancing, as, for example. Miss Adeline Genee, who ranks as the true successor of Tag- lioni and Fanny Elssler; while Pavlova, Maud- kin, and other Russians form a link between the old style and the new, by bringing in not only their own national spirit, but further inspiration from the Orient and from Greece. The new school aims to express in dancing the spirit of some work of art, a picture, a poem, a musical symphony. Apparently, the interpre- 129 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION tation rests not so much on a solid basis of tech- nique as upon natural endowment and power to express sentiment and emotion, though subject to a hidden law far more difficult to master than that of the regular ballet. It holds the dancer to be the medium, through whom the feeling aroused by a story or symphony is conveyed. Foremost among these interpretative dancers is Isadora Duncan, who has been expounding and illustrating her art for many years. Dancing always with bare feet, in a costume of clinging drapery, her appearance at first aroused un- favorable comment. Her manner of presenting the dance was a noticeable departure from ordi- nary standards and freed from all convention. It recalled, according to one critic, *'the rhyth- mic movements of nature, the spontaneous, joyous activity of children, or the natural, un- fettered dance-motives of untutored peoples." The artist's attitude toward her art is revealed in her great aversion to being photographed. ''One cannot," she says, ''photograph an idea, still less a thought, a sentiment; then why should one wish to photograph my dances, since they are the reflection of my sentiments and thoughts?" Such originality has lent itself to ridicule and caricature; yet for the most part she has been 130 DANCING taken seriously. Some years ago she founded a school at Griinewald, Berlin, where for a time she took young children and trained them for the stage, keeping them until they were grown. Be- sides the ordinary instruction of schools, they studied the best art of different periods and were brought under such influence as would develop a feeling for form and rhythm. Because of Miss Duncan's position as pioneer in this movement, it may be well to give its underlying philosophy in her own words: — We had our dancing-lesson in the woods this morn- ing. It was glorious weather; and when I see the children dancing like this under the trees, I wish we could always have our lessons here. I spoke long and earnestly to the children, and they seemed to understand what I sought to make clear to them; namely, the difference between dancing in the open air and dancing within four walls; and that when they came to dance on the stage, they were always to try to imagine that they were in the open air; that there were no walls around them, and that they were stretching out their arms to the sky. And I showed them how deep and strong were the movements they saw around them; how much energy was at work, even in the tiny body of the butterfly as it fluttered hither and thither. I pointed out how strong and rhythmical the wind was in the tree-tops ; and the children spoke among themselves, and 131 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION showed me the difference in the movements with their own bodies. We go to the woods every sunny morning and I believe we learn a great deal. Again, speaking of a child on the shore, Miss Duncan says: — Her dance by the sea seemed to me to contain, in little, the whole problem at which I am working. . . . She dances because she is full of the joy of life. She dances because the waves dance before her eyes ; because the winds are dancing; because she can feel the rhythm of the dance throughout the whole of Nature. To her it is a joy to dance, to me it is a joy to watch her. It is summer now here by the sea, and life is filled with joy; but I think of winter in town, in the streets, in the houses; of life in the towns in the gloomy winter. How can the life of Nature, the joy of summer and sunshine, the joy of a child danc- ing by the sea — how can all this beauty be strewn in the towns? Can the dancer suggest all this and remind men of it in the winter-time in the cities? Can she call up in me the same delight which she is giving me now, as I sit here on the beach and watch her dancing? I look closely and study her movements. What is this dance she is dancing? I see that they are simple movements, and steps she has learned at the school during the past two years. But she invests them with her own spontaneous child- like feelings, her own childlike happiness. She is dancing what she has been taught; but the move- ments taught her are so completely in harmony 1^2 DANCING with her childlike nature that they seem to spring direct from her inmost being. In the memoranda for my method of instruction, I have laid down that the child must not be taught to make movements, but her soul as it grows to maturity must be guided and instructed; in other words, her body must be taught to express itself by means of motions which are natural to it. I do not mean to say that the meaning of every motion must be explained to the child in words ; but that the motion must be of such a nature that the child feels the reason for it in every fiber. In this way the child will become versed in the simple language of gesture. Artistic or dramatic dancing has entered upon a new era, or, more truly, it is reviving the old feeling for it of the Greeks to whom all nature spoke of invisible but active intelligences. But the number of creative dancers being small, their vogue and the attraction of their method will too probably result in the mere copying of move- ments by imitators, until at length their so-called ^'interpretative" and "natural" types will pass inevitably into a definite, inelastic form. Yet the present phase is valuable, since it has brought in a vitality that was wanting. Furthermore, in its general effect upon the theater-going public, although it may justly be criticized in many of its developments, and its moral influence is 133 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION sometimes bad, it is nevertheless undeniable that, because of it, the public now demands a more artistic and inspiring type than it did twenty years ago. The outlook, therefore, is hopeful; not, perhaps, for a return to the Greek ideal, which is alien to our feeling, but for a mod- ern embodiment of the Greek love of truth and beauty in exquisitely gentle movements con- forming to definite laws of proportion and har- mony, thus expressing the dramatic instinct on the higher plane of aesthetics. VIII STORY-TELLING We have seen that play and dancing are nature's own means of developing mankind. An awaken- ing of the aesthetic sense appears in dancing, and determines it to a later period than that of play. Both play and dancing call into exercise the intellect; but the intellect first becomes conscious of itself in story-telling. In the Far East, story-telling has still an im- portant place, and is a profession. In China, the story-teller is moralist and preacher; in Japan, he is more the artist; seated upon his mat with tea and smoking-apparatus at hand, surrounded by groups of eager listeners, he is still a familiar sight. One has but to read the fascinating tales of Japanese folklore to see how they have deter- mined the poetic and romantic quality of Japa- nese art; and it is fortunate that, with the introduc- tion of Western learning, the teaching of tales on which so many generations of Japanese chil- dren have been reared has not been discarded. In the woman's university at Tokyo, it enters into the curriculum. 135 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION In Greece and Rome, heroic legends were a means of awakening national spirit in boys and youths, making them daring and courageous, and aiding generally in the moulding of character. In the North, saga-men, scops, and bards recited the deeds of gods and men, and stimulated the imagination of youthful hearers, while they soothed the old. In mediaeval times, minstrels and troubadours went from castle to castle re- peating their tales and legends in song; and even now, in a few places, as in Brittany, the story- teller goes from village to village, though the profession has become somewhat debased. In Ireland, the peasantry still tell the tales that have descended by word of mouth through genera- tions. Among primitive peoples, most of all, has story-telling been a power. Tales of the mys- terious workings of nature, traditions of tribe and race, and of the personal prowess of fore- fathers, have stimulated thought and thereby raised the race in the scale of humanity. Fi- nally, story- telling, is fulfilling a mission for the children of foreigners in the United States, by preserving the traditions of their fatherlands. Many of the stories told by savage peoples are of great dramatic and literary merit. Tales of ancient nations gathered by students of folklore 136 STORY-TELLING not only form a valuable contribution to world literature, but give insight into the mental and emotional life of different races that could have been gained by no other means. As a literary art, story-telling has now reached a high state of perfection, and educators are turning it to account. First in the kindergarten, and now in some of the schools, it is a part of regular routine work; in others it is a form of recreation. Its use in connection with dramatic work of the primary grades has been treated in a former chapter. Numerous attempts have been made of late years to tabulate children's interest in stories, and make out a school curriculum according to the different stages of mental development; but they are as yet too incomplete to furnish any scientific foundation for pedagogy. As far as they have gone, they appear to parallel the order of development for the race; which has had its periods of interest in myth and folk- tale, Thier- epos and fairy tale, each suited to a particular stage in its upward progress: jingles and counting out rhymes; Mother-Goose stories; stories of action, oftentimes a mere string of incidents, in child or animal life; stories that appeal to the *' feral" age; then fairy tales; then the realistic 137 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION tale and stories of adventure; and, last of all, myth and the romantic and religious story. But all these different phases of interest overlap one another, and many of them last through hfe. Especially is this true with stories that appeal because of their dramatic elements. Each of these different story groups has its peculiar educational value. Fairy tales may be used for arousing the emotional nature; fables, for giving practical truths in a concise and telling form; folk- and animal-tales, for bringing chil- dren into touch with nature and for presenting truth in the guise of images; myths, for their appeal to the race instinct (these, in the opinion of Dr. Hall, coming as near pure object-teaching as ethics can get; and, according to Miss Blow, j foreshadowing conquest of the will) ; legend, for "^ stimulating historical imagination and hero- worship; nonsense-tales, for cultivating a sense of humor; and finally, carefully selected love stories as a means of harmless discharge for the emotions, and for developing a lofty ideal of sex. This last is advocated by Miss Ellen Key, the Swedish educator and writer. There is just now a manifest tendency, often, carried to excess, to correlate story-telling with the studies of the curriculum. Nature stories, 138 STORY-TELLING including myths that embody scientific truth, are used in connection with nature study; and l^storical stories which appeal to hero-worship and patriotism are correlated with history and geography. Some are used in the study of Eng- lish for grammar lessons, sentence construction, etc.; others to create interest in reading, or to furnish models for written composition and oral expression. In the last, children of the seK-con- scious age are lamentably deficient, and poverty of language is noticeable in the high school. Spell- ing-fists have been made up from stories; the illustration furnishes a lesson in drawing, when the children picture not only what they see but formulate their own ideas. Some of the uses seem very far-fetched and carried to a ridiculous extreme; the teaching of singing, clay-modeling, and even wood- and metal -work by means of stories, have all been advocated. Besides the advantages to be gained from special groups as already enumerated, there are general pedagogical advantages in story-telling. Among these the training and concentration of attention is often placed first. It is claimed, too, that for the child whose power of comprehension is beyond his power of reading, an obstacle in the way of his educational development is re- 139 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION moved. The stress so constantly laid upon the appeal to the eye is offset by the appeal to the ear, and mental types are developed with more freedom. For reducing self-consciousness — ■ the source of torment and hindrance to the progress of so many children — story-telling is also val- luable. It relaxes the rigidity of schoolroom re- ^ gime; it humanizes the relation of pupil and teacher, and has been found to give a better moral tone. It creates ideas of right living, and gives the child standards which not infrequently, years afterward, stand him in good stead. It stimulates the imagination; it leads to invention; it develops aesthetic appreciation, and stocks the mind with abundant working material. And still other important uses of it are to be noted in the realm of pedagogy. By simply giving pleasure, stories accompHsh an important end. As in play, the pleasure reacts on the nervous system, and benefits the bodily functioning in many ways. Best of all, it educates the emotions. - Mrs. Porter Lander McClintock, in her book Literature in the Elementary School, points out that stories should cultivate the emotional side of children's natures, ''effecting in them that puri- fying discharge which Aristotle regarded as one of the helpful offices of literature." She speaks 140 STORY-TELLING of the "desiccating effect" of the American school upon the emotional nature, and empha- sizes the need of calKng out and exercising the feelings. A story, she says, should be told to children, rather than read to them, and in so doing it is important to preserve dramatic values. Besides its use in the grammar school and high school, story- telling is growing in favor in other institutions. Stories have long been told in Sun- day schools, but costumes and action are now added to make the narrative more lifelike. This has lately been advocated by Dean Hodges of the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge. Churches utilize it also, in their effort to deal with practical social problems in institutional work. For example, St. Bartholomew's, New York, has estabhshed a Wednesday afternoon story-hour, when boys illustrate the stories told them, acting them out on the spur of the moment, thus making living pictures; so that the day has in fact come to be called ''Living-Picture Day" and draws large audiences. Where the teaching of religion in schools is not sanctioned, story-telling becomes an important factor for moral education, and the old Bible stories furnish the best of all material for the purpose. The story of Joseph is found to be 141 / / DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION almost unequaled for its interest, and those of David and Daniel, as well as many others, are widely popular. Story-telling has also come into the work of boys' clubs. Professor Burr, of the Y.M.C.A. training-school in Springfield, believing that im- pressions from stories should result in expression by action, has introduced a graded course into the federated boys' clubs conducted by students of the association, and suggests coupling the stories with certain activities and occupations; with nature stories, tramps in the woods and the care of plants; with tales of individual prowess, athletics and gymnastic work as well as construc- tive work of all sorts, — clay-modeling, knife- work, etc.; with stories of great leaders, games which involve team-play; with altruistic stories, some service in behalf of less fortunate boys. For many years in many libraries, a story- hour has been instituted in order to direct chil- dren to the best books. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburg began systematic story-telling to large groups in 1899, and has arranged courses of stories selected from romantic and imagina- tive literature to extend over eight years. While this has been in large measure success- ful, the objection has been brought against it 142 STORY-TELLING that, although library reports show that thou- sands of children have been interested, and the general circulation of children's books increased, the same effect can be produced by the librarians without the story-hour. It is claimed that story- telling in Ubraries is out of place; teachers know better how and when to introduce it, and can reach hundreds of children instead of one class of forty or so, weekly. Many libraries provide a story-teller to visit schools, who, by her story- telling, brings children flocking to the library. Instruction in story-telling now finds place in the preparatory schools for both librarians and teachers. In the training-school for children's librarians, conducted by the Pittsburg Library, all students are obliged to take a course in story- telling, which includes practice as well as lec- tures. Pupils in normal schools also practice telling stories, illustrating them with colored chalk on the blackboard, so that an appeal is made to eye and ear at once. With the sudden increase of popular interest in story- telHng, its possibilities as a profession have been greatly augmented, almost indeed created. Many trained story-tellers and public performers are in the field. They travel from place to place as entertainers, or sometimes in 143 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION the interest of a publishing house that is intro- ducing manuals and primers for reading-systems in which story-telling figures prominently. Some- times, too, they are engaged for public lectures and demonstrations before a body of teachers who were educated before the days when story- telling had become a part of normal-school train- ing. For institutions of various sorts, not only edu- cational but philanthropic, the story-hour has many possibilities; but, as has often happened with other educational and sociological depar- tures, those in which the need is greatest are usually the last to be reached. Beginnings are being made, however, which promise hopefully; for example, in the " Girls' Home and Refuge'' in Darlington, Pennsylvania, a Sunday night story- hour is held for those who prefer it to attending church. Miss Helen Glenn tells of how eagerly girls who have not had fairy tales in childhood seize upon them at seventeen or eighteen, one reason being "because they always end happily." The good effect of the story-hour upon these girls has been striking. Among other uses there is the systematic em- ployment of the story for sick and neurotic patients. That story-telling is coming to play 144 STORY-TELLING its part as therapy is well illustrated at the Adams Nervine Asylum in Jamaica Plain. Miss Susan Tracey, superintendent of nurses there, realizing that nurses fail, not so much in the physical care of the sick as in the companionable qualities and in ability to interest convalescing patients (for, as she says, "a really good nurse takes care of her patient's thoughts"), employs a teacher from the Boston School of Expression to give instruc- tion to the nurses of the institution. The teacher who conducts the course tries by various means to develop the personality of her pupils, broad- -^ ening their sympathies and developing the imag- ' ination, — the two fundamental elements, she claims, in dramatic interest. In settlements, from their very inception, story-telling has been used as a means of recrea- tion and getting into sympathetic relations with children. The same may be said of vacation schools, where the story-hour is frequently the greatest of all attractions. In the evening recrea- tion centers and boys' clubs, too, the story-hour plays a prominent part, both in this country and in the Old World ; as, for example, in the " Happy Evenings" in England, of which it is an especial feature. In the Playground movement, story - telling 145 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION has quite a r61e; and the successful playground assistant must count this among her accomplish- ments, though in many cities the professional story-teller is regularly employed. While the swings and other apparatus are in use and rougher sports going on, there is almost always to be seen, in some secluded part of the grounds, a Httle group gathered around a story-teller in rapt attention. The ''Story-Tellers' League" which started in 1903 at the summer school in Knoxville, Tennessee, is perhaps indicative of the interest that has developed on every side. Informal meet- ings held at twilight on the university campus grew into an organization which afterwards be- came a national league. It not only furnished a model for similar meetings held at other sum- mer schools, but for fifty or more other leagues in various States, with a membership now of over four thousand, besides junior leagues among children. The purpose of the leagues, according to the president of the national association, Mr. Wyche, is to ''rediscover life's best stories and retell them with love and sympathy." The pub- lication known as The Story-Hour serves as an organ of the association. Yet with all this increase of story-telling and 146 STORY-TELLING diversity in its application among educators, moralists, social workers, and religionists, dis- senting voices are now and again heard, here and there a note of protest is sounded. It is queried whether stories on all occasions and for all purposes, upon every conceivable subject, in school and out, are really productive of the best educational results. Will not the surfeit of stories produce confusion in the child's mind? Will not attainment with so little effort weaken the power of application, and destroy the habit of work? It is said that children frequently remem- ber a story, and forget the point it was meant to teach. A writer in a recent number of Child Life gives a case where three stories, told for three separate purposes, had fallen into the one category of heroes of romance. The complaint also has been made that children coming from the kindergarten lack interest in study, and too frequently insist that lessons be put in story form. Many teachers think that stories as a medium for information, and those that are used for introducing any kind of handiwork, are out of place. They condemn particular kinds of stories for special reasons; ghost - stories, for example, on the ground that they tend to make children more timid than they are by nature; 147 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION and many of the old-time favorites for their lack of moral teaching or their harmful emotional reactions; ^'Little Red Riding-Hood," for ex- ample, or "Rip Van Winkle." All these, however, are criticisms not of story- telling itself, but of its handling. Doubtless there is much unwise use of it at present. No one would advocate overfeeding, even on good food. But as for the stories chosen, those that have been favorites for centuries, appearing again and again in the same or similar form and among many peoples, would seem to be safe enough. If all the world favorites that present savage ele- ments or enlist our sympathies for weak or de- linquent characters are to be rejected, the treas- ures of literature would be sadly depleted. A much stronger objection to story-telling is that it seems to palliate lying; but this is to lose sight of the ever-present dramatic instinct in human nature. Children love to invent little stories and tell them; less often they write them. The child who lives in a world of fancy delights to picture to other children this little world of his very own, in which older people have no share. The maturing boy delights his friends with tales of improbable happenings, satisfying in this way his hunger for invention and expression, 148 STORY-TELLING and his desire for appreciation; craving the stim- ulation which the creative artist gets, when he caters to his audience. A vivid imagination, the desire to move and startle others, the pas- sion for acting-out result in what the unimagi- native call lies; but the things told are very real to the teller. It is possible that a too vivid imagination in children should be curbed; yet there is danger that, in an age of exact science and materialism, imagination will be dulled. It is normal for adolescent girls to indulge in day-dreams. They crave something removed from everyday existence, and this leads them to weave romances about themselves, their friends and surroundings; they tell of the most extraor- dinary and unbelievable experiences. But only those whose nervous system is unsound are likely to become morbid. They pass through this phase and forget it. As to whether story-tellers are born or made, there can be little diversity of opinion; without doubt, story-telling is a special gift. Still it is possible to cultivate, enlarge, and enrich it. Most of the suggestions for so doing, found in compilations and various story-telHng manuals, are indefinite and impracticable, and only val- uable as showing beginners their handicaps and 149 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION limitations. "Vivid mental imagery," for ex- ample, and "will-power sufficient to overcome self-consciousness and give hearers a feeling of power in reserve," are not to be acquired at will. Even a "full, clear, flexible, well -modulated voice, expressive features and graceful move- ments," are natural assets; while "tact, intui- tion, magnetism," and all that is implied by "charm" and "personality," are either beyond the reach of individual attainment, or, if latent, are brought out oftener by indirect influences than by conscious effort or by mechanical train- ing directed to that end. But some points may well be emphasized; as the necessity of telling a story simply and dramatically, and of adapting it to the age and mental development of the hearers. For this, there is no better natural qualification than strong common-sense, and no better preparation than a good course in child- study and such training as is given in any good school of oratory and dramatics. With such training one will not choose Jap- anese fairy tales, for example, for American children; there is too little in Eastern life and customs to attract them. Yet sometimes, by drawing comparisons from immediate surround- ings and introducing details to vivify and make 150 STORY-TELLING concrete, one may often arouse an interest in things that at first appear remote and unrelated. . In other words, whatever is said must be trans- lated into the experience of the child in order to have meaning; and the story-teller must not reckon with the impression in his own mind, but in that of the child. A small repertoire of stories thoroughly learned, not by mere memorizing (except in the case of certain folk- tales and old-time favorites that lose if not given in the words of the original), but known to the narrator as a series of incidents clearly held in mind, will be found better than a larger number, the form of which is varied at each telling. For the inexperienced teller, the choice of material that has already been put in story-form is for obvious reasons advisable. ' For the other side of story-telling, where the children are the tellers, few directions are needed, and these chiefly negative. Teachers who make the best use of story-telling by children agree that they must not be stopped in their narration for correction in grammar, pronunciation, or any mistake in the statement. Such correction stops the flow of ideas, and makes it impossible to keep the denouement clearly in view. They recognize, also, that to retell is not simply to give 151 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION a story in the language of the original (for this is merely exercise of memory), but to re-create it, as the child himself sees it. He will, therefore, surely leave out some points and add others in order to emphasize the features that have most appealed to him. But this matter of reproduc- tion trenches upon dramatic action, and the laws of one are applicable to the other. With whatever curtailment and limitation that may be found necessary, story-telling in the schoolroom has come to stay. By relieving the monotony of routine, by making school life a pleasure, it is, whatever may be its cost in time, trouble and money, abundantly worth while. IX MOVING PICTURES It is a long step from the Muybridge photo- graphs of 1878 and Edison's first little nickel- in-the-slot machine for showing photographs in rapid succession to the cinematograph of 19 14. It is scarcely two decades since the sight of an express train in full motion was first introduced as the finale of a vaudeville show. The history of the rise of the moving picture in these few years attests the universal longing for the dra- matic. So phenomenal has been the development, so miraculous its prosperity, its financial strength and resources, and its growth generally into a public institution, that it is almost impossible to keep pace with it statistically or post one's self as to its increasing range of subject. New York has over eight hundred, Chicago over six hundred moving-picture houses, and other cities proportionally large numbers. Ac- cording to the latest available reports, there are to-day about seventeen thousand moving-pic- 153 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION ture houses in this country, with a daily attend- ance of seven million people, over a half-million of whom are children. In view of such facts, it is not surprising to find that milHons of dollars are represented in the moving picture as an in- dustry. Its interests are consolidated in a trust with a capitalization which exceeds that of the Standard Oil Company, while there are "inde- pendents" which, taken together, are scarcely less powerful. In foreign countries, well-known authors and artists are writing and acting for the moving-picture drama. The names of Jules Lemaitre, of the Academie Fran^aise; Mounet- Sully, of the Theatre Fran$:ais; Hervieu and Ed- mond Rostand, in France, and George Sims, in England, show what talent is enlisted. Even Bernhardt and Re jane have acted before the moving-picture camera. Many of the pictures are regular scenes acted in the open, made oftentimes at fabulous cost and even with danger and fataHty to the posers. Others are ''fake" pictures, put together in startHng and incongruous ways, so that by their rapid succession absurd and impossible happen- ings are pictured as though they had actually been photographed. Most of the travel scenes are genuine — real scenes like those of Lieuten- 154 MOVING PICTURES ant Shackleton in the Antarctic, or of General Villa at Torreon; scenes of accidents and fires, on the other hand, are merely staged. For the latter numerous rehearsals are required; and many firms have their own studios for the pur- pose, some on an extensive scale. One such firm in Chicago occupies an entire block and has a menagerie attached; while Selig's estab- lishment in Paris requires no less than three blocks for its plant. They have also good-sized stages provided underneath with tanks of water for aquatic scenes, and laboratories are attached with large forces of women -workers. Besides occasional star actors, a large corps of permanent ones, including many whose names upon the regular stage are more or less well known, are constantly employed. No pains or expense is spared in obtaining suitable and novel settings. The hiring of a small railroad and equipment for a day is but an item. Not only are excursions made into the country when mountain or meadow scenery is required, but long journeys through Europe and even around the world. According to a recent account in an English periodical, an expedition for hunt- ing a man-eating lion was organized, that a well- known animal photographer might get snap- 155 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION shots for a cinematograph. The enterprise in- volved both skill and danger. The mounted hunters, the natives' attack with spears as the animal charged from the bush, and finally the death were all pictured; sometimes, without such expeditions, hunting - scenes are produced. A Chicago manufacturer of films is said to have arranged a spurious hunt in which, however, a real lion was slaughtered. Several films have cost $100,000 or over to produce; and Homer's Odyssey has been completed by an ItaHan firm, after two years of preparation, at an expenditure of no less than $200,000. On the technical and artistic sides, moving pic- tures are constantly being perfected. Notable progress has been made in lessening "flicker," "raining," and the noise of the necessary machin- ery; and while pictures have till lately been monochromatic or dichromatic, it is now possible to project them upon the screen in natural colors. As regards the moral quality of the scenes given, there has been a constantly increasing gain; and while it is undeniably true that ques- tionable plays are sometimes reproduced, for some years the pictures have also been of high educational value. Trips to the Zoo are repre- sented, and, in England, the stages of organic 156 MOVING PICTURES life, from micro-organism to animal, while in Sweden a moving - picture theater to present historical scenes has been endowed. Besides pictures of methods of transportation, indus- tries, growth of plants, behavior of animals, history, etc., managers are producing those of literary character. Famous poems of Browning, Tennyson, and Longfellow have been illustrated and dramatized. Novels of Tolstoy, George Eliot, de Maupassant, and Victor Hugo, classic fairy tales and Bible stories have all been thrown upon the screen, and given in condensed but attractive form. Plays of Shakespeare (for ex- ample, Romeo and Juliet) and other classics, as well as time-worn melodramas, have been re- modeled and condensed, that the story might be made to cover a few minutes instead of several hours. Recently, instead of abbreviated ver- sions of well-known dramas, full plays have been prepared; and Mme. Sans-Gene, acted by Re jane and the Parisian company, and Bernhardt's Camille now constitute one reel, and are given as a single entertainment. Some of the theaters which exemplify the better use of moving pictures show scenes of general social and industrial interest; as, for example, different occupations in the trade 157 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION school for girls, scenes illustrating the work of the District Nursing Association, of social settle- ments, of the Child-Labor movement, of work in school gardens, and even daily news and current events. Building and mechanical operations are pictured by means of slow time-exposure; and the construction of a skyscraper and other processes, whose actual carrying-out is a matter of several months, are reproduced in the course of a few minutes. To show how they have become a great factor for good as recreation for more or less isolated peoples, they are furnished now to the Esqui- maux; and lepers, exiled on the island of Molo- kai, enjoy them. In Russia they enliven the dull life of the peasants, and in Africa instruct the native negro. Some of the more elaborate of the ocean steamers are equipped with kinetoscopes, and travelers may study en route the lands they are to visit. Of late the motion picture has made its way into legitimate drama, where it is used at times in place of scenery; and also, as in Wagner's G otter ddmmerung, to replace dangerous feats of performers. On educational and scientific sides, its appli- cations are numerous, and some of the higher 158 MOVING PICTURES institutions for learning now have their own films and apparatus. Even in the lower schools there are circuits sometimes of twenty or more that have the use of machine, films, and operator twice a month. For lectures and travelogues it is very much in vogue. A few years ago the well- known teacher. Dr. Otto Driessen, of Berlin, made use of the cinematograph in an effective manner for a lecture delivered at a congress at Brussels. Recognizing that there was much on the program about school work in Germany that was dead matter, he hit upon a plan for showing the foreign delegates what education in Charlottenburg was like in all its stages. He combined the graphophone and the cinemato- graph, so that his audience saw and heard at the same time. Later in Berlin under the aus- pices of a scientific society, before an audience of scientists, he demonstrated how thirteen branches of science might be effectively taught by aid of the cinematograph. He showed, among other things, how embryology might be dem- onstrated, picturing the progressive development from the germ in the egg to the fully developed chick. He gave the processes in the cotton industry of the United States, from the planting of the seed to the manufactured product; the 159 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION details of the "sleeping sickness," the opening of the "Victoria Regia/' the ebb and flow of the tide, the construction of earthworks, typical symptoms that attack earth-workers (now be- come a practical problem for insurance com- panies), the explosion of submarine mines, and the different positions of Napoleon at the battle of Austerlitz. He so convincingly demonstrated the usefulness of the cinematograph as an edu- cational tool that comic papers in reporting the lecture said that "it would be a good thing if school were done away with, and the theater put in its place." Moving pictures are used in demonstrating to hospital students the operating methods of surgeon specialists, and in picturing speed trials, gunnery practice and maneuvers in the Brook- lyn Navy Yard. The value of having pictorial records of great men at their tasks can hardly br overestimated. Important engineering feats and structural work, in each step of their ac- complishment, the art of famous actors whose genius would survive otherwise only in tradition, may now be preserved in all their vividness. A French photographer has lately completed an apparatus for taking pictures of life on the ocean-bed; and, combined with the X-ray and 1 60 MOVING PICTURES the micro-photograph, the moving-picture cam- era has been used to show the functioning of the heart and other organs and various processes of the human body and its action in diseases of the nervous system. According to report, phono- graph and cinematograph records of the social Hfe of France are to be perpetuated in a Museum of Speech and Gesture in Paris, by illustrations taken not only from the various provinces but from all grades of society. In this way the dif- ferences in accent, dress, manners, ceremonies, etc., will be preserved, as will also the manner of presenting classic dramas and musical works by contemporaneous companies, that future his- torians may have accurate data of the period and of the transformation of the race. Recently the standardizing of modern dances has been facilitated by film representations show- ing correct positions and steps. The moving picture has been enlisted in the cause of hygiene and sanitation: under the aus- pices of the American Civic Association, a rep- resentation of the ''filthy fly" and its part in spreading disease has been given, and a scientific lesson thus impressed upon many persons who would not have been affected by mere written accounts. Improved methods of farming have i6i DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION been pictured. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (August 13, 19 10), a playlet setting forth the harm done by impure milk is to be cinema tographed, and the unhy- gienic methods on the old-fashioned farm forci- bly shown. In 1913 motion pictures on tuber- culosis were given in parks. For some years social settlements have made use of moving pictures both for purposes of en- tertainment and for education; and in social centers they are now making their appearance. Playgrounds are adding them to their list of attractions. In the Hiram House Playground in Cleveland, already picture shows are given on two evenings of the week. Some years ago con- siderable interest and newspaper discussion were aroused by a proposal to operate moving pic- tures on Sunday evenings in a Congregational church in New Britain, Connecticut, a city with fifteen thousand wage-earners, many of them of foreign birth. A series of slides was prepared for the purpose; but after due consideration by the Standing Committee, it was decided not to carry out the plan. Churches elsewhere, however, are beginning to utilize the cinematograph; about one in twenty in New York now has one; and religious and quasi-religious societies are 162 MOVING PICTURES finding it a serviceable adjunct of religious teaching. In rough mining-camps and the like, the moving picture may be a very forcible means of moral and religious appeal, reaching a class of men whom it is difficult to approach or interest by ordinary methods. As a part, also, of mis- sionary propaganda, moving pictures have been used to show conditions in distant lands among poor and superstitious peoples before and after the advent of missionaries ; and a stronger appeal is thus made to sympathy than would be pos- sible by any printed or even oral description. In fact, the exploiting of the cinematograph has only just begun, although managers who started with one little show have already become multi-millionaires at the head of a whole chain, and regular theaters and even opera houses have been compelled either to close their doors or turn themselves into picture shows. Those in- terested may well say that all is before them; and it is a fact worthy of notice that, since the uplift of the moving-picture show from the vapid, if not criminal, scenes it first presented, to the educational plane, its patronage has steadily increased. If we consider the factors which make for the popularity of this form of entertainment, which 163 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION is supplanting vaudeville and melodrama and has now become a most serious competitor of the legitimate drama, we note, in the first place, that the price is not prohibitive for the poorest day laborers. Whole families for a moderate sum can go often; and as a " family '' recreation place, the theater takes on respectability. The character of the show itself, too, is attractive in that it is so realistic. Everything is presented as concretely as possible and reduced to merest essentials in accordance with the spirit of the times which makes for concentration. The prin- ciple of motion, also, gives an immense advan- tage over the ordinary stereopticon pictures, regardless of the degree of perfection the latter has attained, — a psychological principle of which advertisers have not been slow to take advantage; since, as everybody knows, moving signs, figures, or apparatus, wherever exhibited, invariably attract a crowd. The very rapidity of movement in the moving picture, so much more rapid than in real life, creates a feeling of excitement and expectancy. Not infrequently one thrilling episode follows another without pause, forcing spectators to breathless attention from the beginning of a number to the end. Then there is a certain amount of mental activity 164 MOVING PICTURES involved, and, in the absence of words, the need of filling gaps and recognizing the thought ex- pressed by gesture. The personal interpreta- tion gives intellectual zest; and there is mental stimulation without the fatigue of thinking in- volved in the modern problem-play. The feel- ing of companionship, even the luxury of the upholstered chairs, are things that count. Be- sides all this, it keeps pace with the times, and satisfies curiosity by picturing the doings of great people, bringing the humble into touch with the happenings in the world about them in which otherwise they have no part. Finally, for people who cannot afford the regular theater, it brings an element of romance into colorless lives, and furnishes excitement which young people crave, feeding the imagination, and re- leasing from the monotony of everyday affairs. People cannot work well, year in and year out, if they have no relaxation or joy of living. In short, the moving picture, by its appeal to cer- tain old and fundamental psychological princi- ples, adapts itself, as Mr. John Collier has said, "to the passions and preferences of the great amusement-seeking public." But with all its attainments and its possibili- ties, many severe criticisms have been made, 165 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION and serious charges brought against the present condition of the moving-picture show. These objections fall into three classes: first, those that are common to all public theater performances; second, those supposed to be innate in the char- acter of the show itself; and third, those that are capable of being removed. The first may be passed over as belonging to the general discus- sion of drama. Under the second come the fac- tors which are physically injurious, — the eye- strain due to the constant flicker (greater when worn films are used), the darkness, and the dan- ger from fire, owing to the inflammable character of the film. The last has been much lessened by the use of a slow-burning film, and the in- vention of a noncombustible film is daily ex- pected. The danger of the darkness has been met, in some degree, by a law which enforces the turning-on of lights at frequent intervals; and it has been recently shown that the darkness itself is not needful, and pictures may be satis- factorily seen in dim light, or even in a flood of light with proper appliances for keeping it from falling directly upon the curtain. Under the third class of objections are the unsafe and ill- adapted buildings. Many used by the travehng show are fire-traps, and most of them have poor 1 66 MOVING PICTURES ventilation. Most serious of all is the moral dan- ger involved in the darkened auditorium and adjoining rooms, which are often saloons, and in the fact that so many children and early adolescents go to these shows unaccompanied by adults. Insulting advances have been made to women and young girls, and so serious is this evil that protective societies, like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, have been obliged to interfere and even prosecute offenders. Structural changes are rapidly being made. Show places are not so dangerous in New York, but conditions vary in different States. The increasing number of reports that children were incited by moving pictures to commit crimes has aroused social workers, city officials, and educators to investigate them. The Juvenile Protective Association of Chi- cago, an organization backed by great wealth and influence, made two investigations of local five- and ten-cent theaters covering the period from 1909 to 191 1. As a result of the first, numerous violations of the law and a demoralized condi- tion of affairs was reported. Theaters were found to be in bad locations near saloons, theater room- ing-houses, or five-cent theater hotels. Girls were enticed inside by the promise of tickets in return 167 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION for work, or on some other pretext. Children, attracted by lurid advertisements and sensa- tional posters, crowded the entrances and were sometimes spoken to by boys or men and invited to the show; or they begged and pilfered to ob- tain admission. Offers were made of reduced- rate tickets — three for ten cents or two for five — to tempt the crowd. The conduct and speech of ''barkers" were in some cases found to be objectionable, as was also the behavior of ushers in one or two instances. The condition of the buildings was bad, and the pictures thrown upon the screen were in many cases demoraliz- ing; not only crime of all sorts was depicted, but scenes of brutality and revenge, though, on the other hand, many were highly educational. Of the latter, some dealt with historical subjects, scenery in foreign countries, dramatized works, matters injurious to health, industries, and occu- pations. A large number of melodramas of lurid type were given, but also, many scenes filled with homely sentiment. As is true generally, the most popular were the humorous pictures, some of them silly, yet, on the whole, harmless; such as ''How Rastus got the Turkey"; the "Ani- mated Arm Chair"; "Bridget and the Eggs." After the first investigation there was a notice- i68 MOVING PICTURES able improvement. As a result, a censorship was instituted, objectionable films were removed, some of the places closed, and proposals for an improved law recommended. Attention was called to cases of revoked licenses wherein busi- ness was still carried on by the owner or a mem- ber of his family, though ostensibly transferred to other hands, and it was urged that the license should be for the place, rather than for the pro- prietor. The need of censorship for posters and advertisements was also pointed out. Previous to these investigations, this same association, the Juvenile Protective Society, had introduced an ordinance looking to the better ventilation of theaters in Chicago by having buildings so constructed that the air could be changed a number of times in proportion to the seating capacity in each. Within the past few years, by the establish- ment of a national board of censorship, a reform has been effected favorable to both managers and public. For years nickelodeons had been more or less unregulated by law; and the in- crease of abuses in New York, culminating in the exposure of graft in connection with the License Bureau, created great municipal opposition to the moving-picture theaters. When the situa- 169 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION tion reached a crisis, all the licenses were revoked, and the best-regulated of these houses suffered with the rest. Exhibitors themselves naturally desired a surer basis for their business. They appealed accordingly to the People's Institute for a solution of their difficulty. By cooperation with various other civic institutions, they ob- tained a board of censorship. While this is with- out legal status, it has acknowledged influence and censors ninety-eight per cent of all the mov- ing-picture films of the country. It not only censors the films of the whole entertainment, including songs, vaudeville interludes, etc., but sees to the improvement of the structural and sanitary conditions of the theater buildings. It aims, too, to cooperate with similar organi- zations in other cities, supplying them with in- formation. All the principal film manufacturers of the United States have entered into agreement with this board of censorship, so that its work is now national. It is true, there are films called *' special releases" that do not come under its authority. These are placed upon the market by syndicates or private individuals, and include, besides those of well-known lecturers, some that are secretly produced and circulated in violation of the criminal statutes of the different States. 170 MOVING PICTURES While the board excludes every picture of distinctly immoral tendency, it is deemed best not to be too rigid, but to proceed slowly, secur- ing the cooperation of manufacturers rather than antagonizing them. Moreover, motion pictures are a form of dramatic art, and, as such, deal with real life and its problems of crime. Any rule which excluded all crime would exclude the Shake- spearean drama. But they do condemn sensa- tionalism and representation of crime which does not involve a moral purpose, and their decisions are based on the probable general effect upon the audience. The introduction of white- slave pictures has brought difficult problems. The board has decided to allow only those sub- jects dealing with the social evil, which ''arouse fear in the minds of both sexes, which stimulate efforts to rescue the prostitute, and which indi- cate sensible and workable methods of repres- sion." Scenes of prize-fighting, burglary, and kidnaping, have sometimes been allowed to re- main, while murders, suicides, robberies, and bull- fights were prohibited. In many cases, films are saved by eliminating a portion, sometimes a few yards only, of objectionable matter. In connec- tion with "store shows," which are run by men lacking in theater training, or interest in uplift- 171 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION ing and perfecting moving-picture drama, the control of the board is likely to be of especial benefit. Not only stores but many saloons, es- pecially in the South, have been temporarily turned into theaters during a period of no- license, while their proprietors are only waiting for the opportunity to return to their old busi- ness. The board does not favor state censorship and only a modified local censorship; because the effect of prohibiting the use of a film in one city, or of changing a single one of its many copies, is slight, compared with that of changing the original film at the output. The testimony of the Drama Committee of the Twentieth Century Club in Boston agrees with that of the investigators in Chicago and in other cities. It indicates that, in point of safety so far as building conditions are concerned, and in morality as regards material presented, the mov- ing-picture theater is in general far ahead of the so-called legitimate theater to-day. Yet it seems to be bearing the brunt of all the adverse criti- cism. It must not be overlooked that whenever moral lessons are weakly drawn or vice is made attractive, the opportunity for harm is greater, since its prices make it accessible to so great a number from the more impressionable and 172 MOVING PICTURES uneducated classes. It is also undeniably true that special shows of undesirable character are sometimes given at very late hours at night; and that notices of crimes committed by boys who are habitual attendants of moving-picture shows are more or less frequent. Boys have admitted in court that the crimes were suggested by bio- graph pictures which they had put in practice; also they have organized street bands of robbers, as they said, "just for the fun of the thing." The attempt of five boys in Greenwich, Connec- ticut, on February 28, 1910, to wreck a passen- ger train on the New York, New Haven and Hartford road was attributed to the same cause. The report of one of the investigations already mentioned condemned a picture play, in which a brutal father who strikes his wife is shot by his son, who is wildly applauded by the audience; for a boy who had seen the play fatally wounded his father who, in a moment of irritation, had raised his hand against the mother. According to the account, the boy was astonished that he was not to be regarded as a hero. Not infre- quently, also, very young children are upset nervously by the character of the material pre- sented. One small boy known to the writer was found hiding away his toys at night from fear 173 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION of burglars whom he had seen some time before at one of the five-cent shows. But against the attendance of very young children the same argu- ments apply as for the regular theater, and with older ones there is too great readiness to lay much to the moving-picture theater that for- merly was credited to the influence of the cheap novel. It is well to remember that life in an en- vironment of unrelieved dullness is not without outbreaks of adolescents, and that moral delin- quency existed long before the days of moving pictures. The moving picture has uplifted pop- ular entertainment and will do so increasingly. It has crowded out the pernicious penny arcade. It has taken patronage from objectionable forms of vaudeville and burlesque, and it has become a powerful rival of the low dance-hall and the saloon. What will be the psychological effect upon mental imagery of so much visual presentation, of intense and long - continued concentration upon attention, of the prolonged tension and excitement upon quiet and sustained thinking, of so much concrete material upon the develop- ment of abstract thinking, remains to be seen. But nature demands for perfect development periods of rest as well as work and sleep. The 174 MOVING PICTURES well-to-do have their restful pleasures, long days in woods and fields, or a peaceful hearth-fire to dream beside. The poorest wage-earner may find this passive satisfaction of the ever - present dramatic instinct in the scenic interest of the moving-picture theater, of which, surrounded by warmth and comfort and with his family, he may take as much or as little as he will. The cheap moving-picture show, properly regulated, should be a power in solving the problem of up- lifting the masses; all the greater because they pay for it and feel the pride of patronage. X MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY The moving picture has been developed largely in the interest of adult audiences; the puppet or marionette play, so little known, alas, in America, is especially suited to children. It has had here no native development. It once existed as an exotic in the foreign sections of our great cities; but the ordinary little traveling Punch and Judy show, so familiar across the ocean, is here scarcely known. In Munich there is a municipal theater, prob- ably the only one in the world built for children and dedicated solely to their use, the actors on whose stage are wooden dolls. Here we have the last modem refinement of a dramatic develop- ment that has played a great part in all nations, ancient and modern. Its beginnings are lost in the mists of antiq- uity. According to some writers it had its birth in old Indian fairy tales; but the accepted view is that of Charles Magnin, whose Eistoire des Marionettes^ written more than fifty years ago, 176 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY IS followed by all succeeding writers. He thought they were derived from the animated statues of the ancients. Such statues were common in Egypt where, in the celebration of the Osiris festival, women bore them through the streets. The prophetic statue of Jupiter Ammon was car- ried, according to Diodorus Siculus, in a golden car on the shoulders of twenty-four priests, to whom it indicated the route by a movement of the head. The famous wooden statue of Venus at- tributed to Daedalus was moved- by weights within loaded with mercury. Puppet plays were known at a very early date in Greece. Xenophon and Aristotle speak of them, and records show that, besides those in the homes of wealthy Athenians, pubUc performances were given. They were also known in Rome, though we have no description of their theater. Roman writers referred to them in similes like that of Horace, ''Drawn by wire, like wooden figures another man works." In the Orient, puppet play and an allied form called shadow play are so curiously intermingled in descriptions that they cannot always be clearly separated. It would appear, however, that shadow play originated in Java, and was derived from a very old Malayan cult. There is an inter- 177 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION esting theory, that shadow play is reminiscent of the time when all that the people saw of the religious ceremony was the shadow of the officiat- ing priest upon the walls of the sacred tent which hid him from their view. Its content embraces the oldest myths and legends, episodes from the Indian epics, — the Mahabharata and the Rama- yana, and such history as turns on the deeds of national heroes. From Java it spread north- ward. It is probably from China that it first be- came known to the Western world; for it is now everywhere spoken of as the Chinese shadow play. It seems to have been preferred in the East to the puppet play (if one can distinguish which is which), whereas the puppet play was more in favor in Europe. In fact, shadow plays were not known there till the seventeenth century. Their vogue seems to have been of short duration and limited to a few countries. The modus operandi of the shadow play is as follows: Colored figures made of thin translucent leather are displayed behind a tightly stretched, illuminated white linen screen, and controlled by a manager who sings the text, moving the figures the while by attached wooden rods, and pressing them close against the screen so that they appear to be on the side nearest the specta- 178 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY tors. Puppets, on the other hand, are jointed wooden dolls, worked by hand or by wires, ap- pearing on a miniature open stage. Sometimes they are elaborately carved, painted, and dressed to the life. They are made to imitate the move- ments of living actors, while the text of their play, recited from behind the scenes, seems to come from the figures themselves. Their French name, marionnettes (of uncertain derivation), is in constant use, and the words puppet play and marionette play are interchangeable. It is said that in China the puppet play was known two hundred years before our era, while shadow plays are recorded in the eleventh cen- tury A.D. An amusing incident is given in an account of the siege of a Chinese city in 262 B.C., when the besieged emperor, knowing the jeal- ousy of the wife of his besieger, caused a life- sized female puppet to dance on the city wall. The ruse succeeded; and the jealous wife, lest he should possess the fair dancer, persuaded her husband to withdraw his forces. According to an- other story an early emperor and his consort were attending a puppet show, and the puppet made eyes at the empress so naturally that the king became jealous. Both traveling and resident shows are now 179 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION found in China. The Secretary of the Legation of the Netherlands at Pekin some fifty years ago describes the two kinds of figures in use : wooden figures moved by thread, and leather ones worked by hand. Performances with the latter are known as ^'sack plays," because the peripatetic player used formerly to support his booth upon his shoulders and conceal himself in a sack. Shadow play is on a still higher level and often of great charm. The following description is taken from the work of Herr Rehm, who has written a most comprehensive history of the subject: ^' A mourn- ing son gives burnt offerings to the ruler of the kingdom of shadows, and begs to see the spirit of his dead mother, who appears to him and gives him comfort. Here a twilight scene is pictured, a pagoda in the background reflected in a lake. Wonderful music is heard and a transformation takes place; the pagoda vanishes, and gleaming rings of color appear out of which the mother materializes." Besides these mystic represen- tations, scenes depicting every phase of Eastern life, the streets, the market-place, the shops, etc., are also given. Turkish shadow and puppet plays were prob- ably introduced from China. They are scarcely more than spectacles, and the dialogue is extem- i8o MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY pore. Several thirteenth-century Turkish plays are still in existence, and seventeen original manuscripts of plays which the Sultan Saladin enjoyed are preserved in Spain in the Library of the Escurial. Karagoz (*' Black Eye"), the clownish character that has his counterpart in all the Western world, appears in both puppet and shadow plays. He is represented as brutal and lustful. The pieces of the Turkish theater have never yet been printed, so that it is diffi- cult to establish the laws of their construction; but Maindron says: "There must be intrigue, and the play must be obscene, to give satisfaction to a Turkish audience, though it rises at times to the highest solemnity"; and Rehm states that there are pieces free from unclean wit and licen- tiousness. In Siam, shadow play is an individual and highly developed art. The subjects of the play, or Nang, are taken from the Ramayana, and the characters are those also pictured upon the temple walls. The figures, which are ingenious, differ from any previously described. All the episodes are pricked out on an ox-hide which is fastened to a wooden standard and moved back and forth before the curtain, so that the light from behind brings the picture into relief; some- i8i DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION times as many as twenty people are needed to move the hide. Besides the operators there are five masks and two reciters or interpreters, to explain the pictures, as well as a jester. Perform- ances in Siam, as in Java, are not public, but are given for special festivals, funerals, etc., in private houses and at court. In content and por- trayal the play is unrestricted and obscene. Shadow and marionette plays are also found in the provinces of Turkestan, in Burma, Arabia, and Persia, and differ but slightly from those described. It is interesting to note that, objec- tionable as we think them in content and action, they are said to have improved primitive condi- tions; at least they reflect the life and feeling of the people. For the Japanese, puppet play is not only a means of popular entertainment, but, according to Herr Rehm, of great artistic as well as spiritual significance, and one may seek long in the scenic art of all peoples for anything similar. Its age is not known, but it flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century, and in 1730 had reached a very high degree of excellence. Quite in con- trast to the practice in other countries, the players or movers appear upon the stage with the figures, either in domino or in gayly colored 182 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY ceremonial clothes. So large and heavy are the puppets, and so complicated their mechanism, that sometimes it takes two or three ''movers'' to manipulate a single one. The words of the text are recited in rhythm, and the tempo is altered to suit the action. The reciters sit with the musicians at the side of the stage on a rolling disk or turntable, and change after every act. Some of the reciters achieve great reputation and receive large remuneration. What with movers, lamplighters, musicians, reciters, and others, the force employed for a single perform- ance sometimes numbers more than a hundred. In the Western world puppet play found great favor, and first of all in Italy. The celebrated Italian physician and mathematician, Girolamo Cardano, wrote enthusiastically of it in 1550, telling of the wonderful perfection with which it imitated human movements. "An entire day," he says, "would not be sufficient in which to describe those puppets that play, fight, shoot, dance, and play musical instruments." The puppet play of Italy is closely related to the Commedia delV Arte, which has had an impor- tant part in the history of the Italian stage, winning scant praise from higher circles, but appealing strongly to the popular mind, and 183 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION proving of acknowledged ethical value in ridi- culing the foolishness and errors of its time. Its chief characteristic was the improvised dialogue, a mere outline of a plot being the only permanent material. The original comic character, Arlec- chino, was often very witty, and he was allowed a freedom of speech not permitted in more dig- nified drama. He filled the place of the jester at mediaeval courts and of the cartoonist to-day. With the lapse of time, the Commedia delV Arte gradually introduced more system into its per- formances, and rose to a higher plane. The pup- pet play underwent a very similar development, though, in its less pretentious forms, the tradi- tion of the unwritten text was still preserved. Arlecchino's successors are found, in a series of comic characters, in the puppet play of different countries, the Italian Pulcinella, the French Polichinelle and Pierrot, the German Hanswurst, and the English Punch being the best known. According to their country they are in turn burlesque, wanton, cheat or drunkard. Pul- cinella with his humps, monstrous nose, and other physical peculiarities, points directly back to the Maccus of the Romans, their clown or common jester. In a long white dress and pointed cap, he is a half - burlesque and wholly jolly 184 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY character, whose language and actions are not always choice; an interloper, and something of a coward. Puppet shows have been more generally en- joyed in Italy than in any other European coun- try, and there as elsewhere have strongly re- flected national tastes. A special feature of the Italian puppet theater was its beautiful dancing; its ballets and operas achieved great reputation. Little street shows delighted the masses, and more pretentious ones were frequently given in the houses of the nobility and middle classes as well as in public theaters frequented by many distinguished people. Leone Allacci, librarian of the Vatican under Alexander VII, went nightly to performances. Well-known pieces, among them Machiavelli's Mandragola, were often given as marionette plays in the artistic and literary cir- cles of Florence and Naples. Many of the pieces abounded in bombast, sarcastic wit, and hits at social and political personages, since the wooden actors were allowed a liberty of speech not per- mitted to live ones; but when they ridiculed too freely affairs of Church and State, they, like the regular theaters, were suppressed. In France, puppet play had its origin in cer- tain religious ceremonies, the most celebrated ■ i8S DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION of which were the Mitouries at Dieppe, half- pagan pantomimes in which the figures were moved by threads. They were driven from the churches about the middle of the seventeenth century; but they spread into the country, and were given in the doorways of convents and churches. Their secular use dates from the time of Louis XIV, when Jean Brioche set up his booth for puppets on the Pont Neuf , and carried on his profession of extracting teeth between performances. He was followed by a long suc- cession of players whose theaters enjoyed pros- perity and fame, and were operated by descend- ants of the same family for generations. French puppet play has had a varied and es- pecially rich development. Great authors have delighted in it. Satire and witty epigram have abounded. How completely it has mirrored the events of the times is shown by the fact that, during the French Revolution, the puppet hero was daily guillotined. Like Pulcinella in Italy, Polichinelle had many variants. One of these, the Lyonnais Guignol, supplanted Polichinelle in Paris, and gave his name to the show now known as the Guignol Theater. George Sand gave charming puppet plays in her home; Henri Signoret produced with his 1 86 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY puppets celebrated dramas of world literature not known to the great stage; and Le Mercier de Neville aroused for it the interest of a number of artists, including Dore, who painted some of the dolls. But the golden age of the marionettes which delighted these brilliant geniuses has passed; of all the ambulant shows for children few are now found. English puppet shows were never so highly prized as those of Latin countries ; but when under Puritan rule the regular theaters were closed, the puppets escaped the general edict, became the vehicle of public opinion, and reached their highest development. The Spectator (no. xiv) has preserved the memory of a famous puppet theater in London, set up near St. Paul's, in the following letter of remonstrance : — Sir, — I have been, for twenty years under-sexton of this parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and have not missed tolling in to prayers six times in all those years; which office I have performed to my great sat- isfaction, until this fortnight last past, during which time I find my congregation taking the warning of my bell, morning and evening, to go to a puppet show set forth by one Powell under the Piazzas. By this means, I have not only lost my two custom- ers whom I used to place for six-pence apiece over io7 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION against Mrs. Rachael Eyebright, but Mrs. Rachel herself is gone thither also. ... I desire you would lay all this before the world, that I may not be made such a tool for the future, and that Punchinello may choose hours less canonical. As things are now, Mr. Powell has a full congregation, while we have a very thin house; which if you can remedy, you will very much oblige, sir, yours, &c. Besides the theaters in London, the ambulant sort flourished in the little towns; and Cruik- shank and Hogarth have left us pictures that show the humor of street scenes of which they form a part. In Belgium, Austria, and Holland, the puppet theater attained great popularity; and in Bo- hemia it is the only form of dramatic art now given in the native tongue. It is in Germany that the art of puppet play is preserved in its highest form, and there we find the only recent attempts to improve it on the artistic and literary side. Its early development was similar to that in other countries, except that the effects were more gruesome and bizarre, and the humor heavy. Also the wooden Kobold and Tattermann, worshiped in the dark ages as household gods, became puppets worked by wires. In the seventeenth century, the plays i88 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY were very popular, taking the place of the regu- lar drama which had come under the ban of the Church, though later they, too, collided with au- thority when they meddled with politics. The Germans, always adept at toy-making, made toy puppet theaters. Goethe had one when a boy, and ascribed to it his earliest interest in drama. At twenty he wrote a puppet play, afterwards given at the court of Weimar (his Faust was in part suggested by this play of Dr. Faustus) ; and later he contributed six minor plays to the puppet stage. Joseph Haydn also wrote for the puppet theaters, contributing five little operettas which Prince Esterhazy caused to be performed at his castle in Hungary. His Symphony for Children's Instruments was probably an overture for one of these marionette pieces. The veteran puppet player to-day is "Papa Schmid," whose theater in Munich has a world- wide reputation. For more than half a century Papa Schmid has aimed to meet the real needs of children, and has had his reward in being the best -beloved man in Munich. Children have waited to catch a glimpse of him as he came out of the theater; for, for them, the names of "Schmid" and "Casparl," the part he always plays, are synonymous. At the outset of his 189 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION career as puppet showman, Schmid won the friendly interest of Count von Pocci, who wrote the play for the opening performance, and con- tinued throughout his lifetime to write for the little theater. When a few years ago there was a question of Papa Schmid's retiring from the profession owing to the constantly recurring necessity for moving his show from one site to another, the city magistrates, urged by Dr. Kerschensteiner, superintendent of schools, voted unanimously to build for it a permanent residence. Doubtless most of these magistrates had spent many a happy hour in boyhood watching the antics of ''Casparl." The theater was built on one of the small park-spaces of the city and leased to Papa Schmid. It is rich in scenery and puppets, having nearly a thousand of the latter, and is in all respects a true home of art. Besides the pieces of Count Pocci, who contributed no less than fifty-three, it produces the works of several other well-known writers, among them those of the dialect poet, Franz von Kobell. One or two other recent attempts to produce puppet plays of a high order deserve mention. The Bavarian Jubilee Exhibition, a few years ago in Nuremberg, had a puppet theater which was set in operation by a group of men of note. 190 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY Arthur Schnizler, Maeterlinck, and others con- tributed pieces. Even the stage was an adapta- tion of Reinhardt's famous revolving stage. But these revivals are in the interest of art and lit- erature, while Papa Schmid's theater remains unique in its effort to produce plays of a pure and elevated kind, suited to child-nature. The question now arises: What value for the modern educator has an art which has apparently played out its part? Are the historical, moral, literary, and artistic values which it has had in the past transferable to modern conditions, or have they now been transmuted into other forms of expression ? Dr. Georg Jacob points out that the develop- ment of the magic lantern and the stereopticon satisfies the masses, and popular concerts and comic newspapers gratify the desire for music and humor. He still believes, however, in the usefulness of the puppet play, possessing as it does such a fruitful element of caricature in the movability of its figures; and it is not impossi- ble that a gifted artist will yet bring it to new honors. Any one who has watched a throng of small boys and girls as they sit in the tiny roped-off square before a little chdtelet in Paris on the 191 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION Champs-Elysees, or those that gather in Papa Schmid's exquisite little theater in Munich, or before the tiny booths at fairs and exhibitions anywhere in Italy, must have noticed the rap- turous delight of those small people. The tiny stage, its equipment, accessories, the diminu- tive garments and belongings of the puppets satisfy the childish love of miniature copies of things of the grown-up world. Their animistic tendencies make it easy to endow the wooden figures with human qualities and bring them into close rapport with their own world of fancy. The voice coming from some unknown region adds the mystery which children dearly love, and before the magic of fairy tales their eyes grow wide with wonder. The stiff movements of the puppets, their sudden collapses from dignity, are irresistibly funny to the little people, and the element of buffoonery is doubly comical in its mechanical presentation. For grown people, too, the mirth-provoking capacity of puppets is per- haps the greatest factor in their popularity, for they can caricature in a way impossible on the regular stage. Professor Wundt maintains that their ministration to the sense of the comic is tlieir chief function. He claims that puppet play had not one origin, but many; that it arose in 192 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY different localities out of the need of creating comic figures. It is difficult to analyze satisfactorily its appeal in this particular ; but, among the many theories of the comic, the factor which seems most promi- nent in puppet play is the feeling of self-superior- ity to the situation. In the case of the wooden manikins, this feeling is necessarily greatly in- tensified, thus giving rise to a degree of fun that would be impossible were the same thing acted by real players. The element of the unexpected, too, which contributes to the comic, is far oftener brought into play by the unanticipated evolu- tions of the puppets in their occasional contra- dictions of the law of gravity, than would be possible with living actors. The question, after all, of the right of survival, or revival, resolves itself, perhaps, into the ques- tion of the value of puppet play for entertain- ment pure and simple, which is at least one of the great primary functions of all true drama. The masses of the people, stunted and dulled by hard, monotonous labor in crowded cities, must have relaxation and amusement. The beneficial effects of laughter, both physical and emotional, have been always recognized. The effect of a hearty laugh in restoring emotional tone and balance 193 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION has come to be recognized as a distinct therapeu- tic agency. Some sanatoriums, that of Battle Creek, for example, actually have "laughing exercises" as a part of the curative regime. Laughter is of greatest importance, perhaps, in the upper grades of society, where convention- ality constantly makes for the repression of natural, spontaneous expression of feeling. Psy- chologists are telling us to-day that laughter is dying out, that the world is forgetting how to laugh. There is a very general tendency in this coun- try to adapt for school use everything that is of recognized educational value. The puppet play, it is true, could be brought to school. While we would scarcely advocate its introduction as mere entertainment, doubtless some subjects could be vivified and made more interesting by means of marionettes. For the large number of children who never get beyond the grades, the deepen- ing of the impressions, in literature and history, would be of special value, as also for older chil- dren the training in writing dialogues and de- claiming, and the practice in fashioning puppets, costumes, scenery, and properties, and in acting as operator and showman. But better yet, put little puppet theaters into settlement and play- 194 MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY ground, into boys' club and social center, into the small park or recreation place. Let us have, too, the larger sort of booth or chdtelet, such as may be found for the season in fair and exhibi- tion grounds abroad. If less complete, they have at least the advantage in warm weather of being out of doors. Give fairy tales and little comedies, and open up for children a land of wonder and delight. Finally create a marionette theater run on high and artistic principles,^ even as Papa Schmid's has been; and make it in the end a civic institution. 1 In 19 13 a national marionette society was started in New York. . XI PAGEANTRY Any account of present-day methods of appeal to the dramatic instinct would be incomplete without some consideration of pageantry in its various early forms and its recent developments and applications. In its wider meaning, it began thousands of years ago. There was glorious pageantry in the religious ceremonials of ancient Egypt as we see them on the walls of Luxor and Denderah. The Parthenon frieze has fixed for- ever the splendid procession which yearly as- cended to the Acropolis. Cleopatra depended on the gorgeous effect when she glided down the river Cydnus in her barge to meet the Roman conqueror. Modern writers call all these ''pag- eants"; but the word was first used in connection with the mediaeval miracle plays. When driven from the church, the miracle plays were transferred first to the churchyard and then to the city gates; later still, that a larger number of the people might see them, the custom arose of moving them from place to place 196 PAGEANTRY called "stations," in different parts of the town. For this, movable platforms, called "pageants," were used — two-storied theaters on wheels, of which the lower story served for dressing-room, while the upper was the stage for the acting. The word "pageant," at first applied to the scaf- fold, came to signify the scene acted upon it. Later it was variously applied to different parts of a procession; to erections, floats, etc., as well as to impersonations of allegorical or grotesque characters and even to entire elaborate spectacles. Descriptions which have been preserved show the character of these representations. In coronations the element of pageantry was strongly manifest. One of the most magnificent of all was given when Charles V was made king of Italy and Lombardy. The water pageants on the Thames on various occasions, and the fes- tivals on the Arno in Florence, have furnished splendid spectacles. We find the element of pageantry also in military, civic, and state pro- cessions. From earliest times victorious gen- erals have, on their return from war, passed through the capital city with pomp and magnifi- cent ceremony. The "Triumphs" of Roman generals were famous, wherein were displayed the spoils of war, and conquered kings and queens 197 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION were made to walk captive in their train in order to enhance the effect of victory. In funeral pro- cessions pageantry played a most important part; that of Queen Eleanor from Hornby to London, which covered twelve days, is historical. Those of great naval and military heroes at all times, as of Nelson, Wellington, and Grant, have been impressive spectacles; and the custom of gorgeous funeral processions in honor of espe- cially distinguished citizens still prevails. The elaborate court masques and revels of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries grew out of the processions and pageants of the Middle Ages, and preserved very strongly their spec- tacular or pageant features. They were written to celebrate great occasions, such as marriages of royalty and nobility, and achieved great popu- larity, reaching their height in England in the time of James I. Royalty not only patronized these masques, but frequently took part in them. Queen Henrietta Maria acted in Ben Jonson's Clorinda in 1630, and Queen Anne acted in one of the most brilliant ever given, that in honor of the Spanish Ambassador's visit to Hampton Court in 1704, when Queen Elizabeth's dresses were brought from the Tower for the occasion. Lists of expenses have been preserved which give 198 PAGEANTRY an idea not only of the great cost, but of the sumptuousness of the apparel worn. Various chroniclers also have left vivid descriptions of them. Inigo Jones, Albrecht Diirer, and other artists helped to make them beautiful. Besides these spectacles of the more preten- tious sort, a kind of rude and rustic pageantry is discernible in many old observances of various lands, such as Yule-tide customs and the social ceremonies connected with Twelfth Night and Harvest Home. The carnivals for Mardi Gras in the Catholic countries of Europe, as well as in our own New Orleans, are manifestations of the same tendency to enjoy and take part in dramatic spectacles. But we do not have to turn to the past for splendid displays; there are numerous survivals, though the parades of the Renaissance have dis- appeared. In almost all monarchical countries, brilliant exhibitions of the kind are still in vogue. The English Parliament is opened with great circumstance, and the arrival in provincial cities of the Judges of Assize are civic events of first im- portance. The Lord Mayor's show in London is another of these survivals; and the bride of roy- alty enters the capital to-day like the princess of a fairy tale. Multitudes throng to see these 199 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION shows that are free to the humblest subject; and the means that were used to gratify people in the Middle Ages, and to impress them with the greatness of monarchical and military power, still foster loyalty, or at least insure the outward appearance of it. The Catholic Church, with all its processional adjuncts and impressive symbolic display, its various commemorative and initiatory cere- monies, makes extensive use of pageantry, and has always thus addressed itself to the imagina- tion and emotions of its people. From very early days universities, more espe- cially on the Continent, have made use of pag- eantry. On anniversaries, they present their entire histories, and in their academic proces- sions, in costumes and ceremonies, we have mod- ern examples of the ancient pageant. The same element comes out strongly in the dramatic rituals, supported by tradition, of secret societies and brotherhoods. Lately there has been a remarkable outburst of the spirit of pageantry that has given it new meaning. Beginning in 1905 with that of Sher- borne, England, celebrations have been held in most of the larger English towns and cities, wherein authors, teachers, artists, clergy, the 200 PAGEANTRY working-classes, and, in some cases, professional actors, have all united in reviving local history. Each of these pageants has had its individual characteristic, and has expressed some special principle. In the Sherborne pageant the feeling of comradeship was stimulated. The making of the costumes and properties required research and ingenuity ; and those who provided the music revived old motifs, and composed new ones. They acted out eleven centuries of the town's history, presented in as many episodes. Representatives from the town's namesake, Sherborn, Massa- chusetts, were present by invitation, and ap- peared in the final tableau when the mother and daughter cities were personified. In the pageant at Winchester, the capital of early England, where Alfred the Great had his seat, national rather than local development was the prominent feature. One was transported to the days when Birinus drove out pagan wor- ship, and even to old Roman times. The career of Alfred the Great as warrior and peacemaker was pictured, and that of William of Wykeham, ecclesiastic and statesman, founder of the college and rebuilder of the cathedral. A noticeable feature of modern pageant-giving has been the bringing together of all classes of 20 1 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION society. In the pageant of Bury St. Edmunds, held within the ruins of the old monastery, no less than sixteen clergymen took part, and the poorer classes were as fully represented. The squire who played the part of Richard the Lion- hearted was attended by a coachman in the role of knight. Under the direction of students and archaeologists, the towns-people made all the cos- tumes and properties; and it was their boast that, except for one carpenter, the whole pageant was given without pay for services. It adds interest to the pageant when the actual descendants of historic characters take part. In one given at Romsey the charcoal-burner Purkis, who brought back the body of William Rufus from the forest, was represented by a lineal descendant. In the Oxford pageant, a cordial relation was established between town and gown. The inci- dents were chiefly those of university history and were given on the playing-fields of Magda- len College, forty- three hundred people taking part. Oxford professors wrote the pageant-book, and Mr. Beerbohm Tree acted. The pageant, lasting six days, gave scenes from the time of St. Frideswide (727 a.d.) to that of George III. Ancient chants were revived and many striking 202 PAGEANTRY episodes acted. The legend of Fair Rosamond was one; the funeral of Amy Robsart another; Robert, Earl of Leicester, headed a royal pro- cession, and Charles I made his entry in his barge of state. One of the most effective of all was a masque and interlude for tiny children, written by one of the academic body; in which, as ants and bees issuing from the ^'Castle of Industry," they performed a graceful ballet. In America pageants have lately come into the national and civic life. Thus far they have taken on a much more varied character than their English prototypes, yet they have a certain similarity. Most of them portray the history of the different towns and cities where they have been acted. Perhaps a description of the one at Hartford, Connecticut, though it was not on so large a scale as those of Quebec and Philadelphia, will give a fair idea of the English historical pag- eant adapted to conditions here. The Hartford pageant celebrated the dedica- tion of the new stone bridge over the Connecti- cut, and lasted three days. It began by pictur- ing the early settlement in America of the Dutch traders and of the English. Then followed the coming of the little colony led by the Reverend Thomas Hooker to the river, and the founding 203 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION of the city. Processions representing soldiers, sailors, and citizens of colonial times were made up of Trinity College students and of the military organizations of the city and the State. Historic scenes were acted upon the banks of the river; where also, on a stage of ample proportions, was given an elaborately planned series of tableaux, the prologue to which was written by a resident college professor and recited by one of the local clergy in cap and gown. An Indian camp upon the bank added picturesqueness to the scene, as the smoke of the camp-fires rose upward through the trees; and Indians with their squaws and children appeared among wigwams, or glided across the river in canoes, while flocks of sheep and droves of cattle appeared along its banks. The Charter-Oak incident was acted, likewise the execution of Nathan Hale. Brighter pictures gave a glimpse of social life. There was a ball in honor of Lafayette; a minuet was danced by twenty couples, and the distinguished French- man was shov/ered with roses. The pageant closed with the signing of the contract for the new bridge, thus bringing the history of the city up to date. In July, 1909, the States of New York and Vermont united in a seven days' celebration of 204 PAGEANTRY the tercentenary of the discovery of Lake Cham- plain, in which members of French, English, and American organizations participated. Here again was seen the international fraternity of feeling which the pageant celebrations have called forth in England. Representatives of these countries, that had fought with each other for possession of the lake, met officially on their former battle- ground to honor their heroes. Fifty Mohawk braves acted the foundation of the great Indian confederacy by Hiawatha; and their ''Smoking the Pipe of Peace," their hunting contests, a corn festival, stag and canoe races, war-dances, death- chants, battle sacrifices, the ''ceremony of adop- tion," and the representation of a fortified Indian village revived many a historic scene. Some of the smaller towns and cities have given especially effective and successful pageants; and the possibilities of awakening interest and stimulating cooperation and creative effort of the entire community is, of course, far greater than in the larger places. For months the pageant is an intimate part of the life of the people. Farm- ers walk miles to rehearse their few lines ; and, for days before the performance, villagers are seen in full costume passing through the streets. Such was the pageant at Deerfield, Massa- . 205 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION chusetts. Deerfield preserves in remarkable de- gree its old colonial features. Its stage was a natural amphitheater, with trees and bushes for background and a meadow stretching to one side. Beginning with English scenes of 1630, rustic revels and Maypole dancing, the lady of the manor on her white palfrey and a group of sober Puritans attending, they passed to typical New England scenes, Indian home life, and the pur- chasing of land from the red men. Through star- light, an ox cart, slowly approaching, brought the first settler and his wife to the locaHty. The bat- tle of Bloody Brook was suggested by the sound of rifle-shots in the wood hard by. Meeting-house and school scenes and a village tea-party were among the quiet and peaceful episodes, while thrilling ones were afforded by the attack on the town by Indians in 1704, and the massacring and carrying away of some of the inhabitants to Canada. The call to arms of patriots in Revo- lutionary times was acted in a final scene, and a tableau of the Grand Army saluting the flag given at the close. In some of the towns, the summer colony of city people and the residents have united in giving a pageant, and a better mutual under- standing and a spirit of comradeship have re- 206 PAGEANTRY suited. This was true of the one given in Bronx- ville, New York, where a Kttle group of well- known people, including Tudor Jenks, Gouver- neur Morris, Violet Oakley, and the late Richard Watson Gilder, wrote words and music, and de- signed costumes and properties for the produc- tion. Peterborough, New Hampshire, and its summer colony gave a musical pageant in honor of the composer MacDowell, who for years had made the place his summer home. MacDowell's own music, interpreted by dance and song, was the background for the chief events of Peter- borough's history. The festival will be repeated from time to time, making the town the Mecca of music-lovers. The Hendrik - Hudson festival called forth considerable censure from public-minded citi- zens. While it only illustrated, presumably, the mistakes of smaller undertakings, the extensive scale on which it was carried out brought them more conspicuously to public notice. Notwith- standing the immense sums spent to adorn the city, notwithstanding its naval and land parades and its magnificent show, the spirit of fellowship and good feeling which should have animated the undertaking was lamentably lacking. The citizens themselves had little part in the com- 207 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION memoration. Many paid professionals were em- ployed, but little local talent, and the masses were made to feel that they had no part. Some of the best reports stigmatized it as a travesty upon the name of the modern ''historical" pag- eant. Pageants have come to be a part of the ''sane Fourth of July." In Springfield, Massachusetts, where the first for this purpose was given, there was a civic procession in which the citizens' in- dustries were represented on different floats. All the population entered with zest into the under- taking and aided in the general display, to the notable increase of civic pride. Pageants have been given indoors, but they have not differed materially from those already described. They have been used for propaganda. "The World in Pageant," given in Boston, in 191 1, illustrated the growth of foreign missions. Of like sort was a pageant under the auspices of the "Boston 1915 Organization," which pre- sented a series of dramatic scenes showing man's progress from cave life to city life, and suggesting the world's future as well as protraying its past. Others have been given for definite school uses. Higher institutions, as well as grammar and primary schools, are making use of pageants. 208 PAGEANTRY Northwestern University has represented on its campus, in poetic and dramatic fashion, six pe- riods in the history of Illinois in as many scenes; Ripon, Wisconsin, a small college town, taking the idea from the Oxford pageant, portrayed both local and university history; in Knoxville, Tennessee, high-school and university students united in giving a pageant, in which not only past history was revived by the acting-out of the '^Winning of the West," but the flora and fauna of the region, together with its agriculture, fores- try, mineral and mining resources, were shown. In June, 1909, Harvard gave Joan of Arc, which, though ostensibly only an outdoor play, deserves mention among university pageants; for, though there was more speaking than is usual in the pageant proper, in grouping, effective massing, and the general scale on which it was carried out, the pageant element was prominent. Like the Oxford pageant, it was semi-professional in character; for, while college students and citi- zens in large numbers made up troops of soldiers and crowds of clergy, peasantry, and noblemen, the leading role was played by Maude Adams, and the color effects were in charge of John W. Alexander. Interest in history other than our own was here aroused; and the international good 209 r DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION feeling, so frequently called out by English and American civic pageants, was again instanced by the gift from France of a replica of the original Oriflamme. Doubtless the tendency of outdoor entertain- ments in colleges and higher schools will more and more drift pageant-ward as its picturesque and educational advantages are realized. Normal schools have already begun. The Boston Normal School, in 1908, presented the whole history of education. In the same year the Brooklyn Train- ing-School for Teachers gave an indoor pageant in seventeen scenes, which represented education in its Oriental, Classical, Mediaeval, Modern European, and American types. The State Nor- mal School at Clarion, Pennsylvania, gives every year at commencement a pageant in which each class takes part, representing not only American and English scenes, but those of Roman history. In some of the training-schools for teachers, pageants are given in which children are actors. As the result of a study of the Crusades, a play festival was held in the training-school at New Paltz, New York, in June, 1907. Children pa- raded through its streets in costume, and took part in tableaux in the City Hall. In making cos- tumes and paraphernalia, classwork in manual 210 PAGEANTRY training, sewing, art, and history, had all been turned to account during the weeks of prepara- tion. The school festival is closely related to pag- eantry when it takes the form of a procession, as in the celebration of national holidays, Wash- ington's Birthday, Lincoln Day, etc., when his- torical scenes and episodes are reproduced. In the children's village of the Seybert Institution, where orphans from three to fifteen years of age are cared for, the school festival has been put to pedagogical use in presenting subjects objec- tively to children who have little power to visual- ize. On Hallowe'en they present great historical characters such as Columbus, Hudson, and Ful- ton. The story of Hiawatha has been acted by a group of boys, and the work of preparation cor- related with that of history and reading in the school. Settlements everyw^here are organizing pag- eants. One given in Prospect Park by two hun- dred children from Brooklyn settlements, illus- trates their possibilities both for education and amusement in the case of little people. Episodes from the childhood of various American heroes, Lincoln, Washington, Franklin, and others, were selected for portrayal, and scenes from our early 211 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION history, such as Pocahontas saving the life of John Smith, the capture of Daniel Boone, his trial, sentence, and escape. Indian life and dancing were reproduced, and various planta- tion scenes, the latter enabling a group of col- ored children to have a part. As shown by the children's questions, great interest was aroused in the history and geography of the places pic- tured as well as in the different characters; and qualities contributing to the greatness of the men and women represented were emphasized in a way to leave a valuable and lasting lesson. As in other efforts of the kind, not only did the weeks of preparation serve to keep children occupied and interested, but the training developed valua- ble traits and habits and had a socializing effect; even a gang of rowdies, at first inclined to be rebellious, became obedient and helpful in pre- serving order among the younger children. But enough has been said, doubtless, to indi- cate the adaptations of which the pageant ele- ment is capable, and the variety of pageant types appearing in our midst. Their influence does not differ greatly from that of children's play-acting, dancing, or reproduced story-telling. But it appeals to a greatly larger public. The actual moral lessons, also, that can be conveyed 212 PAGEANTRY are manifold; zeal, enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and a spirit of cooperation are brought out; narrow prejudice is lessened, a love of research is implanted, and a capacity for usefulness often- times discovered. The historic sense is brought into play; costumes, customs, and manners of the present day all take on new meaning, interest, and significance, as interpreted in the light of the past; and associations are awakened which give to familiar and commonplace things a to- tally new aspect. Even where the pageant, as already intimated, has not always been carried out on an ideal basis, it inculcates valuable les- sons. But its function of simple pleasure-giving and adding to the brightness of Hves must rank as of prime importance. The world loves a spec- tacle, and Court, Church, and State have recog- nized from time immemorial its power to awaken emotional response. In these democratic days, the pageant fulfills this function and helps to satisfy the inherent craving for magnificence and show. While some of the pageants have been mere processions, and others, in which acting figured prominently, have been only a succession of his- torical episodes, many have essayed well-con- structed drama. According to some critics, it is 213 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION from pageantry of the last sort that will be devel- oped a truly American type of drama, which shall give the quality of our civilization, the impulse of the people toward art, and its expression. If only as art education the pageant is worthy of a place. It appeals often to those whom beauty in more subtle forms fails to impress, and, because of a variety of elements which attract, furnishes, all unconsciously, aesthetic experience. As many of the pageants of the Middle Ages were planned by great artists, so the skill of the modern artist is called into requisition. Already improvement in street decoration appears, the unified scheme of the pageant having served as a needed lesson. In civic education, pageantry has not only proved a means of arousing community spirit, but is making people prouder of their town and its history, and ambitious to live up to the stand- ards set by their forefathers. Patriotism takes the place of former apathy and the too-prevalent spirit of vainglory. Valuable as is the pageant in the different ways enumerated, one cannot escape the impression that in its recent form, that of the English his- torical civic pageant, it is probably a passing fashion. Cities emulate one another; and grad- ually efforts become less spontaneous, less an 214 PAGEANTRY outgrowth of the real life and spirit of the peo- ple, and more imposed from the outside. Even should this be so, the truth remains that it has been of service in many different lines; its per- manent effect may possibly be foretold by the recently changed character of our Fourth of July celebrations, and the enlarged scope of our school festivals, for which the history and nat- ural resources of our country afford abundant materials. Particularly as carried out by chil- dren, both in school and other institutions, is the pageant likely to retain its popularity, since it appeals to them on so many sides. All the bene- fits of the large civic pageant and more can be brought into the smaller and less pretentious undertakings of school and settlement, stimulat- ing the sense of responsibihty, group spirit, enthusiasm, and ambition; habits of attention, concentration, and punctuality are a part of its discipline and training, no less than in the giving of a play. It has the advantage of being easily shaped to the needs of a group, and for historical events and anniversaries it is better than any play. Especially is it suited to shy and awkward children, since it requires acting of a more rudi- mentary sort than does the regularly staged performance. It tends to inspire affection and 215 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION reverence for the past. For children who get ceremonial in no other way, not even in the church, its appeal is often powerful and lasting in effect. XII GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS In the preceding chapters we have noted the universality of the dramatic instinct and the diverse forms in which it finds its normal grati- fication. We have suggested also the psycho- logical bases on which these forms rest, that we, may test thereby the worth of certain recent, pedagogical innovations, derived, as has been shown, from institutions and customs that sprang up spontaneously among untutored peoples in ruder ages. Are these innovations being made in the wisest and best way? In the preceding mass of facts, what particular message is there for us? Can we derive therefrom rules for culti- vating, without overstimulating or perverting, v the dramatic instinct, and thus direct it to fine } issues? How are we to recognize and utilize its | subtler manifestations? The one idea of drama- tization has gripped hard the pedagogic world; some of the fantastic and mistaken results have been noted in passing; are there other means of attaining the desired ends? 217 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION y The author does not believe it possible to lay /down positive rules for the training of the dra- jmatic instinct. As soon as it becomes stereotyped, J the spontaneity and enthusiasm which are its very life are lost. But there are certain fun- damental principles which, once mastered, will enable the teacher and settlement worker to devise and apply wisely methods of his own. These principles may be stated as follows: — 1. The school training of the dramatic instinct differs in toto from professional training. 2. The form of gratification of the dramatic , instinct must be suited to the individual need. 3. The material at hand must be sifted. 4. The practical value of the so-called unprac- tical must be recognized. 5. The training must be continuous, not spasmodic. 6. It must arouse and deepen the sense of moral values. f Let us see exactly what these principles mean. /First, the aim of professional training is to per- ) feet an art, that of the school, club, or settlement; j to develop the individual. The one strives for J the finished product; for the other the product ^ is secondary, almost negligible. The effort is, or 218 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS should be, to give new concepts and ideals; to free the imagination; to touch the feelings; to awaken eyes and ears to beauty; to cause the child to reahze and express his individuality. When in his games, dancing, and acting he is coerced rather than guided; when dramatic talent rather than sensitiveness to dramatic appeal is encouraged ; when excitement takes the place of wholesome stimulation, the relation of dramatic work to education has been misunder- stood. The second principle makes an enormous de- mand upon the time and sympathies of the teacher, no less than that he shall know his pupils in their homes and the probable influence of their environment as well as their individual tempera- ments, the conditions of the factories and sweat- shops in which those reached by the settlement are earning their living. Thus only can the teacher determine if they need active stimulus or passive gratification. It is a continuation of some of the admirable methods of the kinder- garten, carried into higher grades. Furthermore there must be discrimination in the kind of grati- fication offered to groups. Incidents scattered through the foregoing chapters illustrate these points. For the young people and children for 219 s. DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION whom Miss Herts labored, the play was un- doubtedly the best; it brightened the existence and enlivened the minds of workers who spent long days at sewing-machines, counters, or benches, and gave to boys and girls, used only to the sordid and unlovely sights of street and tenement, a store of beautiful thoughts and scenes , on which imagination might safely build. By V actively taking part in performances, girls not V fitted for the professional stage were guided u through the "stage-struck" period, and boys had an opportunity of venting their "street- < gang" spirit and gratifying their love of admira- *♦ tion, by playing daring parts to audiences far ^ outnumbering their usual neighborhood follow- ^ ing. Or story-telling may be best, if children have enough visual background for it; or folk- dancing for girls who lead a sedentary life and need a physical stimulus, in which they may satisfy also the social instinct and gratify the sensuous side of their nature by rhythmic move- ment. For those whose horizons are narrow the moving picture is admirable. All children devise some form of play; but the plays and games super- vised by the school or club-leader offer the best means for developing a reverence for law and order and awakening a response to social and 220 i SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS moral demands. The pageant appeals to a large group whether in community or school, serving the same purpose as the play, but having more intimate local or national interest. Third, even within those subjects that lend themselves most readily to dramatization, some material is unfit. Not all stories or historic happenings are suited to the purpose. Common sense, judgment, and a strong regard for the moral elevation of the child will be our best guides here. Fourth, our whole educational system has been tending of late more and more to fit the young to earn a good living, to recognize good sanitation, to judge good food, to prepare good meals, and to make good clothes. All this does not train boys and girls to be good citizens. The % juvenile courts are showing the faults in a sys- tem that "pins its faith to what may be tabu- lated and scaled." The emotional nature, the longing for self-expression, are neither satisfied ^>^ nor directed. It is difficult for the city school to w-^^ keep pace with social changes. Formerly the * home environment, especially in country dis- tricts, furnished a diversity of occupations which stimulated the imagination and developed the cultural side. Close family relations seem to be 221 DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION passing away. However much we may regret it, many of the functions which once belonged to the home have been transferred to the school, which must accept its added responsibilities. But the few ''unpractical cultural studies" that might replace the old sources of inspiration are now either discarded or grudgingly allowed an obscure place in the curriculum. They need to be restored, that we may ground well the char- racter of the child, soften his nature, energize him to noble ends. For this purpose nothing is better than a study of noble drama. *' Everyxij:^ J ias the criminals it deserves ." Schools and settle- ments must see to it that the number be lessened. Fifth, that the training of the dramatic in- stinct be continuous requires a different appeal at each stage of development. The ''play-act- ing" that delights the child would be torture to the self-conscious age. Here comes in appro- priately training in criticism and technique, where the gratification will be passive, but no time will be lost by the diversion of interest. Sixth, children may acquire bodily grace; they may gain on the mental side through concentra- tion and exercise of memory; they may be in- structed, entertained, and inspired to express themselves — even to turn their expressiveness 222 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS to creative ends; they may be stirred and quick- ened emotionally; yet, if they have not acquired a sense of values, of proportion, much of the train- ing goes for naught. They must learn to distin- guish what is trifling from what is of real worth; that *' looks are not what count"; that virtue may coexist either with wealth or rank or with the humblest conditions of life; and that these are of value only in so far as they are a power for doing good; that even a desirable thing may be bought at too great a price. Only when it gives some understanding of the difference be- tween what is fundamental and essential and the merely superficial, external, and accidental, will the training come fully to its own. The value of dramatization as a tool of peda- gogy rests on its power of holding the pupiFs interest and attention without his voluntary or conscious effort. It conserves energy. But it must be sparingly used. It is a grave mistake to try to correlate dramatics with every subject. Learning must not be made too easy, to the weakening of the mental fiber. The close applica- tion and concentration demanded by the I n im>^ ^ ^r^ 1^^ a. AP R a 1942 64W ^^'dXd APR 12 ' ^ S^ \J , V 0EC ^ 2-63 - 4PM REC'D LD JUN 1 nrn 13 1945 ^.2^r^^5 ' ^^^ 2 i;j^ ^94fr A5Jul'50M ttOV 1 6 195S to YB DUbJ y -r9 30' 3 AA/^,t ^"^^^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY