BOOKS BY S. S. CURRY, Ph.D., Litt.D. More than any man of recent years, Dr. Curry has represented sane and scientific methods in training the Speaking Voice. Dr. Shailer Mathews, University of Chicago. Of eminent value. Dr. Lyman Abbott. Books so much needed by the world and which will not be written unless you write them. Rev. C. H. Strong, Rector St. John's Church, Savannah. Foundations Of Expression. A psychological method of developing reading and speaking. 236 practical problems. 411 choice passages adapted to classes in reading and speaking. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. LeSSOns in Vocal Expression. The expressive modulations of the voice developed by studying and training the voice and mind in relation to each other. Definite problems and progressive steps. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. Imagination and Dramatic Instinct. Function of imagination ---^ --__. and assimilation in the vocal interpretation of literature and speaking. $1.50; to teachers, $1.20, postpaid. Mind and Voice. Principles and Methods in Vocal Training. 456 pp. ' $1.50; to teachers, $1.20 postpaid. Browning and the Dramatic Monologue. Nature and pecu- ^ _______ __, liarities of Brown- ing's poetry. Principles involved in rendering the monologue. Introduction to Browning, and to dramatic platform art. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. Province Of Expression. Principles and Methods of developing de- _ livery. An introduction to the study of natural languages, and their relation to art and development. $1.50; to teachers $1.20, postpaid. Vocal and Literary Interpretation of the Bible, introduc- n tion by Prof. Francis G. Peabody, D. D., of Harvard University. $1.50; students' edition, $0.60, postpaid. Classics for Vocal Expression. Gems from the best authors for - voice and interpretation. In use in the foremost schools and colleges. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. Spoken English. A psychological method of developing reading, con- _ 2 versation and speaking. A book for junior students or teachers. 320 pages. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. Little Classics for Oral English. Companion to Spoken Eng- - hsh. Introductory questions and topics. May be used with Spoken English or separately. Questions and topics pages. The Smile. Introduction to action through an example. $1.00. To mem- - bers of The Morning League, $0.75, postpaid. HOW tO Add Ten Years tO Your Life. Nature of training with ,____________________.____-_- short, practical program. $1.00. To members of The Morning League, $0.75, postpaid. Write to Dr. Curry about the Morning League; Summer Terms; Home Studies; School of Expression; new books, or for advice regarding your life work. Address: Book Department, School of Expression, 308 Pierce Bldg., Copley Square, Boston, Mass. . topics correspond. Fresh and beautiful selections from best authors. 384 pages. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. THE SMILE IF YOU CAN DO NOTHING ELSE YOU CAN SMILE BY S. S. CURRY Smile awhile, And while you smile, Another smiles, And soon there's miles And miles of smiles, And life's worth while Because you smile. Author not known to me. SCHOOL OF EXPRESSION Book Department, Copley Square BOSTON C1 Copyright by S. S. CURRY 1915 * s To Those Who By Loyal Thought, Word or Deed Have Founded The School of Expression. One lifted a stone from my rocky road, * One carried awhile my heavy load, One lifted his candle when all was dark, One heard the song of the morning lark; A look, and I knew a brother was near, Only a smile, but it banished my fear. Ah ! little you thought of the help you gave But the little you did was mighty to save! Also to Those Who By Look, Smile or in any Way Will Aid In Giving to the School a Permanent Home. rt ? ft O CONTENTS Page Foreword ;....; 5 I. Our First Expression 9 II. Qualities of Expression 24 III. The Expressive Process 32 IV. Smile or Scowl 35 V. Smile or Frown 40 VI. Sign or Symbol 47 VII. Man's Elemental Languages 50 VIII. Does a Smile Represent or Manifest? ... 57 IX. Gesture, Position or Bearing 62 X. The Smile and Beauty . 72 XL Can the Smile Be Developed? 77 XII. Modes of Improving the Smile 90 XIII. The Smile as an Educational Aid .... 107 XIV. Negative or Positive? 115 XV. The Smile and Health 118 XVI. Ethics of Amusement 122 XVII. The Smile and Success 135 XVIII. Higher Functions and Influences .... 138 A Personal Afterword , 146 FOREWORD Most people, even orators and actors, have peculiar conceptions, not to say misconceptions, of action as a language. One proof of this is found in the fact that the word " gesture," which names the least important of all phases of action, is the common name ap- plied by most people to all the expressive move- ments, attitudes and bearings of the body. The ordinary person has about as clear an im- pression of what pantomimic expression means as the little girl who was asked to define the word " chivalry " and said it was what she felt when she was cold. To me action is man's first language and the one primarily concerned in the revelation of character. Action, however, is a subject as diffi- cult to discuss as it is to understand. It can never be explained and taught as other subjects. John Stuart Mill said that one who knows but a single language is apt to take words for things. This principle applies more to the primary modes of man's expression, words, tones and action as different languages, than to Italian and French. If to think an idea in French as well as English frees a man from confusing an idea with its sym- bol and gives him a better understanding of truth, how much more will ability to realize the func- tion of voice modulations and of the action of the body lead to a more adequate realization? Action as a language is more distinct in function and eF" <: FORE WORD meaning from words than English is from French, or French is from German. To be able to think the language of action prevents taking a mere word or symbol of an idea as a complete expres- sion. If this be true, to understand pantomime is one of the important phases of education. Ac- tion, however, is totally neglected at the present time. One reason for this neglect is the difficulty of understanding the subject or of even realizing its point of view. It has been so long regarded as of no importance, as only a kind of decorative adjunct without meaning, that it is difficult to awaken people to think in action, or to recognize it as having a great function in the revelation of human experience. A realization of our action is necessarily a realization of the motives of our lives. It helps us to understand our fellow-men and to enter into sympathetic touch with them. Not without reason does action usually have dramatic as the qualify- ing adjective. In this little book I have endeavored to talk simply with the reader on something that has always been a necessary part of himself, some- thing that he must practise every hour, not to say every moment of his life, something we all prac- tise, most of us thoughtlessly, even chaotically. Some readers may object to the disconnected character of the book, but right or wrong, the in- tention has been to drop only a hint here and there. The subject is too large for exhaustive treatment. The peculiar nature of the subject also prevents its adequate treatment in words. A mere intimation to stimulate observation of self and others seems almost the only method of dis- cussing it. What is said in the book is less im- FOREWORD portant than what it aims to lead the reader to find for himself. Verbal explanations of art must be given out- side of its temple. Everyone one must go alone into the sacred threshold and catch a vision for himself. A teacher can only inspire and awaken expectations and point out the door. Criticisms of poetry are only valuable when on the poetic plane. Explanations of pictures or statues or music are helpful only when they indicate points of view. In the same way action as a language is so dis- tinct from words that it can never be explained by mere writing. Has there ever been a phrase so pointed, so fine, as to translate a smile? One reason why action is such an important ^ element in education is the fact that it gives the human mind such a different point of view. If we can understand the differences between our own primary languages, words, tones and action, we are prepared in almost the only way possible to appreciate the fact that every art is a language, a peculiar language which can never be translated into any other art. If an art does not say some- thing that no other art can say it is not an art at all. A man of culture is a man who can read all of the artistic languages of his race. The reader may console himself that the book is not more broken. In writing it I tried to intro- duce certain hints that would spontaneously cause a smile in order that the reader might have an example involuntarily awakened for his observa- tion. A friend of mine who looked over the copy protested that these humorous attempts were undignified so I have made many modifica- tions. FOREWORD Seriously, the real continuity and theme of the book must be felt through observation of life. One of my friends wrote regarding my " Brown- ing and the Dramatic Monologue " : " Here is another book by Curry, explaining the obvious." If to him " Browning " was as obvious as Mother Goose, what will he say if he happens to look through this? He will no doubt be reminded of Ben King's poem "Nothing to breathe but air, Quick as a flash 'tis gone; Nowhere to fall but off, Nowhere to stand but on." One of Ben King's most intimate friends, who was with him when he wrote this said to him, " It is too silly to be anything but ridiculous." Still, how many thousands have read the poem with delight. If the reader will not reject the book but begin a closer observation of self and others, perhaps he may catch a hint of something he has not thought of before, and may find a key to some of the pe- culiar movements in our time, and to a better understanding of himself. At any rate, it is an honest endeavor to furnish a key to self-study, self-control, and a help to a truer realization of the point of view of other peo- ple. These are most important factors in success. Moreover it is written to aid an undertaking, which to the writer is important. If, perchance, the fact that it is a gift to an institution be of in- terest to the reader he is asked not to skip the afterword. THE SMILE OUR FIRST EXPRESSION "Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. " Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands; For man is man and master of his fate." From " Geraint and Enid " Tennyson. A Black Forest tradition considers it a good omen if both father and mother are present when their child first smiles. According to Delsarte, a smile is the first conscious expression of a human being. Some close observers tell us that the smile is also the last expression that is left upon the human countenance. Who has not heard, a few hours after death, someone remark, " How pleasant the face looks!" Even when death has been painful, after a few hours the contortions disappear, and the most important element of the smile is seen about the outer corners of the eyes. After about twenty- four hours the muscles begin * lose their activity, but the last expressive attitude to vanish is the primary element of a smile. 9 10 THESMILE So the first conscious awakening and the last good-bye of the spirit are expressed by a smile. The smile is the acceptance of life. It is a coming into sympathetic touch with others, the first thanksgiving for service rendered, the first recognition by the little child of the love of its mother. It marks the awakening of the inner life, the first conscious joy. A man smiles when he discovers that power is inborn, when he comes to know that he has been weak because he looked for power outside of himself. The smile is embodied in the highest poetry of the race. All myths of morning embody the smile, Daphne, the rosy-fingered Aurora, and Athena born from a stroke of fire on the forehead of the sky all reflect the smile. In the best Greek art, the smile, kind and sincere, almost unseen, is held by all as the deepest expression of the Greek idea of Deity. Primitive peoples, living near the heart of nature, have always felt that the smile has great significance. In the centre of New England is a great lake containing over three hundred islands. The Indians looked down upon it from the Red Hill or from the height of Ossippee and called it Winne- pesaukee, the " smile of the Great Spirit." Happy were those Indians who caught the first expression of the Infinite and Eternal Goodness, an expres- sion of which Plato caught a glimpse, the expres- sion which all good and great men have felt as they looked upon the beautiful face of the earth and sky. It is but a hint of the Infinite and Eternal goodness of which the universe is the celebra- tion. OUR FIRST EXPRESSION 11 Why in our day is the smile rarely if ever con- sidered seriously? Why is it regarded as a mere accident? Is it not because all modes of expression are neglected except words? Since printing was invented, written words have been worshipped as about the only lan- guage at least verbal expression is in general the only language seriously studied, and in our day, even this is usually studied as a mere con- vention as an objective, mechanical thing. To the modern scholar, a smile has no meaning at all it is only a vague indefinite sign of physical feeling. Again and again it has been said by reformers that all education is the development of char- acter. To the ancients, especially the Romans, the development of oratory was one of the highest phases of education, and Cicero has said, " Oratory is a good man speaking well." Darwin made a study of expression because the actions or elements of the smile seemed to con- flict with his hypothesis. His studies of expres- sion, however, were confined to animals rather than to men. His observations regarding human expression were endeavors to identify them with animal movements. His attention was always fixed, consciously or unconsciously, on his theory of natural selection. Expression is a necessary part of us. Asleep or awake we are always revealing the deep secrets of our motives and lives. Expression is the evidence to us of the very faculties of our being. To improve the smile, one must improve the disposition and deepen one's sympathy with 12 THESMILE his fellow-men. It is the character of man that makes the smile, and the man himself must be improved to improve it. However, there are cer- tain things which can be done to the smile directly. There is, so to speak, technical training for the smile. A lawyer recognizes the fact that he must know every phase of the law thoroughly, but he rarely thinks of his own voice and body, the tools he must use in pleading every case. The queen of society gives great care to every detail of dress and to her complexion, but rarely gives a thought to her voice, and often leaves it blotched worse than ink could spot her cheek. Even the minister regards his voice and body as of little importance compared with a knowledge of Arabic or Egyptology. Here are the instinctive languages born with us all. Why do we despise th^m? Here is a mirror in which all may behold the very heart of man, yet how few ever think of it! In a university, the Department of Astronomy is usually the best endowed. Is this because it is easier to secure money for the study of something that is at a great distance from us? Why are we interested in what is far away? Why does the past always look brighter than the present? Why do some people think that all good things lie only in the future or far away? Why is Heaven, by many, located in the remotest nook of the uni- verse? Seemingly, man is more interested in every- thing else than he is in himself. The use of a child's own face, or body or even speech is about the last thing we think of in its education. OUR FIRST EXPRESSION 13 People recognize the necessity of these simple acts of expression, but they feel the necessity only through a kind of instinct. When they try to understand these things by reasoning, how rarely do they show any results of true observa- tion any real grasp of the simplest facts of nature. O ye, who seek so earnestly to help your fellow- men and seem to feel that your efforts are failures, look nearer home for the cause. O ye, who long with a noble yearning to please others, to meet your fellow-men and women and to contribute to their happiness, why ask some- one, saying, " Look me over. Am I all right? " That is well, but why stop there? Why not study those deep emotions and their outward motions, those conditions and modes of being and those modulations of voice and actions of body which express them? Why neglect those lan- guages that speak louder and more continuously, and that make a stronger and deeper impression than your dress, your hair, or your skin? Why not study the qualities of the voice and speech that are not external and artificial, but simple and true? Why not eliminate awkwardness from your walk, as well as from your dancing, and the con- strictions and affectations from your face and body? Why not study the most simple and most characteristic actions of the human being? In endeavoring to understand something of the primary nature of human expression, let us begin with a simple example. Without an example, you may explain, argue and theorize, and though the listener may say that he understands you, he will make a remark which shows he totally mis- 14 THESMILE understands your point. An example is especially necessary in any subject which is not understood. Although expression is natural to us all, it is some- thing that is little understood. Possibly no subject in the world is so frequently misunderstood as man's own simplest modes of expression, such as the mobility of his face, the simplest movements of his body their nature, their cause and importance in the development of his character. And what is the best example? From whatever point of view we study it, the smile seems to be the simplest and best specimen for our observation. It is not only first, it is com- mon to the human race. Every human being smiles and is pleased to meet a smile. The smile is distinctive of the human being. The horse and cow, it is true, can show their pleasure to a limited extent. The cat and more particularly the dog can use the tail as a means of expression. But only man can smile. If a man could be found who had never smiled, he certainly would be a curiosity. As an example, therefore, the smile is universal and open to everyone for observation, in all of its many varieties. May we not, reader, you and I together, study some of the means other than words by which human beings come to understand each other? " In each is all." Every true observer has been led to recognize that there is a mysterious relation- ship everywhere. There is a oneness pervading all objects all life. It is this unity, possibly, which has caused man to invent the word " universe." We find this co-operation present in exact OUR FIRST EXPRESSION 15 proportion to the presence of life. The higher any organism, the greater the unity the higher the race of beings, the more it seems akin to everything else. Everywhere we seem to find a few basic prin- ciples which are universal. Accordingly, a true example enables us to look into the very heart of a subject. How quickly does it clear up confusion and help one to see what before was hard to understand ! Tennyson's shortest poem, which is possibly his greatest and most significant illustrates this law. " Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies; Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower; but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is." Some scientists try to find the elements of an incipient smile in the monkey; I myself have watched a monkey alone for a long time and tried in every way to discover some faint trace of a smile. Either I was blind or I totally misunder- stood the animal's grimaces. This monkey was un- usually intelligent. He had been trained to open a box. This box was given to a university pres- ident to open and it took him thirty minutes; it took the monkey only five minutes ; so its trainers boasted that this monkey could outdo a college president. Accordingly I went in with great expectations. I was alone with the monkey. He regarded me with curiosity. I tried every trick and cut up all kinds of " monkey shines." I think my perform- ance would have " made a horse laugh," but that 16 THESMILE monkey sat up there and many " a ghastly wink he wunk " but not " a sickly smile he smole." Hence, I can see no reason for doubting the old Greek definition of man, as " the animal that laughs." The question, however, whether animals can smile, has nothing to do with the present dis- cussion. The theme before us is the smile of the human being, its nature and importance, its uses in human life, how we can improve it, or how we can use it as a means of improving ourselves. One other question, it will be noticed, will be carefully avoided. Namely, the cause of the smile. Some of the most serious books in the language, some of the driest, some that never can awaken a smile, have been devoted to the question, " What is the cause of laughter? " Books discussing wit and humor are notoriously lacking in that which is discussed. They bring yawns but who ever heard of one awakening a smile unless it be one of derision? They certainly do not teach by example. Several objectors rise as a matter of course. " The smile," says one, " is the most affected action of a human being. As long as the smile is unconscious, involuntary, it is all right but as soon as one thinks about it, or studies it, it be- comes artificial and affected." " Observe the smile of many men in business. It is affected, it never changes, it is the same for everybody." " Observe many society people ; they have a smile which they put on when they go out to call and a special Sunday face that they wear to church. Many teachers have a professional smile. Speakers, lecturers and even actors wear OUR FIRST EXPRESSION 17 a certain smile as a conventional part of their make-up." All this is very true, and much more might be said. The finest things, however, those that are most natural, most beautiful, have been most per- verted, and the very fact that the perversion of the smile is one of the worst things in human expres- sion, only proves its importance. The fact that the smile must be spontaneous and free, that it cannot be affected nor arranged by rule nor adjusted by imitation, is true of all modes of natural expression. In these very objections is found the typical character of the smile and the necessity that its nature and qualities should be observed. The fact that we can get at it only indirectly, for the most part, brings up one of the greatest problems in human education. Perhaps we might learn from a study of the smile certain great lessons in human development which are often overlooked. It is not true that the smile is superficial. It reveals most definitely and adequately the attitude of a human being. The greater the man, the greater and more wonderful his smile. The deeper, the broader the human sympathy, the more it is shown by the human countenance. Another objector speaks up and says, "The smile is vague and indefinite. You can smile a thousand different ways ; not one of them has any distinct meaning." It will be granted that there are innumerable smiles, the sarcastic smile, the sneering smile, the incredulous smile, the approving smile, the critical smile; but the meaning of the smile is not vague or accidental. 18 THESMILE Everyone can at once recognize the difference between a sarcastic smile and a genuine smile; between the smile of love and the smile of hate; the smile of incredulity and the smile of confi- dence; the patronizing smile and the affected smile ; and a hundred other species. Under them all, human instinct recognizes a normal smile and measures others by this ideal. The very perver- sion of the smile depends for its meaning upon a universal conception of a true smile. There is, a normal smile and we know it as we know that truth is truth. Some critics say we do not know a truth when we meet it, but we do know a truth as we know light from darkness. Among the innumerable perversions of beauty, love, and truth it is aston- ishing how universal is the fundamental concep- tion of right and beauty, and this is still more true of the realization of the fundamental smile, a smile that really is unperverted, uncontaminated by any mixture, a smile that expresses joy and love. The smile of everyone in the universe is dif- ferent from that of everyone else, and yet all have the same fundamental, distinctive elements in common, and everyone recognizes a true smile and its meaning. " Oh," you say, " the smile is such a small, such an insignificant thing." It may be small but it is not insignificant. What do you mean by significance? The word comes from " sign." A thing is significant in proportion as it stands for something beyond itself, as it suggests some meaning. Significance is almost synonymous with ex- pression. A word, an action, or a voice modulation is expressive in proportion as it is significant. An OUR FIRST EXPRESSION 19 act is expressive in proportion as it signifies some- thing. There can be no worse mistake than making the word " insignificant " synonymous with " small," or confusing significance with bigness. A turn of the palm upward may mean heaven; a turn of it downward may mean the other place. The simplest expansion of the body may mean courage; the shrinking of the chest may mean surrender. ' The Kingdom of God cometh not with observa- tion." No great art work, no great truth, no great deed comes with show. The real significant things are all small. It is the big things, the showy things that are insignificant. One man went up to the top of a hill to pray for rain and another went up to eat and drink. It is of very little consequence, you say, that one man went up to dinner and the other went up to pray, but all their lives Elijah and Ahab were doing these two things. In all history the smallest act, that which seemed to most people the least significant, has caused a great war or ended one or prevented one. A statesman's word to the ambassador of a foreign country, " Among friends there is no last word," may or may not have prevented a war, but in the history of the race, such kindly remarks, simple as they may seem, have warded off the greatest catastrophes. The mistake of considering little things as unimportant is close to the universal mistake re- garding the lack of importance of the simpler acts of expression in general. " We are too apt to assume," says Ex-President Taft, " that manners are nothing but the surface of life, that they really 20 THESMILE don't enter into what constitutes the real things of existence. In this we make a profound error. We forget that life is not made up of great crises, and that the sterner virtues are not constantly called into operation. Home life is not full of grand- stand plays. The happiness of those with whom we have to do is very seldom affected by events of capital importance. Our day-to-day pursuit of happiness is colored and influenced and crowned by the little things, by the smaller amenities or the absence of them in dealing with our fellow- beings." What is it that makes significance? The pri- mary question is whether an act is accidental or fundamental. Fundamentals are few, while ac- cidental things are practically innumerable. The hand became such from the necessity of executing a few primary movements, yet it can perform a thousand actions of secondary impor- tance. There are a few movements of the foot which are fundamental and necessary to expression, yet a man can move his feet in a thousand ways which have no real significance. The human head can roll around in a great num- ber of ways, yet very few of these movements have necessary significance; but when they are under his control, then the man has power. Therefore a few fundamental actions are the basis of all bodily expression. If these are right the innumerable accidental or secondary actions will be right. If the elementals are wrong or weak the accidentals will necessarily be perverted. The true method of improving ex- pression depends upon an understanding of these elemental actions and their development. OUR FIRST EXPRESSION 21 An expansion of the torso when properly co- ordinated with certain contractions of the balls of the feet, is a part of the expression of uprightness. This is a fundamental characteristic of man. " Man," said Sir William Turner, " is the only animal with a vertical spine." If this is true, then the counterpoise curves of the spine must be of fundamental importance. A great many gymnastic exercises, instead of developing these curves, actually destroy them. Games throw the man into a thousand different attitudes. He may work for years to master some- thing that is merely accidental to human nature, some exhibitional feat which actually destroys the grace of his movements and may even tend to shorten his life. On the other hand, he who studies the few fundamental normal actions of the human body and develops them will not only secure grace and power of expression, but may add years to his life. When a man's courage wakens, when he be- comes conscious that he is really an expression of infinite life, his body straightens in obedience to the active will. Then the smile follows as the ultimate expression of dignity, power and self- control. The smile, simple as it is,^ is a fundamental human expression, revealing a person's motives and his attitude toward life. Let no man, therefore, sneer at the smile be- cause it is apparently commonplace and seemingly insignificant. A smile indicates the incipient loss of faith in extravagance and mere feats of exhibition. When we begin to see things in their proper perspective, when we begin to recognize ourselves as we really 22 THESMILE are, and come into truer relations with our fellow- men, we instinctively greet the new revelation with a welcoming smile. We learn to recognize the really good man by the character of his smile. Look into the face of a great man. The greater the man, the deeper his smile; the more it has of the simplicity of the little child, the more it is filled / with something of its primitive meaning. VA true, genuine smile seems to flow all over the face. When Phillips Brooks smiled, his countenance seemed transfigured. A newspaper reporter once wrote of him: "Phillips Brooks passed through Pie Alley to-day and the place was bathed in sun- shine for half an hour." In the smile of Professor Charles Eliot Norton was a sort of scintillation a number of scintilla- tions a general undulation that quickly ran all over his forehead and the place where there had once been hair, back into where there was hair, and was lost like jolly young children scampering into a wood. I saw Gladstone's smile but once, and that from the gallery of the House of Commons ; but even the memory of it comes with something of the effect of an electric current. And who would dare undertake to express the smile of Emerson or the benignant Jove-like beam on the face of Bronson Alcott? Greatness has always seemed most great in the smile, but if one would understand the smile, and realize anything of its expressive power, he must observe it in all classes of men. There are smiles that are never doubted by a man's fellow-beings. Let us, then, study the smile to find something of the general characteristics and importance of OUR FIRST EXPRESSION 23 human expression, its primary laws, its value in revealing the spirit of human art and the nature of the process of developing character, its intimation of the meaning of the universe and the ultimate destiny of life. n QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION V The smile as a simple and elementary expres- sion embodies certain characteristics which be- long to all expression, from the most childlike recital to the most finished oration, from the sim- plest song to the sublimest epic, from the simplest illustration to the most exalted painting, from the humblest memorial to the grandest monument. Therefore as a human act which is easily stud- ied, it enables a careful student to observe the nature and character of the universal laws of all expression and all art. The study of the smile will show us, for one thing, that expression is not intrinsically a physical thing, that it transcends the merely physical. There is no such thing as " physical expression." Expression is a revelation of mind dominating the body revealing itself through the body as a medium. Expression has aptly been called " the motion . of emotion." Purely volitional movements are \ not necessarily expressive. Our word " emotion " is so named because it gives rise to motion. As a consequence of its mental character, the smile acts from within outward. The least ob- servation shows us the general application of this fact. A universal fact has been called a law. Accordingly this is a general law of all natural expression. 24 QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION 25 The flower blooms from within. The leaves of the tree are the " outerance," or (as we contract the word) utterance or expression of life emanating from the root. The bird sings from a full heart and the kitten plays because of an exuberance of life. Whatever is natural acts from an inner fullness and inner depth of life. The general term for this law is " spontaneity." The animal moves from within a machine is actuated from without. A human being is a wonderful co-ordination of spontaneous and deliberative elements. The deliberatives are greatly overestimated, the use of them makes a man a machine, and again, a man is mechanical in proportion to his suppression of the spontaneous and the exaggeration of the deliberative elements. On the other hand, a man is impulsive and chaotic when he suppresses the deliberative and re- lies entirely upon the spontaneous. A perfect man must have both elements in sympathetic union. In an endeavor to develop expression I have come upon what to me has been a most important principle. We can direct our attention to funda- mental acts making them more deliberative and conscious, thus increasing their vigor and intensity, and in this way we indirectly stimulate the sponta- neous elements. The fundamental elements seem to be intended to be deliberative and volun- tary and conscious. The secondary elements are necessarily more spontaneous. In this way we can bring into co-ordination all the spontaneous and deliberative elements in human nature. This prevents the man from being artificial or mechan- ical on the one hand, or chaotically impulsive on the other. 26 THESMILE In all artistic education, or the development of man's appreciation of the best in literature and art, in making a speaker, reader, or artist of any kind we find such co-ordination necessary. There are innumerable or perverted smiles, but close examination soon reveals the fact that the spontaneous co-ordinate elements are absent. The natural man is spontaneous. All external action is the expression of the underlying activities of nature. A smile, like the blooming of a flower or the singing of a bird, should be easy and spontaneous. A deliberative, labored smile is never genuine. The same is true of all expression. Exaggeration of the analytic and scientific at the expense of natural feeling and creative endeavor, is to-day common in nearly every class of educa- tional institution. In fact, every modern repres- sive method in education, being necessarily cold, critical and dry, tends toward the production of mere machines. What can be less edifying than a deliberate, mechanical smile? Nowhere are affectation and mere mechanical manipulation more displeasing. We encounter all these unpleasant facts in the study oMaughter. A genuine smile is always spontaneous. It is something that comes to us. The affected, delib- erate, hypocritical smile all faulty smiles which are usually shown by their one-sidedness, violate this law. They do not come from within outward. It is difficult to smile deliberatively. We permit ourselves to do so. Have we then no control over our smiles? On the contrary we can cultivate an attitude of mind that will bring a smile. We can take the point of QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION 27 view, in looking at any subject, that will awaken a smile. Even in the darkest hour we can often look at things and see the bright side of the situation and smile in the face of the worst difficulties. Again the genuine smile is simple. By " sim- plicity " is meant the directness between cause and effect. Nature has no effect which is exaggerated beyond its cause. The same is true of the genuine smile. Much laughter, as will be shown later, is either forced or permitted to explode too quickly. The fruit is plucked before it is ripe. The smile should ever support and transcend the laugh. This law of simplicity is also universal, not only obtaining in all nature, but governing all true art. The simpler language is, the more it expresses. The simpler the writer, the simpler the artist, the greater is the degree of his manifestation. In fact, Professor Norton once said to me, " You can count on your fingers the poets and artists of the race who have been able to be simple." Such are Homer and Phidias. From .flSschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the three great trage- dians, we can imagine one who could be as simple as Homer. Virgil must be reckoned in our list because he was able to be so simple in the realm of beauty. We must also include Dante. From Raphael, Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci we must imagine one as we did from the three leading Greek tragedians. We must recognize them though no one of them could be so simple as Dante or Phidias. We must add Cervantes and Shakespeare. All other poets and artists stand upon a lower level. Professor Norton's words made a deep impres- 28 THESMILE sion upon me. The very simplest and most elemental acts of men are always most expres- sive. Another law of expression is repose. Repose is not mere stability; certainly not inactivity; it is not a lack of power, but a reserve and control of power. True repose is seen in the eagle on the wing, not in the over-fed pig asleep in its sty. It means activity at the centre, not at the surface. It means possibility of movement and action, a suggestion of what may be done, rather than a direct and immediate demonstration. The sense of possi- bility transcends the sense of actuality. Repose is found in proportion as the attitude transcends the emotion, and the bearing trans- cends the attitude. Laughter, or a mere sudden jerk of the countenance, does not suggest repose; but when there is a deep diffusion of feeling all over the face and body, when we feel that life is kindled within, then we have a sense of power and a smile is its expression. The smile should be untrammeled. Constric- tions of the face may hinder, selfish emotions may localize and pervert it, but the smile when sincere, flows all over the face, and in fact all over the body. If the impression which causes the smile is deep enough, it breaks down all barriers, penetrates all the hidden organs of the body and stimulates every part. Again, a smile shows itself to be a true act of expression in the fact that there are many simulta- neous elements in harmony. The true smile is not local. A mere local smile at the corner of the mouth is a grin. A genuine smile is indicated by certain little wrinkles at the outer corner of the eye QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION 29 especially of the lower eyelid, and by the diffusion of life all over the countenance. In fact, if we examine the fundamental character of a smile, we find it possesses a variety of parts simultaneously correlated in a certain unity. Usually the term co-ordination refers to a great many elements brought into play by one impulse a great many parts moving simultaneously and spontaneously from an inward cause. Every true expression, therefore, is dependent upon the co- ordination of many elements. True expression, like life, depends upon a certain organic unity. In fact this is the test to apply to the genuineness not only of the smile, but of any expression. A mere local movement is meaningless, artificial and mechanical. Only those expressions which are the outward sign of the inward fullness of life within are free and spontaneous. The whole secret of developing expression, according to the methods which have been adopted at the School of Expression, is the discovery of fundamental actions, conditions and elements which are not accidental or superficial, but central, those which are distinctive of any agent or any function; and also the primary mental actions which cause these and which can be so accentuated that a great variety of elements are brought into higher unity and efficiency. The exercise of what is accidental secures only weak and inadequate, mechanical and artificial results. The stimulation, development and exercise of the fundamental brings power and naturalness, makes the man more a man and gives him con- trol of the very fountain head of expression. The study of the smile not only reveals co- 30 THESMILE ordinations of all parts of the face, but we dis- cover deeper co-ordinations in every part of the body. Emotion causes a diffusion of activity to the most vital parts of man's organism, and brings many parts into spontaneous and simultaneous activity. As has been said, there is a union of the delib- erative and the spontaneous. In fact, the sponta- neous is always present in all natural expression. In all true art the spontaneous is always in the ascendancy. While we can control the deliberative elements only by directing our will, not to accidental but to fundamental elements, the spontaneous elements are awakened indirectly. When the deliberative is directed to the acciden- tal, or the external, all is weakness and super- ficiality. And yet, in all true expression and art it is necessary to arouse the spontaneous elements. They can be awakened by directing the delib- erative attention to the few fundamental actions upon which all expression depends. Let us go deeper. A study of laughter shows that thinking and feeling are co-ordinate. A smile may be controlled, regulated, guided and reserved, and at the same time, be easy, sponta- neous and free. In an uncultured person, as will be shown later, mirth breaks out in a sudden guffaw and roar of laughter. The smile indicates a deep, harmonious union and balance of thought and feeling. The man is feeling what he thinks and thinking what he feels. This balance of the primary elements of human nature causes the countenance and whole body to unfold like a flower. It makes QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION 31 the smile gradual and gives dignity to the entire body. Here we find one of the points in favor of the importance of expression in education. Expres- sion reveals not the degree of information of the human mind, but the attitude of soul, the co- ordination of the primary elements of man's being. One-sided expressions will always show lack of co-ordination and unity in being. Expression will show whether one is able to command the right union of his different powers and faculties, and who will deny that these are primary elements in the development of human character? m THE EXPRESSIVE PROCESS The study of the smile reveals not only the qualities, but the very processes of expression. How should we produce tone? As easily as we smile. In the deepest processes of expression, think of the way you smile the ease, simplicity, direct- ness and spontaneity. In the same way the singer should produce his tone and the speaker use his voice. Tones become harsh, nasal, throaty, flat and unpleasant because of constrictions in the throat during the attempts at sound production. You would not produce a smile in the same way, nor could you. After a study of the co-ordinate laws of nature, the discovery of fundamental elements and the training of these, the tone will flow as easily as the smile and will share the life of the soul as does the countenance. The same applies to all vocal expression. If we concentrate our attention and allow the sponta- neous energies of thinking and feeling to dominate conversation or reading, then inflection, change of pitch, tone-color and movement will begin to manifest life, tenderness and sympathy. They will reveal our inmost imaginings and truly inter- pret our deepest experiences. Again, in observing the characteristics of the smile, we find in it the basis of the laws of all the arts. 32 THE EXPRESSIVE PROCESS 33 The painter will seek and labor for the true expression, but at the climax the right element seems to come to him; that which gives the true expression to his picture seems almost an accident. It comes, he hardly knows how or when. No true artist paints by rule. If a building lacks unity it is unsatisfactory. If a statue does not seem as simple, as direct, as inevitable an utterance as the smile, it is stiff, rigid and mechanical. There is something wrong with it. A song must be simple. A great poem must come forth with all the spontaneity and natural- ness of the smile. Imagination, in fact all the emotions and higher faculties act spontaneously. True animation is but the response of our sensibilities to thinking. The sharing of all our powers in a simultaneous process is what gives human nature its fullness of life and energy. This unity is a living process of co-ordination and will be found a part of our nature. The struggle to master the mode of expression in any art is necessary, but when the artist has done his best, he gives his highest endeavors to the great creative impulses that spring up in the heart of every individual. We are called. Every human being is called, every human being is equipped and endowed in accordance with the great law of the universe. He that is faithful over a few things will become ruler in many things. He who smiles receives in his soul the fullness of joy and becomes greater than he that overcometh a city. The study of the smile reveals to us that true expression is not primarily physical but mental, 34 THESMILE a process working from within outward sponta- neous, but with a deliberative element, that is, free and not artificial or labored; that it is always a co-ordinate union of many elements which can never be complete without the genuine action of thinking, feeling and imagination, as well as will ; that all faculties are in some degree concerned in every simple and true act of expression. We find this law a universal one. It is a governing principle in every art. A true picture has all the unity of a smile. We must feel in a song the absence of mere mechanical performance. We must feel a certain fullness and emanation of human expression. In performing upon a musical instrument, we must lose the sense of the instrument and feel all the depth of love, joy and human passion. The characteristics or qualities of expression are also the characteristics of all great art. Why do our art schools so rarely study the smile or any action or voice modulation? They merely study drawing. This is important, but observation must be trained. There must be a knowledge of the universal laws of expression in the pupil's own face and body. Why endeavor to secure a knowl- edge of expression by studying the mere objective records found in music, painting and sculpture? If all of us understood more thoroughly the meaning of our simplest movements, men would model, draw and paint better and play better upon the flute and violin. We should sing better and construct better buildings. All the arts are one in principle and are governed by the same laws. IV SMILE OR SCOWL Sometimes we can best see the nature and im- portance of a thing by looking at its opposite. One of the opposites of the smile is the scowl. The contraction of the brow expresses antagonism; the smile, sympathy. The scowl denotes dis- approval and dissatisfaction; the smile, approval and satisfaction. The scowl signifies discontent and annoyance, the smile contentment and enjoy- ment. The scowl implies that we are bored, the smile that we are entertained and amused. The smile imparts thankfulness and receptivity, a welcome to what another is saying; the scowl implies the shut door, that we are not listening, or caring. The smile denotes that we are looking up; the scowl that we are looking down. The smile sug- gests an acceptance of the plans of the universe, a loyalty and welcome to the onward movement of things; the scowl that the universe is all wrong, the scowler antagonistic because he was not con- sulted in its creation. The smile expresses a certain courageous con- fidence in the ultimate triumph of good ; the scowl an unwillingness to accept conditions, and it often shows antagonism of the man to himself. The scowl and the smile are born of spiritual attitude, or of our choice of point of view. Have we no control over our points of view? Can we choose to scowl or smile? This is really 35 36 THESMILE a serious question. Henri Bergson in his book on " Laughter," translated from the French, and James Sully, in his able " Essay on Laughter," and I believe all great authors who have studied the smile, contend that the smile is social rather than moral in its character. Primarily, possibly, the smile is social. It expresses a man's relation to his fellow-men. It is born of the social and sym- pathetic instinct. However, the question as to whether we shall smile or scowl is one of the great tests of human life and human character. If a man is free he can do the one or refuse to do the other. At any moment in life, if the character of the man is great enough, he can smile or frown. Is not this the real problem of the ages brought to a fundamental point where we can see the two paths? Is it not the problem in the depths of every life and soul? Let each one go back carefully in his experiences to some real battlefield of his life. Was there not a crucial moment when he could have smiled or frowned, when he deliberately took his choice? The insult came. The awakened impulse was to meet scowl with scowl. Could we not have obeyed David Crockett's rule and first have been sure we were right before we spoke? We could have risen to a higher plane of confidence, love and sympathy, and even pity, for the man who had misunderstood. We could have seen behind the scowl the real man who would regret his words; to-morrow we could have appealed from Philip drunk to Philip sober. We do not allow ourselves to stop and scowl back at the drunken man's words they are un- noticed. SMILE OR SCOWL 37 A great woman is said to have remarked, " Only a gentleman could insult me, and he will not." Accordingly the voice of the insulter must be unheeded and unheard. By simply smiling you can make yourself im- mune from antagonism. No sign of anger will be left on the face of your would-be antagonist. On the other hand, meet frown with frown and a fire is kindled, and how great a forest may be kindled by how small a fire! Truly love is the secret of life. Obedience to the Master's rule would settle all human difficul- ties. If we would but do unto others as we would have them do unto us, we should eliminate all contentions. Scowl or smile? How simple, how insignificant, seem these two acts of the countenance ; yet, how far reaching the result! Can we control them? That depends upon how quickly we begin ; upon the spontaneity with which we can resist tempta- tion and change our point of view. To turn an impulse to scowl into a cause for a smile we must turn our attention to a higher love ; we must go into the citadel of our hearts and there keep watch and there enthrone a universal sym- pathy; we must be so deeply imbued with these emotions that the right impulse can replace the wrong one. All human action or expression starts in an idea, in an impulse which at a certain moment we wel- come or reject. Once we welcome a point of view or indulge an impulse, control may be difficult ; but in its first inception it is as easy as a turn of the hand, it is simply a change in the attitude of our being. 38 THESMILE The real centre of all our battles is in the mind, in our power to control our attention, to be able to change the current of thought at the very be- ginning. We can change feeling at the very start, as we can change the direction of a stream easily, and in fact only, near the fountain head. Crossing the Rocky Mountains on the Canadian Pacific Railroad I awoke one morning at early dawn. The train had stopped and I looked out to catch a glimpse of the mountains before sunrise. Just before my eyes, in rustic letters, spanning a small stream, were the words " The Great Di- vide." This stream was divided into two parts; one flowing east and the other west. One of these branches flowed into the Red River of the North and found its way to Hudson's Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; the other found the Columbia River and, after thousands of miles, emptied into the Pacific Ocean. With a shovelful of dirt I could have turned the stream so that the whole would have gone either to the Atlantic or to the Pacific. Smile or scowl? That is the question of the ages ; it is one of the greatest problems and goes deep into the nature of self-command in every living soul. The smile or scowl is born simply of an attitude of the soul. Can we change that? Let us discuss the question: can we command our thinking or point of view? Say what we may, there is a moment when we can reject the frown and choose the smile. One implies looking up, the other looking down. One hints at a willingness to use things for the best, with expectancy of the best. One implies SMILE OR SCOWL 39 love, loyalty to life. The other implies unwilling- ness, antagonism and hate. Accordingly, the smile indicates the turning- point in life, it indicates the Great Divide between the upward and the downward path. The smile foretells victory. The ability to smile marks the greatest human power. SMILE OR FROWN The smile is opposed not only to the scowl, but also to the frown and to something for which we hardly have a name shall we call it a droop of the countenance or a whine? The whine means rather the vocal expression of the frown, but it is a good word. The smile means not only sympathy, joy, love, it means also courage, the sense of resolution, the power and readiness to face difficulties, a loyal acceptance of life and all its problems, and a thankfulness that we have been assigned a difficult r6le. The whine expresses dissatisfaction with our part in life and a cowardly shrinking from diffi- culties. In the smile there is a lifting of the whole coun- tenance. All the elevating muscles are active. Someone has said that all progress depends upon intelligent discontent. Is this true? Even dissatisfaction with wrong conditions is best expressed by love, by a smile. If a man strike you on the right cheek, turn the other. Even righteous indignation against wrong is best expressed, not by a scowl or a frown, but by the expression of a higher point of view and a smile for the realization of better conditions. How easy it is for a human being to drop the 40 SMILE OR FROWN 41 corners of the mouth; how common is such a gloomy " signal " on the street! Not one in a thousand carries the mouth in its normal position, a horizontal line, in correspond- ence with the intention of the Creator. Some can remember the old covered wagon of the pioneer moving " out West," sometimes it was drawn by oxen and sometimes by horses. " Out West " this old wagon was called a " prairie- schooner." As you watched it disappear in the distance, the rear end of the old wagon looked as if it were weeping for the old home it was leaving. The corners of its mouth were very low, indeed. If we are to judge the men and women we meet by the corners of the mouth, they seem to be moving onward with discontent for the past, and a premonition of some coming horror ! On all sides we see this expression of discouragement. If there were some way by which the corners of the mouth could be elevated, it would be one of the greatest blessings that could come to the race. The only thing that can lift the corners of the mouth is the smile. The smile eliminates discontent, the want of self-reliance, and all such infirmities of the will. There is a story that relates how, at one time, the devil made up his mind to retire from business. He felt he had done enough and that he should give others a chance. So he arranged all his tools and advertised them for sale. Among the display was a very small tool, seemingly of no importance. One of the devils who was more careful and thoughtful than the others picked this up, and noticed that the price was higher than for any other. He went to the devil and inquired the reason. " Why, that," replied the devil, " is the most 42 THESMILE valuable instrument I have. It will open doors to me that otherwise would be completely closed. No one thinks it belongs to me. That is Dis- couragement." The story goes on further to say that the price of that little tool was so great that it is still in the possession of the devil. The power of discontent and discouragement to degrade human character is not sufficiently appreciated, nor is the importance of triumphing over disappointments fully realized. Some great writer has wisely said that to suc- ceed in this world a man must be a " good loser." That is, a man must be able to smile after the greatest defeat. . As is well known, one of the greatest leaders of this country, who had performed great services for the nation, when defeated for the presidency turned against his friends, became dissatisfied with life and died of a broken heart. The same has been true of two other men nominated for the presidency. They were unable to laugh at their defeat. Had any one of these men been able to smile he would have received merited honor from all the country. Such a defeat was an accident and might have been made an opportunity, if the men had been able to rise above it. On the other hand, one who looks out smiling from his great defeat is welcomed in every com- pany both by those who voted for him and those who voted against him. The smile that was not quenched by defeat, that smile that arose victo- rious over it, indicated manhood of a high char- acter. A man who can smile after defeat can never be defeated. He will turn what may seem the worst of defeats into the grandest victory. He SMILE OR FROWN 43 who is able, in the face of apparent failure, to rise and smile, achieves a greater victory than that of being elected to a high office. Such failures are to be found in all walks of life, rendered such by some very important defeat. The same defeat on the contrary, has made many men and has given them a greater triumph. There is no greater sign of power than the ability to smile and change the point of view change the plans of a whole life. One possessing such ability always becomes not only popular but strong in his character. Such a man, a defeated candidate, has been called to lecture all over the country, in all the great schools. He has received many more invita- tions to lecture than he can accept. He is received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm. Coming to a great university to lecture, the boys cheered him for several minutes. It happened to be the day after a national election. He smiled at them and said, " Why should you cheer me? I was not elected to anything yesterday." He is welcomed by every class of men, members of all parties, because he has preserved the genial, kindly smile that indicates the greatness of the man. Many times every day we must choose whether we are to smile or frown, whether we are to smile or whine; whether we are to assume a positive, loving, courageous attitude toward the events of life, toward our fellow-men or to sink into a state of antagonism, discouragement, and lack of faith. " Smile and the world smiles with you, Whine and you whine alone." Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote " laugh " instead of "smile" and "weep" instead of "whine;" 44 THE SMILE But as she wrote it the statement is not true. The popularity of such words, the fact that they may be quoted thousands of times does not make them true. What man or woman do you meet on the street who does not have a more serious look on account of Belgium, Servia and Poland. The innocent sufferers do not weep alone. All the world that is sane weeps with those who suffer from no fault of their own. As I venture to correct the lines they are true, universally true. People do not always take such lines exactly as they are printed. The pessimism of the original lines is not realized by people who quote them and their meaning to the common heart is, I am sure, what is here printed. Unconsciously they sub- stitute " whine " for " weep." Not only has the writer of a poem poetic license but the reader also. A man must become a poet to appreciate poetry. The whine like all forms of sin separates one from his fellow- men. !< Whoso finds me will slay me," cried Cain when he was made to realize that he was a murderer, and he also felt that he was separated from God. " From thy face shall I be hid," he exclaimed in his agony and he was right. A whine or frown or scowl or a grouch of any kind separates one from men and God. A smile on the contrary expresses sympathy. By a smile one comes into touch with others. In its very nature a smile is a recognition of others, a sign of willingness to share the life of one's fellow- men. It is a welcome to your neighbor's thought a signal that you desire to commune with him. Fortunate, indeed, is it that men do not meet " frown " with " frown " that they do not sym- pathetically participate in every unmanly whine. SMILE OR FROWN 46 The dignity and the glory of the race is seen in ^ the fact that we meet smile with smile. It proves that love and sympathy are held as something supreme in the human heart. The tendency to reflect the expression of our fellow-beings is too well known to require dis- cussion. If a friend meets us with a smile, we smile back, but if somebody approaches us with an angry frown, how quickly we are thrown into a corresponding mood ! But there is such a thing as holding our thinking on a higher plane, always looking out with love and kindliness, sympathy and compassion toward everyone. The kindly look and the gentle smile may be made the means of the greatest victories. Someone may dispute this and say that in a certain condition of anger, or even discourage- ment, it is impossible to smile. That depends upon our strength of character. We can turn our attention in any direction we choose. We can look toward that which is beautiful. We can choose a point of view from which we can see the absurdity of anger. The smile always comes from looking on the bright side, the side that is right, the side that is infinite, the side that is divine. While the smile is primarily spontaneous, though it may seem as natural and involuntary as any act of expression, still, we can choose to smile, or we can repress a smile we can crush it into a frown. Under certain conditions, it is easier to frown than to smile under difficulties when insulted; but if we can smile, we have gained a victory over the worst. We can smile as if we were saying to a person, " You will not say so to-morrow " ; " You do not really think so "; "It is not your real self 46 THESMILE that is speaking " ; " You will be sorry in a few hours " ; " Sometime you will understand me better, and know that what you have said is un- just." Some such remark as these is implied in the smile of victory, the smile that denotes that a person is looking upward. Man walks in the direc- tion in which his eyes are looking if he walks with ease. The smile indicates the direction in which we are looking and that we are looking upward. We are looking out from the point of view of affec- tion and love. Before us there are two roads. The straight and narrow road leads upward. That is the direction of the true soul, even in the midst of difficulties. The broad road is downward, and the frown always leads that way. The ability to smile under most trying circum- stances is a measure of power. VI SIGN OR SYMBOL What does the smile mean and whence comes its meaning? In its most primitive character, as we first find it on the face of a little child, it means recognition of love. It means the joyous accept- ance of life. It means a realization of one's own individuality, the affirmation of one's own identity. Looking at the smile as a language, we find it to be a sign, not a symbol. In our age, symbols have been regarded as the only language. That which has no symbolic value, is considered un- worthy of our attention. The importance of a symbol can hardly be over- estimated. The wireless operator, on account of a universal agreement upon a symbol of three letters, can send out the vibrations which make known that a ship is in danger, thus saving thousands of lives. It is through words as symbols, that knowledge and information have been embodied so that every- one may read and understand. ' Symbols are conventional ; they stand for ideas. By them men can convey their ideas and opinions. But, shall the importance of signs be overlooked? The sign is natural ; it is universal ; it is direct ; it is immediate. It is a simple emanation ; it calls for no conventional agreement. It is a straight appeal to human instinct. Signs appeal to both eye and ear at the same 47 48 THESMILE i/ time. The sign to the ear and the sign to the eye, the modulation of the tone and the action must agree in their testimony, or all expression is chaotic. This agreement is the most fundamental thing in all expression. Can we not see that the sign is necessary to the interpretation of the symbol? Could there have been a symbol without a sign? In all great poetry the symbol is used in a double sense, not only as a symbol but also as a sign. A great writer a great master of style uses words in such a way that they become more than mere symbols, and begin to live and breathe with some- thing of the character of signs. It is a fundamental law of all true expression that the sign must transcend the symbol, that a true symbol is always based on some kind of natural sign. The symbol is intellectual. It is external, mechanical. The sign can manifest deeper con- ditions than words can symbolize. How poorly do words express emotions! The sign at once reveals feeling and the deepest emo- tions in such a way that they are read by all men. A symbol is the result of purely conventional agreement and is subject to grammatical rules. While the sign is definite, and may stand for a specific idea, a specific impression, it reveals the attitude of the man, the elements of his impres- sions, his experiences. The sign is natural and obeys Nature's laws and is filled with Nature's own !ife. The smile in nature cannot be separated from the individual. It is never like that of the cat in Wonderland, left, while the cat itself vanishes. Words are symbols, on the contrary, or such SIGN OR SYMBOL 49 things as smiles with the cat gone. They may remain as a reminder only; but the sign must be full of life. The smile can never be separated from life, it never can be disconnected from its cause, it cannot be printed; art alone can truly suggest it. The smile always partakes of the life and spirit that manifests it. The smile may be vague in representing opinions or ideas; but it is not vague in its revelation of character of the human spirit. Its presentation is representative. It gives its meaning from no mere agreement among men ; but by a universal law founded in the nature of things. Have you never tried to comfort someone in sorrow for example a mother who has lost her child? If, in the midst of your struggles to comfort by words, some neighbor should come in and grasp the sufferer in her arms, revealing her sympathy by natural signs, then you would feel like taking off your shoes, for the ground on which you stand is holy. vn MAN'S ELEMENTAL LANGUAGES We find that man's primary languages divide themselves into two groups, one appealing to the ear, and the other to the eye. Natural signs which appeal to the eye, we call action. The modulations of the voice, the inflection, the tone-color, move- ments or emotional modifications of rhythm, we call vocal expression. Some deny the dignity of languages to these two but each group discharges a distinct function as well as do words. By words we reveal our opinions and symbolize our ideas; by tone we reveal our feelings, our degree of con- viction, our degree of earnestness, our point of view, the different shades and degrees of emotion. By action the character of the speaker himself is shown. Not only is the language of action the first language, it is also the language of conditions. If an action is wrong the tones of the voice cannot be right. Action reveals not the impression but the effect and the way we receive the impression. It, therefore, establishes the very conditions of the color of the voice, the modulations of tone. Action itself supports all the other languages. It is the language to which the appeal of the little child is made. It is the language by which all true earnest- ness is tested. Human expression is, therefore, threefold. It consists of words, tones and action. The two natural languages, though appealing to totally 50 MAN'S ELEMENTAL LANGUAGES 61 different senses, are vitally united to the words or symbols. Observe closely the marvellous unity of these three languages. They are co-ordinated. They never can be separated completely without great loss. Each one reveals something different from the others. This is the reason why they coalesce into an organic unity, one is strong where the others are weak. They are perfect only when united. Thus, in the union of these signs, " By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word is established." These three languages show simultaneously what a man thinks, what he feels and what he is. We know his ideas, his opinions, his thoughts, best by his words. We realize his convictions, his emotions, his experiences best by the modulations of his voice, and we know his character and his motives best through his actions. The smile belongs of course, to the language of action. It may be taken as a type of all action, be- cause it is a primitive, elemental and universal characteristic of the human being. Although ac- tion has never been adequately explained, and though books written upon action are among the most unsatisfactory books written on any sub- ject, yet, of all languages, action is the most directly and most easily read. It is an imme- diate appeal to instinct. Can we find a for- eigner who is so foreign as not to know the meaning of a smile? The fact that language can- not symbolize ideas leads many to disparage it. For this very reason, however, when we look at it from its primitive character as a sign, we find it more full of meaning than any other language of 62 THESMILE mankind. Its meaning is filled with more force and directness. We find also another most im- portant fact: action furnishes the most adequate means for the study of character. It is the most unconscious of languages and the most sponta- neous, and belongs to the whole body; hence it reveals motives, conditions and attitudes of being at which other modes of expression merely hint. The smile is the least mechanical, the least artifi- cial, the least objective of all languages unless we except the modulations of the voice, which may also be subjective. So subjective is pantomimic expression that it seems completely united to feeling. It can hardly be studied and certainly it cannot be developed apart from the experience that causes it. Accordingly, the true and normal smile must be realized in the study of joy, in the observation of love and sympathy, or as the agent of the positive emotions. Its great force as a language is shown by its power to contradict words. With a frown, say to a little child, " Come here, you little angel " ; then with a smile and with the consequent involuntary softening of the tone, say, " Come here, you little rascal." Here the sign contradicts the symbol, and the child, as well as everyone else will take the sign before the symbol. Demosthenes, according to tradition, when asked what was the most important element in speaking, replied, " Action " ; when asked what was the second most important element, he an- swered, " Action," and when asked the third, he still answered, "Action." Action has been so MA N'S ELEMENTAL LANGUAGES. 53 misunderstood that many have been astounded at this statement and have denied that Demosthenes ever made it, or, if he did, they think that he meant something different from pantomimic expression. A very prominent man once said in my presence that by " action " Demosthenes meant living and doing things. After many years of studying ex- pression, I believe that Demosthenes meant exactly what he said. He restricted the statement in order to emphasize what others, possibly even in that day, misunderstood, or at least the im- portance of which they failed to appreciate. Certainly action is not appreciated in our day. It is the most direct of all languages, the most simple. It reveals itself through the whole body ; it appeals to the eye most quickly of all our senses. It is not local like a pronounced word. It expresses the deepest conditions of man's being. Without action, such voice modulations as tone-color and texture are impossible. Pantomime precedes speech. It shows the re- ceiving of impressions. Words express the giving of an idea or concept ; action shows the beginning of the impression; words are only a label giving its name or direction. Of course by action is not meant gesture, or some " signal of distress " by the hands or arms. True action is as simple as the smile, something as vitally connected with our beings as the simple expansion of the body or movement on the feet, or any action directly caused by experience. Pantomime determines even the conditions of all modulations of the voice. Without action, tone- color would be impossible, hence, vocal expression cannot be separated from pantomimic expression. The man who sneers at action as something found 64 THESMILE only among savages, fails to comprehend one of the deepest characteristics of human nature. Action expresses the character of the speaker. Real earnestness and conviction are not shown by the loudness of the tone, or the number of words, but by this most conditional of all languages. Though vocal expression is regarded by many as directly and vitally connected with words, yet the tones of the voice are really more vitally united to action than they are to words. It is the diffusion of feeling throughout the body that not only pro- duces action and modulations of the tones, but colors the voice. Most voice modulations are dependent on action. When one tries to depend merely upon words, or the modulations of the tone, speech becomes mechanical and artificial. Inflection reveals the attitude of the mind and discharges a more intellectual function. Hence, it is more closely connected with words than is tone- color. Inflection, however, is a gesture of the voice as a significant movement of the hand is an inflection of the body. It is difficult or impossible to make a good bodily gesture with the wrong vocal inflection even these are vitally connected. But the qual- ities of the voice are entirely dependent, not upon the gesture but upon the diffusion of emotion into the texture of the body, upon the expressive at- titude of all parts of the body directly related and co-ordinated with the sympathetic retention of the breath. Such facts show us that a man's three languages are necessary to one another. No one of them can be repressed or discarded with im- punity. Yet, they are as opposite to each other as MAN'S ELEMENTAL LANGUAGES 55 a man's two hands. To some, the two hands are exactly alike, and they are more alike possibly than any other two objects in the world; yet at every point they are directly opposite. Nothing as ugly as two right hands on the same body has ever been produced, and it is the direct opposition in their similarity that enables them to come together in unity. In a way, each of these three languages, while simple and expressive of the same thing, re- veals a different phase of impression, a different aspect of human life and experience, and because of this very difference, they become mutually necessary and can be co-ordinated for the same ends. Because each language says something no one of the others can possibly say, their unity is made possible and necessary. Pantomime is the outflow of the awakening of thought. It manifests the inception of the thought, not the finished realization. It reveals the initia- tion, the stimulation, the life of the man himself. In teaching, whenever I have been in serious doubt of a pupil's needs, I have always studied his pantomime. That is a language that never lies ; a language that is most unconscious and therefore most vitally expressive. Because the smile is not a symbol, because it is not an objective thing, because it cannot be sep- arated from the man and printed like a word, it is often overlooked. This very separation of words from the process of thinking may make a word the emptiest of all things. A word, a phrase, needs to be interpreted by the living voice. The smile, the sign must be restored to the symbol, or the symbol will be meaningless. 66 THESMILE How often do we wrongly quote a thought from someone by missing a word? But still more fre- quently do we miss the natural signs he used, the action, the smile, and so we miss his experience and the spirit with which he spoke. vm DOES A SMILE REPRESENT OR MANIFEST? Is a smile representative or manifestative? There are two modes of expression. They are found in both tone and action, but we see them especially marked in human action. Representa- tion is objective, descriptive and illustrative. It is deliberative. Manifestation on the other hand, is spontaneous, frequently unconscious. It never describes. It is an outward sign of inner activity, an outward revelation or emanation of something within. Representative action belongs more especially to the hands the external agents. Manifestation belongs to all bodily agents. The smile is a characteristic example of manifestation. It is only a mock smile when one man employs it to represent the smile of another. In all expres- sion, manifestation must transcend representation, and the smile possibly illustrates this. The tendency to exaggerate the importance of representation in action is a great mistake. Action has been regarded, not only as representative, but imitative, objective and external. The smile should teach us that signs are pri- marily manifestative. Manifestation is the motion of emotion, the texture of a condition, the position of a disposition, the modulation of a mode. Its cause always lies within. Any effort to give it the character of a symbol is an affectation and vitiates its true nature. An attempt, such as has so often 67 58 THESMILE been made, to make all action stand for something external, develops weakness and artificiality. Manifestation reveals directly and immediately man's degree of realization, his deepest expe- riences, the primary habits of his life. It is because action is primarily manifestative that the relation of signs to symbols is so impor- tant. Symbols, being representative, may become purely objective and cold in comparison with the living, manifestative sign. A speech or play, even a great poem, implies a living voice, which can be interpreted only by living, manifestative signs such as the modulations of voice and body. Man- ifestation must always transcend representation in perfect and artistic expression. Here we see also the true nature of delivery. This is a supplementing of words as representative symbols of man's highest embodiment of ideas, with manifestative signs of feeling, of disposition, of the inner spirit, which is found in the highest poetry and literature. Manifestation and representation must both be found in true unity to have perfect human expres- sion in any form, in oratory, in acting or in literary interpretation. Even highest literature itself em- ploys and suggests this union. "Our human speech is naught, Our human testimony false, our fame And human estimation words and wind. Why take the artistic way to prove so much? Because, it is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least. How look a brother in the face and say ' Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou, yet art blind, Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length, And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith ! ' REPRESENT OR MANIFEST 59 Say this as silvery as tongue can troll The anger of the man may be endured, The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him Are not so bad to bear but here's the plague, That all this trouble comes of telling truth, Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false, Seems to be just the thing it would supplant, Nor recognizable by whom it left; While falsehood would have done the work of truth. But Art, wherein man nowise speaks to men, Only to mankind, Art may tell a truth Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, Beyond mere imagery on the wall, So, note by note, bring music from your mind, Deeper than ever the Adante dived, So write a book shall mean, beyond the facts, Suffice the eye, and save the soul besides." True art is not merely symbolic. It is the smile of the human soul. If it has not the character of the smile it will be mechanical, artificial and will never move the world. The sign manifests the life of the individual. On one hand the smile may be so used as to embody the thought of a thousand years ; on the other hand, it may die the moment it is born, but it shows the love of man, the real pulsating motives behind his words. The greater the writer, the greater the artist, the more definitely does he suggest the necessity and character of the true companion, the sign. Those who sneer at action and say it belongs only to the savage part of humanity, and hence must be repressed as something outgrown, should study the smile. How ridiculous must their opin- ion appear when we consider the significance of the simplest facial changes or bodily expansions, or the simple attitudes of the head or motions of the 60 THESMILE hand. What would the intercourse of human beings become were it not for the constant play of the face and the subtle actions and positions of all parts of the body. The tendency to make all action of the body and even voice modulation, representative, descriptive, or symbols rather than signs, is one of the greatest mistakes ever made in human education. De- scriptive expression lacks true character of the deepest expression. It discards the fundamental facts of modulations of being through voice and body. Human words, great as they are, necessary as they are, to express human ideas, opinions and thoughts, fall short in the manifestation of human feeling. We find here an indication of the necessity of human art. Every art expresses something that no other art can say. Unless it can do this, it is not an art at all. Human language is as complex as the human faculties and experiences which are the cause of all expression. This complexity shows the necessity of the artistic point of view; art is a necessity of man's higher faculties. The higher experiences must not only transform symbols into figures, but they imply the awakening of higher realization and require certain modula- tions of voice and body to express them. In the same way all the arts are necessary to reveal the deep causes of human experiences and give higher interpretation to human language. This has been well shown in Browning's "The Ring and the Book." When a man is inwardly stirred and sin- cerely speaks out, then his art rises to poetry or to the dignity of a sign or a smile. " The look," said Balzac, " the voice, the respiration and the attitude REPRESENT OR MANIFEST 61 or walk are identical. But as power has not been given to man to stand guard at once over these four different simultaneous expressions of his thought, watch that one which speaks but the truth, and you will know the whole man." Do we not all agree with Emerson when he says " Nature tells every secret once? Yes, but in man she tells it all the time, by form, attitude, gesture, mien, face and parts of the face, and by the whole action of the machine." IX GESTURE, POSITION OR BEARING To understand any habitual and more or less permanent expression of the face we must study further into the nature of action. One of the most important distinctions or divisions of pantomimic expression is found in its degree of permanence. Pantomime may be divided into gesture, attitude and bearing. A gesture is an expressive motion. It expresses something transitory, some feeling that is on the surface. An attitude expresses a condition, an emotion that dominates us for a time; a feeling that lays hold of our deeper nature; a feeling that is not local or superficial, but one that permeates our whole being. A bearing is an action that expresses that which is more permanent ; that which has become a part of our character; it is the permanent result of some emotion that we have frequently cherished, the result of habitual emotions and attitudes. The bearing thus expresses character. Every experience we pass through tends to create a condition favorable to its return. Feelings that recur frequently, therefore, establish certain tendencies or bearings which underlie all other expressions, whether gestures or attitudes. As a rule the individual is unconscious of his bearing. It has become such a permanent part 62 GESTURE, POSITION OR BEARING 63 of him that he becomes aware of it only occasion- ally, and by comparing himself with other men ; or by the intuition which lies back of consciousness of his higher possibilities or ideals. Here we find that a study of action reveals to us the deepest process of our development, a process that goes on from the cradle to the grave. By turning away from certain experiences, and cherishing those that are opposite or higher, we begin the process of our more ideal development. Notwithstanding all that may be said regarding education as an acquisition of knowledge, even as the attainment of culture, there is a deeper proc- ess, the formation of character. That is the highest part of education. All educational training must centre in this process of establishing right habits as expressed in normal bearings right dis- positions and motives, right tendencies in being and their expression in the bearing of the body. There is a tendency in our day for the young man to leap to his profession, to despise the college course and turn to the professional school. The young man is more ambitious to become a lawyer or a doctor or a business man than he is to develop his personality. Bearing is seldom thought of in relation to speaking. The speaker in fact is apt to think of that which is most emotional and most superficial. Speakers, we find as a rule, have more faith in gestures than in attitudes. If, however, we observe carefully, we may note that, although the gestures may be very significant and attitudes still more so, it is the bearing which possesses the deepest and highest expressive value. A transitory feeling is less important than 64 THESMILE an emotion that remains for a time, and even this is less important than those feelings which have become vital motives, a real part of the permanent character. Almost alone of all languages, a man's nature is expressed by his action and especially by his bearing which transcends all action. Is a smile an attitude, a gesture or a bearing? It may be any one of them. Certain giggles and grimaces are gestures, whereas a loving smile may express the attitude of a man. The most important element of the smile, how- ever, is that which is usually entirely overlooked, a certain permanent attitude toward life, toward others, a kindly bearing which may not be recog- nized as a smile, but if studied may be taken as a condition favorable to a smile. That the condition may become a bearing may be easily proved by a few illustrations. One of my most delightful remembrances is of an occasional glimpse of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes upon the street. One day I came upon him looking into a store window, with all the smiling interest of a boy. I stood at a distance and gazed on him with admiration. A few times I have seen him crossing the Com- mon. He seemed to be one animated smile from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. The smile seemed to be there always as a bearing. It was a smile in repose. There was no grin, that horrible mockery of a smile. It was the deep, genuine, simple revelation of the heart of a child which he was able to keep through all the serious work of a man's life. By invitation of one of my students I once attended a lecture on anatomy by Dr. Holmes at GESTURE, POSITION OR BEARING 65 the Harvard Medical School. It was one of his most serious lectures. There was no joke in it from first to last. The subject was the larynx, and the young medical friend who accompanied me thought I would be particularly interested in the subject. How happy every student in that class seemed! I saw the eager faces all about me. The Professor's remarks were expressive of cheer- fulness and sympathy. I wanted to see if he had the professional air that most lecturers have; the mask which the minister puts on when he ascends to the pulpit ; that the teacher usually assumes be- fore his class; that the employer wears when he goes into the factory. There was nothing of the kind, only a genuine, simple, hearty, loving bearing. I saw the man himself with a cheerful- ness so deep that it became seriousness. It was the same smile he wore when he stood up before an audience once and said : " Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to fill the place of Judge Gray. Now you all know that is impossible. All I can hope to do is to rattle around in it a little." Judge Gray, as is well-known, was a very large man. He and Phillips Brooks and Bishop Mc- Vicker, who were all unusually large men, were once walking through a village in Europe. The natives gazed at them in astonishment and in- quired whence they came. Someone replied, " Those are Americans ; they are rather small men in their own country." Another story is told of these three men who were once in London. A man was lecturing on the degeneracy of the race. Among his illustra- tions he said, " Look at the Americans. They are thin and lank, and small in stature." At the close 66 THESMILE of the lecture there was a chance for questions. One of the Americans arose and said : " Ladies and gentlemen: I am an American and you can see for yourself if I am an illustration of the gentleman's principles." Another of the fa- mous trio then arose and said, " I also am an Amer- ican. You can take me as another specimen." When the third man arose the situation was too much for the audience and the laughter was un- controllable. I once heard Dr. Holmes introduce Matthew Arnold. " I am reminded," he said, " of two Americans, a big man and a little man, who met a mob in London. The big man gave his coat to the little man to hold while he demonstrated his strength in subduing the mob. The mob gave three cheers for the big man ; then someone cried, ' Three cheers for the little man who held the coat.' Now, ladies and gentlemen, the man who was to hold the coat to-night was Reverend Phillips Brooks." Then there was another noble character Dr. Edward Everett Hale. Whoever saw him crossing the Common, or walking along Tremont Street to the Lend-a-Hand office without feeling a thrill of joy? His countenance was expanded even when he seemed to be thinking over some deep problem. He felt happiness in all that lay about him an interest in every human being. I once heard him tell about passing two girls in front of the old Public Library. He overheard one of them say, " Look at that bright, beautiful room. I wonder if it is a club and what kind of people go in there." He said, " I am not accustomed to speak to ladies on the street, but I broke my rule for once. I stepped up to the girls and said, ' That GESTURE, POSITION OR BEARING 67 building is open to anybody and everybody. There is no person who walks the streets of Boston who will not find welcome there.' ' In his statue in the Public Garden, his benignant smile is lacking. Possibly it was too much for human art to catch and reproduce the beaming, loving seriousness of that face. However, the representation may be a little more successful than the horrible burlesque of Phillips Brooks near Trinity Church, which is the worst caricature of a joyous, smiling, loving face that has ever been thrust upon an innocent pub- lic. I never pass Trinity Church without steeling my face and looking off at a distance that I may be spared the sight of that monstrosity. Modern art contends that the smile must be necessarily avoided or it will become a mere simper and destroy all dignity. Does not the art of our day acknowledge in such a statement its own weakness? How long did Leonardo da Vinci work to master the smile of Mona Lisa? Observe also the wonderful smile on the por- traits of Franz Hals. These are the deepest bear- ings of the character and in no case do they de- tract from its dignity. Sargent has worked hard to master the tech- nique of this great artist and he is regarded the greatest technician of the present day; but he falls short of Franz Hals in the mastery of the smile. Recent art has made great advances, especially in landscape. The smile of the fields and the skies is better rendered than ever before. But why neglect the expression of the human body? 68 THESMILE Why overlook the transcendent glory of the human face? After all its great advances, is our art lacking in the ability to portray such an elemental expres- sion as a smile? Has it failed, after all, to attain the simple power and dignity of the Greeks? Is it still too external, mechanical and exhibitional to rise to the dignity of the great masters? What art school really studies the expression of the human countenance? What art student ever discriminated between gesture, attitude and bear- ing, or even knew enough about expression to know that there are such things? The modern ignorance of human expression is so great that it extends even to our artists. The great art school is yet to come : an institu- tion that will study every phase of human expres- sion; one that will recognize that the student of only one art becomes narrow, opinionated and artificial; that to be only a painter is not to be an artist. A sculptor or a performer on a musical instrument may have expert technique and yet be purely perfunctory. He only is an artist who is able to see, as the great masters saw, expression in its different forms. Expression is far deeper and broader than any of its modes, however important these may be. A mere elocutionist is no better than a mere actor, a mere pianist or a mere painter. Why can art never have all the dignity, all the seriousness, all the weight, all the faith and love of the human soul embodied in the smile? Who ever heard of an art school studying a smile and its meaning, and trying to realize its beauty? Once in New York I saw the crowd staring at a man with flowing white hair and a soft hat, who GESTURE, POSITION OR BEARING 69 was passing along Broadway. It was Henry Ward Beecher. His beaming smile of sympathy seemed to be an emanation of intense joy. His whole face seemed to express his pleasure in the doings of ordinary men. Another remarkable face, which was a delight to everyone who looked upon it, was that of Joseph Jefferson. The simplicity, of his character, and his childlike love were in his countenance. Every feature seemed permeated with the spirit of a smile, joy and contentment, love and admiration for nature and his fellow-men. It was not difficult for a smile to appear and run instantly all over such a face. The smile seemed to be hiding beneath his features. To print one of his stories never satisfies one who heard him tell it. Once when about to buy a farm in New Jersey he asked the owner whether the water would not all evaporate through such gravelly soil. The old farmer replied that, on the contrary, the soil would not only hold the water, but would draw water by something which from the farmer's lips sounded like " caterpillary attraction." In telling a story, Jefferson never laughed. His countenance only beamed with the spirit of joy and laughter. You felt laughter not only as an attitude but more as a perpetual bearing, showing a joyous outlook upon life, a point of view full of affection and tender- ness for everything and everybody. Such examples as Henry Ward Beecher on Broadway, Phillips Brooks, Edward Everett Hale and Dr. Holmes crossing Boston Common ; Jeffer- son, Gladstone in London, John Bright in Man- chester indicate how certain men may wear, in their ordinary intercourse with their fellow-men, a 70 THESMILE smile which expresses a deep childlike trust that, as Plato puts it, " the eternal is true and good." This habitual bearing must be carefully dis- tinguished from any affected attitudes of the face. The true bearing can be seen only when the man is alone or in his home or among his most familiar friends, for a bearing is always involun- tary and unconscious. Some men in business affect a cast-iron un- changing smile which is the same for all occasions. You feel that it is not a true bearing but a mere affectation based on selfishness. You feel that they are only trying to bias your judgment to get your money. The smile, even when it is a bearing, is full of life and vigor. It changes in all sorts of ways, it kindles with another's thought, is always sym- pathetic, is never dominating but based on love. You find it is all your own. Certainly there is not the least affectation about it. The true smile, as a bearing, seems ready for communion, for enjoy- ment. It suggests a spirit looking for good things, for beautiful things ; looking for somebody to help, somebody with whom he can share the joys of life. The right kind of smile, born of a sympathetic attitude, born of true gladness at meeting every stranger, is one of the fundamental requisites of all truly great men. Some assume a smile when in society. Every- one feels that this is unsatisfactory. One has an intuition that this is not the habitual, daily smile of the individual, but is involuntarily forced beyond the real heart's feeling. This forced smile, or pre- tence of being pleased, is one of the great causes of the degradation and the superficiality of human character. GESTURE, POSITION OR BEARING 71 Of course every person should be pleased to meet his fellow-men, but this pleasure can be easily forced and pretended when it is not the real feeling. Here we find the very basis, the very start of superficiality and hypocrisy. Many assume an artificial and affected smile in the attempt to appear at ease. But it is only the love and joy and a generous sharing in the life of others, expressed in a certain emanation in the face, a readiness to smile, that puts one's self and others at ease. We achieve ease of bearing only when we are perfectly honest and direct, when we have learned to respect both the highest and the lowest as members of one great family. The antithesis of ease is awkwardness. It is awkwardness that is most feared by the society woman. One of them has said, " Awkwardness is never forgiven in this world or any other." May we not learn a lesson regarding awkward- ness from the study of the smile? It is through the smile that awkwardness first vanishes. Awkwardness is born of fear, the fear of doing the wrong thing. It results from not feeling at home, from not being able to come into touch with others. The true smile expresses grace and repose. X THE SMILE AND BEAUTY We here encounter a very important question. Why do people wear such serious faces on the street? Someone will say, " Because life is seri- ous." " Therefore you see," they continue, " the superficiality of the smile. No sensible person goes around with a grin on his face. When one happens to smile to himself on the street, he is laughed at. Life is serious, thus men demand that the habitual attitude of the face should be solemn." Is there no explanation of the fact that the atti- tude of discouragement and the attitude, which is almost a frown and certainly expresses discourage- ment, is the conventional attitude worn on the street? Is this a social requirement? Is it that life is so filled with gloom that such a vinegar aspect has become general? Or is it fear? Is it because a man feels he has enemies? Is it lack of sympathy? Is it because the average man in the midst of his illusions allows negative condi- tions to make their home in his heart and face? He does brighten up for a moment when he meets a friend. Sometimes the smile lasts for a whole block, then he suddenly thinks someone is laughing at him, and gives the corners of his mouth a jerk downward into their accustomed gloom and gradually allows the serious mood which expresses, to use a phrase which Kipling has called detest- able," The battle of life." Why should we re- 72 THE SMILE AND BEAUTY 73 press all our better feelings merely because we are in public or in the company of strangers? Con- ventional politeness demands that a stranger be treated as a superior. The moment he speaks to you on the street you give him your attention and bow with deference, direct him kindly or even go with him, if necessary, to point out the way. Once, while walking alone through the Forest of Fontainebleau, trying to find the village of Barbazon where the great artists Rousseau, Millet and others had lived, I inquired the way of a French gentleman who was on horseback. I saw from his smile how difficult was the task. I asked him to give me general direction, and this he indi- cated to me kindly and carefully. I trudged on, feeling grateful for such careful instructions. At length I came to a point where it seemed, a dozen roads branched from one little circle. As I stood in doubt, wondering which road to take, the same gentleman galloped up, waved his hand toward the one I was to take, bowed and rode away. Once on a hasty trip through old Heidelberg, I felt I was near the old University and must see the place where so many great men had taught. My friends were in a hurry, so we accosted the only person near us, a passing lady, and asked her for directions. She motioned for us to follow. Possibly our broken German indicated that she would not be understood even if she should ex- plain. Noticing that she turned out of her way, we tried to apologize and asked her not to trouble herself. She shook her head and hurried on. At a corner she suddenly waved her hand toward the university buildings and was gone before we had time to thank her. 74 THESMILE An American and his wife were once dining in a restaurant on a Parisian boulevard. Suddenly the lady fainted. Her husband picked her up in his arms and carried her, as best he could, across the sidewalk, motioning to a cab. A passing stranger saw him, ran, brought the cab, and helped place the lady in it. When the American turned to thank the stranger, he caught sight of him lifting his hat with a kind smile as he disappeared in the crowd. They never met before or afterwards, but how such a look lingers in the memory ! Such kind acts occur in every nation and every community. They are beautiful and are recog- / nized as beautiful. Why should we not cultivate a more kindly attitude toward men, and the smile, expressing a readiness to do such deeds, instead of that cold, severe, critical bearing, which is con- sidered appropriate for the street? Does the conventional gloomy face really ex- press the spirit of the human heart? It certainly does not express man's aspirations or the ideal toward which he is striving. Do men habitually hide their better selves? Do they conceal what they are trying to be? Is a solemn face a mere conventionality? This conventional, ironclad face is certainly not beautiful. People will pose before a glass and carefully arrange their hair and examine critically every article of dress to appear to others as beau- tiful as possible. We all know that there is no greater ambition with many people than to appear beautiful before others. Then why neglect the greatest source of beauty? Why daub the face with poison and neglect the smile? True beauty is not regularity of feature or softness of the skin. But, alas! how many regard beauty as only THE SMILE AND BEAUTY 75 " skin deep." True beauty belongs to the soul. It is created out of the affections, the sympathies, the emotions and the attitude toward life. " Quite the ugliest face I ever saw," says Whit- tier, " was that of a woman whom the world calls beautiful. Through its 'silver veil ' the evil and un- gentle passions looked out hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces, which, the multi- tude, at the first glance, pronounce homely, unattrac- tive, and such as 'Nature fashions by the gross/ which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill ; not for the world would I have one feature changed ; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories; they are beautiful through their associations; nor are they any the less welcome that, with my admiration of them, 'the stranger intermeddleth not.' ' The greatest beauty of the human face is its power to express the feelings of the heart. With- out expression the countenance is cold and life- less. The mobility of the features, allowing the smile to permeate every part, reveals the highest elements of human nature. It shows that deep in the heart there is the constant attitude of sym- pathy; the wish to share, not to dominate; not to secrete and possess but to live in union with others ; to spread, not terror and antagonism, but joy and love. When such emotions are really felt, the face and form kindle and the thought shines through the countenance. The smile is the key that unlocks the door to beauty and loveliness. Who does not remember faces that according to the world's standard were not beautiful? That is, their features were not regular and well pro- portioned. They lacked delicacy and softness of skin, yet the whole countenance seemed alive with 76 THESMILE beautiful thoughts, genuine sympathies and ex- alted feelings. There were Jenny Lind, Charlotte Cushman, William Warren; there are Sembrich and hun- dreds of others, whose kindly faces live for a gen- eration in the thoughts and feelings of those who have seen them. Such faces may be found in every walk of life. Who does not know of some good woman who has been a mother to the whole neighborhood? Who has not known faces that could never be photographed? It is the power to express, which creates real beauty, something all can cultivate. The smile, or rather the underlying cause of the smile, is the supreme beautifier of the human countenance. True beauty is an emanation of life, joy, peace, contentment, and sympathy with one's kind. XI CAN THE SMILE BE DEVELOPED? Can we develop the smile? Does it lie within the province of education? One of our great artists has said, " No man can teach expression. He can teach only its grammar." According to this theory you can teach the painter only drawing, the use of his tools, the nature of colors and how to mix them. You can teach the musician only his piano or violin or flute. Is this true? Is there no awakening of ideals which is an essential part of education? The very word " education " means to draw out. Is there no stimulation of the imagi- nation which is a necessary part of the develop- ment of any artist? Is it possible that art educa- tion is merely a mechanical process? How often are sad examples of modern art edu- cation found. A young woman, with high ideals, deep artistic nature and feeling, entered one of the leading so-called art schools. For the better part of a year she was compelled to draw only from a cast. The drudgery began to pall ; art became to her a mechanical thing; she lost her aspirations, her ideals. Her artistic instincts were dulled. She had no relief from that one mechanical per- formance. She had no study of expression, noth- ing was given to her to awaken her creative im- agination, her emotional energies, her love of beauty, her power of insight into fundamental ele- ments or causes of beauty. She had no study of herself, no study of the different modes by which 77 78 THESMILE imagination and emotion are unfolded. How few artists are made by such a process! How many are unmade by such drudgery ! Such a mechanical process may be some explanation of the fact that processes of art expression are so little prized in education. Can you teach expression? Assuredly, if you can teach anything. No one can say that students of painting do not have to learn to draw. Every art has a technique which must be mas- tered ; there is even a technique of speaking. But with a mastery of technique the actions of the mind must be awakened, the deeper insight, the intuitions. No amount of grammar can teach a man to think. Technique is the true mode of revealing mental actions. It is the best way of conveying impres- sions. Every art is a mode of thinking. The student must learn not merely grammar. He must learn to think. Grammar is but an outward shell, hard and mechanical, the result of formulation. Woe to the man who clamps these on the backs of stu- dents before the real life is awakened, before the soul has seen any vision. The same mistake is made in many of our public schools even more than in our art schools. Too much attention is paid to mere mechanical rules. To acquire correct and beautiful English, boys and girls must be inspired with the desire to ex- press; they must receive true impressions; they must be awakened by contact with great literature. When their imaginations are awakened, when they have seen something beautiful and are asked to describe it, they are led to the desire to express it well. In this way they discover the simple rules of grammar. CAN THE SMILE BE DEVELOPED? 79 On the contrary, the mechanical teacher of gram- mar turns all attention to mere words. The stu- dent has nothing to say but there is an endeavor to teach him to say it in correct English, thus he loses all real interest, and there is no awakening of the desire to express. The aim and the first step of all education is to awaken, to inspire. To speak correctly we must think correctly. The great law of education is like the smile, which must come from within outward. The highest education is a sharing of the uni- versal life. Each human being as an individual is a centre of conscious identity, but this does not mean that the individual is shut up in some corner. To live at all we must communicate. A universal conception of the immortal life is that it is one of love. You can improve a smile only according to the laws of all development. You can awaken a man's better nature. You can enkindle a higher love. You can make him more conscious of his ideals and give him more courage to feel them. You can stimulate aspirations. You can give him a better I/' point of view of life, a higher conception of his race. This causes the smile to be deeper, to dif- fuse itself all over the face and body and become a permanent part of his countenance. Of course we cannot force a smile. The smile can never be improved by rule. It cannot be built or constructed. It has np grammar but it can be awakened. The improvement of the smile de- pends upon a deeper and truer view of life, upon better health and a healthier vision, upon encour- agement to enjoyment, upon greater sympathy with ome's kind, upon increase of faith, confidence in truth and in men. 80 THESMILE The problem of improving the smile is the same problem of all human education. Education must awaken the very depths of our being. It cannot proceed mechanically or by rule. All human edu- cation must simply awaken and direct the impulses of nature. The secret of FroebeFs teaching, according to a critic and advocate of his method, consists in bring- ing such objects around the child as will stimulate spontaneous activity. According to this all education is primarily an awakening; that exercise is the most important which will most effectually quicken the human powers and bring them into co-ordinate activity. The smile can be developed; and its develop- ment shows the right processes of all education. If you believe that a smile cannot be improved observe closely the smile of a baby. Its first smile is local, but watch the child daily for some weeks. What a transformation, slow but decided! Every day some deeper action becomes apparent, some additional part of his face is filled with joy and love until at last there is no part that does not beam with feeling. Many men retain the constricted smile of early childhood. None of their smiles have ever visited their foreheads. There is simply action at the corners of the mouth and that is all. Activity at the outer corners of the eyes, and es- pecially of the lower eyelid, is weak. Sometimes the lips are drawn back in a constricted and tightened way and become cramped and set upon the teeth. The majority of people have constrictions in their smiles, constrictions that could be easily removed if the facial muscles receive the proper rhythmic treatment. The fingers may be laid CAN THE SMILE BE DEVELOPED? 81 gently upon the face at those points where there are constrictions and the muscles may be gently moved or kneaded so the part may be set free and the emotion allowed to diffuse its action through the whole face. How does this slow transformation take place? In the same way that development proceeds in us all. The whole face gradually becomes more responsive. Each little muscle awakens. Na- ture's great process, the localization of function, rapidly progresses. The improvement in the looks is astonishing. Of all beautifiers the smile is the greatest, but it must be genuine; it must bring every feature of the face into co-ordination ; every muscle must be stimulated to act simultaneously. The develop- ment of the smile need not lead to affectation. If the process is properly carried on affectation may be avoided. It is one of the faults to be removed. There are assumed smiles all around us. All expression implies a certain giving up of the muscles and parts of the body to the diffusion of feeling. Some men's hands are cramped and constricted. Feeling causes little more than a jerk of the mus- cles of the arm. By relaxing the hand feeling and emotion will be diffused into every part. We can train the hand from a mere constricted pair of nippers or paws into a sympathetic sequence of unfolding actions more beautiful than the flower. We can feel every finger receiving its quota of tenderness and co-ordination, bringing it into ac- tion and unity natural to the human hand. Pos- sibly there is nothing else in all the universe that can perform that action. Certainly there is nothing in this world that can compare with it. 82 THESMILE " Oh ! " you say, " everybody can do that." No, indeed. It sometimes takes us weeks at the School of Expression to secure that sympathetic modulation, and when it comes, what a change! Channels are opened that allow pent-up feeling a mode of expression; it is not alone the hand that is free, it is the student's whole being. The hand is the flower of expression. The fin- gers are its petals. And the human face : into how few does feeling flow and diffuse itself equally over every part ! Yes, the smile is universal, but what a ghastly, one-sided lot of smiles are found in the world ! How few, when they smile, smile with the whole countenance ! Of course the diffusion of the smile into every feature cannot come from deliberation ; that would only result in artificiality. We must smile with the entire face. To do this we must allow the face to smile. When the deliberative usurps the spontaneous, we have artificiality and affectation. When the spontaneous usurps the deliberative, we have chaos. Is there no way in which we can manipulate the face, strengthen in- ternal emotion, open a channel for its outflow, until the whole face can be filled and moulded with this imaginative and emotional life? If we begin early, can we not bring all the fea- tures of the face into greater unity? Can we not make them harmonious by manipulation with the fingers? Something of the kind can be done for I have seen it, but the greatest need is that the man be awakened and his emotion stimulated. We cannot produce the effect without the cause. Let man be simple. Let him look on the world in a natural, unaffected and sympathetic way, the way any true human being should; if he per- CAN THE SMILE BE DEVELOPED? 83 ceives but one little streak of sunshine, then he will smile. The development of the smile, how- ever, must go still farther. Wrong habits are a matter of acquirement. For example: there is everywhere danger of premature expression. Im- pulsiveness is not the same as spontaneity. The latter employs a co-ordination of man's primary faculties and powers. It employs reserve, the co-ordination of emotions until they diffuse ac- tively into all parts of the body. What is spontaneity, and especially what is it in the smile? One of the worst faults, and one of the earliest, is a kind of jerk of the body intended for a laugh. Not only does the laugh displace the smile but it is a sign of weakness, and the result is characteris- tic of all forced expression. The muscles are set into action and the whole body is jerked, or more frequently, given a series of jerks. A boy or girl gives up prematurely to the desire to be pleased, or share laughter with older people, with the result that there is a loud gush of breath, a contortion of the body and other abnormal actions. Such an outward thrust of breath or cramp of the body is a sign of weakness. Such tendencies and there are many of them too should be cor- rected as early as possible. Here is the time to begin to develop character. The smile must be easy, natural, simple. It must not be forced, not chaotic. Even children while full of joy must be trained to eliminate ex- plosive laughter. The smile must precede and support laughter. Support is one of the greatest laws of expression. It means that central action must justify one that is superficial ; that primary action such as the smile 84 THE SMILE must support secondary actions such as laughter. All true laughter begins in a smile which must pre- cede and support it. " You have in you there," says Emerson " a noisy, sensual savage, which you are to keep down, and turn all his strength to beauty. For example what a seneschal and detective is laughter! It seems to require several generations of education to train a squeaking or a shouting habit out of a man. Sometimes, when in almost all expressions the Choctaw and the slave have been worked out of him, a coarse nature still betrays itself in his con- temptible squeals of joy. It is necessary for the purification of drawing-rooms that these enter- taining explosions should be under strict control. Lord Chesterfield had early made this discovery, for he says, ' I am sure that since I had the use of my reason, no human being has ever heard me laugh.' I know that there go two to this game, and, in the presence of certain formidable wits, savage nature must sometimes rush out in some dis- order." Emerson and Chesterfield recognized the dan- ger of vulgarity in laughter. It is the one act to which we are liable to give up, to prematurely and unreservedly abandon ourselves. Yet they pos- sibly went too far. Mr. Frank Sanborn tells a story of how he once went to walk with Emerson in the woods, and he tried to make him laugh. Beginning very quietly and composedly he endeavored to take him by surprise with the following story: A man came in at 4 o'clock in the morning. As he came in his wife cried out, " Why are you coming in so late as this? It is four o'clock." " My dear," replied the man, "it is one o'clock." " It is four o'clock, CAN THE SMILE BE DEVELOPED? 85 the clock has just struck four," replied his wife. " My dear," he answered, " it struck one, I heard " it strike one repeatedly." Emerson, taken by surprise at the last word, turned away from Mr. Sanborn and placed his hand over his mouth and came as near laughing as he ever did. While the control of laughter, in transmuting it into a smile, is one of the greatest marks of culture yet the hearty laugh brings health and strength. However, the laugh which is reserved and re- tained in the middle of the body, which is, so to speak, an internal laugh rather than an external, has a far better effect upon the health than the quick abandon and the open boisterous laugh. One method of improving the laugh, accordingly, is to transform it into a smile, to transform it into an intense increase of the breathing and an inward intense activity. Another point may be noted. The laugh to which we quickly abandon ourselves, is soon over, while the laugh which we reserve and con- trol gives us a deeper laugh and stays longer. Never allow anything to make us negative. Let us be always positive; let us keep in our hearts only positive emotions. What a change that would make in our lives ! Observe the effect of positive emotions upon life: A scientist started a series of wonderful in- vestigations which were unfortunately interrupted by lack of support for his great laboratory. He showed that negative emotions exercised a dele- terious influence upon the metabolism in the cells of the human body, while joy, love, courage and 86 THESMILE all the positive emotions stimulated all that goes towards normal functioning in all the organs of the body. He took two women. One meditated for a month over all the bad things that had happened to her in her life ; the other meditated over all the good things that had happened to her. One kept her thoughts negative ; the other kept her thoughts positive. At the first of the month a most careful ex- amination was given in all vital conditions. At the close of the month another careful examination was given. One had decreased 18 per cent. ; the other had increased 25 per cent, in all that made for health, strength and the enjoyment of life. It is because the smile expresses positive emo- tion that it is so important to life. " Laugh and grow fat " is one of the oldest and truest of the proverbs. The smile expresses not only mental and moral health, but physical strength. What- ever we do, we should do cheerfully and with a smile. If a man walks with the exhilaration of the smile and with joy, he grows stronger and stronger. If he hangs his head, he expresses in his body a negative attitude ; he grows weary after a few steps. Primitive peoples smile imperfectly. Unculti- vated people laugh but rarely smile. Their pleas- ure is often exploded at once into a jerky roar of laughter. In the cultivated person, on the contrary, there is a slow, keen realization of the situation, and a deeper co-ordination of all the faculties of the mind and body, and the smile seems to radiate through the whole countenance. The presence of the smile is, therefore, a mark of refinement and culture. CAN THE SMILE BE DEVELOPED? 87 The extravagant laugh is marked by the absence of the smile and it always indicates a lack of depth and refinement. In a sense, therefore, the smile is the deeper part of nature, and in another sense, it is the sub- limest character of art. In fact we find the smile the perfect gauge of culture. One of the great requisitions of expression is self-control. No emotion can become intense un- less it is reserved. It is like an engine, if the steam is allowed to have free vent it will never give the power necessary to move the train of cars. The same is true of all joy, love, emotion. Lack of reserve means lack of control. The true smile shows the power of the mind in the face. Explo- sion of laughter, with no preceding smile, is indica- tive of weakness rather than of joy and turns any man into a noisy savage. Everyone should strug- gle to keep down this savage, which still survives in every plane of life, and in all literature. It takes a great deal of discipline and thoughtful culture and contact with the best society to eliminate the gush and the squeak and the blow from our laugh- ter. In proportion to the precedence of the smile, its dignity, depth and diffusion over the whole face, may we determine the culture of the man. As I have pointed out before in a certain sense a smile is the expression of the whole nature. One of the first things that impressed me in my early childhood was " Uncle Jim's " tremendous laugh. His " Yahw, yahw " could be heard a mile, but there was very little smile. In contrast to this the smile, that most impressed me, was that of Profes- sor Charles Eliot Norton, which went all over his face and forehead. What a difference, a differ- 88 THESMILE ence in culture, in refinement, and in harmonious development of the higher faculties ! To my mind, therefore, the improvement of the smile would consist in bringing it more around the eyes, in giving flexibility to all parts of the face, in cultivating reserve and avoiding that sudden impulsive explosion which is characteristic of the " giggles." Dr. Stanley Hall, in observing smiles, said that the smile of some men begins around the corners of the eyes and that the smile of others began at the corners of the mouth. The smiles beginning at the mouth are, to those beginning at the corners of the eyes, as seven to five. This overlooks the question as to which is the more cultivated. The smile of the more cultivated people begins around the eyes. Dr. Hall has also overlooked those people who co-ordinate perfectly the corners of the eye with the mouth. The corner of the eye is not sufficiently responsive in many people, and this is the reason for the smile's beginning with the mouth. Do we not find here an explanation why many have condemned the laugh as vulgar? This explains why Lord Chesterfield rejoiced that no one had ever heard him laugh. Emerson also condemned laughter, and seemed to go further, sometimes, in almost condemning the smile. He has written : " Said a wise mother, ' Beware, girls, lest you smile, for then you show all your faults/ ' Ah, Mr. Emerson, are you sure that any wise mother ever said that? Does not a smile rather conceal than record the faults; does it not rather show the virtues? CAN THE SMILE BE DEVELOPED? 89 Once we can smile at our own follies, or at the follies of others, we are in a way to deliver our- selves from them. In fact, it is one of the first means we have of ridding ourselves of our faults, to be able to laugh at them. In a certain sense, laughter objectifies to us something that is wrong, and when we can laugh at it, we put it out of coun- tenance. Laughter is the result of discovering that wrong is a delusion and a sham. The sense of humor is a discovery of the hollo wness of evil. Of course, there can be faults in the smile, even in laughter, but many have gone too far in con- demning laughter. Pascal regarded it as wicked. But, on the contrary, the hearty ringing laugh is a joy to all who hear it. Once we laugh at our own faults we are in the way to correct ourselves of them. When we laugh at the faults of others it is the first step toward separating them from our- selves and avoiding temptation. Laughter has been recommended as the best physical exercise for the health. It certainly is a good exercise for the voice. It centres the breath- ing, opens the throat and diffuses joy through the body. Savages seldom smile, and their laughter is jerky and explosive. Gloomy people who never laugh are generally poor in health. Hearty laughter should be the climax of the smile. Joy and laughter supported by the smile are beautiful and lovely. The true smile eliminates superficiality and arti- ficiality. The many people who condemn laughter do not understand its relation to the smile. xn MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE In all our endeavors to develop the smile, we find the same numerous false and the few true methods which we find in the development of all true modes of expression. Some of these false modes of teaching expression may be seen more clearly to be false in the light of the smile. The first of these false methods is imitation. The little child cer- tainly does not laugh from imitation. I have watched little tots only a few weeks old laugh to themselves over some object, such as a red ball hung at a distance. Unconscious imitation later may do a great deal to pervert laughter. Imitation, as a rule, has more ability to degrade than to develop. The smile of the little child certainly does not improve by imi- tation. It is a pure manifestation of a sense of pleasure and happiness. Observe what a poor, hollow mockery is the imi- tation of someone's laughter. If the laugh is a " horse laugh," or is in any way affected or abnormal, its imitation is easy, but even in such a case it is only a perversion of the original. How hard, how impossible, is the imitation of a good, hearty, genuine laugh, or even of the simple smile. The laugh of each individual is peculiar to him- self ; it is an original possession, a part of every- one's personal identity. 90 MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE 91 Why has imitation, from time immemorial, been the chief method in teaching expression? We can trace protests against it through all the great teachers of speaking, and yet it is still practised by many in this enlightened day. Sad to say, it is popular. People like it; it seems so easy, so nat- ural. Whoever stops to think that only the ex- ternals and accidentals, the oddities and peculiari- ties of a man can be imitated? Though imitation tends to degrade all true expression, as well as character itself, modern culture still encourages it. It has great weaknesses, but many seem to think that it is the only way possible in art. There is nothing that has a more superficializing effect upon human feeling and human intuition, true vigor and originality of thinking, than imita- tion. Whenever a man succeeds as an actor or public reader, he feels that his method and what brought success to him is of fundamental importance, is an original discovery and that it belongs to all the race. While the great artist has learned to know better and realizes that his greatest discovery is his own personal element in his work, the second- rate actor feels that he can do humanity a great service by teaching it to do just as he does. Grant- ing that he does everything well, which is not the case; the fact generally being that he does some one thing well, he forgets that everyone else has a different temperament, a different personality, a different point of view, and that art necessarily implies a decided and original point of view. He forgets that other people have voices of totally different quality, pitched in a different key and of a different range, and that the actions of their 92 THESMILE bodies are different. " Imitation," says Emerson, " is suicide," and there is no place where this ap- plies more than in the work of expression. The imitator in art, painting, sculpture, in ex- pression or action, is always recognized at once, and his work, as second-rate, mediocre, without centrality, vitality, or personality. " There are no two men alike," said Sam Jones; " if there are, one of them is no account." In the same way, we can say there are no two Hamlets alike, no two Lady Macbeths, no two Lady Teazles alike, or if there are, one is of no account. A character to be artistically portrayed must be found in the depths of the artist's being. Even though he remains true to the writer of the play, he must still be himself. The writer of the play himself takes great interest and realizes the twin crea- tion of his fellow artist. In imitation of every kind, there is a struggle to get an effect without a cause, hence affectation and artificiality necessarily result with consequent dis- couragement and fettering of personality. Anyone may convince himself of this by trying to imitate a smile or by observing someone else do so. In the very nature of the case, imitation can be only a constriction, a caricature. It is exhibi- tion, not expression; manipulation, not manifes- tation. Weak as is imitation, the remedy offered for it has been scarcely better. What is the substitute? Mechanical rules, artificial analysis. Apply this method to the smile. Try to smile by rule. Try consciously and voluntarily to con- trol every element in the smile. How truly arti- ficial is the result. Yet this method is exactly what mechanical MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE 93 elocution has tried to employ. It has endeavored to make every element of delivery deliberative. It has tried to make man give every inflection ac- cording to some rule. Everyone must be con- scious and volitional. No room is left for the spontaneous emanation which is the very funda- mental characteristic of the true smile. We may, however, control our attention. We may sustain our attitude of joyous interest in a way to awaken character and more harmonious spontaneity. Hence, the smile can be improved. It can be reserved, controlled, guided and en- couraged. We can allow it to become the spon- taneous result of conditions. We can give ourselves up to a mental attitude. We can allow a picture to dominate us. We can repress a wrong feeling or chasten it or elevate it to a higher plane and thus affect the smile as its expression. The smile itself is a resultant, a kind of reflex action or response to attention. To try to produce by will the spontaneous elements of any expres- sion is ridiculous. No wonder elocution has be- come the synonym of artificiality. A theory may sound well but it needs to be tested by fact. Let us take the theories of me- chanical elocution and apply them to the smile. We can improve expression in all its forms, whether that expression be a smile, a song, a painting or a statue, in three ways: first, we can stimulate its cause; second, we can secure better control of the means to be employed; and third, ~V \ we may by careful observation, study and ex- periment, come to understand something of its nature or meaning; we may comprehend better its elements, its expressive value. In short, we 94 THESMILE may gain command of a better vocabulary. We can also repress bad results and can encourage and develop that which is right. To illustrate by the smile : in the first place, we can awaken joy, sympathy, love and interest. We can develop a man's imagination and his powers of observation; we can harmoniously un- fold all his faculties. That is, we can actually develop a cause for the smile. In the second place, we can limber up the face. We can improve the health and agility of the whole body. We can remove, by direct action of the fingers, various constrictions from the features. In the third place, we may realize that a smile may be exploded into a jerky laugh and become ridiculous or offensive, on the one hand; on the other, we may realize that emotion may be con- trolled and allowed to diffuse itself through the whole body and the face. We can allow our whole nature to respond properly to the deeper influ- ences; we can study our faces and see the signif- icance of the smile. We can see that our smile is only in the lips and has nothing about the corners of the eyes. We can render the eyes more mobile. There is, of course, a tendency to self -conscious- ness in this, but a certain element of self-con- sciousness is necessary in the correction of all faults, all one-sidedness, all abnormal conditions. In a similar way, the musician must have music in his soul. Poets, musicians, artists of all kinds, need one another. Not that they may imitate but that they may stimulate and inspire one another. The music in man must be awakened by music; the right awakening of the imagination by the study of literature, by a more sympathetic observa- tion of Nature, by listening to the winds among the MODESOF IMPROVING THE SMILE 95 trees, the murmuring of the brooks and the sing- ing of the birds. He must be awakened also by the great musical interpretations of these things by the masters. He needs the musicians of other ages that his own individual power may be awak- ened. To love Beethoven does not necessarily mean the imitation of that master. The musician must have power in himself to respond to the music in Nature and to appreciate the artistic en- deavors of others. In short, he must have a love of music in his own being as the basis of all his education. In the second place, he must have an instru- ment in tune. The means must be at his com- mand. The best musician in the world cannot bring good music from an instrument that is badly constructed, that has discordant overtones or is out of tune. In the third place, he must know how to play. He must have command of every key. He must understand the right use of chords. He must have the command of his touch, of his bow, if he is a violinist; of his fingers and the keys, if he is a pianist. Thus he must have imaginative, creative power to receive an impression. He must have his in- strument rightly attuned and have command of the technique of his art. As has already been said, the technique must not be despised, but no one of the three must be slighted. One of the great difficulties with art schools has been that they give merely the technique. They say that is all they can do for a student. If he has art in his soul, he will succeed. They do nothing to awaken the artistic or the spiritual instincts, or a love of nature and beauty. At times they even repress 96 THESMILE it. A student is compelled for months to draw from a cast. He is rarely sent out face to face with Nature to sketch, but the work of drawing should be combined with wider studies, to awaken interest and the artistic nature, otherwise the work will become drudgery. The art schools kill more artists than they make. It was the aim of the founders of the School of Expression not only to reform elocution, but to bring the speaker, the actor, and the reader to study their arts from all points of view. It was their aim, also, to lead all the art schools to do the same thing, that is, realize that to make an artist you must awaken the cause as well as secure a command of the technical means of the art, or the technical language used. It was one of the aims, also, of this School to show the world the necessity of studying man's primary modes of expression, such as the smile. The Greeks did this and the same has been true of every great artistic period in the history of the world. There is a proper realization not only of the generic nature of expression, but this gives some understanding of the character of all true artistic endeavor brought about by a study of man's own primary languages, especially his primary lan- guages from the earliest childhood or those which are most directly connected with the awakening of the artistic faculties. Expression in its most primitive and natural forms, from the first smile of the little child to the simplest use of the voice in conversation, from the simplest motion to the most complex expression of the whole body, is wholly neglected in education or spoken of con- temptuously. " What is the use of studying such things? " MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE 97 has been heard more than once. The use of studying such things ! How else can thought and feeling be co-ordinated? How else can thought and imagination be brought into sympathetic union? How else can the harmony of man's whole being be established? How else can man realize the dignity of all art and the necessity of human expression as the very foundation of society? We receive education from two sources, im- pression and expression, and the two are co- ordinated, as in true respiration the taking of breath must be co-ordinated with the giving out of breath. For so-called schools of art not to include the primary modes of expression is most astounding. Everyone, of course, will acknowledge that there is a difference between a smile and a picture. The smile is more a part of ourselves. It is more spontaneous. The picture is a deliberative crea- tion, while the smile is a simple, spontaneous manifestation. There is a right and a wrong method of painting a picture, a right way to draw things and a wrong way to color. And yet in a picture there is also something spontaneous, at the climax the artist feels the total inadequacy of the means he employs to ac- complish the results he wishes. It is not wholly deliberative. He cannot always give the exact reason for doing something in a specific way, or explain how he brings all into a sympathetic oneness. The last climax comes in all its unity with something of the spontaneity of the human smile, or the whole picture is wrong. He may call this tone and speak of the tone of the picture as a result of feeling, but it can never result from a formula or receipt. It must come, as THE SMILE all true expression comes at the last, with the im- mediateness of a natural sign. There is a right and wrong way in every art, and is there not a right and wrong way to smile? Are there no jerky constrictions of the body, no twitches of the face that are wholly meaningless; are there no constricted members that can be set free? Is the feeling causing the smile reposeful, rest- ful and reserved or controlled? Can there be no holding back of the feelings until they become diffused through the whole body and the smile be thus improved? Who has not heard a sudden outburst of laugh- ter, the laugh indicating an undisciplined nature, uncultivated feeling, and an untrained voice? Perhaps the smile is one of the most normal of human actions. Certainly, it has no grammar. He who said, " You can never teach expression; you can teach only its grammar," knew as little of what true expression is as he knew what true education is. The grammar of expression, or the language of signs, is exactly what cannot be taught. To teach expression we must awaken certain conditions and must secure command of those conditions. If the face is normal, the muscles all over it are harmoniously developed; if the nervous system is healthful and the mind free and sympathetic, if there is a sense of humor and a sense of love for one's fellow-men, then the smile will come of itself. Even the painter of a picture who at the climax of its revelation is thinking of his grammar, will fail. He will miss the spontaneous elements of the smile. MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE 99 Grammar must be studied,. but forgotten. The study of grammar is on the very outward periphery of all study of language, especially of signs. It must become a part of one's being. Grammar must become a habit of daily intercourse in speech, and this is still more true of the painter, the sculp- tor, the actor and the speaker. One of the hardest things to teach is action ; as it is the most unconscious language, calling con- scious attention to it is very apt to be injurious. It is very difficult to develop that which is spontaneous. One method is to show students the necessity of emphasizing the reception of an impression ; by sustaining attention and allowing the mind to create its own ideas in its own ways, and then giving up voice and body to the direct effect of the impression. Then let expression true and genuine immediately follow. The results of this are surprising. Not only those who had no action have been so awakened that there was more expressive movement, but those who had too much and chaotic action have been brought into emotive repose. This sentence from Emerson applies to all expression but it is a special application to the smile: " The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most dis- agreeable sensation." One of the chief methods of improving the smile is by nature study. A true observation of plants, trees and bushes requires us to come face to face sympathetically with simple objects. Thus we come to feel the smile that permeates the skies and hills, the fields and woods. A loving observer seems to catch the spirit of nature's life. 100 THESMILE The father and mother should take the children to the woods. Nature is the great school-house. It seems to be filled with smiles. From every nook and corner there is a kindly invitation which every little child longs to accept. Who has not felt the smile in the spring-time, the joyous gleam across the snow in winter? Who has not heard the glad twitter of the birds, the laughter of the streams? It is Wordsworth who has taught us the true joy of nature. The child is free to laugh in the fields, free to run and shout and laugh as heartily as it pleases, free to enjoy its life. There its senses are awak- ened by the expansive activity of nature. Why? Because the trees and flowers, the songs of the birds and the rippling of the waters awaken a smile that will welcome the deepest truth and the most abstract statement. Nature is especially adapted to awaken the best in a human being. If teachers were allowed to take the children for half the time out into the presence of nature, during the other time they would learn double. "Through primrose tufts, in that green bower The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. "The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure; But the least motion which they made, It seemed a thrill of pleasure. "The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there." Ah, yes ! the smile and the joy open the avenue of truth. The unfolding of the child is as natural MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE 101 as the blooming of the flower. How unfortunate it is that we make children hate education, poetry, and even truth. Awaken the smile and the door is open to receive the most serious thought. Provoke the frown and all doors shut. There also are tragedies in nature. A lady looked out of her window every day at two robins who had a nest in a tree. It pleased her to watch them. When the little robins came her enjoyment increased. One day the male robin came home and called to his mate, but he called in vain ; a cat had taken her from him. After hours of mournful calling he came and looked at his motherless children and went to work. As a young robin will eat his weight every day in red worms the task was no light one. But he fulfilled it and brought them all up to the time when he stood proudly over them on a limb and forced them to take their first lesson in flying. One little fellow decidedly objected. The nest was all right for him. But Master Robin got behind him and boosted him out with his head. The father watched them one by one fly to a neighboring tree, watching all the while for the horrible cat. Great was his exulta- tion as the timid one at last made the flight vic- toriously. Erasmus Wilson, of Pittsburgh, who has de- lighted generations with his observations, has told a sadder story still. A robin had not only lost its mate but also one of its legs in a battle with a cat. Yet with only one leg, with hard toil and work he brought up the family. Through all this fearful task laid upon him, even in rain and in storm, a lady who watched him and tried to help him a little in his great task, said that he would 102 THE SMILE take a little time every day to perch on the top of a tree on his one leg and sing, triumphing over his trials and misfortunes. What heroic courage, what gratitude, what devotion, what love, what joy, can well up in the hearts of these blessed citizens of the woods ! I once took a course in nature study with Pro- fessor Hodge. I was working very hard on some psychological problems, and I wanted the spirit of enjoyment; I wanted a little guidance, a better understanding of the way to study nature. One day we would go straight ahead, looking neither to the right nor to the left, to gather mos- quito eggs that we might watch them hatch out. Another day he would say, " Let us see what we may happen to find." Once we came to an old apple tree and found upon one of its limbs a lady bug. What was she doing? We gazed in admira- tion as we were made to realize her great service. We never interrupted nor disturbed her and I remember her with delight, in the tree she was serving. Such a walk with Professor Hodge was an event in a lifetime. The simplest object became a sub- ject of deep, serious study. He is a true teacher who can direct the attention of others to the deepest truths in the least things. Keep the heart full of great literature, of beauti- ful pictures, and keep high ideals. Come to the right source of enjoyment. Read only good books, great books. Look only at great and beautiful pic- tures. Associate as far as possible with the best people, with those having high ideals, with those whose hearts are full of joy and love and sympathy. Avoid with all possible care the man who is sour, and above all live true to the heart of nature. MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE 103 Light is thrown upon the proper development of smile and laughter and the correction of faults, by the distinction which has already been made between the three kinds of action, gestures, attitudes, and bearings. The smile of the young child is sudden and local at first, but the face becomes more and more re- sponsive. That which was gesture becomes sym- pathetic attitude and modulation of the whole countenance. The smile becomes more reposeful and permanent. We see before us a revelation of the process of formation of character. If expressions of pain or displeasure are culti- vated, the growth of the smile is retarded, and the face may take on permanent perversions as bearings. If, on the other hand, joy and love and tenderness are made to fill the heart the face gradually takes on the bearing of the smile. This development of right bearings in the little child is not even a question of health nor a question of intelligence, but simply one of love and freedom to express itself. It is chiefly a question of right co-ordinations with the kindly face of the mother or nurse. Self-indulgence, constant answering of every whim will quickly develop perversions. These bearings in the face will become the bearings of the whole body, expressing and un- folding the being of the child. They color all ex- pression and form character. Two persons may act the same part, speak the same words, but how differently! What is the cause of the difference? Every man gives some- thing of himself. The bearing, in spite of all a man can do, emanates with the words he speaks. " If I had said that," bitterly sneered a man of one who was moving a crowd, " nobody would 104 THESMILE have listened to it." The sarcastic sneer uncon- sciously told the reason. Character fills the sim- plest words with life. Speaking has a technique, but Cicero implied that speaking was something more, "it is a good man speaking well." Every child begins to develop a smile or frown or scowl as a permanent bearing. Why leave all to chance? Why forget the importance of early impressions and experiences? Why overlook the fact that the formation of bearing is simply an expression of the formation of character? Can the smile be so deepened as to become a bearing? This is exactly what takes place in the unfolding of lovely characters. Under the perverted smile, the conventional set smile that seems to want to please you, you may feel the hate. It is more like a mere gesture, an assumed gesture at that. It is not an attitude; it is a kind of attitudinizing. The deep, true, genuine smile that we enjoy is a gesture, an attitude and a bearing all at the same time. A bearing expressing habitual sympathy and joy, an attitude indicating a present specific experience. For a time, a bearing expresses habitual emo- tions, those which are the motives of character, which have become characteristic and show the type to which a man belongs. Bearings are deeper than motions or attitudes. Men are less conscious of them. They are signs, not of present experience which emanates atti- tudes, but of the trend of all his experiences, emotions which he has most indulged, attitudes which express the moods and feelings, motives and conditions which he has most cherished. MODES OF IMPROVING THE SMILE 105 It is interesting to note the difference between wit and humor. The smile which proceeds from wit is more of a gesture; the smile that results from humor is rather an attitude or bearing. Wit is brisk in action and brings quick response, while humor is more gradual, it permeates the whole man and awakens a deeper pleasure. Wit is sharp and cutting; humor is always sym- pathetic. Wit laughs; humor smiles. Everyone to become humorous must remain himself. Hu- mor is a just sense of the interrelation of things and of one's own individuality to the world. Hu- mor is one of the most sacred of emotions. It brings a victory to the human being. Irish wit, as is well known, though often sym- pathetic and at times having great humor, usually has a little sting to it. Observe this in the follow- ing characteristic Irish story : A lawyer named O'Hara was pleading a case before a judge, when a donkey outside began to bray. " One at a time, brother O'Hara, one at a time," said the judge. A little later, when the judge was making his charge, the same donkey, now a little farther away, brayed again. The lawyer broke in and said, " Will your honor please to repeat that last remark? There is such an echo in this room that I was not able to hear what you said." Thackeray had more wit, Dickens had more humor. Wit awakens a sudden, jerky laugh, and humor is the real source of the smile. Dickens made the world smile sympathetically with the poorest boy or man on the streets of Lon- don. The greater education of people leads toward humor rather than toward wit, toward the smile rather than toward explosive laughter. Laughter 106 THESMILE is almost like a gesture. There is little bearing in it, but the smile may become a part of the whole countenance, become one of the most characteris- tic bearings of a face. We must never forget that all true education is the acquisition of bearings. Our sudden emo- tions become motives; our exalted visions which come at moments, may be so cherished as to be- come part of our character. Thus, expression is a mirror of educational processes. Sudden transitory emotions become settled into the deep conditions of our lives. Hence, the importance of such little acts, as smiles and laugh- ter. The choice we make adds to the dignity of our mirth. Boisterous laughter is softened. The smile is deepened and made a part of our inner- most life. XIII THE SMILE AS AN EDUCATIONAL AID We under- estimate the importance of laughter and the first smile that is gesture. The true smile must begin as a gesture before it can become a bearing. It is necessary to practice all modes of expression in order to develop the bearings. Ex- pression is one of the most important means of unfolding and developing character. We can develop a deep and beautiful bearing of the smile on the face only by the practice of joy. We must cherish love and joy in the heart; we must be interested in others. Such an attitude is produc- tive of smiles and laughter, and when accom- panied by reserve, constant meditation and a serious study of nature, literature and our fellow- men, the smile will gradually become first an atti- tude, then a bearing. Not only can we educate the smile, but the smile is a great help to education. In the first place, if a teacher will study the smile of a little child he can frequently discern inner conditions which act as a hindrance to the unfolding of the child's nature. Whenever we note what has been called by Scott that " contor- tion of the visage intended to be a smile," it may not be, as indicated, a suggestion of hypocrisy. It indicates sometimes constrictions or fear. The child may have been too greatly repressed and needs to be made to feel at home with others. 107 108 THESMILE Frequently children are like plants in a dark cellar. There is need of fellowship, encouragement, a chance to put forth endeavor. A smile of apprecia- tion may awaken a smile of conscious realization. Is it not one of the highest functions of educa- tion to awaken joy? I was astounded lately to hear an official of a great art museum say, " Our museum is not an educational institution. It does not exist to give people knowledge." What a narrow conception of education did this man have ! He was asked, " What does it try to give people? " " Joy," he answered. But does it give people joy? When people go into an art museum and fail to get the point of view of a pic- ture they begin to feel a sense of distance, and to me in many of our art museums the faces are very sad. " Before the art of Pizarro," said Philip Gilbert Hammerton, " I feel like a stranger who needs to be introduced." If before the interesting art of one of his contemporaries a great art critic could feel in that way and so frankly confess it, what must be the feeling of the ordinary man in one of our art museums? Does he not need an introduction? Does he not need to be awakened in some way, introduced to what he ought to re- ceive, what he should enjoy? If the art museum is not an educational institu- tion, must it not remain a mere show? The word " education " must be widened. The art museum should exist to educate people's imagination and cultivate their taste, to awaken feeling, to educate ideals, to develop power to perceive beauty and is this not one of the highest phases of education? The art museum exists for the average man, for the whole community. It is intended to render a THE SMILE AN EDUCATIONAL AID 109 great educational service not merely to school children in their study of history, but to inspire them to realize the spirit of the historical events they have studied. Whoever comes in touch with the spirit of Greece by the mere perusal of a record of events? These are necessary, but they must be supplemented by other great works of art, those things which embody the spirit. We can never learn to know Greece so long as we re- main in ignorance of the Parthenon, the Iliad and the (Edipus. Just as we frequent a library to understand something of the Greek literature, we should visit a museum to feel the spirit of their great art. A man by taking a Greek poem home with him may meditate over it and come into a realization of its beauty, but it requires the same concentration and sympathy to appreciate an art work which quite as directly, if not more immediately, reveals the spirit and life of a people. Education is not the mere acquisition of facts. A museum of natural history serves a great end, but because an art museum does not present facts in the same manner may it not be in a higher sense educational? It gives more than facts : it awakens the imagi- nation, the feelings and the sympathies. It leads to a deeper and truer understanding of the possi- bilities of human nature. Is it not one of the highest aims of education to awaken the enjoyment of people, to teach them what to enjoy and how to enjoy? It cannot be taught by dictation; can be accomplished only by the direction of attention. The teacher performs the simple act of introduc- tion, but leaves the student to study deeper. The best and highest art, no less than Nature herself, 110 THESMILE requires an introduction to most men and women. It should be and can be introduced to children. The time is coming when there will be a great transformation of the art museums, when they will be less a treasure house or mausoleum of art works for the few, but rather a place where great pictures and statues will be recognized as some- thing to be seen by all and felt by all, such a place too where everyone will be introduced to great art in a way that will lead to a true appreciation. True art is a temple into which everyone must enter in solitude, but a true teacher can indicate the path. In one sense art is an expression of the racial in us and to develop the race in us art is necessary. Expression is necessary to the growth and de- velopment of every human being. Have you ever seen a child that never played? I remember one especially. She had been a mother to many little brothers and sisters. Her father was a poor workman. Her mother, according to some minds, was not what she ought to have been, she drank whenever she had a chance. The whole woe of the family had fallen upon this little girl. How sad was her face! How serious! I never saw it light up with a smile. Like an angel of mercy she served patiently without a murmur, father and mother and every member of the family. There was no frown, no antagonistic look from her soft eyes. Only a look of submission, of endurance without one ray of hope. Before that sad face you felt as a stranger. You stood before the beautiful rosebud, withered before it ever bloomed. Do you make enough of joy in education? I once heard a leading man say, " I attended term after term under the instruction of one who felt THE SMILE AN EDUCATIONAL AID 111 he must drive the information into us by force, one who never smiled. Then there came one who was full of smile. He was not so good a scholar as the other, it was said, but I learned more under him in one month than under the other in all the years I had been studying with him." I have thought that sometimes the children need more help, more sympathetic contact, in their games than in their studies. It is in their games that normal feelings are awakened; there they can smile and enjoy the success of others, laugh at their own failures. The game is born of deep human instinct. Certainly we know the child is more serious at play than at work. Certainly, the right smile, the right laugh at the right time is one of the greatest and most im- portant achievements in education. In a certain sense we cannot teach anything. " No man," said Schlegel, " can give anything to his fellow-man but himself." What, after all, is teaching? As I look back over my past life and think of some of the fifty great teachers I have had, I rarely remember the particular things they taught me. The things I remember are some side issues which bore only indirectly if at all upon the sub- ject under discussion. It was the contact with their great souls that meant something to me, the awakening that came to me from a touch with their personalities. No teacher ever gave a good lesson in which he did not learn something himself. The best lesson was given when he learned most himself. Is not teaching, after all, a contact of soul with that great truth of which each of us knows so 112 THESMILE little? Is not teaching a sharing in discovery? Teaching is not giving to another, but a receiving by both of us of a higher vision of the truth. One may know much more than the other of some sub- ject, but, as they face it, truth is ever regarded by the one who knows most about it as superior to himself. One may know a little more than another of some truth as they face it, but the one who knows the most will be the most teachable and will be apt to learn most. When two people stand side by side, both get a higher vision than one can alone; this is true teaching. So-called instruction is the very lowest kind of teaching. It has its place but it regards merely the approaches to truth ; simply how to investigate ; what kind of books to read; what part of nature to study ; how to conduct an experiment and a hint as to what man must look for in his own observa- tions. Truth is a great temple into which each person must go alone, but two can approach the temple and may be very near to each other, but will only be partially conscious in their sublimest moments of the meaning and importance of truth to each other. How little can be given from one human being to another by dictation, by domination! Educa- tion is a leading out, an unfolding, an awakening. It is the bringing of an individual into conscious- ness of himself and a consciousness of his source, and the consciousness of his brothers. Teach a smile? Yes, it is the one thing that brings soul near to soul, the basis of all teaching. The smile denotes the union of two beings learn- ing from and with each other. THE SMILE AN EDUCATIONAL AID 113 In the old days, especially in the time of the Romans, education was a very cruel process. One old teacher of the Middle Ages has recorded faithfully the number of whippings and other forms of punishment he had given as if it were the greatest of virtues and the highest aim of his life. If we look through the reforms in education we will find a great change. No longer do we call the pedagogue " the servant who drives the un- willing student to school," as the etymology of the word indicates. He is a companion and friend who leads the pupil to something that becomes a mutual delight and joy. It is from the teacher who is loved that the student learns. Not only is the smile an aid to education; it is now a necessity. Love is the fulfilment of the law, not only of the spirit but the development of human relationship. An old adage tells us, " Love is blind." This is untrue. " Love," says Emerson, " is not a hood, but an eye waterer." The smile also denotes teachableness. Of all virtues teachableness is perhaps the supreme. Any teacher has seen one of great ability outdone by another of lesser ability simply because one was teachable, tried hard and developed, the other with pride for smartness grew less and less profound, more and more brilliant, but never un- folded or caught the higher vision. Carlyle has recorded a peculiar fable which illustrates something which is often overlooked, that the pupil who learns and grows most quickly may not be of so true and profound a nature as the one who is slower to unfold. " What is the use of thee, thou gnarled sapling?" 114 THE SMILE said a young larch tree to a young oak. " I grow three feet in a year, thou scarcely so many inches ; I am straight and taper as a reed, thou straggling and twisted as a loosened withe." " And thy duration," answered the oak, " is some third part of a man's life and I am appointed to flourish for a thousand years. Thou art felled and sawed into paling, where thou rottest and art burned with a single summer; of me are fashioned battle ships, and I carry mariners and heroes into unknown seas." " The richer a nature," continues Carlyle, " the harder and slower its development. Two boys were once of a class in the Edinburgh gram- mar school. John ever trim, precise, and dux; Walter ever slovenly, confused and dolt. In due time, John became Baillie John of Hunter-Square, and Walter became Sir Walter Scott of the Uni- verse. The quickest and completest of all vege- tables is the cabbage." XIV NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE? All human emotions may be divided into two classes ; positive and negative. The smile is primarily positive. It expresses a positive attitude of the mind. It is important to distinguish the positive from the negative emotions. The negative feeling tends to kill itself. It is short lived. It poisons everyone. It brings pain and sickness, and shortens life. A positive emotion brings health and peace. It assimilates, strengthens, and expresses power. It brings greater pleasure ; it brings union with our fellow-men and permanent satisfaction with our- selves. It deepens experience and prolongs life. Positive emotions seem to place man in his right relation in the universe. The most important positive emotions are, probably, love and joy. Joy, love, courage, these are realizations of one's birthright. Negative emotions, on the contrary, deny man his birthright. Fear, hate, grief, cause us to whine and degrade us; they remove our candlestick out of its place so that our light ceases to shine. The true smile expresses the positive emotions ; is always positive, not negative. It is the very contradiction of all negative emotions. Life is a positive thing. A crown not to be won 115 116 THESMILE by mere denials. " Thou shall not " belongs to the old dispensation ; " Blessed," to the new. People seem to think that sin is the most real thing in this world, that darkness is more real than light. Not so; we can bring light through a tube or along a wire but how can we transmit darkness? If we turn off the light, its absence becomes dark- ness; but when we turn on the light again the darkness vanishes. How then, dare we say that darkness is as real as light that evil is as sub- stantial as good? Here is one of the greatest lessons to be learned in life. Ulysses, or to use his Greek name, Odysseus, stopped the ears of his sailors with wax and tied himself to a mast that he might hear but not yield to the seductive song of the sirens. Orpheus sailed by in safety with no rope about him and with no wax in his ears, because his soul was filled with sweeter music than even the sirens could utter. He who has cultivated a love for his race and whose soul is filled with sympathy and tenderness can smile at an insult. There is a parable of an empty heart in the New Testament which is seldom read and then possibly, rarely understood. A man seems to have cast out " the unclean spirit " by resolutions or by his own will. Then he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then he saith, " I will return to my house from whence I came out." And when he is come he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell therein. And the last state of NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE? 117 that man is worse than the first. The trouble was that the man's heart was empty. He who can smile is victor over himself, over his lower impulses; and he also becomes victor over all his antagonists. He wins a victory that does not crush his enemies, but makes them better, makes them ashamed of their degrada- tion, and turns them into friends. Surely the smile is one of the most powerful weapons in life's path. It is moral, it is ethical, it is spiritual. It is one of the most potent tools given to the race to con- quer hatred and antagonism. XV THE SMILE AND HEALTH The distinction between the positive and the negative in human feeling explains a fact that is almost universally recognized, namely, that cheer- fulness and the smile are necessary to health. Some of the oldest and truest proverbs, born out of the very heart of the race, refer to the necessity of enjoyment to health. It is a well-known fact that the most successful physicians accomplish much of the good results which follow from their ministrations by the genial smile and the cheerful voice they carry into the sick room. Their presence brings courage and confidence. I have heard recently of a physician, in fact, of a class of physicians, who give no medicine at all but prescribe only laughter. The smile and laughter directly express health. The presence of the smile is the test of the health of a little child. The true smile not only expresses physical health, but expresses mental and moral health as well. How does the smile or laughter affect the health? In the first place, they cause activity in the ex- tensor or expansive muscles ; they increase breath- ing; they stimulate circulation; they bring all the vital functions and organs into harmonious ac- tivity. 118 THE SMILE AND HEALTH 119 There are really but three actions of the human body expansion, contraction and modulation. Expansion expresses life, joy, exultation, courage ; contraction expresses intellectual effort, control, repression, uneasiness, and fear. Modulation, which is more or less a union of expansion and contraction, but in fact, a normal union with expansion in a natural ascendency and only enough contraction to regulate and guide, expresses sympathy, tenderness, gentleness and love. It manifests a perfect balance between thinking and feeling between spontaneous ac- tions and deliberative regulations between the work of that which is finite and that which is more the result of the infinite. Modulation is a sym- pathetic union of man's highest realizations, love, contentment, and poetic exultation. Accordingly, normal modulation is expressive not only of physical but also of spiritual health. In order to develop in all parts of the body modula- tion, which is seen to its perfection in the ideal smile, it is necessary to accentuate harmoniously all the expansive activities of the body. This de- velops not only grace, power of expression, but also health. Laughter seems to be not only the most im- mediate expression of health, but the most direct expression of life, Take, for example, a so-called " cold." What better remedy for a cold than to go away by one- self and laugh for half an hour. This laughter stimulates the circulation and removes congestion from local parts. Hot lemonade heats the centre of the body and thus stimulates circulation and in a similar way carries off congestion. From a hot lemonade and especially from drugs poured 120 THESMILE into the stomach there is always danger of re- action and we take, as everybody says, " more cold." Laughter has no abnormal re-action. The re- sults are more permanent. In proportion to the spiritual character of the remedy applied will there be an absence of reactionary tendencies. I have never come in contact with physicians who pre- scribe nothing but laughter, but I have well realized the results of laughing heartily and con- tinuously for many minutes. Nothing will stimu- late circulation more or have a better effect upon the nervous system; nothing will agitate equally well and move to normal activity the vital organs. There is really no reason for being sick. It is a negative condition, the result of a negative state of mind and the true remedy is to establish a posi- tive condition of mind. Laughter should not be performed in a me- chanical, perfunctory way. True laughter results from imagination, sympathy, courage, confidence, and a realization that error is absolutely ridiculous, that only truth is permanent and real. When tempted to become despondent or angry we should look at the ridiculous side of things, we should realize and express sympathy rather than antagonism, joy rather than discouragement. We can see the ridiculous side of a situation and by training our sense of humor we may no longer be victims of folly and illusion. When we laugh with a man or even at him he soon sees the ridiculousness of the situation him- self. There is nothing so contagious as laughter. The greatest difficulties have been conquered by a smile or a joyous laugh. There is one time in the day when we especially THE SMILE AND HEALTH 121 need laughter, and that is on awakening and on retiring. In a companion book these profound questions of how to wake and how to go to sleep are discussed, but we need line upon line to em- phasize the importance of these hours and the importance of laughter. On first waking up the birds sing their sweetest song and all the animals seem to awaken with greatest joy. Rarely, however, is this true of man. Many wake up with a whine with the very op- posite of a smile. How greatly is the man to be pitied who dresses with a whine and a frown on his face, and who comes down to breakfast and has to have a hot cup of coffee to wake him up, his voice in a wheeze and his body collapsed and not ready to do its work. The poor stomach must be made a lever to bring the man into wakefulness, when a smile and a few stretches could do the work and do it better as the sunshine makes the world. Begin the day as the bird, with a song and a word of praise, or as the old cow does, in giving the stretches which she seems to enjoy so much. Every cell and fibre seems to laugh at the instinc- tive exertion. XVI ETHICS OF AMUSEMENT To cause people to smile is the aim of the art of entertainment, of amusement. Is there any principle that will furnish a ra- tional test of the difference between a low and a high amusement? Over thirty years ago, I was calling with some friends upon the poet Whittier. Celia Thaxter came in from a visit to a woman's reformatory. " How hast thou succeeded?" said Mr. Whittier. " Oh! " she exclaimed, " I never saw such a lot of blank faces. I could not awaken the least re- sponse at first, but I read the * Shorn Lamb * and to use a sailor's phrase, that ' fetched them ' : I pleased them, anyway." " If thou hast pleased them," replied the great- hearted poet, " thou hast done them good." Here, then, is a principle that came to me as I looked into that kindly face : if a man is pleased above the plane of his daily experiences in the direction of his ideal, he receives good. If he is pleased below the average plane of his experience, he receives harm. Browning has said that the ideal of the worst man in the world is higher than the actual of the best man in the world. No matter who the man may be, if he is pleased in the direction of his ideals he is awakened and inspired and helped. There is a low sensual smile, a pure intellectual smile, and a deeper, spiritual smile. 122 ETHICS OF AMUSEMENT 123 Blessed is he who multiplies and especially elevates the smiles of his fellow-men ! Can we do anything for the man, or with him, till we have made him smile? When we displease anyone we shut him out from ourselves. Is it such a degraded and weak thing, therefore, to endeavor to please our fellow- men? Does not the kind of smile that is awakened depend upon what we have in view and the way we do it? May it not be the first and most necessary step toward the effort of human elevation? This aspect of the smile brings us to an impor- tant distinction, which is often overlooked. What is the difference between the effect of a low amuse- ment and that of a high amusement? Is there any way in which we can rank the character of enter- tainments? Is there anything that will guide us in distinguishing between what is known in Eng- land as the " legitimate " from the " illegitimate " drama? Smiles may be produced by low means as well as by higher methods. While the higher methods are most important in the elevation of the race, in awakening the ideals of young minds, stimulating in them better, deeper and purer human sym- pathies, low amusements, which may seem to please more quickly are among the most influen- tial means for the degradation of character that can be found. Next to low actions themselves, the sympathetic contemplation of that which is coarse, or whatever perverts the smile, poisons the very fountain head of human experience and ideals. The play, according to Shakespeare, is the thing. What are the forms of the drama? What is 124 THE SMILE the principle that separates these forms? Which of these appeals to the higher nature, which to the lower, and why? Drama is usually divided into four forms: burlesque, farce, comedy, tragedy. What dis- tinguishes these from one another? A mode of expression which may be truly inter- preted and genuinely artistic in burlesque, may be utterly out of place in comedy; things permis- sible in comedy may be absolutely out of place in tragedy. Can no light be thrown upon the distinctions between burlesque, farce, comedy and tragedy, by the smile? Artists sometimes present sublime things in such an exaggerated and extravagant way as to pervert them. It is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous and it is very easy for the crude ar- tist, who lacks ideals or a high conception of his art, to take that step. Artists are more apt to do this in the higher than in the lower forms of art. The higher the art, the more liable the artist is to fail. Some men think that because they happen to be reading " Macbeth " or " Hamlet " they are, therefore, in the realm of the highest art. An amateur actor, after he had murdered cer- tain lines from " Hamlet," at which the audience howled and hissed, stood in the wings and ex- claimed in anger, " Listen to the vulgar mob howl- ing at Shakespeare." A little burlesque might have revealed to him that he was not in the sphere of Shakespeare's tragedy at all. He rendered those sublime lines in a spirit which tended toward burlesque. The dramatic arts are the most potent for good ETHICS OF AMUSEMENT 125 or evil of all forms of art. They concern the smiles and the tears of human beings. How can we distinguish between what is low and what is high? Let me further illustrate some of these forms of the drama. Once, a company devoted to dra- matic burlesque staged a scene from "Romeo and Juliet" in an endeavor to caricature the ex- travagance of modern stage setting and scenery. The actor repeated Romeo's words, " By yonder moon I swear." Laying his hands upon his breast, he looked around for the moon, but for some reason it had not risen, so he called out, "You moon man, pull up the moon," whereupon the moon suddenly arose pulled up by a string. The actor went on repeating the words in his extrava- gant manner. Here was a true criticism from the burlesque point of view. It caricatured the extravagance in the production of even Shakespeare in our day. The burlesque is a necessary mode of criticism. It is a necessary mode of criticism upon art. It is a blessed thing that sometimes a friend, instead of weeping with us, laughs at us. Thus even burlesque becomes a part of life. In the newspapers of to-day caricature serves a very wonderful purpose. It gives not only the quickest but often the deepest criticism upon some situation or character. Another form of dramatic art is farce. Farce is the laughing, not so much at people, as at a situa- tion. It is extravagant, but not founded on the caricature of characters. It is very close to bur- lesque and is often confused with it. The power to laugh at a situation is one of the greatest powers in the human heart. How many 126 THESMILE unpleasant things have been averted; how many times has a brave man controlled himself by being able to see the ridiculous element in the situation ; and how many of the worst things in the world have vanished when laughed at ! When we laugh with a man we are on a higher plane of art than when we laugh at him or at a ridiculous situation. This is why comedy is so high a form of art why it is serious. It is founded in a more genuine, sympathetic way than burlesque or farce. In comedy we laugh with the character represented. The subject is not a caricature of any art work or poor artistic endeavor, nor is it the expression of a ridiculous situation. Its subject is the lives and peculiarities of specific types of human beings. Garrick, when asked whether he preferred to act in tragedy or in comedy, replied, " I can act tragedy every day in the week, but comedy is serious business." The highest form of dramatic art is tragedy. In comedy we laugh with people; in tragedy we weep with them. Both are serious and bring us into the very highest phases of human sym- pathy. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between comedy and tragedy. The Merchant of Venice, for example, is called a comedy. Henry A. Clapp, a dramatic critic, contends that it is a tragedy. Taking the first four acts and omitting the last, there is much to be said in favor of this view. The character of Shylock is serious. It represents perversion of a national character. According to Aristotle, the determining factor, that which de- cides the dignity of art, is a " higher truth and a higher seriousness." The distinction between ETHICS OF AMUSEMENT 127 comedy and tragedy is sometimes settled by a very easy scheme. Tragedy is a play in which someone is killed, and comedy, one in which no one is killed. According to this, the Merchant of Venice would be considered a comedy. Compare this play with Cymbeline. Merely be- cause Cloten is killed, Cymbeline is regarded by most people as a tragedy. The fact is overlooked that everyone is glad that Cloten is killed. He richly deserved his end. Certainly his death would not make Cymbeline a tragedy. If it is a tragedy, it must be on account of the seriousness of the character of Imogen. In the highest Shakespearean tragedy we both laugh and weep with men. The same is often true of his comedies. The difference must be decided by the predominance of smiles or tears. Both may be dignified. A smile may be almost as supreme as a tear. A smile may shine through tears and yet not de- grade them. Both may express sympathy, and they are closely conjoined in human life. The distinction between comedy and tragedy may, after all, be somewhat academic. Shakespeare certainly has not left their distinction clearly marked. Melodrama, though extremely popular, is a low form of dramatic art. Why? Because it lacks a smile. The audience is kept under a strain by a most serious situation. It may cause tears, until at the last everything is so completely changed that the relief hardly brings a smile. The trans- formation is often so sudden and so foreign to real truth that we are unable to smile. Sometimes we may actually laugh at the artificiality of the situa- tion. Thus, melodrama may become a kind of 128 THESMILE tragical farce. It is the situation and not the char- acter that is mainly at stake. The drama reflects in its deepest and truest aspect two sides of human endeavor: one, victory through man's effort or through fortuitous circum- stances; the other the seeming failure but real victory which may come through death. Human victory may be gained in either way. Melodrama is really a juggling with tragedy, the reducing of tragedy to mere situation and cir- cumstance ; it is human art monkeying with human destiny. Colley Gibber once rewrote the tragedy of King Lear. He killed the villain, Edmund. Cordelia lived. The king of France he got rid of. Edgar and Cordelia were wedded and become respec- tively King and Queen of England. This pro- cedure pleased the superficiality of a superficial age. But how untrue to life and to Shakespeare himself. Melodrama is not a serious form of art. There can be no great art without truth or true interpre- tation, manifestation or reflection of truth. Primarily there are only two forms of the drama, comedy and tragedy. Both of these reflect human history. Comedy reflects the joyous outcome of heroic endeavor, the transformation wrought by time and circumstances. Tragedy also reveals victory, but the victory which comes through death. It is easy to find the highest dignity of man or his lowest degradation in the character of his smile. The vulgar story which seems to be the chief source of amusement to many minds, de- grades both the relator and the listener. It is a good principle to remember that all true art lies ETHICS OF AMUSEMENT 129 above man's actual experience in the direction of his ideals. Whatever lies below the ordinary plane of his feeling, whatever seems to please him below his habitual level of thought and emotion tends to ruin his character. The coarse smile is the worst of all perversions. Every form of art has its place. There is such a thing as artistic burlesque. As I have said, bur- lesque is the lowest form of dramatic art. It is a kind of criticism; it may help people to discover weaknesses in some art which ought to be of a higher type but which is on a low plane. We may have farce of a high order. The theme of farce is not character but situation, and in it there are ridiculous situations. They pass beyond the bounds of comedy into that of farce, and ar- tistic farce makes us conscious of this. In farce we laugh at a man; in comedy we laugh with him. Comedy, therefore, is not a low form of art because it is true and awakens a noble smile. It illustrates more of the deep things of our nature. In tragedy, if there is a smile, it is like the fool in King Lear; beneath his smile we hear the sob and feel treas- ured tears. Another test of the dignity or lack of dignity in all the arts, but especially those which cause the smile, is simplicity. The burlesque is extrava- gant, so is farce, so is melodrama. Hence, they are of a lower order, while comedy and tragedy are simple, true and genuine. Hence, they belong to a higher rank. It is a question of truth to life; it is a question of truthfully mirroring human ex- perience. Those who interpret human character must interpret correctly. Truth alone has power to elevate and ennoble. Public readers, so-called impersonators, as 130 THE SMILE well as actors, would do well to consider carefully the dignity of their art. Impersonators and reciters of all sorts, extrava- gant and untruthful interpreters, have almost ruined the noble art. Charlotte Cushman and others gave, forty years ago, high ideals for the platform. Sydney Lanier and others expressed enthusiasm over the possibilities of the new dra- matic art ; but there came along a lot of self-styled impersonators who tried to imitate all the methods of the stage, who failed to recognize the difference between the dramatic stage and dramatic plat- form art, and did not follow Charlotte Cushman, who was artist enough to appreciate the greatness of the difference. All sorts of unnatural extravagance and false interpretations have followed, working great harm. Many readers have either cut down the popular plays or used popular stories or low- class literature and are in danger of degrading the whole work of vocal interpretation. The artistic and simple in- terpretation of literature, the rendering of Brown- ing's monologues, the recognition that these forms of dramatic platform art have wonderful possibili- ties is one of the artistic advancements of our time. Readers, however, must be careful to rise to the dignified study of the art, so that they may truthfully interpret the best in literature. The old and more solid dramas must not be replaced by superficial things, in an endeavor to be popular. We must not cease to hold to the fact that each art tells something which no other art can say, and must respect its own independence. A great artistic age is always shown in the effect of art upon the simplest things. The Greeks could make a common jug more beautiful than ETHICS OF AMUSEMENT 131 moderns do their public monuments. The frag- ments of their every-day utensils often fill the modern mind with wonder. If we are to be an artistic people, the time usually worse than wasted in every household, should be devoted by all to endeavoring to make something beautiful, or in some way to realize the ideal. Every child should be awakened to create something ideal. What greater joy is to be found than in seeing something beautiful unfolding before our eyes, under our own hands? William Morris said, " Art is joy put into our work." That is to say, in the vocabulary of this book, art is working with a smile. Work that may be drudgery to some men, when joy is put into the heart of it, becomes a fine art. Here is a carpenter making a chair. He carves the head of a dog on the end of its square arm, and lo, you have a thing of beauty, something that has higher value because you have the delight of the man in his work. Some people think that art is something very exceptional, very rare, unusual, something only for the wealthy. On the contrary, art belongs to every-day life. It is working in obedience to the imagination under the stimulus of an ideal. It is putting love, affection and delight into the things we do. It is giving expression to our better selves, to our higher feelings, not doing things perfunc- torily just because we have to. Art is work with a smile of joy. Dishwashing may seem to be the furthest re- moved from art, but one that loves beauty does not look at the dirt, but at the dish that is being separated from what does not belong to it. 132 THESMILE ' What are you doing? " said a neighbor to a man who stood with a hose pouring the water upon a pile of dishes on his lawn. " I am cleaning up, the missus comes home to-morrow." He was no artist. He was working under compulsion. The ideal sweeper sees the clean room under the dirt the desk as a clean place for work, not for chaos and litter. (I am glad the reader cannot see my desk at this time). Old Teufelsdroeckh was wrong. Dirt and con- fusion in a room where one works are a hindrance, not a help. " Art," somebody has said, " is the removal of rubbish." A wise man understood the matter perfectly when he said to a literary worker, " Your illusion of overwork is due to such a vast number of un- finished things around you. Take hold of one thing and stick to it until it is finished. Then you will feel rested and like a new man. Nothing else will help you." The true artist sees the beautiful book that is to come forth from a vast number of scratched and dirty sheets. Life is the greatest of all the arts, and expression is next to it because action and voice modulations, the true natural languages, are the direct signs of the motive springs of life. Tones and actions in their unity as interpreting words are closer to nature than is possible for any other art. There is an element of truth in what some people say, that vocal expression is not art at all, that action of the body and the modulations of the voice are too near to Nature, that they cannot be sufficiently objectified to make art. They are only the material of art. All art, however, is near to nature, the nearer the ETHICS OF AMUSEMENT 133 better. It is not the objectifying of art that makes it art. Nor is it the permanent record of expres- sion. Art is art on account of the depth of our ex- perience it expresses and the truthfulness of its revelation, whether it lives a thousand years or dies the moment it is born. We must, however, recognize that it is through the glory of these languages and their artistic control that we do get so close to Nature. But for this very reason there is great danger of violat- ing artistic principles. The other arts are a little more artificial and objective, and external. Even song, though hav- ing a normal basis, has modulations of pitch which are not found in the more natural modulations in speech. The other arts are, therefore, reflections or records of expression. They are human endeavors to embody objectively and permanently the pro- cesses and modes of expression in Nature. Hence, the laws of the arts are found, as I say again and again, in some natural expression, such as the smile. Expression is the direct effect of the activity of being upon the action of the body. The more immediately the emotion causes the outward motion, the greater the significance or expressiveness. This is what the smile teaches us regarding ex- pression. It manifests directly immediately the true understanding of the nature of human life; a certain sense of gladness to meet even difficulties, to regard the hill of difficulty before us not as an obstacle but an opportunity; and a teachable and receptive attitude toward life. The walk that is a deep co-ordination of joy and expansion expresses courage and the fact 134 THE SMILE that at every moment there is breathed into the man the breath of life, that his creation is an eternal act of an eternal being, that he moves for- ward with confidence and strength. Human art must reflect this intimacy between cause and effect. In proportion as it does so, will it produce the desired impression, not only to entertain, but to arouse and inspire. It seems a most commonplace assertion to say that in all the arts, man must find their central laws and principles in the most direct of all modes of expression. xvn THE SMILE AND SUCCESS This is the age for books on success. Every- body has to get off some kind of lecture on effi- ciency or write a work on salesmanship. By ac- cident I made an investigation of one of the most illustrious schools of salesmanship in the country. I saw advertised a little book which I wished, and as I looked up and saw the sign in a large city I thought I would go in and purchase it. I was also a little curious at the moment to see what the institution was like, and to have a practical example of their marvellous theories. I entered the door and was met by a handsome attendant ; I asked for the book, or if she could tell me in what department I might find it. The at- tendant did not know of any such department, but talked about the greatness of the institution, and called a gentleman to whom I repeated my simple request. He told me about their methods of teaching salesmanship and of the great work they were doing for people. To them I was only an applicant a supposed victim. I tried to disabuse his mind by telling him I simply called to purchase a book, but he turned me over to another gentle- man who began a similar talk about the institution and the efficiency of their methods of teaching salesmanship. For the third time I stated my errand, and he turned from me a little disgusted and called another gentleman who came up and started to give me another lecture on the sub- 135 136 THE SMILE ject of efficiency. A little impatiently I inquired whether they had the book that was advertised. He looked at me in disgust, and I was about to pass out, when a young clerk arose in a very simple manner and said he would try to find the book. He returned in a few moments with it, and I went out a sadder but a wiser man. With the exception of the humbler clerk a stenographer or typewriter or bookkeeper it was really the worst example of salesmanship that I ever saw, and I have seen some pretty bad ex- amples in different cities of the world. What is the real secret of salesmanship? It is no affected grin, no artificial or affected manner. It is no tremendous theories. It is a readiness to serve, simple attention and listening to what the other says, sympathetically endeavoring to give the person what he wishes. If we realize that, we can give him the information that he seeks. It is a question of coming into sympathetic touch with other men. The whole secret of it is found in the simplicity, sincerity and genuineness of the human smile. If anyone can be taught to come into sym- pathetic touch with his fellow-men, and be able to think with them, to offer his services and listen to what another has to say, if he can be taught to smile genuinely, sincerely and naturally, he will get more of a key to salesmanship than all these profound courses and exaggerated theories can give. In our day we have so overworked the word " efficiency " that some people say they wish they might never hear it again. The one secret of success is simplicity. Not a conventional smile, one that has lost its meaning, but one resulting from a sincere desire to serve. THE SMILE AND SUCCESS 137 The great thing that makes us successful in life is the same thing that makes us happy. That which develops the sympathetic side of our char- acter will transform the smile into a bearing. Only this morning I stepped into an electric car to go down town. There was no one in it but the conductor, and I made a remark to him about the weather. It was a very commonplace remark, certainly it gave no information, and had the same shallowness of all such remarks about the weather. But I was glad, for my good friend looked at me with a sympathetic smile and said, " Yes, we can hardly expect July weather this time of year. I don't see any mosquitoes flying around." That hearty remark and smile made me happier all the day. Really, something may be said for people's talk- ing about the weather. If it breaks the ice of modern conventionality, it may be a good thing. Certainly the simple greetings between neigh- bors do not deserve the sarcasm which is usually poured out upon the common-placisms about the weather. Simple as a smile is, it reveals some of the deepest feelings of the human heart. A smile is a recognition of our own individuality, a joyous realization of our identity ; it manifests the attitude of our being toward our fellow-men, toward life and all things. It means sympathy, love, joy, fellowship, willingness to receive as well as willing- ness to give that which is good. XVIII HIGHER FUNCTIONS AND INFLUENCES So intertwined is the human smile with human endeavor, human character, that almost innu- merable are the points which might be narrated, upon which a study of the smile throws light. Think what a right understanding of the point of view means in the elevation of the race. What a great gain it would be if we could appreciate the point of view of the Oriental. This is the one thing to which man must come and he must come to it through the appreciation of human art, of human poetry and the study of the depths of hu- man experience as revealed in expression. Then the races may so understand each other and enter into so much sympathy that the Federation of the World will be realized and universal peace will come. Americans have boasted greatly of being able to enter into sympathetic touch with all the world. It was an American admiral who sailed in and brought the Japanese into touch with the modern world. But the Japanese brought something which the whole civilized world should properly prize. Only a few have devoted themselves in- tensely to the understanding of their great art; their subtle poetry, and the depth and intensity of their character. One of my most honored classmates, nearly forty years ago, was a Japanese gentleman, who 138 FUNCTIONS AND INFLUENCES 139 has done great service to his country, and is now a most prominent member of the House of Lords. He wrote in my notebook once this beautiful little poem: " Four seas, all brothers." " Only four words," you say. " Can you call a single line a poem? " someone asks. Yes, it is a poem complete, and one who will pause and really think may get the Japanese point of view and realize how great a poem it is, its shortness adding not only to its sublimity but to the depth of its meaning and the impression it produces upon us. The four seas around Japan broaden out into one great ocean. So he, an Oriental, and I an Occidental, different in training and temperament, down deep in our hearts were brothers. So all nations, though seemingly so different and nar- rowed into such different channels, yet as we penetrate into the depths of their hearts, all are brothers. I have listened to lectures on Japanese art which totally failed to realize the first step toward its appreciation. A great art critic once wrote : " No one can do a man a greater service than to give him a new point of view." This is true not only in art but in life, not only of individuals but of nations. There have been smiles that have gone over a whole nation. There have been frowns that have been caught up by a whole race. Alas, who can measure race prejudice, its depth and degrada- tion, or realize its cost and unhappiness. A war between mighty nations, a war of long years costing billions of dollars and destroying millions of lives, may hang upon a smile or a frown ! 140 THESMILE The narrow smile of selfishness and egotism, of self-satisfaction, of pleasure at other's pain, these are passing away. The time is coming, if it is not already here, when a smile can be felt over the whole world, snared in by all peoples, nations, tongues and languages. There have been periods in the history of the Christian religion which made a virtue of sadness and gloom. One great unbeliever, who studied deep into the whole history of Christianity, de- fined it as the " worship of sorrow." He was far away from the truth. Even of the Master it was said, " Who for the joy that was set before you endured the cross." It is the glory of the religion that it brings joy out of sorrow. It is victory over sorrow. It is a method of destroy- ing the cause of sorrow. Has anyone ever counted the references to joy in the New Testament? At the grave of Lazarus, as the eyes of the Master were lifted in prayer, what did He say? "I thank Thee." How often are men taught to pray " with thanks- giving." " Rejoice ever more, pray without ceas- ing." Men speak continually on the importance of the last half of this verse. Why forget the first? Thanksgiving and joy open the human heart; by them higher things enter into the human being. Joy is the fundamental principle of the universe. Paradoxical as it may seem, joy is the most serious and lasting of all emotions unless it be love. The smile is the sign of faith. But what is faith? There are three views regarding it. To some faith is simply belief. This is the lowest possible ele- ment of faith. A man may believe all kinds of lies and falsehoods. One may receive a telegram that his father is dead, and have all the agony be- FUNCTIONS AND INFLUENCES 141 cause he believes the message. Another telegram comes telling him that it is a mistake, the house was burned but his father was not in the room where they thought he was, and he was safe. He who believes that faith is trying to make oneself believe a thing whether it be true or not destroys more faith than he can ever awaken. Some go further and say that faith is under- standing, that all belief is bad, necessarily bad, no matter whether it is belief in good or in bad. True faith must have a rational basis, and can result only from a definite and true understanding of principle. Still others hold that the primary element of faith is trust, others, a matter of instinct. A little child takes its mother's hand and feels courage and confidence. Faith, to such persons, is a kind of intuition, a yielding of self to something they feel to be greater than themselves. Still another may think that the highest element of faith is synonymous with loyalty, a certain loyalty to creed, a loyal acceptance of the plans of our human nature, the plans of the whole world, the plan of the powers that are above us. This loyalty implies a determination to make a heroic realization, an acceptance of difficulties, not a whining search for something easier, not an antagonistic resistance to what we feel is not good. All of these contain elements of faith. Belief is merely instinctive; it is hardly worthy of faith until it rises to understanding. After a man under- stands, then he must trust ; he must say, " Not my will but Thine " ; may that be done which is better and higher. I will accept that which is true at all hazards. Again, the element of loyalty is a necessary 142 THE SMILE part of faith. If we are not loyal to our convic- tions, loyal to that which we accept, we are weak. We are lacking in faith and power. Faith may go so far that there is a loyal accept- ance of life and its greatest battles. " He that doeth the will shall know the doc- trine." That is, he who loyally accepts what he feels his duty and proceeds to give himself for truth in loyal devotion to the weak, in loyal sacri- fice for the liberty and the good of his fellow-man, such a man can smile and will rise into an under- standing of the inner mystic spirit of the uni- verse. The smile shows the universal presence of cheerfulness and its necessity to human nature. Without cheerfulness, what human success is possible? How can human character ever be un- folded and built up? The smile is the basis of all expression of the human face, and the face is the highest unfold- ment of an organism. If we study all expression of man and animals, the human face and its smile is the climax. Let us, therefore, learn a practical, every-day lesson for all success in life from our observation of the smile, and cry out as our perpetual expres- sion with Carlyle: " Give us, O give us, the man who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make har- mony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, FUNCTIONS AND INFLUENCES 143 a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright." The spirit of our time is shown by our prophets and poets. The work of these has become more and more joyous during the last few years. More and more do men feel that the smile indicates the ultimate victory of truth and right, of law and liberty. Among all our prophets of better things no truer or more hopeful interpreter can be found than Edwin Markham. Joy fills all of his works. How we are thrilled by these lines from " The Song of the Followers of Pan." "Our bursting bugles blow apart The gates of the cities as we go; We bring the music of the heart From secret wells in Lillimo. "We break in music on the moms Sing of the flower to stirring roots; Apollo's cry is in the horns, And Hermes' whisper in the flutes." We feel his spirit in the very subjects of his poems. Notice especially the title of his last book, "The Shoes of Happiness." The "Joy of the Morning " is as simple and sincere as the voices of childhood. "I hear you, little bird, Shouting a-swing above the broken wall. Shout louder yet, no song can tell it all. Sing to my soul in the deep, still wood : 'Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word : I'd tell it too if I could." Clinton Scollard, another poet, who has cheered a generation with joy and hope, has expressed the significance of his own work and the spirit of all song in " The Prolog " to the recently pub- 144 THESMILE lished collection of his poems. He has given the lesson in such a beautiful and artistic form that it will go home to every heart : "I spoke a traveler on the road Who smiled beneath his leaden load, * How play you such a blithesome part? ' * Comrade, I bear a singing heart ! ' "I questioned one whose path with pain In the grim shadows long had lain, * How face you thus life's thorny smart? f ' Comrade, I bear a singing heart ! ' "I hailed one whom adversity Could not make bend the hardy knee, ' How such brave seeming? Tell the art ! ' ' Comrade, I bear a singing heart ! ' "Friend, blest be thou if thou canst say Upon the inevitable way Whereon we fare, sans guide or chart ' Comrade, I bear a singing heart ! ' ' If someone sneers at you, smile. If you are taunted do not answer. If you are reviled, " revile not again." It requires high moral courage to keep still, to carry a smile upon the face, but you " are doing a great work and cannot come down." The downward road is always broad and easy; the upward road is straight and narrow. If someone wishes to throw mud, say to him : " I have built a bridge across all that muddy swamp. I could easily come down and wield a shovel. I think I could cover you up. But I am using my mud for a different purpose. Look at the lilies growing out of that muddy swamp. The more mud at the bottom if it is only at the bottom the stronger and more beautiful the lilies. If you throw your mud you are but exhausting your own FUNCTIONS AND INFLUENCES 145 soil, destroying your own lilies. I mean to keep the mud where it belongs and watch my lilies bloom." Whatever misfortune may seem to come to you, smile on. If some great danger seems to come up before you, meet it with a smile. A smile is the truest road to victory. "Smile, once in a while, 'Twill make your heart seem lighter, Smile, once in a while, Twill make your pathway brighter. "Life's a mirror, if we smile, Smiles come back to greet us; If we're frowning all the while Frowns forever meet us." Nixon Waterman. A PERSONAL AFTERWORD All men have ideal aspirations ; they really long to improve their health, to understand themselves better, to increase their efficiency, their satisfac- tions and successes. " The Smile " and " How to Add Ten Years to Your Life " are intended as helps to initiate some simple practical studies and exercises such as will aid all to realize their highest possibilities. Everyone in whom these books awaken any response will, it is hoped, feel himself or herself a member of a mystic brotherhood with those who are endeavoring to double the joys and the helpfulness of life. Those who wish to do so are invited to be enrolled as members of the Morning League. Each member of the League is expected on awakening in the morning to put out of his mind any negative thought and to turn his attention to something which lies in the direction of his ideals ; to something that will ennoble him and purify his consciousness, and to spend from ten to twenty minutes on some simple exercises. And, also, to spend a similar amount of time in a similar way on retiring at night. By properly using these sacred minutes of life which are usually devoted to negative thoughts, worry, or discouragement, astonishing results have already been secured. Health, strength, grace, ease of bearing, use of the voice, cheerfulness, interest in life in all its phases, have been greatly improved. 146 A PERSONAL AFTERWORD U7 The suggestions are no experiment. The prin- ciples have been demonstrated again and again, not only at the School of Expression, but through all the ages. Many who have never attended the School of Expression have expressed a desire for the results which they have seen accomplished in the stu- dents of the School. This League has been or- ganized and these books written to carry some simple exercises into the home and to the bedside of everyone, to bring the work and the spirit of the School to all. Every method of training, in fact, every educa- tional institution must be tested by direct applica- tion to everyday life. I have often said that the School of Expression is a state of mind rather than a place. This has been taken as a joke, but it was serious. The endowment of the School of Expression which has been contributed by Sir Henry Irving and Prof. Alexander Melville Bell and others, is small. Our humble rooms, much as we love them, are inadequate. Anyone who looks at these as the institution makes a great mistake. The greatest endowment of the School of Ex- pression can never be localized; few can realize it. It is the loyalty, the fidelity to principles of those it has trained. The great work in life that these are doing, its methods, its exercises, and the use of these in all parts of the world, the help it has given and is giving is, in reality, its endow- ment. These books have been written and presented to the School, not merely to the Trustees, or to the Executive Committee, nor even to the gradu- ates, but to all who have in any way shared in 148 A PERSONAL AFTERWORD what the School of Expression embodies. While these books have been written to increase the endowment, to erect a more adequate home, a higher purpose is to increase the number of its friends, to widen the interest in its function in education and to allow all to share in the bene- ficial effects of its methods of training. Last year someone went through the records to find out how many had been taught during one year and where they came from. It was found that three hundred and fifteen had been taught and these came from forty-three states and six prov- inces of Canada, and from two foreign countries. Perhaps no institution of its size reaches such a widely extended territory. The influence of the School is not small. It is a richly endowed in- stitution if we take endowment in the true sense of the interest awakened in its work. The aims of these books may be intimated as, first, an endeavor to reach all those who have been trained and inspire them to go forward, to continue faithful to their principles and their own work of self-development; to bring all these into a greater unity of endeavor; to make themselves feel a part of the little institution; to give them something that they can do, not only for the good of the institution, but of themselves and of the world; to reach those who know something of its work and give them the privilege of sharing in the benefits of the institution; and, last of all, to se- cure permanency, a more adequate home, and a larger endowment for this school which is con- sidered the head-quarters for the advancement of an important department of education. We have before us as a kind of objective motto "$100,000 from 100,000 people." But we do A PERSONAL AFTERWORD 149 not ask this as a gift. We propose to give every- one who joins our League more than the worth of their money. The price of the books, for example, is lower than is usually charged for such books. It is to be hoped that by the number sold we may add something from the net returns to the en- dowment fund. Some of us hold before us, also, a picture of a row of pennies one step apart ex- tending from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of Mexico as a kind of mark for the little school which some regard as too small to write its name. You, Reader, are invited to share in our en- deavors. The money is not the main thing. We are endeavoring to improve voices, grace and ease of the body, flexibility of the mind, dramatic in- sight into the motives of one's fellow-men, and the stimulation of all those powers concerned in the sympathetic participation in the life of all the members of our race which bring greater satisfac- tion and success. Keep, therefore, the money part in the background, and endeavor to begin efforts to realize your own higher ideals and to awaken others at the same time to recognize the necessity of organization, of higher unity, of an objective embodiment of our ideals in a building, an endowed institution that will stand for a pe- culiar and unique work which has come to us and is for the good of mankind. If you wish to join the Morning League send the names of at least ten persons who need the work, or who will enjoy being members of such a band, or who are interested in any way in our endeavors. Write me for information, and, if you wish, send the price of one or more of the books. Address 160 A PERSONAL AFTERWORD Office of Morning League, Room 301, Pierce Building, Copley Square, Boston. The League invites you not only to become a member but a leader. A member is one who works especially for self -improvement ; a leader is one who wishes also to share actively in extend- ing the influence of the League and in doing some special work to carry out its aims. " The Smile " will be ready August 16. " How to Add Ten Years to Your Life," August 25. Each of these books will be 75c. " Browning and the Dramatic Monologue " and "Spoken English" are both $1.10 to members of the League. Write to me or to the School of Expression, Morning League, 301 Pierce Building, Copley Square, Boston, Mass. The Morning League of the School of Expression is a band of the students, graduates and friends of the School of Expression who are trying to keep their faces toward the morning. If you wish to join, when you wake GET UP OUT OF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BED, that is, stretch, expand, breathe deeply and laugh. Fill with joyous thoughts and their active expressions the first minutes of the day. Note the effect, and consider yourself initiated. Try as far as possible EVERY DAY to realize the League's UNFOLDMENT SUGGESTIONS 1. SMILE whenever tempted to frown; look for and enjoy the best around you. 2. THINK, feel or realize something in the direction of your ideals and, in some way, unite your ideals with your everyday work and play. 3. SEE, hear or read, i. e., receive an impression from something beautiful in nature, art, music, poetry, literature or the lives of your fellowmen. 4. EXPRESS the best that is in you and awaken others to express the best in them. 5. SERVE some fellow being by listening, by kind look, tone, word or deed. 6. SHARE in some of the great movements for the betterment of the race. That is, use your principles of expression to help hi such movements as: 1. Expression hi Life (text book, "The Smile"); 2. Expression and Health (text book, "How to Add Ten Years to Your Life") ; 3. Expression and Educa- tion hi the Nursery; Mothers' Clubs; 4. Voice in the Home; 5. Reading hi the Public Schools; 6. Speaking hi High Schools and Colleges; 7. Speaking Clubs; 8. Browning Clubs (text book, "Browning and the Dramatic Monologue"); 9. Dramatic Clubs; 10. Religious Societies; 11. Boy Scouts; 12. Campfire Girls; 13. Peace Movements; 14. Women's Clubs; and Suffrage Organizations; 15. Reforms; 16. Teachers' Clubs; 17. School of Expression Summer Terms; 18. Preparation for the School of Expression; 19. Home Studies; 20. Advanced Steps of the School of Expression. Send your name and address with ten nominations for members with $1.50 for the two League text books, "The Smile " and " How to Add Ten Years to Your Life," and you will be recorded a member. One set of books will do for a family, other books at teachers' or introductory prices. There are no fees. The entire net returns from the League books will be devoted to the endowment of the School of Expression, the Home of the League. Write frankly and freely asking any counsel, and making any suggestions to the President of the League. Dr. S. S. CURRY, 307 Pierce Bldg. Copley Square, Boston, Mass. MORNING LEAGUE QUESTIONS FOR REPORT Text-books" The Smile " and " How to Add Ten Years to Your Life " Those who will study these books carefully and report the results of their practice and self-studies, or answer any of the following questions will receive a personal letter of advice. It is not necessary to repeat the questions. Simply use figures. 1. What is your occupation or profession? 2. How many hours a day do you work? 3. How many hours a day do you play? 4. Do you work and play regularly? 5. Do you enjoy your work, that is, do you unite the spirit of your play with your work? 6. What do you honestly regard as your greatest hindrance in life? 7. Have you been able to smile when tempted to frown? 8. Have you, with Socrates, controlled some feeling by ex- pressing the opposite? 9. Can you look upon difficulties as opportunities? 10. In the study of your own inner life have you found the " Great Divide "? See page 38. 11. Do you know what it means to be " led by the spirit"? 12. Do you think more over your hopes and helps than over your hindrances? 13. Do you enjoy talking about your difficulties and troubles? 14. How far does the spirit of the smile penetrate your life? 15. Does the smile predominate in your intercourse with others? 16. How many hours are you out of doors each day? 17. Do you positively enjoy intercourse with Nature? 18. In what phase of Nature study are you most interested? 19. Do you take regular walks and have direct contact with Nature? 20. Do you feel your courage increase in meeting difficulties? 21. Do you take more interest in the weaknesses or in the strong points of people? (For other questions, see " How to Add Ten Years to Your Life ") Province Of Expression. Principles and method . of developing delivery. An Introduction to the study of the natural languages, and their relation to art and development. By S. S. Curry, Ph.D., Litt.D. $1.50; to teachers, $1.20, postpaid. Your volume is to me a very wonderful book, it is so deeply philosophic, and so exhaustive of all aspects of the subject. . . . No one can read your book without at least gaining a high ideal of the study of expression. You have laid a deep and strong foundation for a scientific system. And now we wait for the superstructure. Professor Alexander Melville Bell. It is a most valuable book, and ought to be instrumental in doing much good. Professor J. W. Churchill, D.D. A book of rare significance and value, not only to teachers of the vocal arts, but also to all students of fundamental pedagogical principle. In its field I know of no work presenting in an equally happy combination philosophic insight, scientific breadth, moral loftiness of tone, and literary felicity of ex- position. William F. Warren, D.D., LL.D., of Boston University. Lessons in Vocal Expression. Th e expressive _________________---_-_-_------- modulations of the voice developed by studying and training the voice and mind in relation to each other. Eighty-six definite problems and progressive steps. By S. S. Curry, Ph.D., Litt.D. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. It ought to do away with the artificial and mechanical styles of teaching. Henry W. Smith, A.M., Professor of Elocution, Princeton University. Through the use of your text-book on vocal expression, I have had the past term much better results and more manifest interest on the subject than ever before. A. H. Merrill, A.M., late Professor of Elocution, Vanderbilt University. The subject is handled in a new and original manner, and cannot fail to revolutionize the old elocutionary ideas. Mail and Empire, Toronto. It is capital, good sense, and real instruction. W. E. Huntington, LL.D., Ex-President of Boston University. Imagination and Dramatic Instinct. Fur "> tionof the imagination and assimilation in the vocal interpretation of literature and speaking. By S. S. Curry, Litt.D. $1.50; to teachers, $1.20, postpaid. Dr. Curry well calls the attention of speakers to the processes of thinking in the modulation of the voice. Every one will be benefited by reading his volumes. . . . Too much stress can hardly be laid on the author's ground principle, that where a method aims to regulate the modulation of the voice by rules, then inconsistencies and lack of organic coherence begin to take the place of that sense of life which lies at the heart of every true product of art. On the contrary, where vocal expression is studied as a manifestation of the processes of thinking, there results the truer energy of the student's powers and the more natural unity of the complex elements of his expression. Dr. Lyman Abbott, in The Outlook. Address : Book Dept., School of Expression, 306 Pierce Bldg., Copley Square, Boston, Mass. Mind and Voice. Principles underlying all phases of Vocal Training. The psychological and physiological conditions of tone production and scientific and artistic methods of developing them. A work of vital importance to every one interested in improving the qualities of the voice and in correcting slovenly speech. 456 pages. By S. S. Curry, Litt.D. $1.50, postpaid. To teachers, $1.25, postpaid. It is indeed a masterly and stimulating work. Amos R. Wells, Editor Chris- tian World. It is a book that will be of immense help to teachers and preachers, and to others who are using their vocal organs continuously. As an educational work on an important theme, the book has a unique value. Book News Monthly. There is pleasure and profit in reading what he says. Evening Post (Chi- cago). Fills a real need in the heart and library of every true teacher and student of the development of natural vocal expression. Western Recorder (Louis- ville). Get it and study it and you will never regret it. Christian Union Herald (Pittsburg). Foundation Of Expression. Fundamentals of a psychological method of training voice, body, and mind and of teaching speaking and reading. 236 problems; 411 choice passages. A thorough and practical text-book for school and college, and for private study. By S. S. Curry, Litt.D. $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. It means the opening of a new door to me by the master of the garden. Frank Putnam. Mastery of the subject and wealth of illustration are manifest hi all your treatment of the subject. Should prove a treasure to any man who cares for effective public speaking. Professor L. O. Brastow, Yale. Adds materially to the author's former contributions to this science and art, to which he is devoting his life most zealously. Journal of Education. May be read with profit by all who love literature. Denis A. McCarthy, Sacred Heart Review. It gets at the heart of the subject and is the most practical and clearest book on the important steps in expression that I have ever read. Edith W. Moses. How splendid it is; it is at once practical in its simplicity and helpfulness and inspiring. Every teacher ought to be grateful for it. Jane Herendeen, Teacher of Expression in Jamaica Normal School, N. Y . Best, most complete, and up-to-date. Alfred Jenkins Shriver, LL.B., Baltimore. Public speakers and especially the young men and women in high schools, academies, and colleges will find here one of the most helpful and sug- gestive books by one of the greatest living teachers of the subject, that was ever presented to the public. John Marshall Barker, Ph.D., Professor in Boston University. Address: Book Dept., School of Expression, 306 Pierce Bldg., Copley Square, Boston, Mass. Browning and the Dramatic Monologue. Nature and peculiarities of Browning's poetry. How to un- derstand Browning. The principles involved in rendering the monologue. An introduction to Browning, and to dramatic platform art. By S. S. Curry, Litt.D., $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. It seems to me to attack the central difficulty in understanding and reading Robert Browning's poetry. ... It opens a wide door to the greatest poetry of the modern age. The Rev. John R. Gow, President of the Boston Browning Society. A book which sheds an entirely new light on Browning and should be read by every student of the great master; indeed, everyone who would be well in- formed should read this book, which will interest any lover of literature. Journal of Education. Spoken English. A method of co-ordinating impres- sion and expression in reading, conversation, and speaking. It contains suggestions on the importance of observation and adequate impression, and nature study, as a basis to adequate expression. The steps are carefully arranged for the awakening of the imagina- tion and dramatic instinct, right feeling, and natural, spon- taneous expression. 320 pages. By S. S. Curry, Litt.D., Ph.D. Price, $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. Every page had something that caught my attention. You certainly have grasped the great principle of vocal expression. Edwin Markham. Those who aim at excelling in public utterance and address may well possess themselves of this work. Journal of Education. The specialist in reading will wish to add it to his book-shelf for permanent reference. Normal Instructor. A masterly presentation of ideas and expression as applied in a wide range of excellent selections. The World's Chronicle. Little Classics for Oral English. A compan- - ion to Spok- en English. The problems correspond by sections with Spoken English. The books may be used together or sep- arately. The problems are arranged in the form of ques- tions which the student can answer properly only by rightly rendering the passages. It is a laboratory method for spoken English, to be used by the first year students in High School or the last years of the Grammar School. 384 pages. By S. S. Curry, Litt.D. Price, $1.25; to teachers, $1.10, postpaid. I am using Little Classics for Oral English in two classes and believe it is the most satisfactory text that I have used. The students seem to be able to get easily the principles from your questions and problems. Elva M. Forn- crook, St. Nor. Sch., Kalamazoo, Mich. A fine collection of fine things especially suited to young people. Every teacher of reading and English in our secondary schools ought to have the book. Prof. Lee Emerson Basse tt, Leland Stanford University, Cal. Address: Book Dept., School of Expression, 306 Pierce Bldg., Copley Square, Boston, Mass. What Students and Graduates Think of the School of Expression "We know that there is something BIG here. If only we can get it out to the world." Caroline A. Hardwick (Philosophic Diploma), Instructor in Reading and Speaking, Wellesley College. "At no other institution is it possible to secure the training one secures at the School of Expression. It is far broader than a mere training for speaking. It is a fundamental train- ing for life." Florence E. Lutz (Philosophic Diploma), Instructor in Pantomime, New York City. "The School of Expression taught me how to LIVE. I think its training of the personality is its greatest work." F. M. Sargent (Dramatic Artist's Diploma). "I feel deeply indebted to the School for some of the best and most lasting inspiration I have received for my own work as a teacher of my fellow-men." Luella Clay Carson, Pres. of Mills College. "The success I have attained in my profession as a reader, I owe directly to the advanced methods of the School of Ex- pression." Caroline Foye Flanders (Artistic Diploma), Public Reader, Manchester, N. H. "The School of Expression of Boston is the most thorough and best in the country. It is different from all other schools. I wish I could talk to any who intend taking a course of study. I would say, Go to the School of Expression and if there is anything in you, they will bring it out ; they will teach you to know youself ; they will show you what you are in comparison with what you may become, and they will begin with the cause and start from the bottom." Hamilton Colman, Member Richard Mansfield Co. "When I was your student you held before me intellectual and ethical ideals which I am still trying to realize." Charles L. White, D.D., Ex-President Colby College. "The same principles of education which have installed manual training in public schools are even more applicable to the training of men's souls to rational self-expression. Dr. Curry will some day be recognized to have been an educational philosopher for having championed principles no less true of the spoken word than of every form of creative self-expres- sion." Dean Shailer Mathews, University of Chicago. "The whole world ought to learn about the School of Ex- pression and your discoveries." Rev. J. Stanley Durkee (Speaker's Diploma), Boston. 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