The few attempts which have been made in this direction are
astonishingly rewarding to those who regard the power of
self-expression as one of the most precious boons of education. The
Children's Theater in New York is the most successful example, but
every settlement in which dramatics have been systematically fostered
can also testify to a surprisingly quick response to this form of art
on the part of young people. The Hull-House Theater is constantly
besieged by children clamoring to "take part" in the plays of
Schiller, Shakespeare, and Molière, although they know it means weeks
of rehearsal and the complete memorizing of "stiff" lines. The
audiences sit enthralled by the final rendition and other children
whose tastes have supposedly been debased by constant vaudeville, are
pathetically eager to come again and again. Even when still more is
required from the young actors, research into the special historic
period, copying costumes from old plates, hours of labor that the "th"
may be restored to its proper place in English speech, their
enthusiasm is unquenched. But quite aside from its educational
possibilities one never ceases to marvel at the power of even a mimic
stage to afford to the young a magic space in which life may be lived
in efflorescence, where manners may be courtly and elaborate without
exciting ridicule, where the sequence of events is impressive and
comprehensible. Order and beauty of life is what the adolescent youth
craves above all else as the younger child indefatigably demands his
story. "Is this where the most beautiful princess in the world lives?"
asks a little girl peering into the door of the Hull-House Theater, or
"Does Alice in Wonderland always stay here?" It is much easier for her
to put her feeling into words than it is for the youth who has
enchantingly rendered the gentle poetry of Ben Jonson's "Sad
Shepherd," or for him who has walked the boards as Southey's Wat