it may be the basis of a winter afternoon's or evening's entertainment,
in its outdoor form it may take whole communities and schools into the
freedom of the open. It should rouse patriotic ardor, and be of benefit
ethically, esthetically, and physically. It should wake in its
participants a sense of rhythm, freedom, poise, and plastic grace. It
should bear its part in developing clear enunciation and erectness of
carriage. To those taking part it should bring the exercise of memory,
patience, and inventiveness. It should kindle enthusiasm for the things
of America's past. In what way can national hero-days and festivals be
more fittingly commemorated than by giving a glimpse of the hero for
whom the day is named? Thus the patriotic play is equally adaptable for
Fourth of July, Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, Columbus
Day, and the hundreds of other days--not holidays--that lie in between.

If the patriotic play is produced in the right way it should contain
the very essence of democracy--_efficient team-work, a striving
together for the good of the whole_. It should lead to the ransacking
of books and libraries; the planning of scene-setting, whether indoor
or outdoor; the fashioning of simple and accurate costumes by the young
people taking part; the collecting of suitable stage properties such as
hearthbrooms, Indian pipes, and dishes of pewter. The greater the
research, the keener the stimulus for imagination and ingenuity, two
things that go to the making of every successful production.
Fortunately, the patriotic play is inherently simple, its appeal is
along broad general lines, so that it requires no great amount of money
or energy to adequately produce it. And, as history is made up not of
one event, but of a series of events, so an historical pageant is a
logical sequence of one-act patriotic plays or episodes. The one-act
patriotic play shows one hero or one event; the pageant shows, through
one-act plays used in chronological order, the development and