THE CHILD AS ACTOR AND INVENTOR.
The child is a born actor.
The world's a theatre, the earth a stage,
Which God and Nature do with actors fill.—Heywood.
Man is an imitative creature, and the foremost leads the flock.
—Schiller.
Imitative Games.
In her article on Imitation in Children, Miss Haskell notes the predilection of children for impersonation and dramatic expression, giving many interesting examples. S. D. Warren, in a paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Brooklyn Meeting, 1894 (Proc., Vol. xliii., p. 335), also notes these activities of children, mentioning, among other instances, "an annual celebration of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown," "playing railroad," playing at pulling hand fire-engines, as the representatives of two rival villages.
The mention of the celebration of Cornwallis' surrender by children brings up the question of the child as recorder. As historian and chronicler, the child appears in the countless games in which he preserves more or less of the acts, beliefs, and superstitions of our ancestors. Concerning some of these, Miss Alice Gomme says: "It is impossible that they have been invented by children by the mere effort of imagination, and there is ample evidence that they have but carried on interchangeably a record of events, some of which belong to the earliest days of the nation" (242.11).
As Miss Gomme points out, many of the games of English children are simply primitive dramas,—of the life of a woman ("When I was a Young Girl"), of courtship and marriage ("Here comes Three Dukes a-Riding," "Poor Mary sits a-Weeping"), of funerals ("Jenny Jones," "Green Gravel"), of border warfare ("We are the Rovers"), etc. Mr. W. W. Newell had previously remarked the importance of the dramatic element in children's games, citing as historical plays "Miss Jennia Jones" (funeral), "Down she comes as White as Milk," "Green Gravel," "Uncle John," "Barbara Allen," and others more or less partaking of this character, based upon historical ballads, of some of which traces only are now preserved.
By means of carved or graven images in wood or stone, given to children as playthings or as targets to practise skill in shooting or striking with miniature bow-and-arrow or spear, an early acquaintance is formed with many animals. The imitation of animals, their habits and peculiarities, often forms no small part of the dances and games of children of the lower races.
The Child as Actor.
Wallaschek, in his study of the primitive drama and pantomime (546. 214-229), notes the presence of children as dancers and performers among the Andaman Islanders, the Tagals of the Philippines, the Tahitians, Fijis, Polynesians and other more or less primitive races. Of Tibet and some portions of China Mr. Rockhill, in his Diary of a Journey through Mongolia, and Tibet, in 1891 and 1892 (Washington, D. C., 1894), informs us that the lads in every village give theatrical performances, the companies of young actors being known as Hsiao sheng huei, "young men's amateur theatrical company" (p. 68).
Among the aborigines of the New World we find also children as actors and participants in the ceremonies and ritual performances of various tribes. In certain ceremonials of the Sia, as Mrs. Stevenson informs us, young children take part. A boy of eight was allowed to hear the sacred songs on one occasion, and to witness the making of the "medicine-water," but a boy of four was not permitted to be present; the boy also took part in the dance (538. 79). In the rain ceremonial of the "Giant Society," a little girl, eight years old, painted the fetiches quite as dexterously as her elders, and took apparently quite as much interest in the proceedings. In the rain ceremonial of the "Knife Society," boys assist, and in the rain ceremonial of the Querränna, a child (boy) with wand and rattle joins in the celebration of the rites, "requiring no rousing to sing and bend his tiny body to the time of the rattle, and joining in the calls upon the cloud-people to gather to water the earth, with as much enthusiasm as his elders." When children, boys or girls, are about ten or twelve years of age, and have, as the Indians say, "a good head," they are initiated, if they so desire, into some of the mysteries of the dances of the Ka'tsuna, in charge of the Querränna Society (538. 106-117).
Dr. J. W. Fewkes, in his detailed article on the Flute Observance of the Tusayan Indians of Walpi, an interesting study of primitive dramatization, notes the part played by children in these ceremonies. The principal characters are the "Snake Boy," the "Snake Girl," and some girl carriers of the sacred corn, besides lads as acolytes.
The story of the child as an actor has yet to be written. When the ancient Greeks crowded the theatres to hear and see the masterpieces of dramatic and histrionic genius, their "women, slaves, and children" were for the most part left at home, though we do find that later on in history, front seats were provided for the chief Athenian priestesses. No voices of children were heard in chorus, and childhood found no true interpreter upon the stage. In France, in the middle of the seventeenth century, women appear as actors; in England it was not until long after the death of her greatest dramatist that (in 1660) women could fill a rôle upon the stage without serious hindrance or molestation; in Japan, even now, play-acting is not looked upon as a respectable profession for women. For a long time in England and elsewhere, female parts were taken by children and youths. Here also we meet with companies of child-actors, such as the "Boys of the Grammar School at Westminster," "The Children of Paul's," etc. The influence which produced these survives and flourishes to-day in the fondness of high-school pupils and university students for dramatic performances and recitations, and the number of schools of gesture, elocution, and the like, testifies to the abiding interest of the young in the mimic art. This is also evidenced by the number of child actors and actresses in the theatrical world, and the remarkable precocity of the members of the profession in all lands. In England, the pantomime offers a special outlet for this current of expression, and there the child is a most important factor in stage-life. The precocity of girls in these respects is noteworthy.
The Child as Inventor.
Borrowing his figure of speech from the environment of child-hood, C. J. Weber has said: "Die Gesellschaft ist die Grossmutter der Menschkeit durch ihre Töchter, die Erfindungen,—Society is the grandmother of humanity through her daughters, the inventions," and the familiar proverb—Necessity is the mother of invention—springs from the same source. Isaac Disraeli aptly says: "The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours; and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves,—the creature of habits and infirmities," and not a few of the "golden hours of invention" seem to belong to the golden age of childhood. Even in these "degenerate" days the child appears as an inventor. A contributor to the periodical literature of the day remarks: "Children have taken out a number of patents. The youngest inventor on record is Donald Murray Murphy, of St. John, Canada, who, at the age of six years, obtained from the United States exclusive rights in a sounding toy. Mabel Howard, of Washington, at eleven years, invented an ingenious game for her invalid brother and got a patent for it. Albert Gr. Smith, of Biehwood, Illinois, at twelve years invented and patented a rowing apparatus" (Current Lit., K T., xiv. 1893, p. 138).
The works of Newell (313), Bolton (187), Gomme (243), amply reveal the riot of childish variation and invention in games and plays. Mr. Newell observes: "It would be strange if children who exhibit so much inventive talent [in language] did not contrive new games; and we find accordingly that in many families a great part of the amusements of the children are of their own devising. The earliest age of which the writer has authentic record of such ingenuity is two and a half years" (313. 25). And among the primitive peoples the child is not without like invention; some, indeed, of the games our children play, were invented by the savage young ones, whose fathers have been long forgotten in the mist of prehistoric ages—the sports of their children alone surviving as memorials of their existence.
Theal tells us that the Kaffir children, when not engaged in active exercise, "amuse themselves by moulding clay into little images of cattle, or by making puzzles with strings. Some of them are skilful in forming knots with thongs and pieces of wood, which it taxes the ingenuity of the others to undo. The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with grains of maize" (543. 221). The distinguished naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace, while on his visit to the Malay Archipelago, thought to show the Dyak boys of Borneo something new in the way of the "cat's cradle," but found that he was the one who needed to learn, for the little brown aborigines were able to show him several new tricks (377. 25).
Miklucho-Maclay notes that among the Papuans of north-eastern New Guinea, while the women showed no tendency to ornament pottery, young boys "found pleasure in imprinting with their nails and a pointed stick a sort of ornamental border on some of the pots" (42. 317).
Paola Lombroso, daughter of Professor Cesare Lombroso, the celebrated criminologist, in her recent study of child psychology, observes: "Games (and plays) are the most original creation of the child, who has been able to create them, adapt them to his needs, making of them a sort of gymnastics which enables him to develop himself without becoming fatigued, and we, with the aid of memory, can hardly now lay hold of that feeling of infinite, intense pleasure." Moreover, these popular traditional plays and games, handed down from one generation to another of children, "show how instinctive are these forms of muscular activity and imitative expression, which have their roots in a true physiological and psychic necessity, being a species of tirocinium for the experience of childhood" (301. 136).
The magnum opus, perhaps, of the child as inventor, is the lyre, the discovery of which, classical mythology attributes to the infant Mercury or Hermes. Four hours after his birth the baby god is said to have found the shell of a tortoise, through the opposite edges of which he bored holes, and, inserting into these cords of linen, made the first stringed instrument. The English poet, Aubrey de Vere, singing of an Athenian girl, thus refers to the quaint myth:—
"She loves to pace the wild sea-shore—
Or drop her wandering fingers o'er
The bosom of some chorded shell:
Her touch will make it speak as well
As infant Hermes made
That tortoise in its own despite
Thenceforth in Heaven a shape star-bright."