“We counted the months of careful, patient training well spent when it served to bring the soul of our boy of an East Side tenement into points of contact with the soul and spirit of the chivalrous young prince, and from these points of contact to stimulate him into action. What has the playing of the character of Edward done for this boy besides affording him some months of genuine happiness? It has recovered and strengthened his own will power through the stimulus of Edward’s will; the boy had lost and so found himself in the joy and sorrow of the young English prince. The proper direction and control of his dramatic impulse had brought him into such intimate association with young Edward, Prince of Wales, that the thrill of Edward’s valor will forever afterward be unconsciously a part of himself, for something struggling in his starved soul has demanded and received expression. In the last act of the drama, when the young prince, in the rags of Tom Canty, the pauper, makes sturdy claim to his righteous throne, it was good to see this youth of the streets raise his hand with natural dignity, and, when Lord Seymour, with selfish motive, would oppose him, cry out, ‘Hold, Lord Seymour, and stand not in the way when God brings right!’”
It is believed the occasional performance of even an unworthy character has a certain purgative moral effect. Referring to the influence of playing the unpleasant part of Minna in “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” Mrs. Herts says: “A number of nice girls who had played Minna formerly had fallen into the error of wearing plumed picture-hats and transparent waists to business. One does not like to tell a nice girl that she cannot secure the respect of good business men while unsuitably dressed for her work. The social worker who, with the best intention, intrudes personal advice because those he desires to help chance to reside on lower East Broadway instead of upper Fifth Avenue merely displays poor taste and is inapt to alter a mistaken point of view in a matter so vital to all young girls as clothes. The use of dramatic instinct to stir the girl’s imagination to the realization that the quiet garments of Mrs. Errol clothe the body of a woman whose qualities of mind and soul the girl desires to emulate, while Minna’s gaudy apparel clothes the body of a woman whom the girl has grown to understand but not to admire, proved with us to be a very legitimate use of the primitive impulse to truly educational ends.”
“In taking a part in which there is evil,” adds Frederica Beard, “it is quite possible that a young actor will see the outcome of a bad deed, as it is not possible for him to see it immediately in life. He may discern the workings of conscience in the character he represents, or he may have to bear the consequences of wrongdoing. If neither of these things is depicted in the play, then the character is not one to be played by young people.”
“The development of expression through the right service of the dramatic instinct ... will serve to stimulate discrimination, a quick eye and hand and heart with added taste for the beautiful, while development in responsiveness to the best and noblest people and things of all the ages will create taste and discrimination in the choice of individual surroundings, deeds, actions, and ambitions” (Mrs. Herts).
The Inspirational Value of This Instinct
Mr. Lee says that “the first really important shock that comes to a young man’s religious sentiment in this world is the number of bored-looking people around, doing right.” Perhaps our greatest moral task with young folks is to persuade them that it is not only wise to be good, but happy to be good. If we are going to do this, we must reveal to them larger sources of joy.
“So many of our children to-day,” Mrs. Braucher says, “are somehow missing the childlike fancy, the buoyant self-forgetfulness, which comes from living in a half-real world. Perhaps they are poor rich children with mechanical toys and so many opportunities to see stupendous productions of the old fairy tales behind real footlights that the home plays seem crude. Perhaps they are rich poor children who live so close to the pain and the burden and the specter that the airy forms of fairy life have quite flitted away. Or, perhaps, they are just normal healthy children whose childlike realism, for want of the suggestive touch of fancy, has shut out the dim fairy figures—whoever they are, wherever they are, do you want them to lose this unreal, very real part of their lives? Books and stories will help—will plant the seed—but only the appeal to the dramatic instinct will cause it to blossom as the rose.”
Dramatic play prevents the emotional nature from becoming inert, and thus keeps the possibility of joyousness forever alive. It retains the imagination and fancy that are so essential to perpetual youth. It is the only possible door to romance and mystery that will remain open for many. It satisfies the human craving to realize the meaning of life regardless of its environment. It is the best way to have life and to have it more abundantly.
Says Mrs. Herts: “A majority of young people as well as children experience a hunger of the soul to live out impulses denied expression in their personal lives. Eternal Personality restricts and shapes us into the limits of our environment. Youth chafes against such limit. The impulses of humanity stir beyond the reach of mere personality, time, and circumstance. Johnnie wants to be a pirate, Miss Smith a queen, young Harry a martyr. This is nature’s provision against spiritual isolation. This hunger of the soul for experience is as elemental a demand for nourishment as the hunger of the body for food. The dramatic instinct is an expression of this elemental hunger.”
Continuing she says: “It is the common, ordinary, free heritage of every child, unconsciously operative in every human being from the cradle to the grave. It is among the great basic forces whereby God shapes humanity.... It is the force which makes the soldier on the battlefield grasp his country’s flag, and raising it high above his head, cry out, ‘On to victory,’ even though that victory includes the death of his own body. It sustains the monk in his vigils, the statesman in his patriotism, the preacher in his pulpit.”