Fig. 22.—HELMETS, CROWNS,
ASSYRIAN, EGYPTIAN, EGYPTIAN
As it may be of interest to those who have access to a library to know where more definite and detailed information may be secured concerning the articles that are but briefly described here, the following works are recommended: The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible; the Jewish Encyclopedia; Kitto, Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature; three books by W. M. Thomson—Central Palestine and Phoenicia, Southern Palestine and Jerusalem, Lebanon, Damascus, and beyond Jordan; Elmendorf, A Camera Crusade through the Holy Land.
CHAPTER XIV
COSTUMING
The question of costuming may be dealt with in much the same manner as that of stage setting and properties. Costumes are unnecessary in many of the simpler plays, and even where they are used they should be so treated that they are of minor importance in the minds of the children. It is nearly always the case that the very smallest suggestion of a costume—a sash or a cloth around the head—is satisfying and sufficient to produce the proper atmosphere of the play. There is danger of placing so much emphasis upon this phase of the work that the children attach undue importance to it and thus lose the real spirit of the dramatization.
If costumes are used they should not be saved for the final performance, but the children should have the pleasure of wearing them at each practice where they are actually living over and over the lives of other people. Children should get their ideas of the dress of the times from pictures and descriptions and then in very simple ways try to represent what they have observed. The simplicity of the costumes among the Hebrew people makes the problem comparatively simple.