CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dramatization

Contemporaneous with what may be termed a renaissance in story-telling is a strong sentiment in favor of dramatization. Child leaders have observed that children dramatize spontaneously, and that after they have heard a tale they often play it without suggestion from an older person. They impersonate the characters, crudely perhaps, but they represent the action and portray the story as they understand it.

This they do because the dramatic instinct is a universal instinct. We are all born imitators, and we like to experience the feelings and experiences of others. That is why the little girl impersonates her mother and takes delight in dressing in grown-up attire and playing lady. It is what actuates the boy to play Indian or soldier or fireman. He wants to live through the experiences of Indians and soldiers and firemen; so he goes into the world of make-believe and acts the part. During that time he is a larger and a different personality. He is not a little boy who must go to bed before he wants to, and must stay inside the yard when he longs to be out on the highway; he is a grown man in a uniform dashing along on an engine; he is a mighty chief in feathers and war paint, leading his tribe against the enemy or speaking words of wisdom around the council fire.

There was a time when this sort of play was believed to be of no value beyond that of a romp that helped to stretch the muscles, but today there is a very different attitude toward it. Close observation of children and a more general knowledge of psychology have brought educators to realize that imitative play is a big factor in mental development. As the boy impersonates a fireman or Indian he must choose movements in keeping with the part and reject those not in keeping with it. He must select and evaluate, and in doing this he is acquiring a power of discrimination that will be of great value to him later.

The childhood of many famous men of the past was distinguished by an unusual amount of imitative play, a free expression of the dramatic instinct. Goethe, in his memories, speaks lovingly of his early years thus:

From my father I have my stature,

My earnest aim in living;

From little mother, my joyous nature,