DRAMATICS IN
THE HOME

AMERICAN HOME SERIES
NORMAN E. RICHARDSON, Editor

DRAMATICS IN
THE HOME

BY
WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH

Colophon

THIRD EDITION

THE ABINGDON PRESS
NEW YORK CINCINNATI

Copyright, 1914, by
THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CHILD LIFE

Editor’s Introduction

This pamphlet is practically a sequel of The Dramatic Instinct in Children, one of the units in the American Home Series. The two should be studied together.

Children are naturally dramatic in giving expression to their ideas and convictions. But they need guidance in order that this inborn capacity for forcefulness, vividness, or charm may be realized. Supervised practice in controlling the imagination is no less important than is that of controlling impulses. To play a part in a little homemade drama or pageant helps the child to find his place and to do his part in the world’s work—and play. This pamphlet seeks to answer the question: How? as its companion undertakes to show what this disposition is.

The dramatic method in teaching has already found its way into the best schools. It will have an increasingly large place in the best homes.

It should be carefully noted that this brief study is not concerned primarily with amateur dramatics or theatricals. The author is not trying to tell parents how to train their children to become professional actors. He desires, rather, to point out how parents can help their children develop the latent powers of expression.

DRAMATICS IN THE HOME

“I called the little pool a sea;

The little hills were big to me;

For I am very small.

I made a boat, I made a town,

I searched the caverns up and down,

And named them one and all.

This was the world and I was king;

For me the bees came by to sing,

For me the swallows flew.”

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

Dramatic Play and Games—Serial Dramatic Play—Folk Dancing—Dramatic Parties—Pantomime and Tableaux—Dramatized Work—Home Discipline Through the Dramatic Instinct—Clubs Based on Imaginative Play—Dramatic Self-Government—Dramatics in the Church—Summary—References.

AT the outset, a clear distinction must be made between the teaching of dramatics as made use of in theatricals, whether private or public, and the cultivation of dramatic imitation or its use in the enlargement of the child’s general knowledge and experience. The main purpose of this essay is to show in what a wide range of activities this dramatic impulse expresses itself wholesomely in a child’s life. The earliest of these is through dramatic play.

Dramatic Play and Games

It is astonishing how large a proportion of play is dramatic in character. Mr. George E. Freeland watched a baby of two and a half years for a whole day and noted that he engaged in fifty-four different imaginative games. It would be pretty hard, therefore, to enumerate all the ways in which a child of three, at the period when imagination seems to awaken, utilizes this faculty in play. This is the time when the child imitates the acts of older people; therefore, whatever tiny implements or apparatus he can use for that purpose are acceptable to him.

Of the ready-made toys, toy furniture for the house, the sand pile for outdoors and the doll for both are most useful. “The doll,” as Sully tells us, “takes a supreme place in this fancy realm of play. The doll is an all-important comrade in that solitude à deux, of which the child, like the adult, is so fond.” The complete adaptability of the doll makes it an ideal means for the puppet play of idealism. “A good, efficient, able-bodied doll, like the American girl’s,” says Joseph Lee, “is at home in any situation in life, from princess to kitchen maid, to which she may be called. And one doll in her time plays many parts; she has to, or lose her job.” Besides this, so perfectly does the doll mingle with the child’s own personality that it produces and maintains a complete feeling of oneness.

Says Sully: “‘The dolly must do all and be all that I am;’ so the child, in his warm attachment, seems to argue. This feeling of oneness is strengthened by that of exclusive possession, the sense that the child himself is the only one who really knows dolly or can hear her cry. It is another manifestation of the same feeling of intimacy and solidarity when a child insists on dolly’s being treated by others as courteously as he himself is treated. Children will often expect the mother or nurse to kiss and say good-night to their pet or pets—for their hearts are capacious—when she says good-night to themselves.”

“The rimes of Mother Goose,” says Mrs. Herts, “were predominantingly dramatic. A great many of them associate words, song, and action. The ordinary printed collections are misleading in this respect. The words, taken alone, are not the thing. Think of printing ‘Pease porridge hot’ as a separate and independent poem without the dramatic hand-play! Indeed, it is a pity to have these rimes in books at all.”

The mother may help the development of this expressive instinct in early childhood. Even a baby ought to be treated as a play-mate, not as a plaything. There is an old-fashioned game known as “Come to see.” The little damsel with her doll, and perhaps “dressed up” in some of her mother’s wardrobe, came to call on mother. Her efforts to behave exactly as a lady should were aided and guided by the mother’s careful behavior as hostess. It is a training in manners. When the children play visit each other they use all the manners they have. They practice useful lessons without knowing it. The mother who takes these baby games seriously enough to enter into them in the child spirit is teaching her children as truly as is the kindergartner.

The child from four to seven is capable of a wide range of imagination. These years are regarded by psychologists as the most active imaginatively throughout life. Capable of imitation of the ideas as well as the acts of adults, the child uses dolls, soldiers, Noah’s arks, carts, playhouses, blocks, sand-piles, paint boxes, and stencils to act out a great variety of adult occupations. The imagination seems to engage in freer play the more incomplete are the media provided by others for its expression.

“Nothing,” says Stevenson, “can stagger a child’s faith; he accepts the clumsiest substitutions and can swallow the most staring incongruities. The chair he has just been besieging as a castle, or valiantly cutting to the ground as a dragon, is taken away for the accommodation of a morning visitor, and he is nothing abashed; he can skirmish by the hour with a stationary coal scuttle; in the midst of the enchanted pleasance, he can see, without sensible shock, the gardener soberly digging potatoes for the day’s dinner. He can make abstraction of whatever does not fit into his fable; and he puts his eyes in his pocket, just as we hold our noses in an unsavory lane.”

Joseph Lee says, “One of the most petted quadrupeds I have known consisted, to the prosaic eye, of half a barrel hoop.”

Even young children differ in the vividness and completeness with which they surrender themselves to imaginary situations. It is said that Stevenson himself was one day watching a boy who was playing that a sofa was a boat. When he had finished he climbed down and walked away. “For heaven’s sake, swim ashore!” cried out the imaginative child-lover in genuine distress. It seemed to him a pity that the lad should not carry his drama clear to its proper close.

No doubt, however, it is clumsy or blind interference by adults which most often cripples the capacity of imaginative enjoyment. Sully tells this: “A little girl of four was playing ‘shop’ with her younger sister. The elder one was shopman at the time I came into her room and kissed her. She broke out into piteous sobs; I could not understand why. At last she sobbed out: ‘Mother, you never kiss the man in the shop.’ I had with my kiss quite spoiled her illusion.”

The child soon tires of mechanical toys, talking dolls or elaborate doll-houses with which there is nothing he can do. Illustrating this point Joseph Lee says: “Toys, things of convenient size and shape to play with, are indeed essential. But it is what you can do with or imagine about them, not what they themselves can do, that is important.... It is the child’s own achievement, not that of the clever man who made the toy, that counts.”

Miss Nora A. Smith tells of an old German toy-maker who, “when asked where he got the ideas for his playthings, answered with a half-smile: ‘Not from the children, anyway. Children seldom get the toys they want, but those that their parents want them to want.’”

The passion for destruction which often manifests itself during these years is simply the perversion of the instinct for construction. Being provided with no materials with which he can build he takes apart his too complete toys. A pile of blocks, a sand-pile, a paint-box, some dolls that must be cut out, a ruined shed that perhaps may be made into a doll-house, these are ideal materials for childish play.

There are a number of old-fashioned games which exercise the dramatic instinct. Among these are: Kitty White, Did You Ever See a Lassie?, Farmer in the Dell, Squirrel in the Trees and the Duck Dance. These are all described in Miss Bancroft’s book on play and games, referred to below. Let us take her description of one of the less familiar games, Kitty White, so that we may notice how the dramatic element is expressed throughout. The accompanying music is not given in this citation.

“This is an admirable game for very little children. Their dramatic tendency should be given full rein in impersonating the soft movements of the kitty and the mouse before the chase begins.

“Kitty White so slyly comes,

To catch the Mousie Gray;

But mousie hears her softly creep,

And quickly runs away.

“Run, run, run, little mouse,

Run, run, run, little mouse,

For Kitty White is coming near,

And she will catch the mouse, I fear.”

“One player is chosen for the mouse and stands in the center, and another for Kitty White, who stands outside the circle. The other players join hands in a ring and move around, while singing the first four lines. Meanwhile Kitty White is creeping around outside of the circle, peeping in at little Mousie Gray. When the fourth line is reached, ‘And quickly runs away,’ the circle stops moving and drops hands while the mouse runs out and in through the circle, chased by Kitty White. For the last four lines, while the chase is going on, the players in the circle stand in place and clap their hands while singing ‘Run, run,’ etc. When the mouse is caught, both return to the circle, and another mouse and kitty are chosen.”

Between seven and nine still wider possibilities are found in the dramatic use of materials. Sliced animals and other puzzles which consist of building pictures from sections of cardboard, dolls furnished with patterns for dressing, “Magic Changelings” (cutouts representing Mother Goose characters so pasted together that they may be two or three characters, according to the way in which they are folded), pasteboard farms and villages, a dolly’s school outfit, Miss Duncan’s pasteboard garden with labeled plants, stamped patterns of birds and animals to be sewed and stuffed, the “Dynamobile,” which goes by being wound up or attached to power, these are some of the store-made plays that are worth while.

A child, however, will have equal enjoyment by making a toy village out of blocks, stones, and twigs; he can make a miniature theater out of an old kennel that will satisfy him better than the brightly colored ones which can be bought, and he can play store, train, expressman with nothing more than some boxes and a cart. The larger skill and knowledge of the child gives more content to plays of an earlier period. He now invents and conducts elaborate sieges and defenses for his toy soldiers; he not merely plays with his pets, but he harnesses and drives them. He can get up such varied entertainments as a circus, a Wild West Show, a minstrel performance and a Japanese impersonation.

The child continues to play with dolls, but can now be induced to produce an entire puppet show, one of the most educative employments, by the way, possible to youthful play. He or she is now old enough to be interested also in the simpler festivals, such as those of the May Pole, Halloween, and the Fourth of July. Among the formal games appropriate to these years are Bird Catcher, The Wee Bologna Man, Fox and Geese and All Aboard.

We may provide an important stimulus to observation by encouraging it in imaginative play. Miss Nora A. Smith makes this suggestion: “Half-grown boys and girls too would be delighted to play at ‘Scouting,’ it being understood that a scout is always a special person, selected for his special qualifications, and that he is supposed to be unusually active, intelligent and trustworthy.

“The commanding officer, peacefully seated under a tree meanwhile, sends out such a child scout to bring him a full report of the country up to a given point, stating the condition of the roads, fences and bridges; giving a description of the rocks or trees behind which the enemy might take shelter; noting the presence of any figures in the distance—dust rising or birds flying—the foot-marks, wheel-marks, hoof-prints in the road, etc., or the presence of any object by the wayside which would indicate that the foe had passed by.

“If it is explained that the expedition is a dangerous one, necessitating great care and discretion on the part of the recruit, and if it is suggested that it will perhaps be well to make certain marks to guard against losing his way on return, by breaking small branches, piling up stones, ‘blazing’ trees, scratching fence-posts, etc., the excitement will be great and the game delightful, as well as preeminently useful.”

This is about the time when he begins to get up entirely original amateur shows, dramatizing either the stories he has read or the dramas he has witnessed. In his The Coming Generation Dr. Forbush gives these illustrations from his own household: “On going upstairs in the country, the author has often been confronted by a large brown paper poster which reads:

GREAT SHOW
AND FEED
At two o’clock
Admission One Cent.

I pay my fee at the door of one of the children’s chambers, and am asked by the youthful ticket-seller if I care for a reserved seat. In a stage whisper he adds, ‘O Parp, do take one; if you don’t, we’ll come out short on the refreshments.’ I deposit the additional penny, and am ushered to a seat upon the bed, over which is the placard, ‘First Balcony.’ The rabble is seated on chairs.

“We are handed programs, executed with the expenditure of much muscle and saliva. First, according to this program, is a ‘P’rad of Ginruls,’ introducing the entire company. Then follow recitations, songs, shadow pictures, stereopticon and original plays, one of border life and the other of conflict with crime in the city. A reminiscence of Cooper is traceable in these vigorously acted dramas. The manipulation of apparatus and the movements and dialogue behind the scenes are as entertaining to the spectators as the regular acts. At the close a plate of delicious plums is passed, for which the youngsters must have walked two miles in the hot sun, and mortgaged all of the proceeds of the entertainment in advance.”

The superior craftsmanship of the child between ten and twelve enables him to enjoy games which imitate in close detail many adult activities. Crepe paper, beads, and such plastic materials as clay and plasticine can be used for improving the beauty of constructive articles. The boy now enjoys some of the published games by which he can play conductor, postoffice, and banker, and the girl who plays house does some actual cooking and house-cleaning.

There was a description not long ago in American Motherhood of the way a family carried their dramatic representations of literature still further. They made models of the places they read about. An Esquimau village was the simplest task. The people, dogs, sledges, and seals can be modeled in clay and colored if material is at hand. If not, they can be made of paper. Some oiled paper over blue makes a beautiful polar sea, in which should float a great iceberg built either from paper, or modeled from clay and covered with cotton, over which clambers a polar bear. Cotton should cover the rude huts and all the land with its snowy whiteness, and if a few pennies are available, a sprinkling of diamond dust makes the scene very realistic.

The guidance of an older person is desirable in the matter of reading, for the children should be encouraged to see that every detail is true to fact. If Robinson Crusoe’s Island is attempted and rightly carried out, the family copy will be worn to tatters before it is done, as it certainly should be. The same kind of oiled and blue paper will again serve for the ocean; the sandy beach can be real sand, in which may be planted the tropical forest. The text itself must be studied for the location of the cave, the later huts, the boat, the animals and birds. In fact, the story must be made the foundation of it all and its directions followed to the minutest detail.

The Hiawatha story is used in some form or other by almost every primary teacher, and the working out of Hiawatha’s home is unfailingly interesting. Here clay or plasticine is especially desirable. All the characters mentioned in the poem are modeled in it and colored to barbaric splendor. Wigwams are set in the evergreen forest, canoes line the stony beach of the shining lake, while birds, squirrels, turtles and other creatures are fitted into their proper environment. Old Nakomis sits at the tent door; the fortune teller is in evidence; Hiawatha stands at his canoe, and all the other characters are employed as the story directs. The study for it and the making of Hiawatha’s home should offer occupation for a large part of a winter’s leisure.

The beginnings of American history are studied through the reproduction of a street in the Dutch village in which the Puritans took refuge from persecution in England. Its houses with red roofs, its wind-mills, its church, reproduce the character of the place, while in the street are groups of people clad in the costume of the times, the men with the broad-brimmed hats, the women with close bonnets.

The next step carries the Pilgrims across the water to the building of Old Plymouth. In the construction of this village small twigs can be used for the making of real log houses. Here, of course, must appear the homes of Priscilla, of John Alden and Miles Standish, the Common House and other places which any simple story of the Pilgrim Fathers will give. Someone must hunt in the yard or in the street for a real Plymouth Rock to place upon the seashore.

If possible, it is well to have two or three children work together if a village is attempted. The work then moves rapidly enough to escape discouragement, and the many discussions that are bound to arise over the right way of doing this or that are bound to be instructive.

There is a great interest among boys at this time in such toys as Meccano and the American Model Builder, in which materials are furnished for making miniature bridges and structures and machines. The great outdoor and cooperative games of baseball and football, which are intensely dramatic, are now played by boys, while both boys and girls enjoy more elaborate joint impersonations than ever before, in acting charades and playing Dumb Crambo.

The years beyond thirteen introduce a second period of imitation. The boy now thinks he is a man and the girl wishes to be a woman. This play-adultism manifests itself, of course, in the insistence upon wearing adult clothes and entering into adult experiences. Now is the time for the den or the clubhouse or the workshop, in which the maturing boy or girl entertains his friends and executes his craftsmanship projects. The would-be athlete now constructs his rude outdoor gymnasium. Indoors the amateur magician performs tricks to his more or less astonished family.

A valuable device, which is far more than a toy, for this period is the stereoscope. If supplied with stereoscopic photographs carefully selected and explained, the sense of perspective, size, and life which this optical instrument gives enables the imaginative youth, or adult even, to enter so vividly into foreign experiences and customs as to constitute, if but briefly, actual experiences of travel.

There is no material or device which has been mentioned above that is not available to the most modest household. The majority of them consist of articles already in the house and the others of tools or materials which are inexpensive and of permanent value.

Serial Dramatic Play

By serial dramatic play is meant a dramatic game which is taken up day after day for a considerable period, until it becomes a continued story. The children who engage in this sort of play are, of course, getting a much finer intellectual stimulus than those who play entirely in a desultory and disconnected fashion. Not all children have the capacity to sustain games of this sort. Here comes one of the great fellowship opportunities of parenthood.

A good illustration of this sort of play is the war game which Robert Louis Stevenson used to play with his step-son, Lloyd Osbourne. Owing to the tireless resourcefulness of the older play-mate, the two utilized nearly the whole house for a series of sieges and strategies, and went so far even as to publish bulletins from the field of war, which they printed upon a small press.

Mr. H. G. Wells, the novelist, has played with his two small children by means of blocks, Noah’s Ark people, twigs and miscellaneous objects, several series of games of war and peace, which he has described most delightfully in his book, Floor Games. The parent who tells a continued story to his children, which they illustrate together by crude drawings, is engaged in an operation which is fully as much a game as a story, and which often results in the children acting out the story after it has been told or adding chapters to it of their own composition. So keenly do they visualize the characters of such a story that upon being suddenly called upon to relate what happened in their favorite hero’s life after some particular incident they will often reminisce as vividly as if they were telling their own histories. A method of doing this by handicraft is suggested on a previous page.

A description is given in another monograph (Table Talk in the Home) of a method by which a mother secured beautiful behavior at table by naming the children for real personages and teaching them to regard each other as distinguished guests. This device lasted successfully for a considerable time. It is a pleasant custom to relate certain cooperative games and enjoyments of parents and children to the home festivals.

It is most enjoyable for families, at their reunions, to act out together the family history. This dramatic commemoration of proud events in the family history stimulates the younger generation with the desire for achievement, and instills a wholesome pride and self-respect which will often prevent them, through the temptations of youth, from acting in a manner unworthy of their ancestors.

Recently two young veterans who had just returned from eighteen months’ service with the American army in France were given a dinner by one of their neighbors who wished to celebrate their home-coming. Her six-year-old son, whose grandfather had served in the Civil War, was much excited for some weeks preceding the long-anticipated welcome dinner. On the memorable evening he was dressed in khaki, in imitation of the soldier guests, and wore his grandfather’s sword. The double significance of that evening will probably never be forgotten by this six-year-old, who felt the dignity of his position as grandson of a Civil War veteran and host of two World War heroes.

Folk Dancing

We sometimes forget that all of us use at least two languages, the language of speech and the language of gesture. The language of gesture is probably as old as the language of speech, but to-day the language of speech has so largely taken the place of the other that except among the more emotional people of southern climes gesture is largely neglected and frequently meaningless.

Folk-dancing is the practiced speech of gesture. By this means, primitive peoples acted out most of the occurrences of the tribe, the ways of various animals, the occupations of men, their wars, their loves, their religion, even the moods of the moment.

There is, of course, the closest relation between music and the dance, and the folk-dances and the music that accompanies them have lived on together. The old ballads were all originally written for choral dancing, so that song and gesture were closely united.

The theory that underlies belief in the educational value of dramatic dancing was stated by Plato, in the days and among the race that saw and knew lives of unexampled attainment and a record in the arts that has not been approached by any other people. He said: “Rhythm and harmony are made familiar to the souls of the youths, that they may grow more gentle and graceful and harmonious, and so be of service both in words and in deeds; for the whole life of man stands in need of grace and of harmony.”

There is no apparent boundary line between singing games, rhythmic games, and folk-dancing, in its simplest and innocent forms. Such old singing games as London Bridge; Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush; Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow; The Hare in the Hollow; King William; and the Duke and the Castle embody dancing steps, though they are games set to music. The historic minuet is an expression of courtliness, as it was the historic dance of the old courtly days.

Miss Jane Addams and her fellow-workers at Hull House believe that the development of the characteristic national dances of the various countries that are sending us immigrants is going to be, together with their folk songs, a valuable contribution to the refinement of our national life, as well as an important support to the self-respect of these people who, because of the arrogance of Americans, suppose they have everything to learn and nothing to give.

Dramatic Parties

To the mother who is at her wits’ end in trying to devise something new and good for children’s parties, the idea of using the dramatic instinct should come as a godsend. Nothing could possibly be more delightful than an afternoon of dramatic games, varied by more quiet story-telling. Playing statues, getting up tableaux, performing charades, and even extemporaneously acting out story-plays are all methods of entertainment which win enthusiastic response. To be ready for such an emergency it might be well for mothers to follow the suggestion of Miss Nora A. Smith that “a drawer in the playroom closet be devoted to objects and old finery suitable for tableaux and dramatizations, such as trappings for soldiers, feathered hats, trained skirts, buckled belts, gold lace, and old jewelry.” To add to the delight of such a place, Miss Smith adds, “This closet should be treated in general as a high, exalted place, never to be opened in mother’s absence or without her consent.”

Pantomime, Tableaux, Etc.

It is a curious fact that that which is the easiest form of dramatic expression to young children is the most difficult to adolescent young people, namely, the pantomime. This is explained by the fact that little children enter so unconsciously into action without the use of words, while the older ones are rendered more self-conscious by being restricted from the use of speech. Of pantomime for little children, the very simplest form is that of “statues,” in which the children pose, either dressed all in white with powdered hair or with no change of costume, to represent scenes from life, familiar people, common trades, form of action, famous people and well defined thoughts or feelings.

The next dramatic step is the tableaux, in which the children are grouped at least in pairs, arranged in a frame or behind a curtain, dressed in costume. Here, as in the statues, their own inventiveness may be largely depended upon, as they pose to represent characters in story-books, characters in poems, scenes from history, people of other lands and famous pictures.

The third variety is the shadow play, in which with even simpler properties but with more careful rehearsal the children pose as silhouettes and employ a few dramatic gestures. In Miss Perry’s When Mother Lets Us Act the details of all these pantomime performances are given quite adequately.

The next step in dramatic performances is story-playing. The easiest kind consists of simple character sketches, in which a child may portray quickly with language as well as gesture such characters as the father, an old witch, a newspaper boy, a school teacher. Animals may also be imitated. Miss Perry describes a lovely acting game, which she calls Playing Garlands.

“Garlands,” as she describes it, “is a little group of plays acted one after the other, all a part of the same idea and each one acted by one child only. When grandmother comes, you can have the garland of greetings. Encircle grandmother, hand in hand. Then let each child represent something that is glad to welcome grandmother. One represents the chickens and struts and flutters, one represents the flowers—this one spreads her skirts and acts like a flower; and so on. A garland of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems, each child taking one poem and speaking, or singing, and acting it, is charming.”

Doctor Gesell describes the way this activity develops in the elementary schoolroom: “Very soon the class will not be content with one player. The boy who is trying to represent the monkey will suggest that he have a hand-organ man; the hen will want chickens, and the scene will go naturally and easily without dictation. It is interesting to see how the children grow in power of representation and suggestion, and how naturally language begins to be the necessary accompaniment of gesture. The language of the children will be pictorial and full of unexpected terms and phrases. At this stage of the work it will be found helpful to put a screen between the player and the class. Such a device adds a little mystery to the play. The effect that such work may have upon voice culture is most significant.”

The next step will be stories with simple plot. In performing these it is not necessary to memorize, and it is undesirable to do so. Miss Fry in her Educational Dramatics describes in a vivid way how a story-play evolves. Here is a bit of her monologue, in which we can easily imagine the interruptions of the children. The play is a variant of the Cinderella story:

“Good! Let’s begin with the Market-Place! And the crowd is there, as the story says. What will the crowd be doing? Buying and selling, and walking about and gossiping, as crowds always do anywhere! Yes! We can have chairs about, to be the shops, and Cicily will be in the crowd, of course, shabby and shy, because she is poor, and no one notices her. O, no! Not unhappy, because she is a merry creature, even if she is poor! Barefoot? I s’pose so! Rags? O, let’s plan the whole story first and what they do, and then think about clothes and other things, or we never shall be through and doing it!

“Now what happens? The Bellman’s bell can sound outside the Square just as in the story, and we can hear him calling, ‘O, Ye’s! O, Ye’s!’ and the bell really ringing. Then what will happen? The Bellman will march in, yes! Ringing and calling, all the people of the place will ‘come running,’ as the story says. What a lot more fun it will be to be doing it than just hearing about it! O, yes! of course they chatter at him. The story does not say that, but any one would know it.”

Mrs. Braucher recommends for story-playing the following stories, some of which lend themselves to a more permanent form of acting:

Cinderella.

Sleeping Beauty.

Hansel and Gretel.

Jack and the Beanstalk.

Snow-white.

Elves and Shoemaker.

Eleven Wild Swans.

Red Shoes.

The Cat and the Parrot.

The Golden Goose.

King Arthur and Excalibur.

The Hole in the Dike.

We come now to the performing of memorized plays by adolescent young people. Before adolescence memorizing is of little value in dramatic performance, unless it be of poems to be acted, because it tends to hamper the freedom of original speech and action. Here Frederica Beard’s sensible statement is memorable: “The dramatic instinct is not utilized primarily by the seeing of plays, but by self-expression in the acting out of plays suitable to a particular age.” It is the children who have been surfeited by the drama and the moving-picture show who regard dramatic play as tiresome. Those who are leading in the Junior Drama League, instead of encouraging theater-going among children, are strongest in their insistence that children ought to be kept from the playhouses. Neither is it believed that the development of dramatic expression among children is likely to increase the number of young who go into that profession.

Development through patient drill of some capacity in the taking of parts, on the other hand, tends to help a child to discriminate between good and poor acting, and to appreciate all his life that which is truly fine in this great and ancient art. But the greatest difference between the spirit of the mother or teacher who coaches some young people in their amateur plays and the teacher of dramatic art is that the latter works almost entirely to specialize the actor for his business and art of acting, while the leader of amateurs is concerned chiefly with the results of the acting in developing the characters of the children through this exercise of the dramatic instinct.

Something more than the dramatic instinct may be exercised through these amateur home plays. One writer describes how once he started out with a group of young folks to give a pantomime of Hiawatha. The boys were to do the acting while he read part of the poem aloud. This seemed to be such an easy thing to do that they had not planned to have the preparations last more than a month, but they took all winter. The boys got so interested in making the costumes and painting the scenery that they worked enthusiastically week after week in doing so. They made their costumes out of brown cambric or denim, which was easily fringed. Their moccasins were made of the same material, and beads were liberally used on the moccasins and the bracelets. “Scalps” were made of old switches of false hair, and the blades of the tomahawks were very realistic with red paint. They secured old Christmas trees from the public gardens, they set up a tent of their own devising, they had a camp fire, lighted by red electric bulbs, they had scenery of their own painting and they even had a moon of their own which rose more or less spasmodically.

When the boys put on their warpaint and performed their dance, to an Indian chant of their own invention, under red fire, they were positively gruesome, and the dramatic climax of Hiawatha’s wedding was glorious in the extreme. Evidently, in these exercises it was not the dramatic instinct alone that counted, though that was central throughout, but the gang spirit was behind it all, and the handicraft instinct became involved, while music, art and the love of literature all found their place.

Miss Cora Mel Patten, who has had a varied experience in coaching young people in connection with the playgrounds and social centers of Chicago, advises that for the best results the leader should deal only with small groups. She believes that intensive work carried on patiently and for a long time with a moderate-sized dramatic club is more effective than the ambitious endeavor to deal with a large company. As in all social work that amounts to anything, it seems better to get somewhere with a few than merely to start with the many. In the small group the mob spirit is entirely absent, and if it be a selected company, everybody is in earnest. These statements suggest that the pageant, which is becoming so popular, is worth while for its patriotic and inspirational rather than its dramatic opportunities.

Dramatized Work

The chief difference between work and play to a child seems to be that in work a definite creative result is kept in mind, so that the end, rather than the means, is the central purpose. In play the means is everything and the end is a matter of indifference. Until the child is old enough to become something of a creator and inventor he does not instinctively perform much work. Sometimes before that period arrives, however, it is possible to interest him in profitable tasks if he can engage in them with his imagination; and all through childhood, and, indeed, all through life, imagination is the Shekinah that leads the host of toil through its wilderness toward the promised land.

A pleasant device to encourage young children to work is to denominate them as “soldiers,” “watchmen,” or “little partners.” The addition of a paper cap or a wooden sword or a policeman’s club will carry many a small youngster through a task which would otherwise seem intolerable. One mother has strengthened her family discipline by assigning each of her children in turn to be “the captain of the day,” giving each in turn special privileges and the responsibility of keeping the other children in order. If a boy or girl can only turn something into something else more to his liking, he will develop considerable industry. If the woodpile and the dishpan can be utilized as enemies to be destroyed and the untidy room as a province to conquer, these tasks are fulfilled with a complete, though furious, equanimity.

In one home where there were many humdrum tasks to be performed by the children the oldest won the enthusiasm of the rest by printing the names of all the tasks upon slips of paper and letting each draw lots. The uncertainty of the lot and the chance to relieve the tedium by entering for a time into the work of another changed the aspect of the whole situation.

The idea of partnership may be profitably employed all through childhood. The writer remembers an investment in hens in which the drudgery was completely lightened by the fact that he entered into equal partnership with his father, which involved the keeping of a leather-bound account book and the rendering of weekly balance sheets. It seems probable that during the years of youth, when imagination no longer disguises the task, the growing boy or girl meets it with complaisance and success because he still thinks of himself as a skilled craftsman who has pride in doing his work well.

Home Discipline Through the Dramatic Instinct

What has just been said indicates some possibilities which may be worked out in the direction of governing children through the playful use of this instinct. Sully reports this: “‘When R. is naughty and in a passion’ (writes a lady friend of her child, aged three and a half) ‘I need only suggest to him that he is some one else—say, a friend of his—and he will take it up at once. He will pretend to be the other child, and at last go and call himself, now a good boy, back again.’ This mode of suggestion, by helping the ‘higher self’ to detach itself from and control the lower might, one suspects, be much more widely employed in the moral training of children.”

One mother, when her little boy sulked upon being requested to do some little thing for her, would pretend to telephone for a messenger boy with certain characteristics which were not much in evidence in her own son at the time, explaining that her little son, who usually ran errands for her, was not at home to-day. The latter, in his interest in the “game,” would immediately forget to sulk, knock politely at the door of his mother’s room, and upon being invited to enter, present himself as the messenger boy for whom she had telephoned. When asked how long he could stay, he would reply “All day if you wish,” and in the role of messenger boy, he cheerfully performed his mother’s errands.

When her sister’s little children seemed averse to washing their hands and faces in preparation for dinner, Mrs. Chenery tells of how their mother made this duty, so disagreeable to all children, really pleasurable through the use of military commands which always appealed to them.

“Attention! Forward march! one, two, one, two. Right face—to the bathroom, march!”

Then, after their hands and faces were shining and their tangled curls combed out, “Attention! Left face! Forward march!”—downstairs, through the hall, then once more, “Left face—to the dining-room—march!”

Not only does imagination help a child cheerily to obey, but it helps an adult wisely to command. Throughout childhood and youth can there be a better maxim for government than that which is the very heart of the imaginative instinct: put yourself in the child’s place?

Clubs Based on Imaginative Play

Some of the most successful clubs for boys and girls are those in which every activity is made a part of a play-world, in which the members live during, and, to some extent, between, the sessions of the club. In the Boy Scouts, for example, the lad thinks of himself as a pioneer and enacts through a skillful variety of exercises many of the resourceful habits of the early explorers. The imaginative element is conspicuous also in Mr. Thompson-Seton’s organization, The Wood-Craft Indians. The program of the Camp Fire Girls likewise makes a strong appeal to the imaginative and the play spirit.

In the Order of the Knights of King Arthur the boys pretend that they are members of the ancient Round Table; they bear the names of knights and heroes; they carry their initiates from one rank to another; they engage in quests and tournaments, and the influence upon an individual is distinctly in the direction of absorbing ideals of chivalric manhood. In a sister organization, The Queens of Avalon, the girls think of themselves as the queens who in the King Arthur legend dwelt upon the magic isle of Avalon for the healing of mankind.

In an organization for younger boys, called The Brotherhood of David, lads between eight and twelve regard themselves as future kings, in exile, dwelling, like David, in caves and fields and preparing for sovereignty. The Wolf Cubs—an English organization for pre-adolescent boys—holds before its members the ideal of a pack of wolves.

Dramatic Self-Government

This idea was carried still further in self-governing communities of boys and girls, such as the George Junior Republic. In these villages for delinquent children and orphans the young people all the time realize a civic situation through officials elected by themselves, by legislative enactments which they passed and amended, through a complete financial and commercial system, by which, under as few restrictions as possible, they solved the problems of the state and of individual prosperity. A similar method has been worked out in the “school city” in some of our public schools.

Dramatics in the Church

In all Christian worship the dramatic element survives. It finds its most elaborate expression in the Roman Catholic mass, but even the simple order of service in the church of Puritan lineage has certain dramatic elements. The sacraments of baptism and of the Lord’s Supper in those communions are intensely impressive to children simply because of their dramatic elements.

In liturgical churches, where the entrance of the clergy and the choristers in processional is followed by a variety of consecutive and historic ceremonies, performed by rising, sitting, kneeling and going to the altar in turn, and concluding with the recessional of the celebrants, children who have been trained in churchly ways find a keen and lifelong delight. Surely, nothing but the dramatic character of such services can explain the joy which little children take in going to church where the sermon and much of the service are incomprehensible.

The festival, even more than the ordinary service of worship, makes its dramatic appeal to children. No one could have been present in an Italian city on some high feast day, when the main street of the village was decorated for the great procession, when all the treasures of the church were exposed to view, and when the band, the crowd of venders, the best clothes of everybody, and, most of all, the dramatic services themselves, both in the church and on the street, were heightening the impression, without realizing that here is the secret of much of the power of the church in the lives of these imaginative people. To be in such a village at Christmas time and to go into the lighted church and see before the high altar the Christmas crèche, with its cardboard scenery and its toy images of Joseph, Mary, and the Christ-child, the shepherds and the Wise Men, thronged, as it is, with wide-eyed children, is to appreciate the wisdom of the Roman Church in visualizing for the children the drama of the incarnation.

Those who have been brought up in a colder atmosphere can hardly fail to remember the thrill which they felt when they witnessed or participated as children in the dialogues, exercises, and choruses of Sunday school concerts. There has been of late the beginning of a revival, even in Protestant churches, of the miracle play, in which boys as well as girls have been delighted to take part, and in which the spiritual impression of the enacting of Scripture stories without scenery has been profound upon both actors and audience.

The religious pageant, as well, with its simple yet suggestive scenery, and its appropriate music, lights the imagination of the children and young people until they themselves live through, in a measure, the experiences of those staunch men and women who lived centuries ago in the Holy Land. By making these Bible characters seem real human beings, who thought and acted much as we do to-day, we help to make them a real power to shape character in the lives of our boys and girls. The program of the church needs to consider more fully the power of appeal through the dramatic and imaginative instincts of its youth.

SUMMARY

The home may develop the dramatic instinct by encouraging dramatic play and games. Some of the most inexpensive and accessible homemade playthings are the most valuable for dramatic purposes.

Through serial and cooperative dramatic play, the parent enters into and retains the pleasantest kind of fellowship with his children. There is excellent opportunity to employ this kind of play in story-telling and at the family festivals.

Folk-dancing is a form of dramatic play which, historically, has been of great importance and is to-day most valuable in stimulating artistic capacity and making the child bodily and spiritually graceful and harmonious.

Parents will find their best resource for children’s parties in inviting all those present to exercise the dramatic instinct.

Through such dramatics, the home, the school and the social center have excellent opportunities to bring themselves close to the children. Beginning with pantomime and continuing with originative story-playing, the child, by and by, in adolescence, comes to the period when he is ready to perform memorized plays. By doing so he gains a new form of expression and becomes capable of recognizing what is really fine in the drama.

The parent should crave, and the social worker plan, so that every child will have the opportunity during the “gang” period of belonging to some social club whose scheme is based upon imaginative play. In such organizations, young people live out together actual revivals of pioneer activities and virtues and of the days and deeds of chivalry. A similar opportunity is possible in the schools, through dramatic self-government.

The parent ought to be interested in the tendency that is manifest in the church to recognize and revive the sacred drama. Both through liturgy and the church festivals it is possible to make the strongest spiritual impression upon children.

REFERENCES

The Dramatic Festival, by Annie A. T. Craig. (Containing plays and festivals for successive school periods.)

Folk Festivals, by Mary Master Needham. (Very practical and suggestive.)

Pageants and Pageantry, by Bates and Orr. (Helpful introduction and five pageants.)

Festivals and Plays, by Percival Chubb. (For schools and other institutions. Valuable suggestions on the use of music in festival work.)

The Celebration of the Fourth of July by Means of Pageantry, by William Chauncy Langdon.

Education through Recreation, by George E. Johnson.

Education by Plays and Games, by George E. Johnson.

Play in Education, by Joseph Lee.

Education through Play, by Henry S. Curtis.

The Kingdom of the Child, by Heinige.

The Play Way, by H. Caldwell Cock.

Play Life in the First Eight Years, by Luella Palmer.

The New Kindergarten Curriculum, Bulletin No. 16, United States Bureau of Education, Chapter on Games.

How to Teach, by Norsworthy and Strayer. Chapter 9, on The Meaning of Play in Education.

Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium, by Jessie H. Bancroft. (Gives graded descriptions of many active dramatic games for all ages.)

Easy Games for Little Players, by Margaret Boughton. (An English publication, showing how to turn the nursery rhymes into dramatic form. This would be excellent for a children’s party or for any little circle that chances to be meeting in the home. The suggested dialogue does not need to be memorized.)

Fundamentals of Child Study, by E. A. Kirkpatrick. Chapter 9, on Play.

The Dramatic Arts, by Caroline Crawford. Article in the Teacher’s College Record, September, 1915.

Children’s Play and Its Place in Education, by Walter Wood.

Manual of Play, by William Byron Forbush.

The Rhythms of Childhood, by Caroline Crawford.

Dramatic Games and Dances for Little Children, by Caroline Crawford.

Timely Games and Songs, by Clara Sawyer Reed.

Games for the School, Gymnasium and Home, by Jessie Bancroft.

Festivals and Pageants, by Percival Chubb.

Pageantry and Dramatics in Religious Education, by W. V. Meredith.

The Use of Dramatic Arts in Religious Education, by Mary Alice Jones. (An M. A. thesis on file at Northwestern University.)

The volumes that are starred will be found particularly helpful. The volumes listed above may be secured through the publishers of this pamphlet.

THE AMERICAN HOME SERIES
NORMAN E. RICHARDSON, Editor

The Nation’s Challenge to the Home

How One Real Mother Lives with Her Children

Parenthood and Heredity

The Roots of Disposition and Character

The First Year in a Baby’s Life

Thumb-Sucking

The Education of the Baby Until It Is One Year Old

First Steps Toward Character

The Second and Third Years

The Education of the Child During the Second and Third Years

The Mother as Playfellow (Years One, Two, and Three)

The Problems of Temper

The Problems of Fighting

The Government of Young Children

The Punishment of Children

The Home Kindergarten

The Religious Nurture of a Little Child (Years Four and Five)

The Nervous Child

On Truth Telling and the Problem of Children’s Lies

The Government of Children Between Six and Twelve

The Dramatic Instinct in Children

Dramatics in the Home

Table Talk in the Home

Sunday in the Home

A Year of Good Sundays

The Picture-Hour in the Home

Story-Telling in the Home

Music in the Home

Training in Thrift

“What to Say” in Telling the Story of Life’s Renewal

Sex Discipline for Boys in the Home

Youth’s Outlook Upon Life

Building for Womanhood

Rhythm and Recreation

Prices will be Furnished on Application

Transcriber’s Note:

Hyphenation has been retained as it appears in the original publication.

Page 9
Did You Ever See a Lassie? Farmer changed to
Did You Ever See a Lassie?, Farmer

Page 25
now a good boy, back again. changed to
now a good boy, back again.’

Page 28
high altar the Christmas créche changed to
high altar the Christmas crèche