vulgarity. Mr. Archer hopes that the idea of an endowed theater will find practical expression in some pioneer city from the coöperation of private munificence with public intelligence. He says: Could there be an object of greater public utility than that of rendering the most fascinating and universally popular of the arts a source of intellectual and emotional, as well as merely sensuous and sensational, pleasure? "The realization is gradually spreading among us Anglo-Saxons that a well-ordered theater stands high on the list of institutions indispensable to an enlightened community. In Germany the ideal of the theater as a public institution, not a private money-making machine, has always triumphed and pulled things together. The result is that the German theater of to-day keeps the classics of German literature constantly before the people; treats Shakespeare far more intelligently than we do ourselves; and has produced an extraordinarily rich and varied contemporary drama, vying with that of France, and incomparably more important, in every point of view, than the contemporary drama of England and America. "I suggest, then, that the establishment of a repertory theater, on the lines of the German city theaters, in every considerable town (say, of 150,000 inhabitants and upward) in the Englishspeaking world, would be a magnificent national and racial investment, even if each theater involved a considerable annual outlay." IN ELEVATION OF THE GERMAN DRAMA. N the first quarterly issue of the Forum, Mr. John Corbin contributes an account of the present condition and prospects of the drama in the United States. By way of contrast he pictures theatrical conditions in Germany: The The theatrical situation in Germany is geographically the same as in America, that is to say, there are many widely separated cities, each one the seat of a vigorous civic spirit. The commercial basis of the German theater, however, is the direct opposite of that in America. origin of the theater was not in the great mass of the public, but in the more intelligent portion of it associated with the royal courts of Germany. In Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin, and many other capitals there are theaters which, like the Théâtre Français, are supported in part by the national treasury. These theaters are what we should call local stock companies of the highest character; and for more than a century they have given frequent productions of the best dramas in the literature of the world, ancient and modern. Modeled upon these, in the lead ing commercial cities, stock company theaters have been founded which depend for support on the municipality, and even on private subscrip. tion. HEALTHFUL VARIETY FOR ACTORS AND PUBLIC. "No sooner has a play proved successful in one German city than it is rehearsed and put on the boards in all, thus becoming a part of the repertory of twenty or thirty different companies at once. This does away at a stroke with such organization of booking as is at the root of the commercial evil of the American theater. It also does away with the long run, which is the root of our artistic evil, for the rules of the theaters generally require that even the most successful pieces shall not be played more than four times a week, in order that the rest of the time may be taken up with revivals of the classics and with productions of new plays. The actors are thus Denefited by constant variety. In spite of this, however, a play is in the end given as often as there is a public to witness it, runs of one and two hundred performances being perhaps as frequent as in America. It is true that in any particular city the returns to the authors and the managers come in more slowly, but this is more than balanced by the fact that the play runs simultaneously in all the leading cities. In many other ways this system is superior to ours. The author has a score of managers to whom to offer a new play. The actor, when his abilities warrant, travels as a guest from this theater to that, availing himself of the local company and of its stock scenery. The public is constantly able to see the best old plays, and at the same time every novelty of the season. Even the mercan tile classes share in the general profit, for a large floating public of well-to-do people is attracted by the great educational advantages which a repertory theater offers. GERMAN ACTORS IN THE UNITED STATES. "As for America, or at least English-speaking America, no one who knows the conservative power of established organization, even of the worst, will look for any early duplication of this system. As far as the German-speaking public is concerned, the system is to be seen in full operation there are vigorous and successful repertory theaters in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Milwaukee, and every season great German actors, such as Possart, Sorma, Odilon, Bonn, and Sonnenthal, make the tour of all these theaters as guests. But it will be many years, it is to be feared, before this admirable example is imitated by the English-speaking public." A EDUCATION BY NEWSPAPER. NOVEL plan for a system of popular eduThe cation has been proposed in India. proposal is contained in a paper by Mr. S. S. Thorburn, read before the East India Association, and published in the July number of the Asiatic Quarterly. Mr. Thorburn's proposal is, briefly, to publish in each center, and in all the vernaculars, a government newspaper which would educate the people. At present education in India is bad, and journalism worse. Only about one in four hundred of the number of boys in India is being seriously educated, and only 10 per cent. are undergoing any education at all. At present the great bulk of educated candidates for government employment must struggle for positions worth less than $100 a year. Education higher than elementary is almost confined to town-dwellers; the educated product is cast upon the world at an age when instruction is only beginning to expand the mind into a thinking machine; and the educated class, unfit for other pursuits, seeks clerical employment, in which the openings are few. The reading of this new class is restricted to the cheapest of the vernacular papers, of which there are nearly six hundred. These papers pay badly, and have small circulations, while the fear of being prosecuted for seditious writing is ever before them. GOVERNMENT NEWSPAPERS. Mr. Thorburn, in view of these facts, proposes that the government of each department should start and maintain a first-class daily paper in the town vernacular, which would be sold at a rate which would compare with the cheapest journals now circulating. He thinks that even if a loss of a lac of rupees in each case resulted, the outlay would be productive. The editors should be persons worthy of respect, either English or native, and such men, says Mr. Thorburn, would be cheap at 3,000 rupees a month. Mr. Thorburn thinks that after a time the loss would be inconsiderable. WHAT ANGLO-INDIANS THINK. Mr. Thorburn calls this education by newspaper, but it is obvious that the effect would be political as well. After his paper was read the project was discussed by several members, none of whom approved of it. Sir Lepel Griffin said he did not think that the starting of a few newspapers would be enough to tackle the grave difficulty which the higher education of the natives was every day making more important. Mr. Digby was even less favorable. He does not zens. think that British newspapers make good citiHe points out certain practical difficulties. Would the editor, he asks, have a free hand? If so, he would have to circulate damaging criticisms on the Indian Government, such as those of Mr. Caine in the House of Commons. The government would be a resounding board, through which the voice of criticism would echo through the land. The editor would be compelled to take sides, and would thus incur the enmity of one party. A large number of papers would be needed, there being eighty languages in India, twenty of which are spoken by not less than a million persons. If the papers were good, they would supersede the present English and native papers, destroying the occupation of the present journalists. Mr. Digby does not think that the men could be found to work the project. If the Indians are to become loyal citizens of a prosperous empire, they must be regarded as equals. The British cannot for all time stand in loco parentis to 230,000,000 people. Mr. Thorburn, in his reply, argues that if the government newspapers were to kill all the lowerclass newspapers circulating in India, so much the better. He maintains also that the newspapers would not need to be published in so many different languages, as no daily is now published except in the recognized official vernacular of a province and one spoken by all educated Indians. The project, as will be seen, did not meet with favor. It is an interesting one, nevertheless. But surely a simpler plan, both in India and Russia, would be for the rulers to test for a tin.e the effect of granting real liberty to the press, the most effective of all enemies of sedition. "Conscious suggestion is what is called instruction; unconscious suggestion is what we call, in the narrow sense, education, and what I shall call enlightenment. . . . In our society instruction is very advanced, but real enlightenment is not only backward, but absent. That education may be good and moral it is necessary, strange to say, that the life of the educators should be good. It must be good, not by chance in certain details, but its bases must be good. "A good life" he defines as one that aspires toward perfection, toward love. "INSTRUCTION." As for instruction, or science, it is merely the transmission of the best thoughts of the best men on divers subjects. Such thoughts of good, intel. ligent men are always about (1) religious philosophy of life and its importance; (2) experimental and natural sciences; (3) logic and mathematics. "All these are true sciences. . . . You know or you do not know. All sciences not corresponding to these requirements, such as theological, legal, and historical studies, are mischievous, and should be excluded.” Count Tolstoy also strongly insists on the importance of teaching some manual labor, be it carpentry, sewing, or other useful employment. A DIVISION OF TIME. "This is how I represent things to myself: the teachers fix hours themselves, but the pupils are free to come or not. . . . Entire freedom for the pupil to study when he wants to is the condition sine quâ non of all useful teaching, is just as in eating the condition sine quâ non now that the eater desires to eat. The only difference is that in material things the mischief of restriction of liberty is shown at once,-by sickness and derangement of the stomach,-and that in spiritual matter the results are shown less quickly, perhaps years later." Eight hours for sleep, eight for "education in the narrow sense-enlightenment," also housecleaning, manual work, with intervals for rest or play (dependable on age); eight hours for study, the subject to be entirely the choice of the pupils. ON LANGUAGE TEACHING. "As for the teaching of languages-the more one knows the better--I think it absolutely necessary to learn French and German, English, and, if possible, Esperanto (a universal language). Languages must be taught by making the pupil read a book he knows and trying to make him understand the general sense, then drawing attention to the essential words and their roots in the grammatical forms." IN MARY'S HOUSE AT EPHESUS. N the Nouvelle Revue, M. B. D'Agen gives a curious account of the ancient building at Ephesus which is now believed by many Roman Catholics to have sheltered Mary, the mother of Christ, during the last year of her life on earth. Not quite a hundred years ago there lived in Westphalia a village woman, Katherine Emmerich, who enjoyed a great local reputation for sanctity, and who lived the life of an anchorite. She had a Boswell in the person of a humble priest named Brentano, to whom she recounted at great length her marvelous visions, which all concerned, and, as it were, reconstituted, the life of Christ and of the Virgin Mary on earth. He kept a careful record of all she told him, and after her death several volumes dealing with her "revelations" were published; these included a "Life of the Virgin Mary," in which are to be found many extraordinary and most elaborate details, which the believers in Katherine Emmerich's exceptional sanctity regard as a valuable supplement to the Gospel narrative. It should, however, be added that this volume, as indeed. all the "revelations" in question, never received the imprimata of Rome, and no effort seems to have been made to discover whether any of the statements contained in the volumes could be verified by journeys to the Holy Land, or to the other places mentioned therein. Twelve years ago the superior of a monastery at Smyrna happened to come across the Life of the Virgin," and reading it with a certain in. credulous interest, came upon a passage where the visionary described, with the most minute care, the house in which it had been revealed to her that the Virgin Mary dwelt, near Ephesus, during the last few months of her life. Struck by the accuracy of some of the details concerning the country, he made up his mind to seek for this spot, some three leagues or three and a half leagues from Ephesus, situated on a mountain reached by a tortuous and narrow way, and from the top of which can be seen Ephesus on the one side, and the sea on the other." The priest and a friend started off on July 27, 1891. After a short journey they arrived at the foot of Bulbul Dag, the mountain clearly indicated by the visionary, and there, after a stiff climb, they found the building in question. The news was sent off to Rome, where, however, it was received with skepticism, greatly owing to the undoubted fact that St. Polycarp, who was Bishop of Ephesus about the year 200, made no mention in his letters to the then pope of the house in question. In Asia Minor the spot has become a great place of pilgrimage, and the writer of this interesting little paper evidently believes firmly that here the modern world may indeed see the spot where, after the crucifixion of our Lord at Jerusalem, the Blessed Virgin Mary, together with St. John, journeyed to Ephesus, and there spent the remaining year of her life." THE SHEEP-DOG TRIALS IN ENGLAND. HERE is a delightful article by A. Radclyffe Dugmore in Everybody's for August, describing The Sheep-Dog Trials at Troutbeck," in the north of England. In this little retired village the sheep-herders of the north gather together every year to witness the trials of their collies, conducted according to the most stringent rules and regulations. The display of intelligence and beautiful training on the part of the sheep-dogs is most fascinating. Mr. Dugmore is. not only a real artist with the camera, but is, as well, a wonderful observer and student of nature. The accounts of these trials are illustrated with his beautiful photographs taken at the last sheepdog trials in August, 1901. The task set each dog was to convey three sheep over rough ground from the starting pen for about three-quarters of a mile to the finishing pen. The route was fixed by flags, and the sheep had to be conveyed between these flags. The man whose dog was working stood on a knoll about 150 yards from the starting point, and not until his dog had gotten the sheep to the finishing point was he allowed to leave this knoll. From that distant point he had to guide his dog as best he could by signs and signals, shrill whistling, and sometimes calling. Forty-two dogs were entered in the last trial, and Mr. Dugmore gives a vivid description of the performance of the first starter, Laddie. The dog seemed to realize that some special effort was called for to-day, and looked inquiringly first at his master and then toward the judges' tent. He seemed to be waiting eagerly to be released. The wave of a red flag was the signal for the simultaneous release of the three penned sheep and the anxious, eager dog. At once the latter made toward the three bewildered sheep, directed first by his master's call, for the bracken was high and hid the animals from the dog's view. "But not long before he saw them, however. Without seemingly paying the slightest attention to his master's call, he hurried them along at a lively speed. Up the stone-covered hillside they scampered till they reached the first flag. Then Laddie stopped an instant for orders, a simple whistle which he understood,-and once more the three sheep are off, with the dog following close behind, guiding them carefully, and keep ing all three closely bunched together as they pass the first of a series of flags. Over the top of the hill and down the slope they went, faster and faster, until, still well bunched, the brook was passed, and they were going up hill toward the first pair of flags. Then one of the sheep made a bolt toward the lower part of the crag; but Laddie turned it back quick as a flash, thereby saving much time. Once more they made for the opening between the two flags that seemed to be planted so very close together. When quite near they hesitated, and had to be urged on. As soon as they started in the right direction, Laddie lay down and watched them as they walked slowly along, leaving the flags on either side. "Looking toward his master for new directions, he quickly overtook his charges, who were slowly making their way for the hilltop, and, turning them in the direction of the next flag, now forced them into a gallop. Over the rocks they went, sure-footed as goats, frequently lost to view among the bracken, but each time reappearing with the gray dog close at their heels. "Nearer and nearer they came, to within six feet of the flags, and seemed to be going well,, when suddenly, without warning, they galloped off on the wrong side. The bracken was so high that the poor dog had not seen the second mark. 'Coom t'me, lad! coom t'me!' shouted his mas ter, and then the dog realized that a mistake had been made, and ran to a clear piece of ground, from which he could see his master and get his signals. The sheep, fortunately, had stopped soon after passing the flag, and the dog understood that they must be driven back outside the mark (for such is the rule), then turned sharply round and brought between the two flags. How he understood it is difficult for us to realize, but that he did was proved by his actions; try as the sheep might to go the wrong way, Laddie,—now coaxing, now forcing them,soon had all three in position for starting again for the narrow way that led between the two fluttering flags. "Thame, Laddie! t'hame!' called his master; and Laddie turned those sheep sharply round and brought them between the two red and white flags at full gallop." Finally Laddie gets them within a hundred yards of the pen, and his master leaves his knoll and runs to assist in the penning. The pen has an opening only big enough to admit one sheep, and so placed as to give the worst possible angle of entrance. Moreover, the driving has to be completed in a certain time, and only one minute and twenty seconds remains. "J. R. stood on one side of the pen and beckoned Laddie to bring the three scared-looking vulgarity. Mr. Archer hopes that the idea of an endowed theater will find practical expression in some pioneer city from the coöperation of private munificence with public intelligence. He says: 66 Could there be an object of greater public utility than that of rendering the most fascinating and universally popular of the arts a source of intellectual and emotional, as well as merely sensuous and sensational, pleasure? "The realization is gradually spreading among us Anglo-Saxons that a well-ordered theater stands high on the list of institutions indispensa ble to an enlightened community. In Germany the ideal of the theater as a public institution, not a private money-making machine, has always triumphed and pulled things together. The result is that the German theater of to-day keeps the classics of German literature constantly before the people; treats Shakespeare far more intelligently than we do ourselves; and has po duced an extraordinarily rich and varied contemporary drama, vying with that of France, and incomparably more important, in every point of view, than the contemporary drama of England and America. "I suggest, then, that the establishment of a repertory theater, on the lines of the German city theaters, in every considerable town (say, of 150,000 inhabitants and upward) in the English speaking world, would be a magnificent national and racial investment, even if each theater involved a considerable annual outlay.' IN ELEVATION of the GERMAN DRAMA. IN the first quarterly issue of the Forum, Mr. John Corbin contributes an account of the present condition and prospects of the drama in the United States. By way of contrast he pic tures theatrical conditions in Germany: The The theatrical situation in Germany is geographically the same as in America,-that is to say, there are many widely separated cities, each one the seat of a vigorous civic spirit. The commercial basis of the German theater, however, is the direct opposite of that in America. origin of the theater was not in the great mass of the public, but in the more intelligent portion of it associated with the royal courts of Germany. In Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin, and many other capitals there are theaters which, like the Théâtre Français, are supported in part by the national treasury. These theaters are what we should call local stock companies of the highest character; and for more than a century they have given frequent productions of the best dramas in the literature of the world, ancient and modern. Modeled upon these, in the lead ing commercial cities, stock company theaters have been founded which depend for support on the municipality, and even on private subscription. HEALTHFUL VARIETY FOR ACTORS AND PUBLIC. "No sooner has a play proved successful in one German city than it is rehearsed and put on the boards in all, thus becoming a part of the repertory of twenty or thirty different companies. at once. This does away at a stroke with such organization of booking as is at the root of the commercial evil of the American theater. It also does away with the long run, which is the root of our artistic evil, for the rules of the theaters generally require that even the most successful pieces shall not be played more than four times a week, in order that the rest of the time may be taken up with revivals of the classics and with productions of new plays. The actors are thus Denefited by constant variety. In spite of this, however, a play is in the end given as often as there is a public to witness it, runs of one and two hundred performances being perhaps as frequent as in America. It is true that in any particular city the returns to the authors and the managers come in more slowly, but this is more than balanced by the fact that the play runs simultaneously in all the leading cities. In many other ways this system is superior to ours. The author has a score of managers to whom to offer a new play. The actor, when his abilities warrant, travels as a guest from this theater to that, availing himself of the local company and of its stock scenery. The public is constantly able to see the best old plays, and at the same time every novelty of the season. Even the mercan tile classes share in the general profit, for a large floating public of well-to-do people is attracted by the great educational advantages which a repertory theater offers. GERMAN ACTORS IN THE UNITED STATES. "As for America, or at least English-speaking America, no one who knows the conservative power of established organization, even of the worst, will look for any early duplication of this system. As far as the German-speaking public is concerned, the system is to be seen in full operation: there are vigorous and successful repertory theaters in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Milwaukee, and every season great German actors, such as Possart, Sorma, Odilon, Bonn, and Sonnenthal, make the tour of all these theaters as guests. But it will be many years, it is to be feared, before this admirable example is imitated by the English-speaking · public." |