ABSTRACT

The previous chapter has considered how three teachers with a particular interest in subject English responded to the pedagogical potential of classroom drama in the fi rst half of the twentieth century. I want now to throw their ideas into relief by comparing them with those of Peter Slade (1912-2008), a practitioner whose primary focus was not English but drama itself and whose fi rst book, Child Drama, was published fi ve years after Hourd’s The Education of the Poetic Spirit. Slade’s academic background was, initially, in German, Economics and Philosophy; but he became world-famous as a pioneer of dramatherapy, as a champion of children’s theatre and as an educator of drama teachers.