ABSTRACT

The Children’s Theater in New York is the most successful example, but every settlement in which dramatics have been systematically fostered can also testify to a surprisingly quick response to this form of art on the part of young people. The theater becomes to them a “veritable house of dreams” infinitely more real than the noisy streets and the crowded factories. The theater is not only a place of amusement, it is a place of culture, a place where people learn how to think, act, and feel.” The young people attend the five-cent theaters in groups, with something of the “gang” instinct, boasting of the films and stunts in “our theater.” To insist that young people shall forecast their rose-colored future only in a house of dreams, is to deprive the real world of that warmth and reassurance which it so sorely needs and to which it is justly entitled.