of this interest are the work of Miss Minnie Hersts as director of the Educational Theatre for Children and Young People (New York City); of Charles Sprague Smith of the People's Institute of New York City; of Donald Robertson of Chicago with his endowed repertoire; and of Winthrop Ames of New York City with the New Theatre during its brief existence and with the Little Theatre since its foundation January 1, 1912. The popularity of the dramatic form is also shown by the successful dramatization of American novels and stories, noteworthy instances of which are Ben-Hur, The Awakening of Helena Ritchie, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Women, and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.

Is the peculiar restlessness of the average American, before spoken of, creating such a distaste for the old-fashioned idle hour in the library that he must have his stories read to him from the stage? Will this desire become sufficiently wide-spread and emphatic to force the best of our literary activities into dramatic form? The novel has never been in perfect tune with American life; and the great American novel has never been written. The short story has struck the key-note of American life here and there; and the great short story has been written now and again. In 1899 Bret Harte called the American short story "the germ of American literature to come." Will the near future give us the great American play? The signs of the times seem to answer "Yes." Mr. William Dean Howells contends that we have already "a drama which has touched our life in many characteristic points, which has dealt with our moral and material problems and penetrated psychological regions which it seemed impossible an art so objective should reach. Mainly it has been gay as our prevalent mood is; mainly it has been honest as our habit is in cases where

we believe we can afford it; mainly it has been decent and clean and sweet as our average life is; and now that Ibsen no longer writes new plays, I would rather take my chance of pleasure and profit with a new American play than with any other sort of new play." "If ever a nation was ready for a national drama," declares Professor Smith, "that nation is America." And "when it comes," he continues, "as surely it will come, the short story will have achieved its greatest triumph."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andrews, Charlton: The Drama To-day.
Archer, William: A Manual of Craftsmanship.

Coffin, Charles H.: The Appreciation of the Drama.
Craig, E. Gordon: On the Art of the Theater.

Crawford, Mary Caroline: The Romance of the American Theatre.
Dukes, Ashley: Modern Dramatists.

Eaton, Walter Pritchard: The American Stage of Today.

Hale, E. E., Jr.: Dramatists.

Hamilton, Clayton: The Theory of the Theatre and Other Principles of Dramatic Criticism.

Studies in Stagecraft.

Hapgood, Norman: The Stage in America.

Hunt, Elizabeth R.: The Play of Today.

The Drama League Convention. (In The Drama, August, 1912.) Jones, Arthur Henry: The Foundation of a National Drama. (In North American Review, November, 1907.)

Leonard, W. E.: The Wisconsin Dramatic Society. (In The Drama, May, 1912.)

MacKaye, Percy: The Playhouse and the Play.

Matthews, B.: A Study of the Drama.

Studies of the Stage.

The Development of the Drama.

The Great American Play. (In The Saturday Evening Post,
October 19, 1912.)

Moses, Montrose J.: The American Dramatist.

Peck, Mary Gray: The Movement for a New American Drama. (In

The English Journal, March, 1912.)

Sharp, R. F.: A Short History of the English Stage.

Walkley, A. B.: Drama and Life.

INDEX

Names of authors from whom extracts are quoted in this book are printed
in small capitals; names of all other authors and all other names are printed
in ordinary lower-case; titles of extracts and books from which extracts are
chosen, and all magazine titles, are printed in italics; titles of works sug-
gested for reading and of works merely mentioned are printed in lower-
case roman, enclosed in quotation marks; numbers refer to page; numbers
in black type refer to page on which the biographical note is given.