all her scheme of education in her school on art—and above all on drama. The children learn history by becoming actors and inventing tableaux vivants. They choose who shall personate different characters, they mount the stage and arrange the scenes.[1] Geography, too, is taught after the same method. In the Review of Reviews for December, 1906, we have an account of a drama-geography lesson on Canada—some of the children dressed as animals, some as settlers, some as Indians. Literature also is taught by plays and pictures; and it is said that the dullest boys and girls wake up as if by magic when this new way of learning is put within their reach. It is as though light were suddenly flashed into dark chambers. Lo! The dark chambers are roomy and handsome enough, after all, though wofully empty! It was long assumed that they did not exist!
Grown-up people look for pictures in literature, in
- ↑ Many years ago, having despaired of creating any real interest for history in two very intelligent little girl pupils, I began to write historical plays for them. The first, "The Princes in the Tower," was acted with tremendous success before an audience of Sussex villagers, and was printed afterwards. Flushed with joy and cheered by the applause of the rustics, we then acted "Lady Jane Grey" and, I think, "Jack Cade's Rebellion," but a paraffin lamp, ill fixed, fell down, and nearly set us all on fire. So the entertainments came to a sudden end. The villagers grieved. They had put out the fire, and were hoping to see more history pictures.
