All the facts of experience we have go to prove that this public library method of providing the shortest cut efficiently to give the public proper free access to the world of books, is the method providing the shortest cut efficiently to give the public proper cheap access to the world of drama.  By this method financial support for a theater may be attained that shall be pledged to the civic good and adapted to local dramatic requirements and development.  This method of administration by a special commission is not alone a proven feasible and simple civic method, but also the only effective way yet broached to secure the dramatic life and growth of a community.

Political corruption is no more to be accepted as a good argument to put us off from the most feasible approach to the end needed than for the public library itself.  There may or might be some political corruption in the administration of a public library.  Are we, therefore, to give up the library in our cities?  There may be political corruption in the administration of our public schools.  Was it, therefore, a mistake to establish them?  Are we, therefore, to give up the public school?  Clearly, no!  We are to strengthen and safe-guard them to the utmost.

One thing besides has been sufficiently exemplified by recent facts.  It is that the easy substitute for a civic theater commonly called in the newspapers ‘A Rich Man’s Theater’ will not represent nor attract the community.

Under phenomenally affluent conditions for commanding good results, that substitute has proved its futility with brilliant conspicuousness.  Any one may now see that it was fore-doomed to fail.  Why?  Because it was out of touch with the people, fated to be sectional and temporary, in its attempts and achievements.

Such failure shows what historic life confirms, that more efficient than money support is the support of a unified civic life and of such genius and talent as require to be fed by that life, and do not flourish on cash alone any more than they do on no cash at all.  In order to secure good conditions for artistic fertility in place of artistic futility, all these encouraging factors, in their just degree, require to be taken into the account.

An academic theater would, I believe, prove equally futile.  All such substitutes for a civic theater are doomed to barrenness because of their segregation from the life of the community.  Historic facts bear witness alike to the bloodlessness of the exclusive and the sensualizing of the commercial elements, when either gain the upper hand in control of the dramatic output.  Under the auspices of neither will the great leavening middle mass of our people be put in touch with the stage to the mutual advantage of the community and the drama.

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   THE PLAY READER
  BY HELEN A. CLARKE

  I

We are told by many critics that Euripides is not so great as AEschylus or Sophocles, yet he seems to be on the whole the most beloved of the Greek dramatists.  As Porson said of him, ’We approve Sophocles more than Euripides, but we love Euripides more than Sophocles.’