Thus, the only art which is constantly placed before the eyes of “the temperamental youth” is a debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar type of music, for the success of a song in these theaters depends not so much upon its musical rendition as upon the vulgarity of its appeal.  In a song which held the stage of a cheap theater in Chicago for weeks, the young singer was helped out by a bit of mirror from which she threw a flash of light into the faces of successive boys whom she selected from the audience as she sang the refrain, “You are my Affinity.”  Many popular songs relate the vulgar experiences of a city man wandering from amusement park to bathing beach in search of flirtations.  It may be that these “stunts” and recitals of city adventure contain the nucleus of coming poesy and romance, as the songs and recitals of the early minstrels sprang directly from the life of the people, but all the more does the effort need help and direction, both in the development of its technique and the material of its themes.

The few attempts which have been made in this direction are astonishingly rewarding to those who regard the power of self-expression as one of the most precious boons of education.  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 Hull-House Theater is constantly besieged by children clamoring to “take part” in the plays of Schiller, Shakespeare, and Moliere, although they know it means weeks of rehearsal and the complete memorizing of “stiff” lines.  The audiences sit enthralled by the final rendition and other children whose tastes have supposedly been debased by constant vaudeville, are pathetically eager to come again and again.  Even when still more is required from the young actors, research into the special historic period, copying costumes from old plates, hours of labor that the “th” may be restored to its proper place in English speech, their enthusiasm is unquenched.  But quite aside from its educational possibilities one never ceases to marvel at the power of even a mimic stage to afford to the young a magic space in which life may be lived in efflorescence, where manners may be courtly and elaborate without exciting ridicule, where the sequence of events is impressive and comprehensible.  Order and beauty of life is what the adolescent youth craves above all else as the younger child indefatigably demands his story.  “Is this where the most beautiful princess in the world lives?” asks a little girl peering into the door of the Hull-House Theater, or “Does Alice in Wonderland always stay here?” It is much easier for her to put her feeling into words than it is for the youth who has enchantingly rendered the gentle poetry of Ben Jonson’s “Sad Shepherd,” or for him who has walked the boards as Southey’s Wat Tyler.  His association,