. The dramatic method of teaching. ting or looking* curious part of the resulting drawings was the factthat they showed costume and scenery as it ought to be,and not as seen in the make-believe plays. For instance,in the tournament scene taken from Ivanhoe, the boywho drew the picture had most correctly imagined the listsof Ashby de la Zouch, because, to him, the school desks andcupboards had not existed in the play. He had drawn heroesin armor instead of his small schoolmates in corduroy. In addition to drawing, both boys and girls took a greatinterest in making the various articles ne
. The dramatic method of teaching. ting or looking* curious part of the resulting drawings was the factthat they showed costume and scenery as it ought to be,and not as seen in the make-believe plays. For instance,in the tournament scene taken from Ivanhoe, the boywho drew the picture had most correctly imagined the listsof Ashby de la Zouch, because, to him, the school desks andcupboards had not existed in the play. He had drawn heroesin armor instead of his small schoolmates in corduroy. In addition to drawing, both boys and girls took a greatinterest in making the various articles needed in theirplays, and I fancy this brought forth their ingenuity more,and had a greater educational value, than formal lessons inhandicrafts — that is, for elementary-school children. Itset them experimenting at any rate, and thus they foundout their own weakness of method and ignorance of tech-nique. It seemed, indeed, as if dramatizing lessons touchedsome human interest which must express itself in everypossible form of NQ THE SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY 91 Another point which was brought out more particularlyin connection with the Shakespearean plays, in which thechildren spoke the lines verbatim, was the habit of thesmall children of the chorus in arming themselves withcopies of the play in progress, and constituting them-selves prompters. I have seen as many as fourteenbooks being closely scanned by twice as many heads oflittle grade children, and I have then thought, What asplendidly attentive reading class ! What is more, I amsure they were all attentive, because, did the performersmiss one single word, every child who had a book wouldsupply the needed correction at once. One of the most suitable and successful Shakespear-ean scenes for the boys was rt King Henry VI, Part II,Act IV, scene ii. The boys also attempted scenes iii andiv, and scene x. Having thus exemplified the rebellion ofJack Cade, it was natural that they should read the con-text around it, and then dove
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