Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-01-09
Children's Acting.

ton is Unborn i'm human beings. The
most savage tribes represent in their
dances the feats of arms by which they
have overcome their enemies, and chill
dren's plays are often little more than
a representative imitation, with good
deal of make-belief, of the real actions
of everyday life. The dressing up
in which they delight is but more ad-
vanced stage of their plays; and no
doubt some children, whose magma
tions are vivid, are, for the moment, in
their own thought, the persons whom
they represent.
1t is not the acting of children who
are being regularly trained for their
profession that we now wish to refer
o. With them the dramatic instincts
has been seized upon and is being de-
veloped in order to furnish the means
of earning livelihood. There is a
good deal of acting now done by chill
dren, who certainly are not destined to
appear on the public stage, but whose
dramatic instinct is being cultivated for
their own amusement and benefit and
for the edification of their friends and
relations. The question which has
been raised i'm the minds of good many
people is whether This acting by chill
dren is good thing to be encouraged
or bad thing to be put down.
Those who are the friends of the
practice dwell for justification of their
opinion on the undoubted existence of
the desire for and power of making
such representations. Further, they
insist on the good effect which accurate
learning of a part has in strengthing the
plays represented have been written by
good authors the acquisition of the
actual words of an eminent writer is a
real mental gain. Moreover they insist
in a drawing room is no more a matter
of display than the singing of a song or
the performance of a piece of music,
and no one objects to these being done
before company, and they maintain that
the results in improved carriage of the
body, in increased readiness and pres
ence of mind, and in cultivated power
of action in concert with others amply
repay all the trouble which the prepa-
ration costs.
On the other hand, those who object
to allowing children TO act seem TO fear
chiefly the encouragement of self-con-
sciousness and love Of display in the
children, and further TO be afraid of
cultiyatiEg in them a love of acting
which may afterward grow into pas
sion for theater going, and for all the
dissipation which, to some minds, is
represented by that word.
We confess that our own leanings
are toward the first rather than toward
the second of these parties of opinion.
We have seen dramatic representations
given by the children of household,
and by the pupils of private schools,
before audiences of parents and init
mate friends, and OF these we do not
hesitate TO say that they were so con-
Quoted as to be entirely pleasurable and
productive of good. Nothing could
have been prettier than dance of
fairies which illustrated some scenes
from the Midsummer Nights Dream;'
nothing in better taste than some
groupings in tableaux, for the arrange
meut of which an artist had made the
designs; nothing more graceful than the
delivery of the speeches which the
young actors pronounced.
We grant that there are difficulties
involved, and that in unwise hands,
and with an unwise selection of the
author to be rendered, much mischief
might accrue. But then the same thing
may be said Of any other source of
amusement overdone or unwisely
done, it had better be left alone. For
our part, we think that in neglecting
the dramatic powers of children we are
casting aside capabilities of amusement
nay, even of education-which ought
to receive development. The training
of faculties called forth in acting would
show young persons how high the quail
ifications of good actors are, and through
what work they must have passed to at
tain the ''art of concealing their art"
Such training would, we think, have a
tendency to produce an appreciation of
good art and contempt and dislike for
its false limitations.