Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-04-03

v
with his love of music amounting
to a veritable enthusiasm, desires to
hear an opera, in which he will have
the full creation of some great COM
poser, rendered as the originator of
the music meant it should be, WHY
is the aspiration an unworthy one?
We teach our children to love
Shakespeare. The education of any
man or woman who has not a
fair knowledge of Shakspeare's
dramas is considered sadly deficient.
Quotations from the dramas are in
truth like household words. Cler-
gymen recite passages, from the pull
pits, and our books make meanings
clear by apt quotations. Born with
a love for everything dramatic, and
tantalized by the merest tastes of a
something his dreams are full of,
why should boy be taught to be-
lieve that his desire to see Hamlet
or Julius Caesar is sinful? Why
should he be expected to receive
without protest the sweeping con-
demnatiOn of the drama from some
one who never saw a drama, or, if
he did, was too stupid to appreciate
it?
There is much to object to in the
theatrical business as now con-
Quoted. The stage has been pros
tituted and abused, and the preiu-
dice against it is in some degree
justifable. But, admitting all this,
there is no excuse for a sweeping
condemnation Of legitimate opera
and drama, and the attempted ex-
ercise Of rigorous discipline on
the part of churches in crushing
out dramatic taste, and in repress-
ing manifestations of a love for the
pure drama, is as uncalled for as it
is useless.
A boy or girl with a taste for the
drama, subjected to a relentless and
rigorous repression, will find means
to CRAFTY it. Repression but in
tensi6es the growth of the desire
and exaggerateS the importance OF
following out misunderstood in.
stincts. The struggle ends in omen
rebellion or in secret gratitica-
ton of longings, and the boy OF
girl subjected to the intolerable
tyranny of a narrow mind in this
particular is, when once free from
the curb, apt to run riot in the in.
toxication of new experiences.
There is scarcely an exception tC
the rule that genuine love for the
drama is never to be crushed out by
represSive measures. 1t matters
not how long the senseless rigor con.
tinues, the result is still the same.
On the other hand, the experience
of three-iourths of the men and
women of culture in this city DEM
Onstrates that such measures are,
while needlessly cruel and heartless,
absolutely injurious, and that they
lnflame the love for the drama until
it becomes a passion, leading the
boy or girl, or man or woman, head
long into the maze OF popular
amusements, which is apt to prove
detrimental.
Defamation against the love OF
the dramatic aud sweeping con-
demnation of the drama have little
effect in a city like Chicago, except
to inspire sense of injury on the
part of those who listen. Neither
defamation nor condemnation will
keep one boy or girl or one church
member from the opera hall or
theater. AS this is the case, we
submit that the true way to treat
the whole question is to accept the
logic of experience, and, by direct
ing taste, implant from the first a
love for the higher drama, and
guard thus against whatever may
vitiate. Desired results will follow
easily and naturally, and there will
be less deception and rebelliousness
on the part Of children, and less
conjunction on the part Of parents.
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