The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-02-14
Special Foreign Service.

Special Foreign Service.
LONDON, Feb. 13.-Any privileged
being permitted to roam through the
mysterious places back of the stage of
famous old DruFy Lane theater, or of
any one of a dozen other London play
houses at present, would be likely to
stumble on scene that would aston
ish him nightly. In the last place one
would think Of looking for it, he would
find a children's school in full blast
maps on the walls, blackbOards here
and there, a sedate teacher on the
platform, and a hundred children, more
than ordinarily bright and graceful,
bending their heads over their desks
Just as If the strange paraphernalia of
pantomime all around them, and the
children themselves were not a part Of
the show.
The anomaly Is due to the fact that
parliament has taken a hand in theat-
rical management.
AT the beginning of this year 2,730
children under fourteen were employed
in the English theaters, chiefly in
pantomime. But parliament decided
that such employment was bad thing
for the children unless their education
could be guaranteed, and refused to
grant the necessary license unless the
theatrical managers undertook to see
that their youthful actors and actresses
got some schooling In other branches
of education than mumming. "All these
children who are under eleven said
the paternal government, must spend
three hours a day in school,"
At Drury Lane theater. the worlds
headquarters of pantomime, over 400
children are employed for the present
run of "Humpty Dumpty," and 100
come within the school attendance age
and spend their three hours every
morning in the school room, which is
fitted up at the back of the enormous
stage wherein so many great actors
have played in past generations. This
room is provided with all the Access
series to make it look as much like an
ordinary day school room as possible
and the system of education is similar
to that of the ordinary school. The
children are divided into grades &C.
cording to their educational attain
ments, and they have their lessons set
them by certificated school ma'am.
Their hours are from 9 a. m. to 70
and four days week are devoted to
reading, history, writing and arithme-
special subjects, such as geography
map drawing and English literature
The rudiments of music and physical
drill are not taught to stage children
by the school board authorities, as they
receive instruction while rehearsing
their parts in these departments of ed
ucation.
Very few of the children at Drury
Lane have speaking parts. Most OF
them take the part of toys, birds and
insects in the ballots, work for which
they receive, for an afternoon and
evening performance daily. a sun
ranging from $3.50 to So week.
At the Vaudeville, many of the chill
dren have more important parts t.
play, and are accomplished miniature
actors and actresses. They are all we'll
dressed and look clean, happy, strone
and we'll fed Both boys and girls are
remarkable for their good looks, fol
only pretty children have any chance Of
being engaged on the stage. The edu.
cational authorities report that the at
tainments and general knowledge o.
these little folk is quite equal to chill.
dren of the same age who attend Schoo
all day and who are not otherwise EN-
ployed. 1t is a strange experience tt
hear children of twelve and thirteeI
talking with a grave professional air O.
their engagements, the newspaper no
tices they have received and the celeb
rites they have met. The girls in par
ticular are precocious, as a rule, al
though we'll behaved, and seem lik,
young women of twenty-one, with thu
bodies of little children. The stage
however, has no effect, one school mis-
tress sorrowfully remarked, in changing