The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-06-06

Herewith is given the complete text of a letter written by s. L. Clemens fMark Twain) to Mrs. Amelia Dunne Hookway principal of the Rowland School, Chicago, when pupils of the ssho9l acted in the s. Rlsy founded P,,nds aOS OS the Pauper" and written by Mrs. Hook way. A few lines from the letter were quoted in last Sundays Record Herald In connection with an account or The Triple Quest" the latest play produced by the ehiidsn of Rowland School. B.
 (P s. To My Secretary's letter)
 Dear Mrs. Hookway:--Although am full of the spirit of work this mornings rarity with me lately-I must steal a moment or two for a word in person, for have been read ing the eloquent account in The Re- cord Herald and am pleasurably stirred to my deepest deeps. The reading brings vividly back to me my pet and pride, the Children's Theater of the East side New York. And it supports and reaffirms what I have so often and 50 strenuously said in public-that a chiidren's theater is easily the most valuable adjunct that any educational institution can have and that no other wise good school is complete with out 1t.
 It is much the most effective teach CT of morals and promoter of good conduct that the ingenuity of man its lessons are not taught wearily by book and by dreary homily but by visible and enthusing action and they TO straight to the heart which is the ri9htest of right places for them. Book morals often get no further than the intellect, if they even get that far on their spectral and shadowy pilgrimage; but when they travel from a children's theater they do not stop permanently at that halfway house. but so on home.
 The children's theater is the only teacher of morals and conduct and high ideals that never bores the pupil. but always leaves him sorry when the lesson Is over. And as for history. no other teacher is for a moment com dead heroes of the world rise up and shake the dust of the ages from their bones and live and move breathe and speak. and be real to the locker and the listener; no other can make study of the lives and ties of the illustrious dead Q delight a splendid interest, a passionI and no other can paint a history lesson in the colors that will stay, and stay, and never fade.
 It is my conviction that the child Fen's theAter is one of the, very. very great inventions of the twentieth cen. tury; ana that its vast educational value now but dimly perceived and but vaguely understood-will pre- sently come to be recognized. By the article which I have beer reading I find the same things happening in the Howland School that we have become familiar with in our ChiIdren's Theater (of which I am president. and suffi- cientIy vain of the distinctien). These things among others
 I. The educating history-study does not stop with the little players, but the whole school catches the infection and Fevels in 1t.
 IT. And it doesn't even stop there: the children carry 1t home and infect the family with it--even the parents and grandparents and the whole house. hold fall to studing history and bygone manners and customs and costumes, with eager interest. And this inte- rest Is carried along to the studying of costumes in old book.plates: and beyond that to the selecting of the fabrics and the making of the clothes Hundreds of our children learn the plays by listening without books. and by making notes; then the listener goes home and plays the piece-all the parts--to the family. And the family are glad and proud: glad to listen to the explanations and andy sis, glad to learn. glad to be lifted to planes high above their dreary work aday live. Our Children's Theater Is educating 1000 children and their families. When we put on a play Of Shakespeare they fall to studying 1t