Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1918-12-19
By BEATRICE FAIRFAX.

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1.-THE other day young girl told
me the secret wish of her heart.
She began quite timidly. think it
may be that she had never said it
aloud before. She felt that her desire
was individual and strange and that
it would surprise me greatly. Being
very young and very innocent, she
said as much.
She wanted to go on the stage.
Doesn't that awake echoes of
stihed longings? Who of US hasn' t
wanted to go on the stage? What
normal girl of 10, full of magma
ton, idealism, undirected emotion,
doesn't long for dramatic expert
ence? Her own life doesn't begin to
express her. It's a great deal too
tame. Don't we all remember how
that is? There must be some way of
expressing our varied and remark
able and smothered selves. And there
is. There's the theatre.
Now the pitiful thing is that al
though girls have always had this
feeling. and boys too, many of them,
so little has been done about it.
Unless a girl has exceptional con-
hdence in herself, she probably new
er even mentions this dream of hers.
1t seems to her too wild and daring
for ordinary mortal realization.
So although it's like a flaming
torch to her thoughts for possibly
half a dozen years, Encouragement
makes it cold and dim at last and
the girl succeeds in reconciling her
self to the humdrum world that she
and the rest of us live in ever after.
Now and then, of course, there's
a girl who fights for her dream
Either she is uncommonly good
looking or she has unusual belief
in herself, and she's able to think
of herself on a lighted stage as
something natural and possible. So
she does all the hard and disagree
able things that are necessary III
the way OF preparation before she
can secure even the smallest wedge
of an opportunity. And people who
know a great deal about stage life
will tell you that such girl would
better spare her pains, because she
won't care for her opportunity when
she gets it, since there's nothing be-
hind the scenes but disllusionment
This may be true or not. But in
any case, there's something wrong.
There's something wrong-as ever
SO many people are coming to see
in the fact that all young people
haven't plenty of opportunity to ex-
press themselves dramatically. For
the interesting thing is that there's
really something behind that long
ing that most young girls are OBJ
sessed by-to mount a stage and I'M
personate a character and thrill the
waiting audience that sits close
packed there below ones feet.
1t isn't only that young people
want to act. They can act. There's
something wonderful and f1uld ABOUT
human beings under 20, before their
personalities are thoroughly stiff
ened and set" Have you ever seen
a dramatic performance at school
or college? And weren't you
amazed by it? Perhaps there wasn't
one among them who had unmistak-
able genius as an actor. But they
could act because they were young
and loved it. The same group ten
years later couldn't do the same
thing.
Boys Need It, Too.
So what l believe is that it ought
to be as much matter Of course
for every young girl-and boy-to
have dramatic experience as it used
to be for every girl to have piano
practice.
A generation ago or so girls used
to think nothing Of spending three