The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-03-14
M E N w o M EN
 A ND THIN G s

| Shakespeare is held in America by call ing attention to the way in which he was read and studied and acted, and now that we are to have a Shakespeare week at the Jefferson theatre starting Monday, March 21, with Robert Manteli and Genevieve Hamper I'll give the story of the Stafford memorial.
 | Every American visitor to London tries to md time to run down to Stratford- upon-AVon, as a pilgrim to do honor to the memory of the man they love and reverence as the greatest figure in Eng fish literature
 There must be pride and pleasure to every American in the reflection that the famous Stratford memorial was the gift of one of his own beloved countrymen, George w. Childs of Philadelphia, who in dying left a fragrant memory of good deeds done in the flash.
 If you have visited the home of Shake speare, you Will have seen it with your own eyes, but as many have not had the privilege, I believe it will be of in- terest to here relate some of the history which led up to the gift, and some ac- count of the memorial itself will not be out of place
 The idea was born at a dinner in Phil adelphia, which was given by MT. Childs in honor of the Very. Rev. Arthur P. Stanley, D. D., dean of Westminster, ypb bo in aa n. spoke feelingly of the absence of any suitable memorial of some of those who had laid so broad and deep the founda- ticns of English poetry.
 The venerable dean especially spoke of Shakespeare and of the strange neglect of the British-speaking people to erect an appropriate monument to him even in the place of his birth. It will be seen from this that my charge against the English for letting their cousins oversea outdo them in their worship of the great bard was not bit of i'll humor on my part, but was founded in fact
 Now in these days when so much is being done to create a feeling against the
 
 the fact that the dean of Westminster was moved by the hospitality of the American people, and was modest enough to credit it so much to personal regard for himself as from the common kinship which he felt bound the peoples of the two countries together.
 The dean of Westminster had true love and admiration for America, and his broad. generous sympathies induced him to think that no better thing could be done by Englishmen and Americans than to strengthen the belief that was surely growing up among their leaders of thought in the reality of their mutual feeling of fraternity and fellowship. Please bear in mind that he visited the United States in 1878, more than two score years ago.
 I ask you to do this to cleanse your minds of any idea that I am writing this to stir up any further rancor in political or religious circles over the agitation which is now sweeping over America to discredt England in the eyes of Amer jeans. My sole purpose is to bring to memory a gracious act in the part of one of our foremost private citizens who. hearing the wish of the venerable dean, was only too willing to remedy the mat ter if it could be done with due respect to the feelings of the English. So, after the deans return to his own country, Mir. Childs wrote to him to say that he had considered the suggestion of placing memorial window to Shake- speare in the Church of Avon, which IS the poets tomb, and that he would be condition that Dean Stanley would him. self not only determine what form 1t should assume, but personally undertake the execution of the donors purpose. But largely through the death of the dean the project was never carried out.
 Then. in 1886, it was proposed, and committee was appointed by some of the most distinguished lovers of Shakespeare in England, to restore the church at Stratford-upon-Avon, in which the bones of Shakespeare le Appeals were made not only to the cultivated people of Great Britain, but to those of the United States as we'll. to carry out the plan. MT. Childs being solicited was ready to give any sum to the restoration fund which Dr. Macaulay, the editor of the Leisure Hour, might suggest. But the committee dis agreed and the scheme went through. The memorial window has failed on ac- count of Dean Stanley, and the restora- tion of the church was abandoned be- cause the committee went to pieces over the character and the amount of work to be done, but Dr. Macaulay wrote Mir. Childs, suggesting that if he was sriiI ready, after two attempts which resulted in failure, to pay tribute to the genius of Shakespeare in his own town. he could do it in no better way than by erecting drinking fountain to bis memory, ito be placed in the market square, where there is none, and which would be a handsome thing from ap American
 Life is too short to take up here the slow procedure of British officialdom,- but to hurry on to a conclusion, will merely state that MT Chllds was ready to do his part if the matter could be arranged. He was willing to erect memorial which would be useful to both man and beast" Permission was given by the town council of Stratford- upon-Avon, and an architect was sought to carry out the erecting of "a fountain that would evidence the good will of the two nations who have the fame and works of the poet as their common heri-. tage"
 was in London watching the Queen of England ride through london streets on the day the town council of Stratford- upon-Avon devoted to the ceremony of receiving the gift of the distinguished American. George w. Childs. who was the personal friend nf Dickens and Thackeray and who had contributed the