The Dramatic Method of Teaching

ld have done so-and-so "; and as play out of doors was out of the question, some one soon suggested, "Couldn't we play at 'Ivanhoe' indoors ? " From that time I had no further doubts as to whether the play in school could be successfully managed. But to outsiders there was nothing brilliant in our first attempt. To us who were "in it," the schoolroom was really the lists at Ashby de la Zouch, or any other place our imagination desired, but an outsider could see only the restricted space in front of an ordinary class. No time was wasted at first in arranging scenes or casting parts. It took but a few seconds for the boys to settle on a rosy, rotund boy for a jovial Friar Tuck, who at once deposited himself under a high, spindle-legged desk which he dubbed his hermit's cell. " I 'm the Black Knight," said another, dragging his black jersey over his head for a suit of chain mail. " Let me be your horse," volunteered another, proffering the necessary " back." Soon the play was in full swing, although it might not have seemed encouraging to the enthusiast (burning to " improve " the children) to hear Friar Tuck, forgetting the text of the book, retort " Shan't," when the Black Knight thundered with his heavy " pointer " on the spindle-legged desk, demandingadmittance or "the road." The same Friar Tuck, when told by his onlookers that he ought to sing loudly, improvised quite an appropriate refrain to the words " Tol-de- rol-lol." No one laughed, and none were at all irrev...