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SIR

IR Galahad must leave e'en his sweet lady wife." The remarkable feature of Miss Courtenay's school production is the way the spirit of it inspires all the participants.

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HERE was a thrill through the audience such as one may get seldom in a lifetime, a tremor of a great emotion.'

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EDUCATIONAL REVIEW

JUNE, 1926

W

AN EDITORIAL REVIEW

HY FOLLIES FOR SCHOOL SHOWS? The stage of the Washington-Irving High School, New York, has scenery, drop-curtain, and footlights. So have those of the high schools in Fort Dodge, Connersville, Pontiac, Peoria, and Birmingham. If there are any high schools without this equipment, I do not remember them. There is too much artistic urge in the usual run of boy and girl to excuse us from developing it in any institution which is devoted to giving the young American his ancient right to life, liberty, and happiness. Possibly vaudeville, follies, and burlesque, such as one frequently sees in school shows; possibly the lighter operas, usually pretty well shop-worn; possibly the attempted revival of negro minstrels, are worth all the time they take to get them selves put on. But Miss Mary Courtenay of the Lindblom High School, brought into Chicago's celebration of Girls' Week a dramatic episode so simple, so beautiful, so spiritual, that it makes the ordinary highschool show look like tinsel. Chicago has a system of Girl Reserve Clubs, so-called, social and recreative organizations in high schools, sponsored by the Young Women's Christian Association. They gave a "high jinks" entertainment in a theater devoted mostly to amateur performances. Each school put on some short offering of its own; most of them were bright; some of them, decidedly pretty. Then Miss Courtenay's version of the Holy Grail took the stage. In two seconds the audience was spellbound by the beauty of it. When the gleam of light which Sir Galahad was to follow streamed

across the scene and the angel passed bearing the grail there was a thrill through the house such as one may get seldom in a lifetime, a tremor of a great emotion. I cannot recall anything like it. The nearest to it was when the crowd in Washington heard the young college men singing as they marched to embark for the war. I saw this Grail drama given twice and on each occasion was aware of the sudden hush of the spectators and then of the remarkable recognition of the significance of the theme and the thrill of exaltation as if the houseful were one person. These four brief scenes, pictures only, not a word spoken by the personages, say in a language universally understood: "Temptation really is all around you. Here is one kind. Here is another kind. You don't have to yield to any of them. You are your own master. You are your own guardian. Follow the light-not the shadow. Feel your real heart beating in accord with the true, the noble, the sublime." That's what these four silent scenes convey more penetratingly than any pleading of the most eloquent or winsome preacher I ever heard. There is a spoken title to each scene. The girl Herald says: "Now shall we see how Sir Galahad, for that his heart was pure, did safely occupy the seat perilous" or some such words as that. But there is no moralizing, no exhortingjust the story.

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