EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS

          The children of the Educational Alliance gave a performance of
          "The Prince and the Pauper" on the afternoon of April 14, 1907,
          in the theatre of the Alliance Building in East Broadway.  The
          audience was composed of nearly one thousand children of the
          neighborhood.  Mr. Clemens, Mr. Howells, and Mr. Daniel Frohman
          were among the invited guests.

I have not enjoyed a play so much, so heartily, and so thoroughly since I
played Miles Hendon twenty-two years ago.  I used to play in this piece
(" The Prince and the Pauper") with my children, who, twenty-two years
ago, were little youngsters.  One of my daughters was the Prince, and a
neighbor's daughter was the Pauper, and the children of other neighbors
played other parts.  But we never gave such a performance as we have seen
here to-day.  It would have been beyond us.

My late wife was the dramatist and stage-manager.  Our coachman was the
stage-manager, second in command.  We used to play it in this simple way,
and the one who used to bring in the crown on a cushion--he was a little
fellow then--is now a clergyman way up high--six or seven feet high--and
growing higher all the time.  We played it well, but not as well as you
see it here, for you see it done by practically trained professionals.

I was especially interested in the scene which we have just had, for
Miles Hendon was my part.  I did it as well as a person could who never
remembered his part.  The children all knew their parts.  They did not
mind if I did not know mine.  I could thread a needle nearly as well as
the player did whom you saw to-day.  The words of my part I could supply
on the spot.  The words of the song that Miles Hendon sang here I did not
catch.  But I was great in that song.

          [Then Mr. Clemens hummed a bit of doggerel that the reporter
          made out as this:

                   "There was a woman in her town,
                    She loved her husband well,
                    But another man just twice as well."

          "How is that?" demanded Mr. Clemens.  Then resuming]

It was so fresh and enjoyable to make up a new set of words each time
that I played the part.

If I had a thousand citizens in front of me, I would like to give them
information, but you children already know all that I have found out
about the Educational Alliance.  It's like a man living within thirty
miles of Vesuvius and never knowing about a volcano.  It's like living
for a lifetime in Buffalo, eighteen miles from Niagara, and never going
to see the Falls.  So I had lived in New York and knew nothing about the
Educational Alliance.

This theatre is a part of the work, and furnishes pure and clean plays.
This theatre is an influence.  Everything in the world is accomplished by
influences which train and educate.  When you get to be seventy-one and a
half, as I am, you may think that your education is over, but it isn't.

If we had forty theatres of this kind in this city of four millions, how
they would educate and elevate!  We should have a body of educated
theatre-goers.

It would make better citizens, honest citizens.  One of the best gifts a
millionaire could make would be a theatre here and a theatre there.  It
would make of you a real Republic, and bring about an educational level.