more or less the same subject.

Almost every manager seemed to have one. In the trail of Brieux's play, there came announcements from almost every office. Not all of these have been presented, but a great number have and a great number are still to be presented. And the curious part of it is that they all, no matter the theme, are labeled "Sex dramas" and are said to contain "great moral lessons." Every play that has anything objectionable; every one that inclines to show woman at her weakest or at her worst; every one that has a “daring" situation comes under the same general label. It would seem that the theatre had gone sex mad.

At first glance it would look as if the theatre had received a new light and was pushing forward in a new direction, one indicating that it is to be a great moral and educational force. A closer glance suggests a different opinion, however. For example, there is a marked difference between Brieux's drama and almost all those which have followed it. Brieux places the emphasis upon the man and the consequences to him, although he does show the effect on the woman. Nearly every one of the plays which have come upon the heels of his piece place the emphasis upon the woman. It is our old thesis-the oldest drama-the breaking of the Seventh Commandment and the treatment of that fracture. And this thing which we are proclaiming as something terribly new and original, is it not after all an old thing under a new covering?

Perhaps if we take a glance back over the history of the drama and pick up here and there a name we will get some idea of just what value sex has as an educational force in the theatre. Not needing to go back to the ancient Greek drama, or its Latin imitation, let us come boldly down to the Sixteenth Century. Here you can find not only in Shakespeare, but in the men writing contemporaneously with him, any number of examples of sex plays and problem plays. Shakespeare, Middleton, Beaumont and Fletcher all wrote plays shocking enough for any audience. And after them followed the Restoration Dramatists when sex became almost all there was to the drama. Skipping down a few centuries you come instinctively to Alexander Dumas fils and with him you reach "Camille," that fairy godmother of all the sex plays, which have followed. "Camille" is the proto-type of your modern sex drama.

For years the drama has been trying to live up to this enormous success of Dumas. The play has been re-written from

almost every angle and from almost every conceivable view-point. You will find its heroine in a score of dramas even among the best dramatists. Dumas was never inordinately proud of this play which he wrote in eight days, and he wrote some real sex plays in such works as the "Demi-Monde," the "Fils Naturel" and the "Idees de Madame Aubrey." "Camille" from its very first performance was a great success whenever and wherever presented: the other and finer plays have had only special acclaim. Here is a vivid side-light upon the drama as an educational force in the treatment of sex. The great public took "Camille" with it tawdry morals and treacly sentiments and wept over it and loved it. Inartistic, a mere acting piece of moral clap-trap, it has survived all the fine moral preachings which its author gave in his other plays. Zola said of Dumas, "He uses truth only as a springboard to jump into space." Is not that after all what the modern dramatist is doing with his so-called lessons of moral truths? Are we really arriving at something or are we merely jumping off into space and meantime losing the very quality that of entertainment—which gives the theatre its raison d'etre?

Just one or two more names of dramatists who have handled this same theme. Of course there is Ibsen. Ibsen has written almost the ideal sex drama in "Ghosts." It is the complete, almost the whole sex problem, caught into one great masterpiece of dramatic art. In other plays too he has hit upon the subject, but not with such a full and complete mastery. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero in England, has of all English writers treated the subject most fully. In "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” “The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith" and in several of his other plays he has taken this problem and treated it in a masterly manner.

Because of lack of space I have taken but three or four names and have not even attempted to trace influence and transition. But these three or four names will show several things which are significant. These dramatists—and please remember they belong to the very first rank-all treated the subject from the standpoint of results-consequences. You might sum up their moral in the Biblical "the wages of sin is death.” It was the consequences of the sexual abuse that interested them. It was the results of breaking a moral code rather than a physical code that made the basis of their plays, though in Ibsen's "Ghosts" even the physical results are used.

Thus, even at a cursory glance, it is seen that this drama is not new. Why then is there this awful clamor about it as if we had discovered a new genre, some tremendously novel and vital idea? Simply because it is new-in a way, for the accent has been changed. From the romanaticism of "Camille," through problem studies of Ibsen and Pinero, the view-point has shifted from one of morals to one of pathology, at least so we are told. Instead of the consequences, we are asked to fix our minds upon the act itself. To put it rather vulgarly the sex play is not so much new as nude. Its relation to its predecessor is that of sex to psychology. And however you look at it and from whatever angle, such a thing is a terribly, subtly, dangerous thing in a crowded theatre.

The value of sex education a great many of us believe in devoutly. It is a splendid thing—if done rightly. It may be a viciously harmful thing--if done wrongly. We may all want our children to know the essential truths of sex, but if we are right-minded and not moral cowards we would prefer that they learned them from us and not from others. We want them to know these in a sane, healthy way, not under the stress of excitement or emotion or passion. And right there is the danger-point. The theatre is a place of emotion and excitement and passion even. Are young people to get their sex education there? Were not the older dramatists right when they decreed that consequencesretribution—were the lessons to be taught and not pathology?

For, please remember one thing, the first duty of every playwright is to entertain. This does not mean that he cannot instruct. Indeed if he entertains properly he must instruct, for as play is education to the child, so entertainment is education to the adult: but it must be entertainment. It is then absolutely necessary that the dramatist first amuse and then teach. Secondly, his audience is composed largely of young people, boys and girls between sixteen and twenty-two. They say that modern youth is terribly sophisticated. What they do not tell us is that sub-consciously at least, youth is romantic-and curious. Whatever the surface veneer, the grain of the wood has not changed much through the centuries. The modern girl of eighteen in spite of her slanginess and blasé manner, is emotionally a true sister of the girl brought up on the doctrine that ignorance is innocence. If your modern sex play can educate this girl,

very good; but if it merely excites her, works upon the inherent romantic morbidity of her nature at a critical period of her life, its "educational" value may be disastrous. The doctrine of truth is a very lovely doctrine but truth may be more pernicious than falsehood—when it is only half-truth. And therein lies the danger of the modern play. The older dramatist treating penalty and consequence usually gave or tried to give whole truths, wholesome lessons: you are apt to get half-baked pathology in your modern play.

If

It then all resolves itself into motives and technical equipment. your dramatist is in earnest and clean-minded; if he is interested in telling a story that will excite the emotions in a proper way; if in a word he is honest, then the sex play can have an educational value. But when a dramatist uses sledge-hammer methods; when, instead of showing consequences he merely places the insistence upon the act as far as he dares; when, because he fails to interest, he tries to shock, then the educational value of the sex play becomes of pernicious value. It excites the imagination without stimulating it and this excitation becomes so strong in the susceptible that any mental appeal must be lost. For a play first and last appeals to the senses. The lights, the color, the music, the very atmosphere of the theatre all are designed to reach the emotions through the senses. Only after he has caught the emotions, can the dramatist reach the intellect. Does your modern sex drama educate the mind or merely excite the emotions?

There is one other point not to be forgotten in considering this subject. In a theatre you are sitting among other people. Things that you hear thus in public sound far differently than if you heard them in the privacy of your library or read them in a book. The most glaring vices may be expatiated upon at length with an intimate friend; but in a public gathering they take on a new viewpoint, a conscious one. This may be a mere quibbling, a mere ostrich hiding of the head to conceal the body; but nevertheless however much we may rail against it, the fact still remains. Some day we may be educated up to freedom of speech and thought. And meantime just what are these modern plays doing: Are they merely shocking people? Or are they really impressing them?

Whatever they are doing, I believe it has come to a place where a halt must be called: a halt that need not mean a final cessation

of these plays; but which should be a pause to let us consider well before we go on. Dramas on the Seventh Commandment always have been and probably always will be. But there is a vast difference in whether the Seventh Commandment be considered as a Biblical precept or whether it be regarded in the light of a mere catch-phrase upon which to hang a series of more or less shocking incidents. I believe firmly in the sex drama as an educational force when treated from the basis of consequences and retribution. But when the insistence and importance are placed upon scenes which merely serve to excite and awaken unhealthy emotions, there is a grave danger. I believe the drama can have a decided value in sex education, but not along the line of pathology and cheap sensationalism. The pathology must be gained in a more intimate way than through a public theatre designed for entertainment. It may be suggested as in Ibsen's "Ghosts" where it is nicely hidden in a tremendous psychology. Its effects may be shown as in any number of plays. Physical and moral self-respect can be decently and advantageously exploited upon the stage. The only question is whether we are not at present reaching a danger mark which, if not checked, may prove a boomerang to come back and hit the very cause which hurls it.