THE CHILD AS ACTOR AND INVENTOR.
The child is a born actor.
The world's a theatre, the earth a stage,
Which God and Nature do with actors fill.--_Heywood_.
Man is an imitative creature, and the foremost leads the flock.
--_Schiller_.
_Imitative Games_.
In her article on _Imitation in Children_, Miss Haskell notes the
predilection of children for impersonation and dramatic expression,
giving many interesting examples. S. D. Warren, in a paper read before
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Brooklyn
Meeting, 1894 (_Proc_., Vol. xliii., p. 335), also notes these
activities of children, mentioning, among other instances, "an annual
celebration of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown," "playing
railroad," playing at pulling hand fire-engines, as the representatives
of two rival villages.
The mention of the celebration of Cornwallis' surrender by children
brings up the question of the child as recorder. As historian and
chronicler, the child appears in the countless games in which he
preserves more or less of the acts, beliefs, and superstitions of our
ancestors. Concerning some of these, Miss Alice Gomme says: "It is
impossible that they have been invented by children by the mere effort
of imagination, and there is ample evidence that they have but carried
on interchangeably a record of events, some of which belong to the
earliest days of the nation" (242.11).
As Miss Gomme points out, many of the games of English children are
simply primitive dramas,--of the life of a woman ("When I was a Young
Girl"), of courtship and marriage ("Here comes Three Dukes a-Riding,"
"Poor Mary sits a-Weeping"), of funerals ("Jenny Jones," "Green
Gravel"), of border warfare ("We are the Rovers"), etc. Mr. W. W. Newell
had previously remarked the importance of the dramatic element in
children's games, citing as historical plays "Miss Jennia Jones"
(funeral), "Down she comes as White as Milk," "Green Gravel," "Uncle
John," "Barbara Allen," and others more or less partaking of this
character, based upon historical ballads, of some of which traces only
are now preserved.
By means of carved or graven images in wood or stone, given to children
as playthings or as targets to practise skill in shooting or striking
with miniature bow-and-arrow or spear, an early acquaintance is formed
with many animals. The imitation of animals, their habits and
peculiarities, often forms no small part of the dances and games of
children of the lower races.
_The Child as Actor_.
Wallaschek, in his study of the primitive drama and pantomime (546.
214-229), notes the presence of children as dancers and performers among
the Andaman Islanders, the Tagals of the Philippines, the Tahitians,
Fijis, Polynesians and other more or less primitive races. Of Tibet and
some portions of China Mr. Rockhill, in his _Diary of a Journey
through Mongolia, and Tibet, in 1891 and 1892_ (Washington, D. C.,
1894), informs us that the lads in every village give theatrical
performances, the companies of young actors being known as _Hsiao
sheng huei_, "young men's amateur theatrical company" (p. 68).
Among the aborigines of the New World we find also children as actors
and participants in the ceremonies and ritual performances of various
tribes. In certain ceremonials of the Sia, as Mrs. Stevenson informs us,
young children take part. A boy of eight was allowed to hear the sacred
songs on one occasion, and to witness the making of the
"medicine-water," but a boy of four was not permitted to be present; the
boy also took part in the dance (538. 79). In the rain ceremonial of the
"Giant Society," a little girl, eight years old, painted the fetiches
quite as dexterously as her elders, and took apparently quite as much
interest in the proceedings. In the rain ceremonial of the "Knife
Society," boys assist, and in the rain ceremonial of the Querränna, a
child (boy) with wand and rattle joins in the celebration of the rites,
"requiring no rousing to sing and bend his tiny body to the time of the
rattle, and joining in the calls upon the cloud-people to gather to
water the earth, with as much enthusiasm as his elders." When children,
boys or girls, are about ten or twelve years of age, and have, as the
Indians say, "a good head," they are initiated, if they so desire, into
some of the mysteries of the dances of the Ka'tsuna, in charge of the
Querränna Society (538. 106-117).
Dr. J. W. Fewkes, in his detailed article on the _Flute Observance_
of the Tusayan Indians of Walpi, an interesting study of primitive
dramatization, notes the part played by children in these ceremonies.
The principal characters are the "Snake Boy," the "Snake Girl," and some
girl carriers of the sacred corn, besides lads as acolytes.
The story of the child as an actor has yet to be written. When the
ancient Greeks crowded the theatres to hear and see the masterpieces of
dramatic and histrionic genius, their "women, slaves, and children" were
for the most part left at home, though we do find that later on in
history, front seats were provided for the chief Athenian priestesses.
No voices of children were heard in chorus, and childhood found no true
interpreter upon the stage. In France, in the middle of the seventeenth
century, women appear as actors; in England it was not until long after
the death of her greatest dramatist that (in 1660) women could fill a
_rôle_ upon the stage without serious hindrance or molestation; in
Japan, even now, play-acting is not looked upon as a respectable
profession for women. For a long time in England and elsewhere, female
parts were taken by children and youths. Here also we meet with
companies of child-actors, such as the "Boys of the Grammar School at
Westminster," "The Children of Paul's," etc. The influence which
produced these survives and flourishes to-day in the fondness of
high-school pupils and university students for dramatic performances and
recitations, and the number of schools of gesture, elocution, and the
like, testifies to the abiding interest of the young in the mimic art.
This is also evidenced by the number of child actors and actresses in
the theatrical world, and the remarkable precocity of the members of the
profession in all lands. In England, the pantomime offers a special
outlet for this current of expression, and there the child is a most
important factor in stage-life. The precocity of girls in these respects
is noteworthy.
_The Child as Inventor_.
Borrowing his figure of speech from the environment of child-hood, C.
J. Weber has said: "_Die Gesellschaft ist die Grossmutter der
Menschkeit durch ihre Töchter, die Erfindungen_,--Society is the
grandmother of humanity through her daughters, the inventions," and the
familiar proverb--Necessity is the mother of invention--springs from
the same source. Isaac Disraeli aptly says: "The golden hour of
invention must terminate like other hours; and when the man of genius
returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of
life, his companions behold him as one of themselves,--the creature of
habits and infirmities," and not a few of the "golden hours of
invention" seem to belong to the golden age of childhood. Even in these
"degenerate" days the child appears as an inventor. A contributor to the
periodical literature of the day remarks: "Children have taken out a
number of patents. The youngest inventor on record is Donald Murray
Murphy, of St. John, Canada, who, at the age of six years, obtained from
the United States exclusive rights in a sounding toy. Mabel Howard, of
Washington, at eleven years, invented an ingenious game for her invalid
brother and got a patent for it. Albert Gr. Smith, of Biehwood,
Illinois, at twelve years invented and patented a rowing apparatus"
(_Current Lit_., K T., xiv. 1893, p. 138).
The works of Newell (313), Bolton (187), Gomme (243), amply reveal the
riot of childish variation and invention in games and plays. Mr. Newell
observes: "It would be strange if children who exhibit so much inventive
talent [in language] did not contrive new games; and we find accordingly
that in many families a great part of the amusements of the children are
of their own devising. The earliest age of which the writer has
authentic record of such ingenuity is two and a half years" (313. 25).
And among the primitive peoples the child is not without like invention;
some, indeed, of the games our children play, were invented by the
savage young ones, whose fathers have been long forgotten in the mist of
prehistoric ages--the sports of their children alone surviving as
memorials of their existence.
Theal tells us that the Kaffir children, when not engaged in active
exercise, "amuse themselves by moulding clay into little images of
cattle, or by making puzzles with strings. Some of them are skilful in
forming knots with thongs and pieces of wood, which it taxes the
ingenuity of the others to undo. The cleverest of them sometimes
practise tricks of deception with grains of maize" (543. 221). The
distinguished naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace, while on his visit to the
Malay Archipelago, thought to show the Dyak boys of Borneo something new
in the way of the "cat's cradle," but found that he was the one who
needed to learn, for the little brown aborigines were able to show him
several new tricks (377. 25).
Miklucho-Maclay notes that among the Papuans of north-eastern New
Guinea, while the women showed no tendency to ornament pottery, young
boys "found pleasure in imprinting with their nails and a pointed stick
a sort of ornamental border on some of the pots" (42. 317).
Paola Lombroso, daughter of Professor Cesare Lombroso, the celebrated
criminologist, in her recent study of child psychology, observes: "Games
(and plays) are the most original creation of the child, who has been
able to create them, adapt them to his needs, making of them a sort of
gymnastics which enables him to develop himself without becoming
fatigued, and we, with the aid of memory, can hardly now lay hold of
that feeling of infinite, intense pleasure." Moreover, these popular
traditional plays and games, handed down from one generation to another
of children, "show how instinctive are these forms of muscular activity
and imitative expression, which have their roots in a true physiological
and psychic necessity, being a species of tirocinium for the experience
of childhood" (301. 136).
The _magnum opus_, perhaps, of the child as inventor, is the lyre,
the discovery of which, classical mythology attributes to the infant
Mercury or Hermes. Four hours after his birth the baby god is said to
have found the shell of a tortoise, through the opposite edges of which
he bored holes, and, inserting into these cords of linen, made the first
stringed instrument. The English poet, Aubrey de Vere, singing of an
Athenian girl, thus refers to the quaint myth:--
"She loves to pace the wild sea-shore--
Or drop her wandering fingers o'er
The bosom of some chorded shell:
Her touch will make it speak as well
As infant Hermes made
That tortoise in its own despite
Thenceforth in Heaven a shape star-bright."