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This little book is offered as an aid to the teaching of Canadian history. We do not, primarily, desire to make actors or to cultivate a taste for theatrical art, but we do feel that interest has often been absent from the methods by which the story of Canada has been told to our boys and girls. Memorising the terms of the British North America Act or of the Constitutional Act will not make patriotic Canadians. Only an appreciation of the romance inherent in their country’s achievement can fire the imagination of our future citizens.

The outstanding events in the Canadian drama are here presented in a series suitable for production in the average class-room by children in the Intermediate Grades. Directions for staging and costuming, given in detail for the benefit of the teacher, are so simple that a rural school in the most remote district will find no difficulty in obtaining the needed properties. Moreover, the number of dramatised lessons is such that the school year will afford sufficient time in which to cover the main features of our history, provided one of these little plays is used during each week of the term.

Although each scene may be presented, without costuming, in the space at the front of the room usually occupied by the teacher’s desk, it may be that some schools will be enthusiastic enough to desire more elaborate settings. Draperies, which can be made at a small cost, will present little trouble. They can be made of any available material, burlap or cotton, and affixed directly to the walls or to wires so placed that passage is permitted behind and on both sides of the floor space used as a stage.

The fabric should be hung in single strips. A hem or rings at the top of the strip will provide for the passage of the wire upon which it is hung, and weights may be fastened to the hem below to ensure the curtains remaining in place. Enough material should be used so that the fabric may hang in folds. Door openings may be made by merely pushing back the cloth at the desired place. Windows may be represented by pieces of canvas or by sheets of paper roughly painted and pinned on the curtains. Small trees on stands or in tubs, rocks made by covering an overturned chair with a bit of canvas, and other properties may be of the simplest kind.

Costumes, historically correct, are shown in the illustrations before each play, but the imagination of children will not demand more than a suggestion of the dress of the period. A discarded felt can be pinned up to make an excellent cocked hat, and, if provided with a feather, the illusion will be adequate; a lady’s cloak may be adapted to the uses of an officer of Champlain’s staff; a “lumber-jack” and a sash will produce a young voyageur. Where crêpe-hair is not easily obtained, jute, sewn to the edge of a cap, will do away with the necessity for a wig. If beards or moustaches are required, spirit-gum and crêpe-hair will give the desired effect. However, with the exception of occasions when the play may be presented at a concert or at closing exercises, there is no necessity for make-up or for elaborate costumes in order to render the scene effective as a lesson in history.

A. M. STEPHEN.

1929.