n indicated, the interest in Shakespeare
is hardly separable from that in Great Britain. Editors, critics,
scholars, have been numerous and their contributions important, and the
plays have been acted constantly and widely through the country.
Probably there is no part of the world to-day where the study of
Shakespeare is so active and where the interest in his work is so
widespread. In one respect, at least, the United States in recent years
has carried this study and interest beyond England, in the fields of
education. As the study of the mother tongue has become the basis of
American education, so Shakespeare has come to play a more and more
important part in the training of youth. The universities offer training
in the various departments of Shakespearean scholarship, every college
offers courses on his plays, a number of them are prescribed for reading
and study in the high schools; a few of them are read and extracts
memorized in the primary schools. The child begins his education with
Ariel and the fairies, and until his schooling is completed is kept in
almost daily intercourse with the poetry and persons of the dramas.
Homer was not better known in Athens. In a democracy still young and
widely separated from older nations and cultures, Shakespeare has become
one of the links that bind the American public not only to the common
inheritances of the English-speaking races, but to the traditional
culture of Europe.

[Page Heading: In the United States]

Known in the literature and theater of every civilized nation, the
subject of a vast and increasing amount of discussion and criticism, the
source of a scholarship rivaling that devoted to the writers of
antiquity, the familiar theme for music and painting, the household
possession of Great Britain, Germany, and America, influencing thought
and conduct as few books have ever influenced them, and now an important
element in the education of a great democracy,--the plays of Shakespeare
occupy a position whence imagination "can not pierce a wink beyond, but
doubt discovery there." His reputation and influence must change greatly
in the years to come; but this at least is secure--three hundred years
of an ever increasing sway over the human mind.

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSION

The purpose of this volume has been to summarize what we know about
Shakespeare. The documentary records and early traditions of his life
have been supplemented by information in regard to