now have and print Shakespeare, and put Shakespeare in all the
languages of the world, nothing would so raise the intellectual
standard of mankind. Think of the different influence on men
between reading Deuteronomy and "Hamlet" and "King Lear"; between
studying Numbers and the "Midsummer Night's Dream"; between pondering
over the murderous crimes and assassinations in Judges, and studying
"The Tempest" or "As You Like It." Man advances as he develops
intellectually. The church teaches obedience. The man who reads
Shakespeare has his intellectual horizon enlarged. He begins to
think for himself, and he enjoys living in a new world. The
characters of Shakespeare become his acquaintances. He admires
the heroes, the philosophers; he laughs with the clowns, and he
almost adores the beautiful women, the pure, loving, and heroic
women born of Shakespeare's heart and brain. The stage has amused
and instructed the world. It had added to the happiness of mankind.
It has kept alive all arts. It is in partnership with all there
is of beauty, of poetry, and expression. It goes hand in hand with
music, with painting, with sculpture, with oratory, with philosophy,
and history. The stage has humor. It abhors stupidity. It despises
hypocrisy. It holds up to laughter the peculiarities, the
idiosyncrasies, and the little insanities of mankind. It thrusts
the spear of ridicule through the shield of pretence. It laughs
at the lugubrious and it has ever taught and will, in all probability,
forever teach, that Man is more than a title, and that human love
laughs at all barriers, at all the prejudices of society and caste
that tend to keep apart two loving hearts.

_Question_. What is your opinion of the progress of the drama in
educating the artistic sense of the community as compared with the
progress of the church as an educator of the moral sentiment?

_Answer_. Of course, the stage is not all good, nor is--and I say
this with becoming modesty--the pulpit all bad. There have been
bad actors and there have been good preachers. There has been no
improvement in plays since Shakespeare wrote. There has been great
improvement in theatres, and the tendency seems to me be toward
higher artistic excellence in the presentation of plays. As we
become slowly civilized we will constantly demand more artistic
excellence. There will always be a class satisfied with the lowest
form of dramatic presentation, with coarse wit, wi