The Spirit of Giving

Abstract

The School believes that the matter of Christmas giving merits our serious attention. We desire to keep all the beauty of the Christmas spirit, and combat all the unwholesome tendencies of extravagance and ostentation which present-day conditions enhance. The morning exercise is an ever-ready avenue for exercising positive influence upon the School as a whole in any such matter as this. Mrs. Thomsen read to the children Tolstoy's Where Love Is. The reading was very moving to the susceptible minds of the eighth-grade boys and girls. Later in the year they gave a play which they had made from the story the play which concludes this article. This study was undertaken at the instance of the children that is, their suggestion that they make a play from the story was adopted tentatively, in the hope that a prolonged study of such a piece of literature would insensibly imprint upon their characters some of the sweet and gentle Christ-like spirit. But this plan was, in the teacher's mind, as I say, tentative. The great religious experience of this lonely cobbler in his little basement-shop had inspired in the children a deep reverence. Could they maintain that reverence through daily hard work on the style and composition? The story covers several weeks before the great day when Christ himself visited Martuin. All this they must bring into the compass of one day and one scene. Much that is told as narrative they had to turn into dialogue. They must read other of the Gospel stories to find Tolstoy's own eloquently simple phrases. They must try to imitate his folk-expression where wholly new sentences were needed. Martuin's first three speeches and others through the play were made in this way. For this class such work meant many hours of concentration of an unusual sort. Symptoms of flippancy or boredom would mean a reaction, and were watched for by the teacher. Such symptoms would be a signal for abandoning the work. No such signal came. When the play was finished, parts must be assigned and rehearsals begun. These children were unusually inexpressive. Their speech was appallingly unlovely. We were planning several performances, so that every child had a part, and must share in the drudgery of constant rehearsal, with hard drill for clear beautiful speech and easy, natural action. Was their love for the play they had chosen to make sufficient to lift this drudgery to a piece of service? The event proved that it was. I recall a discussion in rehearsal which seems to me significant. In the story, Christ himself spoke to Martuin, saying: Look tomorrow on the street. I am coming. The question was whether the audience