One afternoon a decade ago Minnie Maddern Fiske journeyed out from Boston to the neighboring university city, went to Sanders Theatre, scene of Harvard’s august ceremonies, and there she talked--engrossingly--on her art. The occasion was in a way memorable. In times not remotely past the possibility of an actress lecturing in Sanders would have been doubtful.[162] But in 1905 Harvard was well along in its career as one of the springs of the renaissance which has of late years manifested itself in the English-speaking theatre. If one said “Professor Baker’s work was beginning to make itself felt” it would be saying the same thing in a different way. In many respects the occasion was unusual The audience was interesting: the professors were there to add dignity and academic distinction; the students, of Harvard and Radcliffe, were there in force to represent the newer spirit of inquiry and effort in matters dramatic; the stage was represented in the audience as well as on the platform (and, oddly, Francis Wilson, Edward H. Sothern and the speaker cover nearly the whole dramatic range). There was an enthusiastic expectancy in the air. One felt that here was the manifestation of something genuine and strong. The speaker did not disappoint. Poised and confident, eager and enthusiastic, she spoke for more than an hour and one felt at the end that this small woman had signalized a new spirit in the theatre and in the attitude of educated men toward the drama and its exponents. [Illustration: MRS. FISKE] She had started life as a baby actress and her formal schooling was snatched here and there in the midst of an ever busy career. Most men (and women) can exhaust the resources of academic training with a total result less brilliant, however, than her hour on the stage of Sanders. But it was only one form of a recognition which is freely accorded. It is quite safe to say that since the death of Mansfield she has been the most noteworthy American person of the theatre. She has consistently championed drama of a high order, which is something superior to theatrical art of a high order. So much would be true if she remained the producer only. Mrs. Fiske, the actress, has placed herself among the chosen few. She, as much as any other, brought to bear on the American theatre what it sorely needed, a keen intellect attuned to the new spirit of naturalism. She was born in a lucky day for this purpose, for, as we shall see, she came to maturity at just about the time when the rebirth in the English drama was making itself evident. The stage always attracts to itself numbers of people who no doubt sincerely fancy themselves drawn thither irresistibly. The theatre’s lure is strong, yet most of its followers have entered upon a stage career more or less as a matter of choice. With a small number, however, the life has been inevitable. There has been no choice, no attraction or glamour even. Such is Mrs. Fiske; she is indigenously of the theatre.