The organization of the theater in England under Elizabeth and in France under Louis the Fourteenth was not approved by many of the subjects of these monarchs; and the better we know it, the less it approves itself to us, since it imposed harsh restriction upon actors and authors alike. The organization of the French theater under Louis the Sixteenth was bitterly attacked by Beaumarchais; and every reader of the ‘Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber’ will recall his diatribes against the conditions which obtained in England in his time. So every reader of Joseph Jefferson’s ‘Autobiography’ will recall his account of the squalid life led by the wandering companies of actors here in the United States in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Within the past few years Henry Arthur Jones and William Poel have declaimed against the organization of the theater in England at the present time; and the latter has gone so far as to demand drastic legislation to remedy a situation which he deems intolerable. This being the state of affairs in other lands and in other centuries, we need not be surprised by the vehement protests against the existing organization of the theater here in America. Nor need we assume that these present protests have as little foundation as had many of those which were raised in the past. II The first thing we find when we undertake investigation is that the organization of the theater here and now is unlike any other which has ever existed anywhere else. In Greece the annual performances were in the hands of the state. In Rome performances were given gratuitously, more often than not, the cost being borne by an aspiring politician wishing to win the suffrages of the mob. In the Middle Ages the performances were at first in the churches under the complete control of the priests; and later they were out-of-doors on church festivals, and in charge of the gilds. In Shakspere’s time and in Molière’s a number of the more important actors associated themselves together, arranged for a theater, hired the subordinate performers, and divided the takings at the door, share and share alike. In these companies one of the actors undertook the function of manager, representing his comrades and more or less guiding their fortunes. But these managers had only so much authority as might be delegated to them by their fellow-sharers; they were not autocrats, engaging and discharging the members of the company according to their own caprice; their risk or their profit was not larger than that of their associates.