People are more or less influenced by their emotions. What matters is not so much what persons think about certain things as how they feel toward them. Thought and emotion usually go hand in hand. One is essential to the other. It is through the heart of a people that emotions are expressed. For centuries the drama has been the great heart strength through which humanity expresses its higher and finer instincts. Its power to sway the feelings of mankind by seeking to find out the hidden life forces in us all can never be overestimated. It is through the drama that people learn to interpret human nature, its weakness and its strength. The sad and the happy, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the young and the old, those with many different ideas and ideals see their actions reflected in this mirror. The supreme duty of society is to point out the way to its citizens, whether they live in the country or in the city, to live happy and useful lives. In this respect the drama plays an important rôle. As Victor Hugo once said, “The theater is a crucible of civilization. It is a place of human communion. It is in the theater that the public soul is formed.” In the early generations of the world it was the only form of human worship. The Shepherds of the Nile conceived a sacred play in which the character “the God of the Overflow” foretold by means of dramatic expression the period of the flooding of the valley. The Vedic poets sang their songs in the land of the Five Rivers of India. The Hebrews expressed their religious philosophy through a democratic festival called the Feast of Tabernacles. The country people who made Rome their center celebrated the ingathering of their food with a festival called the Cerealia. The Festival of Demeter was a characteristic play of the early Greeks. The country people of the Orient had ritualistic dramas dealing with animal and plant life. The Incas, the Indians of Peru, worshiped at the Altars of Corn. In the realm of nature, Ceres, the goddess of grains, Mother Earth, Pomona, the goddess of fruits, Persephone, emblematical of the vegetable world, Flora, the goddess of flowers, Apollo, the sun god, and Neptune the god of water, have been the theme of many a dramatic story. All these ceremonies and many more not only signify the wide usage of this art in every age and every part of the world, but also unfold tremendous possibilities for future pageant, play, and pantomime among country people. If civilization’s sense of appreciation could be aroused to see the hidden beauties of field and forest and stream—of God’s great out of doors—men and women and children would flock to the countryside. The drama is one of the many agencies which seeks to stimulate this sense of appreciation. It deals with human problems by means of appeals to the emotions.