The cultivation and progress of the drama in connection with its kindred arts, poesy and painting, marks the progress of civilization, culture and refinement at any given period in any country. Without the aid of the theatre and the actors' art, the great majority of mankind would remain in ignorance as to the works of the most gifted writers; without those great reflectors of human thought, how many thousands there have been and are who never would have heard or read the plays of Shakespeare and other writers of genius, but who, by the assistance of the actor's delineations, have become familiar with the most sublime and beautiful thoughts and sentiments that adorn our language. I make mention particularly of Shakespeare's plays, as they are beyond all question the greatest and grandest compositions ever written. Among the thousands of plays that have been written during and since the great dramatic renaissance of Elizabeth's reign, they still stand out incomparable as models _par excellence_ of dramatic composition, challenging competition, and as yet unrivaled after a lapse of more than three centuries. That the stage is a great factor in our modern civilization, for the education of the people, no reading, reflecting person would attempt to deny. It is true that some pernicious things occasionally creep in that would be better suppressed, but they are rare and exceptional. The great bulk of dramatic entertainment is uplifting in its tendencies. The infinite variety of plays presented, showing human life in all conditions, and under every variety of circumstances, can not be otherwise than educational in effect upon those who witness them. However crude or devoid of literary merit a play may be, there seldom is one, however bald in plot or uninteresting in sentiment, but what "points a moral and adorns a tale." In Shakespeare's day the theatre was even more or an educational institution than it is today. Books were scarce in that age, and the newspapers were an undiscovered medium of information, so that plays (especially historical plays) possessed a wonderful interest for the masses, who had little chance for schooling or the acquirement of knowledge from books. The old chronicles and legends were freely used by the dramatists of the Elizabethan era, and the incidents of history were made so familiar to the habitues of the theatre that the common people acquired a good knowledge of history by witnessing the representation of those plays. To illustrate how much this was the case, Ben Jonson tells the story of a fellow who, having been taken to task on some question of history and the accuracy of his position being assailed and the authenticity of his assertions being called in question, replied by way of defense: "No, I confess I had it not from the histories but from the play books, and consider them the more authentic."