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Show r M I I TfowthQLiltkSfadaStMsGotTk ffff n Dressing Rooms and Hotels, Sleeping Cars and Railway WL 7$& 1 I h3fW Stations toe Theatre's Children Study By Mail While BV) . I n oac an Attend the School That's Main- , H mJ 1 I g " r- TJ OYS and girls who find their les- sons irksome and wish there were - no such thing as going to school will bo more reconciled to their lot if they stop to consider how much easier it is than that of the children of the stage, who have to go to school and earn their living at one and the same time. As you watch tho numerous little stage stars who entertain the public in vaudeville vaude-ville and musical comedy, in the serious drama and in the movies, probably you have wondered how they manage to acquire ac-quire tho rudiments of an education while playing engagements that often fill from forty-five to fifty weeks of every year. It's certainly no easy task, this going to 6chool while winning fame and earning earn-ing good-sized salaries, especially when it involves, as it often does, playing two shows a day and traveling the length , and breadth of the continent But with the little stage stars it's a case of necessity. ne-cessity. If they don't learn to read, write and do sums, if they don't master the rudiments of geography, history and composition, then they n ust wait until they are grown up before appearing any more behind the footnts or in front of the movie cameras. This is a matter on which the laws of New York and other states are very insistent. Children below a certain ago are allowed to appear on the stage or in the movies only on condition condi-tion that their parents or AC guardians bind themselves $ "SiSn to see them provided with m9 tho equivalent of a good common school education. The hHHbHIH under which thi i Ftage children ."o ! make it impos -ibb- f . . - : i , r : ; any of tho rd:- V nary schools, and so the law is com- pv- - ,'; plied with by giv- ing them private JBidLfljfe tutors or sending them to schools founded es- yNu pecially for just such boys .44 and girls. One of tho largest L- ' and most successful of t h institutions is the Professional Children's School, in New York, and a most interesting place it is. Here the children attend regular morning morn-ing sessions so long as their engagements engage-ments happen to keep them in New York. When they go on the road they keep up with their courses by correspondence. Questionnaires are mailed eery week to the traveling students, and sometimes these go to every state in the Union and almost every province of Canada. The answers to these questions aro worked out under conditions that make the lot of the boy or girl who has noth-i noth-i ing to do except go to school seem liko 1 a sinecure. A budding Richard Mans field may prepare his answers while i awaiting his cue in the wings of a Kan sas City theater and a futuro Maude Adams may labor over hers as she waits for a train at some obscure railroad junction junc-tion up in Maine. ' Yet the records of the Professional i Children's School show that the honor ; students are frequently those who are compelled to do most of their lessons by correspondence. And for the student body as a whole, the average of achievement achieve-ment is fully as high as in schools whero the children have only their lessons to ij occupy their attention, i Richard Du Pont, who returned from j a coast-to-coast tour with David War- field just in time for the early Juno commencement at the Professional Children's Chil-dren's School, says that often he has done a bunch of arithmetic problems in a ;j Pullman, using his suitcase for a desk. I In the writing room of a Salt Lake City - :1 ' ' vi5- handsome salaries while they are getting . i - L their education HBP 4 . Another view of the Leo HL . "f t sisters, not on their way to .... school but playing roles 2 m a move comedy jjs ' ' ' k '''''' hotel last w; K . T h ij -V : : v rote a composition X; -, which h i s English teacher tea-cher pronounced the best he had ever done. Richard nnd his understudy fyes, this thirteen-year-old boy has an understudy, under-study, just like Mr. Warlield himself!) never fail to look up tho places of historical histor-ical interest when touring. And this gives a ze.it to their history lessons which the stay-at-home boy misses. "I always like to see the real thing after reading about it in my history," declares the boy star. "I shall never forget for-get how thrilling it was to see Bunker Hill Monument, and when I was in San Antonio a few yearn ago I spent half a day in the famous Alamo. I've been up in the Washington Monument, too." A peep-in at tho Professional Children's Chil-dren's School is a treat for any grownup. grown-up. These stage children, even during their play periods, are eternally talking about the show they're appearing in, whero they went last week "on location," or what sort of part a Broadway manager man-ager wants them to play in his new show. Here one sees, mayhap, the dramatic, musical and cinema stars of to-morrow. That little girl with the golden curls, poring over a geography almost as large as herself, may be the Jeritza of twenty years hence, and ' these two boys staging stag-ing a boxing match in the hallway may some day be vaudeville's vaude-ville's greatest comedy pair. A good example of the way the atmosphere atmos-phere of the stage permeates the school was furnished by the class prophecy which little Rcgina Brown, a graduate of last June, read at tho class day exercises. ex-ercises. A brilliant career on the stage or in the movies was predicted for nearly every one of her classmates. Dorothea Wall, according to Regina's prophetic vision, is to be famous, famous in opera roles, and "her name is everywhere every-where you go." Beatrice Childes become be-come a "dancer of grace and fame who dances on her toes; watch her graceful figure as through the dance she goes." Lillian Gilmore and Ruth Collins are to win high dramatic fame and "tho lights of Broadway will Hash their name." Helen McDonald and Gertrude Keratein have a "sketch of their own, and their dances and songs with skill they are shown " And so on, with Muriel Richter, "breaking up the show" as a vaudeville pianist, and Hazel Rider designing the hats and gowns for a great musical comedy production. The senior English class is a dramatic knock-out. When a composition is read aloud by either boy or girl it is read in true dramatic style. Ono might imagine one's self in a theater rather than in an ordinary classroom, with blackboards, chalk, hard benches and "carved up'' desks. Even in their spelling matches these children of the footlights tako the greatest great-est of pains to pronounce every word as if it were an epic. Truly, students of English might gather a few helpful tips, should they happen in at the Professional Children's School during a senior English Eng-lish recitation. "Casey at the Bat," "Hamlet's Soliloquy," Solilo-quy," "Lady of the Lake" and "Evangeline" "Evange-line" are tried and true favorites with the young actors. Once a week In the freshman arithmetic arith-metic clas.s theatrical problems are given. Eac.ii child is asked to make up a problem with a "theatrical angle." Mary Eaton's brother, Master Charlie, Been last on the screen with Macklyn Ar-buckle, Ar-buckle, in "The Prodigal Judge," handed in this one recently : "If a director has thirty chorus girls and discharges 10 per cent because of lateness at rehearsals, how many choru3 girls has he left?" Little Nell Roy Buck, aged ten, who was seen recently in "Peter Ibbetson," suggested the following: "A manager of a theater has 500 seats. Three hundred of the seats are in the orchestra and sell for $2.50 each. The remainder, re-mainder, in the balcony, bring $1 each. How much would the box office take in if every seat was sold?" It is interesting to hear what pretty little Marguerite Churchill, winner of the school's prize scholarship this year, has to say about her ambitions. To u representative of this newspaper, who visited the school the other day, she said: "I guess it isn't real nice to talk abowt one's self, but when a reporter asks you I don't suppose there's anything else to do. I am going to be a great actress. That is what I love and want to be most if all. Ever since I appeared as a little girl in Buenos Ayres I have determined some day to be liko Julia Marlowe. I know it takes study, but I'm willing to pay the price." Marguerite says she is hoping to get a part in a big "history film" which is to be made this fall. During the summer she is posing for a number of widely Prt ww- I f , j Regina Brown, a recent graduate of the Professional Children's School and the author of the class prophecy known arti3ts and modeling for some advertisements. ad-vertisements. Any account of the Professional Children's Chil-dren's School would be incomplete without with-out a reference to Mr. Mary Marston "Gran'ma," as the stage kiddies call her. "Gran'raa" is idolized by every boy and girl who has ever attended the school. She is the adoring, loving grandmother' 1 to every one of them. When their temper or "temper merit," if you prefer to call it that j gets th,' be t;.er of thorn it's to "Gran'ma Marston that the little star of to-raor-lj row goes f.,r en -elation. "Gran'mi treats each kiddie as if he or she weit!l really her own actress granddaugkter, j little .vii-.s Kiv.ernary Marston, lately on tour as an understudy to the famous Am jj Pennington. "If "Gran'ma" Marston should tnt decide to write a book on the href e ti - hoys and g:ris of the stage she ccmld produce a volume teeming with humrt t interest. She Is the mother conftuof j to whom the little actors and aetrewM; go every day to win new praise fortheif triumphs or to seek helpful gympitby'' and ndviro whn fhi omKitlmi hrm i been .disappointed. Into her ean dif j after day are poured the childish storitl J of how thrilled with joy they are when J their acta "go over big" and how sad 1 they feel when the audiences prove cold 1 to their efforts. There are a number of other capable J i'.nd sympathetic teachers at the school but none of them can quite fill the placa S beloved "Gran'ma" Marston occupies in J the hearts of the youngsters who gel their lessons in dressing rooms and i hotel rooms, sleeping cars and railway m stations, and see the inside of their M school only when they have the lack t be playing an engagement in New York. (2 It is gracious Ethel Wright Nesbett'" who wields the authontative wand at 1 this unique school, while Miss Jane Hall 1 does the activo supervising. The R hearsal Club, of which Mrs. Franklin w. j Robinson is president, Is the organization that "backs " tho institution. The aim of this worth while instito- M-tion M-tion is to meet the needs of the children j of the dramatic profession in an educv I tional wav by providing a school wi I hours and privileges so regulated th K they may get their book learning wn working. This school does all W 1 power to help the Board of Educate" j enforce the compulsory education l a i Only children who are engaged in ao i kind of theatrical work are jft M The school enrolled its first PupW j 1914, and among them was Mary 1 M inter, who now has become a screen star. Vi |