MORALITY PLAY 



3945 



MORAVIA 



as the glacier moves down the valley until they 

 form regular walls along the sides. These are 

 called lateral moraines. Others, near the mid- 

 dle of the glacier, are medial moraines, and the 

 mass deposited at the end forms the terminal 

 moraine, which continues to increase in size as 

 rocks and gravel are added to it from year to 

 year. Some of the moraines of the Glacial 

 Period are so large that they form ranges of 

 hills. See GLACIER; GLACIAL PERIOD. 



MORALITY, moral' iti, PLAY, a drama in 

 which the characters personify abstract ideas, 

 such as virtue, vice, wealth, poverty, knowledge, 

 ignorance, innocence, jealousy, etc. These plays 

 were first produced in England in the fifteenth 

 century and, with the miracle and mystery 

 plays, all growing out of Church pageants, gave 

 rise to modern drama. They were meant to 

 teach a needed reform and were sometimes a 

 bit dull. The vices, better understood by hu- 

 manity than the virtues, played many tricky 

 pranks and furnished, indeed, the humorous ele- 

 ment. The clowns and fools, superbly created 

 by Shakespeare, were a development of the vices 

 of the morality play. 



Ben Greet and his company of English play- 

 ers revived, in 1902-1903, one of the best old 

 morality plays, Everyman. It first appeared in 

 the fifteenth century; the author is unknown. 

 The two best modern morality plays are Every- 

 woman, written by Walter Browne in 1911 in 

 the style of Everyman, and Experience, written 

 by George Hobart and produced in 1914. 



Related Subjects. The following articles in 

 these volumes may well be read in this connec- 

 tion : 



Drama Miracle Play' 



Literature Mystery Play 



MOR'ALS COURT. The brotherly spirit of 

 helpfulness of the modern age has found con- 

 crete expression in many ways. The social set- 

 tlement and the juvenile court are among the 

 agencies developed within recent years for the 

 uplift of the weak, the unfortunate or the vi- 

 cious, and to these has been added the morals 

 court, for the trial of persons charged with of- 

 fenses classed as vice. 



The first morals court in the world was estab- 

 lished in Chicago, 111., in 1913, and other cities 

 at once watched its career with interest. It 

 cooperates with vice and public morals com- 

 missions, working with them to free cities from 

 the terrible effects of vice and immorality, to 

 trace evil to its sources and to reclaim those 

 who have yielded to debasing influences. The 

 accused finds himself in an atmosphere of sym- 



pathy rather than of censure, for social work- 

 ers, nurses and investigators are present to ad- 

 vise and aid those brought to the court for 

 trial. These trials are not open to the general 

 public, but statistics and records of cases are 

 compiled and made available for social investi- 

 gators. The sponsors of this institution look for- 

 ward to the time when hospitals for the treat- 

 ment of the sick and other helpful agencies will 

 be maintained in connection with the morals 

 court. It is even now opening the way for wiser 

 and more kindly handling of moral offenses, and 

 its administration is tangible evidence of the 

 reality of the spirit of universal brotherhood. 



The second morals court in the world was 

 instituted in New York City in 1915. In both 

 Chicago and New York the presiding judge was 

 selected from the large number of judges of the 

 regularly-constituted courts. 



MORAVIA, mora'via, formerly a rich 

 crownland of Austria-Hungary, ruled by a mar- 

 grave, since 1918 a part of the new Czecko- 

 Slovakia. The country, which has an area of 

 8,584 square miles, is a plateau surrounded by 

 hills and moun- 

 tains and drained 

 by the March 

 River, a tributary 

 of the Danube. 

 The climate is 

 mild and health- 

 ful. Moravia lies 

 within the zone of 

 the great War of 



LOCATION MAP 



the Nations (which see), and in the Carpathian 

 Mountains, on the east, have been fought some 

 of the fiercest battles of history. 



Three-fourths of the inhabitants are Slavs, 

 and nearly one-fourth are Germans. The lan- 

 guage spoken is a corrupt form of German. The 

 principal occupations are agriculture and stock 

 raising, mining and manufacture. Moravia is 

 especially noted for the manufacture of woolen 

 goods. Large flocks of sheep supply the wool 

 for this industry. The cultivation of cereals, 

 such as wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn and flax, 

 is superior to that of most of the other prov- 

 inces of Austria-Hungary. Great quantities of 

 sugar beets are grown for the making of beet 

 sugar. Leather goods, yarn, silk, wine, glass 

 and machinery are made in Moravia, and with 

 woolen goods and sugar are the principal ex- 

 ports of the province. 



The Moravian Church was organized in Mo- 

 ravia and Bohemia under the leadership of John 

 Huss (which see). It is noted for its missionary 



