THE ARTS AND RELIGION 275 



a high degree on education in other directions, in 

 actual human relations and in literature. In other 

 words, the type of human education, in the large 

 sense, will influence the nature of the demand for 

 dramatic performance more than this can influence 

 education. But it is not unreasonable to hope that 

 with the years there will be a powerful growth in 

 significant dramatic influence, capable of modifying 

 in important and ameliorating ways the conduct of 

 larger numbers of people than at present. Probably 

 it is the emotional effect the effect obtained 

 through human speech, modified by the presentment 

 of human action which chiefly accounts for the 

 intensity of the dramatic influence, and this influence 

 may be exactly appraised by comparing the effects 

 of the play as read or acted. 



While the completeness with which the drama 

 represents human situations is one measure for the 

 efficiency of its appeal, it is yet evident that some 

 loss in simplicity, purity, and depth of artistic 

 stimulus springs from this commingling of multiple 

 visual and auditory impressions. There are senti- 

 ments so large in their conception that we can best 

 feel and understand them when presented to us in the 

 simplest settings. We see likewise this loss in sim- 

 plicity and directness of appeal where the musical 

 drama is used as a vehicle of artistic expression. 

 The noblest music loses when harnessed to words 

 expressive of quite definite ideas or when associated 

 with a definite set of human actions, for the reason 



