onorably conspicuous for many years for its able critical treatment of
the theater and play; and especially for its translations of foreign
dramas, much of the best material from abroad being first given English
form in its columns. At Madison, Wisconsin, _The Play Book_ is a monthly
also edited by theater specialists and often containing illuminating
articles and reviews. And, of course, in the better class periodicals,
monthly and weekly, papers in this field are appearing nowadays with
increasing frequency, a testimonial to the general growth of interest.
Critics of the drama like W. P. Eaton, Clayton Hamilton, Arthur Ruhl,
Norman Hapgood, William Winter, Montrose J. Moses, Channing Pollock,
James O'Donnell Bennett, James S. Metcalf, and James Huneker are to be
read in the daily press, in periodicals, or in collected book form.
Advanced movements abroad are chronicled in _The Mask_, the publication
founded by Gordon Craig; and in _Poetry and Drama_. It is reasonable to
believe that, with the renewed appreciation of the theater, the work of
the dramatic critic as such will be felt to be more and more important
and his function will assume its significance in the eyes of the
community. A vigorous dramatic period implies worthy criticism to
self-reveal it and to establish and maintain right standards. Signs are
not wanting that we shall gradually train and make necessary in the
United States a class of critic represented in England by William Archer
and A. B. Walkley. Among the publishers who have led in the movement to
place good drama in permanent form in the hands of readers the firms of
Macmillan, Scribner, Mitchell Kennerley, Henry Holt, John W. Luce,
Harper and Brothers, B. W. Huebsch and Doubleday, Page & Company have
been and are honorably to the fore. In the way of critical books which
study the many aspects of the subject, they are now being printed so
constantly as plainly to testify to the new attitude and interest. The
student of technic can with profit turn to the manuals of William
Archer, Brander Matthews, and William T. Price; the studies of Clayton
Hamilton, W. P. Eaton, Norman Hapgood, Barrett Clark, and others. For
the civic idea applied to the theater, and the development of the
pageant, he will read Percy Mackaye. And when it comes to plays
themselves, as we have seen, hardly a week goes by without the
appearance of some important foreign masterpiece in English, or some
important drama of English spe