formances differed from those of the Liebhabertheater which had preceded it in that only amateurs were to take part and that only members of the society and their friends were to be admitted to the performances, tho exception was made to the latter rule on evenings especially set aside for the entertainment of the public. The Kribben brothers continued to be the spirit and soul of the new organization. It opened its first season January 5, 1848, in a building at the corner of Main and Pine Streets. Performances were usually given weekly on Wednesday evenings. The price of admission for non-members varied between twentyfive and fifty cents.

With the second year of its existence the Thalia Gesellschaft was reorganized as the St. Louis Sängerbund. With the reorganization of the society debates and declamatory exercises became its chief activity, to the exclusion of German theatricals, for several years to follow.

In the spring of 1851 Xaver Strasser, accompanied by his wife, two daughters and stepson, all actors by profession, came to St. Louis. Supported by local amateurs, among whom Adalbert Löhr especially distinguished himself, Strasser on the 7th of April opened a Liebhabertheater in the "Tontine," on Second Street near Elm. After several performances there he built and moved into a summer theatre in what was then Arsenal Park. Strasser proved a failure as a director. His theatre in the "Tontine" had promised well. But his summer theatre "eine grosse dunkle, nur mit wenigen Luftlöchern versehene Bretterbude"proved a fiasco from the start. It came to an abrupt close August 24, whereupon the Strasser family at once left the city.

Strasser's ill-fated attempt as director was followed by another lull which lasted until the dramatic talent of the St. Louis Sängerbund again became active. From February till May, 1852, the Sängerbund gave biweekly performances in the old Washington Hall. From December, 1852, till the spring of 1853 it performed occasionally in the Varieties Theatre, in the People's Theatre and in the Bates Theatre.

In 1850 there was called to editorial leadership of the Anzeiger des Westens a man who more than any other one man

of his day was instrumental in the cultural and educational uplift of the German element of St. Louis. "Bildung ist Macht" was his watchword. He was instrumental in organizing the FreieMänner-Verein which established German schools for boys, and evening and Sunday classes for grown people. In connection with Franz Schmidt he established a school for girls. He lectured extensively on a variety of topics and even taught, for a time, in the girls' school he had helped to establish. Thru the feuilleton columns of the Anzeiger, of which he became sole proprietor in May, 1851, and thru his aggressive and somewhat sensational policy made the most widely circulating German newspaper in the West, especially in the Sunday edition, the Westliche Blätter, and thru the publication in book form of a library of German belles lettres he disseminated much wholesome literature among his fellow-countrymen. This man, Dr. Heinrich Börnstein, had come to America with a varied and rich experience, not only as a journalist, but more especially as an actor and impressario and playwright. In the course of his long and busy life of four score and seven years his varied career launched him into diverse fields. of activity, but the lure of the stage constantly attracted him in one capacity or the other. His old friend and journalistic colleague, Emil Klauprecht, writing his necrolog from Vienna, says of him, "Wer Börnstein's Charakter, seine Naturanlagen, geistige Eigenschaften und Temperament mit einem Wort bezeichnen soll, wird ihn ein Theaterkind in der vollsten Bedeutung des

6

Börnstein, whose father, prior to his marriage, had been a successful actor, was born in Hamburg, November 4, 1805. At the age of ten he was taken to Lemberg, in Austrian Poland. After having studied for a year at the University of Lemberg he, in 1821, entered the Austrian army, in which he served for five years. In 1826 he studied medicine in Vienna, and at the same time did editorial work for Carl Eduard Reinold. From 1826-1827 he worked for Bäuerle on the "Theaterzeitung." From 1827-1828 he was secretary of the combined Josephstadt Theater and the Theater an der Wien, under Carl. For several years following he served as stage manager in several of the leading cities of Germany and Italy. In 1841, with his wife, whom he married in 1829, he performed with success in star engagements in the leading German cities. The following year he went to Paris, where he became manager first of the German Opera, later of the Italian Opera. During the revolutionary days of 1848 he was engaged in journalistic and literary pursuits in Paris. With the return of Bonaparte to power as dictator, Börnstein, the enthusiastic advocate of political freedom, early in 1849 emigrated to America. After a short stay in Highlands, Illinois, where he did efficient service as physician during an epidemic of cholera, he accepted the editorship of the Anzeiger des Westens, March 8, 1850.

Wortes nennen. Bis zum Ende ist er ein solches geblieben, es lag in seinem Blute, seiner Erziehung und den Umgebungen seiner Jugend." Börnstein believed in the stage as a great cultural and educational and moral force. He writes in his Memoiren, "Die beste Schule der Erwachsenen, die wahre Bildung für das Volk, bietet immer die Schaubühne und Wahrheiten, die in Büchern nur zur Kenntniss von Wenigen gelangen, dringen von dem Podium des Theaters aus, schnell und tief in die Massen und fassen feste Wurzeln. Die beste Schule des Volkes ist und bleibt eine gute Bühne und die Aufführung von Lessings 'Nathan der Weise,' von Schillers 'Don Carlos,' von Goethes 'Faust' und 'Egmont' verbreitet mehr genialle Ideen und hebt und veredelt die Massen mehr als alle Bücher- und Katheder-Weisheit und alle Kanzelberedsamkeit." 8 He had early entertained the desire of giving to St. Louis a German stage that should take rank with the best in Germany, but wisely realized the necessity of making a small beginning and gradually working up to the desired goal. "Es war mein heissester Wunsch, in St. Louis ein deutsches Theater zu gründen, aber die . . . Schwierigkeiten, besonders der Mangel an guten deutschen Schauspielern stellten meinen Wünschen unübersteigliche Hindernisse entgegen;-ja es mussten noch viele Jahre vergehen, ehe ich an die Realisirung eines wirklichen stabilen deutschen Theaters denken konnte. Das Höchste, das im damaligen Augenblicke erreichbar war, waren demnach Dilettanten-Vorstellungen; aber bessere, sorgfältiger vorbereitete und künstlerischer geleitete Dilettanten-Vorstellungen, als man bisher zu sehen gewohnt gewesen war." "

To the end he had in view Börnstein in 1853 organized the Philodramatische Gesellschaft. He found for his purpose among his friends and acquaintances a number who showed promise, with proper training, of developing into good actors, who enthusiastically embraced his cause and volunteered their services. What they lacked in innate histrionic ability had to be made up by diligence and enthusiasm. At first Börnstein himself and his

talented wife had to bear the burden of work in the new organization. Börnstein acted as stage manager and acted in the rôles of bon vivant and comic character. Under stress of necessity it even became necessary for him in several instances to depart from his accustomed line to play the part of fool or jeune premier. Mme. Börnstein-Marie Stelzer, in her youth a danseuse trained. under the eye of the French ballet master, Beauval-performed with much success as soubrette of the organization. The first season offered difficulties to the stage manager. To adequately fill the rôle of leading lady (Salon-Liebhaberin) presented a problem. Volunteers were not lacking. But none in the environment of the unsophisticated new world had had opportunity to acquire the necessary acquaintance with the life which they were supposed to interpret. The male contingent of the organization were willing workers, but the busy life of a growing Western metropolis did not always afford the necessary leisure for memorizing the parts assigned them with the precision demanded by an exacting stage manager. But the really capable dilettantes under the professional guidance of Börnstein and his wife gained in attainment from performance to performance. The second season brought the acquisition of a very valuable asset in a young Austrian physician, Rudolf Gussmann, who had emigrated to America on account of political banishment from his native country. Gussmann possessed marked histrionic talent and literary ability. He for this season assumed the rôle of leading gentleman (Salon-Liebhaber) which Börnstein had found difficult to fill to his satisfaction. The second season also profited by the acquisition of two professional actors who had become stranded in St. Louis, Carl Stein, a character actor of repute, and his talented wife, who later became directress of the German Theatre in San Francisco.10

10 Those recorded as taking part in the performances of the Philodramatische Gesellschaft in addition to those mentioned above were: Messrs. Albert, Aschenbach, Assmann, A. S. Börnstein, Büchel, Gayer, Gensis, Ferdinand Klünder, Christian Kribben, Leonhard, Lischer, Müller, Nebel, Preytner, Schmidt, Hermann Schröder, Stierlin, Thomas, Warnecke, Wild; Mmes. Charton, Frimmel, Koser, Kröger, Müller, Novaak, Schiller, Schlesiger, Schröder; child parts-Carl Börnstein, Kl. Fuchs, Georg Hoffmann, Kl. Meckel.

The efforts of the Philodramatische Gesellschaft met with an enthusiastic and appreciative response on the part of the German public from the start. On the opening evening of the first season two plays from the pen of Börnstein were presented in the Varieties-Theatre, located on Market Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets, one of the largest theatres in the city, before an audience which crowded the house. The first of these plays, a five-act Lustspiel, Betrogene Betrüger, was later performed with distinct success more than twenty times in Vienna and became a favorite in the repertory of many stages in Germany; the second, a "Lebensbild aus dem Deutsch-Amerikanertum" entitled Deutsche Einwanderung und deutsche Gesellschaft, became part of the repertory of practically every German dilettante stage in the United States at that time. This initial success augured well for the future of the organization. It played weekly for four winter seasons with growing artistic success. Houses were reported good, even in bad weather. During the winter of 18541855 the organization suffered competition at the hands of a company managed by Benrodt, which the latter recruited largely from the ranks of a company to which he had belonged, which had been brought to St. Louis from Louisville in the summer of 1854 by Julius Bötzow for a series of performances beginning July 3. The keen rivalry that existed made the Philodramatische Gesellschaft more determined to put forth their efforts. In consequence a professional stage attempting to play three times per week, entailing the expenses of salaried players, after a short-lived season beginning November 20, had to succumb by the middle of February to the superior performances of their competitors, whose popularity made it possible for them to utilize the larger Bates Theatre after Benrodt had got possession of the Varieties. It spelled failure for Benrodt to attempt to stage plays beyond the possibilities of his limited ensemble. What he lacked in quality he attempted to make up by use of the sensational. His advertisements for Goethe's Faust, for example, contained the comment, "Zum Schlusse des Stückes Fausts Höllenfahrt! Erster Tableau mit Brillant Feuerwerk!" The Anzeiger des Westens, Börnstein's paper, echoes the rivalry between the two stages. In