 Great scenes from Great Plays with your host Walter Hamden and starring tonight Miss Jane Cowell in The Corn Is Green. On behalf of the Episcopal families in your own community and the Episcopal Actors Guild welcome to another half hour of dramatic inspiration transcribed from Great Plays of our American theater. I present your host the distinguished actor manager Mr. Walter Hamden. Thank you and good evening. I'm particularly fond of the story we're going to recreate tonight because it's one that proves the miracle of courage and the satisfaction of achievement. It's The Corn Is Green by Emlyn Williams and here to portray the remarkable and lovable character of Miss Moffat I'm happy to have you meet the distinguished artist Miss Jane Cowell. Thank you Walter and good evening friends. The role of Miss Moffat in The Corn Is Green has always held a soft spot in my heart. Every woman will sympathize with her weakness. Every man will admire her strength and I like to think that her counterpart exists in many a city, town and hamlet perhaps just around the corner from you. Yes Jane and for that reason I'm sure we'll all have something pleasant to share. So let us raise the curtain now on The Corn Is Green starring Jane Cowell as Miss Moffat with Richard Wehring as Morgan Evans. Our scene the small coal mining village of Glensano nestled in the remote rolling hills of Wales. Its people are happy though poor but they are cut off from learning by the iron hand of poverty that governs their existence. Into this bleak setting comes a courageous woman a teacher named Miss Moffat. Having already enlisted the aid of a local woman Miss Moffat Moffat has rolled up her sleeves. Now tell me Miss Ronbury you've lived here all your life how many families are there around here? Families? Well there's the Squire of course and Miss. No no I mean the ordinary people the villagers. There are about 20 families in the village Miss Moffat and 15 in the farms around. Many children? What age? Well up to 16 or 17. Around here there are only children till they're 12. Then they're sent away over the hills to the mine and in one week they are all men. I see. How many can read or write? Next to none. Why do you ask that? Do you see those books I brought with me? Yes. Hundreds of them something wonderful to read in every single one. If the Squire can get permission from Sir Herbert Beese the owner of that barn next door I'm going to start a school immediately. A school? Yes a school and you Miss Ronbury are going to help me. Sir Herbert regrets he cannot give a definite decision until the 17th. Oh another weak wasted. This is infuriated. Does it mean he may not let you have it? Oh he must let me have it. It would ruin everything. Maybe we could find another empty building somewhere. No no I felt so right here from the start. I can't leave now. I'm a Christian woman but I could slap Sir Herbert's face until my arm dropped off. Miss Moffat excuse me please. Yes. Oh oh Evans what is it? What's that you've got there? It's the Bell Miss for the school. Oh oh yes well put it up boy. Yes Miss. Right away Miss. Good boy that Morgan Evans. Oh they're all good but they need a chance to become better. Miss Moffat do you really think I'll go. Thanks. Good evening may I come in? I'm rather irritable this evening Squire so unless there's a reason for your visit. Oh but there is a very important message word of mouth from Sir Herbert. Sir Herbert oh do be quick. He has definitely decided that he has no use for the bar. Oh thank heaven. But he does not see it as a school and under no circumstances will he let it be used as such. Why but he implied in his first letter that he'd be willing to sell. Then some big wave must have made him change his mind eh. You? Madam I've been eyeing your activities very closely from afar and I'm not going to have any of this hanky-panky in my village. Your village? My village. Now I'm no braggart madame I'd have you know that everything you can see from that window and you haven't got a bad view I own and so my dear madame. Stop calling me your dear madame I'm not married I'm not French and you haven't the slightest affection for me. All my life I've done my level best for the villagers they call me Squire. A term of affection you know jolly touching. Yes jolly. I'm doing what's best for them that's all. You're putting them up to read English and pot hooks and giving them ideas. What do you want to do? Turn them into gentlemen? Well I'll be going. Anything I can do to make you stay here happy or one? Just a minute Squire. Miss Moffitt. Yes. So you're the Squire bountiful are you? Well I should just like to point out that there is a considerable amount of dirt ignorance misery and discontent in this world and a good deal of it is due to people like you. I beg your pardon madame. Miss Moffitt please. Because you're a conceited good-for-nothing adel-pated nincompoop. Madame I've heard enough good day. So have I good day. Miss Moffitt I've sent the letters to the tradespeople and the mine. Did you tell them we were giving up the school? Yes. Oh well we'd better start putting some order into this chaos. What are those filthy exercise books doing among my papers? The boys who came for the first class remember you picked them up because they could write English. Oh yes I assigned them an essay on how I would spend my holiday. I must have been mad. Just listen to this. If I has ever a holiday I has breakfast and talks then dinner and a rest tea then nothing then supper then I talk and I go to sleep. Oh poor boy. Maybe you'd best not read the others Miss Moffitt. Oh but I'd like to you run along. All right I'll be in the garden should you need me. The mine is dark if a light come in the mine the rivers in the mine will run fast with the voice of many women. I put up the bell miss. The walls will fall in what was that? I put up the bell. Oh oh very well Evans but when I walk through the shaft in the dark I can touch with my hands the leaves on the trees and underneath where the corn is green there is a wind in the shaft not carbon monoxide they talk about it smells like the sea only like as if the sea had fresh flowers lying about and that is my holiday. You know it you wrote this. Yes miss. Oh come here sit down where where do you live? Under the ground miss. No I'm in your home. Plain and mowing miss Moffitt four miles from here. Do you live with your parents? No by my own self. My mother is dead and my father and my four big brothers was in the big shaft accident when I was ten. Killed? Oh yes everybody was. Who taught you to read and write? Tot. Tot the verb to teach. I did. Why? I don't know. Can I go now please? Do you want to learn anymore? No thank you. Why not? The other men would have a good laugh. Oh I see. Have you ever written anything before this exercise? No. What is the matter with it? Nothing. It shows exceptional talent for a boy in your circumstances. It is news to me. And how does the news make you feel? Makes me that I I want to get more clever still. I want to know what is behind all of them books. Can you come tomorrow? Not before seven miss I am working on the sixth till four shift. Six miles to walk. Oh yes yes well of course seven then. Now that'll be all now. You may go. Good night miss Moffitt. Miss Runbury. Miss Runbury come quickly. Oh what a fool I've been. What a fool. Yes miss Moffitt. What is it? Have you sent those letters yet? Well I left them to be. You know rush down and get them back quickly before they're posted. What miss Moffitt. We're going on with the school. In a small way at first in this room and I'm going to get those youngsters out of that mine if I have to go down and fetch them myself. And so the little home became a schoolhouse. Charts and maps hung in place of pictures. Desks took the place of furniture. Dishes and cups and sauces on the shelves found themselves homeless while volume upon volume of learning moved in. And every day for two years from all directions came children and adults alike eagerly satisfying their hunger for knowledge. But Morgan Evans who unwittingly was responsible for the whole thing was by far the most prominent and advanced among the students. Capital of Turkey. Constantinople. Germany. Berlin. England. London. Oh excellent Evans. Recess now. Be back in an hour. All right Evans. Baltair. Born when? 1694. Good. His best works. Philosophy of history. Eastern romances. Study of nature. Your reading. Burks. Cause of the discontents. Style. His style appears to me as if there was too much of it. A matter of fact that's quite accurate. Quite accurate. Yes. I'm back. Did you get everything? Yes. New shirt for Mr. Owen. Blows for Mrs. Robert shoes for old Tom. Won't he be surprised. And the suit for Morgan Evans. You got the suit. Oh I'm so happy. You might not be when I tell you the price price. I'm hatching plans. Wonderful plans. Don't ask me what. I can't tell you yet. Now let me see Morgan's new suit. How's the prize pupil doing. Oh so well that it frightens me. He'll be starting Greek this month. I didn't know you knew Greek. No I don't. I've just got to keep one day ahead of him and trust a luck. Oh let me see that suit. It's you Morgan. Miss Moffat's having something to eat. I believe she has a surprise for you. And I have been having something to drink. So I have a surprise for her. Me and the squire has been having a nice talk. He set me straight he did. Morgan I've never seen you like this before. You'll break Miss Moffat's heart. Please go before she comes and sees you. Before she says come back to your little cage. And if you comb hair and wash hands and get your grammar right we might give you a nice bit of sewing to do. Oh Evans you're back. Good. Did you work out the Voltaire translation. I shall not need Voltaire in the coal mine. Morgan how could you. Oh Miss Moffat. I don't understand. What is it Evans. I am going back to the coal mine. The squire says that's where I belong. And right he is. The squire. I do not want to learn Greek. Not a pronounce any long English words. Not to keep my hands clean. But Evans what's happened to you. Why not. Because. Because I was born in a Welsh hayfield when my mother was helping with the harvest. And I always lived in a house with with no stairs only a ladder and no water. And until my brothers was killed I never sleep except three in a bed. I know that is terrible grammar. But it is true. But I had no idea you felt like this. The last two years I have not had no proper talk with English chaps in the mine because I was so busy keeping this old gram in its place. Try and to better myself. Try and to better myself the day in the night. Evans write me an essay. Evans what is a subjunctive. Stop it Evans. Oh Evans I never I never meant you to know this. I've spent money on you. I don't mind that money ought to be spent. But time is different. Two years is valuable currency. I've spent the past two years on you. Sometimes in the middle of the night when I've been desperately tired I've lain awake making plans plans for you. I don't need your plans. I can plan for myself now. Evans I can't stay here forever. There was one big thing I wanted to do before I left and it was all wrapped up in you. I wanted to. Well if I say anymore I shall start to cry and I haven't cried since I was younger than you are. And I'd never forgive you for that. Please leave now Evans. Please. Miss Ronbury I have a score to settle with the Squire and it might as well be done right away. But Miss Muffet. The Squire doesn't know it yet but he's about to join our team. I'll thank you to get word to him that I wish to see him right away. Here or Miss Muffet you can't be serious. Oh yes I can. Two weeks ago I entered Morgan Evans for a scholarship to Oxford University. Oxford? His chances are excellent but for certain very important reasons I can't go ahead without the help of the Squire. But surely the Squire isn't going to I mean after what he's just done. It takes a high but everything I've worked for is in the balance. I've got to beat the Squire at his own game. You were sent word you wish to see me. I have not a great deal of time to spare by fear. Oh of course not Squire. I was just saying to Miss Ronbury he's so busy he'll never be able to fit it in. I'm told you made a most amazing speech at the fair this afternoon. Oh did they tell you about it? Oh I had so hope to be there. Everybody's talking about it. Really? I thought may I sit down. Please do. I thought Griffith the butcher was going to laugh his napper off. Do you know Squire that makes me rather proud? Oh why so? Well he never would have understood a word if he hadn't learned English at my school. I never thought of it like that. Squire you see before you a tired woman. We live and learn and I've learned how right you were that night when I first came here. But I've heard you were a spiffing success. Oh no. You see in one's womanly enthusiasm one forgets that the quality is vital to success in this sort of venture are completely lacking in a woman intelligence courage and authority the quality is in short of a man. Well the fear of you to admit it I must say but you must be too hard on yourself. Oh it's kind of you to say that. After all you meant well. Yes but one gets into such muddles and like a true woman I have to call for help to a man. To you Squire. To me. Now what is it that you want dear lady. Well it's about Morgan Evans one of your minors. Oh he's clever oh very clever quite out of the ordinary he was born with very exceptional gifts. Oh you don't tell me. He must be given every chance this tenant of yours Squire has it in him to bring great credit to you. Yes yes he is a tenant of mine isn't he. Imagine if you could say that you had known well let's say Lord Tennyson as a boy on your estate poor Evans if only he'd been born at the beginning of the 18th century he would have had a patron. How's that. Think of the pride that would surge in your bosom if you could give encouragement to a poor and humble writer. Do you mean Evans might be a literary bloke. Yes he might well turn into a literary bloke. Well if the boy is really clever it does seem a pity not to do something about it doesn't it. Yes but we can do something Squire there's a scholarship going to Oxford. Oxford eh. I wrote to your brother at Maudlin they've agreed to make a special case of this boy on one condition that you will vouch for him. Will you. Well hang it or he'll never get it you know. Oh but he must have the chance to try. I suppose you're right still this prospect of his. Squire think of Tennyson. Tennyson oh yes yes well very well I'll drop a line to say Henry immediately well I must run along now. Of course I've been very selfish to keep you so long thank you very much Squire. So it was that Miss Moffat in one last desperate effort brought the Squire around her side of the fence. So much so that on that important day when everyone was nervously waiting Evans return from his examination for the scholarship the good Squire was the most nervous of all indeed he paced the floor like an expectant father. For goodness sake Squire sit down anybody to think you were walking a marathon. My nerves won't stand much more of this waiting Miss Moffat. Could I get you something to drink. Oh I doubt if I'd be able to swallow it Miss Rondred I say Miss Moffat do you think Evans will make it. If he checks himself and doesn't start telling them what they ought to think of Shakespeare he stands a good chance. But now just suppose he loses out. Oh if he has lost we must proceed as if nothing had happened but he can't lose he mustn't. Oh by the way I bought the farm from Sir Herbert. Really whatever for. Well I've been thinking things over. Education is a mighty important thing and I figure if we can move all this next door where there's more room. Oh Squire I don't know what to say. Miss Moffat Squire he's coming up the walk he's here. Open the door open the door for him. Hello everybody I'm back. Oh my boy my boy welcome welcome home. Thank you Squire Miss Moffat Miss Runbury. Hello Morgan Evans well. I don't know the result they were to notify you haven't you heard. Not yet but do you think. It was not an easy examination they jumped down hard just as you said they would. I was terrible terribly nervous my my collarsthat flew off and I had to hold on to my collar with one hand and the other candidates how did they strike you. A two from Eaton and one from Harrow and one of them very rich. I had never thought a scholarship man might be rich but as I was leaving the the examiners appeared to be sorry for me in some way. My boy you don't think you failed. Failed. Oh don't speak about it. We must you face the possibility the day you left for Oxford. I know but I have been to Oxford and come back since then. I've come back from the world since the day I was born. I have been a prisoner behind a stone wall and now somebody has given me a leg up to have a look at the other side. They cannot drag me back again they cannot they must give me a push and send me over. I've never heard you talk so much since I've known you. That's just it I can talk now the three days I have been there I have been talking my head off. The words came pouring out of me. All the words that I had learned and written down and never spoken. All the thoughts that you had given to me were being stored away aching for the chance to get out in the open and I saw this room this little school house in the hills and you and me Miss Moffat sitting here studying and all those books and everything I'd ever learned from those books and from you was was lighted up like a like a magic lantern. Everything had a meaning because I was in a new world. My world. Mine because you gave it to me. I've finished. I don't want you to stop. I had not been drinking. You see I can talk to you too now. I know and I'm glad. Oh Miss Runbury would you. Allow me my dear Miss Moffat. It's here the telegram from Oxford. Oh dear lord please please. Miss Moffat I am nervous. Oh no steady win or lose we must both be steady. We went for heaven's sake lady open the thing I can't bear this suspense. Oh thank God you won Morgan you've won you've won. Congratulations my boy come on Miss Runbury we must round up the villagers. Yes Squire. Oh Morgan I'm so happy. I'm coming Squire I'm coming. Well you've been given the push over the wall that you asked for. Yes thanks to you. I suppose now there's no harm in telling you something. Yes. I don't think you realize quite what your future can become if you give it the chance. You have it within your power to become a great man of our country. My work is about over yours is just beginning. Remember you said if a light come in the mine. Yes. I want you to make that light come in the mine Morgan Evans and someday free those children as I've tried to free you. I want you to be a symbol a man for a future nation to be proud of. Miss Moffat I do not know what to say. Well then don't say it. I have been so much time in this room. Yes and the lessons are over. I shall always remember. I'm glad and I hope with all my heart that someday somehow you'll know what I felt at this moment and how much better my life has been because of you. All the hand and ladies and gentlemen I'll be back in a moment to tell you about next week's program. First however a message of importance to you in tonight's scenes from Emily and Williams play the corn is green. There is an inspiring lesson that is especially appropriate right now. That lesson is in the development of the young Welsh coal miner Morgan Evans by Miss Moffat. It's a fine example of how much good teachers mean to the youth of any community. Today the importance of good teachers and of proper education cannot be over emphasized. Our future is a nation and through us the future of the world will depend to a large extent on the educational job that's done for our youth from the days ahead. But the importance of good and wise teachers doesn't stop with our school days. Throughout all of our lives we need the guidance of good teachers to help us with our spiritual problems to help us find the strength and security that can come into our hearts only when we live and think according to the teaching of Christ. I certainly one of the best ways to get the help of wise and experienced spiritual teaching is to seek it through the clergyman of your church. If you're a member of some church you already know from your own experience that this is true. If you're not a member of any church we urge you to discover just how much richer your life can be when you receive the kind of education and guidance that only the church can give. Perhaps you'll be able to find the help you need in the Episcopal church. You are always welcome at your nearest Episcopal church and its clergyman is always ready and eager to give you whatever help you may require. To help you know something about the Episcopal church what it is what it stands for and how it offers you a faith with which to find security and happiness in these difficult times we are prepared an informative booklet called finding your way. It'll be sent to you promptly if you will simply write your name and address on a postcard and mail it to the station to which you are listening. I would like to thank Jane Carl and Richard Wehring for a very inspiring performance. Next week friends we shall have the pleasure of presenting one of the most beautiful love stories in literary history the barretts of Wimpole Street. Here to play the roles of the immortal lovers will be Mr. Basil Rathbone and Miss Beatrice Strait. I hope you will be with us. Now an invitation from the Episcopal church. Freedom of education is a priceless heritage an indispensable part of the American way of life but beyond the realm of academic education it is only natural that every parent should want his child to experience the enlightenment of living a Christian life. Sunday schools offer this opportunity to your children. Why not speak to your rector about church schools after services this Sunday. You'll be happy to familiarize you with a carefully pl-