Movie Makers (Jan-May 1928)

EDUCATIONAL and SCIENTIFIC Inaugurating A Department for News of Visual Education in Schools and Homes FILM COURSES FOR THE HOME— A NEW FORCE IN AMERICAN LIFE THE mighty role which educational and scientific films are destined to play in schools and homes is at last being widely recognized and Amateur Movie Makers, believing this movement is of vital interest to every amateur movie making family, offers as its contribution to its development this department which will be dedicated to reporting the latest news of visual education and to frequent presentation of important articles dealing with its significant phases. Frequent reports will be given of the activities of the agencies which are pioneering in this field, among which can be listed, among others'. Yale University Press, the Eastman Kodak Company, the DeVry Cor poration,Pathe Exchanges, Inc., Neighborhood Motion Picture Service, Inc., Fox Film Company, Bell & Howell Company, Y.M.C.A., Burton Holmes Lectures, General Electric Company, Bray Studios, Carpenter Goldman Laboratories, Edited Pictures Corpn., fifty State Universities, the United States Departments of Agriculture and Mines, and many others. IT is with the feeling that Amateur Movie Makers is participating in the launching of one of the great advances in educational procedure of modern times, that in this issue we have the honor and privilege of making the first announcement that educational film courses, prepared by leading educators, are now available for home study. In fact such courses, carefully planned, painstakingly prepared in the light of the best educational methods and with the assistance of skilled motion picture technicians, have been available for schools and colleges for so short a time that it represents a forceful tribute to the rapidity of cultural advance in the United States that such a treasure trove should so soon be available to American homes. The value of motion pictures in education, when properly applied, is now clearly understood, and this potential force is being harnessed effectively to other significant movements for the modernizing of educational methods. Something of the history of this movement, its vicissitudes, and its present bright promise is related in the article, "Pictures as Professors," in this department. Were this new force to be limited to the schoolroom alone, it would still be a topic of major interest. Now that it is within easy reach of the home and the family, its importance and its possibilities become unlimited. Specifically, the first step in this Illustrations by Louc\s & JvfoWing. THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON As Visualized by Educational Films Above: A Telescopic View. Below: An Artist's Conception. movement, is the announcement of the Neighborhood Motion Picture Service, Inc., of New York and Chicago, that the film courses, in use in some of the finest schools in the country, can now be secured on 16 mm. film for home use with the greatest ease and simplcity. Eight complete courses are ready for release. The first of these comprises eighteen lessons in Nature Study, each of four hundred feet in length. Subscribers to this course (others vary in length) will receive one reel a week for eighteen weeks, and the study films may be used for three days. A pamphlet to supplement each film in included in the service. Contemplation of the developments which this new departure envisages, suggests the fascinating possibilities of the home motion picture school as a great national institution, supplementing and enriching the regular school systems. Parents and children alike will find absorbing interest, increased knowledge, and genuine pleasure in this new power invested in the home projector. For example, every member of the family will be interested in some of the eighteen Nature Study lessons which include: The Sky, Our Earth, How Living Things Make a Home, Butterflies and Moths, Ants, Bees and Spiders, Seaside Friends and their Country Cousins, A Day at the River, Down at Our Pond, In Birdland, Pirates of the Sky, Pets, Furry Creatures, Friends to Man, Preparing a Garden, Growing Things and Fruit and Flowers. The printed matter will supplement the essential titles of the films and can either be read before or after viewing the films. The latter course has been found the most effective. The student then has a visual picture of the subject. A new force has indeed been loosed by this new plan. Its future can only be surmised. Today, however, we can rejoice that a start has been made. E i g b t y } i v e