The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

220 The Educational Screen various scenes just projected be shown again, side by side, with a gradually accel- erated rhythm. . . . The cinema has not yet accomplished this sort of thing, chiefly, I fancy, because it never has been asked to." Mr. Seldes' own synopsis of this "roman cinematographique" follows: It begins in Paris with the unfortunate Lamen- din, who is about to commit suicide. A friend gives him a card with the legend: "Before com- mitting suicide . . . don't fail to read the other side," and on the reverse is the advertisement of Professor Miguel Rufisque, director of the Institute of Biometric Psychotherapy, who guar- antees to give you, within seven days, a violent love of life. Lamendin goes to the consulting room and, after a fantastic examination, is given certain instructions which eventually land him in the library of Prof. Yves Trouhadec, a geog rapher. Trouhadec would be certain of election to the Geographic Institute if he hadn't, many years before, placed on a map of South America the wholly imaginary town of Donogoo-Tonka, in the gold-mining area. Lamendin now pro- poses to float a company, start an expedition, and insure the professor's election by actually creating the place. In the second reel Donogoo-Tonka is launched; in the third we have adventurers in all parts of the world preparing to rush the gold fields, whilt Lamendin tarries at home making fake moving pic- tures of the place. At the end of the reel the ad- venturers have penetrated into the heart of the South American desert and, too wearied to go for- ward, aware of the deception practiced upon them, encamp where they are. Derisively they call the place Donogoo-Tonka. Later, a second group of adventurers comes. They are disappointed in the look of the place. But they are interested to hear that gold is being found, and while Lamendin at last sets sail, the Donogoo-Tonka Central Bar and the London & Donogoo-Tonka's Splendid Hotel are going up; it is obviously the intention of the earlier ar- rivals to mulct the later. And then, of course, gold really is found in the river bed and the price of all provisions goes up fifty per cent. Regrettably, en voyage, Lamendin tills his pio- neers that Donogoo does not exist. On his arrival at Rio de Janeiro he receives a cable from the Professor, demanding immediate results; and as he turns in despair he reads the announce ment by Agence Meyer-Kohn, of the next cara- van to the gold fields of Donogoo-Tonka. He arrives; he takes possession; he founds an empire, in which the religion of Scientific Error is estab- lished. Trouhadec, still living, is deified: he becomes The Trouhadec, Father of his Country. The utility ef geography is one of the prescribed subjects for public lectures. "B EYOND THE MICROSCOPE" is the title of an article by flj Dushman in the Scientific American for June, and it is also the name of another notable film produced at the research laboratories of the General Electric Co. By the use of excellent animated dia- grams the modern scientific opinions re- garding the ultimate constitution of mat- ter are made strikingly clear. Since the motion picture cannot be re- produced on the printed page, the author presents a few stills and apologizes for their failure to give any adequate idea of the effectiveness of the film. The article is concerned chiefly with careful descrip- tion and explanation of the latest theories of the molecule, the atom, and the elec- tron, and the marvelous interrelations in-, volved. Some or the reasons on which science bases these theories are given. I The infinitesimal dimensions in ques- tion become comprehensible through vast enlargement by animated diagrams; and the incessant motion so vital to the con- ception could never have been so vividly conveyed before the motion picture came. Beyond the Microscope is a splendid bit of evidence as to what the "educational film" is going to be some day. a the SCRIBNER'S (for July) presents most interesting discussion of visualizing of natural history in our great museums under the title "Masterpieces of American Taxidermy," by William T. Hornaday, Director of the New York Zoological Park. Taxidermy has made amazing strides in the past forty years until American museums are far ahead of the rest of the world. Once it was merely a problem of "stuffing"; now there are taxidermists "who do not like being called anything less than 'sculptors'." The idea of scien-