International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

26 THE CINEMA IN TEACHING ledge that the child's simplicity of heart and mind will make him desire and seek for only the most beautiful things. There is no visual aid therefore that can be so efficacious in this field as the sound film. Musical education. — Another task of the sound film, not less important than the first, concerns the psychological education of the children entrusted to the charge of the teachers who are called upon to carry out their delicate mission of looking after the psychical-mental formation of the young people's character. Music can have a large share in the spiritual education of the individual. It moves and exalts him, refines his spirit, teaches him to know and understand what is beautiful, and educates his artistic sense. With eyes fixed on the luminous screen, his attention entirely held by the episode unrolling before his gaze, the spectator is ready to receive, through the medium of the music, the purest and most beautiful emotions. He forgets the place where he is, and follows with trepidation, with joy and with sorrow the incidents in the action that fascinate him. The music places him under a spell and delights him, transporting him into an unreal and marvellous world which seems to be a world suited to himself, so attractive does he find it. The child reflects, studies, analyses himself and his own feelings without being aware of it. He gives a proof of this when he demands that the leading motives of the film shall be perfectly suited to the scenes which follow one another, without which the piece would lose all its value and real fascination. Music can educate and have a beneficent influence especially on weak individuals who are attracted to sensations that disturb and upset them. Music can put the child that has been led astray in spite of himself back on the right path. By working on his emotions, it can become a valuable help for arousing in him the instincts of normality. One should not forget either the bad effects which certain music is capable of having on some types of children These can be so powerful even as to lead them to commit insane acts on themselves or others. We must use with discretion and in limited doses those musical pieces which can be considered capable of exercising a violent influence on the imagination, and indeed we should use all educative music carefully. To insist on evoking strong emotions may turn out to be an experiment that will give results exactly opposite to those desired. Censorship, then we must have, and a regular course of music. The profound psychological study involved here must be the work of experts. Possibilities of the Sound and Talking Film. — Many people have mistakenly thought or imagined that the talking film would one day or another take the place of the teacher. This was a fundamental error of appreciation. It is quite impossible for a machine to substitute the human element in educating and forming the character of human beings. The very idea is preposterous. The cinema is and will remain an excellent and continually improving didactic aid, which is closely connected with and reflects life admirably. Its development will naturally follow the progress of civilization, and the school will reap the advantages. We must remember, however that the cinema is and will always be — and we must insist on this as a principle — a most precious supplementary aid and nothing more. Indeed, we may say that the teacher will have to deal with — through the intervention of the cinema — new subject matter for study and research, which will in turn assist the carrying out of the scholastic curriculum, that is it will facilitate the teacher's work, will simplify it, and will inspire him to fresh researches and new analyses with which to obtain better and better results with the more backward and obstinate pupils. Once we have gained the scholar's attention, we have gone a long way towards securing the benefit of the lesson for him. This capacity to fix the attention is one the chief merits of the sound and talking film. It is also more real than the silent film, has more of the sense of life, is fuller and more suitable to a child's mind. The words and sounds make the action more harmonious ; the music enables the ideas to penetrate into the spirit of the child, and to permit of a clearer and more interested perception of the scenes cast on the screen. Requisites of Sound and Talking Films for Teaching. — When the talking film goes beyond its definite task °f simple indication that is, when it is a hundred per cent talking film, it is absolutely antididactic and often unartistic. We can ask in which particular fields of learning can the talking film be considered useful and efficacious. To what extent ? For which special subjects ? The answer is for practically al! subjects and especially for the teaching of languages, religion, geography, history, the history of art, etc. Care must be taken not to overdo the use of the