International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

78 THE CINEMA IN TEACHING continue. Some teachers still have doubts as to the utility of the film in teaching, while on the other hand others are of the opinion that by this means we shall at last be able to solve all the complicated didactic questions that have been so much discussed. There is complete disagreement on this question, for instance, in the philosophic world, and side by side with enthusiastic supporters of the cinema as an excellent means of teaching in philosophy, we find others who strongly deny this possibility, and even go so far as to maintain by a series of subtle arguments, that the adoption of the film is more harmful than useful, since it stultifies the teacher's didactic aptitude and distracts the pupil. Each of these points of view contains an exaggeration, but as a matter of fact, while it is not easy to understand what real aid the film can be in the teaching of philosophy, the assistance that it can give in the didactic explanation of several other branches of knowledge is obvious. Horace's dictum " est inter Tanain quiddam socerumque Viseli. . . ' might be used in this case also. The use of the film as a visual aid in teaching is rather limited in Italy, but it is very widely used abroad, with different aims and procedures, in schools of all degrees, so that we have in hand the results of a long and widespread experience which enables us to draw fairly sure conclusions on the importance and efficacy of the didactic film. Wherever the didactic cinema has been used with circumspection, it has given excellent results and has shown itself to be one of the most suitable means for aiding the teacher in his work. This holds good for almost all subjects and schools, from the kindergarten, where it stirs the children's imagination, to the university, where it reproduces before the students the most important natural phenomena and the most complicated and difficult experiments. The cinema brings movement and truth into the school ; it brings life, broadens the narrow horizons of our minds, reveals the different aspects of the universe, and brings near to us the most distant beings and things. It not only serves to fill our minds with useful knowledge, but it also raises them to the ideal. It is a long time since demonstrations on the blackboard began to be a valuable aid to teachers ; and the screen may be considered as an improvement and development of the blackboard. Facts live and palpitate on it, and take a tangible form that cannot be forgotten. Moving pictures show events and phenomena in their successive phases, and are therefore immeasurably superior to fixed projections, wall pictures and so on, which show only one aspect of the phenomenon, one moment of its development. Further, what is seen always leaves a deeper impression than what is narrated, and we may say with Horace, in his " Poetic Art " Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, quam quae sunt oculis submissa fidelibus et quae Ipse sibi tradit spectator. . . The question becomes more serious, and opinions are in greater disagreement when we try to settle what form the didactic film should take and how far it should go, when, in other words, we discuss the relation that should exist between teacher and film. The Didactic Film, The didactic cinema Scholastic Grades js above all illustrative, and the Teacher'. and should serye as a demonstration of what the teacher is explaining ; or it should reproduce phenomena which the teacher is describing. Films must vary in content and form of execution according to the grade of the school for which they are intended. It is, I consider, a fundamental error to suppose that a teaching film can be suitable for schools of different grades, and this is one of the reasons, and perhaps not the least, why the didactic film has not yet arrived at that universal use which it ought to enjoy. The film may to some extent be considered like a book in which the descriptive part is reduced to a minimum, and the illustrative part developed to the highest degree. Since