Educational film magazine; (19-)

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WILL THE CINEMA KEEP US OUT OF WAR? EDGUARD BELIN'S device for sending photographs by wire is merely one more of the inevitable steps toward the consolidation of the peoples of the earth into one great international fraternity. Not a frater- nity, so far, with common customs and beliefs—in these respects we continue hopelessly dissimilar—but one of com- mon knowledge concerning contemporary events. When the moving picture follows the single photograph over the cables, as M. Belin assures us it will, and the moving pic- ture theater takes the place of o'.her amusements in every land, as it appears to be bent on doing, we shall all find out the superficial aspects of our neighbors and understand them the better for having seen them. Culturally it is prob- ably an evil thing to spread a sort of universal canned knowledge which is so much cheaper than the home-made product that nobody can afford to be without it. It is sad to envision the cinema supplanting bull fighting in Spain, native drama in China, the art theater in Russia, the opera in Germany, the fakir in India. It is hard to look on calmly while it swallows the thing we used to call drama in New York. But we may as well concede its destiny. It will cut into all indigenous activities and give all na- tions, in place of them, a glimpse of what is going on half the world away. In the day, and it seems all too imminent, when scenes of a flood in China will be flashed-before us on Broadway within twenty-four hours of its happening, and a revolu- tion in Mexico will be witnessed in detail by the citizens of Hong Kong, Chicago, and South Africa before it has got fairly started, it will be difficult to amuse even the Pata- gonians with purely local affairs. At first the startled deni- zens of the provinces and the backwoods (and they are neither negligible nor few in number) will be appalled and bewildered by the strangeness of the earth and its extraor- dinary inhabitants. But they will be interested and will learn slowly, though more rapidly than would be possible by any other method, the large facts of ethnology and geography, of comparative religion and related humanity. We are free to blame the moving picture all we like for its degradation of the arts, for the part it has taken there is unmistakable, but what it may do to introduce alien races that have never met and never wanted to meet except in battle, and what it may do to abolish the childish mis- conceptions that lie at the roots of wars, we are in no posi- tion to judge. There would be poetic irony in it with a vengeance if the moving picture, reviled and despised of men, should turn the tables by quietly making further wars inconceiv- able and thus preventing them.— New York Globe. SCHOOL PROGRAMS IN STUTTGART, ARK. 'pHE Stuttgart, Arkansas, I'ublic Schools operating under a -•■ niodifleil Work-vStiuly-l'lay scliool program, have during the past two ypars l)een providing rcgidnr film programs for one day each week in connection with tlicir auditorium work. A varied program is presented with a llinlon Holmes Travelog, a Hray I'ietograph and a Ford Weeklj- one week, and Patlic News, I'ath'e Review an<l a I<oliertsiin-C^>le .Scenic tlie next week. S|)e<'ial feature programs are introduced frotii time to time exhihifing such pr(Mluctions as "ltcl>ecca of Sunny Brook Karm," 'The Copperhead," "Huckleherrv Finn," 'The Miracle Man," "Dr. Jckyl an<l .Mr. Hyde," 'Treasure Island," "At the Bottom of the World." These feature programs are presented to the children free of charge during the regular day school, hut the programs are shown at night when admissions are charged to the patrons. MORE MOVIES FOR NEW YORK SCHOOLS THE New York Visual Instruction Association is en- larging its field of usefulness. Plans for using ad- ditional motion picture films to supplement the teacher's work in the classroom have been completed. Already the films now in use in history and geography are proving their value. In order to determine which addi- tional subjects are directly available in the classroom, sub-committees have been appointed to investigate and re- port on various courses. The sub-committees include Eng- lish, history, civics, domestic science, physical education and science. The duties of the Curriculum Committee are to classify the existing films on the various topics, deter- mine by actual inspection which are suitable and which must be re-edited for classroom instruction, and recom- mend the production of new films wherever needed to make the course complete. Dr. Rowland Rogers, chairman of the committee, speak- ing of its work said: "Motion pictures used in the classroom are genuine instruction pictures and not mere entertainment fdins. They are proving a great aid by taking some of the drudgery out of teaching. They enable the teacher to get across his good ideas effectively. As the most efficient visual aid they supplement the teacher's work. The teacher enjoys using this new tool because pictures gain and liold the attention and interest of the pupil, arouse his desire for more knowledge, and make an impression wliich is vivid, uniform, and lasting. Members of tlie committee believe that because of the appeal through tlic eye, the motion picture is the most power- ful approach to the mind. The 'seeing eye* looking at the picture receives a clear and standardized impression, while the 'reading eye' reports to a mind which must create or visualize its own pictures. "Tests on pupils, nuule to learn the value of motion pictures compared witli oral or printed methods, conclusively prove that the film as an aid to tlie teacher ranks very high. THE MOVIE AS A RECORD OF HISTORY TJECENTLY a film company, specializing in pictures of events, observed its tenth anniversary with a re- vival of old pictures. Though only a few years have passed since the events thus illustrated occurred, the pic- tures already had the flavor of history and the pathos of glorious memories. But this .movie did more than merely record history. It made history live. Before the rapt gaze of the spectators there appeared on the screen the living image of the dead Roosevelt. Projectd on a beam of light, he lived again, gesturing with shoulder blows; hurtling sharp words from snapping jaws; smiling the toothful smile. There appeared, also, the unbroken Wilson of two years ago; the strong, youthful Wilson landing at Brest, France, to fight for the peace that is not yet won. Thus does the movie, still in its youth, already demon- strate its inspiring function as a teacher of history. Its value as such increases with the years. It is handing down . to posterity an accurate, living presentment of our cus- 1 toms and manners, as well as of the big and little figures of our time, of whom the movie is giving a new sort of immortality. A realistic George Washington, preserved in movies, would mean more to us than a marble statue; and a Lin- coln filmized, walking, smiling, sitting and otherwise be- having like folks, would have been saved for posterity as the very human being he was and liked to be, instead of the sculptured demigod into which time is transforming him. Lawrence, Mass., Tribune. 14