The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

September, 192^ Visual Instruction Association of America 343 regretted that the work of the committee did not eventuate in a more definitely helpful report to those who are interested in the subject of visual education. No effort, apparently, was made to guide the educators of the country in the practical employment of motion pictures as an aid in educational processes. With the keen interest manifested in this subject, have not the teachers of the country a right to entertain a reasonable expectation that the N. E. A. will furnish some leadership of a definitely helpful and constructive character? Without such help, muhitudep of schools and teachers will introduce the use of motion pictures in ways, and under circumstances, that can only ultimately work harm. It is safe to say that vastly more than fifty per cent of the schools that now employ motion picture projection are doing so without any proper regard to the pedagogical technique; to the proper range of films to be shown; and to the right sort of equiqment for school use. The largest service that a committee of the N. E. A. having this subject under investigation could render to the schools of America, would be to line up this subject in its true proportions and with due respect to the needs of the schools. Perhaps no more could have been expected from the committee in view of the shortness of the time and the complexity of the subject, but it is to be sincerely hoped that the work thus excellently begun will be continued until brought to a helpful and inspiring issue. Perhaps the outstanding visual instruction feature of the entire convention was the visual instruction exhibit which constituted more than one quarter of the entire exposition in the Oakland Civic Auditorium, and which was arranged and carried out through the close cooperation between the National Education Association and the Visual Instruction Association of America. The effort was made and notably realized, to group together all those exhibitors interested in visual aids to instruction. This included the makers of charts or models, as well as manufacturers of microscopes, telescopes, cameras, lenses and other optical instruments, screens, motion picture machines, lantern slides, motion picture films, stereoscopes and stereoscopic views, and publications in which the visual appeal was predominant. For the benefit of these exhibitors, and in order to carry out the purpose of a unified visual instruction exhibit, a projection room. seating 1:25 persons, was set apart for continuous projection of motion picture and lantern slide material during the entire time of the exhibit. The equipment was suppHed through the courteous cooperation of the exhibitors and a more or less constantly changing audience had the privilege of viewing practical class room material. Motion pictures dealing with Biology, United States History, Physical Geography, Civics, Physical Education, and other subjects of the upper grades and high schools, were shown. The association maintained a corps &i workers whose purpose it was to further the interest in visual instruction among those who came into the projection room or visited the exhibit. Teachers school principals and educators from many parts of the country enquired as to methods of use, source of material, proper equipment for class rooms and auditoriums, and a large amount of information was disseminated in respect to these phases of the subject. It was only an extension of the service which the Visual Instruction Association is gratuitously rendering continually from its offices in New York City. The visual instruction exhibit was largely in the nature of an experiment, designed to further a more general interest in the subject of visual aids to instruction. It was therefore to be expected that, as in the case of most experiments, much could be learned from the endeavor. The intensive qualities of California sunlight; the practical difficulties of daylight projection in large and airily lighted rooms; the value of a daylight screen for projection under difficult light conditions; the values and some minor limitations of cooperative effort: all these were made evident before the exhibit was closed. On the other hand, there was no mistaking the fact that immense value resides in a close cooperation between the educators on the one hand, and commercial producers of educational material on the other. This was seen more clearly perhaps, in the realm of motion pictures, than in any other single field, since the problems here involved are so new, the technique of motion picture use within the class room as yet so undetermined. A great deal of valuable information was elicited at the regular afternoon meetings held in the projection room, where opportunity was presented for persons to ask questions and to tell their own experiences in the employment of motion pictures for class room instruction. (Concluded an page 364)