The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

384 The Educational Screen The Movie and Manners J. E. McAfee University of Oklahoma THE blight of the movie upon pubHc morals is the subject of essay and sermon and diatribe all over the land. Perhaps a more severe indictment is the movie theatre's corruption of manners. A wise man has said that ''manners maketh man." The disorder of children and young rowdies in the small town movie theater is notorious. Nor are they to be too greatly censured. Their conduct is entirely unregulated. I was standing the other day at the elbow of a movie theater manager while a serious lecture with stereopticon illustrations was being conducted in his house. A citizen rushed up to the group and exclaimed in distress, "Can not some one come and bring those children on the front seat to order? They make it impossible for any one to hear what is being said." As a prominent citizen who was standing by hurried away to try his hand the movie manager sniffed and muttered in an undertone, ''Huh ! That is what we have to put up with all the time." Thoughtful observers declare that the now prevalent disreputable conduct of adult citizens in stamping out of a public gathering is the outcropping of irresponsible habits which the movie cultivates. These disturbers of peaceful assemblies seem all the more intent upon making themselves conspicuous by their interruptions because the lights are turned on and their neighbors have a chance to see them make their parade in or out of the house during the lectures or entertainment programs. The system operating in the picture theaters encourages admissions at any old time and retirement when the attendant is surfeited. The actors on the screen have no feelings to be considered, and, popular habits are formed which often wreck serious attendance at other public performances when the speakers or other performers are present in all their sensitive flesh. So habitual are these bad manners in movie theaters that it is usually impossible to use some of them for any other purposes than the unregulated mulling in and out of the crowds. In connection with our University Extension work, they are some times found worse than useless. Alanagers are often most generous in offering their facilities. Usually not only do they permit assemblies for our work in their theaters but they frequently furnish their projectors free of charge for the exhibit of our films and stereopticon slides. Yet, the associations of the public with these theaters are such that it is next to impossible to assemble a serious audience before a screen. Furthermore, prejudices are often so deep-seated among the most serious citizens that an exhibit in connection with the extension work entirely fails of its purpose because the more thoughtful members of the community cannot be induced to resort to assembly halls which otherwise stand for disorderly and irresponsible conduct in the community. When extension work reaches towns where the high school is equipped with a projector, the exhibit of films or slides serves its purpose with splendid effect. The discipline of the school has usually developed such habits and traditions of order, and it is recognized as so dignified a community center, that the public share and absorb these traditions. School superintendents and school boards are depriving their communities of a great boon, who do I