The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

420 The News Chat The Educational Screen The exhibits were shown in the Oakland Auditorium and, as they should be, immediately adjacent to the Registration Bureau, N. E. A, Postoffice, Secretary's Office and hall for meetings of the General Assembly. As a result, the exhibits were seen by everybody who came to N. E. A. headquarters. The Visual Instruction Exhibit, a group of twenty individual exhibits, was the largest, best arranged and most visited exhibit in the Auditorium. The service booth of our magazine was near by and I had every opportunity to see how visual education had taken hold. Your exhibit, by the way (The Educational Screen), was finely arranged and splendidly handled. "As to the program, visual education was very much in evidence. The report of the Committee on Visual Education and Cooperation with the Motion Picture Producers certainly scored a hit. The National Council of Education devoted an entire afternoon to the various phases of visual education. A special visual education conference gave two afternoons to considering notable addresses and reports. Among the most striking were those by Superintendent Mortenson of Chicago, Dr. Winship of Boston and Professor Judd of the University of Chicago. No one could visit the exhibits or attend these programs with their big audiences without feeling that visual education had come to stay. "Judging by the comment of dozens of even conservative leaders at our great Oakland-San Francisco meeting, it is very safe to predict that all types of visual education will go forward by leaps and bounds within the next two or three years. It is just as safe to predict that you and I may live to see a Film Library as much a part of the equipment of every school as is the Reference Library of today. "Knowing your interest in the field, and appreciating the needed work you are doing through the Educational Screen, I could not resist sending you this personal comment." Among the Producers (This department belongs to the commercial companies whose activities have a real and important bearing on progress in the visual field. Within our space limitations we shall reprint each month, from data supplied by these companies, such material as seems to offer most informational and news value to our readers. We invite all serious producers in this field to send us their literature regularly. — Editor.) The Yale Pictures THE following is a concise and authoritative account of the important educational enterprise known familiarly as the "Yale Pictures," written by Arthur H. Brook, general manager of the corporation. For the privilege of printing this article we are indebted to the head of the educational department of Pathe Exchange, Inc., Mrs. Elizabeth Dessez, for whom the account was prepared. Mr. Brook says : I have thought that you might like to have a concise statement relative to The Chronicles of America Pictures. Yale University Press, which is owned by Yale University, has organized The Chronicles of American Picture Corporation for the purpose of producing a series of American historical motion pictures in 100 reels. ^ George Parmly Day, treasurer of Yale University, president and founder of Yale University Press, is president of The Chronicles of America Picture Corporation. Elton Parks, Yale, *04, is a vice president. Arthur H. Brook is a vice president, treasurer and general manager. _ The production of this series of historical motion pictures is controlled by the Council's Committee on Publications of Yale University, without whose approval no continuity can be accepted and no picture can be released. This committee appointed a board of editors consisting of Dr. Max Farrand, professor of American History at Yale University ; Dr. Frank E. Spaulding, Sterling Professor of School Administration and head of the department of education at Yale University, and Professor Nathaniel Wright Stephenson, a distinguished historian and teacher. Mr. Stephenson devotes his entire time to his duties as editor, having first of all obtained a year's leave of absence and now having resigned the Chair of History at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, because of his devotion to our work. These gentlemen have organized a large staff of research workers and have brought to our service many of the leading historical specialists in the country. The preliminary work of investigation and historical research was in process for over two years. Following this, the editors, with the aid of their advisers, have selected thirty-three high lights in American history which will be the basis for our plays. These will be, in effect, stepping stones covering the march of our progress from Columbus to Appomattox. As we are attempting in a very literal sense to recreate our past, not only through interpreting its historical significance but also through depicting its physical aspects, our work of research is ^ much more arduous and extensive than that of j the historian who is planning to write on the I subject. The most minute details of our life in ^