The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

148 The Educational Screen The Use of Visual Aids in Teaching (IV) A Series of Articles By a. G. Balcom WE ARE pleased to present in this issue the fourth of a series of articles from A. G. Balcom, Assistant Superintendent of Schools of Newark, N. J., and Director of Visual Education in that city. Under his administration Newark has become one of the best known centers of visual instruction, and Mr. Balcom himself is a tower of strength to the cause of visual education throughout the country. He is Vice-President of both the Visual Instruction Association of America and The National Academy of Visual Instruction, while he is prominent also in the work of the newly organized Visual Education Department of the N. E. A. The titles selected by Mr. Balcom for this series of articles are as follows: 1. The Stereopticon and Slide {in the December issue) 2. The Stereograph {in the January issue) 3. The Film — Its Possibilities and Limitations {in the February issue) 4. The Care and Use of Films —Inflammable and Non-Flam {in the March issue) 5. The Motion Picture Projector — Portable, Semi-Portable and Standard Professional 6. The Film Stereopticon — a New Type of Visual Aid These articles are planned to appear in consecutive issues of The Educational Screen. The Editor The Care and Use of Films — Inflammable and Non-Flam The Hazard of the Film THE hazard of the film has been greatly will happen. We have been running films for exaggerated, even the so called in instructional purposes in the Newark schools flammable, the one with the nitrate eel in auditoriums and class-rooms for four lulose base. This exaggeration has taken years and no film has ever caught fire to my form in stringent and foolish laws as affect knowledge. ing the instructional use of film. The laws. Twenty-five years ago the motion picture so far, with few exceptions, have been en machine consisted of nothing more than a acted for the entertainment use of film and projection head screwed to a table, with a do not apply to conditions under which in slit in the table for the film to slip through, structional film is used. We are told that the Underneath the table was a sack to contain great danger in a film catching fire is the the film until the completion of the perform possibility of a panic ensuing amjong the ance with time to rewind it for another pro optience rather than from the burning film jection. and the likelihood of its setting the building In an excellent book entitled, "How Motion afire. Can you imagine a panic in a class Pictures Are Made" by Homer Croy, pubroom or auditorium where the pupils are lished by Harper & Bros., New York, the auunder control even though a film catches fire? thor says: Modern motion picture machines portable, "Laws passed in this early day of the insemi-portable and standard professional with dustry are still in force, although the machines their improved safety devices, make it pos which they were meant to adequate are no sible to run films when ordinary precautions longer in service. Now with the improved are observed — with assurance that nothing take-up and the housed lamps there is little or