The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 170 The Educational Screen illusion of movement on the screen, within the limita- tions of the new medium, qualified as proper enter- tainment—and consequently a vast amount of what would now be disdained by the theatrical exhibitor as "educational" (he uses the term slightingly), com- prised the early programs. Preliminary Stage Reference has been made to seven stages of de- velopment ; but those all came after non-theatricals have veered away as a separate branch of the tree. If one wants to think of this very early period as an eighth, preliminary stage, dominant figures later to be of great non-theatrical importance are still easily to be found. The redoubtable Lyman Howe, of Wilkes- Barre, for instance, was then in his heydey with his travelling motion picture shows, exhibited over the lyceum circuits. He presented them frequently on Sun- days as refined educational entertainment, not for an instant to be classed with the "sinful, shameless" stage plays which were obliged to close each week in a burst of glory on Saturday night. A far greater figure of that early time, destined to wield a benign, powerful influence over American non-theatricals almost until the advent of the talking picture, was Charles Urban, a naturalized Englishman. He began that influence on America long before com- ing to it. In the first few years of the century, as probably the foremost motion picture producer and exhibitor in Great Britain, Urban, cooperating with educators, encouraged the production of those time- lapse miracles of flowers that bud, bloom and wither in a few seconds, pictures of microscopic life, a wealth of color films, and what we now know as scientific ani- mation, along with much more of distinct teaching value. While Urban was still in London, engaging the in- terest of school administrators there in the facilities and treasures of his "Urbanoria House", as he called his main enterprise, George Kleine, the most success- ful American film distributor of his time, was acting as Urban's representative over here; and it was Kleine who combined the Urban output with used films of the leading New York and Chicago theatrical pro- ducers, to make the thousand subjects oflfered in 1910 to the New York City Board of Education. The edu- cator chiefly concerned on this occasion was William H. Maxwell, superintendent of the Board, and a fav- orite target for contemporaneous newspaper cartoon- ists and editorial writers for his so-called "fads and fancies" in elementary teachng. This earnest gentle- man and scholar thus also was a pioneer in visual edu- cation. Unhappily he did not live to witness the pres- ent fruition; he has been gone from our midst for upwards of twenty years. For various reasons Max- well and his associates were unable to avail themselves quickly of the Kleine proposal to supply the schools— no doubt largely because the pictures were not really pedagogically suitable; but the circumstance was wide- ly and favorably reported, and the Kleine catalogue of the historic thousand, being printed for distribution to teachers, surely helped to pave the way for the pic-j ture services that now flourish. Another reason for calling 1910 the starting dat^ of the non-theatrical field in America, is that in tha year the Motion Picture Patents Company, that fol a while monopolized the essential devices for photol graphing and exhibiting films in this country, forbadd ths showing of advertising films publicly in anj theatre. The theatres disregarded this ban—but that'J another story. The outp'.t, of what we now consider educationa film material, in those early years was probably mucS greater than it is today, for a very popular number" then on the theatrical program was what was known as the "split" reel. One reel, running about fifteen minutes, was then the usual extreme limit of any sub- ject ; and the split consisted of one-half story and the other half an "educational" item. Another place for documentary material was the newsreel—unknown in this coimtry as a regular release until 1910, when the "Pathe News" was brought from Paris. And 1910, of course, is the date when begin the seven stages proper of non-theatrical growing pains. First Period George Kleine's interesting pioneer eff'ort to or- ganize the non-theatrical field was based on a sincere but now outworn conception of the church or school show as a form of salvage for old theatrical films. Nevertheless, it served through the first period to stimulate the manufacture of lower-priced, non-pro- fessional projection equipment, and to provide a boun- tiful supply of the sort of pictures that have been mentioned. Second Period In the second period, that of the AX'orld \\'ar, began the needed coordination. Simultaneously with the call for troops, the Government declared a sore need of entertainment of all approved shots for the camps. Motion pictures, obviously, were in especial demand. They were needed not only for the American soliders but for those of the Allies, because in the countries abroad the prosecution of the war since two years be- fore the United States came into it, had virtually ended the production there of entertainment subjects. Amer- ican producers, who therefore dominated the world industry wanted to cooperate with the United State.'. Government in this matter, although, at the same time, it was neither practicable nor advisable for them to turn over at once to Uncle Sam the product currently emerging from their studios. The older films, that al- ready had served the theatrical purpose for which they had been designed, were another matter; and as these survived most conveniently in the unorganized and rather chaotic non-theatrical field, that was the supply garnered in the main for this emergency need. The dominating figure at this time was a young Bostonian, a former teacher, Warren D. Foster. He had a small business of supplying non-theatrical films