The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

February, 1943 <^:/fmona ins iJ\oduasz± Page 79 Below, "Native Dwellings of the Pacific"—one of the Covarrubias mural-map reproductions, available in full-color, 25x19 inches, from Schwabacher-Frey Company, 735 Market Street, San Francisco, Calif. Kodachrome Slides On Nature Subjects A wide seltxtion of nature pictures in color is available in 2xZ kodachrome slides from Lynwood M. Chace. promi- nent nature photographer whose work is internationally known, having been pub- lished extensively in many leading maga- zines and newspapers throughout the Unitetl States and Europe for many years. Mr. Chace's extensive collection offers vivid and detailed educational studies of a variety of animals, birds, fish, wild and cultivated flowers, shrubs, trees, insects, reptiles, mollusca. and coral showing complete life cycles and stage-by-stage development of many. For a complete listing of this photo- graphic material, and information on prices, write to Mr. Lynwood M. Chace, 98 West Street. New Bedford, Mass. RCA Victor Service for Schools Teachers, supervisors and school ad- ministrators throughout the I'nited States arc being offered a new service to make class-room instruction more efficient by the KC.\ P-ducational De- partment at Camden, N. J. The service offers advice and assistance in deter- mining the most suitable audio-visual c<iuipnient for various school situa- tions, and in making adequate provi- sion for it in proposed new buildings. It is designed especially to help in postwar planning, and is furnished without charge or obligation. Training programs and experience of the Army, Navy, Marine and Air Corps were taken into consideration in setting up the new service, according to KUsworth C. Dent, RCA Educa- tional Director. Those responsible for this training are using audio-visual aids extensively and with excellent re- sults. In some reported instances, the time normally required for training has been shortened as much as forty percent. This is causing school admin- istrators to realize the potential values of such devices in alt types of training, and to plan for the time when the equipment will be available. "It is easier and far less expensive" said Mr. Dent, "to include adequate initial pro- vision for scientific teaching aids— such as radio, sound, motion pictures and recordings—than it is to revise building plans later. School adminis- trators are being encouraged to make such plans now, and the new RCA service is designed to assist them." A limited war time catalog of audio- visual equipment is now being dis- tributed. It is available to all teachers, supervisors and educational adminis- trators. It covers everything from RCA master control and sound sys- tems, recording equipment and pro- jectors to laboratory and test equip- ment, and includes a list of available publications. The new audio-visual catalog, and another new booklet— "Radio and Electronics" — are now available from the RCA Educational Department, Camden, N. J. New Series of Radio Transcriptions The vital role ul tlie home front in the present global struggle for the pres- ervation of freedom is the theme of Lest We Forget—Eternal Vigilance Is THE Price of Liberty, the seventh series of 13 dramatic transcriptions for radio broadcast and school utilization to be issued by the Institute of Oral and Visual Education. The new series will be available on March 1. 1943 to the 435 radio stations throughout the country that have broadcast previous Lest We Forget series. The inspiring stories in the new series are based upon contemporary history and stress the need for vigilance by every .American as one of tlie major safeguards of our democratic freedoms which must become the democratic foundations of the post-war world. Each of the IS-minute recordings is devoted to the need for vigilance in each of the different phases of the home front: the community, the .schools, the factory, business, the home, religion, the courts, the government and fraternal organizations. Four of the recordings deal with problems of vigil- ance against tyranny, against rumor, for new truths and among war veterans. The series was prepared under the direct supervision of Dr. Howard M. LeSourd, Dean of Boston University Graduate School and Chairman of the .•\dvisory Council of the Institute of Oral and Visual Education. .\ special "I -Am .\n American" re- cording is included for broadcast on "I .Am .An American Day." A handlwok on the series containing additional ma- terial for teachers has been prepared and is available upon request at the offices of the Institute of Oral and Visual Edu- cation, 101 Park Avenue, New York City. Motion Pictures— Not for Theatres {Continued from paqc 55) 1915 there were auto shows for rural schools in Louisiana. In 1917 the Y.M.C.A. was using them for exhibi- tions to soldiers, and they were part of the sy.stem of the Bureau of Commercial Economics probably before that. At least one motion picture historian has been misled on the point of origin by hearing of "Hale's Touring Cars," which brought -Adolph Zukor actively into the theatrical business, early in the century. He pardonably assumed that they must have been vehicles for carrying film en- tertainment throughout the country. In reality they were variants of the early "store" shows, each with its front built to represent a railroad car, and with a screen at the other end. The show moved, but not the place of exhibi- tion. The Hale Cars were moderately successful as novelties in a few large -American cities. The show would start with suitable sound effects to indicate that the train was leaving the station, and the familiar picture photographed from the end of an actual train would confirm the impression of progress. There was a tunnel, of course, calculated tt) stir the audience, left briefly in utter darkness, to shrieks of delight. The body of the show was an ordinary trav- elogue reel, terminating—in the example I remember, at least—with a hold-up by "bad men" who were ultimately foiled by the "train crew" which then cleared the "car" for the next show. •About 1924 the pul)lic welfare depart- ment of the State of Illinois, in order to show its first film, "Illinois—the Or- ganized Good Samaritan," with the reg- ular educational exhibits at some eighty county fairs, even provided a large, black-topped tent, thirty by seventy feet, equipped with two projectors, a silver screen, chairs and electric ventilating fans. By this means the film was shown in two seasons to approximately 200.000 persons at an estimated total cost of slightly under three cents per head. (To b* continued)