Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

42 FlUA AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 3 Peat, Director of the Art Museum, has prepared a set of Little Jonrneijs, which are being circulated by the Visual Education Department as part of a plan to coordinate the community’s agencies for visual education. The Public Library has cooperated with the schools in providing community groups with films. At present. Miss Lynn is greatly interested in film utilization and is slowly acquiring much-needed equipment. Along with her profession, ]\Iiss Lynn’s greatest interest is in travel. She has visited all but four states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin and Hawaiian Islands, Canada, and Mexico. In 1934 she visited England and traveled by motor through Belgium, Holland, France, Switzerland, and Germany. Prior to the outbreak of the war, the World Federation Cruise took her to Caribbean ports and to Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. No. 38: E. H. Powell A’hen the Encyclopaedia Britannica acquired Erpi Classroom Films in 1943, and Eastman Teaching Films in 1944, E. H. Powell had been president of Britannica for ten years. During those ten years he had completed six remarkable enterprises— his first, coaxing the revered though unprofitable Britannica out of the red. That took three years. He devised the plan for continuous revision, providing for review and revision, if necessary, of every article in the Britannica at least twice in every ten-year period. To supplement the annual printings of the Britannica, Powell introduced the Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year, a record of each year’s political, scientific, and cultural developments. Then he organ Doris Lynn, Director of Visual Education, Indianapolis, Indiana. ized the Britannica Library Research bureau to make intensive investigations for Britannica owners. Next he launched the Britannica Junior for children — Junior now outsells Britannica. And in 1942 he directed the publication of the annual Britannica World Atlas, the latest, most comprehensive atlas available. After these extraordinary accomplishments, and in addition to his regular duties as head of the Britannica itself, he became president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, attacking the new project with characteristic energy and a unique combination of abilities. After ten years with the Britannica he knew how to make education attractive and accessible, and his hobby — art — gives him an edge in the specialized field of visual educatioin Since his college days at the University of Chicago, Powell has been a vigorous art enthusiast, studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He has been president of Associated Arts and Industries and still paints pictures, designs houses, experiments with photography — for the fun of it. All this adds up to a practical familiarity with the potentialities of pictorial expression which is paying dividends in the development of Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, now offering over 450 classroom films covering 24 area of study. For the advancement of the field as a whole, however, his philosophy of the function of visual education is as valuable as his knowledge of production and salesmanship. He believes that students handicapped by poverty or slow reading comprehension can, through motionpicture education, keep pace with luckier schoolmates who have the advantages of books, special training, and first-hand observation. He feels that vocational, recreational, and social aims of education can be reached more effectively by audio-visual means. Films, says Powell, will equalize opportunity of learning, especially by making it possible and interesting, even exciting, for adults to study their economic, political, and social problems long after their formal schooling is over. Furthermore, Powell says : “More than two thousand films were used in Army and Navy cdasses. The results of teachingfor-war should he an Incentive to every public and private school to adopt new ways. Advances in science and technology have created a world with new dimensions. All the peoples of the world are neighbors. Resources on an undreamed-of scale are within the reach of all if we set new frontiers for teaching. We must have education for everyone on an unprecedented scale.” But, pointing out that there are only about 17,000 projectors in an estimated 12,000 school systems in the 250,000 schools of the United States, Powell suggests : “It may take the returning servicemen to encourage school hoards, school administrators, and the teachers themselves to give