International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

59 — These films are of special pedagogical value as they are exhibited to masters and pupils who are prepared in advance for the visual lesson (Das Bild, Vienna, F. 37/106). Following on the tenth German Educational Film Week, the City of Dresden has made a yearly grant of 50,000 marks to assist the adoption of the film as a means of teaching and for the purchase of apparatus. The schools of that town have at their disposal over twenty fixed projection equipments and a like number of moveable ones. Thirty-two school masters have been specially trained to handle the projection of teaching films, (he Cineopse, Paris, F. 26/30). Teachers and scholastic authorities cannot fail to agree in recognizing the instructive value of the cinema as a means of demonstrative teaching, provided the films, both in subject matter and in form, answer to scholastic and psychological requirements. A statement published by the Musee Pe'dagogique, dealing with the progress of the Paris Office, shows to what an extent the teaching film is being used in France. Statistics prove that, notwithstanding the predilection shown by teachers for the film, the charges for their hire for stationary projection are as high as they were for standard films before the war. Still projections will always hold their own until perfectly working apparatus are available that allow masters to arrest the projection of moving pictures whenever they require to call the attention of pupils to the form of an object rather than to its movement (Bulletin du Musee Pe'dagogique, Paris, F. 37/96). On the other hand, the film is certainly the most suitable means of explaining to students and spectators in general any phenomenon characterized by specific movement. In the opinion of Prof. Paul Honingsheim of Cologne it will, for instance, be necessary to produce an increasingly large number of geographical and ethnographical films and films bearing on economic questions ; aesthetic and sentimental aspects ought not to prevail in these. The really important point is to give a clear demonstration of characteristic movements, both as a whole and in detail, making use, when expedient, of slow and accelerated motion equipment. These educational films, completed when necessary by explanations and making use of apparatus that can stop projection when desired, ought to be included in a logical and systematic manner in the general scheme of instruction. (Der Bildwart, Berlin). With reference to the Tenth German Film week, Herr Josef Kuhne writes : « The Central Institute for Education and Teaching in Berlin, working together with the German Film Union (Bildspielbund) has organized « film weeks » during the past ten years with the object of ascertaining the value and practical possibilities of still and motion pictures for schools and popular education. The meetings are held year by year in different towns, all the local cinema offices, whether provincial or rural, taking part in them, so that each meeting has a special character of its own, according to the local character of the town. During the last Film Week in Dresden, the centre of the German photographic and film industry went into the technical aspects of everything appertaining to slide and film exhibition and systems of projection. Important questions connected with the reduced-size film, sound films, and photography in the service of teaching were discussed. (Volksarbeit, Teplitz Schonau).