International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

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— 315 — that amount for sound apparatus. Can schools pay so much? The answer is that ninety-five per cent of the schools in this country would have to move heaven and earth to get an additional expenditure of a mere £ 20 on any aid to teaching. It is a sorry fact that there is very little money available 'for education in this country, and many more essential things will have precedence over expensive talking picture aids, however valuable they may be. One would like the talking picture educationists to succeed. One would like to think that they have a very great mission to perform. One would like to believe that we have a civilisation healthy and wealthy enough to provide every luxury that education demands. But the talking picture educationists must explain themselves to the teacher, and show us some samples of the films they promise before we can allow them to destroy the work of thirty years. They must realise that however uncommercial a school may seem, it is an organisation that must maintain a high standard in its output, and show a dividend in its examination results. If they can offer a business proposition as good as the one they offered theatres in 1928 we shall be satisfied. But heaven knows who will pay them for their trouble! {Editorial Note). It is a matter of particular pleasure to us to be able to give the publicity of our columns to the splendid work that Mr. Ronald Gow has been instrumental in initiating at the Altrincham County High School for Boys, of which he is a member of the staff. The article contributed to this number by Mr. Gow himself will tell the reader something of his views on the functions of the school cinema, especially its power of stimulating imagination, but, as regards his own practical share in this work, the author has been modest, and his achievement is one that will bear a little embellishing. Film production has been established as one of the educational activities at Altrincham School for seven or eight years, during which time a dozen films have been made-entirely by the masters and boys themselves. Not one minute of school-time has been given to them: they have been the spare-time product of boys and masters in their after-school and holiday hours — a splendid tribute, this, to their enthusiasm and — we suspect — to the encouragement of an enlightened headmaster. The financial difficulties would appear to have been anyhow partly overcome by the sale of the films and by valuable box-office support at local theatres. Indeed, the fame of the Altrincham boys has spread beyond the neighbourhood, for Mr. Gow informs us that the first two films made — ■ history -teaching films dealing with life in the Neolithic and Bronze ages — have already run into several dozen copies and have been used in Sweden, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and Switzerland (where a copy was sold to the Municipality of Geneva). These first two efforts were followed by an, essay in nature-study called « The Sundew » and a more ambitious attempt in the form of a Scout propaganda film-this was designed to carry its message to cinema audiences not as a subsidized advertisement film, but as an entertainment exhibitors would pay for. The result was most successful and it has been shown in some 250 British theatres. More remarkable still, perhaps, is a film made in 1929 having disarmament as its theme. It is called « The Glittering Sword » and takes the form of a mediaeval legend. A mighty sword is hidden somewhere in the world and the boy-king (representing the