International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

— 357 — and carefully supervised by an expert committee of teachers and technicians. Everything that is done for school books, must be done for films. Films may be few, but they should be good. 2. The film cannot replace the teacher. The cinema is only a means of illustration. If it is a well-made film, it will often, present facts more forcibly and convincingly than real life but, for this purpose, the teacher's comments are needed. Visual effort supplements and completes mental effort. In order that a lesson may be really fruitful, the pupil must exercise effort during the lesson, reflection afterwards, initiative, and then some written or oral checking. In a film-lesson the same phases must be observed. A film reinforces other methods of teaching, replaces none of them. It must be short and have a minimum of titles and captions. It must always be accompanied by a list of the pictures and a scheme of the lesson for the teacher's guidance. 3. A film-lesson must only deal with a single subject. This is obvious, but the advice may bear repetition. 4. Film-lessons should not be too frequent. In order that the cinema may preserve its novelty and its stimulating powers, it must not be employed too often; too frequent a use of films would lead to superficial work by the pupil. " One film-class a week in each subject, one a month for drawing " is the maximum recommended by M. Bruneau, Director of the Paris Cinatheque. We shall mention, further on certain other essentials of films intended for the different branches of the school syllabus. Cinema and fixed projections. Fixed projections lose part of their value when compared with films and, in general, may be regarded as a definitely inferior method of teaching. Their only advantage is to show two-dimensional objects, plane figures, diagrams, etc. Anything that needs to be looked at from all sides and angles demands the cinema, which alone can give us a clear illusion of perspective and relief. A fixed projection gives a general view all at once; the child does not know what to fix his eyes on, whereas the cinema, by movement and the play of light, throws into relief essential and characteristic elements. The cinema, too, furnishes movement, which is especially stimulating to children. A Lyons teacher emphasised this distinction when she said: " Words have not the same meaning for children as for us." Whereas a child's mind is easily distracted from a fixed image, the moving picture keeps his attention constantly fixed. To-day, of course, modern apparatus enables us to project animated pictures and fixed images at the same time, the film being thrown upon the screen picture by picture. Let us now study the cinema in relation to the different subjects of teaching and see how it can be employed. (a) Vocabulary by film. The important question of the teaching of the various subjects by film (as also by other means) should be a matter of more frequent discussion between teachers. How many chances have been missed, happy suggestions still-born, for lack of more frequent meetings between members of the teachers' association; meetings of smaller groups and for lack of an organ in which each of us would be free to develop his ideas. This is a drawback which is felt in Montreal more than in most other countries. I would place on the agenda of one of these meetings " Study of images by the film." Here it should be emphasised that the cinema will never replace the pupil's direct observation of things and beings; it must be reserved for acts and objects that cannot be put before him. To-day all European countries are using films for object-lessons, some of them voluntarily, some under compulsion. Grammar teaches the importance of the substantive, to indicate beings and things, and of the verb, which describes action or state. For this it must be possible to put an image alongside the word which denotes it. Acquiring a vocabulary means being able to utter or write the noun when the image or