International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

— 359 — ative to skilful, workers — because they demand a period of apprenticeship during which little or nothing can be earned. This sad state of affairs should as far as possible be remedied and here the cinema can undoubtedly help. The child whose early-awakened intelligence asks nothing better than to be allowed to see and touch things, will be introduced at an early age to the life of hard work and sober fact that lies in front of him and will acquire a liking for it. As long ago as 1916, M. Painleve, in a report to the President of the Republic recommending the use of the cinema in all grades of education, said: " The cinema shows the object alongside the idea and hastens the process of understanding and experience ", M. Guillet wrote fifteen years ago: " There is no doubt that the cinema is a very important aid to technical and scientific training » (Cf. also M. Druot, InspectorGeneral of Technical Training, page 44 of his " Quinzaine de Propagande "). If a high degree of skill goes to the making of an educational film, how much more is required for a technical or scientific film. In our technical schools all engineering and science should be taught with the use of the cinema provided the instructor has the necessary scientific equipment. As regards drawing, I may refer to the recommendations of the International Drawing Congress in 1920 (" Quinzaine," page 48). Agricultural teaching. At the present time, when one of the chief preoccupations of the different countries, and especially of the Ministries of Agriculture, is concerned with the conquest of the soil and the return to the land, it naturally occurs to us to ask how far the cinema can help in solving this big social problem. I shall not endeavour on this occasion to examine the causes of the flight from the land, which the French senator Chanal in a report called " Back to the Land via the Cinema," describes as " agrave danger threatening the national life." I will only mention one important point which claims the special attention of country teachers and of Ministries of Education and Agriculture. In all countries people know too little about the land, its chemical properties, methods of exploitation, farmstock, rational use of farm products, the manipulation of agricultural implements, their defects and how to remedy them. Too often the young agricultural labourer is not told of the material advantages, physical and moral, of his calling, the beauties of country life, the pleasures of the quiet fireside and the many dangers of city life that he escapes. Why should we not use every available means to make the soil, our common heritage, better known and loved? One of the most effective and important of these means, Senator Chanal points out, is the cinema, to be employed in the village schools by experts in agriculture and pedagogics. In all forms of teaching we hear the same lament — the absence of trained experts competent to teach as well as to project; teachers must be men of wide learning, especially in physics and technology. These qualities apply both to the maker of school films and to him who desires to teach from them. Nor must I forget the question of diction. A good language, technical, but correct, imparted to all our schools, both town and country, by suitable film-lessons and competent teachers would surely help to give effect to a policy which our best educationists have long been recommending. The question merits careful consideration. To return to the agricultural cinema, we must recognize that its popularity is growing daily. Local and national film collections, with a system of free distribution of films, are unable to meet the steadily increasing demands upon them. Most countries make generous grants for the equipment of schools with projectors and big agricultural films are produced at fabulous prices. In France, about eight months ago the Prime Minister, then M. Poincare, uttered the following words, first in the Senate and later in the Chamber: " We want to give the youth of our countryside some of those facilities for intelligent recreation of which our towns have so long had a monopoly. " The Mi