International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1932)

533 of elementary education, and in order to make his ideas known among the teaching classes, he brought out his Elementarwerk (Elementary Book) which was in four volumes profusely illustrated and was a kind of Orbis Pictus modified by the influence of the new Rousseau doctrines. Speaking of the hundred illustrative plates of the Elementarwerk, G. Santini writes : " Wolke and the engraver, Daniel Chodowiecky, prepared the drawings, some of which are of high artistic value and of even greater historical interest, since they give living and highly detailed aspects of private life in Germany.in the XVII I century. Over these pictures,) children would learn to speak cor rectly in their own language or in foreign languages and in Latin, by means of conversations with their teachers on the pictures under observation. In addition to the teaching of languages, the pleasure taken by children in looking at pictures could be utilised to induce them to observe a thousand details in the various objects, details that appear in too fugitive a form in the vicissitudes of real life. Many other things and scenes that the child would be very unlikely to observe in reality are put before it by means of pictures, and it is thus able to get an intuitive notion of them that would be difficult by any other means ' . The author himself defines his work in more concise terms : " An elementary book of human knowledge for the expression and observation of reality. " This first elementary book must give concrete knowledge only. Used with care before the pupil reaches the time when he must learn to read, it must facilitate the first attempts without betraying the object of the reading, which is fatiguing in itself ; and it must contain many useful illustrations, or be assisted by plastic imitations ' . The following paragraphs point out the necessity of enlivening instruction by the aid of visual didactic auxiliaries, which alone can make education what it should be: live and interesting. A good teacher needs a well organized child's museum, which contains little models of everything that is susceptible of reproduction in such form, or pictures or prints ". " Boredom and indifference during study must be avoided at all costs. To ensure this, great attention must be paid to opportunity, order, the alternation of subjects and the elimination of obstacles. " With young people, everything must be made evident and homogeneous ; evident by practice, and homogeneous by the uniformity of the denominations given to the same things by showing their consequences to be derived from a few premises, and by causing the pupil to note the agreement of one piece of knowledge with others ". When drawing up a list, therefore, of the things necessary to elementary education, Basedow does not forget a collection of prints and pictures, which may be considered as accessories, if we like, but accessories of the highest importance. He specifies the numerous advantages of such a collection : 1) " Experience shows that children like pictures, even when they represent things to which they are as a rule indifferent ; 2) " the observations and moral feelings that are aroused by suchpictures are more vivid than others, last longer, and are communicated by the children themselves to their companions; 3) " there are many things of which it is impossible to give children an idea without the aid of a picture, whether because they are exotic, or because, at the moment, they are too far off ; 4) " by the aid of pictures, a teacher can repeat with benefit to the pupil, in a dead or foreign language, things which are already known to him in his own language ".