International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

HYGIENE AND SOCIAL SAFEGUARDS 167 THE CINEMA AND THE NATIONAL MATERNITY AND INFANCY INSTITUTE (Report of the " National Institute for the Protection of Maternity and Infancy '). The question of the influence of the cinema on the mental and spiritual formation of young people is a theme of extraordinary interest today, not only for the science of education, but also for politics and social relief. The cinema can educate and also, if it is not properly understood, it can educate badly, and this not only in the cultural sense, but also and especially in the political and social sense. Education, in fact begins to reveal itself more and more a political concept inasmuch as it is a formative act of consciences, states of mind, sentiments and idealisms. It is for this reason that the National Institute for the Protection of Maternity and Infancy (known in Italy as the ONMI) created by Fascism to assist mothers and children both morally and materially, considers with particular attention the question of the cinema as a typically political and national social institution. This is because it is largely an organ of the social politics of the regime meant to educate the Italians to love family life, to teach mothers the duties and happiness of maternity and to bring infancy to a better understanding of its future. We admit that the propaganda which can be made with the film is superior to any other form, whether carried on in the press or through lectures. These are forms of propaganda which do not hold the attention of the public that is too absorbed with the tumultuous life we lead today ". (0. N. M. I. Federation, of Reggio Calabria). The Institute owing to the operation of the law is faced with certain special tasks relative to the safeguarding and protection of infancy in so far as the cinema is concerned. We may mention the nomination of mothers in censorship committees attached to the ministry of the Interior, the right to demand a special examination of motion pictures not considered suitable for young folk, the right to inquire in order to establish if the regulations regarding the employment of children in cinema studios and the admission of children under 15 to certain spectacles are being observed. The Institute itself has had occasion to experi ment with cinema propaganda for educating the masses in pre-natal and post-natal hygiene. A recent inquiry made by the Institute in collaboration with the I. I. E. C. to learn the effects of the motion picture on young children has allowed us to see, through the replies of about 2500 mothers to an ample questionnaire, what Italian women think on this delicate question. Finally, the questions to form the agenda of the coming world Teaching and Educational Film Congress have been laid before the presidents of the provincial federations of the organization with the result that it has been possible to gather the views and opinions of politicians, educationists, children's doctors, obstetricians, psychiatrists and students of social science. " / believe in the usefulness of a systematic introduction of the cinema for teaching, for the development of educational and teaching programmes set forth in the 1. 1. E. C's scheme for including scholastic courses from primary to higher education. (0. N. M. I. Federation, Grosseto). The ideas set forth here represent the fruit not of casual inquiry, but experiences directly and indirectly lived through. HOW THE QUESTION MUST BE STATED. — The problem can be considered from a double point of view, positive and negative. Positive in so far as it refers to a special active form of cinematography in the demographic, social hygienic education of the people in general, in the pre-natal and postnatal education of mothers, hygiene for children, treatment to improve the health and mentality of certain categories of children, (weak-minded degenerate children and deaf and dumb). The negative point refers to the work that may be done, for the moral protection of children in respect of certain forms of immoral cinema or pictures unsuited for very young children. Positive aspect of the problem. — Premise. There is no doubt that the motion picture can and ought to have a most notable direct and indirect in