International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

MOTION PICTURES IN EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 45 Adult education, as distinguished from formal collegiate education, is not systematically organized in the United States. In consequence, the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., churches and other voluntary societies, have undertaken various phases of adult education and have made some use of motion pictures. The use of motion pictures in religious education may be taken as an example. c) Motion Pictures The churches of the in Religious Edu United States are becation, coming aware of the value of visual aids to religious education, but as yet the use of motion pictures is not at all commensurate with their known value. Possibly religion is not much behind education in this respect. There is need of painstaking research into the technical uses of this form of visual aid for religion, comparable to the recent Harvard study directed by the educational and scientific faculties, and the experimentation in photoplay appreciation in American highschools under the National Council of Teachers of English. One such study is now in progress in the Graduate School of a leading university, but no report can be made upon it at the present time. Meanwhile considerable experimentation in the production and use of motion pictures for religious purposes is under way, but badly handicapped by lack of funds. Several mission boards and boards of religious education are producing pictures, mainly 16 mm. films, and they are being widely used, although as yet, it must be granted, witnout a sure technique. The Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, the Presbyterian and Methodist Board of national and foreign missions, the Missionary Education Movement, the Baptist Board of Missionary Cooperation, and tne Young Men's Christian Association have been the most aggressive. The Religious Motion Picture Foundation, created and financed by the Harmon Foundation, is producing pictures experi mentally and studying their distribution and uses by churches for missionary education, religious education, and Sunday night showings. They have a list of 1,350 interested churches. In addition to this Foundation, a half dozen producers are at work in the field of religious education. One great difficulty is the lack of a definite sufficiently large circuit of churches using pictures to offer an adequate market and to make financing possible. The churches are showng great interest in the spiritual, leisure time, and social values of the commercial cinema. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, federating the important Protestant communions of the United States and Canada, has a Committee on Motion Pictures which is beginning to organize better church films councils throughout the country, designed in the main to educate public taste. It is assumed that the churches will participate in general councils representing the character building agencies of the community. The Committee contemplates a national Protestant photoplay reviewing service and a service bureau to assist and guide local churches in the use of pictures. The International Federation of Catholic Alumnae has conducted a reviewing service for twelve years and also broadcasts from twenty-six radio stations. They have a circuit of 1 ,000 schools and parish halls using pictures. In general, it should be said that the churches are very restive under the present moral quality of American films and are increasingly exerting their influence for cleaner and better films. In comparison with the theatrical motion picture, the non-theatrical picture in the past usually lacked technical excellence, is used comparatively little, and with varying regularity. The principal reasons for this difference seem to have been first, the policy of the Federal Government to leave to private industry and voluntary endeavor many activities that the typical European government would assume and, second,