International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

798 EDUCATIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY aganda Commission for the purpose of carrying out a vast department campaign in Haut Rhin, Bus Rhin and the Moselle. In agreement with the Alsace Association, lectures have been organized in all towns or villages with not less than iooo inhabitants, and the scholars have been instructed by means of the cinema and the work of the lecturers in such subjects as the fight against tuberculosis, general hygiene and child rearing. Educational Schol What kind of pictures astic Films. haye our lecturers pro. vided for the scholars? There is no need to enumerate at length the films projected. We will confine ourselves to remarking that the Film Repository of the National Bureau of Social Hygiene and the National Defence Committee against Tuberculosis possess 50 films dealing with general hygiene, as many again on tuberculosis, a dozen pictures on rearing children, three fine sound films on infancy and the struggle against tuberculosis. We have also 210 slides for fixed projections on general hygiene subjects, 107 anti-tuberculosis slides, seven on child-rearing and three illustrating the perils of alcoholism. We may be asked if the results of our efforts are visible. One of our delegate lecturers writes us as follows : « Our lectures and projections have clarified many ideas learnt in the class-room but not properly assimilated by the pupils. Many of our teachers have assured us that their pupils have opened astonished eyes in grasping such facts as the existence of life in microbes, the circulation of the blood in the human body, the composition of the blood, the functions of the lungs, contagion through microbes, the pollution of water. It was also observed and remarked upon that in rural districts visited on more than one occasion by our lecturers the children, on the later visits of our delegates, presented themselves at the projections much better dressed and with much more attention given to their persons. In many places the young folk turned up in their Sunday best; hygiene is not therefore an empty word for them. It comes to mean: cleanliness, fresh water, sun, pure air, physical exercise, repose, etc. ». This is an expression of the truth. Neither in the village nor in the town does the scholar now sit down to table without washing his hands. He insists on having a tooth brush and washes and soaps himself thoroughly from head to foot. This is a great advance which must certainly be attributed in large part to these lecture tours helped out with film projections which bring an air of holiday to the schools and teach the pupils a useful lesson through a vehicle of novelty and entertainment. « I have the honour to inform you », writes the Academic Inspector for the Alpes-Maritimes department, « that the delegate lecturer of the General Propaganda Commission of the National Bureau for Social Hygiene carried out from January 10 to January 31 a lecture tour in the various scholastic establishments of the Department of the Alpes Maritimes. « His lectures, which were accompanied by cinema projections of a documentary character, were followed with interest by all the pupils who derived useful information and valuable advice from them. « The reception was everywhere excellent and sometimes even enthusiastic. « Lectures of this type perform a work of a high moral and social nature, and merit every possible encouragement ». We could multiply this kind of evidence, and the admirable and much improved health of the pupils is one of our lecturers' reward for their labours. Teaching of Social Hygiene by the Educational Cin We have already said that our field of activity in using the educational film for social hygiene goes far beyond the school. It is a necessary thing that both peasant and townsman, factory worker and clerks