Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

December, 1911. MOTOGRAPHY 257 sociologist" and alien office seeker, to use his edifice as a place for her vitterances without first ascertaining whether the same were founded upon facts or otherwise. We further tender the assistance of this association to any official body who are honestly desirous of correcting any evil they may judge detrimental to the morals of our 500,000 weekly patrons. When, in the embryonic stages of motion picture organization, we urged the exhibitors to combine under one association of national scope, this matter of unjust attacks on the business was considered carefully, as our early pages show. We decided then that this was the only way to meet such exigencies ; for even if the calumnious words cannot be recalled, there is weight in the unanimous protest of an organized body of business men. The millenium is still quite a ways off, and while fanaticism, cupidity and the itch for notoriety exist those things that are close to the people will have to bear the brunt of occasional attacks. But most of these defamers are faint-hearted enough when they meet determined assistance, and the association that is prepared to defend its members will presently find that they need no defense. For that is the big advantage of organization. Few individuals are bold enough to fly in its face unless they have the truth back of them. HEARST'S TRIBUTE TO PICTURES. THE chain of newspapers published by William R. Hearst's company are chiefly remarkable for theii free use of illustration. No story of action is considered complete by the Hearst editors unless it carries at least one photographic reproduction, and the editorial rule is that when a cut of a certain size contains as much interest as the same area of type face, the picture is preferable. It follows naturally, then, that the Hearst editors must recognize the enormous potential force of the motion picture, once they have given thought to the subject. That such consideration has finally been given is evidenced by an editorial which appeared in the Chicago American last month. It is the strongest tribute to motion pictures we have seen in the lay press since Professor Star issued his now famous panegyric, back in the early part of 1909. This is the Hearst editorial, as copyrighted by the American, Journal and San Francisco and Los Angeles Examiner: SHOW CHILDREN THE REAL WORLD. The Moving Picture — the Great Educator of the Future. In the world of education beyond any question moving pictures will do in the future a work greater than has been done by all the books written in all the long history of education. What is education? It is the science of communicating to the brain and consciousness of another knowledge which the teacher already possesses. Nine-tenths of the knowledge which is really important is knowledge concerning things, knowledge of that which actually exists and can be seen. Who can deny that what we know best is that which our eyes have actually seen? The moving picture, soon to be used universally and to a large extent exclusively in the education of the child, will enable the child to see that with which it is desired to make the child acquainted. What we see is forever stamped on the mind. We have lived on this planet using our eyes as men for hundreds of thousands of years. And the animals learned and formed impressions by using their eyes mililons upon millions of years before man appeared on the globe. The art of learning, of gaining knowledge, through words spoken or written has been recently acquired. It is a system imperfect and extremely painful to the young child. All children and a great majority of adults dislike and instinctively push away knowledge which comes to them in written form. Yet the whole human race greedily accepts the knowledge which comes in pictures — the youngest child cries for "picture books." When the picture is accompanied by motion, by action which intensifies its reality, the educational power of the picture is absolute. Would it not be impossible with written words or spoken words to give a young child any idea of the strange animals that exist on this planet? You might read books or deliver lectures without pictures for ten years, and the mind of the child at the end of that time would have no conception whatever of the elephant, giraffe, tiger, boa constrictor or armadillo. But take the child to the menagerie, or let the child study the colored picture book, and see the animals, and from that moment the character of the strange creatures becomes a part of the child's absolute knowledge, part of its intellectual possession. So it will be with the teaching of all kinds of knowledge in the future. Suppose you tell a child about that wonderful machine, the hydroplane. If you are good at description you may arouse a languid interest as you tell of a machine that moves over the surface of the water at high speed, then rises into the air and flies above the water. But even then, to make the child understand, you must compare your hydroplane to a flying fish or to something else of which the child has seen a picture. You may sec, in moving pictures today, the hydroplane in operation. You may have the child actually witness the marvelous operations of the strange machine. Before the child's eyes on the picture screen the hydroplane rushes on the water's surface, and then rises into the air amid the spray. The smoke is seen flying from the engine. And to heighten the reality sounds are reproduced exactly. It is a marvelous and beautiful way to communicate knowledge. The mind apt and alert receives new truths gladly and retains them forever. Think what a magnificent thing teaching in the future will be, when knowledge both in the getting and in the possessing shall cause happiness! How dull is astronomy as taught to the child today ! How beautiful and entrancing it will be taught in the future with moving pictures ! The child will see on the screen a great blazing central sun, with the masses of fire shooting up. And around this sun will be seen the family of planets, with their rings and moons and strange motions. The flaming comets will fly across canvas, wiping out the light of the stars as they pass. The birth and development of nebulae, the processes that occupy thousands of millions of years, will pass before the eye of the child in pictures prepared by scientific men, fascinating, truthful. , With such a teaching of astronomy the child at fifteen will be as familiar with the marvelous universe, wtih the great celestial mechanism which alone illustrates Divine power, as he is today with the details of his father's front yard or the painful dullness of his school room. Those that are "€ull minded, will object that this would be "making education too easy" ■ and the unwise of another kind would say that "knowledge taken in so easily and pleasantly would soon go out again." ' Of all the stupid things that ignorant "educators of the young" say this is the most stupid. Did any child that ever sazv Niagara Falls ever forget that wonderful demonstration of power? Does any child that has simply heard about the Falls of the Zambesi have any clear impression of that which has been heard of but remains unseen? Does the child that has seen a great mountain range ever forget the impression of vastness and majesty? And has a child any impression at all of the wonderful Himalayas of which he has only heard? The moving picture will teach geography as well as astronomy. And it will teach history. Pictures of gigantic animals moving about in prehistoric periods ; pictures of savage tribes, of slave raids, of caravans loaded with ivory ; pictures of the great deserts, pyramids, the slow camels, Arab tents ; pictures of the northern men, Eskimos watching at the hole in the ice, the walrus plunging too late after the harpoon has hit him. the whale dragging the boat through the water with him — pictures of this zvorld as it is and has been