We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
©C1B606933
RADIO
BROADCAST
Vol. 4 No. 4
February, 1924
The March of Radio
BROADCASTING BROWNING
a VERY interesting experiment has 7% been inaugurated through the co
/ \ operation of the management of
/ \ Station WEAF and the Home ^ Study Department of Columbia
University. The question has frequently been put: Is there a demand for the transmission of real educational material over the radio channel? Does the radio public want only amusement from the evening's radio hour or would an educational course of high order, presented by an authority, be welcomed and appreciated?
Undoubtedly, a very large part of the present-day radio audience prefers jazz to a Philharmonic concert; of two equally available stations, one modulated by the whining tones of a saxophone orchestra and the other by the voice of an eminent Shakesperean scholar, there is no doubt as to what wavelength most of the sets would be tuned to. Elementary talks on radio and kindred subjects, such as storage batteries, loud speakers, and the like, unquestionably get the attention of the average radio listener, but probably this is because the knowledge thus gained is to be used the following evening in improving the reception of popular music. This is not the type of talk we have in mind in asking the question about the value of radio as a means of education.
A certain amount of sound education is un
doubtedly being absorbed by the radio listeners as a result of the excellent musical programs being broadcasted nowadays by the better class of stations; one cannot listen, for example, to a worth-while rendition of "Elijah" accompanied by explanatory comments on the work and its composer without absorbing some knowledge of music and its masters. The well known and much appreciated "Roxie," with his excellent staff of artists, is doing much to make us appreciate good music. Many people have heard better music at Roxie's Capitol Theatre concerts than they ever heard before, and their taste for good music by high-grade performers has been whetted as a result. A radio impressario of the right kind can educate the musical tastes and appreciation of his audiences quite painlessly. We remember a mildly sarcastic comment directed at our well loved Professor of Chemistry, whose lecture notes were liberally diluted with stories, good and otherwise. A more sober-minded colleague, whose son had attended the chemistry lectures, inquired whether the chemistry department considered story telling as a major course, and if they didn't why were there so many stories in a course in general chemistry? "Well, you see," was the retort, "many of the boys really don't like chemistry; it seems to them dry and uninteresting— but they do like stories of the kind I tell