Radio Broadcast (Nov 1926-Apr 1927)

168 ing right, lose some of its kick by coming over: Lettuce half ate, that Mike makes right! Nor is it to be expected that the tolerant viewpoint will be materially fostered by the admonition: Wood mallets toward none, with chair or tea for all. Difficulties here unquestionably. And examining into the proposition, they appear to multiply inversely as you go down the line. Now to be fully pedagogic, the little children, bless 'em, certainly have to have theirs. When I was a kid, anyhow, we acquired much of our wisdom and absorbed character-building axioms by speaking pieces. The method, I am informed, has not been abandoned. Wherefore comes consideration of the business of memorizing things. Pictorial illustration was always helpful in committing verse to memory — Casabianca, a noble piece, being one of the earliest in my recolection. So let's take that, exclusively from the how-itsounds position: What, it may be inquired, is to prevent juvenile bewilderment regarding the immature hero of Mrs. Heman's verse as to why he did so nobly stick to the ship should the initial situation phonetically disclose: — Sea foisted on the boy Ringbeck When salt buddie had fled. The moral effect is of consequence; and irrespective of how quickly we dismiss the detail of childhood's portion there are few reassurances that the adolescents will fare better. It might even be advanced that the phonetics of ether-wave education might materially accelerate flapperish wise RADIO BROADCAST cracking, with Don Quixote perhaps declaring: "A man's word is as good as his blonde.' And totally aside from the question of elevation of morals, there might be some biological confusion over: Summer born great, some sneeze at greatness, and some have great nests thrust upon them. MORE PROBLEMS FOR THE RADIO EDUCATOR \A7ITH these mere elementary things " V we appear to be getting beyond our depth. The subtleties to be encountered in even a smattering of science thus may give us pause. What chances for phonetic transcription, I ask you, have the isobaric and isothermal charts of physical geography, to say nothing of the diurnal inequality of the tides? Yet if 1 remember correctly the chronological sequence of earnest but futile attempts of teachers to add to my knowledge of things academic, the study of physical geography came early, preceding the sciences. This must be considered in an estimate of a future wherein the young student will be rolling his own from five and ten parts and thus acquiring a new nomenclature and a radio receiver — with the praiseworthy object that other education may come after. Then through the headphones along comes the physical geography lesson dignifiedly asseverating that the soft mud or ooze at the bottom of the ocean is called, "radiolaria" . . . A little explanatory straightening out may have to go along with this. But without further recourse to the foregoing fundamentals of education (although a slow smile accompanies the thought of how the word, "hypothesis" DECEMBER, 1926 would come over the air) the broader conception must allow that certain difficulties may be foreseen, and a way found to overcome them. Meanwhile I await with passionate expectancy some advance dope on what disciplinary measures are to be devised to outsmart recalcitrant intelligences on off days. I have not forgotten how the opening of the baseball season, for example, always had a retarding effect on concentration, even under the watchful dominance of an agile-eyed professor. Our future student, as I gather it— or a large percentage of him, at least — will be strictly on his own. Surely he must be dubbed a super-seeker after knowledge who will be able to abide with, say the postulate, the lemma, corollary and scholium on geometry's opening day, when with a turn of the dial he can tune-in the opening game of the World Series. This generation might have acquired an additional ignoramus or two under that handicap. Undoubtedly, though, there are many subjects that can be taught quite easily through broadcasting. The favorable aspects must be looked into. Now for example — For example. . . _ Well, I can't seem to get the inspiration right off. But there must be; just plenty to write about; probably many inspiriting addresses on the air right this minute. A radio receiver here at my hand; and the newspaper programs. It's 9:30 let's see . . . Urn, what's this? Paul Whitman's outfit; that means some pretty good symphonized jazz— and Olga Steck, my musical comedy favorite; a few zippy songs. Sounds good. Don't like to miss it. Perhaps I've written enough, anyhow. For it can readily be seen how easy it is to educate the Masses. Especially, in the old-fashioned way. "THE UNIVERSITY OF THE AIR AIMS TO RELIEVE BOTH EYE STRAIN AND POCKETBOOK"