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CHAPTER XIV
SOCIAL AND COMMERCIAL USE OF SOUND
Although our theme has been narrowed, for obvious reasons, to sound as entertainment in a theatre I am not unmindful of its interest and significance elsewhere. As a matter of fact, the employment of machinery to reproduce auditory stimuli had its inception outside our industry in the phonograph and the radio. It should therefore not be surprising that the movement as a whole is bigger than the theatre and is beginning to have applications in other realms of human activity. Indeed, the scope of possibility is so wide and varied as to make prophecy well-nigh irresistible. We have seen the wildest daydreams of yesterday come true in our generation; and in view of the facts it has become advisable to think twice before dismissing anything as preposterous! Accordingly, when one looks ahead a few years to the progress of an innovation already a reality, speculation ceases to be mere speculation and takes on some of the character of calculation. If the history of man comes some day to be written in terms of material standards our age will be accorded a high place. If, on the other hand, values are measured by a different standard — if human achievement is tested ultimately according to the growth of the spirit — then we are fortunate again; for our time must certainly be known as the one in which performance has turned hope to victory and doubt to optimism. We have dared to do; now we dare to dream; and in that eternal truthfulness we have found health and aspiration.
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