The Film Renter and Moving Picture News (Jan-Feb 1923)

January 1, 1923. THE FILM RENTER & MOVING PICTURE NEWS. xi. THE EDUCATIONAL FILM OF THE FUTURE. “Eye the Straightest Road to the Brain.” (By C. L. BUCKLE, M.A., Cantab.; L es L, Paris.) HE moving picture is probably the most important f addition to the educational apparatus of our time, but its association with entertainment has not advanced its progress with our schools and universities. Films produced for instruction and films made for amusement have utterly different aims. Exhibitors who have to draw the public into their theatres and send them away eager to return, cannot afford to displease them with the heavier stuff of thought. Subjects, even if in themselves educational, are ruined for teaching purposes by spectacular treatment; science becomes sensational, and geography a kaleidoscope of isolated scenic marvels. But schoolmasters in charge of boys for definite. periods at a time have no one to placate, and can demand of the film every relevant fact available. For them the kinematograph is the most vivid illustrator of phenomena and of processes which it would be difficult otherwise to explain. It is the most direct interpreter we have of the written and spoken word. The Film-Group of the Future. The educational film of the future must be the fullest possible record of its theme. It must make no concession whatever to lazy thinking. Subjects must be studied on the fila as scientifically and as thoroughly as in the boak. Each stream of knowledge must be traced to its fountain head; and as there is no tributary but flows into some greater river, so no single film can have its full value otherwise than in a series. Universities and schools have all to conform to programs covering whole courses over fixed terms or periods. The film must do the same; the film-group must be our unit, and not each separate film. The International Language. — Putting, then, into our films all the visible knowledge that we possess, and taking the film-group for our unit, how best can we co-ordinate production and organise distribution? Every school and college, in other countries as in our own, has in one sense a common basis of instruction; they all need facts, be they events, mechanical processes, or natural phenomena. They may draw from them varying conclusions or even different interpretations, but chemical reactions are the same in Paris as in Peru; the principles of biology are universal. The film is indeed the real international language, the one medium which all ean understand. For that very reason its accuracy and authority must be impeccable; its scholarship must be as scrupulous as that of the best text-book. An effort must, therefore, be made to interest professors and schoolmasters of distinction in its teaching possibilities. Small committees might be formed of specialists in each subject, such as chemistry, geography and the main industries, to examine existing films and classify them for distribution to schools and-universities. After that would naturally follow the task of planning future productions, working out scenarios along the lines of present curricula, maintaining always the true function of the educational film, which is to supplement and illustrate instruction by the book or master. World Scholarship. This work will inevitably bring our teachers into touch with their colleagues in other countries. It is mpossble to study any subject long without crossing the trails of Continental and American scholars. In this way, with ‘contact established through interchange of scenarios and international discussion, films will be evolved of immense educational value. There would be, through the film, a great pooling of visual knowledge, a representation on the screen of facts which, seen at the same time and in the same way by all, would make instantly clear what had been first taught in theory. Subjects like biology, more fascinating than ever on the screen ; like bacteriology and microscopical work generally; like geography, if scientifically handled with relief maps and diagrams as well as more immediately appealing views, all would be more impressive if visualised through the film. The earlier stages of learning anything must mean hard work, but the film would quicken progress and strengthen the memory. ‘‘ Things seen,’’ says Tennyson, ‘‘ are mightier than things heard.’’ The eye is certainly the straightest road to the brain. Vision and Revision. If all this seems theoretical, there are practical suggestions which might guide us now. The first step is to ec-ordinate the first-rate films we have; to range them by subjects, the ages for which they are intended, and the periods or courses which they cover. The problem of distribution must then be tackled. Demonstrations must be given, and schoolmasters and schoolmisiresses must be convinced that the film can really help them. Happily it challenges no existing medium, not even the lanternslide. Books and the teacher, with experience later of the world, must always be the basis of education. The film, which gives life and movement to what we learn, is a splendid new weapon in our teaching armoury. One principle of orderly knowledge is adequate revision. However impressively a. master may explain a lesson the first time over, it is bound to fade from his boys’ memories as he leads them further on. Historians find it fatally easy to grow hazy about one period when they have passed on to a later one. Geography, studied only from books, is apt to become a muddle of regions and industries. Chemical substances and their several properties. are confused. a But when the film is used to drive a lesson home, after the facts have been studied in text-book or notes, then is a really firm impression made. Every point that had been obscure grows clear; the mind receives the fresh knowledge all the more keenly for being half-familiar with itin theory already; facts that were ill-understood fall into place in the boys’ minds like the pieces of a puzzle uniting to form a picture. The vision of the film makes the best possible revision for the mind. Therein lies the immense value of the film for educa-. tion. It represents real things: it is universal: it is flexible, for it can always be added to. It has in it the true stuff of education, for it stimulates delight and curiosity.