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36 Transactions of S.M.P.E., September 1926
started training in February of this year, is now in session and its training will continue until August.
Before the opening of the first session the catalog of the school was distributed throughout the country by mailing to colleges, graduate schools, and business colleges. It was distributed also by the managers of theatres and exchanges to those men in respective communities who would be interested. The result was that about five hundred applications were received. They came from every state, and from Canada and Mexico. (Applications have since come from abroad). The applicants represented many professions — lawyers, doctors, mining engineers. West Point graduates, interior decorators, advertisers, salesmen of varied commodities, theatre organists, projectionists, motion picture engineers (there is a member of your Society in the present class) , and theatre managers who realized that although they had had practical experience, they could profit by the training that was given. The selection of men was determined by such factors as education, experience, intelligence, physique, personality, a general aptitude for the profession of theatre management, and the firm desire to make it a career.
Training is given over a period of six months. There is formal instruction in the theatre-auditorium of the school. The schedule includes about seven hundred hours of this formal instruction, which is given by close to two hundred experts whose long experience has given them a practical knowledge of what not to attempt, what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and how to do it economically. Besides, there is field survey work. According to a very detailed schedule, the men enrolled visit the different theatres in the vicinity of New York — theatres of every type — to study and analyze operation. This field work is not haphazard but in each case deals with specific and clearly defined problems. When the class has mastered certain principles, they are assigned to different departments at local theatres to assist in the preparation and execution of the daily routine.
Some one has said that the activities of the efficient theatre manager include activities not only of other closely affiliated businesses but also of others which at first thought do not seem to have any Ijcaring on theatre operation. This is evident from the course of training followed, which includes The History of the Motion Picture; The Development of Production, Distribution and Exhibition; The Theatre Map of the United States; Types of Theatres; Economies