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4 Visual Education
the curious purchasers of the wonderful thing. If the same little 'scope has now been moved from the marble-topped parlor table to a trunk in the dusty attic, while thousands of new ones are finding daily use in American schools, it proves merely that the amusement days are over, the utility days are come. Thus in the end — in the dear old "long run" — every invention comes into its own and turns at last to the greater service. It is a law.
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Now comes the Motion Picture, the big brother of the lens family, the colossus among all amusement devices ever known to the race. Whether this giant proves to be the ogre that a host of educators have seemed to fear, or a mighty benefactor to their cause depends on the educators themselves.
Why — when they know perfectly well the above facts — why do some intelligent people still feel called upon to "despise" the Motion Picture ? Why do they condemn this innocent device for running the same lawless course that greater things have run before it? The whole story of human progress hangs on ideas, discoveries and inventions that wrinkled the corners of the mouth before they wrinkled the forehead. The Motion Picture is not yet through with the corners of the mouth. It has not yet begun its real work on the forehead of this nation and the world.
On the other hand, thousands of intellectual men are awake to the existence of this new giant in our midst. Thousands more are stirring in their sleep. There is a vast deal of vague thinking on this subject going on throughout the country. The educational world is uneasy from a growing suspicion that there is real value wrapped up in the Motion Picture, which is as yet undetermined. Thinking men are dimly conscious that something important is being missed in the monster industry that is rolling up its mushroom millions every week.
Yet all this random cerebration is getting us nowhere. Like the waves of the wireless which cannot be directed, the half-formed ideas of individuals are dissipated in the academic ether, reaching by chance but a few listeners here and there, out of the many who would like to hear. There exists no adequate means for collecting these vagrant ideas, making them accessible to all who would like to survey the field and analyze the present consensus of opinion as a basis for further study. Already a large audience of educators of all ranks, high and humble, are ready and eager to hear the question discussed, to take active part in the discussion.
This magazine is interested in the whole subject of visual education. We believe whole-heartedly in all rational means thus far devised for taking full advantage of the great educative capacity of the human eye. Maps, Charts, Diagrams, Models, Prints — when properly made — need no defense as legitimate and valuable adjuncts to the classroom equipment. The learned world has long since ceased to doubt the value of the Laboratory. It would be ridiculous in our day to argue for the worth of the Microscope or the Telescope. The position of the Stereopticon and the Stereoscope in the pedagogic economy is quite secure. Out of all, only the Motion Picture seems to need defending, and this late-comer, we fancy, when once the proper hands are at work upon