Visual Education (Jan-Nov 1920)

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Editorial o TIME was — and but a very few years ago — when the worth of a pageant was considered to lie chiefly in its advertising value to the interests presenting it, such as schools, communities, social organizations or industrial societies. Alumni and alumnae, patrons and friends, were thoroughly circularized in advance, with the delicate suggestion that they "tell others." Slips, in assorted colors, were inserted in all outgoing mail and flung to the four corners of the postal zone, informing the world of the epochal step to be taken by said institution in producing a pageant. Now pageants are common throughout the country. Mere novelty no longer justifies their production. A skeleton framework of mediocre English is no longer adequate for the text. Odds and ends of colored cloth, selected from family trunks and wardrobes and spliced together according to the varying tastes of individual participants, do not suffice for the costuming. The herding of many people across a stage is not necessarily "action." There must be intellectual content, dramatic quality and artistic finish harmoniously blended throughout the whole, if the performance is to merit the name of pageant. Centuries ago Pageantry was considered and treated as an art. It is again coming to be recognized as such, and many indications give promise that we shall soon be deriving from it once more the cultural values that so greatly enriched the Middle Ages, both intellectually and esthetically. Visual Education is interested in Pageantry. In this issue we are starting a department for its use and are soon to have the pleasure of printing definitive articles on the subject by experts in the field. Hundreds of progressive schools throughout the country have succeeded in getting projection equipment installed, only to find endless difficulty in securing material worth projecting. (Increased trouble is the pioneer's normal reward.) There are some of these schools, we suppose, who have not written us asking help — but we are receiving daily what sounds like an universal chorus of requests for information that will inform. These schools find, as we have found innumerable times, that the chief thing obtainable from commercial companies' lists of "educationals" is fond hope and keen disappointment. It is our apparent duty to tackle this job, and we accept gladly. The thing shall be done, but how soon or how well are questions still on the knees of the gods. To help our inquiring friends curb their impatience we would ask them to remember two things: first, it is a gigantic task — in these feverish days of delirious production when the last purpose of the producers is to serve the schools — to supply information that will not disappoint concerning projection equipment, films, sources of supply, transportation, terms, cost, etc. ; second, Visual Education aims to be nothing if not trustworthy. We want to be sure before we speak so that, when we speak, our readers can be sure. This subject is mentioned further on page 46 of this number. We shall have much more to say in the May issue.