ISE CINEMA IN EDUCATION.
SIIORT time ago a correspondent wrote to us suggest- ing that we should air the question of the use of moving pictures in education. As he pointed out, the vhool cinema is now a practical proposition, and not, as in 1913, when we published an article dealing with the subject, an abstract question of .policy. A portable pro- jector has been introduced by means of which good moving pictures can be shown in any classroom where there is electric light, and for country distr.ct s a small portable motor can be used. Risk of fire is done away with by the use of uninflammable films Perhaps at first blush most people would be inclined to say : "By all means let there be cinemas in schools. Anything which makes school work more interesting is to be encouraged." But there is of course another side to the question. There are, for instance, two objections which occur to our correspondent. Many people find that watching a cinema produces a considerable amount of eye-strain, and it is certain that after school hours many children in towns already spend as much time as is good for their eyes in watching motion pictures. Secondly, there is the question of expense. But we can imagine also that some educationists of the new school might object to teaching by the cinema because the child's part in the lesson would be so entirely passive. To use tho cinema would be to return too much to the state of things of which Sir Robert Bridges writes with so much humour in October, in a poem from whieh we quoted last week. Sir Robert Bridges recalls his youth :— " When, a young chubby chap, I sat just so With others on a school-form rank'd in a row.
While an authoritative old wise-aere Stood over us and from a desk fed us with flies, Dead flies—such as litter the library south window.
A dry biped he was, nurtured likewise
On skins and skeletons, stale from top to toe With all manner of rubbish and all manner of lies."
There is no doubt to many people a strong element of "the dead fly" in the cinema. Many teachers would probably say that they could get much better results from some method which was not so completely objective.
Our correspondent meets his own two objections—cost and eye-strain—by suggesting that as the educational films would naturally be technically of the first class they would produce a steady picture, which would not in fact strain the eyes of a normal child. The expense, he suggests, should be met by a small charge in the account of the child, at schools that could afford it, and in the case of National Schools a ohm* should be made in the rates. Private charity should, be called in or a Treasury grant made. Most of us will agree that this is no time to talk of spending more public money on any device, however admirable, which does not produce some very definite public benefit, or rather set right some very obvious wrong. For instance, while a very good argument might be made out even at this time of financial crisis for the spending of money on Nursery Schools in badly laid-out working-class quarters, we are of the opinion that very little can be said for spending it upon cinemas, whieh at most would only serve to increase school amenities. That is the miserabb truth about our financial position. Money should not be forthcoming for amenities, however desirable, which cannot be shown directly to affect national health and efficiency. It is, however, very possible that money could, be obtained from voluntary sources. In any case there are many groups of schools where parents would be willing to contribute towards the setting up of a joint cinema outfit if school teachers came to the conclusion that cinemas are useful.
What then are the arguments in favour of the use of motion pictures I The first place, we think, should be given to the fact that, whether the modernist educator approves or not (and be it noted he very often does approve), almost all children enjoy cinemas, and will spend their money in going to them even in the presence of strong counter- attractions such as sweet-shop windows. There is no smoke without fire. This proverb is true in the region of psychology, if in no other branch of human affairs. Children would not go spontaneously to see photo-plays unless they fulfilled perfectly or imperfectly some need which the child feels. More and more in education we are beginning to look to the child's voluntary actions for "pointers." There is no question that the cinema is a very great factor in the lives of most children when their activities are not circumscribed. We have Rot to accept the cinema as a factor in the life both of the child and of the adult, alike in towns and in the country.
This reflection will probably lead most readers on to the next point in the argument for cinemas in schools. If we have got to accept the fact that the moving picture has come to stay, shall we not endeavour to make that stay as pleasant as possible ? When trains were first introduced they were exceedingly cumbersome things—stage-coaches which had taken the wrong turning, and were extremely ill adapted to the thunderous pace of twenty miles an hour at which they travelled. We can most of 1113 remember early motors.
Mr. Joseph Thorp, of the Designs and Industries Associ- ation, reminded his audience in a speech the other day that solemn letters had been written to the Times suggesting that as these carriages looked so extraordinarily awkward without horses in front of them, their fronts (the term " bonnet " had not come into use) should be embellished with a figurehead, a swan or a Britannia or whatnot. It is always a matter of time for a new scientific invention to find its aesthetic feet, and the photo-play is no exception. Considering the possibilities of the method, it is astonishing how small has been the success of photo-plays up to the present. How many delightful opportunities there are for the producer! From how many of the fetters of the legiti- mate drama is the writer for the motion picture freed. For example, what playwright has not been hampered by the impossibility of producing a satisfactory outdoor scene in a realistic play by the fact of his being cut off from all the. natural " effects " of the everyday life of his characters, sunset, moonrise, wind in the trees, a moving flock of sheep (conr the film The Auction of Souls)? H our educational films were devised with a view not to bare instruction but to aesthetic satisfaction, we should very soon educate a public opinion that would reject half the films that are "now showing." It is not that no good films are ever made, though the present writer has never been fortunate enough to see one that really exploited the aesthetic and dramatic possibilities of its medium, but that the comparatively good films are completely swamped by the emphatically bad. Any cinema-goer can recall the name of two or three film companies which never even by mistake seem to produce a good film. If, as our correspondent suggests, the subjects of the educa- tional film should include history,-geography, science, and natural history, it ought to he easy to produce films that would, in the vulgar phrase, "knock spots" off the current commercial article.
Another possibility will strike most people in considering this subject. Would it not be possible for some or many of the historical films to be home-made—i.e., could not a scheme be arranged by which, under the direction of some technically competent person, a " photo-play " representing the desired episode of history should be got up by the adult students of several Polytechnics and Universities? A competition would then be held and the best representa- tion selected. Any deficiencies in the way of dress or properties having been made up by loans from public mllsellMS, the winning students would re-enact the scene for the camera at the site where the event portrayed really occurred—the Tower, Hampton Court, or Holyrood. Great interest could be given to such competitive work if the films were made to circulate throughout the Empire. For example, New Zealand students would exchange The Landing of Captain Cook for King John at Runnymede, while Quebec and England would co-operate in the film "General Wolfe, in two parts." The cinema would be a wonderful medium for The Gordon Riots, The Children's Crusade, Marston Moor Nelson in the Victory.' The co-operation of schoolchildren in the crowds and the taking of the principal parts by amateurs would of course, besides- increasing the aesthetic value of the film, tend to minimize the . objection that the cinema lesson would be all take and no give. In connexion with this, and also for the purpose of train- ing the child's discrimination, it might be interesting some- times to give two versions of the same story ; thus the famous Game of Bowls as conceived by the students of the Chelsea Polytechnic and also by the undergraduat?s of Manchester University. Before any filming on a large scale was started it would be absolutely necessary to obtain expert direction, but we do trust that the pioneers of educational film-making will never believe that tha technical film experts should conduct their activities unaided. They must get the best technical advice, but the technician should have some person of unquestioned aesthetic knowledge over him ; such a man, for instance, as Mr. Granville Barker.
There is one other objection to the cinema. It is that at present it is shown in the dark. Many children in large towns already suffer from want of light, and we must not add to the trouble. The present writer did not have the pleasure of seeing the outdoor, cinema which was run in Trafalgar Square, still less of hearing how it was contrived, but perhaps it would be possible to adapt some device such as was there employed for the use of the travelling cinema belonging to the London County Council. Mr. Vachel Lindsay, the American poet and exponent of the " Higher Vaudeville," calls the cinema the most democratic of the arts, and believes that a creative artist could make it a beautiful art. To set up the cinema in the schools would be to approach the matter from the other side and provide an educated public who will be ready to understand and aid the creative artist when he appears.
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