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PAGE INTRODUCTION: The Cinema-Educator 9

The genesis of the film.--Present and future.

The cinematograph in the schools.--The film as teacher.--Some educational films.--History taught by film.--The development of the British Colonies.--Political propaganda.--The film in American schools.--Instructing the deaf mute.--In mental hospitals.--Medical students.

School, Library and cinema.--Film collections.--Preservation of the film.--Library of films in Berlin.--Advertising the public library.--"Publicity" films.--The book.--Film as mental ally.--Filmed literature.

The Cinema Commission.--Film censorship.--Juvenile crime.--Morality tests.--The "White Scourge" problem.--Churches and the cinema.--The film and the savage.--Co-operative cinemas.

Advertising by the film.--Sales by the film.

The failure and success of the film.--Cinema eccentricities: blunders and inaccuracies.--Natural colour films.--Talking films.--Paper films.

THE FILM

HISTORICAL

The rise and development of the cinematograph during the last few years has been truly phenomenal.

GENESIS OF THE FILM.

The history of the cinematograph dates back to the obscure ages of the year 65 B.C., at which period Lucretius, in his "De Rerum Natura," made certain pertinent remarks relative to the persistence of vision--the base upon which the whole theory of motion photography is built. According to a document in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the cinematograph has a history as far back as A.D. 130.

The first stage from which the cinematograph evolved was an invention, simplicity itself, which readily lent itself to immediate and successful development. It emanated as a toy for children, and this has been gradually built up, stage by stage, until finally completed as at the present time. I refer to that simple toy-wheel or "cycle of life;" also to the children's booklet consisting of a series of pictures of various stages of action. The leaves were held between the first finger and thumb, the little book bent backwards, and the leaves released, one by one, as quickly as possible. The whole gave the impression of the subject being in motion; and this optical illusion was the embryo of the modern motion picture.

Before the introduction of the celluloid film, animated pictures from glass plates were exhibited; but without the pliable celluloid film it is contended that cinematography would have been impracticable.

DEVELOPMENT.

The modern cinematograph was rendered possible by the invention in 1890 of the celluloid roll film, on which serial pictures are impressed by instantaneous photography; a long sensitised film being moved across the focal plane of a camera and exposed intermittently. For an hour's exhibition 50,000 to 165,000 pictures are needed. To regulate the feed in the lantern a hole is punched in the film for each picture. These holes are extremely accurate in position, and when they wear, the feed becomes irregular, and the picture "dances" in an unpleasant manner--hence that irritating feeling which arises from seeing a well-worn film vibrating. The machines have been devised in enormous numbers under the names of bioscope, biograph, kinetscope, mutograph and cinematograph, derived chiefly from Greek and Latin words for life, movement, change, etc.

The first actual attempt recorded seems to be that of a Frenchman named Louis Du Hauron, who took out two patents in 1864. Although they covered all the essential points of the modern cinematograph, the one factor which made it a failure was the slowness of the wet collodion plates of that time as compared with the gelatino-bromide. In 1906, Mr. C. Rider Noble brought out a patent whereby the moving film could be stopped at any moment for examination. Prior to this invention, the film had to speed on to the end without interruption.

New ideas and inventions seem to add improvement daily.

PRESENT AND FUTURE.

It was predicted that the cinematograph, like the skating rink, would have a short life and die in its infancy, but this was a mistaken idea--the "movies," like "Liza," have "come to stay." They are a force to be reckoned with. It would not be overstating the fact to say that more people attend the cinema than all other places of entertainment massed together.

The returns relative to the cinema industry are immense. Regarding attendances at these places in this country, it shows no fewer than 1,075,875,000 attendances at cinema exhibitions in the course of a single year. In the British Isles there are approximately 4,500 theatres with a seating capacity of accommodating one in every thirty-seven of the population. Upon working out these figures it shows that the entire population of the United Kingdom visits cinema exhibitions on an average once a fortnight. About 5,000 new subjects are issued each year, and some 70,000,000 feet of film are running through the projectors each week. From 80,000 to 100,000 persons are directly engaged in the various branches of the trade.

Its increased popularity in the future is assured, and its progress will depend largely upon what uses the nation makes of this new force in national education.

EDUCATIONAL

THE CINEMATOGRAPH IN SCHOOLS.

Various boroughs have made forward steps in the introduction of the cinematograph in the school. The Birmingham Juvenile Organization Committee has prepared an exceedingly readable and interesting report for presentation to the Birmingham Education Committee. To expand upon this theory, an open exhibition is to be arranged and will be attended by thousands of children from the senior departments of the schools, the younger element being excluded. Teachers and officials of the Local Education Authority will lend their support.

A synopsis of prepared notes was given to the teachers and scholars. The schools are to be formed into groups, so that pupils may attend a special performance at a convenient centre at regular intervals. The programme of exhibition is to last for one hour; the films selected coming under five headings:--

Literature, Geography, Science, Natural History, Composition.

Literature is represented by a pictorial representation of "The Merchant of Venice." It is argued that by this method the children will be induced to turn to the plays after they have seen the characters portrayed upon the screen.

One feature missing is that the film cannot give the child any idea of the beauty of Shakespeare's prose and verse. In the case of geography it is apparent that the film can efficiently take the place of the text-book. Science and natural history could be represented by films showing the life-history of the salmon and the silkworm. One suggested experiment dealing with composition is that a portion of the story be shown, and that when the children have returned to the school they should be asked to invent a title or to summarize the film as far as it has been shown, and complete it according to their own ideas. At a future sitting the remaining portion of the film would be exhibited and the children would then compare it with their own efforts.

A similar exhibition was given in Manchester before members of the Stretford Education Committee. In this instance a portable projector was used, the lighting circuit being tapped for electric power. It is openly admitted that the cinematograph has a wide field, but the idea that the cinema will ever supplant the text-book is considered unlikely.

One would like to know the definite view adopted by the Commissioners as regards educational films and the benefits derived therefrom. Many authorities are still stumbling along in the dark, unwilling to make a beginning, but they cannot maintain this attitude for long, because the forward march of the utility of the cinema in the school is becoming apparent, and all education authorities who are apostles of progress will have to toe the line.

THE FILM AS TEACHER.

When it is remembered that the moving picture camera may be used in connection with the microscope, that it has an unlimited field in geography, in the recording of social life, and in natural history--it seems difficult to account for the fact that universities and colleges have passed it by. The value is not so much to be sought in the classroom, for there are, of course, objections to its use there, but the founding of this new type of library would possess an interest for future generations which can scarcely be over-estimated.

There is no doubt that the decision of the London County Council upon the question of using the film as a part of the educational curriculum, will, in the main, be governed by the nature of the Report issued by the Special Committee appointed by the National Council of Public Morals to consider the part the cinematograph is destined to play in public education.

The Education Committee was instructed to report as to the provision by the Council of the facilities on an educational basis to enable all London school children to see cinematograph films. These were placed under the following heads:--

Purely instructional or educational; travel, science, and natural history.

Suitable in other respects for exhibition to a juvenile audience.

Certain objections were raised. One fundamental difficulty was eyestrain, and another, ill-ventilated rooms. The whole problem is being viewed by experts from a technical, psychological, and physiological standpoint.

They had exhibited before them a film showing the power to teach history and geography. This was demonstrated in a remarkable way by an exhibition film relating to Christopher Columbus. The scenario was in Spain, for the most part in the actual surroundings associated with Columbus. There could be no better way of demonstrating to the scholar the trials and difficulties encountered by Columbus before and after he realized his life's ambition.

SOME EDUCATIONAL FILMS.

To-day Shakespeare is reeled off a spool, and human life taught at the end of a crank. You may travel over land and sea without leaving your seat and see great personages of the world perform their mighty deeds, and unconsciously knowledge of life and the world is derived which makes a difference in the conception of things surrounding us.

Take a film about the volcano, of which most children have heard but never seen. It would explain that a volcano throws up smoke, calcined dust, red-hot stones, and melted matter called lava. The summit is hollowed out in a great excavation having the shape of a funnel, sometimes miles in circumference. The principal volcanoes could be shown, as Vesuvius, near Naples; Etna, in Sicily; Hecla, in Iceland.

A curtain of smoke filling the orifice of the crater denotes the forthcoming eruption. When the air is calm the smoke rises vertically to nearly a mile in height, finally spreading out like a huge blanket, cutting off the rays of the sun, and sinking down on the volcano, covering it with a dense smoke-cloud. A huge sheaf of fire bursts from the crater to a height of 6,000 ft., and the heavy cloud is illuminated by the fiery red of the sky. Millions of sparks dart out like vivid lightning to the summit of the blazing sheaf. These sparks, so small from a distance, are, in reality, incandescent masses of stone, and of a sufficient momentum to crush the most solid structure in their fall.

From the bowels of the mountain through the volcanic chimney ascends a flux of melted mineral substance, or lava, pouring out into the crater, forming a lake of dazzling fire in the sun. Through the crevasses as well as over the edges of the crater the lava flows in streams. The fiery current, formed of dazzling and paste-like matter, similar to melted metal, advances slowly; the front of the lava stream represents a rampart on fire. Animals and human beings flee before it, but all objects stationary are lost. Trees are seen to blaze a moment on contact with the lava and sink down reduced to charcoal; the thickest walls impeding its progress are calcined and collapse; the hardest rocks are vitrified, melted. The flow of lava eventually subsides; the subterranean vapours, forced by the enormous pressure of the solid mass, escape with greater violence than ever, carrying with them whirlwinds of fine dust floating in sinister clouds and sinking down upon the neighbouring plain. Finally the mountain ceases its activity and peace reigns again for an indefinite time.

Visualize the terrible eruption of Mt. Etna in Sicily of two hundred years ago. A dark night preceded the storm. Trees swayed like reeds buffeted by the wind; people fled to avoid being crushed under the ruins of their dwellings. They lost their footing on the quaking ground and fell. Mt. Etna burst into a fissure ten miles long, and along this fissure broke forth a number of volcanic mouths, vomiting clouds of black smoke and calcined sand. Soon seven of these mouths were united in one abyss emitting cinders and lava.

Torrents of lava poured from all the crevasses of the mountain down upon the plain, destroying houses, forests and crops. The stream reached the walls of Catania and spread over the country. There, as if to demonstrate its strength to the terrified Catanians, it tore away a hill and transplanted it some distance; it lifted in one mass a field planted with vines and let it float for some time, until the green was reduced to charcoal and disappeared.

A fierce battle ensued between lava and water. The lava presented a perpendicular front nearly a mile in length and forty feet high. At the touch of that burning wall, which continued plunging further and further into the waves, enormous masses of vapour rose with terrible hissings, darkened the sky with their thick clouds, and fell in a salt rain over the region. In a few days the lava had made the limits of the shore recede three hundred and fifty yards.

The stream, swollen with new tributaries, grew from day to day and approached the town. The inhabitants could be seen from the top of the walls watching the implacable scourge. The lava finally reached the ramparts. The fiery flood rose slowly but it rose ceaselessly. It finally touched the top of the walls, whereupon, yielding to pressure, they were overthrown for the length of forty-five yards, and the stream of fire penetrated the town.

The last scene was that of the inhabitants fleeing in terror. What a realistic geography lesson, never to be forgotten, would a film of this description make!

The films can show anything from the mining of coal to the manufacture of the needle; from the weaving of a dainty handkerchief to the building of a battleship. The films projected would be purely educational, though there are numerous incidents shown, which amuse and entertain, in addition to imparting information. A particular film series of an educational and scientific nature is now available.

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