The Press Wednesday, April, 29, 1925. The Cinema Mind.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18368, 29 April 1925, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, April, 29, 1925. The Cinema Mind.

Many of our readers will be surprised to read to-day that tho Council of Christian Congregations wants a cinema theatre for school-children. The excellent letter written to us on this subject a few days ago by Mr C. E. Eerris —a letter with which we entirely agree, and of which wo shall possibly have more to say—indicated clearly enough what the cultural consequences would be of teaching children even once a week by films. But the film has come into stranger places than the schoolroom. It was reported a fow days ago that a cinema had been operated in an aeroplane over London, and that it was proposed to make such entertainments a regular feature of all cross-Channel flights. And by a curious irony the film that was shown in tho aeroplane that wandered about in a fog over London was "The "Lost World." In one sense the world that cannot be allowed to go for a trip in an aeroplane without having its palate tickled by moving pictures, is a lost world. It has lost something very precious, the faculty of enjoying itself by itself, tho ability to enjoy a quiet hour with nothing but its own thoughts. Wordsworth's "inward eye which is the "bliss of solitude" has become atrophied, and the mind shrinks from the task of communing with itself or with Nature. Every hour must have its excitement, which must come from outside, and so, on so short and at the same time so wonderful a journey as that by air from England to Prance, the flickering fripperies of the cinematograph must pass before the eyes of a jaded generation. We have read that on a liner coming to New Zealand recently an American complained of the lack of recreation on board. There was, he said, no swimming bath, and no verandah cafe with a band playing all tho time; and as he was willing to pay for these things he thought he ought to have had them. The incident explains why some aspects of modern life arc feared by people who are in no sense kill-joys. Luxury and excitement are destroying simplicity and vulgarising even the refined. "We are reminded of a recent story by a Continental, satirist that made a great impression on English critics. A middle-aged American millionaire breaks the routine of his moneymaking to take a trip to Europe. He travels in one of those huge luxuryridden ships that moved Conrad to such penetrating irony when one of them struck an iceberg. But the traveller dies suddenly in Italy, and makes the return journoy to his native land in the hold of the same ship, with tho bands playing, and the champagne flowing, and tho dancers dancing above him. Presumably there were also some thirdclass passengers. Some will recall the scene in "Tho Antiquary" in which Sir Arthur Wardour and the beggar are cut off by the tide. "Can you find no wayt w says the gentleman. "I'll make "you rich. ... I'll give you a farm." "Our riches, will soon be equal," replies the beggar as he looks at the advancing sea.

The craving for outward excitement is confined to no class and to no age: In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay; He drove in furioua guise, Along the Appian way. He m»da a feast, drank fierce and i aet, And orown'd his hair with flowersNo easier nor no quicker passed The impracticable hours. Within their more limited opportunities there is among people of moderate means, and even among the poor, the same kind of craving as takes more spectacular forms among tho rich. What makes this age different from other times are tho multiplication of luxury and the much more numerous temptations to live outwardly as opposed to inwardly. Happiness has been defined as a minimum of unsatisfied desires. It would be truer to say that it depends upon the development of the inward eye, the capacity to observe and think whether one is in a crowd or alone, the gift of intellectual detachment. To be a hermit is to truncate life, but not to be able to live to oneself for a while is to miss full development. It is no bad definition of education to call it that which enables a man to spend a day profitably by himself.