PICTURES IN SCHOOL

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 103, 3 May 1919, Page 10

PICTURES IN SCHOOL

FUTURE OF THE FILM

15MSON MAKES A FORECAST.

Moving pictures will ultimately take tbe place of textbooks in schools and colleges, according to Thomas A. Edison, as quoted in. the current number of the Educational Fihn Magazine. And Mr. j Edison believes that the substitution of films for books should be made as coon, and systematically as possible. "My impression is," he says, "that the Government ought to help in this work, for it is one of the greatest things in the world, and perhaps the Government should establish a plant for the production of educational films. It should be a fireproof building of concrete,, where the films could be madfe and kept in safety and at the right temperature, and there should be vast fireproof vaults, where all Valuable and irreplaceable reels might be stored. A great film library of t educatibnal and industrial subjects should be built up in Washington. . Then these films could be issued on the rental sys-. tern, to all insitutions in . the United' States, even to the. most remote rural schoolhouses, and the system oculd be so operated that it would pay its own way, I would be on. a self-supporting basis like the Pension Office or Post Offics." BY EAR t)R EYE. Asserting that "anything which can. be taught to the ear can be taught 'better to the eye," Mr. Edison continues1*; : "The moving object on the screen.; the closest possible approximation to reality, is almost the same as bringing that object itself before the child, or taking tha child to that object. "Film teaching will be done without any books whatsoever.. The only textbooks needed will be. for the teacher's own use. The films will serve as guideposts to these teacher instruction books, not the booas as guides to the films. The pupils will learn everything there is to learn, in every grade from the lowest to the highest. : The long years now spent in cramming indigestible knowledge down unwilling young throats, and in examining young, minds on subjects which they can never-'* learn under the present system, will be cut. down marvellously ; waste will be eliminated, and the youth of every land will at last become actually educated.

"If the Government should establish a film factory, with a special department for distribution on a small rental basis, and introduce such an educational system so as to pay running expenses, I venture to predict that it would bring about a 1 revolutionary change for the better in our entire Bchool organisation."

By making "every classroom and every assembly hall a movie show, 100 per cent, attendance" will be assured, in Mr. Edison's opinion. "Why, you won't be able to keep boys and girls away from the school then," he says. "They'll get there ahead of time, and scramble for good seats, and they'll stay late, begging to see some of the fikna over again. I'd like to be a boy again when film teaching becomes universal." v /