PICTURE SHOWS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17435, 23 March 1917, Page 9

PICTURE SHOWS.

THEIR INFLUENCE ON CHILDREN BISHOP JULIUS APPEALS TO MOTHERS. At the annual meeting of the Women's and Children's Protection Society held last evening the president (Iho Rev W. A. Sinclair) .referred to tho evils of moving pictures, especial y in regard to their effect upon children. Not only was the moral tone of many of tlio pictures of low order, but children were kept out late at night. The position was serious, and something would require to he clone. Bishop Julius, -referring to the same subject, said ha thanked God that he was not a censor of pictures. It seemed to him such a hopeless tas*. Iho censor might view and pass many lilms that woulu not hurt adults to see, perhaps, but what of the Uio.se very picture.? were quite unfit- for children's minds. The censor could not bo blamed if he could not realise the child's mind. An . attempt mustjie made to protect tho children. Une could imagine, • with "tho, class of picture that was being presented, what tlie effect would bo upon the development of children's minds. What kind of men and women could we expect when these picture-fed children grew to '.manhood and womanhood? But. where, he would ask, were tho mothers and tho womenfolk, the natural protectors of the mora'b of the younger ones'? It should be a duty, he considered, to educate mothers, through the society, to the evils of permitting children to attend pictures so frequently. He quite realised the educational value of films, and he said nothing against that side of their production, but it was the sex problem films and those dealing with the sordid things of life that he entered an emphatic protest against. He trusted that his words would not go .unheeded antT that the mothers oT the country would take steps for fuller protection of the children of New Zealand and thus help them to become ideal men and women.