CHILDREN AT PICTURES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15221, 20 May 1920, Page 3

CHILDREN AT PICTURES.

♦ , ' VIEWS OF MINISTER OF EDUCATION. Th© Minister of Education has been receiving complaints from various sources about the character of pictures on public exhibition at kinema houses throughout the country, theatres whioh are freely attended by school children. Mr. Parr said to a reporter tliat he was considering whether it was not his duty to make some recommendations to the Department in charge of the censorship. "I know," he said, "that the Department contro'Jins; the picture theatres and tlie censorship will probably say that you cannot regulate th e theatres so that pictures only fit for 'children shall be exhibited, irnd that parents should not allow their children to see pictures that may do .them harm. That is a.l very well, but the fact remains that children will go, and cannot be prevented from • goin# .to the theatres by thousands very week, and I fear that the effect of many pictures upoii them is not a wholesome one. Some of tho ridiculous and sensational pioturedramas give the youna; mind am entirely false idea of actual life. Is it good for a child, for example, to see a woman represented' as seeming to flourish on ' wrongdoing? Nothing is more impressionable than the child mnnd, and therein lies the risk. Some shows, I think, are fairly strong meat for the average adult ; how much more so for the school child? Another aspect I rather deplore is the amount of American film shown in this country. Why ridolise people like Fairbanks and Mary Pickford; why exhibit American war camps and American soldiers all the time? Have the British no achievements in peace and war that can be shown on the screen? I know nt is suggested that th© picture people are largely in the hands of monopolists. It may Be so, but the •fact remains, from my point of view as Minister of Education, that a great deal of very inferior stuff is thrown on the screen. The kinematograph, in my judgment, ia a most potent educational agency. Is it being used on right lines in New Zealand to-day?"