EDUCATIONAL FILMS

Southland Times, Issue 22295, 10 April 1934, Page 6

EDUCATIONAL FILMS

TOUR OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS. SCIENCE LECTURER’S WORK. Now screening education films at various centres around the province is Mr J. J. S. Cornes, formerly a science lecturer at the Christchurch Training College for 10 years. When his services were no longer required for lecturing because of the reduction in training college work Mr Cornes decided to put his interest in education to other uses and set out to show educational pictures in country districts. Mr Cornes is an enthusiastic advocate of the educational value of the right type of motion picture, and he decided to make use of 16 millimeter film, described by microphone or accompanied by music, so that he could use pictures taken by himself in New Zealand and thus give Dominion audiences a wider knowledge of their own country. fie started out on his venture about 12 months ago, and since then has travelled from Amberley to Clifden and has shown his films in all sorts of places, from colleges to barn lofts, and has met with all sorts of receptions.

“When I started out on my venture I received the blessing of the Education Department and education boards along with much charity and little faith,” Mr Cornes told a reporter. “Teachers generally have given active assistance, while some committees have given me a great reception. Other school committees, on the other hand, have received me with condescension. Reception in Southland.

“I have done best financially in Southland and Central Otago,” Mr Cornes went on. “I might add that the saying is that in Southland a traveller drops in on the farmer when dinner time is approaching, but in Canterbury he carries his lunch in his pocket. This is explained by the assumption that Canterbury is English and conservative—it conserves what it has.”

Asked what were his chief impressions of Southland, Mr Cornes said that the province was full of puzzles: The innumerable rabbits along certain hedges and zones of road; the predominance of cheese over butter factories; the idleness of the Orepuki shale works; the destruction of bush about Colac Bay; and the difficulty of knowing just when one was in Southland and when one was in Otago—even when perfectly sober. Elaborating on his remark about the provincial boundaries being indefinite, Mr Cornes said that as an example neither Queenstown citizens nor the Education Board appeared to know whether Queenstown —much less Eglinton Valley—was in Otago or in Southland. While definite river boundaries like the Waitaki were absent, however, the borders of some of the “dry” districts were extremely wet! The most beautiful parts of Southland were probably the rolling green hills between Riversdale and Waikaka, and the western limestone country about the swift Waiau, near Clifden. This year, on account of the late harvest in Canterbury and the prevalence of measles, Mr Cornes, after showing in the town schools and colleges of Christchurch, has come south earlier than last year, stopping only to show at the high schools and technical colleges of Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin and Gore. He is to screen at the Southland Technical College to-morrow morning, and later, after visiting the primary schools of the province, he will return to the Girls’ High School towards the end of April.