The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1911-12-14

- SAAHO iAi6 WOulu uUI any plCluTSu Sexual
depravity. To me that wonderful revea.
ton of Anglo-Saxon psychology
Thus 1t will always be in theater, whether
the admission price be five cents or two dollars.
American audiences want action; they want
thrills; they want desperate courage and wild
heroism; but they want it all clean. They want
the good to triumph, the guilty to be punished,
and wrong to be avenged.
Partisan manufacturer offered 5000, 900 for
the right to make moving pictures of the Ober-
ammergau Passion Play. His offer was refused
He went back to his studio, engaged company
of very skillful actors, rehearsed them carefully
and reproduced the Passion Play, almost as we'll
as 1t was originally done, and the cost about
a twentieth of what he offered for the original
This manufacturer had an eye on new field
for the moving picture While his imitation will
perhaps, find a comparatively small market, it
cannot hope to reach the class that would have
purchased guaranteed reproduction of the
Oberammergau play; viz, the churches.
For the churches have not yet come utterly I'M
der the sway of the moving picture, despite the
fact that the Congregational and Presbyterian
churches Of Redlands, California, showed moving
pictures all last summer in their outdoor paw
lion.
Yet the moving picture manufacturers are de-
voting lot of time and money to religious sub
tects Joseph Going Into Egypt" "The Repulse
of Herod," "Jephthahs Daughter, 1.-The Relief
of Jericho" and THE Wisdom of Solomon" are
few Of the subjects of moving-picture plays
founded Biblical accounts.
While the moving pictures are battering at the
doors Of the churches they have already par.
tally scaled the walls of the schooLhouses Out
of every seven subjects passed by the National
Board Of Censorship, is classed as "peda-
gogical."
In the catalogues of the manufacturers one
finds films that show lessons in agriculture,
aeronautics. animal ife bacteriology, biography.
biology, botany, entomology, ethnology, fisheries,
geography history, industry, kindergarten stud
les. mining and metallurgy, microscopy, mill
tary and naval life, natural history, ornithology
pathology piscculture, religion, travel and
zoology"
1t looks like the catalogue Of an educational
publishing house. Yet 1t is only the list of Aims
that may be and are ordered by "the trade"
Subjects under these lists are shown daily in the
$500 theaters that exhibit moving pictures in this
country. They form entertainment, not instruc-
ton. They have put the stereopticon out OF
business, not the schoolmaster
For the public schools have no more surren.
dered to the new and plausible invader than have
the churches.
Why?
Why not teach children history by showing
them scenes from the lives Of great men.
pageants from the great moments that are duly
and laboriously recorded in the books. Why not
sit and watch George Washington cross the Della.
ware on the moving picture sheet, instead Of
having to puzzle your head over the dry print
that records 1t unlivened page? Why not
learn about the growth of flowers pleasantly by
watching picture instead OF having to patiently
dissect the flower and then piece It together
again under the instruction Of a botany text.
book? Such pictures can be and are constantly
shown. Do they not the revolution o.
pedagogy?
Not long ago the New York Board of Educat ton
appointed a committee to investigate this sub.
ject, and find out if it were feasible to install
moving picture machines in the various schools
Of the city. Superintendent Maxwell was on the
l saw him few days after the ex
hibiton.
He was not very enthusiastic about the pic
lures.
"A method will never be devised that will save
my human being the labor of learning" he said.
I'VE learn only by taking thought, and that is
work. hard work You cannot insert learning
lypodermically You cannot swallow It in tab
old form There is but one way to take It, and
hat It the Oldest way known You win find after
III of these will-o!the wisps have vanished that
t will be the newest way, too"
Which throws the moving picture right back
where it belongs-in the theater. 1t can have no
place in the church It can have no
'eal plaza in the school, though 1t may be auxiL
airy to either, or both.