The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1911-05-20

orize ring would not endure any pictured sexual
depravity. To me that was wonderful revela-
ton of Anglo-Saxon psychology.
Thus 1t will always be in our 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
A Partisan manufacturer offered $2Ooooo LOT
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 skillfu actors rehearsed them carefully
and reproduced the Passion Play, almost as well
as It was originally done, and the cost was ABOUT
a twentieth of what he offered for the original
This manufacturer had eye on new field
for the moving picture. While his imitation WILL
perhaps. find a comparatively small market, 1t
cannot hope to reach the class that would have
purchased a guaranteed reproduction OF the
Oberammergau play; viz. the churches
For the churches have not yet come utterly un-
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 SUD
jects Joseph Going Into Egypt" THE Repulse
of Herod" "Jephthahs Daughter, The Keller
of Jericho" and THE Wisdom OF Solomon" are
a few of the subjects Of moving-picture plays
founded on 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 Nationai
Board Of Censorship. one is classed as "peda-
gogical"
In the catalogues of the manufacturers one
finds films that show lessons in agriculture
aeronautics, animal life. bacteriology, biography
biology, botany entomology, ethnology hsneries
geography history, industry, kindergarten stud
ies mining and metallurgy, microscopy, mill
tary and naval LIE. natural history, ornitnoogy
pathology. psciculture. religion. travel ano
zoology"
It looks like the catalogue Of an educational
publishing house. Yet it is only the list of flmi
that may be and are ordered by the trade
Subjects under these lists ard shown daily In tn
$500 theaters that exhibit moving pictures In thi
country. They form entertainment, not instruc
tion They have put the stereopticon out
business, not the schoolmaster.
For the. public schools have no more surren
dered to the new and plausible invader than hav
the churches.
Why?
WHY not teach children history by shown
them scenes from the lives of great mel
pageans from the great moments that are dul
and laboriously recorded in the books. Why ne
sit and watch George Washington cross the Dell
ware ON the moving picture sheet, instead
having to puzzle your head over the dry prir
that records 1t on unlivened page? Why NJ
learn about the growth of flowers pleasantly.
watching picture instead of having to patient
dissect the flower and then piece It togeth'
again under the instruction Of botany te,
book? Such pictures can be and are constant
shown. Do they not mean the revolution
pedagogy?
Not long ago the New York Board of Educate
J appointed committee to investigate this su
, ject and find out II 1t were feasible to inst
!. moving-picture machines in the various schot
of the city Superintendent Maxwell was on I
committee / saw him few days after the I
8 hibition.
!: He was not very enthusiastic about the p
lures.
n "A method will never be devised that VIII sa
e any human being the labor Of learning" he sa
t 1--WE learn only by taking thought. and that
= work hard work. You cannot insert learnt
% INCIDENTALLY. You cannot swallow 1t In t
loid form There is but one way to take 1t.
. that It the Oldest way known. You will find at
q. all of these will-o.the-wisps have vanished Il
st It will be the newest way, too"
Is Which throws the moving picture right 81
as where 1t belongs-in the theater. 1t can have
of permanent place in the church. 1t can have
real place in the school, though It may be an
10 larry to either or both.