The Irish standard., 1917-09-08
Physical and Moral
Dangers Of Movies" to
Children Of Country
1.-THE Darkness of cinemas is Often
Cover for Evil-There is No Need
For the Darkness"

Max brennan in an article that ap-
peared recently in the Irish Monthly
draws a picture for us of the physical
and moral dangers to children that
are the results of promiscuous and
unguarded attendance at moving pic
ture shows. Although this account
and statistics have reference to condi-
lions in the British Isles they can very
well apply here where possibly the
moving picture has become larger
part of our social enjoyment. He
says:
Even with the decent cinema there
are evils to be guarded against: To
say nothing of physical danger to the
eyesight-a not uncommon experience
there are psychological dangers for
those, more especially for the young,
the adolescent, and the less stable
minded, who haunt cinemas. The ra-
pidity and quick change of sense slim
illus, the ocular whirligig misnamed
life on which the spectators try to
concentrate eyes and thought, the dis
sipation of attention, all this has a
similar effect upon the mind to that
caused by the abuse of reading. There
are, we know, people whose minds are
always in a fever, because they devour
books with the greatest rapidity with
out chewing or digestion. 1t is a. bad
habit which grows upon the sufferer
like the cocaine or morphia habit. It
tends to morbidity, to seclusion from
ones fellows, to living selfishly apart
from the realities of life in an illusory
world of false values. Real thought or
meditation, becomes painful, serious
ness and collectiveness impossible,
flippancy and sentimentality habit.
The conclusion is that the cinema
habit may in itself be danger to
unstable minds, especially to the neu-
rotic. Steadily gazing upon an illumi-
mated disc in or out of cinema, if
persistently INDUCED in, may lead to
dangerous auto-hypnotic states in
which suggestion is too readily re-
sponded to. If the mind is allowed to
slip the reins too long and too often,
whether by overreading, poetizing,
philosophizing, cinematizing, or what
not, there is always danger of mental
or moral trouble. ''The lunatic, the
lover and the poet are Of imagination
all compact" and they must keep the
reins we'll in hand.
The darkness of cinemas is often a
cover for evil. The remedy here is
obvious, as there is no necessity for
the darkness. Local authorities can
insist upon rejecting lamps of such
power being used that welllighted
hall need not interfere with the pic
ture upon the screen.
The educational value of the cinema
is minus zero. The diligent pupil in
the average hall has to breathe bad,
sometimes fetid air; his eyes are daz-
zled with a too rapid succession of a
caricature of life lived breathlessly
and incoherently in a geographic
tumble of countries; his eyesight is
injured and his power of forming or
derby mental pictures or Of fixing his
attention on the realities of life is
impaired if not ruined; by the comic
films his instructive feelings Of rever-
ence of what is pure and holy are
often Slapped and an undesirable anna
tive precocity stimulated.
Any film is bad which familiarizes
the mind with immoral, criminal, re-
voting or morbid sights and thoughts.
No juvenile audience sho"td be al
lowed to witness scenic horror. It
is bad for the health and the minds
of young children to let them be I'M
duly excited, stimulated or depressed.
On many of the boards near the
cinematograph theatres, beneath the
sensational programs are written such
words as nerve thrilling" ''eye open
ers tonight" and when we turn to
these programs we cannot help MOTTO
ing that it is the horrible that draws.
Massacre: A terrific tragedy; 1000
feet" etc.
I spoke to boy about IL years old
who had attended a cinematograph
show in little country town week
or two ago, and he positively trembled
as he reported what he had seen. He
said: II shall never go again. It was
horrible" I said: "What was hor-
rible?" He said: II saw man cut
his throat"
Canon Rawnsley, in the article from
which I have just quoted, writes OF
a child who had witnessed the sensa'
tional pictures, now the feature OF
nearly every cinema, waking up from
it's sleep the whole night through with
scroona and cries. He writes of boys
being familiarized with the possible
ties of a life of crime by seeing Clever
burglaries,' and the like exhibited
Sympathy is aroused for the criminal
hero and his hair-breadth escapes, and
the initiative faculties so strong In
the young are at once aroused.
"The film manufacturers have In
vaded the most holy mysteries OF oul
religious faith" This is bad phase
Under cover of religion sentimental
religiosity is appealed to for the sake
ho film has In