Newark post., 1921-03-09
Children and the Movies

lue OUncT Qdy uldIi WIN 10
little interested in moving pictures,
and seldom sees them, departed
from his usual habit and attended
Saturday afternoon performance
in the city in which he lives-a
residential suburb Of one Of the
great cities Of the country and
made up chiefly of middle-class
people, which means just average
Americans. What the man saw in
terested him very deeply and may
interest others.
He noticed first Of all that the
patrons were mostly children-at
least two-t thirds of them and prob
ably three-fourths. They were of
all ages, from high school pupils |
down to Youngsters Of not more
than five years; but most of them
were of the grade-school age, say
from seven to twelve years of age.
The chief attraction, the real
"thriller," was play in which an
innocent man is accused of a muir
der because a revolver was found
on his person. In the attempt to
make him confess the police give
him the "third degree; in other
words, they string him up by the
thumbs and otherwise torture him
until his agony upsets his mind
and he sees visions that furnish a
clue to the real murderer. Another
part Of the program was a "tri-
angle" play, in which two men
love the same woman, and there is
the usual shooting and the usual
melodramatic "heroism. AS a
relish, and to Tighten the after
noon, there were the antics Of
Mutt and jeff.
What most impressed the man
was the fierce interest of the chill
dren and the alertness with which
!. they took in and even antici pated
the action on the screen and what
: it meant. All about him were blase
little "movie fans Of eight and
ten years who saw the trend Of the
play quicker than he could see it,
and who applauded whatever
pleased them by yelling at the top
of their voices and stamping their
feet, until the theatre was a dust
filled pandemonium. The man
went home with the feeling that he
had spent the most depressing af-
ternoon in years.
There is nothing unusual in
what he saw. The same thing is
going on everywhere in America
, every day in the year, and no one
. seems to think much about it. The
question is, What is it doing to the
children?
There used to be old-fashioned
parents who thought that dime
novels were bad reading for their
boys and cheap love stories bad
t reading for their girls; but there
, is no reading that presents or can
present things so vividly as the
moving picture screen presents
them; and much Of what it pre-
sents is intrinsically more vitiating
both to mind and to morals than
all the dime novels that were ever
/. written. What a charming picture
childhood presents when it appears
a., as sophisticated little men and
women passing judgment and
making criticisms upon murders,
holdups, "problem plays and
matrimonial infelicities
, We hear sporadic talk now and
then of censorships, but no censor
and no board Of cenSOrs can do the
work that belongs to fathers and
mothers. That work is to keep
u themselves informed of what mov-
X ing pictures are instructive or
: wholesomely stimulating to the
d imagination or inspiring - and
y there are plenty of them-and
Il what ones are moral and intellect
Il ual claptrap; and then to make
III sure that their children do not see
s. the pernicious kind. - Youth s