The Chesterfield advertiser. [volume] (Chesterfield C.H., S.C.) 1884-1978, 1921-08-18


By R. q. Hamilton. NJ. D., Health
Officer, Fairfield County Health Dept.
lie who arouses the interest Of his
pupils truly teaches, and, conversely,
he who does not, teaches not. This is
the first great commandment of the
science Of pedagogy and there is no
second! The human mind is a storage
battery and interest is the switch.
Unless the switch ia closed, no cur
rent will or can flow.
There are those who say that
psychology and physiology are iden-
ticai sciences. Whether this is or is
not true, this much is certain. All
mental procos'as are set in mut:rn
by outside stimuli which reach
the brain by means of one or more of
the five senses. Everything shat ev-
erybody--frorl the humbiest laborer
to the greatest scientis, .i,nows or
imagines, get to him originally
through one or more of these five
doors. He either first tasted it, smelt
it, touched it, heard It, or saw it. And
herein lies the value of the moving
picture in the educational world. BY
means of the motion picture camera
facts are marshaled and marched to
the eye-the true door of the mind
and call into play the great pedagosi-
cal law Of ''arousing interest"
Motion pictures are particularly
valuable in the field of sanitary edu-
cation. Generally speaking, the pre-
vention Of the spread of disease is
the prevention of the spread of bacili
and bacteria-that is of animals and
plants too minute to be seen by the
human eye-or felt, or touched, or
tasted or smelt individually. That is
to say, sanitary education has to do
with things so small they cannot act
as external stimuli to arouse interest
on the part of those to be taught. But
by means of motion pictures, the mi
crobes can be given "a local habita-
ton and name"-can be made to
"live and move and have their being" "
In brief, the camera forces, so to
speak, the germs to assume think
able" proportions and thus allows the
pedagogical law of "arousing inter-
est" to function. To the mind of an
ordinary layman "Tubercle Bacili"
is merely "jaw-breaking," scienti-
fic term "full of sound and fury, sig
nifying nothing" To the scientist,
it denotes host of soldiers, more
numerous than the sands of the seas,
more skilled and more pitiless than
ever the Germans were, host which
declared war on humanity ages ago,
lighting under black flag, neither
asking, nor, certainly, never giving
quarter. If all the tears and misery
caused by the German armies during
four years of pitiless war was a
-t-ea:,., the scientist knows it would
be but spring branch compared to
the raging river of woe produced by
the "Tubercle Bacili." What is the
difference7 This:
The scientist has, by means Of
/, his microscope, seen the ravages OF
the tiny soldiers-the layman has
not. Set this same layman down be-
fore the screen, let. him see the
loathsome bacilli drag themselves
sver the common drinking cup or
wallow in the spittel of their victims
or cover the hands carelessly drawn
over the mount. Let him see beauti-
full girl take up the deadly drinking
cup and watch these soldiers of the
invisible world remorselessly and pitt
lessly attack the peach glow of health
in her cheeks, substituting their own
hectic, feverish flush of approaching
dissolution for the bounding blood of
life. Do this, and the layman will 60
away scientist; for what is a scien-
tist? Accurately, he is "a man who
knows" BLESSED are the eyes who
see these things" for the minds which
are behind them and to which they
are the doors, become intelligent and
efficient soldiers for the common