Evening star., 1932-03-13

n boy who fumbles at the
NV timetable in multiplication,
and can't name six Presi-
dents of the United States
to save his life, can follow the comic
strips with intelligence and concen-
tration, and remember every detail OF
q cartoon comedy for an entire year?
Are we educational fanatics possibly
overlooking a great opportunity here?
How about teaching the children
through the movies? How about run
ing a historical film, nicely and enter
tainingly done, with good actors. ana
having an examination afterward?
Would it work? I ask the question
seriously; have no idea on the subject
myself. But what I do know Is that
every child in the country leaps into
sudden vitality and interest where the
comics, the radio comedians, and the
movie farces are concerned, and that it
is not believable that these distractions
leave him anything like the vigor that
his parents used to bring to their
lessons, a generation ago. His capacity
for amusement and absorption is ex-
hausted before he ever opens his
algebra
Since they love these perfectly un-
instructive forms of entertainment so
much, is there no way in which we
could combine forces with them? II
the radio comedians treacherously
mentioned in their dialogue that 1865
was the date of the Norman Conquest,
or. that seven times thirteen comes out
ninety-one, would children absorb that,
with all of the useless nonsense they
so eagerly aSsimilate? Suppose there
were comedies that introduced French
verbs in the subjunctive now and then,
or movies that reacted our own dra-
matte history would our children reject
the fact and retain only the memory of
hurtling pies and buckets Of whitewash?
T AM convinced that if movie comed-
l. ians once filmed the-well, say the
labors of Hercules, no child in America
would ever forget one of them, or their
order, again And so with the great
poems. the great plays, the great battles
of history, the great personalities. Let
our comedians depict them-Heaven
knows most of them were funny enoughi
Maximilian in Mexico; German George
the First coming to England; Napoleon
hustling to Elba, we laugh at them all,
why not let the children laugh, too?
1t seems great waste to maintain
the schools we do, and the classes we
do, when the students real interest
run something like this; movies, radio,
phonograph, newspaper strips, meals,
gym, sleep. Many generations ago stu
dents hocked reverently into lyceums
books we're their newspapers, their
plays, their movies. They drank
thirstily of the streams of knowledge
that flowed all through medieval
Europe. and could not learn enough.
1t is different now. Our children
bring at best a languid and dutiful
attention to their dry studies; life teens
about them, they cannot keep up with
its interests and diversions. Every day
has six to seven thrilling landmarks,
on the air, in the newspaper, at the
movies, or on a record, and they hate
to tear themselves away from this real
living, to take up the shadowy labor of
lessons.
MOT long ago found the three child
rem of friend dawdling over their
homework, while photograph record
poured forth popular classic
They won't work without their
phonograph, or the radio" their mother
explained They certainly were not
working with it, nor could any human
being in his senses work against this
engaging song.
1t made me wonder again IL there is
not some way in which certain classes
may be given by the movies. and certain
others over the air? If our children's
minds receive deeper impression with
the help Of the organs of sight and
nearing than they possibly can without
either aid then why not take advantage
OF modern miracles, and use them?
A boy of IL studying is pitiful sight
He squirms, he yawns, he pursues with
an Interested T1PYPil O fU uoHiY,o in ~
ink blot, he makes a sudden pathetic
leap at his lesson, eyes its appalling
length and sinks in a lethargy again
Gee, all this and all that, and then
my arithmetic!' he means, all but
asleep at the contemplation of it.
At the movies he is tense, absorbed.
One has to shake him to remind him
that we have come round to the place
where we came in. He will fondly
on the way home; gosh, 1t was funny,
gosh, 1t was pip.
Ask him a question, you get a quick,
intelligent answer. why did she give
him back that gun, Jim?'
Because she was going to give her
self up, and she didn't want them to
indentify it," the small boy explains
instantly.
Go on, if you have no heart at all,
to ask Were you right about those
modifying adjectives today?" and he
Is back In his shell, bored, deaf, un-
remembering
Mark errors in these. sentences, -
says the book. The Children grow
fuzzy-headed over five minutes work:
1t takes them 40 minutes. Suppose a
favorite actress came on the screen
and asked, What's wrong when l saw
leave them little fellers be?" Would
II reach them?
GRAMMAR, as taught in grammar
and high schools, makes small
impression on the growing child. Wit
ness this, the next time you hear some
OF them chattering in a school yard
Not one speakes nicely, or uses words
with any idea of their value.
O1 all studies perhaps this one OF
olagrammlng and word analysis and
sentence construction is perhaps the
most wasted Children who come from
cultured homes don't need it, and
others seem incapable of profiting by it
But l know whole group of working
girls who have affected the Marlene
Dietrich accent, and whatever Marlene
says they are going to say. from now
on. What am I bid for my applep'
is their slogan.
oelleVe that If Helen HAYES or
Norma Shearer or Kay Francis flashed
on the screen and said to school audi
ences in their delightful voices. "Gir.s.
don't use expressions thus and thus and
thus. If you ever want to be gentIe-
women or have chance in the movies, "
the effect would be greater than that
OF years OF mere book study. / believe
that Clark Gable, portraying a life OF
Napoleon or Anthony Wayne, would fix
1t in our children's minds forever.
One teacher I know, learning that
Mr. Arliss' delightful Hamilton was
Canine n fn1rrn s..K,lairnnG tr Al