CHILDREN AT PICTURES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 196, 14 May 1920, Page 8

CHILDREN AT PICTURES

DOUBTFUL FILMS. The Minister of Education has been receiving complaints from . various sources about the character of pictures on public exhibition at kinema houses throughout the country, theatres which are freely attended by school children. Mr. Parr said to a reporter yesterday that he was considering -Aether it was not his duty to mako some recomlv.endations to the Department in charge of . the censorship. "I know," ho said, "that the : Department controlling the picture theatres and the censorship will probab.'y say that you cannot legulate tho theatres so that only pictures fit for children shall be exhibited, and that parents should not allow their children to see pictures that ma\- do them harm. That is all very well; but the fact remains that children will go, and cannot be prevented from going to the theatres by thousands every week, and I fear that tho effect of many pictures- upon them is not a wholesome one. Some of the ridiculous and sensational picture-dramas give the young mind an entirely false ideal of actual life. Is it good for a child, for example, to soe a woman represented as. eeeming to flourish on wrongdoing' Nothing is more impressionable than the'child mind, and therein lies the risk, Some shows, I think,' are fairly stron? meat for the average adult; how much more so for the school, child? Another aspect I rather deplore is the amount of American film shown in this v county. -Why idolise people like Fairbanks and Mary Pickford; why exhibit American war camps and American soldiers all the time? Have' the British no achievements in peace and war that can be shown on tho screen? I know it is suggested that the picture people are largely In the hands of picture monopolists. It may be so, but the fact remains, from my point of vie» as Minister of Education, that a great deal of very inferior stuff Is thrown on tho soreen. The kinematograph, in my judgment, is a most potent • educational agency. Is it being used on right lines in New Zealand today?"