Films in Schools

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 898, 15 February 1930, Page 27

Films in Schools

TALKIE PROBABILITIES Powerful Influence on Public IT is believed in the United States that the “text-reel” will soon take a place in education as important as that now occupied by the accepted text books. The theory that films should be used more extensively in schools, colleges and universities is rapidly gaining ground. “I foresee the day when talking pictures will play such a vital part in education that they will supplant, to an extent, lectures and general oral teaching,” says Mr. J. L. Lasky, a Paramount executive.

“The possibilities of the talking screen in this field are unlimited,” he contends. Silent films demonstrated the power of pictures as an instructive medium. It was found that the public absorbed ideas from the screen with amazing rapidity. An attractive hair dress worn by Clara Bow in one of her pictures became popular; styles in furniture were known to follow the trend of interior decoration in motion pictures, while the popularity of such things a s Continentalt y p e telephones and cigarette lighters was traced to the screen. A tremendous increase In the use of such modern articles is attributed by manufacturers to the influence of motion pictures. “With the addition of voice in pictured action, the instructive power of the screen, has been multiplied many times,” he says. “The witnessing of an actual occurrence prints it on the mind. For example, we may read of airplane accidents and ocean disasters. We are affected at the moment, but within a short space of time these catastrophes becpme vaffue tenants of our minds. Yet if we had been present to see such disasters, and to hear all the sounds accompanying them, memory would never die. “The talking screen provides a realistic substitute for actual observation. Imagine how much more effective than either books or lectures would be a talking picture, filmed to instruct medical students in the fine points of surgery. Think how much

more history one would remember if one learned it in talking pictures.” Lasky points out that educational talking films not only will offer a more thorough system of education, but will enable the smallest institutions to offer courses of study by world-famed people. Eminent scholars, by use of /the audible screen, could provide entire courses that could be presented in scores of schools. “Not only would their forceful personalities increase the importance of such courses, but their lectures could be illustrated by perfect laboratory experiments and field work. The realisation of this union of screen and school is not far distant.