PICTURES IN SCHOOL.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1919, Page 11

PICTURES IN SCHOOL.

EDISON MAKES A FORECAST. Moving pictures will ultimately take .the place of textbooks in schools and (colleges, according to Thomas A. Edison, as quoted in the current number of the Educational Film Magazine. And Mr. Edison believes that the substitution of films for books should be made as soon and systematically as possible. "My impression is," lie says, "that the Government ought to help in this work, for it is one of the greatest things in the world, and perhaps the Government should establish a plant for the production of educational films. It should be a fireproof building of concrete, where the films could be made and kept in safety and' at the right temperature, and there should be vast fireproof vaults, where all valuable and irreplaceable reels might be stored. A great film library of educational and industrial subjects should be built up in Washington. Then these films could be issued on the rental system to ail institutions in the United States, even to the most remote rural schoolhouse, and the system could be so operated that it would pay its own way, would be on a self-supporting basis like the Pension Office or Post Office." Asserting that "anything which can be taught to the ear can be taught better to the eye," Mr. Edison continues: "The moving object oil the scroen, the closest possible approximation to reality, is almost the same as bringing that object itself before the child, or taking the cli ild to that object. "Film teaching wiil be done without any books whatsoever. The only textbooks needed will be for the teacher's own use. ' The films will serve as guitlepo,sts to these teacher instruction books, not the hooks as guides to the films. The pupils will learn everything there is to learn, in every grade from the lowest to the highest. The long years now spent in cramming indigestible knowledse. down unwilling young throats, and in examining young minds on subjects which they can never learn under the present system, will be cut down marvellously; waste will be eliminated, and the youth of every land will at last become actually educated.

"Tf the Government should establish a film factory, with a special department for distribution on a small rental basis, and introduce such an educational system so as to pay running expenses' T venture to predict that it would bring about a revolutionary change for the better in our entire school organisation."

B,v making "every classroom ami every assembly hall a movie show, 100 per cent, attendance" will be assured, in Mr. Edison's opinion. "Why. yon won't be able to keep boys and girls awav from the school then," he says'. "They'll get there ahead of time, and scramble for good seats., and they'll slay late, begging to see some of the films over again. I'd like to be a boy again when film teaching becomes universal."