HOME AND EDUCATION
Hunt, Caroline L. & Follette, Belle Case La
HOME AND EDUCATION The bome is the real seat of government, and the Wise Men of all nations bring their gifts to the cradle. Conducted by BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE and CAROLINE L. HUNT Spreading...
...Indeed it is almost symbolic of the common-ground idea back of neighborhood centers...
...The motion picture show has come to be recognized as a folk-institution, and it has seemed that commerce has gotten the better of philanthropy and of municipal good will in his problem of helping the wage-earning millions to use their leisure time constructively and pleas-urably...
...The son-in-law and his wife—the old man's daughter who is dearer to him than anything else in the world,—than leave the old home and go off to the city...
...But how can one suggest such a thing to them when they have to be at the factory at 7 o'clock the next morning or starve?—Elias Tobenkin in the Chicago Tribune...
...Its theme is that of the old Greek tragedies,—the reaction of suffering upon the individual who is to blame for evil...
...Not that the motion picture is intended to be made a substitute for thinking...
...This portrays the conditions under which the "white plague" gets the grip upon the underfed and underaired person who is forced to live most of the time in badly lighted and badly ventilated rooms or in crowded quarters...
...Since I have worked in this district I cannot look into the face of any young woman who comes here after 5 cents' worth of carmine or who thinks twice before she takes a 10 cent box of rouge, because she may need the extra nickel for breakfast or lunch tomorrow, without finding some tragedy there...
...As a result of the demonstrated value of the motion picture in health education, the State Anti-Tuberculosis Association sought the cooperation of the University's extension department in carrying on a campaign against the "white plague" by means of motion pictures...
...The present legislature has been urged to make an appropriation to begin the work of introducing motion picture machines into the schools of the state...
...How the motion picture may be used as an aid to school work is illustrated by Mr...
...That the pictures were enjoyed was too apparent to be doubted...
...It is pointed out that even now the school that is ready to use this equipment would find several hundred educational subjects available in this country, and by going to Europe the school could select from a profuse library of strictly educational subjects not yet exported to America...
...It was found that men and women attended quite as eagerly as the children...
...In curtain congested districts of New York a census roughly taken two years ago indicated that in different schools from fifty to eighty per cent...
...and bacterial process...
...The third film is "The Man Who Learned...
...Second, the repertory of the motion picture is so varied and the language it speaks is so universal, that it has appealed all up the range of social classes and to old and young alike in the family...
...From the beginning, the motion picture show has been preeminently a democratic theatre and largely a family theatre...
...A few months later their child becomes desperately ill...
...On March 29 a hearing was held before a joint session of the Senate and Assembly, when for the first time motion pictures were shown in a legislative hall...
...It is the leader also in making use of the motion picture as an aid in the spreading of enlightenment...
...agriculture...
...When I worked in a drug store on the north side and sold cosmetics to rich women and girls who did not need it, I never sold it without an inward grin...
...Other states will watch this experiment with interest, and the time may not be far distant when the motion picture will find its way generally into the public schools, as colored charts and models did some years ago...
...There are," he says "about 10,000 motion picture shows in the United States, charging five and ten cents for admission...
...secend, as a feature of school extension and social center work...
...The cause," says the doctor, "is unclean milk...
...Collier says, "Social workers have noted how the motion picture show attracts classes of people who do not go to the evening lecture center, the church, or the settlement...
...An examination of 3,000 reels of pictures (a reel is 1,006 feet of film and provides a fifteen-minute show) disclosed the fact that there were 400 that could be classed as educational...
...Collier mentions the statistics gathered by the National Board of Censorship...
...Sociologically," says John Collier of the National Board of Censorship, "the motion picture has thus far laid two great claims on attention...
...Harvey Dee Brown, traveling secretary of the Anti-Tuberulosis Association, is planning to make a campaign which will include the school houses of Milwaukee, Madison, and other communities all over the state...
...but that it may be made supplementary to books and lectures, presenting facts so...
...The University of Wisconsin is the leader in carrying knowledge to all the people of the state...
...Native and foreigner, rich and poor, cultured and unschooled,—all are alike reached through the motion picture...
...They instruct and entertain the father and mother as well as the children, and no unity of language is needed to understand them...
...Here, it would seem, is an instrument of untold value for popularizing knowledge...
...The argument of Dean L. E. Reber of the Extension Division for the general use of motion pictures in the schools and the creation of of circulating library of films was given the closest attention...
...chemical action...
...authentic historical episodes...
...Then comes the change...
...Has not the time now come when the school, endowed with a' conscious public ideal which the commercial show house cannot possess, may be justly expected to equip itself with that powerful magnet which has given to the commercial show its great advantage...
...First, it has turned the American masses into theatre-goers and has carried the richness and stimulation of the theatre into millions of lives not hitherto touched by the dramatic appeal...
...When the farm is completely transformed, the son and daughter take the little boy back there to live and recuperate...
...It is a means of bringing all the world before all eyes...
...It seems easy...
...There was no charge for admission...
...This picture gives vivid emphasis to the statement of Dr...
...A WOMAN WHO is highly educated and has a profession may and can be indifferent to her looks and appearance...
...So the source of their milk supply is traced...
...Edward J. Ward, of this Division, is laying the foundation for a much wider use of the motion picture than is found in the present crusade against the "white plague" and bad milk...
...The great advantage of motion pictures in Social Center development is that they appeal equally to all members of the family...
...After considering the value of such an instrument in extending learning to the people of the state, the Division purchased a machine (the one shown in the picture on the opposite page) and began its work in this new field with three films...
...But in motion pictures, the slides of minute successive stages in such a biological process may be assembled and a complete reproduction may be thrown, greatly magnified upon the screen...
...It is that motion pictures are not an end in themselves, but are to be used as a means of education...
...They are in need of rest and recreation...
...The old man refuses...
...The keenest interest was manifested...
...The introduction of motion pictures in the school houses of the state is an important part of the Social Center movement...
...The use of the motion picture in this campaign illustrates the idea of the University Extension Division in securing films and machines...
...Regarding the motion picture in neighborhood work, Mr...
...The first film is "The Fly Pest," one of the most successful of the civic promotion films yet made...
...In adding this new feature to our educational equipment, however, great care should be exercised to restrict its use to what is really helpful and valuable, and not let the dramatic side of school and extension work be over-emphasized to the detriment of the sound mental growth of the child...
...These inluded the picturesque side of geography...
...A factory girl, however, whose only asset in life is her face, her beauty, and whose only goal in life, whose only way out of the wilderness of modern industry, is marriage, cannot afford to neglect her looks...
...With these three films, and others to be added later, Mr...
...It is found that the milk comes from the farm they have so recently left...
...THERE ARE TWO LINES along which this educational use of the motion picture may be developed at the outset...
...There was not the slightest difficulty in getting audiences...
...These people pay for admission, they come habitually, and they live more intensely and far more broadly during the motion picture hour than during any other moment of their day...
...Modern sanitary mehods are put in the place of the old, wasteful, dirty methods...
...THE EXTENSION DIVISION of the University of Wisconsin is doing pioneer work in this new field...
...graphically that the imagination, the thought processes, are stimulated to greater and more accurate activity...
...The estimated attendance on all Amerian theatres other than moving picture shows is 750,000 a day, and the proportion of children is comparatively small...
...It carries the great message of the Anti-Tuberculosis campaign that the cure for consumption is not so much medicine as human living conditions...
...Collier as follows: "No human eye has ever seen the process of cell division in biology, for the inner mechanism of cell division is made visible only by the killing and staining of the cell...
...It is the old man's uncleanliness that is killing his own grandchild...
...The second film is "the "Red Cross Seal...
...IS IT POSSIBLE to turn this popular interest into fields of practical education...
...It shows microscopically the life history of the fly, through the egg and magot stage, up to maturity when it becomes a carrier of disease germs and filth to the sugar bowl and the baby's milk bottle...
...the growth of plants...
...The daily audience throughout the year is not less than 4,600,000, and of this number probably 400,000 are children of school age...
...A farmer of the non-progressive type, whose milk is produced under unsanitary conditions has a dispute with his son-in-law, who is urging that the place be made clean...
...modern industries of the more spectacular nature, such as steel making and mining...
...First, as a part of the regular school curriculum...
...These figures show plainly that the motion picture is an excellent medium through which to impart information, attractively and entertainingly and vividly, to large numbers of people, —particularly to the children...
...systematic play...
...Even the commercialized motion picture show of to-day includes in its repertory subjects of a' distinctly educational value...
...Last winter, under the auspices of the Milwaukee Journal, ten motion picture shows were given in school houses in various parts of the city...
...of the children attended motion pictures shows at least once a week...
...Woods Hutchinson that "by far the most dangerous wild beast in America is the house fly...
...To-day the motion picture show is almost exclusively a commercial enterprise...
...AND TO GIVE an impression of the extent to which this form of entertainment has permeated our Ameriean cities, Mr...
...Many of the girls who come here asking for something which will restore color to their cheeks are really in need of medical treatment...
...Similarly, the growth of a plant from seed to harvest is shown in ten minutes on the screen, not with gaps and pauses, but in a continuous process which is accurate to a microscopic degree...
...THAT MOTION PICTURES may be made a successful feature of Social Center work has already been demonstrated in Wisconsin...
...Conducted by BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE and CAROLINE L. HUNT Spreading Knowledge With Moving Pictures MOTION PICTURES are now a part of the educational work carried on by the Extension Division of the University of Wisconsin...
Vol. 3 • May 1911 • No. 19
