AT a recent state educational meeting there was much discussion among superintendents of ways and means of keeping teachers professionally alive. The requirement of the reading and study of books that explain and discuss new ideas in education or new methods of applying old ideas, and that stimulate thought and activity, was strongly advocated. And one superintendent suggested that the first duty of the superintendent was to keep himself alive as an example. Two notable new books deserve to be read and studied by every school officer and teacher. The first edition of each was exhausted within a few weeks of publication, and three editions have been required within the first year : DAVIS: The Work of the Teacher $1.30 FREELAND: Modern Elementary School Practice 1.50 Among the other 1919 books for teachers we recommend also the following, whose titles are sufficient to show their character and purpose: WEEKS: Socializing the Three R's STIMSON: Vocational Agricultural Education by Home Projects $1.12 2.50 COOLEY, WINCHELL, SPOHR and MARSHALL : 1.80 These books are in press : MCMURRY (CHARLES): Teaching by Projects MUNROE: The Human Factor in Education FINNEY and SCHAFER: The Administration of Village Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature CHARLES W. CRUMLY, HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE, ENSLEY HIGH SCHOOL, BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA. ¤♣ ERE they come! Here they come!" H "Yooee! Yooee!" "Hooray!" A great outburst of applause, foot-stamping, whistling, shouting and hat-throwing followed these exclamations. The figures on the screen, to the accompaniment of a salvo of drum beats and rapid music, sweep by on horseback-the villain and his outlaw gang, with the heroine lashed to a pony in their midst. Up the steep, rocky slope they rush, along the face of the high cliff, firing behind them at the pursuing vigilantes headed by the Hero Himself. One by one the outlaws are picked off by bullets, leaving only the villain and the maiden. Suddenly the Hero dashes forward. Ignoring the fact that the villain is now using the girl as a screen, the advancing horseman fires a single unerring shot. There is a pause the villain reels -slips-falls-down-down- The spectators gasp as the limp figure crashes to the rocks a thousand feet below. In the nick of time the Hero grasps the reins of the girl's horse and it is brought to a pause on the very edge. Both look down for an instant, struck with awe at the stern workings of a just fate, and then- The picture fades out with a view of the two figures on horseback clasped in each other's arms. This is an everyday scene in the movies. The lights go on-there is a rush for the exit. The juvenile part of the crowd push through, the joy and enthusiasm lighting their faces, amid clamorous comments on the picture. A school teacher looking at them remarks to her friend: "My! if one could only get such interest aroused in their school work!" And that is what thousands are saying all over the land. It is the wonder of the age. The youth who creeps with snaillike pace to school, beats it to the show as fast as his legs will carry him when the day's session is over. Jack, who was such a dull boy during the arithmetic lesson, is a transformed creature when his favorite hero appears on the screen. What makes him like the movies so much? What makes him dislike school? The man who answers that latter question to the satisfaction of all concerned, and who offers a solution for the problem, will have settled the knottiest point that has ever stuck in the craws of the school marms and masters of the ages. Modesty forbids our attempting it in this article. But the first question can be answered; and here are some of the reasons why the moving picture is so popular with the children: First, it is labelled "play." Human nature is such that anything that goes under the name of work has a different front entirely from what it has when looked at as a sport.. Piling rocks and digging in the hot sunshine is one of the hardest forms of labor known to man-but watch a crowd of boys building a dam to make a swimming hole! Would it be the same way if the movies should be taken into the schools and made a part of the day's work? To a certain extent. Possibly not so much right at first; but there would be some loss of interest. All plans toward adopting the moving picture in education must consider this fact and provide means for overcoming it so far as possible. Second, the movie shows action. Nothing on earth craves action any more than a boy. He just lives on it. The schoolroom falls short at times through lack of action, though this condition is being largely removed by games, handiwork, drills, manual training, etc. Third, the kind of pictures that provoke such "outbursts of enthusiasm" do so because they appeal to the nature of the boy at that particular stage of his development. Pirates, outlaws, burglaries, murders, fights, thrilling escapes, daring rescues, all strike a chord in his soul that is already vibrating. Fourth, the movies represent the "object-method" of teaching carried to the highest point of development. Most of what we learn comes through seeing, and we learn most easily that way. Upon this point rests the chief claim of the cinema to consideration as an agency in education. There is no use in knocking the moving picture as an institution. We may as well knock the gift of speech or attempt to stop all the printing presses. The movie is here to stay. As a medium for expressing and conveying thought it is more recent than the five other great discoveries or inventions that aim at the same object-the gift of speech, the art of writing, the process of printing, the recording and reproduction of sound by the phonograph, and photography. Man first learned to talk; but his words died on the air or faded from the memory of his hearers. He then began to draw pictures and sought by means of these to leave a record of his thoughts. The art of picture making later became the art of writing; and by that means man has carved his thoughts and left his records on stones, clay, leather and paper throughout the centuries. Desire for a wider field of circulation, as well as for more rapid production, led to the invention of the printing press and its homologue, the typewriter. Still, it grieved the heart of man that the voices of loved ones, songs of other days, should vanish; so the phonograph was born. Drawing and painting were followed by photography, by means of which it was made possible to catch the elusive shadows upon a film of glass. And yet, even that did not suffice; with all this, the motion was not caught. So the cinema is here, the crowning achievement of all. But with all the recent progress in the process of printing, and the wonderful improvements in the phonograph and the others of those great inventions, the moving picture has outstripped all |