EDUCATIONAL POSSIBILITIES OF MOTION PICTURES.

The article discusses the role motion pictures can play in education. The motion picture which until now has been almost exclusively devoted to the industry of entertainment is in fact a machine tool for the art of expression, capable of service in the saying of whatever men have to say. Its functions are parallel to, but greater in potential scope than, the printing press which has these several centuries been the chief mechanical servant of education. Up to the year 1936, not less than 50,000 full-length theatrical films had been produced. It is estimated that there are three times that many "shorts" and newsreels. The total number of so-called educational or instructional films produced to date does not exceed 10,000. During the year 1936, the Hollywood companies produced 2,500 films of which about 500 were feature pictures, some 1,500 were short subjects, and about 500 were newsreels. Many reasons have been advanced to explain the tremendous gap between the development of the motion picture for the theater and the extent of its use in education. One of the most obvious reasons for this situation is the fact that theaters are run for profit while the schools are not. A second reason is that schools are conservative. They are slow to buy expensive equipment which they feel is not indispensable to their work.