Evening star. [volume], June 08, 1930, Page 5, Image 81

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Talking Pictures to Transform Education
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L
Czar of the Motion
Picture Industry in
America Foresees
#
New Era in School
and College Life
When Knowledge
Will Be More
East ly D issem i -
nated Through
Medium of Focal
Films.
. ~m r y HILE the public has eagerly ac
( m M / cepted the talking picture as a
* m/m/ striking advance upon the enter-
Jr Jr tainrnent provided by the silent
. film, the real revolution inspired
by this invention is not in entertainment but
In the field of education.
> Working quietly in laboratories and holding
private conferences, scientists and educators are
framing a new technique of teaching and train
ing, of learning and knowing, which will mark
the greatest forward step of mankind since the
Invention of books and the printing press.
“Within a comparatively short time,” says
Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture
Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.,
Who is at the center of this development, “talk
ing motion picture projectors and suitable films
will be available for schools, and the million
school rooms and college lecture halls in Amer
ica will beg n the use of a new medium of
education.
“The child, the youth and the adult will
learn more and learn more quickly. The best
ideas in education will be available not only
to the large citijs and the rich colleges, but will
be at the disposal of all the schools and all the
colleges.
“The sta-ement that the talking picture will
Increase the absorption of knowledge is not
mere prophecy. Experiments conducted with
the silent film while talking pictures were in
embryo give conclusive indications of what will
happen when this medium is completely ex
ploited by eduea ors.
“Using a pedagogic film in hundreds of class
rooms. Dr. Tlwna, E. Finegan found that the
percentage ri correct answers to geographic
questions went up about 10 per cent above the
results obtained with the old form of teaching. .
ii \ S early as 1920, Prof. J. W. Shipman of
. the University of Oklahoma made a test
Upon a dozen pupi's of average intelligence in
one of the Ii <»'n schools of Madison, Wls. Ab
stract and concrete subjects were taught lo one
group by mains of film only, to a second group
by a superior instructor and to a third by an
average instructor.
“The film scored an average of 74.5 per cent;
the superior toucher, (19 9 per cent, and the
average teacher, 01.3 par cent. In other words,
the film beat the bettor teacher by 4 6 per cent
and the average t a her by 13.2 per cent.
“Prof. Joseph H. Webber of the University
of Kansas conduc ed a s ‘ties of tests in a pub
lic school In N tv/ York City. The following Is
the result of lis experiment: 485 pupils were
examined in gjogr»phy. When the experiment
began they ha i an average knowledge of 31.8
units. This standing had been gained from
their knowledge of geography prior to the ex
periment .
•mfc #Ror; imnn*rrcrar/ rrc j6w? ‘r. '“•*?
Medical science will benefit greatly by lhe development of educational talking
pictures, which will enable students and diwtors in remote places to observe
master surgeons at work, shotting their technique in performing delicate opera
tions.
“Prom this starting point—3l.B—the 485 pu
pils wlk> were taught orally without the aid of
corelated motion picture film improved to 45.5
points, a gain of 13.7 per cent. The same
pupils, with the aid of the film shown after
the oral lessons, improved to 49.8 points, a
gain of 18.1 per cent. And when the motion
picture was used before the oral lesson, the
students’ standing rose to 52.7 points, a gain
of 20.9 per cent.”
There is now being demonstrated in New
York an instrument which combines a radio,
phonograph and talking motion picture ma
chine. It is hardly larger than a large radio
cabinet. A tray pulls out in front of the pro
jector, exposing a mirror which swings upward.
The light from the camera strikes the mirror
and is reflected in the lid of the cabinet, which
contains the screen. A 20-foot “throw” makes
pos-sible life size projection. And other instru
ments in the laboratories of the great electrical
companies are being made ready for public
distribution.
“To enable the pu6lic imagination to project
itself in’o the future and see what is ahead,’*
said Mr. Hays, “it is desirable to review some
of the ideas and achievements in the various
divisions of th s field.
"A talking surgical film is already in use by
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Cj
lurnbln University. The film depicts the reduc
tion ana splinting of a Pott's fracture, a frac
ture of the lower fibula with an outward, back
ward displacement of the foot. The process of
pulling, straightening and splinting is shown,
while the physician’s voice is heard explaining
the diagnosis and procedure.
“Next September the college will have ready
a series of films for instruction, and the medi
cal schools of Johns Hopkins, the University of
Pcnnsvl' inia, the University of Michigan and
Ohio Sta'e are part of a group which is ex
pected t j make and distribute these films.
VPNK3T attention to the development of
" films for medical education began in 1926,
when at our suggestion the American College
of Sui'gions appointed a committee consisting
of Dr. J. Bently Squier of New York City; Dr.
W W Chrpman of Montreal, head of McCfill
University; Dr. Oeorge W. Crile of Cleveland;
Di. Cha les H. Mayo of Rochester, Minn.; Dr.
Bowman Crowell of Chicago; Dr. M. T. Mac-
Eacherson of Chicago, and Dr. Franklin H
Mart n of Chicago. With Oeorge Eastman of
Rochester supplying the funds and the labora
tory. the experiments began.
“Viv.t' is> a great deal of talk about th'
■country doctor being backward because he
takes no post-graduate studies and his educa
tion stops the year he graduates. With the
preparation of up-to-date medical films the
country doctors, seeing these films at their local
meetings, can be as well informed as the physi
cians in the great clinical centers.
“Imagine the value of a close-up magnified
motion picture of a great surgeon performing a
delicate operation and describing it minutely so
that instead of 20 students watching from a
balcony it could be shown to 100.000 students
1,000 times so they could almost repeat with
their eyes shut.
“I can think of few things more important
tx> surgeons and medical students throughout
the world than to have in their own clinics,
perhaps thousands of miles from the operating
rooms, pictures of the greatest masters perform
ing these operations.
“These men will see and hear Mayo, Crile,
Black, Cushing, Armstrong and Chipman per
form their operations with records that will
never die. We could have seen and heard
Murphy and Senn today if we had had this in
strument before.
“Doesn’t it sound like a new miracle, the
story ol a few hundred feet of celluloid film,
small enough almost to be put into a overcoat
pocket, taking the work of the masters of tech
nique to the most remote parts of the earth,
to the provincial medical men, handicapped by
distance and by lack of funds and opportunity?
<* r j' , HE use of the talking picture in medical
education is not confined to surgery, but
can lie adapted to the other divisions of this
important subject. The camera can catch iso
lated glimpses of a slowly developing disease
over periods of time and bring them together
in sequence Just as the modern manipulation
or tlie camera can make the petals of a flower
unfold themselves in a minute, whereas the un
folding process in nature may require weeks.
The c- oibination of the voice of the specialist
and the visual scene on the film makes an in
delible impression.
“On ti»e other hand, the rapid, spasmodic
muscular movements incident to lesions of the
brain - center can be analyzed by the slow
moi ion picture with equally good results. An
oth >r of the possibilities of the talking screen
n»s within the cartoon film or animated draw
ing.
• “I wrote a letter to 523 college presidents in
qu ring about their interest in the use of the
frk'.ng picture to supplement the instruct i n of
Tire talking picture will make it
possible for all of us who thirst for
knowledge to sit literally at the
feet of genius. Greatness, living
and dead, will speak to us and
show us the way to light and un
derstanding.
—Will H. Hays.
the faculty. All replied, and more than 300,
from all parts of the country and from the
greatest colleges to the least, evidenced the
greatest interest.
"The suggestions which follow regarding col
lege education are culled from these letters and
give some idea of th? revolution which is im
pending in the methods of acquiring knowledge.
"Experts have severely criticized the situation
which compels a professor year after year to
give the majority of his time to lectures which,
while new to students, are routine to the savant.
While a subordinate or a mechanic operates
the machine with electricity at 3 cents an hour,
the professor will at last be free to spend hours
in valuable research, enabling him to improve
his own teaching method, present new materials
to his classes and give him opportunity to add
to knowledge in his chosen field.
"In the small college the study of biology
and the physical sciences would be enriched if
certain expensive experiments could be per
formed before the camera with explanatory re
marks by an expert. The reproduction of these
experiments would save the small college money
and make possible a larger series of experi
ments than can now be offered.
“Great college professors and lecturers will
be available to all the colleges of the world
Millikan, Einstein, Eiapley can explain their
own findings with star maps and charts as if
it were a personal lecture to college students
and colleagues everywhere.
“Even in economics it is possible to make
strides and bring to the eyes and ears of the
students the variations in life and labor all over
the globe. To look in at a textile mill in the
Carolinas, to see how work is done in India.
China and Russia as compared with the United
States, is to teach contemporary history with
a vividness that is not possible new.
“In teaching philosophy and ethics it would
add reality to the instruction if the students
saw and heard the great leaders of thought
from various countries give an exposition of
their ideas. Students now study about John
Dewey of Columbia. How much more interest*
ing and impressive if they heard him talk! ’
“How much would it add to one’s grasp ofl
the sweep of history and the change in civil iza*
tion if we could hear and see Alexander*
Aristotle, Plato and Pericles; if Caesar, Na*
poleon and Washington were to speak to ud
from their own time in history; if Lincolif
could be heard; if Beethoven, Bach and
Brahms could give us their interpretations and
their deathless masterpieces of music! (
JNSTEAD of trying to form our own warped
image from the facts gathered in books,
we could feel the vibrant force of these famous
personalities and the tempo of their age from
audible motion pictures and get a truer per
spective of the past.
“This will be our gift to the future—tha
talking-picture records of famous contemporary
events and personalities. Even now states, col
leges and the Nation have begun to form ar
chives of the audible film records of men and
happenings which will be the teaching material
of the future.
Education has progressed in the form of aq|
ascending spiral. We are now back at tha|
point, although on a higher level, at whirl!
education really began.
“A man saw a log roll and invented tha
wheel. Another saw a log float and invented
the boat. A third genius saw that there waa
a great extension of human force in the use of
a pole and devised the lever. These are tha
primary human inventions seen by the eye, and
their use and development was taught from
generation to generation bv th*' human voir*
(CoayridiH. IP3<J.<
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