The moving-picture is more and more being used for educational and
scientific purposes. It has been used for recruiting, and pictures were
taken of the convention at Chicago for use in the national campaign.
Pictures showing the methods of teaching in New York schools have
been shown in many parts of the country. Dr. William M. Davidson,
superintendent of public schools in the District of Columbia, is
strongly advocating the passage of a bill now pending before Congress
to use the schools as social centers for exhibiting educational
moving-pictures. Likewise Superintendent Maxwell is urging their use
in the New York public schools. Mr. Edison has very recently been
quoted as saying: “I intend to do away with books in the school;
that is, I mean to try to do away with school-books. When we get the
moving-pictures in the school, the child will be so interested that he
will hurry to get there before the bell rings, because it’s the natural
way to teach, through the eye. I have half a dozen fellows writing
scenari now on A and B.” An eight-year course is being planned which it
is expected will be started in Orange, New Jersey, in about a year.
By the use of the moving-picture, the St. Louis Medical Society has
recently shown the method of inoculating animals with disease-germs
and the effect of the germs on the blood. Circulation of the blood
and action of numerous species of bacilli were also illustrated.
In a micro-cinematograph film showing the circulation of the blood
in a living body, prepared by M. Camandon, a French scientist, and
exhibited by MM. Pathe Frères, the London “Nature” states that the
white corpuscles of the blood are shown gradually altering their shape
and position and fulfilling one of their best-known functions in acting
as scavengers and absorbing such abnormal substances as microbes,
disease-cells, and granules of inert matter. “By reproducing at a
slower pace the changes,” this journal continues, “the cinematograph
can assist us to attain a clearer perception of the nature of the
alteration as it takes place.... No amount of imagination can supply
the clearness and comprehension which actual seeing can give. The
cinematograph might well become a most sufficient aid to the teaching
of very many biological and especially medical subjects.”
[Illustration: Produced by Thomas A. Edison, Inc.