To-day Shakespeare is reeled off a spool, and human life taught at the
end of a crank. You may travel over land and sea without leaving your
seat and see great personages of the world perform their mighty deeds,
and unconsciously knowledge of life and the world is derived which
makes a difference in the conception of things surrounding us.
The average member of a community fails to comprehend the significance
of the new and powerful agency in education. All this means a
revolution in pedagogy, the scrapping of text-books in favour of
the film. It means a vividness where before had been vagueness. It
means a true visualization and realization of life, where hitherto an
indefinite printed description of it was acquired. In this country
gatherings of teachers have been vividly impressed by animated
photography. By means of the silent teacher, young and old have learned
more about the physical, industrial and social geography of the world
during the past few years than during any previous quarter of a
century. It brings vividly before our eyes the idea of intense cold,
atmospheric conditions, blizzards, and life peculiar to the regions
around the Poles; and, again, the sweltering heat, vegetation, methods
of living and transport in the tropics. One is brought face to face
with the primitive life, habits, and customs of the aborigines of the
least known corners of the world; while even life immediately around us
is revealed in a manner which hitherto has been impossible.
Take a film about the volcano, of which most children have heard but
never seen. It would explain that a volcano throws up smoke, calcined
dust, red-hot stones, and melted matter called lava. The summit is
hollowed out in a great excavation having the shape of a funnel,
sometimes miles in circumference. The principal volcanoes could be
shown, as Vesuvius, near Naples; Etna, in Sicily; Hecla, in Iceland.
A curtain of smoke filling the orifice of the crater denotes the
forthcoming eruption. When the air is calm the smoke rises vertically
to nearly a mile in height, finally spreading out like a huge blanket,
cutting off the rays of the sun, and sinking down on the volcano,
covering it with a dense smoke-cloud. A huge sheaf of fire bursts from
the crater to a height of 6,000 ft., and the heavy cloud is illuminated
by the fiery red of the sky. Millions of sparks dart out like vivid
lightning to the summit of the blazing sheaf. These sparks, so small
from a distance, are, in reality, incandescent masses of stone, and of
a sufficient momentum to crush the most solid structure in their fall.
From the bowels of the mountain through the volcanic chimney ascends a
flux of melted mineral substance, or lava, pouring out into the crater,
forming a lake of dazzling fire in the sun. Through the crevasses as
well as over the edges of the crater the lava flows in streams. The
fiery current, formed of dazzling and paste-like matter, similar to
melted metal, advances slowly; the front of the lava stream represents
a rampart on fire. Animals and human beings flee before it, but all
objects stationary are lost. Trees are seen to blaze a moment on
contact with the lava and sink down reduced to charcoal; the thickest
walls impeding its progress are calcined and collapse; the hardest
rocks are vitrified, melted. The flow of lava eventually subsides; the
subterranean vapours, forced by the enormous pressure of the solid
mass, escape with greater violence than ever, carrying with them
whirlwinds of fine dust floating in sinister clouds and sinking down
upon the neighbouring plain. Finally the mountain ceases its activity
and peace reigns again for an indefinite time.
Visualize the terrible eruption of Mt. Etna in Sicily of two hundred
years ago. A dark night preceded the storm. Trees swayed like reeds
buffeted by the wind; people fled to avoid being crushed under the
ruins of their dwellings. They lost their footing on the quaking
ground and fell. Mt. Etna burst into a fissure ten miles long, and
along this fissure broke forth a number of volcanic mouths, vomiting
clouds of black smoke and calcined sand. Soon seven of these mouths
were united in one abyss emitting cinders and lava.
Torrents of lava poured from all the crevasses of the mountain down
upon the plain, destroying houses, forests and crops. The stream
reached the walls of Catania and spread over the country. There, as if
to demonstrate its strength to the terrified Catanians, it tore away a
hill and transplanted it some distance; it lifted in one mass a field
planted with vines and let it float for some time, until the green was
reduced to charcoal and disappeared.
A fierce battle ensued between lava and water. The lava presented a
perpendicular front nearly a mile in length and forty feet high. At
the touch of that burning wall, which continued plunging further and
further into the waves, enormous masses of vapour rose with terrible
hissings, darkened the sky with their thick clouds, and fell in a salt
rain over the region. In a few days the lava had made the limits of the
shore recede three hundred and fifty yards.
The stream, swollen with new tributaries, grew from day to day and
approached the town. The inhabitants could be seen from the top of
the walls watching the implacable scourge. The lava finally reached
the ramparts. The fiery flood rose slowly but it rose ceaselessly. It
finally touched the top of the walls, whereupon, yielding to pressure,
they were overthrown for the length of forty-five yards, and the stream
of fire penetrated the town.
The last scene was that of the inhabitants fleeing in terror. What a
realistic geography lesson, never to be forgotten, would a film of this
description make!
The films can show anything from the mining of coal to the manufacture
of the needle; from the weaving of a dainty handkerchief to the
building of a battleship. The films projected would be purely
educational, though there are numerous incidents shown, which amuse
and entertain, in addition to imparting information. A particular film
series of an educational and scientific nature is now available.
The Smith-Urban “Kinemacolour” series depicting the budding flowers and
the opening of blossoms--which in nature occupies several days--are
disclosed with uncanny realism in less than two minutes.
Marvels of the universe, a scientific film of nature-study and general
knowledge, finds many patrons.