Page:The Educational Screen - Volume 1.djvu/14

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
8
The Educational Screen

use, it follows that about 200,000 children can see non-theatrical pictures;

If every child in these equipped schools is given one hour’s viewing of worth while films every day (and seldom does any school attain this), it means about 5 hours of screen viewing a week for the child, or the equivalent of two evenings in the movie theatre;

If the average school child in America attends the theatrical movies at least twice a week, as the vague statistics obtainable seem to show, the following startling figures appear:

The total hours spent each week by our children in looking at a

Non-theatrical screen (200,000 times 5) 1,000,000 hours
Theatrical screen (20,000,000 times 5) 100,000,000 hours

In other words, when an American school child watches a screen, 99 times out of 100 it is a theatrical screen. No American educator, high or humble, can afford to ignore this fearful fact, unless, of course, he believes that the one viewing will have a significant effect on the child intelligence and the 99 will not.

We may mention also, in passing, that the influence of the motion pictures on school children is but a fraction of their total power. Of the twenty or thirty million daily spectators of the pictures, at least four-fifths of them are non-school people. The political, economic and spiritual education of these people is going on every moment the mighty screens are lighted. Most of the “screen education” today—an influence that is sweeping over the mentality of the movie devotees like the tides, twice every 24 hours—is taking place outside the schools, as education is always wont to do. In short, if the question demands attention from educators, it is even more profoundly matter of concern to our political, economic, social and religious leaders. It is something eminently worth thinking upon for any and every American who can think.

As we said at the beginning, therefore, The Educational Screen will give much careful attention to the theatrical movies.

The Educational Screen is not the official organ of anything or anybody. It is published to give American educators, and every American who believes education important, the thing they have needed ever since the so-called “visual movement” started—namely, a magazine devoted to the educational cause and to no other; a magazine distinctly intellectual and critical, rather than commercial and propagandist; a magazine written and produced exclusively by those whose scholarly training, experience and reputation qualify them to discuss educational matters.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.