The Film in the School A headmaster, at an educational
conference, has lately emphasised the need for co-operation between the schools, the Press, the wireless, and the cinema. Certainly, in the use of both cinema and wireless for educational purposes, we lag far behind other countries, especially the United States. The difficulty is the lack of material as much as the lack of equipment ; but it is interesting to see that the Gaumont British Instructional Films Bureau has lately shown some successful geographical films for schools ; in such fields the cinema might easily transform what is often an arid accumulation of facts into a live and vivid acquaintance with the life of a given country. Equally, the B.B.C. has an educational programme which is being widened and improved ; if it is true that it is now to venture into independent production of television films, it may unite the means for applying all these new media to education. But, if it would be a waste not to use them, and to use them much more than at present, they also have their dangers. For they easily may lessen both the personal contact between master and pupil, and the personal effort and application demanded of the pupil. With the wider applieation .of new instruments of learning there must go an advance in educational technique aimed at keeping the pupil actively, not passively, receptive.
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