THE FILM IN CHURCH AND SCHOOL
AT the opening of the Film School at the London Institute of Education this week Mr. Kenneth Lindsay, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, stated that an enquiry had recently been conducted' which revealed that out of 32,000 schools in England and Scotland only 8io had facilities for the showing of films. This figure, Mr. Lindsay observed, showed that Great Britain was far behind other European countries in the use of films in schools (Germany has 17,000 projectors in her schools and France 9,400), and it gave cause for thinking that this country was not tackling the problem of visual aids to education in the right way. Mr. Lindsay's surprise and regret will be generally shared, but the figures in fact come as no surprise to anyone connected with the development of the educational film in this country. Despite the obvious assistance which the classroom film can render to the teacher, and despite a ready willingness on the part of the teacher to avail himself of it, progress in placing the new instrument in his hands has been tediously, sometimes discouragingly, slow.
The financial difficulty forms by far the most serious. barrier to progress. The cost of equipping even a reasonable proportion of the 32,000 schools mentioned by Mr. Lindsay with substandard sound film projectors would at present market prices be likely to run into six figures. While 20 per cent. of the 5,500,000 schoolchildren in the United Kingdom work in schools where such primary necessities as heating, ventilation and lavatory accommodation are deficient, and there are still more than 4,200 regular classes of 5o and even 6o children (two such classes often working in one room), it is natural enough that most education authorities should decide to apply their resources to more urgent necessities than films. But there are obviously far more than 8io schools—perhaps more than Mr. Lindsay's 32,00o—where films could and should be afforded.
But assuming the difficulties of providing the necessary equipment surmounted, the question of the right place of the film in the curriculum is both important and controversial. On one fundamental point general agreement has been reached : the film can at best be an aid, an appliance to be used only when the simpler means of blackboard, map and epidiascope are inadequate. In this connexion the making of films on the more advanced scientific subjects, under the supervision of such men as Dr. Julian Huxley and Dr. Lancelot Hogben, has opened up new possibilities in the teaching of facts not easily conveyed by normal methods. But in the more general field many questions have still to be decided. Is the film to be an integral part of the curriculum, or an out- of-school " extra " ? Is it to have sound or shall it be silent ? Shall the cinema go to the child or the child to the cinema ? These are problems requiring close and constant co-operation between classroom and studio.
From the results of previous discussion and practice it would seem that two types of film are emerging as patterns for school use. The first is the simple illus- tration-film lasting at most two minutes, which the teacher can use as a " moving epidiascope." This type of classroom film was largely developed by the Scottish education authorities, who put forward the cogent argu- ment that the necessary speed of the teacher's work did not allow him more than the briefest recourse to secondary aids. The second is a film larger in scope and ambition which, taking as its theme some aspect of the every- day organisation of the modern world, seeks to relate the academic facts of the classroom with the reality to which the child will go. In this new method of civic education the Post Office has done pioneering work of great value by demonstrating the perspectives of social activity de- pendent upon communications.
A suggestion as to how this social conception of the film may be further applied is given in the recent announce- ment that Mr. John Grierson is to co-operate with Mr. Bruce Woolfe in the making of films for exhibition in churches. The churches are admirably placed for the use of cinema as an aid to the expounding of religious teaching. Geographically and socially they are the centres of every village community, and in their many halls and club premises they possess one of the basic necessities for film programmes. But how, in this case too, are films to be used ? The churches have a choice between three courses.
First, they can exploit the cinema as a re-teller of Bible stories. Second, on a basis of their close contact with the community, they can use the film to describe the social services with which they are concerned. Third, they can infuse a new meaning into the conception of preaching by bringing to the screen dramatic narrative of a spiritual quality. The first of these policies has already been fol- lowed in this country, in America, and under Roman Catholic sponsorship in France, but the results have been palpably unsatisfactory. A film on the life of Christ, produced at a cost of a million dollars in America 10 years ago, treated the miracles as no more than cheap trickery, and the film was finally banned in the Middle West as provocatively controversial. Such an attempt is far better left alone.
It is, it appears, in the social and dramatic narrative methods of approach that the new religious film policy will centre. That is where the main interest of the new venture lies. A start is to be made with Tolstoy's Where Love is God is, and such plays as J. K. Jerome's Passing of the Third Floor Back will no doubt find a permanent place in the repertoire. It is an experiment that will be watched with considerable interest and many reserves. As an adjunct to the ordinary church service the cinema may well have its place. To make it a substitute would be disastrous. The idea of " religion without tears " can very easily be carried too far, and the farther it is carried the more irreconcilable it becomes with the religion of the Gospels. But that is a caveat, not a condemnation. The danger is there, but it can quite well be avoided.
Previous page
