Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 March 1919 — Films to Replace Books. [ARTICLE]

Films to Replace Books.

Motion pictures will take the place of textbooks In schools and colleges, according to Thomas A. Edison, in an Interview recently. “The only textbooks needed will be for the teacher’s own use,” declares the inventor of the motion picture camera. “A great film library of educational and industrial subjects should be bqilt up in Washington. Then these films could be issued on the rental system to all institutions in the United States, even to the most remote rural schoolhouses, and the system could be so operated that it would pay its own w'ay.” Asserting that “anything which can be taught to the ear can be taught better to the eye,” jfr. Edison continued: “The moving object on the screen, the closest possible approximation to reality, Is almost the same- as bringing that object Itself before the child or taking the child to that object. Film teaching will be done without any books whatsoever. The only textbooks -needed will be for - the TeacireUs ow’tr' use. The films w r ill serve as guide posts to these teacher instruction books, not the books to. the films.” By making “every class room and every assembly hatt a movie show, 100 per cent attendance” will be assured, Mr. Edison says. “Why, you won’t be able to keep boys and girls away from school then.”