"In the matter of physics," pursued Einstein, "the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see. A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulæ extracted from our minds; it is particularly important that a young mind that has yet to find its way about in the world of phenomena should be spared from formulæ altogether. In his physics they play exactly the same weird and fearful part as the figures of dates in Universal History. If the experimenter is ingenious and expert, this subject may be begun as early as in the middle forms, and one may then count on a responsiveness that is rarely observable during the hours of exercise in Latin grammar." "This leads me," said Einstein, "to speak in this connexion of a means of education that has so far been used only by way of trial in class-teaching, but from an improved application of which I expect fruitful results later. I mean the school cinema. The triumphal march of the cinematograph will be continued into pedagogic regions, and here it will have a chance to make good its wrongs in thousands of picture shows in showing absurd, immoral, and melodramatic subjects. By means of the school-film, supplemented by a simple apparatus for projection, it would be possible firstly to infuse into certain subjects, such as geography, which is at present wound off organ-like in the form of dead descriptions, the pulsating life of a metropolis. And the lines on a map will gain an entirely new complexion in the eyes of the pupil, if he learns, as if during a voyage, what they actually include, and what is to be read between them. An abundance of information is imparted by the film, too, if it gives an accelerated or retarded view of such things as a plant growing, an animal's heart beating, or the wing of an insect moving. The cinema seems to me to have a still more important function in giving pupils an insight into the most important branches of technical industry, a knowledge of which should become common property. Very few hours would suffice to impress permanently on the schoolboy's mind how a power-station, a locomotive, a newspaper, a book, or a coloured illustration is produced, or what takes place in an electrical plant, a glass factory, or a gasworks. And, to return to natural science, many of the rather difficult experiments that cannot be shown by means of school apparatus may be shown with almost as great clearness on a film. Taken all in all, the redeeming word in school-teaching is, for me: an increased appeal to the senses. Wherever it is possible, learning must become living, and this principle will predominate in future reforms of school-teaching." * * * * * * * *