=The Motion-Picture’s Contribution.= The motion-picture theater has been a godsend to the people of the mill village. Most of these workers are very ignorant. Hard living and incessant toil have deprived them of the opportunity of attending school, and even if there were the will to get an education, the schools have not been accessible in many instances; consequently, the people have merely the rudiments of an education, and many of them can neither read nor write. Hundreds of homes in these villages have no books except an almanac and a Bible. The needs of the workers are almost overwhelming, so that one hardly knows where to begin even to tell about the changes that must be made in a community before much benefit can be secured in the lives of the individuals. The motion-picture has brought to these workers scenes from the outside world and has enlarged their ideas of life. Any one can understand the lesson a picture teaches. [Illustration: Copyright, H. C. White Company. In the cotton-mills a worker is a worker and little or nothing else.] The motion-picture furnishes amusement and recreation, and it gives a glimpse of larger aims and new motives. The girls who dress up in their fine clothes and gaudy hats and go to the city whenever they have a chance are trying to express themselves. Inherently they have fine traits of character, but out of their ignorance and lack of experience they are unable properly to balance the proportion of color and style and make these to fit in with the facts of every-day life. There is no one to teach them; they are unable to go to dressmakers for advice, and the people with whom they associate admire the kind of finery that they wear. But when they see these pictures presented on the screen they get a chance to know how people in other places really live and act. As one girl said: “I only learned how to be a lady when I got to see ladies’ pictures at the movies.”