A Lighthouse of the Past, a university of universities, a fountain of all revealed knowledge inculcated through a medium understood of all men, a Mecca for the pilgrims of peace and progress from all corners of the earth, forever adapting itself to the growing needs of mankind for enlightenment, sending forth, year after year, its polyglot graduates to carry its teachings, warnings, promises to every tribe and nation on the planet—is it not a consummation to be devoutly wished, a dream worth every sacrifice to bring within the purview of reality? If your answer to this query, dear reader, is in the affirmative, the chances seem to be that you will find the following chapters of this book worthy of your earnest consideration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II THE MOVIE AT ITS BIRTH _Muybridge’s Trotting Horses—Edison’s Kinetoscope—The Problem Eastman Solved—The Movie as a Universal Language—A Toy for Children that Became a World Power—The Men Who Rocked the Cradle of a New Hope for the Race._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II THE MOVIE AT ITS BIRTH FOR countless ages Man watched the birds in flight, realized his own motor handicaps, and relegated his hope of flying to a life which he might eventually lead in the world of spirits. An insect or an angel might have wings but the lord of the earth was by nature debarred from the air. Then somebody somewhere invented a kite, and for another series of centuries Man played with a toy whose ultimate significance he failed to grasp. He had not as yet sensed the picturesque truth that the world’s most potential inventions have come to us, by a process of evolution, from children’s playthings. The laboratory had its beginnings in the nursery. The cave-man’s children taught him progress. Through suggestions from the kite, the Wright brothers made air navigation possible. From another toy, Edison’s kinetoscope, has come the cinematograph. And even its inventor, possessing, though he does, the creative imagination, failed to realize until recent years the startling possibilities imbedded in the plaything with which he entertained the cosmopolitan throngs that flocked to the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893.