Later on in this book, we shall have occasion to refer in detail to what Hays and his colleagues have accomplished in their efforts to improve the tone of the movies. But just here it is well to direct the course of our narrative into the two channels referred to in the clause of the producers’ agreement above quoted, following the flood of movies devoted to mere amusement for awhile with searching eyes, and later on making a survey of the rapidly broadening stream of pictures designed for educational purposes. From the latter, perhaps, it may be expedient for us to go forward with some confidence toward a more minute consideration of the dynamics lurking in the screen for the furtherance of a method of world-wide enlightenment that may eventually save civilization from the disintegrating forces by which, both externally and internally, it is menaced. “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” is a sweeping generalization intended by the poet to be a compliment to motherhood. Whether it is a compliment or a condemnation depends wholly upon one’s point of view regarding the world. If the world is worth saving, the hand that rocks the cradle is worthy of all honor; if it isn’t, then motherhood has been unjustifiably glorified. Believing, personally, that the human race is not without many reasonable claims to salvation, we turn curiously to the movies in their capacity as a public amusement to see whether, leaving their educational function for further consideration, they display as a pastime anything that looks like a gleam of hope for the regeneration of the race. Have we, in fact, cause for optimism regarding the future of the amusement screen? We find to-day the press, the pulpit and the playwrights denouncing the shortcomings of the movies, chastising their secret faults and their open transgressions; editors, preachers, dramatists posing as Savonarolas at a spiritual crisis in the career of a young but alarmingly potent world power. These are portents in the sky that promise well for the future of the screen. If our leading thinkers, writers and publicists, yes, and picture producers, were indifferent to the sins of omission and commission attributable for a quarter of a century to the movie its case would be hopeless. But it is worth saving, as the best minds in our country well know, and the criticism that it is always undergoing is a most encouraging phenomenon. The regeneration of the movies must be both through external and internal sources. A producer who recently relieved his over-burdened soul in _Collier’s Weekly_ puts the whole matter in a nut-shell when he says: