Never before, in the history of the race, has mankind taken so deep and wide-spread an interest in the past of mankind as it exhibits to-day. There appears to be a world-wide feeling that, unless the race can learn the lessons that the great catastrophes that have repeatedly overtaken civilization teach, the outlook for the future is appallingly dark. On New Year’s Day, 1923, a body of prominent American educators issued an appeal to the public in which the following striking sentences occur: The present situation in international affairs, involving as it does the imminent peril of war, must give concern to every thoughtful observer. After a devastating conflict which has cost millions of lives, created immeasurable hatred and piled up a debt of $50 for every minute of time since Christ was born, the nations of the earth, apparently having learned nothing and forgotten nothing, are once more playing the old game of competitive imperialism and competitive armament. The above, startling but unanswerable as it is, has a direct bearing upon the subject we have just had under discussion, namely, the teaching of history through visual instruction. The advantages of this method for schools and colleges, conclusively proven though it has been, will be of no permanent and uplifting value to coming generations unless the screen as a pedagogue finds a way to give to a race that is constantly repeating old and fatal errors a message and a warning that shall influence the young men and women who are to mould the world’s future to avoid the disastrous errors of their progenitors. From this point of view it becomes apparent that to those into whose hands has been placed the dissemination of educational films has been vouchsafed a great opportunity to benefit a race that is in sore need of guidance, of some impetus that shall make its future less deplorable than its blood-stained past. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII THE MOVIE INTERPRETING THE PAST _Philip Kerr vs. H. G. Wells—Is the Race Doomed to Commit Hari-Kari?—The Failures of Diplomacy—The Screen Revealing Man to Himself—History the Best Bet of a Warworn Race—Teaching the Young Idea How Not to Shoot—Peace Via the Film._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII THE MOVIE INTERPRETING THE PAST