That Marvel—The Movie: A Glance at Its Past, Its Promising Present and Its Significant FutureVan Zile, Edward S. (Edward Sims)
History
That Marvel—The Movie: A Glance at Its Past, Its Promising Present and Its Significant Future
Van Zile, Edward S. (Edward Sims)
Motion pictures
Here may you visualize the epic tale of Man’s rise from protoplasm to
power, from an amœba to ruler of the earth. Here may a Chinaman study
the past of his people through forty centuries of weal and woe; the
modern Greek glory in the splendors of ancient Athens or appraise his
compatriots’ achievements of yesterday; the Norseman, the Slav, the
Teuton, the Celt, the Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, the Jap, the Arab, the
East Indian learn from the screen what his race, or nation, or tribe has
done for or against—and they have all done both—the cause of advancing
civilization. There shall radiate, if our dream comes true, from this
great centre where all knowledge is visualized a light that shall grow
ever brighter, as the generations come and go, routing the errors of
ignorance and racial prejudice and making possible that for which the
great hearted of the race have so long striven in vain, namely, the
brotherhood of man.
Let me transpose two sentences from a timely book from which I have
already quoted. Says Frederick Palmer on the last page of his
enlightening volume “The Folly of Nations”: “The world of to-day thinks
through its eyes looking at the screen. Where are our millionaires who
seek worthy objects for their benefactions?” And, from another recently
published book, “The Salvaging of Civilization,” by H. G. Wells, can be
most aptly quoted the following pertinent excerpt:
It has become clear that the task of bringing about that
consolidated world state which is necessary to prevent the
decline and decay of mankind is not primarily one for the
diplomatists and lawyers and politicians at all. It is an
educational one. It is a moral based on an intellectual
reconstruction. The task immediately before mankind is to find
release from the contentions, loyalties and hostilities of the
past, which make collective world-wide action impossible at the
present time, in a world-wide common vision of the histories and
destines of the race. On that basis, and on that alone, can a
world control be organized and maintained. The effort demanded
from mankind, therefore, is primarily and essentially a bold
reconstruction of the outlook upon life of hundreds of millions
of minds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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