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Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944

"The Hohenzollerns in America"




3.--The Discovery of America;
Being Done into Moving Pictures and Out Again
"No greater power for education," said President Shurman
the other day, "has come among us during the last forty
years than the moving picture."
I am not certain that it was President Shurman. And he
may not have said it the other day. Nor do I feel absolutely
sure that he referred to the LAST forty years. Indeed
now that I come to think of it, I don't believe it WAS
Shurman. In fact it may have been ex-President Eliot. Or
was it, perhaps, President Hadley of Yale? Or did I say
it myself? Judging by the accuracy and force of the
language, I think I must have. I doubt if Shurman or
Hadley could have put it quite so neatly. There's a touch
about it that I recognise.
But let that pass. At any rate it is something that
everybody is saying and thinking. All our educators have
turned their brains towards the possibility of utilising
moving pictures for the purpose of education. It is being
freely said that history and geography, and even arithmetic,
instead of being taught by the slow and painful process
of books and memory, can be imparted through the eye.
I had no sooner heard of this idea than I became impassioned
to put it into practice.


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