the National Board of Review is apparently guided. What it does approve without hesitation are good, clean dramas of action, of adventure, of the chase and pursuit, of cowboy life and deeds, of Indians and their ways, of animal life and haunts, of historic scenes, of myth, of saga, of fairyland, of foreign peoples and customs-always with the moral of the ultimate downfall of evil and the ultimate elevation of the good, not ostentatiously and forcibly pointed, but as a perfectly natural and rational development of the theme.

The position of the Committee is made still more clear by the statements contained in the following excerpt from the pamphlet referred to above:

Children's minds are selective as well as intensively active. They are quick to note details and later consider them. They ponder over many diverse questions without much selection. They are open to emotional appeals, both uplifting and degrading. They are continually building the bulwarks of life without much comprehension of their significance. Their imaginations are at work night and day. These function in somewhat different directions for both boys and girls. Both are peculiarly open to ideas and to appeals arousing sex instincts and thoughts. They dwell on incidents which may be inspiring, emotional, gruesome, revolting and shocking, often to the exclusion of larger ideas which command the attention of adults. Striking scenes and personalities, either noble or degraded, arrest them. They are hero worshippers. They set aside situations hinted at and dwell upon them during their leisure moments. Indeed, for periods of time, they abandon themselves to dreams of joy, pain, historic endeavor or mysterious hidden things. Since ideas throng upon them without selection, and since the trivial, the secondary, and the implied possess them to the exclusion of the main theme or story, it is essential to analyze moving pictures in detail as well as a whole.

As to the sort of film which children prefer, the Committee reports thus:

Children prefer entertaining rather than strictly educational pictures. In most cities and towns, more than a majority attend motion picture plays frequently. The percentage is given as low as sixty-five per cent and as high as eighty-seven per cent. The

younger boys and girls choose first stories of action, including those presenting wild west, thrill, adventure, detectives and sailors. Second, comedy, with a leaning toward the boisterous. Then, war, drama, historical and educational films. There is a slight increase in scenic, scientific and nature pictures as the age of sixteen is approached. This well-defined and universal desire is not wrong and deserves to be gratified with wholesome pictures. It is understood that the emphasis in the selection of pictures for boys and girls, both those under twelve and those between twelve and sixteen, shall be placed on themes, situations and details which are positive, helpful, constructive and inspiring. The pictures included on such programs should be, in a broad sense, educational. This does not mean, however, that they shall deal only with historic, scenic, scientific and nature subjects. The program should be as wide in its reach and scope as that for adults. It should be selected with the understanding of the child's world, and child view of life, and those motives and ideals which will mould their instincts and thoughts.

Yet the problem is far from being solved here. With the best selection of films for juveniles, and with regular weekly performances for them, there will still remain a considerable number of young people who will always be found scattered thickly thru the audience of most moving picture houses after the day's school session is over. The author is more and more inclined to the opinion that the ultimate stamp of approval or of disapproval of this form of juvenile amusement—as indeed of every other form-must be given by the home. In other words, if we are ever to be assured that what the child sees upon the screen will be at least harmless, we must first institute a campaign of educating the parents with reference to the possible sources of danger in the promiscuous moving picture program, thus creating ultimately a strong public demand for special performances for the children. Meantime, and in a narrower sense, every home ought to act as a self-appointed and self-constituted board of censors whose duty it is to assure itself as to the qualities of the program of any given theater before it places upon it its stamp of approval, thus permitting its own children to witness a performance.

In concluding this paper, a few points ought to be repeated and emphasized:

I. The National Board of Review has adopted most admirable standards by which to judge films suitable for juvenile entertainment.

2. Obviously the promiscuous program offered by moving picture houses does not comprise pictures which the Committee on Juvenile Films has necessarily approved, but is rather made up of pictures designed and approved for adult consumption.

3. It is, therefore, evident that discriminating and careful parents, who still have time and inclination to oversee their children's amusements, should be very skeptical about allowing their boys and girls to frequent public moving picture houses with any degree of regularity. Only after they have assured themselves that a given theater or a given program possesses nothing that may be turned by the keenly active imagination of the young people to their own detriment should parents permit them to attend. Every fireside its own board of censorship!

4. It appears that no central censorship of films will ever quite solve the problem of juvenile entertainment. It is a matter at once of such vast and such personal import that every parent should deem it his duty to become personally interested.

5. Since organized activity is superior to individual activity, it follows that some club, some union, some society, some committee of patriotic citizens, ought to devote itself in every city and town to the matter of special performances for juveniles and the actual weekly listing thru the local press of such theaters and programs as are to be recommended to parents. As stated above, under the leadership and encouragement of the National Board and its affiliated bodies, considerable has already been accomplished in this direction. There remains, however, a great and important work in thousands of cities and towns thruout the land. It is a work which will be constructive, positive, progressive just in proportion to the energy and the sincerity behind the effort.

These special juvenile performances may be arranged for weekly or semi-weekly entertainments, or they may be offered more frequently still. They may be given in private halls or clubs as the facilities will permit, or, by putting the matter up to the managers as a strictly business proposition, societies may be enabled to arrange special Friday afternoon and Saturday morning performances in the regular moving picture houses. In every city there is at least one stock or vaudeville theater whose performances do not begin until two o'clock or later in the afternoon. It would seem an excellent proposition, both from a business and civic viewpoint, to endeavor to encourage managers of these orthodox theaters to throw open their doors on Saturday mornings to a juvenile patronage. Then, too, in many cities the churches. have excellent halls which are often unopened for weeks at a time. What more worthy activity could they foster than the promotion of strictly clean juvenile film for the children of the parish, the neighborhood, the community—perhaps once a week or oftener?

6. In the selection of film suitable for children it should be always borne in mind that children are not young philosophers nor young historians, nor young scientists, nor yet young geographers as much so as they are young, active, brimming-over boys and girls who find perhaps their greatest theatrical delights in simple, harmless adventure, in rapid action, in bewitching fairyland, in the delightful realm of fancy, in amusing scenes and situations tending toward the boisterous and in such like. This does not in any sense minimize the importance of strictly educational film in their place it rather stresses the pure humanness of the child.

7. Finally, there is no more important factor in the development of the mental life of the school child than the type of amusement which he habitually seeks. The hygiene of mind is every whit as important to a healthy, normal life as is that of the body; hence society can not be too solicitous regarding those factors which most obviously condition the mental hygiene of the child.

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

WORCESTER, MASS.

LAWRENCE A. AVERILL

V

MILITARY TRAINING IN HIGH SCHOOLS

Shall we introduce military training into our high schools? No. Irrevocably, no. When fight we must, then let us fight, and by all means let us be prepared. But let us not register a fatal blunder by choosing a faulty method of preparation. Military training possesses great merit when properly taught in its proper institution, a military school; it should find no favor in high school.

The object of military training is to produce good soldiers -men who are alert, orderly, obedient, accurate, responsible, courageous, able to dig trenches, to scout, to climb mountains, and to march fast and far under heavy burdens, capable of using rifles, bayonets, hand grenades, howitzers, automobile trucks, and aeroplanes. No one man will probably ever be expected to use all of these instruments of death, to engage in all of the above-named tasks, or to exhibit all existent soldierly qualities; nevertheless these are the things regarding which instruction must be given, and no efficient soldier can know too much about them.

We understand, of course, that no high school which is considering military training favorably, contemplates introducing work as extensive as that described above into an already overburdened curriculum. It does not propose in most cases to add another course to a full schedule, but rather to substitute military training for physical. It has no intention of appropriating for death-dealing machinery any considerable part of the funds that have usually heretofore been too meager for fair equipment for constructive educational work.

The most of military value that any high school hopes to accomplish is to develop habits of order, obedience, precision,