5
THE MOVIE CAMERA, THE SCHOOLMASTER OF TOMORROW
An Interview With the New
Which the Cinema Opens in
U. S. Commissioner ' of Education, Who Points Out the Opportunity
School Work Knowledge Gained Through the Eye Remains Fixed
THE SUNDAY OKECOXIAX, PORTLAND, AUGUST 21, 1921
young: man Tigert entered Immediate
ly Vanderbilt university, qualifying;
for the Latin and Greek entrance
prize. In 1904 he was selected the
first Rhodes scholar from Tennessee.
In 1907 he took a second class in the
honor school of jurisprudence at Ox
ford and received the degree M. A.
(Oxon) in 1916. '
Tigrert was an all-around college
man, proficient In other attainments
than booklore. He had time for ath
letics and won distinction on the
playground. At Vanderbllt he was on
the varsity football team for three
years was an all-southern fullback.
In 1911 he accepted the position of
profess-or of philosophy and psychol
ogy In the University o-f Kentucky at
Lexington, Ky When the department
was divided in 1917 he was offered
his choice of the chairs of philosophy !
and psychology and. accepted the lat
ter. The position he held until Presi
dent Harding nominated him for the
national commisslonershlp of educa
tion. During- the war Dr. Tigert took o
leave of absence and went abroad
for service. Serving with the T. M.
C. A. in educational work, he was
stationed for a time in the north of
Scotland near the naval bases, where
the mine barrage was laid across the
North sea from Scotland to Norway.
Later he was transferred in charge
of army education at aerodromes in
the vicinity of Oxford, England, and
was then transferred to France with
headquarters In Paris. With the for
mation of the army educational corps
he was detailed as a lecturer with
the army of occupation and eerved in
all the divisions with the single ex
ception of the 42d. One month was
spent in the school center of the 1st
division at Arzbaoh: Germany.
The new commissioner is married
and is the father of two children. His
wife was Edith Jackson Bristol of
Chicago, the daughter of a Western
Union Telegraph company superin
tendent. Dr. Tigart is the author of
many works, probably his best known
work being in the line of commercial
applications of psychology, especially
in the field of the psychology of ad
vertising. He is a member of many
educational and scientific organiza
tions. As a lecturer he is widely
known all over the country.
"The first aim here in the adminis
tration of my office is the same as
that' of my predecessors in office
the aim of interviewer. The army
tests showed conclusively to the pub
lic that many thousands of our peo
ple are deficient in the most elemen
tary points of education. What we
must do is to get every single child in
the country into a school and see that
that child is given an education."
It was pointed out that of 27.000.000
children in the country. 20.000.000 art
enrolled in schools, but only 15,000,
000 are in actual attendance. Ths
other 5.000.000 are either delinquent
in attendance or barred out by 'the
scarcity of schoolroom facilities and
the dearth of teachers.
"Things are swinging bacK to nor
mal as regards tea-chers," eay9 Dr.
Tigert. "The teachers are going back
to their old jobs. During the war
and the high-wage period following
the war teachers went out of their
classrooms by the thousands. But
now they are beginning to come back.
Wage scales are being adjusted. Peo
ple are out of work. Those teachers
who were economically forced out of
their positions during the war will
fall back upon their old jobs and be
glad, to get them. But they will be
better off than they formerly were,
for the reason that teachers' salaries
are being increased. It is right that
they should be increased, for our
teachers long have been underpaid.
"Yet the teacher must be on the
job in order to merit this new in
crease in salary. They will have to
be more efficient. The average ele
mentary school teacher should be
better equipped in point of education.
She should have at least a high school
diploma that, if nothing eise. As a
matter of fact, she should have a nor
mal school education or a college edu
cation. The normal school and col
lege graduates generally rise higher
in their profession.
"Something must, be done in this
connection. The demand for teachers
for our high schools is all out of pro
portion to the available supply. By
the latest count we were 15.000 high
c
tr - ' t,u V " ,nn V - V x Vi
x: " fl lk tey
States coinmiHioncr of education, V: A l-u 5 1 l it) llllill II I II llllll III II II lfT 'II II 1 1 I1TTT TT
who predicts the movie camera will X,. . ' ' ' I I 81 II 111 I I I
be the hixtory book for school chll- V",v Hit' I I II Bli I II II 111 J I II III
i ft v myf sh3w i irrrf r school te
vvwN . jH.wit4 -y i
i n W X
t v
L 'J " It
BY CHARLES W. DUKE.
I LASS in history, attention! The
lesson for today begins with
the engagement at Belleau
wood, in the battle of the Marne.
Watch close now, for we will have
in oral quiz after the review of this
film."
Clickety-click! It is the zero hour.
Great guns are shown in action laying
diwn a barrage against the German
entrenchments. There is a close-up
ot General Pershing and his aides.
TThe scene shifts to the trenches,
where the American troops are kneel
ing on the firing step awaiting the
word to go. Not a comedy, but an
lionest-to-goodness trench in actual
time of warfare.
"Over the top," is the command.
Away go the "devil hounds," scram
bling out of the trenches, charging
across No Man's Land. The eye of
the camera lifted over the edge of
the parapet, shows the Yankee fight
iis in full cry, the battle-scarred
Belleau wood dimiy shown in the
background. As the Germans retreat
and the Americans pursue the motion
picture camera follows on and reveals
the marines in the new position they
have occupied, the trenches held a few
minutes ago by the enemy.
"That will be all for this morn
ing," says teacher. "Now for a quiz
on what you have seen. From the
captions and the pictures you have
learned all the salient facts of the
battle of Belleau Wood. I want to
,ee now how much of it you remem
ber. Tomorrow we will take up
another phase of the American drive
In France during the summer of
1918."
For the future It is more than likely
that history will be taught thus. Dr.
John James Tigert, the new United
States commissioner of education,
whom President Harding recently in
talled into office, is an ardent ad
vocate of "visual education." Hence
forth, he believes the motion-picture
film and camera 'will play a potent
pirt in education.
"Eighty-five per cent of all our
knowledge comes to us through the
agency of the human eye," Dr. Tigert
told me when I called on him in
Washington the other day. "Nine pr
cent filters in through the ear and
the other 6 per cent through the re
maining senses. Too long we have
been using the ear instead of the eye.
I am for visual education. Man. pre
eminently, is a sight-seeing animal."
Six million feet of film made dur
ing the war did more to educate the
people to the needs of food conserva
tion and the like than any other
agency. With motion pictures, -he be
lieves, it will be possible to wage the
battle against illiteracy as it has not
been possible with any other educa
tional equipment. Popularized as a
recreational and entertaining medium,
the motion picture for the future will
become more and more an educational
medium.
"In nearly every small town and
village anywhere and everywhere you
go throughout the country." says Dr.
Tigert, "you fif d the movies. They
have come to stay; they are a part of
v. our life; they are constantly being en
larged and improved. What can be
done with them as a means of im
parting knowledge already has been
demonstrated; it is for us to util
them on a larger scale and adapt th
to the peculiar purposes of educati
Within that celluloid film lies the
most powerful weapon for the attack
against ignorance the world ever has
known."
In pictures, argues tne new com
missioner, there is psychology. What
we see, in the aggregate, is more im
pressed upon the mind that what we
hear. The child who is too indiffer
ent or too thick-skulled to compre
hend the spoken word will grasp the
meaning of a picture, particularly
when it is a picture in motion. The
child will remember the story it has
seen in the movies more readily than
the story it has heard from the teach
ers' rostrum. comprehending it better
and remembering it longer. It is Dr.
Tigert's contention that the Bible
story unfolded on the film sticks more
tenaciously in the Juvenile .mind than
the Sunday school lesson explained
by the teacher. ,
"It ia an age of pictures," he says.
"and I, for one, am convinced that
for the future the motion picture is to
forward our campaign against illit
eracy as nothing else that has been
adapted to the schoolroom in this era
of new-fangled things. Already the
movies have invaded the schoolroom.
They have come to stay and to render
us invaluable aid. In spreading the
doctrines of Americanism I know of
no better way to drive home the truth
than with the screen and the camera
We have 3.000.000 feet of film in the
department now ready for that very
thing."
For the future it will not be neces
sary to darken the schoolroom for les
sons that are to be imparted with the
motion picture camera. Dr. Tigert
has seen demonstrated a new trans
lucent motion picture screen invented
by Thomas A. Edison and others by
means of which a motion picture can
be shown without darkening a room.
The new screen has been demonstrat
ed to President Harding and govern
ment officials and by experts pro
nounced an unqualified success. No
matter how bright the day, how
strong the sunlight, the .picture can
be shown in all detail without any
strain of the eye, without a drawn
window shade. By means of this in
vention it will be possible to introduce
"visual education" in the public
schools of the country.
.
A champion of modern education.
Dr. Tigert proposes utilization of
every new instrumentality for the
spread of education. Born in a col
lege dormitory, raised in a school en
vironment, educated first in domestic
and then in foreign schools, the presi
dent of a college at the age of 27
years there is not much the new fed
eral commissioner has missed in the
way of education. That he must have
had rare qualifications for the posi
tion was evidenced by the fact that
when President Harding set out to
find a successor to Philander P. Clax-
ton he disregarded the suggestions
of advisers to select a candidate from
the "seat of learning" in the class
New England college country, b
reached out into the middle west and
put his finger down on a sen of Ken
tucky and Tennessee.
"I was born in Tennessee," said
Dr. Tigert, a tall, lean southerner,
with a delightful drawl. "My grand
father was the first president of Van
derbllt university. He was Bishop
H. N. M,cTyeire, and they do say he
was the man who went out and got
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt to
give a million dollars with which to
found Vanderbilt university. Grand
father McTyeire was a leader in the
affairs of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South. He wrote a complete
history of Methodism.
"My father was John James Tigert,
a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South, and sL writer' of some
note, his works mostly religious. He
was for 12 years editor of the Meth
odist Review in Nashville. Grand
father was the first president of Van
derbilt and the first president of its
board of trustees. My father was for
a -time professor of mental and moral
philosophy In Vanderbilt and it was
there I was born, the first child born
in Wesley hall, one of the large col
lege dormitories. So I reckon I was
Just naturally born to education."
Dr. Tigert began his educational
career in the public schools of Kan
sas City in 1890, at which time his
father was serving as pastor of the
Troost-avenue church. The family
later moved to Nashville, where the
boy completed his elementary educa
tion. He then entered the famous
old Wetb school at Bellbuckle, Henn.,
the founder, Webb, being known af
fectionately all over the south as "Old
Sawney." Graduated in 1900, the
captain-elect of the football team In
1904. for three years on the varsity
basketball team and captain in 1903.
At Oxford he represented his college,
Pembroke, in rowing, tennis and
cricket and was a member of the All
Rhodes scholar baseball team.
Thoroughly equipped in educational
training, he came home from Paris
to assume immediately a full pro
fessorship and he nver fell below
that rank. His first position, from
1907 to 1909, was professor of philos
ophy and psychology in Central col
lege, Fayette, Miss., after which he
was called to the presidency of the
Kentiieky Wesleyan college at Win
chester, Ky at the age of 27 years.
ichers short. This adminis-
.ill work toward this end oi
nore and better teachers. It
is one thing to build new schools and
i another thing to put good teachers in
those schools.
"Our rural schools are inadequate
Very often, out in th country, w
find it takes a country child four oi
five years to get what it could get in
one year in a city school. The aver
age length of the rural school year.
too, ia too short. It's time to take
care of the country schools along
with the city schools."
Diamond Shares Soon on Market.
NEW YORK. If negotiations now
under way are carried to a success
ful conclusion, the New York stock
exchange will soon add to Its fast
growing list of international securi-
i ties the chares of the Anglo-American
corporation, diamond producers
of South Africa. The desire of the
Anglo-American corporation to list
its shares in this country is based
1 largely on the fact that the major
portion of its product is purchased
by American dealers in precious
stones.
THE CYCLONE BY ROSE L. ELLERBE dE3
HOW LON BAXTER, PIONEER, CONFRONTED
THE FATE OF LOVERS WHO WAIT TOO LONG
(Continued From Pae S.
this nonsense. "Herd's Lem Randall
ready to marry ye at the word. He's
pot 320 acres as good land as there
is in the state of Ioway, and I'll give
him another quarter when you are
married. You take him and git into
a home-of your own, I tell you."
"Lem thinks a lot more about that!
quarter section of land than he does
about me," Edna retorted. "You can
give him the land if you want to, but
I'm not a prize package to go with it."
He swore at her. "Why ain't you
sensible like Milly and Grace? Look
at Milly. Ed Beeson has just bought
a new farm that makes him a hull
section nigh all clear. He'll be a
rich man before many years."
"Yes. And look at Milly! What
gooi does his land do her? He won't
twea buy. iei & wasliuis machine.
She's an old woman at 33." Edna re
sponded with spirit.
"And what do you think you'll be,
slaving for a man without a cent?"
"Lon will never be as man to me as
Ed is to sister. He will never let me
milk 10 cows."
In the strength of her sure love
and hope It had been easy to defend
her lover and herself. Her father's
most savage attacks, the sneers of her
sisters, the questioning or pitying
glances of her girl friends, all passed
her by. But as the years slipped away
it was only the deep, strong current of
her love and the steadfastness of her
nature that held Edna up under the
hardness of her life.
Goodrich, when he found that Edna
would not consider Randall, nor ac
ceptathe attentions of other men ten
tatively offered, declared: "Well, if
you think I am going to keep oa sup
porting you in idleness until Lon Bax
ter can make enough t$ feed., two
mouths ye're mistaken. Hatty can go
and you can do her work."
"But pa," Mrs. Goodrich pleaded
anxiously, "it takes all three of us to
feed and clean after four men, and
take care o' the milk, and the chick
ens, and the garden, to say nothin'
'bout feedin' pigs and calves. We all
o' us Edna does morn her share by
rights now we all o' us work hard
the better part o' 14 hours a day."
Yet, though "Ma Goodrich." by her
weight and her rheumatism, and her
long years of service, was entitled to
relief rather than new burdens, her"
husband carried out his threat. Hetty,
who had "helped" since Edna was a
child, was dismissed. Mother and
daughter were compelled to- do the
drudgery that eats the vitality out
of the most robust body and the most
hopeful soul.
Lon had no suspicion of what life
had come to be to the overburdened
and much harried girl. She had been
pretty and popular, had sung in the
choir of the Baptist church, and been
counted in for all merrymakings. He
thought of her still as the village
belle, before whom he had trembled.
He was still wondering how she- had
ever come to favor the big, awkward
lout he felt himself to be.
In her own heart of late Edna had
found herself fearing . that Lon had
changed that he no longer wanted
her. It was in despair that she had
determined not to answer his Jast
hurried note. She would put him to
this test; if he did not speak she
would admit that it had all been a
blunder and try to gather up her life
and make something of what was
left,' after she had torn her one love
out of her heart. Day after day
passed with no letter. It was the
feverish, hurrying time of harvest
and she had few spare moments nor
had Lon, she told herself. Yet. with
slowly dying faith, she waited and
feared and tried to hope.
One night her father, with a con
temptuous snort, tossed her a letter
he had brought from town. "Pears
like your man ain't in no hurry'about
wrltin these days," he observed,
acidly.
She made no answer. She waited
until she was in her own room, at the
end of a scoring day's- work. Her
lips were white as she slipped the
sheet from the envelope and read the
words that had corfle from Lon's
heart.
She read the letter over again with
quickly responding spirit. Sut - the
sparkle and glow of love's first
happy hours had been sorely dimmed
by toil and disappointment.
Once more, with a new season, the
resurrecting force of spring pulsed
in Lon's veins. The man who drops
seed into freshly stirred depth of
Mother Earth cannot help counting
on the harvest, however often or bit
terly she has flouted him. This year
the winds were gentle, rain came at
the right moment, the sun was tem
pered. The yield was so abundant
that the one railroad could not move
trains fast enough.
.That fall Lon Baxter bought and
hauled lumber. Through the winter,
with his own hands, he built his
house.
The home for Edna was ready.
Lon rolled a window shade back
and forth with a touch of pride as he
remembered the green paper shades
manipulated by a string and always
tipping one way pr the other which
had hung before the windows in his
childhood. He settled his overcoat
on his broad shoulders and sent a
last appraising look about the room.
It was square and bare; a door and
window to the ea,st, a double window
to the south, through which the April
sunshine flooded, gilding the yellow
paint of the floor. The open "butt'ry"
door showed clean pine shelves, thi
new cook stove shone with nickel
and mica. The big, black wood
rocker, which had been the one lux
ury of his dugout, stood near a small
cane-seated rocker. Edna would sit
here to sew. or perhaps by and by
she might rock and sing lullabys
He laid a caressing hand on it at thi
thought.
He looked into the tiny bedroom
IConcluded on fags 6.)
h
1