The Dramatic Instinct in Education

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914. Excerpt: ... IX MOVING PICTURES It is a long step from the Muybridge photographs of 1878 and Edison's first little nickelin-the-slot machine for showing photographs in rapid succession to the cinematograph of 1914. It is scarcely two decades since the sight of an express train in full motion was first introduced as the finale of a vaudeville show. The history of the rise of the moving picture in these few years attests the universal longing for the dramatic. So phenomenal has been the development, so miraculous its prosperity, its financial strength and resources, and its growth generally into a public institution, that it is almost impossible to keep pace with it statistically or post one's self as to its increasing range of subject. New York has over eight hundred, Chicago over six hundred moving-picture houses, and other cities proportionally large numbers. According to the latest available reports, there are to-day about seventeen thousand moving-picture houses in this country, with a daily attendance of seven million people, over a half-million of whom are children. In view of such facts, it is not surprising to find that millions of dollars are represented in the moving picture as an industry. Its interests are consolidated in a trust with a capitalization which exceeds that of the Standard Oil Company, while there are "independents" which, taken together, are scarcely less powerful. In foreign countries, well-known authors and artists are writing and acting for the moving-picture drama. The names of Jules Lemaltre, of the Academie Francaise; MounetSully, of the Theatre Francais; Hervieu and Edmond Rostand, in France, and George Sims, in England, show what talent is enlisted. Even Bernhardt and Re jane have acted before the moving-picture camera. Many of the pic...