place of an actual performance, whether in story form or on the stage,
it has a real educational value in its possibilities of representation
which it is difficult to overestimate, and I believe that its
introduction into the school curriculum, under the strictest
supervision, will be of extraordinary benefit. The movement, in its
present chaotic condition, and in the hands of commercial management,
is more likely to stifle than to awaken or stimulate the imagination,
but the educational world is fully alive to the danger, and I am
convinced that in the future of the movement good will predominate.

The real value of the cinematograph in connection with stories is that
it provides the background that is wanting to the inner vision of the
average child, and does not prevent its imagination from filling in
the details later. For instance, it would be quite impossible for the
average child to get an idea from mere word-painting of the atmosphere
of the polar regions as represented lately on the film in connection
with Captain Scott's expedition, but any stories told later on about
these regions would have an infinitely greater interest.

There is, however, a real danger in using pictures to illustrate the
story, especially if it be one which contains a direct appeal to the
imagination of the child and one quite distinct from the stories which
deal with facts, namely, that you force the whole audience of children
to see the same picture, instead of giving each individual child the
chance of making his own mental picture. That is of far greater joy,
and of much great educational value, since by this process the child
cooperates with you instead of having all the work done for him.

Queyrat, in his works on "La Logique chez l'Enfant," quotes Madame
Necker de Saussure:[6] "To children and animals actual objects present