There is growing up in this country a clan of half-formed moving picture critics.  The present stage of their work is indicated by the eloquent notice describing Your Girl and Mine, in the chapter on “Progress and Endowment.”  The metropolitan papers give their photoplay reporters as much space as the theatrical critics.  Here in my home town the twelve moving picture places take one half a page of chaotic notices daily.  The country is being badly led by professional photoplay news-writers who do not know where they are going, but are on the way.

But they aptly describe the habitual attendants as moving picture fans.  The fan at the photoplay, as at the baseball grounds, is neither a low-brow nor a high-brow.  He is an enthusiast who is as stirred by the charge of the photographic cavalry as by the home runs that he watches from the bleachers.  In both places he has the privilege of comment while the game goes on.  In the photoplay theatre it is not so vociferous, but as keenly felt.  Each person roots by himself.  He has his own judgment, and roasts the umpire:  who is the keeper of the local theatre:  or the producer, as the case may be.  If these opinions of the fan can be collected and classified, an informal censorship is at once established.  The photoplay reporters can then take the enthusiasts in hand and lead them to a realization of the finer points in awarding praise and blame.  Even the sporting pages have their expert opinions with due influence on the betting odds.  Out of the work of the photoplay reporters let a superstructure of art criticism be reared in periodicals like The Century, Harper’s, Scribner’s, The Atlantic, The Craftsman, and the architectural magazines.  These are our natural custodians of art.  They should reproduce the most exquisite tableaus, and be as fastidious in their selection of them as they are in the current examples of the other arts.  Let them spread the news when photoplays keyed to the Rembrandt mood arrive.  The reporters for the newspapers should get their ideas and refreshment in such places as the Ryerson Art Library of the Chicago Art Institute.  They should begin with such books as Richard Muther’s History of Modern Painting, John C. Van Dyke’s Art for Art’s Sake, Marquand and Frothingham’s History of Sculpture, A.D.F.  Hamlin’s History of Architecture.  They should take the business of guidance in this new world as a sacred trust, knowing they have the power to influence an enormous democracy.

The moving picture journals and the literati are in straits over the censorship question.  The literati side with the managers, on the principles of free speech and a free press.  But few of the aesthetically super-wise are persistent fans.  They rave for freedom, but are not, as a general thing, living back in the home town.  They do not face the exigency of having their summer and winter amusement spoiled day after day.