have considerable difficulty in following the rapid flight of events when they occur in unfamiliar surroundings.  The child grasps very little in seeing the happenings in a factory.  The psychological and economic lesson may be rather wasted because the power of observation is not sufficiently developed and the assimilation proceeds too slowly.  But it is quite different when a human interest stands behind it and connects the events in the photoplay.

The difficulties in the way of the right moral influence are still greater than in the intellectual field.  Certainly it is not enough to have the villain punished in the last few pictures of the reel.  If scenes of vice or crime are shown with all their lure and glamour the moral devastation of such a suggestive show is not undone by the appended social reaction.  The misguided boys or girls feel sure that they would be successful enough not to be trapped.  The mind through a mechanism which has been understood better and better by the psychologists in recent years suppresses the ideas which are contrary to the secret wishes and makes those ideas flourish by which those “subconscious” impulses are fulfilled.  It is probably a strong exaggeration when a prominent criminologist recently claimed that “eighty-five per cent. of the juvenile crime which has been investigated has been found traceable either directly or indirectly to motion pictures which have shown on the screen how crimes could be committed.”  But certainly, as far as these demonstrations have worked havoc, their influence would not have been annihilated by a picturesque court scene in which the burglar is unsuccessful in misleading the jury.  The true moral influence must come from the positive spirit of the play itself.  Even the photodramatic lessons in temperance and piety will not rebuild a frivolous or corrupt or perverse community.  The truly upbuilding play is not a dramatized sermon on morality and religion.  There must be a moral wholesomeness in the whole setting, a moral atmosphere which is taken as a matter of course like fresh air and sunlight.  An enthusiasm for the noble and uplifting, a belief in duty and discipline of the mind, a faith in ideals and eternal values must permeate the world of the screen.  If it does, there is no crime and no heinous deed which the photoplay may not tell with frankness and sincerity.  It is not necessary to deny evil and sin in order to strengthen the consciousness of eternal justice.

But the greatest mission which the photoplay may have in our community is that of esthetic cultivation.  No art reaches a larger audience daily, no esthetic influence finds spectators in a more receptive frame of mind.  On the other hand no training demands a more persistent and planful arousing of the mind than the esthetic training, and never is progress more difficult than when the teacher adjusts himself to the mere liking of the pupils.  The country today would still be without any symphony concerts