STARRING STUDIES

Though moving pictures are finding an increasing vogue in elementary schools throughout the country few Universities have made an effort to utilize this graphic method of instruction. The rapid come and go the obvious superficiality of familiar movie films have prejudiced faculties against them and it is with something of a start that one reads of their introduction into a Harvard class room. The reels to be projected by the German department are well chosen however in that they attempt what is preeminently fitted to this sort of presentation.

In planning to use the films merely to round out the material offered in a more formal manner Professor Burkhard has made a wise decision. The views of beautiful Germany will make more convincing the impassioned descriptions of Rhenish scenery which occur so frequently throughout Germanic literature and which by their very reiteration often arouse an incident skepticism in the un travelled student. Perhaps more difficult to grasp than the appearance of the country position of the student to interpret side of a nation is an understanding of the nature of its people. A language as difficult for the average American as is German often encourages the rather superficial opinion that those whose native tongue it is must be of a corresponding stodginess. This dishis own ineptitude as the natural outcome of the hypothetical pedantry of his material should be happily dispelled by a more intimate and living view of such vital personalities as that of Gerhart Hauptmann.