The commission has authority to regulate the employment of minors without calling a conference, though it holds the usual public hearing. It favors restricting night work of girls under eighteen in all industries, its chief opponents being the department stores.
NEW METHODS IN
MOTION PICTURES
Motion pictures are bringing the scenes and events of distant lands and even of other ages vividly to the eyes. The Durbar, the coronation, the Scott antarctic expedition, the story of “Quo Vadis,” as shown by the “movies,” not to mention a thousand and one travel subjects from a railway trip in the Andes to street scenes in China, are playing a growing part in popular education. Films are being used increasingly to spread information and enlist public co-operation in the struggle against tuberculosis, dirty milk, flies and other menaces to health. And now, as described in The Survey of September 6, Mr. Edison himself is enlisted in the problem of adapting motion pictures to school training.
All this development of course hangs on improvement in the mechanism by which motion pictures are projected on the screen. A new method is announced designed to eliminate all flicker which is clearly one of the serious problems in its strain upon children’s eyes. The inventor of the machine, called the vanoscope, is Lewis C. Van Riper and he essays to show continuous action by having each picture dissolve into the next instead of projecting a series of entirely distinct pictures on the screen. Col. S. S. McClure has been so impressed with the especial adaptability of this new method for educational purposes, that he is now on a trip to Europe to gain what he can for its wide use in this field.
In the prevalent method of motion picture projection, the film movement is in the nature of a series of quick jerks, each taking about one-half of the time given to each picture. Nearly 50 per cent of the time is taken up in moving the pictures forward and 50 per cent in projecting them upon the screen. Hence the flicker and the chance of eye strain.
The principle underlying this present method of projection is that the persistence of vision in the human eye is about one-tenth of a second. It has been found that a speed in projection of from 16 to 17 pictures per second is necessary to enable the eyes to retain the image of one picture until the next is projected upon the screen and to overcome or partially overcome annoyance to the eyes caused by the intervals. This is the rate of projection now used throughout the world on all standard machines for monochrome pictures and photographs for such use have had to be taken at a speed of at least 16 per second in order to appear natural.
Some of the advantages claimed for the new method are that there are no intervals between successive pictures, but each succeeding picture dissolves into the one preceding it in exact proportion as the volume of light shifts from one to the other; that there is no flicker; and less danger of fire because the projecting light does not reach the film directly, but is reflected by the mirrors; and that the front seats in an assembly room would be made as desirable as any other seats.
BOSTON CONFERENCE
ON ILLEGITIMACY
Perhaps in no field of social work are the factors less adjusted, the issues more baffling, than in that relating to unmarried mothers. It has become not only desirable, but positively imperative, to a wise pulling together for the workers in Boston dealing with problems related to illegitimacy to unite in some sort of permanent group for free discussion of aims and means.
The Conference of Workers on Problems of Illegitimacy which was organized in Boston last year has had a fruitful year of discussion. Each month some general question has been up for consideration, the question always being precipitated by the detailed story of some puzzling specific case. In this way have been thrashed out the following questions: