Welsh Journals

ness on the part of the commercial companies to consider the teacher and his needs, if only these can be intelligibly expressed, and some guarantee given that the films produced will be used. It is clear that, until some understanding of this kind is reached, the present vicious circle will remain unbroken. The schools will continue to say- "We will not use fiims, because there are none we want," and the producers to retort, "We can- not make films for you, because you do not use them." Meanwhile, we can continue to insist that when we speak of using the film in education we do not mean the exhibition of discarded enter- tainment films in the commercial theatres. We do not want the film merely to repeat in picture form what the children have already been told in class or have read in books, and know sufficiently well. We need the film's unique contribution to experience and knowledge as an integral part of a unit of teaching work-just as we need the contribution of the teacher, the diagram, the wall-picture, and the book. Learning is the in- tegration of all these unique contributions into knowledge-an integration which only the MAY is the month in which Wales re- captures, if only for a few minutes, the privilege it enjoyed in far-off days of speaking directly to Europe and the World. In any circle to-day interested in international ques- tions in any part of the globe, were the question asked as to what was known of Wales, the first answer would be "its Children's Message." There is one authority to which the annual greet- ing from Wales makes no appeal; it is the B.B.C. headquarters in London. They will not allow the Message to be included in the Children's Hour on the National Daventry wave length, so that it could be heard by the children of England and of Scotland, and even over a vast area by the children of Wales itself. In France, on the other hand, it is broadcast annually by all the French Government stations! The B.B.C., however, is to arrange a special feature, under the skilled direction of Mr. E. R. Appleton, from the West Regional Station at 5-15 p.m. on May 18th; this programme will also be taken by the North Regional. The 1932 Message lends itself to the Children's Hour; it is a tribute to the men who helped to make the world a neighbourhood, the pioneers of the telegraph, the telephone, and the wireless. Those who listen in will hear of the learner himself can make, and must make in learning. And hence we must experiment, scien- tifically and cautiously, in the hope of discover- ing exactly what we want, so that we may then establish the conditions in which we shall have some hope of getting it. There is quite enough money available in Wales for the endowment of scientific investigation of the problems involved in the endeavour to utilise the film for the end of educational progress; and sufficient enthusiasm for education, if directed, to enable Wales to make a great and disinterested contribution to educational thought and technique. Wales does not produce films, so that whatever is said in Wales about the value of the film has not the flavour of interested propaganda that clings to investigations carried out in the United States and, in less degree, to those made in England. Further, it has the advantage of being a small nation, so that investigations carried out within its borders have a wholeness and completeness of character which do not equally characterise those carried on in a single American city, or even a single English county. WALES AND THE WORLD by Rev. Gwilym Davies, M.A. romance of the Marchese Marconi when he first succeeded in sending wireless signals across a space of 8 miles. He achieved this victory in the Bristol Channel-in Welsh waters off Penarth in the County of Glamorgan. As last year there are, happily, to be "Children's Message" num- bers in May of the two magazines of the Urdd -"Y Capten" and "Cymru'r Plant." The world seemed to be more distracted than ever in the last month or six weeks. Week after week, with the regularity of the messengers of Job, brought news of calamities as far-reaching and as various as the suicide of the man who made the name of Sweden synonymous with matches; of the volcanic eruptions in the Chili and the Argentine, which caused Mr. Rhys Davies, M.P., to ask in the House of Commons after the welfare of our fellow-countrymen in Patagonia; of the riots, demanding the resigna- tion of the Prime Minister and the visit of a British warship, in the oldest of the British dominions; and, in a most loyal dominion, the fury of the unemployed was such that there was not sufficient plate-glass in the whole country to repair the damage done to the windows in the streets of one of its towns. And all the while