his spots or an Ethiopian his skin. Each man may sincerely believe he has done it until he is called to face his former compatriots and immediate relatives in battle array. Then he is pretty sure to hear the call of his blood and he is doing very well if he is able to resist it.

The result of this surprising discovery was a search for a remedy and very soon intelligent endeavors were made toward systematic Americanization work in all institutions of learning. The schools themselves have undertaken it voluntarily and various patriotic societies are carrying on the work independently. The main idea is to acquaint the foreign-born citizens and sojourners with fundamental principles and ideals upon which our Government is based, and to inspire them with an ambition to aid in carrying those principles and ideals into political practice. To the just charge that we do not always live up to our declarations of principle the answer is: that neither individuals nor nations have been able to do that, but, as the centuries roll along, the adherence to the moral standards of each is gradually improved in consequence of, and in proportion to, the advancement of liberal education and religion.

Our country through its Government and its fundamental law bestows religious liberty upon every inhabitant, but because of religious sectarianism it is impossible to undertake even the most elementary religious instruction in the public schools. Because of this restriction many parochial schools have been established by people of several denominations who wish to provide religious education for their children in connection with the secular schools. The people who support the religious denominational schools provide the funds by voluntary contribution and at the same time they contribute their share of the tax for support of the public schools. Now and then there has been an ill-advised attempt to legislate these parochial schools out of existence, but majority sentiment stands opposed to all such sectarian coercions and is quite willing to permit all sects to educate their children in accordance with the faith of their fathers. The parochial schools of Detroit afford both secular and religious education to more than 50,000 children.

Their discontinuance for any cause would involve an enormous increase in the capacity of the public schools and a corresponding expansion of the teaching staff and the annual tax levy for school purposes.

E

CHAPTER CXVI

MOVING PICTURES AND NICKELODEons

VERY generation of men adds materially to the scope. and the utilization of human inventions. Practically

all inventions have been the work of many hands and brains toiling through several generations, and, sometimes, many centuries of time. Hero of Alexandria invented the first reactionary turbine steam engine 1,800 years ago, but its practical utilization did not come until late in the Nineteenth Century. Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most versatile genius of all time, designed steam engines, airplanes and many hydraulic machines early in the Sixteenth Century, besides making an immortal fame in art. The telegraph, which is regarded as an invention of the Nineteenth Century, was used more than 1,000 years ago by many tribes which communicated with one another across wide areas by means of systematic drum-beats which told the news. The Kaffir tribes of South Africa delivered the story of the British defeat at Majuba Hill to their fellow tribesmen in Capetown several hours before the white man's devices accomplished it.

Several inventions which were at first regarded as interesting toys have become not only of practical but universal use. The telephone is one of these, the phonograph is another and another still is the zoötrope, the first device for showing moving pictures. The capital that is now invested in the higher developments of these devices and the number of people whom they daily serve run into enormous figures.

The first phonograph exhibited in Detroit was on display in the show window of Wright, Kay & Company at the corner of Woodward Avenue and the Campus Martius on February 9, 1890, or a little more than 33 years ago. People generally were interested in the reproduction of the human voice, but regarded the instrument as a toy of little practical utility. Presently the

Wonderland Theater and Museum installed a battery of them, each one equipped with ear tubes which gave the patron who dropped a nickel in the slot a monopoly of its entertaining reproduction.

Soon after, the "Nickelodeon" came into existence. In this phonographs were the chief attraction. The patron would deposit his nickel, insert the tubes in his ears, and bystanders would watch the fleeting emotions in his face while he listened to a popular song or the alleged ravings of the great tragedian, John E. McCullough, who protested, within the walls of Bloomingdale insane asylum, that he was not mad and occasionally burst into stentorian, maniacal laughter to prove that he was mad. This was one of hundreds of "faked" records made for the entertainment of the gullible and the lovers of the sensational.

Another type of slot machine gave the effect of a moving picture while the patron turned a crank which brought into his view a rapid succession of card pictures showing people and animals in a constant change of positions.

Few people realized that they were coming into an era of gradually developed inventions which would bring the great musicians, vocal and instrumental, into the home of every humble cottager and which would permit the simultaneous reproduction of the world's greatest pageants and plays and dramatized novels to millions of people scattered all over the globe. While both these developments have made large profits for producing companies, they have also given employment at fabulous salaries to many people who have aided in their reproductions, and also entertainment of educational value to an innumerable host of people.

About the year 1845 a mechanical toy known as the "zoötrope" was invented. It was a very simple though ingenious device which was based upon the limitations of human vision. The lenses of the eye enable us to see objects by projecting them upon the retina or inner curtain of the eye in very minute form. When we change our direction of gaze or see a new object, the former picture must be faded out and a new one projected upon the retina. This process appears to be instantaneous, but in

reality it takes from one-fiftieth to one-tenth of a second for one visual picture to give place to another, according to the sensitiveness of the retina and the intensity of the light.

The zoötrope consisted of a vertical cylinder having a number of open slits through which, as the cylinder was slowly revolved, a person was given a fleeting glance at the inside of the cylinder on which a number of pictures of men or animals were shown in different positions. When the cylinder was revolved

ZOOTROPE OF 1845, FIRST MOVINg Picture DeviCE

at a proper rate, of speed, the person before whose eye the slits appeared in quick succession was given the visual illusion of a single animal or person in motion.

The next step toward the moving picture was instantaneous photography by which objects in rapid motion could be recorded upon a photographic plate. Edward Muybridge in 1877 made a number of pictures of trotting horses in full career. This discovery was coupled with the known facts regarding the zoötrope and a number of inventors began working upon the development of the moving picture apparatus. Several inventions appeared under different names during the early 1890's. Thomas A. Edison produced the kinetoscope in 1893. Lumiere, in France,