New Developments in a Most Interesting Field

POLITICS, sports and activities in all walks of life are contributing in bountiful measure to radio entertainment these days.

It is a most varied and interesting range of choice that is offered to the owner of a present day radio receiver for it embraces all phases of life from the serious to the gay.

Through it all one discerns the steadily increasing growth of the radio as a great auxiliary force in behalf of music, religion, literature, education and other agencies of human advancement.

It is no longer to be regarded merely as a device for popular entertainment but also as a real power in the formation of national tastes, beliefs and standards. Evidences of this are not lacking and will become increasingly apparent.

In this connection an interesting experiment in the field of music is the plan to bring symphonic music to the school children of the United States under the able direction of Walter Damrosch.

For months he has been hard at work on the series of 48 concerts to be broadcast beginning October 26 over a great network of stations.

The concerts are to be in four series, graded according to mental development from the third grade through high school and college. One series is for those in the third and fourth grades, a second for the fifth and sixth grades, a third for the seventh grade and junior high school and the fourth for the high schools and colleges.

In the development of these plans Mr. Damrosch is following the system so successfully used during thirty years of children’s concerts at Carnegie Hall and the programs are made up entirely of the works of the great masters.

In the programs for the older boys and girls will be taken up to a limited extent the various forms which the great composers used. The whole purpose of the series is to develop a real love and appreciation of music. They are intended to supplement the musical work which many of the schools of the country are already carrying on.

Television, in connection with the radio, has already received so much discussion and been the subject of so many predictions that many have been misled into thinking it will soon be available for home use everywhere.

The scientists and research men, however, who are devoting themselves to the study of television believe that many months must intervene before difficulties can be so far overcome that television sets can be sold, as radio sets are now sold, to the general public.

Just now, television is in the early stages of infancy. Every art has to go through its stages of development during which a great deal of information must be gathered and the keenest minds in the art concentrated on its problems.

The public at large should know that television at the present time is purely an experimental art though full of great promise for the future. Also that when television does come for household use it will not modify present radio receiver construction.

If and when the dreams for television materialize, the projector for home use will be an accessory attachable to any receiver that gives satisfactory tonal reception.

This is a point of direct interest to those who already have installed radio receivers of such character and to those who have become convinced they should no longer forego the many home pleasures and benefits that any well constructed receiver now insures.