ABSTRACT
For the first time in the history of civilization we can see the complete flowering of an art form in a single generation. Within thirty years, the motion picture has progressed from the sleeping germ of the age-old wish to the effulgent blossoming of the universal screen of today. Never before in all the ages has this happened. The beginnings of the stage are lost in obscure antiquity. The art of the printed book is half a millennium. Painting and music have come to us out of the remote unknown. All these are the fruit of patient endless time. But many, perhaps a majority of the readers of this page can remember when there were no motion picture films.
