"Conquest of Culture!"

Americans know that Thomas Alva Edison invented the "Kinetoscope"; and Frenchmen know that Louis Lumiere invented the "Cinematograph." Experts still wrangle over which of these inventions was the more basic; but grizzled Louis Lumiere has long since ceased to care. Interviewed last week in Paris he barely condescended to observe: "My. brother Auguste and I looked upon our invention as a novelty, capable of offering distraction for a few moments only. . . . The Americans have taken a toy and made it into a trade. . . . Primarily I am a chemist. I have little or no time to go to the cinema. ... I do not think I have ever seen or heard before of the women you call 'Clara Bow' and 'Lillian Gish.' ... I myself turned the crank when my brother and I took our first motion picture. It was of Auguste sculling our rowboat across the River Rhone."

Strikingly different from the nonchalance of Old Louis Lumiere was the air of grave and pompous consequence with which King Vittorio Emmanuele of Italy and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini proceeded to inaugurate, at Frascati, near Rome, last week The International Institute of Educative Cinematography.

Boomed Il Duce: "Cinematography ranks with the printing press as a formidable instrument for the conquest and diffusion of culture!"

Although the I. I. of E. C. will operate on funds supplied by the Italian Exchequer, it is under the political aegis of the League of Nations. Also established in Italy this year, under the same potent patronage and auspices is The International Institute of Private Law.