Little Pitchers

Radio can send children searching for box tops to trade for tin whistles, or it can send them to the library to hunt good books; it can train them to expect a world in which a masked man on horseback holds off evil singlehanded, or it can train them to find and play their own role in society. Which type of program do American parents want? A woman who took part in the first children's program ever given in the U.S. has put out a slender book (All Children Listen; George W. Stewart; $1.50) calling on parents to choose.

Born in Odessa in 1895, familiar with 14 languages, veteran of hundreds of children's broadcasts, including the first (over WEAF, New York, April 7, 1924), Author Dorothy Gordon knows the faults of radio critics as well as those of radio. She chides educators and parents who "have consistently refused to cooperate with anything that has the word 'commercial' in it" and advises them to "accept the disadvantages of commercialism that go with the advantages of sponsored programs."

If radio is to be reformed, says Mrs. Gordon, the public must "become more articulate and not only condemn but commend." She herself cheerfully commends such programs as Mutual's Sing a Song of Safety, Columbia's School of the Air of the Americas, and Blue's erstwhile Music Appreciation Hour. She admits what many a reformer has discovered for himself, that educators and women's clubs cannot put on better children's programs than radio now offers. That is not their function. Instead, says Mrs. Gordon, they should spur radio to far greater efforts.

Ally's Example. The Russians have, according to Mrs. Gordon, most fully adapted radio to education. A special network broadcasts exclusively for children. Children's programs are presented before a sample audience of children. The listeners are questioned on the merits of each scene, and their suggestions are often followed. No unctuous uncles talk down to Russian children for the purpose of selling breakfast food. The entire system is directed toward acquainting the child with great art and preparing him to live in Russia (which means propaganda, of course, for the Soviet State).

Mrs. Gordon believes that the organized parents and educators of the U.S. can make children's radio grow up and quit playing cops & robbers. The time is at hand, she says, for a few pleasant changes. She suggests : >-- More time for children's programs. (Totalitarian countries, according to her figures, devote 75% of all radio time to children; the U.S., between 5 and 10%.)

> Better actors and better writers.

> News programs written especially for children.

Few people may argue against her recommendations. But how many parents will fight for them is another question.

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