Sponsored Films

The Children Must Learn (1940)
Sponsor: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Production Cos.: Documentary Film Productions Inc.; Educational Film Institute, New York University; University of Kentucky. Director: Willard Van Dyke. Writer: Spencer Pollard. Camera: Bob Churchill. Music: Fred Stewart. Editor: Irving Lerner. Narrator: Myron McCormick. Transfer Note: Scanned from a 16mm print held by the Library of Congress. Running Time: 13 minutes.

Documentary profiling an Appalachian farming family struggling to scrape out a living. Link­ing education and economic development, The Children Must Learn suggests that better schooling, especially in agricultural techniques, would bring improvement.

Note: Made in conjunction with And So They Live.

Resources
Association of Documentary Film Producers, Living Films: A Catalog of Documentary Films and Their Makers (New York: Association of Documentary Film Producers, 1940), 30–31; Educational Film Guide (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1943), 93; Film Forum Review staff, “The Children Must Learn,” in Ideas on Film, ed. Cecile Starr (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1951), 159–60.