In this film by Milner Productions, Dr. George Boas, Johns Hopkins University professor of the history of philosophy, meets with students at the Baltimore Museum of Art. He looks at Piet Mondrian's "Composition V" and explains its composition and rhythm. In comparison, he considers Marguerite Gerard's "Mother," a story picture like Norman Rockwell's "Saturday Evening Post" covers, and shows how its design is composed of triangles and vertical oblongs. Next, Dr. Boas interprets the subject, symbols, and design of a painting by Honore Daumier, best known for his caricatures. He also explains Elihu Vedder's allegorical picture "The Soul Between Doubt and Faith." Dr. Boas shows Picasso's portrait of "Leo Stein," and concludes with an explanation of Andre Masson's fantasy painting "There Is No Finished World," dealing with the precariousness of human life. He admits that all pictures are complicated and that there is no one definition of art.

This program features Christmas music by the Johns Hopkins University Glee Club, directed by James Mitchell, and the University of Maryland Mixed Vocal Group, directed by Charles Haslup. The University of Maryland group sings "Winter Wonderland," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "White Christmas," "Come, All Ye Faithful," and "Holy Night." The Hopkins Glee Club sings the Ukrainian hymn "Glory to God," "Go Tell It on the Mountain," "Indulci Jubilo," "See That Babe in the Lowly Manger," and "The Bells." Johns Hopkins student composer Richard Kapp plays "Bells," "Wassail," and "Boy Meets Santa," original Christmas pieces for the piano. Hopkins president Milton S. Eisenhower presents his annual Christmas message, discussing the traditions of the celebration and observation of this holiday, the widely divergent moral convictions threatening the world today, and the qualities of good character.

Lynn Poole and models Dick Manson and Barbara Casey demonstrate how bones and muscles function with our actions. Dr. William Montagna, professor of biology at Brown University, looks at bones from an artistic point of view. He displays the lumbar vertebrae of both a whale and a human and notes their structure. He contrasts the humerus from the upper arm, the scapula from the shoulder, and the carpal bones of the wrist. Comparing the skulls of a man and a woman, Dr. Montagna explains the differences. The three types of joints he lists are the fused in the skull, the hinge-type in the elbow, and the ball and socket in the shoulder and hip. Investigating the interior of bones, Dr. Montagna shows the frontal sinuses of the head and compares the spongy bone material at each end of a bone to a bridge structure. For strength and resiliency, bones require both organic and inorganic substance, which Dr. Montagna demonstrates with bones lacking one or the other. A diagram shows how the endosteum and the periosteum balance bone growth. X-ray films compare the hands of a three-year-old, which has cartilage at the end of each bone, and a thirty-year-old, which has bone in place. Dr. Montagna concludes that bone is a living tissue, as evidenced by its mechanism to repair itself quickly.

This program is about wordless language and is based on the book "Nonverbal Communication" by Weldon Kees and Jurgen Ruesch. Numerous photos and film clips show a series of nonverbal symbols, human movement, attitudes and emotions, social interaction, gestures, and art forms. Famous mime Marcel Marceau performs "Youth, Maturity, and Old Age." Also included are film clips from "The Little Fugitive" and photos from "The Family of Man" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Sam Cobean, James Thurber, and Charles Stehling provide cartoons. Represented photographers include W. Eugene Smith, Hugh Bell, Ruth Orkin, Roy Stevens, Fred Plaut, Gjon Mili, and Robert Willoughby.

Lynn Poole shows the proceedings of "A Chemical Basis of Heredity," a symposium of biochemists and geneticists. Dr. Kenneth Monty, a biochemist professor at Johns Hopkins University, discusses research on the effect of radiation on chromosomes and Russian A. I. Oparin's theory of the origin of life. A chart shows single-celled organisms, such as amoebae, and Dr. Monty comments on reproduction from a single cell. The 1953 Urey-Miller experiment attempted to recreate the conditions of the primordial atmosphere with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen resulting in the precursors of amino acids, the main components of living cells. Scientist Sidney Fox also discovered that amino acids will organize spontaneously into protein molecules. Animated segments show amino acids, proteins, and nucleotides and how accidents in the original cells resulted in mutation, heredity, and evolution. Nucleic acids are the carriers of heredity and responsible for transformation. Dr. Franco Rasetti, a Johns Hopkins professor of physics who worked with Enrico Fermi in Rome, discusses his 10,000-specimen collection of trilobites or fossilized remains of marine life. He shows specimens and photos of various trilobites as old as 500 million years and notes that there is a gap between one-celled organisms and these diversified forms of life from the Cambrian Period. He shows a map of Cambrian rock exposures in the U. S. and briefly explains how to find and remove fossils.

A dramatization of feudal lords, ladies, minstrels, fools, and acrobats in a banquet hall illustrates points about medieval life in this program. Dr. Sidney Painter, professor of history at The Johns Hopkins University, discusses chivalry, from the French "chevalier", or knight, referring to the ideals of the knightly class. He summarizes the events of the Middle Ages and notes that warfare and women were the guiding influences of that period. The knights, originally barbarous in desires and actions, listened to "chansons de geste", poems of war, but they became more civilized as troubadours changed their tunes. "The Story of Roland", for example, suggests that knights were to protect the church and punish criminals. Courtly poems laid the foundation for "preux", a term denoting prowess and all the virtues of chivalry. Women such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie further influenced men's behavior by supporting such troubadours as Chretien De Troyes, who wrote "Erec et Enide".

The program opens with film clips of the effects of the bombing of Hiroshima. Dr. Donald Andrews, chemistry professor at Johns Hopkins University, says that man has learned how to harness and control the atom's energy in such projects as atomic submarines and power plants, but we can not yet harness or control hydrogen, the newest source of nuclear power. To do that, machines need to supplement man's brain, offering "automatic control" or cybernetics. Examples of this include analog machines that regulate single functions, like James Watts' fly ball governor to control steam to the engine (demonstrated in animated film), thermostats that work on a feedback loop, servoengines that correct the course of a ship, and automated pilots on planes. Dr. Andrews then demonstrates thermodynamics, which studies the relations between heat and motion, and shows visible and audible evidence of a gas using dry ice. He defines entropy as the degree of randomness in a situation expressed by probabilities. Claude Shannon was the first person to see the parallel between entropy and the theory of information, which makes possible more complex automatic control devices. Self-regulating machines still need human monitoring, but digital information machines, or computers, can handle more complex situations, such as reacting to emergencies. A filmed narrative describes IBM's Model 705 equipment and statistics. Dr. Andrews says that computers will become the instruments of overall control. Cartoons show the statistics, promises, and fears of mechanization in business, industry, and government, concluding that by 1965, the United States, with a population of 190,000,000 will require a 50% increase in production. Dr. Andrews also predicts that in the future automatic control machines will make possible automatically steered cars, continuous television with an on-request program selector for shows in full color and 3-D, interplanetary transportation within 100 years, and modification of conditions on other planets by robots for colonization of space. The program concludes with a brief film of the launching of an artificial earth satellite placed in orbit by a three-stage rocket as America's contribution to the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year.

This program opens with photos of famous American art museums and comments on their preservation demands. Lynn Poole shows an Egyptian bronze statuette that had become disfigured by bronze disease. Johns Hopkins chemistry professor Dr. Alsoph H. Corwin helped to develop a technique to reverse the corrosion on pieces like this and to restore the corroded coffer of the Dead Sea Scrolls. John Kirby, of Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery conservation department, briefly describes the Walters' collection and the job of the museum conservation staff. A film shows the conservation studio's equipment and procedures, such as the successive steps in relining the canvas of a painting. Another film shows how the wax immersion process reinforces and preserves deteriorating wood sculptures. Elisabeth Packard, also on the Walters staff, shows an example of the nineteenth century practice of piecing together unrelated fragments of sculptures and explains how conservators try to recognize and reconstruct the proper form. Mr. Kirby displays an ivory figurine from Crete whose fragments were reconstituted with gelatin and metal rods. Miss Packard discusses how paintings and other artwork are x-rayed and the damages, repairs, alterations, and brushwork that are discovered. Mr. Kirby demonstrates professional cleaning and restoring of a painting. Mr. Poole shows a painting of Maria Salviatti by Pontormo that was x-rayed and restored to reveal a child painted over by the mother's skirt. Miss Packard demonstrates retouching a painting to fill in breaks in paint by "in-painting," as opposed to "over-painting," which conceals the original paint. Mr. Kirby concludes by revealing two portraits beneath a painting of a lion presumably by Jericho to illustrate the mysteries conservators must solve.

Lynn Poole discusses reading comprehension and speed and how bad habits, such as moving one's mouth while reading, can be eliminated. He also shows a regressive reader, who lacks concentration and doesn't trust her comprehension. An ophthalmograph, which records every eye movement on film, is demonstrated along with the eye graphs of efficient and poor readers. A film, prepared by W. G. Perry, Jr. and C. P. Whitlock of Harvard University, simulates a reading clinic's tachistoscope, developed by Samuel Renshaw, to improve a student's precision of vision (length of time focused on a word and number of words in eye fixation) and peripheral vision. Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, president of Johns Hopkins University, points out that the objective of all college courses is to increase reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. However, in 1955, only 17% of all U. S. adults were regularly reading books, and there was a disparity between reading levels and chronological ages.

An animated film details the parts of the eye. Lynn Poole compares the operation of an eye to that of a television camera. Eye prints reveal retinal detachment, glaucoma, and diseases of the body such as diabetes. A diagram traces the evolution of the eye. A history of sight-related research includes Galileo's telescope, Sir Isaac Newton's experimentation with prisms, Dr. Thomas Young's work with astigmatism, and Hermann von Helmholtz's development of the ophthalmoscope to look into the interior of the eye. Dr. Stewart Wolff, ophthalmologist at Johns Hopkins' Wilmer Eye Clinic, displays an electric ophthalmoscope, demonstrates a slit lamp, using Lynn Poole as a patient, and shows slides of cataracts. He also explains the test for tunnel vision with the tangent screen and peripheral field examination, the Snellen chart to test eyesight, and the tonometer to measure the intraocular pressure of the eye.