This silent cartoon version of the Aesop fable "The Tortoise and the Hare" was directed by Sanae Yamamoto. He was a leader in the revival of the Japanese animation industry after the Second World War, and is probably best known to the Western world for his anime feature, released here as GULLIVER'S TRAVELS BEYOND THE MOON. For various reasons which are unclear to me, his studio worked under contract with the government and this cartoon, clearly an entertainment piece, was termed "educational". Well, perhaps the moral of the story, that slow and steady wins the race justifies that. Certainly, it is in line with the other cartoons of the era, which emphasize patience and humility.
Yamamoto's animation is more limited than American animation of the era, and appears to be more a matter of moving the figure across the background and articulating the joints, rather than varying the shape as a whole.