

The

Education Hucksters

A History of

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the

United States 1870 –1970

by G. Howard Poteet

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2016 by G. Howard Poteet

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author except for brief quotations embodied in reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted material

_._ Introduction

Distance education: the process of an individual learning content presented systematically by an instructor who is not physically present. What is currently called distance education has, at varying times, been called correspondence education, home study, non-resident study, extension study, self-directed study, and even more loosely, self-study and independent study.

The present study is of proprietary schools in the United States which conducted instruction by mail during the years 1870 to 1970. It focuses specifically on printed instructional materials produced in varying formats: loose sheets, pamphlets, or bound books, which were sometimes supplemented with other media.

Distance education differs from traditional education in that a self-directed student can proceed as fast or as slow as desired, courses are open-admissions (with no prerequisites), and there are no personality conflicts with instructors or other students.

In general, there are two types of correspondence courses: self-contained courses with or without self-correcting tests and/or assignments, and full-service courses with or without tests and/or assignments and other correspondence that must be sent to the school.

Since the former courses lack a connection with an instructor, they are essentially stand-alone printed materials. The latter courses are termed "full-service" schools under the theory that the communication between school and student creates an educational relationship.

Chapter 1

Correspondence Education Pre-1890

.

American Life Pre-1890

Vernon Parrington describes American thought in the 19th century as the result of Ralph Waldo Emerson and transcendentalism: "Exploring the egalitarian premises of the doctrine of natural rights, it amplified the emerging democratic theory by substituting for the Puritanical conception of human nature as vicious, the conception of human nature as potentially excellent and capable of indefinite development." [1]

American Education Pre-1890

Educators in the United States in the years before 1890 accepted and applied a number of the philosophical ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. It was Rousseau who said that thought began with sensation and that teaching should make use of the senses. Pestalozzi developed an educational system that studied concrete objects before introducing abstract ideas. American educator Henry Barnard introduced Pestalozzi's idea into the U.S. in the late 1800s and established free public high schools for all classes of society.

Johann Herbart, the German philosopher, advocated a highly structured method of teaching, i.e., prepare for a new lesson, present the lesson, connect the new lesson with old lessons, review the major points, and test. In general, this was the basic pedagogical model of 19th Century educators.

Herbert Spencer, a British sociologist, adapted the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest by theorizing that the fittest individuals survived by adapting. Spencer warned that the public school would cater to the lowest common denominator of students. In addition, Spencer believed industrialized societies needed practical education rather than a classical education.

Hegel influenced William Torrey Harris, the eminent educator. Harris bridged 18th Century utilitarianism and 20th Century pragmatism as he included both the arts and manual training in the public high school curriculum. This line of thought (pursued by Dewey and Harris) became known as the Progressive Education Movement.

The Common Schools

.From colonial times until the early 1800s, schools in the U.S. were private. Free, non-sectarian Common Schools (the forerunner of Public Schools) were first established in Massachusetts in 1821. [3] In 1840, the first national census found that 1.8 million girls between five and fifteen and 1.88 million boys attended Common Schools. Most school teachers were men who later became clergymen or lawyers. However, after 1840, female teachers rapidly replaced male teachers; communities chose women primarily because they were willing to teach for one-third of the men's salary. Since these teachers usually had completed no more than the eighth grade (the maximum of the students they were

teaching), many communities, beginning with Massachusetts in 1839, formed schools to provide teachers with better, more advanced education. After 1865, high schools proliferated. Education offered utilitarian studies not classical studies, thanks to Harris. By the end of the 19th Century, public secondary schools outnumbered private secondary schools. All of this _Sturm und Drang_ is superbly discussed by the eminent historian Lawrence A. Cremin in his book Traditions of American Education. [2]

Factors Affecting the Growth of Correspondence Schools

In the early days of the nation, interest in education varied drastically from strong support for public schools in New England to limited support for public and parochial schools in the middle states to almost no support for either from the South. As a result, by 1870, 80% of the nation's population over 14 years of age could read and write English, although only 2% of adolescents were able to earn a high school diploma. [3]

As has been noted, in the 19th Century, the average American's view of their future was optimistic. This was bolstered by the acceptance of both philosopher Herbert Spencer's view that Darwinian evolution guaranteed man's progress and Ralph Waldo Emerson's championship of individualism. Though the vast majority of the American public lacked familiarity with these great men's names and work, they were, however, likely to understand and believe in the simplistic materialistic optimism of novelist Horatio Alger who insisted that anyone could succeed through hard work. Thus, as a result of what might be called Alger's "trickle down" philosophy, many Americans were coming to believe that success was within their reach and that the key to that success was education.

Increased interest in learning and self improvement may be seen in the major external factors which facilitated the birth of correspondence schools: public libraries, the lyceum and the Chautauqua, and rural free postal delivery

The Building of Public Libraries

Alhough libraries have existed since antiquity, they generally were not freely accessible to the public. In the United States, by the late 18th Century, subscription libraries circulated books only to their members. In fact, even though the Library of Congress had existed in 1800, up until the latter half of 19th Century, the establishment and funding of public libraries was not considered the proper use of tax money. The growth of public libraries at the turn of the century was bolstered by the efforts of one man. As a boy, wishing to improve himself, the future steel magnate Andrew Carnegie had borrowed books from a local Tradesman's Subscription Library. In gratitude, and wealthy enough by this time to do it, in 1883, he built a library in his hometown in Scotland, and in 1889, he built the first of the U.S. libraries that he funded in Braddock, Pennsylvania, one of the towns in which he owned a steel mill. Eventually, Carnegie built a total of 1,689 libraries in the United States out of a total of 2,509 worldwide, leading some to dub him "the Patron Saint of Libraries." In addition, by the turn of the century, many states had begun building public libraries using their own funds. [4]

It is worth noting that the Carnegie Libraries produced a major innovation: open stacks, which allowed patrons to take books off the shelves themselves. Although taken for granted today, this was a remarkable advance for library patrons who until then had to request librarians to select books for them. Open stacks allowed patrons the freedom to browse and thus discover new books and ideas for themselves. Further, the growth of the public libraries fostered interest in reading and very likely contributed to greater literacy. Readers began to see that a vast world of knowledge was available to them which could result in improving their lives, even though their formal schooling may have been limited. It was only a short step to their discovering new vocational and avocational opportunities through home study schools.

The Development of the Lyceum

In 1826, the first Lyceum (so named for the garden of the Temple of Apollo where Aristotle taught) was begun in Milbury, Massachusetts by Josiah Holbrook. He was a teacher who lectured on science and mechanics to textile workers in an attempt to improve their job performance. In the ensuing years, this educational movement expanded from being purely job-oriented and refocused on more personal self-improvement. [5] Most of the movers and shakers of American society spoke at these later Lyceums. For example, Abraham Lincoln delivered his address, "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions" before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838. [6]

The Chautauqua in Adult Education

The Chautauqua Movement, which began a bit later, had similar educational goals, but, as the general public became more literate, its proponents began to advocate reading. The roots of the movement can be traced back to 1856 in Newark, New Jersey, when Dr. John Hayle Vincent and Lewis Miller, both Methodist clergymen, "established a course of home study and reading for young ministers who lacked early advantages" [7] In 1874, Vincent and Miller began to train church workers at Chautauqua Lake in New York State. These summer courses, which came to be called "Chautauquas," were eventually expanded into directed home reading and correspondence courses that covered topics of a general nature. By 1883, The Chautauqua College of Liberal Arts was granting academic degrees authorized by the state of New York. Vincent and Miller developed a four-year-long curriculum, which covered art, science, literature and history, culminating in a series of exams, after which a diploma was awarded. The first class enrolled from 10th August 1878 to 20 November 1878 and consisted of 8,000 students "scattered through all the states and territories of the union, and the Dominion of Canada" In the late 1800s, the Chautauqua also began to offer correspondence courses year round that did not require students to come to the school in the summer. Instead they read textbooks published by Chutauqua instructors. One of the earliest books, The Chautauqua Course in Physics stated the philosophy behind Chautauqua distance courses: "The self-educator . . . regard(s) this book as an assistant in systematizing the information which he . . . already possesses." [8] The Chautauqua students responded by mail.

Early Correspondence Schools

**.** March 20, 1728 is the date often given to mark the beginning of proprietary correspondence education in the United States because of an advertisement, which appeared on that date in The Boston Gazette. There, one Caleb Phillips offered to "teach shorthand by means of weekly letters to any persons in the country desirous to earn this Art, who may, by having the several lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston" [9] Unfortunately, there is evidently no record of whether anyone responded, or, if there was a response, there is no record of what was taught or learned. Since the advertisement apparently appeared only once, it seems unlikely there was sufficient demand for Phillips' services.

It should be noted that in those days, there was a great interest in shorthand because since there were no tape recorders nor dictation machines, it was the only method of recording the spoken word. As the years passed, many different systems of writing shorthand were developed. In 1837, a British citizen, Sir Isaac Pitman, began teaching the principles of the shorthand system he had invented. He asked his students to transcribe Bible passages into Pittman Shorthand on penny post-cards and to exchange them with fellow students who volunteered to read and correct them. Thus, this was a "correspondence school" of sorts, although the school did not have qualified instructors correct and grade the lessons. Three years after Isaac Pitman's use of the British Penny Post to distribute materials, Ben Pitman, his American brother, repeated Isaac's success when he began the Phonographic Correspondence Society in Cincinnati, Ohio (later renamed The Sir Isaac Pitman Correspondence Colleges) and taught the Pittman Shorthand System by mail in the United States. However, Ben Pittman's school enterprise still was not quite a correspondence school that required that the correspondence be between the student and the school's instructors rather than among fellow students. [10]

However, there was another school which more closely fits this definition. Anna Ticknor of Boston in 1873 started a society to encourage women to study at home, a movement which eventually grew to number 10,000 students At first, these students apparently studied in groups and not as individuals. Then, the society began to teach students at a distance. A "Programme of Studies" was developed to " be varied for the individual student as well as at the discretion of the ladies in charge of the correspondents." This "programme" covered history, the natural sciences, art, German, French, and English literature and listed the texts to be read. The students read the listed books, available from the school's lending library, and discussed them in letters to volunteer teachers. Each student was asked to send "memory notes" on the book she was reading as well as to write an abstract or to answer examination questions with the book closed. In addition, the student received a "Health Tract" explaining the student's responsibility in maintaining the health of her family and stressed the value of physical activity as a balance to intellectual work. Although the society limited its enrollment to women, it did not discriminate by race. [11]

The Contribution of William Rainey Harper

Then, there was the contribution of William Rainey Harper, who learned to read at the age of 3, graduated from college at 13, earned his Ph.D. at 19, and was teaching college-level Greek and Latin while still in his teens. A Baptist, he taught Hebrew and The Old Testament at Morgan Park Academy in Chicago where he saw an opportunity to begin summer classes in these subjects to which the college agreed. In 1883, when Harper began to receive letters from ministers and others who wanted to take his classes but couldn't afford to leave their jobs to take them, he had the idea of teaching these subjects through the mails as was being done in England and elsewhere. In short order, Harper began mimeographing Hebrew lessons and mailing them off. By 1886, he had written several Hebrew manuals, had formed the American Institute of Hebrew, and his office was receiving several hundreds of pieces of mail daily. Soon after, he left Morgan Park and moved on to the University of Chicago where he became a strong force in distance education. [12]

During this same period of time, other established traditional colleges and universities formed. This was a coalition of colleges such as Amherst, Columbia, Harvard, and others from which individual professors offered instruction by correspondence, usually for a four week period. The booklet length announcement of courses and instructors, one per page detailed a wide variety of subjects. One of its pages listed George Chase, A.B. (Yale), LL. B. (Columbia), Professor in the Law School of Columbia College with ten years teaching experience, and included a listing of his publications. Further, Professor Chase is described as providing instruction by correspondence in criminal law, using his own textbook on Blackstone and another author's work on criminal law and procedure. The fee for four weeks tuition was $8.35 but since this was an advanced course; the charge for most other courses was $6.35, payable in advance. [13]

The fees did not include textbooks. In all courses, informal examinations by correspondence were required and were given at no extra cost. However, optional final **exa** minations were given upon payment of a fee. A pass examination and a certificate would cost an additional fee equal to the cost of the course. For an honor examination and certificate, the additional fee was $10.00. The student was required to supply his or her own proctor who had to be "some gentleman of high character who resides near the person examined." Finally, the consortium of colleges offered additional services from those wishing occasional assistance for a fee of $1.00 or more as determined beforehand.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in the News

Even before the reputable correspondence schools described above began operating in the United States, fraudulent school operators began cheating the unwary. Most of the fraudulent operations described in newspaper reports were about diploma mills like the following. Although these schools were not correspondence schools for they did not teach, but merely sold diplomas, the public saw all mail order schools as being the same.

  * In 1858, a con artist began mailing a series of letters addressed to English prospects purporting to be from legitimate American colleges and stating that an LL.D. and other honorary degrees could be conferred upon recommendation of the recipient's friends and only 1/3 of the usual matriculation and graduation fees would be charged. The degrees turned out to be worthless. [14]

  * "Dr." van der Vyver flooded European mail boxes with letters using the name of The University of Pennsylvania (chartered in 1867) and offering a "Doctor of Absentia" for $120 plus "whole fees and expenses." It was all a fraud having nothing whatever to do with the real university. [15]

  * In 1875, one could purchase a degree from The National University Law School without study by simply mailing a fee to Chancellor Wedgewood, an individual who operated the school out of his garret. [16]

  * Sometimes the recipients of bogus mail order degrees created tragedies. A letter from the President of Eclectic Medical College of New York to The New York City Board of Health warned of an unqualified quack with a mail-order diploma who had caused the death of a month-old baby girl. [17]

  * For 12–15 years, Philadelphia was the seat of a number of medical colleges that flooded the country with bogus diplomas. A special postal agent arrested John Buchanan and confiscated a half-ton of phony medical diplomas. At his trial, Buchanan was first convicted for conspiring with others to deceive the court by faking his suicide. For this, Buchanan was fined $500 and sentenced to 10 months in jail. In addition, he pled guilty to selling phony diplomas for which he was to be sentenced later. [18]

  * To prove the continuing deception of diploma mills, a Maine physician had an 8- year old girl write and mail letters stating she wanted to obtain an M. D. degree although she didn't know a thing about medical science. In response, over half of the "colleges" to which she sent these letters promised to grant her an M.D. degree upon receipt of a fee. [19]

. **Conclusion**

Nonetheless, in spite of bad publicity, correspondence education continued to gain a foothold and the terms _course_ and _home study_ gained in popularity. Conventional textbooks included the words in their titles to boost sales. One of the earliest had been back in 1827, when the idea was quite new. Then, a professor of languages, J. N. Vlieland published A Complete Course of Study, for Englishmen to Obtain the French Language at Home. Although, as the title states , the text was published for Englishmen, it sold well in the United States, presumably because its readers assumed the book was the equal of a classroom course. [20] Even pamphlets sometimes carried the designation that they were _courses_. For example, the 1882 publication, An Elementary Course in Dry Plate Photography in Twelve Lessons was only 36 pages long. It contained an introduction and then 12 lessons on how to do dry plate photography, at that time, a relatively new technique. [21]
Chapter 1- Endnotes

[1] Vernon Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1930) iv-v.

[2] Lawrence A. Cremin. Traditions of American Eduction.(New York: Basic Books, 1977).

[3] "Public Schools," Encyclopedia Britannica,1998 ed.

[4] "Andrew Carnegie," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1998 ed.

[5] "Lyceum," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1998 ed.

[6] Roy P. Basler, ed. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953).

[7] D. H. Post, "Chautauqua," Harper's New Monthly Magazine CLL(LIX), 358-360.

[8] J. Dorman Steele. The Chautauqua Course in Physics (New York: Chautauqua Press, 1889.

[9] "Caleb Phillips," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1998 ed.

[10] "Isaac Pitman," Encyclopedia Brittannica, 1998 ed.

[11] Society to Encourage Studies at Home (Boston, MA: Society, 1878), 11-12.

[12] Milton Sandford Mayer, "Young Man in a Hurry, The Story of William Rainey

Harper, First President of the University of Chicago," Supplement to the University of Chicago Magazine June, 1941: 5.

[13] "Novel Swindling Operation," The New York Times 15 Jan. 1858.

[14] "Diplomas for Sale" The New York Times 15 Sept. 1873.

[15] "Sham Diplomas in Washington" The New York Times 12 Nov. 1875.

[16] "Look Out for Him" The New York Times 6 Aug. 1877.

[17] "Bogus Medical Diplomas" The New York Times 10 June 1880.

[18] " 'dr' John Buchanan Sentenced " The New York Times 7 Dec. 1880.

[19] "Doctors Made to Order" The New York Times 8 Sept.- 1887.

[20] J. N. Vlieland A Complete Course of Study, for Englishmen to Obtain the French Language at Home (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1827).

[21] An Elementary Course in Dry Plate Photography in Twelve Lessons, Scovil's Photo Series No. 6. (New York: Scovil Manufacturing Co. 1882).

Chapter 2

Early Schools 1890-1899

American Life in 1890-1899

The last decade of the 19th Century can be seen as the Age of Immigration. Ellis Island was opened as the main East Coast entrance to America. 1898 saw the Spanish-American War.

Public Education in 1890-1899

In 1890, The Second Morrill Act in 1890 established one agriculture college for each state and 16 land grant colleges set aside for Blacks. In 1892, the NEA Committee of Ten recommended a college-oriented curriculum for secondary schools. In 1896, Plessey v Ferguson decision established the separate but equal doctrine which included the public schools. As the century ended in 1899, the College Entrance Examination Board was founded by the Middle States Education Association.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1890-1899

International Correspondence Schools: Law required experienced mine foreman to pass an examination "on knowledge pertaining to the safe and economic production of coal." It seems likely that the miners who worked long days would not easily be persuaded to travel to sit in a classroom to learn what was needed to pass the exam.

The miner could study one or more of the many books about mining which were published in London but these books dealt with British coal mining laws and procedures which meant that they were of little value to American miners in preparing to pass the new exams. Furthermore, information in those books about mining procedures was often useless for another reason. For example, in A Rudimentary Treatise on Coal and Coal Mining, a passage discusses one of the mathematical formulas that mine foreman are expected to master in making certain the mine has adequate ventilation for the safety of the miners:

_The quantity of air which passes is measured by taking the sectional area of a drift, and multiplying it by the velocity of feet per minute to obtain the number of cubic feet circulating in that time._ [1]

However, according to International Correspondence Schools (ICS), almost all of the American miners hoping to pass the new tests lacked basic math skills. Thus, poorly educated miners in the Pennsylvania mines were most likely unable to understand this and similar passages requiring a knowledge of computational skills. Because of the lack of information available to help American miners to prepare for the exam, The Colliery Engineer, a Scranton, Pennsylvania newspaper edited by Thomas J. Foster started receiving questions from miners, the answers to which were printed in the paper. Because of the demand, in 1891, the paper's publishers decided to print a correspondence course on coal mining, beginning with the elements of mathematics, and covering practical mine ventilation, methods of work," and other topics. [2]

On October 16, 1891, the first student enrolled in the single elementary course in coal mining offered by what became the International Correspondence Schools; the first year, the enrollment totaled 115. In its publications, ICS claimed its courses were part of what they dubbed "The ICS Method" prepared from a "utilitarian standpoint" because the student taking the course needed to put what was learned into immediate use. However, It should be noted that not all ICS students were poorly educated, for in some courses, students were college graduates, and, thus, the curriculum had to be adapted to their need as well as those of the ill-educated students. Further, this material was presented in somewhat different format and style than the hardbound conventional textbooks of the day. For example, the early ICS texts were pamphlets containing "bite-size" lessons or "Instruction Papers."[3]

In a speech about the success of ICS students, Thomas J. Foster produced a list of 100 miners, of whom, after taking the course, fifty became coal operators, mining engineers, mine inspectors mine superintendents, and mine foremen. One of the miners became a millionaire coal mine operator. Another individual whom Foster pointed out in the audience was Michael J. McHale, who, like many miners in the 1800's started to work in the mines as a boy 8 years old. When McHale was a grown man with a wife and two children, he was on his way home with his monthly salary of $11.00 in his pocket. On his way, he heard about the course to prepare for the foreman's exam. After consulting his wife, McHale paid $5 down on his tuition. He promised to study an hour each day. One year later, he was able to do advanced mathematical calculations. What had his studies done for him? Foster pointed out that as a result of his ICS studies, McHale was now mine foreman. [4]

Correspondence Courses to Train for a New Career: Physician

Although ICS concentrated on improving the skills of those already employed, other correspondence schools offered to train applicants for a new career, the most prestigious of which was to become a physician. The education of all health care providers in those years was minimal and in great flux. During this period of time, allopathic medicine (which has since become mainstream) required those seeking to become M.D.s to study in schools, some of which were affiliated with hospitals, or to serve apprenticeships for several years before becoming licensed. There were, apparently, never any M D.s licensed in the United States who received their training solely from correspondence schools. But, there were many competing systems of care, and most, if not all of them, ,operated correspondence schools to train those who sought to become alternative health care providers For many years, their graduates were often subject to prosecution for practicing medicine without a license.

Chiropractic: In 1886, D. D. Palmer opened The Palmer School of Magnetic Cure in Davenport, Iowa, a resident school. It should be noted that magnetism did not refer to the use of magnets but was similar to Chinese medicine. In 1895, Palmer experimented with spinal manipulation and in treating a deaf janitor, he cured the janitor's deafness. Encouraged by this success, Palmer then began teaching his methods to others. In early resident chiropractic schools, students received a few months instruction in basic science. Palmer believed only 18 months were required to train a chiropractor and that blue collar workers with limited education were the best candidates for instruction because they had few preformed opinions. He founded the first chiropractic correspondence school in 1896. Dozens of similar schools began operation shortly thereafter; the last one, The American University of Chiropractic in Chicago seems to have continued to operate until the mid 1930's Significant changes in chiropractic and education by Dr. Solon Langworthy who confined chiropractic to the spine and with several others, published Modernized Chiropractic and D.D. Palmer's son,., B. J., who introduced x-ray analyses and other methods making Chiropractic more scientific. [5]

Homeopathic: In 1796, Samuel Hahneman developed a unique theory of medicine. Expressed in the phrase "like cures like," he averred that a substance which causes symptoms in healthy people will cure similar symptoms in sick people. To effect a cure, a substance which causes these symptoms in a healthy person is diluted in water or alcohol. The theory is that the more the solution is diluted, the more it increases in potency – sometimes to the point where none of the original molecules of the substance remain. Although subject to much skepticism, homeopathy grew in popularity and by the beginning of the 19th Century, the U.S. had 1,500 practitioners. [6]

Naturopathic: Naturopathy is often traced back to the concepts of natural diet and exercise developed in the 1880s when Dr. Thomas Allinson began to practice "Hygienic Medicine" in Scotland. The term "naturopath" is generally credited to American physicians named Benedict Lust and John Scheel who built upon Allinson's theories. In a time when any health care practitioners who cared to assumed the title, "doctor," some correspondence schools conferred the N.D. or Doctor of Naturopathy degree for minimal work.[7]

Osteopathic: In 1884, after Andrew Taylor, M.D., spent ten years in medical research, he concluded that "all bodily systems are interrelated and interdependent." He developed a theory combining bodily manipulations with a "whole body" treatment. In 1892, he founded the American School of Osteopathy, a brick-and-mortar school in Kirksville, Missouri. The Columbia College of Osteopathy published the best known Home Study Course in Osteopathy although there were several books available which promised to teach its theory. [8]

Correspondence Courses to Train for a New Career: Nurse

## Although a physician's training in the late 1800s was limited, the training of for nurses was even more sparse. Nurses first began training to become registered nurses in resident courses in New York's Bellevue Hospital, Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital, and Connecticut's New Haven Hospital around 1873. However, no formal training was required of practical nurses (or auxiliary nurses or home nurses) in most states. Home study nursing schools were begun in the late 1800s and provided printed texts, but no clinical training. .

There was one significant difference between reading a textbook and taking a home study course and that was that the schools provided a diploma. It was useless for student nurses to try to prove their knowledge and competence by listing the textbooks they had read. But they could produce a diploma to indicate that they had taken a nursing course.

In correspondence study, unlike classroom nursing instruction, students were not provided practical clinical experience. Thus, the attending physician usually had to demonstrate or explain many procedures before the nurses could be turned loose to learn on the job. Nonetheless, the demand for nurses was great. The ads that began to appear in women's magazines for nursing correspondence schools claimed their graduates were employed as first aid nurses, convalescent home proprietors, specialists in pediatric nursing, medical secretaries and nurses in hospitals without training schools and in mental hospitals and clinics. However, most graduates of home study schools served as private duty nurses in homes.

Chicago School of Nursing: When Dr. Orville J. Perkins founded the Chicago School of Nursing, the first correspondence nursing school in 1899, he wrote in the school's catalog:

_In my quarter century's practical experience as a physician, I found a woeful lack of well-trained nurses, women who really knew what to do when the time arose. Often I have been handicapped in a crisis because the attending nurse had not been taught the things she ought to know. Seeing this lack of skilled physician's assistants, I prepared an easy yet thorough training course for nurses: making it easy enough for a person of the most elementary education to master, and yet comprehensive enough to cover everything that a nurse should know._ [9]

Advertisements for The Chicago School of Nursing stressed the money to be earned ranged from $25 to as much as $50 a week, which was then a good wage. Follow-up mailings to inquiries contained a 32-page catalog with countless testimonials. Enrollees were also offered several appealing premiums for signing up, such as a pattern for a nurse's uniform and a purse-size case containing scissors, a thermometer and a hypodermic syringe. [10]

Furthermore, with home study schools, race was not a bar to enrollment although it was with many resident schools. According to Jane Hodson in her book How to Become a Trained Nurse, published in 1897, out of 239 U.S. resident nurse training schools, only 11 would accept women of color. Correspondence schools did not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or religion. Gender, was also a barrier in resident nursing schools. Although during the not-so-distant Civil War, men had served in hospitals as nurses (most famously, Walt Whitman), the job was usually filled almost exclusively by women. In her research for her book, Jane Hodson found that in the 239 U.S. resident nurse training schools in 1897, only 8 accepted men; however, she found that all 21 insane asylums with schools would take male students. [11]

Later, men were encouraged to enroll by The Chicago School of Nursing although they were forewarned in the school's catalog that "nursing was women's work." It was then pointed out that men might find employment, not only as male nurses, but as orderlies and attendants in local, state, or army hospitals. Even so, one photograph of graduates in the catalog of The Chicago School of Nursing shows only one male nurse amongst 97 women nurses. [12]

The Chautauqua School of Nursing: The name of The Chautauqua School of Nursing made it seem that it was part of the chautauqua educational movement centered at Chautauqua Lake in New York State but which also spread throughout the country. However, the nursing school had no connection with that movement and was located in Jamestown, New York, some distance away.

The Chautauqua Nursing correspondence school made it clear at the outset of the course that the nurse was intended to cooperate with the doctor in a subordinate capacity apparently in unquestioning obedience just as followers of Frederick W. Taylor insisted. The nurse was expected to perform specific medical procedures precisely as prescribed by the doctor or the text and to understand why they were done. However, in addition to accepting their limitations in performing nursing duties, nurses were also encouraged to pursue higher medical knowledge if they so chose. [13]

The Chautauqua School of Nursing established in 1900 in Jamestown, NY presented a carefully thought out curriculum organized by Taylor's management theories as can be seen in the section on obstetrics which was to form an important part of each of its graduates' work. The lectures, each an individual booklet ranging from 30 to 48 pages in length, devoted to the following topics, were rigid and precise and included nothing that was not necessary for the student to know:

Lecture 1 The Female Pelvis

Lecture 2 Pregnancy – Its Symptoms, Hygiene, and Disorders

Lecture 3 Labor – Its Physiology and Mechanism

Lecture 4 Surgical and Obstetrical Disinfections

Lecture 5 Labor – Its Management; Duties of the Nurse

Lecture 6 Obstetrical Surgery – Anesthetization

Lecture 7 Obstetrical Convalescence

_Lecture 8 Disorders of Obstetrical Convalescence_ [14]

The next series of lectures covered Care of the Newborn and then on to The Operating Room and General Surgery and other aspects of hospital surgery. The general principles presented in these lectures gave the students a thorough presentation of the theory and a description of standard procedures the nurse was expected to perform.

In addition to supplying an extensive description of various medical procedures as well as illustrating them with photographs and drawings, The Chautauqua School of Nursing also produced a series of pamphlets containing the experiences of graduates discussing experiences they had while carrying out their nursing duties . Correspondence nursing schools covered topics that would surprise the modern nurse. At the turn of the century, private duty nurses were expected to scrub down the sick room from floor to ceiling with disinfectant, prepare meals for the ill person and feed him or her, in addition to dispensing medication, bathing, changing bandages, maintaining charts and records and countless other duties.

The Chautauqua School's sales literature answered many questions for the would-be nurse. For example, some prospects feared that age might disqualify them. If a prospective student believed she was too old to enter hospital training, she soon learned that many others with the same belief had enrolled in The Chautauqua School of Nursing which claimed that 35% of graduates were between 35 and 60, and that of the total number of graduates in one year, 76 were more than 50 years old when they enrolled, and 3 had passed their 60th birthday. [15] 6.

The Chicago School of Nursing specified that the student should have at least an elementary school education. The Chautauqua School of Nursing provides a much more general statement that anyone who can "read, write and comprehend the English language" can pass the course. Using the computer to measure the reading level of the two most popular correspondence courses in nursing, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading

Levels of those courses was found to be as follows:

Chautauqua School of Nursing : 12.1 (High school Senior)

Chicago School of Nursing : 11.1 (High school Junior)

Thus, it would appear that contrary to either school's claim as to no necessary minimum educational standards, a student with poor reading skills would not understand these texts since they were written on an 11th or 12th grade reading level. However, on a more positive note, there is in effect in both schools, what in modern terms is called an "open admissions" policy which means that everyone has a chance to try to pass the course. Both schools promise to give the student additional help. However if the student still cannot succeed, they will request that the student withdraw and the school will refund the money paid.

Correspondence Courses to Train for a New Career: Lawyer

The profession of the law also drew large enrollments in correspondence law schools in the late 1890s. The prevailing method of legal instruction in America, up to the middle of the 1800s, was what equates to a modern internship: training in the office of a judge or a practicing attorney. To be admitted to law study, the highest level of education demanded, if any was required at all, was a high school diploma. To be admitted to practice, it was necessary only to pass a bar examination and the would-be lawyer could learn the law in any way desired.

However, there were, at the same time, resident law schools. In addition to proprietary schools, some public colleges started law departments. The first Professorship of Jurisprudence was established at William and Mary in Virginia in 1779. By the turn of the century, there were 150 resident law schools with a total enrollment of over 20,000 students; these schools taught law as a trade in much the same manner as solicitors were trained in England.

Teaching Methods: Correspondence law texts stated the law and then gave a summation of the case which led to that ruling. This was the method traditionally used in resident law schools, but most of them were turning to the use of the _case method_ , which requires the student read the actual decision of the court and discuss and argue it in class. Obviously, the case method was not feasible in correspondence law schools. Apparently, however, the older method seemed adequate training for the level of practice required of solicitors in England and so it was continued in many resident schools as well as correspondence schools.

However, correspondence school students had other handicaps to overcome. They were not given the opportunity to practice procedural skills in moot courts. Too, they did not have access to a law library to hone their research skills. Further, improving their legal writing ability was limited to producing a few sentences or a paragraph at most. But, for those times it seemed adequate and once they passed the Bar Exam, and were thrust into hurly burly of practicing law, they learned on the job.

Sprague Correspondence School of Law: William Cyrus Sprague (1860-1922) was an editor, author, publisher who earned a law degree from Cincinnati Law School, was admitted to the bar and practiced law for ten years before publishing Sprague's Abridgement of Blackstone (1896) as well as other law books. Sprague founded The Sprague Correspondence School of Law in Detroit in 1889 as well as The Sprague Correspondence School of Journalism and a publishing company for a total of three corporations. In organizing the school, he edited the works of other renowned lawyers. Sprague's publishing firm also produced popular magazines such as The American Boy, as well as How to Write and Law Student's Helper and American Legal News.

Sprague was particularly interested in encouraging women to enter the legal profession at a time when they were barred from attending most law schools and also barred from admission to the bar. For example, Mrs. Antoinette Leach of Sullivan, Indiana, a graduate of Sprague's school was denied permission to practice law by a judge because she was not a voter, ignoring the fact that women were at that time denied suffrage. Mrs. Leach appealed the ruling to the Indiana Supreme Court which reversed the ruling of the lower court and she practiced law for many years thereafter. [16]

No doubt realizing that there were many women in similar situations who could not gain admission to resident law schools, Sprague began advertising in women's magazines addressing his ads specifically to women. Sprague's school advertised itself as "The oldest and largest institution for law training in the world.." It laater merged with the Blackstone Institute (also a correspondence institution) in 1915 and afterwards assumed the Blackstone name.

The Correspondence School of Law: Incorporated in September 1892, The Correspondence School of Law was not connected with Sprague's School or any other law school with a similar name. Only a grade school education was required to be admitted. The annual catalog boasted that their system of instruction was not the conventional lecture system or the newer case system but the Dwight Method which consisted of:

_. . . the study of leading textbooks, with daily assignments of lessons and examinations upon the assignments of reading pursued by the student, who is called upon to state the substance of what he has read, the reasons which lie at the foundation of the great principles of the law and their application to actual and condensed hypothetical cases and recent decisions. The work is supplemented by lectures by the instructors and explanations by them of the legal principles._ " [17]

Avocational Courses

Chautauqua School of Photography: Some correspondence courses prepared people for job advancement or to train for new jobs; many of the same courses were for hobbyists. For instance, in 1886, the Chautauqua University established a School of Photography, and soon, classes were offered during all four seasons at the school's Chautauqua headquarters. Charles Ehrmann, the instructor, wrote lessons to be sent to students with his written criticism of heir photographs. The lessons were published in 1888 as The Photographic Instructor for the Professional and Amateur. Like most photographic publications of that era, the majority of this course covered the chemistry of photography. However, the Chautauqua course also covered topics such as light, backgrounds, and close-ups. .

U. S. School of Music: David F. Kemp is the man who taught a million students to play the piano. In 1898, the pianist wife of David F. Kemp, an engineer from Dayton, Ohio, gave him the idea to teach people to play the piano through the mail. Kemp wrote a series of lessons and because of his engineering background, he insisted that the instruction be cumulative and sequential through step-by-step instructions not. This method of teaching was used not only for the piano, but, as time went by. for 30 different instruments. Each U.S. School of Music course starts with how-to-read-notes and then proceeds by presenting more and more difficult compositions for practice. .

Academic Correspondence Courses

.

Elementary Education: The Calvert School, a private school offering a complete curriculum from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade was established in 1897 in Baltimore, Maryland. Virgil M. Hillyer, a Harvard graduate and author of eight books on educating children, was the school's first headmaster . It was he who started the Home Instruction Department in 1906 which made it possible for children who were not able to attend the day school to avail themselves of the school's comprehensive academic program. Hillyer advertised in The National Geographic Magazine, an unusual step at the turn of the century, but in this manner soon attracted close to 300 new students. The Calvert School is still at the forefront, today, more than 100 years later

Secondary Education: In 1897, The American School was founded in Boston by R. T. Miller who believed that all Americans should be able to earn a high school diploma. In 1898, the American Technical Society (ATS) was founded by. Miller to publish instructional materials to be used by The American School , then called The American School of Correspondence. In its early days, MIT and Harvard graduates and faculty planned curriculum, wrote texts, and graded papers in engineering and architecture. The American School curriculum covers grades 9 through 12 and is still very much in operation today in Chicago, awarding its graduates a fully accredited high school diploma.

Higher Education: The University of London in 1858 became the first university in the world to offer distance education degrees, In the United States, as noted previously, The Chautauqua College of Liberal Arts started offering college credit courses authorized by the state of New York in 1883. By the late 1800s, there were numerous correspondence courses offered at seventy-six American colleges and universities.

Public Schools in the News: Negative

The attitude towards the public schools was almost entirely negative on the part of both the public and the press. Furthermore, the solutions offered to solve the schools' problems were. sometimes absurd.

  * One writer claimed the problem with the schools was the use of the traditional letter grades or percentages. He said the answer was to replace them with _Perfect_ _,_ _Imperfect_ , and _Failure ._ Classes were too crowded, said another writer. His solution was for teachers to dismiss one third of their class each day and then conduct class work with the remaining two thirds. .[18]

Proprietary Correspondence Courses in the News: Negative

  * The burgeoning correspondence school movement continued to be plagued with negative publicity both in The United States and The United Kingdom. For example, in 1893, University Correspondence College won a decision in Chancery Court in the case of William Briggs v J. James, restraining their competitors from publishing a text which they had plagiarized. Further, defendant James, one of the "Mushroom Correspondence Tutors (who) spring up almost every month" had falsely claimed that hundreds of students had successfully taken his courses. [19]

.

Frederick W. Taylor and Scientific Management

Into this milieu, came one individual, not an educator nor a philosopher, but an engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor, who was to influence American education in general and correspondence education in particular as much as any of the philosophers.

Taylor was working in a steel mill when he discovered a unique management technique. Between 1897 and 1900, Taylor had taught workmen who loaded 12 ½ tons of pig iron a day to increase their rate to 48 tons a day. Taylor did this by conducting "time and motion studies" to isolate the workers' actions and then finding alternative actions to shorten the time necessary to complete a specific task. Workers were then required to duplicate these new steps exactly to complete the work in the time required. Those that did not were fired. It is these workers who were parodied by Charlie Chaplin in the film Modern Times.

Taylor's method, dubbed "scientific management," grew in popularity in the ante-bellum society that had begun to value the combination of capitalism, science, and technology. . Thus, it was that the public began to welcome the application of "scientific business methods" to a wide range of activities in American life that included government, religion, and education. The respected historian Raymond E. Callahan's superbly researched book, Education and the Cult of Efficiency describes the changes that the adoption of Taylor's scientific management theories made in the public school system. [20] Callahan chose .not to include the proprietary correspondence school industry. This book will attempt to examine that highly specialized area for it is the present author's contention that the ideas of Frederick W. Taylor not only had a very strong influence but perhaps even a longer lasting effect on the correspondence schools than on the public schools.

Conclusion

In spite of the negative press, the . seeds of this alternative system of education, instruction by correspondence course, fell on fertile ground and the movement began to expand, But the greatest stimulant to its growth was soon to come from an unlikely source, a time motion expert. In the waning years of the 1900s, Frederick W. Taylor, an employee of Bethlehem Steel was exploring a new way of increasing productivity by analyzing and then simplifying the movements of works in doing their jobs. He soon found a way to boost the productivity of laborers fourfold. That discovery was about to make great changes in education, as well.

Chapter 2 - Endnotes.

[1] W. Smythe Warrington, A Rudimentary Treatise on Coal and Coal Mining (London; Crosby, Lockwood, and Co., 1886).

[2] W. H. Stoek, Education of Mine Employees (Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois: 1934).

[3] A Trip Through the World's Schoolhouse (Scranton, PA: International Textbook Company:1928) 1.

[4] Thomas J. Foster, "Speech at 15th Anniversary Dinner, 6 Oct, 1906," (Scranton, PA: International Correspondence School, 1906).

[5] Joseph C. Keating, Ph. D., Carl S. Cleveland, III, DC, and Michael Menke, MA, DC. Chiropractic History: A Primer (Davenport, Iowa: Association for the History of Chiropractic, 2004).

[6.] George Vithoulkas, The Science of Homeopathy (New York: Random House,1980).

[7] Stewart Mitchell, Naturopathy (New York: Random House, 2002).

[8] Home Study Course in Osteopathy, Chicago: Columbia College of Osteopathy, 1902).

[9] Splendid Opportunities in Nursing (Chicago: Chicago School of Nursing, n.d.) 4.

[10] Chicago School of Nursing premiums flyer, n.p. n.d.

[11] June Hodson. How to Become a Trained Nurse (New York: Willam Abatt, 1897) 239.

[12] Splendid Opportunities in Nursing (Chicago: Chicago School of Nursing, 1936) 9.

[13] "Lectures #1-8," The Ideal Nurse (Jamestown, NY: The Chautauqua School of Nursing, 1910) 3-302.

[14] "Lectures #1-8," _en passim_.

[15 The Chautauqua School of Nursing Year Book 1911 (Jamestown, NY: The Chautauqua School of Nursing, 1911) 30.

.[16] The Law Student's Helper May 1893, 102-1103.

[17] Catalog (Chicago: The Correspondence School of Law, 1892).

[18] "Studies in the Schools," The New York Times7 Mar. 1889.

[19] _Printed note in the plaintiff's book_ : William Frederick Mason. A Synopsis of Roman History, 63 BC to 14 AD: From the Consulship of Cicero to the Death of Augustus Caesar 8 (Cambridge: University Correspondence College, 1889) 52.

[20] Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1962).

Chapter 3

Course Types/ Marketing Methods

American Life in 1900-1909

The new century began as an age that worshipped the practical hard-headed businessman. It also began with a decade of innovations and inventions. In 1903, the Wright brothers made their first heavier than air flight, In 1906, Deforest invented the Audion radio tube, and, in 1908, Ford introduced the Model T. These inventions along with many others in the early 1900s changed the world. The United States was also changing for by 1900, 14 million immigrants had entered after the end of the Civil War and more than a million were expected to arrive each year. Along with other changes, there would be a heavy burden on the public school system.

Public Education in 1900-1909

The decade saw some promising educational innovations such as the introduction and implementation of the Carnegie Unit and some valuable publications on the order of How We Think by John Dewey in 1909.[1] But, the new century also saw more than its share of polemics from the muckrakers finding fault with everything. It was not long before the schools became a target with heavy criticism on the public schools, not all of it deserved.

Leonard Ayres' book, Laggards in Our Schools claimed that one out of three children, black and white, in the public schools were retarded [2] But this figure is not what it seems,. The word retarded had a different meaning in 1909 than it does today. It is only since 1960 that the word has come to carry a derogatory meaning of being mentally handicapped, Although the word had been in the language since 1768, it was not used to refer to humans until 1895 and. by 1909, it meant roughly _dawdler_ , _timewaster_ , _straggler_ , synonyms of _laggard_ , the word used by Ayres in his book's title. At the beginning of the 20th Century, _retard_ was more often used as a adjective or a verb than a noun as in " _retard_ the spark" to describe an ignition procedure in starting up an automobile, then newly invented.. Ayres did not categorize children by IQ levels which did not then exist for IQ tests were not used in the public schools until the 1920s. What Ayres meant by retarded was that these students were older than average for their grade. This could have been for a variety of reasons.

He produced mountains of statistics to support that the schools were at fault because they were disorganized and inefficient and intended their classes to benefit only the bright, eager student But, the fatal flaw in his analysis. was that he used statistics from schools from 58 cities. These cities were flooded with immigrant. children who were not native speakers of English .and migrant children from rural parts of the U.S. who had never been to school. This was the major reason they were over-age for their classes. But Ayres and his cohorts would have none of it. They insisted that a school should be organized like a business using a factory as a model, and things should be run on a orderly and efficient basis. At any rate, Ayres ignited a firestorm. .

This message fell on eager ears, the American public, whose tax dollars were being wasted on their present public school system, or so they were told. Other articles and books appeared explaining ways to halt the current outmoded, disorganized and wasteful educational system and make it efficient and productive. They were introduced to a new messiah, one Frederick W. Taylor, an engineer who told them that by having managers determine the most efficient way to do things, and then by following their instructions precisely, they could increase productivity and thus increase profits and everyone would benefit. Taylor's message was spreading rapidly and his many followers began adopting .his ideas.

Ayres and others pressured policy makers into adopting Frederick W. Taylor's theories to solve not only all of America's problems, but particularly as a panacea for American education. William C. Bagley, in his 1907 book, Classroom Management, among many others, applied Frederick Taylor's scientific management principles to public schools and called for "unquestioned obedience" from teachers to make it work.. [3] Ayres, Bagley and their acolytes began to use the keywords " _efficiency_ ," " _standardization_ ," and " _scientific management_."

Perhaps most important, the early Twentieth-century mania for school efficiency saw the beginnings of what may be its most powerful educational legacy: _standardized testing_. The College Entrance Examination Board developed a series of standardized exams in Latin, literature, math, and science in a single test called the College Boards. In France, Alfred Binet, aided by Theophile Simon, developed a standardized test of intelligence to classify school children. In 1909, in the United States, Edward Lee Thorndike produced the Thorndike Handwriting Scale, which ranked handwriting on the basis of specific qualities.

Not only were businessman's techniques applied to educational management but to instruction as well. Edmund Burke Huey's The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, brought science to reading in 1908 claiming efficiency of reading depended on the _speed_ with which the text was read. Citing research that in reading, the eye moved in a series of jumps and fixations. he theorized that reading speed could be .improved by increasing the speed of eye jumps and decreasing the length of fixations. At first, making reading, a cornerstone of learning more efficient through enforcing its use through the Frederick W. Taylor method seemed made to order for his acolytes. However, Huey offered the caveat that all results were subject to uncontrolled "human variation. He quoted a study which concluded "of all three classes of reading—fast, moderate, and slow—some comprehend well and others fairly or poorly." -- a caveat which may have slowed their enthusiasm. [4]

But Frederick W. Taylor had appeared at an opportune time for many changes were taking place in education. In 1917, the Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act provided federal funds for promotion of training of workers from 17 to 30 for agriculture, trades, industry, home economics, and commerce in secondary schools. The act required state boards to submit plans for federal approval which was expanded to vocational counseling and rehabilitation.

And, there were other changes. Women, who now held 75% of the teaching positions had grown highly dissatisfied with their low salaries, lack of benefits and job security. Further, they deplored the lack of promotion, poor working conditions, and the overly intrusive rules and regulations of their personal lives,. Teacher militancy sought its voice in unions which eventually became the NEA and AFT. However, teachers in correspondence schools did not join with them.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1900-1909

The founders of correspondence schools were rarely educators. Most were businessmen like those who organized LaSalle Extension University, or physicians such as the founder of The Chicago School of Nursing, or newspaper men such as the creator of ICS. The founder of the institution that bore his name, Sherwin Cody's School of English was a writer. The list goes on with men and women of diverse backgrounds establishing home study schools. Many were dissatisfied with the public schools and wanted to improve education. Some just wanted to make money. Perhaps because they were not educators these correspondence educators .were often likely to agree with Taylor's system of management. Many of these people apparently also agreed with Taylor's adage that there was one best way to do something and he and they had found it. Taylor's ideas were absorbed into the correspondence courses which these individuals produced and the schools which they ran.

In Taylorist correspondence schools, the instructors had no say in the curriculum or the text or anything else in the running of the school. Instead, as called for by advocates for Taylor's system of management, they were required to provide "unquestioned obedience." There was no collective bargaining or work stoppages. Photographs of correspondence schools could be interchanged with photos of factories. They appear identical with long rows of teachers side by side, their heads bent to the task of correcting papers and answering letters. They were no longer required to lecture or discuss lessons. All that had been replaced with a single text into which they had no input.

A major educational development occurred when scientific management introduced objective testing; correspondence school teachers were not required to correct tests. Any minimum-wage unskilled clerk could correct the most difficult questions on complex subjects provided they had an answer key. They did not have to grade exams or write corrections or comments on the test. Instead, less knowledgeable and cheaper, the clerks only needed to write " Good job!" or "Well done!" on tests. No one at the school cared that many students began to realize that they could have done just as well by looking up the answers at the back of the book. The instructors who had been replaced by clerks then confined their duties to answering questions by writing letters. That, too, was soon replaced by printed answers to most frequently asked questions and the use of automatic typewriters and pre-written "boiler plate" text. In short order, the Taylor system of management displaced them from their traditional duties of developing curricula. administering and interpreting tests and exams, answering students' questions and encouraging them. There was little or no need for teachers in correspondence schools.

The most important personnel in a correspondence school were the management, then the sales staff, followed by what used to be called the support staff (secretaries, clerks, financial officers and warehouse personnel). In correspondence education advocates for business-like efficiency had met their ultimate goal; the absolute control over all aspects of activity. The model for a successful correspondence school was the factory. The desired end product was a student who paid in full and had limited or no connection with the school. It did not matter whether or not he or she completed the course. In fact, in some unethical schools, if students dropped out before completion, the school could profit by not shipping the materials for which the student had paid.

Types of Correspondence Courses

By this time, almost every imaginable subject was offered by correspondence schools but all of these courses were of two basic types: the self-teaching book and the full-service course. The self-teaching book closely resembled an ordinary textbook but usually used the term "lesson" instead of "chapter" and added quizzes and answer keys. Full-service courses provided tests and/or practical assignments (and sometimes equipment) to be sent in for grading and comment. The latter courses usually provided graduates with a diploma or certificate, the former usually (but not always) did not.

Self-Teaching Books: Vocations and Arts

Correspondence schools often tried to keep up-to-date by offering instruction on the latest trends. For example, in the early 1900s, the automobile was new, and, initially, people did not drive their own cars but hired drivers, who were expected to be familiar with every aspect of the auto. In 1909, The Buffalo Automobile School explained it all in 14 lessons which covered the internal combustion engine, its operation, repairs, maintenance, and rules of the road and provided job descriptions for taxi drivers, chauffeurs, mechanical engineers, salesmen, demonstrators, and garage managers. [5]

Other vocational courses prepared students to enter various trades, such as watch-making. In 1908, Thomas B. Sweazey and Byron G. Sweazey founded The Chicago School of Watch-making and produced the course titled Master Watch-making. [6] The course consisted of 35 lessons in 36 manuals containing more than 900 pictures and diagrams stressing learning by doing with step-by-step guides. Students also received a choice of a watch, a set of materials or a set of tools and 10 manuals on how to start and run a successful business.

Vocational trades correspondence courses were usually advertised for men only. However, there were schools specifically designed for women which taught what were regarded in the early 1900s as a woman's major occupation: being a competent homemaker. And these courses, too, were also available as self-study texts. The Practical Correspondence School of Cooking Course consisted of 22 illustrated lessons mailed weekly. After completing the first lesson, the student mailed a report blank to the school where it was examined by the directress, Miss Kay B. Monell, who had completed post-graduate Pratt University courses in domestic science and had ten years of teaching experience. She went over the report blank and made appropriate corrections and suggestions. The choice of projects is wide ranging and covers the preparation of each dish in adequate detail for those with limited knowledge of the kitchen. As a premium for prompt enrollment, the school supplied two aluminum measuring cups.[7]

The American School of Home Economics produced "a correspondence course prepared to teach the art of cooking in the home through a series of graded menus and directions." For example, on one Monday (Lessons 175-177) the meals to be prepared .started off with a breakfast of _Cream of Wheat, Broiled Beef Patties and Zante Muffins, and Coffee_ and a luncheon of _Chambery Potatoes, Luncheon Rolls, Jelly. and Tea._ and dinner consisted of _Beef a la Mode, Mashed Potatoes, Cucumbers a la Poulette, Apple Salad, and Fruit Cannelone with Cream, and Coffee_.

Some Courses Could Be Either Vocations or Hobbies:

**Music** : The major correspondence music schools already in existence when the decade began were The United States School of Music, The Chicago Correspondence School of Music (which offered a bachelor's, master's, and doctorate in music) and The Siegel-Meyers School of Music which supplied the student's a choice of a violin or a guitar upon enrollment. The latter school later merged with the Chicago School of Music. In addition to these major schools at he turn of the century, there were home study schools which specialized in teaching how to play individual instruments such as The Course in Cornet Study in 1908 and The Shepard Piano System in 1909, both using self-study texts.

**Art** : Those with artistic talent were offered instruction by Federal Schools, Minneapolis, Minnesota, which later became Art Instruction, Inc, American School of Art and Photography (1904),and Fine Art Instruction, (1905)

Self-teaching Books: Self-improvement

**Physical Culture** : The Lionel Strongfort Physical Culture Correspondence School was established in 1895. [] By the turn of the century, the basic course consisted of six lessons illustrated by photographs of Lionel Strongfort performing various standard lifts. Included in one lesson is a photo in which he lifts a 312 pound barbell with one hand over his head, a remarkable feet. In conjunction with his highly successful course, he sold barbells and advanced courses and one of which he described in a sales letter as a specially designed barbell exclusive with his school. In 1904, Every school (and there were dozens, only a .few are described here) seemed to have a special method or system, unique to them. In 1904, Professor Ittman published Physical Culture by Means of Muscular Resistance and a course in Correct Breathing which described pitting one muscle against another which was similar to the later and better-known Charles Atlas course.[8] There were many similar schools. One school that made a unique offer was The Swoboda System which promised lifetime instruction for $20. Also, there was the unusual course offered by Mrs. Theodore Parsons, Brain Culture Through Scientific Bodybuilding. [9]

**Taxidermy:** To teach what was then a popular hobby, The Northwestern School of Taxidermy was founded in 1903 by James W. Elwood, who had learned the skill when a boy. The course covered everything from what taxidermists call _mounting_ (not stuffing) small birds to large animals such as a horse. Elwood always claimed that taxidermists were naturalists and conservationists who preserve game through their skill and art. In the course, he warned against killing song birds or mounting protected species. The school ran 1" display ads in early issues of Popular Mechanics. [10] Eventually, enrollment totaled over 500,000 for the 40 lesson course.

**Self Improvement** : A variety of self improvement courses reached the market place such as The Human School in 1902 and The Sheldon school in 1904. American School of Mental and Physical Development, Chicago

**New Thought** : Throughout the decade, William Walker Atkinson wrote under many pen names: Theron Q. Dumont, Theodore Sheldon, Magis Incognito, Three Initiates, Yogi Ramacharaka, Swami Panchadasi, and Swami Bhakta Vishita. He was an occultist and a pioneer in the New Thought movement. His instructional works centered on how to train the will, enhance the memory, and develop personal magnetism.

**Language** : A departure from book-length courses was the creation of the Language Phone method of teaching language by Dr. Richard S. Rosenthal of New York City in 1906. French, German, Spanish and Italian were taught by by the use of an Edison cylinder phonograph. Slightly later, Sherwin Cody used 78 rpm records to teach correct pronunciation. The Marconi School taught Morse Code with 78 rpm records. As the decade passed, the use of recordings became commonplace not only in teaching foreign languages but also in teaching music, and many other subjects.

The Full-Service Course

The full-service correspondence course textbook was accompanied by exam questions and assignments which were to be mailed to the school to be corrected and commented upon and returned to the student. Depending on the subject, some schools had assignments to be completed at home and the results mailed to the school. In addition, the school usually offered to provide consultation on any aspect of the course, and some even promised to provide assistance in employment.

Vocational courses were most common among full-service courses and one interesting example is the course offered by the man calling himself "The Chief Draftsman" who promised his students would "Learn on practical work which is furnished, not books, or printed 'stuff."

**Courses in Religion:** James T. Gray's Synthetic Bible Study Course was sold out before the newspapers' reviews appeared. In more modern terms the word "synthetic" would be "holistic" for the Gray's work led the student to study each book of the Bible as a whole and then make a relationship of that book to the Bible as a whole followed by making a connection to each book .[13] However, the religious home study course with the most commercial success was the Scofield Bible Correspondence Course begun in 1907. which is still being published today. Cyrus I. Scofield, who was to achieve fame as chief theologian of dispensational pre-millenium theology, had written the course in 1890 and published it himself. By 1907 the publication and distribution were assumed by The Moody Bible Institute. Most pages of the initial hard bound three-book-long course were printed on one side only, apparently to facilitate the taking of notes, with an extensive schedule of examinations to be mailed into the school.[14] The Moody Bible Institute also offered competing Bible courses such as The Bible Doctrine Course (1900).

Marketing: How Correspondence Courses Were Sold

Correspondence courses were expensive to sell. As a rule of thumb, school management expected marketing costs would range from 25% to 33 1/3 % of the final price of the course. Most schools used both classified ads and display ads in periodicals to attract prospects. The cost of classified ads averaged 2 cents a word in 1900, but the rate increased to 10 cents a word by 1909. These ads used type exclusively; no pictures were included. Usually, classified ads were used only to obtain inquiries and did not attempt to make sales directly from the ad. Then, as today, advertisers could expect to receive one-half of the total responses within 30 days after publication. The second half would dribble in over the following year.

Classified advertising for correspondence courses usually proved profitable in Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines which often contained upwards of 20 pages of them per issue. Ads for some highly specialized courses proved profitable only in publications closely connected to their interests. Newspaper classified ads seldom drew responses whereas newspaper display ads were sometimes effective. The first classified ad for a correspondence course in Popular Mechanics was to be found under the classification "Business Chances" in the classified ad section of the January 1905 issue. The ad on page 182 of that issue read:

You get something of everlasting benefit when you order our business penmanship course. Best published. Used in many schools. Complete set of lessons for home practice. 50 cents; with personal mail instruction, $1.00." Order now; stamps taken. Rasmussen School of Penmanship, St Paul, Minn.(in Globe Bldg.) [15]

In the October 1905 Popular Mechanics classified section, the heading "Educational" appears for the first time. Under it, there appear ads from individuals and Popular Mechanics selling used ICS courses and sundry books. Too, there are advertisements with a single word in 14 point type followed by copy in the usual classified ad type size of 8 points as follows: "VENTRILOQUISM. Send a 2 cent stamp. O.A. Smith, Peoria, Ill." [16]

In these classified ads, the course in penmanship asked for full payment for the product in the ad. The ad for a course in ventriloquism offered to mail sales information about its product with the expectation of convincing the reader to purchase the product afterwards. Advertisers found that requiring a stamp or cash be sent cut down on the number of responses As a result, most advertisers who mailed sales literature promised it would be sent free. However, to ask for payment _in full_ for more than one dollar usually .ended with no replies at al.l

In subsequent issues of the 1905 issues of these magazines, no other correspondence schools advertised under the "Educational" heading. However, second-hand books and used courses were sometimes offered for sale by their individual owners under this rubric. [17]

The first listing in Popular Mechanics under the heading "Correspondence School" appears in February, 1907 on page 285 with the headline "ARE you making less than $25 or $30 a week??" This ad was for a course in mechanical drawing offered by The Columbia Correspondence School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [18] By June of 1908, the three classified ads for correspondence schools were to be found in the section marked "Educational and Instruction." [19]

Classified ads usually began with a benefit for the reader (such as "MAKE BIG MONEY QUICK") in capital letters. However, sometimes the headline stated only "FOR SALE." In other ads, the heading was merely the name of the advertiser, as "THE PITTSBURGH ENGINEERING CO. It is usually impossible to provide enough information in the few words of a classified ad to warrant the reader sending the advertiser money. As noted previously, even requests for 2 cents in postage stamps cut down on the number of inquiries. In addition, the best responses were from the 7 out of 10 classified ads which told the reader what the ad was about in the first few words as in "STUDY ELECTRICITY AT HOME." These ads were evidently more profitable because they tended to appear frequently whereas ads that flouted this rule usually appeared only once or twice and then not at all.

Display Ads

Display ads in periodicals ranged from 1" by 2" ads up to full page ads and usually containing photographs or art work. Headlines for these ads ranged in length from a terse admonition such as "Learn Watch-making" to the loquacious "Let me Help you to Secure a Position as Steam Railway Fireman or Brakeman Motorman or Conductor Electric Railway (sic)." To modern readers, a startling sign of those times appears at the bottom of the ad: "Colored men not accepted." [21] pm 2-07 p28

Like classified ads, display ad headings often stressed a benefit to the reader, thus making them more appealing and more likely to be read. For example, in display ads, almost all schools offered a free "book" which might range from a thin pamphlet to an 82-page-long catalog.

**Direct Mail:** A popular sales method is to send un-requested sales literature to "cold" prospects hoping that since they had purchased one item by mail, they might be interested in buying another. Such lists were rented for one time use to solicit customers for non-competitive products. Over the past century, the usual rate of return is astonishingly similar. The mailer can expect a response rate of 1% to 2%. Since people on the mail list were constantly moving and changing their address, the number of sales letters returned as undeliverable is usually 5%. Even though direct mail was and is usually sent at the cheapest rate possible, the high cost of postage, renting the names, printing the advertising package (usually a letter, a brochure, and order blank, and a #6 return envelope printed with a return postage permit, all encased in a #10 envelope) was and is subject to extensive testing to find the best combinations. Instead of enrolling students directly from their ads or by direct mailing to cold prospects, the majority of correspondence schools in the golden age of home study found prospects through classified and display ads and followed these "leads" up by using sales letters or salespeople (almost always men)

Over the years, the sales letter evolved into a standard format usually two pages long, but often 4-pages or longer with an added P.S. or postscript which research showed increased the responses. The rate of returns (or sales) for each mailing was carefully recorded to determine which letters drew the best results. These mailings might be made at intervals of weeks, then months, and sometimes for even longer periods of time

Mail order was and is both an art and a science. The procedure was and is choosing between what is known as the shotgun and the rifle approach to sales. With the former, the school advertises in a general publication such as a newspaper, with the latter, the school advertises in a publication which caters to a specific type of reader such as one for mechanics or gun owners. Inquiries are then followed up by the school by sales representatives or mail.

The same procedure may be followed with direct mail to a list of prospects who had purchased similar items which was rented from a mailing house. In direct mail, the closure rate for mail sales pitches is one to two sales per hundred prospects. Careful records are maintained so the publisher could see how many enrolled after the first mailing, the second, and so on. These mailings are spaced out over a two week period and then monthly and then yearly. For most products, after a total of three to five separate mailings, if the prospect had not responded, further mailings were suspended. Usually, the school did not purchase these names and addresses but rented them and had to pay the mailing house for each use. The letters would have been mailed in-house or from an outside letter shop, specializing in mailing sales letters.

Some schools hired advertising agencies to write ads and the letters responding to inquiries. Other schools had an in-house advertising agency, that is, an agency using a name different from that of the school but which the school operated as a subsidiary. In-house agencies permitted the schools to claim discounts or rebates on their advertising that would otherwise go to outside advertising agencies.

The statistical analysis of the results of these ads often proved very valuable For example, when H. Prescott Simpson of the M. L. Evans Correspondence School of Cartooning suggested that using first class postage instead of third class might improve sales, executives at the school tested his idea. After a three month long test, they found that the enrollments resulting from using third class postage was only slightly higher than that from achieved by using first class postage. Thus, because at that time, the cost of first class postage was double that of third class postage, using the cheaper mailing class actually brought in more revenue. It was studies like this encouraged by analysts that controlled decisions made by school executives Further it was research of marketing methods that were more important to and used by correspondence school management than studies of pedagogical techniques.

During the early 1900s, sales by mail was a new field with innovations on almost a daily basis. The advertising men of this era later wrote books about what they have discovered which are still in demand today close to a century later. The names are legendary:

  * _Maxwell Sackheim_ , a copywriter whose two most famous ad headlines for correspondence schools read "They Laughed When He Sat Down at the Piano" for the U. S. School of Music and "Do You Make These Mistakes in English?" for The Sherwin Cody School of English. [22]

  * _Claude Hopkins_ , a proponent of what he called scientific advertising, strongly believed that a product sells itself by giving away samples. Hopkins also believed in testing headlines and mastered the art of USING advertising coupons. [23]

  * _Robert Collier_ was a genius at writing sales letters by searching out facts, determining what makes a product unique and finding ways of getting people's attention. [24]

  * _Victor Schwab_ , another advertising man, b figured out ways to use words as emotional triggers, and to present facts to get people to take action. [25]

  * _John Caples_ was great at writing headlines for display ads, but who also knew the secrets of writing a powerful attention-getting first paragraph of a sales letter and then how to follow it up with order-generating copy.[26]

These highly imaginative individuals created a whole new industry: _Direct Mail Order Sales_ which proved an effective way to sell correspondence courses among other things.

Converting Ads into Sales by Sales Personnel

The cost of making a sale in person by a salesman often was too expensive for self-study courses; they were usually profitable only for full service courses. The average sales person could expect to make one sale for every ten calls. Their commission usually amounted to one third or more of the total cost of the course.

The Impact of Postal Delivery

A major boost to correspondence schools was the establishment on January 1, 1909 of parcel post service for those who lived in rural areas. In the early 1900s, the majority of the population did not live in cities and usually had to pick up packages by going to the post office, often miles away. Delivery of parcel post to rural mailboxes opened up a vast new market for those who found it profitable to do business by mail. Obviously, this was a great boon for correspondence schools. ICS had been shipping their courses by wooden boxes by railroad express now shifted to cheaper and easier to handle cardboard containers and paper envelopes. which were delivered to the customer's mailboxes. faster and cheaper. Besides the savings in shipping costs

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News

  * In the early years of the new century, dishonest educators had figured out new ways of defrauding the public and it that most accounts that found their way into newsprint were of proprietary schools.

  * For example, in 1902, four principal officers of the Correspondence Institute of Scranton PA (no connection with the International Correspondence Schools) were arrested and charged with mail fraud. [27]

  * Diploma Mills were already doing a booming business at the turn of the century,..One successful entrepreneur was Joseph Rohrer, self-styled "President of the International Massage and Movement Cure Institute" who published a .sixty-five page catalog of his school's courses and claimed to have offices in eight European capitals. He did a flourishing business in selling fake medical doctor diplomas in spite of being arrested and tried twice. [28]

  * Police arrested the owners of another diploma mill which changed names and addresses every few weeks. In 1907, the operator offered a medical diploma for $75 if the applicant could show that he had taken any medical course. [29]

Conclusion

The influence of Frederick W. Taylor was great in the operation of correspondence schools probably because most of the operators of those schools were business men and women who were not trained educators. Thus it seemed obvious to them that it was possible to teach skills such as typing , measure the results, and set up standards, and to do the same with what at first did not seem to be a skill, such as music and art.

Chapter 3 - Endnotes

[1] John Dewey, How We Think (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1910).

[2] Leonard Ayres, Laggards in Our Schools (New York: Survey Associates, 1913).

[3] William C. Bagley, Classroom Management: Its Principles and Technique (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1907).

[4] Edmund Burke Huey, The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading. (New York: Macmillan, Co., 1908.) 171.

[5] The Buffalo Automobile School Home Study Course Catalog, (Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Automobile School, 1909).

[6] Thomas B. Sweazey and Byron G. Sweazey, Master Watchmaking (Chicago: The Chicago School of Watchmaking, 1908).

[7] Learn How to Cook (Cleveland, OH: The Practical Correspondence School of Cooking, 1909) 5-8.

[8] Eva Roberta Robinson and Helen Gunn Hammel, Lessons in Cooking Through Preparation of Meals. (Chicago: American School of Home Economics,1913) 289-290.

[9] Lionel Strongfort. Advanced Course (Newark, NJ: Lionel Strongfort Institute, n.d.). 2.

10] Professor Ittman, Physical Culture by Means of Muscular Resistance. (New York: Richard Fox Publishing Co., 1904).

[11) Mrs. Theodore Parsons, Brain Culture Through Scientific Bodybuilding. (Chicago: American School of Mental and Physical Development,1909).

[12] James W. Elwood, The Northwestern School of Taxidermy ( Omaha, NE, 1903).

[13] James T. Gray, Synthetic Bible Study Course (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1906).

[14] Cyrus Ingerson Scofield. The Scofield Bible Correspondence Course (Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute, 1907).

[15] Popular Mechanics Jan. 1905: 1882.

[16] Popular Mechanics Oct. 1905: 1086.

[17] _loc. cit._

[18] Popular Mechanics Feb. 1907: 285.

[19.] Popular Mechanics Jun. 1908: 28.

[20] Popular Mechanics Feb. 1907: 28.

[21] _loc. cit._

[22] Maxwell Sackheim, My First 65 Years in Advertising (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1975).

[23] Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising. (Chicago: Advertising Publications, 1966).

[24] Robert Collier, The Letter Book (Charlottesville, VA : The Business Book House, 1937).

[25] Victor Schwab, How to Write a Good Advertisement (New York: Schwab and Beatty, Inc., 1947).

[26] John Caples, Tested Advertising Methods (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, Inc., 1974).

[27] "School Officers Arrested," The New York Times. 16 1902.

[28] "Diploma for $75" The New York Times. 5 1907.

[29] "Diploma Mill raided" The New York Times. 5 Jun. 1900.

Chapter 4

Curriculum 1910-1919

American Life in 1910-1919

On June 28, 1914, the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria, was the trigger that plunged the world into war. Congress declared war on April l6, 1917.

Public Education in 1910-1919

In 1916, eight local unions banded together with the Chicago Teachers' Federation (founded in 1897) and formed the American Federation of Teachers. Collective bargaining by the AFT resulted in better pay and benefits as well as improvements in working conditions and job security.

John Dewey had emerged as the chief advocate for Progressive Education arguing that democracy must be prevalent in the classroom. However, at the same time, large numbers of children as young as six did not attend school but worked in mines, mills, and factories.

In 1911, Frederick W. Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management. He summed up his theory as a combination of all of the following:

  * Science, not rule of thumb.

  * Harmony, not discord.

  * Cooperation, not individualism. Maximum output in place of restrictive output

  * the adoption of standards and enforcing the the development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity. [1]

His ideas soon saw fruition in a variety of ways. One was the creation and use of standardized IQ tests. In 1916, H. H. Goddard, Lewis Terman. and Carl Brighan (the developer of the Scholastic Aptitude Test) revised the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence and published the result as The Stanford-Binet IQ Test which became standard. In 1917, during WWI, Lewis Terman translated the Binet IQ Test into English for the army to use in classifying draftees into jobs. By the end of WW I, 2 million men had taken the test. Sometimes, unfortunately, the administration of IQ tests produced unfortunate unforeseen results. Because H. H. Goddard believed that IQ was innate and unchangeable, in 1913, he tested recent Russian immigrants to the United States and found that 87% tested as morons. On the basis of this test, Goddard argued that they should be deported, ignoring the fact that the immigrants were native speakers of Russian being tested in English on American culture. Goddard, Terman, and Brighan were believers in eugenics, the idea that through proper breeding a better human race would be produced, and. .in-line with such theory, shocking and disturbing decisions were made. As Edward J. Larson points out in his excellent but disturbing book, Sex, Race, and Science: Eugenics in the Deep South, thousands of American women, primarily women of color, were tested, and, based purely on their low IQ scores, were sterilized to keep them from producing offspring. [2]

Franklin Bobbitt called for increasing the length of the school day to maximize the time the school was open. [3] William A. Wirt, the superintendent of schools in Gary, Indiana created in 1911, a radical educational plan that he called the "Work-Study-Play,"soon known as "the Gary Plan." [4] Along with other educators, John Dewey and his wife praised The Gary Plan. Wirt's brain child was instituted in 200 cities including New York City but soon ran into trouble from parents there who thought it discriminated against the poor and religious. At one point in October, 1917, there was a riot by 1,000 anti-Gary Plan students who smashed all 100 windows of an Upper East Side School a protest meeting against expansion of the plan attended by 2,000 students in Central Park,.and a demonstration by 5,000 students who marched through the streets. Eventually, the election of an anti-Gary Plan mayor ended the matter and Wirt returned home to Indiana.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1910-1919

The controversies over the Gary Plan seemed to prove that criticisms of public schools and their methods were correct. However, the instructional techniques developed by the correspondence education were not perceived as a successful alternative. Some events which influenced correspondence schools greatly came from the public schools were not perceived to affect correspondence schools at that time. They were the aforementioned standardized tests. The multiple choice test invented in 1914 by Frederick Kelly revolutionized the home study schools testing procedure. Not needing to use essay tests meant that anyone could grade a test by using an answer key to assign a grade based on the numerical score without knowing anything about the subject matter. This form of testing was quickly adopted by correspondence schools as a cost cutting measure and within months, the majority of home study schools using essay tests began using multiple choice tests.

There were other events which were to the benefit of correspondence schools. For example, on January 1, 1913 parcel post service began for those who lived in rural areas. This greatly expanded the potential customer base because enrollees could have the lessons delivered to them instead of needing to go into town to pick them up.

How Effective Was Correspondence Education?

On November 1910, the beginning of the decade, the Reverend Joseph H. Odell, D. D. delivered a significant address at the International Correspondence Schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In it, he claimed that he had been initially skeptical of the school because they were so commercial. But upon closer examination, he had found that ICS had started an "intellectual revolution."

Odell said ICS instruction produced courage, self-reliance, and concentration which would equip any man for success. He further claimed that traditional educators saw the success that ICS had achieved and attempted to emulate it. He details the offering of 52 home study courses by the University of Chicago, as ell as the offering of correspondence courses by the Universities of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, West Virginia and others. In short, this speech was probably the first very positive report by an academic about this still controversial alternative educational system. [7]

In addition to ICS, other proprietary schools were doing well in enrolling students in studying a vast variety of subjects presented in a variety of formats.

Some book publishers advertised their texts as the equivalent of all-inclusive full service home study courses. For example, in 1917, the four-book Coal Mining Library was described as one of a series of home study courses without the aid of correspondence instruction.

A further positive comment by one of the most respected man of his day, Thomas Alva Edison, was used in an ICS ad: "Instruction by correspondence is the cheapest and best way for the poor man."

Developing a Curriculum for a Correspondence Course

Frederick W. Taylor died in 1915, but his ideas lived on. Strongly influenced by Taylor's theories, John Franklin Bobbitt saw management as the prime decision maker in determining what was to be taught and how it was to be taught, another concept which would have been accepted by correspondence school administrators. [8] The course instructors had no input but were expected to follow the desired curriculum exactly. If explanations were needed in addition to the text, the instructor provided them. And, in some cases, the instructor was given the additional task of adapting what the administrators said was be learned to fit the requirements of a standardized test.

Bobbitt's prime interest was the scientific management concept applied to the curriculum, but he optimistically claimed that "the technique of scientific method is at present being developed for every important aspect of education." The creation of a home study course was close to Taylor's scientific management precepts. The curriculum of a home-study course was often produced by a single writer (the owner of the school in many cases) and approved solely by school management, often that same owner. Further, in correspondence courses, the tests were, also, usually written by the author of the text and in most cases followed the text and were tied directly to specific information was stated in the text.

Students were expected to absorb the content of the text by following the procedures outlined in the course guide book. Obviously, the "one right way," using Taylor's phrase, was presented in the text as well as in the school's instructions on how to study, how to perform any assignments and in answers to the standardized test. The student was even told precisely how to mail the exams tests or assignments off to the school. If students failed to understand something, they could contact the school to obtain some additional explanation but it was generally assumed that any misunderstanding was solely the students' fault..

The total courses (each following specific syllabi) . taught on various subjects are part of the total curriculum. During the years 1910 through 1919, correspondence courses became more sophisticated in the away they were organized and presented. In short, they attempted to be more than a straight-forward substitution of the written word on paper for the spoken word. in the classroom. This may be seen in the following illustrative home study courses organized around the general curricular structure of description, appreciation, technique, and, general principles. The instructional strategy of the elected curricular structure was usually either cause & effect or problem & solution. Regardless of their subject matter or mode of presentation, which vary, all had one thing in common: they followed Frederick W. Taylor's concept of presenting the "one best way" of ensuring both workplace or leisure time readiness through standardization.

Description

Lewis School of Hotel Management: Until the Lewis Hotel Training Course came into being, there was no means of learning the hotel business except through on-the-job training. For many years this school was the only source of this information in the world. The complete collection of booklets was written in 1916 by Lewis who was not an educator but a hotel man. Essentially unchanged throughout the years, each booklet may be considered a syllabus on that specific occupation. Together they form a curriculum of hotel management following Bobbitt's interpretation of Taylorism that management alone must determine what was taught and how it was to be taught.

The Lewis School curriculum divides hotel jobs into three parts; the front of the house (office, room service and housekeeping), the back of the house (the catering departments, kitchen and dining room, the purchase handling and issuing a of supplies and mechanical departments). The third part, the management and executive section oversees both the front and the back of the house. After providing very explicit and detailed instructions on how to study the course, The Lewis course gives a complete description of every job in the hotel and an explanation of precisely what is expected of each and every employee. The influence of Taylor's thinking is seen in Lewis' apparent belief that the is one right way to do something which is fulfilled by each worker doing exactly what he is or she is told to do as part of the job. [9]

Appreciation

The Siegel-Myers Correspondence School of Music: Chicago's Siegel-Myers Music School offered instruction in what it called "the University Extension Method." The school offered a series of courses totaling a complete curriculum in music. Siegel-lMyers boasted of the advantage to the student of its patented photographs reproduced throughout the course, the value of the written exams for each lesson, and its money-back. guarantee.if the student were dissatisfied with the course after finishing it.

Perhaps most unusual are the "extracts from the course explaining the proper interpretation of every composition given in the course. For example, in the organ lesson explaining "Autumn Leaf," the text states:

This short but beautiful composition by Robert Schumann is effective on the organ only if the melody is heard above the accompaniment. In order to accomplish this it is necessary to play the melody perfectly legato, with a full singing tone, and the accompanying chords slightly detached. Play these accompanying notes as you would play them if there were staccato marks placed above them; at the same time sustain the melody tones so that the melody is given the desired prominence. [10]

The quotation is only a small part of the entire description in the text of how to produce the needed rhythm, melody, harmony, phrasing, shading, style of expression, and so forth. In following Taylor's theories, the school seems to desire to put into action very possible aspect of control over music.

Of particular interest is the school's voice course which included an Edison cylinder phonograph (cutting edge technology in 1910) on which the student could play recordings of the exercises and songs (found in the lessons) by the instructor, Mr. George Crampton, baritone (whose substantial credits included singing before Queen Victoria by Royal Command). The student could then record his or her renditions of these same exercises and songs on the same phonograph and mail them back to Mr. Crampton who would listen to them and then dictate his critique.

There were competitors who used similar methods: The U. S. School of Music; The University Extension Conservatory of Chicago; Christensen School of Popular Music, Chicago; Simplex School of Music; American School of Music, Chicago; Slingerland School of Music, and International Correspondence Schools.

Technique

Woman's Institute Library of Cookery: The 3 volumes of hardbound books provided illustrated in-depth treatment of such subjects as choosing meat cuts as well as procedures in using recipes and other peripheral information. Not only are the ways the best choices of ingredients given, but the reader is given the "one best way" to do everything with the preparation and serving of the foodstuffs. For example, the text states "Before radishes and celery are used on the table, whether with soup or some other part of the meal, they should be put into cold water and allowed to stand for some time, so that they will be perfectly crisp when they are served." The course texts were well indexed, which most correspondence courses were not, so students could easily find the information needed. In addition they were copiously illustrated in photographs and line drawings. There are numerous tables and numerous charts illustrating a variety of information such as the composition of food materials including the percentage of water, protein, fat, carbohydrates, and ash in a walnut. Information is even given on a variety of cooking stoves. [11]

General Principles

Chicago Technical College advertised itself as the school for builders and its home school division produced a builders course which was printed on heavy paper and bound between stiff board covers tied with string. Its appearance was that of a no-nonsense reference work that was full of comments speaking directly to the reader such as " You will find this lesson a very important one, and decidedly fascinating." This was to be found at the beginning of Lesson, 10 "Estimating Millwork" one of a series of 8 1/2" by 11" booklets bound into a course of 25 or more lessons explaining general principles,

Indeed, the lesson is interesting in its clear language describing in a practical way what millwork is and how it is used in building, distinguishing the type of wood products that have been run through a mill to shape them as different from "rough lumber" The student is then shown various types of trim and molding and how they are used to give projects a finished appearance. The student next learns how to follow standard procedures for listing the millwork required for the building entirely from blueprints. After this, the student is shown how to figure the quantities needed and how to draw up an estimate of cost, as well as how and where to order. This is very complex work and requires an understanding of casings, standing trim, and stair work as well as doors and their frames, windows,, and hardwood flooring. Too, the student is shown how to figure estimates not only on the wood millwork but on the labor involved in the interior finishing. This too, is subject to much analysis. The text explains that while hanging an ordinary door (not counting the setting of the interior frame and associated work) may take 1 hour per door but carefully fitting and hanging a door will take 2 to 4 hours a door. Adjustments must be made in the calculations for all possible variables. Thus, it is obvious that a great deal of knowledge and mathematical skill is required to produce an estimate that is close to accurate. This material on just estimating millwork is illustrated with numerous illustrations and explanations in a 32 page long lesson followed by 10 questions to be answered briefly in writing and sent to the school, such as the following:

_Figure the unit cost per lineal foor of a two member base, baseboard to cost $8.10 per 100 lineal feet, 3/4" quarter round used for base mold or shoe to cost $1.15 per 100 lineal feet. Labor required is eight hours for 100 lineal feet for the two members. Disregard nails_. [12]

Note well that this is only one lesson in estimating mill work. Other lessons include estimating for plastering, cut stone and rubble stone, brick work, carpentry work, estimating excavation, surface measurement, laying out work, and much, much more.

In the step-by-step procedures described, one clearly sees the influence of F. W. Taylor. The school makes a point of frequently reminding the student that the skills behind what he is learning though what they describe as the scientific training that will help him.

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News : Positive

Religious correspondence schools made the news.

  * In Philadelphia, philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff gave the Jewish Chautauqua Society $5,000 to establish a correspondence school for religious teachers.[13]

  * In Salt Lake City, the Mormons started correspondence courses teaching church matters. [14]

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Negative

  * Correspondence courses were given severe negative publicity in the case of a student from a well known school. For reasons known only to himself, Jean Crones, a chef, poisoned more than 100 guests at a dinner in Chicago. Newspaper reports made much of the fact that he had obtained the poison, arsenic oxide, as an International Correspondence School chemistry student. [15 ]

  * The mail order diploma mills continued operation. the epitome of which was probably The Oriental University in Washington, DC where in 1911, it was promised that for $100 one could "purchase a scholarship good for a complete education for each of his or her succeeding generations throughout eternity." [16]

  * To gain a conviction against, "Dr." Kukay, who sold correspondence courses in dentistry until he was convicted of practicing dentistry without a license, government agents visited his offices and actually allowed him to grind their teeth down and fit them with temporary fillings. After they paid and got a receipt as evidence, he was arrested. [17]

  * In 1912, there was indication that success in religious correspondence education was not guaranteed. In Madison, New Jersey, The Correspondence School of Theology seemed destined for success because its formation was supported by 24 denominations, but, nonetheless, it failed to open. The school had received 800 inquiries but only 26 prospects actually made payments \-- of partial amounts. Unfortunately, Samuel G. Ayers, who had been librarian at Drew Theological Seminary for 26 years, had resigned from Drew to become president of the new school. Consequently, he found himself unemployed. [18]

  * In a 1909 article in Collier's Weekly, Samuel Hopkins Adams claimed the U.S. School of Music courses were a "triple plated swindle" The owner of the school, Kemp immediately filed a $50,000 suit for libel. [19] Kemp claimed his school had taught 80,000 students to play musical instruments in eleven years of business. One of his students, Melville Vreeland, described as a New Jersey farm boy , testified that he learned to play the violin through the school's lessons. He then played "Dixie" and several other tunes in the courtroom. Afterwards, an expert witness for Collier's Weekly claimed the boy was only a "fiddler" and not an artistic violinist. [20] But the trial was not yet over. The following day in June, 1911, Kemp and his lawyer brought Adele Dods, a 14 year old U. S. School of Music student to play the piano in court, which she did successfully.[ 21] Although it appeared for awhile as if this case might prove to be a significant victory for the correspondence school industry, it all came to naught. The newspapers had stopped reporting on the trial by the time it reached its end. It is hard to find a record of it but it seems that after deliberating, the jury was unable to reach a decision, thus ending the action against Adams. [22]

Conclusion

In general, the decade saw a great deal of negative publicity on the misuse of standardized testing and disastrous public school programs, both the result of the acceptance of the ideas of a time-and-motion-study engineer. There was a growth of a number of correspondence schools teaching a variety of subjects, but the decade was not a good one for either system of education.

Endnotes - Chapter 4

[1] Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911) 140.

[2] Edward J. Larson, Sex, Race, and Science: Eugenics in the Deep South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995) 74.

[3] John Franklin Bobbitt, "The Elimination of Waste in Education," The Elementary School Teacher Feb. 1912: 9-527.

[4] William A Wirt, "Scientific Management of School Plants," The American School Board Journal Feb. 1911.

[5] "1,000 Pupils in Riot Against the Gary Plan," The New York Times 17 Oct. 1917.

[6] Charles A. Prosser & Charles R. Allen. Vocational Education in a Democracy (New York: Century, 1925).

[7] Joseph H Odell,D.D., The New Era in Education: A Study in the Correspondence Method of Instruction. (Scranton, PA: International Correspondence Schools)1910.

[8] John Franklin Bobbitt, The Curriculum (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. 1918) 42.

[9] Lewis, Clifford, Lewis Hotel Training Course. (Washington, DC: Lewis Hotel Training Schools, 1916).

[10] 1910 Catalog (Chicago: Siegel-Meyers Correspondence School of Music, 1910) 48, 52.

[11] Women's Institute Library of Cookery, vol. 3 (Scranton, PA: Women's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences, 1918) 14.

[12] "Estimating Millwork, Lesson 10," Builders' Course in Estimating and Superintending . (Chicago: Chicago Technical College, n.d.) ,

.

[13] "Jacob H. Schiff to Endow School" The New York Times 7 Oct. 1911

[14 ] "Proselyte by Mail" The New York Times 12 Nov. 1911

[15 ] "Crones Got Poison from Mail School," The New York Times 15 Feb. 1916.

[16] "Government is Investigating Fake Universities," The New York Times 27 Aug. 1911.

[17] "Give Fake Dentist a Prison Term," The New York Times 20 Jul. 1912.

[18] "Theology by Mail Fails," The New York Times 3 Mar. 1912

19] Samuel Hopkins Adams, "Fair Trade and Foul" Colliers Oct. 1909.

[20] "Music Lessons in Court," The New York Times 21 Jun. 1911

[21] "Tunes Played in Court," The New York Times 22 Jun. 1911.

[22] "Girl Taught by Mail Plays Piano to Jury," The New York Times 23 Jun. 1911.

CHAPTER 5

Teaching Methods 1920-1929

Life in 1920-1929

"The business of business is business," said President Calvin Coolidge. The decade which came to be called the "Roaring Twenties" ended with the crash of the stock market in 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression.

Public Education in 1920-1929

The biggest story in education in the 1920s was the so-called "Monkey Trial" in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee which resulted in a decision to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools.

In the 1920s, traditional classical classroom education was based on memorizing and reciting. Using Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management dictum of adhering precisely to "The one best way" determined by those in authority, public school teachers accepted their administrators' instructions as paramount and followed them. In turn, students were expected to follow teachers' instructions, memorize pre-ordained knowledge and repeat it verbatim.

**Dentistry** : Few people took care of their teeth in these years except to have a painful tooth pulled, A few "dental nurses" had begun prophylaxis as a means of preventing disease. The first U. S. dental college, The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery had opened in 1840. In the 1800's dentists were either those who had been trained as medical doctors and performed dentistry as a part of their normal practice or those who had little no training in dentistry, but learned on the job. It was the latter group who seemed to be the most numerous and brought the most harm to their "patients." And it was this group who purchased diplomas by mail from diploma mills who offered no training whatsoever, and thus brought disrepute to all correspondence schools through guilt by association in the public's mind. There was no great change in dental education until the publication of The Gies Report in 1926. [1] This study funded by the Carnegie Foundation was as important for the education of dentists as the earlier Flexner Report had been for the education of physicians. Although there were many recommendations, probably the most important was that of recommending that dental schools become affiliated with universities, which had the result of doing away with proprietary schools.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1920-1929

In this decade, some home study schools began to stress the size of their enrollment as proof of their superiority to traditional schools. LaSalle Extension University advertised itself as "The largest business training institution in the world." Instead of size, some correspondence schools touted the length of time they had been in business. As a measure of its achievements, The School of Applied Art, Battle Creek MI boasted of "18 years successful teaching." Still other schools boasted not their longevity nor size but the fact that their courses by mail could save time in reaching one's goal. An enrollee could master electricity by taking a "Two year course in six months – in your home." from The Technical Institute in Jersey City, NJ.

Unfortunately, the content of some heavily advertised correspondence courses of the 1920s (even on traditional subjects) was the old educational media -- classroom textbooks -- recycled. In fact, some schools even rebound standard texts in different covers. In comparing home study course texts with traditional texts, Did the instruction provided by correspondence schools really differ from conventional classroom education? And, if so, how? Were there differences in readability, vocabulary, style, or content?

Apparently, many correspondence schools were very traditional in expecting students to learn by rote although a few schools had developed different methods. Some correspondence schools created programs utilizing experiential learning projects. Aristotle noted this procedure was "learning by doing," a phrase later attributed to John Dewey. Experiential learning was ideal for correspondence schools for it requires no teacher to be physically present. Instead, students perform an assigned task by following principles described in the course. By the 1920s, this was being done successfully in several ways.

The LaSalle Extension University Problem and Solution Method

The system of instruction used by LaSalle Extension University had proved so successful that in addition to plugging it in their display ads, they devoted two pages to explaining how and why it worked in their 1926 General Bulletin. The title of that section summed it up: "The LaSalle Problem Method Condenses a Lifetime of Experience into a Few Months of Training." [2] It works because the LaSalle instructors, experts in their field, begin by providing students with a knowledge of the necessary fundamental theory. Then, these experts ask the students to apply that knowledge to solving a specific problem which gives them _experience_ using those principles to provide practical answers to business problems. Then, LaSalle's experts will examine the students' work and make sure they are proceeding correctly. In just months, the application of what is learned to real life situations provides the student with invaluable practical experience that can ordinarily be gained only through actual business practice over years -- if at all.

The LaSalle flagship course was accounting. This department was headed by the author of one of its textbooks, William B. Castenholz, who had held an impressive list of responsible positions. The Accountancy Course consisted of 7 sections divided into 102 lessons in 4 textbooks and two assignment notebooks and 26 supplemental pamphlets as well as other services such as consulting privileges, a monthly business magazine, special training for CPA exams, a diploma, and placement services. It covered the following subjects: Elements of Accounting, Principles of Accounting, Cost Accounting, Auditing Procedure, Accounting Systems, Business Law, and Business Organization. The LaSalle Method may be seen at work in Lesson 24 of Elements of Accounting covers what the text calls the "intricate problems in accounting and finance" created when a partnership or a consolidation of existing businesses is reorganized into a corporate form. These problems are discussed in two pages of text and illustrated by 3 pages of balance sheets followed by 4 more pages of explanatory text including numerous examples and then followed by 3 more pages of balance sheets. [3]

The student was asked a total of 6 questions, each of which requires a written answer of 2 sentences or more. Most important of all, the student was asked to answer an accounting question on "The Problem Sheet" which covered about 1½ pages and which also required the completion of a balance sheet. On March 1, 1921, the student from Elgin, Illinois randomly chosen for this example required two pages to complete his answer. [4]

When received by the staff in the LaSalle Department of Higher Accountancy on March 3, 1921, the six essay questions and The Problem Sheet were checked and corrections written on the student's paper in red ink by the instructor assigned to that particular lesson. The student had included a question which the instructor answered on March 3, 1921, the same day received., in a four paragraph long letter, which, upon close examination appears to have been dictated by the instructor and not canned "boilerplate" or prewritten copy. [5]

The entire lesson appears to be what LaSalle promised. The student s given the basic fundamentals, he is given some questions on their general meaning, and the student then is asked to solve a realistic business problem , designed to give him practical experience with a problem that he would be called upon to solve when employed as an accountant. Each of these situations that the students confront gives them experience it would take them years to gain in any other way.

The (ICS) International Correspondence School Way

By the end of 1927, ICS had enrolled a total of 3,559,268 students. ICS s members range from those with very limited schooling who wanted to improve their lives to those with a university education interested in studying a subject which they did not study in higher education or to refresh and update their knowledge of topics they had covered in advanced studies. Either type of student is in a class by himself or herself and can take advantage of individual instruction whenever it is needed. Research by ICS into the education of 1,000 of its students revealed the following:

2% no school education

5% attended un-graded schools.

58% attended graded schools

22% attended high schools from one to six years

5% attended business college from one to four years

8% attended colleges or universities from 1 to 7 years

ICS researchers found that some students with a college education enrolled because they wished to supplement their income with some vocational subject they did not study in college; others wished to study the subject they majored in to refresh their knowledge of its principles or to find new principles and applications. [6]

How was instruction conducted with such a diverse student body? Each student was required to write out the answer in full to every question included in the lesson. The questions that were asked were practical applications of the principles explained in the lesson, They did not call for a simple repetition of what the text said. These lessons, then, were graded on a scale of 1-100. After correction by an examiner, an inspector went over the paper a second time. Students were obliged to do additional work if their lessons did not merit a mark of 90 or higher. Finally, which some might argue departed from Taylor's theory, if, in the judgment of the instructor, based on the way the student answered the question, the student was sent a written explanation for future reference.[7]

The greatest strength of the ICS system may be found in its instructional manuals. The process by which they are produced is described at length in a publication issued by ICS. In that description it states that

The average ICS course consists of 45 instructive pamphlets of approximately 50 printed pages each. Tests show that an average of 16.2 hours of study is required to complete each of them. . . Many of the courses require more than 45 lessons. . . . To complete the Architectural Course and receive a diploma, the average student must study 2,200 hours, or approximately 10 hours a week for four years. [8]

An excellent example of the thoroughness of the ICS method may be found in the extensive instruction materials published on automobile service and repair on Magneto Ignition Systems. In the 1920s, in an automobile with a single magneto system, there was no battery. A high tension magneto delivered current to the spark plug when the engine was turned over with a hand crank and when thus started continued running until turned off. With modern automobiles which use a battery, if the engine doesn't start, the usual remedy is to recharge the battery or replace it. But in the 1920s, replacing the magneto would probably make no difference. Besides, mechanics in those days repaired defective parts instead of replacing them. So, the mechanic had to perform a series of as many as ten or fifteen tests in order to track down the cause of the trouble. They were usually the same tests for all makes except Ford, which used a somewhat different ignition system and required a different analysis. Thus, the two booklets , the 90 page Magneto Ignition Systems and the 65 page Care and Repair of Magneto Ignition Systems gave the ICS student the information needed to correct the fault. [9] [10] The instructions were clearly written and were to be followed in a specific order just as Frederick W. Taylor had specified would bring the desired results.. In short, the student was expected to follow instructions precisely as given without question rather than in a random manner, in order to succeed.

NRI's New Method and the Use of Equipment

In the 1920s, radio had captured the interest of the nation. President Harding installed a radio in The white House on February 8,1922. The first speech from the White House was on February 22,1924 by Calvin Coolidge. The growth of interest was so speedy and vast that The Federal Radio Commission found it necessary to regulate the use of radio frequencies on Feb 23. 1927. As part of this radio mania, both resident and home study radio schools were established.

The National Radio Institute in Washington, DC, which was the foremost home-study radio school in the 1920s began teaching students in classrooms back in 1914. Then, in 1920, the same year the federal government first issued educational broadcasting radio licenses, NRI began teaching by mail and created printed lessons for classroom use as well. Said the school officials in talking about how the home study school started, "We found that our students who took the written lessons were getting ahead faster than those who depended entirely upon oral instruction. Even today, in our classrooms, we use a combination of oral and written instruction." [11]

By 1923, past and current NRI enrollment had reached a total of more than 10,000 students. [12] No doubt one reason of the school's rapid growth was the course text of which an enthusiastic school representative said, "The lessons read more like stories than like lessons. They are not like a task. They are more like fun than work," Early NRI lessons used brief narrative paragraphs as part of the text at the beginning of each lesson.[13] By then, NRI discovered that it was necessary for home study students to work with radio equipment rather than just read about it. In response, the school provided the component parts for a learner's transmitter and a learner's receiver and the natrometer, a wind up device to teach students to send and receive code. In assembling a pile of electronic components into a working radio receiver or transmitter by following a schematic drawing, the National Radio Institute student was clearly learning by doing. [14]

Early Educational Research on Home Study

What does scholarly research about home study say? The first doctoral dissertation examining correspondence education was Correspondence and Class Extension in Oklahoma by R. E. Crump (Columbia 1928). [15] It attempted to prove that such extension study was the equivalent of classroom instruction. From this point on the amount of research was relatively small and even more unfortunate, the quality was low. As has been pointed out, proprietary schools research focused almost exclusively on marketing and most schools kept the results in-house.

There was one significant study of correspondence schools which affected them greaty. tTheir enrollments may have been large, as John Noffsinger noted in his 1926 book Correspondence Schools. Lyceums, Chautauquas, a study sponsored by The Carnegie Corporation as part of a series of five studies of adult education. But, he said there was a problem in that he found that very few of those students finished the course in which they had enrolled. However, he is a bit unclear in giving precise statistics. At one point, he says that data from 75 institutions show that only 6% finished courses running one year, although no further information is given.. Two sentences later, he states that a large (unnamed) school reported only 2.6% finished their courses. [16] Both percentages are appalling, and some critics of distance education still quote these figures as applicable today. In comparison, higher education often claims a 50% completion rate (although upon examination, this percentage appears to be folk-lore.]

It can be argued that the causes of high drop-out rates were far more complex than appeared at first glance and not all those reasons were negative. Some students claimed that they did not finish the course because they had learned everything that they wanted from it. Other students dropped out of the course after they found out that they lacked interest in or talent for the subject and they did not want to pursue it further. Those are positive reasons for the student not completing the course.

But of the negative reasons for low completion rates, many courses were written in a style using vocabulary too difficult to read and understand in a day when most public school students dropped out before the ninth grade. There were other reasons. The traditional classroom teacher's role as expert, dispenser of knowledge, and judge of student achievement was severely restricted in Taylor influenced correspondence schooling. Usually, the distance education instructor had little or no input into the course content and had to use tests and answers verbatim as provided by school administrators. Replies to student queries were often pre-written and dispensed by clerks with no specialized knowledge. Even in some full-service schools using essay tests, instructor's comments were replaced with mimeographed sheets containing the answers which may have been so generalized that they were of little help to the student. In addition, many cost-conscious schools began using objective tests exclusively since they could be graded by untrained clerks or even machines. Remarks written on these papers (if any) tended to be overly generalized statements such as "Nice work!" or "You can do better!" Many correspondence schools employed only part-time teachers and paid them on a per-piece basis. If these teachers' responses were unsupervised by anyone at the school, they may have been as brief as possible to increase their earnings. In this manner, building upon Taylor's management ideas of "the one best way," correspondence schools introduced a new role for the teacher, born of the belief of Franklin W. Taylor's followers that a teacher must be someone who will do as told.

Formation of The National Home Study Council

As noted , John S. Noffsinger pointed out the values of correspondence education, but he was also clear about the abuses of a number of schools. He pointed out that some school operators lacked business ability, sufficient education, and adequate finances to be successful, and as a result, the average school went out of business in six years. Furthermore, Noffsinger suggested that some sort of private organization was needed to regulate correspondence schools before the government found it necessary to do so.After publication of the book, Noffsinger and 12 correspondence school executives met in Manhattan to set up an association to be located in the nation's capitol. On October 29, 1926, the National Home Study Council came into being with Noffsinger serving as Executive Director. At the first national convention held in 1927 in Scranton, Pennsylvania representatives from the FTC and the Civil Service presented what was expected from the new organization in fair trade practices.

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Positive

  * A correspondence course titled "The Teaching of English to Foreigners" to be offered by the University of Wisconsin is .believed to be the first of its kind. [17]

  * The Marine Corps post at Quantico offered vocational training in 22 courses at no charge to more than 400 Marines. [18]

  * The Knights of Columbus announced plans for a million dollar correspondence school for ex-servicemen at New Haven. [19]

Proprietary Correspondence Courses in the News: Negative

  * On the other hand, correspondence schools continued to generate negative publicity throughout the Roaring Twenties. It was part of the public psyche, as seen in the response of the law enforcement officer who had just arrested a fake policeman. After arresting an armed man with a gun and badge who claimed to be a detective, the real police officer told the reporter, " He was just a correspondence school detective."

  * Most published reports concerned correspondence schools which were apparently flouting the law. For example, traditional physicians complained that to get a license to practice medicine, they were required by law to have a four- year education in a recognized medical school and pass an exam. However, chiropractors were licensed who had only a grammar school education or less. After taking a correspondence school lasting fewer than 6 months at a cost of $200. they became a Doctor of Chiropractic. Further, at least one of those schools was run by individuals who had been sent to prison for practicing medicine without a license. [21]

  * .Complaints against phony schools even came from overseas. British organizations claimed that American diploma mills offered diplomas and honorary degrees to schoolmasters and ministers for high fees. Lax regulation resulted in the Association of American Colleges requesting stricter regulation. [22]

  * In the twenties, penalties for educational fraud appeared to be a bit steeper than in previous years. In Newark, New Jersey the proprietor of a medical and dentistry diploma mill was sentenced to 2 ½ to 5 years in prison. [23]

Conclusion

It appears that some study schools at this point had begun to create a new and different system of education that used unique instructional strategies that made it more than an educational system that permitted you to proceed at your own pace, to study anywhere, whenever you wished. However, many people believed it was subject to many abuses. While there were some who took advantage of this unique alternative educational system. There many who used it only to avoid the labor of learning.

Chapter 5 - Endnotes

[1] William J. Gies, et.al., The Gies Report : Dental Education in the United States and Canada . ((New York: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1926).

[2] General Bulletin. (Chicago: LaSalle Extension University, 1926) 84-85.

[3] William B. Castenholz, Higher Accounting "Elements of Accounting, Lesson 24, Corporation Reorganizations and Consolidations" (Chicago, IL: LaSalle Extension University, 1920) 24.1 -24.15.

[4] Question and answer sheet completed by student in possession of the author.

[5] Letter from instructor in possession of the author.

[6] A Trip Through the World's Schoolhouse (Scranton, PA: International Textbook Co., 1928) 1.

[7] Trip 5-7.

[8] Trip 23.

[9] W. P Loudon and D. C. Royce. Magneto Ignition Systems {Scranton, PA: International Textbook Co.,, 1925).

10] P. W. Webb and C. B. Strouse. Care and Repair of Magneto Ignition Systems. (Scranton, PA: International Textbook Co., 1926).

[11] How to Learn Radio at Home (Washington, DC: National Radio Institute, 1923) 2

[12] How 1.

[13] How 22

[14] How 3-25.

[15] R. E. Crump. Correspondence and Class Extension in Oklahoma (New York: Columbia University, 1928).

[16] John S. Noffsinger. Correspondence Schools, Lyceums, Chautauquas. (New York: MacMillan Co.,1926) 66.

[17] "To Aid Americanization" The New York Times 8 Feb. 1920

[18 ] "Free Courses for Marines" The New York Times 20 Jun. 1919

[19 ] "K of C Plan $1,000,000 School at New Haven," The New York Times 27 Jun. 1921.

[20] "Fake Detective Held Badge, Gun and All" The New York Times 22 Jun. 1922

[21] "Physicians Attack Chiropractic Bill," The New York Times 13 Feb. 1922

[22] "Starts War on Sale of Degrees Abroad." The New York Times 31 Mar. 1922.

[23] "Diploma Faker to Prison" The New York Times 14 Apr. 1921.

Chapter 6

Creating and Maintaining Course Interest in 1930-1939

Life in 1930-1939

The Great Depression lasted the entire 1930s. In 1931, the completed Empire State Building graced the skyline of Manhattan. The Social Security Act was signed into law in 1935. In 1938, The National Minimum Wage was enacted, establishing a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour with time and a half for overtime and prohibited most employment for minors. In 1939, Einstein wrote FDR about the possibility of the atomic bomb.

Public Education in 1930-1939

In 1932, Cecil Alec Mace in his 1932 book, The Psychology of Study discussed research that repeating learning over a spaced period was more effective than cramming. Simply stated, this means that one tends to forget 75% of what one learns in within 24 hours after learning it. and that total retention is increased by relearning the material over and over at spaced intervals.[1]

[

This research was implemented successfully in the public schools. As related in an article published in The Journal of Educational Psychology, school children in Iowa 6th grade science classes succeeded in learning facts by this method. It appears that there was an increased interest in the public schools in using research to improve.[2]

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1930-1939

An examination of How to Study" advice recommended by home study schools in the 1930s indicates an apparent ignorance of this finding and subsequent failure to recommend it. However, the point to be made from this is that in the 1930s, there was little interest in the part of school officials to acquaint themselves with research in academic matters. Also, it shows a lack of research dedicated to correspondence study in particular.

**Correspondence School Advertising** : In contrast, there was much research on advertising. For example, it was found that some words such as the following have great emotional impact and trigger a strong impulse to action.

_AMAZING_ , _DISCOVER_ , _FREE_ , _GUARANTEE_ , _INSTANT_ , _MAMMOTH_ , _YOU_.

Read any series of classified advertisements and you will see how often these words appear. As might be expected, headlines in ads by home study schools were designed to capture the attention of prospects who wanted to get ahead in the throes of the Great Depression. A number of keywords and phrases were used over and over to capture the reader's attention such as "Free Details," "Big Money," "Amazing New Secret Method," "Instant Success," and "Now, Learn the Secret at Home" were all guaranteed words and phrases that sell.

  * In addition, advertisers made specific offers of immediate success in a glamorous profession as in the following example from 1933. "Want a big pay broadcasting job?" was the headline of an ad run by The Floyd Gibbons School of Broadcasting in Washington, DC. [3]

  * The promise of very attractive specific benefits that were guaranteed had a powerful appeal as in the following ad for a body building course by George F. Jowett of the Jowett Institute of Physical Culture in Scranton, Pennsylvania: "I will add two inches to your biceps or it won't cost you a cent." [4]

  * Further, appeals were made to the reader to become somebody of prestige or importance were often irresistible to the reader: "Be a Dentician" was the headline of ad for training in making dentures by The McCarrie School of Mechanical Dentistry in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [.5]

The ads for correspondence courses were packed with action-getting words and phrases followd up with a call to "Act Now!"

**Offering Premiums to Get Students to Enroll** : To further entice students to enroll, schools began offering scores of items as premiums. These were often advertised as being FREE but when advertisers apparently became aware of legal ramifications, this was soon changed to "included at no extra charge" because, of course, students were paying for them – in some cases at higher cost than they could have bought them on their own.

Sometimes the offer was reversed with a home study course offered as a premium with the purchase of an item. In the classified ads of just one publication, readers were offered a choice of a "free" touch system home typing course with their choice of a Remington portable typewriter, a Royal Portable typewriter with carrying case, or an Underwood model #5 office typewriter. [6 ]

Premiums/ Tools of the Trade

In addition, correspondence schools used various inducements to get the student to enroll and once enrolled to complete the course and payment thereof. At first , these premiums were seldom mentioned in detail in ads in periodicals. One reason was that because half of the enrollments came in after thirty days after the ads appeared. Thus, the school would need to keep the offer open for a year or more after the ad appeared. Thus. the premium was often mentioned in general terms if at all. Usually the offer was made in the first mailing in response to an inquiry. However, this later changed, particularly with radio repair schools whose premiums were impressively pictured. National Radio Institute supplied kits to build test equipment. The deForest Radio School supplied both a hand-cranked silent motion picture projector and 16mm films illustrating radio theory and repair.

Art Supplies: The Washington School of Art, Famous Artists Schools, and Art Instruction Inc. supplied students with art supplies such as drawing board, paints, and other materials . [7]

Tools and Machinery: Equipment of all sorts was offered as premiums by many correspondence trade schools. Some of these items were to be kept by the students and others were only loaned to the student. Locks and keys were usually loaned to the student locksmiths, but, hand tools such as files used in fitting keys were the students' to keep. The most attractive gift to the prospective locksmithing student was a key machine although it was so small that it turned out to be of use only for hobbyists. Key machines used by professional key makers were larger and faster and capable of more complex cuts. Further, to make money cutting keys requires that a large inventory of key blanks must be kept on hand, and a substantial investment was required to do so. Further, and an even more serious problem for the beginning locksmith was that the making of keys is a low paying task that in and of itself produces minimal income. There was intense and often insurmountable competition from hardware emporiums, five-and-ten cent stores, and sundry merchants as well as from other locksmiths.

Some offers of equipment as premiums were quite extensive. The Upholstery Trades School, in 1939, offered numerous free bonuses for enrolling: a professional upholsterer's glove and needle kit, plus everything needed to complete the course, including frames, tools, and instructions to make a club chair, a slipper chair, and an ottoman.[8]

In 1938, The Electric Institute course came with what the advertisers called a complete outfit of electrical equipment, tools, and supplies. [9] In its ads, Midland Television boasted of its "Color coded extension training" and claimed al necessary equipment for home laboratory experiments was furnished. But there was more. Upon completion of the correspondence course, students could attend the school in Kansas City, Missouri for 4 weeks of classroom training. [10]

Other schools teaching the trades offered sets of tools for use in air conditioning and the automotive trades. Unfortunately, like the key-cutting machines offered by the locksmithing schools, many of these tools were limited in their professional capabilities. Trades-people seem unanimous in agreeing that cheaply made tools usually cause work to be harder because they dull easily, are not accurate, and break easily. Cheaply made meters and gauges are often inaccurate and cannot stand up to the heavy usage required in professional work.

Miscellaneous Tangible Premiums

  * In 1937, The Chautauqua School of Nursing merged with The Chicago School of Nursing which offered items such as a pattern to make a nurse's uniform, as well as a kit containing a thermometer, a hypodermic syringe, and other nursing tools. [11 ]

  * LaSalle Extension University provided a stenotype machine for student court reporters. In 1927, LaSalle Extension University had purchased the manufacturing and sales rights for a six-pound master model stenotype machine first patented in 1914. [12]

  * The Chicago School of Music supplied a musical instrument with enrollments. The First National School of Music also provided a violin or a guitar. [13]

.

It soon appeared that every school offered some sort of premium as an incentive to enroll. However, in the 1930s, as noted previously, some of the tools supplied as premiums proved disappointing because they were not of professional quality. Further, not only was the quality of the supplied materials often disappointing, there was another problem connected to them. The sales ads give the impression that the student will receive these premiums immediately upon enrollment. In many cases, they didn't. Most often, the premiums were sent after substantial amounts of tuition were paid or at the end of the course. In some cases, they did not receive them at all. [14] One school solved a quandry in a more positive way. When the firm producing the premium (a set of books) went out of business; the school gave the students an option: a set of other books or a partial refund.

**School-based Premiums** :

  * Newsletters: Many schools published a newsletter which printed the names of those who graduated and listed them as with honors or with highest honors often stretching the point of making those awards were doing poorly or did not make their payments. Some newsletters published art work and photographs by students enrolled in those subjects. Other newsletters carried news of students and graduates who were involved in activities of interest or had made some relevant achievement.

  * Pins, Pennants: Some schools also sold pins and other items identifying the student as a student of a particular school.

  * Press Releases: Students were given copies of a press release that they could send to local papers containing their name which appealed to many a student's ego but also had the effect of producing free advertising for the school.

Thus, these extras sometimes were very influential in getting students interested in the school.

Miscellaneous Intangible Premiums

  * Degrees: Offering a degree was an incentive in many subjects such as a degree in psychology or theology. Unfortunately, the school was often unaccredited (not approved by the authorities to grant degrees) and these unrecognized degrees thus proved to be worthless. Even worse, a spurious degree in some cases, meant the recipient was subject to disciplinary action by the regulatory boards of many professions and occupations.

  * Diplomas and Certificates: In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, the Wizard gives the straw man a diploma and by so doing, instantly changes him into an intellectual. So, too schools found that prospective students were impressed by being granted certificates and diplomas for their achievements. In response, schools supplied an impressive looking diploma. Many schools encouraged students to pay additional fees to upgrade to obtain diplomas which were even more impressive.

  * Comments on Tests and Assignments: Some schools tried to keep up student interested by having instructors write "canned" comments on exams such as "SUPER JOB" or "We will look forward to your next test. Keep up the good work." Others, less ethical, simply gave the students higher grades than were actually deserved.

  * Success Tips: Often, a lesson had an encouraging message printed with it, offering tips on success in general or studying by correspondence or an inspiring anecdote.

  * Letters to Students: In the early days of ICS, sales representatives actually visited students who were doing poorly or did not make their payments. Later this became impractical but letters were used to do the same thing. Eventually most schools only contacted students who were not paying often resorting to sending collection letters as used by most agencies.

##### Other Benefits

  * Open Enrollment: The school offered easy enrollment with no need to submit public school transcripts, to take entrance exams, and to get recommendations from teachers and superiors as required by colleges and universities. Thus, correspondence schools were the first open enrollment institutions, which meant that anyone could attend without any pre-requisites whatever. This idea was to become popular with traditional educational institutions in the late 1960's.

  * Easy Payment Plans: Correspondence schools offered easy payment enrollment plans. In contrast to conventional institutions of higher learning, the tuition for correspondence schools was relatively low, and could be paid in installments. Further, the correspondence school tuition covered almost everything needed in the course -- the texts and even tools in many cases. Furthermore, correspondence schools often offered discounts which they called scholarships to provide further inducement to enroll and discounts on paying tuition in advance.

  * Job Placement: Many schools offered placement services. Unfortunately, it appeared that some schools guaranteed jobs upon finishing the course. This promise, of course, was an impossibility to keep and led to action against schools by various governmental officials and other individuals.

Improved Courses : The Art and Science of Making Correspondence Texts more Readable

Making Texts More Readable

Courses were improved in various ways to make them more attractive so that students would complete the course. In far too many cases, the reading of a correspondence course text was as tedious and uninteresting as the average classroom textbook because the writers of some correspondence courses were poorly educated and not skilled as writers. Worse, some texts were carelessly produced and contained numerous typographical errors. Even a course teaching correct English, sometimes contained errors. Further, some texts contained factual mistakes and were sent to students with errata slips. Simplified texts with a reading level that assured that the students would be able to understand them would have been welcomed, but many were very difficult to read. Well written and illustrated texts tended to keep students enrolled in the course.

Unfortunately, many correspondence courses were written by people who were expert in their field but not familiar with ways to make writing about it interesting. Since many correspondence course texts are read by people who are not good readers, it seems advisable that the writers fit the grade level to their readers' needs. In addition, the writers should make the text more reader-friendly. The following computer- based study was made of the reading level of randomly selected texts, one for each decade covered in the present study. The Flesch-Kincaid scores are given below. It is worth noting that the average reading level of the public at large is usually judged to be at the 8th grade level.

Year...................Course..............................Grade

1888.....Chautauqua Photography.................11.6

1890.....ICS Mining Foreman......................12.0

1906.....Synthetic Bible Study.......................9.2

1916.....Wick Electric...................................13.8

1926.....Cooke Electric.................................10.8

1932.....Lessons in Fur-craft.........................12.7

1945.....National Radio Institute...................10.5

1954.....Radio Television Training Assn......10.5

1965.....Weaver Airline Personnel School....11.2

1977.....Police Science Institute....................12.0

Apparently no _popular_ magazine is consistently published which has a readability score above Grade 12.

Grade 12 . Atlantic Monthly

Grade 11 Time

Grade 10 Reader's Digest

Grade 9 The Satuday Evening Post

Grade 8 Ladies Home Journal

Grade 7 True Confessions [15]

Since the source for this information, The Technique of Clear Writing, cites The Saturday Evening Post which is no longer published, the present author suggests substituting Boy's Life for a magazine with a 9th grade reading level. This is not to suggest that those magazines consistently measure the reading level of the writing that they print, but apparently their editors have a feel for it. So, too, the successful correspondence course publishers seem to have developed a feel for the reading level they provide for their students. If they don't, using the Flesch-Kincaid formula is a useful and accurate way to measure the readability of their publications.

  * Experts as Course Co-authors: In many cases, the schools touted the experts who wrote the course as an incentive. For example, The Typewriter and Business Machine Repair School, founded in 1939, was the world's largest private typewriter and business machine repair school. The course it offered was created by professionals with wide experience in typewriter and business machine repair. One of the writers, Dave Scadden, past president of the New Jersey Office Machine Dealers Association, conducted his own sales and service organization for over a quarter of a century. Henry Clark, who did the illustrations, was a contributor to Popular Mechanics and Popular Science for more than thirty years. [16]

  * Illustrations: The addition of various kinds of illustrations added to the appeal. The value of the illustrations varied widely upon the quality and frequency with which they appeared.

  * Line Drawings: Drawings by artists illustrating the text also served to develop interest. The Locksmithing Institute even claimed that a student could learn locksmithing from its pages by following the illustrations which were in two colors given in sep-by-step sequence. In the 1st National Violin Course in 1930, the line drawings that appeared in the five 8 ½ by 11" booklets seem designed for children. Black and White Photos: The American School of Photography in 1939 in Chicago. was a typed course reproduced by mimeograph. Photographs were printed separately using cuts on glossy paper. There was usually one sheet of photographs per lesson containing what were referred to as Plate One and Plate Two, as, for example, for lessons 56 and 57 which had to do with lighting. One photograph illustrated the results of taking a photo by using what the school calls "flashlight" by which they mean ("flash bulb") and the other photo taken by leaving the "electric lights burning."

  * Color Photos: Robert M. Shipley, a Wichita jeweler studied gemology in Great Britain in 1928 and when he returned to the states, he set up a similar system. Shipley established the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in 1931 when he was 44 years old. Early courses contained color photos pasted on the title pages but later courses were heavily illustrated throughout in full color. By 1948, the school was offering a graduate gemologist diploma. No doubt, at least in part, as a result of its innovations in its home study courses, GIA became the world's foremost authority on gemology. In 1964, NHSC (now (DETC) accredited its distance education courses.

Other Premiums

  * Personal Encouragement: In the early days of ICS, sales representatives actually visited students who were doing poorly or did not make their payments. Later this became impractical but letters were used to do the same thing. Eventually most schools only contacted students who were not paying often resorting to sending collection letters as used by most agencies.

  * Endorsement by Successful Students: Although many schools used the name of famous individuals who had taken any correspondence school as proof of their success, the individual that ICS used in its 1930s ad was an ICS graduate in the field in which he had attained fame.

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Negative

  * A 28-year old correspondence school law school graduate lost his own case, proving the old adage that a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client. He argued his case for an hour but did not convince the judge. The man was sentenced to an unspecified jail term in Bronx Supreme Court. [18]

  * In 1934, one study of males taking correspondence courses to train for new jobs found that most dropped out before completion. The researchers found the drop-outs were ill-prepared academically to succeed in their studies. The researchers concluded: "Correspondence schools are merely profit making institutions. They are contributing to the formation of an unhappy and maladjusted citizenry." [17]

Conclusion

Finally, correspondence schools attempted to increase their enrollments and have more students complete their courses (and payments) by supplying a wide range of premiums and extra services. Many of these premiums and services were never provided to students in traditional classes and appeared to be an incentive for enrollment in home-study courses. However, correspondence schools still seemed to lack the ability or interest in generating positive publicity to combat the frequent negative comments from the press.

. **Chapter 6 - Endnotes**

[1] Cecil Alec Mace, The Psychology of Study,(London, Methuen and Co Ltd, 1932.)viii, 96.

[2] H. F. Spitzer, "Studies in Retention," Journal of Educational Psychology 30:641-6.

[3] "Broadcasting ," Time, March March 12,1934: 10.

[4] Jowett, Popular Science, July, 1933, 1931: 91.

[5] "Dentician," Popular Science, 1933: 3.

[6] "Remington, Royal portable, Underwood," Popular Science, March, 1935.

[7] "Washington School of Art," Popular Mechanics, Sept. 9 1939:. 26.

[8] Upholstery Trades School-- Flyer, n.p., 1939.

[9] The Electric Institute --Flyer, n.p., 1938.

[10 ] Midland Television -- Flyer, n.p, n.d.

[11] Chicago School of Nursing Flyer, n.p., n.d.

[12] LaSalle Extension University, Flyer., .p., n.d.

[13] Chicago School of Music, Flyer, n.p., n.d.

[14] John S. Noffsinger, Correspondence Schools, Lyceums, Chautauquas (New York: Macmillan Co., 1926).

15] Robert Dunning, The Technique of Clear Writing (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968). 40.

[16] "Mail-course Lawyer Loses in Own Appeals" The New York Times 9 Dec. 1938.

[17] Time 12 Feb. 1934: 10.

CHAPTER 7

Course Text Format 1940 – 1949

American Life in 1940-1949

As the 1940's began, the United States was still struggling to emerge from the Great Depression. When the United States was plunged into World War II by the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the country united in fighting against Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany. After the war ended with the surrender of the Axis Powers to the Allies, the United States began economic growth and recovery.

Public Education in 1940-1949

The G I Bill: The most significant event in education in the 1940s was the creation of the G I Bill. On October 27, 1943, in an address to Congress, President Franklin D Roosevelt called for assistance to veterans to prepare them for employment. The result of FDR's admonition was _The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944; Public Law 346_ commonly known as _the GI Bill of Rights_. The Veterans Administration was directed to pay up to $500 a year for tuition, books, tools, health, infirmary and other necessary expenses outside of board, lodging, other living expenses, and travel. In addition to this, the veteran received $50 a month for living expenses if he was single and studied full time. If the veteran was working and studied full time, he received expenses in proportion to the time spent studying, the amount to be decided by the administrator. The veteran could enroll in elementary schools, high schools, colleges, business schools, vocational schools, and professional schools. This included approved educational institutions out of state or in foreign countries. The VA had to approve the institution selected by the veteran.

However, correspondence courses, except in connection with a regular course of education or training, were not approved. Thus, most schools rushed to get approval from the VA and advertised it when they did.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1940-1949

As the decade began, proprietary home study schools welcomed the dollars of the active military and veterans as well as those of the civilians. Ads appearing in 1940 and early 1941 had made it seem unlikely that the United States would enter the war. Their emphasis, though patriotic, was still on achieving personal success by completing a correspondence course. The March 1941 Popular Mechanics ad on page 11a by the American School which had operated an accredited high school program since 1897 ran an ad headed "Fined for Ignorance" which stated that the average grade school graduate earned $16.30 a week less than a high school graduate, and that the average high school graduate earned $25.25 a week less than someone with college education or vocational training.

Of course, the point of the ad was that the way to make more money was to go to school. Further the advertisers wanted their readers to enroll in a correspondence school. And in the early 1940s, when the world was on the edge of war between conflicting ideologies, taking a correspondence course was supporting American ideals. For instance, in November 1942, a full page ad in page 35a Popular Mechanics celebrating ICS's fiftieth anniversary proclaimed "The home study idea is American to the core. . .It is Democracy in action . . . It stands for individual opportunity."

However, after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into war, the ads became even more patriotic. However, it took some time for this change to appear because ads were prepared and scheduled months in advance. But, by early 1942, magazine ads for correspondence schools in general dropped the emphasis on "BIG BUCKS!" and, instead featured patriotic pictures of Uncle Sam, boosted defense programs, and urged wartime preparations while still pointing out that perilous times also offered unexcelled opportunities as seen in these three ads which appeared in Popular Mechanics in November 1942:

  * LaSalle's ad, on page 35a "War Opportunities in Accounting" called the reader's attention to the demand for trained workers to replace those drafted. "America is building two great armies. You belong in one of them" The first army was the draftees, the second army was the trained workers who would replace them.

  * "Inspectors Wanted by Aircraft and Other War Production Plants." read the headline on page 5 for an ad by Chicago Technical College .

  * "Serve America as a tool designer" suggested Ohio Institute of Technology in Greenville, OH on page 33a of the same issue.

In short, enrolling in a correspondence school was presented as a patriotic duty and continued to be so until war's end. After the war, advertisements for home study schools returned to reflecting the desire of all Americans to make money and achieve status.

Other correspondence schools promised that a sure way to earn money was by learning the subject that they were teaching. "Cartooning Pays Well" advertised the National School of Cartooning, Cleveland OH.] "Start Drawing Big Money," read the headline of the Washington School of Art ad.

In one-inch display ads, offering guidance to a successful future, some home study schools employed a one-word headline, not unlike the adviser muttering "Plastics" to Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. "Diesel" said L. L. Adcox Trade School in Portland. "Photoengraving" said The Aurora School of Photo-engraving in Aurora, MO in the same issue of Popular Mechanics.

Correspondence School Course Format

**Printing** : Although the earliest home study lessons had been mailed on single handwritten penny postcards, by the beginning of the 1940s, the schools teaching by mail were printing huge quantities of teaching materials and advertising.

The cheapest copies of school texts were made with spirit masters but the number of copies that could be produced by this process were limited to about 100 for each spirit master. Mimeograph machines could print up to about 1,000 copies. In some cases, the mimeo stencils could be used to print a few hundred copies, stored and then reused. Otherwise, a typist would make a new stencil.

In the 1940s, many correspondence schools mimeographed their lessons, a reproduction process they continued to use until the late 1960s. For acceptable reproduction, photos were usually printed separately on glossy paper by the letter press process, or contact prints were pasted in the text by hand. Years later, these processes were replaced by the offset press.

In the 1940s, however, one thousand copies or fewer were usually reproduced by mimeograph. This process transferred ink to the unprinted side of the paper, so it was usually printed on one side. In addition, printing on both sides bled through the paper making it difficult to read. A better process was letterpress printing, which required metal type be set by hand or linotype, and was expensive for printing fewer than 1,000 copies. Offset printing, just coming into its own in the Forties was soon to solve these problems and more.

After the declaration of war in December 1941, changes came as a result of the many restrictions and shortages caused by wartime. For example, shortages began to appear in the supply of paper, ink, and other materials. Restrictions became commonplace and soon required changes in the correspondence school industry. For example, because of the scarcity of paper, many schools changed the size and format of their courses and printed fewer pages. They often had to use whatever paper that they could obtain.

Most home study students probably expected the text of the course to be in the form of a book like the ones they would find at the library – hardbound. This binding however, was expensive and probably not necessary. The text would be read only once in most cases, as the student took the course and rarely referred to later. Thus, it need not require the permanency of a hardbound reference book. Thus, a variety of binding methods was used.

**Binding: Unbound Single Sheets:** No matter what method of binding was used, the next step was to collate the sheets (put them in order) either by hand or with a machine. Then, the school's owners had to decide how to attach them together.

The simplest answer, to mail the sheets as a series of letters, was the one used by the "Founder of the Fastest Health, Strength, and Physique Building System," Charles Atlas. He was better known as holder of the title "The World's Most Perfectly Developed Man." [1]

Charles Atlas, whose real name was Angelo Siciliano, used dynamic tension (pitting one muscle against another) to build muscles. Atlas, as he preferred to be called, and Dr. Fred Tilney, a chiropractor, wrote a correspondence course which they sold by mail. The Charles Atlas Bodybuilding Course was a series of letters – single sheets of mimeographed paper printed on one side, stapled together with a sheet of light blue paper as a cover and folded in thirds to fit into a standard #10 envelope. In the 1940s, Atlas ran full page ads in comic books that showed a 97 pound weakling being bullied at the beach who takes the Atlas course and comes back to whip the bully who had kicked sand in his face.[ 2]

**Binding: Small Paperbound Booklets:** The most common page size of correspondence courses was 5 ½" by 8 because that was one-half of the standard size of 8 ½" by 11" single sheets of paper. Booklet length was usually 32 pages or fewer. Sometimes, length was extended to 64 pages but always in multiples of 4, the number of pages printed two to a page, both sides. In some cases, small print was used to further economize by getting as many words on the page as possible. Costs were reduced by printing the cover on the same paper as the text as was done by The National Radio Institute.[3] Several other radio schools such as Midland and Deforest printed their booklets with covers printed on heavier stock. Both types of covers were stapled or saddle stitched as it is called in the trade.

**Binding: Large Paperbound Booklets:** Larger booklets were usually 8 1/2" by 11." Typical large correspondence course booklets are the multi-volume set which comprises David Brand's Cartooning for Profit. This course used heavier paper than that of most courses which were often printed on 20 pound paper or even newsprint. A few booklets even used glossy paper which reproduced photographs best.

Cartooning for Profit contained 34 lessons in 7 volumes and included more than 1,000 illustrations, The Comic Character Creator (a marionette), tracing paper, cardboard rules, a spinning board to create comic characters and situations, and a booklet "Questions and Answers About Marketing Cartoons." Rand, who was adept at marketing his product, also published selected cartons drawn by his students in a booklet titled Lesson Correction Portfolio and sold them back to his students. Each lesson in the course contained an assignment with four or five parts to be mailed to the school along with return postage for analysis and returned with criticisms, suggestions, and corrections. [4]. Added to the fragile nature of the binding of pamphlets was the printing of tests which were then torn out and mailed in to the school, although, when this was done, the pamphlet began to fall apart. The pamphlets served to standardize the length of lessons because more than 32 pages became difficult to fold and mailing weights increased. Unfortunately, limiting the number of pages also served as a straight jacket in ways that may not be readily seen such as in limiting both the quantity of ideas and the number of illustrations.

On the page, line lengths greater than the length of an alphabet set in that type size become increasingly difficult to read. Imagine a newspaper with only one column the width of a page. Yet some pamphlets paid no attention to this printing rule and spread sentences set in small type across the pamphlet page. Others divided the pages into two columns to make it easier to read. In addition, some typefaces are easier to read than others. Too, selection of glossy paper, best for printing photographs, produces glare which can tire the eyes when reading long passages of printed text. Schools which published books of odd or non -standard sizes such as The Electric Institute's Practical Home Shop Training in Electricity. The course consisted of 32 page booklets, 4 5/16" by 6 ¾. " The booklets were heavily illustrated with line cuts and half-tones averaging one to a page. Starting with static electricity, the course progresses to electromagnetism. The course was written by one man, D. B. Miller who had "wide experience in electrical work, with power machinery, electrical wiring, illumination, signal systems, radio, television, and many other branches of electrical work." The course came with a complete outfit of electrical equipment, tools and supplies

The Famous Photographers Course books were published in 12 1/4" by 14 1/8" notebooks. [6] LaSalle published several courses in 9 1/2" by 13 1/2" notebooks. [7] However, most schools used the 8 1/2" by 11" size,

**Booklets Bound in Hard Binders:** NRI continued to publish booklets which could be bound by inserting them into a large hardback binder that used vertical metal rods rather than rings. This method of binding was also used by other schools. An example is Modern Landscaping **.** The course spent presented an in-depth study of landscaping in 32 lessons, 4 work projects, and additional materials: the 8 ½" by 11" booklets range from 4 to 20 pages in double column form, amply illustrated. [8] The booklets were fastened together with covers. Many other schools used variations of the kind of binding used by this school. It consisted of two sheets of stiff cardboard, sometimes cloth-.covered , one for the front cover and one for the back cover. The pages were kept together by shoelaces, string, metal screws and nuts, or bendable strips of metal. There was no spine on this form of binding.

**Booklets in a Slipcover Case:** Ethel Cotton had taught in several private schools when she opened her Studio of Expression in San Francisco and became known as a specialist in all forms of oral expression. She then decided that conversation was really private speaking and had its own techniques much like public speaking which could be taught. In 1927, she published The Ethel Cotton Course in Conversation. This consisted of 12 pamphlets (averaging about 32 single spaced typed pages printed on one side. These were tied together with a string and fastened to two red covered cardboard covers and inserted into a red slipcase. Each lesson contained a loose envelope in which was inserted a "Studio Talk" for she presented her program on NBC and CBS radio. In addition, she continued to teach classes in San Francisco and New York City. [9]

**Binding in Notebooks :** The Gemological Institute of America courses in diamonds and colored stones in the earliest editions were apparently mimeographed on one side of the paper and color photographs pasted in on the title pages. William George Shuster in his comprehensive 2003 history of GIA titled Legacy of Leadership claims that by 1935, the courses were in a final state that remained until the 1950s. [10] Later editions, from the 1970s,were apparently printed by letter-press and contain numerous black-and-white photographs and line drawings on almost every page. However full color printing was still very expensive and GIA continued to use paste-in color prints on title pages only as before. [11]

Three ring binders were the most common. These were usually the cheapest binders available although some schools offered better quality plastic covered binders with the school name imprinted by silk screen. The most expensive 3 ring binders were the heavy ones from GIA. . and the Famous Artists Schools. Binders were usually sent with the first three lessons and the remaining lessons were mailed flat separately. Courses used from one to three binders. Some courses used more, but these binders were usually, but not always, smaller in size.

**Oversized Notebook Binders:** Unfortunately, the quality of the notebooks used in many courses varied greatly and binders from one course mailed at varying times may have different logos or titles printed in various spots and may have been of slightly different sizes or materials. The Famous Artists courses were oversized and were imprinted with the name of the student in gold on each binder. This personalization added to the value of the course to the student and made it more difficult to return.

Although it was a sales point to claim that loose-leaf binding made it possible to update the text, there is no evidence to prove that any school ever did so although the difference in required printing needs ( since students did not always finish the course) and did not need the final lessons, the printing was sometimes done on different paper and even used different typefaces so that lessons often did not match . For example, The School of Modern Photography was combined with the Chicago School of Photography and the lessons and the notebook covers did not match. The problem was solved when a few students complained, they were sent whichever style notebooks they wished.

Another problem with notebooks was that sometimes the holes were drilled incorrectly and the pages did not fit the binders. This was corrected by drilling a larger hole which often only made the matter worse. Glossy paper was usually required to get the best results in reproducing photographs and that sometimes proved more difficult to drill the required three holes than did heaver stock.

**Hardbound and Paper Back Texts:** Law schools used hardbound texts. LaSalle Extension University's Modern American Law Course produced a series of 14 hardbound books in a binding that closely resembled the law books found in a law library. Later, the text was revised and re-titled as The LaSalle Law Library, the same style binding was used. [13] The Blackstone Law School also published a series of 16 hardbound books for its course titled Modern American Law. Later, as quality paper back books became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, both schools produced paper back books. At about the same time many other schools began to issue paper back courses. [14]

**Shipping** : In the 1940s, postage costs were low. One legislator said, "It should not cost the same to mail a brick and a book." Mailing texts at the Book Rate (currently called Media Rate) was about half the rate of mailing them First Class. However, that rate was only for books. If tools or other equipment were mailed in addition to text, the parcel post rate was required. If a letter were enclosed, separate First Class postage rates for it were charged in addition to the Book Rate or Parcel Post rate.

Charges for shipping by mail were complex and costly for anyone doing business by mail. Postal rates increased with weight. Thus, the weight of the book o be mailed should be as low as possible. Using paperback texts rather than heavier hard-back books cut mailing costs. The weight of packing materials had to be kept as low as possible. Even the location of the school could be a factor in keeping costs low. Apparently, one reason so many schools operated in Chicago is that the city was approximately in the middle of the country. Since postage costs were computed based on the distance between postal zones, it was obviously cheaper to mail a text from Chicago to Los Angeles than from New York to Los Angeles. No one seems to have a correspondence school in Hawaii or Alaska and mailing to what were the 48 states in the 1940s. So, as may be seen, shipping the courses to the student became a science in itself and many decisions had to be made to keep costs of delivery low.

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Positive

  * An ICS student was judged the best apprentice in the nation. An ex-GI, he completed a n ICS course in electric engineering. [15]

  * Congress passed The GI Bill providing funds for the recent GIs to receive training and a state cannot refuse aid to students at any state-accredited school. The key words in every correspondence school ad soon became "GI Bill Approved." [16]

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Negative

  * 24 year old "Dr" George William Manus (who had a draft deferred status because of his phony doctorate in divinity) was arrested for calling himself a medical doctor and running a diploma mill by mail which provided Ph D degrees to some 4,00 "alumni." [17]

  * An Oregon college dean studied honorary doctoral degrees given to politicians (Herbert Hoover received 52 such degrees), to entertainers and celebrities (Bing Crosby got an honorary Ph. D). Of the 241 college presidents surveyed in this study, most said the honorary degrees were a way to obtain cash or publicity and only 11% wanted to abolish the practice. [18]

Conclusion

At first the nation believed we would not enter the war. The nation continued striving to end the depression by learning new ways of making money. After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The emphasis of the home study ads was on ways to help the nation at war. Men in the armed forces took courses written and distributed by the government; following the war, these courses were distributed . and continue to be distributed today.

In wartime, the military found it effective to use correspondence courses to train the military as well as to up grade their skills. The United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) offered hundreds of courses. Thousands more take correspondence courses on their own. The American Council on Education and the armed forces arranged for the military to earn college credits from 77 colleges for education received while in service. The government would pay half the cost and service personnel would pay the other half. The University of Chicago designed tests paid for by ACE.

Can a student learn through home study? In 1943, M.C. Lewis, President and Founder of the Lewis Hotel Training School, was so sure students learned through his course that he made the following offer: "are so certain of or graduates' ability to succeed in the positions to which we refer them that we certify the services of all graduates. This means that we agree to refund to the employer one-half the first month's salary paid to any Lewis graduate whose work fails to satisfy the employer." [19]
Chapter 7 - Endnotes

[1] Robert Lewis Taylor. "Self Made man - and Body." The Reader's Digest, Sept. 1942 79.

[2] Charles Atlas and Dr. Fred Tilney, DC The Charles Atlas Body Building Course (New York Charles Atlas,1922).

[3] ( Complete Course in Practical Radio ( Washington, DC: National Radio Institute, 1935).

[4] David Rand. Cartooning for Profit (Pleasant Hill, OH: Cartoonist's Exchange, 1947).

[5] D. B. Miller. Electric Institute's Practical Home Training Shop in Electricity ( Hinesdale, IL: Electric Institute, 1935).

[6] Famous Photographers Course, (Westport, CT: Famous Artists Schools., 1968)

[7] Interior Decorating, {Chicago: LaSalle Extension University, 1966).

[8] Norman A. Morris. Modern Landscaping ( Lifetime Career Schools, 1946).

[9] . Ethel Cotton Course in Conversation. (Chicago: Markus-Campbell, 1935).

[10] William George Shuster. Legacy of Leadership. (Carlsbad, CA: GIA, 2003).

[11] Diamonds. ( Carlsbad, CA.: Gemological Institute of America, 1960).

[12] Famous Artists Course in Commercial Art, Illustration and Design. (Westport, CT: Famous Artists Schools, 1954).

[13 American Law and Procedure (Chicago: LaSalle Extension University, 1935).

[14 Eugene Allen Gilmore and William Charles Wermuth. Modern American Law.(Chicago: Blackstone School of Law, 1921).

[15] "ICS student judged best apprentice in Nation." The New York Times 5 Jun. 1948.

[16] "2,845000 ex-GI's Study Under the GI Bill," . The New York Times 5 Jun. 1948.

[17] "Degree Racket" Time 29 May 1942 .

[18] "Education; Sharp Sheepskins" Time 23 Oct. 1944.

[19] M.. C. Lewis. "What Lewis Service Means to You" Application for Enrollment, 1943.

Chapter 8

Course Style in 1950-1959

Life in 1950-1959

The Korean War (1950-1953) dominated the news in the early Fifties. At home, the Civil Rights struggle saw the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. The decade ended with Alaska and Hawaii becoming states in 1959.

Public Education in 1950-1959

The most wide reaching decision in public education was the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v Board of Education (Topeka, Kansas) 347 U.S. 483 (1954) which resulted in the desegregation of the public schools.

Charles A. Prosser, the architect of the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act which funded vocational education has been called the Father of Vocational Education because of his advocacy of vocational schools instead of traditional high schools for much of American youth. He makes this argument in many of his books, one of which is Vocational Education in a Democracy which argues that practical applications of a student's learning make him or her a good and productive citizen. [1] Its curriculum supported by the government, Life Adjustment Progressivism increased through the first half of the decade.

  * Rudolph Flesch was an academic who was critical of reading instruction as practiced in the public schools. His book, Why Johnny Can't Read (1955) presented a rationale for teaching reading with phonics instead of the whole word method. [2]

  * Albert Lynde's Quackery in the Public Schools was critical of the educational fads which were constantly interfering with the positive direction of education. [3]

  * Robert Maynard Hutchins published The Conflict in Education in a Democratic Society. [ 4 ] A liberal educator, Hutchins was critical of over specialization and vocational orientation; he saw universities as center of change in society. [4]

  * Admiral Hyman Rickover was a major voice against progressivism. His book Education and Freedom was a collection of essays calling for improved standards in math and science. [5]

  * Arthur Bestor published Educational Wastelands in 1953. The historian complained that too few students were taking physics, chemistry, and math. [6]

Each of these critics deplored the state of the American high school and blamed its failures on the fallacies behind the philosophy of Life Adjustment Education. Public unhappiness continued to increase, and 1955 saw the end of the Progressive Education Association. The coup de gras to 1950s progressivism came when Russia launched Sputnik in 1957. In response, the public was furious that America had been beaten into space and blamed it all on the public education system and its adoption of Life Adjustment. The government responded by passing the National Defense Act of 1958 providing funds to local school districts and states to improve the teaching of mathematics, science, and foreign languages. This was followed by a reversion to more traditional instructional methods and a toughening of standards.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1950-1959

In 1957, Dysinger compared the study habits and progress of students in his traditional psychology class with students he taught in his correspondence course. In an article published in The Journal of Higher Education, he described a study in which his correspondence course students did somewhat better. Then he found that the results of the class taught by correspondence were about equal to the results of the class taught by traditional methods.[8]

Unfortunately in studies of this type, most researchers did not account adequately for differences in social status. It is curious then that in spite of all the criticism about how poor American education was, the typical researchers on the effectiveness of home study compared correspondence school education with traditional education and seemed pleased to find they were almost equal. Since Flesch, Hutchins, and others were complaining that public education was a disaster, this seemed faint praise for home study.

Furthermore, other families nationwide were dissatisfied with public schooling and were beginning to experiment with home schooling. For example, an article in Time described a family in Idaho felt their children were wasting time in school and moved to a remote cabin and taught their kids by correspondence school. The county school board claimed the family was contributing to the delinquency of minors but the prosecutor refused to prosecute noting that the family had a right to live in an area which was distant from a public school. [9]

Educational Innovation

The fifties saw the beginnings of educational television, later to play an important role in distance education. In 1959 The Continental Classroom was broadcast by the University of California and supplemented by correspondence study. Students could enroll for credit. [10] Teaching Machines , which were later used by a limited number of correspondence schools appeared. Although Sydney L. Pressey created the first teaching machine in the 1920's, it was B. F. Skinner who garnered the most interest when he presented his version of the teaching machine at a conference at the University of Pittsburgh in March 1954. [11] Experiments were conducted with mainframe computers to teach such diverse subjects as binary math and German, This was probably the result, probably as the result of the predictions of a visionary, the founder of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener. A mathematician who received a Ph. D. from Harvard when he was 18, Weiner saw the computer as a way to expand human abilities. [12] As a result of the work of another visionary, Vannevar Bush, work was begun on using the computer to model human brain functions. [13]

Proprietary Correspondence School Innovation

The courts also had a great hand in changing education at this point. The most wide reaching decision in education was the aforementioned Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v Board of Education (Topeka, Kansas) 347 U.S. 483 (1954) which resulted in the desegregation of the public schools but had minimal effect on the operation of proprietary correspondence schools, most of which already accepted students with out regard to race or gender. The only result might have been a slight reduction in enrollment since after the 1954 decision, the prospective student would have been admitted to a traditional school instead of being forced to enroll in a correspondence school. Desegregation affected correspondence school enrollments in an unexpected manner. On May 25, 1959, Time reported in "Education: Counter Revolution," Under Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, the four high schools in Little Rock, were closed in an attempt to thwart the implementation of desegregation. However, more than 3,000 of those students enrolled in private or correspondence schools [14]

Charles Wedemeyer became director of university of Wisconsin's Independent study program in 1954 and continued until 1964. He was responsible for both initiating research projects and using technology in disseminating learning for what he sometimes called "self-initiated" learning. Wedemeyer provided. leadership by developing Criteria and Standards for University Independent Study which delineates formal standards of practice. Involved also in providing independent study by means of television, Charles Wedemeyer produced a plan called Articulated Instructional Media (AIM) to deliver degree level programs via television to distance students. The British Open University adopted many of the ideas from this plan and his other innovations. [15]

##### Experiments with Technology on Correspondence Courses

Career Institute introduced mechanical technology in a plastic tachistoscope to speed reading course. This spring loaded device forced the reader to speed up and read lines of text at a glance as it moved a sentence length opening down the page at variable speeds. In addition, Career Institute employed electronic teachnology as well with tape cassette recordings in their Listen and Learn Phonics reading course. ICS experimented with using teaching machines.

Writing Style Differences in Home Study Texts

The writing style of a correspondence course means how the author chooses and organizes words, sentence types (loose sentences, periodic sentences, and balanced sentences), figures of speech, and other items. For instance, newspaper texts usually use short words and short sentences for easy readability and vary them to maintain reader interest. Newspaper copy is somewhat standard in its organization, requiring the first paragraph of a story to contain the answers to what, why, when, and how. Magazine text is longer and more complex, using a variety of methods of organization with polysyllabic words and lengthy and complex sentences.

Academic text differs from fiction and is imaginative in many ways such as the use of dialogue, description, plot, and characterization in fiction whereas in academic non-fiction, the text is factual, straight forward and logical. The stylistic differences between types of publications have traditionally been the result of readers' impressions. However, style can also be measured statistically. There are currently a few computer software programs available to measure style.

Thus, using the computer software program, . the three most popular English correspondence courses of the 1950s were compared. They were the following:

  * Practical English **was w** ritten by Madeline Semmelmeyer and edited by Donald O. Bolander. the work consists of two hard-bound volumes in a slip-case and a reference set of booklets in a separate slipcase. The course contains 27 self graded units on grammar, correct usage, and punctuation. The two-volume text contained scores of diagrams (a popular teaching device in the 1950s) and lists of terms. The thirteen pamphlets (28 to 44 pages long) contained information on spelling, vocabulary, composition, letter writing, reading and much more. [17]

  * Estelle Hunter's Practical English and Effective Speech covered the same ground as above in a series of 5 ½" by 8" 32-page-long booklets. Hunter's format and style were quite different. [18]

  * Sherwin Cody's 100% Self-Correcting Course in English also covered the same material in 20 booklets. First issued in 1917 but revised frequently thereafter. (19)

Strictly speaking, none of these three schools were full service correspondence schools; the courses they sold through the mail were for self-study. Yet the public tended to think of them as correspondence schools. Although Career Institute offered a certificate of completion to students who mailed in a final exam graded by the school, none of the courses had a series of lessons that had to be completed and mailed into the school for grading by instructors.

However, it is constructive to measure the reading levels at which Bolander's, Hunter's, and Cody's courses were written. However, the complete courses under analysis could not be measured because much of their content consists of examples, words lists, exercises and other content whose readability is is not meaningful. Thus, 1,000 word samples of each course on a specific topic (sectors of the English language) were chosen on a random basis, using the Table of Random Numbers. The readability computer program found the three correspondence courses had the following reading grade levels.

  * Bolander 13.7

  * Hunter 12.7

  * Cody 14.7

In short, all were above the 12th grade reading level whereas one would expect a remedial course would be written for people with a lower level of skill in reading.

Readability Plus is a computer program that makes analytical and statistical measurements in comparing a writing sample to a wide range of writing styles. A score is compiled showing how closely the target writing matches the patterns of newspaper, magazine, and bureaucratic writing as well as writing found in children's and adult fiction, and advertising copy, technical manuals, and governmental reports.

or example, to judge the cadence or rhythm of prose, the program calculates the following: Long words (7 characters or more) words per sentence, Short words ( one syllable words) . If the targeted writing scores a specific number, it is considered to match one of the sample patterns. The computer match correlates with the impression of human readers of the same text.

The computer software program, Readability Plus compared the style of the above three correspondence courses to the computer-based style samples. The style of these three courses was found to match with the following sample patterns:

  * Bolander matched the style of a _newspaper article_.

  * Hunter matched the style of a _magazine article_.

  * Cody matched the style of a _newspaper article_ **.**

Although not all people enjoy any one specific style, the magazine style and newspaper style are extremely popular. Thus, it is that the average correspondence course student would find them more enjoyable than reading the average school textbook.

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Positive

The attitude of the public towards correspondence schools in this decade may be seen in the ratio of positive press reports versus negative press reports. The first press report is weak but positive; the others are negative.

  * Correspondence courses were suggested by six colleges at a conference at the University of Illinois as a solution for overcrowded college classes and high school classes. [21]

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Negative

  * A Representative from Texas claimed that watch-making school operators owned supply houses and were using the vets enrolled in those schools to defraud the Government through the GI Bill. [22]

  * A Chicago speaker claimed that the government is powerless to stop the sale of worthless diplomas by fraudulent schools. [23]

  * In a 100 page attack on U S diploma mills, The American Council on Education claim at least 200 schools in 37 states are cheating 75 million yearly. Time blames the fact that there is no national control of education and limited state control (18 states and DC regulate the granting of degrees.) Many of these victims are overseas. "only 18 states and DC regulate degree giving." Foreigners think United States schools are superior and that the government supervises advertising to assure veracity. [24]

Conclusion

Out of the intense criticism of the schools came a desire on the part of many educators to improve teaching so the American . students would not fall behind students in other countries. Correspondence schools also tied to improve their courses in a variety of ways such as by examining their textual materials and improving their readability, Some schools experimented with mechanical and electronic technology.

Chapter 8 - Endnotes

[1] Charles A. Prosser and Charles R. Allen. Vocational Education in a Democracy (New York: Century, 1925).

[2] Rudolph Flesch's Why Johnny Can't Read (New York: 1955)

[3] Albert Lynde Quackery in the Public Schools (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953).

[4] Robert Maynard Hutchins. The Conflict in Education in a Democratic Society (New York: Harper, 1953).

[5] Hyman Rickover. Education and Freedom (New York: Dutton, 1959).

[6] Arthur Bestor. Educational Wastelands: The retreat from learning in our public schools (New York: 1953.

.[7] Gayle B. Childs. "Success in Initial University Mathematics Courses of Students With Correspondence and Non-correspondence Backgrounds," The Journal of Educational Research , July 1956, 607-612

[8] D. W. Dysinger "Performance of Correspondence Study Students," The Journal of Higher Education, 1957, 388.

[9] "Manners and Morals: Wilderness School," Time 27 Oct. 1958.)

10] Continental Class room Garrison 1990:2.

11] A. A. Lumsdaine and R. Glaser, eds. Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning, ( Washington, DC: NEA, 1960).

12] . Norbert Wiener, Cyernetics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1948).

[13] Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think" Atlantic Monthly Jul. 1945, 101

]14]. "Education: Counter Revolution" Time May 25, 1959.

[15 ] Criteria and Standards for University Independent Study. (Washington, DC: NUEA, 1966).

[16] Corporate Voice (Rockville, MD: Scandinavian Systems, 1990)

[17] Madeline Semmelmeyer and Donald O. Bolander, Practical English (Danbury, CT : Career Institute, 1955).

[18] Estelle B. Hunter, Practical English and Effective Speech ( Chicago: The Better Speech Institute of America, 1935).

[19] Sherwin Cody, The Sherwin Cody 100% Self-correcting Course in English Language (Rochester, NY: The Sherwin Cody School of English, 1949).

[20] Bruno Furst, You Can Remember! A home study course in memory and concentration.

[21] "Study by Mail" The New York Times 19 Oct. 1958.

[22] "Move Made to Halt GI Training Fraud " The New York Times 13 Dec 1950

[23] "Educator Scores Diploma Racket " The New York Times 20 Apr. 1952

[24] "Education: Academic Racketeers" TIME Oct. 19, 1959

Chapter 9

Effects of Public Dissent in 1960--1969

Life in 1960-1969

Events of the decade of the sixties were horrific: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968. But, in spite of these tragedies, and student unrest, America struggled on. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. The decade ended with Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969.

Public Education in 1960-1969

Civil Rights: In 1960, Protesting segregation, college students from conducted the first sit-in at Woolworth's in Charlotte, North Carolina.. This was followed by a deluge of students and other demonstrators occupying various premises, marching and demonstrating throughout the mid-sixties. The Federal Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, but violence continued.

Bilingual Education: Cubans, fleeing the revolution, arrived in Miami and by 1961, Dade County began a bilingual education program. In 1968, Congress passed the Bilingual Act of 1968 which funded local school districts to integrate bilingual instruction (in Spanish as well as other languages). Some states passed their own bilingual education legislation.

Dissatisfaction with the public school system had started with Sputnik in 1957 and the fear that America was falling behind because of Progressivism and the Life Adjustment curriculum. But there were other reasons that Americans wanted to take their children out of the public schools. For example, a Supreme Court decision banning prayer in public schools alarmed many parents: Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) held that the First Amendment meant that a law requiring a prayer in school was unconstitutional.

Furthermore, a law requiring 10 verses of the Bible be read each day and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer was declared unconstitutional in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) and Murray v. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203 (1963). This ruling was followed by Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236 (1968). Thus, because of these decisions, many parents came to believe that their religious rights were being infringed and they decided to remove their children from the public schools and place them in private and religious classroom schools or enroll them in religious and non-sectarian home study schools.

Paul Goodman's Growing up Absurd (1960), as well as his other books, expressed his belief that American Public Schools did not provide a satisfactory education because t important learning occurred outside the schools in factories and stores instead of inside compulsory classroom. [1] John C. Holt's How Children Fail (1964), a critique of traditional schools, proposed that the public schools actually harmed children for a variety of reasons, chief of which was that there was no transfer of what they learned in school to the outside world. Holt thought the main thing children learned in school was to please the teacher by giving the right answer and not to be humiliated by giving the wrong one. [2]

Parents who were upset with the public schools began to feel that changing the schools was close to impossible and turned towards home schooling. But even though they were dissatisfied with the public schools, parents still had to pay school taxes to the public schools as well as tuition and additional fees to the private schools for instructional materials and curriculum used at home. Further, if the parents enrolled their child in a private classroom or correspondence school, it had to be an accredited institution which meant that the school's curriculum, faculty, and services had been reviewed by an organization authorized to judge whether they were satisfactory. In the United States for K-12 education, this is done by state education officials and/or local school districts. Colleges are accredited by regional organizations. If parents wanted to home school their children themselves, they were required to submit to get approval of their curriculum by local school officials. K-12 home schooling was opposed by the National Education Association (NEA) because, it was argued, inadequate standards are often maintained, and the curriculum may be distorted by religious or political extremism.

Criterion Referenced Instruction (CRI)

In the latter half of the 1960s, Robert Mager's work came into prominence. At first glance, it seemed a direct offshoot of Frederick W. Taylor's Scientific Management theories and indeed it may have been closely related. Mager's Criterion Referenced Instruction (sometimes called CRI or The Systems Approach) was a comprehensive system of designing instructional programs. The developer first analyzed the task which was what was to be learned, then specified the outcome. and how it was to be evaluated, followed by evaluating in terms of whether the specified objectives. had been met. Although some community colleges adopted Mager's methods in the 1960's and used courses planned by groups of instructors who agreed on the one best way to teach a subject, developed very specific lessons, and then agreed to all teach the same thing at the same time in their separate classrooms, it was not successful. Although administrators seemed delighted at the prospect of knowing what every teacher was doing at any particular minute, the teachers often rose up in revolt against the procedure, claiming it stifled individual creativity, was almost impossible to institute in some subjects, and consumed an enormous amount of time. In areas where CRI was used, it was often drawn up by management and imposed on faculty. As time went on, it seemed a good idea which had been misused. It later since emerged in various forms in the public schools under a variety of names.

CRI. looked promising for correspondence courses because it lent itself to self-paced adult learners. Except for the armed service correspondence courses, where it seems to have been readily accepted it appears to have had little impact except for very limited use in programs for teaching machines.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in 1960-1969

In the 1960s, Dr. Raymond Moore and his wife, Dorothy Moore, reviewed over 8,000 studies of the effect of public schooling on children and found it particularly harmful to boys. Further, among their findings was the discovery that orphans given to mothers who were mentally retarded or illiterate produced children who were intelligent and socially and emotionally balanced. The Moores were Seventh Day Adventists and their research eventually led to the establishment of The. Home Study Institute, a correspondence school by that church. to carry on the home schooling. of children of its members and others. [3] .

There has long been a demand for distance study for the children of missionaries and military families, for children who were seriously ill, and for youthful performers and entertainers and others. Home study schools had begun to meet their needs in the late 1890s auch as The Calvert School for elementary classes and The American School for high school classes. Among other academic correspondence schools were Wayne School, and Southern States Academy.

In the 1960s, although things had begun to look positive for home study schools which taught children of school age, things suddenly took a gloomy turn for at least one school which taught adults. An article that indicted not only a well-known home study school but called all correspondence schools to account appeared in The Atlantic. Jessica Mitford's "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers" weighed the school in the balances and found it seriously wanting.

Famous Writers School*

_* Note_ : As did the _Famous Artists Schools_ and _Famous Photographers Schools_ for some unknown reason, _Famous Writers School_ used no apostrophe before or after the letter _s_ in _Writers_ to show grammatical possession of _School_. Thus, the present work shall do so the same.

Famous Writers School was founded in 1961 by Bennett Cerf, Gordon Carroll, and Albert Dorne. Besides Cerf, the guiding faculty who were also stockholders were the well-known literary figures, Faith Baldwin, John Caples, Bruce Catton, Mignon G. Eberhart, Paul Engle, Bergen Evans, Clifton Fadiman, Rudolf Flesch, Phyllis McGinley, J. D. Ratcliff, Rod Serling, Max Shulman, Red Smith, and Mark Wiseman.

The school offered courses in Fiction and Non-fiction and less well known courses in Advertising Writing and Business Writing. As for Fiction and Non-fiction, each course followed a similar pattern: two hardbound books on the principles of good writing, two hardbound books on fiction or non-fiction. and a three-ring notebook of assignments, some to be kept at home and others to be sent in to the school for comment and criticism, and a book listing places to sell one's writing.

Mitford's article focused on what the school promised and what it delivered -- as follows:

  * The ads seemed to imply that the advertised famous writers would critique the student's work. They did not. Instead, the student's stories and essays were read by less known writers of varying levels of experience and ability. When students complained, the reply came that the students should have known better because famous writers did not have the time to read students' work.

  * Students were misled about the growing demand for writing and level of remuneration. Writers' Marketplace revealed that while many publications pay nothing at all, others pay rates of ½ to 1 cent a word – a rate that existed a century ago.

  * Mitford complained that the comments on students' writing by the school's instructors were "formulaic." This was probably the result of using "boilerplate." or pre-written paragraphs selected by instructors to suit the occasion, a common practice in most correspondence schools.

  * Although 65,000 students paid up to $900 tuition each, equivalent or better instruction could be obtained for a fraction of that at evening classes run by colleges and universities.

  * The drop-out rate was extremely high -- between 66% and 90%. As John S. Noffsinger had pointed out back in 1926, there were enormous profits to be made in such a high drop-out rate.

  * School officials admitted that students signed an iron-clad contract from which it was all but impossible to escape. This was extremely unfair to the elderly and poverty-stricken who had been the victims of unscrupulous "high pressure" sales people.

Mitford did not write about the other "Famous" schools such as Famous Photographers School and Famous Artists School (which included separate schools for painters, cartoonists, and children). But, the only school she did write about, Famous Writers School, was badly hit by the negative publicity resulting in a severe drop in enrollments and a plethora of lawsuits. In 1969, Famous Writers School's income was $48,000,000; Mitford's article was published in the following year. Sixteen months later, the school filed for bankruptcy. [4]

Correspondence School Contracts

A close examination of some of the "iron-clad" contracts to enroll in some correspondence schools at this point in time should make anyone wary and uneasy. Buyers needed to be aware that they were purchasing the proverbial "pig in a poke" because they never saw the item they were buying until they received it. The return policy usually stated that the buyer would receive a refund of the purchase price if they returned it in a specific amount of time. However, it was often unclear how much that refund would be. In response, to its credit, The National Home Study Council expended . great effort in making sure that its members' contracts were honest and fair.

Contract for a Self-teaching Course

A self-teaching home study course usually required no more than sending in payment in full although some such as the Practical English course also offered installment plans. In general, buying a self-teaching course was about the same as buying a book and the same general rules about returns and refunds applied.

Contract for a Full-service Course

Most students who enrolled in a full-service correspondence school did so on the installment plan. These agreements or contracts varied in complexity. Usually, all full-service courses listed the entire contents of the course separately from the enrollment form. This permitted the school to update or change the contents of the course, often legitimately necessary, without reprinting the enrollment form. .The contract for the following typical course looked deceptively simple. To enroll in the 1960s, the enrollee chose payment plans and signed contracts like the following ones from schools which shall be nameless but which are no longer in business. (Remember, these sample contracts use 1960 prices.)

ENROLLMENT FORM FOR SCHOOL A

A. $10 enrollment fee and $10 each month for $230 total.

**B. $25 enrollment fee and $10 each month for $215 total.** Save $15 **.**

**C. $199 in-full payment.** Save $31 **.**

Guarantee **: After you receive the course contents, you have ten full days to review the course.. If you are not statisfied, you may return the materials within the approval period and receive a full refund . After ten days, if you discontinue your training for any reason, the school will return at your request all unused tuition that you paid in advance. We will charge only the enrollment fee and $10 for each month of enrollment or $10 for each group of studies.**

(In the contract for School A, the language is often ambiguous. Apparently, to receive a refund, you must send it back before the end of the 10 day examination period. After ten days, it appears the enrollment fee is not refunded, which seems unfair if a student pays (B) $25 instead of (A) $10. Also, does the phrase "at your request" mean that you will get a refund only if you ask for it? Compare this contract with the one that follows, paying particular attention to the guarantee.)

ENROLLMENT FORM FOR SCHOOL B

1. Only $199.00 if paid in full at time of enrollment. (Save $31.00).

2. Pay $25.00 down; $10.00 each month after signing until paid in full. (Total of $215.00.) Save 415.

3. Pay $10.00 down; $10.00 each month after signing until paid in full. (Total of $230.00.)

100% Money- Back Guarantee **: If you complete the course satisfactorily, and you are not entirely satisfied with the instruction and service given, notify the school within 30 days and we will refund the full amount of tuition paid.**

(Note that here is no examination period specified. In the 1920s, many correspondence schools offered this 100% Money-back Guarantee. However, it appears that once you sign the contract, you must complete the course satisfactorily before requesting and getting your money back.)

A full-service course which supplied tools and other equipment had a bit more complex contract. Frequently such materials were not sent to the student until a specified amount had been paid which covered their cost. One other complication in the enrollment contract was for a full-service school which required home study for part of the course and concluded with resident training.

.There were countless variations upon the offers and format of the enrollment blank. A frequently used sales gimmick was to offer the prospective student a special discount that was never described as such but rather as a scholarship. Even more popular was to offer a gift sometimes described as a surprise gift for prompt enrollment. Still another gimmick was to offer a lower price if, during the course, the student paid in advance of the scheduled payments. Further, if a student grew tired of taking a course, he or she would be offered a shortened version at a subsequent reduction in price.

Because of the confusion which frequently arose over the problems in the schools, contracts, the National Home Study Council fought long and hard to get their member schools to agree to a fair and equitable policy in their contracts, finally meeting with success.

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Positive

Some articles appearing in American periodicals were positive.

  * ICS enrolled its 7 Millionth Student for nation's oldest and largest home study school which may indicate a way to upgrade the under-employed. [5]

  * Most home study schools posted a profit. [6]

  * In 1965, a trades school (founded in 1939) was the only upholstery home study school authorized to issue a state approved diploma. Its mission was to train new upholsterers in the basic techniques of upholstering, re-upholstering, furniture refinishing, slip covers , and related skills. Boasting individual instructor-to-student correction service, it was approved for veterans and approved for vocational rehabilitation. The school was highly regarded in the trade. In 1965, at the Annual Upholsterer's Convention at the Hotel Sheraton-Atlantic in New York City, Sheridan Sands, the publisher of The Fabric and Trimming News presented An Endorsement for Excellence Award to George F. Duryea, Director of Upholstery Trades School for providing "excellent accredited training of upholsterers for over a quarter of a century" [7]

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Negative

Periodical articles, for the most part, were decidedly against distance education as ineffective and untrustworthy.

  * According to the United States Postal Service, in the past three years there has been an increase of nearly 300% in fraudulent correspondence schools. [8]

  * .Crowell Collier and Macmillan, Inc. purchased La Salle Extension University. They filed a federal law suit charging NHSC with monopoly and restraint of trade. [9]

  * Foreign diploma mills were accused of making fraudulent claims about the value of their degrees in the United States. They agreed to stop. [10]

Decisions by the Federal Trade Commission

In the 1960s, The Federal Trade Commission began increasing protection of consumers primarily from false and misleading advertising, but also from unethical sales practices.

FTC investigations were over broad promises by an unscrupulous minority of correspondence schools.

A consent order was obtained against a school which claimed it was examined and certified by the FAA but it was not. This made its students ineligible to take certification exams and therefore not eligible to earn the high salaries advertised by the school as a reason for enrolling. [11]

The FTC examined fake "Help wanted" ads for airline personnel, models, and computer operators which were actually intended to find prospective correspondence school students for those jobs. The FTC said," With the increasing use of correspondence training by legitimate institutions of learning, and the importance of persons to upgrade their skills by available means, it is important to curb any chicanery that would discourage well-spent initiative. Very often these falsely touted courses are sold to poor people or the relatively uneducated who can ill afford to lose the sums involved, let alone be disillusioned in their efforts to improve themselves." [12]

Conclusion

The 1960s will long be remembered as a time of dissent on many levels, from demonstrators against the war in Viet Nam, to Blacks demanding their civil rights, to students revolting against what they saw as the Establishment, to teachers trying to change the educational system. The turmoil created various kinds of change, some to prove effective and positive, and some not.

Chapter 9 - Endnotes

[1] Paul Goodman. Growing up Absurd. (New York: Random House, 1960).

[2] John C. Holt. How Children Fail (New York: Pitman Publishing Corp., 1964).

[3] Raymond C. and Dorothy Moore. Better Late Than Early (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1975).

[4] Jessica Mitford, "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers," The Atlantic July 1970.

[5] "News Notes; Classroom and campus; Job Retraining by Correspondence; International Textbook Review." August 20, 1961.

[6] ."Study by Mail is Gaining Favor; Correspondence Schools Had a $50,000,000 Gross in 1961." The New York Times 1 July. 1962.

[7] "Upholstery Trades School Honored for Outstanding Achievement by Industry," The Times Herald, January 21, 1965, 1.

[8] (Post Office Asserts Fraud Is up 300% in Schooling by Mail." The New York Times 27 Nov. 1966.

[9] ("Correspondence Schools Sue Accrediting Agency." The New York Times 16 Dec. 1969.

[10] "Diploma Mills Hit In U S Action; Agent for Foreign Schools Agrees to Drop Claims About Their Diplomas." The New York Times 4 Aug. 1961.

[11]. 1960 Federal Trade Commission Yearly Report, pp 57-58.

[12] .1965 Federal Trade Commission Yearly Report, p.15.
Chapter 10

Evaluation of Correspondence Education 1970 and Beyond

Life in 1970 and Beyond

The 1970's began with a tragedy. On May 4, 1970, four students were shot and killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during an anti-war protest at Kent State University. Then, in 1972, there was the Watergate Scandal in which 5 men were arrested breaking into DNC headquarters, which eventually resulted in the resignation of President Nixon. .In 1976, the country, recovering, celebrated the Bicentennial.

Public Education in 1970 and Beyond

In the 1970s, the traditional educational establishment and unions controlled class size, teachers' salaries, and benefits. Furthermore, school administrators controlled the number of secretaries, assistants, and guidance counselors and other non-instructional support personnel. School boards controlled construction of new buildings. When more money was necessary for operation, instead of cutting personnel and expenditures, the classroom schools would go to the public and raise property taxes and request federal funds. Court-ordered busing of public school students to further integration caused serious conflicts in many cities such as Boston.

Proprietary Correspondence Education in the 1970 and Beyond

Because proprietary schools did not have access to property tax dollars, their major source of revenue was student tuition. Therefore, to raise their bottom lines, they had to choose between increasing tuition or cutting expenses. However, this changed when the government began to pay tuition through outright grants such as the GI Bill and, later, the Pell grants. Perhaps even more significantly, the government began to guarantee student loans. These actions were soon exploited by some proprietary schools to increase their enrollment and thus their profits.

Developments in other areas were greatly important to home study educators. One of the most important was the growth of the internet although home study schools were slow to seize advantage of its potential. Of value to home study schools, although all but totally ignored at the time was the invention of the e-book in 1971 by Michael Hart, which introduced digital publishing to the internet and facilitated online schools. Another advancement in technology occurred in 1977 when Apple Computer introduced the Apple II and, later, the Apple II e which revolutionized computer-based learning in public schools with software programs dubbed "edutainment" such as The Oregon Trail.

These .computer software programs combined learning with games.

Another event of great significance to distance study was the moment in the UK the Open University began operation in 1971. Although this was a non profit institution, it was a successful model for digital education and led many proprietary schools to imitate its methods. At roughly the same time. the UK also began broadcasting educational programs from its University of the Air. Educational radio broadcasting had been something of a failure in the United States where over 200 stations had been licensed over three decades, all of which faded away. They had been followed at great expense by such experiments as the Ford Funded MPATI (Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction) flights by two DC-CAB aircraft . These planes flew 6 to 8 hour long figure 8 patterns broadcasting pre-recorded educational documentaries to students watching snowy black- and-white pictures below. In 1968, MPATI ceased operation and at last report were becoming a tape library. There are some observers who called this the most successful of the attempts to use technology in education.

A New View of the Correspondence School Student

In addition to new instructional delivery methods being attempted with technology, a newer understanding of the distance student introduced a more sophisticated instructional strategy using the old technology, print. The newer methods didn't work for everyone; they never do. Some students learn better in a classroom utilizing lectures and interactions with instructors and fellow students. Some learn better on their own, using textbooks, correspondence courses, and other textual materials. Some learn better using technology ranging from recordings and visual media to online instruction. But rather than searching for Taylor's "one single best way" of teaching that would work for everyone, educators began examining more sophisticated specializations.

**Autodidactism** : Although people who are self-taught often refer to themselves as _autodidactic_ , this is not quite the accurate use for this term. The word refers only to those people who have taught themselves to be highly expert in some field and who have not taken lessons in that field. Strictly speaking, if they taught themselves through reading they have really been taught by others: those who wrote the books. To be really specific, the truly autodidactic would learn almost entirely through experimentation and contemplation, rediscovering the wheel as it were.

Nonetheless, there appears . to be a significant subcategory learners who use a variety of ways to achieve mastery of a topic. That is, they may read books and articles, study correspondence courses, and may even conduct experiments and contemplation on their own. They might be best described as self–directed learners.

**Andragogy** : In the educational establishment, adult education was traditionally dubbed andragogy by the academics with their typical penchant to use polysyllabic words for simple ideas. Most home study students were adults, but it took a long time before home study advocates began to accept the notion that teaching them was different from teaching children, an activity academics labeled pedagogy. This was a significant change because much previous adult educational theory had made practically no impact on correspondence education. Most of the interest in andragogy was to be found in colleges although there were world conferences on adult education and The International Council for Adult Education was founded in 1973.

Although the term andragogy existed as early as 1833 in the work of the German Alexander Kapp, Malcolm S. Knowles was apparently the first to develop a specific educational strategy to "teach adults how to learn." [1] Knowles devised four characteristics of andragogy: Self-concept, experience, readiness to learn, and orientation to learning. To expand and clarify the differences between pedagogy and andragogy, Knowles made a useful distinction: _Adult learning is problem centered not content oriented._

Problem Centered Courses

From Knowles' seminal work grew an interest in adult education leading to academic study in colleges and universities and, consequently, trickle down interest by correspondence school educators. Although most correspondence schools produced courses, which were based on covering everything possible about the subject matter, some schools developed problem-centered courses.

One example of a problem-centered course was Animal Sciences, developed by North American Correspondence Schools. It is likely that top academic administrators at the school were aware of Knowles' work because they were both educators with advanced degrees. As part of Lesson 26, on "Grooming, Manicuring, and Bathing," the student is shown the proper procedure in grooming a poodle by text and 22 black and white photos. Photographs and explanatory text illustrating the tools for grooming a horse are then shown in use in the same lesson. The text and 29 black and white photographs show step-by- step how the groom cares for a racehorse after a morning workout. Similar procedures are thoroughly explained in exacting detail throughout the 8 ½ by 11 booklets averaging 40 pages each. Instead of explaining theory, the student in introduced to the problems of grooming both a small animal and a large one. Most of the North American Correspondence School courses follow this same instructional design. [2]

**New Methods of Evaluating Home Study Students** : The difference between the two types of questions is the difference in asking (A) When did X happen? and (B) What was the cause and/or the result of X happening? The latter question requires a deeper knowledge of multiple facts than the former which involves only memorization of a single fact.

In 1956, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues developed a theory of learning now referred to as Bloom's Taxonomy which identified six levels of cognitive learning.

  * **Knowledge** : the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to recall it.

  * **Comprehension** : The basic level of understanding what is being communicated in order to use it.

  * **Application** : The ability to use learned information in a new situation.

  * **Analysis** : Ability to separate content so as to identify parts, see relationships, and recognize organization.

  * **Synthesis** : Ability to combine existing parts into something new.

  * **Evaluation** : Making judgment about the worth of something. [3]

Ideally, to evaluate the range of a learner's cognitive skills, questions should be taken from each of these levels. In some home study courses, questions are included at the end of each lesson or chapter. Other courses require materials to be completed and then evaluated individually or as a part of a portfolio. And some courses require no evaluation at all; the matter is entirely in the learner's hands.

Self-study without tests are used in the School of Taxidermy and any course in which the proof of mastery is in the end product produced by the student. [4] Full service courses provide tests and assignments as in materials by NRI, La Salle Extension University and other schools. The questions elicit specific types of learning. In addition to these tests or exams, there are also performance assessments made through assignments, demonstrations of skills, and presentations.

A brief but excellent presentation of testing procedures is given in the article by John T. Loftus in a National Home Study Council publication. He shows ways in .which the levels of skills in Bloom's taxonomy and examples that can be tested are given although he does not mention these skills specifically. Instead, he gives examples of poorly constructed questions that do not test the things they purport to test. [5]

Early home study schools usually required written answers to questions which could range in length from a sentence to an essay. Essay questions of this sort are easy to construct but frequently difficult to evaluate.

Objective-type Tests

Objective Tests are usually classified as multiple choice, matching, completion, and true-or-false. Of these types, most home study tests and exams consist primarily of multiple choice items. Strictly speaking, multiple choice items are generally not questions but statements of alternatives.

  * Multiple choice questions are popular because they are easy to score, provide coverage of material, can range in difficulty, and can prove diagnostic . However they are often difficult and time consuming to construct, do not measure the test taker's depth of knowledge, and tend to encourage guessing.

  * Completion questions tend to limit guessing and usually require the test taker to state what is known. However, they are somewhat difficult to write because of ambiguity.

  * Matching questions how an understanding of how facts relate to each other, but it is difficult to construct matching tests in which the relationships are not ambiguous.

  * True or False questions may pinpoint an exact understanding of what the student should learn, but are often tricky to compose because they may form a pattern of answers that can be identified, they may have more true items than false, and similar faults that encourage guessing by test takers.

Nonetheless, because objective type questions are machine-gradable and thus cost-saving, they soon reached popularity in the post-Taylor scientific management oriented correspondence schools. In the 1970s, the questions in objective tests used in most home study schools were answered simply by restating facts or _knowledge_ , the most basic level in Bloom's Taxonomy. There were some exceptions, which are worth mentioning because in addition to testing only the acquisition of _knowledge_ , they also tested other levels of cognitive learning.

  * Interior Decorating: The LaSalle exams were composed of questions which were to be answered by the _analysis_ and _synthesis_ of the facts presented in the text to new and different situations in a short essay. Also, submitting a written copy of a talk designed to convince prospective clients to agree to a specific project is an example of what Bloom calls _application_ and _synthesis_. [6]

  * The Scofield Bible Correspondence Course: Exam questions came in a separate series of 5 1/2 " x 8 1/2" notebooks separate from the hardbound volumes of the course. exam 17 for example runs from page 51 to 69 and has a total of 30 questions with room to answer. Most questions require written answers ranging from one or two sentences to a full essay up to 2 pages long. The final exam is a two-hour proctored closed-book test. Many questions asked throughout all exams call for _comprehension, analysis_ and _synthesis_ to use Bloom's terms. [7]

  * Gun Pro: The North American Correspondence Schools firearms course uses exams with objective type questions combined with 8 to 10 short answer questions out of a total of 50. The short answer questions deserve particular attention because they describe a specific procedure. Although the material is presented historically, the tests do not require the student to retain _knowledge_ in that manner, Instead, they ask many questions calling for the use of such thinking skills as _comprehension_ , _application_ and _synthesis._ [8]

  * Diamonds: The GIA Diamonds exams usually employed objective questions for approximately 3/4 of each lesson's exam and the remaining 1/4 were exam questions requiring a paragraph-long answer. However, some exams are all objective questions. although at least one consists solely of essay questions requiring the use of the Bloom Taxonomy levels of _comprehension_ , _analysis_ , and _evaluation_ rather than only the basic recall and restatement of _knowledge_. [ 9]

In addition to objective and essay tests, some home study schools also included graded and un-graded practical assignments Some were returned to the school for examination, but not returned to the student, as, for example, the keys and locks used by The Locksmithing Institute. Others were to be completed and then returned to the school, commented on, graded by instructors, and returned to the student such as the artwork submitted to Art Instruction, Inc. and Famous Artists. Some were not returned to be examined and graded by instructors but were retained by the students. These projects were of value to the student only if they were successful such as the electronic equipment kits supplied by radio-tv schools or the mounted animals produced by taxidermy students.

Comparison of Home Study Grades and Public School Grades

Although many critics have complained that home study school grades were always inflated, correspondence school advocates claimed that their standards were higher than those of the public schools. The public schools usually use 90-100 A, 80-89 B, 70-79 C, 60-6 9 D, Below 60 F. Correspondence Schools usually use 95-100 A, 90-94 B, 80-89 C, 70-79 D, Below 70 F. Students in home study schools are expected to maintain an average of C if the school uses letter grades. [10]

Students who fail an examination will usually be allowed to take it a second time. However, a student failing the second exam usually will not be able to take the test a third time. Students failing a second exam may be asked to drop the course. In rare cases, if the student's grade average is passing (even with the failing exams), he or she may continue, knowing that if the student's final average is below passing, he or she will not be able to graduate from the course.

Further, there was the problem of student grade inflation in traditional schools. as unearthed by research indicated that in public schools the average grade had become B.

In a government study, eighth grade students reported that they had received mostly As and Bs in English and math. Most striking however, is that in comparing students from poverty area high schools to students in affluent schools, in math, the A students in poverty high schools closely resembled the D students in affluent schools; A students in poverty schools received the same test scores in reading as C and D students in affluent schools.

Adding to the inequities, many instructors grade tests using the Bell Shaped Curve which means that the student with the highest score receives an A and the student with the lowest score receive an F. The median score is C and the other scores graded accordingly. Although the Bell Shaped Curve is intended to achieve fairness, many instructors use the curve to compensate for poorly constructed tests or poorly prepared students.

Traditional schools have long attempted to evaluate their curricula and teachers and many used test scores to evaluate both students and teachers. Some serious abuses resulted with teachers teaching to the tests and even in helping students cheat by giving them the answers and changing the answers on the students' test papers. The instructors and even administrators did this to make the effectiveness stronger and to thus preserve their jobs.

Evaluation of Correspondence Education

Those who try to prove the value of home study present the following arguments:

correspondence education often claim that successful people have achieved their level of expertise because of the correspondence course they took. Thus, they trot out names of well known individuals whom they then identify as having taken correspondence courses.

Famous People Have Taken Correspondence Courses

For example, Lawrence Welk was a successful musician who came to national prominence in the 1960s and 1970s as an accordionist with his own popular TV orchestra. There is a popular story that he earned to play accordion from a correspondence course. However, closer examination tells a different story. It was unlikely Welk took a home study course in playing the accordion because he did not speak English until his late teens when he left the farm to play for dances. Further, according to several biographies, Welk's father taught him to play the accordion. Welk's photo appeared in an ad along with a typed signed statement that read "I got my start with U.S. School of music." Nobody seems to know what that means except it appeared at a time he was thinking of buying the school. His full-page photograph was featured in a U. S. School of Music course. He apparently did no more than allow use of his name and picture. However, Welk did take a correspondence course but it was after he was earning his living as an accordionist. It was a course in piano tuning. [11]

Another entertainer, Arthur Godfrey, appears in an ad in which he is quoted as having succeeded in the Navy because he was a home study student. Upon closer examination it appears that Godfrey took some math courses but they appear entirely unrelated to his later success in TV and radio. While it is true that these individuals took correspondence courses, whether or not that activity led to their success in a particular field is a moot point. A much better case can be made for cartoonist Charles Schulz who created took a correspondence course with Art Instruction schools and later became an instructor there, and then went on to create "Peanuts," the highly successful comic strip. He may have become as successful without having that educational experience. There is no way to prove nor disprove that.

However, any list of successful correspondence school graduates should not be limited to famous entertainers. It would be helpful if we had a complete list of the lawyers, judges, and legislators who completed correspondence courses. For example, correspondence school graduate Gertrude Elzora Durden Rush was the first Black Woman to be admitted to the bar in Iowa, and was the only Black female attorney in that state until 1950. Madge Bradley, also a correspondence school student, became a lawyer and then a judge in California. There were legislators who were former correspondence school students, and a sampling of names follows: Governor Harold Arthur of Vermont, Congressman William T. Granahan of Pennsylvania, high ranking Army officers such as General Bruce Clarke, Commander of Armed Forces in Europe and many, many others who took courses that may have contributed in part to their success..

Furthermore, not only the famous should be regarded as role models. What is the number of nurses were trained through home-study schools before legislation was enacted that required on-site training? How many draftsmen, builders, and electricians have been trained in correspondence schools? .How many radio-tv technicians were trained through home study? In short, while it is interesting to learn that a famous person took a correspondence course, it is extremely difficult to prove that this led to his or her success. It may only go to show that he or she was determined and self-disciplined, in and of themselves admirable traits to be sure. It may be much more useful to note the great number of ordinary people who achieved success in a particular vocation or avocation primarily because of their studies in that specific area of interest. Although only anecdotal evidence exists to prove their success, apparently, many of our locksmiths, refrigeration experts, diesel mechanics and other trades-men and trades-women learned their trades entirely through home-study in the first century of correspondence school history.

Home Study Is Used by Government and Business Which Proves Its Effectiveness

Correspondence schools like to offer the argument that government and businesses use distance education. Further, it may be that proves something, but research is lacking. It may be that the success is the result of employing good salesman. Of course on the positive idea, it could be that government and business believe that their employees can benefit from carefully thought out instruction in sales, customer service, improved office work.

Student Satisfaction Is High

Traditionally, correspondence schools frequently used surveys of student satisfaction to prove the value. However, as a research tool, the survey itself is usually of limited value. The results cannot be duplicated by another researcher with the same results which is a requirement of true research. The responders may give the school a good rating for a variety of reasons such as to show that they had spent their money wisely, that they received good grades, that they got a discount for finishing early, or that they wanted to see their picture and name in print, or even that the school required them to give a positive rating for helping them find a job or any number of reasons which are not reflective of educational value.

Total Enrollment of Distance Education Schools Is Increasing

In 1926, John S. Noffsinger reported "The total receipts of the private correspondence schools of the country in the form of tuition fees come to $70 million dollars a year, one and a half times as much as the combined tuition fees received by all the colleges and universities." By 1970, the end of the first century of home study, a total of approximately 70 million people had enrolled in home study school. About 3 out of 4 students enrolled in a school accredited by The Accrediting Commission of the National Home Study Council, which, in 1959, became the only nationally recognized accrediting agency for distance education schools.

Acceptance by Academic Institutions

Colleges _can_ grant credit for transfer for correspondence courses if they choose to do so. However, but each college and university can legally decide for itself which courses it will accept and which it will not. Thus, if transfer is important, the student needs to get written approval from the institution to which he wants to transfer the credit before taking the course. However, with many courses, there is no point to obtaining college credit for the, If, sor example, an individual takes a course in locksmithing, he does so to work as a locksmith, for which a college degree is pointless.

Proprietary Correspondence Schools in the News: Negative Publicity

  * At the end of the first 100 years of home study, there was still negative publicity. Diploma mills still flourished, often in unexpected places. Two rabbis confessed to running a phony university. [12]

  * The rise in the number of diploma mills in the U S concerned educators. By this time, dishonest school officials were out for bigger game than ever before. Millions of dollars were available not just for veterans as in the 1950s but for non-veterans as well in the Pell grants and loans given to students who applied for them. The authorities began to crack down.. [13]

  * U S Officials studied correspondence schools for possible fraud in federally guaranteed student loans. [14]

  * The authorities also began to crack down on Famous Writers and 3 other schools. As a result, the schools pledged not to make advertising claims that the state says are deceptive. [15]

  * In addition to agreements made with the State of New York, Famous Writers School Agrees to Substantial Revision on ads with the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. [16]

  * The .Federal Trade Commission also demanded action and required refund . [17]

  * New York Governor Carey signed a law requiring refunds on studies by mail. [18]

Conclusion

The changes in public attitudes seem to have been changing in the 197os. It was largely because of the attempts of the National Home Study Council to disseminate positive publicity, as well as their strengthening the standards required of schools through their accrediting commission. In addition, the public's acceptance of distance education increased. as the growth . of community colleges, the availability of digital education on the internet, the additional television educational channels, and the plentiful CD and DVD educational programs also showed increased interest in alternative education in all its forms. Colleges and universities soon began providing courses for credit towards a degree on the Internet.

At the end of the first 100 years of home study or correspondence education, the name was increasingly being changed to distance education. This independent study appeared in many forms. Many traditional public institutions offered off campus courses for credit. Even proprietary colleges and universities provided courses leading to valid degrees.. In contrast, non-credit vocational and avocational proprietary schools taught only one subject as, for example, the School of, Modern Photography, while others taught multiple subjects such as the Gemological Institute of America which offered the following courses in jewelry: Pearls, Diamonds, Colored Stones, Diamond grading, Gold and Precious Metals as well as short courses in Jewelry Essentials, Colored stones Essentials, and Diamonds. The major change was in the delivery system of their instructional materials. The second century of distance study moved into using Internet- based electronic media instead of providing only printed text sent though the United States Postal System.

The End

Chapter 10 - Endnotes

[1] Malcolm S. Knowles, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: Andragogy vs. Pedagogy, (New York: Association Press, 1970) 39.

[2] "Study Unit 6, Lesson 25," North American School of Animal Sciences.( Scranton, PA: Intex, 1976) 12-20,24-35. .

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[3] Benjamin Bloom. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Boston: Ally & Bacon, 1956).

[4] J. W. Elwood, Lessons in Taxidermy. ( Omaha, NE: The Northwestern School of Taxidermy, 1970).

[5] John T. Loftus, "Writing Examinations," in Michael P. Lambert and Sally R. . Welch, eds. Home Study Course Development Handbook. (Washington, DC: National Home Study Council, 1988) 107-128.

[6] Interior Decorating (Chicago: LaSalle Extension University, 1968).

[7] Cyrus Scofield The Scofield Bible Correspondence Course (Chicago:The Moody Bible Institute, 1974).

[8] Gun Pro (Scranton, PA: North American Correspondence Schools, 1974).

[9] . Diamonds (Carlsbad, CA: Gemological Institute of America, 1976).

[10] Dr. G. Howard Poteet, There's a School in Your Mailbox. (Washington, DC: National Home Study Council, 1980) 100.

[11] Maurice Condon. "In Strasburg, N. D., They Remember Lawrence Welk, When he was Leader of the Hotsy Totsy Boys." TV Guide 29 April 1967, 20-23.

**[** 12] "Two rabbis plead guilty in phony university plot." The New York Times 14 July 1972.

[13] ".Diploma Mill Rise Disturbs Educators," The New York Times 27 July 1972.

[14] "U.S. Officials Study Correspondence Schools for Possible Fraud in Federally .Guaranteed Student Loans," The New York Times 19 May 1975 .

[15] "Schools agree to Shun Defective Advertising." The New York Times 18 June 1971.

[ 16] "Famous Writers School Agrees to Substantial Revision on Ads." The New York Times 14 Dec., 1971.

[17] "Students . . . can receive $1.9 million." FTC Yearly Report. 7 Mar. 1979.

[18] "Law Requiring Refunds." The New York Times 30 June 1977.

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