Many fairy tales begin with the phrase “Once upon a time…”. This is not a fairy tale but once upon a time if you wanted a college education you had to physically go to a college and sit in classes and learn from a living instructor. There was no such thing as distance education or correspondence courses. However, the Chautauqua Institution in New York State changed that paradigm.
As was reported in a previous Footnote, the Chautauqua Institution started as an assembly to better prepare Sunday School teachers in 1874. The event was repeated the following year and for years thereafter with additional components being added until it became a mecca for adults wanting to learn.
One of the founders of Chautauqua was John Heyle Vincent. In his 1888 book, The Chautauqua Movement, he wrote “Education, once the peculiar privilege of the few, must in our best earthly estate become the valued possession of many.” Reverend Vincent had not been able to go to college and knew of others who were capable of college work but because of circumstances, had not been able to go to college.
The desire of adults to learn led to the creation of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle reading program in 1878. When the summer season of Chautauqua was over, adults could learn on their own through a prescribed reading program. Last week’s Footnote focused on this and how it was implemented in agricultural education.
In the early days of Chautauqua, numerous schools were established at Chautauqua that offered a variety of courses. In 1879 the School of Languages was organized at Chautauqua by Dr. William Rainy Harper, who was a faculty member at Yale. When the summer session was over several students who wanted to continue studying language during the winter asked Dr. Harper to outline a course of study and he agreed to help them with advice by mail.
This proved successful and correspondence was adopted as a method of instruction by Chautauqua. When Dr. Rainy became president of the University of Chicago in 1892 he immediately established a correspondence division based upon his Chautauqua experience. Noffsinger (1926, p. 11) concluded “From Chicago the idea spread to other institutions and today the greater part of the work of university extension divisions is by correspondence.”
Correspondence Courses in Agriculture
So what exactly is a correspondence course? In the late 1800s and into the 1900s a correspondence course consisted of prescribed readings, often from a textbook, with accompanying assignments developed by the university professor. The students would send their assignment to the university professor. The professor would respond to the student with feedback and additional information. At the conclusion of the course the student would receive a grade and college credit for the course.
Because of the success of correspondence courses at Chautauqua and then at the University of Chicago, many colleges established extension divisions where college courses were taught by correspondence.
We learned last week that Penn State started an agricultural reading program based on the Chautauqua model in 1892. However, this reading program was not technically a correspondence course. The readings were for the farmer’s own edification and benefit. There were no required assignments and the courses were non-credit.
Within five years, the rigor increased, and quizzes were included so that students could get academic credit. This then qualified as a correspondence course. A historical marker on campus indicates Penn State was the first to offer correspondence courses in agriculture.
Figure 1. A historical marker on the campus of Penn State.
To better understand how the correspondence courses worked let’s go visit the University of Arkansas and Texas A&M University.
University of Arkansas
In 1915 the University of Arkansas published a brochure from the Correspondence Study Department which was a Division of University Extension. See Figure 2.
Figure 2. A University Extension bulletin from Arkansas. Inside was a map of Arkansas which was identified as the campus of the University. An article in the Daily Arkansas Gazette of Little Rock published an article about the correspondence courses on February 27, 1921. The headline is shown.
On page 5 of the bulletin we learn that offering courses by correspondence is one of the activities of the University Extension Department. The goal of the correspondence course offerings was three-fold, to reach (1915, p. 6):
- Thoughtful men and women, desirous of more education, but unable to avail themselves of the great advantages of residence study at the University.
- A large body of young people who are ambitious to have a college education, but who are not able to attend …the four years of a college course, and who will feel the need of saving a few years of valuable time in school and at the same time earn money for the home and for the necessary years of residence.
- Young men and women in the smaller towns and rural communities of the State, who have no opportunity to meet the entrance requirements of the University, may make good any deficiencies by correspondence.
The quality of the learning and the quality of students engaged in correspondence work is addressed. It had been the experience of the University that students who do good in correspondence classes also do well when they are in residence.
There is a list of ten groups of individuals who could benefit from correspondence courses. Teachers “who desire to supplement their training” are listed along with farmers who are “desirous of more knowledge of the great problems of agriculture.” Ministers are also listed.
Some of the correspondence course offerings in 1915 include:
| Educational Psychology
The Teaching Process Rural School Management Soils and Fertilizers
|
Farm Crops
Feeding Farm Animals Dairy Farming Poultry Culture
|
Pork Production
Rural Sanitation Fruit Growing Truck and Market Gardening Cotton Production |
This correspondence course bulletin was published in 1915, two years before the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act. The 1919 Correspondence Courses bulletin lists “Methods of Teaching Agriculture” as a correspondence course. The 1924 Bulletin included a course titled “Agricultural Education.” The course description is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Correspondence Course Description from the University of Arkansas in 1924.
The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas
The Division of Correspondence Courses of what is now Texas A&M University issued a bulletin in 1915 about their correspondence program. The slogan “If You Cannot Attend the College, Let the College Come to You” was on the cover.
On the first page inside the Bulletin there is a typed note that “Correspondence Courses have been transferred to the Department of Agricultural Education” along with a partial listing of courses. It appears this page was not printed as a part of the original Bulletin but was typed and inserted into the Bulletin.
Figure 4. Correspondence Course Bulletin from The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, 1915.
In a section of the Bulletin titled “The Value of Correspondence Courses” we find the following (1915, p. 5):
Those who are enrolled in correspondence work would take nothing for the instruction and information obtained in this way. Not only are the courses of informative value to the students, but they are also the media through which their ability as students is developed and concentrated. Correspondence courses place the students on their own responsibility; the value of the work depends upon the initiative and working ability of the student.
Ambition, perseverance and determination are the personal qualifications needed to produce excellent results with this method of education.
The Bulletin indicates that two types of correspondence courses are offered:
Farmers’ Reading Courses, Farm Women’s Reading Club Courses -these courses are leisure time courses and do not require much preparation. They are free to take. No college credit is awarded for these courses. There are six reading courses for the farm women encompassing 24 lessons and three reading courses for the farmers encompassing a total of 46 lessons.
Study Courses – These courses are thorough, practical courses requiring a good deal of preparation and study. The fee is $1 a year. College credit is awarded. Note: This is typically what we call correspondence courses.
One had to be 14 years old to enroll in the reading courses and 16 years old for the study courses. The students could enroll at any time and had one year to complete the study courses. Students were encouraged to submit their work at regular intervals. If they didn’t, they could be dropped from the course.
Five courses in Agricultural Education are listed. They are: Elementary Agriculture for Teachers, Teaching of Agriculture in the High Schools, Reorganization of Rural Schools. School Discipline, and Methods and Management for the Rural Teacher. The 57 other correspondence courses are technical agriculture, home economics, and engineering courses. I wonder what “Elements of Telephony” is about?
Concluding Remarks
The Texas A&M Correspondence Bulletin informs us that 24 colleges were offering correspondence courses in agriculture in 1915. The Bulletin states (p. 6) that “The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas has the honor of being one of the twenty-four.” One must remember this is one year after the passage of the Smith-Lever Act establishing a national system of extension and two years before the Smith-Hughes Act.
In the book History of the Adult Education Movement in the United States Malcolm Knowles, the recognized modern expert on adult education wrote (1977, p. 38):
Chautauqua, to this day a thriving adult education institution, is assured a place in history alone by the influence it has had directly on the lives of thousands of individuals. But it merits additional credit for the contributions it has made to other institutions. It pioneered the development of such new forms and methods as the correspondence course, summer school, university extension, and book clubs which have been adopted by colleges and universities, public schools, and myriad commercial organizations.
If you have taken an agricultural education course using distance education technology, the concept can be traced back to the early correspondence courses that were book based, and we can trace that back to the Chautauqua Institution.
Chautauqua also discovered that people were willing to learn over the summer as evidenced by attendance at their summer program. Because of this, universities started teaching classes during the summer. So if you have taken a summer school class, you can thank (or blame) the Chautauqua Institution for that innovation in higher education.
Next week we will learn how our profession borrowed the Chautauqua lecture idea to establish Farmer Chautauquas in the early 1900s.
References
Knowles, M. S. (1977). A History of the Adult Education Movement in the United States. Huntington, NY: Robert E. Krieger.
Nofffsinger, John S. (1926). Correspondence Schools, Lyceums, Chautauquas. The McMillian Company: New York.