Posted on 03/15/2009 7:30:08 AM PDT by Born Conservative
With anthracite coal mining at its peak, one man’s concern over the safety of miners blossomed into a school that would educate millions worldwide.
Thomas J. Foster came to Scranton in 1888. Prior to that, he served as publisher of the Mining Herald, a journal based in Shenandoah, from 1870 to 1880. Frequent mining accidents in that community took the lives of some of his closest friends.
Mr. Foster saw what he believed to be the primary cause of these disasters: mine foremen lacked knowledge of the science of mining and the fundamental principles of the machinery they were required to operate.
Mr. Foster was determined to do something to rectify the problem. He oversaw the establishment of a state commission to revise mine laws. This step led to a measure that required mine foremen to pass an examination in subjects related to safe mining methods.
Mr. Foster next turned his attention to helping the men pass this examination. On May 7, 1881, he started a column in the Mining Herald of questions and answers related to the types of problems that a foreman would have to be familiar with to pass the exam. He also organized a mining institute.
In 1887, Mr. Foster changed the journal’s name to The Colliery Engineer. The journal received more questions than it could possibly address in print. Some questions came up again and again. Furthermore, subscribers did not want to wait for answers to the questions to appear in the publication. They wanted answers at once and offered to pay a fee for such a service.
In 1883, Mr. Foster gathered the materials that had appeared in the column of questions and answers and put them together in a publication called “The Mine Foreman’s Pocketbook.”
His experiences gave birth to a bigger idea in Mr. Foster’s mind: to teach the subject of mining from its fundamentals: arithmetic, formulas, ventilation, methods of working — in fact the whole science of mining.
Mr. Foster recognized that a miner’s day was long and hard, and that attending regular classes would be difficult. His system of teaching was to be done entirely by correspondence methods.
Thus, the International Correspondence School was born.
Mr. Foster developed instruction materials that were easy to read and to understand. He announced the new correspondence course in his mining journal. On October, 16, 1891, the first student was enrolled, a Mr. Thomas Coates. The original course led to a second, a course in Mine Surveying and Mapping.
As the method proved successful, the school expanded into other areas of study. The school was the first of its kind in the world.
In 1894, it occupied 25 offices in the Coal Exchange Building at 124 Wyoming Ave. It employed 55 instructors and spent $10,000 annually in postage. It is credited with standardizing the practice of putting a return address in the upper left corner of envelopes, a remarkable fact that local historian Margo Azzarelli discovered in some notes taken from the “Scranton Republican.”
On September 24, 1901, Mr. Foster’s school was incorporated as the International Textbook Company, responsible for printing, binding, publishing and selling instruction papers, textbooks, periodicals, drawing plates and other products for its education programs.
The school offered courses in a wide range of subjects, including advertising, architecture, chemistry, civil engineering, commerce, drawing, electrical engineering, languages, commercial law, locomotive operations, mechanical engineering, navigation, and other subjects. Its total enrollment was 1,651,765. Thomas Edison even designed a course for the school.
The school’s motto, “We teach the world,” was known around the globe.
In 1916, Ralph E. Weeks succeeded Mr. Foster as the president of the International Correspondence Schools. After his retirement, Foster remained active in ICS and continued to develop new ideas for its educational programs. Thomas J. Foster died on October 14, 1936.
If you go
An exhibit detailing the history of the International Correspondence Schools is currently on display at the Lackawanna Historical Society. Call 344-3841 for information.
Thought you might find this interesting.
I wonder how internet courses have affected it.
Without the Sally Struthers commercials I don't even think about it anymore even though I used to pass by it everyday. When it comes to Scranton I only go as far as Home Depot and Lowes where I work as a vendor.
bmflr
The List, save
another Irishman, teaching the world.
I’m sure the online universities are killing ICS. However, an argument could be made that ICS paved the way for these online universities.
There were lots of Irish coal miners in this region of PA
Some might argue that online courses are correspondence courses. But the original correspondence courses had teaching materials that were solid, well-researched and well-referenced printed matter, and not Internet ephemera (e.g. dead-end Web links touted as "sources").
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