Though book matches, which were common when most people smoked, always had that message on them, perhaps there should have been a correspondence school named the “Close Cover Before Striking School” instead. There was once a steady barrage of advertisements for careers in electronics in electronic magazines, on billboards, and even in book matches. even computers. also, TV repair Therefore, even though we perceive distance learning as a novel concept, it represents a development of the venerable correspondence schools of the past.
just how far? I’m not sure. There is evidence of some form of distance education dating back to 1728. A correspondence course to learn shorthand was offered in 1837. The University of London began its external program for correspondence studies in 1858, and the University of Chicago established a section for home study in 1892. A popular early topic choice was radio. The United Wireless Telegraph Company established a training facility in the US in 1909 that would later become the Marconi Institute. It is unlikely that any correspondence training took place there until much later, though.
Beginning in 1914, NRI, or the National Radio Institute, offered correspondence courses. While attending college, Philo Farnsworth took an NRI course in radio servicing. A few older schools exist as well. As the Penn Foster Career School, ICS, which stands for International Correspondence Schools, has been in operation since 1890. Both DeVry, which was established in 1931, and the Cleveland Institute of Electronics, which was created in 1934, are still operational. Naturally, many of these had their business strategies altered over time. Some didn’t make enough changes and went out of business, like National Technical Schools.
But the post-World War II era was when they were at their peak. Many veterans had received training or exposure to electronics while serving, and they were eager to use Uncle Sam’s money to start a new career. The popularity of TV was also skyrocketing, which boosted demand. There are several advertisements for these institutions if you flip through an electronics magazine from that era.
Online training is the new correspondence course in today’s society, but you don’t see as much training in radio and electronics like this anymore. Although you can do your entire EE degree online, can you also learn how to repair a radio?
Marketing
There’s an old saying in advertising: Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle. These correspondence courses generally targeted people of modest circumstances, out of work, or working a dead-end job who wanted to better themselves. Many hinted that more education was the key to being promoted at work, or that you could make money in your own business. One of NRI’s courses from 1924 starts with an image. Note that these men are not outside working in the elements which is a major inducement if you are spending your days working in the sun and the rain. An NRI promotional booklet reports, “Many radio experts make $40, $60, $75 a week, and more.” Pretty good money in 1935.
As you might expect, the ads overwhelmingly targeted men. Ads ran in electronics magazines, but also in other kinds of magazines, the target audience might read about science, mechanics, and other related fields. The ads mostly promised the ability to make money, find a job, start a business, or get a promotion.
Evolution
The early course, like the one that included the above picture, was just electronic books that had quizzes they would grade for you. These were very much like any other electronics book you’ve ever seen. They describe components, schematics, what makes a circuit, Ohm’s law, and power calculations. The questions were answered in free form and — in this course, at least — didn’t require any higher math. For example, “Name five insulating materials.” and “What is a kilowatt?”
There are things we don’t think about too much but were important at the time like spark gaps and motor generators. Overall, you could probably have found any basic book in your library and done the same thing except they wouldn’t give you a certificate (and if you scored over 90%, you’d be an “honors man.”
By 1938, at least, there was a realization that you needed more hands-on training. The Radio Servicing Course from Radio Technical Institute included a Knight Kit receiver from Allied Radio. The regenerative receiver used two 30 tubes. Large chunks of the course came from suppliers like the “Supreme Instruments Corporation of Greenwood, Mississippi.” Presumably, you could buy their oscilloscope and other tools covered in the course.
It also became common to teach a bit of the “business” in these classes. For example, RTI suggests:
The new profitable field of installing additional extra speakers is open to all servicemen. This type of convenience is wanted by practically all radio owners and should be suggested
on every radio repair call. Most homes have only one radio, in a single room of the house. To hear radio programs in other sectons this radio must be played at volume levels that prove nervewracking to all close to the radio and annoys the neighbors due to the loudness.
While these courses were little more than books with graded tests, there were some serious training materials produced by NRI. As early as 1930 they had a 1600-page course that covered quite a bit of theory and practice. There was even a unit on “radio prospecting” which we might think of today as using metal detectors.
After World War II, soldiers had “GI Bill” money to spend on education and these companies were ready to take it. Radios were more complex than ever and TV also drove demand for people who could install and service electronics. Later, much later, computers were also a consumer item and training companies offered some instruction in basic computer servicing, too.
Kits and Bargains
Kits and equipment turned out to be the big differentiator in classes and the companies often used Heathkit so the student-built their equipment including, often, some form of TV. NRI was known to produce its kits under either its name or the Conar labels.
For example, a CIE class offered a 5 MHz Heathkit oscilloscope, a 19-inch TV, and a color bar generator. NTS had a similar offering, or you could learn about computers with a Heathkit H8. The NTS ad below from 1977 shows quite a haul of stuff, including a 315-square-inch TV! Keep in mind that a CRT that is 18 inches square has 324 square inches and we would call it a 25″ TV.
Many times, kits used components left over from other experiments or were themselves experiments. For example, during construction, you might be instructed to leave out a component and demonstrate the effect it had.
There was one bargain basement educational program that advertised quite a bit. Edu-Kit offered a practical home radio course for under $30. This included tools and a soldering iron. The course claimed to have you build twelve receivers, three transmitters, a square wave generator, an amplifier, a signal tracer, a signal injector, and a code oscillator. Of course, the trick is, you probably weren’t able to keep them all assembled at the same time or they had multiple purposes. After all, a square wave generator is a signal injector and when connected to a signal tracer/amplifier, would give you a code practice oscillator.
Cost
Outside of the Edu-Kit, I never found the price of any of these courses. Presumably, the ones with all the kits would have cost quite a bit, especially in adjusted dollars. However, reading between the lines in some of the ads and promotional material, it seems like many of these schools let you pay in installments. Presumably, you’d pay some, get some materials, and then pay some more to get the rest.
Aftermath
Where are these schools now? They still exist, some of them even the same companies. It seems, though, that paradoxically, these distance learning pioneers have become more traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Maybe the death of readily-available kits can be blamed. After all, you could easily deliver coursework via the Internet and collect assignments the same way. It is harder to do the kits, but some of the virtual labs we’ve seen on EdX are pretty impressive.
Of course, the service business isn’t what it used to be either. When you can go to the big box store and replace a bad TV with a much better one for a fairly cheap price, how much will you pay to have it repaired? The economics of repair doesn’t work well when things get cheaper and better rapidly.
Part of the issue with these schools — particularly the ones that took Federal money for the GI bill or student loans — is that there was a lot of potential for abuse of the system. In 1951, for example, 1,677,000 veterans attended “for-profit” schools, yet only 20% of them completed their studies. Many would sign up, get a TV as part of the course, and then drop out. The government tried to crack down without much success. A 1972 GAO report found that 75% of veterans did not complete correspondence courses. By 1992, the government finally took steps to reduce the flow of money available to these schools.
So it wasn’t just one thing that caused these schools to change or perish. It was everything. While I probably wouldn’t spend a few thousand on some books and Heathkits, I would sure plunk down $30 to build 20 radio circuits at home. It feels like the end of this era took something with it.
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