Test with Examination Questions on Geometry and Trigonometry as well as Pamphlet on How to Proceed with Your Studies

These two documents, a test of geometry and trigonometry and a pamphlet describing methods of study, were published by one of the first of proprietary correspondence schools, the International Correspondence Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The firm grew out of Pennsylvania legislation from 1885 that required miners and mine inspectors to pass examinations in mine safety. T. J. Foster, editor of a journal called Collier Engineer and Metal Miner, began publishing an educational column on methods and machinery of mining. This proved of sufficient interest for Fischer to start offering correspondence courses on coal mining. By 1899, when these material appeared, the International Correspondence Schools had enrolled over 190,000 students. They studied a wide range of topics, including mathematics.

The documents come from a collection of tests relating to mathematics assembled by L. Leland Locke. Locke was teaching math in Pennsylvania at the time they were published. He would spend most of his career in Brooklyn, New York.

For related objects, see 2011.0129.10 and 1982.3001.17.

Reference:

J. D. Watkinson, “’Education for Success’: The International Correspondence Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 120, #4, 1996, pp. 343-369.

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