328 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 611. 



accomplished ; consequently, both Professor 

 Marburg's paper and the report of the 

 committee were, in some respects, unsatis- 

 factory and unjust to the correspondence 

 school. 



In order that you may understand sev- 

 eral of the facts that I am about to bring 

 to your attention, it will be well to consider 

 the enrolment figures for the various years 

 since the organization of the International 

 Correspondence Schools. 

 From October 1, 1891, to December ' 31, 

 1893, the total number of students en- 

 rolled was 3,105 



The number of new students enrolled to 



December 31, 1894 2,509 



The number of new students enrolled to 



December 31, 1895 4,491 



The number of new students enrolled to 



December 31, 1896 6,530 



The number of new students enrolled to 



December 31, 1897 13,677 



The number of new students enrolled to 



December 31, 1898 38,572 



The number of new students enrolled to 



December 31, 1899 .- 71,885 



Since December 31, 1899, we have been 

 enrolling students at the rate of more than 

 100,000 per year, the total number to and 

 including June 27, 1906, being 902,906. 



It will be noted that up to and includ- 

 ing the enrolment for 1897, the increase in 

 the number of students was comparatively 

 even. After this date, however, the num- 

 ber of students enrolled increased very re- 

 markably. There are two reasons for this 

 sudden increase in the enrolment. Pre- 

 vious to January 1, 1898, the students re- 

 ceived their text-books in the form of 

 paper-covered pamphlets, averaging about 

 fifty pages each, and these were sent only 

 one at a time to each' student as he pro- 

 gressed with his studies. The result was 

 that if a student failed to complete his 

 course, he had on hand not more than two 

 instruction papers in advance of the last 

 one he had studied. This tended to create 

 great dissatisfaction, and, to overcome it, 



we reprinted the entire text of the courses, 

 and sent to every student, at the time of 

 his enrolment, a set of what we term bound 

 volumes. These volumes contained every 

 thing that the student would receive in 

 connection with his course of instruction, 

 and if he failed to complete the course he 

 had his bound volumes at any rate, and 

 could continue studying by himself, if he 

 so desired. This feature resulted in a 

 great increase in the number of students. 

 Further, previous to the latter part of 

 1897, the students were obtained solely by 

 newspaper and magazine advertising. They 

 were all enrolled through the mails and 

 no pressure was applied to induce them 

 to become students. About the time we 

 began printing bound volumes we began 

 to organize a force of solicitors. These 

 solicitors interviewed the prospective stu- 

 dent personally, and naturally did every- 

 thing they could to increase the number 

 of students. The result is shown by the 

 figures above quoted. 



In 1899 and 1900, the number of new 

 students enrolled was so great, relatively 

 speaking, that it was impossible to furnish 

 any definite figures to the committee or to 

 Professor Marburg to substantiate our 

 claims, and we ourselves could not predict 

 definitely what the outcome would be. 

 The enrolment has been comparatively 

 steady during the past seven years, and 

 we are now better able to present to the 

 society facts and statistics that will enable 

 you to judge of the work we are doing. 

 At the same time, we can not give you full 

 and complete information in regard to the 

 benefits derived by our students. We 

 have received hundreds and thousands of 

 letters from students who have never sent 

 in any work at all to be examined and cor- 

 rected, or who have sent in work on only 

 one subject— as for example, arithmetic— 

 in which letters they have stated that they 



