The Great American University

A Discussion of the Claims and Methods of the Mail Order Colleges

PATRICK KEARNEY

EDUCATION is still held in high reverence by the uneducated. It is considered to be, in essence, a mystic, an occult thing, not merely a more or less successful means of developing and training aptitudes. A generation ago the man who had not had a formal education firmly believed and declared that "anyone who knows Latin and Greek can dig a better ditch than the man who doesn't/' But his son studied Latin and Greek, and no magical transformation took place; so the belief in the witchcraft of the classics has practically disappeared. The next catchword was "a college education", but the practical man soon discovered that even this could not instil powers that the individual did not possess. But this failure of formal education, to give "secrets of life", which, properly comprehended, would enable the individual to realize all his desires, could not destroy the age-old belief that somewhere there was this mystic form of knowledge.

Magic Power of Education

THIS belief in the omnipotence, or magic power, of education is probably a survival from earlier periods of development, when the wise man was a magician, with power over life and death and the elements. In later times the priest, as the only educated man in the community, was held in superstitious awe as possessed of magic power; a belief that still holds among the peasantry of various nations. As a matter of fact, I have talked to intelligent, educated people who believed that the Jesuits have a "secret power".

The appeal of such advertisements as "The Five Foot Shelf of Books" is based purely on this elemental superstition that education has some power within itself to change an individual's life. We have all read and laughed at The Secret of Fifteen Minutes a Day, and those who respond to such an advertisement must really believe that by ploughing through the books for fifteen minutes every evening some great change will take place in their personalities and their lives. It will be admitted that to read the Confessions of St. Augustine for a quarter of an hour is a curious preparation for a dinner party, and that a familiarity with Sir Thomas Browne can have little effect on a bookkeeper's advancement in his business, but it is precisely such hopes as these that are held out to the purchasers, and precisely with such expectations that the purchasers buy them.

This age-old belief in the omnipotence of education is just now being capitalized on a large scale by the mail order "colleges". In their lavish and amazing advertisements they promise all things. Untold wealth, perfect health, love, honor, fame, cleverness, dynamic personality, success, popularity—a mail order course is a modern Aladdin's lamp. By mail all things are possible.

I am speaking here, not of such courses as the International Correspondence School, which claim to give training in trades and professions, and undoubtedly do, within the limits of the correspondence method. I am concerned rather with that far larger and more prosperous group, which frankly promise magic secrets of life and initiation into secret powers. The first group appeals to people who have no opportunities for other formal education, the second to those who believe that there are occult forms of knowledge which, properly understood, will give them complete mastery of life.

In this group are such systems as "The Master Key", which "unlocks the secret chambers of success", the "Carnagey (sic) Institute", which "immediately creates success, wealth and happiness", the "Realization System", which will give you "magnificent homes, fine jewels, vastly increased incomes, marvelous healing of disease", and dozens more on the same order. The most pretentious of all these courses, enormously popular a few years ago, now seems to have disappeared completely from the advertising pages. This was "Pelmanism", which created a furore in both England and America very similar to the one which Coue is now enjoying.

There are no statistics available as to the number of students these courses have enrolled; each one claims adherents in the hundred thousands, and as they are all prolific advertisers, and magazine space is high, there must be some truth in their claims. It is safe to say that in students they far outnumber the universities, and taken as a whole they are probably the most considerable purveyors of "education" in America.

The prices of the courses range from "whatever it is worth to you", up to seventy-five dollars. The pupils, if we can believe the testimonials, come from all economic and social strata. Day laborers and ministers of the gospel, clerks and executives sing their praises. The schools all carry money-back guarantees, probably in order to avoid difficulties with the postal department. The claims of all the schools are similar; they vie with each other in the enthusiasm of their iridescent promises. The things they guarantee to do are literally unlimited.

The Power of Thought

FOR purposes of investigation I signed the coupons on a number of the really interesting advertisements, and I have received very nearly a bushel basket of literature. In some cases the complete course was sent on approval; in others, one or two lessons, and in a few, descriptive booklets and testimonials, sufficiently detailed, however, to give an excellent idea of the entire course.

I find that the courses are all similar in manner and material; they claim to be based largely on science and psychology, they are made up of statements which, I should think, would tax the credulity of a mediaeval peasant. In presentation they range from illiteracy to idiocy, and in range of ideas they include, besides all the sciences thoroughly misinterpreted, every form of superstition that mankind has ever devised.

The general tenor of the courses—the "secret" they convey—is the old myth of the power of thought. I suppose all schools of psychology agree that there is no such thing as the power of thought; it is at best a figure of speech, which taken literally becomes a silly superstition. We may say, to be sure, that the thought of St. Paul changed European civilization, but it is quite clear that if St. Paul had stayed at home thinking, nothing much would have happened. But the mail order courses make a more than literal application of the idea. Whatever you think, according to their lessons, will come true. A reiteration of this idea, backed up by examples, is the sum total of the knowledge sold by the mail-order schools. The opening sentences of one of the courses—"The Power that Compels Success"—may serve to strike the keynote of the whole group:

"You are as remarkable an inventive genius as Thomas Edison. You are as masterful a leader of men as was Napoleon. You are as great a financial colossus as was J. Pierpont Morgan. You are as daring an empire builder as was Cecil Rhodes. . . . Name any great man in the tide o' time, and we'll tell you YOU are his equal."

A proper understanding and acceptance of this great fact is the only necessary preliminary to complete success. This course will further teach you the law of "Psychic Demand", which is that if you mentally demand a thing you will get it. One student is reported to have put a sign on his wall, "I Demand $250,000." He got it in a few years. Then he put up another sign, calling for a million. The results of the second experiment are not given, but we are assured that if the law worked up to one point, it will surely work up to another.

"The Master Key"

THE most astounding of all the courses, in the extent of its claims, is "The Master Key", which has students in all parts of the world. Its principles are, we are assured, infallible, and it, like the others, is based on the power of Mind, though in this case the all-powerful force is the "subconscious" mind. This is the system which "reconciles pragmatism and mysticism, which combines applied psychology and metaphysics, personal ethics and aesthetics; it may be likened to the Philosopher's Stone—nay, it IS the Philosopher's Stone, which gives the elixir of youth, the true secret of gold, and eternal wisdom." This is not a burlesque, but a direct quotation from the advertisement. All of these things can be obtained through an understanding of the subconscious mind. Immediately after taking the course, one woman writes that her book of poems "is to be published by a Boston firm—at the firm's own expense!" Naturally she attributes this to the Master Key. Another successful student gives us this rhapsodic testimonial:

"Through an open portal I wandered into the ante-chamber of a temple. And something seemed to beckon me on, as though a gentle, unseen hand leading me. And as I wandered, the sense of strangeness and newness left me. I felt the comfort of a wanderer returned home. . . . I had found the Master Key."

From the literary point of view, the most delightful of all the courses is "Making Men Think Your Way", issued by the "Carnagey Institute". Mr. Carnagey has a style all his own, of which this is an example:

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"If I were to ask you what per cent of our latent powers we develop, you would probably say fifty per cent, which reminds me of the story of the two Irishmen." This course is broader in scope than the others. Mr. Carnages' calls u[>on spiritualism, mental telepathy, hypnotism, psychoanalysis, radio, radio-activity, Christian Science, vibrationism, Coue, the experiments of Dr. Carrel, and forty other sciences and superstitions to help him prove his points. Furthermore, his course is purely practical. If you have a lawsuit, for instance, handle it this way:

"Hold your enemy in mind, during your concentration periods, with thoughts of love, so earnestly that he will come and settle with you out of court."

If you want an automobile, visualize it for "if you think you have an automobile, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." If you wish to be a Lincoln or a Shakespeare, "hang a picture of your idol on the wall at the foot of your bed, and contemplate that picture as you go to sleep." As a scientific proof of the power of thought, this experiment is suggested: "Get a person in a mood of extreme hate or fear, and condense his breath into a chilled tube. Put the resulting drop of moisture on a cat's tongue, and the cat will have a fit. If the person breathing is in a happy mood, the cat will act in a happy and joyful way." This course concludes with the reassuring warning: "Don't get discouraged if you don't make a million over night. Remember nothing in this world happens instantaneously."

Swoboda

ONE of the largest of the mail order advertisers is A. P. Swoboda, from whom I have received The Subtle Principie of Success and The Natural Law of Supreme Health. In fairness to him, I must single him out from the others, for, while his advertisements are as preposterous in their claims as they can possibly be, the "secrets" he delivers are not absurd, and it is conceivable that at least a part of the results he promises can be obtained from them. These secrets differ from the others in that they are not merely violent assertions of the power of thought, but practical suggestions for health and conduct. Mr. Swoboda claims that "The Subtle Principle of Success" was used, consciously or unconsciously, by Caesar, Napoleon, Roosevelt, Edison, and twenty other great men, and, oddly enough, this statement is perfectly true, It may be doubted, however, whether the use of the principle will turn any one into a Caesar or a Napoleon, as the inventor claims. These secrets are so heavily copyrighted that I dare not present them here; however, they are sent free, and anyone whose curiosity has been aroused to an unbearable pitch can send for them, Another course which must be singled out is the Roth Memory Course. This is really quite legitimate. It cannot actually improve the memory, but it does teach a simple and practical method of remembering concrete things, which amounts to very nearly the same thing,

These are the only ones with which I am familiar, however, that have any validity whatever. The question immediately arises as to how the schools do business at all, since they guarantee money back if perfect satisfaction does result. This is a difficult question; a partial answer may be given by another quotation. In one of the courses, "The Science of Personal Success," I find this:

"In a profoundly true sense you are greater than the Himalaya Mountains,

the stars or the sun. . . . Such thinking, philosophically sound and correct, makes one feel pretty big!" To make one feel pretty big seems to be the entire purpose of the courses, and there is no doubt that they can measure their success with students by the degree to which they fill them with this useless kind of conceit. The man who is obsessed with the consciousness of his mental and social inferiority can derive great consolation from such statements, and is only too willing to accept them at face value, Furthermore, one of the courses supplies a "diploma" to all who can show "where you have demonstrated health, that you have manifested sure enough money, and that you have gotten into a state of mind where you are happy. You can hang such a diploma on the wall, and every time you look at it it means something. It is a reminder that you are a success." Few, indeed, could resist the temptation to have such a diploma, and to gain it would probably be glad to sign the necessary affidavit testifying to the success of the course.

These quotations, I trust, will give some idea of the quality of the curriculum offered by this great university. Their total purpose seems to be to inculcate superstitions which were laughed at in Aristotle's day, and which have been the common belief and practice of all savage tribes since the beginning of mankind, There is hardly an idea in all of the courses which cannot be found in Frazer's reports of primitive magic beliefs. These ideas are being sold at a comparatively high price to hundreds of thousands, in a country where there are free universities, compulsoty primary education, and public libraries in every city and town. The conclusion is that there exists a tremendous demand for some kind of knowledge which will help people in their basic problems of life, and that educators have not solved the problem of supplying it. And when the wise and honest in a civilization fail to supply a natural and proper demand, it will be supplied by the knaves and the fools.