Accreditors are perfecting the Pony Express as the telegraph wires are being strung.

The influential Chronicle of Higher Education has been growing increasingly critical of the concept of accreditation, as currently practiced. In the past, one writer called regional accreditation "formerly the gold standard, now the tin standard." In a major article this week, focused on the growing number of folks who say accreditation is not keeping up with the times, they offer the fine quote from Michael Goldstein, a preeminent higher education attorney in Washington: Accreditors are "perfecting the Pony Express as the telegraph wires are being strung." Accreditors Now Find Themselves Under Critical Review - Administration - The Chronicle of Higher Education

 

I like the image but the Pony Express worked in concert with the first Overland Telegraph line. The PE riders bridged the narrowing gap between the ends of the new line. I don't think PE lasted for more than a year or two.

 

I've been wondering exactly how the Pony Express worked. They did carry letters for an obscene fee but when they were riding between ends of the Overland Telegraph line I think they might have been carrying telegram forms for refile.

Larger parcels and packages usually went by Butterfield Stage (in one old station of which now resides my favorite local restaurant). Really heavy freight went by freight wagon and very slowly.

Refiling is an arcane concept but basically, electric telegrams had to be routed manually in the pre-electronic days. So your telegram might be routed from your town to a refiling center in a large city then re-sent on a main, high speed line to another hub then resent on a more local loop to the local station in the addressee's town. My thinking is that the PE rider might have been carrying those refile sheets (among other things, I'm sure).

During my brief career as a commercial radiotelegrapher, the need for manual refile was one of many factors that made telegrams too expensive to compete.

I don't really know, of course, but it's an interesting bit of history. A Master's in Public History could easily concentrate on pre-1869 Western communications and the story of the Overland Telegraph!

Any takers?

 

Dr. Bear, what is your assessment for the future of accreditation and all the various accrediting bodies? Inquiring minds want to know.