The eighteenth century, academia, and Gresham's Law

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Sat Jul 4 03:00:40 UTC 2009


Leonard P. Curry writes in _The Free Black in Urban America
1800--1850_ (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981), p.149, about the
education of blacks in 18th and early 19th century America:

"[I]t was assumed that good teachers would flourish at the expense of
those who were inferior -- a kind of academic Gresham's Law."

I trust that Gresham's law -- but not the trend in teaching -- has
reversed its flow since the early 19th century, and that academic
writing has improved since 1981.

Joel

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