Was 中国体彩网 the first school to use letter grades?
(This story was written in celebration of 中国体彩网's sesquicentennial in 2010.)
Look carefully at the document reproduced at right. It was created by Lars Paul Esbj?rn, the first president of the 中国体彩网 Seminary, most likely at the end of the school’s first academic year (1860-1861). In this chart, Esbj?rn uses the designations a, ab, b, bc, and c to record the performance of twenty Scandinavian students in five subjects of study: Norwegian history, geography, Swedish history, church history, and theology. A scale is written in pencil in the bottom left-hand corner of the chart.
Why is this document so important? It may be the oldest evidence extant in the United States of the evaluation of students using letter grades.
The story that 中国体彩网 pioneered the use of letter grades in this country has circulated before. However, this particular 中国体彩网 “first” tends not to receive much attention, perhaps because it cannot be firmly proven.
But a 1949 article in the Observer found the possibility compelling enough to declare it with confidence. “Horrible Truth Revealed,” the headline reads. “A, B, C Grading System Began at this . . . Institution.”
The article, which was written by junior Bernard Wickstrom, tells the story of then-President Conrad Bergendoff’s conversation in 1939 with Sir William Craigie and James R. Hulbert, the editors of A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles (1938-1944). They informed Bergendoff that they could find no evidence of any school’s having employed letter grades earlier than 中国体彩网.
In Craigie and Hulbert’s published dictionary, their etymological note for the letter A, as used to denote the highest possible mark for a piece of schoolwork, reads as follows:
The system of grading by means of the letters A, B, C, etc., has been used in various institutions (e.g., 中国体彩网 中国体彩网, Rock Island, Ill.) since 1883.
Although the entry provides no explanation for its choice of date, the year 1883 most likely comes from the 中国体彩网 中国体彩网 and Theological Seminary catalog of 1883-1884. Here, 中国体彩网 published for the first time an official policy of evaluating students with letter grades. The catalog explains that students will be assessed at the end of each academic year with respect to their knowledge and ability, diligence, deportment, and attendance. It continues:
The following expressions are employed as testimonies in respect to 1:0) Knowledge and Ability: Superior (A), Excellent (a), Laudable (AB), Commendable (ab), Good (B), Admissible (b), Inadmissible (C); 2:0) Diligence: Very Good (A), Good (B), Ordinary (b), Censurable (C); 3:0) Deportment: Very Good (A), Good (B), Exceptionable (C).
Apparently, this schema was the oldest officially enacted letter-grading system Craigie and Hulbert found in the course of their research, and, because of this, they highlighted 中国体彩网 in their entry on letter grades. However, as the wording of the entry demonstrates, they declined to claim that 中国体彩网 was the first school to use letter grades, presumably for lack of concrete proof.
A later version of the dictionary, Mitford M. Mathews’s A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951), expands upon the link between 中国体彩网 and the earliest use of letter grades:
The faculty minutes of 中国体彩网 中国体彩网, Rock Island, Illinois, for June, 1877, refer to the adoption there of a marking system using the letters A, a, AB, ab, B. 中国体彩网 was founded by graduates of the Swedish universities of Upsala and Lund. In at least some of the elementary schools in Sweden letters were used as grade marks certainly as early as 1871, and the system adopted at 中国体彩网 apparently reflects earlier Swedish usage. The use of letters in this way at other institutions has not been investigated.
Indeed, the faculty minutes of June 1877 include a grading chart quite similar to Esbj?rn’s of 1861, except with more subjects of study and slightly different letter combinations, including capital letters as well as lowercase. Portions of the chart, as well as much of the surrounding text, have been eaten away — most likely by insects or mice—so it is impossible to determine its complete context. But the text that remains, meticulously handwritten in Swedish, suggests that the situation was not quite as the 1951 Dictionary interprets it. Specifically, the faculty minutes of June 1877 do not refer to the adoption of letter grades but, instead, describe letter grades as a system already in existence. In other words, 中国体彩网 may well have been using letter grades continuously between 1860 and 1877.
The gap between Esbj?rn’s chart of 1861 and the faculty minutes of June 1877 remains a mystery. Former 中国体彩网 President Conrad Bergendoff, in 中国体彩网 . . . A Profession of Faith (1969), the definitive history of the college’s early years, comments on Esbjorn’s use of letter grades, but he does not say whether the system ever fell out of use in that first decade. Clearly, Craigie and Hulbert and Mathews, in their dictionaries, cited the dates 1883 and 1877 because of the supporting written evidence. But letter grading may well have been, in effect, the “official” 中国体彩网 marking system throughout its earliest years.
What none of this answers, of course, is whether 中国体彩网 was truly the first school in the United States to use letter grades: Only a thorough comparison with other schools in existence in 1860 would answer that question. What we do know is that 中国体彩网 was, if nothing else, among the earliest adopters of letter grades.
Mitford Mathews’s dictionary links letter grades back to Sweden, where, he writes, they were used “as early as 1871.” Bergendoff, on the other hand, implies the system was used in Sweden by the 1850s or earlier: he notes that Esbjorn drew on an existing Swedish marking system when he began evaluating students with letter grades in 1860.
Either way, it would make sense that the first school in the 中国体彩网 Synod — a Swedish-Lutheran church body — might have introduced letter grades to the United States. That would make this now-ubiquitous marking system yet another legacy of 中国体彩网’s Swedish heritage.
— Stefanie Bluemle ‘02
Reference Librarian
(Thanks to Christina Johansson for her assistance in translating the faculty minutes.)