Where does the term ?grading? come from and what is its history? When did quantitative grading of goods begin? How is the grading of goods and the grading of people related?

Here are a few thoughts, based on the Oxford English Dictionary and a small pile of history books. I'm interested to hear more on the history of grading... The word ?grade? comes from the Latin gradus, meaning a step. In the 1560s in Europe, to grade meant to admit someone to a degree in a university ?he was graded doctor, at the expences of elector Fredericke?. Not until the 1650s did the term ?grade? refer to a process in which, as the OED puts it, one might ?arrange or place in grades or classes?. Interestingly the first use was in reference to the divine judgment, ?They that turn many to righteousness shall be graded in glory accordingly? (a fitting motto for comic book enthusiasts?) We shall all be graded according to our sins. For a long time, grading people was predetermined before it was based on merit. Seating in schools, churches, universities and theaters was ?graded? according to rank or class, a person?s fixed place in society.

It took the rise of bureaucracy and meritocracy of the Age of Enlightenment to change the sense of grade from one fixed in social class and seniority to one based on achievement or individual quality. This was perhaps connected to rising industrialization and the growing culture of grading goods for the purposes of taxation. Before the eighteenth century, artisans graded the quality of goods with their senses ? they knew just what looked, smelt and felt ?right?. But Customs and Excise collectors depended on having precise and explicit measures of the quality of goods to know what levels those goods should be taxed at, and in the eighteenth century, formal procedures and quantitative measures for grading goods proliferated. As goods were graded in the marketplace people also began to be graded in the eighteenth century ? Cambridge University introduced the grades ?A, B, C? etc in the 1770s, and German schools introduced the first ?grading tables? in the early 1700s. These ?Censur-Tabellen? provided information on what an ideal student and a disastrous student might be like in terms of a series of tabulated abilities. Teachers could then grade students in a range from ?stupid? to ?proper or decent? in their langauge skills, mastery of the catechism, and general ability.

By the 1830s, the new system of written examinations, introduced first in the Civil Service and then in education, determined numerical grades for individuals, while in the marketplace and government, quantification increasingly became the hallmark of objective assessments. The sense that numbers and measures were more trustworthy than people?s opinions and tacit judgments grew exponentially in the nineteenth century, as people believed numbers might solve disputes where opinions never could. In fact, ?objective? measures usually raised as many questions as they solved, giving rise to the perennial argument between those who reckoned numerical measures of quality determined by some form of expert assessor were the best form of judgment and those who reckoned long personal experience and a more intangible ?eye? for quality might be better.

Sources: William J. Ashworth, Customs and Excise: Trade, Production, and Consumption in England, 1640-1845 (Oxford University Press, 2003) (on grading goods); William Clark, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University (University of Chicago Press, 2006) (on grading in schools and universities); Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton University Press, 1995) (on the rise of quantification in the nineteenth century)