Knowing the same things: mass examinations, credentials, and infrastructures of shared knowledge

ABSTRACT

The nineteenth century was one in which millions of people acquired certificates and other credentials attesting that they knew what they claimed to know. These credentials resulted from mass examinations: systems of infrastructure that aspired to procedural objectivity. Among the key feature of these exams were the new numerical marking systems used to compare and commensurate different answers on these exams, because these numbers could generate averages and other formal abstractions of knowledge. While the resulting tests could be restrictive for the individual, they could be positive and even creative. Exam successes and credentials helped people work collectively in groups, giving each group member the confidence that other members knew what they claimed to know.

KEYWORDS:

• Infrastructures
• standardized testing
• achievement examinations
• epistemology
• history of science
• standardization
• objectivity
• nineteenth-century Britain
• British Empire

Acknowledgements

I thank Emil Toescu and Adam Tamas Tuboly for their patience, am grateful to Chris Stray and Kristine Palmieri for their suggestions, and fondly recall conversations with Elihu Gerson about the puzzle of red lights and shared knowledge. The Rajendranath Chatterjee letter is cited with permission from the Archives, Imperial College London, for which I thank Anne Barrett.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Notes on contributors

James Elwick

James Elwick is an Associate Professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at York University (Toronto). Currently studying cheating and other forms of academic misrepresentation, he is tempted to present his findings in the form of a satire about ‘innovation’.