The In-Kind Economy of Early School Districts

Abstract

Like their economic culture, the nature of school districts’ expenditure remains understudied. In stark contrast to the number of vital studies in economic history that have estimated the changing levels of educational expenditure, there is a marked paucity of studies that reflect upon the qualitative nature of educational expenditure.¹ Although the available evidence shows that non-monetary resource allocation mechanisms remained a significant feature of nineteenth-century society, the relationship between the non-monetary and monetary components of educational expenditure is rarely discussed. Instead, quantitative analyses of educational expenditure reduce these transactions to dollars, francs, marks or pesetas. This pre-occupation with the monetary aspect of educational expenditure is also evident in the assumption that “the edifice of public education rests on dollars and cents.”²