antidoxy is not here to elevate individuals; at the same time there are some advances worth recording, and if those advances are sometimes indexed by a personal name, so be it.

Jacotot uncovered a practice of study and gave it the name of universal teaching. The practice of study is this: know one thing and relate everything else to it. For Jacotot and his students, the "one thing" was a book, any book, though he made a particular choice of book for reasons of convenience and taste.

The practice was not new, far from it, and the name is almost useless. For surely all learning amounts to knowing one thing and relating a new thing to it; and so "universality" adds nothing, and for a practice that claims universality, what role can there be for a teacher?

Jacotot's story is told in Rancière's Ignorant Schoolmaster, read it if you want to know. Jacotot's own books are preserved and easily found, read them if you want to know; start with Langue maternelle.

Here let us say only that Jacotot did find something, and it is convenient to have a name for that thing, so that we don't have to keep rediscovering it. We will not always say Jacotot's name, but it is often on our minds, and because universal teaching handily unmakes doxa, we will continue to return to it here.