Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager

22 William Breit, Kenneth Elzinga, and Thomas D. Willettwith us. The number of excellent and complete sets that were sent to us is indicativeof the coherency with which Yeager presented his classroom lectures and thismaterial’s lasting value.Yeager in the classroomWhen students entered a class taught by Leland Yeager they encountered a man ofconservative dress, customarily attired in a gray suit. His head was long, narrow,and rectangular, topped by sandy colored hair that was closely trimmed on allsides, including the top. Yeager was tall, but not as tall as John Kenneth Galbraith;he was lean, but not as lean as David McCord Wright; his posture was straight,indeed he had an almost military bearing; he was of serious demeanor and had apenetrating gaze.The evidence suggests that Leland Yeager was the best teacher in the economicsgraduate program during his years at Virginia. This is true notwithstanding thepresence of other great scholars who had influence in their own way upon students.After all, they could encounter James M. Buchanan, the future Nobel Laureate,whose courses resulted in more student publications in major journals than those ofanyone else; there was G. Warren Nutter, the controversial Soviet specialist whoquestioned the exaggerated growth rates of communist economies that otherSovietologists had accepted as gospel; Gordon Tullock, who was, with Buchanan,creating a new field of study in economics that came to be called Public Choice; andRonald H. Coase, whose work on social cost published while he was at Virginia waseventually to gain him a Nobel prize. But it seems safe to say that none of these leftso indelible an imprint upon the consciousness of their pupils as did Yeager.Much has been written about the elusive qualities that make a great teacher. Inone very important sense, they are the same as those that make a great athlete. Thegreat teacher and the great athlete both have natural gifts suited for their respectiveendeavors; a person without this natural talent will never be a truly great teacher,no matter how diligent the attempt.In addition to their endowed prowess, great teachers, like great athletes, practicetheir craft, each thinking hard about how to play the game before their respectiveaudiences. The great teacher frets about preparing the structure as well as thecontent of the material for the next class day; the great athlete frets about how bestto train and practice for the next contest.To describe Leland Yeager’s gifts and devotion to the classroom, and to give asense of the excitement he generated in that setting, we can do no better than quotethe words of one who was there:He was meticulously prepared for every class and his presentation was flawless,beginning with a well organized historical lead into the topic, a detailed explanationof the issues followed by current articles, replies, rejoinders, etc. This stuffwas dynamite. Students quickly realized that Yeager had it all and anyone withhalf a brain knew that they had a once in a lifetime chance to wrap up the wholedamn subject – if they could just get every word he uttered written down. So