During a recent visit to the Harvard archives I was frustrated when I found that in a volume with the title “Examinations for Women” that pages for advanced examinations, of which political economy would have been one according to an overview of the examinations, had been ripped out. Perhaps an advantage of our age of easy photocopying is that such acquisatory vandalism in libraries has been significantly reduced. Today I thought I would trawl the net and see if I could find any Harvard political economy exams for women in the days before there was even a Radcliffe.  Following an excerpt from a U.S. Bureau of Education report and a New York Times account (the examination questions are “far too hard”), Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is happy to provide a transcription of the questions for the advanced examination in political economy for 1874.

Political Economy exams for the Harvard men of this period have been posted earlier.

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HARVARD’S EXAMINATION FOR WOMEN

This was originally intended as a careful test of proficiency in a course of elementary study of a liberal order, arranged for persons who might, or might not, afterwards pursue an advanced curriculum of studies. It differed, therefore, both in its purpose and in its selection of subjects from any college examination, whether for admission or for subsequent standing. But it applied the highest standard of judgment in determining the excellence of the work offered. It furnished a test of special culture in one or more of five departments. It was not intended to be taken as a whole, and did not, therefore, represent the studies of a college course, but was adapted to persons of limited leisure for study, such as girls who had left school and were occupied with home cares, or teachers engaged in their professional labors.

In Scribner’s Monthly for September, 1876, the purposes of the new movement are set forth, and an idea given of the reception which has been accorded it. The writer says:

Harvard has undertaken to do for this country what Oxford and Cambridge are doing for England;

and he might have added, “and Edinburgh for Scotland.” Its faculty held examinations for women at Cambridge first in June, 1874, 1875, and 1876. In 1874 Harvard gave only four certificates; in 1875 only ten candidates entered, and in 1870 only six. In the latter year it was decided that examinations should be held also in New York. A local committee was formed there, with Miss E. T. Minturn as secretary. This committee went to work at once to procure candidates for examination after the manner pursued in England, on the establishment of a new center, and met with much encouragement.

The examination took place in June of 1877. The examinations (held in a private house, or in some room hired by the committee) were almost entirely in writing. No one was permitted to be present but ladies of the local committee, and a representative officer from the university, who brought the question papers, took the answers as soon as the time allowed for each paper had expired, and carried the answers at the close of the examinations back to the university, when they were inspected by the examiners and reported upon to the candidates through the local committee. This is the English mode of proceeding.

The examination, as in the preceding years, was of two grades. The first was a preliminary examination for young women who were not less than 17 years old; the second an advanced examination for those who had passed the preliminary examination and who were not less than 18 years old. The preliminary examination embraced English literature, French, physical geography, with elementary botany, or elementary physics, arithmetic, algebra through quadratic- equations, plane geometry, history, and any one of three languages — German, Latin, or Greek. The advanced examination was divided into five sections, in one or more of which the candidate could present herself:

(1) Languages. In any of the following: English, French, German. Italian, Latin, or Greek.

(2) Natural science. In any of the following: Chemistry, physics, botany, mineralogy, and geology.

(3) Mathematics. Solid geometry, algebra, logarithms and plane trigonometry, and any one of the three following : Analytic geometry, mechanics, spherical trigonometry, and astronomy.

(4) History. For the first year, 1876, candidates could offer either of the two following: The history of Continental Europe during the period of the Reformation, 1517-1648; or English and American history from 1688 to the end of the eighteenth century.

(5) Philosophy. Candidates might offer any three of the following: Mental philosophy, moral philosophy, logic, rhetoric, political economy.

Notice of intention to be candidates must be sent to the secretaries on or before April 1 preceding the examination. The fee for the preliminary examination was $15, for the advanced examination $10.

At the New York examination, referred to above, 18 candidates presented themselves, and the examination lasted a week, and was under the conduct of Professor Child. With the exception of a short oral exercise to test pronunciation of the modern languages, the examination was wholly in writing.

The committee were careful to lay stress upon the fact that they did not consider the preparation for these examinations equivalent to a course in Harvard, or other first-class colleges, and that they did not place the same value on a Harvard diploma and a Harvard certificate.

These examinations have now become a part of the regular work of the university, and are held every year simultaneously in New York and Cambridge (or Boston), in Philadelphia, and in Cincinnati, beginning on the last Wednesday in May. Since 1879 instruction as well as examination has been provided for by a new organization incorporated under the name of the “Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and other Instructors of Harvard College.”

The first intimation of this movement for the private instruction of women by professors of Harvard University was made in a circular signed by the seven ladies who became the first managers of the annex, and was dated Washington’s Birthday, 1879.

The terms of the circular were somewhat vague, but they were taken as evidence that privileges which had before been the right of men only were to be offered to women. The intention of the promoters of the scheme was, in fact, to provide for women, outside of the college, instruction of the same grade that men receive in it, united to tests of progress as rigid as those which are applied in the college.

The next step was the publication of a circular, giving the terms of admission to the courses of instruction to be offered the first year. This was done in April. The Harvard examinations for women being in successful operation, they were made the basis upon which fitness for ad mission was to be determined.

Upon the eighth examination held in Cambridge, New York, and Cincinnati, June 30, 1881, in accordance with the wishes of the Woman’s Educational Association, the candidates who presented themselves for examination were examined upon the subjects required for admission to Harvard College, with the exception, that the candidate could, if she chose, substitute French and German in place of Greek. The time and method of examinations and the papers used were the same as for the examination for admission to Harvard College, and the same privilege of passing a preliminary examination on a part of the subjects and of completing the course in a subsequent year was allowed.

Certificates were given, bearing the signature of the president, and specifying the subjects in which the candidate had passed.

The old order of examinations was then abolished except for such candidates as had passed on a part of the work required. The Woman’s Educational Association took charge of the examination in Cambridge, and local committees had charge of the examinations in New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. The certificate given to a candidate who passes upon all the subjects required for admission to the college entitles her to admission to the courses of instruction given in Cambridge by instructors in Harvard University, under the direction of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women. It is also accepted, if presented within a year of its date, by Vassar, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr Colleges as the equivalent for examinations in such subjects, whether preparatory or collegiate, as are covered by it.

Source: United States Bureau of Education. Circular of Information No. 6, 1891. George Gary Bush, History of Higher Education in Massachusetts, pp. 176-178. [No. 13 in Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams]

HARVARD EXAMINATIONS FOR WOMEN
from a New York Times report in 1877

…The objects specially held in view by the ladies who have promoted this movement were to afford persons desirous of becoming teachers in schools such a diploma of competency for their task as would be received on all hands with respect, and, further, to promote a higher standard of attainments in the private schools attended by the wealthier classes, by thus securing them thoroughly qualified teachers. The radical defect in women’s education generally, more especially in the case of women educated at a fashionable school, is, that while they have a smattering of many subjects, they do not know one thoroughly….

…At present it appears to us that the questions are far too hard…

…[the illustrative questions cited from physical geography and history] are merely in the “preliminary” examination, and surely are well calculated to convey a lively apprehension as to the stiffness of the queries to follow; and we are not, therefore, surprised to read in the report that only three of the eighteen New-York candidates took up the whole number of subjects required for a certificate, and that of these, but two were successful.”

Source: The New York Times, December 30, 1877, p. 6.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
EXAMINATIONS FOR WOMEN, 1874.

ADVANCED EXAMINATION. POLITICAL ECONOMY.

The examination will be based on Fawcett’s “Manual of Political Economy” [1874] and Blanqui’s “Histoire de l’Économie Politique en Europe.” [4e èd. Rev. et annot. (1860). Tome Premier; Tome Second]

SPECIMEN EXAMINATION-PAPER.

I. Fawcett’s Manual.

1. Define, with illustrations, Wealth, Capital, and Money; and state the distinctions between them.
2. How is the rapid recovery of a country from a devastating war explained?
3. Define and distinguish Value and Price.
4. What causes regulate the price of articles of vertu, of agricultural produce, and of manufactured articles respectively?
5. Explain Ricardo’s theory of rent, the law of production from land on which it rests, and how the conclusion is drawn that agricultural rent is not a component of price.
6. What causes the tendency of profits to fall as a nation advances?
7. What principles determine the rate of wages, and what remedies are suggested for low wages?
8. State the distinction between industrial partnership, complete coöperation, and the coöperative store; and explain the system of the Rochdale Pioneers and its advantages.
9. What arguments can you give for or against peasant proprietorship?
10. What effect have the discoveries of gold in California and Australia had on the value of gold, and what has tended to counteract that effect in England and the United States?
11. What will determine the amount of money which a country will keep in circulation?
12. “What will happen if the circulating medium is increased beyond its natural amount, by the introduction (1) of more gold or silver? or, (2) of bank notes which are redeemed in gold on presentation? or, (3) of inconvertible notes?
13. Do the United States gain or lose by the constant exportation of the gold mined in California; and why?
14. Can two countries trade with each other profitably, when every commodity exchanged might be produced by one cheaper than by the other?
15. In the example given of an exchange of iron and wheat by England and France, what will be the effects of an improvement which cheapens the production of iron in England?

II. Blanqui’s Histoire de l’Économie Politique en Europe.

1. Give the names and geographical positions of some of the chief of the Hanseatic cities, and briefly explain their rise and the organization of their trade.
2. What important changes took place in the economical condition of Europe in the reign of Charles the Fifth? Give the leading dates of his reign, and name some of his contemporaries.
3. What social changes, good or bad, were produced in Europe in the fifteenth century, by the discovery of gold and silver in the New World?
4. When was the Bank of Amsterdam established, and on what plan was it conducted?
5. When did the school of the French economists flourish, who were some of its leading writers, and what were its characteristic doctrines?
6. Who was Adam Smith, when did he live and publish his chief work, and what service did he render in the development of political economy?
7. What economical effects had the establishment of American independence?
8. When and for how long a time did the Bank of England suspend specie payments?
9. What were the characteristic views of Sismondi, and by what circumstances of his time was he led to them?
10. Give some account of Robert Owen and of his system of social reform.
11. How have the peculiar situation and industrial conditions of England probably influenced the views of her writers on political economy?

Source: Harvard University. Examinations for Women, 1874, p. 70-71.  Also, a copy at the Radcliffe Archives.