The economics department at Columbia University was the product of an evolution that began in a heavily historical, interdisciplinary pool. As rare as the entrepreneurial spirit would appear in today’s deans (hey, some of my best friends have been/are deans and, through force of circumstance, I have had a sort-of “deandom” thrust upon me), in the beginning it took a builder and not an administrator of faculties. Over at Chicago the role was played by J. Laurence Laughlin. At Columbia it was the scholar of legal history, John William Burgess. While one would be hard-pressed to identify any appreciable direct influence of Burgess on, say, the post-World-War-II economics faculty of Columbia and how graduate training in economics has been organized in the meantime, nonetheless the house Burgess built served as childhood home for generations of economists trained at Columbia during the first half of the twentieth century.
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JOHN WILLIAM BURGESS, LL. D.
PROFESSOR BURGESS was born at Cornersville, Giles County, Tenn., August 26, 1844. He was educated at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn., and at Amherst College, Mass, whence he graduated in 1867. He then took up the study of law, and was admitted to the bar of Massachusetts in 1869. In the same year he was appointed professor of English literature and political economy in Knox College, Galesburg, Ill. Serving in that capacity for two years, in 1871 he went to Europe to further prosecute his studies. He studied history and public law at Göttingen, Leipsic, and Berlin. Returning to this country, he was, in 1873, appointed professor of history and political science in Amherst College. In 1876 he was called to the chair of political history and public law in Columbia College. In 1880 Prof. Burgess founded the School of Political Science in that college, and became its Dean, the position which he now holds.
In literature, Prof. Burgess’s best known work is his treatise on “Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law,” issued in 1891, which has already given him an international reputation. The part of the work treating of Constitutional Law is regarded as authoritative; for his treatment of political science, and especially his definition and exposition of sovereignty, the work has been subjected to not a little criticism; but it is a curious fact that his severest critics are those whose ideas on that subject are most confused and clouded. The book is one of the most able treatises on both subjects ever written, and has already taken a leading position among works of that character.
Prof. Burgess’ life work began with his return from Germany in 1873 and his entrance upon the duties of Professor of History at Amherst College in that year. The methods and results of German university instruction in history had made upon his mind a most profound impression. The contrast between the broad, genial and productive educational spirit which characterized the work of the leading professors of history and political science at Berlin and elsewhere, with whom he had become acquainted, and the meagre and comparatively fruitless attempts at historical study in the United States, was indeed striking. Although that point is not yet twenty years behind us, it would probably not be a misstatement to say that practically no instruction was given in history and political science in any educational institution in America other than a small amount of text-book work.
Perhaps Prof. Burgess has never achieved a greater success than with his first class. Text books were not thought of, but Prof. Burgess proceeded to lay before his class day after day the essential movements of the Middle Ages, out of which the modern European states and modern political institutions were developed. Instead of something to be memorized, history showed itself something to be understood, and institutions were made to appear, not as arbitrary creations, but as living growths, almost as inevitable results. No stronger testimony to the personal power of an instructor can well be given than was afforded by the fact that five or six members of this class actually spent a year in post-graduate study under Prof. Burgess at Amherst, although there was at hand for them neither books nor other material, absolutely nothing but one instructor.
Prof. Burges’ call to Columbia in 1876 gave him at once a larger field, and future possibilities of a greater promise than could be found at Amherst. The traditions of the study of political science were in some measure associated with the College. Prof. Lieber, who had been for many years connected with the College, was a man of wide repute as a publicist, and his works on politics are still of great value. Prof. Dwight had been in the habit of giving a certain amount of instruction on positive constitutional law of the United States and England. In the minds of the President and Trustees of Columbia College, the time had come for a broader course of instruction in historical and political sciences.
Prof. Burgess adopted in Columbia essentially the same methods of instruction which he had successfully pursued elsewhere. His work was in so far successful that he was able, through the liberality of the Trustees, to associate with himself one or two capable adjuncts, and during the four years following his accession there was developed, organized and brought into existence the School of Political Science. This had long been a favorite conception of Prof. Burgess, and its policy, curriculum, organization and administration had been the subject of constant thought and consultation with him for many years. In the establishment of this school, with Prof. Burgess as Dean, Columbia College set an example which has since been followed by a considerable number of American colleges.
A glance at the curriculum as originally set forth in 1880 shows that the various fields of public law and theoretical political science were the branches deemed most important. The development of the school from that time to this has followed on these lines with larger additions, perhaps, in the field of economics. Of history proper as a science there appears but a small trace and only very recently and in a small degree has the study of pure history found place in the school; but, on the other hand, a historical method or a mode of investigation of all political and economic subjects which, dealing with their history, shows the origin, growth and natural development of political and economic institutions, has been unvaryingly followed. At no time has the institution in any field of political economic science been allowed to degenerate into an airing of mere theories.
Prof. Burgess and the other men associated with him in the duties of instruction aim to teach the student, as they teach themselves, to get a clear grasp of the leading and formative events and forces at work in the state and in society, and while recognizing clearly the province of history and science, have found it feasible to give historical instruction only so far as history carries with it the account of those events and political forces which have essentially made up the institutions of to-day.
The School of Political Science has never catered to popularity or aimed for mere numbers. Independence in research, healthy methods of investigation, a clear conception of scientific principles as they have developed themselves historically, have always been the ideals aimed at.
Prof. Burgess has either been signally wise or fortunate in his choice of colleagues and has recognized the necessity of entire independence and personal responsibility in the methods and largely in the material of instruction followed by each individual. The natural development of the School of Political Science on these lines has thrown Prof. Burgess more and more into the field of public law and away from pure history, until his present line of work seems essentially to be a presentation to the school of the theory of the state as it has been historically developed and as specifically illustrated in the constitutional law and history of the United States and Europe.
Not less important than the work of creating the School of Political Science has been Prof. Burgess’ influence in the entire re-organization of Columbia College. Thoroughly impressed with the necessity of American universities and conversant with European in their various forms, and with a clear conception of the nature and functions of a university, Prof. Burgess’ counsels and views have been largely influential in shaping the form and organization of the entire institution as it exists to-day.
Source: Columbia Law Times. Vol. VI, No. 5 (February, 1893), pp. 123 -125.
Image Source: Columbia Law Times. Vol. VI, No. 5 (February, 1893), Frontispiece.