In my examination of department archives I have been somwhat surprised at the relative scarcity of paper traffic with regard to curriculum reform. Here a short note from Maurice Clark to the executive officer of the economics department (i.e. chairman) Robert M. Haig about Columbia’s hiring strategy and whether two “math. Ec’ist[s]” aren’t enough for the task of teaching the “modern tools of economic thinking.” Looking at the faculty list for that year, I presume Clark meant Harold Hotelling and Abraham Wald. The note sounds as though Clark is looking for a way to get out of the “Current types of economic theory” course that he had taken over from Wesley Clair Mitchell and to teach instead a core theory course again.
_____________________________________
COPY
January 9, 1942
Dear Bob [R. M. Haig]:
I heard Lange’s paper. Impressions very favorable per se: but he’s one more high-power mathematical economist, and with three, wouldn’t we be unbalanced? And if it takes a math. Ec’ist to do the job of “modern tools of economic thinking” we had in mind, aren’t two enough?
Another unmatured impression: that part of the gap we’re thinking of would be met by a development and more up-to-date and adequate treatment of the sort of thing I used to do in the course I quit giving when I took Mitchell’s “Types” course:–more specifically, the second half-year where I dealt with the concepts of demand, supply and cost curves in an attempt to relate them to actual behavior. I adumbrated the possibility of treating the distinction between competition and monopoly in terms of slopes of “individual demand schedules” (before Chamberlin’s book). Had ‘em read Foster & Catchings to get the “Income-flow” approach, before Keynes’ books appeared. (I note Neisser of Penn. still finds use for F. & C. in teaching.) Suggested the discrepancy between saving and investment (without, I freely admit, seeing the significances that Keynes developed). And of course I had played with “multipliers”.
A course in which I ruthlessly condensed what used to be my first half-year into two or three lectures, and developed the other kind of material more adequately and systematically, might be considered, while we’re considering things.
Yours,
J. M. Clark
_____________________________________
January 13, 1942
Professor John Maurice Clark,
Fayerweather Hall.
Dear Maurice:
Many thanks for your note of January 9th. I am assuming that you have no objection to my showing it to Mitchell, Angell, and Goodrich.
Faithfully yours,
[R.M. Haig]
_____________________________________
January 13, 1942
Memorandum to Professors Angell, Goodrich and Mitchell
from Professor R. M. Haig:
You will be interested in the enclosed comments from Maurice Clark
_____________________________________
Source: Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Faculty. Box 2. Folder “Department of Economics—Faculty Beginning January 1, 1944 (sic)”.
Image Source: John Maurice Clark at The History of Economic Thought Website.