The mid-year exam (February 1923) for Thomas Nixon Carver’s course “Principles of Sociology” was transcribed from the Vernon Orval Watts papers at the Hoover Institution and posted earlier in Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. Today we can add a transcription of the final examination from June 1923 that comes from the Harvard archives. The syllabus for the course as given in 1917-18 has also been transcribed.
His autobiography, Recollections of an Unplanned Life (1949), is available on-line. Thank you hathitrust.org! Warning: Carver’s transitory importance for the Harvard economics department is all out of proportion to the utter dullness of his prose. I guess I have to read his early QJE articles that must have really tickled Taussig’s theoretical fancy. As far as the evolution of sociology goes, this creature crawling out of the swamp pool bears no visible similarity to what many of us have come to see as the sociology of the past generation.
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Enrollment
[Economics] 8. Professor Carver—Principles of Sociology.
Total 41: of which 12 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 7 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1922-23, p. 92.
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Final Examination
Principles of Sociology
Professor Thomas Nixon Carver
1922-23
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 8
- Do you believe that there has been any progress in the last three hundred years? Give your reasons.
- Discuss the relation to eugenics of crime and punishment on the one hand, and of philanthropy on the other.
- What economic results would you expect to follow the adoption of a sound moral code?
- Discuss the topic: Religion as a factor in national prosperity.
- Is the individual becoming more free or less free from group control (a) in religious belief, (b) in education, (c) in expressions of opinion, (d) in business contracts?
- Discuss Ross’s statement that “The existence of an instinct is no reason for giving it free course.”
- What social importance do you attach to the prolongation of infancy in the human species?
- Would industry be more democratic or less democratic if workmen had a vote in the management of the establishments in which they are employed Explain.
- What are the principal contrasts between the militant and the industrial types of society?
- Compare the republican and the democratic theories of representation.
Final. 1923.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations in History, History of Religions, … ,Economics, … , Social Ethics, Anthropology. June, 1923. (HUC 7000.28, 65 of 284).
Image Source: Thomas Nixon Carver in Harvard Class Album 1920 p. 18.