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Exam Questions Harvard Sociology

Harvard. Final exam questions for principles of sociology. Carver, 1905-1906

Thomas Nixon Carver

 

Excerpts from Thomas Nixon Carvers’s autobiography dealing with sociology, his course reading list and a “thick” course description from the 1904-05 academic year have been transcribed and posted earlier.

Image today having a question like “What are the chief factors tending to promote the improvement of the race, and what are the chief factors tending to deteriorate it?” standing between you and your final grade in a course.

I wonder when such a question was first able to elicit a consensus cringe among social scientists. 

Likely readings for this course can be found in Sociology and Social Progress, compiled by Thomas Nixon Carver (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1905).

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Course Enrollment

Economics 3. Professor Carver. — Principles of Sociology. Theories of Social Progress.

Total 60: 9 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 23 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1905-1906, p. 72.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3
Mid-year Examination, 1905-06

  1. State and explain briefly, —
    1. Spencer’s position as to the possibility of a science of society.
    2. Bagehot’s conclusion as to verifiable progress.
    3. Kidd’s theory as to the function of religious beliefs in the development of society.
    4. Kidd’s prediction as to the future relation of European races to tropical regions.
  2. What are the chief factors tending to promote the improvement of the race, and what are the chief factors tending to deteriorate it?
  3. Discuss briefly the following topics in their relation to social development:
    1. “The consciousness of kind.”
    2. Imitation
    3. Resentment.
    4. The power of idealization.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1905-06.

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ECONOMICS 3
Year-end Examination, 1905-06

  1. Discuss Kidd’s view that the real drift of society is toward greater equality and that this is accompanied by keener competition.
  2. Can social progress be defined in terms of human well being? Explain.
  3. What is meant by the transition from a pain to a pleasure economy? What corresponding transition does Comte describe?
  4. If we grant that war is primarily due to economic reasons, does the conclusion follow that it is permanent?
  5. What importance attaches to the prolongation of infancy in the human species?
  6. Compare the views of Kidd and Buckle as to the relative importance of the moral and the intellectual factors in social development.
  7. What is meant by the storing of social energy, and what are some of the chief agencies by which it is accomplished?
  8. Compare the prince, as described by Machiavelli, with the modern political boss.
  9. What is meant by the distinction between the repressive and the directive activities of the State? What are the main conditions which justify the latter?
  10. What general principle determines the obligation of the State in the imposition of taxes?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1906), p. 30.

Image Source: Portrait of Thomas Nixon Carver, colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, from the Harvard Class Album 1906.