Harvard. Final examinations in Political Economy courses, 1891-1892

With the start of the 2021-22 academic year Economics in the Rear-view Mirror resumes the careful transcription of documents for the digital record of the development of economics education.

The Harvard archives are full of exam materials across time and fields so I pick up with where I left off in that series. Edward Cummings joined the teaching staff that in 1891-92 only consisted of two professors (Dunbar and Taussig) and a pair of instructors (Edward Cummings and William M. Cole).

_______________________

Note to self: Still Missing for 1891-92.

Political Economy 3. Edward Cummings. Mid-year examination, 1892
Political Economy 4. William M. Cole. Mid-year examination, 1892
Political Economy 7. Charles F. Dunbar. Mid-year examination, 1892

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Course Description and Enrollment.

Primarily for Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 1. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig, Mr. [William M.] Cole, and Mr. [Edward] Cummings.

— First half-year: Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

— Second half-year:

Division A (Theoretical): Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Division B (Descriptive): Lectures on Finance, Labor and Capital, Coöperation. — Hadley’s Railroad Transportation.—Dunbar’s Chapters on Banking. 3 hours.

Total 288: 1 Graduate, 47 Seniors, 102 Juniors, 91 Sophomores, 7 Freshmen, 40 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-Year Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]

I.
[Omit one.]

1. Mill says that “the laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. . . . Whatever mankind produces must be produced in the modes, and under the conditions, imposed by the constitution of external things, and by the inherent properties of their own bodily and mental structure.” Is this true of the laws and conditions of production from land? of the laws and conditions of the accumulation of capital?
2. Of things limited in quantity, it is said that “their value depends on the demand and the supply. . . . But the quantity demanded is not a fixed quantity, even at the same time and place; it varies according to the value; if the thing is cheap, there is usually a demand for more of it than when it is dear. The demand therefore partly depends on the supply. But it was before laid down that the value depends on the demand. From this contradiction, how shall we extricate ourselves? How solve the paradox, of two things, each depending on the other?”
3. “Every fall in profits lowers in some degree the value of things made with much or durable machinery, and raises that of things made by hand; and every rise in profits does the reverse.” Explain.
4. Is there any inconsistency between the propositions that the value of money depends,
   (1) on its cost of production at the mines;
   (2) on its quantity;
   (3) on the expansion and contraction of credit;
   (4) on the terms on which a country gets its imported commodities.
5. Explain Mill’s reasoning (1) as to the manner in which an issue of inconvertible paper money drives specie out of circulation; (2) as to the manner in which, under a double standard, one metal [which one?] disappears from circulation. Are the results, in fact, brought about in the manner described by Mill?
6. Explain carefully how a decrease in the foreign demand for a country’s exports causes loss to those who consume its imports.

II.
[Answer all, briefly.]

7. Does nature give more aid to man in one kind of industry than in another?
8. Are there grounds for saying that the necessity of restraining population is confined to a state of inequality of property?
9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a currency composed of specie, as compared with one of equal amount composed of inconvertible paper money?
10. What are the laws of value applicable to (1) silver bullion; (2) iron nails; (3) wool; (4) eighteenth century furniture?
11. Does the benefit of foreign trade consist in its affording an outlet for the surplus produce of a country?
12. Mill says the superiority of reward in certain occupations may be the consequence of competition, and may be due to the absence of competition. Explain which explanation holds good of the high wages (1) of laborers in whom much confidence is reposed; (2) of laborers in disagreeable employments; (3) of laborers whose education has been expensive.
13. What is the nature of the remuneration received by (1) a manufacturer on a large scale; (2) an independent artisan; (3) a farmer tilling land which he has leased at a fixed rent; (4) the owner, of a building who receives rent from those using the building.

Source: J. L. Laughlin, Economics 1: A Synopsis of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (Cambridge, MA: W.H. Wheeler, 1892), pp. 101-103.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Division A.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

I.
[Omit one.]

1. “It will be remembered that in a former portion of this work I criticized at some length the received doctrine of Cost of Production, which, as expounded by Mr. Mill and others, is represented as consisting in, and varying with, the wages and profits of producers. I stated then that this conception of cost was not reconcilable with the doctrine of international values upheld by the same authorities, which refers these phenomena, not to cost of production, but to the reciprocal demand of exchanging nations.” Why not reconcilable?
   [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 343. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=351]
2. “The actual price, therefore, of any given commodity will, it is evident, be the composite result of the combined action of these several agencies”—namely, reciprocal international demand, reciprocal domestic demand, and cost of production. Explain.
   [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 94. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=102]
3. “Assuming a certain field for investment, and the prospect of profit in this such as to attract a certain aggregate of capital, and assuming the national industries to be of a certain kind, the proportion of this aggregate capital which shall be invested in wages is not a matter within the discretion of capitalists, always supposing they desire to obtain the largest practical return upon their outlay.” Why?
   [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 186. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=194]
4. “We see, then, within what very narrow limits the possibilities of the laborer’s lot are confined, so long as he depends for his well-being upon the produce of his day’s work. Against these barriers Trades-unions must dash themselves in vain.” What, according to Cairnes, are the barriers?
   [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 283. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=291]
5. “Saving (for productive investment), and spending, coincide very closely in the first stage of their operations.” Explain Mill’s meaning.

II.
[Answer all.]

6. Why is there a tendency of profits to a minimum?
7. What is the effect of a rise in the value of money on debtors and on creditors?
8. “Though laborers in certain departments of industry are practically cut off from competition with laborers in other departments, the competition of capitalists, as I have already pointed out, is effective over the whole field.” How is this consistent with the existence of large amounts of Fixed Capital?
9. “And here this remark may at once be made: that as the course of price in the field of raw products is, on the whole, upward, so in that of manufactured goods the course is, not less strikingly, in the opposite direction. The reasons of this are exceedingly plain.” (Cairnes.) What are they?
10. What would be the effect on wages and profits of the universal adoption of coöperative production? of profit-sharing ?
11. How far did the premium on gold during the civil war measure the real depreciation of the paper?
12. Compare Mill’s attitude on coöperation with Cairnes’s.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

Also J. L. Laughlin, Economics 1: A Synopsis of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (Cambridge, MA: W.H. Wheeler, 1892), pp. 106-108.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Division B.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

1. What is the fundamental objection to the issue of inconvertible paper money? What light is thrown on it by the experience of the United States during the civil war?
2. Is a rise in the value of money advantageous to debtors or to creditors, or to neither? Why?
3. What is the cause of the tendency of the rate of interest to fall?
4. What would be the effect upon the price of food, and upon rent, of a tax of a fixed sum per acre upon agricultural land?
5. Taking the two following accounts as representing the condition of a bank at different dates, state (1) what operations are most likely to have given rise to the changed condition, and (2) whether the bank is American or foreign, city or country, with your reasons for thinking so:—

I.
Capital	100,000	Government securities	5,000
Surplus	10,000	Other securities	50,000
Profits	3,000	Loans	255,000
Notes	20,000	Expenses	2,000
Deposits	250,000	Cash	71,000
	383,000		383,000

 

II.
Capital	100,000	Government securities	5,000
Surplus	12,000	Other securities	50,000
Profits	2,000	Loans	260,000
Notes	20,000	Expenses	1,000
Deposits	270,000	Cash	88,000
	404,000		404,000

 

6. What is the sliding scale of discount? Name two countries in which it is used.
7. Point out wherein there are differences, wherein similarities, in the legal provisions of the United States, England, and France, for the security, immediate and ultimate, of bank notes.
8. Give a brief history of the small change (under one dollar) in the United States since 1850.
9. What would be the effect upon the price of silver bullion of an act for free coinage of silver?
10. What was the nature and purpose of the original restriction upon the amount of national bank notes in the United States? When and why was it repealed?
11. Compare the main features of the silver acts of 1878 and 1890.
12. How are profits divided in schemes for distributive coöperation? For credit coöperation? What is the important difference?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 2. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — Economic Theory. — Examination of selections from leading writers. 3 hours.

Total 38: 9 Graduates, 17 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Freshman, 2 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-Year Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

1. Are laborers paid out of the product of their own labor in cases where the employer sells the product before pay-day and pays the laborers out of the proceeds?
2. “Whether wages are advanced out of capital in whole, or in part, or not at all, it still remains true that it is the product to which the employer looks to ascertain the amount which he can afford to pay: the value of the product furnishes the measure of wages. . . .
   It is the prospect of a profit in production which determines the employer to hire laborers; it is the anticipated value of the product which determines how much he can pay them.”
   Is this consistent with the wages-fund theory?
3. Consider the following: —

“Given machinery, raw materials, and a year’s subsistence, does it make no difference with the annual product whether the laborers are Englishmen or East-Indians? Certainly if one quarter part of what has been adduced under the head of the efficiency of labor be valid, the difference in the product of industry arising out of differences in the industrial quality of distinct communities of laborers are so great as to prohibit us from making use of capital to determine the amount that can be expended in any year or series of years in the purchase of labor.”

4. How does President Walker prove the existence of a no-profits class of business men?
5. Wherein does President Walker’s theory of distribution differ from Professor Sidgwick’s?
6. What grounds are there for saying that Political Economy is distinctly a modern science?
7. “Let us suppose, for example, that in the greater part of employments the productive powers of labour had been improved to ten-fold, or that a day’s labour could produce ten times the quantity of work which it had done originally; but that in a particular employment they had been improved only to double, or that a day’s labour could produce only twice the quantity of work it had done before. In exchanging the produce of a day’s labour in the greater part of employments for that of a day’s labour in this particular one, ten times the original quantity of work in them would purchase only twice the original quantity in it. Any particular quantity in it, therefore, a pound weight, for example, would appear to be five times dearer than before. In reality, however, it would be twice as cheap.” — Wealth of Nations, Book I. ch. viii.
   Explain what Adam Smith meant; and what Ricardo would have said as to this passage.
8. Explain Adam Smith’s conclusions as to the effect on wages, profits, and rent, of the progress of society; noting briefly the reasoning which lead to the conclusion in each case.
9. Examine the following criticisms on Malthus: —
   1. that there is no such difference of law between the increase of man and of the organic beings which form his food, as is implied in the proposition that man increases in a geometrical, food in arithmetical ratio;
   2. that the adaptation of numbers to the means available for their support is effected by the felt or anticipated pressure of circumstances and the fear of social degradation, within a tolerable degree of approximation to what is desirable.
10. Explain carefully Ricardo’s doctrine as to the effect of profits on value.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Frank Taussig’s Scrapbook of his examinations. Posted earlier in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

1. Does the example of a laborer hired by a farmer, and paid by him at the close of the season, after the crop has been harvested and disposed of, present a case of labor paid, not out of capital, but out of the product of current industry?
2. What do you conceive the relation of political economy to laissez faire to have been with Adam Smith? with Ricardo and his contemporaries? How would you state the relation yourself?
3. “Ricardo never fairly appreciated that his notion of the laborer’s ‘necessaries’ stood for something subject to wide variation in different stages of civilization. It is true that in one passage he says with emphasis that the necessaries, which determine the natural rate of wages, depend on habits which vary with time and place; but elsewhere he sets up a distinction between gross and net income, which is tenable only if we put the laborer’s necessaries side by side with other elements of cost of production. The distinction loses its practical harshness, when he admits that the laborer may at times receive, over and above natural wages, some part of the community’s net income; but its theoretic shortcomings then become the more obvious.” (Cohn, National-oekonomie.)
   Explain Ricardo’s conception of natural wages and net income, here referred to; and examine the justice of this criticism.
4. “The average rate of profits is the real barometer, the true and infallible criterion of national prosperity. A high rate of profit is the effect of industry having become more productive, and it shows that the power of society to amass capital, and to add to its wealth and population, has been increased.” (M’Culloch’s Political Economy.) What led to the adoption of this test by M’Culloch? Should you accept it?
5. What were Ricardo’s views as to the effect of foreign trade on profits?
6. “In the actual period of production, on a wages system, the existing supplies for laborers are distributed to laborers in wages, while they, with the help of fixed capital, till the ground and work up the raw materials, transforming the old capital into a new product. . . . The product is divided at the end of the period of production into the replacement of capital (support of laborers, raw material, and wear of fixed capital), profits, and rent. . . . Hence it is clear that wages and profits are not parts of the same whole. Wages were in capital at the beginning of the period of production; profits are in product at its close.” (W. G. Sumner.)“We may suppose that share of the National Dividend which goes as rent to be set on one side; and then there remains what would be produced by labour and capital if they were all applied under conditions no more favourable than those under which they were applied at the margin of profitable employment; and a proposal was made by the present writer, in the Economics of Industry, that this should be called the Wages-and-Profits Fund, or the Earnings-and-Interest Fund. These terms were suggested in order to emphasize the opinion that the so-called Wages-Fund theory, however it might be purified from the vulgar errors which had grown around it, still erred in suggesting that earnings and interest, or wages and profits, do not stand in the same relation to the National Dividend.” (Marshall.)
   Which of these seems to you the sounder view?
7. Explain what is meant by Consumer’s Rent; and examine the effect on Consumer’s Rent and on the aggregate satisfaction of the community, of a tax on a community subject to the law of Diminishing Returns.
8. Explain the grounds which lead Professor Marshall to believe that the forces by which the wages of different grades of laborers are determined, work by a process similar to that by which the expenses of production determine the value of commodities.
9. Examine carefully Professor Marshall’s view of the part played by rent of natural ability in determining manager’s earnings.
10. Wherein is there similarity, wherein difference, in the positions of Carey and Bastiat in the history of economic theory?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

Also found in Frank Taussig’s Scrapbook of his examinations. Posted earlier in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 3. Mr. [Edward] Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 3 hours.

Total 25: 8 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-year Examination, 1892.

[Not yet found]

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. Omit one.]

1. “The liberty of the subject is only a means towards an end; hence, when it fails to produce the desired end, it may be set aside, and other means employed.”
   What do you conceive to be this “desired end”? On what is the prerogative in question founded?
2. “When everything has been done to deter from crime or reform the criminal there will still remain a certain class whom it is hopeless to influence, and who must be dealt with in course of law, not for much result on themselves, but to carry out the principle of justice, and mainly to deter others.”
   Discuss the theoretical and practical validity of the principles of penal legislation here affirmed.
3. “There are still two more weaknesses, which are peculiar to all states, not only to the modern elective State. From the strictly professional point of view, in the technical works which they direct; public functionaries have neither the stimulus nor the restraint of personal interest.”
   “Nearly every present acknowledged function of government has once been intrusted to private enterprise….Now, of all the enterprises which the state has thus appropriated to itself, there is not one which is not managed better and more wisely than it had been managed before by private parties. Most of them are such that the world has entirely forgotten that they were ever private enterprises.”
   What light is thrown on this controversy by the experience of continental governments in the management of railroads? Do the same arguments apply to railroads as to the telegraph, and the post? Why?
4. State an criticize the theory of “surplus value.”
5. “Let us suppose the whole field of industry covered by syndicates….Competition complained of by the Socialists would be largely gone, being merged within the syndicate; useless middlemen displaced; the employing capitalist with his too high wages replaced by a manager: all steps towards the Socialist goal. What is wanting chiefly?”
   Give a general outline of the Collectivist scheme, from the point of view of production, distribution and value.
6. “But the bare labor-cost value, as it has been formulated up to now, invests the whole economy of socialism for the present with the character of a Utopia….It is remarkable, and even comforting, that all which is required to make socialism so much a matter of practical discussion, urges it to preserve, and even to intensify, the brighter elements of the liberal economic system.”
7. “Moreover it is not difficult to deduce the necessity of State interference from Mr. Spencer’s own fundamental principles….The inspector is himself in fact, as Prof. Jevons says, a necessary product of social evolution and the division of labor.”
   Does expansion of public and municipal industry necessarily indicate the “gradual triumph of socialism”?
8. Compare briefly the political and economic tendencies in Glasgow, London, and New York.
9. What ground do you find for De Laveleye’s assertion that Socialism is pessimistic, while Political Economy is optimistic?
10. State the arguments for and against municipal manufacture of gas in the United States.
11. The systems of state education in the United States have been devised by the several states of the Union, and are exceedingly heterogeneous and defective. In certain States scarcely anything worthy of the name of education exists, while in others the systems have attained a high degree of perfection.”
    How in this respect does the United States compare with European countries.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Course Description and Enrollment

Primarily for Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 4. Mr. [William M.] Cole. — Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours.

Total 132: 35 Seniors, 40 Juniors, 40 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 16 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Mid-year Examination, 1892.

[Not yet found]

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Answer both the questions in Roman numerals, and eight of the nine in Arabic numerals.]

1. Compare the facilities for transportation by land as they existed in 1700 with those of 1830 and those of 1890.
   Do the same, for the same periods, for water transportation, for cotton manufacturing, and for banking.
2. Compare the growth in the numbers of population in the United States since 1790 with the growth in the density of population per square mile. If you find any discrepancies, explain them.

1. How far has England’s policy regarding free trade been affected by the policy of other nations?
2. What, in your opinion, would have been the status in the United States of slavery, as a system of producing wealth, if emancipation had not taken place? State your reasons.
3. Explain the change in the position of the American merchant marine at about the time of the Civil War.
4. What influence has the extensive investment of capital in foreign countries upon the need, for the world’s commerce, of specie?
5. By what process, and in what way, did the payment of the German indemnity by France affect the Crisis of 1873?
6. How was the United States able to accumulate enough gold for Resumption in 1879?
7. Was the indemnity demanded of France by Germany in 1871 just? Give your reasons.
8. By what sort of processes has the United States reduced the annual burden of its debt faster than the principal?
9. Why has England become the natural clearing-house for the world?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 5.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 5. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — Railway Transportation. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 42: 3 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 6 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 5.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

1. Compare the modes in which New York and Pennsylvania tried to secure communications with the West in 1825-1840.
2. Sketch the salient events in the history of the New York Central Railway to the present time.
3. Sketch the important provisions of the Thurman Act of 1878 in regard to the Pacific railroads, and the results which have ensued.
4. Why was the railway mileage constructed in the United States in 1887 the largest yet reached?
5. Why has the railway beaten the canal?
6. Does the practice of charging what the traffic will bear result from the fact that railways present a case of industrial monopoly? Would it cease if competition were fully effective in railway operations?
7. Discuss separately or together,
   (a) Whether the prohibition of railway pools is wise;
   (b) Whether there are grounds for permitting or prohibiting such combinations, which do not apply to attempts to bring about combination and monopoly in other industries.
8. Point out wherein the schedules of maximum rates fixed by the State of Iowa resemble the German Reform Tariff, and wherein they differ from it.
9. Explain what is the state of legislation as to long and short haul rates in the United States, England, France, and Germany; and state your opinion as to the desirability of preventing lower charges on the longer haul.
10. Sketch the history of railway policy in Belgium.
11. Why are railway pools and traffic agreements more stable in England than in the United States?
12. Point out wherein the Railway Commission under the English Act of 1888 differs from the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 6. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. 3 hours. 1^st half-year.

Total 64: 7 Graduates, 32 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 10 Others.

 

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
Mid-year Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Be concise. Answer all questions.]

1. Criticize the arguments by which Hamilton endeavored to show (1) that agriculture was not more productive than manufactures; (2) that the greater division of labor and use of machinery in manufactures made the introduction of manufacturing industries peculiarly advantageous to a country.
2. How do you explain the change, between 1820 and 1840, in the arguments as to the bearing of high wages on the protective system?
3. Sketch the growth of the international trade of the United States from 1820 to 1860.
4. Are there good grounds for saying that the tariff act of 1846 led to a period of general prosperity?
5. In what way have the duties on fine woolens been higher in recent years than those on cheap woollens? Does the difference explain the fact that the domestic production is confined mainly to the cheaper goods? Give your reasons carefully.
6. Explain the difference (1) in character, (2) in probable effects, between the Continental sugar bounties and the present United States bounty.
7. Wherein would there probably be differences between the effects of reciprocity treaties (1) with Great Britain, admitting iron free; (2) with Great Britain, admitting wool from Australia free; (3) with Germany, admitting refined sugar free?
8. How far is it true that the high level of wages in the United States is an effective obstacle to the successful prosecution of manufacturing industries?
9. What were the duties on coffee, cotton goods, pig-iron, and wool, in 1799, 1819, 1839, 1859, 1879? (Use tabular form, if you wish.)
10. How far did the South secure what it aimed at from the tariff act of 1833?
11. Sketch the tariff legislation of 1872.
12. Is it true that the adoption of a policy of free trade in England dates from the abolition of the corn-laws?

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Course Description and Enrollment.

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 7. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar.

— First half-year:—

The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special references to local taxation in the United States. 3 hours.

Total 30: 2 Graduates, 20 Seniors, 8 Juniors.

— Second half-year —

Banking, and the History of the leading Banking Systems. 3 hours.

Total 38: 2 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Mid-year examination (first half-year), 1892.

[not yet found]

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Final examination (second half-year), 1892.

A.
Of these five questions one may be omitted.

1. Which of the three great banks, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, and the Reichsbank, appears to you to present the best model for a great national bank, — and why?
2. What peculiarities in the Scotch banking system account for the high credit and extended usefulness of the Scotch banks, and make their issue of £1 notes both necessary and safe?
3. The value of a currency is said to depend on (a) its quantity, rapidity of circulation, and the amount of transactions to be effected, and (b) on the cost of the precious metals. How is this reasoning to be made applicable to deposits, considered as a part of the currency?
4. A recent pamphlet contains the following:—
   “The ‘Currency Principle’ was advocated by Lord Overstone and others, and held that, under a system of free banking, over-issue [of convertible notes] is possible and likely to occur, inflating the currency. In England, the principle of limiting the issues was adopted in the Bank Act of 1844. A different application of the same principle obtains in this country under the National Bank system.”
   Discuss the closing statement in the above extract.
5. As saving banks and banks of deposit and discount are alike bound to pay their depositors on demand, on what ground can investments be treated as safe or suitable for one of these classes of banks and not for the other? This may be illustrated by reference to investments in mortgages, in bank stock, and in commercial paper.

B.
Of these five questions one may be omitted.

6. Describe Mr. Goschen’s proposals for increasing the stock of gold in the Bank of England and issuing £1 notes, and state the objects to be gained by the plan and the objections to it.
7. Discuss the propositions, laid down by Mr. Buckner, in his speech of April, 1882, in opposition to the Bank Charters Extension Bill,—
   1. That the currency ought to be issued by the government;
   2. That an elastic currency is mischievous, as introducing an element of uncertainty, and that the government should therefore issue a fixed amount of convertible notes.
8. It is urged that the characteristics which insure the high credit and universal currency of the national bank circulation,—
   “are qualities which help to make its movements unnatural, artificial, and impart to it a roaming character, helping to force it away from the issuer, away from the country districts where it is needed, and consequently to induce its accumulation when out of active commercial employment in the great financial centres, and while there to foster and become more or less fixed in speculative ventures—that is, unresponsive to commercial influences when needed for commercial work.”
   Discuss the question whether issues having only local credit would remedy the difficulties suggested above?
9. Discuss the following proposition for the issue of bank-notes under State authority:—
   1. Take off the present 10 per cent. tax from the notes of any bank complying with the following regulations:—
   2. Permit any State to tax circulation, in order to accumulate a fund to redeem notes of such of its own banks a may fail.
   3. Forbid any bank to issue notes in excess of two-thirds of its capital.
   4. Make notes a first lien on all assets of the issuing bank.
   5. Require coin redemption by the banks and a coin reserve of 25 per cent. of outstanding notes.
   6. Leave any State free to forbid or permit the issue of notes under the above regulations by banks within its jurisdiction.
      [Commercial and Financial Chronicle, May 14.]
10. Discuss the following propositions for completely free banking, made by Courcelle-Seneuil (Traité des Opérations de Banque, Book IV., ch. ix., §3):—
    “Il vaudrait mieux donner au premier venu le droit d’émettre des billets à vue et au porteur sous certaines conditions définies par la loi….On doit supposer que le banquier sait mieux son métier que le législateur; celui-ci ne doit point réglementer ce qui est du métier; il doit se borner à prévenir la fraude, et il ne peut mieux y parvenir qu’en imposant au banquier un fort cautionnement envers le public, c’est-à-dire un fort capital….Les vérifications officielles de portefeuille ne peuvent présenter au public aucune garantie.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
Course Description and Enrollment.

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 8. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 3 hours. 2d half-year

Total 50: 7 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 8 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
Final Examination, 1892.

Two questions may be omitted.

1. What were the terms on which the different portions of the revolutionary debt were made redeemable by the act of August 4, 1790, and when and how was their redemption actually undertaken?
2. What are the leading cases of suspension of specie payments in the United States since 1789, and what were the general causes in each case?
3. What was the method by which specie payments were resumed in 1817?
4. Von Holst says (II., p. 32), “Jackson did not come to Washington resolved to wipe out the bank.” What is probably the truth as to Jackson’s attitude towards the bank when he was inaugurated, and as to the breaking out of the bank war?
5. What were the “branch drafts” issued by the branches of the second United States Bank, the reasons for their issue, and the objections thereto?
6. What is the history of the following item in the general account of the Treasurer of the United States:—
   “Unavailable amount on deposit with the States, $28, 101,645.”
7. What were Mr. Chase’s reasons for urging the establishment of the national banking system?
8. How does the legal tender decision in Juillard vs. Greenman differ in principle from that in the earlier case of Knox vs. Lee?
9. What were Mr. McCulloch’s reasons for wishing to establish the policy of contracting the currency without delay in 1865?
10. What influences led Congress to restrict, and finally annul, Secretary McCulloch’s authority for retiring United States notes? Give approximate dates of the Acts.
11. President Grant wrote, in 1874:—
    “I would like to see a provision that…the currency issued by the United States should be redeemed in coin…and that all currency so redeemed should be cancelled and never be re-issued.” [ To Jones.]
    How does this compare with the redemption actually practiced under the Resumption Act, and how came the present practice to be adopted?
12. Sherman, speaking of the first Legal Tender Act, said:—
    “We agreed in that act that we would apply one per cent. of the principal of the debt to the payment of the debt. The debt is now $2,5000,000,000. One per cent. is $25,000,000, and that must not only be applied every year, but it must be applied in the nature of a sinking fund.” [Speeches p. 264.]
    How far has the government followed this interpretation of the act?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.