This post is dedicated to the life and works of Harvard professor Francis Bowen who taught political economy courses when not teaching philosophy and constitutional law courses decades before economics became an established department of its own. The biography comes from a reference work published at the turn of the 20th century “Universities and their Sons”. I managed to add links to all of the works by Bowen cited in the biographical article transcribed below.
Here a less than flattering description of Francis Bowen’s pedagogical style with respect to political economy written by Harvard President Charles W. Eliot looking back to the start of his election in 1869.
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Exams for courses of Francis Bowen
transcribed at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror
1867-68
Seniors, Political Economy, January 1868
1868-69
Seniors, Political Economy, June 1869
1869-70
Seniors, First-term. Political Economy, December 1869.
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BOWEN, Francis, 1811-1890.
Born in Charlestown, Mass., 1811; graduate of Harvard, 1833; Instructor in Intellectual Philosophy and Political Economy at the same Institution, 1835-1839; Editor and Proprietor of the North American Review; delivered Lowell Institute Lectures in Boston; succeeded Dr. Walker in the Alford Professorship at Harvard; and “Emeritus” Professor at the time of his death, (1890).
FRANCIS BOWEN, LL.D., Alford Professor at Harvard, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, September 8, 1811. He was graduated at Harvard in 1833, two years later becoming Instructor in Natural Philosophy and Political Economy. While studying in Europe (1839-1841) he formed the acquaintance of such noted scholars as Sismondi and De Gerando. Returning to Cambridge, he, in 1843, took charge of the North American Review, as Editor and proprietor, and conducted that magazine for nearly eleven years. During the years 1848-1849 he lectured before the Lowell Institute, Boston, on the application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science to the Evidences of Religion. On account of his having taken the unpopular side in the Review on the “Hungarian Question,” the Board of Overseers of Harvard would not concur with the Corporation in appointing him to the McLean Professorship of History in 1850. In the winter of that year he again lectured before the Lowell Institute on Political Economy, and in 1852 his subjects were the Origin and Development of the English and American Constitutions. Upon the election of Dr. Walker to the Presidency of Harvard (1853), Mr. Bowen received almost unanimous confirmation by the Overseers as Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity, holding that Chair continuously until 1888, when he became Professor “Emeritus.” He was also for some time the Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Phillips-Exeter Academy. His subsequent Lowell Institute lectures were devoted to the English metaphysicians and philosophers from Bacon to Sir William Hamilton. Professor Bowen died in 1890. He was a fellow of the American Academy and a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. His published works consist of: Virgil, with English notes; Critical Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy; Lowell Lectures; an abridged edition of Dugald Stewart’s Philosophy of the Human Mind; Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789; the lives of Steuben, Otis, and Benjamin Lincoln, in Sparks’ American Biography; Principles of Political Economy Applied to the Condition, Resources and Institutions of the American People; a revised edition of Reeve’s translation of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; a Treatise on Logic; American Political Economy, with remarks on the finances since the beginning of the Civil War; Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann; Gleanings from a Literary Life, 1838-1880; and A Layman’s Study of the English Bible, considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect.
Source: “Francis Bowen” in Universities and their sons. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, ed. Vol. 2 (Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1900), pp. 144-145.
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Links to Bowen’s Work Cited
Virgil, with English Notes (Boston: David H. Williams, 1842).
Critical Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy (Boston: H.B. Williams, 1842).
Lowell Lectures on the Application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science to the Evidences of Religion. Lectures at the Lowell Institute, Winters of 1848-49. (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849).
Abridged edition of Dugald Stewart’s [Elements of the] Philosophy of the Human Mind (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1859).
Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789(Cambridge, MA: John Bartlett, 1854).
The lives of Baron Steuben (Vol. 9), Sir William Phips, (Vol. 7), James Otis (Vol. 2), and Benjamin Lincoln, (Second Series, Vol. 13) in Jared Sparks, ed. The Library of American Biography.
The Principles of Political Economy applied to the Condition, the Resources, and the Institutions of the American People (2ndedition, 1859).
Revised edition of Reeve’s translation of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Volume I (2nd ed., 1863); Volume II (2nd ed., 1863). Cambridge: Sever and Francis.
A Treatise on Logic. (Cambridge, MA: Sever and Francis, 1864)
American Political Economy; including Strictures of the Currency and the Finances since 1861 ((New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1870).
Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1877).
Gleanings from a Literary Life, 1838-1880 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880), in which are reprinted:
A minority Report on the Silver Question. Presented to the Senate of the United States, in April, 1877
The Perpetuity of National Debt. A suppressed Chapter of Political Economy, read before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in March, 1868
The Financial Conduct of the War. A Lecture delivered before the Lowell Institute, in Boston, in November, 1865.
The Utility and the Limitations of the Science of Political Economy. From the Christian Examiner for March, 1838.
A Layman’s Study of the English Bible, considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1885).
Image Source: “Francis Bowen” in Universities and their sons. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, ed. Vol. 2 (Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1900), p. 144.