From this minute from the record of a meeting of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (February 17, 1914), the historian Silas Marcus Macvane (incidentally, a classmate of the first head of the Chicago Department of Political Economy, J. Laurence Laughlin), we see that his first academic appointment was as an Instructor in Political Economy in Harvard College, two years after receiving his B.A. in 1875. Five years later he was appointed Instructor in History and rose through the ranks in that field. He published nine articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics up through its ninth volume in 1895.
Note: The copy of the Harvard Album of the Class of 1873 (its “yearbook”) in the Harvard Archives was the personal copy of J. Laurence Laughlin.
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Minute on the Life and Services of Professor Silas Marcus Macvane
The following minute on the life and services of Professor Macvane was placed upon the records of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the meeting of February 17, 1914 : —
Silas Marcus Macvane, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, Emeritus, died at Rome, Italy, January 19, 1914, in the seventy-second year of his age.
He was born at Bothwell, Prince Edward’s Island, June 4, 1842, of Scotch farming ancestry, and spent his boyhood in the rough but wholesome discipline of farm life. His natural taste for study led him to Acadia College, Nova Scotia, where he was graduated at the age of twenty-three. The six years following were spent in school teaching and in travel and study abroad.
In 1871 he entered the Junior Class in Harvard College, and was graduated here with the Class of 1873. While in College he came under the influence of Professor Henry Adams, to whom the later development of historical study at Harvard upon a scientific basis was largely due.
Immediately after graduation here Macvane married and began teaching in the Roxbury Latin School. There, as grateful pupils still bear witness, he developed that shrewd and sympathetic insight into young human nature which was to mark all his later dealing with more advanced pupils. Two years of teaching boys, however, sufficed to show that Macvane was, as his chief, Principal Collar, used to say, too large a man for that work, and in 1875 he was appointed Instructor in Political Economy in Harvard College. In 1878 he became Instructor in History, in 1883 Assistant Professor, and in 1886 Professor. In 1887 he was assigned to the McLean Professorship, and retained that title until his retirement in 1911, after thirty-six years of continuous service.
During that long period he was called upon by the demands of a rapid departmental expansion to teach at one time or another in every branch of Political Science, in History, Economics, International and Constitutional Law, Modern Government and Political Theory. In all these he showed himself adequately and evenly prepared, and his instruction in each was broadened and enriched by this many-sided preparation. For many years, however, he was especially identified with the instruction in Modern European History, a subject which he inherited directly from his favorite teacher, Henry Warren Torrey of happy memory. His method of teaching was deliberate, with cautious but incisive criticism, appealing to the better elements of his large classes and always commanding the respect of the rest by its obvious sincerity.
As a scholar he represented the older, wholesome tradition which dreaded a narrow specialization, abhorred the parade of curious learning, and shrank from hasty or ill-considered publication.
In the field of Economic Theory he was a recognized authority, and most of his published work was in that subject. He was a frequent contributor to the Quarterly Journal of Economics during the editorship of Professor Dunbar. In historical publication his most important work was a translation and revision of Seignobos’ Political History of Europe since 1814.
As a working member of this Faculty during the critical years in which the system of academic freedom was being worked out into practicable shape, he was a factor always to be reckoned with. His sympathy was with what in those days was rightly described as progressive, but he saw also the perils of too rapid progress. Never a quick debater, he followed carefully the course of discussion and invariably came in at the close with some shrewd comment which brought out the essential point and not infrequently turned the tide of opinion. His command of practical details led to his appointment on the Committee on the Tabular View, and for many years he was its responsible head, performing a thankless task with infinite patience and consideration for the wishes of his colleagues.
He was a sturdy fighter for the best things, a courteous opponent, a loyal friend and a devoted servant of the truth through loyalty to the College which he loved. Patient under prolonged trial, thinking no evil, he gave his life without complaint to the service of others, finding his sufficient reward in the sense of duty well done.
Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 22, February 21, 1914, p. 149-50 .
Economic Publications of Silas Marcus Macvane
Crocker, Uriel H., and S. M. Macvane. “General Overproduction.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 1, no. 3 (1887): 362-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882763.
Macvane, S. M. “The Theory of Business Profits.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 1 (1887): 1-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879348.
__________. “Analysis of Cost of Production.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 1, no. 4 (1887): 481-87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879343.
__________. “Business Profits and Wages: A Rejoinder.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 4 (1888): 453-68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879389.
__________. The Working Principles of Political Economy in a New and Practical form: a Book for Beginners. New York: Effingham Maynard & Co., 1890. https://archive.org/details/workingprincipl02macvgoog
__________. “Boehm-Bawerk on Value and Wages.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 5, no. 1 (1890): 24-43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1880831.
__________. “Capital and Interest.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 6, no. 2 (1892): 129-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882544.
__________. “Marginal Utility and Value.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics7, no. 3 (1893): 255-85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1884004.
__________. “The Austrian Theory of Value.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 4 (1893): 12-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1009036.
__________. “The Economists and the Public.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 9, no. 2 (1895): 132-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1885596.
__________. Review of The Letters of John Stuart Mill by Hugh S. R. Eliot, Mary Taylor. The American Economic Review 1, no. 4 (1911): 800-02. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1806884.