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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Mid-year and Year-End Final Exams in Economics and Social Ethics, 1894-1895

 

 

With this post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror adds yet another annual collection of final examination questions for the economics courses offered at Harvard together with the questions from Professor Peabody’s “Ethics of the Social Questions” that covered issues such as poverty, labor relations, and socialism (as opposed to doctrines of individualism). In 1894-95 Frank Taussig was on sabbatical leave in Italy which accounts for his whereabouts that academic year.  Today I learned that “doctrine” was understood as a synonym for “theory” during the gay nineties, see Economics 2 (Economic Theory from Adam Smith to the present time) below.

Exams for one course taught were not included in the published collection of exams. It was Edward Cummings course Economics 14 (Philosophy and Political Economy.—Utopian Literature from Plato’s Republic to the present time). Exams for Economics 14 given in other years have been transcribed and posted.

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1894-95.
PHILOSOPHY 5.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[PHILOSOPHY] 5. Professor [Francis G.] Peabody. — The Ethics of the Social Questions. — The questions of Charity, the Family, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question, as problems of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. 2 hours.

Total 84: 1 Graduate, 40 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 25 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 59.

 

PHILOSOPHY 5.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

[Omit one question.]

  1. The Ethical Idealism of Plato, of Aristotle, and of Kant, compared with the modern doctrine of duty.
  2. Professor Sumner’s doctrine of the Social Fulcrum vs. the philosophy of scientific charity.
  3. Indicate, very briefly, the place in the History of Philanthropy of:

Frédéric Le Play,
Dorothea Dix,
Pastor von Bodelschwingh,
Charles L. Brace,
Samuel G. Howe.

  1. The Elberfeld System — its organization, officials, relation tomunicipal government, and practical working.
  2. The Liverpool System of Collection.
  3. Mr. Charles Booth’s eight classes of East London,— their definition, dimensions, traits, and proportion. (Labor and Life of the People, I. pp. 37-62.) Mr. Booth’s view of the children of Class E (p. 160).
  4. Compare Mr. Booth’s method and results in East London with his method and results in all London.
  5. Compare the principle as to direct relief of the London Charity Organization Society with that of the Boston Associated Charities. (Loch, Charity Organization, pp. 59, 82.) Which is the sounder principle? Why?
  6. The Belgian Labor Colonies,— their scope and method of classification. Compare their aims with those of the colonies of Holland and Germany.
  7. The Christian doctrine of the Social Order — its principles and its peril.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

PHILOSOPHY 5.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

  1. Explain the theory of ethics which makes the basis of this course of study; and the way in which this theory is practically illustrated by phases of the modern labor question.
  2. In what respect do the social ideals of Carlyle and Ruskin seem identical, and in what respect do they appear to be inconsistent with each other?
  3. The authorship and the significance of the following phrases:

“There is no wealth but Life…. A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can be.”

“I am for permanence in all things. Blessed is he that continueth where he is.”

“The gospel of dilettantism.”

“Roots of honour.”

“Ricardo is the parent of Socialism.”

“The value of a thing is independent of opinion and of quantity.”

“The reformation was the work of a monk; the revolution must be the work of a philosopher.”

“The people are the Rock on which the Church of the future must be built.”

  1. The practical programme proposed by Scientific Socialism; the chief advantages claimed for it by its adherents; and the criticisms on it which appear to you most serious. Utilize here your reading of Naquet and The Social Horizon.
  2. Socialism and Religion. The apparent grounds for sympathy and the practical reasons for antagonism. The teachings concerning socialism in the Encyclical of 1891.
  3. The philosophy of history which encourages the Socialist, and the “Opportunist’s” view of this “Law” of social evolution.
  4. The growth of Trades Unionism in Great Britain, and its contribution to moral education.
  5. Federalism and Individualism in English Coöperation. The issue involved, and the advantages of each scheme of expansion.
  6. Compare the characteristics of the forms of Liquor Legislation in force in Massachusetts and in Pennsylvania. (Fanshawe, XI, XII.) How are licenses granted under the Brooks Law? What is the function of probation-officers in Massachusetts?
  7. How far do physiological considerations go to determine one’s duty as to drink?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 6-7.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 1.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 1. Professor [William] Ashley, Asst. Professor [Edward] Cummings, Dr. [John] Cummings, and Mr. [Frederick Redman] Clow. — Outlines of Economics. — Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures on Economic Development, Distribution, Social Questions, and Financial Legislation. 3 hours.

Total 277: 2 Graduates, 39 Seniors, 18 Juniors, 159 Sophomores, 9 Freshmen, 50 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 1.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the question. One question may be omitted.]

  1. “All members of the community are not laborers, but all are consumers, and consume either unproductively or productively.” Explain and illustrate by examples. Suppose everybody resolved to consume “productively” only, what would be the result?
  2. “The distinction, then, between capital and not-capital, does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist — in his will to employ them for one purpose rather than another.” Discuss this statement, using the following illustrations:—

Bread.
A knitting machine.
A steam engine.
A carriage.

  1. Where does true economic rent appear in the following cases:—

(a) The cultivation of a farm by its owner.
(b) The rental of a farm under a long lease by a tenant who has made permanent improvements on the land.

  1. What is the effect on values of a general fall of profits? Of a general fall of wages?
  2. What is the effect on rents of (1) an improvement in the methods of agriculture, (2) an improvement in transportation?
  3. “The price of land, mines, and all other fixed sources of income, depends on the rate of interest.” Explain.
  4. According to Mill, “Every addition to capital gives to labor either additional employment, or additional remuneration.” Why? What is the effect of an increase of labor-saving machinery on employment and on remuneration? Illustrate carefully.
  5. “Money cannot in itself perform any part of the office of capital, since it can afford no assistance to production.” Do you agree or disagree? Why? Is money capital? Is credit money? Is credit capital?
  6. What does Mill mean by “stationary state”? And what changes would bring about a progressive state?
  7. What would be the effect on prices of (1) adding to a gold and silver currency a small issue of inconvertible paper money, (2) the discovery of very rich gold fields?
  8. What do you understand by the Domestic system? By Competition? By Labor?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 1.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

(Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the question. Omit three of the even numbers: answer all others.)

  1. “We must suppose the entire savings of the community to be annually invested in really productive employment within the country itself; and no new channels opened by industrial inventions, or by more extensive substitution of the best known processes for inferior ones.” How would profits be affected supposing population (a) to remain stationary; (b) to increase in proportion to the increase in capital?
  2. The operations, therefore, of speculative dealers, are useful to the public whenever profitable to themselves; and although they are sometimes injurious to the public, by heightening the fluctuations which their more usual office is to alleviate, yet, whenever this happens the speculators are the greatest losers. Explain Mill’s reasoning.
  3. Mill says of the stationary state, “I am inclined to believe that it would be, on the whole, a very considerable improvement on our present condition.” Why? Explain carefully.
  4. Is there a necessary hostility of interests between consumers organized in co-operative associations and producers organized in trade unions?
  5. Describe the different results obtained in co-operation by distributing profits in the form of dividend (a) on capital, (b) on labor (in proportion to wages), (c) on purchases. Illustrate by the experience of co-operation in France and England.
  6. How do you distinguish between what Mill calls the necessary and the optional functions of government?
  7. “We have had an example of a tax on exports, that is, on foreigners, falling in part on ourselves. We shall therefore not be surprised if we find a tax on imports, that is, on ourselves, partly falling on foreigners.” Explain carefully each case, tracing the possible effects upon prices and international trade of taxes (a) upon exports; (b) upon imports.
  8. “Equality of taxation, therefore, as a maxim of polities, means equality of sacrifice.” Apply this maxim to a tax on incomes.
  9. Suppose a tax of a fixed sum per bushel to be laid upon corn; what would be the effect (a) upon prices; (b) upon population; (c) upon profits; (d) upon rents?
    How would the results differ if instead of a fixed sum per bushel the tax were…

(i) …a fixed proportion of the produce;
(ii) …proportioned to the rent of the land;
(iii) …a fixed sum of so much per cultivated acre? Explain carefully each case.

  1. Describe the kinds of currency used in the United States, indicating briefly the conditions of issue in each case.
  2. Explain the causes and effects of (a) combined reserves, (b) a suspension of the Bank Charter Act in England.
  3. What are the provisions of the law in regard to the issue of bank notes at the present day in England? In Germany?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 33-34.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 2.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 2. Professors Ashley and [Silus Marcus] Macvane. — Economic Theory from Adam Smith to the present time. — Selections from Adam Smith and Ricardo. — Modern Writers. — Lectures. 3 hours.

Total 34: 9 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 2.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

N.B.—Not more than seven questions must be attempted.

  1. “The study which lately in England has been called Political Economy is, in reality, nothing more than the investigation of some accidental phenomena of modern commercial operations, nor has it been true in its investigation even of these. It has no connection whatever with political economy, as understood and treated of by the great thinkers of past ages; and as long as its unscholarly and undefined statements are allowed to pass under the same name, every word written on the subject by those thinkers—and chiefly the words of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, and Bacon—must be nearly useless to mankind” (Ruskin, Munera Pulveris). Consider some or all of these assertions.
  2. Give a brief account of the Physiocrat doctrine, and state to what extent it was “corrected” by Adam Smith.
  3. Explain the origin and content of Adam Smith’s conception of “Nature.”
  4. “A diamond has scarcely any value in use.” Consider this statement in its relation to the discussion since Adam Smith’s time of the doctrine of Value.
  5. How does the doctrine of Rent expounded by Adam Smith agree with, and differ from, that of Ricardo?
  6. Compare Adam Smith’s “natural rate of wages” with Ricardo’s “natural price of labour.”
  7. “Population tends to outstrip the means of subsistence.” Distinguish the various meanings assignable to this phrase, and indicate which was meant by Malthus.
  8. What does Adam Smith understand by “Capital”? Compare his conception with that of John Stuart Mill.
  9. Present a critical estimate—based upon your own study—of one of the following:

1. Ingram, History of Political Economy.
2. Price, Political Economy in England.
3. Cossa, Introduction to the Study of Political Economy.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 2.
Year-end Examination, 1895

Answer at least four, but not more than six, of the following questions:

  1. What is the economic source of Interest? Examine the proposition that “interest is the price paid for the use of capital.”
  2. State briefly your conclusions as to the law of general wages.
  3. Apply the Austrian theory of wages to the following case:
    Number of laborers 1,000,000; total subsistence fund $600,000,000; scale of increase of productiveness of labor as the “productive period” is lengthened from one year to seven years: $350, $450, $530, $580, $620, $650, and $670.
  4. How, in your opinion, are the profits of employers determined? What is your conclusion as to the function, in distribution, of the so-called “no profits employers.”
  5. Discuss the following passages:
    “This National Dividend is at once the aggregate Net product of, and the sole source of payment for, all the agents of production within the country: it is divided up into Earnings of labour, Interest of capital, and lastly the Producer’s Surplus, or Rent, of land and of other differential advantages for production. It constitutes the whole of them and the whole of it is distributed among them.”
    “The proposal to put rent aside while we are considering how earnings and interest are determined, has been found to suggest that rent is determined first and then takes part in determining earnings and interest; and this is, of course, the opposite of what really occurs.”
  6. It has been said that Mill expresses his meaning badly when he said that demand for commodities is not a demand for labor. Does the proposition seem to you to need revision!
  7. Does increase of saving tend to make the supply of goods outrun the demand for goods?
  8. Examine the doctrine that the exchange value of commodities is determined by marginal utility.
  9. Past and present relations between gold and silver.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” p. 35.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 3.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 3. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 2 hours.

Total 52: 10 Graduates, 30 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 3.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit three questions.

  1. State accurately the reading you have done in this course to date.
  2. “But now let us drop the alleged parallelism between individual organizations and social organizations. I have used the analogies elaborated but as a scaffolding to help in building up a coherent body of sociological inductions. Let us take away the scaffolding: the inductions will stand by themselves.” What are these inductions?
  3. “The family relinquishes one provisional and temporary function after another; its only purpose being to fill gaps in social offices, it made way for independent institutions … as soon as these institutions arose.” Explain and illustrate. How far would Spencer assent to this doctrine?
  4. “Most anthropologists who have written on prehistoric customs believe, indeed, that man lived originally in a state of promiscuity or ‘communal marriage’; but we have found this hypothesis is essentially unscientific.” Discuss the evidence.
  5. “The status of children, in common with that of women, rises in proportion as the compulsory coöperation characterizing militant societies, becomes qualified by the voluntary coöperation characterising industrial societies.” Why? Trace the rise, and illustrate.
  6. “These three distinct states of mind, all of which, in point of fact, are admitted to exist together at the present time, and perhaps to have always done so to a greater or less extent, Comte declares to have undergone a regular progressive movement in the history of society. There have been three successive epochs, during which these philosophic principles, each in its turn, preponderated over both the others and controlled the current of human events.” Explain.
  7. “So that as law differentiates from personal commands, and as morality differentiates from religious injunctions, so politeness differentiates from ceremonial observance. To which I may add, so does rational usage differentiate from fashion.” Explain and illustrate.
  8. How does Spencer account for the diverse types of political organization; and what influences determine the order in which they arise? Illustrate.
  9. “From the Evolution-standpoint we are thus enabled to discern the relative beneficence of institutions which, considered absolutely, are not beneficent; and are taught to approve as temporary that which, as permanent, we abhor.” Explain and illustrate. Does our idea of progress then include all social changes?
  10. “In all ways, then, we are shown that with this relative decrease of militancy and relative increase of industrialism, there has been a change from a social order in which individuals exist for the State, to a social order in which the State exists for individuals?” Explain and illustrate.
  11. According to Spencer, what are likely to be the future forms of political organization and action in societies that are favorably circumstanced for carrying social evolution to its highest stage?
  12. “At bottom this is a physical explanation, and Spencerian sociology in general, whether formulated by Mr. Spencer or by other writers under the influence of his thought, is essentially a physical philosophy of society, notwithstanding its liberal use of biological and psychological data.” Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 3.
Year-end Examination

[Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit one question.]

  1. State accurately the reading you have done in this course to date.
  2. What has been the function of religion in social evolution? (Compare Spencer and Kidd.) Do you find reasons for thinking society will become more religious?
  3. “The only conclusion to which we are brought by this prolonged examination of authorities is that community of land has not yet been historically proved.” Discuss the evidence.
  4. “And as of old, Society and State tend to coincide, political questions to become identical with social questions.” Discuss the historical changes and tendencies in question. Distinguish carefully between Society, the State, the Government, the Nation.
  5. “It is becoming clear that, when people speak of natural rights of liberty, property, etc., they really mean, not rights which once existed and have been lost, but rights which they believe ought to exist, and which would be produced by a condition of society and an ordering of the State such as they think desirable.” Explain. How far do changes in the theory and practice of penal legislation substantiate this view?
  6. “The gulf between the state of society towards which it is the tendency of the process of evolution now in progress to carry us, and socialism, is wide and deep.”
    “The Individualism of the past is buried, and the immediate future is unmistakably with a progressive Socialism, the full extent of which no man can get see.” Discuss carefully the facts and theories upon which these opposing views are based.
  7. “The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a conspicuous rôle before 1848, perished then in the wreck of the Revolution, and have never risen to life again.” What were the characteristics of these earlier forms; and what was their relation to the movements which preceded them and followed them?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 35-36.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 5.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 52. Mr. George Ole Virtue. — Railway Transportation. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 21: 2 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 5.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

  1. Sketch the railroad history of France.
  2. “The [Reilly] bill now before Congress proposes to extend the debt for another fifty years and a grand opportunity will thus be let slip for trying, under the most favorable circumstances, an experiment whose possibilities no man can measure.”
  3. What legislation can you suggest for improving the relations between the different classes of owners of railway capital? For the protection of the interests of investors in railway capital generally?
  4. State briefly the significance in railway history of the following cases: Munn v. Illinois; Wabash, etc. Ry. Co. v. Illinois; Ames v. U. P. Ry. Co.; Budd v. New York; In re Louisville & Nashville; The Denaby Main Colliery Case.
  5. Choose one:

(a) The bearing upon the making of rates, of the “cost of service”; “value of service”; “charging what the traffic will bear”; “joint cost.”
(b) “Group rates,” “equal mileage rates,” “the blanket rate,” “the postage rate,” “Wagen-raum tarif,” “differentials.”
(c) A “reasonable rates.”

  1. Recount the experience which has led the Interstate Commerce Commission to recomment an amendment to the Act to Regulate Commerce: (a) Construing the meaning of “the word ‘line’ when used in the act to be a physical line and not a business arrangement”; (b) relieving “shippers and individuals not connected with railway employment from liability to fine and imprisonment under Section 10,” with certain exceptions.
  2. What would be the probable effect of giving the Commission power to prescribe minimum as well as maximum rates? Would it obviate the necessity now claimed for pooling?
  3. “When the first bill to regulate commerce was passed the great and powerful wedge of State socialism, so far as government control of railroads is concerned, was driven one-quarter of its length into the timber of conservative government. … The pending bill, [the pooling which passed the House at the last session is referred to] the moment it becomes a law, will drive the wedge three-quarters of its length into the timber.”
    Give your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with each of the above statements.
  4. What conclusions on the question of public management can you draw from the experience of the states in the internal improvement movement?
  5. Why is it peculiarly true in railway business that “competition must end in combination”?
  6. The success of the State Railroad Commissions and suggestions for increasing their efficiency.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 36-37.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 71.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 71. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar. — The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 28: 6 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 71.
Mid-year Examination. 1895.

  1. What is the “Benefit Theory” of taxation? What is the “Faculty Theory”? Define “Faculty” as used in this expression.
  2. What are the leading points of difference between the English, Prussian and American income tax systems?
  3. What reasons are there for having income tax levied by national authority rather than local? To what extent, if at all, do these reasons apply also to a general property tax?
  4. In levying a general property tax, should the debts of the taxpayer be deducted from the property held by him?
  5. By what reasoning is it maintained that,—
    “When the local real estate tax is levied according to rental value and assessed in the first instance on the occupier, as is the case in England, the main burden of the tax will rest ultimately on the occupier, not the owner of the premises.”
    Will the same reasoning apply to the income tax on rent, assessed under Schedule A., and collected from the occupier?
  6. What are the leading points of difference between the German method of taxing distilled liquors and the method practised in England and the United States?
  7. The theories of Canard, Thiers and Stein are,—
    “That every tax is shifted on everybody — that every consumer will again shift the tax on a third party, and that this third party who is again a consumer will shift it to someone else — and so ad infinitum. And since everyone is a consumer, everyone will bear a portion of the taxes that everybody else pays.”
    Professor Seligman’s comment is that “the error of this doctrine lies in the failure to distinguish between productive and unproductive consumption.” Is this answer complete? If not, wherein does it fail?
  8. In a statement of the circumstances under which a tax may or may not be capitalized, it is said,—
    “The principle would not apply to special taxes on property or profits if the capital value of this class of commodities should for any other reason fluctuate in price. For example, if a special tax were levied on government securities it might nevertheless happen that if some reason confidence in government bonds, as over against general securities, might decrease to such an extent as to counterbalance the decreased returns from the investment. In such a case there would be no capitalization of the tax.”
    What criticism have you to make on this reasoning?
  9. Can the theory of progressive taxation be satisfied by a gradually decreasing rate of progression [“degressively progressive taxation”]. or does it require a rate which shall cut off all income or accumulation above a certain level?
  10. What practical difficulties does the taxation of real estate offer in shaping a system of progressive taxation?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 37-38.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 72.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 72. Professor Dunbar. — Financial Administration and Public Debts. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 28: 7 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 72.
Year-end Examination

[Spend an hour on A, and the remainder of the time on B.]

A.

  1. Give an account of the management of the English debt in the decade 1880-90.
  2. Do “sound rules of finance” demand that the principal of the debt or the rate of interest shall be determined by the government? that securities shall never be issued below par? that a government shall not buy in its securities at a premium?

B.

  1. How far, if at all, is the government justified in pledging itself to any fixed policy of debt payment?
    How may the policy of conversation conflict with the policy of debt payment?
  2. Give an account of the United States refunding operations in the decade 1865-75.
  3. Discuss the respective powers of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain, the minister of finance in France.
    In each case where does the responsibility for the financial policy of the government rest?
  4. Give an account of the creation of Pit’s sinking fund and of the successive modifications made in the sinking fund provisions down to 1803.
  5. Discuss the various methods of placing government securities in the market, and the conditions of contract which make one form of security more attractive to buyers than another.
  6. The United States 4 per cent. 30-year bonds are quoted at about 123¼; how is the present worth of these securities determined?
    What determines the present worth of a terminable annuity? of a perpetual annuity? of a life annuity?
  7. Discuss the manner of making up the estimates of public income and expenditure in Great Britain and in France; the manner of providing for any deficits which may occur in any department during the year; the manner of providing for carrying on the government where the enactment of the budget is delayed until after the beginning of the year; and the disposal of balances unexpended at the end of the year.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” p. 39.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 8.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 81. Professor Dunbar. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 2 hours.

Total 52: 5 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 8.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

  1. Hamilton is sometimes said to have favored the policy of perpetual debt, and Gallatin, on the other hand, to have established the policy of debt-payment. How far are these statements confirmed by the measures of Hamilton and Gallatin respectively?
  2. How far should you say that Hamilton was justified in his expectation (stated in the Report on Public Credit), (1) That the public debt, if properly funded, would answer most of the purposes of money, and (2) that it would increase the amount of capital for use in trade and lower the interest of money?
  3. When were the several classes of obligations in which the revolutionary debt was funded finally paid off?
  4. Was it fortunate or unfortunate that Congress did not adopt Madison’s policy as to a United States Bank in January, 1815? Why?
  5. Give a list, with dates, of the cases in which bills for establishing a United States Bank have been vetoed.
  6. Give as complete a chronology as you can of the events connected with the Bank, from President Jackson’s first attack upon it down to its final failure.
  7. The removal of the deposits is sometimes spoken of as a fatal blow to the United States Bank. What do you gather from your reading as to its importance as regards the business position or credit of the Bank?
  8. What was the Specie Circular of 1836, and what serious financial results did it produce?
  9. What led to the adoption of the National Bank system in 1863?
  10. How would it have eased the financial difficulty in 1861, if the Secretary of the Treasury had made more free use of his authority, under the act of August 5, for suspending some of the provisions of the Independent Treasury act?
  11. The earlier legal-tender acts provided for funding the notes, at the pleasure of the holder, in United States bonds. When and why was this privilege of funding withdrawn? What would probably have been the effect if it had been retained until the close of the war?
  12. What were the steps by which the legal tender issues came to be treated as the practically permanent element in our paper currency and to be fixed in amount?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 9.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 9. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries. 3 hours.

Total 79: 3 Graduates, 34 Seniors, 31 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 9.
Mid-Year Examination, 1895.

(Arrange your answers, in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries.)

  1. State accurately the reading you have done in this course to date.
  2. “The interests of the working classes are identical in all lands governed by capitalist methods of production. The extension of the world’s commerce and production for the world’s markets, make the position of the workman in any one country daily more dependent upon that of the workmen in other countries.” Why? Explain how in the history of trade unions this community of interest among workmen, not only of the same trade and the same country but of different trades and different countries, has actually manifested itself. Illustrate.
  3. Precisely what answer to the “lump of labor” theory is to be drawn from that version of the wage-fund doctrine adopted by Mill, by Walker, by yourself?
  4. How far has the theory and the practice of coöperation offered a complete remedy for the evils of the existing industrial organization? and at precisely what points has the theory and the practice broken down? Illustrate carefully.
  5. “The struggle of the working classes against capitalist exploitation must of necessity be a political struggle.” How far does the history of trade unions and of coöperation show a tendency in this direction? Illustrate carefully.
  6. “But above all things, observe that all types of piece wage, whether single or progressive, and whether individual or collective, possess this most marked superiority over Profit-sharing.” … “At the same time, it is right to remark that there are many cases, in which the method of Profit-sharing surpasses in important respects any form of the ordinary wage-system.” Explain carefully the grounds of the alleged inferiority and superiority in each case.
  7. “Before, therefore, the trade union can realize its policy of ‘collective bargaining,’ it must solve the two-fold problem – how to bind its own constituents, and how to obtain the recognition of employers.” By what methods have trade unions endeavored to solve this problem? Illustrate.
  8. Trace the successive stages of the so-called “industrial revolution” during the last hundred and fifty years.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 9.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

[Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by statistical and descriptive matter showing the relative condition of working people in the United States and in other countries.]

I.

State accurately the reading you have done in this course since the mid-year examinations.

II.

Devote three hours to a careful discussion of the merits and defects of the German system of compulsory insurance, under the following general heads:

  1. An accurate account of the origin, scope, organization, administration of the system in Germany, — stating approximately the numbers insured, the cost of insurance to all parties concerned, the benefits provided, the methods of collection, distribution, etc.;
  2. Difficulties, opposition, and criticisms thus far encountered;
  3. Progress of similar movements towards compulsory insurance in other countries;
  4. Facts bearing upon the adequacy of existing provisions for sickness, accident, old age in England and the United States;
  5. A biographical sketch showing at what age and in what respects the State already interferes to prescribe conditions of employment, education, etc., for operatives reared from childhood to old age in the factory system of Massachusetts: showing also the additional interference which would be involved in the adoption of the German system of compulsory insurance;
  6. Conclusion.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” p. 40.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 10.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 10. Professor Ashley. — The Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. 2 hours.

Total 61: 9 Graduates, 20 Seniors, 21 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 10.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

I. To be first attempted by all.

Translate, and comment on, the following passages:

  1. Quomodo vocatur mansio; quis tenuit eam T. R. E.; quis mod tenet; quot hidae; quot carrucae in dominio; quot hominum; quot villani; quot cotarii; quot servi; quot liberi homines; quot sochemanni.
  2. De virgis operantur ii diebus in ebdomada.
  3. Rex. . . destinavit per regnum quos ad id prudentiores.. . . cognoverat, qui circumeuntes et oculata fide fundos singulos perlustrantes, habita aestimatione victualium quae de hiis solvebantur, redegerunt in summam denariorum.
  4. Interiors plerique frumenta non serunt, sed lacte et carne vivunt, pellibusque sunt vestiti.
  5. Ideo rogamus, sacratissime imperator, subvenias. . . . ademptum sit jus etiam procuratoribus, nedum conductori, adversus colonos ampliandi partes agrarias.
  6. Arva per annos mutant et superest ager.
  7. Ego Eddi episcopus terram quae dicitur Lantocal tres cassatos Heglisco abbati libenter largior.
  8. Rex misit in singulos comitatus quod messores et alii operarii non plus caperent quam capere solebant.
  9. Noveritis nos concessisse omnibus tenentibus nostris . . . . quod omnia praedicta terrae et tenementa de cetero sint libera, et liberae conditionis.

II. Write on two only of the following subjects.

  1. The reasons for believing in the survival in Britain of the Roman agrarian organisation.
  2. A comparison, from the economic point of view, of the open-field system with modern methods of farming.
  3. The condition of the tillers of the soil in England in A.D. 1381 as compared with A.D. 1066.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 10.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

I.
[To be first attempted by all.]

TRANSLATE, and comment on, the following passages:—

  1. In Kateringes sunt x. hidae ad geldum Regis. Et de istis
  2. hidis tenent xl. villani xl. virgas terrae. … Et omnes isti homines operantur iiibus diebus in ebdomada.
  3. Agriculturae non student; majorque pars eorum victus in lacte caseo carne consistit; neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios; sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum qui una coierunt, quantum et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt atque anno post alio transire cogunt.
  4. Nul ne deit rien acheter a revendre en la vile meyme, fors yl serra Gildeyn.
  5. Cives Londoniae debent xl marcas pro Gilda Telaria delenda; ita ut de cetero non suscitetur.
  6. Johannes Hore mortuus est, qui tenuit de domino dimidiam acram terrae cujus heriettum unus vitulus precii iiii d. Et Johanna soror dicti Johannis est proximus heres, quae venit et gersummavit dictam terram tenendam sibi et suis in villenagio ad voluntatem per servicia et consuetudines.

II.
[Write on four only of the following subjects.]

  1. “I contend that from 1563 to 1824, a conspiracy, concocted by the law and carried out by parties interested in its success, was entered into, to cheat the English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.” Consider this.
  2. Discuss the question whether the statute of 5 Eliz. c. 4, displays any distinct economic policy.
  3. Explain the causes, nature and consequences of the change in commercial routes in the sixteenth century.
  4. What is meant by a national economy, as contrasted with a town economy? Illustrate from European conditions in the 15th and 16th centuries.
  5. What has been the economic gain to England from immigration?
  6. Mention briefly those respects in which the economic development of England has resembled that of Western Europe, and those respects in which it has been peculiar.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 40-41.