William Zebina Ripley taught at Harvard from 1901/02 through 1932/33. He was a statistician in the time of pre-mathematical statistics but he truly made his mark as an expert on the institutions of organized labor, industrial organization, and transportation.
A meager harvest of a course artifact for Ripley’s 1907-08 round of statistics is transcribed below. But big or little, such remains the archival stuff needed for the foundation of grand historical narrative of the future (probably above my pay-grade).
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Statistics (Econ 4), previous years
1901-02.
1902-03.
1903-04.
1904-05.
1905-06 [omitted]
1906-07. [offered but no printed exam found]
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Course Enrollment
1907-08
Economics 4. Professor Ripley. — Statistics. Theory, method, and practice.
Total 14: 4 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1907-1908, p. 66.
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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 4
Mid-year Examination, 1907-08
- Criticise the following table as indicating the relative fecundity of mixed marriages:—
|
Fathers. |
Mothers. | No. Mar. | No. Births | Children per Marriage. | ||
| 1896. | 1896. | 1896. | 1895. |
1894. |
||
|
United States |
United States | 11,551 | 19,892 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
| dto. | Canada | 848 | 1,743 | 2.1 | 2.0 |
1.9 |
|
dto. |
Ireland | 41 | 117 | 2.9 | 2.5 | 2.6 |
| dto. | Germany | 323 | 637 | 2.0 | 2.4 |
2.3 |
|
dto. |
All | 13,388 | 23,142 | 1.7 | 1.8 |
1.8 |
- Why is the arithmetical rate best adapted to forecasting movements of population in America? Is it theoretically sound?
- Why is the average length of life not an index of mortality?
- Suppose the age and sex composition of the white and colored populations of the United States to be entirely different. Describe how their mortality rates could be reduced to a strictly comparable basis by standardization.
- What has been the most significant feature of the movement of birth rates during the last thirty years? How has it been accounted for? Give relative figures.
- Why should the death rate enter into the calculation of the value of an annuity? Of a tontine policy?
- Why should the Supplementary Analysis of the Census rely entirely upon the “proportion of children to adults” as an index of fecundity, and omit all reference to birth rates?
- What do the statistics of suicide show? State the main conclusions as set forth by Mayo-Smith.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1907-08.
Note: No printed end-of-year examination for 1907-08 was found in the Harvard University archive collection of final examinations.
Image Source: Harvard University Archives. William Zebina Ripley [photographic portrait, ca. 1910], J. E. Purdy & Co., J. E. P. & C. (1910). Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.