Professor Harold H. Burbank (Burbie to his friends) was a decades-long administrative multitasker during the first half of the 20th century. His realms covered both the tutorial system in the Division of History, Government, and Economics as well as the chairmanship of the economics department.The document transcribed for this post appears to have served as Burbank’s background briefing on the organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics for the committee, chaired by the President of Princeton, Harold W. Dodds, tasked with establishing a school of public administration at Harvard.
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Who’s Who
James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) was a chemist, educator and public servant. The wide variety of his interests and occupations are reflected in the title of his memoirs, My Several Lives. Conant’s “several lives” included periods as a chemistry instructor, University president, national director of defense research, ambassador to Germany and as an author of critical works examining secondary education in the United States. Conant’s pursuits carried him from his boyhood home in Boston to Harvard University and eventually around the globe.
Conant graduated from Harvard College in 1914, completing a three-year program as an undergraduate concentrator in chemistry. He remained at the University, studying with Elmer Kohler, and received his degree two years later. An academic career followed, during which time Conant worked at Harvard as an instructor (1917), assistant professor (1919) and eventually as a tenured professor (1927) of organic chemistry. In 1921 he married Grace Thayer Richards, daughter of chemistry professor Theodore William Richards, whom Conant had met at a dinner for graduate students at Professor Richards’ house.
In 1933, despite the fact that his only previous administrative experience was a term as chair of the Chemistry Department, Conant was appointed to succeed A. Lawrence Lowell as President of Harvard University. President Conant worked to enhance Harvard’s position as a national institution with an international reputation for academic achievement. He established the National Scholarships which allowed young men of intellectual promise to attend Harvard College regardless of their financial circumstances or proximity to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also broadened the intellectual scope of the undergraduate student body through the General Education Program. This program required each undergraduate, regardless of his concentration, to take courses in three broad disciplines: the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. President Conant further promoted intellectual exchange through the establishment of the prestigious University Professorships, which gave leading scholars tenured appointments at the University, unencumbered by ties to specific faculties or departments.
Conant’s achievements also included expansion in the teaching of education and of journalism. In the fall of 1935 the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Education voted to recommend his plan for the establishment of a new degree, the Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.). The M.A.T. required prospective teachers to demonstrate a command of educational theory as well as familiarity with specific subjects by undergoing examination by members from both the teaching faculty and their specific subject faculty. Three years later, Conant helped to establish the Nieman Fellowships. These fellowships fund a year of study at Harvard for professional journalists.
During wartime, Conant balanced his service to the University with a commitment to national affairs. In 1917 he briefly left Harvard to join the Chemical Warfare Service and by the end of the First World War he was promoted to the rank of major. Conant, an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany, played a more prominent role during the Second World War. As a member and chairman of the National Defense Research Committee, he and his colleagues were responsible for the technical direction of military scientific research, including atomic research. At the end of the war he declined to become the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, although he continued to serve as Chairman of the National Science Board.
Conant retired from Harvard in 1953. He immediately began another of his “lives,” serving as U.S. High Commissioner to Germany and Ambassador to Germany. In 1957 he resigned his diplomatic post and once again turned his attention to American education. In 1957, Conant, along with the Educational Testing Service, administered a large scale study of American high schools. Following this, he studied and reported on teacher education in American Universities. In 1964, he returned to Berlin for eighteen months as an educational advisor under the auspices of the Ford Foundation.
Conant spent his final years as a resident of New York City, Summering in Hanover, New Hampshire. He took ill in Hanover during the spring of 1977 and remained there until his death on February 11, 1978. He was survived by his wife who died in 1985 and his sons James Richards and Theodore Richards.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Collection overview: Papers of James Bryant Conant, 1862-1987.
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Vernon Munroe, Jr., Harvard Class of 1931. One of three members of a special committee of the Student Council who wrote a report “The Tutorial System in Harvard College” (published as a supplement to the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, October 9, 1931).
Source: Report of the President of Harvard College 1930-31, p. 96.
MUNROE RESIGNS AS SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT CONANT
The Harvard Crimson, May 7, 1934
Announcement was made at University Hall yesterday of the resignation of Vernon Munroe, Jr. ’31, as secretary to President Conant.
Munroe has held the position since September 1, 1933 when he was appointed by the Corporation to a new post as assistant to the President of the University.
Graduating from Harvard in 1931 he spent the next year at the Law School, leaving there to assume his post as aide to the President. He plans to continue next year with his work in the Law School.
At college Munroe was President of the Student Council, Captain of the University track team, Chairman of the Dunster House Committee, and Third Marshal of his class. As President of the Student Council he was active in preparing a special undergraduate report on the Tutorial System at Harvard.
Although no one yet has been chosen to succeed Munroe, it is believed that the appointment of his successor will be made in the near future.
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Princeton University President (1933-57) Harold W. Dodds was appointed by President Conant as head of a commission to consider the establishment of a new school of public administration (today’s John F. Kennedy School of Government).
Source: Report of the President of Harvard College 1934-35, p. 23.
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Harold Hitchings Burbank. Chairman of the department of economics 1927-38 and 1942-46 and Chairman of the Board of Tutorials in the Division 1916-46.
From the active list, Harold Hitchings Burbank, David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy, died on February 6, 1951, in his sixty-fourth year. He began his career in the field of Economics at Dartmouth where he taught for one year, 191o-11. He came to the University in 1911 as an Assistant in Economics, becoming an Instructor in 1912. In 1914 he was appointed a Tutor in that Department, and from 1916 to 1946 he served as Chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government and Economics. He was Assistant Professor of Economics from 1919 to 1923, Associate Professor from 1923 to 1926, and Professor of Economics from 1926 to 1932. From 1932 until his death he held the David A. Wells Professorship of Political Economy. He was also Chairman of the Department of Economics from 1927 to 1938, and again from 1942 to 1949; he acted as Chairman of the Division of History, Government and Economics from 1942 to 1946. Few Harvard teachers ever worked with as many students individually or gave so lavishly of their time and energy.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1950-51, p. 29.
Cf. Burbank’s earlier report, transcribed and archived at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror: Report on the Tutorial System in History, Government and Economics. Burbank, 1922.
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Background information on the Division of History, Government, and Economics written by the Chairman of Economics Department, 1934
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
H. H. BURBANK
41 HOLYOKE HOUSE
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 21, 1934
Dear Mr. Munroe,
The organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics is complicated. I am listing below some comments on the questions raised by President Dodd. [sic, almost certainly should be “Dodds”] I can give you complete details should you require them.
- The Division has developed through the separation from History of the Departments of Economics and Government. The Division is composed of the members of these three departments.
- The Division unit was maintained before 1914 primarily for the administration of graduate degrees. Emphasis was placed upon the formulation and administration of the degree requirements rather than on the development and coordination of the curriculum. I believe that some attention was given also to candidates for Honors for the Bachelors‘
- As I recall it, there was a small independent budget to provide for secretarial assistance to the Chairman of the Division and to provide for the printing of the Division pamphlet and the schedule of graduate degree examinations.
- The administration of graduate degrees has continued since 1914, but latterly, the programs of the three departments have become characterized by their differences rather than by their unity of conception and action.
- The independent Division budget for the purposes summarized above has been continued. It is prepared and administered by the Chairman of the Division.
- In 1914 on the recommendation of the Division, Comprehensive Examinations and a system of Tutorial Instruction were initiated. To a small degree the curriculum within the Division was coordinated. Correlation among the subjects taught in the several departments was required. To meet the new objectives, an Examining Committee, appointed by the President, was created, and the general development and supervision of the Tutorial Instruction was placed in the hands of a new Division officer — the Chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.
- All tutors, whether in History, Government, or Economics, were, in theory, recommended by the Division. The appointment was, and is, in the Division rather than in a particular department.
- Until about 1925, a Division Committee on Appointments — the Chairman of the Board of Tutors, the Chairman of the Division, and the Chairmen of the three Departments — passed upon all recommendations for appointments in the Division as tutors. Since 1925, this Committee has not been active. All appointments as tutor therefore are now on the basis of Departmental recommendation. The Chairman of the Board of Tutors is usually consulted.
- With the appointment of Divisional Examiners and Tutors, a budget was called for, which included the expenditures for Tutorial Instruction, for the Examiners, and for Administration.
- Until 1931, this budget, prepared by the Chairman of the Board of Tutors was altogether distinct from Departmental budgets, although it was always prepared in consultation with the Division Chairman.
- During the last five years there has developed a tendency toward complete Departmental control of Tutorial Instruction. With the development of Departmental control and responsibility, the Division budget has become less important, until for the forthcoming year it will practically disappear except for the maintenance of a small sum for administration and examining.
- It may be stated that from 1914 to 1928, or 1929, there was thorough Division control in the development of Tutorial Instruction. After the functions and methods of instruction had been established on a satisfactory plane, Division control was slowly withdrawn and instruction decentralized. The Division still operates unqualifiedly as a unit in the administration of examinations.
- With the rapid increase in the membership in the Division since 1914, the group became ineffective as an administrative unit. For some years, the affairs of the Division have been administered by a Committee of Seven— the Chairman of the Division, the Chairmen of the three Departments, and delegates from each Department — which meets when necessary. Although the principal work of the Committee is confined to the administration of graduate degrees, the Committee frequently concerns itself with Tutorial Instruction and with questions of the curriculum which have common interest. The Division meets as a group for the recommendation of degrees — A.B., A.M., and Ph.D.
- Until 1930, instruction in Sociology was offered by the Department of Economics. Also, some subjects ordinarily regarded as belonging to the subject of Sociology were offered by the Department of Social Ethics which was affiliated with the Department of Philosophy. Independent instruction in Sociology has been established and the Department of Sociology stands as a Division without direct affiliation with other Departments.
Sincerely yours,
[signed]
H. H. Burbank
Mr. Vernon Munroe, Jr.
VS
Source: Harvard University Archives. Records of President James B. Conant, Box 9, Folder “History, Government & Economics, 1933-1934.”
Image Source: Portrait of Professor Harold H. Burbank in the Harvard Classbook 1934. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.