Preparing the previous blog post which provides the syllabus with reading assignments for Thomas Nixon Carver’s 1902-03 Harvard course, Economics 14 “Methods of Social Reform, including Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.”, I came across the following brief description of his trip with his family to Germany during the summer of 1902. In his autobiography, Carver briefly recounted his contact with colleagues at economic seminars in Halle and Berlin.
For visitors who can read German, I strongly recommend the website “Die Geschichte der Wirtschaftswissenschafte an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin”. During the Winter Semester of 2012, Till Düppe harnessed raw student seminar power to assemble much interesting material about people, organizational structures and the developing curriculum in the Berlin University and its East Berlin successor, the Humboldt University.
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Thomas Nixon Carver’s European Summer Vacation (1902)
I had never been abroad and had always wanted to see something of Europe. At the end of the academic year 1901-1902 we decided to make the trip. I got permission from President Eliot to leave Cambridge as soon as examinations were over without waiting for commencement. Just a few days before sailing, I came down with the grippe, as it was then
called. It looked for a day or two as though we might have to cancel the trip, but with Dr. F. W. Taylor’s help I recovered sufficiently to undertake it. I had a Ph.D. examination to conduct during the afternoon of the evening we had to start. The rest of the family called at the University for me with a hack, on the way to the South Station, where we took the train for New York, from which we sailed for Antwerp.
… We went armed with a supply of Baedeckers, American Express Company checks, and several letters of introduction….
Our destination was Germany where we planned to spend a few weeks first at Eisenach and then to Berlin….At Eisenach we stayed at a pension which had been recommended by Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. …
After a week or two I … went on to Berlin, stopping for a few days at Halle, where I visited Professor [Johannes] Conrad and attended one meeting of his seminar. There I met George Thomas, who had been at Harvard but was about to take his Ph.D. at Halle and who has since become president of the University of Utah. One afternoon I went with him to call on Professor Conrad at his home. He offered us beer or cold tea, both in bottles. He had been in America, had a daughter living in Buffalo, New York, and knew that many Americans did not drink liquor. He himself drank no liquor except wine.
I also took time to visit the breeding farm attached to the University of Halle where they were experimenting with all sorts of crossbreeding of animals brought from the ends of the earth.
In Berlin I took rooms in a pension and found it pretty well filled with American students, with a few from Russia, Romania, and Hungary. Edwin F. Gay had been recommended for a position in economic history, to follow Professor Ashley, at Harvard. He was in Berlin finishing his work for the Ph.D. degree at the university. I looked him up almost at once, called on him, and we had several talks. He had made a distinguished record at the university and was soon to take his final examination, which he passed with flying colors. His appointment as instructor at Harvard was confirmed by the Governing Boards and he began his teaching the following autumn.
While in Berlin I attended seminars by Professors [Adolph] Wagner in taxation, Schmoller in economic history, Ausserordentlich Professor [Adolph von] Wenckstern on socialism, and Professor [Max] Zering on Agrarpolitik. Wenckstern, a young man, had been in the army and still held the rank of lieutenant. One night after one of our sessions he invited me with the seminar group to his country place. We left the university about 10 p.m., took a train and traveled nearly half an hour, got off at a country station, walked a mile or so through fields and came to a sizable country house. …
Professor Wagner was getting along in years but seemed fairly vigorous. He was reasonably courteous when he was convinced that I was really an assistant professor at Harvard. My visiting card had merely said “Mr. Thomas N. Carver,” after the American custom, whereas a German would have had all his titles and degrees embossed on his visiting card. Schmoller was genial but dignified. His classes were crowded and he was very busy conferring with his students.
After about four weeks Flora and the children joined me in Berlin. Soon after they arrived Professor and Mrs. Charles J. Bullock turned up in Berlin, also a Miss McDaniels of Oberlin, who had been one of my students. Together we visited Dresden, mainly for the purpose of seeing the famous Art Gallery….
Source: Thomas Nixon Carver, Recollections of an Unplanned Life (1949), pp. 135-139.
Image Source: The Friedrich Wilhelm University in the old Palace of Prince Heinrich (ca. 1820)