The Cornell statistician Walter Willcox received his Ph.D. from Columbia University for his dissertation on the statistics of divorce. What I find interesting in the following two letters from Professor Herbert B. Adams at Johns Hopkins University were the modest formal requirements to be awarded a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins in 1890.
Willcox’s advanced coursework elsewhere would have been given full transfer credit (in today’s terms) so that a single year residence, dissertation, and presumably a final doctoral examination would have been necessary for him to receive the degree.
Also interesting is to read that all the Hopkins’ Ph.D.’s from the Department of History and Politics (included political economy) graduated in June had “good positions before the summer was over”.
______________
Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, Md., December 4, 1890.
My dear Mr. Willcox,
I have your letter of December 2 regarding your possible residence in Baltimore during the remainder of this year. Would it not be a good plan for you to secure our degree of Doctor of Philosophy? You have studied so long and under such good conditions that I should think you might easily obtain our degree by one year’s residence. You would then be in a much better position to obtain a good academic chair. Hopkins men are in constant request, at least in my Department of History and Politics. All of our eight doctors graduated last June obtained good positions before the summer was over. One of our former students who went to Heidelberg and took his degree has now returned to Baltimore and is waiting for a job. Only day before yesterday I was able to put two wandering trustees into communication with this young candidate and I hope the interview will result in his appointment to a professorship of history in a Western college.
You ought to make a combination of history, philosophy, and political science. Our requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy embrace three years of strictly university work. The last of the three must be spent in residence. Perhaps you have already taken a doctor’s degree and I am talking into the air. In any case I think residence here for a few months would very much help your academic prospects.
Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
H. B. Adams
______________
Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, Md., December 13, 1890.
Walter F. Willcox, Esq.,
Walden, Mass.
My dear Mr. Willcox:
I have your letter of December 10, and note what you say regarding your thesis. Probably the best place for original investigation in this line of study is in the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. I presume Col. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor would willingly afford you facilities for your work. I do not know that our library is especially rich in materials on the divorce question. You must apply to the head centre of information on that subject, Mr. Samuel Dike, Secretary of the Divorce Reform League. I presume you know him already.
Our second term begins in February. The cost of living here is about $35 a month. If you are going to take your doctor’s degree at Columbia it would hardly be expedient to enter as a regular student in our department. You had better come as a free lance and spend a good deal of your time in Washington. Enclosed please find a programme of the next meeting of the American Historical Association in the Federal City.
We have a recess at the Hopkins from the 24thof December to the 5thof January. It would be a very good thing for you to come to Washington, if you can afford it and attend the meetings of the Economic Association as well as the Historical and settle down in this part of the country for the rest of the year. I enclose a programme of the Economic Association.
Very cordially yours,
[unsigned]
Source: U.S. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The Papers of Walter Willcox, Box 3, Folder: General Correspondence A-C
Image Source:Walter F. Willcox, ca. 1900-1910 . Cornell University Library. Digital Collections.