The Department of Economics at the University of Michigan emerged from the interdisciplinary pool of “Political Science” at the start of the twentieth century. The idea of a school of political science following a German model was quite like that of the Columbia Faculty of Political Science that was established ten months before the University of Michigan program (June 1881). Another account of the history of the Michigan economics department that goes forward to 1940 has been posted earlier.
Political Science at the University of Michigan
[up to 1910]
In February, 1910, the Regents of The University of Michigan authorized Acting President Harry B. Hutchins to recommend a candidate for Professor of Political Science. The duties of the first Professor of Political Science at the University would be to give the courses previously taught by Dr. James B. Angell and to relieve the History Department of its instruction in the field of government. In April of that year, Jesse S. Reeves, assistant professor of political science at Dartmouth College, was appointed to this position.
Thus in September, 1910, the Department of Political Science was formally established as such at The University of Michigan. In its first school year the Department offered American Government (federal, state, and local), Municipal Government, Public International Law and History of American Diplomacy, plus a seminar in the History of Political Theory. During the year a total of 250 registrations were recorded.
Although the formal beginning of the Political Science Department occurred in 1910, the teaching of political science seems to have anticipated Regental action by as much as fifty years. The course of study in philosophy, as announced in the Catalog of 1843-44, was divided into three parts: (1) language and literature, (2) mathematics and physics, and (3) intellectual and moral science. Instruction in political science was included within intellectual and moral science. Professor Edward Thomson, later president of Ohio Wesleyan University, listed among the texts for his courses: Wayland’s Political Grammar and Political Economy and Story’s Commentaries on The Constitution. However, it appears that these studies were not continued and a return to them awaited the stimulus provided by President Henry Philip Tappan in 1852.
Under President Tappan interest in the general area of the social sciences was revitalized. This was due in part to his high educational ideals and broad intellectual interests and in part to his establishment of the university course. In his plan for a university or graduate course, President Tappan had made provision for twenty areas of study, two of which would be included in our present concept of political science: (1) history and political economy, and (2) the law of nature, the law of nations, and constitutional law.
The University System
Not only was Tappan a man of distinction as a scholar and a teacher, but he drew others with comparable qualities to the faculty. One of these was Andrew Dickson White who, when he was appointed in 1857, brought with him a manner of teaching which was new to the American college campus. Rather than using daily recitations, he introduced the lecture system and gave his students an introduction to historical criticism and original investigation. Through White’s concept of history the way was prepared for later emphasis on political studies.
Catalogs from the sixties stated that the effort of the History Department was threefold: (1) a review of general history; (2) an insight into the philosophy of history; and (3) a foundation for a thorough study of the political and constitutional history of our own country.
Instruction in the field of political science, as such, officially began in 1860, when the Regents voted to require the resident law professor to deliver a course of lectures on Constitutional Law and History to the senior class of the Academic Department. In 1861, Professor, later Judge, Thomas McIntyre Cooley began these lectures which were continued until 1865.
With the termination of Professor Cooley’s lectures, instruction in government was placed solely in the hands of the History Department. Professor Charles Kendall Adams, a graduate of Michigan, offered lectures on the Government of Great Britain, the Governments of Continental Europe, and the Political History of the United States.
In 1867 Professor Adams became chairman of the History Department, succeeding Andrew D. White. At this time the seniors were receiving, during the second semester, lectures on the Characteristics of the Constitution of the United States and the Growth of Liberty in England. In 1871-72, this course, given to seniors, was made an elective and extended to the length of a school year. The Catalog of that year explained that the course covered three subjects: growth of parliamentary government in England; constitutional history of the United States; and constitutional characteristics of the principal governments of Europe. Later the program provided English Constitutional History and American Constitutional History, both one semester courses.
In 1870, while Professor Henry S. Frieze was serving as Acting President, the library facilities in the field of political science were greatly enhanced by a gift, which was the first important addition made to the University library by a private donor. Philo Parsons, Esq., of Detroit, purchased for the University the library of Professor Karl Heinrich Rau of Heidelberg. It consisted of about 4,000 volumes and 5,000 pamphlets dealing with the science of government, political economy and related subjects. Mr. Parsons also volunteered to fill out important sets of books and periodicals that were found to be incomplete. This gift proved to be one of the major justifications for the subsequent establishment of a separate School of Political Science.
With the coming of President James B. Angell to the University in 1871, and due to his active interest in public and international affairs, a course in International Law was added to the curriculum. He himself taught it and at this time emphasized to the Regents the need for more extensive work in the “political sciences.” Later he also offered a course in Political Economy.
Seminar Instruction
President Angell, in his report of 1871-72, gave the first printed account of the seminar method of instruction which had been introduced by Adams. Shortly after this time, the same system was introduced at Harvard and other American universities. Adams patterned the seminar after the German method of instruction which he had observed during a visit to that country the previous year. During the second semester the seminar group, which was open to seniors and graduate students, studied the constitutional history of the United States and also dealt with the fundamental principles of political philosophy through the means of a comparative study of ancient and modern political constitutions.
Under the direction of Adams, the History Department developed and the curriculum was enlarged. Among the new courses offered were: Political Institutions, English and American Constitutional History, and Comparative European Government. President Angell added another course, History of Treaties, which with International Law, he continued to teach until 1910.
During his administration as president, Dr. Angell was called by the government to serve as Minister to the Ottoman Empire and to China. While President Angell was absent as Minister to China, action was taken by the Regents in June, 1881, to organize a School of Political Science within the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Although a similar school had been organized at Columbia ten months earlier, Michigan’s was the first in the West. The University Catalog stated “the aim of the School is to afford exceptional opportunities for students interested in public questions to specialize in History, Political Economy, International Law, and kindred subjects under guidance of their instructors.” On October 3, 1881, the new School opened with Professor Charles K. Adams as dean. Its faculty of seven included: President James B. Angell (Dr. Henry Carter Adams served in his absence), Professor Thomas M. Cooley, Professor Charles K. Adams, Assistant Professor Richard Hudson, Professor Edward S. Dunster, Assistant Professor Victor C. Vaughan, and Assistant Professor Volney M. Spalding.
The address Dean C. K. Adams delivered at the official opening presented a case for the advantages which their instruction in political science had brought to the practice of European governments. He proceeded to dispose of the argument that American political institutions were superior to those of Europe and that, therefore, America had no need of political science. The argument was revealing in its exclusive emphasis upon the practical benefits to be expected. He pointed out the areas which political science could help to improve and then summed up by saying:
It is for the purpose of aiding in the several directions that have been hinted at, and in others that would be mentioned if there were time, that the School of Political Science in the University of Michigan has been established. It finds its justification where the other schools of the University find theirs: in the good of the people and the welfare of the State.
Professor Hans J. Morgenthau in his “Reflections on the State of Political Science,” has noted Dean Adam’s address as illuminating in its outline of the purpose of political science and has commented that its growth was a response to the needs of the day. Professor Morgenthau wrote:
The first departments of political science in this country, then, did not grow organically from a general conception as to what was covered by the field of political science, nor did they respond to a strongly felt intellectual need. Rather they tried to satisfy practical demands, which other academic disciplines refused to meet. For instance, in that period the law schools would not deal with public law. It was felt that somebody ought to deal with it, and thus it was made part of political science. There was a demand for instruction in journalism, but there was no place for it to be taught; thus it was made part of political science. There was a local demand for guidance in certain aspects of municipal administration; and thus a course in that subject was made part of the curriculum of political science.
In other words, political science grew not by virtue of an intellectual principle germane to the field, but in response to pressures from the outside. What could not be defined in terms of a traditional academic discipline was defined as political science. This inorganic growth and haphazard character of political science is strikingly reflected in the curricula of the early departments of political science, such as those of Michigan, Columbia, and Harvard.
In 1881-82
In the 1881-82 Catalog, seven subject areas were listed in the political science program: history, political economy, international law, sanitary science, rights, social science, and forestry. Dean Adams stated in 1882 that he thought this was the first time that the courses in Rights and Forestry had been offered in any university. It was intended that the course content and the method of instruction would be the same as those offered in the schools of political science at Paris, Leipzig, Tubingen and Vienna. H. B. Adams remarked “the courses were not required as at Columbia, and the plan was like the elective system of German universities.”
In his The Relations of Political Science to National Prosperity, Dean Charles K. Adams outlined the program:
A prominent place was to be given to studies in history, such as general history, history of political institutions, recent political history of Europe, and the political and constitutional history of England and of the United States. Courses in political economy were also included in the program. “Social Science” was to deal with crime prevention and public welfare service. A course in Political Ethics was also outlined to furnish the proper basis for judging the relations of the individual to the state, as well as of nation to nation. Allied to this and crowning the whole were to be courses on: The Idea of the State; Nature of Individual, Social and Political Rights; History of Political Ideas; Government of Cities; Theories and Methods of Taxation; Comparative Constitutional Law; Comparative Administrative Law; Theories of International Law; and History of Modern Diplomacy.
School of Political Science
Students to be admitted to the new School must have completed two years of study in the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts—sixty hours—including all the work for the first two years of the program prescribed for a bachelor’s degree. Students from other institutions who had done an equivalent amount of work were also accepted as candidates. Although the new School was organized under the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts, it was not limited to undergraduate study. All degree candidates were required to write examinations at the close of each semester; also, they were to appear before a committee of the faculty to present and defend a thesis showing evidence of original research and, finally, pass an examination in three areas of study, a major and two minors. A student who completed all these requirements was recommended for a Doctor of Philosophy degree. No specification was made in regard to time except that no one would be recommended in less than three years after enrollment in the School. A year later, in 1882-83, provision was made for obtaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
The new School was successful in developing interest in its program. The first year a total of 889 registrations were listed in the nineteen courses offered—481 during the first semester and 408 the second.
In 1882, the library received another sizeable gift which furthered the study of political science. Mr. J. J. Hagerman of Colorado Springs gave the University 2,000 volumes, including works on political and constitutional history and methods of local government in Europe and America, plus a collection of great serial publications. The following year Cooley offered a course on Comparative Administrative Law with special emphasis on local government, using these materials.
Under the leadership of Angell, Adams and Cooley, the School of Political Science attracted considerable attention, both in the United States and in Europe. During those years Michigan shared with Columbia and Johns Hopkins pre-eminence among the universities of the United States for training in the field of political science—a pre-eminence that was to lapse before blossoming again.
Electives
The University System of study, which had been an integral part of the School of Political Science, survived the School by a number of years. Immediately upon establishment, the School pointed the way to a freedom of study, permitting greater concentration with large concessions to the student’s choice, both of subjects and methods. Various faculty members began to argue that areas other than political science should be accorded these advantages. There was the feeling that this system was an approach to the German universities with their distinction between preparatory and graduate or genuine university work. Within this plan of study the student would be granted a bachelor of arts degree if his examination at the end of four years proved to be satisfactory. The student might be granted a master of arts degree if he wrote a brilliant examination and presented a meritorious thesis. Making the distinction between a “satisfactory” and a “brilliant” examination was, of course, the source of some of the difficulties that arose.
From the outset, the School progressed and appeared promising; however, its position as a graduate school with its own dean, organized within the framework of an undergraduate school, was indeed awkward. Faculty members of the School of Political Science were also serving in other departments of the University, and the establishment of the School necessitated a revision of the prevailing rules regarding doctor’s degrees. Conditions, it was said, “produced numerous conflicts and misunderstandings and various exhibitions of human nature in its less endearing forms.”
In spite of the administrative difficulties, the School continued until 1887-88. The Catalog for that year noted: “Since the establishment, in 1881, of the School of Political Science, experience has shown that, under the flexible elective system now in force in this Department, instruction in the studies peculiar to such a school may be provided without maintaining any sharply defined independent organization.”
An announcement in the Catalog the following year read: “It has been found unnecessary to retain an independent School of Political Science, under the form of organization described in the calendars of previous years.”
In addition to the above mentioned difficulties, there had been other circumstances that contributed to the disappearance of the School. C. K. Adams resigned in 1885 to accept the presidency of Cornell. T. M. Cooley succeeded him as dean; however, he also left the University in 1887 to become chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission when it was established during that year. It seems that no one on the faculty was interested in accepting responsibility for carrying on the School after that time.
The feeling seemed to be that the plan for a School of Political Science was premature; however, this did not halt the teaching of many of the subjects under the prior purview of the former School. The history courses continued to be predominantly constitutional. Semester courses in International Law and the History of Treaties were still taught by President Angell. The changing of some titles to include “institutions” was the chief difference in the next few years.
Instruction in Constitutional Law and Political History of the United States was started by McLaughlin in 1891 and continued beyond 1900. This was also the period when Comparative Constitutional Law, as taught by Richard Hudson, was introduced to the Michigan campus.
In 1892, Fred M. Taylor and Charles Horton Cooley came to the University to instruct in the field of political economy. Encouraged by H. C. Adams, Cooley offered courses in sociology which were so successful that in 1895-96 the name of the Department was changed to Political Economy and Sociology.
During the following years another notable man gave instruction in the field of political science. John Dewey, who had come to the University to work in philosophy and psychology, gradually turned his psychology courses over to his younger colleagues and interested himself in ethical and social problems. He offered courses in the Theory and Institutions of Social Organization, Special Studies in the History of Political Philosophy (topic changed each year). Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, and Political Philosophy or Ethics of Human Relations.
In 1896-97, a new course was added to the program by Hudson—first semester, Municipal Government in Great Britain and second semester. Municipal Government in Continental Europe.
With the disappearance of the University System which President Tappan had instituted in 1852, instruction in the subjects of political science was taken over by the History Department. In spite of this relegation, political science was consistently receiving more attention. In 1900, the history courses were officially announced under two topics: history and government. At this time the work of government was placed under the direction of John A. Fairlie, who was then appointed Professor of Administrative Law. He gave instruction in Municipal Administration, while courses in American Constitutional Law and Political Institutions were taught by Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin. In addition to these Undergraduate Studies graduate research courses in these fields were also given.
The ten years prior to the establishment of the present Political Science Department witnessed an ever increasing amount of activity which portended the final separation of the master discipline. Some of the more outstanding activities were: 1900-01, the formation of a Political Science Club; 1902-09, the evolution of Political Economy, Industry, Commerce and Sociology as a separate department; 1909-10, a further change in departmental title to Political Economy and Sociology.
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Source: Gerald Eitig Faye, Political Science at the University of Michigan 1910-1960 (Ann Arbor, Michigan: 1960?).
Image Source: “Who Was James Angell” by James Tobin [not the Yale economist!] in Michigan Today, July 29, 2013.