Up through the 1941-1942 Course Announcements of the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science did not provide prospective graduate students of economics any guidance with respect to their undergraduate preparation. Late in the Fall of 1941 the Executive Officer of the Department of Economics, i.e. chairman, Robert Murray Haig received suggestions and comments that were discussed at the December 2, 1941 faculty meeting that resulted in the insertion of two paragraphs into the Course Announcements that address undergraduate preparation in general and mathematical preparation in particular. Horace Taylor’s suggestion for the general preparation was taken over with only minor revisions. However we can see that the suggestion for mathematical preparation by Harold Hotelling and Frederick Mills was significantly toned down.
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12 copies send around
Nov.
Dear Colleague:
Will you kindly examine the attached exhibits relating to material to be inserted in the announcements of the Faculty of Political Science and of Columbia College and be prepared to pass judgment at the meeting on December 2nd?
(A) The Proposed Statement on Mathematical Preparation to be Inserted in the “Announcement of Courses” of the Faculty of Political Science.
Hotelling, Mills. October 13, 1941
Mathematical Preparation. The use of mathematics, including higher mathematics, has become important in several branches of economics and advanced statistics. Calculus, probability, the algebra of matrices and quadratic forms and the calculus of variations, for example, have important applications in economic study. Since the acquisition of an adequate mathematical training requires several years, students planning work that entails the use of advanced mathematics should include in their undergraduate studies courses providing the mathematical foundation essential to these advanced studies.
(B) Suggestion from Horace Taylor for Paragraph to be Inserted in the Columbia College Announcement and Comment on Hotelling and Mills’ Statement
October 20, 1941
Professor Robert M. Haig,
Fayerweather Hall.
Dear Professor Haig:
I enclose* two copies of a tentative paragraph intended to give effect in the Announcement to the recommendation made at our last departmental dinner. I would be glad to amend or amplify this in any way that seems desirable.
I have one or two misgivings as to the statement on mathematical preparation that has been prepared for the Announcement. In the first place it almost never happens that an undergraduate student decides to study economics in the graduate school earlier than the end of his junior year. Very often it happens at the end of his senior year. This lateness makes it impossible for such students to get the amount of mathematical training that is presented as desirable in this statement. In the second place, even those students who do decide to go in for graduate study at some point fairly early in their college careers are not likely to refer to our Announcement until a very short time before their actual application for admission as graduate students. Consequently the message presented in this statement would not reach them until too late. In the third place, I believe that the indefiniteness of the statement as it now stands might serve to frighten well qualified people away from graduate study of economics – at least in our department. Perhaps this difficulty would be relieved by making it more explicit as to just the fields of work in which such intensive mathematical preparation is a desirable prerequisite.
I doubt if we can accomplish very much in this regard by our own individual effort. I wonder if a broader attack in which it would be attempted to get the understanding and support of collegiate departments of economics would not be more successful. If, for example, the economics departments at Columbia, Chicago, Harvard, and perhaps two or three other principal graduate schools would agree on a general statement of what is desirable in the way of mathematical training and would publicize this through one or another of the Journals or by some other means, I think that better results would ensue. As I understand it, this question may come up for consideration at one of our later dinner meetings.
Sincerely,
HORACE TAYLOR
* “Undergraduate preparation. Since graduate study in economics necessarily entails a high degree of concentration in this field, students planning to enter graduate work are advised not to specialize narrowly in economics during their undergraduate study. Basic training in economics and a knowledge of its general literature and methods is desirable, but for the purposes of the more advanced work in graduate school, there is greater advantage in the study of history, philosophy, modern languages and mathematics than in narrowly specialized courses in economics taken as undergraduates.”
(C) Memorandum to Professor Haig from Professor Wolman: November 11, 1941
Professor Wolman agrees to the last paragraph typed on the page containing the memorandum from Professor Taylor. Doesn’t care how much Mathematics they are getting, no time to scare students away.
(D) Comment of Dean Calkins
Columbia University
in the City of New York
School of Business
Local
November 11, 1941
Professor R. M. Haig
Fayerweather
Dear Professor Haig
Your request for my comments on the proposed recommendation of undergraduate preparation for graduate study in economics and on Professor Taylor’s observations with respect to it prompts the following response:
- I am impressed by the three points raised by Professor Taylor. They represent my own views after experience at California and Stanford. No satisfactory system now exists for detecting undergraduates who will later pursue graduate work in economics, and hence advice can rarely be given in time to be effective. It is my impression that most students who undertake graduate work in economics are as undergraduates either unacquainted with the opportunities in the field, unaware of their own interest in it, uncertain of their academic abilities to pursue graduate work, without prospects of financing graduate study, or forced by financial circumstances to utilize their four years of undergraduate study for instruction which might lead to employment upon graduation. Moreover many of these conditions also apply to first year graduate students and candidates for the master’s degree.
That there is no easy way to overcome the foregoing conditions is evident. Ordinarily a student needs to proceed some distance in the subject as an undergraduate to convince himself that he wishes to go on for graduate study, that he has the ability to go on, and that his opportunities in the field are sufficiently promising to justify the effort. I am impressed, too, with the number of cases in which graduate students receive their first impulse to go on for advanced study from an interest in a specialized course.
- No statement in the Columbia College catalog alone can produce more than a small effect on the preparation of your graduate students, who are recruited so largely from other institutions. It is too vague to mean very much to the average undergraduate and will be interpreted by advisers according to their own predilections.
- While I agree that more graduate students ought to have more of the sort of preparation recommended, we cannot be certain that this prescription is the only, best, or preferred preparation for either the students who may wish to undertake the graduate study of economics or who should be encouraged to do so.
In guiding the preparation of students who will be able to excel in economics we seek to produce graduates who can maintain high standards of competence, not standardized products.
- I have no serious objection to the statement as a guide for one type of preparation, but this is clearly not the only desirable type of preparation. Its value probably lies in the prospect that a few will heed it, and that may be desirable, and the great majority will ignore it and that may also be desirable.
I shall be glad to discuss this with you if you desire an amplification of these opinions.
Sincerely yours,
[signed] Robert D. Calkins
Dean
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana, Department of Economics Collection, Faculty. Box 2, Folder “Department of Economics—Faculty Beginning Jan 1, 1944”.
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Recommended preparations printed in the 1942-43 Course Announcements
General Undergraduate Preparation. Since graduate study in economics necessarily entails a high degree of concentration in this field, students planning to enter graduate work are advised not to specialize narrowly in economics during their undergraduate study. Basic training in economics and a knowledge of its general literature and methods is desirable, but for the purposes of the more advanced work on the graduate level, there is greater advantage in the study of history, philosophy, modern languages and mathematics than in narrowly specialized courses in economics taken as undergraduates.
Mathematical Preparation. The use of mathematics, including higher mathematics, has become important in several branches of economics and statistics. Much of the recent important literature of general economics is written in a language not easily understood without some knowledge of the differential and integral calculus. Students planning to work for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in economics will therefore find it advantageous to acquire familiarity with the calculus and with higher algebra before beginning their graduate studies in economics.
Source: History, Economics, Public Law, and Sociology. Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1942-1943. Columbia University, Bulletin of Information, Forty-second Series, No. 24, May 23, 1942, p. 18.
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The 1948 Directory of the American Economic Association. American Economic Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (January 1949).
HAIG, Robert Murray, Columbia Univ., Fayerweather Hall, New York 27, N.Y. (1911) Columbia Univ., McVikar Prof. of Polit. Econ., teach., res.; b. 1887; A.B., 1908, LL.D., 1925, Ohio Wesleyan; M.A., 1909, Illinois; Ph.D., 1914, Columbia; LL.D., 1944, Rollins. Field 9 [Public Finance]. Doc.dis. History of general property tax in Illinois ([Flanigan-Pearson Company, Printers] Univ. of Illinois, 1914). Pub. “Taxation of excess profits in Great Britain,” A.E.R., 1920; Economic factors in metropolitan growth and arrangement (Russell Sage Found., 1927); Sales tax in American states (with Shoup) (Columbia Univ. Press, 1929). Res. Concept of taxable income; federal state financial relations. Dir. W.W. in Amer., Dir. of Schol., Lead. in Educa. Int. W.W. [p. 77]
MILLS, Frederick Cecil, Columbia Univ., New York 27, N.Y. (1920) Columbia Univ., prof of econ. and statis.; Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res., memb. res. staff; teach., res., govt. serv.; b. 1892; B.L., 1914, M.A., 1916, LL.D., 1947, California; Ph.D., 1917, Columbia; 1919, London School of Econ. Fields 3 [Statistics and Econometrics], 6 [Business Fluctuations], 5 [National Income and Social Accounting]. Doc dis. Contemporary theories of unemployment (Columbia Univ. Press, 1917). Pub. Behavior of prices (1927), Economic tendencies in U.S. (1932) (Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res.); Statistical Methods (Holt, 1924, 1938). Res. Prices in business cycles; industrial productivity. Dir. W.W. in Amer., Dir. of Schol. [p. 129]
WOLMAN, Leo, 993 Park Ave., New York 28, NY. (1915) Columbia Univ., prof. of econ.; Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res., res. staff; b. 1890; A.B., 1911, Ph.D., 1914, LL.D., 1948, Johns Hopkins. Fields 16 [Labor], 6 [Business Fluctuations], 3c [Economic Measurements]. Doc. dis. Boycott in American trade unions (Johns Hopkins Press, 1916). Pub. Growth of American trade unions, 1880-1923 (1924), Planning and control of public works (1930), Ebb and flow in trade unionism (1936) (Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res.). Res. Wages in U. S. since 1860; changes in union membership. Dir. W.W. in Amer., Dir. of Schol. Lead in Educa. [p. 204]
CALKINS, Robert D., 445 Riverside Dr., New York 27, N.Y. (1930) Gen. Educa. Bd., dir.; B.S., 1925, LL.B., 1942, William and Mary; M.A., 1929, Ph.D., 1933, Stanford. Fields 11a [Business Organization, Administration, Methods, and Management], 12a [Industrial Organization and Market Controls; Policies Concerning Competition and Monopoly], 14a [Industry Studies: Manufacturing]. Doc. dis. Price leadership among major wheat futures markets (Wheat Studies, Nov., 1933). Dir. W.W. in Amer. [p. 30]
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The 1942 Directory of the American Economic Association. American Economic Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, Part 2, Supplement (March 1943).
TAYLOR, Horace, Columbia Univ., New York City. (1924) A [Institution, rank, nature of activity]Columbia Univ., prof. of econ., TRA [teaching, research, administration]. B [Degrees] A.B., 1922, Oklahoma; A.M., 1924, Ph.D., 1929, Columbia. C [doctoral dissertation]Making goods and making money (Macmillan, 1929). D [Fields] 1 [Economic theory; general works], 10 [Public control of business; public administration; national defense and war], 3 [Economic systems; national economics]. E [Research projects underway] Systematic economic theory. F [Most significant publications]Main currents in modern economic life (Harcourt, Brace, 1941). G [Directories cross referenced] SE [Biographical Directory of American Scholars, Leaders in Education]. [p. 11]
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Harold Hotelling. Professor of Economics
A.B. Washington, 1919; M.S., 1921; Ph.D., Princeton, 1924.
Source: History, Economics, Public Law, and Sociology. Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1942-1943. Columbia University, Bulletin of Information, Forty-second Series, No. 24, May 23, 1942, p. 4.
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Image Source: Columbia Spectator Archive. Left: Horace Taylor (14 April 1959). Right: Frederick C. Mills (11 February 1964)