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Harvard. Methods of Social Reform. Frank A. Fetter, 1906.

Thomas Nixon Carver was granted a sabbatical leave from Harvard for the academic year 1906-07. Frank Albert Fetter from Cornell was hired to teach Carver’s course that covered economic utopias and proposed social reforms. 

Inspecting university course catalogues from where Fetter had previously taught, I was able to find that he did indeed once teach a one term course at Cornell before teaching Carver’s course in 1906:  “Political Science 55a: Socialism and Communism” that was given in the Fall term of a three term academic year 1894-95.

After Fetter returned to Cornell, it appears he then taught a course very similar to what he taught at Harvard: Political Science 66b Social Reforms. “History and growth of the more radical modern plans for changing industrial conditions; program and spirit of the socialistic parties in Europe and America.” (1907-08)

Here are the main dates in Fetter’s career:

1891  A. B. Indiana University
1892  Ph.M. Cornell University
1894  Ph.D. University of Halle
1894-1895   Instructor in Political Economy, Cornell University
1895-1898   Professor of Economics and Social Science, Indiana University
1898-1901   Professor, Stanford University
1901-1911   Professor, Cornell University
1911-1933   Professor, Princeton University

1912  President of the American Economic Association

Comparing this syllabus with those used by Carver before and after this year, one sees that Fetter essentially added items to Carver’s syllabus and made some minor rearrangements of the topics, e.g. anarchism moved to the end of the term.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below.  There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting…

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[Course Enrollment First Half-year 1906-07]

[Economics] 14b 1hf. Professor Fetter (Cornell University).—Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

4 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 7 Other. Total 32.

 

Source:  Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1906-07, p.71.

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ECONOMICS 14b
METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM

First Half-Year, 1906 – 07, F. A. Fetter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.  Evil’s and Discontent Portrayed.

Engels, F., Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
Rowntree, B. S., Poverty (a study of York, Eng.).
London, J., The People of the Abyss (in London).
Brooks, J. G., The Social Unrest (1903).
Hunter, R., Poverty (a pessimistic view of the U. S.).
Spargo, J., The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906).

II. Utopian Romances (chronological order of publication).

Plato, The Republic (4th century B.C.).
Morley, H. (ed.), Ideal Commonwealths (containing Plutarch’s Lycurgus, More’s Utopia (1516), Bacon’s New Atlantis (1629), Campanella’s City of the Sun (1520), Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem (1607)).
Cabet, E., Voyage en Icarie (1839)
Bellamy, E., Looking Backward (1887).
Morris, W., News from Nowhere.
Hertzka, Freiland.
Bellamy, E., Equality (1897).
Wells, H. G., Anticipations (1902).
________, Mankind in the Making (1904).
Parry, The Scarlet Empire (1906, anti-utopian).

III. Communistic Experiments (American books in chronological order).

Kautsky, Karl, Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.
Cabet, E., Icaria (history of the society in America, 1852).
Noyes, J. H., History of American Socialisms (1870).
Nordhoff, Charles, The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875).
Hinds, W. A., American Communities (1878, and later revised edition).
Shaw, Albert, Icaria, a Chapter in the History of Socialism (1884).
Codman, J. T., Brook Farm; Historic and Personal Memoirs (1894).
Randall, E. O., The Zoar Society (1899).
Landis, G. B., The Separatists of Zoar.
Lockwood, George B., The New Harmony Communities.
Broom, Isaac, The Last Days of the Ruskin Coöperative Association (1902).
Hillquist, M., History of Socialism in the United States (1903).

IV. Religious and Altruistic Socialism

Lamennais, Les Parole d’un Croyant.
Kaufman, Lamennais and Kingsley. Contemporary Review, April, 1882.
Kingsley, Charles, Alton Locke.
Stubbs, Charles Kingsley.
Woodworth, A. V., Christian Socialism in England (1903).
Gladden, Washington, Tools and the Man, A View of Christian Socialism.
Strong, Josiah, Our Country (1885), The New Era (1893).
Ballon-Adin, Practical Christian Socialism.
Nitti, F., Catholic Socialism (trans. 1895).
Carlyle, Thomas: “The Socialism and Unsocialism of Thomas Carlyle,” a selection of chapters by W. D. P. Bliss.
Ruskin, John: “The Communism of John Ruskin,” a selection by W. D. P. Bliss from Unto This Last, The Crown of Wild Olive, and Fors Clavigera.
“William Morris, Poet, Artist, Socialist,” a collection of his socialistic writings, by F. W. Lee.

V. History and Exposition of Collectivism (alphabetic by authors).

Dawson, W. H., German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle (1888).
Ely, R. T., French and German Socialism (1883); Socialism, an examination of its nature, strength, and weakness (1895).
Flower, B. O., How England Averted a Revolution of Force (1903).
Gonner, E. C. K., The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus (1899).
Graham, William, Socialism, New and Old.
Kirkup, Thomas, A History of Socialism.
Peixotto, Jessica B., The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism (1901).
Rae, John, Contemporary Socialism (2d ed. 1891).
Russell, Bertrand, German Social Democracy.
Schaeffle, Albert, The Quintessence of Socialism (1874).
Sombart, Werner, Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century (1st ed. translated; 5th ed. revised, in German, 1905).
____________, Der moderne Capitalismus, 2 vols.

VI.  Collectivist arguments.

German.

Karl Marx and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1847).
Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867).
Engels, F., Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Bebel, A., Woman in the Past, Present and Future (trans. 1894).
Kautsky, K., The Social Revolution (trans. 1903).
Bernstein, E., Ferdinand Lassalle (trans. 1893).
_________, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus (1899).
_________, Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Sozialismus (2d ed. 1901).

English and American.

Hyndman, H. M., The Economics of Socialism (English of the Marxist school).
Webb, Sydney and Beatrice, Problems of Modern Industry.
Fabian Essay in Socialism, B. Shaw and others.
Fabian Tracts, 1-86 (1884-1899).
Blatchford, R., Merrie England (1895).
Gronlund, L., The Coöperative Commonwealth (1895).
_________, The New Economy (1898).
Bliss, W. P. D., A Handbook of Socialism (1895).
Vail, Modern Socialism (1899).
Ghent, W. J., Our Benevolent Feudalism.
_________, Mass and Class.
London, J., War of the Classes.
Spargo, John, Socialism (1906).

Various.

Selections from Fourier.
Jaures, J., Studies in Socialism (trans. 1906).
Ensor, R. C. K., Modern Socialism as set forth by Socialists (collection of 29 articles, 1904).
Labriola, A., Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History (trans. 1904).
Vandervelde, E., Collectivism.

VII. Anti-Collectivist Arguments.

Brunhuber, Dr. Robert, Die heutige Sozialdemokratie (1906).
Cathrein, Rev. Victor, Socialism Exposed and Refuted (trans. 1902).
______________, Socialism, its Theoretical Basis and Practical Application.
Gilman, N. P., Socialism and the American Spirit.
Gonner, E. C. K., The Socialist State.
Guyot, Y., The Tyranny of Socialism.
Le Bon, G., Psychology of Socialism (trans. 1899).
Mackay, T., A Plea for Liberty.
Malloch, W. H., Labor and the Popular Welfare (new ed., 1894).
___________, Classes and Masses.
___________, Aristocracy and Evolution (1898).
Menger, A., The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor (trans. 1899).
Sanders, G. A., Reality, or Law and Order vs. Anarchy and Socialism, a reply to E. Bellamy (1898).
Schaeffle, A., The Impossibility of Social Democracy (1884).
Simonson, G., A Plain Examination of Socialism (1900).
Spencer, H., The Coming Slavery.

VIII. Land Nationalization.

Favorable.

George, H., Progress and Poverty.
______________, Our Land and Land Policy.
Wallace, A. R., Studies, Scientific and Social (in Vol. II, articles on land nationalization).
Loria, A., Problèmes Sociaux Contemporains.
George, H., Jr., The Menace of Privilege.
Shearman, T. G., Natural Taxation.

Unfavorable.

Cathrein, Rev. Victor, The Champions of Agrarian Socialism, A Refutation of Lavelèye and George (trans. 1889).
Huxley, T. H., Evolution and Ethics (chs. on single tax, 1894).
_________, Social Diseases and Worse Remedies (1891).
Rae, John, Ch. 12 of Contemporary Socialism.
Smart, W., Taxation of Land Values (1900).
Walker, F. A., Land and Its Rent (1883).

General.

Epps, Land Systems of Australia.
Lefèvre-Shaw, English Commons and Forests.

IX. The Extension of State Action

Adams, H. C., The Relation of the State to Industrial Action.
Ely, R. T., Problems of To-day (chs. 17-23).
Hobson, J. A., The Social Problem, Life and Work (1901).
Jevons, W. S., Methods of Social Reform (last 5 chs.).
Ritchie, D. C., Principles of State Interference.
_________, Darwinism and Politics.
Taylor, F. M., The Right of the State to Be (1891).
Willoughby, W. W., Social Justice.

X. Anarchism and Nihilism.

Godwin, William, Political Justice; on Property.
Tolstoi, L., The Slavery of Our times (1900).
Kropotkin, The Scientific Basis of Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 21: 238.
______________, The Coming Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 22: 149.
Reclus, Elisée, Anarchy. Contemporary Review, 14: 627.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1906-1907).

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Economists Harvard

Harvard. Graduates’ Magazine reports on Economics Dept. 1892-1904.

The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 1, October, 1892, pp. 116-117.

ECONOMICS.

Ten years ago, the Department of Political Economy had one professor and one instructor, neither giving all of his time to the subject. At present, the Department of Economics has three professors and two instructors. The change in name, from Political Economy to Economics, indicates of itself an enlargement of the range of subjects. The number of courses offered has grown from two to a dozen, with a corresponding development in the variety of topics treated. The increase in the number of students is indicated by the fact that the first course, introductory to the rest, which was taken ten years ago by perhaps fifty students, now has over three hundred. This striking development is significant of the rapid increase in the attention given to economic problems by the public and by our institutions of learning. The staff now consists of Professors Dunbar, Taussig, and Ashley, and Messrs. Cummings and Cole. Professor Ashley enters upon his duties for the first time this autumn, his chair being a newly created one of Economic History. Professor Dunbar continues to edit the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which was established by the University in 1886 with the aid of a fund contributed by John Eliot Thayer, ’85, and which has an established position among the important periodicals on economic subjects. The Department has recently done service to economic students by a reprint, under Professor Dunbar’s care, of Cantillon’s Essai sur le Commerce, a rare volume of importance in the history of economic theory; and it has now in press a volume of State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff, meant to aid students of the tariff history of the United States. For its growth in the past the Department has depended wholly on the expenditure by the Corporation of unpledged resources. No doubt the increasing sense of the importance of economic study will in time change the situation in this regard, and will make this department as attractive for benefactors as those which are older and more familiar.

F. W. Taussig, 79.

 

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 1, July, 1893, p. 576.

[Birth of a semester system, emphasis added]

The elective pamphlet announcing the courses to be offered in 1893-94 by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences contains few striking changes. There is a tendency manifested in it to increase the number of half-courses beginning or ending in February, at the time of the mid-year examinations. Thus History 12 is split into two halves, the first half being on the recent history of Continental Europe, and the second half on the recent constitutional history of England; Economics 7 is cut in two, and Economics 12 is established as two half-courses, one on International Payments and the Flow of Precious Metals, and the other on Banking and the History of the Banking Systems. Other examples might be given to emphasize the drift towards something akin to a division of the year into two semesters, particularly for the convenience of graduate students. 

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 1, July, 1893, p. 590.

ECONOMICS.

In the department of Economics several new courses are offered for 1893-94. Professor Dunbar offers two half-courses, one on international payments and the flow of the precious metals from country to country, the other on banks and the leading banking systems. The two half-courses come at the same hours in the first and second half-years, and, when taken together, form a convenient full course running through the year. This new course will alternate with Course 7, on taxation and finance, which is to be omitted in 1893-94, and will be resumed in 1894-95. — Professor Ashley offers a course on Economic History, from the Middle Ages to modern times, which will take the place of the former Course 4, on the economic history of Europe and America since the middle of the eighteenth century. The new course covers a longer period than was covered in Course 4, and will supplement effectively the instruction in history as well as in economics. Professor Ashley also offers a new half-course, intended mainly for advanced and graduate students, on land tenure and agrarian conditions in Europe. — Professor Cummings offers a half-course, also intended for advanced students, on schemes for social reconstruction from Plato’s Republic to the present time, including the proposals of Bellamy and Hertzka. The course is meant to give opportunity for the discussion of social and political institutions and of socialist theories. — Economics 1, the introductory course in the department, will be remodeled in part in the coming year. A somewhat larger proportion of the exercises will take the form of lectures to all members of the course. Professor Taussig will lecture on distribution and on financial subjects, Professor Ashley on economic development, Professor Cummings on social questions.

F. W. Taussig, ’79.

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 3, March, 1895, pp. 383-384.

ECONOMICS.

The matter that has of late most engaged the attention of the Department has been the welcome and yet embarrassing growth in the number of students taking the introductory course known as Economics 1. This has risen from 179 in 1889-90 to 201 in ’90-91, 288 in ’91-92, 322 in ’92-93, 340 in ’93-94, until in the present year it is 398. Such an increase necessarily raises grave questions both of educational method and of academic discipline. Those professors to whose labors in past years the success of the course has been due are still of opinion that the recitation method, in its best form, — the discussion day after day and chapter by chapter of some great treatise like the work of John Stuart Mill, — furnishes a mental training such as no other plan can provide. But for its successful practice it is necessary either that the class should be quite small, or that, if divided, the sections should be few and small. Accordingly it became evident that some modification of plan was necessary; and last year the arrangement was hit upon of retaining the section work for the greater part of the year, but diversifying it with three months of set lectures at different periods by Professors Taussig, Ashley, and Cummings. The experiment was so satisfactory that it has been repeated this year; and, in the absence of Professor Taussig, Professors Ashley and Cummings have each lectured for six weeks. If the numbers continue to grow, it may seem advisable in the future to take further steps in the same direction. But Upper Massachusetts, in spite of its historical associations, has abominable acoustic properties; the room in Boylston, which was suggested as an alternative, is redolent of Chemistry; and it may ultimately become necessary to invade the sacred precincts of Sanders Theatre. — In the absence of Professor Taussig upon his sabbatical, before referred to, his course on Economic Theory (Econ. 2) has been divided into two half-courses, and undertaken by Professor Ashley and Professor Macvane. Professor Macvane’s action will do something to break down that middle wall of partition between departments which is sometimes so curiously high and strong in this University of free electives. It need scarcely be added that to those who know how considerable have been Professor Macvane’s contributions to economic theory, and how great his reputation is with foreign economists, he seems altogether in place when he takes part in the economic instruction of Harvard University. — Professor Taussig’s course on Railway Transportation (Econ. 5) has been assigned for the present year to Mr. G. O. Virtue, ’92; his other courses have been suspended. — Mr. John Cummings, ’91, has returned, with a year’s experience as instructor and his doctorate, from the University of Chicago, and is now an Assistant in Econ. 1; he is also offering a new course on Comparative Poor Law and Administration. — The instructors in this, as in other Departments, find themselves increasingly hampered by the difficulty of providing the necessary books for the use of students. Oxford and Cambridge Universities, with hardly more students than Harvard, have libraries in every college, together with the Union libraries and the University libraries; here in Harvard, if an instructor in class mentions any but the best known of books, the chances are that there is only one copy in the place,— that in the University Library; and unless he has been provident enough to have that book “reserved,” some undergraduate promptly takes it out, and nobody else can see it. It is true that undergraduates ought to buy more books; but frequently there is not a copy to be had even in the Boston bookstores. It would certainly be a great relief if the societies could see their way to create, each for itself, a modest working library of a few hundred books. Meanwhile something may be done by strengthening the Departmental Library in University Hall. This, which owes its creation to the generosity of some of the members of the Class of 1879, is in urgent need of enlargement; and the professors in the Department will be glad to hear from any graduate whose eye this happens to catch. — Finally, it may be advisable to mention that, as the result of careful deliberation on the part of the members of the Division Committee, a detailed statement of requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science was drawn up last spring, and will now be found at the end of the Division pamphlet This Statement is noteworthy in that it defines for the first time the “general” examination, and the examination on “a special field;” and also for the stress it lays upon “a broad basis of general culture ” as the foundation of specialist work. “A command of good English, spoken and written, the ability to make free use of French and German books, and a fair acquaintance with general history ” are mentioned as “of special importance.”

W. J. Ashley.

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 4, December, 1895, pp. 242-243.

ECONOMICS.

The Department of Economics began its work for the year under unfortunate circumstances. Professor Dunbar, its honored head, was compelled by ill-health to withdraw from academic work for the year, and was given leave of absence by the Corporation. His withdrawal rendered necessary changes in the courses of instruction. Of those announced to be given by Professor Dunbar, course 7, on Financial Administration and Public Debts, was undertaken by Dr. John Cummings, and course 12, on Banking and the History of the Leading Banking Systems, by Professor Taussig. The additional work thus assumed by Professor Taussig was made possible through the aid of Professor Macvane, who will conduct during the second half-year that part of Economics 2 which had been announced to be given by Professor Taussig. Course 8, on the History of Financial Legislation in the United States, has been shifted to the second half-year, and will then be given by Dr. Joseph A. Hill, A. B. ’86, Ph. D. ’92. By this rearrangement all the courses originally announced will be given, and no diminution in the Department’s offering results from Professor Dunbar’s absence. — Another change has taken place, affecting course 1. The numbers in this introductory course have grown steadily of late years, and it is now taken annually by about 400 men. It had been the policy of the Department to conduct it not by lectures, but mainly by face to face discussion, in rooms of moderate size, the men being divided into sections for this purpose. As the numbers grew, however, it became more and more difficult to keep the sections at a manageable size, to find convenient rooms for them, and to secure efficient instructors. The alternative of lecturing to the men in one large room had long presented itself, but the probable educational advantages of instruction in smaller rooms by sections caused this alternative to be avoided. For the present year, however, the withdrawal of Professor Dunbar rendered some economizing of the force of the Department necessary, and it has been accordingly determined to try the lecture plan for the current year. All the members of the course meet in Upper Massachusetts, — a room which, by the way, proves reasonably well adapted for this use, — and there are given lectures by the various instructors who take part in the course. By way of testing their reading and securing for the instructors some evidence as to their attainments, a system of weekly written papers has been introduced. On a given day of each week the students write answers to questions bearing upon the work of that week and of previous weeks. These answers are examined and corrected, and serve as a means of estimating the diligence and attainments of the students. Whether this radical change of plan will prove to be advantageous remains to be decided by the year’s experience; but it indicates a change in the methods of college work which is making its way in all directions, and which presents new and difficult problems to instructors. — The Seminary in Economics opens the year with sixteen advanced students of good quality, and promises well. Two are Seniors in Harvard College; the remainder are members of the Graduate School. Four are candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the close of the current year. The growth of the Seminary in numbers and the better organization of its work are part of the general advance of the Graduate School, which is now reaping the fruits of the marked gains it has made in recent years.

F. W. Taussig, 79.

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 7, March, 1899, pp. 427-8.

ECONOMICS.

Like other departments, that of Economics finds itself confronted with the problem of the best mode of dealing with large numbers of students in the courses much sought for, and especially in the general introductory course. Economics 1 is now regularly chosen by from 450 to 500 students. Well-nigh every undergraduate takes it at some stage of his college career, and the question of its numbers seems to be simply a question of the number of students in the College and Scientific School. This great demand for general training in the subject has imposed on the Department an obligation to make its instruction as stimulating and efficient as may be, and yet has made this task more difficult than ever before. Inevitably, the old method of dividing the course into sections for all of the instruction has been abandoned. Its place has been taken by a mixed method of lectures and oral exercises. Twice a week, lectures are given to the whole course in one large room. Upper Massachusetts, remodeled, reheated, and reseated, serves for these lectures, — not well, but not unendurably ill; there is great need, for the use of the large courses, of a new and well-equipped building. The lectures are largely in the nature of comment on assigned reading. The third hour in the week is then given to meetings in sections of moderate size, in which the lectures and the reading are subject to test and discussion. The course is divided into some fifteen sections, each of which meets its instructor once a week. At these exercises, a question is first answered in writing by each student, twenty minutes being allowed for this test; the remainder of the hour is used in oral discussion. Some continuous oversight of the work of students is thus secured, and opportunity is given for questions to them and from them. A not inconsiderable staff of instructors is necessary for the conduct of the sections, and a not inconsiderable expenditure by the Corporation for salaries; but some such counter-weight on the lecture system pure and simple is felt to be necessary. The Department has been fortunate in securing trained and competent instructors for this part of the work; and the new method, if not definitively adopted, is at least in the stage of promising experiment. — During the second half year of 1898-99, the place of Professor Ashley, who is absent on leave, is taken by Dr. Wm. Cunningham, of Trinity College (Cambridge, England). Dr. Cunningham and Professor Ashley are easily the leaders among English-speaking scholars on their subject, economic history; and the Department has cordially welcomed the arrangement by which the scholar from the Cambridge of England fills the place, for the time being, of the scholar of the American Cambridge. Dr. Cunningham gives two courses in the current half year, — one on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects, Mediaeval and Modern, the other on the Industrial Revolution in England.

F. W. Taussig, ‘79.

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 8, December, 1899, p. 223.

ECONOMICS.

The Department finds, as usual, large numbers of students to deal with during the current year. In the introductory course, Economics 1, nearly 500 students are enrolled, and once again it appears that the University has no good lecture room adequate for the accommodation of such numbers. The system of instruction which has been in use in this course for several years is continued. For part of the time, lectures are given to all members of the course; for the remainder of the time, it is split into small sections for question and discussion. So long as lectures are given at all, there is little gain from splitting the course into two or more parallel courses, as has sometimes been proposed; but the absence of a good lecture room for the whole number makes the present situation trying. In its advanced courses, the Department has again the services of Prof. Ashley, who returns after a year’s leave of absence, and finds large numbers enrolled in his course on modern economic history. His advanced course, on the history and literature of economics to the close of the 18th century, also attracts a satisfactory number of mature students. Prof. Cummings omits for the year his course on the labor question; but compensation for this is found in Philosophy 5, a course having a similar range of subjects, which is again given by Prof. Peabody, who has returned from his year’s leave of absence. Professors Dunbar and Taussig give, without material change, the courses usually assigned to them. — The Department assumes some additional burden through a change in its plans for the publication of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. That journal, whose 14th volume begins with the opening issue of this year, is hereafter to appear in more ambitious form. Its size will be somewhat increased, the departments varied, and the elaborate bibliography of current publication will be strengthened. At the same time the price goes up from $2 to $3 a year, — a change which, it is hoped, can be carried out without a loss of subscribers.

F. W. Taussig, 79.

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 10, December, 1901, pp. 261-2.

ECONOMICS.

An unusual number of changes have to be noted in this Department. Prof. Taussig’s leave of absence, and Prof. Ashley’s recent resignation, have made it necessary to call in several men from the outside to give instruction during the present year. Prof. Taussig’s work is provided for in part by Prof. C. J. Bullock, of Williams College, who is giving the courses on finance and taxation, — and in part by a redistribution of the work among the members of the regular teaching staff. Dr. Andrew has charge of Economics 1, and Dr. Sprague of Economics 6, on the Economic History of the United States. Prof. Ashley’s courses, as announced for the year, have been provided for as follows: Prof. Wm. Z. Ripley, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is giving course 5 on Statistics, and is to give the latter half of course 17 on the Economic Organization and Resources of European Countries, Mr. Meyer having charge of it during the first half year. Dr. C. W. Mixter is giving course 15 on the History and Literature of Economics to the opening of the 19th century. In addition, Prof. Ripley is giving course 5a on Railway Economics. In the second half year, Mr. W. F. Willoughby is to give courses 9 and 9a on Problems of Labor. — The courses preparing for a business career have been extended somewhat. Mr. W. M. Cole continues his course on the Principles of Accounting, and Prof. Wambaugh his course on Insurance. In addition to these, Mr. Bruce Wyman is conducting a new course on the Principles of Law in their Application to Industrial Problems, using the case method as it has been developed in the Law School. The popularity of these courses, in spite of the unusual severity of the examinations, is some indication of their success, and suggests, at least, the practicability of still further extensions. While there is a tendency in some quarters to carry the idea of commercial education to extremes, it is to be noted that these courses neither pretend to take the place of business experience, nor to teach those things which can be learned better in a business office than in any institution of learning. Moreover the work is confined to a mastery of principles and not to the gaining of general information. — The number of students in the Department continues large, there being upward of 480 in course 1, and about 1100 in the Department as a whole, not excluding those counted more than once. The housing of Economics 1 continues to be a problem, as Upper Massachusetts is uncomfortably packed at each meeting. More difficult, however, is the problem of finding small rooms for the 11 sections into which this class is divided for discussion and consultation once each week. — The Board of Overseers have confirmed the appointment of Dr. A. P. Andrew, Dr. O. M. W. Sprague, and Mr. H. R. Meyer as instructors without limit of time. — The change from two dollars to three dollars per year in the subscription price of the Quarterly Journal of Economics has been followed by no diminution in the number of subscribers, and the hope of the editors that the Journal might be conducted on a somewhat more ambitious scale is being realized.

T. N. Carver.

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The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 11, December, 1902, pp. 247-248.

ECONOMICS.

Prof. Taussig’s continued absence has occasioned some readjustment of work within the Department during the present year. Dr. A. P. Andrew has full charge of Course I, Dr. O. M. W. Sprague of Course 6, and Prof. T. N. Carver of Course 2, while Prof. Taussig’s course on Adam Smith and Ricardo has been combined with Dr. C. W. Mixter’s course on Selected Topics in the History of Economic Thought since Adam Smith. Prof. W. Z. Ripley, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has accepted a professorship in our Department, and is giving Course 9 on Problems of Labor and Industrial Organization, the first half of Course 3, on the Principles of Sociology, the second half of Course 17, on the Economic Organization and Resources of European Countries, and Course 4, on the Theory and Method of Statistics. Dr. E. F. Gay, who has spent several years in Europe investigating in the field of economic history, has accepted an instructorship here, and is giving Courses 10 and 11, on the Economic History of Mediaeval and Modern Europe.

The interest in the work of the Department continues to grow. Economics I has 542 students, as compared with about 480 at this time last year. Mr. Wyman’s course (21), on The Principles of Law in their Application to Economic Problems, now contains over 60 students, as compared with 38 last year. Other courses show no great variation one way or the other, except Prof. Ripley’s course in Statistics. The interest which is being revived in this too much neglected field promises well for the future of economic studies in Harvard.

The change in the hour of Economics I from Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 9, to Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at 11, was necessary in order to find a suitable room. This makes it possible for a larger number of Freshmen to elect the course, since it no longer conflicts with History I. Whether this is going to prove advantageous or not remains to be seen. At present the policy is to discourage Freshmen from electing this course. If there should be a considerable increase in the number of men who complete the college course in three years, it may be advisable to allow some of the more mature members of the Freshman Class to take Economics I. In that case it will be necessary to increase the number of courses which are somewhat general in their scope. Thus the course on Economic Theory (2) might be made somewhat less special than it now is, and a new course covering the general field of Practical Economics might be started. In this way the evils of too early specialization might be avoided. However, no definite policy has as yet been decided upon.

The Department has secured the use of Room 24, University Hall, as headquarters. In this room the mail of the Department and of the Quarterly Journal of Economics will be received, and the exchanges will be available for immediate inspection. This room has also been fitted up with drawing tables and other apparatus necessary for practical work in statistics. It is the purpose to make it a statistical laboratory.

The accounts of the Quarterly Journal of Economics are satisfactory, and the subscription list is making slow but substantial gains.

T. N. Carver.

_____________________________

The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 11, June, 1903, pp. 560-562.

ECONOMICS.

An interesting comparison between the allied departments of History and Economics is shown below on the basis of the number of students electing such courses. Some of the novel problems entailed by the rapid growth of the very large courses are now being considered by both departments. This rapid growth in large courses, coupled with the increase in the number of highly specialized courses, is bound to make necessary a constant increase in the instructing staff, if full justice to the work is to be done. Among the new courses offered for next year are the following: Economics of Agriculture, by Prof. Carver; Corporation Finance, by Prof. Ripley; Outlines of Agrarian History, by Prof. Gay; and American Competition in Europe since 1873 and The Indirect Activities of the State in Australasia and in Europe, by Mr. Meyer. A general revision of the methods of the Seminary is also under consideration, although plans in that direction are not as yet completed,

 

1902-3. STUDENTS IN ECONOMICS.

ECONOMICS.

HISTORY.
1st half year 1st half year

Econ.

 5 60 Hist. 12a 93

“

 7b 21 “ 16a 151 244
“ 8a

100

 2d half year

“

 12a 10 Hist. 12b 79

“

 10 16 “ 16b

148
“ 18 45 252 “ 29 86

313
2d half year ½ course thro yr.

Econ.

 8b 152 Hist. 17 4

4

“

 11b

19

 Whole courses.

“

 12b 43 Hist. 1

506
“ 16 29 243 “ 3

6
½ course thro yr.

“

 4

7

Econ.

 4 15 15 “ 6

19
Whole courses.

“

 8

8

Econ.

 1 519 “ 9 36

“

 2 26 “ 10 188

“

 3 45 “ 11 67
“ 6 122 “ 13

214
“ 9 111 “ 15 13
“ 14 15 “ 20d

3

“

 17 9 “ 20e 12
“ 20 11 “ 21

1

“

 20a 5   “ 25

3

“

 21 60 “ 26 11

“

 22 6(?) Hist. of Relig. 2 50

1144
Deduct 50 given by another Faculty

1705

1655
________________________________________
Whole courses

11

 Whole courses

16
Half-courses

11

5 ½

 Half-courses

6

3
16 ½

19
Including 5 courses of over 100 students, of which 2 are half courses. Including 5 courses of over 100 students, of which 2 are half courses.

A prompt response to suggestions made to the committee on instruction in economics of the Board of Overseers, as to the needs of the Department, has been made by Mr. Arthur T. Lyman in the shape of a gift of $500, to be expended in the preparation of charts, maps, and other illustrative material. The courses in general descriptive economics, it was felt, can be very greatly improved by the use of such material. Chart cases had already been installed in the new department headquarters, but this will enable the services of an expert draftsman for commencing the preparation of a suitable collection.

Among the other needs of the Department expressed at this meeting was that of an adding and computing machine for use in connection with the courses in Finance and Statistics. It was felt that the so-called “Burroughs Adder,” so generally in use in banking houses and statistical offices, could be utilized to great advantage in the prosecution of original work. The cost of such a machine is approximately $350. It is also to be hoped in the course of time that a collection of illustrative material other than maps may be commenced. This would include, for example, samples of the leading raw materials whose classification enters into tariff discussions and debates, photographs of social and industrial establishments, and other material of this sort. Such a collection, within moderate limits, along the lines of the Philadelphia Commercial Museums, has already been begun at Dartmouth, Ann Arbor, and other places. It should be kept in mind as a possible department at Cambridge.

 

_____________________________

The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 12, December, 1903, p. 246.

ECONOMICS.

Prof. Taussig has returned after an absence of two years, entirely restored in health. His resumption of work completes the working corps in the department, enabling it to offer its full list of announced courses. The number of graduate students is considerably increased over the preceding years, and there is every prospect of a successful resumption of the regular work in all lines.

The November number of The World’s Work contains the first of a noteworthy series of articles by Prof. Carver upon agricultural conditions in the West. Prof. Carver made a tour of some hundreds of miles on horseback during the summer, principally in the corn belt. It is his intention to supplement this tour by similar observations in other parts of the country in the coming years. This issue of The World’s Work forms distinctively a Harvard number, containing also an article on The Progress of Labor Organizations, by Prof. Ripley.

Among the new courses announced for this year are several by Prof. Bullock, one upon “The History and Literature of Economics,” with an additional research course entitled “Studies in American Finance.” Prof. Gay’s course upon ” The German Economists” last year met with so cordial a response that it has been expanded to a full course, covering the French as well as the German authorities. Mr. H. R. Meyer, having re- signed as an instructor, will continue as a lecturer, giving two courses upon “American Competition in Europe since 1873” and “The Industrial Activities of the State in Australasia and in Europe.”

W. Z. Ripley.

_____________________________

The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 13, December, 1904, p. 278.

ECONOMICS.

Economics 1 opens with an enrolment of 491 students, and is again the largest elective course in College. Government 1 is a close second, with 481 students; History 1 has 436. The numbers in Economics 1 are distinctly less than last year, which doubtless reflects the decline in attendance in the College at large. More than half of the total are Sophomores (255) ; the Juniors number 102, and the Freshmen 73. The resort to these three courses shows how strong is the trend to ward instruction in subjects connected with political life, and how great is the need for careful teaching and careful organization. Economics 1 continues to be conducted on the system which has been in use for some years past, and has been followed also in Government 1 and History 1. Two hours of lectures are given each week; for the third hour the course is divided into sections, in which there is a weekly examination, coupled with oral discussion of the subjects taken up during the week. Five assistant instructors conduct these sections, and the system seems to solve the problem of large courses satisfactorily.

In line with the policy adopted last year in the Department of paralleling the various undergraduate courses with advanced courses for graduate students, involving more or less research in each special field, Prof. Andrew is this year giving an advanced course upon the theories of crises, as a continuation of his larger course upon crises and cycles of trade.

An experiment intended to deal with the increasing difficulty of giving required reading to constantly enlarging classes will be tried in Economics 9b, through the publication of a casebook in economics similar to those in use in the Law School. The plan is to reprint official documents and detailed descriptions of particular phases of corporate economics, leaving to the lectures the task of supplying the connecting links and of tracing the development of the subject as an organic whole.

A valuable collection of charts of railway mortgages has recently been acquired through the generosity of graduates. These charts, prepared for the different railway systems, illustrate the exact character and situs of the securities. The collection of other charts and diagrams, made possible through the generosity of Mr. Arthur T. Lyman, is also making progress.

Source:  See the listings for the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine at Hathitrust. These are some of the items found using the index for the first twenty volumes.

Categories
Harvard

Harvard. Economics Seminary Schedules. 1929-32.

An earlier posting provides lists of presenters for the Economic Seminary for the years 1891-1908.  This posting provides the lists of announced presenters for the final three years of the seminary.

____________________________

Seminary Meetings in 1929-30
Professor Bullock

Sept. 30          Harvard Union

Oct. 14            S.E. Harris, “Monetary Policy of the British Dominions since 1914.”

Oct. 28            W. E. Beach, “Bank Policy and Gold Movements in England from 1880 to 1914.”

Nov. 4              J. P. Wernette, “Fiscal Reorganization in the United States of Colombia.”

Nov. 25           F. W. Taussig, “German Economic Periodicals and Works of Reference.”

Dec. 9            H. D. White, “International Balance of Payments of France.”

Feb. 3             W. Z. Ripley, “Railroad Consolidation.”

Feb. 17           C. S. Joslyn, “A Proposed Statistical Measurement of Vertical Occupational Mobility.”

March 8          T. J. Kreps, “The Chemical Phase of the Industrial Revolution.”

March 31       D. V. Brown, “Family Allowances.”

April 28          J. H. Williams, “Reparations and the International Flow of Capital.”

______________________________

Seminary Meetings in 1930-31
Professor Gay

Sept. 29         Harvard Union

Oct. 15           University Film Foundation, “The Availability of Motion Pictures for Instruction in Economic History and Economic Resources”.

Oct. 29            O. H. Taylor, “The Present Position and Prospects of Economic Theory”.

Nov. 5            Professors Bullock, Ripley, and Black, “Graduate Study and Research in Economics”.

Nov. 19          H. D. White, “The American Rayon Industry, a Product of Protection”.

Dec.   3           Professor Schumpeter, “Financial Policy of Germany since 1919″.

Dec. 17           Professor W. E. Eckblaw, Professor of Economic Geography, Clark University, “Russia To-day”.

Jan. 7             A. E. Monroe, “Land as a Consumers’ Good”.

Jan. 21            (Reading period)

Feb. 4              (Exam. period)

Feb. 18           D. H. Wallace, “The Aluminum Monopoly in the U.S.”

March 4         W. C. Mitchell, “Cyclical Behavior of Factors in Business”.

March 11       L. B. Currie, “The Commercial Loan Theory of Banking”.

March 25       Dr. B. M. Squires, “The Administration of Public Employment Offices”.

April 1             Dr. J. J. de Stoop, “The Merger Movement in Belgium”.

April 8             Dr. Mabel C. Buer, Lecturer in Economics at the University of Reading, England, “The Relation between Industrial Development and Vital Statistics in England”.

April 22          Major Lyndall Urwick, Director of the International Management Institute at Geneva, “The International Organization of Economic Study”.

April 29          Professor T. S. Adams, Yale University, “The Treatment of Capital Gains and Losses under the Federal Income Tax”.

May 6            Professor J. D. Black, “Interregional Competition in Production”.

May 20          (Reading period)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950 (UAV 349.10), Box 25. Folder “Economics Seminary 1925-33”.

______________________________

Seminary Meetings in 1931-32
Professor Carver

Second and fourth Monday of month

Oct. 5          Members of teaching staff

Oct. 19        Dr. E. Dana Durand, United States Tariff Commission, “The Business Depression”.

Oct. 26        Mr. J. P. Wernette, “Politics and Finance in Peru”.

Nov. 9          Mr. J. B. Crane, “Aviation”.

Nov. 23       Professor W. Z. Ripley, “National Economic Planning.”

Dec. 14        Dr. J. F. Normano, “South America Today: An Attempt at an Economic ‘Characteristique’.

Jan.  11        Dr. L. B. Currie, “The Nature of Credit”.

Feb.  8         Dr. B. C. Hunt, “The English Joint Stock Company 1800-1862”.

Feb. 15        Dr. Mordecai Ezekiel, Assistant Chief Economist of the Federal Farm Board, “Stability vs. Flexibility as Means to Economic Adjustment”.

Feb. 29       Dr. C. J. Ratzlaff, “The Theory and Practice of the International Labor Organization of the League of Nations”

Mar  14       Dr. Leontief, “Postive and Normative Approaches in Economic Theory”

Mar  28       Mr. K. L. Anderson, “Thornstein Veblen’s Economics”.

Apr.  11       Mr. Ejnar Jensen, “International Monetary and Technological Influences on European Agricultural Development since 1870”.

Apr.  18       Dr. Wilhelm Kromphardt, A. O. Professor of Economics, University of Münster, “The Relation of Economic Evolution to Economic Theory and Its Application”.

Apr. 25       Mr. N. R. Danielian, “Recent Developments in the Electric Light and Power Industry in the U.S.”

May 9          Professor Charles S. Collier, Professor of Law in George Washington University, “Public Utility Valuation.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950 (UAV 349.10), Box 25. Folder “Economics Seminary 1925-33”.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Seminary in Economics. Topics and Speakers, 1891/2-1907/8

 The inspiration for the research workshop goes back to the German tradition of the research seminar for which the English word “seminary” was used. A sole economics seminary was announced at Harvard for the period 1892-1933 according to the annual Announcement of Courses of Instructions. One presumes the division of workshops is limited by the extent of the graduate program and that, by the early 1930s, the scale and scope of the Harvard department supported greater differentiation of its research seminars. The later Hansen-Williams Fiscal Seminar is an example of the kind of specialized workshop that was to develop. 

This posting provides the names and topics of presenters at the seminary in economics as published in the Harvard University Catalogues up through the academic year 1907/08 after which time we need to draw on other sources, e.g. announcements of individual seminars published in the Harvard University Gazette or the Harvard Crimson. Where invited guest lecturers for the public were announced, e.g. John Commons and Thorstein Veblen, I have included the information for the corresponding year.

________________________________

[First announcement of the Seminary in Economics, 1892-93]

Economics 20. Seminary in Political Economy.

Professors Dunbar and Taussig, and Mr. Cummings, will guide competent students in research on topics assigned after consolation. The Seminary will hold weekly meetings; and in addition each student will confer individually, once a week, with the instructor under whose guidance he carries on his investigations.

Source:  Harvard University, Announcement of Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1892-93, p. 32.

________________________________

[Last announcement of the Seminary in Economics, 1932-33]

The Seminary in Economics. Mon., at 7.45 P.M.

Meetings are held by instructors and advanced students for the presentation of the results of investigation.

Source: Harvard University, Announcement of Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1932-33 (second edition), p. 130.

_________________________________________

1891-92

At the Seminaries of Political Economy and American History (Joint Meetings):

Colonial Tariffs. Mr. William Hill.
Periodical Literature and Collections. Professor Taussig.
Suppression of the African Slave Trade. Mr. W. E. B. DuBois.
The Episcopal Church and Slavery. Mr. W. L. Tenney.
The Pacific Railways. Mr. H. K. White.
The Central Pacific Railway. Mr. W. Olney.
Impeachment Trials. Mr. Melville E. Ingals, Jr.
Some Early Anti-Immigration Laws. Mr. E. E. Proper.
Reconstruction in South Carolina. Mr. D. F. Houston.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1892-93, p. 122.

_________________________________________

1892-93

At the Seminary in Economics:

The economic periodicals of France and England. Prof. C. F. Dunbar.
The economic periodicals of Germany and the United States. Professor F. W. Taussig.
Georgia’s experiment in state railway management. Mr. G. Walcott.
The theory of gluts, with special reference to earlier discussions. Mr. C. W. Mister.
Public works in Pennsylvania. Mr. A. M. Day.
Postal subsidies in Great Britain. Mr. H. C. Emery.
Internal improvement in Indiana. Mr. H. H. Cook.
Railway Pools in the United States. Mr. G. L. Sheldon.
The earlier history of the anthracite coal industry. Mr. G. O. Virtue.
The construction of the Union Pacific Railway. Mr. H. K. White.
The organization of Poor Relief in Massachusetts. Mr. H. K. White.

At the Seminaries of American History and Institutions and of Economics. (Joint Meetings):

Study of History and Economics in English Universities. Professor W. J. Ashley.
The Mark theory. President E. A. Bryan.
Tariff legislation in the United States from 1783-1789. Mr. William Hill.
The federal import and the tariff act of 1879. Mr. William Hill.
The currency situation in the United States. Professor F. W. Taussig.
Legislation by the states on the issue of bank notes. Mr. D. F. Houston.

 

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1893-94, pp. 129-130.

_________________________________________

1893-94

At the Seminary of Economics:

The economic congresses and meetings at Chicago. Professors Cummings and Taussig.
The economic and statistical meetings at Chicago. Professor Taussig.
Combinations among anthracite coal producers since 1873. Mr. Virtue.
Results of recent investigations on prices in the United States. Professor Taussig.
Some phases of public management of railways in Victoria (Australia). Mr. H. R. Meyer.
Local rivalry in the earlier development of internal improvements in the United States. Mr. A. M. Day.
Forestry legislation in the United States. Mr. C. C. Closson.
The Trunk Line Pool, and its effects on railway rates. Mr. G. L. Sheldon.
Sismondi and the theory of gluts. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
The earlier stages of the operation of the Erie canal. Mr. W. R. Buckminster.
The income tax of the civil war. Mr. J. A. Hill.
Internal improvements in Illinois. Mr. G. S. Callender.
Changes in the factory population of the United States. Mr. E. H. Vickers.
The Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. G. W. Cox.
Public railway management in New South Wales. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The development of the theory of gluts and over-accumulation. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
Compulsory insurance in Germany. Mr. J. G. Brooks.
The Erie canal. Mr. W. R. Buckminster.
The factory system in the United States. Mr. E. H. Vickers.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1894-95, p. 136.

_________________________________________

1894-95

At the Seminary of Economics:

Wilhelm Roscher. Professor Ashley.
The factory operatives in the United States. Mr. E. H. Vickers.
The classification of the Political Sciences. Professor Ashley.
The English Budget of 1894. Mr. F. R. Clow.
The antecedents of J. S. Mill’s “Principles.” Messrs. Aldrich, Estabrook, and Harper.
The theory of “House-Industry.” Mr. O. M. W. Sprague.
Definition and history of statistics. Mr. H. H. Cook.
The distribution of mediaeval fairs. Mr. J. Sullivan.
The United States and its mineral lands Mr. G. O. Virtue.
Child labor in the early factories. Mr. Hisa.
The economic condition of the South. Dr. E. von Halle.
The Chicago strike. Professor Ashley.
Legislation on arbitration in the United States. Rev. T. P. Berle.
The taxation of sugar in Germany. Mr. G. E. Chipman.
State railroads in New South Wales. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
Economic teaching in Germany. Rev. W. L. Bevan.
English industrial organization in the 17th and 18th centuries. Mr. O. M. W. Sprague.
Mediaeval fairs and the law merchant. Mr. J. Sullivan.
The antecedents of Mill’s “Doctrine of Value.” Mr. E. H. Harper.
The financing of internal improvements in the Northwest. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The antecedents of Mill’s chapters on Property and Land-Tenure. Mr. H. K. Estabrook.
Technical education in England. Mr. G. W. Cox.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue, 1895-96, p. 139.

_________________________________________

1895-96

Eight lectures by Francis A. Walker, LL.D., on Bimetallism since the Discovery of America.

Lecture. The Present Condition of the Currency of the United States. Professor F. W. Taussig.

At the Seminary of Economics: —

Economics in Italy. Professor Taussig.
The study of economics in German universities. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
The theory of the standard of living, from Adam Smith to J. S. Mill. Mr. R. Ware.
Financial operations by the loyal states during the Civil War (1861-1865). Mr. H. H. Cook.
International borrowing in its early stages, with special reference to England and the United States, 1820-1840. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The workman in the textile industries of England and the United States. Mr. S. N. D. North.
Attainment of the income tax in England. Mr. A. M. Chase.
Public management of railways in Victoria. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The organization and regulation of certain domestic industries in England in the 18th century. Mr. O. M. W. Sprague.
The taxation of personal property in Massachusetts. Mr. E. W. Hooper.
The annual appropriation bill of the city of Boston. Mr. W. H. King.
The legal tender acts of 1862. Mr. D. C Barrett.
Fundamental errors in sociology. Dr. Frederick H. Wines.
International borrowing before 1850. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The tonnage laws and the shipping policy of the United States. Mr. P. D. Phair.
The internal revenue act of 1862. Mr. G. Thomas.
The beginning of liquor legislation. Mr. A. P. Andrew.
The international trade of the United States in its relation to recent currency legislation. Mr. A. Sweezey.
Beginnings of trade and industry in Scotland, with some account of the early Guilds. Mr. T. Allison.
The bimetallic situation. President Francis A. Walker.
The Intercolonial Railway of Canada. Mr. C. E. Seaman.
The railway situation in California. Mr. H. C. Marshall and Dr. F. E. Haynes.
The taxation of sugar in the United States since 1860. Mr. C. S. Griffin.
The economic basis of Irish emigration 1650-1850. Mr. H. H. Cook.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1896-97, pp. 138-9, 141-42.

_________________________________________

1896-97

Eight lectures on the Income Taxes in Germany, Switzerland, and England, by Dr. J. A. Hill. Subjects as follows: —

Income Taxes in Germany: Historical Development. The Taxpayers, the Taxable Income, and the Rates.
The Methods of Assessment. Income and Property Taxes in Switzerland: Their Development. The Rate and Exemptions. The Methods of Assessment.
The English Income Tax: Its History. The Assessment.

At the joint meetings of the Seminary of American History and Institutions and the Seminary of Economics: 

Methods and experience of historical investigation. Mr. J. F. Rhodes.
The financial procedure of a state legislature. Mr. F. C. Lowell.

At the Seminary of Economics:

French economic periodicals and other aids to economic study. Professor Dunbar.
Periodicals and other aids to economic study, in France. Professor Dunbar.
Periodicals and other aids to economic study, in England and the United States. Professor Ashley.
John Rae: A neglected economist. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
Some impressions of reformatories. Mr. W. H. Gratwick.
Sir Robert Giffen on prices in relation to material progress in England. Mr. F. Atherton.
The woolen manufacturer and the tariff. Mr. A. T. Lyman.
British capital and American resources, 1815-1850. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The taxation of sugar in the United States, 1789-1861. Mr. C. S. Griffin.
Recent immigration into the United States. Mr. E. H. Warren.
Apportionments of national bank currency. Mr. T. Cooke.
Some phases of the history of the Union Pacific Railway. Mr. S. P. West.
Some recent phases of economic thought in the United States. Mr. J. A. Tirrell.
The condition of coal-miners in the bituminous districts. Mr. H. E. George.
Certain phases of the history and literature of industrial depression from 1873 to 1886. Mr. C. Beardsley, Jr.
The financial history of the Pennsylvania Railway. Mr. R. D. Jenks.
Some aspects of the financial history of the Union Pacific Railway. Mr. S. P. West.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1897-98, p. 387-388, 391-392.

 

_________________________________________

1897-98

At the joint meetings of the Seminary of American History and Institutions and the Seminary of Economics:

Some results of an inquiry on taxation in Massachusetts. Professor F. W. Taussig.
The Making of a Tariff. Mr. S. N. D. North.
The currency reform plan of the Indianapolis convention. Professor Dunbar.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Trade-unions in Australia. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.
The coal miners’ strike of 1897. Mr. J. E. George.
An analysis of the law of diminishing returns. Dr. C. W. Mixter.
The Secretary of the Treasury and the currency, 1865-1879. Mr. H. C. Marshall.
An inquiry on government contract work in Canada. Mr. W. L. M. King.
The sugar industry in Europe as affected by taxes and bounties. Mr. C. S. Griffin.
The security of bank notes based on general assets, as indicated by experience under the national bank system. Mr. A. O. Eliason.
The inter-colonial railway. Mr. C. E. Seaman.
Some results of the new method of assessing the income tax in Prussia. Dr. J. A. Hill.
Antonio Serra and the beginnings of political economy in Italy. Mr. D. F. Grass.
The American Federation of Labor. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.
The earlier stages of the silver movement in the United States. Mr. Randolph Paine.
The land grant to the Union Pacific Railroad. Mr. R. W. Cone.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1898-99, pp. 400-1.

_________________________________________

1898-99

Fifteen lectures on Life Insurance by Charlton T. Lewis, of New York City.

At the Seminary of Economics: 

Aids in economic investigation. Professor Taussig.
Economic study in England. Dr. O. M. W. Sprague.
The growth and the constituent elements of the population of Boston. Mr. F. A. Bushée (2).
Some operations of the United States Treasury in 1894-96. Professor Taussig.
The Interstate Commerce Act as interpreted by the courts. Mr. F. Hendrick.
The English industrial crisis of 1622. Dr. O. M. W. Sprague.
The earlier history of the English income tax. Dr. J. A. Hill.
The theory of savers’ rent and some of its applications. Dr. C. W. Mixter.
The working of the French Railway Conventions of 1883. Mr. F. Hendrick.
The adoption of the gold standard by England in 1816. Mr. D. F. Grass.

 

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1899-1900, pp. 412, 417.

_________________________________________

1899-1900

Lecture. The United States census. Professor W. F. Willcox, of the Census Office.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Aids in Economic study: (1) Specialized publications in Germany. Professor F. W. Taussig.
(2) English and American literature. Professor Ashley.
(3) American publications. Professor Taussig.
The conference on trusts at Chicago. Mr. John Graham Brooks.
Legislation on combinations and trusts in the United States. Mr. R. C. Davis.
Judicial decisions on statutes relating to combinations and trusts. Mr. R. C. Davis.
The tenement house exhibition, and tenement conditions in Boston. Mr. F. A. Bushée.
The influence of the tariff on the iron and steel industry. Mr. D. S. Bobb.
The duties on wool and their effects, 1870-1899. Mr. F. W. Wose.
The duty on copper and its effects. Mr. W. D. Shue.
The duties on sugar and their effects. Mr. G. H. Johnston.
The economic aspects of close commercial relations with Hawaii. Mr. U. S. Parker.
The discussion of value at the hands of English writers before Adam Smith. Mr. C. Bowker.
The silk manufacture and the tariff. Mr. S. S. Fitzgerald.
The commercial crisis of 1857. Mr. C. Hobbs.
The economic significance of the Hebrew year of jubilee. Mr. R. J. Sprague.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1900-1, pp. 429, 432.

_________________________________________

1900-01

Six lectures on Statistics of Wages, by the Hon. Carroll D. Wright:—

Methods and Difficulties in Collecting Statistics of Wages.
Difficulties and Fallacies in Presentations of Wages.
Chief Sources of Statistical Information on Wages.
Value of the Various Collections of Wages Statistics.
Money Wages as shown by Statistics during last Half Century.
Real Wages for the same period.

At the Seminary of Economics:

The trusts and the tariff. Mr. Charles Beardsley.
Civil service reform in Australia: its successes and its failures. I. Victoria; II. New South Wales. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The early history of the Standard Oil Combination. Mr. G. H. Montague.
Manufacturing industries in the South End of Boston. Mr. R. F. Phelps .
Notes on a transcontinental journey. Professor Taussig.
Relations of employers and workmen in the Boston building trades. Mr. W. H. Sayward.
Changes in the geographical distribution of the Southern negroes since the Civil War. Mr. R. J. Sprague.
Changes in the tenure and ownership of land in the South since the Civil War. Mr. R. J. Sprague.
The early history of the Erie Railway. Mr. A. J. Boynton.
The early history of banking in Massachusetts. Mr. F. L. Bugbee.
The work of the United States Industrial Commission. Professor E. D. Durand, of Stanford University.
The cotton-seed oil industry. Mr. W. D. Shue.
Combinations in the German iron trade. Mr. E. B. Stackpole.
Are the English payments to mail steamships subsidies? Mr. W. E. Stilwell.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1901-02, pp. 414, 419-420.

 

_________________________________________

1901-02

Seminary in Economics. Mon., at 4.30. Professor Ashley and Asst. Professor Carver.

In the Seminary, the instructors undertake the guidance of students in independent investigation, and give opportunity for the presentation and discussion of the result of investigation. Members of the Graduate School who propose to conduct inquiries having in view the preparation of theses to be presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, may select subjects agreed upon after conference with the instructors, and may carry on investigations on such subjects, as part of the work in the Seminary.
The general meetings of the Seminary are held on the first and third Mondays of each month. The members of the Seminary confer individually, at stated times arranged after consultation, with the instructors under whose special guidance they are conducting their researches.
At the regular meetings, the results of the investigations of members are presented and discussed. The instructors also at times present the results of their own work, and give accounts of the specialized literature of Economics. At intervals, other persons are invited to address the Seminary on subjects of theoretic or practical interest, giving opportunity for contact and discussion with the non-academic world.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902. Box 1. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science (June 21, 1901), University Publications, New Series, No. 16, p. 48.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Four lectures by Professor Edward A. Ross, on “The Growth and present Stage of the Literature of Sociology”:—

The Building of Sociology.
The Recent Tendencies of Sociology.
The Moot Points of Sociology.
The Desiderata of Sociology.

At the Seminary of Economics:

The Rise of the Oil Monopoly. Mr. G. H. Montague.
The Conditions of Employment and Housing of South End (Boston) Factory Operatives. Mr. R. Morris.
Principles Underlying the Demarcation between Public and Private Industries. Mr. R. Morris.
Restriction of Municipal Gas and Electric Plants in Massachusetts. Mr. A. D. Adams.
Economic Conditions in Nicaragua. Dr. C. W. Mixter.
Some Theoretical Possibilities of Protective Tariffs. Professor Carver.
A Study of some Records of the Associated Charities of Boston. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The Rise and Regulation of Municipal Gas and Electric Plants in Massachusetts. Mr. A. D. Adams.
Le Solidarisme social de M. Leon Bourgeois. Professor Léopold Mabilleau.
A Review of the French and Italian Economic Journals. Professor Ripley, Dr. A. P. Andrew, Mr. C. W. Doten, and Mr. R. F. Phelps.
National Corporation Laws for Industrial Organizations. Mr. James B. Dill.
The Budgetary System of Canada. Mr. R. C. Matthews.
The Elements of Labor and Relief Departments in Railway Expenditure. Mr. A. L. Horst.
The Economics of Colonization. Professor E. A. Ross.
Elizabethan Mercantilism as seen in the Corn Trade. Mr. R. G. Usher.
The Present Position of Economics in Japan. Mr. Nobushiro Sakurai.
The Economic Theories of Josiah Tucker. Mr. Robert Morris.
Urban and Suburban Residence of South End (Boston)
Factory Employés. Mr. R. F. Phelps.
The Recent History of the Standard Oil Monopoly. Mr. G. H. Montague.
State v. Local Control of the Boston Police. Mr. F. R. Cope.
The Laws regulating Muncipal Gas and Electric Plants in Massachusetts. Mr. A. D. Adams.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1902-03, pp. 431, 434-435.

_________________________________________

1902-03

Eight lectures on “Some Leading Principles of Political Economy and Statistics,” by Professor F. Y. Edgeworth, of Oxford University, as follows: —

The Theory of Value applied to International Trade.
The Exceptions to the Rule of Free Trade.
Value in a Regime of Monopoly.
The Value of Land and other Factors of Production.
The Taxation of Urban Site Values.
The Higher Theory of Statistics.
Index Numbers.
Supplementary.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Reports on Current American and English Economic Periodicals, respectively by Messrs. R. W. Magrane and H. M. Kallen.
Gas Profits in Massachusetts. Mr. Alton D. Adams.
Economic Problems and Conditions in the Far Northwest. Professor C. Beardsley.
Report on Economics in Italy. Mr. D. H. Webster.
Reforms in Economic Teaching in the English Universities. Professor F. Y. Edgeworth.
Reports on Current German Periodicals and Literature. Messrs. W. H. Price and G. R. Lewis.
Recent Changes in the Rate of Wages. Dr. E. D. Durand.
Classification of Occupations in Relation to the Tariff. Mr. Edward Atkinson.
A Study of the Boston Ghetto. Mr. H. M. Kallen.
Report on Current French Literature. Mr. A. B. Wolfe.
The Anatomy of a Tenement Street. Mr. H. M. Kallen.
Railroad Reorganization in the United States. Mr. S. Daggett.
The Inclosure Movement and the English Rebellions of the Sixteenth Century. Dr. E. F. Gay.
A Stock Exchange Day. Mr. Sumner B. Pearmain.
The Lodging House Problem in Boston. Mr. A. B. Wolfe.
Jewish Trade Unions in Boston. Mr. Philip Davis.
Economics of the American Corn Belt. Mr. A. J. Boynton.
Movement of Real Estate Values in American Cities. Mr. Henry Whitmore.
Report on Labor Journals and Trades Union Publications. Mr. V. Custis.
Some Phases of the American Copper Mining Industry. Mr. G. R. Lewis.
The Determination of Franchise Values. Mr. C. W. Wright.
Initiation Ceremonies among Primitive Peoples. Mr. D. H. Webster.
The Indebtedness of English Mercantilism to Holland. Mr. E. T. Miller.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1903-04, pp. 466, 469.

_________________________________________

1903-04

At the Seminary of Economics:

A Trip through the Corn Country of the West. Professor Carver.
Early History of Economic Studies in American Colleges. Professor Bullock.
The Growth of Labor Organization in the United States. Professor Ripley.
Industrial Combinations in Germany, with special reference to Coal. Dr. F. Walker.
Our Trade Relations with Canada. Mr. Osborne Howes.
Supervision of National Banks, solvent and insolvent, by the Comptroller of the Currency. Mr. William A. Lamson (H. U. ’81), National Bank Examiner.
The Effect of Trade Unions upon Industrial Efficiency. Mr. Henry White, Secretary of the United Garment Workers of America.
The Financing of Corporations. Hon. Charles S. Fairchild.
A Remedy for Some Industrial Troubles. Hon. William B. Rice.
The Elizabethan Patents of Monopoly. Mr. W. H. Price.
The English Miner in the Middle Ages. Mr. G. R. Lewis.
The Northern Securities Case and the Supreme Court Decision. Mr. E. B. Whitney.
Progress in Manufactures in the United States. Hon. S. N. D. North, Director United States Census Bureau.
The Expansion Periods of 1878-85 and 1897-02 compared. Mr. Sumner B. Pearmain, ’83.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1904-05, p. 457.

_________________________________________

1904-05

Under the auspices of the Department of Economics, Professor W. F. Willcox, of Cornell University, gave three lectures on some results of the United States census enumeration of 1900: —

1. The Population of the United States.
2. Some Statistical Aspects of the Negro Problem.
3. The Birth Rate and Death Rate of the United States.

Three lectures on the “Relations between Trade Unions and Employers’ Organizations,” by Professor John R. Commons, of the University of Wisconsin: —

1. The Teamsters’ Organizations in Chicago.
2. Industrial Organizations in the Window-glass Manufacture.
3. Industrial Organizations in the Stove Manufacture.

At the Seminary of Economics:

The Forces in Industrial Consolidation. Mr. V. Custis.
Railroad Reorganization. Mr. S. Daggett.
The Specialized Literature of Economics: Periodicals, Dictionaries, and the Like. I. German Publications. Professor Taussig.
II. English and American. Professor T. N. Carver.
The French Corn Laws from 1515 to 1660. Mr. A. P. Usher.
The Meeting of the American Economic Association at Chicago. Professor Taussig.
Trade Unionism and Politics. Mr. Ray Stannard Baker.
Social Problems of American Farmers. President Kenyon L. Butterfield, of Rhode Island College of Agriculture.
Wool-growing in the United States. Mr. C. W. Wright.
Public Opinion as a Factor in Industrial Consolidation. Mr. V. Custis.
Marx’s Theory of Value. Mr. F. W. Johnston.
The Atchison System. Mr. S. Daggett.
Wool-growing in the United States since 1860. Mr. C. W. Wright.
The Negro in Boston. Mr. J. Daniels.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1905-06, pp. 456-457, 460-1.

_________________________________________

1905-06

Lecture. Followers of Karl Marx. Professor T. B. Veblen, of the University of Chicago.

Lecture. The Diffusion of Economic Knowledge. Professor Simon Newcomb.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Railroad Reorganization, The Philadelphia and Reading R. R. Mr. Stuart Daggett.
The Railway Rate Situation. Mr. C. A. Legg.
Stages of Economic Growth. Professor E. F. Gay.
The Finances of Boston, 1820-1860. Mr. C. P. Huse.
The Intendants and the Organization of the Corn Trade in France, 1683-1715.
Mr. A. P. Usher. Collateral Bond Issues. Mr. Thomas Warner Mitchell.
The Earlier History of the English Post-office. Mr. J. C. Hemmeon.
The Meeting of the American Economic Association at Baltimore. Professor Taussig.
The Organization of a Cooperative Business. Mr. E. A. Filene.
The Development of English Trade to the Levant. Miss G. F. Ward.
The Telephone Situation in Great Britain. Mr. A. N. Holcombe.
Characteristics of Railroad Reorganizations. Mr. Stuart Daggett.
The Distribution of Socialistic Sentiment. Professor T. B. Veblen, of the University of Chicago.
Transportation in Modern England, to 1830. Mr. W. Jackman.
The Dutch-English Rivalry, with Special Reference to Fisheries. Mr. H. L. Drury.
Recent History of the Glass Manufacture in the United States. Mr. D. F. Edwards.
A Discussion of Distribution. Mr. F. W. Johnston.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1906-07, pp. 536-7, 540.

_________________________________________

1906-07

Lectures on Municipal Ownership. Major Leonard Darwin, of London, England, gave a series of lectures on Municipal Ownership: —

1. The Main Issues connected with Municipal Ownership. The Regulation of Private Trade. Municipal Ownership and Local Taxation.
2. English Municipal Statistics. The Probability of Profit-Making by Municipal Ownership. Municipal Management.
3. Municipal Corruption. Wages under Municipal Ownership. The Direct Employment of Labour by Municipalities.
4. Municipal Ownership without Direct Employment. Municipal Ownership and Socialistic Ideals.

Through the courtesy of the National Civic Federation, a series of five public lectures on Socialism and the Allied Social and Economic Questions was given by W. H. Mallock, A.M.

Lecture. The New Interstate Commerce Act. Professor F. H. Dixon.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Impressions of Sociological Study in Foreign Countries. Mr. J. A. Field.
Field Observations on the Tobacco Industry. Mr. S. O. Martin.
The Financial Policy of Massachusetts from 1780 to 1800. Professor Bullock.
The Financial Policy of Alabama from 1819 to 1860. Mr. W. O. Scroggs.
The Finances of Boston, 1820-1860. Mr. C. P. Huse.
Some Aspects of the History of the English Mining Classes. Dr. G. R. Lewis.
Some Aspects of the Early Railway Era in Great Britain. Mr. William Jackman.
Land and Capital. Professor Fetter.
The Theory of Interest. Professor Fetter.
The Beet-Sugar Industry in the United States. Mr. M. H. Salz.
The Recent Tariff History of Canada. Mr. W. W. McLaren.
Commercial Education in American Universities. Mr. F. V. Thompson.
The English Board of Trade during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and its Records. Mr. J. R. H. Moore.
The Cotton Manufacture in the United States since 1860. Mr. M. T. Copeland.
Some Discoveries in Economic History. M. le vicomte Georges d’Avenel.
A Course of Instruction in Business Management. Mr. H. S. Person.
Bank Reserves in England, Canada, and the United States. Mr. F. S. Mead.
A Journey into the Tobacco-raising Districts of the West and South. Mr. S. O. Martin.
Sketch of the Legislative History of Massachusetts Business Corporations. Mr. W. E. Rappard.
The English Fisheries, 1500-1800. Mr. H. L. Drury.
Municipal Ownership of Telephones in Great Britain. Mr. A. N. Holcombe.
Researches in a Manufacturing Suburb. Mr. E. L. Sheldon.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1907-08, pp. 431, 437-438.

 

_________________________________________

1907-08

Under the auspices of the Department of Economics, Dr. Victor S. Clark gave two lectures on Australian Economic Problems: —

1. Railways: History and Administration.
2. Railways: Description and Statistics.

Dr. Clark also gave two public lectures: —

1. State and Federal Finance in Australia.
2. The Tariff Policy of Australia.

At the Seminary of Economics:

General Principles of Railroad Reorganization. Dr. Stuart Daggett.
The Silk Manufacture. Mr. F. R. Mason.
The Silk Manufacture and the Tariff. Mr. F. R. Mason.
Certain Phases of the Theory of Population since Malthus. Mr. J. A. Field.
The Commercial Use of Credit Instruments previous to 1724. Mr. A. P. Usher.
The Conduct of Public Works in English Towns in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Miss S. L. Hadley.
The Growth of the Knit Goods Industry. Mr. M. T. Copeland.
The Foreign Trade of England during the Thirteenth Century, especially with regard to the Italian. Miss G. F. Ward.
A Statistical Survey of Italian Emigration. Mr. R. F. Foerster.
The Meetings of the Economic and Sociological Associations at Madison. Professor Carver and Mr. J. A. Field.
The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. Mr. W. W. McLaren.
Factory Labor in Massachusetts: Legislation and Economic Condition, 1810-1880. Mr. C. E. Persons.
Tax Administration in New York City. Mr. Lawson Purdy.
The Recent History of the Standard Oil Company. Mr. H. B. Platt.
The Wool and Woolens Act of 1867. Mr. P. W. Saxton.
The Causes of the Rise in Prices since 1898. Mr. H. L. Lutz.
The Corn Law Policy in England up to 1689. Mr. N. S. B. Gras.
Agrarian Conditions in Southwest Germany from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century. Mr. H. C. Dale.
The Land Policy of Australia. Dr. Victor S. Clark.
Proposed Old Age Pension Legislation in England. Mr. R. M. Davis.
The Anthracite Coal Roads and the Coal Companies. Mr. E. Jones.
The Greenback Movement, with Special Reference to Iowa and Wisconsin. Mr. C. O. Ruggles.
Fibres and Fibre Products. Mr. B. S. Foss.
A Study of the Population of Cambridgeport. Mr. A. J. Kennedy.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1908-09, pp. 450, 455-6.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Examination Questions. Economics Courses, 1912-13

 

 

For the academic years 1912-13 through 1915-16 there are complete (or at least nearly complete) sets of examinations for many departments, including economics available at hathitrust.org. In this posting we have final examinations for all economics courses but three for the 1912-13 academic year. Since courses are only identified in these collections by number, I have provided the course titles, instructors’ names and course registration figures available in the annual Harvard Presidential Report for that academic year.

The three courses for which no final examination questions (perhaps the grade was not even determined by examination) were:

Economics 13. Statistics. Theory, method, and practice. Professor Ripley. (6 Graduates, 1 Senior, 3 Radcliffe: Total 10)

Economics 24. Topics in the Economic History of the Nineteenth Century. Professor Gay. (4 Graduates, 1 Senior: Total 5)

Economics 33 1hf. Tariff Problems in the United States. Professor Taussig. (5 Graduates, 3 Seniors: Total 8)

FINAL EXAMINATIONS
1912-13

Economics 1. Principles of Economics
Economics 2a lhf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century
Economics 2b 2hf. Economic and Financial History of the United States
Economics 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises
Economics 4a 1hf. Economics of Transportation
Economics 4b 2hf. Economics of Corporations
Economics 5. Public Finance, including the Theory and Methods of Taxation
Economics 6a lhf. Trade-Unionism and Allied Problems
Economics 6b 2hf. The Labor Movement in Europe
Economics 7. Theories of Distribution and Distributive Justice
Economics 8. Principles of Sociology
Economics 9. Principles of Accounting.
Economics 11. Economic Theory
Economics 12 lhf. Scope and Methods of Economic Investigation
Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848
Economics 16. The History of Modern Socialism
Economics 23. Economic History of Europe to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century
Economics 31. Public Finance
Economics 32 2hf. Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions

 

________________________________________

Economics 1. Principles of Economics.

Professor Taussig and Dr. E. E. Day, assisted by Messrs. Heilman, Jones, Burbank, Crosgrave, and Eldred.
1 Graduate, 21 Seniors, 93 Juniors, 307 Sophomores, 21 Freshmen, 38 Other. Total 481.

 

[p. 38-39]

ECONOMICS 1

  1. To what extent and in what manner do the following contribute to the formation of capital: (a) a government loan; (b) the stock exchange; (c) commercial banks; (d) the corporate form of business organization?
  1. Explain “margin of cultivation.” Distinguish between the intensive margin of cultivation and the extensive margin of cultivation. What is the relation between (a) the margin of cultivation in agriculture and the price of a bushel of wheat; (b) the margin in gold mining and the value of an ounce of gold?
  1. Assume that a monopoly produces a commodity under conditions of constant cost. What determines the extent to which the monopoly price will be above the price which competition, if existent, would establish? Illustrate by diagram.
  1. The rentals from a New York office building amount to $50,000 a year. The building is worth $200,000. To provide for insurance, depreciation and such fixed items, $10,000 is expended annually. The current rate of interest upon investments of equal security is 5%. What is the value of the land?
  1. What is “dumping “? What induces it? To what extent is it dependent upon (a) monopoly conditions; (b) tariff barriers?
  1. Explain briefly why (a) the rates of wages are generally higher in the United States than in Germany; (b) higher for plumbers than for unskilled laborers; (c) for domestic servants than for women employed in shops and factories. Suppose a socialist community apportioning wages on the basis of equality of sacrifice: would these differences persist?
  1. How are the wages and the number employed within a particular industry affected, immediately and ultimately, by the invention of labor-saving devices in that industry?
  1. Explain: (a) railroad rebates; (b) over-capitalization; (c) public service industries; (d) “reasonable restraint of trade”; (e) stoppage at the source.

 

________________________________________

 

Economics 2a lhf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.
Professor Gay, assisted by Dr. M. T. Copeland.
16 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 44 Juniors, 17 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 5 Other. Total 99.

 

[p. 39-40]

ECONOMICS 2a1

  1. “The effect of Peel’s measures of 1842-1845 was to demonstrate how much the trade and industry of the country might be encouraged by the readjustment of fiscal burdens.” Explain.
    Is a similar readjustment needed in England at the present time? Why or why not?
  1. (a) How was the capital for the construction of railroads prior to 1870 obtained in the different European countries? Why?
    (b) Why was the railroad policy of Prussia modified after 1870? With what results?
  1. Compare the organization of the wool manufacturing industries in England, Germany, and France at the present time, explaining to what the differences are due. How far are these differences typical?
  1. Compare the English and Belgian methods of relieving the recent agricultural depression.
  1. In which industries have Kartells been formed in Germany? Why? Compare with the movement for combination in England.
  1. Explain the statement in regard to English agriculture that “after the middle of the eighteenth century the two revolutions, the industrial and the agricultural, which are indeed only manifestations of the same scientific and commercial spirit, go hand in hand and supplement one another.” Does this statement apply also to Germany? Why or why not?
  1. Discuss briefly —

(a) English ” Friendly Societies.”
(b) Pitt’s Sinking Fund.
(c) Zollverein.
(d) French shipping subsidies.
(e) Charter and line traffic.

 

________________________________________

 

Economics 2b 2hf. Economic and Financial History of the United States.
Professor Gay, assisted by Dr. M. T. Copeland.
18 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 50 Juniors, 27 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 6 Other. Total 124.

 

 

[p. 40-1]

ECONOMICS 2b

  1. “The most important feature of life in a newly settled community is its commercial connection with the rest of the world.” Why? How is this illustrated (a) by the history of the American colonies and (b) by the history of the West?
  1. What were the causes for the decline of the American merchant marine? What attempts have been made to assist its recovery? With what results?
  1. Compare in its main features the economic history of the decade 1830-40 with that of the decade 1880-90.
  1. Compare the conditions which stimulated industrial combinations in the ’90’s with those which resulted in railroad combinations in the ’70’s.
  1. Within the last twelve months the New England Cotton Yarn Company, the U. S. Finishing Company, and the International Cotton Mills Corporation have each undergone reorganization. What was the earlier history of these companies and how far did that history foreshadow the necessity for such reorganizations?
  1. If you were to establish a mill for manufacturing silk goods at the present time, how would the conditions which you would meet in that industry differ from those which confronted a silk manufacturer forty or forty-five years ago? Why have these changes taken place? How far are they typical of the general industrial development of the United States during this period?
  1. (a) Comment on the following statement, which was made in a speech in Congress in 1846. “It is a protective tariff which gives to American industry the only effectual guaranty that it will not be brought down to a level with the degraded labor of Europe. It furnishes the only security that our standard of wages is not to be measured by the cost of production in those countries where the life of the laborer is but an incessant struggle for bread.”
    (b) Judging from the history of the years 1893-1900, as well as from present conditions, is the present year more or less opportune than 1909 for a downward revision of the tariff? Why?

 

________________________________________

 

Economics 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.
Dr. E. E. Day, assisted by Messrs. Ise and F. E. Richter.
3 Graduates, 31 Seniors, 67 Juniors, 16 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 1 Other. Total 119.

 

[p. 41-42]

ECONOMICS 3

  1. What factors favored the monetary rehabilitation of silver in the United States during the 70’s? Which of these factors are still operative? Explain the disappearance of the others.
  1. What banking abuses were most common in the United States early in the nineteenth century? When and how, if at all, have these since been eliminated?
  1. What is the relation between the Bank of England rate and the London market rate of discount when (a) funds are abundant; (b) funds are relatively scarce? In what ways does varying the Bank rate accomplish the protection of the English banking reserves?
  1. What is meant by a free gold market? Are the following such: London; Paris; Berlin; New York? In each case, why or why not?
  1. How will the rate of sterling exchange in New York be affected by: (a) a crop failure in the United States; (b) hoarding of specie in Europe; (c) a slump on the New York Stock Exchange; (d) a banking panic in this country?
  1. “The call-loan market . . . furnishes to the banks of the country under the present organization of banking, their only means of mobilizing their reserves, of liquifying their assets, and of securing flexibility in their lending power.” Explain and criticize. How, if at all, should this feature of our system be changed?
  1. In the equation of exchange given by Professor Fisher, what is the relation of M, M’, V, and T (a) during a period of rising prices; (b) during a period of settled prices?
  1. Describe the crisis of 1873 with reference to: (a) its general antecedents; (b) its more important causes in the United States; (c) its final outbreak in this country; (d) the territorial extent of the reaction; (e) the severity and duration of the subsequent depression.

 

________________________________________

 

Economics 4a 1hf. Economics of Transportation.
Professor Ripley, assisted by Mr. Crosgrave.
6 Graduates, 2 G.B., 36 Seniors, 85 Juniors, 24 Sophomores, 3 Other. Total 156.

 

[p. 42-3]

ECONOMICS 4a

  1. Compare the lease with stock ownership as a means of combination, stating the advantages and disadvantages of each.
  1. Show how recent interpretation of the Federal law may conceivably affect the status of railway traffic agreements.
  1. State very briefly the point raised in the following cases: —

(a) Portland Gateway.
(b) Illinois Central car supply.
(c) Alabama Midland (Troy).
(d) Orange Routing.

  1. Have any of the above points been since corrected by legislation; if so in what manner?
  1. Give reasons for the following differences in net capitalization per mile of line:

Union Pacific $65,000         Reading $170,000
Pennsylvania    86,000        Erie            170,000

  1. What particular circumstance materially affects the success of Government ownership and operation:

(a) In Germany?
(b) In Italy?
(c) In Switzerland?

  1. What is the present attitude of the Federal courts toward the proper basis to be used in the determination of reasonable rates?
  1. How effective practically has been the ” Commodity Clause” of the law of 1906?
  1. To whom properly belongs the surplus earnings of a railroad over and above a rate of return requisite to provide an adequate supply of new capital for future development? State your own view, but set forth your reasons fully.

 

________________________________________

 

 

Economics 4b 2hf. Economics of Corporations.
Professor Ripley, assisted by Mr. Crosgrave.
6 Graduates, 20 Seniors, 86 Juniors, 15 Sophomores, 3 Other. Total 130.

 

 

[p. 43-4]

ECONOMICS 4b

  1. Why was the dissolution of the “Tobacco Trust” more difficult than that of the Standard Oil Company? Explain fully.
  1. Indicate certain differences in the eye of the law between monopolization and restraint of trade.
  1. Herewith are two balance sheets of companies A and B respectively. Comment upon them, contrasting one with the other. Which apparently denotes the greater financial stability?
Co. A
Assets Liabilities
Plant $3,500,000 Preferred Stock $5,000,000
Merchandise 1,800,000 Common Stock 15,000,000
Bills Receivable 700,000 Accounts Payable 600,000
Cash 1,400,000
Good-will and Patents 13,200,000
$20,600,000 $20,600,000
 

Co. B
Assets Liabilities
Factories $15,000,000 Capital Stock $65,000,000
Securities owned 18,000,000 Debentures 15,000,000
Merchandise 20,000,000 Surplus 3,000,001
Accounts Receivable 30,000,000
Franchises and Good-will 1
$83,000,001 $83,000,001

 

  1. Name, with briefest possible description in each case, and in order of seriousness, at least five distinct forms of unfair competition in trade.
  1. Do all the foregoing forms of unfair competition affect thgeneral public as well as direct competitors? Does this factor apparently influence the attitude of the courts?
  1. What was the essence of the U. S. Steel Bond Conversion plan? What became of it?
  1. Contrast administrative and judicial forms of controlling monopoly, pointing out the merits of each.
  1. Outline the plan of reorganization of the National Cordage Company. Was it typical of industrial reorganizations in general?
  1. What are the three leading objections to the so-called “holding company “?
  1. Outline what most appeals to you as a feasible plan for dealing with the existing trust problem. State concisely in definite propositions covering all points at issue.

 

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Economics 5. Public Finance, including the Theory and Methods of Taxation.
Professor Bullock.
6 Seniors, 14 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 1 Other. Total 25.

 

[p. 44]

ECONOMICS 5

  1. Explain and discuss critically the methods employed in the taxation of land in Germany, France, Great Britain, Australia, and the United States.
  1. Compare the general property tax with the general income tax, considering both the theory and the practical operation of these taxes.
  1. Compare the French, Prussian, and British systems of direct taxation.
  1. Compare the British system of indirect taxation with those of France and the United States.
  1. Discuss the taxation of mortgages in the United States.
  1. What changes in the taxation of personal property have recently occurred in the United States?
  1. Compare the British, Prussian, and Italian income taxes. .
  1. Outline what you consider a satisfactory theory of the just apportionment of public charges.

 

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Economics 6a lhf. Trade-Unionism and Allied Problems.
Professor Ripley, assisted by Mr. Crosgrave.
3 Graduates, 44 Seniors, 19 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 2 Other. Total 72.

 

[p. 45]

ECONOMICS 6a

Answer the first five briefly

  1. What is sabotage?
  1. What is the ” extended ” closed shop?
  1. What is the principal practical difficulty in the “general strike”?
  1. Is it met by the adoption of any positive policy in France by the “syndicates”?
  1. In the syndicalist programme what is to be the unit in the reorganized state?
  1. Contrast collective bargaining under sanction of the law with its adoption by private arrangement; (a) from the point of view of advantage to the employer; (b) from that of the workman.
  1. What are the four main features of the New Zealand legislation. (Each in a sentence.)
  1. What is the principal demonstrated weakness in the above legislation?
  1. What are three disabilities of the individual workmen in negotiating a wage contract?
  1. Wages for women in domestic service and in manufactures seem out of line with one another. What main difference helps to explain this?
  1. What is the present condition of affairs respecting the closed shop in the United States? Outline the course of events for two decades.
  1. How does the law of conspiracy enter into the decision by courts in labor disputes? How has Great Britain settled it?

 

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Economics 6b 2hf. The Labor Movement in Europe.
Asst. Professor Rappard.
5 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Other. Total 30.

 

[p. 45-6]

ECONOMICS 6b

Arrange answers in order of questions. Students who wrote theses will omit the first three questions.

  1. Enumerate five of the effects which Engels says the Industrial Revolution had on the manufacturing population of England. What were Engel’s chief sources of information?
  1. How does Sombart distinguish between (a) Rational Socialism (Utopian Socialism and Anarchism) and (b) Historical Socialism?
  1. What effect, according to Marx, does machinery have

(a) Upon real wages?
(b) Upon nominal wages?
(c) Upon “relative surplus-value”?
(d) Upon “absolute surplus-value”?

  1. Why is it customary to mention the English enclosure movement in dealing with the history of labor in Europe in the 19th century?
  1. What were the historical relations between the doctrines of Godwin, Malthus and Darwin?
  1. What was Chartism? Saint-Simonism? Which was more radical? More socialistic? Give reasons.
  1. Write a biography of Marx (300 to 500 words).
  1. Compare the views of Marx and Vaudervelde on ” Capitalist Concentration.”
  1. Give chapter headings of a thesis on “The Socialist Movement in Germany, 1860-1890” in six or more chapters.
  1. Distinguish between (a) Socialism (b) Anarchism (c) Syndicalism.
  1. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs … To every laborer the entire product of his labor … At first sight, these two formulas are absolutely contradictory. We believe, however, that it is possible and necessary to reconcile them and to complete each by the other.” — Vaudewelde.
    How does the author do this? What practical suggestions does he make for arranging distribution in the socialist state?
  1. What difficulties does Skelton think a socialist state would encounter

(a) In administering the government?
(b) In determining what commodities should be produced?
(c) In distributing wealth?

 

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Economics 7. Theories of Distribution and Distributive Justice.
Professor Carver.
3 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Other. Total 25.

 

[p. 47]

ECONOMICS 7

  1. Explain and illustrate the principle of marginal utility and its relation to the value of consumers’ goods.
  1. Explain and illustrate the law of variable proportions and its relation to the value of the factors of production.
  1. Discuss the various criteria of justice in the distribution of wealth.
  1. Explain and illustrate exactly what you understand by self-interest.
  1. How would the single tax probably affect the demand for labor? Would its effect probably be stronger on unskilled than on skilled labor? On skilled labor than on business talent?
  1. How do mechanical inventions affect the demand for capital and for different grades of labor?
  1. Describe one communistic society, giving some account of its origin, the causes of its success if it succeeded and of its failure if it failed.
  1. Outline a program for raising the wages of all the lower grades of labor.

 

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Economics 8. Principles of Sociology.
Professor Carver.
10 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 74 Juniors, 18 Sophomores, 4 Other. Total 147.

 

[p. 47-8]

ECONOMICS 8

  1. What, in your opinion, is the ultimate test of progress? Give your reasons.
  1. Compare the views of Buckle and Peschel as to the influence of geographical surroundings on religion.
  1. What is the relation between the institution of the family and the institution of property?
  1. What place has the genius in social progress? Give your own opinion and state the views on this question of authors whom you have read.
  1. Outline the leading forms of waste labor and of waste land, giving briefly the reasons why each form of waste exists at the present time.
  1. Compare the views of Mill and Ross as to the limits of social control.
  1. What, according to Ross, is the relation of resentment to social order?
  1. What are the reasons for the existence of the ballot? How far would these reasons justify the extension of the ballot?

 

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Economics 9. Principles of Accounting.
Asst. Professor Cole, assisted by Mr. Eliot Jones.
7 Graduates, 8 Graduates of Applied Sciences, 62 Graduates of Business School, 147 Seniors, 50 Juniors, 2 Sophomores. Total 276.

 

[p. 48-50]

ECONOMICS 9

Save one hour for the last question. It will count as one-third of the paper.

  1. Show by journal entries what should be debited and what credited for the following transactions:

(a) Granting a discount to a customer, for early payment of a bill, so that, though the amount of the bill was $100, he pays but $95.
(b) Paying a lawyer $50 for trying to collect a bill that proves uncollectible, and writing off the debt ($250) as bad.
(c) Collecting $75 as full payment, including interest to the amount of $17, for a debt previously written off as bad.
(d) Giving a friend whose credit at banks is not very good, because he is a new-comer in town, and for whom, therefore, you do not wish to endorse notes, your own note for $1000, with the understanding that he will discount it at a bank, and taking in exchange your friend’s note (for the same amount and time) which you intend to keep until maturity.
(e) Discounting at a bank your friend’s note mentioned in (d), because you find his credit has improved in the public mind and you need the money. [Discount $7.]
(f) Returning to the manufacturers, as unsatisfactory, goods billed at $500 and bought to be sold at $650.
(g) Delivering goods from the store as part payment of clerks’ wages, and allowing 5% discount to clerks. [Retail price $50, clerks’ price $47.50.]
(h) Issuing a stock dividend of $50,000.
(i) Selling a new $2,000,000 issue of stock for $2,100,000. [Corporation’s books.]

  1. A bond table gives the value of $10,000 of bonds for January 1 as $10,366.27, and for July 1 as $10,323.60. On the latter day you collect $250 interest. What entry shall you make for the interest?
    Assuming that the valuation of the bonds was determined on a 4% basis, how could you prove the correctness of the July 1 valuation if you knew that the valuation for January 1 was correct?
  1. Define and discuss the purpose of the following: —

(a) a machine rate,
(b) a life-insurance reserve,
(c) a national-bank redemption fund,
(d) a stores ledger,
(e) a machine ledger,
(f) a controlling account.

  1. Would expense burden enter into a plan of cost accounting for (a) a department store, (b) a hospital, (c) a college, (d) a gas company? Explain briefly how, or why not, in each case.

Remember in solving problems that time and confusion are often saved by the use of journal entries as guides in determining which accounts are affected.

  1. The balance sheet a year ago was as follows: —
Plant $125,000 Capital Stock $140,000
Accounts Receivable 33,000 Bills Payable 10,000
Merchandise 19,000 Accounts Payable 24,000
Cash 5,000 Surplus 8,000
$182,000 $182,000

An abbreviated tentative income sheet for the year just closing gave the following figures: —

Wages $85,000 Other Expenses $71,000
Materials 54,000 Gross Income 240,000

No items relating to the care of property were included in the “other expenses,” and they are now to be provided for. Such items are found on the debit side of the trial balance as follows:—

Depreciation $5,000 Replacement $4,000
Repairs 8,000 Additions 12,000

Supposing the only changes in the balance sheet are those caused by the items shown above (profit or loss and care of property) and that cash absorbs the net effect of changes not otherwise indicated, show the income sheet and the balance sheet for the new year.

  1. Prepare such a tabular statement or statements as an accountant should give to his employers or clients for a business yielding the following figures on three trial balances (of ledger balances) taken at the times indicated.
Trial balance at the opening of business, Jan. 1, 1912 Trial balance, Dec. 31, 1912, before the books are closed Trial balance at the opening of business, Jan. 1, 1913
Dr. Cr. Dr. Cr. Dr. Cr.
Capital Stock $200,000 $200,000 $200,000
Bills Payable 30,000 40,000 40,000
Accounts Payable 35,000 37,500 37,500
Surplus 7,000 7,000 9,000
Dividends declared 10,000 10,000
Real Estate and Plant $135,000 $137,500 $137,000
Accounts Receivable 88,200 80,200 80,200
Goods in process 17,000 17,000 20,000
Finished Goods 25,000 25,000 23,000
Raw Materials Inventory 15,000 15,000 35,000
Raw Materials 57,000
Wages 7,000 52,000 2,000
Taxes 200 2,300 200
Insurance 1,000 2,200 1,000
General Expenses 7,500
Sales 113,200
Cash 8,000 2,000 2,000
$289,200 $289,200 $397,700 $397,700 $298,700 $298,700

If you give more than one statement, prepare one at a time, and leave the reconciliation between statements until all are complete.

 

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Economics 11. Economic Theory.
Professor Taussig.
20 Graduates, 1 Graduate at Business School, 4 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 1 Other. Total 31.

 

[p. 50-3]

ECONOMICS 11

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

  1. Explain the connection between

(a) the rent of mines;
(b) Carey’s doctrine that the total rent received by land-owners is less than interest on the total investment for improving land;
(c) the earnings of barristers or opera-singers;
(d) the earnings of ” successful ” business men.

  1. “Men are not equal. . . . Those capable of organizing and leading industrial enterprise are in a minority, and are indeed few; hence they can put a price on their services which would be impossible if there were many. Their services are not worth more on this account, but they can get more for them. Because the community needs their services, and cannot perhaps get along without them, they can, if they like, put ” famine prices ” on the commodity (organizing and directing talent) which they have to sell; while, on the other hand, those who have only labor or physical skill, though they are just as necessary, are many, and hence can about as readily be taken advantage of as the others can take advantage.” What have you to say? Can the ” famine prices ” be justified?
  1. (a) “There are, in fact, few no-rent men in actual employment; and the reason for this is clear, since work involves a sacrifice, and it does not pay to incur the sacrifice unless the earnings be a positive quantity. In those times and places in which child labor has been employed, with little regard for the welfare of the victims, labor that was not at the no-rent point, but very near it, has been pressed into service. But, where the sacrifice entailed by labor is, in some way, neutralized by a benefit that work confers, labor which creates literally nothing may sometimes be employed. Lunatics or prisoners may be kept at work, in order that they may secure fresh air and exercise, even though the amount of capital that they use, if it were withdrawn from their hands and turned into marginal capital, would produce as much as it does when it is used by them. In such a case the product imputable to their labor is nil.
    The existence of any no-rent labor enables us to make the rent formula general and to apply it to every concrete agent of production.”
    (b) “The productivity of any capital, whether human or external, will differ with the capital. Men differ in quality, i. e., in productive power, as truly as lands or other instruments differ. Some men have a high degree of earning power and some have not.
    Some men can work twice as fast as others. Some men can do higher grades of work than others. The result is that we find men classified as common manual laborers, skilled manual laborers, common mental workers, superintending workers, and enterprisers.
    Just as we can measure the rent of any land by the difference in productivity between that and the low-rent, or no-rent, land, in exactly the same way we can measure the difference in productivity between men. There is no grade of workmen called the “no-wages men,” but there would be such a grade if it were customary for their employer to pay for their cost of support (as the employer of land pays for its cost), so that only the excess above this cost were to be called wages.”

Compare the two trains of reasoning; give your opinion; and state by what authors the passages were written.

  1. “If the proprietor of superior land were to say, ‘I will take no rent for it,’ this would not make wheat cheaper. The supply would not be changed; for the same quantity would be raised, the marginal amount raised on the no-rent land would be needed and would be bought at the former price, and all other parts of the supply would command the same rate. … It is a striking fact — but one hitherto much neglected — that similar conclusions apply to the product of every other agent ” [capital and labor]. Do similar conclusions apply? Who do you think is the author of this passage?
  1. What three grounds explain, according to Böhm-Bawerk, the preference for present goods over future? Which of them does he conclude to be the most important? State Fisher’s criticism; and give your own opinion on the controverted question.
  1. “In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers and merchants by profession. . . .For them, the subjective use value of their own wares is, for the most part, very nearly nil. … In sales by them the limiting effect which, according to our theoretical formula, would be exerted by the valuation of the last seller, practically does not come into play.” — Böhm-Bawerk.
    What is the ” theoretical formula “? and what is the importance of the qualification here stated?
  1. In what sense are the terms “demand” and “increase of demand ” used in the following passages:

(a) “The democratization of society and the aping of the ways of the well-to-do by the lower classes have greatly increased the demand for silk fabrics.”
(b) “The lower price of sugar after 1890, when sugar was admitted free of duty, at once caused an increase of demand.”
(c) “The cheapening of a commodity may mean an increase of demand such that the total sum spent on it will be as great as before, even greater than before.”

  1. Explain the essentials of Veblen’s theory of crises, and state wherein you think it most tenable, wherein least so.

 

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Economics 12 lhf. Scope and Methods of Economic Investigation.
Professor Carver.
2 Graduates, 1 Radcliffe. Total 3.

 

[p. 53]

ECONOMICS 12

  1. Explain verbally, and show by means of an outline, the relation between private and public economics and the main subdivisions of each.
  2. Into what main departments would you subdivide the subject of economics if you were going to write a general text book for college classes. Give your reasons.
  1. What are the characteristic methods of reasoning, methods of collecting information, and methods of exposition in economics? Mention examples, or give illustrations of each. What are the special advantages of each? To what class of problems is each especially adapted?
  1. Comment upon the following: —

“The economist may thus be considered at the outset of his researches as already in possession of those ultimate principles governing the phenomena which form the subject of his study, the discovery of which in the case of physical investigation constitutes for the inquirer his most arduous task; but, on the other hand, he is excluded from the use of experiment.” (Cairnes, pp. 89-90.)

  1. What, according to Warner, are the characteristic methods of determining the causes of poverty? What are the merits and defects of each method? Give illustrations.
  1. Comment upon the statement that “political economy depends more upon reasoning than on observation.” Is this the same as saying that the greatest present need is for sound reasoners rather than for close observers? Would either statement apply to all possible conditions and to all classes of problems?
  1. Discuss Clark’s reasons for describing capital as a sum of money.

 

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Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848.
Professor Bullock.
7 Graduates. Total 7.

 

[p. 54]

ECONOMICS 14

  1. What significant analyses of economic structure and functions were made by the mercantilists?
  1. Discuss the development of economic opinions as reflected in the writings of Hales, Bodin, Montchrétien, Mun, Petty, Boisguilbert, Cantillon, Vanderlint, and Hume.
  1. Explain the structure and purpose of the “Wealth of Nations,” and give a brief analysis of the doctrines of the first two books.
  1. Discuss the treatment of the subject of population by Aristotle, the Schoolmen, Cantillon, Smith, and Malthus.
  1. At what points did the economic theories of Ricardo differ from those of Adam Smith?

 

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Economics 16. The History of Modern Socialism.
Asst. Professor Rappard.
4 Graduates Total 4.

 

[p. 54-5]

ECONOMICS 16

  1. Fill out the blanks in the following table according to the Marxian phraseology and theory.
Con-stant capital Vari-able capital Rate of surplus value Capital con-sumed Indi-vidual rate of profit Value of commo-dities pro-duced Cost price of commodities prod-uced Average rate of profit Price of com-modities Deviation of price from value
90 10 50% 20
80 20 50% 10
70 30 50% —
  1. “The theory of value which Marx presents is a variation of the familiar labor-value doctrine.” Discuss.
  1. State the Marxian theory of rent.
  1. What is meant by the Bernstein-Kautsky controversy? State three of the principal points involved, with the arguments advanced on both sides.
  1. What, according to Skelton, are the distinctive features of Utopianism? How does Shelton classify the Utopian doctrines?
    What, according to Skelton, are the two “quite distinct interpretations” of which the Marxian materialist conception of history is susceptible?
  1. “In spite of himself, Marx was the last of the classical economists.” How does Shelton justify this assertion?
  1. “Had the third volume of ‘Capital’ appeared at the same time as the first, little would have been heard about ‘exploitation’ from socialist platforms.” Why not, according to Skelton?

 

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Economics 23. Economic History of Europe to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century.
Dr. Gray.
4 Graduates, 1 Radcliffe. Total 5.

 

[p. 55]

ECONOMICS 23

  1. Discuss the origin and early expansion of capital in Italy, the Low Countries, Germany and England. (One hour.)
  1. Compare the development of copyhold in England with that of Meierrecht in Germany. In what way were agrarian conditions in southwestern Germany different from conditions in the north-west at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
  1. Trace the growth of the mercantile system in England. Has Cunningham’s treatment any bias? Explain.
  1. Describe fully four of the following documents: —

Notularium Johannis Scribae.
An English Pipe Roll.
Royal licenses to export English wool in 1273.
De institutis Lundonie.
Chrysobullium Alexii I.

 

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Economics 31. Public Finance.
Professor Bullock.
6 Graduates, 1 Junior. Total 7.

 

[p. 55-6]

ECONOMICS 31

  1. How far does the present British system of taxation conform to the maxims of Adam Smith?
  1. How far does the present French system of taxation conform to Smith’s maxims?
  1. How far does the present Prussian system of taxation conform to Smith’s maxims?
  1. How far would the single tax on land values conform to Smith’s maxims?
  1. Compare the general property tax in Switzerland with the same tax in the United States.
  1. What changes in the general property tax have occurred in the United States in recent years?
  1. Discuss fully the opinions of Leroy-Beaulieu or Eheberg concerning the income tax.
  1. Discuss fully the opinions of Leroy-Beaulieu or Eheberg concerning the inheritance tax.

 

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Economics 32 2hf. Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions.
Professor Carver.
8 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 1 Junior. Total 11.

 

[p. 56]

ECONOMICS 32

  1. What are some of the larger characteristics which distinguish rural from urban life?
  1. Where would you draw the line between large scale and medium scale, and between medium scale and small scale farming, and what are the principal advantages and disadvantages of each?
  1. Exactly what is the distinction between intensive and extensive farming, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
  1. To what system of culture does the horse as a draft animal belong, and what are some of the characteristics of that system?
  1. Where do we find the larger percentage of tenancy in this country, where land is highly productive or where its productivity is low? How would you explain the situation?
  1. Give your ideas as to the function of the middle-man, and to what extent and how that function may be performed by the farmers themselves.
  1. What are the advantages of diversified farming as compared with specialized farming?
  1. Give your ideas as to how country life may be made more attractive to men and women of education and culture.

________________________________________

Sources:

Harvard University Examinations. Papers set for final examinations in history, history of science, government, economics, philosophy, social ethics, education, fine arts, music in Harvard College. June, 1913. Cambridge, MA.

Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1912-13, pp. 57-58.

 

 

Categories
Harvard

Harvard. Ph.D. General Examination Fields. Charles Beardsley, 1904

Historians need to deal with “missing values” in their archival work on a daily basis. For instance in the Harvard Archives there is a box with the promising title “Examinations for the Ph.D.” What you find in that box are officially printed lists of candidates (with their respective academic histories) and their general examinations by academic year in which the examiners and thesis advisers are identified together with the six fields covered in the general examination as well as the “special subject” field and the thesis subject. That is the good news.

The bad news is that these printed lists suffer significant gaps in coverage. In this box we find information for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. This gives me hope that perhaps in some departmental folder (not necessarily in the economics department) there still are copies of some of those missing listings to fill in the gap and/or extend the range of the examination lists.

This posting provides us the general examination information for Charles Beardsley, Jr. who it turns out was never awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard. More about Charles Beardsley’s life is found in my earlier posting taken from the Secretary’s Report of the Harvard Class of 1892 (1912).

________________________________

 

From:
Division of History and Political Science Examinations for the Degree of Ph.D., 1903-04, pp. 1-2.

 

  1. Charles Beardsley.

General Examination in Political Science, Wednesday, February 24, 1904.

Committee: Professors Ripley, Lowell, Haskins, Carver, Bullock, Gay and Dr. Sprague.

Academic History: Harvard College, 1888-92; Graduate School, 1893-94, 1896-97, 1902-03; Harvard, 1897[sic, he received his A.B. in 1892] (A.B.); Harvard, 1902 [sic, he received his A.M. in 1897] (A.M.).

(A) General Subjects.

1. Constitutional History of England since the beginning of the Tudor Period.
2. Modern Government and Comparative Constitutional Law.
3. Economic Theory and its History.
4. Applied Economics: Money and Banking, International Trade, Taxation and Finance.
5. Economic History of the United States, with special reference to the Tariff, Financial Legislation, and Industrial Combinations.
6. Sociology, including the Labor Question.
7. (Special subject.)

(B) Special Subject: Tariff Legislation and Controversy in England since the time of Adam Smith.

(C) Thesis Subject: “Huskisson’s Tariff Reforms in England.” (With Professors Taussig and Gay.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC7000.70. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. Folder “1903-1904”.

A catalogue of the doctors of philosophy and of science and of the master of arts and of science of Harvard University, who have received their degrees after examination, 1873-1898, p. 68.

Image Source: John Harvard Statue (1904). Library of Congress. Photos, Prints and Drawings.

Categories
Curriculum Harvard

Harvard. Stricter division between undergraduate and graduate courses. Ca. 1910-11

A copy of this report written by economics professors Charles J. Bullock and Thomas N. Carver is found in the papers of Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell. The report itself is undated but a comparison with the course catalogues for the period 1909-1914 shows almost a perfect fit for the course staffing in the academic year 1910-11.

Harvard-wide courses were divided into three groups:

Courses primarily for Undergraduates (lower group);
Courses for Undergraduates and Graduates (middle group);
Courses primarily for Graduates (upper group).

In the 1912-13 Announcements of the Courses of Instruction, the recommendations of the committee were implemented to limit undergraduate access to the upper group of courses: only after a “special vote of the Department” or for undergraduate senior “candidates for the degree with distinction” would undergraduate students be admitted to courses designated “primarily for Graduates”. The new course numbering beginning with 1912-13 does not match the ordering of courses given in the report.

Handwritten names added to the Report have been placed within square brackets “[…]”.

_________________________________

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE UPON COURSES OF INSTRUCTION

The Committee appointed at the last meeting of the Department to consider the courses of instruction in the Department of Economics, submits the following preliminary report as a basis for discussion at the next meeting of the Department:

The Committee recommends in the first place that there shall be hereafter a complete separation of the graduate and undergraduate courses. it seems to us that this can be done by adopting the principle that in undergraduate courses the work of the students is to be carefully supervised, and that in the graduate courses the students are to be thrown wholly upon their own resources and be tested only by the final examinations. This plan will enable the Department to concentrate its elementary instruction upon a smaller number of courses specially adapted to the needs of undergraduates, and will free the members from work of supervision in the courses offered for graduates.

It will not be inconsistent with this plan of separating graduate from undergraduate work to admit to the graduate courses undergraduates who are candidates for honors; and your Committee recommends that if the separation be effected this privilege be offered to undergraduates. The Department can safely assume that a candidate for honors in Economics can be trusted to pursue an advanced course without supervision, and can be treated precisely like a graduate student. Such an arrangement will prevent the proposed plan from reducing the opportunities offered to men of exceptional capacity and interest in economic study.

Nor will it be inconsistent with the plan to admit to the undergraduate courses graduate students whose previous training in economics has been deficient, provided such students be placed upon a somewhat different footing from undergraduates. Graduate students in the courses designed for undergraduates should not be subject to supervision, and should not be required to attend the weekly conferences or to take the weekly or fortnightly examinations. On the other hand they should be required to do somewhat more work than is expected from undergraduates; and this requirement might well take the form of a provision that such graduate students be required to do additional reading upon which one or two special questions will be set in the final examination. it would be possible also in the larger courses, where the instructor meets the class but twice a week, for him to have a fortnightly conference for the graduate students. This conference may be devoted to the discussion of the assigned reading. (Professor Carver suggests that this requirement might be made for candidates for the A. M. degree and not for candidates for the Ph. D. degree.)

If the separation of courses is effected, the Committee believes it desirable that hereafter the undergraduate courses should be considered a Department matter rather than a matter wholly under the control of the individual instructors. It seems to us that the Department should, in a general way, determine the scope and methods of the instruction offered, as well as the kind of examinations to be given in these courses. We also believe that there should be regular inspection of the work done in these courses. Inspection of the examination books is already provided for, but not carried out. In addition to this, we believe it is worth while for the Department to consider the desirability of securing inspection of the undergraduate courses by some competent person outside the Department.

There are two other matters which the Committee may later bring to the attention of the Department, but which need not be considered in connection with the proposed plan.

The first is the proposal to have instructors adopt hereafter a uniform system of lecture notes by which, if the Department ever cares to do so, it will be possible to make available to present and future members of the Department the notes used by instructors in giving the several courses. In this way the embers of the Department will gradually pool their experience; and whenever changes occur in the instructors conducting courses new men will have the benefit of the experience of their predecessors. Such a system would require not only uniform methods of keeping lecture notes, but uniform filing cards and filing cases.

The other matter is the question of whether the members of the Department can do more than is done at present in the direction of bringing students into direct contact with original sources of information. Something has already been done by books like Professor Dunbar’s Laws relating to Currency and Finance, and by Professor Ripley’s series of Selections and Documents. The Committee may desire later to raise the question whether, at least in our undergraduate courses, more systematic effort may not be made in this direction,

The Committee has examined our present list of courses with a view to determining which were best suited to the needs of undergraduates, and recommends that the following courses be hereafter offered in the undergraduate group:

  1. Economics I, as at present [Prof. Taussig.]
  2. The Economic History of England and the United States (the present Courses 6a and 6b) [Prof. Gay.]
  3. Money, Banking and Crises (the present Course 8) [Drs. Day & Huse]
  4. Public Finance (the present Courses 7a and 7b) [Prof. Bullock.]
  5. The Labor Problem and Socialism (the present Courses 9a and 14b) [Profs. Ripley & Carver.]
  6. Corporations and Railway Transportation (the present Courses 9b and 5) [Prof. Ripley.]
  7. Sociology (the present Course 3) [Prof Carver.]
  8. Accounting (the present Course 18) [Prof. Cole.]
  9. A course in Economic Theory (One suggestion is that this be a course in Classical English Economics. Professor Carver suggests a course in the Distribution of Wealth. The Committee confines itself to recommending one advanced course in Economic Theory for undergraduates. (the present Course 2) [Prof. Taussig.]

(Professor Carver would prefer to add to this list Economics 28, but the Committee merely raises this question, and makes no recommendation upon the point.)

With these courses placed in the undergraduate group, there would remain in our present offering a substantial amount of graduate instruction. The Committee suggests, but without making a definite recommendation, the following:

  1. Theories of Value and Distribution: with consideration of methods of economic investigation. Carver. (A consolidation of Courses 13 and 14a)
  2. Ripley.
  3. History of Economic Theory. Bullock. (In place of the one course, there could be offered two courses given in alternate years: the first covering the history of economics up to 1776; the other covering the period from 1776 to 1848, or even some later date.)
  4. French and German Economics. Gay. (The present Economics 22)
  5. Mediaeval Economic History. Gray. (The present Economics 10)
  6. Modern Economic History. Gay. (The present Economics 11)
  7. Economic History of Antiquity. Ferguson. (The present Economics 26) The committee recommends, however, that unless this course can be given next year, it shall be dropped from the Catalog.
  8. Economics of Agriculture. Carver. (The present economics 23, unless this be included in the list of courses offered undergraduates)
  9. Financial Aspects of Combinations. Dewing. (The present Economics 30)
  10. Bullock. (The present economics 16)
  11. Research Courses (20a, b, c, d, e ,f, g, h)

In addition to these courses, it may be possible to provide two or three new courses by members of our present staff, if additional assistants can be secured in the group of courses offered to undergraduates. Professor Taussig has expressed a desire sometime to undertake a course in International Trade. Then if the undergraduate courses in the Labor Problem and Socialism could be given by a new instructor, Professor Ripley would be free to offer another advanced course. But this matter, however, like some others, is obviously one that cannot be settled at the present time; and the Committee mentions it merely to point out the possibilities of its proposed plan.

Signed,

Charles J. Bullock
T. N. Carver

Source: Harvard University Archives. President Lowell’s Papers, 1909-1914, Box 15, Folder 410.

Image Source:  Harvard Class Album 1915.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Early Evolution of Behavioral and Social Science Departments. Mason Report.

Taussig, Ripley, Gay, Day

Today I generate another posting from the Mason Committee Report The Behavioral Sciences at Harvard published in June, 1954. Here we have a quick trot through Harvard’s own history of behavioral and social sciences, the splitting of some of its divisions into departments and the creation of new departments and schools. It is an extremely convenient collection of names and dates to help us see where economics  and economists fit into the larger academic community during the first half century or so following the emergence of political economy and government at Harvard College. You can tell an economist chaired the committee, it’s so much about us. I have added boldface to help readers of this blog find stuff they might (should) be interested in.

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[p. 18]

HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES AT HARVARD

The future historian of Harvard will note that a new term began to be prominent in University documents during 1953-1954. A reorganization of course offerings in the Graduate School of Education created the “behavioral sciences” as a prominent new rubric. Reports in the Business School allude to present and planned developments in the “behavioral sciences” and this survey utilizes the new term as an inclusive category to define the area of its inquiry.

If the term is of recent birth, Harvard’s activities in the area of the behavioral sciences certainly are not. Taking the loose definition of the behavioral sciences, which we have adopted (at least provisionally) for this survey, their cultivation at Harvard goes back at least to the emergence of Harvard as a modern university in the second half of the nineteenth century. At least some of the behavioral sciences shared in the rapid growth of Harvard to university stature at the end of the nineteenth century. The reorganization of 1890, establishing the system of Divisions and Departments of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, brought into existence a Division of History, Government, and Economics. Prior to this time there had been instruction in all of these fields, and Harvard could already point to distinguished scholars in some parts of them. History, after a “false dawn” in 1838 when Jared Sparks was appointed to the new McLean Professorship of Ancient and Modern History, was rapidly coming to strength under the inspiration of Henry Adams and the young men bringing new methods and standards from the German universities. Economics had begun its emergence from moral philosophy in the early Seventies when anxiety that sound currency doctrines be heard in Harvard College led to the appointment of Charles F. Dunbar as Professor of Political Economy. The study of government was comfortably developing in the work of a group of historians who were predominantly concerned with constitutional and institutional history.

1892 Dunbar
Charles F. Dunbar

Today the Division of History, Government, and Economics has been reduced to a shadowy holding company for three powerful and [p. 19] autonomous departments. In 1890-1891, the situation was different. Prior to the reorganization, the Harvard College faculty had indeed been subdivided into departments, but they were very loose and informal bodies, so casual in their operation that regular meetings were not held nor formal records kept. After 1891, a new structure of departments established itself firmly, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences quickly became the nexus of self-contained subdivision that it is today. History and government naturally fell together in a department first labeled that of “History and Roman Law” which in 1895 became the Department of History and Government.1 The split of this joint department into the present Departments of History and Government took place considerably later, in 1911. A Department of Political Economy was in existence from 1879, and economics courses enjoyed a separate listing under this heading until the present Department of Economics became established in 1892.

Within this evolving framework, Harvard quickly pushed to a place of prominence in studies in this area. In history the dominant pattern of activity was clear:

“Institutional History was uppermost at Harvard in the last third of the nineteenth century. Maine and Stubbs in England, Waitz in Germany, Fustel de Coulangcs in France, initiated an eager search into the origins and development of political institutions, believing therein to find the true explanation of human progress. Henry Adams introduced the fashion to Harvard. To take a sample year, 1890-91, there was hardly a history course in the catalogue, save History I, and those given by Emerton, which did not smack of Verfassungsgeschichte. There was Constitutional Government (later Government 1), Constitutional History of England since George I, and Principles of Constitutional Law, by Professor Macvane; English Constitutional History from 1485 to George I, and Early Medieval History “with special reference to Institutions,” by Mr. Bendelari; French History to Louis XIV, with the same emphasis, by Dr. Snow; Constitutional History, Constitutional Development, and Federal Government by Professor Hart; Early American Institutions, by Professor Channing; and three more courses on English Constitutional History by Dr. Gross. Certainly no institutions in the United States or England today would offer so much constitutional history. . . “2

The doctoral dissertations accepted before 1900 in history and government reflect this concentration of interest. In a total of thirty-one accepted during the period 1873-1900, twelve were in United States national and colonial history, ten were in English institutional history, three were in “government and international law.”3 While Harvard initially lagged behind Johns Hopkins in its production of Ph.D.’s, it was early in the field, and its staff played a prominent role in the professionalization of historical study. They were active in the establishment of the American Historical Association (1884) and can claim [p. 20] to have been the prime movers in starting the American Historical Review. The intimate connection between political science and history which was fostered by the joint department and the nature of historical studies in this early period served to give the study of political science a strong historical cast. But instruction in political science extended beyond clearly historical courses, and Government 1 by 1900 was established as one of the great introductory courses with more than four hundred students.

After beginnings in the Seventies with the appointment of Charles F. Dunbar as Professor of Political Economy, Harvard’s work in economics quickly took on strength in the Eighties. The year 1886 is notable for two events: the establishment of the first professional economics journal in the English language, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which has been continuously published under the auspices of the Department since that date; and the appointment of Frank W. Taussig, who became perhaps the central figure in a generation of growth in Harvard economics. As Professor Taussig modestly remarks in his own survey of department history, after 1886, the Department of Political Economy “was able to present a substantial offering.”4 From the first, the work of the Department showed a strong concern with contemporary issues of public policy, but it also reflected the late nineteenth-century concern with economic history in the appointments of William J. Ashley (1892) and Edwin F. Gay. Economics 1 took its place alongside History 1 and Government 1 as one of the famous introductory courses and like them attracted more than four hundred students by 1900.5 A temporary dip in activity occurred shortly after the turn of the century, but the foundations were laid for an exuberant later development.

The history of the other behavioral sciences in this early period is more varied, tentative, and uncertain. Anthropology got off to an early start with the Peabody bequest in 1866 establishing the Peabody Museum and the Peabody Professorship of American Archaeology and Ethnology. The terms of the bequest were such that part of it had to be left to accumulate until it had reached a specified level. The building which now houses the Peabody Museum was not begun until 1876, and the Professorship was not filled until 1887 (by Frederick Ward Putnam).6 The gathering of collections, however, began almost immediately after the Peabody bequest, and the first Report dates from 1868. By the Nineties the Museum collections had grown impressively, [p. 21] and the University acquired a major resource when the Museum became an integral part of it in 1897. Instruction in anthropology was almost lacking before 1890, there being no undergraduate courses and only a few graduate students. The reorganization of 1890 established a Division of American Archaeology and Ethnology, but no regular course in general anthropology was offered until 1894-1895. During the Nineties the Division shared in the general expansion of the University, increasing its staff and offerings so that by 1903 its old title was inappropriate, and it became the Department of Anthropology which still exists. The Nineties saw the beginning of a long series of archaeological and ethnological expeditions in the Americas and elsewhere which have enriched the collections of the Museum and the literature of the field. Studies and instruction in physical anthropology began at this time and have continued to the present day.

Psychology at Harvard is relatively old. Professor Boring when interviewed in the course of this survey has emphasized the point:

“America was very early in the development of experimental psychology, and the development was centered largely at Harvard. James had a very small laboratory as early as Wundt, actually — that is, in 1875. It is true that Germany led the world in experimental psychology in the 1890’s, but there was a great push in America to get psychological laboratories started, and I would say that they lagged behind Germany by less than ten years. In America there was a laboratory developed at Johns Hopkins in 1883, and ours here at Harvard officially began in 1892, although, as I said, there was a small laboratory before that.”

William James not only began experimental studies in psychology at an early date; in 1875 he offered a course in the Relations between Physiology and Psychology, and in the following year he presented another psychology course under the label of Natural History 2. His enthusiasm for experimental psychology led him to raise the necessary funds for the official establishment of the Psychology Laboratory in 1892. He did not, however, want to devote himself primarily to this work, and at his instigation Dr. Hugo Muensterberg was brought from Freiburg, first temporarily (in 1892), then after a brief interval, as a permanent Professor of Psychology in 1897. The early years of the new century saw important additions to the staff (in E. B. Holt and Robert M. Yerkes) and the availability of new space for the laboratories in Emerson Hall (1905). Instruction in psychology grew rapidly, but no independent department appeared. In 1913 psychology courses won separate listing, and the title of the sheltering department was expanded to become the Department of Philosophy and Psychology.

Sociology began its Harvard career in at least two places. The broad concern about social problems which swept over American society in the last third of the nineteenth century and did so much to establish sociology as an academic discipline had its representation at Harvard. The Reverend Francis Greenwood Peabody was giving a course in [p. 22] Practical Ethics in 1881, and from 1883 he offered another in Ethical Theories and Moral Reform. In 1905 it became possible, largely through the benefactions of Andrew Tredway White, to establish instruction of this sort more amply in a separate Department of Social Ethics. The early years of the new department saw expanded work in various types of social problems and a somewhat cautious venture in the direction of professional social work training.7

Not all of Harvard’s early sociology was contained in this lineal ancestor of its present work in sociology. The Department of Economics appointed an assistant professor of sociology in 1893, and after his appointment in 1901 Thomas Nixon Carver regularly gave sociology courses. There was further concern with sociology in connection with such subjects as labor problems, but in summing up the situation to 1929, Professor Taussig found cause to lament Harvard’s failure to “keep pace with the forward movement of economic science … in the field of the social applications or implications of the subject.”

Our sketch thus far has brought the account of the behavioral sciences at Harvard down to the years preceding the first World War. The subsequent years were crowded and active ones, but they have put their imprint so clearly on the present that we may hope to bridge them quickly, reserving details for the contemporary picture presented in Section B.

The organization of the behavioral sciences at Harvard has seen both fission and fusion in the twentieth century. We have noted the splitting off of Social Ethics in 1905 from its parent Department of Philosophy. The next fission was that between Government and History in 1911. In this, as in other organizational changes at Harvard, personalities and special local problems played their role, but the development of the fields themselves made the change a natural one. As Harvard developed rapidly into one of the major American centers of historical study, the heavy concentration in constitutional and institutional history yielded to more diversity. Many of Harvard’s great historians continued to write history in which political events and institutions bulked large, but the range of interests became increasingly catholic. In the history of religions George Foote Moore and others continued and ornamented an established Harvard tradition, Charles H. Haskins ranged over a vast field of medieval studies, Frederick J. Turner brought a sweeping perspective on American democracy, and by 1924 the University had a recognized practitioner of the “new” history in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. An era arrived in which social and economic history took established positions among the common varieties of historical writing so that they now look like older trends in the 1954 picture. A glance at the list of doctoral dissertations submitted [p. 23] to the Department shows a steady and strong growth in American and modern European history paralleling the over-all growth of the Department to a commanding position in the production of the professional historians.8

Since its independent establishment in 1911, the Department of Government has shown continued loyalty to its older union with History. In Charles Mcllwain it had an inspiring continuator of the tradition in English constitutional history and thought. The new Department rapidly expanded its concern with political theory and made new ventures in constitutional and international law, American national, state and local government, comparative government, and international relations. The establishment of the Graduate School of Public Administration in 1937 broadened and strengthened work on matters related to contemporary public policy. A steady rise in the popularity of government as a field of undergraduate concentration brought the Department in the years after World War II into the demanding position of caring for more undergraduates than any other department.

The Department of Economics has continued to grow until it stands today among Harvard’s largest. The concern with the issues of the day which engaged Harvard economists from the first has persisted. The tradition of government consulting blossomed with the work of Taussig, Ripley, Gay and Day during World War I, and in the ill-fated Harvard Economic Service Harvard economists in the Twenties ventured predictions on the course of business conditions. Theoretical economics was pursued with distinction, and a rounded development of the field could be pointed to as a basis for a commonly recognized position of leadership. The Graduate School of Public Administration at its founding could draw on a department with vigorous interests in economic policy, and it in turn provided stimulus and facilities for such work.

Anthropology at Harvard during the early decades of this century continued activities on the wide front established in the Nineties. While Harvard could claim no single figure of such commanding leadership as Boas at Columbia, men like Dixon, Tozzer, and Hooton took major places in the development of American anthropology. A long series of Peabody Museum expeditions extended all over the globe and established Harvard’s position of leadership in Middle American archaeology, Southwestern archaeology, Old World prehistory, and other fields. The large-scale Irish expedition in the Thirties brought widely-known results, and it is perhaps less well remembered that the Yankee City study had its inception in the Department of Anthropology. The Forties brought an important organizational change in the establishment of the Department of Social Relations (1946). This move, which relocated part of the work in [p. 24] Social Anthropology in a new department, has resulted in a substantial expansion of the total numbers of anthropologists on the Harvard staff and of the range and quantity of anthropological investigation.

The chapter on psychology in an official history of Harvard published in 1930 was written by a philosopher, Ralph Parton Perry. Professor Perry notes at the beginning of his account: “Harvard is almost the only American university in which Philosophy and Psychology still constitute a single department.”9 This tardiness of Harvard in following the movement toward an independent status for psychology continued until 1934, when the Department of Psychology was established with Professor Boring as chairman. The lack of separate status had not meant inactivity. The work of the Psychological Laboratory begun under James and Muensterberg continued under the direction of Langfeld (until 1924) and later under Professor Boring. The range of work included that of Yerkes on animal psychology, Troland on physiological optics, and McDougall (after 1920) on social psychology. In 1926 a special bequest for work in abnormal and dynamic psychology led to the establishment of the Psychological Clinic, first under Dr. Morton Prince, and later under Professor Henry A. Murray. The appointment of Professor K. S. Lashley in 1936 brought new work in physiological psychology which was later transferred to the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology, Orange Park, Florida. During the second World War, Harvard’s psychologists became heavily involved in work which led to the present Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory under the direction of Professor S. S. Stevens. Substantial uncertainty as to the ideal arrangements for psychology in the University persisted. A special commission was appointed in 1945, under the chairmanship of Dr. Alan Gregg to examine this question,10 but the work was overtaken by action from another quarter which issued in the founding of the Department of Social Relations in 1946. The consequences of this change will be evidenced at many places in this report; suffice to say here that work in clinical and social psychology was moved to the new department, experimental and physiological psychology remaining in the Department of Psychology.11

Sociology at Harvard continued under the departmental label of Social Ethics until 1929. In the early years of this department (after 1905) the ethical and practical concerns of its founder marked both instruction and research.12 Courses were taught in criminology and penology, radical social movements, juvenile delinquency, housing, immigration, and the typical range of “social problems” found in sociology [p. 25] curricula of this era. After World War I, when Dr. Richard C. Cabot was made Professor of Social Ethics and Chairman of the Department (1920), sociology extended its concerns into philosophical questions and some applied fields, while preserving the ethical orientation. As Professor Cabot’s retirement approached, the status of sociology was subject to a general re-examination. A new Department of Sociology was established under the direction of a committee drawn from various existing departments and including a new appointee, Pitirim A. Sorokin, as Chairman and Professor of Sociology. The new department continued through the Thirties, establishing a strong tradition in theoretical sociology and producing a small but distinguished group of Ph.D.’s. A need for further organizational change was felt by the beginning of the Forties,13 and when the Department of Social Relations emerged in 1946, it had absorbed the old Department of Sociology. Since that time, sociology has been without separate departmental status at Harvard, but it has been strongly represented in the new organization.

This rapid survey could include little more than the most conspicuous and central developments in the behavioral sciences within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. It has neglected many interdisciplinary committees and degree programs, research organizations, area programs, and the growth of such indispensable facilities as the College Library. A great many of the most important special developments have appeared since World War II and are still in existence. As elsewhere throughout the country, much of the history of behavioral sciences at Harvard crowds onto the contemporary scene.

The history we have presented has been largely a history of departments, but we think this not improper. The departments have long been and remain the fundamental units in the organization of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The historical record of the growth of the behavioral sciences at Harvard seems to show a common pattern. Harvard has not been unresponsive to new needs and the development of new fields, but it has moved cautiously, making its first ventures under the shelter of established departments. Government, psychology, and sociology at Harvard thus began under older departments, only slowly winning autonomous status. Ultimately, fields like these have taken their place in an extended roster of the same type of organization which fostered them, namely, as departments on the established model. The record is doubtless a conservative one, substantively and organizationally, but it is perhaps in keeping with President Eliot’s aim of building “securely and slowly, a university in the largest sense.”

Thus far the growth of the behavioral sciences in the professional [p. 26] schools has gone largely unmentioned. Their development will be sketched briefly near the end of Section B, but, to avoid too much repetition, the more detailed historical developments are reserved for Part VI of this report, where each professional school receives a unified and comprehensive analysis. Unless the reader familiarizes himself with the trends in the utilization of the behavioral sciences in the graduate schools of Business, Education, Law, Medicine and Public Health, and Public Administration he will have only a partial image of Harvard’s activities in this field.

[NOTES]

1 Emerton and Morison, in Morison, ed.. Development of Harvard University, 1869-1929 (1930) p. 153, n. 1.

2 Emerton and Morison, op. cit., pp. 159-160.

3 Tabulation in Emerton and Morison, op. cit., p. 164.

4 In Morison, op. cit., p. 190.

5 A graph in Morison (between pp. 194-195) traces the rise in enrollment in these courses. They followed roughly the over-all increase in college enrollment.

6 A delay in the approval of Putnam’s appointment by the Board of Overseers deprived Harvard of the distinction of having the first professorship of American archaeology. (Daniel S. Brinton was appointed Professor of American Archaeology and Linguistics at Pennsylvania in 1886.) Dixon in Morison, p. 211, n. 1.

7 Ford in Morison, op. at., p. 225.

8 Cf. tabulation in Morison, op. cit., p. 164, and data below in Section B.

9 Morison, op. cit., p. 216.

10 Cf. The Place of Psychology in an Ideal University (1947).

11 A contemporary report on the nature and rationale of the split may be found in a joint article by Professors Allport and Boring, American Psychologist, v. 1, 1946, pp. 119-122.

12 Cf. the chapter by James M. Ford in Morison, op. cit., pp. 223-230.

13 The Report of the Visiting Committee to the Department for 1944-1945 remarks, “Obviously, the Department should not be allowed to continue as at present constituted.” Report No. 32, p. 219.

 

Source: The behavioral sciences at Harvard; report by a faculty committee. June, 1954.

Image Source:  Faculty portraits of Professors Taussig, Ripley, Gay and Day from Harvard Album, 1916.

 

Categories
AEA Economists

AEA Twenty-fifth Anniversary Celebration, NYC 1909

December 27, 1907 at Carnegie Hall

MAYOR McCLELLAN, OF NEW YORK, ADDRESSING THE CONVENTION OF HISTORIANS AND ECONOMISTS AT CARNEGIE HALL, DECEMBER 27.

Others on the platform, beginning at left, are: William Jay Schieffelin, Isaac N. Seligman, Davis R. Dewey, John B. Clark, Albert Bushnell Hart, William M. Sloane, Ambassador James Bryce, Governor Hughes, Nicholas Murray Butler, Frank A. Vanderlip, Waldo Lincoln and Edwin R. A. Seligman.

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The last posting came from the 25th anniversary celebration of the University of Chicago. It just so happens that I came across a clipping from the New York periodical The Independent in the John Bates Clark Papers in the Columbia University Archive that was about the joint 25th anniversary celebration of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association held in New York City from December 27-31, 1909. Political Science, Sociology and Labor Legislation Associations also participated in the meetings. The report includes several photos of the men who were the movers-and-shakers of their respective associations (though none from the “playlet” and tableaux provided by the “ladies’ reception committee of the Waldor Astoria”).

As I like to provide the visitors of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror both accurate transcriptions and interesting images from yore, I hunted down scanned copies of The Independent at www.archive.org and www.hathitrust.org to extract a rough text file and better images than my amateur photographs of those in John Bates Clark’s clipping to create this posting.

 

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A Notable Gathering of Scholars

BY REUBEN G. THWAITES

[Dr. Thwaites is secretary and superintendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. He was for ten years managing editor of the Wisconsin State Journal and is well known as an author and editor of historical works. He attended the recent convention in New York as a delegate from Wisconsin. — EDITOR.]

 

THE twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association, held in New York City from December 27 to 31, brought together the largest and doubtless the most distinguished assemblage of students of the social sciences ever convened in this country. In addition to the meetings of the two principal societies, which thus rounded out the quarter-centenary of their existence, were conferences by seven closely-related organizations—the American Political Science Association, the American Statistical Association, the American Sociological Society, the American Association for Labor Legislation, the American Social Science Association, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Society of Church History. Eleven hundred persons, engaged either in teaching or studying these several specialties, were gathered here from nearly every State or important institution of learning in the Union, and meetings, either — singly or jointly, occupied four busy days.

The attendance of several representative scholars from both Europe and Asia, who took part in many of the discussions, some of whom presented formal papers, and whose presence was recognized by numerous receptions and other social functions in their honor, gave to the gathering much of the significance of an international congress. Most prominent among the foreigners was the British Ambassador, Mr. Bryce, whose appearance at any of the meetings was invariably greeted with spontaneous applause, and whose many impromptu responses to calls by chairmen and toastmasters were never happier than on this anniversary occasion, into whose buoyant spirit he appeared keenly to enter.

Among other prominent foreign guests were: G. W. Prothero, of London, editor of the Quarterly Review, and former president of the Royal Historical Society; Prof. Herbert A. L. Fisher, fellow of New College, Oxford; Camille Enlart, director of comparative sculpture, of the Trocadero; Eduard Meyer, professor of ancient history, University of Berlin, exchange professor of Harvard; Dr. Cellenbrander, advisory secretary of the Dutch commission on governmental historical publications; Prof. Rafael Altamira y Crevea, professor-elect in the University of Madrid; Dr. Higgs, representing the Royal Economic Society of Great Britain, and Signor Maffeo Pantaleoni, of Rome, attending the Economic convention.

On occasions such as this presidential addresses are generally didactic, and by many of the older habitués are scrupulously avoided. But President Hart, of the Historical Association; President Lowell, of the Political Science, and President Dewey, of the Economic, always have something worth saying, and did not lack large and interested audiences. Dr. Hart’s discussion of “Imagination in history” was keen in its penetration and aglow with humor; he dwelt on the practical importance of the imaginative faculty on the part of the historian, but pointed out its manifest dangers, arising from a disposition to overemphasize dramatic episodes that really are rare in the history of a nation, whereas the most vital factors in its development are generally slow moving and commonplace. Dr. Lowell discussed “The physiology of politics”; while not deprecating the importance of library collections in the study of political science, the most useful laboratory work is, he said, the observation of the practical workings of political institutions, about which we are still insufficiently informed. Dr. Dewey spoke of “Observation in economics”; his thought being much in line with that of President Lowell, that field observation is of greater value than closet study, altho both are essential.

Ex-Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.)
Ex-Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.)

 

 

 

 

EARLY PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Photograph by Brady, Washington, D. C. Beginning at left: William F. Poole, Justin Windsor, Charles Kendall Adams, George Bancroft, John Jay, Andrew D. White, Herbert B. Adams standing in rear.
EARLY PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Photograph by Brady, Washington, D. C.
Beginning at left: William F. Poole, Justin Windsor, Charles Kendall Adams, George Bancroft, John Jay, Andrew D. White, Herbert B. Adams standing in rear.
LIVING EX-PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. (Clockwise from upper-left) James Ford Rhodes, Goldwin Smith, James Schouler, James Burrill Angell.

 

The programs of the nine associations were crowded with what the sporting gentry style “events,” but popular interest appeared chiefly to be with the joint sessions, some of which would have been noteworthy occurrences had they not jostled one another in this remarkable conference week. Wednesday morning’s joint session of the Historical and Economic associations called out a large and brilliant audience, with President Lowell in the chair. The general topic was “British constitutional and political development with special reference to the Gladstone centenary.” Professor Wrong, of Toronto, was hopeful concerning “Canadian nationalism and the imperial tie”; Professor Fisher, of Oxford, gave an exceptionally clear and informing account of the South African union, and Ambassador Bryce spoke forcefully on recent English history in its constitutional aspects.

Another excellent joint session was that held by the political scientists and the, association charging itself with scientific suggestion in the matter of labor legislation. The relation of the State to labor was interestingly and suggestively discussed by delegates from the Mississippi basin, where, perhaps, the best opportunities just now exist for trying out some of the theories of economic and sociological reformers.

The Historical Association, with its three thousand members, has of late years been doing its most effective work thru an admirable and impressive congerie of, commissions and conferences. This year’s meeting was chiefly noticeable for the variety and general success of these conferences, several of which were generally in session at one and the same time. One morning the topics were ancient, medieval, and American history and the treatment of archives. Later in the day the historians were conferring upon modern, European and American history, and relative to the methods and aims of State and local historical, a fertile theme, now engaging much attention in all parts of the country. One of the most interesting of the conferences was devoted to the consideration of “The contribution of the romance nations to the history of America,” in which Spain, France, Portugal and the Latin- American republics were represented either by scholars from those nations or by American specialists in the topics treated. A general session on Southern history brought out an interesting group of papers; while another on the work of historical societies in Europe was noticeable for careful reports from representatives of Great Britain, Germany, France. Holland and Spain, by the delegates from those countries.

The Economic Association has less varied interests, altho it also held a round-table conference on “Rural economics in relation to conservation.” At its first general session economic theory was treated both from the stand of “dynamic economics” and that of “theory of wages.” It was plain from the vigor of the discussion that economic theory, as doubtless it always will be, is in a state of flux, few men agreeing as to any one cure for the existing ills of the body politic. Another general session was held at the Chamber of Commerce, in connection with the financial magnates. Hereat was frankly considered “the causes and remedies for trusts,” in which the several divergent points of view, practical and theoretical, were squarely presented, presumably with mutual enlightenment.

For a young society, the Political Science people were exceptionally busy and vigorous. Ballot reform, the valuation of public service corporations (jointly with the economists), the relation of the State to labor (jointly with the labor legislation association), methods of instruction in municipal government and government of the Far East, were all duly considered, exhibiting a wide range of interest and possible future usefulness.

FRANK J. GOODNOW, Columbia University, first president American Political Science Association.

The sociologists were concerned (jointly with the Statistical Association) in such topics as the next census, the standardizing of units in studying public administration under democratic conditions, and the social marking system; and, individually, in the problems of methods in teaching psychological sociology, and in the religious factor in social revolution.

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Columbia University, vice-president Sociological Society.
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Columbia University, vice-president Sociological Society.

The labor legislation folk and the. statisticians chiefly held their sessions in conjunction with other bodies. For the most part the remainder of the participating societies confined themselves to listening to the usual presidential addresses and the transaction of necessary routine business.

HENRY W. FARNAM. Yale University, president of the American Association for Labor Legislation
HENRY W. FARNAM. Yale University, president of the American Association for Labor Legislation

The social side of the great conference was in every way notable. The entertainments offered to the thousand and more delegates ranged from receptions and breakfasts to formal dinners. The two most striking features of the daily and remarkably diverse program of hospitality were the great welcome meeting at Carnegie Hall, on Monday night, and the very attractive “historical playlet” and tableaux given by the ladies‘ reception committee at the Waldorf-Astoria (the headquarters of the several associations) on Wednesday night.

At Carnegie Hall the delegates were given the freedom of the city and State by Mayor McClellan and Governor Hughes. President Butler extended the welcome of Columbia University, and Mr. Joseph H. Choate and Professor Sloane spoke for the Committee of Arrangements. All were excellent addresses, but the Governor in particular rose to the occasion and earnestly commended the work of his hearers, who in their several ways are striving to find the correct principles underlying human society and seeking practically to apply these to the manifold problems of the State

In addition to the formal entertainments provided by the general committee were numerous unofficial attentions paid to various groups of visiting scholars. Among the most welcome of the unannounced gatherings of this character was the dinner given to fifty members of the American Antiquarian Society at the Metropolitan Club—the joyous forerunner, it was hoped, of annual banquets of these gentlemen at successive conferences of the American Historical Association. In all of these hospitalities practically every learned institution in the city, Columbia University properly leading, actively participated.

WALDO GIFFORD LELAND, A. M.,Carnegie Institution of Washington, secretary American Historical Association; THOMAS N. CARVER, Harvard University, secretary and treasurer, American Economic Association.
WALDO GIFFORD LELAND, A. M.,Carnegie Institution of Washington, secretary American Historical Association; THOMAS N. CARVER, Harvard University, secretary and treasurer, American Economic Association.

In every respect, professionally and socially, the great conference has been a marked success. The attendance was record-breaking, and the quality of the personnelle probably quite unexcelled in this country, even by the literary congresses at Chicago and St. Louis. The delegates, domestic and foreign, returned to their homes more than ever imprest [sic] by the hospitality, greatness and potentialities of America’s much favored metropolis.

Madison, Wis.

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Source:  Reuben G. Thwaites “A Notable Gathering of Scholars,” The Independent, Vol. 68, January 6, 1910, pp. 7-14.

  • Copy in John Bates Clark Papers, Series II.4, Box 9, Folder 11, Report on American Economic Association’s 25th Anniversary, 1910”.
  • At www.archive.org the 68th volume of The Independent.    There I downloaded “Single Page Original JPS TAR” (warning: > 1 GB and then extracted the pages of the article, from which I have clipped the photos.
Categories
Bibliography Courses Harvard Socialism Syllabus

Harvard. Economics of Socialism, Anarchism and the Single Tax. Carver, 1920

For almost the entire first quarter of the twentieth century, Thomas Nixon Carver taught the material of this course. According to the Harvard Annual President’s Report for 1919-20 (p. 90), the course, which covered utopias, varieties of socialism and anarchism, and Henry George’s Single Land Tax, was attended by 10 graduate students; 13 seniors, 29 juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman; 14 students from other departments/divisions.

Course final examination questions are available here.

A short-annotated bibliography for the economics of socialism was prepared by Carver and published in 1910 in A guide to reading in social ethics and allied subjects; lists of books and articles selected and described for the use of general readers.

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Course Description

In the Official Register of Harvard University (Vol. XVI, October 30, 1919, No. 45) Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1919-20 (Second Edition, p. 64): The course title for Economics 7 given in the second term of 1919-20 was “The Single Tax, Socialism, Anarchism” and met Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 10 a.m.

“A critical study of the theories which underlie some of the more radical programmes of social reform. An examination also of the social utility of private property in its various forms; also some attention to the concept of justice in economic relations; the concept of progress; the significance of conservatism and radicalism.”

 

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ECONOMICS 7b
SOCIALISM

Starred references are required

GENERAL WORKS, HISTORICAL

1. *R. T. Ely. French and German Socialism.

2.   Bertrand Russell. German Social Democracy.

3.   John Rae. Contemporary Socialism.

4.   Thomas Kirkup. A History of Socialism.

5.   William Graham. Socialism, New and Old.

6.   Jessica B. Peixotto. The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism.

7.   Wm. B. Guthrie. Socialism Before the French Revolution.

8.   M. Hillquit. History of Socialism in the United States.

9.   Jessie W. Hughan. American Socialism of the Present Day.

 

GENERAL WORKS, EXPOSITORY AND CRITICAL

1.   *O. D. Skelton. Socialism, A Critical Analysis.

2.   J. E. Le Rossignol. Orthodox Socialism.

3.   Albert Schaeffle. The Quintessence of Socialism.

4.   Albert Schaeffle. The Impossibility of Social Democracy.

5.   R. T. Ely. Socialism: an Examination of its Nature, Strength and Weakness.

6.   James Mackaye. The Economy of Happiness.

7.   Henry M. Hyndman. The Economics of Socialism.

8.   Gustave Simonson. A Plain Examination of Socialism.

9.   Werner Sombart. Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century.

10. Émile Vandervelde. Collectivism.

11. R. Flint. Socialism.

12. W. D. P. Bliss. A Handbook of Socialism.

13. Jessie W. Hughan. The Facts of Socialism.

14. E. de Laveleye. The Socialism of Today.

15. E. Böhm-Bawerk. Karl Marx—The End of his System.

16. W. E. Walling. The Larger Aspects of Socialism.

17. S. P. Orth. Socialism and Democracy in Europe.

18. John Spargo. Socialism.

 

TYPES OF SOCIALISTIC PROPAGANDA

I. IDEALISTIC. The appeal is made to all classes on the ground of piety, a sense of justice, or of sympathy for the laboring classes.

A. Religious. The religious motive is invoked in behalf of human brotherhood.

1. Lamennais. Les Paroles d’un Croyant.

2. Washington Gladden. Tools and the Man.

3. Josiah Strong. Our Country.

4. Josiah Strong. The New Era.

B. Fulminations. A thundering discontent with things as they are, with no very definite program for improvement.

1. William Morris, Poet, Artist, Socialist. Edited by Francis Watts Lee. A collection of the socialistic writings of Morris.

2. John Ruskin, the Communism of John Ruskin. Edited by W. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Unto this Last, The Crown of Wild Olive, and Fors Clavigera.

3. Thomas Carlyle, The Socialism and Unsocialism of Thomas Carlyle. Edited by W. 4. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Carlyle’s Various Works.

Socialism and everything resembling it were even more abhorrent to Carlyle than the present system.

C. Utopian. Pictures of ideal Commonwealths.

1. Plato’s Republic.

2. Sir Thomas More. Utopia.

3. Francis Bacon. New Atlantis.

4. Tommaso Campanella. The City of the Sun. (Numbers 2, 3, and 4 may be found in convenient form in Morley’s Ideal Commonwealth.)

5. Etienne Cabot. Voyage en Icarie.

6. William Morris. News from Nowhere.

7. Edward Bellamy. Looking Backward.

8. Laurence Gronlund. The Cooperative Commonwealth.

9. H. G. Wells. A Modern Utopia.

D. Experimental.

There were men and women who had so much confidence in socialism as to believe that it was only necessary to start it to insure its success. They believed that if the world could be given an example of socialism in operation, it would be led to adopt it.

1. Charles Nordhoff. The Communistic Societies of the United States.

2. Karl Kautsky. Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.

3. *W. A. Hinds. American Communities.

4. J. H. Noyes. History of American Socialisms.

5. J. T. Codman. Brook Farm Memoirs.

6. Albert Shaw. Icaria.

7. G. B. Landis. The Separatists of Zoar.

8. E. O. Randall. History of the Zoar Society.

E. Opportunist.

1. *Bernard Shaw and others. The Fabian Essays in Socialism.

2. The Fabian Tracts.

3.   Edward Bernstein. Ferdinand Lassalle.

4.   Sidney and Beatrice Web. Problems of Modern Industry.

5.   E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus.

6.   E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist State.

7.   Vladimir G. Simkhovitch. Marxism versus Socialism.

8.   J. Ramsay Macdonald. Socialism.

9.   Sidney A. Reeve. The Cost of Competition.

10. Edward Bernstein. Evolutionary Socialism.

11. H. G. Wells. New Worlds for Old.

II. MARXIAN. Believing that every man will work for his own material interests, and that in any capitalistic society, the laboring classes must sooner or later outnumber all others, the appeal is made, not to idealistic sentiments, but to the conscious self interest of the laboring classes. In their own interest they are to overthrow the present economic system and so up a socialistic system.

A. Theoretical

1. Karl Marx. Capital.

2. Frederic Engels. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.

3. A. Labriola. Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History.

B. Propagandist

(a) Political. Reliance is placed upon the voting power of the masses.

1. Karl Marx and Frederic Engels. The Manifest of the Communist Party.

2. Karl Kautsky. The Social Revolution.

(b) Militant. Reliance is placed upon the physical power of the masses. Ignore the state! The ballot is too slow!

(1) Bolshevist.

1. Austin Lewis. The Militant Proletariat.

2. Beatty, B. Red heart of Russia. Century, 1918.

3. Bryant, L. Six red monthsin Russia. Doran, 1918.

4. Petrunkevich, A. I. et al. Russian Revolution. Harvard University Press, 1918,

5. Radzwill, C. Rasputin and the Russian revolution. Lane, 1918.

6. Russell, C. E. Unchained Russia. Appleton, 1918.

7. Sack, A. J. Birth of the Russian Democracy. Russian Information Bureau, 233 Broadway, N. Y.

8. Trotzky, Leon (Bronshtein, L. D.). The Bolsheviki and World Peace, N. Y., 1918.

9. Trotzky, Leon (Bronshtein, L. D.). Our Revolution; Essays on Working Class and International Revolution, N.Y., 1918.

(2) Syndicalist.

1.   Challange, Felicien. Syndicalisme revolutionaire et Syndicalisme reformiste. Paris. F. Alcan. 1909. 156 pp.

2.   Delivet, Emile. Les employées et leurs corporations. Paris. River. 1909.

3.   Dufor, ——-—-. Le syndicalisme et la prochaine revolution. Paris. M. Rivier. 1913.

4.   Estey, J. Revolutionary syndicalism; an exposition and a criticism. London. P. S. King. 1913.

5.   Garriguet, L. L’Évolution actuelle de socialisme en France. Paris. 1912.

6.   Harley, John H. Syndicalism. London & N. Y. Dodge Pub. 1912. 94pp.

7.   Kirkaldy, Adam W. Economics and syndicalism. University Press. Cambridge. 1914. 140 pp.

8.   MacDonald, James R. Syndicalism, a critical examination. 1913. Chicago. Open Court Pub. 74 pp.

9.   Pataud, Emile. Syndicalism and the cooperating commonwealth. Preface by Kropotkin. Oxford. 1913. 240 pp.

10. Snowden, Philip. Socialism and Syndicalism. London. 1913. 262 pp.

11. Spargo, John. Syndicalism, industrial unionism and socialism. N. Y. Huebsch. 1913. 243 pp.

12. Ware, Fabian. The worker and his country. London. 1912. 288 pp.

(3) The I. W. W.

1.   Brissenden, Paul F. The launching of the Industrial Workers of the World. University of California Press. 1913. 82 pp. contains bibliography.

2. *Brooks, John G. American syndicalism. N. Y. Macmillan. 1913. 264 pp.

3.   De Leon, Daniel. Preamble of the I. W. W. address at Union Temple, Minneapolis. July 10, 1905. N. Y. Labor News Co. 48 pp.

4.   Trautman, William E. Direct. action and sabotage. Pittsburg Socialist News Co. 1912. 43 pp.

 

ANARCHISM

I. PHILOSOPHICAL. A more or less reasoned belief that the abolition of government, especially of government by force, would remove most of the ills of society. Clear in its perception that all government rests upon force; unclear in its reasoning to the conclusion that the use of force is wrong; divided in opinion as to the results of abolishing government.

A. Anarchist Communism. Seeing that property rights are the creation of government, it is concluded that the abolition of government would automatically abolish property and restore communism, and that the masses would pounce upon and destroy anyone who thereafter dared to call anything his own.

1. P. J. Proudhon. What is Property?

2. William Godwin. Political Justice.

3. Peter Kropotkin. Memoirs of a. Revolutionist.

4.   Peter Kropotkin. The Scientific Basis of Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 21: 218.

5. Elisée Reclus. Evolution et revolution.

6. William M. Salter. Anarchy or goveminent? An inquiry in fundamental government.

7. W. H. Van Ornum. Why Government at all?

8. Ernst V. Zenker. Anarchism; a criticism and history of the anarchist theory.

9. Paul Boilley – Les Trois Socialismes; Anarchisme, Collectivism. Reformisme.

10. Peter Kropotkin. La Science moderne et L’Anarchie.

11. Peter Kropotkin. The Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 22: 149.

12. *Leo Tolstoi. The Slavery of Our Times.

13. Elissee Reclus. Anarchy. Contemporary Review. 14: 627.

14. Josiah Warren. Equitable Commerce.

15. Josiah Warren. True Civilization as Immediate Necessity.

B. Exaggerated Individualism. There should be no restraint either moral or legal, upon the strong whose “right” to govern and exploit the weak is the only natural or divine right there is. Nature abhors weakness and it is the mission of the strong to exterminate the weak, to the end that weakness may cease to exist and that strength alone may survive. Moral and legal codes are the inventions of the weak to protect themselves from the strong in order that weakness may fill the world with its own spawn.

1. *Max Stirner (pseudonym for Kaskar Schmidt). Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.

2.   Friederich Nietzsche. Also sprach Zarathustra.

3.   Friederich Nietzsche. Jenseits von Gut and Böse.

4.   James G. Huneker. Egoists: A Book of Supermen.

II. EMOTIONAL. A mere explosive protest against all forms of authority, particularly against the police power and other visible manifestations of authority.

1. Mikhail Bakunin. Dieu et l’Etat.

2. Emma Goldman. Anarchism and other Essays.

3. Paul Eltzbacher. Anarchism.

4. R. Hunter and R. Wiles. Violence and the Labor Movement.

5. H. Krouse. The Anarchist Constitution.

6. John H. Mackay. The Anarchists; a picture of civilization at the close of the 19th century.

7. A. R. Parsons. Anarchism; its philosophy and scientific basis as defined by some of its apostles.

8. B. R. Tucker. Anarchism; the attitude of anarchism toward industrial combinations.

9. United States Department of Justice. Transmission through the Mails of Anarchistic publications. Message from the President. Washington. 1908.

 

THE SINGLE TAX

All public revenues shall be raised from a single tax on land values.

1. *Henry George. Progress and Poverty.

2.   Henry George. Our Land and Land Policy.

3.   Alfred Russell Wallace. Land Nationalization.

4.   Thomas G. Shearman. Natural Taxation.

5.   Louis F. Post. The Single Tax.

6.   C. B. Fillebrown. A Single Tax Catechism.

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Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 1. Folder: 1919-1920.

Image Source: Harvard Album 1915.