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Economics Programs Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Political Economy course enrollments and final exams, 1884-1885

 

Six of eight courses listed in Political Economy were taught during the 1884-85 year at Harvard. This post provides the enrollment information as well as the June final examinations for all of those courses. Mid-year examinations are not included with one exception.

 

Note to self: only the mid-year examination for Taussig’s Political Economy 6 is included below, the others still need to be located.

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Political Economy 1. Profs. Dunbar and Laughlin. 3 hours per week.

Laughlin’s Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures on the Financial Legislation of the United States

Total: 166:  18 Seniors, 75 Juniors, 61 Sophomores, 4 Law, 8 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
[Final Examination, June 1885]

  1. If a farmer had the alternative of spending a sum of money either for manures, or for the services of useless servants, in which way would he give the greater employment to the laboring class by his expenditure? Explain your answer.
  2. (a) Discuss the causes affecting the efficiency of production; and (b) point out the relation of an increase in production to cost of labor.
  3. Is it strictly true that high wages do not make high prices? What would be the effect on real wages of a considerable increase of money in the community?
  4. Make it clear that, even if the state should take possession of all the land and charge no rent, bread would not be cheapened.
  5. What is the usual relation of a low cost of production in the manufacturing industry to prices? What is the relation of a low cost of production to wages in the same industry? From your two conclusions what inference would you draw as to the effect of high wages in the United States on the ability of Americans to compete with foreigners in a common market?
  6. Give an example illustrating the working of reciprocal demand and supply, and point out its relations to cost of production.
  7. What made the coinage act of 1834 necessary?
  8. On whom does a house-tax fall?
  9. Explain the refunding operations in 1881, and state what has since been done with the bonds in question.
  10. Give the reasons which obliged the banks to suspend specie payments in 1861. In doing so, point out the necessary relation between the items in their accounts which led them to this step.
  11. Describe the two great financial successes of the war period, explain the character of the obligations offered by the Treasury, and state why success was gained.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1885. In bound volume: Examination Papers, 1883-86, pp. 9-10.

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Political Economy 2. Prof. Dunbar. 3 hours per week.

History of Economic Theory. — Selections from Leading Writers

Total: 21:  10 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University.  Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Final Examination, June 1885]

  1. Comment on the following:—

“Do the facts of history bear out the theory [of Ricardo]? If they do we shall find (1) that in any given area the amount of the produce of the land obtained in earlier times is greater in proportion to the number of laborers; (2) that of two countries, or two districts in the same country, if other things be equal, the one that is poorest in people is the one in which the average degree of personal wealth and comfort is the highest; (3) that the share that falls to the landlord increases, and that which falls to the laborer diminishes, as more land is brought under cultivation.” (Thompson’s Social Science, p. 93.)

  1. George says:—

“It is not necessary to the production [even] of things that cannot be used as subsistence, or cannot be immediately utilized, that there should have been a previous production of the wealth required for the maintenance of the laborers while the production is going on. It is only necessary that there should be, somewhere within the circle of exchange, a contemporaneous production of sufficient subsistence for the laborers, and a willingness to exchange this subsistence for the thing on which the labor is being bestowed.”
Is the necessity of previously produced subsistence avoided by the fact of “contemporaneous production,” etc.?

  1. George presents the current statement of the laws of distribution in this form:—

“Rent depends on the margin of cultivation, rising as it falls and falling as it rises.
“Wages depend upon the ratio between the number of laborers and the amount of capital devoted to their employment.
“Interest depends upon the equation between the supply of and demand for capital; or, as is stated of profits, upon wages (or the cost of labor), rising as wages fall, and falling as wages rise.

“In the current statement the laws of distribution have no common centre, no mutual relation; they are not correlating divisions of a whole, but measures of different qualities.”
Can you rewrite this “current statement” so as to present the correlation which Mr. George misses?

  1. Is there in rent any force of its own, enabling it to encroach upon wages and profits, or does it merely fill the space opened before it by other forces? What limit is there to this encroachment or expansion?
  2. Criticise the following as a statement of the Wages Fund theory:—
    “The means of purchase and the motives acting upon the minds of employers jointly determine the effective demand for labor, as the means of purchase and the play of motives determine the effective demand for a commodity.”
  3. Crocker says, p. 7:—
    “Our wealthy classes, wishing to accumulate still greater wealth, sought to use a large portion of their control or power over labor in creating profitable investments for themselves….Comparatively little harm would have been done if the new investments had simply turned out to be unprofitable, and the old ones had continued to supply the rich their accustomed dividends, and to the poor their accustomed wages. The mischief has been that the new investments have, by competition, ruined for the time being the old ones; dividends and wages have stopped, and the income of all, both rich and poor, being cut down, their demands upon labor have been greatly diminished, and the laborer has been left in idleness and without the means of procuring the necessaries of life.”
    Aside from all questions of fact,— what is the flaw in the above if the reasoning is bad, and what is the remedy for the evil if the reasoning is good?
  4. What is Mr. Carey’s theory as to the tendency (1) to decline in the value of commodities, and (2) to rise in the value of land; and how is this reconciled with his principle that the law of value is universal, embracing everything, “whether land, labor, or their products”?
  5. “With every increase in the facility of reproduction, there is a decline in the value of all existing things of a similar kind, attended by a diminution in the price paid for their use. The charge for the use of the existing money tends, therefore, to decline as man acquires control over the great forces provided by the Creator for his service; as is shown by the gradual diminution of the rate of interest in every advancing country.”
    What is the difficulty in this reasoning as to the rate of interest, and how would the reasoning apply in the case of a currency of inconvertible paper?
  6. How far can apparent resulting harmonies in the general working of society (as g. in Carey’s and Bastiat’s law of distribution between capital and labor) be accepted as a test of the truth of an economic proposition?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1885. In bound volume: Examination Papers, 1883-86, pp. 10-12.

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Political Economy 3. Prof. Laughlin. 2 hours per week. [Consent of instructor required]

Lectures and Discussion [of Practical Economic Questions]. Subjects: Money, Precious Metals, Bimetallism, American Shipping, History of Note-issues by Government and Banks. — One Thesis by each student on some practical question of the day, intended as an exercise in investigation

Total: 18:  10 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University.  Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
[Final Examination, June 1885]

  1. Explain the proper theory of a subsidiary coinage. How far was this followed by Congress in first establishing our coinage?
  2. Discuss the bearing which by its advocates bimetallism is supposed to have on the stability of a standard of payments. What connection has the theory of a Multiple Standard to this discussion?
  3. How far can you safely reason from comparative tables of prices as to changes in the value of gold or silver?
  4. Discuss the efficacy of a bimetallic league of states in regulating the value of silver relatively to that of gold.
  5. Explain the causes which led to the remarkable fall of silver in 1876.
  6. State the causes which, in your opinion, led to the growth of American shipping to 1856.
  7. How far do you regard it true that the decline in American shipping was due to the consequences arising from the use of steam and iron in ships engaged in the foreign trade?
  8. What measures, if any, would you propose in order to reestablish our shipping?
  9. What is meant by an “elastic currency”? Compare, in this respect, the notes of the National Banks with the legal tender notes of the United States.
  10. Give (a) the reasons for the general adoption of the features of the New York Banking Act of 1838; and (b) the reasons which actually led to the establishment of the National Banking System in 1864.
  11. Discuss carefully some measure for giving security to National Bank notes when United States bonds shall be no longer obtainable for that purpose.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1885. In bound volume: Examination Papers, 1883-86, pp. 12-13.

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Political Economy 4. Prof. Dunbar. 3 hours per week.

Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. — Lectures

Total: 152:  61 Seniors, 43 Juniors, 37 Sophomores, 5 Freshmen, 2 Law, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University.  Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
[Final Examination, June 1885]

Omit two questions

  1. Why was the repeal of the corn laws decisive as to the adoption of free trade by England?
  2. How did the French and Indian currencies tend to prevent the fall of gold after 1850 from being still heavier?
  3. How important a place among the causes of the decline of American shipping belongs to the civil war?
  4. The effects of the civil war on the system of landholding in the South and its probable ultimate effects on Southern industry.
  5. The steps by which the war determined the subsequent tariff policy of the United States.
  6. The causes of the suddenly increased importance of our trade in breadstuffs in the last ten years.
  7. Why did the payment of the French indemnity of 1871 seriously affect England, Austria and the United States?
  8. The real loss or gain of France and Germany respectively by the payment of the indemnity.
  9. What were the heavy demands for gold from 1871 to 1883, and why did they fail to produce serious financial disturbance?
  10. The difference in the development of city and of country banks respectively, in the United States and in England, and the inference to be drawn as to the future development of the banking systems.
  11. Why is a “triangular trade” between nations convenient and why is England the great centre for such trade?
  12. As the English government does not own nor tax the coal mines, why should fear of increasing cost of extracting coal lead Mr. Gladstone to favor an energetic reduction of the national debt.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1885. In bound volume: Examination Papers, 1883-86, p. 13.

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Political Economy 5. Prof. Laughlin. 1 hour per week. [Consent of instructor required]

Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France, and Germany

Omitted in 1884-85.

Source: Harvard University.  Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

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Political Economy 6. Dr. Taussig. 1 hour per week. [Consent of instructor required]

History of Tariff Legislation in the United States, with discussion of principles. — Lectures

Total: 40:  1 Graduate, 26 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University.  Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[Mid-Year Examination, 1885]

(Omit either question 3 or question 4.)

  1. Comment briefly on the following:—
    “There is not a single great branch of domestic manufactures which had not been established in some form in this country long before a protective tariff had been or could have been imposed. The manufacture of iron is nearly as old as the history of every colony or territory in which there is any iron ore. The manufacture of woolens is as old as the country itself, and was more truly a domestic manufacture when our ancestors were clothed with homespun than now. The manufacture of cotton is almost as old as the production of the fibre on our territory.”
  2. Compare the tariff act of 1816 with that of 1824, noting difference in (1) the general range of duties, (2) the circumstances under which they were passed, (3) the action taken in regard to them by the representatives of New England, the Middle States, and the South. It has been said that “the tariff of 1816 marks the beginning of protection in this country,” and that “the tariff of 1824 was our first tariff worthy of the name of protection.” Which of these statements is true, if either?
  3. Comment on the following:—
    “No protective duty was ever levied on a single article, the home manufacture of which grew to large proportions under that duty, without the price to the consumer growing cheaper, the duty thus being a boon instead of a tax.”
    “A duty on an imported article is invariably added to its price, at the cost of the buyer, and added also to the price of like articles made here.”
  4. State carefully the argument for the protection of young industries and mention the conditions, if any, which might justify the application of such protection.
  5. Give a brief critical statement of the views expressed by Hamilton, Gallatin, Clay, and Webster on the protective controversy.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination papers in economics, 1882-1935. [Scrapbook of] Prof F. W. Taussig (HUC 7882).

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
[Final Examination, June 1885]

  1. State as nearly as you can the duties on the following articles from 1846 to 1884: pig-iron, steel-rails, wool, woollen cloths, silks, coffee, copper.
    Take any one of the following articles: pig-iron, wool, woollen cloths, silks, copper; and say something as to the economic effect of the duties on that one between 1860 and 1884.
  2. Give an account of the tariff act of 1864. Compare the tariff policy adopted in the United States after the close of the civil war, and with the policy of France after 1815.
  3. What has been the practice in our tariff acts since 1842 as regards the imposition of specific and ad valorem duties? Comment on the following: “It is an economic truth that the ad valorem system is the only equitable rule for assessing duties. With the whole power of a great government behind, there is no reason why the laws of the country should not be enforced. The outcry of undervaluation is simply a trick to blind the people, as it would be impossible to enact a law imposing duties of 80, 100, even 200 per cent. in the plain unvarnished form of ad valorem duties.”
  4. Comment briefly on two of the following:—
    (1)”The fairest and most satisfactory test of the effect of the tariff on prices is to compare prices of the same article under high and low tariffs. The average gold price of pig-iron before 1860 was $28.50 per ton; in recent years it has been $33.70. The average is higher by $5.20 under a high tariff than during the period of low duties.”
    (2) “Nothing can be more false than the claim of free trade advocates than that a duty is a tax that comes out of the farmers and artisans of this country. By far the greater part of the revenue collected on importations is the toll paid by people of other countries for the admission of their goods…I was assured by a score of manufacturers in England that the recent increase in the French tariff came out of their pockets, and not from the consumers in France; that they were compelled to sell their goods in France at the same price as before the increase of duty.”
    (3) “A conclusive answer to the assertion that the protective policy secures high wages to the laborers of this country, is found in the fact that wages are higher in the United States—absolutely and in comparison with the old world rates—in those industries which do not have, or confessedly do not need, protection.”
  5. Compare the grounds on which a policy of protection has been advocated in recent years with the grounds put forward in 1820-30, and give any reasons that may occur to you for changes in the arguments.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1885. In bound volume: Examination Papers, 1883-86, pp. 14-15.

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Political Economy 7. Prof. Dunbar. 1 hour per week. [Consent of instructor required]

Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany, and the United States

Omitted in 1884-85.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

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Political Economy 8. Prof. Dunbar. 1 hour per week. [Consent of instructor required]

History of Financial Legislation in the United States.

Total: 39:  1 Graduate, 28 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1884-85, p. 86.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 8
[Final Examination, June 1885]

[Omit two questions.]

  1. State the circumstances which led to the adoption of the Independent Treasury and hard money as the policy of the Democratic party.
  2. How close an approach had been made to the issue of a government currency, prior to the Act of July 17, 1861?
  3. What has been the legislation since 1861 on the taxation of United States bonds,
    (1) by national authority,
    (2) by State authority,
    and the reasons therefor?
  4. The causes of the failure of the movements for resumption from 1865-70.
  5. The reasons for and against the claim of authority, under which Mr. Richardson increased the outstanding legal tender notes from $356,000,000 to $382,000,000.
  6. Trace the origin of the present three percents of the United States.
  7. Criticise the following extract from Mr Boutwell’s Finance Report of 1872:—
    “As the circulation of a bank is a source of profit, and as the managers are usually disposed to oblige their patrons by loans and accommodations, it can never be wise to allow banks or parties who have pecuniary interests at stake to increase or diminish the volume of currency in the country at their pleasure. Nor do I find in the condition of things a law or rule on which we can safely rely. Upon these views I form the conclusion that the circulation of the banks should be fixed and limited, and that the power to change the volume of paper in circulation, within limits established by law, should remain in the Treasury Department….
    “The problem is to find a way of increasing the currency for moving the crops and diminishing it at once when that work is done. This is a necessary work, and, inasmuch as it cannot be confided to the banks, where, but in the Treasury Department, can the power be reposed?”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1885. In bound volume: Examination Papers, 1883-86, p. 15.

Images Source:  Harvard Library, Hollis Images. Charles F. Dunbar (left) and James Laurence Laughlin (middle) and Frank W. Taussig (right).

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Comparative Fiscal Systems. Final examination, Dunbar, 1884.

 

 

1883-84 brought a significant expansion in economics course offerings at Harvard. Cf. Report published in the Harvard Crimson and the report published in the New York Evening Post.

    1. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. – Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Prof. Dunbar and Asst. Prof. Laughlin.
    1. History of Economic Theory and a Critical Examination of Leading Writers. – Lectures. Mon., Wed. at 2 and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri. at 2. Prof. Dunbar.
    1. Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. – Theses, Tu., Th., at 3, and a third hour to be appointed by the instructor. Assistant Professor Laughlin.
    1. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. – Lectures. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Professor Dunbar.
      Course 4 requires no previous study of Political Economy.
    1. Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France and Germany. – Theses. Once a week, counting as a half course. Asst. Professor Laughlin.
    1. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. – Once a week, counting as a half course. Mr. Taussig.
    1. Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany and the United States. – Tu., at 2, counting as a half course. Professor Dunbar.

Note-to-self: still need to find the mid-year exam for this course.

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Course Enrollment

[Political Economy] 7. Prof. Dunbar. Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany, and the United States.— Lectures.

Total 23: 2 Graduates, 19 Seniors, 2 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1883-84, p. 72.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
[Final examination, June 1884]

  1. Describe the customary methods of issuing loans in England, France, and the United States.
  2. State the conditions under which loans will sell higher or lower by reason of
    1. annual drawings by lot for payment;
    2. reserved right to pay at pleasure;
    3. agreement to pay at or after some distant dates;
    4. arrangement like that of the “Five-twenties.”
  3. Explain the English method of using terminable annuities for the reduction of the public debt, as in 1867 and 1883.
  4. The comparative advantages and disadvantages of the course of the English government in borrowing upon 3 per cents during the war with Napoleon.
  5. How was it that the Sinking Fund during the same war was not only useless but wasteful?
  6. Legal authority for the Sinking Fund of the United States, its establishment and the failure to comply with its strict obligations.
  7. What has been the practice of England, France, and the United States respectively in regard to taxation of the public debt.
  8. Describe the resumption of specie payments by Italy.
  9. Describe the system on which the German banks of issue are arranged.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound volume “Examination Papers, 1883-86”. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1884), p. 13.

Image Source: Charles F. Dunbar in E. H. Jackson and R. W. Hunter (eds.), Portraits of the Harvard Faculty (Boston, 1892).

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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Economic History of Europe and America, final exam. Dunbar, 1884

 

1883-84 brought a significant expansion in economics course offerings at Harvard. Cf. Report published in the Harvard Crimson and the report published in the New York Evening Post.

    1. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. – Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Prof. Dunbar and Asst. Prof. Laughlin.
    1. History of Economic Theory and a Critical Examination of Leading Writers. – Lectures. Mon., Wed. at 2 and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri. at 2. Prof. Dunbar.
    1. Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. – Theses, Tu., Th., at 3, and a third hour to be appointed by the instructor. Assistant Professor Laughlin.
    1. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. – Lectures. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Professor Dunbar.
      Course 4 requires no previous study of Political Economy.
    1. Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France and Germany. – Theses. Once a week, counting as a half course. Asst. Professor Laughlin.
    1. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. – Once a week, counting as a half course. Mr. Taussig.
    1. Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany and the United States. – Tu., at 2, counting as a half course. Professor Dunbar.

Note-to-self: still need to find the mid-year exam for this course.

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Course Enrollment

[Political Economy] 4. Prof. Dunbar. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War.— Lectures.

Total 40: 17 Seniors, 19 Juniors, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1883-84, p. 72.

 

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
[Final Examination, June 1884]

I.

  1. The plan on which the Zollverein was established and the reasons for its beneficial effects.
  2. Devices by which Napoleon III. stimulated the material development of France.
  3. How far the adoption of Free Trade by England would have been affected, had the refusal of other countries to follow her example been foreseen.
  4. Reasons for the grants of land to railway companies in this country, as illustrated by the cases of the Illinois Central and the Union Pacific.
  5. Effects of the Suez Canal.
    Either of the following may be substituted for 1, 4, and 5.

    1. Reasons for the rise and decline of American Navigation, 1840-84.
    2. Sketch of the history and effects of the Zollverein.

II.

  1. The absorption of silver by India and reasons for its recent irregularity.
  2. The causes which prevented the disastrous fall of gold predicted by some writers after 1850.
  3. The heavy demands for gold 1871-83 and their failure to produce financial disturbance.
  4. The circumstances which enabled the United States to accumulate gold with special case after the passage of the Resumption Act.
    The following may be substituted for 8 and 9.

    1. Connection between the revulsion of 1873 and the resumption of specie payments by the United States.

III.

  1. What form of wealth France paid out in settlement of the Indemnity of 1871, and what Germany actually received.
  2. The connection between the Indemnity and the revulsion of 1873.
  3. The concentration of bank reserves in New York and its effect in the fall of 1873.
    The following may be substituted for 10 and 11.

    1. Method by which France effected the payment of the Indemnity to Germany.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound volume “Examination Papers, 1883-86”. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1884), pp. 10-11.

Image Source: Charles F. Dunbar in E. H. Jackson and R. W. Hunter (eds.), Portraits of the Harvard Faculty (Boston, 1892).

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Year-end exam on Henry George and H. C. Carey. Dunbar, 1884

 

The 1883-84 academic year at Harvard marked a notable expansion in economics course offerings. From this point on I’ll almost only post materials for a single course at a time, though sometimes I’ll transcribe a few years’ worth of course materials. For the second course in political economy taught at Harvard in 1883-84 it appears that the first semester was devoted to the history of economic theory with the primary text being Cairnes’ Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (1878). Unfortunately I haven’t yet found the mid-year final examination. However I have found a copy of the end-of-year final exam that covered Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1881) and most likely the abridged version of H.C. Carey’s Principles of Social Science by Kate McKean (1865).

________________________

Course Enrollment:

Political Economy 2. Prof. Dunbar. History of Economic Theory and an Examination of Recent Doctrines. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles. — George’s Progress and Poverty. — Carey’s Social Science.  3 hours per week in 1st half-year, 2 in 2d

Total 23: 2 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1883-1884, p. 71

 

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Year-end Examination. June 1884]

[Of 1, 2, and 3 one may be omitted.]

  1. “But the fundamental truth, that in all economic reasoning must be firmly grasped and never let go, is that society in its most highly developed form is but an elaboration of society in its modest beginnings, and that principles obvious in the simpler relations of men are merely disguised and not abrogated or reversed by the more intricate relations that result from the division of labor and the use of complex tools and methods.” [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 23]
    What limits, if any, should you set to the validity of arguments thus drawn from the case of primaeval society?
  2. How far does the proposition that “the power of any population to produce the necessaries of life is not to be measured by the necessaries of life actually produced, but by the expenditure of power in all modes,” or that “the power of producing wealth in any form is the power of producing subsistence,” serve as an answer to the Malthusian theory? [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 127]
  3. Compare (1) George’s views as to the increase of general productive power when population is advancing, with (2) Carey’s theory that in the progress of society it becomes possible to devote a larger proportion of a constantly increasing force to the development of natural resources, and with (3) the ordinary reasoning as to increasing difficulty of subsistence.
  4. “If it be true that wages depend upon the ratio between the amount of labor seeking employment and capital devoted to its employment, then high wages must be accompanied by low interest, and reversely. This is not the fact, but the contrary” [as g. in new countries]. [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 17]
  5. “Both Smith and Ricardo use the term ‘natural wages’ to express the minimum upon which laborers can live; whereas, unless injustice is natural, all that the laborer produces should rather be held as his natural wages.” [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 146]
    Point out the ambiguity.
  6. “Without any increase in population, the progress of invention constantly tends to give a larger and larger proportion of the produce to the owners of land, and a smaller and smaller one to labor and capital. And, as we can assign no limits to the progress of invention, neither can we assign any limit to the increase of rent, short of the whole produce.” [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 227]
    Consider the reasoning by which these propositions are sustained.
  7. What answer is there to Mr. George’s theory that rent, resting upon a monopoly, is able to, and does, intercept any gains which might otherwise accrue to labor?
  8. Suppose all rents to be confiscated by means of taxation, what would be the effect upon the condition of the laboring class?
  9. Carey says:—
    “It may be asked, why should a very rare copy of an ancient work sell for many times its original price? Value is limited to the cost of reproduction; and when an object cannot be reproduced, its value has no limit but the fancy of those who desire to possess it.” [Kate McKean’s Manual of Social Science, being a Condensation of Principles of Social Science by H.C. Carey (1879), p. 88]
    Can the class of cases, thus admitted to exist, of objects which “cannot be reproduced,” be made to include land?
  10. Increasing ease of reproduction of money and of improved land is given as the reason for a decline of both interest and rent as society advances. Why then should not land fall in value as well as money?
  11. Upon Mr. Carey’s reasoning, excluding the law of diminishing returns, how is the rise in value of agricultural produce as society advances to be reconciled with the cheapening effects of agricultural improvement?
  12. What logical necessity has compelled Mr. Carey to assume the existence of a law of diminishing fecundity in the human race? [Kate McKean’s Manual of Social Science, being a Condensation of Principles of Social Science by H.C. Carey (1879), p. 436] Compare this with the reasoning which leads to the Malthusian conclusion as to the ultimate necessity for checks upon increase, either positive or preventive.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound volume, Examination Papers 1883-86: Papers set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy,… in Harvard College (June, 1884), pp. 8-9.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for the three courses in political economy. Laughlin and Taussig, 1882-1883

 

 

After Professor Charles Dunbar stepped down from his Harvard Deanship, he took sabbatical leave to go to Europe in 1882-83. Frank William Taussig was appointed instructor to help J. Laurence Laughlin cover the three course offerings for political economy that year. In Taussig’s course scrapbook in the Harvard archive, we find that he listed grades for 71 students in Political Economy 1 (1882-83), i.e., about half of the reported enrollment for that course. Thus we may presume that Laughlin and Taussig taught separate sections of the course with a common final examination.

______________________________

Course Announcements

Political Economy.

1.  Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Mr. Taussig and Dr. Laughlin .

2.  Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — History of Political Economy. – McKean’s Condensation of Carey’s Social Science. — Lectures. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Dr. Laughlin.

As a preparation for Course 2, it is necessary to have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.

3.  Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Russia. Once a week, counting as a half-course. Dr. Laughlin.

Source:  The Harvard University Catalogue, 1882-83, pp. 89-90.

______________________________

Course Enrollments

1.  Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures. Dr. Laughlin and Mr. Taussig.

Total 155: 1 Graduate, 22 Seniors, 113 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 6 Others. 3 hours/week.

2.  Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — History of Political Economy. — McKean’s Condensation of Carey’s Social Science. — Lectures. Dr. Laughlin. 3 hours/week.

Total 35: 2 Graduates, 24 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Other.

3.  Studies in Land Tenures of England, Ireland, and France. — Theses. Dr. Laughlin. 1 hour/week.

Total 7: 1 Graduate, 6 Seniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1882-1883, p. 66.

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Course Examinations

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-year 1882-83

I.
(Answer briefly all of the following.)

  1. What distinction does Mill draw between productive and unproductive labor? Discuss the value of this distinction. Distinguish between productive and unproductive consumption.
  2. What is the distinction between fixed and circulating capital? Is money part of the fixed or of the circulating capital of a country? Why?
  3. What are the classes among whom the produce is divided? Are these classes necessarily or usually represented in as many different sets of persons? How could you classify the peasant proprietor?
  4. Of what commodities are the values governed by the law of cost of production? Explain the process by which that law operates.
  5. “Rent does not enter into the cost of production of agricultural produce.” Explain.
  6. What regulates the value of an inconvertible paper currency? What cause it to depreciate? Discuss briefly the results of depreciation.
  7. Arrange the following items on the proper sides of the account:—

Circulation

315.0
Due to Bans

259.9
Legal Tender Notes

63.2
Loans

1,243.2
Bond for circulation

357.6
Due from Banks

198.9
Deposits

1,134.9
Specie

102.9

Compute just how much circulation is permitted by our laws; and give in figures both the (1) reserve required at 25%, and the (2) difference between the actual and required reserve, on the basis of the above account.

  1. Compare the plans of our National Bank system with those of the Bank of England and the Imperial Bank of Germany in regard to the security of note-issues.

II.
(Answer more fully three of the following.)

  1. What are the constituent elements of what Mill calls “profits”? Explain what is meant in common language by the word “profits,” and discuss the nature of profits in this sense.
  2. “The laws of the production of wealth partake of the nature of physical truths…It is not so with the distribution of wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely.” Explain the distinction, and show its connection with the subjects of communism and socialism.
  3. Mention the methods by which it is attempted to keep gold and silver concurrently in circulation. Explain why “a double standard is alternately a single standard.” Does this tend to be the case now in the United States?
  4. Distinguish between real and proportional wages, and illustrate the distinction. In what sense is the word wages used when it is said that the profits depend on wages, rising as wages fall, and falling as wages rise?
  5. It is not a difference in the absolute cost of production which determines the international cost of exchange, but a difference in the comparative” Explain this proposition, and apply it to the trade between the United States and European countries. Is the trade between tropical and temperate countries based, in the main, on a difference of absolute or of comparative cost?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1883), pp. 8-10.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-end 1882-1883

I.
(Take all of this group.)

  1. Explain what is meant by a bill of exchange. What causes bills on a foreign country to be at a premium or discount? Show in what way the premium (or discount) is prevented from going beyond a certain point.
  2. Is there any connection between the rate of interest and the abundance or scarcity of money? Explain and illustrate the following: “The rate of interest determines the price of land and of securities.”
  3. Describe the three different kinds of cooperation, and say something of the success attained by each. What are the two classes of distributive cooperation, and wherein do they differ?
  4. Show under what circumstances the increase of capital brings about the tendency of profits to fall. What influences counteract this tendency?
  5. Explain what is meant by the rapidity of circulation of money. What is the effect of great rapidity of circulation on prices and on the value of money? What is the effect of the use of credit? Mention the more important methods in which credit is used as a substitute for money.

II.
(Omit one of this group.)

  1. Discuss the effect of the introduction of a new article of export from a given country on the course of the foreign exchanges in that country, on the flow of specie, and on the terms of international trade (i.e. on international values).
  2. What are the causes which enable one country to undersell another? Do low wages, or a low cost of labor, form one of those causes?
  3. Discuss the immediate and the ultimate effects on rents of the introduction of agricultural improvements. Do those ultimate effects which Mill describes necessarily take place?
  4. What is the immediate and what the ultimate incidence of a tax on houses? Show in what manner the incidence of a tax on building-ground differs, according as the tax is specific (so much on the unit of surface), or rated (so much on the value).

III.
(Omit one of this group.)

  1. Describe the situation which caused the banks in the United States to suspend specie payments in 1861.
  2. What is the difference between bonds and Treasury notes? Name and explain the different kinds of bonds issued during the war.
  3. Explain the causes which made possible the great sales of five-twenty bonds in 1863.
  4. What arguments were advanced for the continuance of the National Bank System in 1882?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1883), pp. 7-8.

 

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Course Examinations

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-year 1882-83

  1. Give a careful statement of Mr. Cairnes’s theory of market and normal value.
  2. How far is it right to suppose that the competition of (1) capital and (2) of labor is effective?
  3. Explain and discuss the statement that “the wages-fund expands as the supply of labor contracts, and contracts as the supply expands.”
  4. Agricultural products in England are as dear as one hundred years ago; in the meantime there has been extraordinary industrial progress. What conclusion is to be drawn as to the increase of wages and profits from the first fact, and who has ultimately gained by the second?
  5. Mill thinks that, although “the great efficiency of English labor is the chief cause why the precious metals are obtained at less cost by England,” the “somewhat higher range of general prices in England” is accounted for by the foreign demand, and the unbulky character of her commodities.
    What different explanation is offered by Mr. Cairnes?
  6. Examine the following:—
    “It seems to me that protection is absolutely essential to the encouragement of capital, and equally necessary for the protection of the American laborer….He must have good food, enough of it, good clothing, school-houses for his children, comforts for his home, and a fair chance to improve his condition. To this end I would protect him against competition with the half-paid laborers of European countries.”— Cong. Globe.
  7. If there should be a considerable falling off in the foreign demand for the products of one group of industries, such as our bread-stuffs, how would that affect wages in this country?
  8. What is the argument against the theory that the Bank of England brought about resumption of specie payments in England in 1821 by a contraction of its note-issues?
  9. In what period in the history of economic doctrines would you place the writer of the following passage?
    “The strength of a community declines with increase in the rate of interest. That increase results from efflux of the precious metals.” Explain.
  10. Comment on the main doctrines held by Cantillon and Storch.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1883), pp. 10-11.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end 1882-1883

[Do not change the order of the questions.]

  1. Examine the following doctrine:—
    “If invention and improvement still go on, the efficiency of labor will be further increased, and the amount of labor and capital necessary to produce a further increased, and the amount of labor and capital necessary to produce a given result further diminished. The same causes will lead to the utilization of this new gain in productive power for the production of more wealth; the margin of cultivation will be again extended, and rent will increase, both in proportion and amount, without any increase in wages and interest. And so,…will…rent constantly increase, though population should remain stationary.”—Henry George, Progress and Poverty (p. 226).
  2. What is meant by the “comparative costs of production,” on which international values are said to depend, and how is that dependence to be reconciled with the fact that any given sale of goods is found to be an independent transaction, determined by the price of the commodity?
  3. How does the doctrine of reciprocal demand between different industries apply to the argument in favor of a diversity of employments in a new country, as laid down by Hamilton in his Report on Manufactures?
  4. Of the economic doctrines generally accepted to-day which would you consider as having originated with Adam Smith?
  5. Discuss the following words of Mr. Carey:—
    “From 1810 to 1815 mills and furnaces were built, but with the return of peace, their owners…were everywhere ruined…From 1828 to 1834, such establishments were again erected, and the metallic treasures of the earth were being everywhere developed; but, as before, the protective system was again abandoned, with ruin to the manufacturers.” (Vol. II, p. 224.)
  6. Explain the relation, in Mr. Carey’s system, between “wealth,” “utility,” “value,” and “capital.” State clearly the “harmony of interests” between labor and capital, and the connection of this with the wages question.
  7. Point out Mr. Carey’s objections to the doctrine of Malthus. How far does his position on this question affect his acceptance of Ricardo’s law of rent?
  8. Discuss the following statement:—
    “If such [a] league be formed on a permanent basis between a considerable number of important commercial countries, even though it does not embrace all countries, the relative value of gold and silver will be kept close to the mint ratio so established.”—A.Walker, Political Economy (p. 408).
  9. Examine this position:—
    “The rent of mines is not governed wholly by the economic law of rent which, as stated, has reference to the native and indestructible powers of the soil….By the very nature of such deposits [i.e. in mines], the enjoyment of mining privileges diminishes the sum of the mineral in existence. The mine may be ‘worked out’ in ten years or in twenty….The rent must be increased sufficiently to compensate for the ultimate exhaustion of the deposits: the destruction of the value of the estate.”
  10. Describe the form in which Germany actually received the payment of the indemnity from France.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1883), pp. 8-9.

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Course Examinations

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-year 1882-83

  1. What is the usual legal conception of property in the increased value of land? How far is this justified?
  2. In the claims of tenants for compensation for unexhausted improvements what weight do you give to the argument of landlords that legislation on this subject would be an interference with freedom of contract?
  3. What was the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875? What were its results?
  4. Discuss the present length of leases in England, and compare with that of a century ago. Are there any political causes affecting the question?
  5. What is the aim of the Registration of Titles Act of 1875? What is the system of transferring property in England now actually in use?
  6. State some of the effects of the practice of entails on the application of capital to land. Point out how this question has been discussed in its relation to wages.
  7. What change has been going on in the character of English agriculture within the last thirty years? What influences do you attribute to American competition in this matter?
  8. In the depression of English agricultural interests, which class connected with the land seems to have suffered most?
  9. What has been the relation of the agricultural laborer to the land, and how far has it been possible for him to improve his position?
  10. It is said that farmers can use their capital more profitably in farming hired land than in sinking it in the purchase of the soil. What do you think on the advantages to the cultivators of owning the land in England?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1883), pp. 11-12.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Year-end 1882-1883

  1. State what you believe to be the most important effects of the Repeal of the Corn Laws upon agriculture and the present system of land-holding in England.
  2. It has been asserted that “a peasant population, raising their own wages from the soil, and consuming them in kind, are universally acted upon very feebly by internal checks, or by motives disposing them to restraint. The consequence is, that unless some external cause, quite independent of their will, forces such peasant cultivators to slacken their rate of increase, they will, in a limited territory, very rapidly approach a state of want and penury, and will be stopped at last only by the physical impossibility of procuring subsistence.” What testimony on this question is offered by the experience of France and Germany?
  3. How does absenteeism (1) affect the production of agricultural wealth? (2) Does it modify the laws of distribution?
  4. Give an explanation of the fact that in Ireland custom forces the tenant, not the landlord, to carry out the improvements on the soil. How far does this affect the question of compensation for unexhausted improvements.
  5. To what do you ascribe the “land-hunger” and rack-rents in Ireland? Why have manufactures not aided the agricultural classes, as they have in the north of England?
  6. What were the “Bright clauses” of the Irish Land Act of 1870, and their results? Describe briefly the provisions of the Irish Land Act of 1881.
  7. In view of new legislation in favor of English tenants, it is stated by the journals that to-day the Irish stands on a better legal footing than the English tenant. If this is true, point out the different advantages by the former.
  8. Under the old régime in France it is clear not only that there were many peasant proprietors, but also that agriculture was not flourishing. What other economic forces were at work, and what causes would you assign as the ones unfavorable to agriculture?
  9. What were the facts as to the increase of population (1) under the old régime, and (2) after the extension of small holdings? What light does this throw on the Irish land question?
  10. Discuss the evils supposed to arise from the French law of equal partition of property among the heirs at the death of the owner.
  11. Describe briefly the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg in the land legislation of Germany. What parallel is drawn between this plan and the course followed by France?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1883), pp. 9-10.

Image Source:  Harvard Library, Hollis Images. James Laurence Laughlin (left) and Frank W. Taussig (right).

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Examinations for both political economy courses. Dunbar and Laughlin, 1881-1882

 

Course offerings in economics at Harvard were pretty meager at the start of the 1880s. Two instructors covered two courses in 1881-82. Professor Charles Dunbar was serving his last year as Dean which probably explains why a young Ph.D., J. L. Laughlin (Harvard PhD, 1876), was even needed to share the burden of teaching the large introductory course.

Note: the mid-year examinations appeared to have been missed during my last visit to the Harvard archives, so  I’ll need to try to fill that gap during a future visit.

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Course Announcement

POLITICAL ECONOMY.
ELECTIVE COURSES.

1. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.—Financial Legislation of the United States.—Lectures. Three times a week. Professor Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.

Course 1 may be taken twice a week, if notice to that effect is given in advаnсе.

2. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy.—Giffen’s Essays in Finance.—Lectures. Three times a week. Professor Dunbar.

As a preparation for Course 2, it is necessary to have passed satisfactorily in Course 1 (three hours).

Source: Harvard University Catalogue, 1881-82, p. 84.

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Course Enrollments

Political Econ. 1. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.— Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States (3 hours, 2 sections). Prof. Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.

Total 147: 23 Seniors, 97 Juniors, 17 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 8 Others.

Political Econ. 2. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy.— Giffen’s Essays in Finance.— Lectures and Theses. (3 hours, 1 section). Prof. Dunbar.

Total 32: 2 Graduates, 21 Seniors 9 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1881-82, p. 5.

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Course Examination

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-end 1881-1882

(Omit one question from each group.)

I.

  1. What conclusion is reached by Mr. Mill respecting the objections to the use of labor-saving machinery?
  2. Are railway shares, stocks of wine, wheat, munitions of war, and land considered capital, or not?
  3. Explain fully why it is that capitalists cannot compensate themselves for a general high cost of labor through any action on values and prices.
  4. What determines the rate of interest on loanable funds? Is the “current [or ordinary] rate of interest the measure of the relative abundance or scarcity of capital”?

II.

  1. How is it that some agricultural capital pays rent, even if resort is not had to different grades of land?
  2. What connection exists between the rate of wages in any country and the productiveness of its soil?
  3. Explain what is meant by the tendency of profits to a minimum, and by the stationary state.
  4. In what cases would duties on imported commodities fall on the producers?

III.

  1. What are the reasons for the change in the normal values of manufactured and of agricultural commodities, respectively, during the progress of society?
  2. In trying to explain high prices (as at the present time), point out what other factor than quantity of money is to be taken into account. As a matter of fact, how does the importation of specie enter the channels of trade and affect prices?
  3. Why is it necessary to make any different statements of the laws of value for foreign than for domestic products? What is the law of international value?
  4. In what way are gold and silver distributed among the different trading countries? Between different parts of the same country?

IV.

  1. How did depreciation of the currency facilitate the sale of five-twenty bonds in 1863-64?
  2. What advantage did the government obtain by giving the five-twenty form to so many of its bonds?
  3. What provision was made in the original National Bank Act as to reserves to protect circulation and deposits, and what reserves are now required by law
  4. In what cases can payments be legally made in greenbacks and in national bank-notes respectively?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1914, Box 2, Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1882), pp. 7-8.

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Course Examination

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end 1881-1882

In answering the questions do not change their order.

  1. What is the reason for Adam Smith’s proposition that “the price of corn, in the progress of society, reaches a maximum, beyond which it cannot advance”? Can you work out the same result by a different course of reasoning from that given by Cairnes?
  2. Explain the statement that “the high scale of industrial remuneration in America, instead of being evidence of a high cost of production in that country, is distinctly evidence of a low cost of production.”
  3. If the common saying that “the value of gold is the same all the world over” has no foundation, how does a supply of new gold distribute itself over all countries and over all commodities in each country?
  4. Malthus, Ricardo, Mill, Cairnes:—State their relation to each other in the development of economic science.
  5. How did the payment of the French indemnity to Germany affect the economic condition of Austria and of the United States?
  6. In a speech made in April, 1876, Senator Sherman says that, after the introduction of the gold standard by Germany in 1873 and the limitation of the coinage of silver by the Latin Union,—
    “A struggle for the possession of gold at once arose between all the great nations, because everybody could see that if $3,200,000,000 of silver coin were demonetized, and $3,500,000,000 of gold coin made the sole standard, it would enormously add to the value of gold, and the Bank of France, the Bank of England and the Imperial Bank of Germany at once commenced grasping for gold in whatever form. Therefore, what we have observed recently is not so much a fall of silver as it is a rise of gold, the inevitable effect of a fear of the demonetization of silver.”
    In what form would the process of “grasping for gold” manifest itself, and how do the facts bear out the above statement?
  7. To what extent is it, in the long run, a misfortune for England that her agriculture should be in part superceded by supplies of cheap food poured in from America?
  8. State your views as to the economic significance and probable permanence of the present excess of exports from the United States.
  9. How is the supposed accumulation of capital by England in the period from 1875 to 1881 to be reconciled.
    (1), with the great depression of business for most of the time;
    (2), with the remarkable excess of imports?
  10. Examine the reasoning of the following extract:—
    “About $11,000,000 is now spent in the United States annually for new ships, wooden and iron, and about $2,000,000 more for the repair of old ones….Under a policy of government encouragement, expenditures for iron and wooden ships would be increased at least to $40,000,000 a year….[and] the expenditures for American labor and supplies, in operating the ships, would be increased by $10,000,000 or $15,000,000, perhaps considerably more. That is to say, there would then be expended in the United States an immense sum of money not now expended, which might be as large as $40,000,000, which would diffuse itself throughout the community, and bless and quicken every department of human industry. Best of all, the money, thus spent, would be principally obtained from the foreigner. It would come from the earnings of the ships, which, in the export trade at least, are paid by consumers in foreign lands. In the import trade the money is paid by consumers here and is carried away from the country. The larger part of the money, therefore, would be a pure gain to the United States…These lines would save to the country at least one half of the $50,000,000 of freight money now paid on imported goods, and they would earn at least one half of the large sum paid by foreign nations on the goods exported from this country. Then, they would give encouragement to tens thousands more of American citizens on land and sea.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1914, Box 2, Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1882), pp. 8-9.

Image Source:  Harvard Library, Hollis Images. Charles F. Dunbar (left) and James Laurence Laughlin (right).

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Elementary, Full, and Advanced Political Economy. 1880-81

 

This post reaches back to the early years of Harvard’s (then) department of political economy. A grand total of three courses were offered in 1880-81. The textbooks of choice were Mill’s Principles of Political Economy and Cairnes’ Leading Principles of Political Economy. Some links to the chapters/sections cited are included below.

1879-80 Harvard Exams in Political Economy

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Harvard College Courses
POLITICAL ECONOMY.

  1. The Elements of Political Economy.—Financial Legislation of the United States.—Lectures. Twice a week. Professor Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.
    Course 1 is intended for students who desire to pursue the study for only one year.
  2. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. —Financial Legislation of the United States. —Lectures. Three times a week. Professor Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.
    Courses 1 and 2 cannot be taken together, nor can either be taken by any student who has taken the other.
  3. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. —McLeod’s Elements of Banking. —Bastiat’s Harmonies Economiques. —Lectures. Three times a week. Professor Dunbar.
    Students proposing to take course 3 must first consult the Instructor.

Source: The Harvard University Catalogue, 1880-81, pp. 82-83.

Harvard Graduate Department
POLITICAL ECONOMY.

  1. Public Finance. —Leroy-Beaulieu’s Science des Finances. Once a week. Professor Dunbar.

Source: The Harvard University Catalogue, 1880-81, pp. 192. [apparently not taught in 1880-81 according to the Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1880-81, p. 62.]

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Political Economy Course Enrollments
1880-1881

No. of Sec-tions Hours per week for stu-dents Hours per week for instruct-tors
Prof. Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin Political Econ. 1 Elementary Course.—Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.—Lectures 22 Total:
7 Seniors,
4 Juniors,
9 Sophomores,
2 Others.		 1 2 2
Prof. Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin Political Econ. 2 Full Course.—Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.—Lectures on Currency and the Financial Legislation of the United States 100 Total:
13 Seniors,
73 Juniors,
13 Sophomores,
1 Other.		 2 3 6
Prof. Dunbar Political Econ. 3 Advanced Course.—Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy.—Giffen’s Essays in Finance.—Lectures 12 Total:
1 Graduate,
8 Seniors,
2 Juniors,
1 Law.		 1 3 3

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1880-1881, p. 49.

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The John Stuart Mill’s Principles:
textbook of Harvard choice

Most likely edition of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy used at Harvard was a New York reprint of the London 5th edition. It corresponds to the pages given for the mid-year exam in Political Economy 1 from 1879-80.

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Final Examinations
Mid-Year and End-Year, 1880-1881

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
[Mid-Year Examination, 1880-81 with references to J. S. Mill]

  1. Explain the following terms: Real Wages, Fixed Capital, Allowance System, Margin of Cultivation, Price, Demand, Medium of Exchange, Seignorage, Value of Money, and Bill of Exchange.
  2. In what way would a general demand for luxuries effect productive laborers, and the wealth of the community? ( I., ch. v, §5)
  3. State the laws which regulate the permanent and temporary values of agricultural products.
  4. How far does the law of Demand and Supply govern the value of money? ( III., ch. ii., §5.)
  5. Explain the following statement: “It is true, the absolute wages paid have no effect upon values; but neither has the absolute quantity of labor.” ( III., ch. iv., §3.)
  6. Show how Gresham’s Law is illustrated by the history of the currency in the United States between 1834-1873.
  7. What are the different forms assumed by credit? What are their relative effects on prices? ( III., chs. xi. and xii.)
  8. State the doctrine of Comparative Cost. What is the advantage of international trade to the production of a country?
  9. What determines the value of imported commodities?
  10. Describe the issue of assignats, and point out the mistakes committed.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Papers Set for Mid-year Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1881) included in the bound volume Examination Papers, 1880-81, pp. 14-15.

__________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
[Final, Year-End Examination, 1880-81, with references to J. S. Mill]

  1. Define Supply, Value of Money, Productive Consumption, Cost of Production, Cost of Labor, Exchange Value, Law of Production from Land, Rate of Profit, Capital, and Gresham’s Law.
  2. Explain fully whether you consider that United States bonds are capital or not. (Book I., ch. 4, §3.)
  3. (1) What is the lowest rate of profit which can permanently exist?
    (2) Why is this minimum variable? (Book II., ch. xv., §2.)
  4. (1) What connection exists between the Price of agricultural products and the amount of Rent paid?
    (2) Can rent affect the Price?
  5. Explain carefully the following:—
    “The average value of gold is made to conform to its natural value in the same manner as the values of other things are made to conform to their natural value.” (Book III., [ch. ix] §2.)
  6. State the conditions under which International Trade can permanently exist. (Book III., ch xvii.) What will be the ultimate effect of a large movement of foreign gold upon Prices, Imports, and Exports in the receiving country?
  7. How does the general rate of interest determine the selling price of stocks and land? (Book III., ch. xxiii., §5.)
  8. Point out carefully the connection of money wages with the productive power of the land cultivated by a community. (Book III., ch. xxvi. §1.)
  9. What is the general effect of the progress of society on the land-owner, the capitalist, and the laborer? (Book IV., chs. ii., iii., iv.)
  10. On whom does a tax of a fixed proportion of agricultural produce fall? (Book V., ch. iv., §3.)
  11. Describe the leading provisions of the national bank system, as they now exist, in regard to (1) the security for notes; (2) reserves; redemption of notes; (3) aggregate limit of circulation; (4) gold banks; (5) and state the important changes made since the passage of the original act. (6) Compare our system with that of the Bank of England.
  12. State the provisions of the Resumption Act, and the circumstances which made it easy to resume specie payment at the date fixed upon

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Papers Set for Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1881) included in the bound volume Examination Papers, 1880-81, pp. 10-11.

__________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Mid-Year Examination, 1880-81, with references to J. S. Mill]

In answering the Questions, do not change their order.
In all cases give the reasons for your answer.

  1. Is an actor to be classed as a productive laborer? The inventor of a machine? A confectioner?
  2. If in a country like this a large amount of capital becomes fixed in the building of railroads, what effect will this change taken by itself have upon the laboring class, supposing the capital to be (1) domestic, or (2) borrowed wholly or in part from abroad?
  3. How do banks help forward the tendency of profits to equivalent rates in different employments?
  4. To what extent is it true that “wages (meaning money wages) vary with the price of food, rising when it rises, and falling when it falls.” [Book II., ch. xi. §2]
  5. What determines
    1. the general rate of wages in a country,
    2. the relative rates of wages in different employments?
  6. How is it shown that “rent does not really form any part of the expenses of production or of the advances of the capitalist?” [Book II., ch. xvi. §6]
  7. How are we to reconcile these two passages from Book III., ch. IV.:—
    1. “High general profits cannot any more than high general wages, be a cause of high values.” (§4.)
    2. “Every rise or fall of general profits will have an effect on values.” (§5.)
  8. What is the system upon which the small silver currency of the United States is coined and issued?
  9. What will be the effect if the circulating medium of a country is increased beyond its natural amount,
    1. when the medium is coin?
    2. when it is coin and convertible paper?
    3. when it is inconvertible paper?
  10. Why does the increase or diminution of the reserve of a bank affect its ability to lend?
  11. What is the plan of the National Banks of the United States and of the Bank of England respectively, as regards (1) the ultimate redemption, and (2) the convertibility, of their notes?
  12. Arrange the following resources and liabilities of the Bank of England in the proper form, separating the Issue and the Banking Departments:—
Notes Issued £41.5 Government Securities £14.2
Other Deposits 27.9 Reserve 9.4
Other Securities (Loans) 27.9 Public Deposits 5.6
Coin and Bullion 26.5 Rest 3.2
Government Debt, &c. 15.0 Seven-day Bills 0.3
Capital 14.5
  1. Having arranged the account, show what changes would be made in it, if the Bank increased its loans by 3 millions, and sold 1 million of government securities, and if depositors at the same time withdrew 2 millions to be sent abroad.

**If you have time, state any difficulty which you find in Ricardo’s doctrine of rent.**

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Papers Set for Mid-year Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1881) included in the bound volume Examination Papers, 1880-81, pp. 15-16.

__________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Final, Year-End Examination, 1880-81, with a link to J. S. Mill]

One question may be omitted from each of the four groups.

I.

  1. Show carefully the distinction between wages, cost of labor and cost of production.
  2. Why is it that a potential change of the supply of other commodities is enough to make their value conform to any change in their cost of production, but that in the case of gold and silver the change of supply must be actual?
  3. What is the error involved in the assumption frequently made by writers and public speakers, that the currency of a country ought to increase in like ratio with its wealth and population?
  4. What effect does the great durability of gold and silver have upon the value of money?

II.

  1. Explain the incidence of taxes laid on wages.
  2. Explain what effect, if any, will be produced on the price of corn by,
    1. a tax upon rent;
    2. a tithe;
    3. a tax of so much per acre, irrespective of value;
    4. a tax of so much per bushel.
  3. What is the meaning of the statement that “it is not a difference in the absolute cost of production, which determines the interchange [of commodities between countries], but a difference in the comparative cost.” [Book III., ch. xvii, §2.]
  4. Why does cost of production fail to determine the value of commodities brought from a foreign country? Does it also fail in the case of commodities brought from distant parts of the same country?

III.

  1. What effect is produced upon rents, profits and wages, respectively, in a country where population is stationary and capital advancing, like France?
  2. Explain the doctrine of the tendency of profits to a minimum, the cause of that tendency, and the circumstances which counteract it.

IV.

  1. Explain the changes in the amount of greenbacks outstanding, beginning at February, 1868.
  2. Describe the provisions of the national bank system, as they now exist, and compare them with those of the Bank of England, in regard to (1) the security of notes; (2) reserves; (3) redemption of notes; (4) aggregate limit of circulation; (5) gold banks.
  3. State the provisions of the Resumption Act, and the circumstances which made it easy to resume specie payment at the date fixed upon.
  4. What was the difference between the five-twenty bonds and the six per cents. of 1881 (Act of July, 1861)? Why was it good policy for the government to issue such a large proportion of the former?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Papers Set for Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1881) included in the bound volume Examination Papers, 1880-81, pp. 11-12.

__________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
[Mid-Year Examination, 1880-81, with references to Cairnes, et al.]

Do not change the order of the questions.

  1. “No article is dearer than another simply in virtue of the skill bestowed upon it.” What then is the relation of skill to value? [J. E. Cairnes. Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (1874), p. 76]
  2. What is the argument for the proposition that the price of corn, in the progress of society, reaches a maximum, beyond which it cannot advance?
  3. When a depreciation of currency is in progress, what will be the difference in the effect on the prices of manufactured goods, vegetable products, and animal products respectively?
  4. What is meant by saying that a nation is interested, not in having its prices high or low, but in having its gold cheap?
  5. Explain the statement that “the high scale of industrial remuneration in America, instead of being evidence of a high cost of production in that country, is distinctly evidence of a low cost of production.” [J. E. Cairnes. Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (1874), p. 385]
  6. This being shown, “how is the fact to be explained, that the people of the United States are unable to compete in neutral markets in the sale of certain imported wares, with England and other European countries?” [J. E. Cairnes.Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (1874), p. 386]
  7. “The laws of political economy express tendencies.” Examine this statement, and show the meaning of the word “law” as used in economic discussion.
  8. Examine the following statement of the doctrine of rent and of the deductions therefrom:—
    “Ricardo taught that cultivation begins, when land is first open to occupation and population is scarce, with the richest soils, and thence of necessity proceeds, with the growth of numbers, steadily to poorer and still poorer, until at last all proportion must cease, and famine and death relieve the overburdened earth; the end being only postponed, as assassination is said to temper despotism, by a graduated massacre, in the forms of war, pestilence and famine, which anticipate by performing the catastrophe in detail; that is, if people did not die prematurely in series adjusted to the overruling law they would have to perish at last in the lump.—Elder’s Memoir of Carey, p. 14.
  9. Examine the position taken in the following extract from an argument in disproof of the Malthusian Theory:—
    “The question of fact into which this issue resolves itself is not in what stage of population is most subsistence produced? But in what stage of population is there exhibited the greatest power of producing wealth? For the power of producing wealth in any form is the power of producing subsistence—and the consumption of wealth in any form, or of wealth producing power, is equivalent to the consumption of subsistence….Thus the power of any population to produce the necessaries of life is not to be measured by the necessaries of life actually produced, but by the expenditure of power in all modes.
    “There is no necessity for abstract reasoning. The question is one of simple fact. Does the relative power of producing wealth increase with the increase of population?”— Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, pp. 126-7.
  10. Also the following:—
    “Agricultural profits cannot fall unless recourse is had to poorer land, but such land will never be cultivated, since capitalists can never be willing to submit to a fall of profit: and the very meaning of the expression that some land is not worth cultivating, is, that it will not yield the ordinary profit to the farmer who should attempt to reclaim it. It appears then, that the rate of profit is stationary in agriculture, and, consequently, in all other trades; and that whatever rate be established in an early stage of society, it must remain the same throughout its subsequent development.”— Shadwell’s System of Political Economy, p. 165.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Papers Set for Mid-year Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1881) included in the bound volume Examination Papers, 1880-81, pp. 16-17.

__________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
[Final, Year-End Examination, 1880-81, with references to Cairnes and Giffen]

  1. What effect has the existence of “non-competing groups” on the exchange of commodities, each of which is the product of several classes of labor, as g. the exchange of a steam engine for cotton cloth?
  2. How far are prices determined by Reciprocal International Demand, Reciprocal Domestic Demand, and cost of Production respectively? Is any change to be made in Cairnes’s statement that “an alteration in the reciprocal demand of two trading nations will act upon the price, not of any commodity in particular, but of every commodity which enters into the trade?” [J. E. Cairnes. Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (1874), p. 93]
  3. What inferences are to be drawn from a regularly recurring excess of exports? In what respect is it to be viewed with satisfaction, or the reverse?
  4. The destruction of our carrying trade is spoken of as causing us a serious economic loss. What is the nature of the loss?
  5. A public officer in a recent interview set forth that,—
    “The sorghum, tea and silk industries will before many years save the United States importations amounting to about two hundred million dollars;” and that, inter alia, “we can raise on American soil a tea that will compete successfully in the market of the world and that will save us an annual tribute to foreigners of twenty-two millions.”
    What effect, if any, would this be likely to have on the competition of foreign manufactures with our own?
  6. How was the payment of the French indemnity effected with so little immediate disturbance of the money market, and what connection had the payment with the financial crisis of 1873?
  7. Although “war, it is understood, makes money dear,” still Mr. Giffen (writing in 1872) says that “we are entitled to say that money has been cheap in Europe, notwithstanding the war.” Why did the war not produce the usual effect? [Robert Giffen. Essays in Finance (3rd 1882), p. 55.]
  8. What grounds are there for believing that, at the lowest point of the recent commercial depression, England, instead of “living on her capital,” as some maintained, was still accumulating?
  9. “If we observe that the commencement of the great crisis in the commerce and trade of the world coincides precisely with the demonetization of silver in North America and Germany, we shall easily perceive the connection of causes between that fact and these phenomena, and see that the mischievous results of the demonetization of silver must, from year to year, become more apparent.”
  10. What are Mr. Giffen’s views as to the possibility of an early reduction of the English national debt? What is the nature and advantage of the operation in terminable annuities sometimes undertaken for this purpose?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Papers Set for Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1881) included in the bound volume Examination Papers, 1880-81, pp. 12-13.

Image Source: Harvard Square in 1882 from the Brookline Photograph Collection, Public Library of Brookline.

Categories
Economists Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Members of the Economics Seminary, 1897-1898

 

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has posted the names and topics for presentations from 1891/92 through 1907/08 from Harvard’s Seminary in Economics. These lists were published in the Harvard Catalogues for the following academic years, providing us with the actual names and topics. I came across the following announcement for the academic year 1897/98 that provides a bit more information about the presenters but also shows us that there were a couple of deviations from the original, planned schedule. When I compared the members to the list of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s for the 1875-1926, I was somewhat surprised that the majority of presenters did not go on to complete Harvard Ph.D.’s. I decided to track down everyone listed as a member of the seminary in 1897-98, to see what I could find. Actually, I found quite a lot to include in this post.

_________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
SEMINARY IN ECONOMICS.
[Announced]
1897-98.

INSTRUCTORS.

Professor C. F. Dunbar, 14 Highland St.
Professor W. J. Ashley, 6 Acacia St.
Professor Edward Cummings, Irving St.
Professor F. W. Taussig, 2 Scott St.

MEMBERS.

Morton A. Aldrich, A.B. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Halle). Henry Bromfield Rogers Memorial Fellow. 24 Thayer Hall.

Subject: The History of the American Federation of Labor.

Frederick A. Bushée, B.L. (Dartmouth). University Scholar. 7 Wendell St.

Subject: The Growth and Constitution of the Population of Boston.

Ralph W. Cone, A.B. (Kansas Univ.), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). University Scholar. 23 Hilton.

Subject: Railway Land Grants, with special reference to the Pacific railways.

Adolph O. Eliason, L.B. (University of Minnesota), A.B. (Harvard). 34 Divinity Hall.

Subject: The Distribution of National and State Banks [in] the United States, with special regard to the States of the Northwest.

John E. George, Ph.B. (North Western Univ.), A.M. (Harvard). Paine Fellow. 10 Oxford St.

Subject: The Condition and Organization of Coal Miners in the United States.

D. Frederick Grass, Ph.B. (Iowa Coll.). 14 Shepard St.

Subject: Antonio Serra, and the Beginning of Political Economy in Italy.

Charles S. Griffin, A.B. (Kansas), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Political Economy. 43 Grays Hall.

Subject: The Taxation of Sugar and the Sugar Industry in Europe and America.

W. L. Mackenzie King, A.M., LL.B. (Univ. of Toronto) Townsend Scholar. 14 Sumner St.C

Subject: The Clothing Trade and the Sweating System, in the United States, England, and Germany.

H.C. Marshall, A.B. (Ohio Wesleyan), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Henry Lee Memorial Fellow. 29 Grays Hall.

Subject: History of Legal Tender Notes after the close of the Civil War.

Randolph Paine, Senior in Harvard College. 32 Mellen St.

Subject: The Growth of the Free Silver Movement since 1860.

C. E. Seaman, A.B., (Acadia), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Government. 31 Holyoke St.

Subject: The Intercolonial Railway of Canada.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1897-1898”.

_____________________________

Report of the actual meetings of the Seminary of Economics, 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.

_____________________________

Economic Seminar Members

 

 

Morton Arnold Aldrich.
(b. Jan. 6, 1874 in Boston; d. May 9, 1956 in New Orleans)

If you had to pick one individual most responsible for the founding of the A. B. Freeman School of Business [at Tulane University], that individual would be Morton A. Aldrich, the business school’s first and longest-serving dean. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard with a PhD from Germany’s University of Halle, Aldrich joined Tulane in 1901 as an assistant professor of economics and sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and he wasted little time making his intentions known. A 1902 article in the Times-Picayune describes a lecture in which Aldrich declared Tulane’s intention to establish a College of Commerce. “In New Orleans, it is unfortunate that so many businessmen come from the North and from abroad,” Aldrich is quoted as saying. “We are glad to have them, to be sure, but would it not be more satisfactory if we could educate Louisianians to become leaders to a greater extent?”

Aldrich was a man of contradictions. He was a worldly and erudite scholar yet at the same time an everyman who enjoyed swapping stories with trappers and fishermen at his camp on Lake Pontchartrain. Aldrich prided himself on his ability to get along with everyone, and it was that knack for bringing disparate groups together that ultimately helped him found Tulane’s College of Commerce and Business Administration.

In 1902, business education was still viewed by many as vocational training, a field not worthy of a university of Tulane’s stature. But even if there had been more widespread support for business education within the university, Aldrich still faced obstacles. Tulane President Edwin Alderman informed Aldrich in no uncertain terms that the cash-strapped university simply did not have the resources to establish a new college.

Undeterred, Aldrich turned his attention to the business community. In 1909, he founded the Tulane Society of Economics, which sponsored lectures that highlighted the intersection of economic theory and business practice. Many of the city’s most prominent businessmen became members of the society. In 1912, Aldrich drafted a tax reform proposal for the state of Louisiana that further established his reputation in the business community. A year later, he became a charter member of the New Orleans Association of Commerce, a new organization established to help promote the city’s economic interests. With the membership of the Association of Commerce in his corner, Aldrich realized he finally had the business support he had been cultivating for the previous 10 years.

In 1913, the Association of Commerce sent a letter to Tulane President Robert Sharp asking the university to establish a College of Commerce. Sensing the shift is public sentiment regarding business education, Sharp did not rule out the creation of a commerce college. Instead, he simply said that Tulane did not have the money. That response set in motion a whirlwind of activity at the Association of Commerce. By the fall of 1914, the association presented Tulane with a plan to underwrite the cost of establishing a business college. The Board of Tulane endorsed the proposal, and Sharp appointed Aldrich as the first dean of the newly formed Tulane University College of Commerce and Business Administration.

Aldrich went on to serve as dean of the college for 25 years. In that time, he built the college from a small, part-time program to a successful degree-granting institution with 871 students spread across day and evening programs. He also personally hired each of the college’s full-time professors—the so-called “Nine Old Men” of the business school—who would serve as the core of the faculty for the next 40 years.

In a very real sense, Aldrich helped to transform Tulane from a 19th century liberal arts college to a modern 20th century university with academic divisions spanning a variety of fields and disciplines.

Besides being a significant figure in business education at Tulane, Aldrich was also a pioneer in business education nationally. He helped to establish the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which today is the leading worldwide accrediting organization for business schools, and he served as the organization’s secretary for the first six years of its existence.

Aldrich stepped down as dean in 1939 when he reached the mandatory faculty retirement age of 65. Although he was honored by alumni on several occasions and remained friends with Tulane President Rufus Harris, he never returned to campus.

Aldrich died in New Orleans on May 9, 1956.

Each week during our Centennial Celebration, the Freeman School is highlighting some of the well-known and not-so-well-known people who helped to make the first 100 years of business education at Tulane University so special.

Source: From the Morton A. Aldrich webpage at the Freeman School of Business – Tulane University Centennial website (2013).  Morton A. Aldrich from the 1915 edition of the Jambalaya student yearbook.

Dissertation (Halle-Wittenberg, 1897)

Morton Arnold Aldrich, Die Arbeiterbewegung in Australien und Neuseeland. (Published by Barras, 1897).

 

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Frederick Alexander Bushée
(b. July 21, 1872 in Brookfield, VT; d. Apr. 4, 1960 in Bolder, CO)

Harvard 1902 doctoral dissertation: Ethnic factors in the population of Boston. New York, Macmillan (London, Sonnenschein), 1903, 8°, pp. viii, 171 (Publ. Amer. Econ. Assoc., ser. 3, 4: no. 2). Preliminary portion pub. as “The growth of the population of Boston,” in Publ. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 1899, n. s., 6: 239-274.

Image Source:  University of Colorado yearbook Coloradoan 1922 (Vol. 24), p. 32.

Timeline from:
Reminiscence of the Bushees by Earl David Crockett, the son of Bushee’s successor at the University of Colorado

1872, July 21. Born in Brookfield, Vermont.
1894. Litt. B. Dartmouth College.
1894-95. Resident South End House, Boston.
1895-96. Hartford School of Sociology.
1896-97. Resident South End House, Boston.
1897-1900. Graduate student, Harvard University.
1898. Harvard University, A.M.
1900-01. Collège Libre des Sciences Sociales, Collège de France, Paris; University of Berlin.
1901-02. Assistant in Economics, Harvard University.
1902. Harvard University, Ph.D. in Political Science.
1902-03. Instructor in Economics and History in the Collegiate Department of Clark University.
1903-08. Assistant Professor in Economics, Clark University.
1907-08. Instructor in Economics and Sociology, Clark University.
1910-12. Professor of Economics and Sociology at Colorado College.
1912. Hired by University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1916. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Secretary of the College of Commerce, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1925-32. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Acting Dean of the School of Business Administration, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1939. Retired.
1960, April 4. Died in Boulder, Colorado.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1899-1900

Frederick Alexander Bushée. Litt.B. (Dartmouth Coll., N.H.) 1894, A.M. 1898.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1897-99.—University Scholar, 1897-98; Townsend Scholar, 1898-99. Student of Economics, at this University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-1899, p. 149.

 

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Ralph Waldo Cone
(b. April 21, 1870 in Seneca, KS; d. January 2, 1951 Kansas City, MO)

A.B. Univ. Kan. 1895; A.B. Harvard 1896.; A.M. Harvard 1897.

1899-1906. Assistant Professor of Sociology and Economics. University of Kansas.

1907-Associate Professor of Sociology and Economics.

1910 U.S. Census listed as professor, starting with the 1920/30/40 U.S. Census listed as farmer.

1910/11 University of Kansas Annual Catalogue (p. 194) lists Associate Professor Cone as “resigned”, probably as announcement for 1911/12.

Image Source: University of Kansas. The Jayhawker. Yearbook of the Senior Class, 1906. P. 20.

 

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Adolph Oscar Eliason
(b. May 26, 1873 at Montevideo, Minn; d. April 27, 1944 at Ramsey, Minn.)

Image Source: Harvard College Class of 1897, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Report.
1896-97 Harvard. A.B.; A.M. 1898; Litt. B. (Univ. of Minn., 1896); Ph.D. (Univ. of Minn., 1901)

“After graduating from Harvard I received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1901. I then entered the banking business, being connected with the Bank of Montevideo, Minn., was identified with other business activities, and served as president of the Montevideo Commercial Cub. I lectured on banking at the University of Minnesota, and wrote some monographs on this subject…”

Source: Harvard College Class of 1897. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report [Number VI, 1922], pp. 173-174.

Ph.D. Thesis, University of Minnesota.

Adolph O. Eliason. The Rise of Commercial Banking Institutions in the United States. 1901.

Another Publication

Adolph O. Eliason. The Beginning of Banking in Minnesota, read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council of the Minnesota Historical Society, May 11, 1908.

 

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John Edward George
(b. May 12, 1865 near Braceville, IL; d. Jan. 18 1905)

Born 12 May 1865, near Braceville, Ill. Prepared in Grand Prairie Seminary, Onarga, Ill. Entered college on state scholarship. Ph.B. Hinman; Sigma Alpha Epsilon; Phi Beta Kappa. Member of United States Life-Saving Crew; Cushing prize in Economics. 1896-97, student at Harvard University on Chicago Harvard Club scholarship. 1897, A.M., ibid. 1897-98, Robert Treat Paine Fellow at Harvard University; reappointed in 1898, with leave to study abroad. 1899, Ph.D., University of Halle, Germany. Instructor in Economics and History, Grand Prairie Seminary, 1895-96; secretary and statistician of Improved Housing Association, Chicago, 1899-1900; Instructor in Roxbury Latin School, Boston, Mass., 1900; Instructor in Political Economy, Northwestern University, 1900-01; Assistant Professor, 1901–. Member of American Economic Association.

Source: Northwestern University. Alumni Record of the College of Liberal Arts, 1903, p. 257.

Ph.B. (Northwestern Univ., 1895). John Edward George. The Saloon Question in Chicago. American Economic Association, Economic Studies. Vol. II, No. 2 (April, 1897).

“Mr. George’s essay was awarded the Cushing prize, offered in Northwestern University, for the best essay on the subject.”

John E. George. The Settlement in the Coal-Mining Industry. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1898), pp. 447-460.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1897-98.

John Edward George. Ph.B. (Northwestern University) 1895, A.M., 1897.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1896-97.—Scholar of the Harvard Club of Chicago, 1896-97.—Student of the Ethical Problems of Society, at this University.
Now continuing his studies in Germany.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 142.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1898-99.

John Edward George. Reappointed.
Ph.B. (Northwestern Univ., Ill.) 1895, A.M., 1897.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1896-98.—Non-Res. Stud., 1898-99.—Student of the Ethical Problems of Society, at this University (1897-98) and in Germany (1898-99).
Engaged in sociological investigation, in Chicago. 

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-1899, p. 149.

Passport application
(sworn Boston, June 29, 1898)

John Edward George for a passport for self and wife. Born near Braceville, Illinois on May 12, 1865. “I follow the occupation of student at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.” Intend to return to U.S. in a year.  Stature 5 feet 7 ¾ inches.

Ph.D. dissertation, 1899

Die Verhältnisse des Kohlenbergbaues in den Vereinigten Staaten, mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf die Lage der Bergarbeiter seit dem Jahre 1885. Halle a.S. (Frommann in Jena), 1899.

1900 U.S. Census. Cambridge, Irving Street.

Listed as visitor (with his wife Adda G., born Sept. 1874 Illinois) of Harvard Professor Charles Eliot Norton.

Obituary

DR. JOHN EDWARD GEORGE DEAD.
Former Professor of Economics at Northwestern University Succumbs After Long Illness.
Chicago Tribune (Friday Jan 20, 1905), p. 5.

Dr. John Edward George, who was compelled to resign his position as assistant professor of economics at Northwestern university because of illness two years ago, died of heart trouble at the Wesley hospital Wednesday night.

He was graduated from Northwestern in 1895, and during the following two years studied at Harvard and then at the University of Halle, where he received the degree of doctor of philosophy. He became a member of the faculty of Northwestern in 1900.

Dr. George was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa fraternities and of the American Economic association. It was in the publications of the last named organization that he won a name that has hardly been excelled by so young a student of economics. Ile left a widow and one daughter. The funeral will be held In the town of his birth, Braceville, Ill., Saturday afternoon.

 

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Donald Frederick Grass
(b. May 5, 1873 in Council Bluffs, IA; d. Oct. 2, 1941 in Sacramento, CA)

Donald Frederick Grass, Ph.D.  Professor of Business Administration. 923 Seventh
Ph.B., Grinnell; A.B., A.M., Harvard; Ph.D., Stanford. Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Grinnell, Second Semester, 1917; Associate Professor, 1918; Professor of Business Administration, 1919—.

Source:  Grinnell College Bulletin, Vol. XX, No. 1 (May, 1922), p. 17.

The decade 1900-1909

From his 1902 Iowa marriage record one finds that he was working as a bank cashier in Macedonia, Iowa.

Entries for “Donald Frederick Grass” in the Stanford Alumni Directory (1920)

“Assistant Professor of Economics. At Stanford 1910-17.” (p. 31)

“Ph.D. Econ., May ’14; A.B. and A.M., Harvard, ’98 and ’99; PhB., Grinnell College, ’94. m. March 30, 1904, Minnie Jones. Professor of Business administration, Grinnell College. Residence, 923 Seventh Ave., Grinnell, Ia.” (p. 234)

Source: Stanford University. Alumni Directory and Ten-Year Book (Graduates and Non-Graduates) III. 1891-1920.

Listed as Instructor in the Department of Economics and Social Science at Stanford 1912/13
Source:  Graduate Study 1912-13. Bulletin of Leland Stanford Junior University, No. 63 (April 1913), p. 28.

Listed as Assistant Professor 1916/17.
Source:  Graduate Study 1916-17. Bulletin of Leland Stanford Junior University, No. 92 (June 16, 1913), p. 34.

Sept. 12, 1918 Draft Registration Card

Donald Frederick Grass. b. May 5, 1873
Present Occupation: Professor at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa
Nearest relative: wife Minnie Grass (also residing at 1120 Broad St. Grinnell, Iowa).

Obituary
reported in The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) October 3, 1941, Friday. Page 6.

“Donald F. Grass, professor emeritus of business administration at Grinnell college, died Thursday in Sacramento, California, according to word received here Friday morning.
Professor Grass retired from the Grinnell faculty in June. He and Mrs. Grass had been living with a daughter in Sacramento.
He came to Grinnell as an assistant professor of business in 1917. In 1919 he became a full professor and was made head of the department, a post he held until he retired.”

Image Source: Donald F. Grass in the Grinnell college yearbook The Cyclone 1931, p. 12.

 

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Charles Sumner Griffin
(b. Oct. 15, 1872 in Lawrence, KS; d. Sept. 10, 1904 at Hakone, Japan.)

Charles Sumner Griffin, A.B. (Kansas, 1894), A.B. (Harvard, 1895), A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Political Economy.

Passport application. June 1898

Charles Sumner Griffin, born at Lawrence, Kansas on 15 October 1872, occupation student.

Charles Sumner Griffin.
Lawrence Daily Journal
October 15, 1904, p. 1.

The receipt of letters giving the circumstances of his death make it possible to write a full and final account of the life of our late friend and former townsman, Professor Charles S. Griffin. The first twenty-two years of his life were spent In Lawrence where he was born, October 15th, 1872. He received his early education in the schools of this city, graduating from the high school in 1890. He entered the university of Kansas the next autumn and received his bachelor’s degree in 1894 and with it membership in the Phi Beta Kappa society. He entered Harvard university the following fall and received the Harvard A. B. in ’95, the A.M. in ’96. In 1897 he was appointed instructor in economics In Harvard and the next year received a traveling fellowship. After holding this for one year and while still abroad he was appointed, on the nomination of the Harvard authorities, professor of political economy and finance in the Imperial University of Tokio, where he had completed five years of service at the time of his death.

Although he had been in Lawrence but little since his graduation ten years ago, Professor Griffin was well known to all but the most recent comers, having assisted his father, Mr. A. J. Griffin, in his business. Personally he was serious yet at the same time genial and he had a circle of staunch friends among the best of his instructors and his classmates. While he did not learn easily his earnestness and persistence won for him in all the institutions he attended a reputation for solid and reliable scholarship.

His special study at Harvard was the sugar industry, and his two papers on this subject, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, were regarded by Professor Taussig and other authorities as real contributions to knowledge. He had published also in Japan an edition of Rlcardo’s Essays on Currency and Finance, Tokio 1901. Notes on Commercial Policy and Modern Colonization, pp. 130, and Notes on Transportation and Communication, pp. 215, the latter two printed privately at Tokio, 1902. In March in this year the N. Y. Evening Post printed an article by Professor Griffin on the present situation in Japan. For several years he had been preparing to write a Financial History of Japan Previous to the Present Era. To this end he had diligently applied himself to the acquisition of the written and printed languages and was making rapid progress. During the summer just past he had with him on his vacation two Japanese students who were assisting him in the difficult task of learning the Japanese characters, of which there are some ten thousand, and indexing appropriate literature for him. It is not known whether his work on the history had progressed far enough to leave any portion of it in shape for publication, but It is feared not.

Mrs. A. J. Griffin and Miss Edith Griffin visited Mr. Griffin in 1900 and found him happily situated and enthusiastic over the country and his work. In July, 1901 he was married to Mary Avery Greene, daughter of Rev. Daniel C. Greene, the first missionary sent to Japan by the American Board, and to them had been born two children, Charles Carroll and Mary Avery. Professor Griffin spent his summer vacation on the shore of Lake Hakone, about sixty miles from Tokio. As the vacation was almost over, the family was to take a last picnic tea on the shore of the beautiful lake, half an hour from the village. Before tea Mr. Griffin went to the water’s edge for a plunge. He dived in and rose but once. Either he was seized with a cramp or was, stunned by a blow on the head. He was unable to grasp an oar thrown to him and sank before his wife’s eyes in thirty feet of water By the time the body was recovered life was extinct although military surgeons from the near by hospital worked over it for four hours. He was buried September 11, on the top of a hill near the village of Hakone, the coffin decked with Japanese and American flags and covered with flowers, among them a cross sent by Japanese veterans to whom he had endeared himself. The Episcopal service was read and two of Professor Griffin’s favorite hymns sung, one of them a portion of Whitter’s “The Eternal Goodness” containing the stanza,

“I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air,
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”

Although there is no present palliative for the sense of loss both to his friends and to the world of learning, the memory of Charles Griffin will long remain a grateful inspiration to those who knew him well. His career, though brief, brings honor to his parents, his native city, his alma mater and his state. W.H.C.

 

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Joseph Adna Hill
(b. May 5, 1860, Stewartstown, New Hampshire; d. December 12, 1938 in Washington, D.C.)

Passport application: September 1889. Permanent residence at Temple in New Hampshire, occupation: student. About to go abroad temporarily, to return within three years.

1892 Ph.D. Dissertation

Joseph Anna Hill. Das “Interstate Commerce”-Gesetz in den Vereinigten Staaten. Halle a.S : Frommannsche Buch dr. in Jena, 1892.

1894 translation of Cohn’s History of Political Economy

Gustav Cohn. A History of Political Economy, translated by Joseph Adna Hill. Published as a Supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1894. [Volume One, Book One, Chapter Three, pp. 91-181 of Cohn’s System der Nationalökonomie, 2 vols. pp. 649 and 796. Stuttgart, 1885.]

 Taught Professor Dunbar’s course in 1896

[Economics] 82. Dr. J. A. Hill.—History of Financial Legislation in the United States. Hf. 2 hours, 2d half-year

Total 64: 5 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 18 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 4 Law, 9 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1895-1896, p. 64.

Dr. Joseph Adna Hill, Census Bureau Aide, Dies Here at 78
Held Post of Chief Statistician of Research Division Since 1933

Dr. Joseph Adna Hill, 78, chief statistician of the Division of Statistical Research, Census Bureau, died last night of a heart attack at his home 1826 Irving street N.W. Dr. Hill had been engaged in statistical work at the bureau since 1898. He was named chief statistician of a division there in 1909. In 1921 he was appointed assistant director of the 14th census, and in 1930 was made assistant director for the 15th census. He had been chief statistician of the Division of Statistical Research since 1933. He was chairman of the committee appointed by the Secretaries of State, Commerce and Labor to determine immigration quotas.

Dr. Hill was an uncle of Gen. John Philip Hill, former Representative from Maryland and former United States district attorney of that State, who lives here at the Army and Navy Club. Other survivors include a brother, the Rev. Dr. Bancroft Hill of Vassar College and two other nephews. Dr. Eben Clayton Hill, Baltimore physician, and Bancroft Hill, president of the Baltimore Transit Co. Dr. Hill was unmarried.

Secured Ph.D. in Germany.

Born in Stewartstown, N. H., Dr. Hill was a son of the late Rev. Dr. Joseph Bancroft Hill and the late Mrs. Harriet Brown Hill. He prepared for Harvard University at Exeter Academy. He was graduated with an A. B. from Harvard in 1885, received an M.A. degree there in 1887 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Halle, Germany, in 1892. He lectured at the University of Pennsylvania in 1893 and was an instructor at Harvard University in 1895.

Last year Dr. Hill represented this country at a statistical conference in Athens. Greece. Prominently identified with many organizations, Dr. Hill was a member of the American Economic Association. the American Statistical Association, serving the latter as president in 1919, and the International Statistical Institute. He also belonged to the Cosmos Club here, the Harvard Club of New York and the Harvard Club of Boston.

Active as Harvard Alumnus.

Dr. Hill had continually maintained an active interest in Harvard University, where his father was graduated in 1821 and his grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Ebenezer Hill, was graduated there in 1786. Dr. Hill was a cousin of the historian and diplomat, George Bancroft, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Polk.

Active as a writer, Dr. Hill was author of the “English Income Tax,” 1899; “Women in Gainful Occupations,” 1929, and had contributed to economic journals and prepared census reports on illiteracy, child labor, marriage and divorce, etc. Dr. Hill formerly lived at No. 8 Logan Circle, until moving, a short while ago, to his Irving street home.

Funeral arrangements were to be announced later.

Source: Evening Star, Washington, D.C. December 13, 1938, page 10.

 

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Willian Lyon Mackenzie King
(b. Dec. 17, 1874 in Berlin, Ontario; d. July 22, 1950 at Kingsmere, Quebec )

A.B. University of Toronto, 1895; LL.B. University of Toronto, 1896; A.M. University of Toronto, 1897; A.M. Harvard University, 1898.

Harvard Ph.D. Thesis title (1909): Oriental immigration to Canada. Pub. in “Report of the royal commission appointed to inquire into the methods by which Oriental labourers have been induced to come to Canada,” Ottawa, Government Printing Bureau, 1908, pp. 13-81.

 

1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948. Prime Minister of Canada.

Industry and humanity: a study in the principles underlying industrial reconstruction (Toronto, 1918) was King’s report to the Rockefeller Foundation.

Image Source: “William Lyon Mackenzie King” in Wikipedia.

 

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Herbert Camp Marshall
(b. March 8, 1871 at Zanesville, OH; d. May 22, 1953, Washington, DC)

A.B. Ohio Wesleyan University, 1891; A.B. Harvard University, 1894; A.M. Harvard University, 1895.

Harvard 1901 Ph.D. thesis title: The currency and the movement of prices in the United States from 1860 to 1880.

A Later Publication

Herbert C. Marshall, Specialist in Economic Research, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Retail marketing of meats : agencies of distribution, methods of merchandising, and operating expenses and profits.  U. S. Department of Agriculture. Department Bulletin No. 1317 (June, 1925).

Obituary
The Times Recorder (Zanesville, OH)
May 25, 1953

Dr. Marshall Succumbs Friday

Dr. Herbert C. Marshall, 83, retired economist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, died Friday at his home in Washington, D.C. He was a native of Muskingum county.

Dr. Marshall, a brother of Carrington T. Marshall of Columbus, a former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme court, and of Charles O. Marshall of Pleasant Valley, was born in Falls township and was a graduate of Zanesville high school.

He also was graduated from Ohio Wesleyan university and received several degrees from Harvard.

He spent his boyhood in Muskingum county but had not resided in the area since that time.

He practiced law in New York city until 1916, when he Joined the federal department of agriculture, a post he held until he retired in 1941.

He was a member of the New York Bar association, the American Economics society, Phi Beta Kappa, the Harvard club of Washington and the Cosmos club of Washington.

His wife, the former Mary Emma Griffith, died in 1925.

In addition to Carrington and Charles O. Marshall, he is survived by another brother, Leon C. Marshall, of Chevy Chase, Md., and a daughter, Miss Eleanor Marshall of Washington.

Funeral services will take place in Washington but burial will be in the Bethlehem cemetery between Pleasant Valley and the Newark road.

 

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Charles Whitney Mixter
(b. Sept. 23, 1869 in Chelsea, MA; d. Oct. 21, 1936 in Washington, D.C.)

A.B. Johns Hopkins University (Md.), 1892; A.M. Harvard University, 1893.

1897 Harvard Ph.D.

Thesis title: Overproduction and overaccumulation: a study in the history of economic theory.

Edited Work

John Rae. The Sociological Theory of Capital, being a complete reprint of the New Principles of Political Economy, 1834. Edited with biographical sketch and notes by Charles Whitney Mixter, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Vermont. New York: Macmillan, 1905.

OBITUARY
The Burlington Free Press (Oct. 22, 1936), p. 14

Charles Whitney Mixter, for nine years a member of the University of Vermont faculty, died at a hospital in Washington, D. C., on Tuesday evening. [October 20]

Dr. Mixter was born in Chelsea, Mass., in 1867. He received his early education at Thayer Academy and Williston Seminary, and received his A.B. degree from John Hopkins University in 1892.

This was followed by graduate studies at Berlin, Goettingen and Harvard, from which he received his doctorate in 1897. Then followed a series of teaching positions: Assistant in economics at Harvard, 1897-98; Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., 1899-1900; instructor in economics, Harvard, 1901-1903; professor of economics, University of Vermont, 1903-1912.

Then Dr. Mixter served as efficiency expert for Towne and Yale at New Haven, Conn., and later for several manufacturing concerns in New Hampshire. For a year he was professor of economics at Clark University, and for a brief period he was an investigator in the service of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

For the last 13 years he had been connected with the tariff commission in Washington.

Professor Mixter had an unusually fertile mind, was an accomplished scholar in his special field, and widely read in related subjects. he became an enthusiastic student of scientific management introduced by the late Frederick W. Taylor and an active exponent of the system. He was a member of the leading economic organizations and a frequent contributor to economic journals.

He was a strong advocate of free trade. Interment was made in Plymouth, Mass.

 

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Simon Newton Dexter North
(b. Nov. 29, 1848 in Clinton, NY; d. Aug. 3, 1924 in Wilton, CT)

S. N. D. North. Old Greek: An Old Time Professor in an Old Fashioned College. New York, 1905.  The story of his father Edward North, Professor of Ancient Languages in Hamilton.

Obituary, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)
August 4, 1924, p. 7.

SIMON D. NORTH, EX-OFFICIAL DIES
Former Director of Census Succumbs in Summer Home in Connecticut.

Word was received here last night of the death in Wilton, Conn., of S. N. D. North, former director of the United States Census Bureau and a resident of this city for more than 25 years. Mr. North was accustomed to going to Connecticut each summer, and, with his wife, Mrs. Lillian Comstock North, he was spending the summer there. He lived at 2852 Ontario road here.

Mr. North first came to this city as chief statistician of manufacturers for the twelfth census, and in 1903 he was made director of the census. He had been prominently connected with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with headquarters here, since that organization’s foundation.

Born at Clinton, N. Y.

Simon Newton Dexter North was born in Clinton, N. Y., November 29. 1849. He was the son of Dr. Edward and Mrs. Mary F. Dexter North. He was graduated from Hamilton College in 1869 and received an LL.D. degree from Bowdoin in 1902 and later the same degree from the University of Illinois in 1904. He was married to Miss Lillian Sill Comstock of Rome. N. Y., July 8, 1875.

He was a prominent newspaper man and was well known in journalistic circles. He was editor of the Utica Morning Herald from 1869 to 1886 and the Albany (N. Y.) Express from 1886 to 1888. He also was prominently connected with business organizations, having been secretary of the National Association of Woolen Manufacturers at Boston and editor of that organization’s quarterly bulletin from 1888 to 1903. He also had served as a member of the United States Industrial Commission and as president of the New York State Associated Press.

Wrote Many Pamphlets.

Mr. North was a member of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Cosmos Club and the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity of New York. He also was editor of several historical magazines, of industrial publications and numerous memoirs and pamphlets. Outstanding among these were his works, “An American Textile Glossary” and “A History of American Wool Manufacture.” In addition to this, he wrote many pamphlets and delivered lectures on economics. He was for many years a member of the board of trustees of the National Geographic Society.

Besides his wife, he is survived by a son, Dexter North of the United States Tariff Commission, and two daughters, Mrs. Eloise C. Jenks of Philadelphia and Miss Gladys North. No definite arrangements have been made for the funeral, but interment will be in Clinton, N. Y.

 

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Randolph Paine
(b. Nov 3 November 1873 in Denton, TX; d. June 13, 1937 in Dallas TX)

Harvard A.B. 1898; Harvard LL.B. 1901

1900 U.S. Census.

Randolph Paine: Born Nov 1873 in Texas. Residing in Cambridge, Mass

Harvard Law School.  

Paine, Randolph, A.B. 1898, Denton, Tex. 32 Mellen St.

Source:  Harvard University Catalogue 1898/1899, p. 130.

1910 U.S. Census.

Randolph Paine:  36 years old, born in Texas. Attorney. Living in Dallas, Texas. Wife Maude

Obituary
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, TX) June 14, 1937, p. 5

Former Denton Man Dies in Dallas

Randolph Paine, 63, veteran Dallas attorney, who was born in Denton in 1873, died in a Dallas hospital Sunday after a brief illness. He had retired from active law practice four years ago…Surviving Paine are his widow and three sons, Dr. John R. Paine of Minneapolis; Henry C. Paine and Roswell Paine, both of Dallas.

 

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Charles Edward Seaman
(b. Oct. 4, 1866 in Picton, Canada; d. Aug. 19, 1937 in Los Angeles)

A.B. 1892, Acadia. A.B. 1895 and A.M. 1896 Harvard.

University of Vermont

Officers of Instruction and Government, 1901. Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law. University of Vermont.  p. 33.

Instructor:  1900-01 of Political Economy and Constitutional Law. University of Vermont., p. 21

Source: General Catalogue of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College. 1791-1900.

 

Ariel vol. 17 (1904) University of Vermont yearbook

Charles Edward Seaman, A.M., 49 Williams St. Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law, 1901; and Dean of the Department of Commerce and Economics. Instructor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law, 1900-01.

Declaration of Intention for Naturalization.
Los Angeles County. 18 September 1908.

Charles Edward Seaman aged 41 years, occupation retired. Born in Picton, Canada on 4th day of October 1866. Residing at 2151 Harvard Blvd, Los Angeles.

Married into a wealthy Indiana family

Charles Edward Seaman and Florence Leyden DePauw married 10 Sept 1902 in Marion, Indiana.

From obituary [ Los Angeles Express, Apr. 2, 1913] for wife’s mother (Frances Marion DePauw, widow of Washington Charles DePauw who endowed DePauw university at Greencastle, Ind.): “Mrs. DePauw is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Charles Edward Seaman, 2151 Harvard boulevard, whose husband formerly held the chair of economics in the University of Vermont.

1913 Harvard University Alumni directory

Charles Edward Seaman, 2151 Harvard Blvd. Los Angels, CA.

Obituary
August 19, 1937. The Los Angeles Times, p. 42

Seaman. August 19, Charles Edward Seaman, beloved husband of Florence De Pauw Seaman and loving father of Mrs. William D. Witherspoon and Mrs. James H. Meriwether. Services at the residence, 2151 South Harvard Boulevard, Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Mid-year and Final Exams for all three courses in Political Economy. Laughlin and Dunbar, 1879-80

 

All you could learn in political economy at Harvard in 1880 was packed into four semesters (two full courses). The core textbook was John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Economics. This post provides enrollment data together with the mid-year and course final examinations for Political Economy 1, 2, and 3. What makes this post particularly interesting is that the relevant sections or pages of Mill’s Principles are cited along with the examination questions. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has added links to those items below.

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Actually only two distinct political economy courses offered in 1879-80

From the following note in the annual Harvard course catalogue we see that Political Economy 1 only offered a “lite” version of Political Economy 2. “Courses 1 and 2 cannot be taken together, nor can either be taken by any student who has taken the other”; “Course 3 is open to those only who have passed satisfactorily in Course 2.” The Harvard University Catalogue (1879-1880), p. 84.

An important guest lecturer at Harvard in 1879-80:

Besides prescribed and elective courses for credit, Harvard offered opportunities for “voluntary instruction”:  In 1879-80 Professor Simon Newcomb gave three public lectures on Political Economy.

Source: The Harvard University Catalogue (1879-1880), p. 90.

The John Stuart Mill textbook of Harvard choice

Most likely edition of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy used at Harvard was a New York reprint of the London 5th edition. It corresponds to the pages given for the mid-year exam in Political Economy 1.

“From the fifth London edition” 2v. New York: D. Appleton, 1868.

_________________________

Political Economy 1

Enrollments and Text
Political Economy 1
1879-80

Political Economy 1. Dr. Laughlin and Prof. Dunbar. (partial Course.) — Selections from Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — 1 Section; 2 Exercises per week for Students; 2 Exercises per week for Instructors.

Total 21: 7 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 1 Law.

Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1879-80, page 56.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-Year Examination
1879-80

  1. Comment on the following: “The cry was constantly — I know it myself from my intimate acquaintance with the large manufacturers and the small manufacturers too — that every one of them needed more currency than they had. They had capital, but could not get that which enabled them to pay off their hands…The manufacturers need a currency which will enable them to pay their weekly and daily debts.” — Cong. Record, April 7, 1874.
  2. State some of the objections made to Malthus’ Law of Population. (I. 439-40)
  3. Give the law of value regulating manufactured products. (I. 560) How far are such products affected by the Law of Diminishing Returns? (I. 238)
  4. State the argument for or against the common saying “wages are high when trade is good.” (I. 421)
  5. In what way can an increase of Population affect the Cost of Labor to the Capitalist?
  6. Define clearly Value, Price, Real Wages, and Cost of Production.
  7. Describe the offices which are performed by Money. (B. III., ch. vii.)
  8. What is to be said to the following: “Some political economists have objected altogether to the statement that the value of money depends on its quantity combined with the rapidity of circulation; which, they think, is assuming a law for money that does not exist for any other commodity.” (II. p. 43)
  9. What effect had the discovery of gold in this century upon the coinage of the United States?
  10. What circumstances led to the establishment of the Bank of Amsterdam and of the Bank of England respectively?
  11. What changes would be made in the subjoined accounts by,
    1. the deposit of £1,200,000;
    2. the sale of £2,000,000 of government security;
    3. new loans amounting to £3,000,000;
    4. repayment of £750,000 of loans.
  12. If the Bank of England announces an increase of its rate of discount, what is to be inferred as to the cause of this step and its probable effect?

November 12, 1857.

Issue Department.
Notes Issued £21.1 Government Securities £14.5
Coin and Bullion £6.6
£21.1 £21.1

 

Banking Department
Capital £14.5 Government Securities £9.4
Rest £3.4 Other Securities £26.1
Public Deposits £5.3 Notes
Coins		 £1.4
Other £12.9
7-day Bills £0.8
£36.9 £36.9

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Mid-Year Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 11-12.

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-End Examination
1879-80

[Let the answers be given in their proper order]

  1. “If there are human beings capable of work, and food to feed them, they may always be employed in producing something.” (Book I., ch. v., §3.)
  2. When the growth of population outstrips the progress of improvements, what are the means of relief for the laborer? (Book I., ch. xiii., §3.)
  3. What is the reason why land-owners can demand rent? (Book II., ch. xvi., §1.)
  4. State the law of the value of money which governs general prices. What change is to be made in the statement, if credit is to be taken into consideration? (Book III., ch. vii., §§3, 4.)
  5. On what does the desire to use credit depend? What connection exists between the amount of notes and coin in circulation and the use of credit? (Book III., ch. xii., §8.)
  6. In what consists the benefit of international exchange? (Book III., ch. xvii., §3.) State the Law of International values. (Book III., ch. xviii., §4.)
  7. What is the effect of a depreciated currency on (1) foreign trade, and (2) the exchanges? (Book III., ch. xxii., §3.)
  8. Why should a tax on profits, if no improvements follow, fall on the laborer and capitalist? (Book V., ch. iii., §3.)
  9. What effect is produced on prices, profit, and rent by the removal of a tithe? (Book V., ch. iv., §4.)
  10. On whom does a tax on imports generally fall? (Book V., ch. iv., §6.)
  11. Give a history of the circumstances under which the first Legal Tender Act was passed. When were the other acts passed?
  12. Describe the following: (1) national bank-note; (2) five-twenty; (3) seven-thirty; (4) compound interest note; (5) certificate of indebtedness; (6) subsidiary silver coinage; (7) national bank reserve; (8) Resumption Act (briefly).

 

Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Annual Examinations, 1879-80, p. 12.

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Political Economy 2
1879-80

Enrollments and Text
Political Economy 2
1879-80

Political Economy 2. Prof. Dunbar. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Financial Legislation of the United States. — Lectures. — 2 Sections; 3 Exercises per week for Students; 6 Exercises per week for Instructors.

Total 108: 10 Seniors, 83 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 2 Unmatriculated.

Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1879-80, page 56.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-Year Examination
1879-80

  1. State once more and with care the reason for the following proposition: —
    “There is a distinction, more important to the wealth of a community than even that between productive and unproductive labor; — the distinction, namely, between labor for the supply of productive, and for the supply of unproductive, consumption.”
  2. What is the argument for Dr. Chalmers’s opinion that funds required for public unproductive expenditures should be raised by taxes and not by loans, and what cases are to be excepted from his reasoning?
  3. What conclusion as to the limit to the increase of production, does Mr. Mill deduce from his investigation of the laws of the increase of labor, capital and land?
  4. Why are the wages of women generally lower than those of men?
  5. Show carefully the distinction between wages, cost of labor and cost of production.
  6. Define natural value and market value and show what determines them respectively, distinguishing between the three classes into which Mr. Mill divides commodities.
  7. What effect may the great durability of gold and silver have upon the value of money at any given time?
  8. What effect has a general rise of wages upon the values of commodities?
  9. How is it shown that rent forms no part of the cost of production?
  10. The silver dollar contains 412 ½ grains of standard silver, but a dollar of silver change contains only 384 grains. On what theory is this difference of weight made?
  11. What difference has the Act of 1844, known as Peel’s act, made as to the convertibility of the notes of the Bank of England?
  12. If a serious drain of money from England, e.g., to this country, takes place, what steps will the Bank of England take, and what effect is likely to be produced on its account?
    If more convenient, this may be illustrated by using the following account: —
Issue Department.
Notes Issued £36.5 Government Securities £15.0
Coin and Bullion £21.5
£36.5 £36.5

 

Banking Department
Capital £14.5 Government Securities £16.0
Rest £3.2 Other Securities £22.0
Public Deposits £7.6 Notes
Coins

£8.0

£1.1
Other £21.5
7-day Bills £0.3
£47.1 £47.1

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Mid-Year Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 12-13.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end Examination
1879-80

[Let the answers stand in your book in their proper order
Take TEN QUESTIONS, including 6, 8, 11, 12 and 13.]

  1. Why is it that “ceteris paribus, those trades are generally the worst paid, in which the wife and children of the artisan aid in the work?” (Book II., ch. xiv., §4.)
  2. If the general rate of profit falls, how will the value of commodities made by hand be affected in comparison with those made by machinery? (Book III., ch. iv., §5.)
  3. “Another of the fallacies from which the advocates of an inconvertible currency derive support, is the notion that an increase of the currency quickens industry.” (Book III., ch. xiii., §4.)
  4. Why is it that in international trade “a thing may sometimes be sold cheapest, by being produced in some other place than that at which it can be produced with the smallest amount of labor and abstinence?” (Book III., ch. xvii. §1.)
  5. What determines the values at which a country exchanges its produce with foreign countries? (Book III., ch. xviii., §8.)
  6. Suppose that a country whose exports have hitherto balanced her imports, makes an improvement which cheapens one of her articles of export, e.g. cloth. Will money flow into or out of the country? Will foreign or domestic consumers of cloth obtain the greater advantage of its cheapness? Give the reasoning on which your answers depend. (Book III., Chap. xxi., §2.)
  7. What effect does an annual payment of interest to foreign creditors have upon the imports and exports of a country? Will interest “payable in gold” necessarily cause gold to be sent out of the country? Why, or why not? (Book III., Chap. xxi., §4.)
  8. How do taxes on agricultural produce, e.g. tithes, affect landlords, farmers, and consumers, respectively, —
    1. when first laid on?
    2. when of long standing? (Book V., ch. iv. §5.)
  9. What are the arguments for and against an income tax? (Book V., ch. iii., §5.)
  10. Discuss the reasons for and against maintaining a surplus revenue for the extinction of national debt. (Book V., ch. vii. §2.)
  11. Explain the changes in the amount of greenbacks outstanding, beginning with February, 1868.
  12. State briefly the history of our gold and silver coinage, as found in the coinage acts of 1792, 1834, 1853, 1873, and 1878.
    The silver dollar contains 371 ¼ grains of silver.
  13. To what extent is the national banknote a legal tender? in what is it payable? what provision is made for its redemption? and what security is there for its ultimate payment?

 

Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Annual Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 13-14.

_________________________

Political Economy 3
1879-80

Enrollments and Texts
Political Economy 3
1879-80

Political Economy 3. Prof. Dunbar. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — MacLeod’s Elements of Banking. — Bastiat’s Harmonies Économiques. — 1 Section; 3 Exercises per week for Students; 3 Exercises per week for Instructors.

Total 24: 24 Seniors.

Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1879-80, page 56.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-Year Examination
1879-80

  1. Give a careful and logical summary of the laws determining the values of all commodities, monopolized or free, domestic or foreign, using the corrected definition of Cost of Production. [Forty minutes.]
  2. In the case of accessory products, as, e.g. wool and mutton, what determines their normal values respectively, and what determines the course of their respective values as time goes on?
  3. In his enumeration of the causes which determine the Wages Fund, Mr. Cairnes finds himself obliged to include the rate of wages. How does he avoid the charge of reasoning in a circle?
  4. Comment on the following: —
    “The advocates of the wages-fund theory assume, first, that the capital of a country is a fixed quantity, and that the capital employed in industry is a fixed proportion of this quantity; and, secondly, that wages are paid out of that proportion of capital which is set apart for industry. Both of these propositions, in my opinion, are erroneous.
    “With regard to the first…there is no fact in Economic Science so well established as this, that capital follows profits….Capital is always forthcoming wherever there are prospects of large profits….The capital of a country, therefore, is not a fixed quantity, for if its credit is good, and sufficient inducements are offered in the shape of interest, it can readily borrow whatever it wants. For the same reason the capital employed in industry Is not a fixed quantity, and varies, not in proportion to the gross amount in the country, but in proportion to the profitableness of the industry of that country.
    “With regard to the second proposition…This is true to a limited extent only. No doubt a certain amount of capital is required for the payment of wages, just as a certain amount of capital is necessary for the purchase of raw material. There is this essential difference between the two cases, however, that while raw material is paid for (in cash or bills) before being used, wages are not paid till they have been earned….The employé, in fact, stands to his employer in the relation of a capitalist who advances him the use of his services, which services are ultimately paid for, not out of a wages-fund, but out of the produce of the services themselves.” (Outlines of an Industrial Science: by David Syme. p. 138.)
  5. Give a careful but briefly stated outline (as if written for a rather elaborate Table of Contents) of Mr. Cairnes’s reasoning as to the relations existing between the demand for commodities and the wages fund, and between prices and money-wages.
  6. What is meant by the “comparative costs of production,” on which international values are said to depend; and how is that dependence to be reconciled with the fact that any given sale of goods is found to be an independent transaction, determined by the price of the commodity.
  7. What reasoning led Mr. Cairnes in 1873 to look for a fall of prices in this country, and for possible commercial crises?
  8. What is Mr. Cairnes’s reason for believing that, in the United States, protection is not needed to secure diversity of industries?
  9. If the common saying that “the value of gold is the same all the world over” has no foundation, how does a supply of new gold distribute itself over all countries and over all commodities in each country.
  10. Stafford; Colbert; Sir J. Stewart; Quesnay.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Mid-Year Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 13-14.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Year-End Examination
1879-80

  1. Professor Cairnes says that “the notion which prevails both here and in the United States, that the high rate of general wages obtaining in each country is a hindrance to the extension of its foreign trade, must be pronounced to be absolutely without foundation.”
    By what reasoning this this conclusion supported?
  2. How much truth is there in the maxim that “the value of gold is and must be the same all the world over”?
  3. A few years ago an American writer said, —
    “We will be able to resume specie payments when we cease to rank among the debtor nations, when our national debt is owed to our own people, and when our industry is adequate to the supply of the nation’s need of manufactured goods.”
    With what degree of justice can this be treated as a prediction verified by the events?
  4. Sherman says, —
    “During the last four years the value of our exports of merchandise has exceeded the value of our imports of merchandise $753,271,475. The excess of exports has heretofore been mainly met by the remittance to this country of American securities, but the time appears to have come when the balance of trade in our favor is to be adjusted by means of the precious metals.” — (Finance Report for 1879, p. xxxi.)
  5. It is becoming a serious problem what (English) agriculturists are to do. They will not get rents much lowered in a hurry, for land still commands a high value in the market, and is difficult to be got at all except under special circumstances. Large proprietors would rather cultivate their own land at a loss than submit to a reduction of rent telling on its value.” — (London Times, May, 1880.)
  6. Criticising Professor Cairnes’s reply to M. Alby, Sir Anthony Musgrave remarks,—
    “It is precisely because in no country are all industries equally favored by nature that Mr. Cairnes’s objection fails…. It is exactly because the favored industry in any nation requires no assistance, that it can assist the industries not so fortunate….Suppose that the high price secured by protection is rendered necessary by the onerous conditions under which native industry is tempted to work; suppose that Frenchmen, as Mr. Cairnes says are encouraged to produce iron from ores of inferior quality by the high price secured to them — what has happened? Useful iron has been extracted from ores which would have otherwise have been wasted; employment has been afforded to many who might otherwise have been idle for want of occupation; people have been fed who would otherwise have starved and as a set-off to this, some others have been obliged to smoke fewer cigars and drink less wine than they would have had money to purchase, if they had not been compelled to spend it in iron. In the absence of protection “they,” we are told,” would obtain their iron on more favorable terms at a smaller sacrifice of labor and abstinence by exchanging for it their wines and silks with England.”…Whose labor? and abstinence from what? Unfortunately the persons who have the wine and silk are not those who want the iron. The truth is, we do not want to save labor — we want to find wholesome and remunerative employment for paupers. And if the sacrifice of “abstinence” only means, as I believe it does, that riches will not accumulate so fast in the hands of capitalists — that the employers of labor will have to forego some luxuries that they may give higher wages to the laborers, and that the comforts of life may be thus more equally distributed — I cannot see much objection to this.” — (Contemporary Review, January, 1877.)
  7. “Ever half year we see summaries in the newspapers shewing that the Joint Stock Banks have in the aggregate perhaps $200,000,000 of deposits, and it is supposed that they have that quantity of money to trade with. But it is a complete and entire delusion.”
  8. How does discounting differ from the cash credit system, long practiced by the Scotch banks?
  9. State and explain Bastiat’s law of value.
  10. What is the reasoning in support of the following? —
    “A mesure que les capitaux s’accroissent, la part absolue des capitalistes dans les produits totaux augmente et leur part relative Au contraire, les travailleurs voient augmenter leur part dans les deux sens.”
  11. What is Bastiat’s theory of the value of land, and how is it reconciled with the value attaching to natural fertility?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Annual Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 14-15.

Image Source: Charles F. Dunbar photographed by William Notman. Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final exams for international payments and specie flows. Dunbar and Meyer, 1894,1901

 

At Harvard around the turn of the twentieth century, international economics was taught as a sequence of two semester courses—one on the subject of trade and tariffs and one on payments and international financial flows, especially specie flows. This post provides enrollment data and final exam questions for the international payments course taught, respectively, by Charles Dunbar and later by Hugo Richard Meyer.

 

______________________

Course enrollments

1893-94

[Economics] 122. Professor Dunbar.—International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 38: 12 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-1894, p. 62.

[Not offered 1894-95; 1895-96]

1896-97

[Economics] 122. Professor Dunbar and Mr. Meyer.—International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals. Hf. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 20: 9 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1896-1897, p. 66.

[Not offered 1897-1898; 1898-1899; 1899-1900]

1900-01

[Economics] 12a1 hf. Mr. Meyer.—International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals.

Total 16: 2 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1900-1901, p. 64.

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1893-94
ECONOMICS 122.

  1. Goschen says that while a gold currency existed on both sides of the Atlantic the actual par of exchange between New York and London was about 109. What is the explanation of this method of stating the point of equilibrium?
  2. Is Clare justified in making the general statement that “the gold-points mark the highest level to which an exchange may rise, and the lowest to which it may fall?”
  3. What effect would the current rate of interest (as e.g. in a tight money market, either in the drawing or in the accepting country,) have on the rates for sixty-day bills as compared with cash bills?
  4. Clare makes the remark that “as the rate of exchange between two countries…must be fixed by the one who draws and negotiates the bill, it follows that the exchanges between England and most other countries are controlled from the other side, and that we in London have scarcely part or say in the matter.” Is the rate then a matter of indifference to those in London?
  5. Why is it that in certain trades bills are drawn chiefly, or even exclusively, in one direction, as g. by New York on London and not vice versa; and how is this practice made to answer the purpose of settling payments, which have to be made in one direction as well as the other?
  6. Goschen says that the primary cause which makes England the great banking centre of the world is “the stupendous and never-ceasing exports of England, which have for their effect that every country I the world, being in constant receipt of English manufactures, is under the necessity of making remittances to pay for them, either in bullion, in produce, or in bills.”
    Compare this statement with the fact that for ten years past the imports of merchandise into England have averaged about £400,000,000 annually, and the exports from England have averaged a little under £300,000,000.
  7. Suppose the exportation of specie from the United States to be prohibited (or, as has sometimes been suggested, to be slightly hindered,) what would be the effect on rates of exchange, and on prices of goods, either domestic or foreign? Would the country be a loser or not? [See Ricardo (McCulloch’s ed.) p. 139.]
  8. State Mr. Cairnes’s general doctrine as to the movement of prices which determines the normal flow of new supplies of gold from one country to another in the process of distribution over the commercial world.
  9. Cairnes argues that, as the effect of the cheapening of gold, “each country will endure a loss;” but that in particular cases “the primary loss may…be compensated, or even converted into a positive gain.” State and discuss the reasoning on which this proposition rests.
  10. Say, in his Report on the Indemnity, says:—
    La France a, en réalité, (1) fait passer à l’étranger le plus de capitaux possible, en prenant tous les changes qu’elle pouvait acquérir sur quelque pays que ce fût, et (2) a ensuite dirigé sur l’Allemagne tout ce qu’elle avait approvisionné ailleurs.

    1. What reason was there why France should prefer the course described in (1) rather than a direct transfer to Germany?
    2. What movements of trade or capital, of any sort, made the course described in (1) possible or easy?
    3. What movements of the same nature made (2) possible, or enable Germany to absorb the capital thus turned towards her?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. On either of the following topics, give an orderly and concise statement, as complete as you can make it in thirty minutes:—
    1. Sidgwick’s criticisms on Mill’s doctrine of international trade and their validity.
    2. The supply and distribution of the new gold from the United States and Australia, 1858-70.
    3. The action of the new gold in the banking countries.
    4. The absorption of new gold by the currency of France and the foreign trade of that country.
    5. The reasons for the varying ability of India to absorb silver?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Final examinations, 1853-2001. Box 2, Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 44-46.

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1900-01
ECONOMICS 12a1.
Mid-Year. 1901.

Observe strictly the order in which the questions are arranged.

  1. Sidgwick’s criticisms on Mill’s doctrine of international trade and their validity.
  2. What temporary changes in the general level of prices in this country should you expect to see, as the result of a large permanent withdrawal of foreign capital? What ultimate change of prices should you expect?
  3. Suppose the exportation of specie from the United States to be prohibited (or, as has sometimes been suggested, to be slightly hindered), what would be the effect on rates of exchange, and on prices of goods, either domestic or foreign? Would the country be a loser or not? [See Ricardo (McCulloch’s ed.), page 139.]
  4. The conditions which led to the flow of gold to the United States in the fiscal years 1880 and 1881?
  5. What economic conditions or events tended to make the year 1890 a turning point both in domestic and in international finance?

Alternative:

The reasons for the return flow from Europe of American securities in the years 1890-1900?

  1. What sort of wealth did France actually sacrifice in paying the indemnity? What was the process?
  2. Is Mr. Clare justified in making the general statement that “the gold-points mark the highest level to which an exchange may rise, and the lowest to which it may fall”?
  3. Why is it that certain trades bills are drawn chiefly, or even exclusively, in one direction, e.g. by New York on London and not vice versa; and how is this practice made to answer the purpose of settling payments which have to be made in one direction?

Alternative:

Why has England become the natural clearing-house for the world?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, Mid-Years: 1900-1901 (HUC 7000.55).

Image source: Harvard Gate, ca. 1899. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.