A copy of this report written by economics professors Charles J. Bullock and Thomas N. Carver is found in the papers of Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell. The report itself is undated but a comparison with the course catalogues for the period 1909-1914 shows almost a perfect fit for the course staffing in the academic year 1910-11.
Harvard-wide courses were divided into three groups:
Courses primarily for Undergraduates (lower group);
Courses for Undergraduates and Graduates (middle group);
Courses primarily for Graduates (upper group).
In the 1912-13 Announcements of the Courses of Instruction, the recommendations of the committee were implemented to limit undergraduate access to the upper group of courses: only after a “special vote of the Department” or for undergraduate senior “candidates for the degree with distinction” would undergraduate students be admitted to courses designated “primarily for Graduates”. The new course numbering beginning with 1912-13 does not match the ordering of courses given in the report.
Handwritten names added to the Report have been placed within square brackets “[…]”.
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REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE UPON COURSES OF INSTRUCTION
The Committee appointed at the last meeting of the Department to consider the courses of instruction in the Department of Economics, submits the following preliminary report as a basis for discussion at the next meeting of the Department:
The Committee recommends in the first place that there shall be hereafter a complete separation of the graduate and undergraduate courses. it seems to us that this can be done by adopting the principle that in undergraduate courses the work of the students is to be carefully supervised, and that in the graduate courses the students are to be thrown wholly upon their own resources and be tested only by the final examinations. This plan will enable the Department to concentrate its elementary instruction upon a smaller number of courses specially adapted to the needs of undergraduates, and will free the members from work of supervision in the courses offered for graduates.
It will not be inconsistent with this plan of separating graduate from undergraduate work to admit to the graduate courses undergraduates who are candidates for honors; and your Committee recommends that if the separation be effected this privilege be offered to undergraduates. The Department can safely assume that a candidate for honors in Economics can be trusted to pursue an advanced course without supervision, and can be treated precisely like a graduate student. Such an arrangement will prevent the proposed plan from reducing the opportunities offered to men of exceptional capacity and interest in economic study.
Nor will it be inconsistent with the plan to admit to the undergraduate courses graduate students whose previous training in economics has been deficient, provided such students be placed upon a somewhat different footing from undergraduates. Graduate students in the courses designed for undergraduates should not be subject to supervision, and should not be required to attend the weekly conferences or to take the weekly or fortnightly examinations. On the other hand they should be required to do somewhat more work than is expected from undergraduates; and this requirement might well take the form of a provision that such graduate students be required to do additional reading upon which one or two special questions will be set in the final examination. it would be possible also in the larger courses, where the instructor meets the class but twice a week, for him to have a fortnightly conference for the graduate students. This conference may be devoted to the discussion of the assigned reading. (Professor Carver suggests that this requirement might be made for candidates for the A. M. degree and not for candidates for the Ph. D. degree.)
If the separation of courses is effected, the Committee believes it desirable that hereafter the undergraduate courses should be considered a Department matter rather than a matter wholly under the control of the individual instructors. It seems to us that the Department should, in a general way, determine the scope and methods of the instruction offered, as well as the kind of examinations to be given in these courses. We also believe that there should be regular inspection of the work done in these courses. Inspection of the examination books is already provided for, but not carried out. In addition to this, we believe it is worth while for the Department to consider the desirability of securing inspection of the undergraduate courses by some competent person outside the Department.
There are two other matters which the Committee may later bring to the attention of the Department, but which need not be considered in connection with the proposed plan.
The first is the proposal to have instructors adopt hereafter a uniform system of lecture notes by which, if the Department ever cares to do so, it will be possible to make available to present and future members of the Department the notes used by instructors in giving the several courses. In this way the embers of the Department will gradually pool their experience; and whenever changes occur in the instructors conducting courses new men will have the benefit of the experience of their predecessors. Such a system would require not only uniform methods of keeping lecture notes, but uniform filing cards and filing cases.
The other matter is the question of whether the members of the Department can do more than is done at present in the direction of bringing students into direct contact with original sources of information. Something has already been done by books like Professor Dunbar’s Laws relating to Currency and Finance, and by Professor Ripley’s series of Selections and Documents. The Committee may desire later to raise the question whether, at least in our undergraduate courses, more systematic effort may not be made in this direction,
The Committee has examined our present list of courses with a view to determining which were best suited to the needs of undergraduates, and recommends that the following courses be hereafter offered in the undergraduate group:
- Economics I, as at present [Prof. Taussig.]
- The Economic History of England and the United States (the present Courses 6a and 6b) [Prof. Gay.]
- Money, Banking and Crises (the present Course 8) [Drs. Day & Huse]
- Public Finance (the present Courses 7a and 7b) [Prof. Bullock.]
- The Labor Problem and Socialism (the present Courses 9a and 14b) [Profs. Ripley & Carver.]
- Corporations and Railway Transportation (the present Courses 9b and 5) [Prof. Ripley.]
- Sociology (the present Course 3) [Prof Carver.]
- Accounting (the present Course 18) [Prof. Cole.]
- A course in Economic Theory (One suggestion is that this be a course in Classical English Economics. Professor Carver suggests a course in the Distribution of Wealth. The Committee confines itself to recommending one advanced course in Economic Theory for undergraduates. (the present Course 2) [Prof. Taussig.]
(Professor Carver would prefer to add to this list Economics 28, but the Committee merely raises this question, and makes no recommendation upon the point.)
With these courses placed in the undergraduate group, there would remain in our present offering a substantial amount of graduate instruction. The Committee suggests, but without making a definite recommendation, the following:
- Theories of Value and Distribution: with consideration of methods of economic investigation. Carver. (A consolidation of Courses 13 and 14a)
- Ripley.
- History of Economic Theory. Bullock. (In place of the one course, there could be offered two courses given in alternate years: the first covering the history of economics up to 1776; the other covering the period from 1776 to 1848, or even some later date.)
- French and German Economics. Gay. (The present Economics 22)
- Mediaeval Economic History. Gray. (The present Economics 10)
- Modern Economic History. Gay. (The present Economics 11)
- Economic History of Antiquity. Ferguson. (The present Economics 26) The committee recommends, however, that unless this course can be given next year, it shall be dropped from the Catalog.
- Economics of Agriculture. Carver. (The present economics 23, unless this be included in the list of courses offered undergraduates)
- Financial Aspects of Combinations. Dewing. (The present Economics 30)
- Bullock. (The present economics 16)
- Research Courses (20a, b, c, d, e ,f, g, h)
In addition to these courses, it may be possible to provide two or three new courses by members of our present staff, if additional assistants can be secured in the group of courses offered to undergraduates. Professor Taussig has expressed a desire sometime to undertake a course in International Trade. Then if the undergraduate courses in the Labor Problem and Socialism could be given by a new instructor, Professor Ripley would be free to offer another advanced course. But this matter, however, like some others, is obviously one that cannot be settled at the present time; and the Committee mentions it merely to point out the possibilities of its proposed plan.
Signed,
Charles J. Bullock
T. N. Carver
Source: Harvard University Archives. President Lowell’s Papers, 1909-1914, Box 15, Folder 410.
Image Source: Harvard Class Album 1915.