Political Economy was in the Harvard undergraduate program at least since 1825 when Levi Hedge included Jean Baptiste Say’s Treatise of Political Economy (a textbook that cost approximately $67 in 2021 prices) as part of the senior year course in the offerings of the department of moral philosophy, civil polity and political economy.
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DEPARTMENT OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, CIVIL POLITY, AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.
This is at present exclusively under the superintendence of Levi Hedge, LL. D., Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity.
Instruction in this branch is conducted through studies and recitations in Stewart’s Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind; Paley’s Moral Philosophy; Brown’s Philosophy of the Human Mind, abridged by Dr. Hedge; Say’s Political Economy; and Rawle on the Constitution of the United States.
These studies commence with the Junior year, in Stewart’s Elements; the first volume of which the Class finish about the middle of October. After this they enter upon Paley’s Moral Philosophy, which they finish usually by the end of the first term. After the end of the first term, the Juniors do not recite in these branches during that year.
Recitations are made in divisions, each consisting of one half the Class. About two thirds of each division are taken up for examination at each recitation.
Besides the above, the Juniors have a Forensic exercise, under the instruction of the Professor in this branch, every other week, on Friday; the Junior and Senior classes alternating weekly with each other in this exercise.
Recitations in this branch are heard six days in the week; one division immediately after prayers, and the other division immediately after the study bell (about 8 o’clock); an hour being occupied with each division.
The Forensic every other Friday occupies two hours.
ln the Senior year instruction in this branch is recommenced, with Brown’s Treatise on the Mind. Both volumes of this work are finished by the sixth or seventh week of the second term. The Class then enter upon Say’s Political Economy, which is finished by about the eighth week in the third term. Rawle on the Constitution then succeeds in the course, and with it instruction in this branch ceases.
Rawle is one of those studies, which are denominated “optional”; it being within the option of each individual to study this work, or Smellie’s Natural History with the instructor in that branch. In all the books used as studies in this department, about twelve pages constitute the average length of a lesson.
Besides the preceding, two lectures are delivered every week during the second term (on Mondays and Wednesdays, at 10 o’clock) one hour each, on Civil Polity and on Locke’s Essay on the Understanding.
The members of this Class also each deliver a Forensic every other week, alternating, as above stated, with the Juniors, weekly in this exercise.
Recitations are heard in this branch in the first term for two hours in the afternoon, five days in one week, and four days in the next week, and so alternately through the term; the afternoon of every alternate Friday being reserved for the Forensic.
In the second and third terms, this Class recite to the Professor one hour every day; the whole together, or six hours per week.
As it respects the time occupied by each student and the Professor, it is as follows:—
| In the Junior year a Forensic being delivered every other week, and forty weeks (viz. 15 in the first term, 12 in the second, and 13 in the third) constituting the business portion of the whole year, it follows that in this exercise both the student and Professor are occupied (2 x 20) during the year | 40 hours. |
| Each division being heard for one hour every day in the week for the first term, the time employed by each student is (6 x 15) | 90 hours. |
| The time occupied in the Junior year in this branch by the student is…. | 130 hours. |
| The Professor being occupied with each division one hour, that is, two hours with both, there is an occupation of (12 x 15) | 180 hours. |
| To which add the time occupied by him in Forensics | 40 hours. |
| The time occupied by the Professor of this branch with the Juniors is… | 220 hours. |
| The Seniors, in respect of time occupied in the Forensic exercise, coincide with the Juniors; there being employed in it, both for the student and for the Professor, | 40 hours. |
| In respect of time occupied by this Class in recitations in this branch, it is equal in the first term, as above stated, for the student, to (5 x 7½) for half the time of the term (15 weeks), or to | 37½ hours. |
| And (4 x 7½) for the other half, or to | 30 hours. |
| Constituting an occupation for the student, for the whole term, of | 67½ hours. |
| And double that time for the Professor, he hearing each day both divisions, | 135 hours. |
| In the second and third terms, this Class occupy the Professor six hours per week. In both terms there are 25 weeks; so that the time occupied by both student and Professor in these terms, in recitations, is (6 x 25) | 150 hours. |
| Besides which the lectures on Civil Polity and the writings of Locke, delivered in the second term to this Class, occupy two hours per week (2 x 12) |
24 hours. |
| So that the time occupied by the student in the Senior year in recitations, lectures, and all exercises in this branch is, as above stated, | |
| In Forensics | 40 hours. |
| In Recitations, the 1st term | 67 ½ hours. |
| In Recitations, 2d and 3d terms | 150 hours |
| And in Lectures | 24 hours. |
| The time occupied by the student | 281½ hours |
| And by the Professor, | |
| In Forensics with the Seniors, | 40 hours. |
| In Recitations, 1st term | 135 hours. |
| In Recitations, 2d and 3d terms | 150 hours. |
| In Lectures with 2d and 3d terms | 24 hours. |
| The time occupied by the Professor | 349 hours. |
| And the general result of the time occupied in all the exercises in this branch in the whole college course is, | |
| For the student in the Junior year | 130 hours. |
| For the student in the Senior year | 281 ½ hours. |
| Result of occupation of time, in recitations, lectures, and like exercises in this branch for each student | 411 ½ hours |
| And for the Professor with the Juniors | 220 hours. |
| And for the Professor with the Seniors | 349 hours. |
| Result of occupation, as above, for the Professor | 569 hours. |
Source: Fourth Annual Report of the President of Harvard University to the Overseers on the State of the Institution,1828-9. Appendix, p. ii-v.
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Book prices
Hedge’s Logick ($0.70), Paley’s Philosophy ($2,00), Brown’s Philosophy (Hedge’s ed., $3.60), Stewart’s Philosophy ($2,40), Say’s Political Economy ($2.40).
Harvard University. First Annual Report of the President of Harvard University to the Overseers on the State of the University, 1825-6 .p. 51.
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Text Links
Dugald Stewart. Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Vol. One (New York, 1818); Vol. Two (New York, 1818).
William Paley. The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. 10th American Edition, Boston: 1821.
Thomas Brown. Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Abridged by Levi Hedge. Vol. One (Cambridge: 1827); Vol. Two (Cambridge: 1827).
Jean-Baptiste Say. A Treatise on Political Economy (trans. C. R. Prinsep). Third American Edition. Philadelphia: 1827.
William Rawle. A View of the Constitution of the United States of America. Philadelphia: 1825.
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One student’s recollection
Dr. Levi Hedge gave a series of profitable talks on International Law, in the second half hour of his recitations in Political Economy. Probably in the senior year (1828-29) as reported in the recollection by Samuel F. Smith (Harvard, A.B., 1829).
Source: The Harvard graduates’ magazine. vol. 2 (1893-94), December, 1893, p. 167.
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Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography
Hedge, Levi
HEDGE, Levi, educator, b. in Hardwick, Mass., 19 April, 1766; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 3 Jan., 1844. He was graduated at Harvard in 1792, appointed a tutor in 1795, and in 1810 became professor of logic and metaphysics. In 1827 he exchanged that post for the Alford professorship of natural religion, moral philosophy, and civil polity, but was compelled by an attack of paralysis to resign in 1830. He published a “System of Logic” (Boston, 1818), which went through many editions, and was translated into German. He also prepared an abridgment of Brown’s “Mental Philosophy” (1827). — His son, Frederic Henry, educator, b. in Cambridge, Mass., 12 Dec., 1805; d. there, 21 Aug., 1890, was sent to school in Germany at the age of twelve, and remained five years. On his return he entered the junior class at Harvard, and was graduated in 1825. He then studied theology at the Cambridge divinity-school, was ordained in 1829, and settled over the Unitarian church in West Cambridge. In 1835 he took charge of a church in Bangor, Me.; in 1850, after spending a year in Europe, became pastor of the Westminster church in Providence, R. I., and in 1856 of the church in Brookline, Mass. In 1857 he was made professor of ecclesiastical history in the divinity-school at Harvard, still retaining his pastoral charge, but resigned the pastorship in 1872 in order to assume the professorship of the German language in the college. He was noted as a public lecturer as well as a pulpit orator. In 1853-‘4 he lectured on mediæval history before the Lowell institute. He became editor of the “Christian Examiner” in 1858. Besides essays on the different schools of philosophy, notably magazine articles on St. Augustine, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, and Coleridge, and other contributions to periodicals in prose and poetry, he published “The Prose Writers of Germany,” containing extracts and biographical sketches (Philadelphia, 1848); “A Christian Liturgy for the Use of the Church” (Boston, 1856); “Reason in Religion” (Boston, 1865); and “The Primeval World of Hebrew Tradition” (1870). He also wrote hymns for the Unitarian church, and assisted in the compilation of a hymn-book (1853), and published numerous translations from the German poets.
Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Appletons%27_Cyclopædia_of_American_Biography/Hedge,_Levi
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Exit, Levi Hedge
“From circumstances connected with the state of his [Levi Hedge] health, his services during the last six months have been dispensed with. The department during that period was conducted satisfactorily by George S. Hillard, one of the Proctors of the University.”
Image Source: Levi Hedge, LL.D. Elements of Logick. Boston, 1827.