Tag: Howland

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Exam Questions Harvard Principles

Harvard. Enrollment and exams for Outlines of Economics. Taussig et al., 1904-1905

Frank W. Taussig & A. Piatt Andrew

From the final exams for the two semester introductory economics course run by Frank Taussig and A. Piatt Andrew in 1904-05 we see (among other things) that John Stuart Mill provided the backbone of theory and that there was room for a compare and contrast question regarding a liberal market economy vs a socialist economy.

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Course Enrollment

Economics 1. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig, Asst. Professor [Abram Piatt] Andrew, and Messrs. [Vanderveer] Custis, [James Alfred] Field, [Silas Wilder] Howland, [Selden Osgood] Martin, and [Chester Whitney] Wright. — Outlines of Economics.

Total 438: 10 Seniors, 84 Juniors, 232 Sophomores, 54 Freshmen, 58 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 74.

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ECONOMICS 1
Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

One question in each group may be omitted.
Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions
Give your reasons in all cases.

I

  1. Which among the following would you consider (1) “productive laborers,” (2) otherwise useful to society: actors, manufacturers of gambling implements, stock-brokers, landlords receiving and spending the rents of land.
  2. It has been laid down that,—
    Capital is distinguished from non-capital by its nature, — it consists of machinery, materials, and other apparatus for production;
    Capital is distinguished from non-capital by the intention of the owner in dealing with his wealth;
    Capital, though the result of saving, is yet continually consumed.
    Can you reconcile these propositions? If not, which do you consider sound?
  3. “The laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths.” Is this true of the law stating the conditions under which the accumulation of capital takes place? of that stating the conditions under which production upon land takes place?
  4. Define briefly: value in use, value in exchange, utility, marginal utility, margin of cultivation, consumer’s rent.
  5. Can a person having a monopoly of a given commodity control its price at will? If so, how? If not, why not?
  6. “An individual speculator cannot gain by a rise in price of his own creating . . . when there is neither at the time nor afterwards any cause for a rise of prices except his own proceedings.”
    On what reasoning does this statement of Mill’s rest? Does the practice of dealings for future delivery (“futures”) affect the reasoning.

II

  1. What is the difference between a wages-fund and a wages-flow? Which seems to you the better mode of describing the influences that act on the general rate of wages?
  2. “The expectations of profit, therefore, in different employments, cannot long continue very different: they tend to a common average.”
    “It is true that, to persons with the same amount of original means, there is more chance of making a large fortune in some employments than in others.”
    “Gross profit varies greatly from individual to individual, and can scarcely be in any two cases the same.”
    Can these statements of Mill’s be reconciled?
  3. Is the return from capital sunk in the soil to be regarded as rent or interest? Is the return from urban real estate to be regarded as rent or interest? Is the return on corporate securities (stocks and bonds) to be regarded as rent or interest?
  4. How will a rise in the rate of interest affect the selling value of land? that of securities yielding a fixed income?
  5. “But it is impossible for anyone to study political economy, even as at present taught, or to think at all upon the production and distribution of wealth, without seeing that property in land differs essentially from property in things of human production, and that it has no warrant in abstract justice.” Henry George.
    Do you think this statement true in view of what you have learned in this course? Consider both your reading and the lectures.
  6. What would become of interest, rent, business profits, in a socialist state? what if there were an all-embracing régime of coöperative production?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1904-05.

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ECONOMICS 1
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

Omit one question from each group.

I

  1. What is meant by the equilibrium of demand and supply? How is it secured?
  2. Suppose there were a general rise in wages: could capitalists, by charging higher prices for their goods, prevent profits from falling?
    Suppose a rise of wages in a particular trade: could the capitalists in that trade, by charging higher prices, keep their profits from falling?
  3. Under what head — wages, rent, interest, profits — would you class the remuneration of (1) an apothecary; (2) a city merchant who owns the building in which he carries on his business; (3) an author who receives copyright payments on books which he has written; (4) a stockholder in a company which owns a lucrative patent?
  4. Is land capital? Are buildings capital? Are the skill and capacity of a workman — such as a trained engineer or a great inventor — to be regarded as capital?

II

  1. What would be the effect on the price of beef if a high protective tariff were levied on the import of hides?
  2. Which of the economic advantages and disadvantages of combination, in the broad sense, result from (a) pooling, (b) merger in a single corporation, (c) monopoly?
  3. President Roosevelt in a recent message said that our tariff “duties must never be reduced below the point that will cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad.” Discuss this statement.
  4. Suppose that a country which manufactures only enough to supply half the home market, and which has a large export trade in wheat, imposes a uniform import duty of 50% on all commodities. What will be the effect on the nominal and the real wages of agricultural laborers, absolutely, and as compared with wages in manufacturing industries?

III

  1. How do you explain the fact that there is less than 1/10 as much silver in a dime as in a silver dollar? Is there any reason why this should be so?
  2. Explain briefly:—

(a) Deposit.
(b) Suffolk Bank system.
(c) Clearing House certificate.
(d) Post-note.
(e) Discount.
(f) Reserve city.
(g) Central reserve city.
(h) Asset currency.

  1. Secretary Shaw has said “Without claiming that the national banking act is perfect or that our currency system is free from objection I think that the world joins us in the verdict that it is the best system known to man.”
    Discuss this statement, comparing the American system as regards security and elasticity with those of England and Germany.
  2. If a national bank examiner should discover the following to be the account of a bank in Boston to what would he object:
Capital 200,000 Loans 733,000
Surplus 24,000 U.S. Bonds 75,000
Undivided profits 43,000 Other assets 42,000
Notes 78,000 Deposits in U.S. Treas. 3,500
Deposits 745,000 Deposits in other banks 150,000
Clearing House certificate 14,000
Coin & legal tender notes 72,500
1,090,000 1,090,000

Would his objections differ at all if the bank were located in Cambridge?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05;  Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1905), pp. 21-23.

Image Sources:  Frank W. Taussig (Original black and white image from of Frank William Taussig from a cabinet card photograph, 1895, at the Harvard University Archives HUP); Abram Piatt Andrews (Picture from ca. 1909 used in a magazine article about Andrew’s appointment to the directorship of the U. S. Mint. Hoover Institution Archives. A. Piatt Andrew Papers, Box 51). Images colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Economists Germany Harvard

Harvard. Political Economy tutor, Henry Howland (Heidelberg PhD). 1873-1874

In Charles F. Dunbar’s third academic year of his professorship in political economy at Harvard [course offerings from the first half of the 1870s], a reshuffling of the required (i.e., non-elective) one semester course in political economy to the sophomore year meant that the course would have to be offered twice in 1873-74, once for juniors  and once for sophomores. To handle the increased teaching load, Henry Howland (A.B. Harvard 1869) was appointed tutor in History and Political Economy in 1873-74, having worked as a tutor for German language courses. He had returned to Harvard in the fall term of 1872, after spending a year in France and two years in Germany, where he completed a doctorate in political economy at Heidelberg. Howland went on to Harvard Law School, receiving a law degree in 1878. There he was an instructor on tort law for the years 1879-1883.

Some further research into the life and career of Henry Howland revealed significant episodes of depression (and perhaps other mental illness) that required him to be placed temporarily under the guardianship of his brother. 

I have not yet been able to confirm Howland’s Heidelberg advanced degree in political economy mentioned in the memoir of his classmate that was written shortly after his death following “acute melancholia”.

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From  Harvard’s
Report of the President 1873-74

“The courses in Political Economy and the Constitution of the United States are found in both years [Sophomore and Junior classes], as these courses were, last year [1873-74], transferred from the Junior to the Sophomore course of study.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 52.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Required studies.
Sophomores.

Instructor: Mr. Howland
Subject: Political Economy
Text-Books: Elements of Political Economy. — Constitution of the United States.
Number of students: 170
Number of sections: 5
Exercises per week for students: 2
Exercises per week for Instructor: 10 (for a half-year)

Instructor: Mr. Howland
Subject: History
Text-Books: Outlines of General History.
Number of students: 170
Number of sections: 5
Exercises per week for students: 2
Exercises per week for Instructor: 10 (for a half-year)

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 42.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Required studies.
Juniors.

Instructor: Prof. Dunbar
Subject: Political Economy
Text-Books: Elements of Political Economy.— Constitution of the United States.
Number of students: 153
Number of sections: 3
Exercises per week for students: 2
Exercises per week for Instructor: 6 (for a half-year)

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 44.

Elective studies.

Instructor: Prof. Dunbar
Subject: Philosophy 6
Text-Books: Political Economy. J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.— Bagehot’s Lombard Street. — Sumner’s History of American Currency.
Number of students: 1 Junior, 70 Seniors
Number of sections: 2
Exercises per week for students: 3
Exercises per week for Instructor: 6

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 46.

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Obituary from
Boston Evening Transcript
(July 13, 1887)

            Mr. Henry Howland, for a number of years a member of the Boston Bar, died in Somerville, Monday. He was born in Boston, Dec. 23, 1846, and was graduated at Harvard in the class of 1869, and at the Harvard Law School in 1878. From 1872 to 1874 he was a tutor at Harvard, taking charge of history and political economy classes. Mr. Howland also continued his studies abroad, obtaining at Heidelberg the degree of Ph.D. He practiced law in Boston until his health gave out, holding just before retirement a position in the United States district attorney’s office under Judge Sanger.

[Cf. the Death Registry of the City of Somerville gives “Acute Melancholia” as the “Disease, or Cause of Death”.]

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Henry Howland (see A.B. 1869), Tutor 1872-1874; Instr. in History and Political Economy 1872-1874; Instr. in Torts 1879-1883.

Source: Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates 1636-1930 (Cambridge, MA: 1930), p. 94.

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1888 Memoir of a Harvard Classmate

HENRY HOWLAND

Born in Boston, December 23, 1846. Son of David and Rebecca (Crocker) Howland.
Died July 11, 1887.

The following Memoir, prepared by Henry W. [Ware] Putnam, was read at the Commencement Meeting of the Class, June, 1888:

Henry Howland, son of David and Rebecca Howland, born December 23, 1846, died July 11, 1887. We had hardly separated after our last Commencement reunion when we were startled with the announcement of another gap made in our ranks by the death of Henry Howland. We could hardly have been more unprepared for the death of any one of our number. It had not occurred to his most intimate friends that the disorder which had hung like a cloud over the last years of his life was likely to have any serious physical consequences, much less a fatal termination, and all had cherished the hope that after a while his fine mental powers would reassert themselves undimmed, and that a career which we had at graduation looked forward to as one of the most brilliant that the Class promised, would yet be achieved. But it was not to be, and on July 11, 1887, he died, at the age of forty, after a sudden illness of only a few days’ duration.

After graduating from College, Howland went abroad for purposes of study, intending to make teaching his profession, and spent one year in France and two in Germany. During this period he became a thorough French and German scholar, studied history and political economy at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, taking the degree of Ph.D. at the latter university in political economy. One of the present professors at Harvard who made his acquaintance there, and who remained his devoted and intimate friend till his death, writes as follows of him at that time: “Henry was the first Harvard graduate whom I had ever known well, and from my first meeting with him in Berlin he filled me with admiration by reason of his zeal and enthusiasm in his studies. History was his subject at that time, and he attended the lectures of the university regularly, and had two ‘Docenten’ in addition who went to his room and lectured to him there. He was tireless in finding expedients for increasing his knowledge of German, and accomplished more, I think, in his eighteen months in Germany, than any man of my acquaintance… It was characteristic of Henry,” he continues, “that when he received in Berlin the offer of an appointment in German at Harvard, he came to me and said that he didn’t care for it and would try to get it for me. I knew that he did want it very much, and of course declined to consider the subject of an appointment at all until he had received his. He was appointed in History and German, and it was entirely through his efforts that I was appointed tutor in German. Henry was changed less by his stay in Europe than any American I knew. He absorbed all that was advantageous in his surroundings, and seemed to be affected not at all by that which was worthless or ignoble. Especially in his political and social views he remained a true and steadfast Democrat and high-minded American.”

Returning home in the fall of 1872, he taught for two years at Harvard with success, — the first year as a tutor in German, the second as instructor in History and Political Economy. One of our number who was intimately associated with him during these years, being an instructor in the University at the same time, writes as follows: “He was a close and conscientious student, and possessed a great fund of general information outside of his specialties; but he was always very deferential in making any statement either of fact or opinion even to those who, as he must have known, had but a tithe of his knowledge of the subject in question. He had a happy faculty of making a friend feel at ease while he was imparting to him good information, the faculty of not making an ignorant man feel his ignorance, a faculty which was possessed, as you will remember, in such a marked degree by Professor Gurney. In argument he was always calm and never loud, but very persistent and utterly imperturbable; he never allowed himself to be switched off, and moreover, he never allowed his opponent to jump the track and take to side issues, but held him to the main line of thought until one or the other got somewhere, generally Henry.” His reputation as a teacher at the University was steadily growing, and his outlook for a successful academic career was regarded as very promising by his associates and elders at Cambridge, when he was visited by an attack of mental derangement brought on by overwork in his regular classes and with private pupils, and by the late hours and irregular habits as to sleep and meals, which are apt to accompany excessive application to study. After recovering from this attack he gave up teaching, decided to study law, and entered the Law School in 1876, taking his degree in 1878.

It is not difficult for the rest of us to see now that it was a momentous, probably a mistaken, step to enter so late and so heavily handicapped upon a profession in which one can ill afford to lose any time or have any unnecessary odds against him; but we can also easily see that it was a very natural one under the unsettling and discouraging circumstances of the moment. His natural abilities for the law were indeed fine, lying especially in the direction of a studious and safe adviser in chambers rather than an advocate in court; and with an earlier start and an unobstructed course he would have succeeded in the race; but as it was, the chances were overwhelmingly against him, and the courage with which he entered upon the profession, the patient and unflagging determination with which he clung to it, were at once heroic and pathetic. After being admitted to practice, he gave courses of instruction in torts at the Law School, in addition to his office-work, for three years with great acceptance, and made some scholarly researches in the early literature of the law for one of the professors in the school. During the last of these years he held also the position of Assistant United States District Attorney. The exacting labors of this position, which were not especially adapted to his abilities, nor congenial to his natural tastes, added to his other work, proved too much for him, and in June, 1882, he succumbed to a second attack like the first, but returned to business in December of the same year. Still another slight one occurred in August, 1883, lasting till October of the same year. He then enjoyed entire immunity for three years, and although urged by his closest friends to give up all attempt to practise law and seek some occupation where he would have plenty of outdoor life and leisure for light literary work, he was unwilling to give up his chosen ambition. During this period he did some excellent professional work, chiefly in conveyancing, and in the preparation of briefs and summaries of the law on points placed in his hands by other counsel for his examination, and it seemed as if he might yet get established in the profession; but his father’s illness and death again broke him down in the summer of 1886, and, without again returning to work, and with only a brief interval of even measurably complete restoration to reason in the spring of 1887, he died from a sudden and very brief attack of physical exhaustion.

This long and losing twelve years’ struggle between the finest intellectual gifts and inexorable mental disease is too sad and too pathetic for us, who loved him, and confidently expected so much of him, to be able to dwell upon. As a Class, we can simply put upon our record an expression of our disappointment and grief at this untimely calamity, and then try to put it out of our mind forever. But his character and qualities we shall hold in affectionate and enduring remembrance as long as any of us survive to hold Class meetings. He was the most modest of men — modest to the extent of unjust depreciation of himself. His manners and personal bearing — at all times and in all company — were those of a perfect gentleman; marked as they were, not merely by the friendly good-will and sympathy of the good fellow who is everybody’s friend, but by a certain reserve and formality, not amounting to stiffness, but showing that he made a certain pronounced, though not obtrusive, courtesy of the old school one of the duties of his life never to be forgotten or neglected, even in the society of intimates; and his outward bearing thus never failed to express the real dignity of his character, even when his wit was keenest and his raillery most pungent. His unselfishness, his absolute self-effacement when there was a friend to serve or help in any way, was a part of his very nature, — deep-seated, spontaneous, sincere. Of that fine virtue which the ancients, whose best writings he seems to have absorbed into his very being, placed above all others and called piety, filial devotion, the love of parents, he was the most striking exemplar I have ever known, subordinating every interest of his own — pleasure, social recreation, professional ambition, health — to the unceasing care through long years of an invalid mother and of an aged father. When his love of society is considered, this self-denial — especially when the circumstances did not render it in any sense a necessity — becomes the more striking and admirable. His sense of duty in all the relations of life was so extreme as to be almost morbid, and had in it a touch of Puritanic rigor. His public spirit was strong and his sympathies in this direction broad, and he was active — though not radical or extreme — in all the duties of a citizen and in the movements of social and political reform in his neighborhood. His abilities were peculiarly of a literary kind. His literary taste was of the finest; he was a constant and appreciative reader of the best imaginative literature, a lover of music and the drama. If he could, or would, but have seen it, so rare a spirit was wasted in the study of the law, and would have been so, in a sense, even with health and professional success. The higher fields of literary and historic criticism and, perhaps, composition — of philosophic generalization on literary and particularly on historic subjects — were his true field, and it was only after his first illness had discouraged him somewhat, and perhaps impaired the soundness of his judgment, that he abandoned that career for another. In his death we all mourn a fine, scholarly, high-minded character and loyal classmate; many of us a sympathetic, affectionate, and deeply loved friend.

Source: Eleventh Report of the Class of 1869 of Harvard College. Fiftieth Anniversary (June 1919), pp. 149-154.

Image Source: Title page of the Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1876-1877.

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Courses Curriculum Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Economics courses with enrollments and exam questions, 1871-1875

 

In an earlier posting I assembled information for the two or three economics courses regularly offered at Harvard in the mid-1870s. Today’s posting provides information on the economics course offerings during the first half of the 1870s. Except for the academic year 1870-1, all the courses were taught by Charles Dunbar, who only began teaching at Harvard in 1871/72. Below you will find titles of the textbooks assigned for the courses, enrollment figures, and final examination questions pieced together from the Harvard course catalogues, reports of the President of Harvard and a few unpublished exams I have found during my visit to the Harvard archives in February 2017.

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

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1870-71

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Junior year

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Ellis Peterson, A.M. Roger’s Political Economy. Mr. O. W. Holmes, Jr. — Alden, Constitution of the United States.

One hour a week. 119 students, 3 sections, 1 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for instructor [for political economy]. 2 sections, 1 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for instructor [for constitutional law].

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1871-72, p. 39;  Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1870-71, p. 51.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, June 1871
Junior year

I.

1. What is the sense in which the term wealth is used in Political Economy? 2. What was the cause, and also the effect of the belief that wealth was money? 3. In what sense is the term value used by Political Economists? 4. What is the cause of economical value, and under what conditions is land an exception to the rule of value? 5. Distinguish price from value, and show that while there may be a general rise in prices, there cannot be a general rise in values.

II.

1. What are the causes of “demand,” and which of these are relative, and which absolute? 2. On what does the price of commodities depend in the long run? Also, at any particular time? 3. Why is the increase in the price of bread-stuffs greater than the decrease in the supply? 4. Explain the effects of a very high price of bread on the price of meat. 5. Illustrate by the “cotton famine” in England (1826-65), how demand and supply affect prices.

III.

1. Give the origin and the definition of capital. 2. What are the real profits of capital, and what are included in the gross profits? 3. What are the principal causes of the unequal distribution of capital? 4. How are capital and labor affected by governmnet’s contracting a loan for an unproductive purpose? 5. Why are the fluctuations in the rate of disocunt greater than in the rate of interest?

IV.

1. Show that unproductive labor may be indirectly productive? 2. Give the advantages of “Division of Labor.” 3. Analyze wages of labor. 4. (1)If the number of laborers and the amount of capital invested in production be given, what of course must be the average wages of labor? (2)What causes the difference of wages in different employments? (3)What causes fluctuations of wages of a certain labor, and also of a certain laborer? 5. Show how the staple food of a country may affect the rate of wages?

V.

1. Give Malthus’s Theory of Population. 2. Why have the credit banks of M. Delitzsch been successful? 3. What is the first of Adam Smith’s four canons of taxation? 4. Distinguish direct from indirect taxes. 5. Give briefly the arguments for and against direct and also indirect taxation.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28) Box 1 of 284, Folder “Final Examinations, 1870-1871”.

 

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 4
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Senior year

Nicholas St. John  Green, LL.B. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.

Three times a week. 99 Seniors, 2 sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1871-72, p. 41;  Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1870-71, p. 52.

PHILOSOPHY IV
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, June, 1871

  1. In what respect do the views of Mr. Mill upon co-operation and the division of labor differ from the views of Adam Smith?
  2. On what does the degree of Productiveness of productive Agents depend?
  3. What is the doctrine of Malthus and what is Mr. Mill’s opinion of that doctrine?
  4. What is Communism? St. Simonism? Fourierism?
  5. What does Mr. Mill think concerning property in land?
  6. What is the remedy for low wages?
  7. What are the functions of money, and how and to what extent can credit supply its place?
  8. What are the evils of an inconvertible paper currency?
  9. What are the ordinary functions of government?
  10. What are the limits of the province of government?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28) Box 1 of 284, Folder “Final Examinations, 1870-1871”.

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1871-72

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Junior year

Prof. Dunbar. Roger’s Political Economy. — Alden, Constitution of the United States.
One hour a week. 128 students, 3 sections, 1 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for instructor.

[Note: Political Economy and the U.S. Constitution were each a half-year course with Political Economy covered in the first semester and the U.S. Constitution in the second semester.]

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 58;  Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1871-72, p. 46.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, February 1872
Junior year

  1. What is the difference between price and value?
  2. What is capital, and whence is it derived?
  3. Is a legal tender note of the United States money? If not, then what is it?
  4. What effect has an excessive issue of paper currency upon prices?
  5. In an estimate of public wealth, what kinds of individual wealth are excluded, and why?
  6. Why is the rate of interest high in a newly settled Western State?
  7. What determines the rate of wages?
  8. What was the theory of Malthus as to the growth of population?
  9. What effect has the introduction of machinery upon the rate of wages?
  10. What is rent, and how does it depend upon the cost of production?
  11. In the trade between nations, how is the transmission of gold and silver for the most part avoided?
  12. If there is a scarcity of some article of which there are several qualities of different prices, will the cheapest or the dearest quality rise most, and why?
  13. What is the difference between direct and indirect taxation, and what are their respective advantages!
  14. Why is a tax on raw materials a bad tax?
  15. How does our national debt differ in form from the English, and what advantage has either form?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 241.

ELECTIVE: POLITICAL ECONOMY
Senior year

Prof. Dunbar. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.
Three times a week. 75 Seniors, 2 sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 61;  Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1871-72, p. 48.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Special Examination, December, 1871

  1. What is probably the most important advantage obtained by the division of labor?
  2. Define wealth.
  3. Define money.
  4. What is the difference between value and price?
  5. What is the real price of an article, and by what is it measured?
  6. What is the natural price?
  7. What is the market price, and what is its relation to the natural
    price?
  8. In a country where gold and silver coin are both used, what effect will a permanent increase in the supply of either metal have upon the currency? What effect upon prices?
  9. Can these effects be avoided or mitigated, and if so, by what expedient?
  10. What is rent, and how does it depend upon the cost of production?
  11. In the trade between nations, how is the transmission of gold and silver for the most part avoided?
  12. If there is a scarcity of some article of which there are several qualities of different prices, will the cheapest or the dearest quality rise most, and why?
  13. What is the difference between direct and indirect taxation, and what are their respective advantages!
  14. Why is a tax on raw materials a bad tax?
  15. How does our national debt differ in form from the English, and what advantage has either form?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 248-9.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Special Examination, January, 1872

  1. What is the distinction between wealth and capital?
  2. What is the difference between fixed and circulating capitals? and to which does money belong?
  3. When either of the precious metals becomes more abundant, and the remedy of over-valuation and limitation of the right of tender is to be applied, does it make any difference which metal is over-valued, and if so, what difference?
  4. On what basis is the Bank of England established?
  5. How does Smith distinguish between productive laborers and unproductive?
  6. Explain the paradox that “what is annually saved is as regularly consumed as what is annually spent.”
  7. What is the error of Locke and Montesquieu as to the supposed connection between the depreciation of value of gold and silver and the lowering of the rate of interest?
  8. What is Adam Smith’s view as to the point at which the rate of interest should be fixed by law, and what is his mistake?
  9. How can a paper currency be kept at par with gold?
  10. What was the theory of the balance of trade, and in what respect was it fallacious?
  11. Why do manufactures often flourish while a nation is carrying on a foreign war?
  12. What was the theory of the agricultural system, and what was its great error?
  13. State the general objection to any system for the extraordinary encouragement of a particular branch of industry, and such partial or complete answers to that objection as may occur to you.
  14. What is the chronological relation of the several systems of Political Economy?
  15. Consider the following passage from a Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, made in December, 1871:—

“The tenacity with which the Pacific States adhere to a gold currency is quite notable. Whether it is equally praiseworthy is another thing. It is not clear that those States derive any substantial benefit from the course they have pursued, and it is beginning to be manifest that the United States are not at all benefited by it. The substitution of a paper currency in California and the other gold-producing States for their present hard money would probably set free for the use of the government and the whole country some thirty or forty millions of gold, and, at the same time, provide those communities with a more economical, active, and accommodating circulating medium.”

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 249-50.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, June, 1872.

  1. How does Mr. Mill distinguish between productive labor and unproductive? and under which head is mental labor (as, e.g., that of a philosopher or inventor) to be placed?
  2. If a nation has to meet extraordinary expenses, as in time of war, is it better to raise the amount by loan, or by taxes within the year! and why?
  3. What is the relation between profits and the cost of labor?
  4. What is the law which determines the value of that class of commodities of which the supply can be indefinitely increased without increase of cost?
  5. Why are both profits and wages high in a new and fertile country?
  6. If a fall in profits takes place, are manufactured articles or agricultural produce most likely to fall in value, and why?
  7. Why does Mr. Mill think a general over-supply of commodities impossible?
  8. Suppose a paper currency to be issued, of which every note represents actual property. Can it be depreciated, and why?
  9. Can two countries exchange products if in one the general cost of production is higher than in the other, and why?
  10. What is the general law determining the values at which a country exchanges its produce with other countries?
  11. What effect is produced upon international trade by an improvement which introduces a new article of export?
  12. What effect is produced upon rent, profits, and wages respectively, by a great improvement in agriculture?
  13. What reasons are there in theory for exempting from income tax so much of income as is saved and invested?
  14. If a tax upon agricultural produce is of long standing, on whom does it finally fall, and why?
  15. Under what circumstances does Mr. Mill think that protecting duties can properly be levied?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 250.

_____________________________________

1872-73

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Junior year

Prof. Dunbar. Fawcett’s Political Economy. — Constitution of the United States.
Two hours a week. First half-year. 162 students, 1 lecture, 4 recitations, 2 exercises per week for students, 5 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 62;  Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1872-73, p. 42.

Final Examination, February, 1873
CONSTITUTION AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
Prof. Dunbar

If unable to answer all the questions on this paper, do not fail to answer a part under each class.

A.

  1. What are the essential points in which the Constitution differs from the Confederation?
  2. Who are citizens of the United States?
  3. State the rule by which Representatives are to be apportioned among the States under Amendments XIV., and XV.
  4. What does the Constitution provide as to the issue of paper currency, whether by Congress or by the States, and whence does Congress derive its power to make paper a legal tender?
  5. On what provision did the claim of power by Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories chiefly rest?
  6. Whence does either House of Congress obtain its power to punish witnesses for refusal to testify before a committee?
  7. State the change which was made in the method of electing president by Amendment XII., adopted in 1804, and the circumstances which led to that change.
  8. State briefly the provisions relating to the veto power.
  9. State the provisions which define the treaty-making power, and the power of appointing to office.
  10. To what does the judicial power of the United States extend, and how is it limited by Amendment XI.?
  11. How does the Constitution define treason and provide for its punishment?
  12. How can the Constitution be amended, and what exception is there to the power of amendment?

B.

  1. How are the permanently different rates of profit in different pursuits in the same country accounted for?
  2. How does credit affect prices?
  3. What is the advantage obtained by the consumer from the warehousing system?
  4. Should permanent incomes derived from invested property be taxed at the same rate as temporary or professional incomes? Give the reason.
  5. On whom does a tax laid on premises occupied for manufacturing purposes fall, and why?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 265.

 

ELECTIVE: POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Senior year

Prof. Dunbar. J. S. Mill’s Political Economy. — McCulloch on Taxation. — Subjects in Banking and Currency.
Three times a week. First half-year. 65 Seniors, 2 sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 67;  Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1872-73, p. 44.

 

[Final Examination May or June 1873]
Political Economy
Prof. Dunbar

  1. Mill says, “That high wages make high prices is a popular and wide-spread opinion.” To what extent, and why, is that opinion incorrect?
  2. Suppose the recent combinations of English agricultural laborers to be successful in securing higher wages; what would be the effect on the price of food, the profits of farmers, and the rent?
  3. Adam Smith’s theory of the benefit of foreign trade was that it affords an outlet for surplus produce, and enables the country to replace a part of its capital with a profit. What criticism is to be made on this theory?
  4. How does Bastiat apply his theory of value, for the purpose of showing which of two nations will gain the most from an exchange of products?
  5. Explain Mill’s remark that “there are two senses in which a country obtains commodities cheaper by foreign trade: in the sense of value, and in the sense of cost.”
  6. If a country has regular annual payments to be made abroad, as e. g. interest on a public debt, what effect is produced thereby on the imports and exports, and on the terms on which it exchanges products with other countries?
  7. Suppose capital and population are both increasing; what will be the effect on rent, wages, and profits, and why?
  8. What will be the effect, in the case supposed above, if a great improvement is made in cultivation?
  9. Apply the results in Nos. 7 and 8 to the case of a country like the United States, where the land and the agricultural capital are generally owned by the same person.
  10. State the reasons for and against an income tax, the leading exemptions which should be made, and the rule to be observed in taxing incomes from invested property and from business profits respectively.
  11. Under what circumstances will a tax on exports fall upon foreigners?
  12. In what cases will a duty on imports fall upon foreigners?
  13. What answer is made to Adam Smith’s argument that home trade affords more encouragement to productive industry than foreign trade?’
  14. What answer is made to the objection that the system of protection adds the amount of the duty to the price paid by consumers of protected commodities?
  15. It being admitted that revenue must be raised by duties on imports, how does the plan of “a revenue tariff with incidental protection” fail to satisfy either the theory of protection or that of free trade?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 266.

_____________________________________

1873-74

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Sophomore and Junior year

[Note: In 1873 the required study of Political Science was transferred from the Junior to the Sophomore Year that implies combining Juniors and Sophomores for the transition year 1873-74.]

Prof. Dunbar and Mr. Howland. Elements of Political Economy. — Constitution of the United States.
Two hours a week. Half-year. 153 students, 3 sections, 2 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 67; Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1873-74, p. 44.

Final Examination
PRESCRIBED POLITICAL ECONOMY
February 1874

Political Economy

Those who are also to pass in the Constitution may omit questions marked (*).

  1. Define (a) wealth; (b) value; (c) price; (d) capital; (e) money.
  2. What are the qualities which make gold and silver suitable materials for a currency? What are the objections to a double standard of value?
  3. Explain the action of demand and supply upon the prices (a) of raw materials; (b) of manufactured articles.
  4. Show how rents would be affected by suddenly doubling the productiveness of all lands under cultivation. Prove that rent does not enter into the price of agricultural produce.
  5. State and illustrate the causes which produce a difference in the rate of wages in different employments.
  6. Suppose the amount of the (gold) currency of a country to be suddenly doubled, what would be the effect upon (a) values; (b) prices; (c) exports and imports?
  7. Define direct and indirect taxation. What are the objections to an import duty on raw materials? What is the incidence of a tax levied on the rent of land and paid by the tenant?
  8. (*) Define productive and unproductive consumption. If the latter were to cease altogether, what would be the ultimate effect upon production?
  9. (*) Show how the cost of labor is affected, (a) if the efficiency of labor is increased; (b) if the margin of cultivation sinks.
  10. (*) What are the elements of which profits are composed? Why does the rate of profits vary (a) in different employments; (b) in different countries?
  11. (*) Explain the several ways in which credit promotes production. What are the disadvantages of an irredeemable paper currency?
  12. (*) Explain the use of bills of exchange. What is meant by an unfavorable balance of exchange?
  13. (*) Discuss the question, whether temporary and permanent incomes should be taxed alike.

 

Constitution of the United States.
Those who are also to pass in Political Economy may omit questions marked (*).

  1. (*) When and by whom was the Constitution framed, and what were the principal steps leading to its formation and adoption?
  2. Define citizenship.
  3. What changes have the abolition of slavery and the consequent amendments of the Constitution made in the system of representation?
  4. State the method of electing the President, and the difference between the present method and that at first adopted.
  5. (*) By whom are questions settled which affect the validity of elections (a) of representatives, (b) of senators, (c) of President?
  6. (*) What provision does the Constitution make tor the removal, death, resignation, or inability to serve of the President or Vice-President, or for a failure to elect either officer or both?
  7. (*) What powers over the militia are given to Congress or to the President?
  8. What are the provisions of the Constitution affecting the subject of currency?
  9. What are the provisions relating to taxation, and what are direct taxes under the Constitution?
  10. (*) What are the provisions relating to impeachment?
  11. Under what provision did Congress claim and exercise the power of prohibiting slavery in the territories?
  12. What is the extent of the judicial power of the United States, and where is it vested?
  13. What is the provision for amending the Constitution?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1874-75, p. 218-19.

 

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 6.
Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy. J. S. Mill’s Political Economy. — Bagehot’s Lombard Street. — Sumner’s History of American Currency.
Three hours a week. 70 Seniors, 1 Junior.
2 Sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for Instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 67; Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1873-74, p. 46.

 

Final Examination
Philosophy 6 (Political Economy)
June 1874

  1. If the recent efforts to promote emigration on a large scale among English agricultural laborers should be successful, what would be the effect on the price of food, the profits of fanners, and rent!
  2. What is the reason for the expectation that both capitalists and laborers will be gainers from co-operation, and that neither will gain at the expense of the other? and how is this expectation to be reconciled with the general doctrine of Ricardo, that “the rate of profits depends on wages, rising as wages fall, and falling as wages rise”?
  3. Is it desirable to collect a surplus revenue for the purpose of paying off a national debt, or should the amount be left “to fructify in the pockets of the people”? Give the reason.
  4. Explain Mill’s doctrine of the tendency of profits to a minimum, the causes which produce that tendency, and the circumstances which counteract it.
  5. State the general law which determines the values at which a country exchanges its produce with foreign countries, and illustrate its application by the example of cloth and linen.
  6. Explain the incidence of taxes on imports, and the arguments that may be drawn thence as to the policy of protecting duties.
  7. Does or does not a protecting duty give additional employment to home labor? Give the reason.
  8. Criticise the following passage from Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” Book II., chapter iv. : —

“The legal rate of interest, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the lowest market-rate. [If it were much above] the greater part of the money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. . . . Where the legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market-rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.”

  1. A respectable newspaper remarks, that “the object of taxation is to make all property bear its equitable share.” Is this a correct statement of the principle which should be followed in adjusting a system of taxation? Why, or why not?
  2. What effect will high internal taxes have upon prices and upon values?
  3. Explain the incidence of taxes laid on the rent of houses or stores, in a city where the value of land is great. Would the result be different if the tax were laid on the assessed value of the premises? Why, or why not?
  4. Give the leading facts and dates in the history of the United States Bank.
  5. Explain fully how the suspension of Peel’s act of 1844 gives relief to the money market in a panic, and what relation it bears to a suspension of specie payment.
  6. The dollar contains 23.22 grains of pure gold. A dollar in silver currency, if of full value, according to this standard should contain about 866.7 grains, but in fact contains only 345.6 grains of pure silver. How does this explain the somewhat tardy disappearance of silver change when our paper currency depreciated, and to what point must the value of the paper rise before silver can come back into general circulation?
  7. State present limits of our paper currency, and discuss the objections to such a currency when, like ours, it is redundant and depreciated, and has a maximum fixed by law.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1874-75, p. 223-4.

_____________________________________

1874-75

PRESCRIBED: POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Sophomore year

Prof. Dunbar. Fawcett’s Political Economy for Beginners. — Constitution of the United States (Alden’s Science of Government, omitting the first four and the last three chapters).
Two hours a week. Half-year. 208 students, 4 sections, 2 exercises per week for students, 8 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1874-75, p. 45.; Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1874-75, p. 45.

 

Final Examination June, 1875
PRESCRIBED POLITICAL ECONOMY

Political Economy

[Do not change the order of the questions. Those who are to pass in the Constitution may omit questions marked (*).]

  1. (*) If A owns a United States bond, is it wealth? Is it capital?
  2. (*) What is the differene between circulating capital and fixed capital, and how is it that each “in order to fulfil its functions must be consumed?”
  3. (*) What is the difference between value, as the term is used in this discussion, and value in use?
  4. What is the relation between market price and cost of production? Consider this with reference to each of the three classes into which commodities are divided in relation to their value.
  5. (*) How is the value of gold determined?
  6. What circumstances are said to have counteracted the effect of the Australian and Californian gold discoveries? Did these circumstances affect the value of gold in England alone, or in other countries also? How?
  7. If a country uses both gold and silver coin as its legal tender, and silver depreciates, which coin will remain in circulation? Why?
  8. On what does the cost of labor depend? In your answer distinguish between real wages and money wages.
  9. What is the difference between convertible paper currency and inconvertible? Is one more secure against depreciation than the other? Why?
  10. Why does the interest earned on capital in different employments tend to equality at any given time and place?
  11. Explain the incidence of taxes laid on dwelling houses.
  12. Apply the four canons of taxation to the case of a duty on imported goods, and show whether it answers their requirements or not.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28) Box 1 of 284, Folder “Final Examinations, 1874-1875”.

Image Source: Charles Franklin Dunbar from The Harvard Graduates’Magazine, Vol. VIII, No. 32 (June, 1900), Frontspiece.