Tag: Lowell

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Faculty Regulations Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. President Lowell’s motivation for undergraduate divisional general exams. 1915

In an earlier post a shorter excerpt from Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell’s report for the academic year 1914-1915 was included along with the first set of divisional exams for History, Government and Economics from 1915. In the following extended excerpt one finds such gems as:

“…it is still possible for a student to elect six courses in the outlying parts of the field which have little connection with one another and do not form a systematic whole. This possibility is attractive to undergraduates seeking easy courses, whose object is not so much to obtain as to evade an education. Of late years, indeed, many easy courses have been made more serious, whereby the minimum work which shirkers must do for a degree has been sensibly raised, to the great benefit of the college as an educational institution, and incidentally with the result of increasing the respect for high achievement in college scholarship. As the requirements in various subjects are stiffened it is interesting to observe the flocking of students from one department to another.”

Some things apparently never change. By the way you can now add the German expression for such students, “geistiger Tiefflieger” (=intellectual low-flyers), to your working pejorative vocabulary.

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From President A. Lawrence Lowell’s report on the academic year 1914-15.

…But in fact, the single course is not, and cannot be, the true unit in education. The real unit is the student. He is the only thing in education that is an end in itself. To send him forth as nearly a perfected product as possible is the aim of instruction, and anything else, the single course, the curriculum, the discipline, the influences surrounding him, are merely means to the end, which are to be judged by the way they contribute and fit into the ultimate purpose. To treat the single course as a self-sufficient unit, complete in itself, is to run a danger of losing sight of the end in the means thereto. In no other part of the University, in the requirements for no other degree, is the course, as a unit, complete in itself. In the Law School, where the freedom of election is the greatest, many courses are required, and the rest all aim at a definite and narrowly circumscribed object, preparation for practice at the bar. In the Medical and Divinity Schools general examinations on specific fields of knowledge have been established — of which more will be said later. The same thing has always been true of the doctorate of philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and for the Master of Arts, which was formerly attained by a sufficiently high grade in any four courses, it has now been the rule for many years that the courses must form a consistent whole, approved by some department of the Faculty.

In the College the problem of making the student, instead of the course, the unit in education is more difficult than in the other parts of the University, because general education is more intangible, more vague, less capable of precise analysis and definition, than training for a profession. Nevertheless, in the College, some significant steps have been taken which tend in this direction. The first was the requirement that every student must concentrate six of his seventeen courses in some definite field, must distribute six more among the other subjects of knowledge, and must do so after consulting an instructor appointed to advise him. The exact prescriptions may not be perfect, nor in their final form. Experience may well lead to changes, but the intent is good, to develop and expand the mind of the student as an individual, as in himself the object of education. So far as the rule affects the care with which the student selects his courses, there has certainly been a gain, for there is no doubt that the requirement has made his choice more thoughtful and serious than before. The Committee on the Choice of Electives makes exceptions freely in the case of earnest students, and it is a significant fact that although the members of the Committee hold very divergent views upon the principles involved, they are almost invariably unanimous on the question of allowing an exception in any particular case.

The rule of concentration, coupled with the provision that not more than two of the six courses shall be of an elementary character, is intended to compel every man to study some subject with thoroughness, and acquire a systematic knowledge thereof. Certain departments have so arranged their sequence of courses that this result is fairly well attained; but in others where the offering is large, and the nature of the subject is not (as it is in mathematics, for example, or the physical sciences) such that a mastery of one thing is indispensable for the study of another, it is still possible for a student to elect six courses in the outlying parts of the field which have little connection with one another and do not form a systematic whole. This possibility is attractive to undergraduates seeking easy courses, whose object is not so much to obtain as to evade an education. Of late years, indeed, many easy courses have been made more serious, whereby the minimum work which shirkers must do for a degree has been sensibly raised, to the great benefit of the college as an educational institution, and incidentally with the result of increasing the respect for high achievement in college scholarship. As the requirements in various subjects are stiffened it is interesting to observe the flocking of students from one department to another.

The second step in treating the student, instead of the course, as the unit in education, was taken by the Division of History, Government, and Economics, when, and with the approval of the Faculty, it set up the requirement of a general examination at graduation for students concentrating in that division. The examination, which is entrusted to a committee representing the three departments within the division, is to be distinct from that in the courses elected, and is to include not only the ground covered in them, but also the general field with which they have dealt, and the knowledge needed to connect them. This is a marked departure from the plan of earning a degree by scoring courses; and it will take time to adjust men’s conceptions of education to a basis new to the American college, though familiar in every European university. To assist the students in preparing themselves for the general examination each of them at the beginning of his Sophomore year is assigned to the charge of a tutor who confers with him about his work and guides his reading outside of that required in the courses. As the plan could be applied only to men entering after it was established, the first examinations will be held next spring, and then only for men who graduate in three years. In the Divinity School, where the course for the Master’s and Doctor’s degrees is shorter, a general examination has already been put into operation with gratifying results.

A third step has been taken this autumn by a vote of the Faculty providing that the courses elected by a student for concentration in History and Literature must be approved by the Committee on Degrees with Distinction in that field. This has always been true of candidates for distinction under this committee, and in fact the field is one that would present little unity if the courses chosen were unrelated. But that the combination of courses by other students should require approval is an innovation which shows that in a subject where the liberty of choice is peculiarly liable to abuse, the Faculty is prepared to require a consistent programme of study, with a view to giving students an education rational as a whole. Moreover, departments and committees, which do not wish to limit the choice of the students concentrating in their field to combinations of courses approved by them beforehand, sometimes take charge of his work in the subject and really oversee it at every stage. They do in fact act as his advisers, and can often do so better than the instructor specially appointed to advise him. The adviser so appointed frequently takes a very careful interest in the development of a man’s work throughout his college course, and whenever a man shows on entering college any strong special interest, Professor Parker always tries to appoint for him an adviser who will sympathize with that interest. Nevertheless, the departments and committees which pay close attention to the choice of courses by each man concentrating in their field add much to the thoroughness of his education, and have adopted a principle that might with profit be more widely extended. It would be well if every department insisted on having a list, not merely of candidates for distinction, but of all students concentrating in its special field.

Another departure from the practice of counting by courses is the requirement that every student shall be able to read ordinary French or German at sight, and show it by doing so orally. This has proved to be a very different thing from taking and passing a course. It is a test of capacity acquired, not of tasks performed. It is in this one subject a measure of the man and of his education, not a unit of credit accumulated. Not less important is the Committee on the Use of English by Students, appointed in consequence of a request from the Board of Overseers. The investigation by that body showed that students who had done their required English composition often could not or would not express themselves creditably in their later written work. A man who cannot write his mother tongue grammatically, lucidly, and with a reasonably fair style, or who does not think it worth while to do so, is not an educated man, no matter how many courses he may have scored, or how proficient he may be in a special field. In this connection it may be noted that the supervision of the use of English applies to the Graduate School as well as to the College.

All these changes are in a direction away from the mechanical view of education which is the bane of the American system. We see that view displayed everywhere, prominently at the present day in efforts to raise the standard of pre-medical training. This is commonly expressed in terms of courses taken and credits obtained, not of knowledge acquired. If a young man has passed a course and learned little or nothing, or forgotten all he knew, he fulfils the requirement; but if he has mastered the subject in any other way, and can prove it by examination, it avails him nothing. Counting the credits scored in courses is, no doubt, the easiest way to apply a requirement, but it is not a sound system of education. What a man is, what knowledge he possesses, and what use he can make of it, is the real measure of his education. All persons who desire to improve the American system from the common school upward ought to strive not to lose sight of the end in the means, not to let the machinery divert attention from the product….

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-1915, pp. 8-11.

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Other related posts

Harvard. First Undergraduate General and Specific Exams in History, Government and Economics Division, 1916.

Harvard College President Lowell on Instruction in Economics Department, 1917

Harvard. Report on the Tutorial System in History, Government and Economics. Burbank, 1922

Image Source: Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell from Harvard Class Album 1920.

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard

Harvard and Columbia. The Role of University Presidents in the US. Economist, 1909.

 

 

Today’s post provides a glimpse of the major American universities as seen by the eyes of an Englishman (presumably F. W. H. was both English and a man). While the article highlights the role played by the university presidents, there are other differences noted, e.g. “all-pervading atmosphere of work” observed in the Harvard Law School and the “much greater popularity of politics and political economy”.

For fun I have appended the short-story referred to in the Economist article: “What the College Incubator Did for One Modest Lambkin.” It provides some nice examples of early 20th century American vernacular. Does anyone out there know what the “Harvard walk” looks like?

 

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AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS.—THE UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR PRESIDENTS.

            Although my primary object in visiting America was to get some insight into the commercial and financial system, and to inform myself about the prevalent notions of commercial policy and monetary reform, it was desirable and even indispensable for the objects I had in view to see as much as possible of University men. If the average American university is less powerful than either Oxford or Cambridge as a medium for colouring society, it is perhaps for that reason a stronger element in the national life. The rather exclusive caste with its innumerable degrees that files out of Oxford and Cambridge is but faintly reproduced in the American system by Harvard and Yale, whose mannerisms are sometimes imitated by the youthful universities of the West, and often caricatured by the American humorist. No one who has read it could easily forget George Ade’s description of the grey-haired agriculturist of the Middle West who took his son to a cheap provincial university in the hope that he would “soak up all the knowledge in the market,” and qualify for an inspectorship of schools [George Ade, Breaking into Society (New York: Harper & Brothers,1904), pp. 21-30.]. When the first vacation came, the old man discovered with horror that his young scholar had only acquired the Harvard walk, a passion for athletics, and the habit of large expenditure upon dress. As a matter of fact, universities like Harvard, Yale, Colombia [sic], Cornell, the John Hopkins at Baltimore, and Jefferson’s University of Virginia, have a very high average standard of work. Diligence, as Mr Bryce puts it, is the tradition of the American colleges, partly because “in all but a few universities the vast majority of the students come from simple homes, possess scanty means, and have their way in life to make.” Even at Harvard, with all its rich endowments, its old traditions, and its association with Boston as the home of American men of letters, there is far less of the dilettantism and indifference to the practical business of life than is to be found in the extravagant sets at our fashionable colleges. But this may be partly due to the absence of the college system—a system which has its advantages as well as its defects.

When Professor Lawrence Lowell, who has just been unanimously elected president of Harvard, took me over the law school, I was immensely impressed by the all-pervading atmosphere of work. The ample libraries were filled not only with books, but with students, all engrossed in study, and each apparently convinced that he had not a moment to lose in the race after knowledge. But then, the Harvard law school is justly famous as the largest and best in the English-speaking world. The connection of law with business and of the universities with law is much more close and more real in the states than at home; the chief reason, I think, being the diversity of State legislation upon which all the corporations depend, and the consequent impossibility of carrying on the business of large concerns without constant advice from lawyers. The reliance of business men upon lawyers brings legal firms into far more intimate relations with business conditions than is the case in our own country. Moreover, as there is no distinction between barrister and solicitor, the eminent pleaders and jurists of the United States are not secluded and screened by an intermediate profession from real contact with their real client.

Another evidence of what may be called the actuality of academic life in America is the much greater popularity of politics and political economy. At Harvard, for example, Professor Lowell’s lectures on politics and Professor Taussig’s lectures on economics are regularly attended by three or four hundred students. The large universities have quite a number of economic lecturers, who often specialize on live subjects, such as railways, banking, or industrial corporations. Thus the students are constantly reminded of the various lines of business into which they can enter in order to earn a living after they have taken their degrees.

Lastly, the American university, while it resembles the Scottish or the German more than the English in many respects, differs from all European institutions in the singular importance that it attaches to the office of president. In the words of Mr Bryce, the position is one of honour and influence: “No university dignitaries in Great Britain are so well known to the public, or have their opinions quoted with so much respect, as the heads of the seven or eight leading universities in the United States.” President Eliot, of Harvard, for example, who has just resigned after a long and brilliant career, and Professor Butler, of Colombia[sic], who is still in the prime of life, are two of the most popular orators in the best sense of the word—one should perhaps say popular instructors—in the United States. Most of the presidents of universities are excellent business men, skilled in the arts of advertising their institution, and of attracting students and endowments. When they happen also to be gifted and erudite, their moral and intellectual influence over public opinion is naturally enormous. I was only when I began to realize all this that I could quite understand why the people one met in Boston and New York were often more excited about the presidential election for Harvard than about the Presidential election for the United States. It is probably not generally known that the president-elect, Professor Lowell, whose recently published work on our Constitution is already a classic, has been a successful director of large cotton mills, and is the sole manager of the Lowell Trust. A scholar and a business man with an aptitude for public speaking and liberal views of education should prove an ideal president for Harvard.

F. W. H.

Source: The Economist, January 16, 1909, pp. 105-6.

Image Source:  Abbott Lawrence Lowell, photographic portrait (1904) in Harvard University Archives Photograph Collection: Portraits; The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, the new President of Columbia University, New York.

 

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What the College Incubator Did for One Modest Lambkin.

from George Ade, Breaking into Society (New York: Harper & Brothers,1904), pp. 21-30.

ONE Autumn Afternoon a gray-haired Agriculturist took his youngest Olive Branch by the Hand and led him away to a Varsity. Wilbur was 18 and an Onion. He had outgrown his last year’s Tunic, and his Smalls were hardly on speaking terms with his Uppers. He had large, warty Hands, which floated idly at his sides, and his Wrists resembled extra Sets of Knuckles. When he walked, his Legs gave way at the Hinge and he Interfered. On his Head was a little Wideawake with a Buckle at the Side. Mother had bobbed his Hair and rubbed in a little Goose-Grease to make it shine. The Collar that he wore was size 13, and called the Rollo Shape. It rose to a Height of a half-inch above his Neck-Band. For a Cravat he had a Piece of watered Silk Ribbon with Butterflies on it.

Wilbur had his Money tied up in a Handkerchief, and he carried a Paper Telescope loaded down with one Complete Change and a Catalogue of the Institution showing that the Necessary Expenses were not more than $3.40 per Week.

As the Train pulled away from Pewee Junction Wilbur began to Leak. The Salt Tears trickled down through the Archipelago of Freckles. He wanted to Crawfish, but Paw bought him a Box of Crackerjack and told him that if he got an Education and improved his Opportunities some day he might be County Superintendent of Schools and get his $900 a Year just like finding it. So Wilbur spunked up and said he would try to stick it out. He got out the Catalogue and read all of the copper-riveted Rules for the Moral Guidance of Students.

The Curriculum had him scared. He saw that in the next four Years he would have to soak up practically all the Knowledge on the Market. But he was cheered to think that if he persevered and got through he would be entitled to wear an Alpaca Coat and a Lawn Tie and teach in the High-School, so he took Courage and began to notice the Scenery.

Wilbur was planted in a Boarding-House guaranteed to provide Wholesome Food and a Home Influence. Father went back after making a final Discourse on the importance of learning most everything in all of the Books.

Nine Months later they were down at the Depot to meet Wilbur. He had written several times, saying that he could not find time to come Home, as he was in pursuit of Knowledge every Minute of the Day, and if he left the Track, Knowledge might gain several Laps on him. It looked reasonable, too, for the future Superintendent of Schools had spent $400 for Books, $200 for Scientific Apparatus, and something like $60 for Chemicals to be used in the Laboratory.

When the Train suddenly checked itself, to avoid running past the Town, there came out of the Parlor Car something that looked like Fitz, on account of the Padding in the Shoulders. Just above one Ear he wore a dinky Cap about the size of a Postage Stamp. The Coat reached almost to the Hips and was buttoned below. The Trousers had enough material for a suit. They were reefed to show feverish Socks of a zigzag Pattern. The Shoes were very Bull-Doggy, and each had a wide Terrace running around it. Father held on to a Truck for Support. Never before had he seen a genuine Case of the inflammatory Rah-Rahs.

Wilbur was smoking a dizzy little Pipe from which the Smoke curled upward, losing itself in a copious Forelock that moved gently in the Breeze. Instead of a Collar, Wilbur was wearing a Turkish Towel. He had the Harvard Walk down pat. With both Hands in his Pockets, the one who had been pursuing Knowledge teetered towards the Author of his Being and said, ” How are you, Governor?”

Father was always a Lightning Calculator, and as he stood there trying to grasp and comprehend and mentally close in, as it were, on the Burlap Suit and the Coon Shirt and the sassy Pipe, something told him that Wilbur would have to Switch if he expected to be County Superintendent of Schools,

“Here are my Checks,” said Wilbur, handing over the Brasses.” Have my Trunks, my Golf Clubs, my portable Punching-Bag, the Suit-Case and Hat-Boxes sent up to the House right away. Then drive me Home by the Outside Road, because I don’t want to meet all these Yaps. They annoy me.”

“You’d better git out of that Rig mighty quick if you don’t want to be Joshed,” said his Parent. “Folks around here won’t stand for any such fool Regalia, and if you walk like a frozen-toed Hen you’ll get some Hot Shots or I miss my Calkilations.”

“Say, Popsy, I’ve been eating Raw Meat and drinking Blood at the Training-Table, and I’m on Edge,” said Wilbur, expanding his Chest until it bulged out like a Thornton Squash.” If any of these local Georgie Glues try to shoot their Pink Conversation at me I’ll toss them up into the Trees and let them hang there. I’m the Gazabe that Puts the Shot. Any one who can trim a Policeman and chuck a Hackman right back into his own Hack and drive off with him doesn’t ask for any sweeter Tapioca than one of these Gaffer Greens. The Ploughboy who is muscle- bound and full of Pastry will have a Proud Chance any time that he struts across my Pathway. In my Trunks I have eight suits a little warmer than this one and 47 pairs of passionate Hose. I’m out here to give the Cornfields a Touch of High Life. It’s about time that your Chaws had a Glimpse of the Great Outside World. Any one who gets Fussy about the Color-Combinations that I spring from Day to Day will be chopped up and served for Lunch. To begin with, I’m going to teach you and Mother to play Golf. If these Mutts come and lean over the Fence and start to get off their Colored- Weekly Jokes we’ll fan the Hill-side with them.”

“What do they teach up at your School — besides Murder?” inquired Father. ” I thought you wanted to be County Superintendent of Schools.”

“I’ve outgrown all those two-by-four Ambitions,” was the Reply. “I’m going to be on the Eleven next Fall. What more could you ask?”

That very week Wilbur organized a Ball Team that walloped Hickory Crick, Sand Ridge, and Sozzinsville. He had the whole Township with him. Every Cub at Pewee Junction began to wear a Turkish Towel for a Collar and practise the Harvard Walk.

MORAL : A Boy never blossoms into his full Possibilities until he strikes an Atmosphere of Culture.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Six Economics Ph.D. examinees, 1906-07

 

 

This posting lists six graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from April 4 through May 23, 1907, apparently the entire 1906-07 Ph.D. examination cohort. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

 

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DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1906-07

 

Arthur Norman Holcombe.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, April 4, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Lowell, Bullock, Gay, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. [2. Economic History to 1750.] 3. Economic History since 1750. [4. Sociology and Social Reform.] 5. Public Finance. [6. Modern Government and Comparative Constitutional Law.] Excused from further examination in subjects 2, 4, and 6 on account of having taken Highest Final Honors.
Special Subject:
Thesis Subject: “The Telephone Situation.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Walter Wallace McLaren.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, April 10, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Hart, Bullock, Munro, and Andrew.
Academic History: Queen’s University (Canada), 1894-99; Queen’s University Theological College, 1899-1902; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.M. (Queen’s Univ.) 1899; B.D. (ibid.) 1902.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 4. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 5. The History of Canada. 6. Municipal and Local Government.
Special Subject: Canadian Economic History.
Thesis Subject: “History of the Canadian Tariff.” (With Professor Taussig.)

Frank Richardson Mason.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Channing, Bullock, Gay, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Commercial Crises. 5. Social Reform and Industrial Organization. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: United States Economic History (or Crises?).
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in Europe and America.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Charles Phillips Huse.

Special Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 15, 1907.
General Examination passed May 11, 1906.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Stimson, Taussig, Bullock, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1900-03; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1904; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History.
Thesis Subject: “Financial History of Boston, 1822-1859, with a Preliminary Chapter.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, Ripley.

 

William Jackman.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 22, 1907.
Committee: Professors Gay (chairman), Macvane, Taussig, Bullock, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: University of Toronto, 1892-96; University of Pennsylvania, 1899-1900; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Univ. of Toronto) 1896; A.M. (ibid.) 1900.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 6. English History since 1500.
Special Subject: Modern Economic History of England.
Thesis Subject: “The Development of Transportation in Modern England before the Steam Railway Era.” (With Professor Gay.)

 

Edmund Ezra Day.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 23, 1907.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Channing, Taussig, Bullock, Andrew, and Wyman.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1901-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07; S.B. (Dartmouth) 1905; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Statistics. 3. Money, Banking and Crises. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Industrial Organization and Corporation Finance. 6. American Institutions and Constitutional Law.
Special Subject: Taxation.
Thesis Subject: “Taxation of Corporations in Connecticut and Maine.”(?) (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1906-1907”.

Image Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 .

Categories
Curriculum Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard College President Lowell on Instruction in Economics Department, 1917

In 1912 the economics department of Harvard initiated a major study of economics instruction in the University that was completed in 1916 and published as: 

The Teaching of Economics in Harvard University. A Report Presented by the Division of Education at the Request of the Department of Economics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1917. 248 pages.

I will of course rummage through the report for tidbits to post in Economics in the Rear-View Mirror, but for now, visitors at least have a link that will take them directly to the published study together with the following reflections of the President of Harvard College at the time A. Lawrence Lowell that were stimulated by the study. One does not really feel 100 years away from Lowell’s time, give-or-take a presentation software package, a MOOC or some learning platform (e.g. “Blackboard”).

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From the Annual Report for 1915-16 of the President of Harvard College, A. Lawrence Lowell:

One of the most interesting things done in the College during the last few years has been an invitation given by the Department of Economics to the Department of Education to investigate the undergraduate instruction in economics with a view to its improvement. Such a request to another body was not needed to prove the open mind, the desire to improve, the willingness to change its methods and to deal with its instruction as a systematic whole, which has been conspicuous in the case of the Department of Economics; but it is highly significant and full of promise. The investigation, which occupied a couple of years, has been very elaborate, making a large use of statistics, of questionnaires to instructors, students and graduates, of examination questions designed to test the progress of students in their capacity to deal with problems, and of other methods of inquiry that need not be described here. It has touched many different aspects of instruction, some of them of value far beyond the department immediately concerned. These things will appear when the report is published, but it may not be out of place to mention a couple of them here.

The fundamental questions in all education are the object sought and the result attained. Is economics studied in college for the sake of its general educational value in training the mind and preparing for good citizenship, or with a view to its vocational utility in the student’s subsequent career; and how far does it actually fulfil each purpose? An answer to these questions was sought by means of questionnaires addressed to all students taking economic courses and to a thousand graduates, beginning as far back as the Class of 1880 and comprising men engaged in every kind of occupation. Of course all the persons addressed did not reply, and many of the answers were too vague to be of use. Yet among the replies there were a large number definite enough to be of great value. Of the students, about one-third intended to take up a business of some kind; more than one-half as many were looking forward to the law; while the rest were distributed among all the different careers of which an undergraduate can conceive. Of all these men, about two-fifths gave as their chief reason for electing economics its value in training the mind or in understanding public and social problems; while even of those intending to adopt some occupation for which the subject is popularly supposed to offer a preparation, only about one-fifth expected to find what they learned directly helpful, although many more trusted that it would be of indirect assistance.

More interesting still are the replies from the graduates, for they had been enabled to measure what they had acquired by the light of experience in their various pursuits. The men in almost every occupation speak more commonly of the general cultural or civic benefit that they obtained than of vocational profit. This is notably true of the lawyers, and in a less degree also of the business men. The only two classes of graduates who speak with equal frequency of the two kinds of benefit derived are the journalists and the farmers; but they are few in number, and their answers do not appear to have been closely discriminating in this respect.

Results like those brought out by the inquiry of the Department of Education have a direct bearing upon the teaching of Economics, and the position of the subject in the undergraduate course of study. If the chief value of economics, is vocational, it ought to be taught mainly from that point of view, and undergraduates ought not to be generally encouraged to elect it who will not pursue some vocation to which it leads. But if, on the other hand, its principal benefit lies in training men to think clearly, and to analyze and sift evidence in the class of problems that force themselves upon public attention in this generation, then the greater part of the courses ought to be conducted with that object, and it is well for every undergraduate to study the subject to some extent. An attempt to aim at two birds with the same stone, is apt to result in hitting neither. Moreover, a confusion of objectives is misleading for the student. An impression often arises, without any sufficient basis, that some particular subject is an especially good preparation for a certain profession, and the theory is sometimes advocated warmly by the teachers of the subject from a laudable desire to magnify the importance of their field. Students naturally follow the prevailing view without the means of testing its correctness; not infrequently, as they afterwards discover, to the neglect of something they need more. The traditional path to eminence at the English bar has been at Oxford the honor school in literae humaniores, at Cambridge the mathematical tripos, and since the strongest minds in each university habitually took these roads, the results appeared to prove the proposition. It is well, therefore, that we should seek the most accurate and the most comprehensive data possible on the effect of particular studies upon men in various occupations, and upon different classes of minds. Such data are not easy to procure and are still more difficult to interpret, but when obtained they are of great value, and would throw light upon pressing educational questions about which we talk freely and know almost nothing.

Another matter with which the Department of Education dealt in their inquiry, again by the use of the questionnaire, is the relative value attached by students to the various methods of instruction. These were classified as lectures, class-room discussion, assigned reading, reports, essays or theses prepared by the student, and other less prominent agencies. Taken as a whole the students ascribed distinctly the greatest value to the reading, the next to the class-room discussion, placing lectures decidedly third, with reports and other exercises well below the first three. This order was especially marked in the case of the general introductory course known as Economics A. In the more advanced courses the order is somewhat changed. Even here the required reading is given the highest value, but the lectures in these courses are deemed more important than the class-room discussion. Among the better scholars in the advanced courses the value attributed to the lectures is, in fact, nearly as great as that ascribed to the assigned reading. These men also give to the reports, essays and theses a slightly greater importance than do the elementary and the inferior advanced students, although they do not place them on a par with the other three methods of instruction.

Answers of this kind are not infallible. There are always a considerable number of students who express no opinions, or whose opinions are not carefully considered. Nevertheless the replies are highly significant as indicating an impression—the impression of persons who, imperfect as their judgment may be, are after all the best judges, if not indeed the only judges, of what they have obtained from the different methods of instruction. In some ways the answers are unexpected. One would have supposed that class-room discussion would be of more value in an advanced course than in an elementary one. For it would presumably be remunerative in proportion as the members of the class possess information about the subject and a grasp of the principles involved. Probably the real reason for the relatively small importance attached to it by students in advanced courses is to be found in the fact that many of these courses are conducted mainly as lecture courses without much class-room discussion. The most illuminating fact that appears from the replies is the high value attached to the assigned reading as compared with the lectures. Even in the cases of the better scholars in the advanced courses it is not safe to assume an opinion that the lectures are of equal value with books, because they may be referring strictly to the reading formally assigned which is only a part of the reading that they do.

The problem of the relative value of books and lectures in higher education, or, for that matter, of books and direct oral teaching at school, is one that ought to receive very careful attention. The tendency for more than a generation, from the primary school to the university, has been to throw a greater emphasis on oral instruction as compared with study of the printed page. Half a century ago the boy at school and the student in college were habitually assigned a certain task, and the exercise in the class-room was in the main a recitation, the work of the teacher consisting chiefly in ascertaining whether the task had been properly performed, the set number of pages diligently and intelligently read, and in giving help over hard places or removing confusion in the pupil’s mind. But since that time the whole trend of education in all its grades has been towards in increase in the amount of direct instruction by the teacher. At school he or she talks to the class more and listens less than formerly, teaches it more directly, imparts more information. In the college or university the recitation has almost entirely disappeared, giving place mainly to lectures and in a smaller degree to class discussion. In fact, the impression among the general public, and in the minds of many academic people, is that the chief function of a professor is to give lectures, — not of course in the literal sense of reading something he has written, but imparting information directly to the class by an oral statement throughout the lecture hour.

Lectures are an excellent, and in fact an indispensable, part of university work, but it is possible to have too many of them, to treat them as the one vital method of instruction. This has two dangers. It tends to put the student too much in a purely receptive attitude of absorbing information poured out upon him, instead of compelling him to extract it from books for himself; so that his education becomes a passive rather than an active process. Lectures should probably be in the main a means of stimulating thought, rather than of imparting facts which can generally be impressed upon the mind more accurately and effectively by the printed page than by the spoken word.

Then again there is the danger that if lecture courses are regarded as the main object of the professors’ chair, the universities, and the departments therein, will value themselves, and be valued, in proportion to the number of lecture courses that they offer. This matter will bear a moment’s consideration, for it is connected with certain important general considerations of educational policy. To make the question clear, and point out its bearing upon our own problems, something may be said about the relations that exist between instruction in the College and in other departments of the University.

Many American universities have adopted a combined degree, whereby the earlier portion of the professional instruction in law, medicine, and other technical subjects, is taken as a part of the college course; and at the same time they maintain separate faculties for the college, or undergraduate academic department, and for the graduate school of arts and sciences. At Harvard we have gone on the opposite principle in both cases. We have separated each of the professional schools almost wholly from the college, with a distinct faculty and a distinct student life of its own. We have done this on the ground that a strictly professional atmosphere is an advantage in the study of a profession, and we believe that the earnestness, the almost ferociously keen interest, of the student body in our Law School, for example, has been largely due to this fact. We believe that the best results in both general and professional education are attained by a sharp separation between the two. On the other hand, we have not established a distinct faculty for the graduate school, but have the same faculty and to a great extent the same body of instruction for undergraduates and graduates, each man being expected to take such part of it as fits his own state of progress. We have done this because we have not regarded the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as exclusively or distinctly a professional school for future teachers. If it were so, it would probably be necessary to give it more of a pedagogical character than it has today. Indeed there has appeared to be no serious disadvantage, such as exists in the case of a purely professional school, in our practice of not separating the graduate school wholly from the college. Although there is a single faculty the two bodies of students are quite distinct, and the graduates take no part in the athletics or social activities of the men in college. They are in no danger of any lack of industry, nor do they suffer from contact with the college students taking courses primarily for graduates. The best Seniors who have reached the point of electing advanced courses are by no means inferior in capacity, education, or earnestness to the average graduate. And, on the other hand, competent undergraduates benefit greatly by following instruction that would not otherwise be open to them.

Our system, by closing professional education to undergraduates, obliges them to devote their college course entirely to academic studies; and at the same time it opens all academic instruction to undergraduates and graduates alike. By so doing it treats the whole list of academic courses as one body of instruction whereof the quantity can be readily measured and the nature perceived. In this way our system brings into peculiar prominence a question that affects the whole university policy in this country. A university, as its name implies, is an institution where all branches are studied, but this principle easily transforms itself into the doctrine that a university ought to offer systematic instruction in every part of every subject; and in fact almost all departments press for an increase of courses, hoping to maintain so far as possible a distinct course upon every sub-division of their fields. This is in large measure due to the fact that American graduate students, unlike German students, tend to select their university on account of the number and richness of the courses listed in the catalogue on their particular subjects, rather than by reason of the eminence of the professors who teach them. Some years ago it happened that a professor of rare distinction in his field, and an admirable teacher, who had a large number of graduate students in his seminar, accepted a chair in another university. His successors at his former post, however good, were by no means men with his reputation. Under these circumstances, one would have supposed that many of his pupils would have followed him, and that fresh students would have sought him in his new chair. But in fact the seminar at the place he left was substantially undiminished, and he had a comparatively small body of graduate students in the university to which he migrated.

The real reason for increasing the list of courses, though it is often not consciously recognized, is quite as much a desire to attract students as a belief in the benefit conferred on them after they come. The result has been a great expansion within the last score of years in the number of courses offered by all the larger universities. Counting two half-courses as equivalent to one full course, our Faculty of Arts and Sciences offered last year to undergraduates or graduates 417½ courses running throughout the year. Of these 67 were designated as seminars, where advanced students work together in a special field under the guidance of the professors. More will be said of these later. Some of the remaining 350½ were in reality of the same character, and others involved purely laboratory work; but most of them were systematic courses of instruction, mainly what are called, not always accurately, lecture courses. In addition, there were 119 more courses listed in the catalogue, but marked as being omitted that year. These are in the main courses designed to be given in alternate years, where the number of applicants is not large enough to justify their repetition annually. A student has thus an opportunity to take them at some time during his college career. They entail upon the instructor almost as much labor in preparation as the others, and are an integral part of the courses of instruction provided by the University. The total number of courses, therefore, offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences was 536½, whereby something over 73 were in the nature of seminars.

Some years ago a committee of the Board of Overseers suggested that there were needless courses provided, and the Committee of the Faculty on Instruction examined the whole list, making careful inquiries of the members of the several departments, and reported that with one or two exceptions there were no courses for which good and sufficient reasons could not be given. The result of a similar inquiry would be the same today. There are few, if any, courses that could be seriously considered by anyone as useless or superfluous in themselves. Almost every one of them is intrinsically valuable, and a distinct contribution to the instruction in the subject. Nevertheless, it is a proper subject for consideration whether the policy of offering courses of instruction covering every part of every subject is wise. No European university attempts to do so. No single student can take them all in any large field and his powers would be deadened by a surfeit of instruction if he did. For the undergraduates a comparatively small array of staple courses on the most important portions of the subject, with a limited number of others on more highly specialized aspects thereof, is sufficient. For the graduate students who remain only a year to take the degree of Master of Arts, and who are doing much the same work as the more advanced Seniors, the same list of courses would be enough; and for those graduates who intend to become professors in universities and productive scholars it would probably be better, — beyond these typical specialized courses, which would suffice to show the method of approaching the subject — to give all the advanced instruction by means of seminars where the students work together on related, but not identical paths, with the aid of mutual criticism and under the guidance of the professors. Fewer courses, more thoroughly given, would free instructors for a larger amount of personal supervision of the students, would be better for the pupils; and would make it possible for the University to allow those members of the staff who are capable of original work of a high order more time for productive scholarship. Many a professor at the present day, under the pressure of preparing a new course, cannot find time to work up the discoveries he has made, or to publish a work throwing a new light on existing knowledge.

In making these suggestions there is no intention of urging a reduction of our existing schedule. But it is time to discuss the assumption, now apparently prevalent in all American universities, that an indefinite increase in the number of courses provided is to be aimed at in higher education. The question is whether that policy is not defective in principle, and whether we are not following it to excess, thereby sacrificing to it other objects equally, if not more, important.

Courses are merely a means to an end, and that end is the education of the student. One method of placing courses in their true light as a means of education is the provision of comprehensive examinations for graduation, covering the general field of the student’s principal work beyond the precise limits of the courses he has taken. This has long been done in the case of the doctorate of philosophy; and in the year covered by this report it was applied for the first time to undergraduates concentrating in the Division of History, Government and Economics. Only 24 students of the Class of 1917, who finished their work in three years and concentrated in this field, came under its operation; but they were numerous enough to give a definite indication of the working of the plan. To that extent the results were satisfactory. The examination papers were well designed for measuring the knowledge and grasp of the subject, with a large enough range of options to include the various portions of the field covered by the different candidates; and the examiners themselves were satisfied with the plan as a fair means of testing the qualification of the students. During the coming year a much larger number of men will come up for this comprehensive examination, which promises to mark a new departure in American college methods.

 

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1915-16 (Cambridge, 1917), pp. 11-19. Reprinted in Harvard Crimson, January 19, 1917.

Image Source: Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell from Harvard Class Album 1920.