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Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, Henry Raymond Mussey. 1905

Time to meet another economics Ph.D. alumnus.

This post provides a chronology of the life and career of Henry R. Mussey who received his graduate economics (and sociology) training at Columbia University. His useful editing skills landed him jobs twice at The Nation where he served as managing editor for a number of years. A man of convictions sufficiently strong to quietly resign his Columbia/Barnard position in protest of the dismissal of psychology professor James McKeen Cattell and English/comparative literature assistant professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana in 1917 for allegedly disseminating “doctrines tending to encourage a spirit of disloyalty to the Government of the United States.” Historian Charles Beard’s resignation also in protest of these dismissals was both public and fiery. It is not clear why Mussey did not create more of a fuss, but I would guess his personality was the opposite of a fist-pounding, door-slamming alpha-academic. 

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Other posts with Henry R. Mussey related content

His 1910 essay “Economics in the College Course.

Civil rights activist’s Virginia Foster Durr’s recollection of “Professor Muzzy” at Wellesley College in the early 1920s.

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Henry Raymond Mussey
Timeline

1875. December 7. Born in Atkinson, Illinois to parents William Alvord Mussey (1839-1926) and Louise Nowers (1845-1928).

Began his collegiate studies at the Geneseo Collegiate Institute, Illinois.

1900. A.B. Beloit.

Fun fact.  In 1899 H.R. Mussey (’00) played the role of Antigone. Performances of Greek dramas given in English were a staple of Beloit College life.
Source: Edward Dwight Eaton, Historical sketches of Beloit College, (Second edition, 1935), p. 234

1901-02. Presented a paper “The Theory of Monopolies” in John Bates Clark seminar in political economy and finance that met every other week.

1902. Fellow in the Columbia Department of Economics, appointed instructor in Economics to replace A.M. Day who had resigned to work for the new Tenement House Commission of New York City. “Mr. Mussey has already acquired much popularity and confidence among the students in his classes.” Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. XLV, No. 42 (21 March 1902), p. 1.

1903. The “Fake” Instalment Business. New York: The University Settlement Society.

1903-05. Assistant Professor of Economics and Industry in New York University School of Commerce .
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28.

1905. Ph.D., Columbia University. Thesis: Combination in the Mining Industry: A Study of Concentration in Lake Superior Iron Ore Production. (vol. XIX, No. 3) New York: Columbia University Press.

1905. Engaged to Miss Mabel Hay Barrows of New York. Ca. 1902 she directed a revival production of the Greek play The Ajax of Sophocles at the university. Winter 1904-05 Ajax performed in New York. Also given in different colleges (Manhattan, Chicago, University of California) travelling as far West as California. “Mr. Mussey accompanied the players as general director of stage manager. He is professor of economics and history in New York university.” The Minneapolis Journal (Jan 24, 1905, p. 11).

“The music for the occasion has been composed by Miss Constance Mills and the costumes worn by the actors and singers have been copied form Greek vase paintings. Preceding the idyls a chorus of maidens will sing the oldest piece of Greek music of which both words and notes are preserved—the Delphic Hymn to Apollo. The production will be rendered further interesting by three Greek dances, one of the religious type, one mimetic in character, and the other a reminiscence of the nymphs of sea and land, which will be given between the scenes from Theocritus.”
Source: Brooklyn Life (February 11, 1905, p. 32).

1905. June 28. Married Mabel Hay Barrows (1874-1931) in Georgeville, Quebec. One son.

1905-07. Associate Professor of Economics at Bryn Mawr College.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28.

1907-09. Assistant Professor of Sociology in the University of Pennsylvania.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28.

1908. Passport application (May 6). Permanent residence given as Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Occupation university professor. Passport to be sent to Loan Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

1909-1917. On the faculty of Barnard College.

1910. Economics in the College Course. Educational Review, Vol. XL (October, 1910), pp. 239-249.

1910. Drs. Agger and Mussey project. “Intersection debate” conducted by the Barnard Literary Association. Teams selected of four students from each class to debate, “Resolved that the common ownership of all the means of production will promote social welfare.”

1911. Adjunct Professor of Economics.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1911, p. 27.

1911. Henry Raymond Mussey, editor. The Reform of the Currency. In the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, vol. 1, no. 2, (January 1911).

1912. Assistant Professor of Economics, Barnard College.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28). Under his faculty portrait: “A smile that puts to flight all care and troubles, withal it teaches us of poverty and rents.”

1912. [identified as Associate Professor of Economics, Columbia University] Mussey, Henry Raymond. “Discussion of Investments on Instalments.” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, vol. 2, no. 2, 1912, pp. 107–08.
JSTOR https://doi.org/10.2307/1171942

1916. Passport application (January 17). Permanent residence Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Plan to leave from the port of Seattle on the Awa Maru on March 7, 1916 to travel and study in Japan and China.

1916. Associate Professor of Economics in Columbia University, representing Beloit College at Vassar College Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration

1917. “took part in the arranging the program of a convention of the academy at Long Beach, L.I. in May, 1917, which caused comment because of alleged pacifist and pro-German speeches.” From Mussey’s New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, Vol. VII, Nos. 2,3 (July 1917). Edited by Henry Raymond Mussey and Stephen Pierce Duggan.

Part I. 1. The Democratic Ideal in World Organization; 2. Future Pan-American Relations.
Part II. 3. Future Relations with the Far East; 4. Investments and Concessions as Causes of International Conflict.

1917. Associate Professor of Economics on the Barnard College Foundation. Tendered resignation to be effective at the convenience of the University.
Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. XLI, No. 47 (4 December 1917), p. 1

“Rumours that circulated about the University yesterday to the effect that Professor Henry Raymond Mussey, Associate Professor of Economics on the Barnard Foundation, had tendered his resignation because of his sympathy with Professor Beard’s recent similar action were thoroly dispelled by various authorities on the campus, including Professor Mussey himself.
Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. XLI, No. 48 (5 December 1917), p. 1

 

“Although Dr. Mussey refused to comment at the time, it was reported that the resignation was designed as a protest against the dismissal by the university of two other faculty members [James McKeen Cattell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana]”
From New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

1918. Edited National Conference on War Economy. Vol. VIII, No. 1 (July 1918) of the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York.

1918-20. Managing editor of The Nation.

1922. Joins the Wellesley College faculty.

PROFESSOR HENRY R. MUSSEY TO TEACH HERE
Appointed to Position in Economics Department
The Wellesley News (January 26, 1922), p. 2.

                  Dr. Henry R. Mussey has recently been appointed a member of the Department of Economics and Sociology, and is to come to Wellesley at the beginning of the second semester.

                  Dr. Mussey has had a distinguished career as teacher in several of the colleges of highest standing. He has been at various times Assistant Professor of Economics and Industry in New York University School of Commerce, Assistant Professor of Sociology in the University of Pennsylvania, Associate Professor of Economics at Bryn Mawr College, and Associate Professor of Economics at Barnard and Columbia.

                  For the past four years Dr. Mussey has given his time to journalism and public affairs, serving successively as managing editor of the Nation and of the Searchlight, and as executive secretary of the People’s Legislative Service at Washington.

                  Wellesley is fortunate in having the first fruits of Dr. Mussey’s extra-academic experience.

“Through the studies which I have recently made in Washington of American shipping interests and the Merchant Marine,” said Mr. Mussey, new professor in the Department of Economics….[made] during the time he was conducting investigations for senators and congressmen at Washington, just before he joined the faculty of Wellesley College.”
Source: The Wellesley News (February 23, 1922), p. 5.

1922-1929. Joined Wellesley College February 1922, left in 1929 to serve as Managing Editor of The Nation. Returned to Wellesley in 1931. The Wellesley News (February 15, 1940)

1929-31. Returns to The Nation as managing editor.

1930. Mussey prepared survey “for the League for Independent Political Action in which need for the formation of a new political party to deal with unemployment was set forth.” From New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

THIRD PARTY PLANS ARE LAID BY GROUP
League for Independent Political Action, Headed by Columbia Professor, Is Formed.
By the Associated Press.

NEW, YORK, September 9. Formation of the League for Independent Political Action, to help in organizing a new national political party, was announced yesterday. Prof. John Dewey of Columbia University is chairman.

The announcement said a national committee of 100 had been formed to start the movement opposing the Republican and Democratic parties.

Among the league’s aims, according to the announcement, are public ownership of public utilities, unemployment and health Insurance, old age pensions, relief for the farmer on, virtually a free trade basis, high progressive taxes on incomes, inheritances and increases in land values; abolition of “yellow dog” contracts and injunctions in labor disputes, independence of the Philippines and non-restriction of Negro and immigrant labor suffrage.

Officers include James Maurer, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor; Zona Gale, of Wisconsin, author; Paul H. Douglas, professor of industrial relations, University of Chicago, and W. E. B. Dubois of New York, Negro educator, vice presidents.
SourceEvening Star, Washigton, D.C. (September 9, 1929), p. 16

1931. Returns to Wellesley College. [The Wellesley News (February 15, 1940)]

1931. Mussey’s wife, Mabel Hay Barrows, died at Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Strelitz. November 30.

“Doctor and Mrs Mussey were abroad for a year, and she was taken suddenly sick while travelling through Germany.” Boston Globe (December 7, 1931), p. 11.

Date of death from American Consular Service, Report of the Death of an American Citizen. Cause of death: Intestinal Ulcers and intestinal complications as certified by attending physician (Duodenal Ulcer). Cremated.

1934. July 15. Married Miss Sara Corbett.

1936. “helped organize in Boston the Massachusetts Society for Freedom in Teaching.” From New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

1940. February 10. Henry Raymond Mussey, A. Barton Hepburn professor of economics, died in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Image Source: Bryn Mawr College Yearbook, Class of 1907.

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Gender Undergraduate Wellesley

Wellesley. Economics education of Virginia Foster Durr, ca. 1922

Again we may thank serendipity and my propensity to plunge into the rabbit-holes of opportunity for another post. I came across a collection of oral history interviews in the University of North Carolina’s Documenting the American South while seeking information about UNC economics professor Daniel Houston Buchanan. It was in that collection of primary resources that I stumbled upon the 1975 interviews with the Civil Rights activist Virginia Foster Durr. In her description of her years at Wellesley College, I came across Durr’s positive recollection of economics professor “Muzzy”. That part of her interview was reworked and included in her autobiography seen below. I then decided to track down the professor who ignited her lifelong interest in economic inequality. It would have made my work slightly easier had she or her editor thought about checking the correct spelling of Muzzy. The professor in question turns out to be Henry Raymond Mussey (Columbia Ph.D., 1905).

What we have with this post some indication of the impact made by one economics instructor on the future political life of one of his students. She fought the good fight and Mussey was a positive influence in her personal development. 

Bonus Material: What Durr had to say about matters sexual and biblical at Wellesley in the early 1920s has been included along with the account of her economics awakening.

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Virginia Foster Durr

Born August 6, 1903, and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Virginia Foster Durr was the youngest child of Ann (Patterson) and Sterling Johnson Foster. She attended Wellesley College from 1921 to 1923, when she was forced to withdraw due to lack of funds. In 1926 she married Clifford Judkins Durr. In 1933, when Clifford Judkins Durr was appointed to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Durrs moved to Seminary Hill, Virginia; Clifford Judkins Durr later worked for the Federal Communications Commission.

During the years the Durrs lived in Virginia, Virginia Foster Durr led an active social life. Her circle included government officials she knew through Clifford Judkins Durr and through her sister, Josephine, and brother-in-law, Hugo Black, Sr., who was appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 1937. She also devoted time to liberal causes. From 1938 to 1948 Virginia Foster Durr was active in the Southern Conference in Human Welfare, primarily fighting the poll tax. She campaigned for progressive Democrats in 1942 and for the Progressive Party, supporting Henry A. Wallace’s 1948 presidential bid. She also endorsed the American Peace Crusade in 1951.

In 1951, after a brief period in Denver, the Durrs returned to Alabama, where Clifford Judkins Durr opened a private law practice in Montgomery, and Virginia Foster Durr worked as his secretary. In 1954 Virginia Foster Durr and others were accused of being Communists and were called before the Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee, chaired by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi. Although Clifford Judkins Durr did not serve as Virginia Foster Durr’s attorney, he did a great deal of work on the case, collecting information about the informants and providing legal advice to Virginia Foster Durr and her co-defendants. The accusations were ultimately proven to be false.

In 1955, when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, Clifford Judkins Durr was called in as her attorney and arranged for her release on bail. This incident sparked the “Montgomery Bus Boycott,” during which African Americans refused to ride on public transportation in the city for over a year. Thus began a second period of civil rights activism for Virginia Foster Durr.

Virginia Foster Durr’s political activities, and Clifford Judkins Durr’s activities with the National Lawyers’ Guild and his public attacks on loyalty oaths and the FBI, led to surveillance by the Bureau.

The Durrs had five children, four of whom survived to adulthood: Ann Durr Lyon, Lucy Durr Hackney, Virginia (“Tilla”) Foster Durr, and Lulah Durr Colan. After the death of Clifford Judkins Durr in 1975, Virginia Foster Durr lived in Wetumpka, Alabama, spending summers on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Her autobiography, Outside the Magic Circle, was published in 1985. She continued to be politically active until a few years before her death. She died in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1999, at the age of 95.

Source: Biographical note to Papers of Virginia Foster Durr, ca. 1910-2007 in the Schlessinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Collection.

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Sex, Religion, and Economics
The liberations of Virginia Foster Durr at Wellesley Colleg
e

                  …Instead of making us think how wonderful it would be to have a baby, we developed a real horror of such a disgusting performance. But that was typical of Wellesley: they would teach you one thing on a scientific basis but never tell you how the baby got into the mother’s stomach. Now, I’m sure there were girls at Wellesley who did know, but not the group I was with. We had been so inhibited by that time that we didn’t want to know. We didn’t discuss things like that. We talked about romance and beaus and lovers and sweethearts but not sex.

                  I’m sure the Southern girls believed, as I did, that sex was something connected with black people. It happened in the basement and was dirty and ugly and smelled bad, with a man leaving in the middle of the night or early in the morning and Mother getting upset and saying, “She’s had a man down there all night.” Something was ugly and disgusting about it.

                  We had some excellent teachers at Wellesley. I had a marvelous teacher in economics, Professor Muzzy (sic). He was a socialist, a Fabian. The Russian Revolution had taken place, but I never heard about it. Communism and Russia were far removed from my world. Muzzy was a follower of the Webbs. He read their great massive volumes with the details about how many outhouses there were in a certain road in London and the terrible plight of the poor. There were all kinds of tables and statistics that I had difficulty following. But I did get the impression that the great majority of people in the world had a pretty hard time. Once Muzzy gave me a paper to write. He knew that I came from Birmingham, so he said, “Mrs. Smith is the wife of a steelworker and her husband makes three dollars a day. Now tell me how Mrs. Smith with three children is going to arrange her budget so that she can live.”

                  Well, I tried to do it. I had to look up the price of food and rent and doctors. It was an active lesson in economics. I soon realized that Mrs. Smith couldn’t possibly live on that amount of money. She just couldn’t do it. When I handed in my paper, I had written at the end, “I’ve come to the conclusion that Mrs. Smith’s husband doesn’t get enough money, because they can’t possibly live on what he is paid as a steelworker in Birmingham, Alabama.” Not that I had ever been in a steel mill or knew anything about it. But Muzzy gave me an A, because he said I had finally realized that people can’t live on what they are paid.

                  I had another great experience, too. Bible was a required course at Wellesley, but it was taught as history. So I learned that my father had been right about Jonah and the whale. You can’t imagine what that meant to me. I had always felt that Daddy did a very noble act by saying he did not believe the whale swallowed Jonah. He refused to lie and be a hypocrite. But I had always been uneasy that my father had been thrown out of the church for being a heretic as a result of that. It was a great relief to learn that he had been not only noble but also right about the Bible stories as symbolism and myth.

                  These incidents at Wellesley had a delayed effect, but the main thing I learned was to use my mind and to get pleasure out of it. I also learned I could be comfortable about the Bible, and I could be comfortable that a woman could make a living and be happy even if she didn’t have a husband. And I began to realize that people had a hard time living and didn’t get paid enough. I began to get some inkling of economics. So my Wellesley education was quite liberating. On sex, there was a tremendous breakthrough, although it is hard to realize. I began to kiss Bill Winston and enjoy it thoroughly. Oh, he was so handsome and he used to wrap me in his VMI cape. My goodness, what romance! That was more dangerous than a hammock. So I was liberated to a degree. In sex, religion, and economics in those three in particular—I was liberated at Wellesley.

Source: Virginia Foster Durr and Hollinger F. Barnard. Outside the magic circle: the autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), pp. 62-63.

Image Source: Alabama Department of Archives & History. Alabama Photographs and Pictures Collection. Portrait of Virginia Foster Durr. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Barnard Columbia Principles Undergraduate

Columbia and Barnard. Essay on Economics in the College Course. Henry R. Mussey, 1910

In the next post you will be provided a proper introduction to the Columbia University economics Ph.D. alumnus (1905), Henry Raymond Mussey. In doing a proper background check on the man and his career, I found the following essay that many, or probably even most, historians of economics would not stumble upon. Mussey is thinking out loud about what should be done pedagogy-wise and his remarks seem remarkably current.

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ECONOMICS IN THE COLLEGE COURSE

Henry Raymond Mussey
Barnard College, Columbia University

                  The aim of economics teaching in college depends on the purpose of college training as a whole. Increasing wealth brings to our institutions growing numbers of students of varying earnestness and capacity. During the freshman year the college ought to weed out ruthlessly the indifferent and the incompetent. During the remaining years it ought to train for leadership a genuine intellectual and spiritual aristocracy, an aristocracy of keen mind, broad vision, and unfailing enthusiasm; an aristocracy capable of the wise, far-seeing leadership so essential in a democracy. The college gains nothing by yielding to the spurious utilitarianism that demands “practical” training, — that is, training immediately valuable in dollars and cents. I would hold fast to the cultural ideal, though I would not hold fast to the old idea of culture.

                  Four things the college ought to do for its students. It ought to interest them broadly in practically all human affairs, giving them a series of pegs, so to speak, on which to hang what they will learn in after life. It ought to bring them into contact with the world’s best minds past and present. It ought to teach them scientific habits of work and thought. It ought to develop in them a sense of proportion, sanity, balance, ability to look things full in the face, to form judgments and choose courses of action in view of all the consequences involved, both direct and indirect. Such is the culture the college ought to give its students — to the gifted few in rich measure, to ordinary students according to their capacity.

                  In such a college course, what is the aim of economics teaching? First of all, to train the student in scientific thinking and to cultivate in him the power of practical judgment. Before beginning economics, he should have had some training in mathematics and natural science, thus learning the first elements of scientific method in fields where conditions are simple and capable of experimental control. To form habits of exact and patient observation, to learn to formulate and test theories, and to make logical connections of cause and effect, — these things the student should learn from natural science. Passing then to the study of economics he meets a new and more refractory set of facts, that do not fit his formulas and that can be used by the skillful teacher to break down much of the cocksureness that often afflicts the immature student in his first enthusiasm at having really learned something in natural science. This greater complexity of facts compels him in each case not only to scrutinize carefully his premises, but to make sure that he has included all the important premises. Moreover, the facts, even when properly classified, do not “stay put.” Economic conditions are constantly changing, and even the human motives behind economic actions have nothing like the constancy and reliability of the law of gravitation, for example. The conclusions of economics, therefore, are at best only provisional; this very in exactness and partialness, in my judgment, give to the subject additional value as a means of scientific training. The student who has been led to work out the conditions and implications of the Malthusian theory of population, for example, will learn to walk warily among facts and to avoid hasty and sweeping generalizations. A science that teaches a student to pick out essential and underlying causes, and at the same time to give due weight to temporary disturbing influences, may fairly claim high rank as a means of developing scientific temper and habits of work.

                  Especially is it valuable for the development of practical judgment; for questions of social policy are rarely capable of mathematical demonstration. Statesman, legislator, administrator, reformer, — all alike must decide things on a balance of considerations. Even in everyday life there are few clear-cut questions of right and wrong, wise and unwise. A study like economics, in which some phenomena have been reduced to a considerable degree of order and coherence, while others remain intractable, is fitted in peculiar degree to further that sane, alert, cautious habit of judgment that characterizes both the true scientist and the level-headed man of affairs.

                  Further than this, economics in college ought to help students get rid of class prejudice. They come to college with all sorts of astonishing notions on economic and social affairs, unconsciously picked up from parents and friends: prejudices against trade unions and trusts, against foreigners and anarchists, against democracy and progress, against everything imaginable — but in any case prejudices and not reasoned convictions. They generally come, too, with a rich store of social good-will and desire to be really of use. Such desire, lacking wise direction, sometimes runs off into mushy sentimentalism or barren radicalism. Prejudices and enthusiasm alike need rationalizing; both alike give the teacher an opportunity of setting the student to thinking about the truth or falsity of his particular notion, of suggesting to him the tests he must apply to it. Since all social questions have an economic basis, this is peculiarly the opportunity of the economics teacher. Wherever he finds a prejudice he ought to destroy it, compelling the student either to abandon it, or to substitute for it a conviction based on reason. This is a part of that process of broadening the interest of the student which was suggested as the first duty of the college.

                  Finally, economics ought to help the student acquire a sane attitude toward social improvement. Realizing in some measure the importance of the social institutions worked out in the world’s experience, yet seeing that they are always relative to particular conditions of time and place, he can be brought to face the great problems of present-day economic reconstruction and social reform with broad sympathy, patient regard for facts, recognition of economic laws, tolerance of other opinions and points of view. His training in economics ought to give him not a set of cut and dried opinions, but a point of view and a method of work, the one sane, the other scientific. Rightly enough the country demands leaders with such equipment: college economics ought to help supply that equipment. The advancement of the science is a noble aim, but that task rests on the economist as investigator and university teacher. The college today, as ever, should be the maker of men and women. The sanction of economics teaching in college is primarily not scientific, but social. It attains its social end, however, only as it is uncompromisingly scientific.

                  This statement of aims indicates roughly when economics should be introduced into the college course, and what it should include. It is traditionally and rightly a junior subject. On the whole, it is rarely that a student will profit by formal economic study during the first half of the college course. Give him first some natural science and history. To allow freshmen to study economics is in my judgment distinctly wrong, and its election by sophomores, save in exceptional cases, is to be discouraged. It is better to take it too late rather than too early, no matter if the opportunity for advanced work is lessened thereby. Few college departments have much more to give a student after two years’ work.

                  The real problem is that of the elementary course, and it must be remembered that three students out of four will take no other. It should be a solid course of five hours a week, or its equivalent, throughout a whole year, taking a third of the student’s time. In my experience students in a five-hour course do much more than twice the same amount of work as in a three-hour one. (This change, by the way, I would extend to other subjects besides economics.) The increased frequency of impact of instructor on student, the student’s unpleasant consciousness that each day brings a new demand, the very momentum gained by daily meetings, — all combine to improve the quality of the work.

                  Yet more important, increased time makes possible an enlarged content, and this is vitally important. At the recent conference on the teaching of elementary economics [See Journal of political economy, December, 1909.] an astonishing diversity of ideas and methods was disclosed, yet it was pretty clearly shown that most teachers make theory the staple of their work, however much they sugar-coat it. They are right in so doing, for fundamentally they are trying to lead the student to explain economic phenomena. Theory can not be taught rapidly, and as most teachers feel it necessary to give a rather complete outline, a three-hour course leaves time for little else, except some “practical problems.” But pure theory is dry pabulum for the immature student; moreover, it is likely to be worthless and even dangerous to him. Consequently, while the first course should have a stiff backbone of theory, it ought to be built up of concrete description of phenomena as they exist today, with enough economic history to show the conditions out of which the present organization has arisen. It should contain enough of the history of economics to show the relativity and transitoriness of present theories, and it should show the relation of economic conditions and theory to past and present problems of social betterment. As it is today, most teachers, like most textbooks, divide their time between theory and so called “practical problems,” and leave out the other things. They can scarcely do otherwise. A thoroughly satisfactory course in elementary economics must wait till college authorities are willing to reorganize their curriculum so as to give it the added time above suggested, and till teachers are willing to do the amount of hard work involved in such a course. The gain will be well worth the cost.

                  The student should learn first how the production of wealth depends on labor, natural resources, artificial capital, and business organization, studying the actual organization of agriculture, mining, manufacture, and commerce, and familiarizing himself with important facts in their development. He should study our fundamental economic institutions, private property, competition, and freedom, observing their history, their limitations, and their actual present operation, discovering their relativity and the necessity for their readjustment to changing conditions. On the basis of these fundamentals he should build up a theory of value and distribution that takes account both of economic history — especially since the industrial revolution — and of the history of economic theory. I should insist on the history, in order to guard against too implicit faith in our own theory.

                  The latter part of the course may well be devoted especially to problems of trade unions, trusts, money, tariff, and the like, and schemes of economic reform, like cooperation, the single tax, and socialism. I would not fundamentally change the elementary economics course, but I would enrich and vivify it by giving the student a mass of concrete illustrative material, contemporary and historical, such as will make theory real to him. The work thus becomes dynamic, and always looks forward to the process of social adjustment in which we desire the student to take intelligent part. One thus trained ought not to become either an unintelligent reactionary, a visionary reformer, or a fire-eating revolutionary.

                  It is difficult to discuss separately the matter and the manner of the elementary course. I shall, therefore, turn directly to the question of how it should be presented. Most teachers use one of four methods: (1) Textbook; (2) lecture; (3) syllabus; (4) library work. Each method has its own disadvantages. Textbooks in general have a singular lack of emphasis. Most students do not distinguish the essential from the unessential, the terminology being new and the whole treatment more or less abstract. Of the ordinary evils of slavery to a text I need not speak. In a lecture course most undergraduates do no work. If a syllabus is used, most of the difficulties of the text are encountered, but with two or three books instead of one. Without unlimited library funds, library reading as a basis for class discussion is impossible. A hundred students are always wanting to get hold of half a dozen books. Most teachers, therefore, come back to a combination of textbook and lecture, with more or less effort at supplementary library work, — not a bad solution, though by no means an ideal one.

                  The root difficulty is to get into the hands of all the students concrete material that will serve as the basis for intelligent and informed discussion. Our students do not know the facts of economic life. Of late some books are beginning to appear that try to meet this need. A critic has said, with a good deal of truth, that if one knows no economics these books are useless, because they do not contain enough; and if he does know some economics they are useless, because he already knows all they contain. None the less I believe that the solution of our present difficulty is to be found in putting into the hands of students a large book, perhaps running to two or three volumes, consisting of well-selected studies of different phases of contemporary economic activity, selections from economic history, and the history of economics, and studies of pending problems in economic and social readjustment. The difficulty of keeping such a book up to date I fully recognize. Such a work could be to a considerable extent compiled from standard literature, but to meet the need it would also have to include considerable amounts of new descriptive matter. For example, in the study of value I would have a section showing the conditions of wheat production in the United States, Argentina, India, and Russia; the way in which the grain gets to market, where it is sold, and what influences determine its price; together with a sketch of the course of wheat prices during the nineteenth century. The question of value would thus immediately be tied up in the student’s mind not only with some vague formula of marginal utility, but with actual conditions of distribution of population, fertility of land, the consuming habits of the people, the use of machinery and scientific methods in agriculture, soil conservation, transportation, speculation, — the real influences that our formulas fail to suggest. By the use of a good textbook the student can at the same time learn as much of the technical jargon as is thought desirable, — but with this difference, that it will now have some meaning for him. After wheat I should treat some monopolistic commodity, such as kerosene or anthracite coal, bringing out similarities and differences as compared with wheat. The purpose of this reading or “source” book would be, not to furnish an inductive basis for elementary economics, for I doubt the possibility of teaching it inductively, but to give concrete illustrative material in which the student may examine actively at work every important principle laid down in text or lecture. He can thus be stimulated to study his own experience and employ his own observation and research in determining the truth or falsity of the hypotheses out of which economic theory is built up. According to this plan the teacher may lecture occasionally, but the student will do the work, because he will have something to work on. He will not be required to perform the impossible feat of grinding out scientific explanations in vacuo, which is about what we ask of him in his ignorance now. Description without explanation is empty; explanation without description, futile; description and explanation combined train the scientific thinker.

                  Given then a sourcebook such as has been suggested and a reasonably satisfactory text, the task of the teacher in the elementary course becomes fairly simple. It is summed up in two words — interest and drill. With proper equipment there is little excuse for failure to interest college students in economics, but interest is not enough; it needs to be combined with healthy compulsion. Considerable though their interest be, most elementary students, like other people, have no inclination to overwork. They need close supervision. To make this possible in large classes without entailing prohibitive work on the teacher, assignments of required material must be standardized, so that students can be handled in groups. The better ones can easily be grouped by themselves for special work in addition to that required of the ordinary ones. The better students are neglected by most teachers at present, their efforts being centered on the group of mediocrities who set the suggested reading book might well contain all the material the ordinary student could be expected to use. Then, instead of wasting the time of the whole class with assignments of books they will never read, the teacher could confine such recommendations to the special groups that will actually use them. Lacking such a sourcebook the standardizing of assignments and grouping of students are none the less desirable.

                  Into the technique of the introductory course I shall go no further. The constant effort must be to make the student think clearly, thoroughly, and broadly, and to express his thought simply, clearly, and directly. To this end I rely chiefly on constant classroom discussion of assigned reading. In many ways it is less valuable, however, than the written report, the topical investigation, the collection of material from newspapers, magazines, and public documents, the specific question for written answer and the written examination. All these methods unfortunately devolve a great amount of work on the teacher, and unless he can group students such methods become almost impossible as classes grow in size.

                  Advanced courses present a less difficult problem than the introductory one. The smaller number of students and their more select character, as well as the more specialized character of advanced work, which usually deals with some one part of the field, such as the labor problem, socialism, or money, make it possible to adopt university methods. The students can be thrown largely on their own resources and held responsible only for results. They can be trained to make careful and somewhat extended studies of special topics, and class work can be based to an extent on such studies, though it is fatal to take much time in having students present, often very badly, the results of immature thinking. I am of the opinion that these advanced courses, like the elementary one, would profit by being “fattened.” If it is thought impracticable for a student to give a third of his time to such a study, let him give at least a quarter. Let us have done with the leisurely two-hour undergraduate course, where the student leaves the classroom, say on Wednesday morning, with the pleasing consciousness that economics need trouble him no more till the next week. Let us cut down the number of courses and make serious business of those we do give. Too many college teachers are trying to do for their students what only the university can do.

                  In introductory and advanced work alike, one puzzling question is always presenting itself. What is to be the attitude of the college teacher of economics toward the great economic and political issues that divide classes and parties? He must discuss them, for they are the very questions that give interest to his subject, and on which its conclusions may be expected to throw light. Moreover, he must have opinions about them. A man who has no positive ideas about trusts and trade unions, a central bank, municipal ownership, conservation, and socialism, and who would therefore confine his teaching to a mere “scientific” statement of facts about them, — such a man has not red blood enough to teach economics to undergraduates. The economics teacher ought to have useful opinions if any one has. What shall he do with them?

                  Probably few men of scientific temper and honest disposition consider themselves justified in using their position as undergraduate teachers to play the propagandist for mere opinions, however firmly they may hold them. The classroom is no place for propaganda. Suppose, for example, that at the present juncture one believes in a central bank, — may he urge that view in his classroom? Certainly not, however popular it may happen to be with his trustees. As a scientist he ought to point out the scientific reasons for his opinion, and as a man of affairs he ought, if he desires, to take part in practical movements looking toward the realization of the end he believes wise — and this equally, whether the end desired is a central bank or a cooperative commonwealth. Such freedom is fundamental to having honest men in college and university. But as a teacher of immature students, the economist finds himself under obligation not to impose his views on minds more or less incapable of resistance. He will not wish to convert his students to an opinion that will be held more or less as a prejudice.

                  Two courses, then, are open to him. Either he may keep his opinions to himself, trying to present fairly the arguments on both sides and leaving the students to form their own conclusions; or, he may frankly state his own judgment, giving the reasons which lead him to his conclusion and the arguments on the other side. The first course in my judgment is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because we do not wish to create a race of civic jellyfishes. The spectacle of an economist out of whom one can not get a positive conclusion on any live subject is, to say the least, not an inspiring example for students whom we desire to have form the habit of reaching sane decisions. Secondly, any man, no matter how fair minded, will find it hard not to present more convincingly the arguments he believes than those he doubts. Hence, in taking up any disputed topic, I tell a class in advance what is my own conclusion, thus giving them, so far as possible, the opportunity to discount the element due to the personal equation. Students and teacher thus stand on a footing of mutual understanding that seems to me conducive to mutual respect and intelligent discussion. The teacher can not help imposing his ideas on his students to some extent, but he can, at any rate, avoid foisting off on them opinions that they absorb from him unconsciously, because they do not know that he holds them. But, after all, perhaps the particular method of dealing with this problem is less important than the spirit in which it is approached. To realize that college boys and girls are generally young and easily impressed, and that propaganda of disputed social policies on which scientific opinion is not united, is at the farthest remove from the teaching of science — to have this consciousness is the great requirement for dealing wisely and fairly in this matter with undergraduates.

                  A little the same thing may be said concerning the general problem of method. To see the fundamental importance of economic relations, to think clearly and systematically, to put things simply and directly, to be filled with enthusiasm for a better social order, — these are the characteristics that will enable the real teacher to touch his students with the live coal off the altar. None the less a method capable of general use needs to be developed as a pedagogical tool, serving the interests at once of sound scholarship, free science, efficient citizenship, and sane social progress.

Source: Educational Review, Vol. XL (October, 1910), pp. 239-249.

Image Source: Faculty portrait of Henry Raymond Mussey in the Barnard College Yearbook, The Mortarboard 1911.

Categories
Columbia Seminar Speakers Socialism Undergraduate

Columbia. Socialist speakers and undergraduate debates on socialism, 1910-11

 

In the current political times younger citizens see the pathology of centrally-planned, authoritarian socialism à la Stalin as being as distant as the pathology of authoritarian manifestations of capitalism.  “Democratic socialism” has become again a rallying cry, a progressive, small-d “democratic” alternative to the mixed capitalist economy status quo. This is not unlike the debate about socialism on campus and at the ballot box in the years before the first world war. With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to trawl through the Columbia Spectator for a few years (1910-11) to read articles in which the word “socialism” appears. These articles can be read below.

My own favorite item in this post is the description of an invited speaker, a graduate of Barnard College’s (first) class of 1893,  the suffragette  Jessica Garretson (later “Finch” and then “Cosgrave”), as “the woman of Carnegie Hall fame who is responsible for the statement that ‘Rich girls turn to Socialism as flowers to the sun'”–not quite an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backstory but times have changed.

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SOCIALISM LECTURE FRIDAY INSTEAD

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 141, 6 April 1910, p. 2.

Instead of lecturing yesterday as Spectator announced he would, Mr. Eugene V. Debs will talk Friday. As candidate of the Socialist Party for President in 1908, Mr. Debs is well fitted for his subject, Socialism. Seats in Earl Hall will be reserved until 4 o’clock, after which the public will be admitted.

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DEBS CHAMPIONS SOCIALISM
Twelve Hundred People Greet Famous Socialist at Lecture in Horace Mann Auditorium

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 144, 9 April 1910, pp. 1,5.

Before the largest audience that has listened to a lecture at Columbia University since Professor James of Harvard delivered the first of his famous lectures on pragmatism and before the most enthusiastic audience that has crowded a Columbia lecture room in many a day, Eugene V. Debs three times candidate for President of the United States on the Socialist Ticket spoke yesterday for an hour and a half on the work to which he has dedicated his life —Socialism.

The lecture was scheduled to take place in Earl Hall, but long before 4 o’clock it became evident that the auditorium in that building would be altogether too small. It was crowded by half past three. At the last moment, therefore, the lecture was changed to the Horace Mann Auditorium which seats between one thousand and twelve hundred people. It was none too large. When Mr. Debs entered, promptly at 4 o’clock, there was scarcely a seat to be had. His entrance was greeted with an enthusiastic burst of applause that lasted several minutes, and which was renewed a moment later, when, after being introduced by G. T. Hersch ’10L, president of the Socialist Society, the speaker rose to begin his address. Mr. Debs presents a striking figure—tall with a large, narrow very bald head, keen eyes and long, bony arms and fingers which he uses with great effect. His simplicity and sincerity were apparent from the outset.

The speech itself was a memorable one, and one which those who heard it will not soon forget. Mr. Debs began, almost academically with an account of Industrial Era which succeeded the Age of Feudalism, but presently warming to his subject he swept on, carrying with him an audience that listened attentively to every word. Although the speech was essentially a serious one and reached at times depths of pathos hard to surpass, it was relieved ever and again by touches of a dry, quaint humour of which Mr. Debs is a master —a humour so keen that it not only caused the audience to laugh but provoked several times spontaneous bursts of applause.

“Socialism,” said Mr. Debs, “is a scientific analysis of present and past conditions, and a forecast of what, from those conditions, is bound to come. We are not endeavoring to foist Socialism on Society, and we are merely preparing it for its peaceful entrance.” The account of present day conditions was forceful without oratory. Debs told of having seen father carrying the dinner pail to the child who worked in the factory, because the present system of production demands cheap labor. Coming from a man who at thirteen was working on a railroad, and at sixteen was firing a freight engine, the facts seemed all the more forceful.

The Socialist leader related his experience with the “Four Hundred,” some of whom he once had occasion to address. “They wanted to see what kind of an animal I was,” he said. I had great notoriety at the time —and they had great curiosity. They were all attired in evening dress. The ladies wore what, for some mysterious reason, they called full dress. As I looked into their empty faces, I thought, ‘How artificial they seem.’ If you would have perfect social standing you must be useless.”

After a summary of the unfavorable conditions with which the workingman is now oppressed, including child labor, disinterestedness of the employer, and the prevalent desire for cheap labor, Mr. Debs outlined the hopes of Socialism. Under this system he declared that every man and woman would be given the opportunity to work for the common good. Education and cultivation of the arts would be taken up by every individual. This would be possible because by co-operation instead of competition, the child would not be forced to work, and the workingman not ground under the heel of the individual capitalist. The exploitation of the minority at the expense of the majority would thus give place, by a common awakening, to a state where co-operation, instead of competition would be an economic rule.

Most interesting was the speaker’s comparison of the Socialists of today with the men who led the agitation for the American Revolution. “Undesirable Citizens,” then, all of them—Samuel Adams, the arch incendiary—Tom Paine, vilified as a destroyer of Society —Jefferson, branded as a traitor. “I wonder,” said the speaker, “if the aristocratic Daughters of the Revolution could by some miracle come face to face with their revered forefathers as they were in their own time, whether they would not disown them. Those visionary agitators were disreputable then. They are only respectable now because they are dead, and because the world moved up to where they stood. John Brown and the other abolitionists he cited as a further example—as people with a vision of better things who stood up for their convictions and were despised in their generation. “When John Brown was hung they called him a monster, ten years later he was a fanatic, ten years more and he was misjudged, and now only recently the State bought the old John Brown homestead and the Governor, on the occasion of its dedication, said that ‘the spot where his dust reposes is the most sacred in this commonwealth.'”

“One word,” said Mr. Debs, “I want to leave with you young men and women. It is this, Nothing is more glorious than to stand up for convictions, when the world disagrees with you. If your last friend deserts you, you will be in better company than you were before.”

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DEBATING IN CLASSROOM
Novel System to be Inaugurated Under Auspices of Barnard Literary Association

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 144, 9 April 1910, p. 1.

Barnard Literary Association in [col]laboration with Dr. Agger of the Economics Department has formulated a plan of compulsory participation in debating; this experiment to become immediately effective in certain economics classes. In conjunction with Drs. Agger and Mussey, the project has been evolved, including all members taking Economics 2. The system will work as follows: A subject for debate will be chosen, probably on some aspect of socialism. Then during class hours every member of the class will have to speak extemporaneously for five minutes on the subject selected. The individual men will not be told beforehand on what side they will talk, so the speeches will be entirely impromptu. These five minute talks will be so to speak, the preliminaries. All the members of the class will act as judges, and at the conclusion of the trials they will vote for the four best men to comprise the team.

This arrangement will be conducted in both, Dr. Aggers and Dr. Mussey’s classes and after each section has chosen its team, a formal debate will be held, probably in Earl Hall. The whole affair will be conducted under the auspices of Barnard Literary Association. A committee on arrangements has been appointed, consisting of C.J.W. Meisel ’11, R.R. Stewart ’11, R.C. Ingalls ’12, and E.W. Stone ’11, ex-officio. To further stimulate student interest, the society has made appropriations in order to present prizes to the winning team.

Dr. Agger is very enthusiastic about the new plan, and predicts great results for the future. It is a most happy circumstance that a debating society should take charge of this undertaking, and by the co-operation of faculty and the undergraduates, student interest in debating cannot fail to be evoked. A new era for debating is dawning. If this experiment proves as successful as it is expected to, it will undoubtedly be extended to other courses in economics and politics, and will become a permanent feature of the curriculum.

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INTERSECTION DEBATE SOON
Both Teams Selected Yesterday

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 164, 3 May 1910, p. 1.

Arrangements for the intersection debate which is being conducted by the Barnard Literary Association, are rapidly progressing. The subject, as the poster on the society’s bulletin board in Hamilton Hall announces, is Socialism.

Yesterday, Dr. Agger’s morning and afternoon sections each selected a team. Ten men spoke before each class and five were chosen by vote of the class. The morning section picked the following men: L.K. Frank ’12, W.M. Delerick ’12, S.R. Gerstein ’11, C.J.W. Meisel ’11, W.W. Pettit (Pg), while the other section is to be represented by I.[?] J. Levinson ’12, W.A. Scott ’11, S.M. Strassburger ’11, W. MacRossie ’11, J. Levy ’11. All these men must meet in 205 West Hall at 11:55 today in order to choose sides for the semi-finals to be held tomorrow. The team that wins will debate the same subject with Professor Mussey’s section.

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DO WE WANT SOCIALISM?
Students in Economics 2 to Decide Question in Debate Held Under Auspices of Barnard Lit.

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 168, 7 May 1910, p. 3.

Those who are interested in Economics will have an excellent opportunity of hearing a debate on Socialism next Monday at 3 p.m. in 301 Hamilton Hall. The question reads, “Resolved that the common ownership of all the means of production will promote social welfare.” The debaters are all members of the classes in Economics 2. As the course is a very popular one, it is given in three sections, two of which are conducted by Dr. Agger and the other by Professor Mussey. Last Monday Dr. Agger’s sections held their preliminaries and each selected a team. On Wednesday these two teams met, and the judges unanimously decided in favor of the negative team, which consisted of S. M. Strasburger ’11, G. W. Scott ’11, and S. J. Levinson ’12, of the afternoon section. The team representing the morning section was composed of the following men: L. K. Frank ’12, S. R. Gerstein ’11, W. W. Pettit (T. C.), and W. M. Dederick ’12. The decision was based upon the preparation shown, and skill in delivery. The judges also selected Strassburger, Pettit and Levinson as the best speakers, and these men will represent Dr. Agger’s sections against Professor Mussey’s next Monday. Professor Mussey’s section has also chosen a team consisting of S. I. Fried ’12, E. V. Broderick ’12, and W. S. Dakin (T. C.)

The debate next Monday promises to be one of the most interesting ever heard on the Campus. It is the first time that debate has ever been introduced into the class-room as part of the work. The planning, and the making of arrangements for this debate was done by Barnard Literary Association in collaboration with Professor Mussey and Dr. Agger. The members of the winning team are to receive appropriate prizes donated by the association. An invitation to be present has been extended to the students taking Economics 2, in Barnard College. The debate will be open to any one in the University.

Not only have the men on the teams shown unusual interest in the contest but all the men in the various sections are very enthusiastic as to the undertaking. Professor Beard of the Politics Department thinks the scheme is an admirable one, and is anxious to extend it to his field. It may also be possible to introduce class-room debate into the various courses in Philosophy.

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SOCIALISTS RESUSCITATED
Open Meetings Planned

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 16, 15 October 1910, p. 6.

Earl Hall yesterday afternoon was the scene of the Socialist Club’s meeting.

The work for the present year was decided upon, and it was planned to hold a series of open meetings, similar to those of last year, which were addressed by such men as Charles Edward Russell, the present Socialist candidate for Governor, Lincoln Steffens and Eugene V. Debs. There will also be the regular club meetings, with speakers of equally independent ideas but of less wide reputation.

The study and discussion of the principles of Socialism necessary for the formation of an intelligent opinion upon this world-wide movement, will also be continued in the hope that the student body’s interest in public affairs may not only be stimulated, but also educated

The next meeting of the club will be on Wednesday, October 19, at 4:15 p m., in room A, Earl Hall. All those who are interested in the radical political thought of the present day are cordially invited to co-operate with the club, while those who are interested it the investigation of social problems are urged to become members.

Mrs. Florence Kelly, in all probability, will speak in the auditorium of Earl Hall on Thursday, November 10.

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INSTRUCTION IN SOCIALISM
Series of Essays Planned

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 20, 20 October 1910, p. 1.

Something which is both novel and valuable was adopted by the Socialist Club at its meeting yesterday afternoon. This is a scheme for instructing the members in the fundamental principles of Socialism by having a graded series of essays read at the respective meetings.

Plans were also laid to have Mr. Russel, the Socialist Gubernatorial candidate make a campaign speech at the University sometime before election day and also to get Mrs. Finch up on the Campus. Mrs. Finch is the woman of Carnegie Hall fame who is responsible for the statement that “Rich girls turn to Socialism as flowers to the sun.”

On account of the unavoidable detention of N. Levey ’10L, who was to have read a paper entitled “The Original Intention of the Framers of the Constitution,” J. H. Henle ’12 spoke for a short time on the same topic with which he was thoroughly familiar. He pointed out that, while the Radicals in the colonies dictated the Declaration of Independence, it was the Conservatives who controlled the Constitutional Convention. He said in part: “Authentic reports show that behind closed doors, under a pledge of secrecy, they deliberately planned to protect the wealthy and those of higher understanding. Hamilton, in James-fashion, said in convention, that the constitution proposed would be almost impossible of amendment and, in the Federalist papers, that it was easy of amendment. The Supreme Court was effectively put in absolute control by an arbitory vetoing power and the entire government was made as indirect as it could possibly be—the House of Representatives being the only rope thrown out to the Radicals. The main point of interest is the striking contrast between the unpublished speeches of all the members in the convention with the stated views of the same men in the Federalist papers.”

An open discussion followed. The next meeting of the club will be in Earl Hall, room L, on Friday, October 28.

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About Jessica Garretson Finch

Source: Webpage History of Finch College

JESSICA GARRETSON earned her B.A. as one of the seven women in Barnard College’s first graduating class in 1893. Looking back on the four years she studied there, she said she considered them a waste of time, and observed that her college education had prepared her for one thing – to be a tutor in Greek! After marrying James Finch and receiving her law degree from New York University in the same month that she gave birth to a daughter, she decided to establish a post-secondary school for women that was “different,” and she did! The Finch School opened in 1900 with 13 students. Its curriculum was oriented toward the practical, with as many workshops, studios and practice rooms as classrooms. As enrollment grew, additional room was needed, and by 1904, with grants she had received and a hefty mortgage she arranged for the construction of the building on 78th Street known to many Finch women as the Academic Building. There, in addition to an academic faculty, most of whom were visiting professors from Columbia University, were actors from the New York stage, Seventh Avenue fashion designers, performing instrumentalists, singers, poets and politicians.

MEANWHILE, MRS. FINCH BECAME MRS. [John O’Hara Cosgrave in 1913] COSGRAVE. Her first marriage ended in divorce soon after the turn of the century. In 1913 she married the distinguished journalist, John O’Hare Cosgrave, who proposed to her during the intermission of a Carnegie Hall concert.

PREPARATION FOR THE “RECURRENT CAREER” was at the heart of Jessica Cosgrave’s educational philosophy, and along with her intense interest in “current events” (a term she coined), became the inspiration for the Finch curriculum. Women’s lives, she said, are unlike men’s lives; women’s lives have distinct phases. Therefore, a woman should be in school until she is 22; for the next three or four years she should launch into the first phase of her career; in her mid twenties she will marry, put aside her career and devote her energies to raising a family, four children was the ideal number. At about age 40, with her children in school, a woman should resume her career and, Mrs. Cosgrave advised, seriously consider entering politics.

IN ADDITION TO RUNNING WHAT WAS THEN TERMED “a fashionable school for girls,” Jessica Cosgrave worked energetically from 1900 on for two “causes”; Women’s Suffrage and Socialism. She was quoted in a NEW YORKER magazine “Profile” by Angelica Gibbons in 1946 as saying, “If there is any sensation more exquisite than walking up Fifth Avenue to music in a parade for an unpopular cause, I don’t know what it is.” She said that in one of the suffrage parades “People on the sidelines become impassioned to the point of throwing rotten vegetables and eggs at the ladies as they passed.” Angelica Gibbs goes on to note that this experience proved so invigorating to Jessica Cosgrave that after marching, most of the way up Fifth Avenue, she dropped out of line, took a cab back to the starting point, and “hoofed it all the way up again with another contingent.”

JESSICA COSGRAVE’S “SOCIALISM” may seem a bit incongruous considering how many of the young women from all parts of the United States, South America, Europe and Asia attending Finch came from wealthy families. In 1911, asked about her membership in the Socialist Party and the appearance as speakers at the Finch School of Upton Sinclair, Walter Lippman and other “radicals,” Mrs. Cosgrave said: “My chief object is to awaken Social Consciousness in the girls. I want my graduates to become powers in their communities, not idle fashionable women. I don’t teach these young girls actual Socialism, but Social Activism.” Thirty-five years later, in 1946, when a Finch student interviewed Mrs. Cosgrave, and asked about her politics, she said she stood “Just a bit left of center”!

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SOCIALISTIC LECTURE TODAY
Charles Edward Russell Socialist Candidate for Governor to Speak In Havemeyer

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 35, 7 November 1910, p. 8.

Columbia men will have an unusual opportunity this afternoon to hear in interesting man talk about an interesting subject. Mr. Charles Edward Russell, the author and magazine writer who is running for Governor of this State on the Socialist ticket will talk to Columbia men about socialism as a remedy for the evils from which New York is suffering. The lecture will be delivered in 309 Havemeyer, at 4 o’clock and will be open to the public.

Mr. Russell did general reporting for a number of New York papers, including the Herald, and vas then sent all over the country on special articles for the Sunday papers. For a time he was managing editor of the Hearst newspapers in Chicago. Then he began writing for the magazines. His magazine writing has taken the form of vigorous protests against the sort of political corruption and economic injustice that he saw from the inside during his newspaper days. He has become a “muckraker,” and has recently said that he “intends to keep on raking muck until somebody removes the muck.”

Mr. Russell has written quite a number of books, including “Lawless Wealth,” [1908] “Soldiers of the Common Good,” [article series most of which revised and published in]  “The Uprising of the Many,” [1907] “The Heart of the Railway Problem,” “A Life of Chatterton,” [1908] and “Why I am a Socialist,” [1910] and he is now busy on a life of Wendell Phillips [1914].

This is the first time he has run for political office as a Socialist. The renewed interest in socialism all over the country, and the recent Socialist victory in Milwaukee, made it probable that Mr. Russell will poll a large vote tomorrow.

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ECONOMISTS TO HEAR NOTED SOCIALIST

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 106, 24 February 1911, p. 2.

Mr. John Spargo will deliver the address at the meeting of the Graduate Economics Club tonight. The subject of his talk is, “The Wider Aspects of Socialism.” Mr. Spargo is a well-known socialist. The meeting will be held in 510 Kent, at 8 tonight. All members and guests are requested to be on hand promptly. The club is made up of graduate students who are working for a Ph. D.

Following are other lectures scheduled:

Friday, March 10: Henry George’s Theory of Land Rent and the Single Tax. Paper by Mr. I. S. Adlerblum.

Friday, March 24: A detailed description and criticism of the provisions of Senator Aldrich’s Plan for Banking Reform in the United States. Paper by Mr. Oswald Knauth.

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DISCUSSION OF SOCIALISM
Graduate Economics Club

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 107, 25 February 1911, p. 1.

Mr. John Spargo the noted author and lecturer addressed the meeting of the Graduate Economics Club last evening in Kent Hall. About seventy-five members and guests were present. The lecture was followed by an informal discussion in which Mr. Spargo declared himself ready to answer any questions put to him.

The subject of Mr. Spargo’s lecture was in general socialism, but he confined himself for the most part to a consideration of the theories of Marx, Engel, and Riccardo. He said it was not from a man’s enemies but from his friends that the most was to be feared. In the case of these three economists their over enthusiastic followers had been responsible for much misrepresentation. A single bald statement, in a great many cases, had been made a slogan while all that qualified it had been forgotten.

From the statement of abstract theories Mr. Spargo went on to a consideration of the spread of socialism throughout the country and particularly in the West. “The State of Oklahoma,” he said, “has the greatest number of socialists in proportion to the population, of any state in the Union.” He accounted for this chiefly by the fact that those people who had emigrated to the West and had been persevering enough to face the hardships of pioneering were of a more liberal and unbiased turn of mind than the conservative Easterners. Socialism he said in part, offers them a theory of Social Progress, A Social Ideal, and not only that but an organized movement for the realization of that Ideal which appeals to their Western intellects.

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SOCIALISTS TO STUDY SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 108, 27 February 1911, p. 5.

The Socialist Club is planning to study socialism in a systematic way. Beginning with the next meeting, definite chapters in Mr. Edmund Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” will be assigned to the members for study. At succeeding meetings these will be discussed by the members and specially invited guests. President Trimble speaks very enthusiastically of the plan and considers this an excellent opportunity for everyone interested in socialism to increase their knowledge of the arguments for and against it.

* * * * * * * * * *

[Economics in the Rear-view Mirror attaches the following notes on Edmund Kelly:]

Kelly, Edmond (1851-1909). Educated at Columbia [Class of 1870?] and at Cambridge. “Lecturer on Municipal Government at Columbia University”. He had founded the City Club and the subsidiary Good Government Clubs. Political and professional activities in New York and in Paris.

Kelly, Edmond. Evolution and Effort and their Relation to Religion and Politics. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1895.

____________. Government or Human EvolutionVol. I Justice. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900.

____________. Government or Human Evolution.Vol. II Individualism and Collectivism. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901.

____________. A Practical Programme for Working Men. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1906.

____________. The Unemployables. London: P.S. King & Son, 1907.

____________. The Elimination of the Tramp by the Introduction into America of the Labour Colony System already proved Effective in Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, with the Modifications thereof Necessary to adapt this System to American Conditions. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908.

____________. Twentieth Century Socialism. What it is not; What it is; How it may comeNew York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911. [Forward by Franklin H. Giddings]

“Aware that he had not long to live, Mr. Kelly hastened to finish the first draft of the book [Twentieth Century Socialism], and indeed he survived that completion only two weeks. He knew that considerable editorial work was needed, and this he entrusted to Mrs. Florence Kelley, author of “Some Ethical Gains through Legislation” and translator of Marx’ “Discourse on Free Trade,” and of Friedrich Engels’s work on the “Condition of the Working Class in England.” She undertook and has fulfilled this trust, and has been aided throughout by the untiring labors of Shaun Kelly, the author’s son.”  Pp. xiv and xv.

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STUDENTS OF SOCIALISM TO MEET TODAY

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 110, 1 March 1911, p. 2.

In Earl Hall today, at 4:10, the Socialistic Club will hold an important meeting. The organization is taking up a systematic study of Socialism and today there will be discussion, at the meeting, of Edmond Kelley’s “Twentieth Century Socialism.” At the next meeting, March 8, the club will be addressed by some prominent Socialist, probably John Spargo. All students are invited to attend today’s meeting.

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SOCIALISTS ELECT OFFICERS
Trimble Chosen President

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 110, 1 March 1911, p. 8.

Election of officers of the Socialist Society for the coming term was held yesterday afternoon with the following results: R.J. Trimble, president; and G.G. Bobbe, secretary and treasurer. It was decided that the club would read several chapters of Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” for each meeting and assign a member to prepare a paper upon them. The next meeting will be held on March 1.

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SOCIALISTS MAKE GIFT TO UNIVERSITY

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 111, 2 March 1911, p. 3.

At the meeting of the Socialist club held yesterday afternoon, it was decided to present a copy of “Twentieth Century Socialism,” to the University. Mr. Fraenkel of the Law School gave an interesting explanation of the views expressed in the first few chapters of that book and a general discussion followed. The next meeting will be held the afternoon of Wednesday, March 3.

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SOCIALISTS ON 20TH CENTURY SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 117, 9 March 1911, p. 1.

At a meeting held yesterday afternoon in Earl Hall, the Socialist Club took up an interesting discussion on a paper read on Commissioner Edward [sic] Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” was also taken up, and resulted in a lively discussion about the respective merits of the evolutionary and revolutionary points of view on Socialism. The next meeting of the club will be held Wednesday, March 15 and if possible some prominent Socialist will be obtained to lead the discussion.

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“INCOME TAX” INTERESTS ECONOMISTS

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 118, 10 March 1911, p. 1.

Next Wednesday the Undergraduate Economics Club will meet in 510 Kent at 8 p. m. The main subject for discussion will be “The Federal Income Tax,” E. V. Broderick, ’12 will give a history of the income tax and its actual working up to 1895. After an informal discussion of this, there will be reports and outlines for the coming work in the following committee; Socialism; Tariff, Railroads, Banking, Trusts, Conservation of Natural Resources and Labor Problems. Those members who were present at the last meeting have been assigned to committees. Members desiring to work on any special committee should inform the chairman of that committee

The plans for the remaining semester include trips to the Stock Exchange, Clearing House, Plant of Bush Terminal Cos., in addition to an address by Mr. G. A. McAneny, borough President of Manhattan and several other prominent men of the day.

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SOCIALIST SOCIETY MEETING
Mrs. Jessica Finch Speaks

Source: Barnard Bulletin (April 5, 1911), p. 3.

Mrs. Jessica Finch spoke on Wednesday, March 29, 1911, before the Barnard and Columbia Chapters of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Her talk was extremely interesting. She spoke first on the need for getting rid of poverty in this world. Physical well-being is the basis for spiritual well-being. It is very easy for people who are materially well-off to point out people who live beautiful, inspiring lives under adverse conditions. But lack of the essentials of life, such as food, air, light and leisure, are bound to retard intellectual mental growth.

Poverty, moreover, is unnecessary in the world at present. Before the introduction of machinery, it is true that there was not enough of even the necessities of life to go around. But since the industrial revolution there is no need for any one to be without life’s necessities, for there is more than enough for all. To secure for all a fair share of the necessities of life, industry must be socialized. All unearned increments, that is, all profits not due to mental and physical labor, must go to society or equal distribution among those who spent themselves in the production thereof.

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TO DISCUSS MODERN SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 149, 20 April 1911, p. 8.

The Columbia Socialist Society will hold a regular meeting this afternoon at 4:10 o’clock in Earl Hall. The members will hold an open discussion on the third chapter of Kelly’s ““Twentieth Century Socialism.” All members of the University are invited to attend the meeting.

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SOCIALISTS TO GATHER TOMORROW

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 14, 12 October 1911, p. 5.

As announced in yesterday’s issue, the year’s first meeting of the Socialist Society will be held in Earl Hall tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock. The society will be addressed by its president, S. S. Bobbe ’13, and an outline of the coming season’s work will be discussed. All members and students interested in Socialism should attend.

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NOTED SOCIALIST TO TALK
Meeting of Club Today

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 25, 25 October 1911, p. 6.

Today at 4:00 P. M. the Socialist Club will hold its second meeting of the year in Room J, Earl Hall. The club will be addressed by the organizer of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, H.J. Laidler, Wesleyan ’07, who will explain the work he has been doing as organizer and what the Columbia chapter can do to help create an intelligent interest in Socialism at Columbia.

The Intercollegiate Socialist Society has lately increased its chapters to 30, an increase in the past year of over three hundred per cent. Mr. Laidler has been to a great extent responsible for this increase, and is, therefore, well qualified to give an interesting and encouraging talk to the society. He will also discuss with the club the matter of a course of lectures on radical subjects by prominent men. that is now being planned by the club. The Intercollegiate Society will aid the club in securing the speakers.

Besides Mr. Laidler, several of the members of the club will read papers on different aspects of Socialism. All those in the University interested in Socialism are invited to attend.

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LAIDLER ADDRESSES SOCIALIST CLUB

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LV, Number 26, 26 October 1911, p. 2.

H. J. Laidler, the organizer of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society addressed the Columbia Socialist Club yesterday on the progress of Socialism in the United States during the past twenty and especially in the colleges. His work as organizer has brought him in touch with conditions all over the country, and he spoke of the grasp Socialism has taken on all forms of society.

“I have seen miners,” he said, “take up Karl Marx and study him into the night, and go from him to philosophy, to literature, art and science—all because of the new outlook they had received. If you really want to get the most out of life you should get the philosophy of Socialism; you should study it earnestly and with that sympathy that gives us insight. Socialism has been the means of moulding the lives of many. Further, we should compensate to society that which society has given to us.”

Following Mr. Laidler’s speech the club discussed the question of speakers on various live topics. These speeches are to be given by a number of prominent men and will form a series. They will not be confined to Socialism, but will take up all lines of radical thought. As soon as the speakers have all been secured, the club will publish the list with their various topics. The next meeting of the club will be held next Wednesday afternoon in Earl Hall.

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TRUST PROBLEM DISCUSSED
Seager Addresses Economists

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 32, 2 November 1911, p. 8.

At the meeting of the Economics Club in Hamilton Hall yesterday afternoon Professor H. P. Seager gave a lecture on Trusts. A large audience was present when the president of the club introduced the speaker. Professor Seager began his lecture by giving a short history of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. He praised the law very highly and said that better wording could hardly be framed to cover the situation so thoroughly. Until the term of Roosevelt, the law had not been properly enforced. Under McKinley, only three indictments were issued; under Roosevelt, however, there were twenty-five indictments against trusts and the same policy has been carried on under Taft, his record being eighteen, up to July 1, 1911.

The late decisions of the Supreme Court were next discussed by Professor Seager. He was not very sanguine about the probable efficacy of the court’s orders to the trusts to dissolve. The haze surrounding the court’s decisions must be cleared away in subsequent suits before the real meaning of the Anti-Trust Act is defined.

It was therefore the duty of the President to institute suit against the Steel Trust in order to clear up this vagueness. Industry must necessarily be dull until it is definitely settled whether business, as at present organized can exist or not.

He remarked in conclusion that the tendency seemed to be toward Socialism, but that he had grave doubts whether this tendency would go to that extent. It was his opinion that the present situation would produce a solution for the problems of today.

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FOREIGN SOCIALISM STUDIED
Cooperation Discussed

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LV, Number 49, 23 November 1911, p. 5.

At a study meeting held in Earl Hall yesterday, R.J. Trimble ’12, addressed the Socialist Club on the cooperative movement in Belgium. This movement has spread into almost all of the retail business of the country, and the working people buy nearly all their goods at these stores obtaining not only a saving in price, but free insurance against unemployment, sickness and accident.

The next meeting of the club will be held on Wednesday, November 29th, when one of the members will give a talk on Edward R. Bellamy and his works. On Friday, December 8, Mr. John Moody, of “Moodys Magazine,” will give a lecture under the auspices of the club on “The Problem of Railroads.”

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ADDRESS ON CHILD LABOR
O. R. Lovejoy Gives Lecture

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 68, 19 December 1911, p. 3.

“Child Labor” was the topic of the third lecture in the series on “Modern Problems” held under the auspices of the Socialist Club given yesterday afternoon by Owen R. Lovejoy. Mr. Lovejoy drew largely from his own experience as secretary of the National Child Labor Committee. “As compared with the great problem itself, the effects of child labor on the child dwindle into insignificance. Really the most important aspect of the problem is its economic aspect. It means a menace to our economic interest from the standpoint of wages. Wherever child labor is employed the standard of wages in the community is lowered. Thus, in some New England towns men get only eight or nine dollars a week as a result of the competition from child labor.

“Child Labor” acts indirectly to destroy the family. No more faulty argument can be used against Socialism than to say it will destroy the family, it is already destroyed. The employment of children during the hours they should be under the influence of the home tends in this direction. But even worse, the lower standard of wages resultant on child labor makes it the duty of a man subject to those conditions not to attempt to raise a family.

“Legislation regulating this course has been secured in thirty-eight of the states, but the great fault is not that sufficient legislation has been had, but that there has not been sufficient enforcement of the legislation.”

“The main opposition to child labor regulation has come in the past from those most vitally interested —from the employers, from the parents of the children and even from the children themselves. It has actually been demonstrated by comparison of factories in New England where no child labor is employed and those of the South where it is employed that the employer suffers in economic loss by their employment—and yet the employers oppose us. The parents are against us either because they are ignorant or because they suffer the want of a larger income, whereas child labor itself acts to lower their own wages.

 

Image Source:  1912 U.S. presidential campaign poster for the Socialist Party ticket: Eugene V. Debs and Emil Seidel from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Categories
Barnard Columbia Economists

Columbia. Budgeting John Bates Clark’s Salary After His Retirement, ca. 1911

 

The following undated memorandum comes from Prof. E.R.A. Seligman’s papers in a folder of Columbia related material for 1911-1913. From the Bulletin of the Faculty of Political Science we know that Prof. Simkhovitch took over Clark’s course on socialism in 1908 (Seligman below writes that Simkhovitch gave a similar course “at Columbia for the last two or three years”). Robert E. Chaddock took up the statistics assistant professorship mentioned in the memo in 1911. So it is pretty clear that this memorandum was written to motivate the economics department decision not to seek a senior professor with the funds released by Clark’s retirement but instead divided the funds between hiring someone for statistics, additional compensation for Henry Roger Seager to continue his teaching a labor course at Barnard and additional compensation for Professor Vladimir Simkhovitch to take over Clark’s course on Socialism at Barnard.

_____________________________

MEMORANDUM in reference to PROFESSOR CLARK’S RETIREMENT.

Professor Clark’s retirement is a serious loss to the Department of Economics and to Barnard College. Ordinarily the withdrawal of such a distinguished member of the faculty should lead to the appointment of a successor of equal prominence. In this case, however, there is no one of equal distinction available, and after making a thorough and impartial survey of the field, the department is convinced that it will be wiser to call the most promising younger man to be found as assistant professor then to call in a full professor who might prove disappointing. This plan has the advantage, moreover, of permitting a readjustment of the courses in economics to be open to Barnard students that would be highly advantageous for the College.

It will be remembered that when the original arrangement was entered into the trustees of Barnard agreed to provide the sum of $5,000 toward the higher or university work in economics at Columbia, on condition that certain courses at Columbia be open to women graduates, and on the further understanding that the Department of Economics should provide six hours a week of lectures in economics to Barnard Seniors at Barnard College. Later on, by special arrangement with Dean Gill, as ratified by the trustees, it was provided that two of these six hours might be given at Columbia instead of Barnard. It is now proposed to readjust the courses so as to provide ampler opportunities for Barnard students.

In considering the interests of Barnard, three facts should be held in view. First, experience has shown that merely throwing open courses given at Columbia to Barnard students fails adequately to meet their needs. The plan adopted when Professor Clark was called here of having six hours advanced work in economics given at Barnard ought to be reintroduced. Second, the number of students desiring to take advanced work in economics is steadily increasing and for their benefit every opportunity should be seized which will open to them additional courses at Columbia. Third, the most important field of economics study not now covered by the courses offered at Barnard is that of economic and social statistics. Not only does the ordinary student need a knowledge of statistical methods to apply economic theories to the facts of every day life, but Barnard graduates are concerned to an ever increasing extent with different forms of social service. Some become the paid agents of settlement, charitable societies or municipal departments concerned with social work. Others become officers in reform and charitable organizations. For both classes, training in the manipulation and interpretation of statistics would be of great value.

Having regard to these three facts the plan which the Department of Economics recommends is as follows: –

(1) that $2,500 of the $5,000 released by Professor Clark’s withdrawal be used to pay the salary of an assistant professor, who shall give a course on social and economic statistics to Barnard Seniors. While this professor under the terms of the original agreement, is to be primarily a graduate professor, he may, if so desired, be asked temporarily to relieve Professor Mussey of one of the Junior sections in Economics A1–A2 in exchange for a university course by Professor Mussey. It is also proposed that in further recognition of a similar course to be given by the new instructor at Columbia and of supervising work in the statistical laboratory at Columbia, which might be open to Barnard students for research work, the Department of Economics should admit Barnard Seniors to Columbia courses given by Professors Seligman, Giddings, Seager, and Mussey, that is, Sociology 151-152, Economics 101-2, Economics 107-108, Economics 106, and Economics 104.

(2) That Professor Seager be asked to continue his course on the Labor Problem at Barnard and that a contribution of $1,500 towards his salary be paid out of the $5,000 released. Professor Clark’s withdrawal will add to Professor Seager’s burdens at Columbia and his natural inclination would be to meet the situation by discontinuing his course at Barnard. If he continues his course it seems but fair that a contribution toward his salary should be paid out of Barnard funds.

(3) That Professor Simkhovitch be asked to give at Barnard the course on Socialism and Social Reform formerly given by Professor Clark and that the remaining $1,000 of the $5,000 fund be contributed to his salary. Fortunately Professor Simkhovitch is specially qualified to give such a course acceptably, having given a similar course at Columbia for the last two or three years.

By carrying out this plan the Barnard trustees will not only secure a reintroduction of the six hours of advanced instruction in economics for the special benefit of Barnard Seniors, courses even better adapted to the present needs of such Seniors than those previously given, but will also secure admission for Barnard students to eight of the most valuable courses in economics and social science offered at Columbia, without any increase in the appropriation for economic instruction. Inasmuch as at the present time only four hours are given to Barnard Seniors, and only five Columbia courses are open to them, we believe that the plan is fair to all concerned and that it will prove highly advantageous to Barnard College.

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson Collection. Box 98a, Folder “Columbia (A-Z) 1911-1913”.

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

Categories
Columbia Courses Economists Syllabus

Columbia. Introductory Economics. First-term, 1912-13.

According to the Columbia University Catalogue for 1912-13, Economics 1-2, Introduction to economics–Practical economic problems was a 3 hour course taught by Professors Seager, Mussey, Agger, and Dr. Anderson. According to this outline it would appear that these instructors taught the material in the assigned textbook readings listed and once a week, a professor from the graduate faculty of Political Science would hold a lecture. The printed copy of the lectures and assignments transcribed here was found in the Papers of John Bates Clark.

________________________

Columbia College

Lectures and Assignments, Economics I.
[1912-13]

 

SEPTEMBER
27 Introductory Lecture. Professor H. R. Seager
30 ELY, Chapter I.—Nature and Scope of Economics.
OCTOBER
2 SELIGMAN, Chapter V.—The Economic Stages.
4 Lecture. The Accumulation of Economic Facts. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
7 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER IV.—The Historical Forms of Business Enterprise
9 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER IX.—Private Property
11 Lecture. Conservation as an Economic Movement. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
14 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER X.—Competition
16 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER XI.—Freedom
18 Lecture. A Method of Approaching and Testing Economic Reforms. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
21 ELY, Chapter VII.—Elementary Concepts. To page 101.  
23 ELY, Chapter VIII.—Consumption. Pages 106 to 113 to “Luxury”
25 Lecture. Value and Price. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
28 ELY, Chapter IX.—Production. Pages 121-131 incl. (omitting 132-145).
30 Written Quiz covering all the above.
NOVEMBER
1 Lecture. Normal Price. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
4 ELY, Chapter XI.—Value and Price. Pages 156-163 to “Elasticity”. [corrected by hand from “Electricity”]
6 ELY, Chapter XI.— Value and Price. Pages 163-168 incl.
8 Lecture. Capitalization of Value. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
11 ELY, Chapter XII.—Value and Price. Pages 170-177 to “The Surplus of Bargaining”.
13 ELY, Chapter XII.— Value and Price. Pages 177-186.
15 Lecture. The Size of the Population. Prof. H. L. Moore.
18 ELY, Chapter XIII.—Monopoly. Pages 187-192 to “Classification” and page 197 “Monopoly Price” to page 201.
20 ELY, Chapter XIII.—Monopoly. Pages 201-208 to “Monopolies and the Distribution of Wealth”.
22 Lecture. The Quality of the Population. Prof. H. L. Moore.
25 Review.
27 Written quiz.
29 Thanksgiving Holidays.
DECEMBER
2 ELY, Chapter XIX.—Distribution as an Economic Problem, Pages 315-325.
4 ELY, Chapter XIX.— Distribution as an Economic Problem, Pages 326-333.
6 Lecture. Efficiency and Income. Prof. H. L. Moore.
9 SELIGMAN, Chapter XXIII.—Profits. Sections 152-154 incl.
11 SELIGMAN, Chapter XXIII.—Profits. Sections 155-157 incl.
13 Lecture. Profits. Prof. J. B. Clark.
16 ELY, Chapter XXI.—Rent of Land. Pages 348-357 to “The Different Uses of Land”.
18 ELY, Chapter XXI.—Rent of Land. Pages 357-366.
20 Lecture. The Rent of Land and the Single Tax. Prof. J. B. Clark.
Christmas Holidays
JANUARY, 1913
6 ELY, Chapter XXII.—The Wages of Labor. Pages 367-376 to “Subsistence Theory.”
8 ELY, Chapter XXII.—The Wages of Labor. Pages 376-385.
10 Lecture. Wages of Labor. Prof. J. B. Clark.
13 ELY, Chapter XXIV.—Interest. Pages 416-425 to “The Shifting of Investment”.
15 ELY, Chapter XXIV.—Interest. Pages 425 to 438 omitting fine print.
17 Lecture. Capital and Interest. Prof. J. B. Clark.
20 Review

The text assignments are to the 1910 editions of Prof. E. R. A. Seligman’s Principles of Economics and to Prof. R. T. Ely’s Outlines of Economics.

 

            COLLATERAL READING: (Pages to be assigned)

Bücher Industrial Evolution

Bullock Readings in Economics.

George Progress and Poverty. [Memorial Edition(1898): Vol. I, Vol. II.]

 

Source: John Bates Clark Papers, Series II.4. Box 9. Folder “Administrative Records and Course Material Undated”; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.