The reasons for this post are the fact that “John G. Thompson” is not a unique identifier for economic authorship and my desire to distinguish John G. Thompson from John G. Thompson without using subscripts. Today we meet Mr. John Gilbert Thompson (1862-1940), an educational administrator turned business economist/forecaster. He spent over thirty years in the field of education, achieving some distinction as the first principal of the State Normal School in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In the dozen or so years before his retirement in ca. 1932 he worked at the Simonds Saw and Steel Company in Fitchburg, where he was employed, according to press accounts, as “assistant to the treasurer”, “efficiency director”, “economist”, and finally “assistant to the president”.
Particularly worthy of note for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is Thompson’s contribution to the panel “Appraisal of Economic Forecasts” chaired by Wesley C. Mitchell at the December 1929 meeting of the American Statistical Association ( see below ). His principal empirical finding was contained in a single chart ( included below ) showing the long lag between a change in the commercial paper rate and an inverse movement in the level of economic activity, as proxied by the Federal Reserve’s index of industrial production. It might come as something of a surprise to readers here that a former teaching-college principal turned economic forecaster [anyone out there ever heard of his financial newsletter Looking Ahead?] was seeing long-lags some thirty years before Milton Friedman was to make “long and variable lags” fashionable.
Of lesser interest is discovering a Simonds Saw and Steel Company’s essay competition in economics for high school and normal school students that later evolved into a prize competition for established academic and business economists. Here we encountered the name of Dr. John L. Tildsley, once a teacher of economics in the New York City High School of Commerce and then District Superintendent for High Schools in New York City. Like Thompson, Tildsley was a strong advocate for the inclusion of economics in the high school curriculum. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is mildly proud to offer content regarding these two leaders in American education.
Note: The other John G. Thompson’s full name was John Giffin Thompson. He was a University of Wisconsin Ph.D. (1907), career-long economic researcher, and the subject of an earlier post as well.
_________________________
Life, Career and Publications
of John Gilbert Thompson
1862. Born June 23 in New Bedford, MA.
1886. Dartmouth A.M., Phi Beta Kappa
1886. December 27. Married Helen Susan Titus (1863-1938) in Hancock N.H. She was a direct descendant of Peregrin White of the Mayflower. They had seven sons (from The Boston Globe, Nov. 6, 1940, p. 19), five were still alive at the time of his death in 1940.
1886-1893. Principal of schools in Winchester, N.H., Sandwich [Mass], Southboro [Mass]; Superintendent of schools in Northboro [Mass] and Leominster [Mass]. Fitchburg Sentinel, Nov. 1, 1940, p.9.
1894. Together with Thomas E. Thompson (a younger brother), Master of John R. Rollins School, Lawrence, Mass. Fables and Rhymes for Beginners. The First Two Hundred Words. Boston: Ginn & Company.
1895-1920. Principal of State Normal School (Fitchburg, Massachusetts)
1895. Together with Thomas E. Thompson, Superintendent of Schools, Leominster, Mass. Fairy Tale and Fable, Second Year: An Introduction to Literature and Art. New York: The Morse Company. (Revised Seventh edition, 1902)
1899. Together with Thomas E. Thompson, Superintendent of Schools, Leominster, Mass. For Childhood Days, First Year. New York: The Morse Company. (3rd ed. 1901)
1902. Together with Thomas E. Thompson, Superintendent of Schools, Leominster, Mass. New Century Readers: Nature, Myth and Story. Third Year. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company. (Second edition)
1916. Word from Word Readers: Book One. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1916. Word from Word Readers: Book Three. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Manual for Teachers. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Book One. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Book Two. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Book Four. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1918. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Word Building for Recitation and Seat Work. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1918. Together with Inez Bigwood, Lest We Forget: World War Stories. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1919. Together with Inez Bigwood, Winning a Cause: World War Stories. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
1920. A Quarter of a Century of Years and Poems. Edition limited to one thousand copies, numbered and signed by the author. Includes photograph of John G. Thompson.
Library of Congress copy Number 12 was dedicated “To His Excellency Calvin Coolidge”.
1919-1932. “Assistant to the treasurer”, “efficiency director”, “economist”, “assistant to the president” at Simonds Saw and Steel Company.
1928. Together with Gifford K. Simonds, The American Way to Prosperity, 1928.
After retirement continued to publish the financial paper/newsletter Looking Ahead with Alvan T. Simonds.
1940. October 31. Died in Westborough, MA. Buried in Hancock, N.H.
_________________________
Adam Smith Essay for High School and Normal School Students
Sponsored by
Simonds Saw Mfg. Company, 1920
Very few high schools give any instructions to help pupils understand economic laws that affect their daily living, and very few normal schools in the United States give those who are to become teachers any instruction that will enable them to judge intelligently in regard to their own status, their own wages, or to talk over with their pupils the conditions of industry and business which are affecting their welfare and their lives. Even the junior high school pupil would be interested to know how prosperity and adversity move in waves and how one is brought about by prudence, thrift and industry and the other by carelessness, shiftlessness and extravagance. Any boy or girl twelve years or over can be made to see that everyone in the world is paying for the destruction caused by the World War and that “no one liveth to himself alone.” Much of the unrest among the working classes and of the misunderstanding between labor and capital is due to ignorance. It is a gross neglect, almost a criminal one, that those directing our public schools have failed to see the danger and to do something about remedying the lack. It is a sad comment when one can say that the children of working parents are given a careful study of the Punic Wars and never hear anything about economics in their high school course. It is even worse that those who are to become teachers are graduated as ready to teach without ever having studied the subject, either in high school or normal school.
Mr. Alvan T. Simonds, President of the Simonds Saw Manufacturing Company of Fitchburg; Mass., Chicago, Ill., Montreal, Que., Lockport, N. Y., a life-long student of economics and interested in bringing about a better understanding on the part of the laborer, the capitalist, and the public, realized this deficiency in our public school and normal school education. To discover to what an extent the subject of economics was studied, he offered in September, 1920, two prizes of $1,000 and $500 for the best two essays on an economic subject. The contest was open to pupils in high schools and normal schools in the United States and Canada and the prizes were made large enough to make the competition worth while to anyone who was fitted to enter it. The subject chosen was “Present Economic Conditions and the Teachings of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations.” It was selected because it gave contestants a definite book to study and the opportunity to connect the study of that book with the life of which they were a part. It was not indefinite and distant from them, but definite and concerned today.
The contest was advertised in the Saturday Evening Post, in the Journal of Education, and the School Review and in many other publications. Personal letters were sent to state superintendents and principals of normal schools.
The results are what might have been expected by one who knew the status of economic teaching in the United States. It is left almost entirely for the college and even there it is elective. This is not true, however, in New York City, due to the foresight and the efforts of Dr. John L. Tildsley, formerly teacher of economics in the New York City High School of Commerce, and now District Superintendent for High Schools in New York City. The study of economics is required of all pupils in the senior year of the New York City high schools. Over 125 pupils entered the contest in the city of New York, but only twenty-five finished their essays and submitted them to the judges.
In Fitchburg, Massachusetts, at the State Normal School each member of the graduating class as a requirement for graduation has to submit a thesis and the supervision of the theses is divided among the different instructors. Those who worked under the direction of Miss Inez Bigwood were allowed to submit their essays both for the Simonds contest and as a graduating thesis. Beside one essay submitted by a convict in California, twenty-seven were received from normal pupils and sixty-five from high school pupils. Almost every section in the United States was represented, as well as Canada with essays from Vancouver and Montreal. There were few essays from the South, although Texas, Tennessee and South Carolina were represented. The Pacific Coast was represented by California, Oregon and Washington, while there were one or two from nearly every state in the Middle West.
The first prize of $1,000 was awarded to David Koch, High School of Commerce, New York City. The second prize of $500 was awarded to Aloysius Thiemann, Reedsburg High School, Reedsburg, Wis.
It is interesting to notice that both prizes were won by high school pupils, one from the largest city in the United States and one from a small town in Wisconsin.
The judges were Wallace B. Donham, Dean of the Harvard School of Business Administration, Cambridge, Mass., and John G. Thompson, Principal of the State Normal School (On leave), Fitchburg, Mass.
It is hoped that this contest and the lessons taught by it will awaken school officials to the necessity of requiring the study of economics in high schools and normal schools and of teachers who are to teach in junior high schools and grades above.
In order that those who are already saying that economics is a subject too difficult for high school pupils and certainly beyond the mental ability of junior high school pupils, let me add that the first prize of $1,000 was won by a boy only seventeen years of age, who began to be interested in economics when he was in the last year of the elementary school and read books upon the subject outside his regular school work. His essay was of such understanding and power that the judges, who worked independently, both questioned whether it could possibly be the work of a high school pupil. Investigation by Dr. Tildsley established beyond doubt that it was the boy’s own work and just about what his teacher of economics in the High School of Commerce declared could be expected from him.
David Koch, who won the first prize of $1,000, is seventeen years of age. His father came from Russia to the United States in 1897. He is a button-hole maker by trade. Dr. John L. Tildsley, district superintendent of high schools in New York City, reports that David Koch began to study economics in the last year of the elementary school and has been interested in it ever since, that is for about four years. He was a student at the New York High School of Commerce and studied economics there. His economic teacher reports “He was head and shoulders above the other pupils in the economics class and knew more economics than some of the teachers.” Mr. Tildsley writes further as follows:—
“You will be interested to know that when Koch entered the high school he had the reputation of being quite radical but as the result of his school work and especially his study of economics he has lost most of his radicalism. I believe that a great stimulus has been given to the teaching of economics in this country through the offer of these prizes.”
Aloysius Thiemann, winner of the second prize, is sixteen years of age and graduates from the Reedsburg, Wisconsin, High School this year. Mr. A. B. Olson, superintendent of the Reedsburg public schools, writes as follows: —
“Aloysius Thiemann was promoted to high school from the seventh grade, he having proven through educational tests that it would be unnecessary, for him to do the eighth grade work. His work in high school has been uniformly strong. Last year Aloysius Thiemann won the State of Wisconsin Civil Service Essay Contest and the school was presented the State Loving Cup to be kept for one year. In regard To future plans, I find that Aloysius Thiemann plans to attend Notre Dame University and will probably take up the course in Journalism.”
John G. Thompson,
Assistant to the President,
Simonds Manufacturing Company
Source: Thompson, John G. “EDUCATIONAL FORUM.” The Journal of Education, vol. 93, no. 24 (2334), 16 June 1921, pp. 672–73.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42830956
_________________________
Award of 8th Simonds Prize (1930)
Walter Earl Spahr, a professor of New York university, was awarded the first prize of $1000 in the eighth annual Alvan T. Simonds annual economic contest last year. The subject was “The Federal Reserve System and the Control of Credit.”
Dr. Spahr is professor of economics and chairman of the department of economics, school of commerce, accounts and finance, New York university. Dr. Spahr received his A.B. from Tarlham college, Ind., in 1914; A.M. from the University of Wisconsin in 1917, and Ph.D. from Columbia university in 1925. He taught economics at Datmouth college and Columbia university before going to New York university in 1923.
He has published several notable magazine articles as well as the article in the New Encyclopedia Brittanica on “The Stockbroker in the United States.” He is joint author with R. J. Swenson of “Methods and Staus of Scientific Research with Particular Application to the Social Sciences.” His home address is 8 Michigan road, Bellerose, Long Island, N.Y.
The second prize of $500 was awarded to Ivan W. Elder, managing editor of the North Pacific Banker, Portland, Ore. He is a graduate of Reed College, Ore.
Honorable mention was awarde to Helen Elizabeth Ham, 333 E. 43d street, New York city.
The judges were Dr. Davis R. Dewey, professor of economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and John G. Thompson, assistant to the president, Simonds Saw & Steel Co.
The largest number of essays came from the United States, yet excellent ones were received from Hawaii, Japan, India, South Africa, England and Scotland, thus circling the world.
Source: The Fitchburg Sentinel (August 26, 1930), p. 9.
_________________________
Long lag between changes in the interest rate and (inverse) changes in economic activity
Ninety-First Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association Held at Hotel Washington, Washington, D. C. December 27-30, 1929.
Friday, December 27, 1929
2:30 P. M.
Appraisal of Economic Forecasts
Chairman:
Wesley C. Mitchell, Columbia University
Papers:
Garfield V. Cox, University of Chicago
Seymour L. Andrew and Harold M. Flinn, American Telephone and Telegraph Company
Discussion:
Donald Tucker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Arthur W. Marget, University of Minnesota
J. G. Thompson, Simonds Saw and Steel Company
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
John G. Thompson, Discussion
[emphasis added]
“Since 1919 I have been working with Alvan T. Simonds, President of the Simonds Saw and Steel Company, trying to convince business executives and others interested that major movements in money rates, reversed, forecast major swings in business…we have used the volume of manufacture, as reported by the Harvard Economic Society, or the volume of industrial production, as reported by the Federal Reserve Board. We have found that major movements in these are forecast by major swings of money rates, reversed. The particular series of money rates selected, however, must be as free as possible from the influences of speculation. Therefore we have selected commercial paper rates, New York. The accompanying chart shows that each major swing in commercial paper rates, reversed, is followed some months later by a major swing in industrial production. The major swings are represented as straight lines connecting the peaks and the valleys of the three-year cycle, which has been repeated now four times since the War. Minor swings, including seasonal swings, have been neglected, but in each case the extreme high point has been connected with the next extreme low point, or the extreme low point with the next extreme high point…The light dotted line beginning in the spring of 1929 and running down to the middle of 1930 is the estimated course of industrial production, as made in December, 1928. The chart represents the movements as falling in three-year cycles and shows each cycle separated from the others….
…In attempting to convince those interested that (as this chart shows) money rates, reversed, do forecast major swings in business, the chief difficulty seems to be the long lag between the corresponding movements. The general belief seems to have been, and to be, that when money rates ease off, business immediately or almost at once turns upward. As a matter of fact and as the chart shows, this upward turn does not begin until several months later.”
Source: “Ninety-First Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association Held at Hotel Washington, Washington, D. C. Friday, December 27, to Monday, December 30, 1929.” Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 25, no. 169, 1930, pp. 48-49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2277188
Image Source: Fitchburg State University website. Home/About/History of Fitchburg State/Hall of Presidents/John G. Thompson (1895-1920).