From the six exams covering economics at the University of Toronto from 1875 we see that Rogers’ Manual of Political Economy was used as an introductory text with J. S. Mill’s Principles being principal text for the more advanced courses. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations also explicitly examined.
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About the 1875 Examiners
Thomas Hodgins, M.A. Q.C., Toronto
The Canadian Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men: Ontario Volume. Chicago and Toronto: American Biographical Pub. Co., 1880. pp. 386-388.
George Paxton Young
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XI (1881-1890).
William John Robertson (Toronto, B.A.1873)
A Brief Historical Sketch of Canadian Banking and Currency by W. J. Robertson (Examiner in Political Economy, Toronto University). Paper read before the historical and political science association of the University of Toronto, Feb. 4th, 1888.
William P. R. Street (b. 10 May 1868; d. 27 August 1946)
According to Toronto City Directory: Judge (1890)
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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Second Year.
ROGERS’S POLITICAL ECONOMY
Examiners: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.
- What was Mr. Price’s scheme for extinguishing the National Debt?
- What are the objects of Trades Unions, and what are the means taken to carry them out?
- Explain the peculiar disadvantages of taxes on raw materials.
- What is the measure of value? Explain the statement that there can be no universal rise in values.
- How does the author discuss the question as to the propriety of government interference to check the too rapid exhaustion of coal in Great Britain?
- State briefly the causes which increase and diminish rent, and explain their operation in doings so.
Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.
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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Second Year.
ROGERS’S POLITICAL ECONOMY
Honors
Examiners: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.
- Mention some of the causes of an efflux of specie.
- “If a government interferes with the liberty of its subjects it is bound to shew cause for the interference.” What are the two causes which the author mentions as justifying such interference?
- How is Rent defined? Upon whom does the loss arising from an increase in the wages of agricultural laborers fall? Explain?
- Mention some of the difficulties in the way of an equitable tax upon incomes.
- Explain the operation of a rise in the rate of discount in checking a drain of specie. Under what circumstances is it likely to be ineffectual for that purpose?
- What is the real pledge given by a government as the security for the National debt? How is this shewn by the author?
Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.
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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Third Year.
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Pass
Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.
ROGERS.
- If the contract be voluntary, and the service be mutual, is one man’s gain another’s loss? Discuss.
- (a) What is the cause of value? Distinguish between value in exchange, and value in use.
(b) What expedients are adopted to lessen labor, and increase production?
(c) Give examples of the beneficial effect of division of labor. - (a) What, according to Rogers, is the measure of value? Illustrate.
(b) Can there be a general rise in value? If not, why not?
(c) Can there be a general rise in price? Illustrate. - (a) What functions does money perform? Account for the error that money alone is wealth.
(b) Enumerate various substitutes for money. - Investigate the true relation between Capital and Labor, referring to popular theories and remedies, which you deem erroneous.
- Give an account of the causes which depress the rate of wages.
- Give Rogers’s views regarding the subject of Protection, stating the limits he prescribes, and shewing wherein he disagrees with Mill.
- (a) Give the general rules of taxation?
(b) What are the relative advantages of direct and indirect taxation?
Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.
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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Third Year.
CIVIL POLITY.
Honors
Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.
MILL I.
- (a) What are the requisites of production?
(b) Does nature contribute more to the efficacy of labor in some occupations than in others? Explain. - State the different ways in which labor is employed. Criticise the division of labor into agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial.
- Discuss, after Mill, the questions of productive and unproductive labor, also of productive and unproductive consumption.
- Enumerate and illustrate (where necessary) the fundamental propositions respecting capital.
- Institute a comparison between the benefits of large and small farming respectively.
- Give the substance of Mill’s chapter “Of the Law of the Increase of Labor.”
Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.
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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Candidates for B.A.
CIVIL POLITY.
Examiner: Rev. George Paxton Young, M.A.
COX’S BRITISH COMMONWEALTH—SMITH’S WEALTH OF NATIONS.
- From what source is the right of government derived? Examine the question fully.
- Give an account of the origin and rise of the British Cabinet. On what conditions does the permanence of any particular Cabinet usually depend?
- Describe the practice of Parliament with respect to private bills; and state what different courses may be adopted when a public bill is returned from either House to the other with amendments.
- What is an impeachment, and how is it conducted?
- Examine the doctrine of the balance of power.
- Under what restrictions are criteria of truth afforded by public opinion? And to what extent do justice and policy require that governments should be directed by its dictates?
- Give an account of the origin and use of money.
- Show, that, in the price of commodities, the profits of stock constitute a component part altogether different from the wages of labour, and regulated by different principles.
- Explain the order in which manufactures, agriculture, and foreign commerce naturally arise; and state the relation of these branches to the increase of opulence, whether in town or country.
- “The attention of governments never was so unnecessarily employed as when directed to watch over the preservation of the increase of the quantity of money in any country.” How does Smith establish this position?
Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.
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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Candidates for B.A.
CIVIL POLITY.
Honors
Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.
MILL
- Show what would be the effect of increasing fixed Capital, at the expense of circulating.
- Explain and illustrate the diversity in the effective strength of the desire of accumulation.
- Give the substance of the chapter “Of the Law of the Increase of Production from Land.”
- Distinguish between Communism, St. Simonism, and Fourierism. Criticise these systems.
- Examine Mill’s views on the right of bequest and inheritance.
- Give examples of the influence of custom on rents, tenure of land, and prices.
- Discuss the question of peasant proprietorship.
- Enumerate various popular remedies for low wages. Criticise.
- State Mill’s theory of rent, with your own views thereon.
- Can there be an over-supply of commodities generally? Explain.
- (a) What regulates international values? Illustrate.
(b) Briefly show the indirect benefits of Commerce. - Give examples of exceptions to the rule of Laisser-faire.
- Discuss briefly the influence of credit on prices.
Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.
Image Source: BlogTO / Toronto of the 1880s (January 11, 2011)