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Columbia Funny Business

Columbia. Fairy tale by economics PhD alumnus (1953), Thomas Mayer

The monetary economist whose methodological contributions will likely be read long after the heated debates about monetarism lie cold in university archives or buried in the footnotes of historians of economics, Thomas Mayer, was born January 18, 1927 in Vienna. His family was able to leave Austria in the late 1930s which gave him the opportunity to go to college (Queens) and graduate school (Columbia) in New York City. This led to a long, distinguished academic career that culminated in a professorship at the University of California, Davis. He died in Berkeley, California June 12, 2015. 

This post adds to the subcollection “Funny Business” here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror that is dedicated to attempts at nominal and real humor by economists. At the time of the writing of the following “Fairy Tale” (est. ca. 1952-53), Thomas Mayer was probably still a doctoral candidate, or perhaps a freshly-minted Ph.D., in economics at Columbia University. Martin Bronfenbrenner thought enough of this little mimeographed paper to have kept it in his files of macroeconomic teaching materials. There is no clue there, when or how he came to have a copy of the paper. In preparing this post, I discovered that only some archival boxes away at Duke’s Economists’ papers archive there is also another copy of the “Fairy Tale” in the Thomas Mayer Papers collection.

In his brief biographical tribute to Thomas Mayer, Kevin Hoover (see below for exact citation) wrote “Tom reported that Keynes’s General Theory was perhaps the first economics book that he read while still in school in England and that he was driven to keep studying economics until he was able to understand the book – a feat that he, unlike many others, claims to have accomplished”.  My favorite lines from Hoover are the following:

[Thomas Mayer] was neither a market fundamentalist nor a government romantic, but occupied the ideologically uncomfortable middle: the left thought that he was a monetarist; the right, a Keynesian. He reported having been cast off the monetarist Shadow Open-Market Committee for left-wing deviationism.

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Tributes to Thomas Mayer

Monetarism and the Methodology of Economics, edited by Kevin D. Hoover and Steven M. Sheffrin (Edward Elgar, 1995) is a collection of 14 original essays in honour of Thomas Mayer focusing on the themes of monetarism, the transmission mechanism for monetary policy, the political economy of monetary policy and the methodology of empirical economics. Contributions by: King Banaian, Mark Blaug, Martin Bronfenbrenner, Richard C.K. Burdekin, Thomas F. Cargill, Milton Friedman, C.A.E. Goodhart, D. Wade Hands, Abraham Hirsch, Kevin D. Hoover, David Laidler, Thomas Mayer, James L. Pierce, Steven M. Sheffrin, Richard J. Sweeney, Thomas D. Willett, Wing Thye Woo.

Hoover, Kevin D. (2015). Thomas Mayer. Journal of Economic Methodology 22 (4):526-527.

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AER Membership Bio, 1974

Mayer, Thomas, academic; b. Vienna, Austria, 1927. Educ. B.A. Queens Coll., 1948; Ph.D., Columbia U., 1953. Doc. Dis. The Population Argument of the Stagnation Thesis, 1953. Fields 310, 020. Pub. Permanent Income, Wealth and Consumption, 1972; Monetary Policy in the United States, 1968; Intermediate Macroeconomics, 1972. Res. Interpretation of Interest Rate Snap-Back; Explanation of Excess Reserves in 1930’s. Prev. Pos. Vis. Assoc. Prof., U. of Calif., 1961-62, Assoc. Prof., Mich. State U., 1956-61, Asst. Prof. U. of Notre Dame, 1954-56. Cur. Pos. Prof., U. of Calif., since 1962. Address 3054 Buena Vista Way, Berkeley, CA 94708.

Source: American Economic Review (October 1974). Directory of Members, 1974, p. 262.

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A FAIRY TALE1

By Anon Ymous2

Long, long ago there lived in a far and distant country a Happy Family. They were the Natural and the Market Rate of Interest. They loved each other dearly, and had two beautiful and good children: Price Level Stability and Full Employment. The parents always stuck together, for they knew that if they should part their children would be lost.

Near their house was a big wood. It was largely unexplored, and in it there lived a fierce Giant with the terrifying name of Central Bank Policy. He was a great, big, strong man. But instead of helping the two parents to keep their children happy, he would often fight with them. He pretended to love their two children dearly, but in reality he loved his own child more. His child had a shock of golden blond hair, and was for that reason known as Goldie Standard. Sometimes this child would get sick, and then her father wanted to separate our happy family. He would try to take the mother, the Market Rate of Interest, into the wood with him to take care of Goldie Standard, and to make her well again. Of course the father, poor Natural Rate of Interest, could not follow. The two sweet children would not have had the care they needed, and would starve. Poor little Full Employment would lose her full, round cheeks, and her sister, Price Level Stability, would feel so weak that she would stumble and fall many times. But Central Bank Policy did not mind this, though he pretended to, for he loved Goldie Standard above anything in the world — even though she was often naughty, and taught little Price Level Stability many naughty tricks like climbing up and down all over the Time Series.

Since the giant Central Bank Policy would have had great difficulty in stealing dear Market Rate of Interest by himself alone, he had a group of supporters called Orthodox Economists. They were on his side, for they thought that if Goldie Standard should die there would be nobody to exercise loving care over him; then, in a fit of temper, he might start to play around with the Printing Press.

One bright day a fair prince from far away arrived in this country. His name was Prince Keynes. He was the son of the ruling house of Cambridge. He saw at once what was going on in the country. Indeed, he did not find this difficult, for he had once read a vague prophecy by a Swede that such a country existed. He soon had Tract the matter down, and decided to help the poor family, but at first he did not quite know how. He studied for a long, long time, writing down his observations in a big diary. So that the giant would not find it, he hid it in a tree (not in a pumpkin [Curator’s note: a clear reference to the “Pumpkin papers” hidden by Whittaker Chambers then revealed in the case of Alger Hiss. Very much in the news 1949-50]), and for this reason it is until this day called “Tree-t’is”. (Sorry!)

Now in watching the animals playing around, especially the bears and the bulls, Prince Keynes got an idea. He built a trap, with a Schedule like a ladder; and if you followed it down you fell into a Liquidity Preference. Now the Giant’s helpers, the Orthodox economists, did not know this, and themselves fell into it, and became All Wet. Then Prince Keynes came up and told them: “I will help you out and will tell you a great Secret, if you will help me to free the poor mother, dear Market Rate of Interest.” They agreed, and so in a low voice he told them: “Always and ever and ever, when the sun setteth and when it rises, in every land and on every sea, S equals I.”

The orthodox economists were very glad to learn this Secret, and led Prince Keynes to the place where the poor mother, dear Market Rate of Interest, was imprisoned. They were the Prince’s friends by now, and went with him wherever he went, always telling each other: S equals I. Then they visited the Giant and taught him a new Canticle our Prince had invented. It went like this:

“To keep the Economy in a boom?3
Raise the Propensities — Invest and Consume —
For the rate of interest is but the consequence
Of the amount of money and liquidity preference.
And S = I whatever you say,
Unless you use young Robertson’s “day”.
Under-employment an equilibrium can be
As during the thirties any fool could see.
Wage-cuts can never full employment quite bring;
To be sure that you know it, this ditty I sing.”

The Giant was more or less convinced by this Canticle. And in any event, Goldie Standard had been so naughty that even the lady who lived in Threadneedle Street, and loved her like a mother, did not want to have anything more to do with her.

So the Giant decided to make peace with the family; and he grew to love both children, though he preferred Full Employment to Price Level Stability. Not only did he spend [his] time in keeping the family happy, but he even persuaded an animal which had inhabited the woods with him, called Fish-Call-Policy, to join him in this enterprise. So then all lived happily ever after until the next Depression.

With apologies,4
Thomas Mayer

Columbia University

Footnotes
  1. The following is an excerpt from the author’s forthcoming magnus opium, “Economics for Every Child”.
  2. The author is Lecturer in Economics and Nursery Tales at the Progressive Progress Kindergarten, Atlantis 5. He is indebted for help and criticism to himself, who however is not to be charged with any responsibility for the following. Since consumption determines the course of production, all the responsibility rests with the reader.
  3. Just what did you expect to find down here? A definition of a boom, perhaps? You might have known that a paper like this has no sensible footnotes. Of course, if you are scholarly enough to insist on a reference, look at pages 385-403 of the General Theory, where you will find an excellent summary of its doctrines — arranged alphabetically. [Curator’s note: pages are the index of Keynes’ General Theory.]
  4. The author categorically refuses to apologize to the reader. If he has read this far it is his own fault and it serves him right, and anyone who had not read this far has no business looking at the final footnote.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Martin Bronfenbrenner Papers, 1939-1995. Box 25, Folder “Teaching Materials: Macro-econ n.d.”.

Copy also in Box 1 of the Thomas Mayer Papers, also in the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke.

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Columbia Economist Market Economists Harvard

Harvard and Columbia. President of Harvard headhunting conversation regarding economists. Mitchell and Mills, 1936

The following typed notes were based on a conversation that took place on February 21, 1936 regarding possible future hires for the Harvard economics department. President James B. Conant (or someone on his behalf) met with Columbia university professors Wesley C. Mitchell and his NBER sidekick, Frederick C. Mills. This artifact comes from President Conant’s administrative records in the Harvard Archives.

In the memo we find a few frank impressions of members of the Harvard economics departments together with head-hunting tips for established and up-and-coming economists of the day.

An observation that jumps from the paper is the identification pinned to the name Arthur F. Burns, namely, “(Jew)”. Interestingly enough this was not added to Arthur William Marget (see the earlier post Harvard Alumnus. A.W. Marget. Too Jewish for Chicago? 1927.) nor to Seymour Harris.  

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[stamp] FEB 25, 1936

ECONOMICS

Confidential Memorandum of a Conversation on Friday, February 21, with Wesley [Clair] Mitchell and his colleague, Professor [Frederick Cecil] Mills (?) of Columbia

General impression is that the Department of Economics at Harvard is in a better state today than these gentlemen would have thought possible a few years ago. The group from 35-50 which now faces the future is about as good as any in the country. [Edward Hastings] Chamberlin, [John Henry] Williams,[Gottfried] Haberler and Schlichter [sic, [Sumner Slichter] are certainly quite outstanding. Very little known about [Edward Sagendorph] Mason;  he seems to have made a favorable impression but no writings. [Seymour EdwinHarris slightly known, favorable but not exciting.

[John Ulric] Neff admitted to be the best man in economic history if we could get him. Names of other people in this country mentioned included:

[Robert Alexander] Brady — University of California, now working on Carnegie grant on bureaucracy; under 40.

Arthur [F.] Burns at Rutgers (Jew) now working with the Bureau of Economic Research and not available for 3 or 4 years. Said by them to be excellent.

Henry Schultz of Chicago, about in Chamberlin’s class and age, or perhaps a little better.

[Arthur William] Marget of Minnesota, Harvard Ph.D., I believe; well known, perhaps better than Chamberlin. Flashy and perhaps unsound. (Mitchell and Mills disagree to some extent on their estimate of his permanent value but agree on his present high visibility).

Winfield Riffler [sic, Winfield William Riefler], recently called to the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, probably one of the most if not the most outstanding of the younger men.

Morris [Albert] Copeland of Washington; good man but not so good as Chamberlin.

Giddons [sic, Harry David Gideonse?] of Chicago, very highly thought of by Chicago people but has not written a great deal; supposed to be an excellent organizer.

C. E. [Clarence Edwin] Ayres, University of Texas, about 40; in N.R.A. at Washington. Mitchell thinks very highly of him.

England

[Theodore Emmanuel Gugenheim] Gregory, at London School of Economics, about 50, same field as Williams but not so good. Mills more favorable than Mitchell.

Other outstanding young Englishmen:

[Richard F.] Kahn, Kings College, Cambridge

F. Colin [sic, Colin Grant] Clark, of Cambridge

Lionel Robins [sic, Lionel Charles Robbins] of London, age 35, rated very highly by both Mills and Mitchell

F. A. Hayek, another Viennese now in London; spoken of very highly by both Mills and Mitchell.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Records of President James B. Conant, Box 54, Folder Economics, “1935-1936”.

Image Sources: Wesley Clair Mitchell (left) from the “Original Founders” page at the website of the Foundation for the Study of Business Cycles; Frederick C. Mills (right) from the Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. CVIII, No. 68, 11 February 1964.

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Columbia Economic History Economists Undergraduate

Columbia. On Rev. John McVickar’s political economy. Herbert B. Adams, 1887

The subject of political economy and its instructors received much attention in the 1887 survey of the study of history in the United States by Johns Hopkins history professor Herbert B. Adams. In this post Economics in the Rear-View Mirror shares those pages dedicated to the work of Rev. John McVickar (1787-1868) of Columbia College.

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McVickar’s political economy textbooks

Outlines of Political Economy. “A republication of the article [by J.R. McCulloch] upon that subject contained in the Edinburgh Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica together with notes explanatory and critical, and a summary of the science.” (New York: Wilder & Campbell, 1825).

Introductory Lecture to a Course of Political Economy (London: John Miller, 1830).

First lessons in political economy: for the use of primary and common schools. Albany: Common School Depository, 1837.
(Seventh edition. New York: Saxton and Miles, 1846)

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A Pair of McVickar Biographies

Langstaff, John Brett. The Enterprising Life, John McVickar 1787-1868. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1961.

Dorfman, Joseph and R. G. Tugwell. “The Reverend John McVickar: Christian Teacher and Economist” in Early American Policy: Six Columbia Contributors  (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 99-154.
Originally published in Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 4 (December 1931), pp. 353-401.

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Historian Herbert B. Adams on Professor John McVickar and historical political economy at Columbia College

…In the continuity of historico-political studies at Columbia College there was another important influence contemporary with Professor Anthon; namely, the Rev. John McVickar, who was appointed Professor of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Belles Letters in the year 1817. This man, the successor of the Rev. Dr. [John] Bowden, is too little known to American students of History and Economics—in both of which studies he was a remarkable pioneer. It would be a useful, as well as pious service, if some one of the present instructors in the School of Political Science at Columbia would prepare an academic memorial of John McVickar, as he did of his worthy predecessor, Dr. Bowden (1751-1817), in an address delivered to the Alumni of Columbia College, October 4, 1837. Although the life of the Rev. John McVickar has been written, as a “clerical biography,” by his son [William A. McVickar, The Life of the Reverend John McVickar, S.T.D.] (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1872), there is so much of academic interest in his life and writings, so much unused biographical material in the archives of Columbia College, that a special study of his professorial career would certainly repay the younger generation of teachers.

In general, the service rendered by Professor McVickar to Historical and Political Science at Columbia College resembles that rendered by Profesor Francis Bowen in Harvard College. Under the broad ægis of a philosophical professorship, both teachers protected and encouraged historico-political studies. Both inclined most strongly toward politico-economics. Both produced text-books of political economy, which, in their day and generation, proved very helpful to American students. In these days, when the study of economics is coming to the front in our colleges and universities, it will be recognized as a distinguished honor for Professor McVickar that he was one of the first men in this country to lecture upon political economy to students, and also one of the first to publish a text-book upon the subject.

John McVickar (1787-1863) was the son of a leading merchant of New York City, and was of Scotch descent. Heredity and environment gave him a natural inclination toward the study of economic questions. Born in the business center of the United States, into family acquaintance with wealthy and influential men, into association with Albert Gallatin, Isaac Bronson, and Mr. Biddle, young McVickar could not escape the great problems of currency and banking which agitated his times. Although, after his graduation from Columbia College, educated as a theologian and for a time settled as rector of a parish in Hyde Park, he readily accepted the philosophical professorship made vacant by the death of Dr. Bowden in 1817; and, within a year, petitioned to have Political Economy added to his already wide domain, without any increase of salary. The year 1818 marks the establishment of economic science in Columbia College, [see William and Mary’s claim to priority] which was one of the first to recognize this subject in the United States. For several years the need of a text-book of Political Economy was deeply felt by McVickar as an aid to his lectures. In 1821 he appears to have urged Edward Everett to prepare a suitable hand-book; but the great orator, while expressing interest in the subject, pleaded other engagements. In 1825 McVickar brought out his Outlines of Political Economy. This thin octavo volume, which an American student may well prize if he can now secure a copy, was an American adaptation of J. R. McCulloch’s article on Political Economy originally published in the Edinburgh supplement to the old Encyclopædia Britannica [1824, vol. 6, pp. 216-278]. This article, by the first Ricardo lecturer on Political Economy, well deserves comparison with that in the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica [by J. K. Ingram in the 9th ed., vol. 19 (1885), pp. 346-401], for the sake of the historical method which both articles represent. McCulloch, with his review of the rise of economic science, the mercantile system, the manufacturing system, the opinions of Mr. Mun, Sir Josiah Child, Dudley North, Mr. Locke, et al., may be as truly called a representative of the historical school of economics as Knies or Roscher.

It is interesting to reflect that the English historical method of J. R. McCulloch was introduced into America by John McVickar, more than twenty-five years before the rise of either of these German pioneers. By more than fifty years did the Scotch student of McCulloch and Adam Smith anticipate the American disciples of Knies and Roscher in advocating historico-political economy. McVickar appended many original notes to McCulloch; and, among other good things, he said of political economy: “To the rising government of America it teaches the wisdom of European experience.” He called economics “the redeeming science of modern times-the regenerating principle that, in connection with the spirit of Christianity, is at work in the civilized governments of the world, not to revolutionize, but to reform.” Besides his original notes, which show not only deep moral, but profound practical insight into economic questions, McVickar appended a general summary of economic science, which probably reveals something of his own method of presenting the subject to his classes. This text-book, which is said to be “the first work on the science of political economy published in America,”* (McVickar’s Life of John McVickar, 85) was welcomed by Chancellor Kent and Thomas Jefferson in the warmest terms. The sage of Monticello said of the subject which the book represented: “I rejoice to see that it is beginning to be cultivated in our schools. No country on earth requires a sound intelligence of it more than ours.” Among the early economic writings of McVickar are the following pamphlets: Interest Made Equity (1826), an English article, like his textbook, with American notes; Hints on Banking (1827), an original paper of forty or more pages, addressed to a member of the New York legislature, and said to have been the origin of the free banking law of New York (1833), and the scientific forerunner of practical reforms in the Bank of England, 1844, and also the National Bank Act of the United States in 1863 (Appendix to the Life of McVickar, 411). A more distinct foreshadowing of our present national system of banking was Professor McVickar’s article, published in 1841, entitled “A National Bank: Its Necessity and most Advisable Form.” This and other financial articles were published by McVickar in the New York Review, which closed its influential career in 1842. He wrote on “American Finance” [“American Finances and Credit,” The New York Review, Vol. VII, (July 1840).]; on “The Expediency of Abolishing Damages on Protested Bills of Exchange”; on “The Evils of Divers State Laws to regulate Damages on Foreign Bills of Exchange,” &c. A complete bibliography of the writings of John McVickar would be a helpful addition to the Dewey system of classification in the excellent library of Columbia College. In the history of economic thought in the United States John McVickar will surely take an honorable place as an academic pioneer. Practical economists, like Franklin, Robert Morris, and Alexander Hamilton, this country had, indeed, developed; but professorial economists, with original and independent views, were rare in America before the days of John McVickar. His chief rival to priority was Professor [Thomas] Cooper, of Dickinson College and of the University of Pennsylvania, the friend of Jefferson, and the predecessor of Francis Lieber, in Columbia, S.C. By a singular chance the two lines of economic teaching came together at last in Columbia College, New York, when, in 1857, Francis Lieber was called to that institution as the successor to John McVickar.

* This statement… is not strictly true, for Destutt Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy appeared in 1817. McVickar undoubtedly deserves great credit for pioneer work, but the claim to absolute priority in this country as a lecturer upon Political Economy, asserted for him by his filial biographer, should be viewed with caution until the facts are more fully known,

The subject of History was also taught by Professor McVickar as a branch of his philosophical department. The statutes of Columbia College show that from the beginning of the present century Greek and Roman History, or Classical Antiquities, remained in the hands of the classical department. But some attention was always given to Modern History; and this appears to have been intrusted to the professor of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Belles Lettres. It was probably a natural continuation of the original historical work of John Gross, teacher of Geography and German, who was made Professor of Philosophy, also, in 1787. The preparation which Professor McVickar enjoyed for the teaching of history was not as good as that which came to him by nature and associations for the teaching of political economy. While yet a theological student, he appears, however, to have pursued a course of historical reading, and to have invented a system of mnemonics which he applied to Bossuet’s Chronology. Entering upon his professorship, McVickar worked out his own methods of instruction by a long course of experience, the results of which may be generalized upon the basis of the following authentic testimony.

In a report of a committee of the trustees of Columbia College, a statement was made, in 1856, by Professor McVickar, with respect to the duties of his department. He said his professorship comprised a “union of historical and philosophical studies,” of which he advised the division. To the sophomores, during their first semester, he taught “Modern European History, more especially from the latter half of the fifteenth century, being the period suggested by Heeren as the true commencement of the European system. The second session was the exact and critical study of English History, as the great storehouse of our political wisdom. In addition to this, there were essays on subjects connected with the course read and criticised in the lecture-room; the whole embodied in notes, as stated in my annual reports.” In regard to his method of teaching, Professor McVickar told the committee that any good history in the hands of students was sufficient. He said, “The subject is studied, not the text-book. My practice is, at the commencement, to explain the subject of text-books, and to give the class a list of the best, any one of which would be satisfactory. I have made it a point to ascertain from the best students of other colleges the results of studying from text-books, and have felt that such instruction makes little impression on the memory.” In reply to a question from the committee as to whether he delivered his lectures from notes, Professor McVickar said: “I have written notes; and in the earlier periods I used to read lectures. Experience brought me to a freer use of notes, as guiding the analysis of the subjects, but not controlling the words.” All this has a modern tone, and indicates a man of sensible ideas. There was, however, one radical fault found with Professor McVickar, which he perhaps inherited from Dr. Bowden; he did not succeed in keeping good discipline among his students. In his eulogy of Dr. Bowden, McVickar said, with a certain reflex significance, “As a disciplinarian he held lightly the staff of authority.” McVickar’s own students appear to have recognized this amiable weakness in their master, and to have presumed upon it. Some dissatisfaction was felt by the administration with what was allowed in the recitation-room of Professor McVickar; and the inquiry into his methods of instruction reveals a certain animus, with a decided tendency toward a reconstruction of the entire department.

In 1857, by the advice and consent of Professor McVickar, the duties of his too laborious and too comprehensive professorship were divided into three independent chairs: (1) Moral and Intellectual Philosophy; (2) Ancient and Modern Literature (Belles Lettres); (3) History and Political Science. Professor McVickar was transferred to the chair of Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion which he held until 1864, when he retired from office, his duties passing to the then president. The chair of Philosophy was given to Professor Charles Murray Nairne. The chair of Belles Lettres was offered to Samuel Eliot, of Boston; but he declined it, and the duties were then intrusted to Professor Nairne.

Source: Adams, Herbert B. The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, No. 2, 1887. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1887), pp. 61-63.

Image Source: Frontispiece from William A. McVickar, The Life of the Reverend John McVickar, S.T.D.] (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1872.

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Columbia Economists

South Carolina and Columbia. Two inaugural lectures by Francis Lieber, 1835 and 1858

Having just posted some early college exams in political economy from courses taught by Francis Lieber, I thought it would be useful to add this complementary post to provide some biographical content. This is probably as good as any place to add key sections from his inaugural lectures at South Carolina College (1835) and Columbia College (1858) that addressed the topic of political economy.

“Fun” fact: as an enlisted boy-soldier in the Prussian army, Lieber was wounded at the Battle of Waterloo.

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Principal Biographical Works

Thomas Sergeant Perry, editor. The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber (Boston, 1882)

Lewis R. Harley, Francis Lieber: His Life and Political Philosophy (New York, 1899).

Chester Squire Phinney, Francis Lieber’s Influence on American Thought and Some of His Unpublished Letters (Philadelphia, 1918). [Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania]

“Lieber. (1800-1872.) Reception of the Lieber Manuscripts” in Daniel Coit Gilman, Bluntschli, Lieber and Laboulaye. Commemorating acquisition of Bluntschli and Lieber collections by the Library of the Johns Hopkins University, pp. 13-26.

Frank Dreidel, Francis Lieber: Nineteenth-Century Liberal. (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1948).

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An Appreciative South Carolina wrote in 1859…

Francis Lieber was born March 18, 1800, in Berlin, Prussia. He went first to a private Grammar School in Berlin, and then to one of the old gymnasia in that city, called the Gray Convent. When but a lad, he left the school-house for the tented field, and had the good fortune to bear a part in some of the most renowned battles in modern times. I need only mention the names of Ligny, Waterloo and Namur. Upon his return from his campaign, he set to work to prepare himself for the University of Berlin, to which, in a short time, he was admitted, and where he was first matriculated. Subsequently he became connected with the University of Jena, a Saxon University, where, to secure himself against the interference of the Prussian Government, he was obliged to acquire the right of academic citizenship, by procuring the title of Doctor of Philosophy. From the University of Jena, he went to the University of Halle, and thence to Dresden, to pursue his studies privately. The oppressions of Greece now touched his heart, and he could not resist her appeals for help. He joined the Philhellenes, and repaired to that country to fight her battles. He next made his way to Rome in spite of the vigilance of the police, and was cordially received by the great historian Niebuhr, then the Prussian embassador, and made an inmate of his family. From Rome he went to his native city Berlin, and from Berlin he fled to England. He had now left his native country, and before I accompany him on his voyage to the New World, which, was to be his future home, let me mark some of the more interesting events of his past life. He belonged to the party of Liberals, and this party was persecuted throughout Germany. When a student at Berlin, he was charged with being a Revolutionist, and committed to prison. Upon his return to Berlin from Rome, he was a second time thrown into prison, and released by the influence of Niebuhr. Being threatened with a third arrest for the publication of certain poems written while in confinement, he fled the country as the only means of escape. Before leaving Germany, he published the Journal of his sojourn in Greece, which he wrote in Niebuhr’s house in Rome, and which has the distinction of being the first book which he gave to the public. This work was well received, and translated into several languages. In England certain tracts and contributions to German periodicals embraced pretty much his published labors. He arrived at New York in 1827, and took the preliminary steps at once to become a citizen of the United States. He made up his mind to fix his residence at Boston. He was a stranger, poor and friendless, and knew not what to do. But he could not remain idle. The consciousness of being in a land of liberty, where there were no restraints upon free inquiry, where the press was not muzzled, and where there were no dungeons for the expression of honest opinion, gave him courage. He conceived the bold idea of writing an American Encyclopedia. I have conversed with him about this period of his life, and as it was the beginning of a brilliant career of author ship in this country, a word of private history may not be without interest. One afternoon in Boston, when a dark cloud was resting upon his mind, he threw himself upon his bed, and indulged in profound reflection. “What shall I do?” was the overwhelming question. He felt that his brain was the only thing which he could draw upon for support. But how was that brain to be used? In what channel were his labors to be directed? In reading the lives of eminent scholars, how often do we find that at the outset they have been borne down, and for a period made miserable by this burdensome and heart-rending thought! Many a genius, under similar circumstances, has sunk never to rise again. A volume of the Conversationes-Lexicon happened to lie on a table in his room. As his eye rested upon it, he exclaimed. aloud, “That’s the thing; I’ll write an Encyclopedia.” He wrote out a plan at once, carried it to some of the leading men of Boston, and they gave it a hearty approval. He left immediately for Philadelphia, contracted with the publishing house of Carey and Lea, and sat down at once to the performance of his herculean task. The Encyclopedia was begun in 1828, and finished in 1831. From Boston he went to New York, where he resided for upwards of a year. He was not idle, but published none of his leading works during that period. His next residence was at Philadelphia, and there it was his fortune to become acquainted with the Hon. Mr. Drayton, formerly of Charleston, South Carolina, and to enjoy the respect and regards of that distinguished gentleman. The close of the year 1834, as has been previously stated, was marked by an almost desperate condition of the South Carolina College, and a thorough re-organization became a matter of necessity. A temporary arrangement was made to carry on the College for the first half of the year 1835, and Dr. Lieber, urged by his friend, Col. Drayton, left for Charleston with letters to Governors Hamilton and Hayne, who at once became his ardent supporters, and procured his consent to have himself put in nomination for a place in the new Faculty. June 5, 1835, he was unanimously elected Professor of History and Political Economy. At a subsequent period Political Philosophy was added to his department. Most of his principal works were written when he held a Professorship in the South Carolina College. Among these may be mentioned his Manual of Political Ethics, his Legal and Political Hermeneutics, or Principles of Interpretation and Construction in Law and Politics, his Essays on Property and Labor, and his Civil Liberty and Self-Government.

In 1844 and 1848, by permission of the Board of Trustees, he visited Europe, and while in Germany, published certain essays, which attracted attention. I have mentioned only the chief works of Lieber; those upon which his fame as an author is to rest. Beside these he published various tracts and essays on different subjects; all of them are valuable, and several are regarded as of high merit. I think that his reputation as a thinker and author, must finally rest, however, upon his Ethics, his Hermeneutics, his Labor and Property, and his Civil Liberty and Self-Government. I would not have the reader suppose that I attach but little value to his Encyclopedia. This is truly a great work of its kind. It met a pressing want. Something of the sort was much needed, and it accomplished the entire purpose for which it was designed. Perhaps a more acceptable service could not have been rendered. The great end was to diffuse knowledge in a country whose happiness is founded on liberty, and whose liberty is only to be preserved by widely spread information. Though the German work was adopted as the basis, it was the leading idea to make it an American Encyclopedia, by embodying in it all the valuable information relating to America, and I believe that this purpose was thoroughly accomplished. If he had left nothing else, this would be sufficient to secure for him an enviable reputation. Perhaps no book published in this country ever met with greater favor from the public. The necessities of the author compelled him to part with the copy-right, and others have received the pecuniary reward for his labors. But he had a higher compensation. His name soon became known to the people of this vast confederacy, and he was proud in the consciousness that whatever might be done in the future in this department of literature, he had led the way, and could not be forgotten. But the work was an Encyclopedia, and the world is apt to believe that an Encyclopedia is nothing more than an alphabetic digest, and arrangement of present science and knowledge. They regard it only as a monument of industry, and are reluctant to accord to the author the honors of original contribution. Though a book to make him remembered, it was not a book to give him reputation as a thinker, and his highest fame, therefore, must rest upon his other publications. Let not my remarks be construed into a disparagement of this truly valuable work. It soon became in truth the American Encyclopedia, and there is, perhaps, little risk in saying, that it has contributed more to the diffusion of general knowledge among us, than any book which was ever issued from the American press. It is not my design to give a notice of his many works. The greatest minds of our country have passed judgment upon them, and he would be truly a bold man who would now question their rank and position. The Manual of Political Ethics, the Essay on Property and Labor, the Hermeneutics, the Treatise on Civil Liberty and Self-Government, have received the highest praise from Story, Kent, Greenleaf, Prescott, Bancroft, and others in this country, and many of the best minds of Europe have added their warmest commendations. His works have been translated into several of the languages of Europe, and adopted as text-books in many of the highest Colleges and Universities. Perhaps no living author is more frequently referred to on all the great questions which he has discussed. Having written so much, and written so well, and in all exhibited the spirit of the true philosophical thinker, there are few subjects in any department of inquiry which cannot be illustrated by an appeal to his works. His service in this respect cannot be more strikingly set forth than by mentioning the fact, that in the discussion of the Elder question in the Presbyterian Review, a clergyman of the Presbyterian denomination, who in genius and learning is surpassed by no Divine in our country, refers to him in language of highest compliment. Can it be doubted that he is one of the great writers of the 19th century! Surely not when the United States, England, France and Germany, all unite in his praises, and have bestowed upon him the honors which are reserved only for the most successful authorship. It is to be remarked, that he has grappled with the most abstract and complex problems, and that he has earned his rewards, therefore, in the fields of highest thought and reflection. He has kept company with master minds, and vindicated his title to fellowship with them. The nature and philosophy of government, the application of the principles of ethics to the science of politics, the principles of interpretation as applicable to the duties of the law-giver, and the science of jurisprudence, the subjects of liberty, labor and property, these are the mighty themes to which he has consecrated his talents and his learning, and on which he has ventured to teach and enlighten his age. In such a field no common mind, no common learning could have achieved any measure of success. Known as he is throughout this country, he is one of a few American citizens who have an enviable European reputation. The estimate in which he is held is exhibited in the many honors and distinctions which have been conferred upon him by various learned Societies and Universities. I will only say here, that Harvard conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., that the French Institute elected him and Archbishop Whately on the same day, corresponding members to fill two vacancies, and that the King of Prussia offered him a Chair in the University of Berlin. He is enrolled among that select number described by Carlyle, “whose works belong not wholly to any age or nation, but who, having instructed their own con temporaries, are claimed as instructors by the great family of mankind, and set apart for many centuries from the common oblivion which soon overtakes the mass of authors, as it does the mass of other men.”

I have now made an allusion to the literary labors of Dr. Lieber. The character of his mind is well displayed in his works. The feature which perhaps would first strike the reader, is the fullness of his information, the amount of his laborious research. All that is known of his subject seems to have been stored away in his capacious brain, and he deals it out with a generous prodigality that looks like waste and extravagance. The whole encyclopedia of knowledge seems to be at his command, and he scatters it like one who feels that his treasures are exhaustless. His memory then is of the largest capacity. And will any of my readers give utterance here to the notion, that this great memory is proof that he possesses no extraordinary strength and vigor of understanding, and that he is wanting in high original powers? It is a popular idea, but I have ever regarded it as the refuge of ignorance and indolence. It is true that Lieber has mastered the thoughts of others; that in the particular department of inquiry to which he has devoted himself, he has gathered all that is valuable. But is this to be matter for reproach? He has not been content, however, with it: he is an earnest and bold thinker, and the knowledge and the speculations of others are not unfrequently used by him as stepping-stones to conduct him to still greater heights. I know that I am not mistaken when I say that he is no servile copyist, no mere follower in the footsteps of other men. On the contrary, he is remarkable for independence of thought, whether in conversation or in writing, and is prone to give utterance to his opinions now and then, with what might be called offensive dogmatism. I think that an examination of any one of his leading works will exhibit very prominently this feature in his mental constitution. He hesitates not to assail the opinions of any author, however renowned, and is ever ready to make battle with the most formidable antagonist. In this he displays a high courage, and a perfect self-confidence. I have sometimes suspected that he carries this too far; that in his eagerness for battle, he may fall short of full justice to his adversary. In all his writings he shows an independence and a love of liberty, which might be called Miltonic. Oppression, despotism in all its forms, whether of the mind or body, is abhorrent to his nature. There is no greater lover of law and of order, and he gives his love to Anglican, American liberty, or, to use his own phrase, to Institutional liberty. Feeling the foot of the oppressor when but a youth, immured in a dungeon because of his liberal principles, it may be said that his life has been one continued struggle for the cause of freedom. Nothing could be more congenial to his tastes, his habits of thought and his principles, than the Institutions of the United States, and feeling all the protection of a well-regulated government, here was opened for him a wide field, where he could labor unrestrained for the great cause to which he had consecrated himself with such devotion. He was the same man; he had changed his home, but not his principles. Even in his adopted country, the victory was not complete. He found the despotism of a fettered commerce, of an exorbitantly taxed industry, and a consequent odious discrimination by government. Could he take any other side than the side of Free Trade! He soon became one of the distinguished champions of the cause, and had the high honor of being styled by Robert J. Walker, the able Secretary of the Treasury, “the philosophic head of the Free Traders of the United States.” But this is not all. Our infant country is rapidly progressive. From causes easily understood, and which it is not necessary to enumerate, we are exposed to peculiar danger from the rise of every possible opinion on every variety of subject, the rapidity with which they are propagated, the facility with which organizations are effected, and the great power which they acquire, and bring to bear in the issues of the country. Some of these are indigenous, while the seeds of others are imported from foreign lands, and find here a genial soil, which soon stimulates them to germination. We have our Masonic and Anti-Masonic parties, our Seers and Prophets, our Socialists, Communists, Agrarians, Free Love Societies, Mormonists, Women’s Rights Parties, Polygamists, Know Nothings, and a long list of societies and associations, in too many instances based upon principles utterly subversive of right and order, and which, if not checked, would soon bring about anarchy and ruin. That man knows but little of the nature and philosophy of the human mind, and of the history of popular delusions, who is not prepared to concede that the grossest errors and superstitions, the wildest and most dangerous hypotheses, may take root and rally to their support a host of zealous and devoted advocates. Of this whole class of reckless innovators and insane enthusiasts, this motlied crew whose sole principle of cohesion is to war upon law and order, and to unsettle the great truths which have been sanctified by the experience of ages, Lieber indulges a feeling of abhorrence, and looks upon them as enemies of progress and the human race. The tone of his works cannot be too much commended. The spirit of justice, of morality and of liberty, breathes though them all. But the effects of his teachings are not limited to America. The press has borne them to the despotisms of the Old World, and wherever there is a struggle for the rights of man, he may be said to be present and bearing his part.

But I am to speak of him as a Professor in the South Carolina College. He was connected with it for upwards of twenty years, and closed his labors in December, 1856. From what has already been said, there can be no doubt that he had all the fullness of learning which could be demanded. With the details of history, with the speculations and systems of philosophy connected with the departments of which he had charge, it is hard to conceive of greater familiarity. To his classes he poured out his learning in one continued stream; and sometimes it confounded from its very profusion. Full of enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge, elevating it almost to the rank of a Divinity, he always exhibited the greatest earnestness of purpose. Of the amount of his labors in the College it is not easy to form a correct estimate. His whole time, with but little relaxation, was devoted to the severest toil. From his study to his class room, from his class room to his study — this was his life; and yet, with all this labor, his spirit was fresh, and his ardor unabated. Never have I known a more insatiable appetite, and he was ever in search of food for its gratification. But, not to indulge in metaphor, I have never met a more inquiring mind. He was always in quest of knowledge, and drew it from every source. Like Franklin, he would extract it even from the ignorant and unthinking, and thus he levied his contributions upon all. All know how suggestive a fact may be to a thoughtful mind, and what beautiful superstructures of knowledge have been reared from the humblest beginnings. Overflowing with information on such a variety of subjects, he had it in his power to render a particular service to the young men of the College, which I have always regarded of immense value. In the many public exercises which they are required to perform, such as speeches at the Exhibition, at Commencement, before the Societies, and Prize Essays, nothing was more common than to seek a conversation with Lieber, who would suggest the plan of discussion, and point to the best sources of information. His lectures and his published works, too, furnished a mine of thought and knowledge, from which the richest treasures were drawn. I must call attention for a moment to the arrangements in his lecture room. One would expect to find maps, and charts and globes, in the room of a Historical Professor, as these are the indispensable tools with which he has to work. There is nothing in this, then, to distinguish the room in which Lieber met his classes. But there is something besides which rivets the attention, and appeals to the noblest affections. The walls are graced with busts of the immortal men of ancient and modern times, and thus is brought to bear something of the power of a real presence. Here in mute but expressive silence stand Homer, Demosthenes, Socrates, Cicero, Shakspeare, Milton, Kant, Goethe, Luther, Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Humboldt and William Penn. Here, too, are to be seen the illustrious trio, Webster, Calhoun and Clay, and two of the favorite public servants of Carolina, Preston and McDuffie. I need not insist that these are not to be regarded in the light of mere ornament; that they speak to the souls of all who look upon them, and tend to arouse into activity all that is noble, refining and elevating.

Dr. Lieber’s resignation was accepted by the Board of Trustees December, 1856, and the following proceedings were had on the occasion:

Whereas, The resignation of Dr. Lieber has been accepted by this Board:

Resolved, That the Board of Trustees have a full appreciation of the eminent learning and just reputation of Dr. Lieber.

Resolved, That the Board tender to Dr. Lieber their hearty and sincere good wishes for his future welfare and prosperity.

It is worthy of note, that at a meeting of the alumni of the College, resolutions of a most complimentary character were adopted, and two massive silver vessels presented to him in token of their regard and admiration. I have now brought to a close my very imperfect notice of Lieber as a Professor in the South Carolina College. I have but a single additional remark to make. He must take his place as a star of the first magnitude. In all future time the State will regard his name as one of the brightest and most illustrious on the roll of her Faculty. That he honored her cherished Institution, that he spread her fame to distant lands, and contributed in largest measure to her exaltation and glory, none will question. He will live forever in her history, and never, never, will it be forgotten that her chosen temples of learning were adorned by his ministrations, and that he devoted the best portion of his life to her service and honor.

I shall now dismiss him as an author and a Professor, but I must be permitted to say a word of him as a man. Associated with him for thirteen years as his colleague in the Faculty, and sustaining towards him relations of confidence throughout that period, I think that I have had ample opportunities for forming a right estimate, and that my judgment is entitled to some measure of value. He knows his strength, and never distrustful of his powers, always exhibits a spirit of bold self-reliance. In the ardor of discussion he may become too dogmatic and peremptory, and act like one who never shows mercy, or “gives quarters.” This may create the impression that his character is cast in too stern a mould to allow of the existence of the tender and sympathetic affections. But this is a mistake. His heart is as large as his brain, and endued with a tender sensibility. He can carry out the lesson of the poet:

—— — — — — “to feel another’s woe,
To hide the fault I see.”

I know that he is kindly-natured, free to forgive, and incapable of malice. His personal morality is without reproach, and he illustrates in his life the doctrines so impressively inculcated in his published works. He is fond of the beautiful, and is arrested in admiration whenever it is presented. Is it beneath the dignity of my subject to say that he will almost steal a flower, that he may send it with a complimentary note to a young lady! He loves to look out upon a May-day when the earth teems with buds and blossoms, and how responsive is his heart with its hopes and its joys! Shall I add that he has a youthful fondness for the society of girls, and that no young gallant can surpass him on such occasions in light and airy conversation. But I must not forget his sympathy with little children; “those flowers that make the hovel’s earthen floor delightful as the glades of paradise.” He will play with them by the hour, and leading the way, forget his manhood, and become as one of them. Does not this speak volumes for his heart? Shall I say more? He has left the South Carolina College, but his affections still linger around it. He loves the trees under whose shades he walked for twenty years, the lecture room where he so long labored in the cause of knowledge; and the ivy which he planted, and which now spreads itself in rich luxuriance over the house which he occupied, has fastened its tendrils upon his heart, and is entwined in everlasting embrace around it.

But I have concluded what I had to say. Dr. Lieber is residing at present in New York, and fills the Professorship of History and Political Science in the School of Jurisprudence of the Columbia University, to which he was unanimously elected May 18, 1857. Here is a wide field congenial to his tastes and attainments. He is in the vigor of life, and to human eye many years of labor are yet before him. Long may he live to instruct the youth of America, and to scatter over the world the fruits of his genius and learning!…

Source: M. LaBorde, History of the South Carolina College (Columbia, S.C.: Peter B. Glass, 1859), Chapter XVI. Pp. 395 -410.

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From Lieber’s Inaugural Lecture at South Carolina College (1835)

…Civil history, the main subject of instruction in history in the college, will necessarily lead to inquiries into the various subjects of politics. It is not only my intention to treat of them while I am proceeding in history, but also to teach them, if time can be found, in separate lectures. On the other hand I shall always endeavor to exhibit the whole state of civilization of a country or period under discussion, and try to give a rapid sketch of the literature, the state of sciences, the arts, its commerce and agriculture, which will lead to touch upon subjects more properly belonging to the other science for which you have appointed me. As I shall have frequent occasion to speak on the subject of politics, so will the introduction of history often lead me to topics of political economy, and in the same way shall I make them the subject of separate instruction.

Political Economy, treated as a scientific whole, is of comparatively late origin, though various subjects, belonging to its province, have at different times been treated even in remote periods. There are still many persons, who “do not believe in political economy,” and will of course not allow it the rank of a science, as a few years ago, when Werner broke a new path for mineralogy, many people, and most distinguished ones among them, smiled at the idea of calUng mineralogy a science, or believing in the possibility of systematically and scientifically treating what they called “the stones.”* Nay, there are still persons who deny that geology be a science. Whether political economy be a science or not, it is not here the place to discuss, though it is difficult to see why the difference of opinion and contradictory results at which some, though few, political economists have arrived, should any more deprive their study of the character of a science, than natural philosophy, metaphysics, medicine or theology; nor is it required that any one should believe in political economy. The simple question is whether the subjects it considers as peculiarly belonging to its forum, are susceptible of scientific inquiry, and whether they are of sufficient importance to require investigations of this kind and to be taught in our college.

* See among others some of the letters written by Herder to Goethe, who, it is well known, was an ardent mineralogist and geologist to the end of his life.

I believe it is easy to show that the same relation, which physiology of the human body bears to anthropology and philosophy in general, subsists between political economy and the higher branches of politics — or, political economy has precisely all the importance with regard to society, which the material life bears throughout to the moral and intellectual world. Political economy might be defined by being the science which occupies itself essentially with the material life of society — with production, exchange and consumption; and no one can possibly have thrown a single glance at these subjects, and deny that theystand in the most intimate connection with the moral and intellectual interests of a nation.

If subjects of such universal influence and so extensively affecting the existence of human beings, as labor, wages, capital, interests, commerce, loans, banks, &c. are not matter of sufficient interest for inquiry, then few things are; if they do not depend upon general causes cognizable by the reason of man, then every thing around us is chance, and what is very striking, most regular chance, for it would be strange indeed that in the United States, for instance, many millions of people agree, without exchange of opinions, to pay throughout an immense territory about seventy-five cents for a day‘s work of a common laborer, and that in another immense country, at the north of Europe, many millions of people receive for the same work a few kopecks only, with a uniformity which is perfectly perplexing if the same general cause does not produce respectively this uniform effect. No believer in chance has ever dreamt that the regularity in form, process of growth and ripening of a species of plant be the results of mere chance. Though he might believe that the first cause was chance, he would always allow that by the original mixture of atoms or elements, certain laws were produced according to which nature now effects all the processes which strike us by their regularity; but in our own case, when we speak of human society, we shall at once change the test, and not believe that general, uniform and regular efiects must depend upon fixed causes!

If these causes can be discovered, and what earthly reason is there that they should not? then it is the duty of man to discover them. Having found them, he will be able to subject them to the same processes of reasoning which he applies to every mass of homogeneous facts. Judicious combination and cautious induction will enable him to reason from them and conclude upon new results. If, however, these inquiries are of general interest and importance, they are certainly so to a citizen, who takes an active and direct part in the making of the laws which govern his own society, for they touch upon matters which most frequently become the subject of legislation. It is necessary then that the youths be instructed in this science.

Political economy has not appeared under the most favorable train of circumstances. It is not its lot quietly to investigate a given subject, but it has to combat a series of systematized prejudices, which have extended their roots far and wide into all directions and deep into every class of society, for many centuries past — prejudices which are intimately connected with the interest of powerful classes.

Strange, that man should have seriously to debate about free trade any more than about free breathing, free choice of color of dress, free sleeping, free cookery, and should be obliged to listen to arguments, which, if true, would also prove that the cutting, clipping and shaving of trees, fashionable in the times of Louis XIV, produced most noble, healthful oaks. Still, so ancient is the prejudice, that even Strabo mentions the fact that the Cumæans did not levy any duties on merchandize, imported into their harbor, as a proof of their enormous stupidity. The transition is not easy from so deep-rooted a prejudice and whole systems of laws built upon it, to the natural, simple and uncorrupted state of things, in which man is allowed to apply his means as best he thinks, without fettering and cramping care from above, which is like the caresses of the animal in the fable — stifling.

Two different directions of scientific inquiry seem to be characteristic of our age — minute, extensive and bold inquiry into nature and her laws and life, and equally bold and shrewd examination of the elements and laws of human society, and all that is connected with its physical or moral welfare. Hence we see at once the human mind following two apparently opposite directions with equal ardor — history and political economy. No age has pursued with so much zeal the collection of every remnant and vestige, which may contribute to disclose to us the real state of former generations; and in no age have the principles upon which the success of the human species depends, been investigated with less reserve. Your Board of Trustees has appointed me for these two important sciences, and I feel gratified thus to be placed in a situation, in which I am able to contribute largely to the diffusion of two sciences, which are cultivaied with such intense activity by the age in which my lot has been cast.

Source: On history and political economy, as necessary branches of superior education in free states. An inaugural address, delivered in South Carolina college, before the governor and the legislature of the state, on Commencement day the 7th of December, 1835. By Francis Lieber, LL.D. Printed by order of the Board of trustees.  Pp. 23-26

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From Lieder’s Inaugural Lecture at Columbia College (1858)

…A wise study of the past teaches us social analysis, and to separate the permanent and essential from the accidental and superficial, so that it becomes one of the keys by which we learn to understand better the present. History, indeed, is an admirable training in the great duty of attention and the art of observation, as in turn an earnest observation of the present is an indispensable aid to the historian. A practical life is a key with which we unlock the vaults containing the riches of the past. Many of the greatest historians in antiquity and modern times have been statesmen; and Niebuhr said that with his learning, and it was prodigious, he could not have understood Roman history, had he not been for many years a practical officer in the financial and other departments of the administration, while we all remember Gibbon’s statement of himself, that the captain of the Hampshire militia was of service to the historian of Rome. This is the reason why free nations produce practical, penetrating and unravelling historians, for in them every observing citizen partakes, in a manner, of statesmanship. Free countries furnish us with daily lessons in the anatomy of states and society; they make us comprehend the reality of history. But we have dwelled sufficiently long on this branch.

As Helicon, where Clio dwelt, looked down in all its grandeur on the busy gulf and on the chaffering traffic of Corinth, so let us leave the summit and walk down to Crissa, and cross the isthmus and enter the noisy mart where the productions of men are exchanged. Sudden as the change may be, it only symbolizes reality and human life. What else is the main portion of history but a true and wise account of the high events and ruling facts which have resulted from the combined action of the elements of human life? Who does not know that national life consists in the gathered sheaves of the thousand activities of men, and that production and exchange are at all times among the elements of these activities?

Man is always an exchanging being. Exchange is one of those characteristics without which we never find man, though they may be observable only in their lowest incipiency, and with which we never find the animal, though its sagacity may have reached the highest point. As, from the hideous tattooing of the savage to our dainty adornment of the sea-cleaving prow or the creations of a Crawford, men always manifest that there is the affection of the beautiful in them —  that they are æsthetical beings; or as they  always show that they are religious beings, whether they prostrate themselves before a fetish or bend their knee before their true and unseen God, and the animal never, so we find man, whether Caffre, Phoenician or American, always a producing and exchanging being; and we observe that this, as all other attributes, steadily increases in intensity with advancing civilization.

There are three laws on which man’s material well being and, in a very great measure, his civilization are founded. Man is placed on this earth apparently more destitute and helpless than any other animal. Man is no finding animal —  he must produce. He must produce his food, his raiment, his shelter and his  comfort. He must produce his arrow and his trap, his canoe and his field, his road and his lamp.

Men are so constituted that they have far more wants, and can enjoy the satisfying of them more intensely, than other animals; and while these many wants are of a peculiar uniformity among all men, the fitness of the earth to provide for them is greatly diversified and locally restricted, so that men must produce, each more than he wants for himself, and exchange their products. All human palates are pleasantly affected by saccharine salts, so much so that the word sweet has been carried over, in all languages, into different and higher spheres, where it has ceased to be a trope and now designates the dearest and even the holiest affections. All men understand what is meant by sweet music and sweet wife, because the material pleasure whence the term is derived is universal. All men of all ages relish sugar, but those regions which produce it are readily numbered. This applies to the far greater part of all materials in constant demand among men, and it applies to the narrowest circles as to the widest. The inhabitant of the populous city does not cease to relish and stand in need of farinaceous substances though his crowded streets cannot produce grain, and the farmer who provides him with grain does not cease to stand in need of iron or oil which the town may procure for him from a distance. With what remarkable avidity the tribes of Negroland, that had never been touched even by the last points of the creeping fibres of civilization, longed for the articles lately carried thither by Barth and his companions! The brute animal has no dormant desires of this kind, and finds around itself what it stands in need of. This apparent cruelty, although a real blessing to man, deserves to be made a prominent topic in natural theology.

Lastly, the wants of men I speak of their material and cultural wants, the latter of which are as urgent and fully as legitimate as the former infinitely increase and are by Providence decreed to increase with advancing civilization; so that his progress necessitates intenser production and quickened exchange.

The branch which treats of the necessity, nature, and effects, the promotion and the hindrances of production, whether it be based almost exclusively on appropriation, as the fishery; or on coercing nature to furnish us with better and more abundant fruit than she is willing spontaneously to yield, as agriculture; or in fashioning, separating and combining substances which other branches of industry obtain and collect, as manufacture; or on carrying the products from the spot of production to the place of consumption; and the character which all these products acquire by exchange, as values, with the labor and services for which again products are given in exchange, this division of knowledge is called political economy — an unfit name; but it is the name, and we use it. Political economy, like every other of the new sciences, was obliged to fight its way to a fair acknowledgment, against all manners of prejudices. The introductory lecture which archbishop Whately delivered some thirty years ago, when he commenced his course on political economy in the university of Oxford, consists almost wholly of a defense of his science and an encounter with the objections then made to it on religious, moral, and almost on every ground that could be made by ingenuity, or was suggested by the misconception of its aims. Political economy fared, in this respect, like vaccination, like the taking of a nation’s census, like the discontinuance of witch trials.

The economist stands now on clearer ground. Opponents have acknowledged their errors, and the economists themselves fall no longer into the faults of the utilitarian. The economist indeed sees that the material interests of men are of the greatest importance, and that modern civilization, in all its aspects, requires an immense amount of wealth, and consequently increasing exertion and production, but he acknowledges that “what men can do the least without is not their highest need.”* He knows that we are bid to pray for our daily bread, but not for bread alone, and I am glad that those who bade me teach Political Economy, assigned to me also Political Philosophy and History. They teach that the periods of national dignity and highest endeavors have sometimes been periods of want and poverty. They teach abundantly that riches and enfeebling comforts, that the flow of wine or costly tapestry, do not lead to the development of humanity, nor are its tokens; that no barbarism is coarser than the substitution of gross expensiveness for what is beautiful and graceful; that it is manly character, and womanly soulfulness, not gilded upholstery or fretful fashion — that it is the love of truth and justice, directness and tenacity of purpose, a love of right, of fairness and freedom, a self-sacrificing public spirit and religious sincerity, that lead nations to noble places in history; not surfeiting feasts or conventional refinement. The Babylonians have tried that road before us.

* Professor Lushington in his Inaugural Lecture, in Glasgow, quoted in Morell’s Hist. and Crit. View of Specul. Phil. London, 1846.

But political economy, far from teaching the hoarding of riches, shows the laws of accumulation and distribution of wealth; it shows the important truth that mankind at large can become and have become wealthier, and must steadily increase their wealth with expanding culture.

It is, nevertheless, true that here, in the most active market of our whole hemisphere, I have met, more frequently than in any other place, with an objection to political economy, on the part of those who claim for themselves the name of men of business. They often say that they alone can know anything about it, and as often ask what is Political Economy good for? The soldier, though he may have fought in the thickest of the fight, is not on that account the best judge of the disposition, the aim, the movements, the faults or the great conceptions of a battle, nor can we call the infliction of a deep wound a profound lesson in anatomy.

What is Political Economy good for? It is like every other branch truthfully pursued, good for leading gradually nearer and nearer to the truth; for making men, in its own sphere, that is the vast sphere of exchange, what Cicero calls mansueti, and for clearing more and more away what may be termed the impeding and sometimes savage superstitions of trade and intercourse; it is, like every other pursuit of political science of which it is but a branch, good for sending some light, through the means of those that cultivate it as their own science, to the most distant corners, and to those who have perhaps not even heard of its name.

Let me give you two simple facts one of commanding and historic magnitude; the other of apparent insignificance, but typical of an entire state of things, incalculably important.

Down to Adam Smith, the greatest statesmanship had always been sought for in the depression of neighboring nations. Even a Bacon considered it self-evident that the enriching of one people implies the impoverishing of another. This maxim runs through all history, Asiatic and European, down to the latter part of the last century. Then came a Scottish professor who dared to teach, in his dingy lecture-room at Edinburgh, contrary to the opinion of the whole world, that every man, even were it but for egotistic reasons, is interested in the prosperity of his neighbors; that his wealth, if it be the result of production and exchange, is not a withdrawal of money from others, and that, as with single men so with entire nations the more prosperous the one so much the better for the other. And his teaching, like that of another professor before him the immortal Grotius went forth, and rose above men and nations, and statesmen and kings; it ruled their councils and led the history of our race into new channels; it bade men adopt the angels’ greeting: “Peace on earth and good will towards men,” as a maxim of high statesmanship and political shrewdness. Thus rules the mind; thus sways science. There is now no intercourse between civilized nations which is not tinctured by Smith and Grotius. And what I am, what you are, what every man of our race is in the middle of the nineteenth century, he owes it in part to Adam Smith, as well as to Grotius, and Aristotle, and Shakespeare, and every other leader of humanity. Let us count the years since that Scottish professor, with his common name, Smith, proclaimed his swaying truth, very simple when once pronounced; very fearful as long as unacknowledged; a very blessing when in action; and then let us answer, What has Political Economy done for man? We habitually dilate on the effect of physical sciences, and especially on their application to the useful arts in modern times. All honor to this characteristic feature of our age the wedlock of knowledge and labor; but it is, nevertheless, true that none of the new sciences have so deeply affected the course of human events as political economy. I am speaking as an historian and wish to assert facts. What I say is not meant as rhetorical fringe.

The other fact alluded to, is one of those historical pulsations which indicate to the touch of the inquirer, the condition of an entire living organism. When a few weeks ago the widely spread misery in the manufacturing districts of England was spoken of in the British house of lords, one that has been at the helm,** concluded his speech with an avowal that the suffering laborers who could find but half days’, nay, quarter days’ employment, with unreduced wants of their families, nevertheless had resorted to no violence, but on the contrary universally acknowledged that they knew full well, that a factory can not be kept working unless the master can work to a profit.

** Lord Derby, then in the opposition, and since made premier again.

This too is very simple, almost trivial, when stated. But those who know the chronicles of the medieval cities, and of modern times down to a period which most of us recollect, know also that in all former days the distressed laborer would first of all have resorted to a still greater increase of distress, by violence and destruction. The first feeling of uninstructed man, produced by suffering, is vengeance, and that vengeance is wreaked on the nearest object or person; as animals bite, when in pain, what is nearest within reach. What has wrought this change? Who, or what has restrained our own sorely distressed population from blind violence, even though unwise words were officially addressed to them, when under similar circumstances in the times of free Florence or Cologne there would have been a sanguinary rising of the “wool weavers,” if it is not a sounder knowledge and a correcter feeling regarding the relations of wealth, of capital and labor, which in spite of the absurdities of communism has penetrated in some degree all layers of society? And which is the source whence this tempering knowledge has welled forth, if not Political Economy?

True indeed, we are told that economists do not agree; some are for protection, some for free trade. But are physicians agreed? And is there no science and art of medicine? Are theologians agreed? Are the cultivators of any branch of knowledge fully agreed, and are all the beneficial effects of the sciences debarred by this disagreement of their followers? But, however important at certain periods the difference between protectionists and free traders may be, it touches, after all, but a small portion of the bulk of truth taught by Political Economy, and I believe that there is a greater uniformity of opinion, and a more essential agreement among the prominent scholars of this science, than among those of others excepting, as a matter of course, the mathematics….

Source: Francis Lieber, “History and Political Science, Necessary Studies in Free Countries” — an Inaugural Address delivered on the Seventeenth of February, 1858. New York: 1858. Pages 25-36.

Image Source: Portrait photograph of Professor Francis Lieber from the Brady-Handy photograph collection at the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

Categories
Columbia Exam Questions

South Carolina and Columbia College. Political Economy Exams. Francis Lieber, 1855, 1863

What is a curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror to do when he stumbles across college exams in political economy from 1855 and 1863? Of course, there is no choice but to stop everything and post the material immediately. I had no reason to either like or dislike Francis Lieber when I started this post, but the more I see of him (not all posted here…yet), the more I get to like him as a scholar.

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Specimens of Francis Lieber’s Examinations

The numbers at the [left] of the questions in Sections A and B represent the point values of the questions.

A. South Carolina College.
Junior Class in Political Philosophy, 18551

The Juniors stand on Paley’s Elements of Political Knowledge, to Chap. VII, and five lectures.

  1. [35 points] What is absolutism or an absolute Government: What is an absolute Monarchy, and what is absolute Democracy? Why is an absolute Democracy one of the worst governments? Compare the reality of power and the responsibility of the power-holder in the absolute Monarchy with those in the absolute Democracy.
  2. [20 points] Define Obedience and state whether obeying is passive submission or an attribute of rational beings and free agents. Show how man is familiarized with the idea of authority before he becomes an active citizen, and show, moreover, how it is that we ought to obey laws which were made generations before us, and, in the making of which, consequently, we have no direct or indirect share.
  3. [25 points] What is meant by the theory of the civil compact, implied or positive? Give the most serious objection to this theory.
  4. [20 points] Give the first and the last division of the general classification of all governments and politics, written in such a way as to show the subordination of the different parts.

1Printed copy in Lieber papers, Columbia University Libraries. A handwritten note at the bottom reads: “N. B. These refer to a course which commenced Oct. 1, and ended Nov. 10. F. L.”

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B. South Carolina College.
Senior Class in Political Economy, 18552

The Seniors stand on the entire annual course of Political Economy, including a course of lectures and the whole of Say’s Political Economy, except the Book on Distribution.

Subjects.

  1. [25 points] Louis the Fourteenth was in the habit of saying that royal profusion is the charity of kings, or, that lavish governments are a blessing to the people. Show what is meant by this assertion and its grave error.
  2. [10 points] Define the term “Itinerant Merchant” or Pedlar. Does the Itinerant form an essential link in the long chain of commerce?
  3. [30 points] Enumerate the characteristics of a sound acceptable tax, according to Mr. Say, and also the characteristics as your teacher has given them — adding to each characteristic an explanatory note or two, in order to show what is meant by it.
  4. [15 points] Is machinery objectionable on the ground that it saves labor? If this were so, would the objection apply to machinery alone?
  5. [30 points (sic, perhaps only 20?)] A hotel or bridge is built for a capital, say, of $100,000. The undertakings prove failures in spite of the prudent management of the concern either, because the buildings were erected on an extravagant plan, or because the number of people making use of them, falls short of that calculated upon. The hotel, or the bridge, is sold for $25,000 and now the number of boarders in the hotel, or of the passengers over the bridge, is sufficient to pay for the interest of the latter sum, as well as for all other outlays, and yields a fair profit. Hereupon the general remark is made: “Well, the capitalist who first undertook the thing is ruined, it is true, but the people,” or “the community at large have gained by it; for, here, they are living in this fine hotel,” or “here is the bridge still standing.” Similar remarks are made on large, yet unprofitable, under takings, of governments, with this difference that, generally, it is added, “There is no harm in the original outlay, although it proves unprofitable, inasmuch as the capital laid out has returned to the people.” For instance, one hundred millions of dollars laid out by government for a railway to the Pacific, would be no loss, although the railway should yield no profit, nor even pay for the interest of the capital, because the whole amount of the capital, would have returned to the people, by the laying of the road itself.

You meet with this argument every day in the debates in Congress, as well as in common life. Show its utter fallacy, or which amounts to the same thing, answer the question: Can the capitalist who pays for a work, be ruined by it, yet the community, or people at the same time be benefitted? And is there any difference in point of political economy, whether government, or a private individual be the capitalist? And also, whether there be any difference if the iron, in the case of the railway, be American iron, or purchased abroad?

2A printed copy is in the Columbia University Libraries.
Lieber elaborated the answer to the main part of the fifth question in his Some Truths Worth Remembering, Given as a Recapitulation, in a Farewell Lecture to the Class of Political Economy of 1849, Published by the Class.

“No enterprise, failing by its own unprofitable nature, can be, at the same time, ruinous to the adventurers, yet advantageous to the community. If a railway cost $500,000, and shares fall to $25 in the hundred, because travelling and freight pay a fair interest of $100,000 only, in that case the community has for ever lost the value of $400,000, and the passengers and freight are carried at the regular and fair price plus the interest of $400,000 proportionately divided in the course of the year. Nothing is more common than to hear that a hotel or a canal has been ruinous to the adventuring individuals, but that the people have reaped the advantage of it. This cannot be. The case applies to government undertakings. They cannot be advantageous to the whole (as far as productive effects are concerned), although they would be ruinous to individuals.”

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Columbia College.
Senior Class in Political Economy, 1863
3

  1. Definition of Money.
  2. Immigration Into the U. States considered in an economical point of view.
  3. Error of Montesquieu concerning Money.
  4. Define direct and indirect taxation.
  5. How does a Bill of Exchange become a commodity?
  6. Communism and Socialism.
  7. Enumerate the characteristics of an acceptable tax.
  8. The N[ew] York Clearing House.

3In Lieber papers, Columbia University Libraries.

Source:  Appendix to “Francis Lieber: German Scholar in America,” reprinted in the collection of essays by Joseph Dorfman and R.G. Tugwell, Early American Policy: Six Columbia Contributors (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 339-341. The article was originally published without the above appendix in Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 30 (Sept. and Dec.), 1938, pp. 159-90; 267-93.

Image Source: Thomas Sergeant Perry, editor. The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber (Boston, 1882).

Categories
Columbia Economics Programs

Columbia. Trustee behind the establishment of the School of Political Science. Ruggles, 1880

 

Today’s post introduces us to someone who was critical in creating the institutional infrastructure that promoted the development of economics at Columbia University. Samuel Bulkley Ruggles wanted political economy and public policy to be taught and as a trustee of Columbia College worked to have John W. Burgess hired in the first place and then supported Burgess’s plan to form a faculty of political science to fit between the School of Arts and the School of Law. There in the School of Political Science founded in 1880 would be the origins of the department of economics (sociology, mathematical statistics, public law, international institutes etc, etc).

Note: As far as the curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror can determine, there is no relation between Samuel Bulkley Ruggles and the Ruggles dynasty of modern economics.

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Biography of Columbia Trustee,
Samuel Bulkley Ruggles

RUGGLES, Samuel Bulkley, lawyer, b. in New Milford, Conn., 11 April, 1800; d. on Fire island, N. Y., 28 Aug., 1881. He removed at an early age to Poughkeepsie, was graduated at Yale in 1814, studied law in the office of his father, Philo, who was surrogate and district attorney at Poughkeepsie, and was admitted to the bar in 1821. He was elected a member of the assembly of 1888, and, as chairman of the committee on ways and means, presented a “Report upon the Finances and Internal Improvements of the State of New York,” which led the state to enter upon a new policy in its commercial development. This report proposed to borrow sums of money sufficient to enlarge the Erie canal within five years, and not, as had been at first decided, to rely upon part of the tolls to pay for the enlargement while waiting twenty years. The enlargement was not made at once, but Mr. Ruggles’s views, which were much assailed, were amply vindicated by the event. He was a commissioner to determine the route of the Erie railroad, and a director in 1833-’9, a director and promoter of the Bank of commerce in 1839, commissioner of the Croton aqueduct in 1842, delegate from the United States to the International statistical congresses at Berlin in 1863 and the Hague in 1869, U. S. commissioner to the Paris exposition of 1867, and delegate to the International monetary conference that was held there. He laid out Gramercy park, in the city of New York, in 1831, gave it its name, and presented it to the surrounding property-owners. He also had a considerable influence upon shaping Union square, where he resided, and he selected the name of Lexington avenue. He was for a long term of years a trustee of the Astor library, and he held the same office in Columbia college from 1836 till the end of his life. He was also a member of the Chamber of commerce of the state of New York, and of the General convention of the Protestant Episcopal church.

Mr. Ruggles’s claim to distinction rests chiefly upon his canal policy, and the steadfast attention that he continued to give to the Erie canal, both as a private citizen during his life and as canal commissioner, in which office he served from 1840 till 1842, and again in the year 1858. Yale gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1859. Among his numerous printed papers are “Report upon Finances and Internal Improvements” (1838); “Vindication of Canal Policy” (1849); “Defence of Improvement of Navigable Waters by the General Government” (1852); “Law of Burial” (1858); “Report on State of Canals in 1858” (1859); reports on the Statistical congress at Berlin (1863), the Monetary conference at Paris (1867), and the Statistical congress at the Hague (1871); “Report to the Chairman of the Committee on Canals” (1875); and a “Consolidated Table of National Progress in Cheapening Food” (1880).

Source: Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Vol. 5, Pickering-Sumter (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1888), pp. 343-344.

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Research tip

Ruggles of New York: A Life of Samuel B. Ruggles by Daniel Garrison Brinton Thompson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946).  Includes a bibliography primary and secondary sources regarding Samuel Bulkeley Ruggles.

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Excerpt from Joseph Dorfman’s 1955 History of the Economics Department of Columbia

…In 1876, four years after [Francis] Lieber’s death, John W. Burgess was called from Amherst to revive Lieber’s work in the College as well as in the School of Law; it was expected that he would teach political economy. The subject was especially important in the eyes of Samuel B. Ruggles, the Trustee who led this movement for the revival of Lieber’s chair and who was well aware of the developments at Yale, Harvard, and abroad. A lawyer by profession, with extensive business interests, Ruggles was genuinely interested in the advancement of learning in general and political economy in particular. He had a reputation as a statistician, especially in monetary matters. He had served as American Commissioner to a number of international statistical and monetary conferences, had taken an active interest in the enactment of the Coinage Act of 1873, and was one of the leaders in the subsequent controversy over bimetallism.

To Ruggles, Burgess looked like the right person to teach political economy, for Burgess had taught the subject at Knox College from 1869 to 1871 as Professor of English Literature and Political Economy and had subsequently studied at Leipzig under Wilhelm Roscher, the foremost figure in the German historical school of economics. Burgess felt, however, that he could not do justice to the field because of his already heavy program, and he proposed that an assistant be secured especially for instruction in economics. A report presented by Ruggles, for the Trustees’ Committee appointed to inquire into the matter, marked the first definite, explicit recognition by a leading institution of the “historical school.” The report, submitted on October 1, 1877, declared that since [Charles Murray] Nairne had not specialized in political economy, he taught it

“…in a rather peremptory way in conformity with the methods of the old text books, in which certain general principles are first assumed to be true, and are subsequently followed out to their natural conclusions by applying to them the processes of logic. That the results thus reached have failed to command general acceptance not merely among the uneducated, but also with many who have made questions of Political Economy the principal study of their lives, is made evident by the widely discordant opinions which continue to be maintained by writers of ability in regard to matters which concern the very fountain springs of national prosperity. Either the truth of the assumed general principles of the theoretic writers is denied, or it is claimed that these principles are only true with so many qualifications and limitations as to render them practically useless. During the past half century, however, there has arisen a school of political economists, principally on the continent of Europe, who have endeavored to apply to this branch of science the same methods which have long been recognized as the only sure methods in physics and natural history, viz., the methods of induction from ascertained facts. These investigators have, with great labor, brought together and classified the immense amount of varied information in regard to the industrial condition of different countries under different systems of legislation gathered by the statistical bureaus of the several governments, and from these have sought to infer, not what on abstract principles ought to be, but what actually is, the system most favorable to industrial development, to growth in national wealth and to the fairest and most equal distribution of the rewards of labor. It was in the hope that these later views of a subject of so vast importance to the future of the world, and especially of our own country, in which questions of public economy must soon absorb the attention of our lawgivers to the exclusion of almost every other, might be introduced into our course of instruction that the Committee of this Board on the course, when, in 1876, it was proposed to appoint a professor of History and Political Science, gave their assent to such appointment on the condition that the professor so appointed should be charged with the duty of giving instruction on Political Economy.”

The report agreed with Burgess’s view that his value lay in the other branches in which he had specialized. Consequently, he should have an assistant to handle political economy. The report went on to point out that there was available for this post a former student of Burgess’s, a man who had for the “past two years been pursuing a course of instruction in Political Economy under the ablest teachers of this Science in Germany.” Accordingly, Richmond Mayo-Smith was, at the same Trustees’ meeting, appointed as an instructor to assist the Professor of History and Political Science. This was the first time in the College’s history that an appointment depended primarily on the candidate’s qualifications in political economy. Two years later he was promoted to Adjunct Professor of History, Political Science and International Law, and in 1883, at the age of twenty-seven, he obtained a full professorship. It is interesting that among the grounds given for his promotion was the fact that he had spent “three entire summers, in recent years, in study with his old instructors at Heidelberg and Berlin.” At first, half his teaching time was devoted to English constitutional history, which he taught until 1890. From the very beginning, however, he tripled the time allotted to the instruction in political economy. To the two-hour, one-semester course required of all juniors he added an elective, two-hour, one-year course for seniors. He gave the juniors “systematic work” with the aid of the familiar elementary textbooks of Fawcett or Rogers and the use of quizzes. For the seniors, however, he used the more sophisticated and advanced Principles of Political Economy of John Stuart Mill, the great codifier of classical economics.* Mayo-Smith supplemented it with lectures on “practical economics” and with “statistical and documentary works” that reflected the controversies over the tariff, bimetallism, greenbacks, the stir over Irish land reform, and Henry George’s single tax. His lecture topics included land tenure in Europe, monetary systems of Europe and America, and the financial history of the United States.

*The term “political economy” was then generally used in official records, but “economics” was often used, certainly as early as 1878. The printed form of the student’s periodical report card sent to the parent, lists “economics.” (See the report entry November 27, 1878, on E.R.A. Seligman, in Seligman Papers.)

Source: Joseph Dorfman, Chapter 9, “The Department of Economics” in A History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), pp. 169-172.

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Burgess Recounts Ruggles’ Role in the Establishment of the School of Political Science

In the early autumn of 1875 I received from Professor Theodore W. Dwight, warden of Columbia Law School in New York City, a communication to the effect that the trustees of Columbia College had voted to invite me to deliver a course of lectures on political science to the students of the Law School during the following winter and had authorized him to transmit the invitation to me and to request from me an early reply. This was the second or third time that they had made this offer to me. I had declined it on account of lack of time to prepare the course, but now that I was to have no graduate students in the year 1875-76, I accepted the call and occupied all of my surplus time and energy during the autumn of 1875 in constructing the desired lectures. The month of January, 1876, was employed in the delivery of the same. The audiences were very large, consisting of the trustees of the college, members of the faculty, and the students of the Law School.

It was on the occasion of the first lecture that I made the acquaintance of Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles, the chairman of the committee of the trustees on the Law School, one of the most extraordinary men whom it has ever been my privilege to know. Mr. Hamilton Fish once said to me: “Ruggles can throw off more brilliant and pregnant ideas in a given moment than any man I ever saw.” He was then already seventy-five years of age and I but thirty-one, but from the first moment of our meeting we flew together like steel and magnet. He came to every lecture, and at the end of the course he said to me, “You are the man we have been looking for ever since Lieber’s death. You must come to Columbia.”…

… The months of February, March, April, and May of the year 1876 were among the most distressing of my life. Mr. Ruggles was continually writing and urging me to give my consent to his bringing my name before the trustees of Columbia College for election to a chair in that institution. Professor Dwight and President Barnard were doing likewise, and I was inventing all sorts of subterfuges for delay. At last, on the first Monday of May, 1876, the trustees, on recommendation of the committee of which Mr. Ruggles was chairman, backed by the approval of Professor Dwight and President Barnard, unanimously elected me professor of history, political science, and international law, without my having given any assurance of accepting the office. The action of the trustees was so cordial and complimentary that I cannot refrain from transcribing the resolution in the language of their own records. It ran as follows:

At a meeting of the Trustees of Columbia College of the City of New York on Monday, May 1st, 1876, it was

RESOLVED, that during the pleasure of the Trustees the salary of the Professor of History, Political Science and International Law shall be. . . . The Board then proceeded to an election for Professor and on counting the ballots Professor John W. Burgess was found to be unanimously elected.

Whereupon it was

RESOLVED, that Professor John W. Burgess be appointed Professor of History, Political Science and International Law to hold his office during the pleasure of the Trustees.

Notwithstanding this unanimous and hearty invitation, I still hesitated. Towards the end of the month of May I received a letter from Mr. Ruggles and also one from President Barnard urging me to send my answer before the meeting of the trustees on the first Monday of June following. At the last moment, with a heavy heart and many misgivings, I accepted the call….

…With the assistance of Mayo-Smith alone, I had worked on thus through the four years from 1876 to 1880, both in the School of Arts and in the School of Law, with some moderate measure of success, and had learned the obstacles to greater success and had felt the way towards it. My first plan was to have a third year added to the curriculum of the School of Law and expand the courses in political science and public law in the law curriculum. But Professor Dwight was distinctly opposed to this as impairing the practical nature of the law instruction according to his view. The peculiar relation of the Law School to the college at that time, which I have already stated, made his opposition to any project for change therein fatal to the undertaking. In the School of Arts all the time had been assigned to the courses in history and political economy which could be afforded in the stiff, required program of studies then obtaining in this school. No relief could be found there.

There was only one other way out of the cramping, unbearable situation, and that was to found a new faculty and a new school for the study, teaching, and development of the historical, political, economic, and social sciences. This was so progressive an idea that I did not dare to broach it for a long time to anybody. I had learned from experience with the vanity of man, to say nothing of that of woman, that the way to succeed in realizing any idea when it must be done through the will of another or others is to make the person or persons in the controlling position think that the idea emanates from him or them. This is not always an easy thing to do. It requires a good deal of skill in psychology to construct approaches through suggestion to the customary obstinacy and obstructiveness of American character. I felt almost instinctively that the man to whom I should turn was Mr. Ruggles. On the evening of the fifth of April, 1880, I went by appointment to his house, then 24 Union Square, for an interview with him. I found two other men with him, his nephew Mr. Robert N. Toppan and Mr. Toppan’s bosom friend John Durand, the American translator of the works of the French author Taine. At first I thought that their presence would prevent me from saying anything to Mr. Ruggles on the subject which I had been for months revolving in mind. But to my surprise and delight I found that Mr. Ruggles had asked them to come in for the purpose of talking with me on points nearly related to my intended proposition. Toppan had taken great interest in my work in the Law School from the beginning and had founded and endowed an annual prize for the best work in public law and political science, and Durand had just returned from Paris and had been telling Toppan about a project in which some of their French friends were participants. Mr. Ruggles immediately opened the conversation and asked me how things were going in my department. I told him and his visitors very frankly of the obstacles in the way of developing these studies in manner and degree as I thought required in a great republic like ours.

They all listened with great attention and evident interest, and when I finally paused in my account of the situation, Mr. Ruggles spoke up quickly and, as was his habit, with apparent impatience, and said: “Well, I do not see but we shall have to found a school for the political sciences separate from both the School of Arts and the School of Law.” At this my heart leaped with gladness into my throat, and it was with a great effort that I restrained myself from saying, “That is the idea I have been for some time entertaining.” I was happily, however, able to modify this into the reply that this would presumably solve the question, but that I knew of no precedent, except perhaps the faculty of “Cameralwissenschaften,” as it was called, of the German Imperial University at Strasbourg very recently founded. At this Mr. Durand said that he had just returned from Paris and while there had by his friend Taine been introduced to one Émile Boutmy, who, with such publicists as Casimir-Périer and Ribot and several others had just founded in Paris the École libre des sciences politiques and had already put it into successful operation. Mr. Ruggles suggested that I draw up a plan for a separate faculty and school of political science in Columbia College and put it into his hands and go myself immediately to Paris, enter the École libre as a student and study carefully its scheme and methods. This suggestion was seconded by both Mr. Toppan and Mr. Durand.

To me it promised the fulfillment of the hope which had been my life’s guide for more than fifteen years. So soon as proper courtesy would allow, I took my leave and hastened home to begin the draft of the proposed new development and to prepare for my journey to Paris. I did not sleep any that night. I did not even retire to rest, but spent the entire night in my study formulating my project. The next morning I summoned Richmond Mayo-Smith to my house and related to him the results of the conference at Mr. Ruggles’s house on the evening before. He, also, was overjoyed at the turn things had so suddenly taken. We talked over the general outline of the plan which I had drawn up and made a few modifications in it, and he agreed to join me in Paris so soon as his duties at the college would allow. I handed the plan to Mr. Ruggles after a few days of reflection upon it, and he assumed the burden of laying it before the trustees and of securing leave of absence for both Professor Mayo-Smith and myself in order that we might have as full an opportunity as possible to investigate the organization and operation of the École libre in Paris….

…At the meeting of the trustees of the college on the first Monday in May, 1880, Mr. Ruggles secured leave of absence for me to go immediately to Paris for the purpose above mentioned, and for Professor Mayo-Smith to go at the end of the month, and laid the plan for the new faculty and School of Political Science before them. This plan was in outline as follows:

  1. A faculty of Political Science should be created, composed of all professors and adjunct and associate professors already giving instruction in history, economics, public law, and political science to the senior class in the School of Arts and the classes of the School of Law and of such other officers of these grades as might be called to chairs in the new faculty.
  2. The plan provided a program of studies in history, economics, public law, and political philosophy, extending over a period of three years, and for a degree of Ph.B. or A.B. to be conferred upon students completing successfully the curriculum of the first year and of Ph.D. to be conferred upon students completing successfully the curricula of the three years and presenting an approved thesis.
  3. The plan provided, further, that members of the senior class of the School of Arts of Columbia College might elect the curriculum of the first year in the School of Political Science and have it take the place of the senior curriculum in the School of Arts and that members of the School of Law who had advanced successfully to the end of the junior year in any college of equal standing with Columbia might enter the School of Political Science as fully qualified candidates for the degrees conferred by recommendation of the faculty of that school.
  4. It provided, finally, that all “persons, of the male sex, having successfully completed the curricula of the first three years of any American college having the same standing as the School of Arts of Columbia College, were qualified to enter the proposed School as candidates for the degrees conferred upon recommendation by the Faculty of the School.”

Such was, in brief, an outline of the project which Mr. Ruggles laid before the trustees of the college at their regular meeting on the first Monday of May, 1880. The trustees referred the proposition to a committee for examination, report, and recommendation at their meeting to be held on the first Monday of the following June, and also granted leave of absence to Professor Mayo-Smith and myself to go to Paris…

…[In Paris] on Tuesday morning after the first Monday of June, I was awakened by a loud knock on the door of my sleeping room about five o’clock. On going to the door, an American cablegram was handed me. It read: “Thank God, the university is born. Go ahead.” It was signed “Samuel B. Ruggles.” This meant that the trustees of Columbia College had, on the day before, adopted the plan for founding the School of Political Science in the college and had authorized me to invite Edmund Munroe Smith, then student in Berlin, and Clifford R. Bateman, then student in Heidelberg, to join Mayo-Smith and myself in forming the new faculty and putting the new school into operation at the beginning of the academic year 1880-81, in the following October.

Source: John W. Burgess, Reminiscences of an American Scholar (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), pp. 150-153; 187-192; 194-195.

____________________________

Resolution of the Columbia College Trustees to Establish a School of Political Science

§. 4. SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

June 7th, 1880.

Resolved, That there be established to go into operation at the opening of the academic year next ensuing, a school designed to prepare young men for the duties of public life to be entitled a School of Political Science, having a definitely prescribed curriculum of study extending over a period of three years and embracing the History of Philosophy, the History of the Literature of Political Sciences, the General Constitutional History of Europe, the Special Constitutional History of England and the United States, the Roman Law and the jurisprudence of existing codes derived therefrom, the Comparative Constitutional Law of European States and of the United States, the Comparative Constitutional Law of the different States of the American Union, the History of Diplomacy, International Law, Systems of Administrations, State and National, of the United States, Comparison of American, and European Systems of Administration, Political Economy and Statistics.

Resolved, That the qualifications required of the candidate for admission to this School, shall be that he shall have successfully pursued a course of undergraduate study in this College or in some other, maintaining an equivalent curriculum to the close of the Junior year.

Resolved, That the students of the School, who shall satisfactorily complete the studies of the first year, shall be entitled on examination and the recommendation of the Faculty to receive the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, and those who complete the entire course of three years, shall on similar examination and recommendation, be entitled to receive the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Resolved, That the annual tuition fee required of students of this School shall be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150).

Resolved, That Edmund Munroe Smith be appointed Lecturer on Roman Law in the School of Political Science, to enter upon his duties on the first day of October next, and to hold office for one year, or during the pleasure of the Board, at a compensation of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) per annum.

Resolved, That Clifford Rush Bateman be appointed Lecturer on Administrative Law and Government in the School of Political Science, to enter upon duty on the first day of October, 1881, and to serve for the term of one year, or during the pleasure of the Board, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) per annum.

Source: Columbia College. Resolutions of the Trustees, Volume VIII, 1880-85, pp. 140-141.

Image Source: Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Vol. 5, Pickering-Sumter (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1888), p. 344.

Categories
Columbia Economists Germany Popular Economics Princeton Teaching

New York City Schools. Essay on Economics and the High School Teacher of Economics. Tildsley, 1919

Every so often I make an effort to track down students whose names have been recorded in course lists. I do this in part to hone my genealogical skills but primarily to obtain a broader sense of the population obtaining advanced training in economics beyond the exclusive society of those who ultimately clear all the hurdles in order to be awarded the Ph.D. degree. This post began with a simple list of the participants in Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman’s seminar in political economy and finance at Columbia University in 1901-02 published in the annual presidential report for that year (p. 154).

 John L. Tildsley’s seminar topic was “Economic Aspects of Colonial Expansion.” I began to dig into finding out more about this Tildsley fellow, who was completely unknown to me other than for the distinction of having attended a graduate course in economics at Columbia but never having received an economics Ph.D. from the university.

It turns out that this B.A. and M.A. graduate from Princeton had indeed already been awarded a doctorate in economics from the Friedrichs Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), renamed the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in 1933, before he took any coursework at Columbia. A link to his German language doctoral dissertation on the Chartist movement is provided below.

I also found out that John Lee Tildsley went on to a distinguished if controversial career [e.g., he had no qualms about firing teachers for expressing radical opinions in the classroom] in the top tier of educational administration for the public high-schools in New York City. No less a critical writer than Upton Sinclair aimed his words at Tildsley.

For the purposes of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror John L. Tildsley is of particular interest as someone who had done much to introduce economics into the curriculum of New York City public schools.

Following data on his life culled from Who’s Who in America and New York Times articles on the occasions of his retirement and death, I have included his March 1919 essay dedicated to economics and the economics teacher in New York City high schools. 

_________________________

Life and Career
of John Lee Tildsley

from Who’s Who in America, 1934

John Lee Tildsley, educator

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mar. 13, 1867;
Son of John and Elizabeth (Withington) Tidsley;
Married Bertha Alice Watters, of New York City, June 24, 1896;
Children—Jane, John Lee, Margaret, Kathleen (deceased).

B.A., Princeton, 1893 [Classmate of A. Piatt Andrew], M.A. 1894;
Boudinot fellow in history, Princeton, 1893-94;
Teacher Greek and history, Lawrenceville (New Jersey) School, 1894-96;
Studied Universities of Halle and Berlin, 1896-98, Ph.D., Halle, 1898;
Teacher of history, Morris High School, New York City, 1898-1902;
Studied economics, Columbia, 1902;
Head of dept. of economics, High School of Commerce, 1902-08;
Principal of DeWitt Clinton High School, 1908-14;
Principal of High School of Commerce, 1914-16;
Associate Superintendent, Oct. 1916-July 1920;
District Superintendent, July 1920, City of New York.

Member: Headmasters’ Assn., Phi Beta Kappa.
Democrat.
Episcopalian.

Formulated and introduced into public schools of New York City, courses in economics and civics for secondary grades. Speaker and writer on teaching and problems of school administration.

Club: Nipnichsen.
Home: [2741 Edgehill Ave.] Spuyten Duyvil, [Bronx] New York.

Source: Who’s Who in America 1934, p. 2356.

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Tildsley’s 1898 doctoral dissertation on the Chartist movement (in German)

Tildsley, John L. Die Entstehung und die ökonomischen Grundsätze der Chartistenbewegung, Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der philosophischen Doktorwürde der hohen philosophischen Fakultät der vereinigten Friedrichs-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Halle a.S. 1898.

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New York Times, September 2, 1937

Dr. John L. Tildsley, Associate Superintendent of Schools, retired on Sept. 1, 1937.

One of Dr. Tildsley’s pet ideas has been the formation of special schools for bright pupils. As a result of his efforts two such schools are to be established in this city, the first to be opened next February in Brooklyn.
‘This new school will develop independent habits of work on the part of the superior student,’ he has explained. ‘Special emphasis will be placed upon the development of social-mindedness.’

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New York Times, November 22, 1948

Dr. John L. Tildsley died November 21, 1948 in St. Luke’s Hospital, New York, N.Y.

In 1920, having fallen out of the graces of Mayor John F. Hylan because of a political speech, he was denied a second term as associate superintendent.
At the urging of many admirers, he was assigned to the position of assistant superintendent which he held until the Fusion Board of Education restored him to his former rank in the spring of 1937.
When Dr. Tildsley was demoted he refused to be silenced, constantly championing controversial causes. He attacked the ‘frontier thinkers’ of Teachers College, and charged that under the existing high school set up much waste resulted to the city and to the pupil.
He urged the development of ‘nonconformist’ pupils, and angered patriotic organizations by suggesting that patriotic songs and holidays have little value in the schools.
Born in Pittsburgh of British parents, Dr. Tildsley received his early education in schools in Lockport, N.Y., and at the Mount Hermon School. Instead of becoming a minister, as he originally had planned, he decided to study at Princeton University, where Woodrow Wilson was one of his instructors for three years.

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Tildsley became a target of Upton Sinclair’s critical pen for his campaign to regulate teachers’ opinions expressed in school

Upton Sinclair, The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools (1924). See Chapters XV (Honest Graft) and XVI (A Letter to Woodrow Wilson), XVII (An Arrangement of Little Bits).

Cf. Teachers’ Defense Fund. The Trial of the Three Suspended Teachers of the De Witt Clinton High School (1917).

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HISS TILDSLEY FOR PRAISE OF GERMANS
School Superintendent Aroused Criticism by Talk in Ascension Parish House.
LIKES TEUTON DISCIPLINE
When He Said Their Military Success Was a Credit to Them the Trouble Began.

The New York Times, December 10, 1917.

Dr. John L. Tildsley, Associate Superintendent of Schools in charge of high schools, whose investigation of the opinions of the teachers at the De Witt Clinton High School resulted in the suspension and trial of three of them and in the transfer of six others, was hissed last night in the parish house of the Church of the Ascension, Fifth Avenue and Eleventh Street, when he said that the success of the Germans in military affairs was a credit to them rather than a discredit, and that their “good qualities” ought not to be ignored even if “they happen to be our enemies.”

Dr. Tildsley was also denounced as a “Prussian by instinct and education,” because of his laudation of family life in Germany and because he asserted that it was desirable to have in this country more obedience instinctively to authority as exemplified by the obedience of the German child to its father. The denouncer was Adolph Benet, a lawyer, who said that Dr. Tildsley’s sojourn in Germany, where he studied at the University of Halle, caused him to misunderstand Germany.

“There is one thing that is bad in Germany,” declared Mr Benet. “That thing is unqualified and instinctive respect for authority. And Dr. Tildsley, after living in Germany and observing the country, would come here and try to introduce here the worst part of the whole German system. I say Dr. Tildsley is a Prussian by instinct and a Prussian by education. Why did he not say these things two months ago when many were denouncing a Judge who is now Mayor-elect?”

The stormy part of the evening took place in the parish house, where the audience repaired to ask questions after Dr. Tildsley delivered an address in the church on “Regulation of Opinion in the Schools.” The hissing of the speaker occurred during his explanation of his ideas on obedience. He explained the system of instinctive obedience to authority which marks all Germans, and then said: “German family life is magnificent, and we ought to emulate it.” Here the hissing began. A minute later it began again and grew in volume for about minute, when it stopped.

In reply to another question relating to his charges against teachers, Dr. Tildslev. said that teachers have too much protection in the schools, and that not a single high school teacher in nineteen years has been brought up on charges. In this connection he declared that when a teacher is brought up on charges the Board of Education is handicapped in the handling of the case because must accept such a lawyer as it gets from the Corporation Counsel while the teacher may get the cleverest lawyer that money can buy. This was taken by the high school teacher in the audience to mean that Dr. Tildsley was dissatisfied with handling of the trial against the three teachers by the Corporation Counsel.

In his formal address Dr. Tildsley said that the teachers who were tried and those who were transferred were not accused of disloyalty. Later. in the parish house. he said he believed they were all internationalists and doubted whether a teacher who had the spirit of internationalism had the spirit necessary to teach high school students.

He said the teachers he investigated held that unrestricted expression of opinion was the best means of developing good citizenship. With this point of view he said, he and others differed. He quoted one teacher as being a believer in Bertrand Russell and he read from one of Russell’s works a passage which said in substance that it did not matter what the teacher said but what he felt and that it was what he felt that reached the consciousness of the pupils. It was Dr. Tildsley’s belief that the opinions which the teachers hold are accepted by the pupils, even if they if they were unexpressed. Dr. Tildsley read the letter of Hyman Herman, the sixteen-year-old pupil whose composition was the basis for a charge against Samuel Schmalhauser one of the suspended teachers. In this letter President Wilson was denounced as a “murderer.” Dr. Tildsley said the teacher was in in no way responsible for the letter.

While the speaker said that the teachers loyal he investigated were not disloyal and declared their convictions were honest, he also said that though the nation had gone to war they were unable to subscribe to the decision of the majority. He divided the radical group among the teachers into three classes, those who believe in absolute and unrestrained expression by the students, those who are opposed to the war and do not believe in it, and a third class, born in Germany, , who cannot be blamed for feeling as they do about Germany. The last mentioned he declared, must not allow any of their feelings to escape into their teaching. He gave a clean bill oi health as to loyalty to all the teachers in the De Witt Clinton High School.

“A teacher is not an ordinary citizen who has the right to express his opinions freely,” continued Dr. Tildsley. “Every teacher always teaches himself, and if he has not the right ideas toward the Government he has no right to accept payment from the taxpayers. We make no claim that any of these teachers were consciously disloyal, but if because of this belief in unrestricted utterance they spread disloyalty they are not persons to be intrusted with the teaching of citizenship to students.”

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From the New York Times, November 5, 1918:

…the dismissal of Thomas Mufson, A. Henry Schneer, and Samuel D. Schmalhausen in the De Witt Clinton High School was upheld by Acting New York Commissioner of Education E. Thomas Finegan.

_________________________

ECONOMICS AND THE TEACHER OF ECONOMICS IN THE NEW YORK CITY HIGH SCHOOLS

John L. Tildsley,
Associate Superintendent in Charge of High Schools.
[March 1919]

Every student graduated in June, 1920 and thereafter from the general course of the high schools of New York City, must have had a course in economics of not less than five periods a week for one-half year. This requirement, recently adopted by the Board of Superintendents, is one of the changes which may be charged directly to the clearer vision of our educational needs which the war has brought us. Many of us have long believed that economics is an essential element in the curriculum of the public high school, whose fundamental aim is to train the young to play their part in an environment whose ruling forces are preeminently industrial and commercial. But it has required the revelation of the dangers inherent in our untrained citizenship to cause us to force a place for the upwelcome intruder among the college preparatory subjects whose vested rights are based on immemorial possession of the field of secondary education.

One of the chief aims of the Board of Superintendents in establishing this new requirement is, without doubt, to give high school students a specialized training which shall bring to them some understanding of the forces economic and political which so largely determine their happiness and general well being, to the end that these students shall discharge more intelligently their duties as citizens in a democracy, and shall develop their productive capacity to the increase of their own well being and to the resulting advancement of the common good. A further reason for introducing economics is the belief that the boys and girls who have had this training will be better able to analyze the various remedies proposed for the evils of our social organization and to detect the iallacies which are so often put forth as measures of reform. These students should find in such training an antidote to the movements which have as their aim the over throw of institutions which the experience of our race has evolved through the centuries.

Because of this realization that economics deals not only with the conduct of business enterprises but also with political institutions and with movements for social amelioration, it is apt to enroll among its teachers the enthusiastic social reformer whose sympathies are all-embracing, who readily becomes a propagandist for his or her pet project of reform, and who finds it impossible to resist the temptation to enroll converts among the trusting students of his or her classes. It is because of this conception of the nature of economics teaching in our educational program that the new subject has been some what despised by the teachers of the sterner disciplinary subjects.

With full sympathy with the vocational aim of economics, I would offer as its chief claim for a place in our high school curriculum, that it is essentially a disciplinary subject, that it can be taught and should be taught so as to yield a training of the highest order, somewhat different in its processes, but no less searching in its demands upon the students, than mathematics or physical science.

It is a subject, therefore, to be taught by the man with the keenly analytical mind, by the man who can detect the untruth and train pupils to detect the untruth in the major premise, by the man who from tested premises can proceed to a valid conclusion. Economics is essentially applied logic rather than a confused program of social reform, as too many of its advocates have led the layman to believe.

Economics in the past has been for the most part a college and university subject. Consequently the well-trained student of economics has found his work in the college, in government service, on newspaper or magazine, and, in ever-increasing numbers, in bank ing and finance. Practically none has sought to find a career for himself in secondary work.

With full knowledge of this fact, we have added economics to the high school curriculum in the hope that ultimately the demand will create a supply of teachers thoroughly trained in economic theory before they begin their teaching. Meanwhile, we confidently expect that men thoroughly trained in other subjects which require a high degree of analysis and synthesis, will come to the rescue as they see the need. Applying the knowledge of scientific method which they possess to the new subject matter, these teachers may speedily acquire that mastery of principles which is necessary for the effective teaching of economics.

In my own experience, as I sought for economics teachers in the High School of Commerce, I found them among the teachers of mathematics and of biology. Certain of these teachers, who had an interest in business and public affairs and who were masters of scientific methods, became in the course of a single term expert teachers of economics. They even preferred the new subject to the old, because of the greater interest manifested by the students in this subject which never fails to enlist the enthusiastic interest of students when properly taught.

I trust, therefore, that some of our teachers who enjoy close, accurate thinking will take up some economic text, such as Taussig, Seligman, Seager, Carver, or Marshall, and, having read this, will follow it up with other texts on the specific fields of economics to which they find themselves attracted. Very soon, I believe, such teachers, in view of the urgent need for teachers of economics, will realize the very great service they can render our schools by utilizing their knowledge of boys and girls, their mastery of method, their awakened interest in economics and social phenomena, in training these boys and girls in this most vital subject.

As a text book for classroom use, I recommend a systematic book, such as Bullock’s Introduction to [the Study of] Economics, which lays the emphasis on principles rather than on descriptions of industrial processes or on the operation of social agencies. There are several books which are more interestingly written, but in the hands of most teachers they will lead to a descriptive treatment of industry and social institutions, to discussions for which the students are not qualified because of their ignorance of and want of drill in economic principles.

Our students need to be trained in economic theory before they attempt to discuss measures of social reform. They need to grasp the meaning of utility, value, price, before they take up the study of industrial processes. It is because of hazy conception of these primary elements that we fall so readily into error. The key to economic thinking lies in a clear understanding of the terms margin and marginal. The boy who has digested the concept “marginal utility” is already on the way to becoming a student of economics. Until he has arrived at an understanding of the nature of value, he is hardly ready to discuss socialism, wage theories, the single tax or other like themes.

The temptation for the untrained or inexperienced teacher is to begin with the study of actual business, partly as a means of interesting the student by causing him to feel that he is dealing with practical life, partly because he conceives business as a laboratory and desires as a scientist to employ the inductive method. The study of the factory or store takes the place of the study of the crayfish. The analogy does not hold. Induction in economics is the method of discovery, it is not the method of teaching, especially of secondary teaching. The method is deductive. The teacher must assume that certain great principles have been shown to be valid. He should drill on these principles and their application till the pupil has mastered them.

Let no one believe that this means a dull grind. Even such a subject as marginal utility can be made interesting to every student. It is altogether a matter of method. The concept must be presented from a dozen different angles. There must be no lecturing, no mere hearing of recitations. The pupil must not be assigned a few pages or paragraphs in the book and then left to work out his salvation. The real teaching must be done in the recitation period, with the teacher at the blackboard with a piece of chalk in his hand, ready to answer all questions and with a dozen illustrations at his command with which to drive home the principle, illustrations with which the pupils are thoroughly familiar because taken from the daily occurrences about them. For example, to explain the principle that the value of any commodity is determined by its marginal utility and that its marginal utility is the lowest use to which any commodity must be put in order to exhaust its supply, take the teacher’s desk as the illustration. Elicit from the pupils the different uses to which that desk may be put, and write the list as it is given on the blackboard. Some boy will remark that the desk could be used for firewood and will ask why the value of the desk is not determined by its utility as firewood; then comes the query, will not the supply of desks be exhausted before it is necessary to use them as firewood? As a result of this give and take process, the boys, in one recitation, may grasp this principle which is the very keystone of our modern economics.

John Bates Clark, our foremost theorist, once said to me that there is no principle in economics so difficult that it cannot be understood by a ten year old child if it is properly taught. But how often it is not properly taught! Teaching economics is like kneading bread. The teacher must turn over these principles again and again until they are kneaded into the boy so thoroughly that they have become a part of his mind stuff. When he has once had kneaded into him the concepts of the margin, marginal utility, the marginal producer, the marginal land, the marginal unit of capital, the marginal laborer, he can move fearlessly forward to the conquest of the most involved propositions of actual business. In business, in government, in all the multitudinous activities of life, we come to grief because our concepts are not clearly defined. Because of deficient analysis, we accept wrong premises and because of muddy reasoning, we allow factors to enter into the conclusion which were not in the premises. If economics be taught with the same degree of analysis of conditions, with the same accuracy in checking the reasoning as in geometry, the teacher will find himself surprised by the ability of the students to solve a most difficult problem in the incidence of taxation or one in the operations of foreign exchange. As a means of testing whether the student has gained a clear concept, problem questions should be assigned at the close of every discussion, to be answered at home in writing by the pupil, and written tests should be given at least once a week. Purely oral work makes possible much confusion of thought on the part of the pupil without the knowledge of the teacher. The slovenly thinking which may thus become a habit will produce a wrongly-trained citizen more dangerous than one who has had no training in economics at all. The problems which this training fits the student to solve are precisely the kind of problems that every businessman is called upon to face every day of his life. For example, the man who keeps the country store at Marlborough or Milton on the Hudson will soon need to decide how large a stock of goods he will order for the fall trade. This may seem to be a simple problem and yet he needs all his experience to enable him to analyze the problem of demand for his goods. This involves the effect of the mild weather on the vines and peach trees, the possibility of his customers again securing boys and girls from New York to pick the crops, the matter of freight rates on fruit, the buying capacity of the people of New York which, in turn, involves a knowledge of conditions in many industries. After he has considered all of these elements, he has come to a conclusion as to demand for his goods, but he has not yet touched the question whether the cost of his goods is to be higher or lower before September next. Do we wonder that failures are so common when we realize that few of our people, even our college graduates, are trained in accurate observation, keen analysis, rigid reasoning? The development of these powers in his pupils should be the fundamental aim of every teacher of economics this coming year. If this aim should be realized for every high school pupil in this country, we should not need to fear for the future of our city, our state, our nation. Inefficient government is due chiefly to the failure of our people to realize the connection between incompetent or dishonest officials and the well-being of the individual. Dangerous movements like the I. W. W. and Bolshevism are due to slovenly thinking, poor analysis of conditions by both the members of these organizations and those responsible for the conditions which breed these dangerous movements. Marxian socialism is based on premises which will not bear analysis, namely, the Marxian theory of value, which is not evolved from experience, the resulting expropriation theory, which depends upon this false theory of value, and the inevitable class struggle and the ultimate triumph of the proletariat, an unwarranted conclusion from invalid premises.

I have indicated that the primary aim of the Board of Superintendents in making economics a required subject was vocational in character. Through the medium of this subject it seeks to train good citizens. I trust I have made clear that this vocational aim can be best realized by making all aims subsidiary to the disciplinary aim; that we should, therefore, make the recitation periods in this subject exercises in exact analysis and rigid reasoning. If our schools can produce a generation of students with trained intelligence, students who can see straight, and think straight on economic data, we need not fear the attacks on our cherished institutions of the newcomers from lands where they have not been permitted to be trained and where the nursing of grievances has so stimulated the emotional nature as to render the dispassionate analysis of industrial movements and civil activities almost an impossibility.

Effective teaching in economics brings to the teacher an immediate reward, for the efficient teacher of economics must keep in touch not only with the changes in economic theory but with the movements in industry and finance, with problems of labor, problems of administration, local and national, with the vast field of legislation, and these not only in America, but in Asia, Australia, South America and Europe as well. Every newspaper, every periodical yields him material for his classroom. Almost every man he meets may be made to contribute to his work. The boundaries of his subject are ever widening. There is, moreover, no need of the stultifying repetition of subject matter, for there is no end to the material for the elucidation of economic principles. Nor is the teacher of economics in the high school compelled to create in his pupils an interest in the subject. for every New York boy is an economist in embryo. Questions of cost, price, wages, profits, labor, capital, are already the subjects of daily discussion.

The complaint so often heard that the teacher is academic, that he is removed from the world of practical affairs, and has little touch with the man in the street, cannot be made of the teachers of economics, who is vitally interested in his teaching. The more he studies his subject, the more he becomes a citizen of the world with an ever-deepening interest in all kinds of men and in all that pertains to man, the broader becomes his sympathies, the wider his vision.

The New York high schools offer great opportunities for men and women who, whether trained students of economics or not, are students of life. Here they may serve the state as effectively as the soldier in the field. Here they may train the young for lasting usefulness to themselves and to the city, while at the same time they are broadening their interests, expanding their vision and growing in intellectual vigor under, the compulsion of keeping pace with the demands of a subject which reflects as a mirror the changing needs and desires of men. The teaching of economics in high schools demands our strongest teachers. There is no place for the man who has finished his growth, who cannot change to meet changed conditions; nor is there place for the man who loves change just because it is change. The teacher of economics in the New York City high schools should be a co-worker with all those who seek to preserve and to develop those institutions, economic and civic, which have stood the test and gained the approval of the wise among us through the years. He should be a man who is fundamentally an optimist, constructive in his outlook on life, not destructive. If his motto be, “All’s wrong with the world,” there should be no place for him as a teacher of economics in a high school in New York City or in any other American city.

Economics is closely allied with the study of civics or government. In every school where there is not a full program in economics, the teacher of economics should also teach the civics. With the great increase in our civics work, there should be established in each school a department of economics and civics. For each of these subjects a license is being issued and separate examinations are being held. For the new department first assistants may be appointed and will be appointed.

May we not, therefore, confidently expect that some of our strongest teachers shall prepare themselves for this most interesting and vital work which will be given in every high school beginning September next?

Source: Bulletin of the High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. I, No 3 (March 1919), pp. 3-7.

Image Source: Photo of Dr. John L. Tildsley in “Modern Girls Not All Wild; Here is Proof” [Construction of a new building to house Girls’ Commercial High on Classon Avenue, near Union Street] Sunday News,Brooklyn Section, p. B-15.

Categories
Columbia Economics Programs Economists Germany

Columbia. Munroe Smith’s history of the faculty of political science as told by A.S. Johnson, 1952.

 

The following paragraphs come from Alvin S. Johnson’s 1952 autobiography that is filled with many such nuggets of fact and context that are relevant for the work of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. The institutional histories from which departments of economics have emerged provide some of the initial conditions for the evolution of organized economics education. Like Johns Hopkins and unlike Harvard and Chicago, Columbia University economics was to a large part made in Germany.

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[p. 164] …Munroe Smith gave me detail after detail of the history of the faculty. Dean Burgess, as a cavalry officer in the Civil War, had had much time for reflection on the stupendous folly of a war in which citizens laid waste other citizens’ country and slaughtered each other without ill will. All the issues, Burgess believed, could have been compromised if the lawyers who controlled Congress and the state legislatures had been trained in history, political science, and public law. As soon as he was discharged from the army, after Appomattox, he set out for Germany to study the political sciences. He spent several years at different universities, forming friendships with the most famous professors and imbuing himself thoroughly with the spirit of German scholarship. On his return he accepted an appointment in history at Columbia College, then a pleasant young gentlemen’s finishing school. He was permitted to offer courses in public law. Although these could not be counted for credit toward the A.B., many of the ablest students were drawn to his lectures.

From among his students he picked out four and enlisted them in a project for transforming Columbia College into a university. The four were Nicholas Murray Butler, E. R. A. Seligman, Frank Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They were to proceed to Germany to get their doctorates. Butler was to study philosophy and education; Seligman, economics; Goodnow, administration; Munroe Smith, Roman law. The young men executed Burgess’s command like good soldiers and in due time returned to offer non-credit courses at Columbia College.

Burgess’s next move was to turn his group into a graduate faculty. Such a faculty had been set up at Johns Hopkins, the first in America, and commanded nationwide interest among educators. Burgess argued with President Frederick Barnard on the need of a graduate school in the greatest city of the country. After some years the Board of Trustees authorized in 1886 the setting up of a graduate School of Political Science, manned by Burgess and his disciples, now advanced to professorial rank.

Butler early stepped aside to develop courses he later organized into Teachers College. Burgess and his three younger colleagues watched for opportunities to enlist additional abilities: William A. Dunning in political theory, Herbert L. Osgood in American history, John Bassett Moore in international law, John Bates Clark in [p. 165] economics Franklin Giddings in sociology. This process of expansion was going on energetically while I was on the faculty; Henry R. Seager and Henry L. Moore were enlisted for the economics department, Edward T. Devine and Samuel McCune Lindsay for sociology, James Harvey Robinson and later Charles A. Beard for history. In the meantime other graduate courses were springing up throughout the institution. The towering structure of Columbia University had risen up out of Burgess’s small bottle.

Still in my time the controlling nucleus of our faculty consisted of Burgess, Seligman, Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They all knew American colonial history well and had followed the step-by-step evolution of Massachusetts Bay from a settlement governed by a chartered company in England to a free self-governing community, germ of American liberty. Step by step Burgess and his lieutenants built up the liberties of the School of Political Science. They got the Board of Trustees to accept the principle of the absolute freedom of the scholar to pursue the truth as he sees it, whatever the consequences; the principle of absolute equality of the faculty members; the principle that no scholar might be added to the faculty without the unanimous consent of the faculty. The principle was established that the president and trustees could intervene in the affairs of the faculty only through the power of the purse.

President Seth Low, regarding himself justly as a recognized authority on administration, sought admission to the meetings of the faculty. He was turned down. A university president could not conduct himself as an equal among equals. When Nicholas Murray Butler became president he thought it would be a good idea for him to sit in with the faculty. After all, he had been one of Burgess’s first panel. We voted the proposition down, unanimously.

Since my time the faculty has grown in numbers and its relations with other departments of the university have become closer. But the spirit of liberty and equality, established by Burgess and his lieutenants, still lives on at Columbia and has overflowed into the universities of America. From time to time a board of trustees steps outside its moral sphere and undertakes to purge and discipline the faculty. But established liberties stricken down are bound to rise again.

Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Image Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Columbia College, Madison Ave., New York, N.Y” [Architect: C. C. Haight] The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1886-09-04. Image of the Mid-town Campus from The American Architect and Building News, September 4, 1886. (cf. https://www.wikicu.com/Midtown_campus)

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Alvin S. Johnson’s impressions of Edwin R.A. Seligman, 1898-1902

Alvin Saunders Johnson’s 1952 autobiography, A Pioneer’s Progress, provides us a treasure chest of granular detail regarding his academic and life experiences. This co-founder of the New School for Social Research in New York City went on to live another 19 years after publishing his autobiography to reach the age of 96.

Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will clip personal and departmental remembrances of Johnson’s own economics training and teaching days. This post shares a transcription of his impressions of Edwin R. A. Seligman.

Previously posted Johnson observations: John W. BurgessFranklin H. Giddings.

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Other posts with
E.R.A. Seligman content

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Alvin Johnson reminisces
about Seligman

[p. 123] Edwin R. A. Seligman was head of the Department of Economics.

He was a strikingly handsome figure, with his thick dark beard, wavy in structure, with mahogany overtones. We called it an ambrosial beard; I doubt great Zeus had a handsomer.

No economist living had read so widely in the literature of the social sciences as Seligman. He had a catholic mind and found some good in every author, no matter how crackbrained. A man of large income, he was the foremost academic advocate of progressive income and inheritance taxes at a time when all regular economists abominated the idea of the income tax as a Populist attack on the wealthy and cultured classes. He was a staunch supporter of trade unionism and government regulation of railway rates. It was hard for me to distinguish between Seligman’s populism and mine.

As a lecturer he was systematic and eloquent. He never appeared before a class without thorough preparation, and in the seminar meetings at his house he was always primed with all the facts and ideas that might supplement the students’ papers. He was a great teacher, and most of the graduate students turned to him for direction…

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[p. 137]…As the doctoral examinations approached in the spring of 1901, three of our group of students — Jesse Eliphalet Pope, Allan Willett, and I — spent much time together cramming. We were to be examined on the entire literature of our major economics — and on the courses in the minors for which we had registered, in my case sociology under Giddings. It goes without saying that we hadn’t a chance to load ourselves up for the particular questions we might be asked in a three-hour oral examination. Still we boned manfully.

Our Columbia professors were as a rule very humane. If a student seemed to be floored by a question the examiner made haste to substitute another and easier question. I felt I was getting on very satisfactorily under the questioning of Seligman and Clark. But then Giddings pounced on me with blood in his eye. He was having a feud with Seligman at the time and meant to take it out of my hide. He did, and I resented it, for he was my friend.

After the examination I waited in the corridor to hear the results of the examiners’ deliberations. Soon Seligman came out and announced that I had passed with flying colors….

We were all three candidates for teaching positions, and Seligman had a powerful reach out into the colleges of the country. Three openings came to his jurisdiction: an associate professorship at New York University, which he awarded to Pope, the faculty favorite; an instructorship at Brown University, which went to Willett; and a position as Reader at Bryn Maw College, which he reserved for me. I was [p. 138] so very young, he said — all through my undergraduate life I had felt reprehensibly old. At Bryn Maw I would give only one three-hour course and have nearly all my time for finishing my doctor’s thesis.

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[p. 151] … [At] Columbia and Barnard, in the fall of 1902, instruction presented problems quite new to me. Sometimes the problems were perplexing, often annoying, but usually capable of some sort of solution. By the end of my four years at Columbia I had been whipped into the shape of a fairly good teacher, although I was quite incapable of rising to the quizmaster heights many heads of departments at that time regarded as ideal.

My principal function was to drill classes of juniors, at Columbia and Barnard, in Bullock’s Introduction to Economics. At Columbia, Professor Seligman would lecture one hour to the assembled classes.

At Barnard, Professor Henry L. Moore would likewise assemble all the students for a general lecture. Then I would take over the students in smaller, though still large, groups and try to polish them off by quizzing them. It was on the whole a bad method.

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Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Image Source: E.R.A. Seligman in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 484-6. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Sociology

Columbia. Alvin S. Johnson’s impressions of Franklin H. Giddings, 1898-1902

 

Alvin Saunders Johnson’s 1952 autobiography, A Pioneer’s Progress, provides us a treasure chest of granular detail regarding his academic and life experiences. This co-founder of the New School for Social Research in New York City went on to live another 19 years after publishing his autobiography to reach the age of 96.

Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will clip personal and departmental remembrances of Johnson’s own economics training and teaching days. This post shares a transcription of his impression of the sociologist Franklin H. Giddings and his experience with him as one of his doctoral examiners. Economist readers are gently reminded that at the turn of the twentieth century sociology was still regarded by many economists (and sociologists) as a subfield of economics. 

Trigger warning: Giddings appears to have been both an academic bully and one who spoke fluent anti-semitic speech.

Previously posted Johnson observation: John W. Burgess.

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Other posts with
Franklin H. Giddings’ content

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Alvin Johnson reminisces
about Giddings

[p. 122] …Columbia men swore by Franklin H. Giddings as the greatest living sociologist. He was a large, genial man, with bluntly pointed red beard and a markedly dolichocephalic skull, of which he was very proud. In his view, all distinction in the world, all energy, all genius, were carried by the dolichocephalic blonds Aryans, we called them then. Other peoples might acquire merit by imitation.

“Look at the Jews,” he would say in the privacy of the Sunday evening meetings at his house. “They are middlemen in economic life and middlemen in the world of ideas.”

Down the corridor from Giddings’ office was the office of Franz [p. 123] Boas, anthropologist. Logically he belonged in the School of Political Science, and in scholarly attainment, originality, and intellectual leadership he ranked with the best of them. Years later, when I was a member of the faculty, I urged the annexation of Franz Boas, then recognized throughout the world as the foremost anthropologist. Giddings vetoed the idea with the vigor of a Gromyko. Anthropology was either a natural science, having no proper place in a School of Political Science, or an amateurish sociology we could not afford to recognize…

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[p. 137] … the doctoral examinations approached in the spring of 1901 …. We were to be examined on the entire literature of our major economics — and on the courses in the minors for which we had registered, in my case sociology under Giddings. It goes without saying that we hadn’t a chance to load ourselves up for the particular questions we might be asked in a three-hour oral examination. Still we boned manfully.

Our Columbia professors were as a rule very humane. If a student seemed to be floored by a question the examiner made haste to substitute another and easier question. I felt I was getting on very satisfactorily under the questioning of Seligman and Clark. But then Giddings pounced on me with blood in his eye. He was having a feud with Seligman at the time and meant to take it out of my hide. He did, and I resented it, for he was my friend.

After the examination I waited in the corridor to hear the results of the examiners’ deliberations. Soon Seligman came out and announced that I had passed with flying colors. Giddings followed, jovially slapped me on the back, and said, “Well, Johnson, I made you sweat. I knew it wouldn’t hurt you. Seligman would have bulled you through if you had flunked every question. But say, you knew more of the answers than I’d have known if I hadn’t loaded up for you.

So it was just good, clean fun, like pushing an absent-minded companion off an embankment…

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[pp. 163-164] … There was, to be sure, a certain amount of personal friction, particularly between Giddings and Seligman. It was aired in the offices, not at faculty meetings. Giddings would encounter Seligman in the Political Science Quarterly office, where I was working, and would roar out his discontent with some plan of Seligman’s. Seligman always remained imperturbably courteous.Once I asked Giddings what he really had against Seligman.

“What I’ve got against him? I can’t get under the skin of that infernal Christian. You know, Johnson, I sometimes think only Jews can really behave like Christians. The Jews created that religion, and it suits their temperament. It doesn’t suit the temperament of us Aryans.”…

Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Image Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Vol. II, pp. 453-5. Portrait colorised by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.