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M.I.T. Department of Economics Annual Report by E. Cary Brown, 1975-1976

The following annual report of the M.I.T. department of economics was most likely written for the care and feeding of administrators and the members of the department’s visiting committee. This report covers what was my second year of graduate school, so for folks from that time it reads like an annual Holiday newsletter to the family.

_______________________

Department of Economics
1975 – 76

Undergraduate Program

The long-run impact of the past year’s changes in the Institute Requirement in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences is not yet clear. Unquestionably they have increased the Department’s enrollment, but the precise amount is uncertain because simultaneously a major revision was made in the two introductory economics subjects. In the past year enrollments were larger than previously, but smaller than in the transition of the previous year. Nearly 200 of the Class of 1976 concentrated in economics for their Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Requirement. Of all students presently enrolled, 327 (primarily juniors and seniors) have elected to concentrate in economics.

Undergraduate majors remain steady in numbers. As in 1974-75, 20 degrees were awarded. In the spring term the Undergraduate Economics Association was reactivated. Its weekly meetings with faculty led to several proposals for revision of the undergraduate program, and several student-faculty socials were organized.

Graduate Program

Enrollment has been remarkably steady in the graduate program. The number of applications for admission was virtually identical to the average of the previous six years. Next year’s entering class of 32 will be slightly larger than average, and will have fewer foreign students and more women, reflecting a shift in the percentage of applications from these groups. Four students from minority groups are expected to be in this class.

Financial support for the graduate student has changed very little over the last several years. We are still fortunate in having from one-third to one-half of the entering students on National Science Foundation Fellowships. For the whole student body, there has been an increase in the support by US foundations (other than NSF) and a decrease in support provided by M.I.T.

The number receiving the Doctor of Philosophy increased somewhat in the past year to 21. For the first time, two American blacks received degrees.* The class fared well in placement, their median salary offer totaling 24 percent above that of 1971. Like the past average, 86 percent went into teaching and 14 percent into non-teaching positions.

*Samuel Myers, Jr. Ph.D. thesis: “A Portfolio Model of Illegal Transfers”, supervised by Robert Solow.
Glenn Loury. Ph.D. thesis: “Essays in the Theory of the Distribution of Income”, supervised by Robert Solow.
See: William Darity Jr. and Arden Kreeger, “The Desegregation of an Elite Economics Department’s PhD Program: Black Americans at MIT“, History of Political Economy 46 (annual suppl.)

The Graduate Economics Association awarded the outstanding teacher in the Department prize to Professor Stanley Fischer.

PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES

The faculty has always been involved in public service activities tying research to the public interest. In connection with M.I.T.’s participation in the Bicentennial Celebration, Professor Jagdish N. Bhagwati set up a recent conference on the New International Economic Order: Professor Ann F. Friedlaender is planning one for this fall on Air Pollution and Administrative Control. Through the German Marshall Fund, Professor Richard S. Eckaus is organizing a fall conference on economic problems of Portugal. Professor Franco Modigliani arranged a conference through the Bank of Finland on International Monetary Mechanisms.

Various Congressional committees and government agencies have been advised. Professor Peter A. Diamond served on the Consultant Panel on Social Security for the Congressional Research Service. Professors Rudiger Dornbusch and Fischer and Institute Professor Paul A. Samuelson prepared a report for the US Department of Commerce on international financial arrangements. Professor Robert E. Hall was a member of the Advisory Committee on Population Statistics, Bureau of the Census. Professor Jerry A. Hausman served on the Econometrics Advisory Committee to the Federal Energy Administration. Institute Professor Modigliani was a consultant and member of the Committee on Monetary Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Institute Professor Samuelson consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the US Treasury, and the Congressional Budget Office. Professor Charles A. Myers was a member of the National Manpower Policy Task Force. Institute Professor Robert M. Solow served as Deputy Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Several faculty members have been involved with the National Academy of Sciences and its related organizations. Professor Eckaus prepared a report, Appropriate Technology for Developing Countries, for the Board on Science and Technology for Developing Countries of the National Academies of Science and Engineering. Professor Franklin M. Fisher served on a National Academy panel on the Effects of Deterrence and Incapacitation; Professor Friedlaender was on the Executive Committee, Assembly of Behavioral and Social Sciences, National Research Council; Institute Professor Modigliani was on the Finance Committee; Institute Professor Samuelson served on the Editorial Board of the Proceedings; and Institute Professor Solow chaired the Steering Committee on Environmental Studies.

Professor Eckaus led an OECD Mission to Portugal that included Professors Lance Taylor and Dornbusch.* Professor Paul L. Joskow was a consultant to OECD in energy. Professor Evsey D. Domar was a member of a delegation of economists sent by the American Economic Association to the Soviet Union. Institute Professor Modigliani, who gave much time to the problems of stabilization in Italy, was a member of the Board of Directors of the Italian Council for Social Sciences.

*Along with several graduate students among whom were Paul Krugman, Andrew Abel and Jeffrey Frankel. Paul Krugman has written a short note about this experience with a picture!

The Brookings Institution Panel for Economic Activity included Professors Dornbusch and Hall, with Institute Professors Modigliani, Samuelson, and Solow as senior advisors to it. Professor Friedlaender served on the examining committee, Graduate Records Examination, Educational Testing Service. Institute Professor Modigliani served on the Committee on Economic Stabilization, Social Science Research Council. Professor Fisher is a member of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University. Institute Professor Solow continues as Trustee for the Institute of Advanced Study.

RESEARCH

International topics seem to dominate the research interests of the faculty. Professor Bhagwati, in addition to his work in developing countries and international trade theory, has given attention to a proposal for applying taxation to the brain drain. Professor Eckaus studied the role of financial markets and their regulation and the behavior of income distribution in economic development. Professor Taylor had three major areas of research: the development of nutrition planning models in Pakistan, international food aid and reserve policies, and growth and income distribution in Brazil.

Professor Morris A. Adelman’s continuing research on the world oil market, Professor Joskow’s analysis of the international nuclear energy industry, and Professor Martin L. Weitzman’s examination of OPEC and oil pricing involve applied microeconomics with international implications.

Research in various applied microeconomics areas was responsible for the second largest fraction of faculty effort. Institute Professor Solow continued to research the economics of exhaustible resources, and Professor Weitzman completed his analysis of the optimal development of resource pools. Professor Joskow has explored the future of the electric utility industry and its financing, the future of the US atomic energy industry, and the pattern of energy consumption in the US. He is developing a simulation model of the energy industry, and is reviewing the regulatory activities of government agencies in general and the health care sector in particular. Professor Hausman examined the Project Independence Report and is analyzing the choice of new technologies in energy research.

In the transporation field, Professor Friedlaender surveyed the issues in regulatory policy for railroads and alternative scenarios in federal transporation policy. Professor Jerome Rothenberg examined such problems in urban transportation as pricing policies, demand sensitivity to price, and modeling locational effects. Professor William C. Wheaton considered an optimal pricing and investment policy in highways under a gasoline tax.

Inextricably intertwined with urban transportation are questions of urban location and housing. Professor Rothenberg carried out research in such aspects of this problem as microeconomics of internal migration, supply-demand for housing in multizoned areas, the impact of energy costs on urban location, and the development of a model of housing markets and of metropolitan development and location that can be applied to general policy questions. Professor Wheaton developed an equilibrium model of housing and locational choice based on Boston experience.

Institute Professor Modigliani also conducted research on the housing market, but his interest comes primarily from the side of stabilization policies and similar macroeconomic problems. He also participated in a review after 20 years of his life cycle hypothesis of saving, made monetary policy prescriptions for both the US and Italy, reflected on the description of financial sectors in econometric models, and explored more deeply the application of optimal control to the design of optimal stabilization policies in economic models. Institute Professor Samuelson reviewed the art and science of macromodels over the 50 years of their development. Professor Friedlaender completed a quarterly macromodel of the Massachusetts economy. Professor Hall developed a model to deal with income tax changes and consumption.

Public economics has both macro and micro aspects, both of which are represented in the Department’s research. With Visiting Professor James A. Mirrlees, Professor Diamond theorized about public shadow prices with constant returns to scale, and about the assignment of liability. He also has generalized the Ramsey tax rule and continued his research into an optimal Social Security system. Professor Hausman is reexamining the cost of a negative income tax; Professor Rothenberg analyzed the distributional impact of public service provision; and Professor Wheaton explored intertemporal effects of land taxes, fiscal federalism in practice, and the financial plight of American cities.

Besides such theoretical research, there was significant research of an entirely pure nature. Professor Robert L. Bishop reexamined the measurement of consumer surplus. Professor Fisher extended his exploration of the stability of general equilibrium and of aggregate production functions. Professor Weitzman investigated the welfare significance of national product in a dynamic economy. Professor Hal R. Varian further explored the theory of fairness, non-Walrasian equilibria, and macromodels of unemployment and disequilibrium. Professor Hausman examined the econometric implications of truncated distributions and samples, of probit models, and of simultaneous equation models. In historical research, Professor Domar was concerned with serfdom, while Professor Charles Kindleberger investigated the role of the merchant in nineteenth-century technologic transfer.

Publications

Professor Bhagwati edited Taxing the Brain Drain: A Proposal and Brain Drain and Taxation: Theory and Empirical Analysis, and coauthored Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: India. Professors Dornbusch and Kindleberger published numerous papers on implications of the new international monetary exchange structure for exchange rates, price stability, international trade, and international capital movements. Professor Weitzman continued his study of the Russian economy with a paper on the new Soviet incentive model.

With Visiting Professor of Management Ezio Tarantelli*, Institute Professor Modigliani published Labor Market, Income Distribution and Private Consumption (in Italian) and various papers on stabilization policy in Italy. He also wrote papers on inflation and the housing market and edited New Mortgage Designs for Stable Housing in an Inflationary Environment. Professor Hall’s labor market research resulted in papers on persistence of unemployment, occupational mobility, and taxation of earnings under public assistance. Professor Michael Piore wrote on labor market stratification and the effect on industrial growth of immigration from Puerto Rico to Boston. Professor Fisher had several publications on indexation and adjustment of mortgages to inflationary episodes. In the realm of economic history, Professor Temin published Reckoning with Slavery and Did Monetary Force Cause the Great Depression?

*Ezio Tarantelli was the victim of a Red Brigades’ assassination in 1985.

Institute Professor Samuelson published theoretical papers on factor price equalization and trade pattern reversal. In the realm of pure research, he put out papers on nonlinear and stochastic population analysis, optimal population growth, and the optimal Social Security system implied in a lifecycle growth model. He also brought out the tenth edition of his famous text, Economics: An Introduction Analysis.

FACULTY

Visiting Professor John R. Moroney was here from Tulane University; Visiting Professor Mirrlees came in the spring term from Nuffield College, Oxford University. Regular faculty on leave were Professors Fisher and Joskow in the fall and Professor Weitzman in the spring.

It is a pleasure to report the promotion to Associate Professor of Jerry A. Hausman. A new appointee, Professor Jeffrey E. Harris, with the unusual background of an M.D. and a Ph.D. in economics, will provide long-sought coverage in health economics.

Professor Kindleberger will retire as Ford Professor and become a Senior Lecturer on a half-time basis. Since 1948, when he came as an Associate Professor, Professor Kindleberger has been an effective teacher, scholar, participant in faculty governance, and counselor to governments and the public. He has trained the leading international economists of the next generation; he has produced a dozen books and more than a hundred articles in international trade and finance and in economic history. He epitomizes the highest kind of academician.

Several honors were bestowed on members of the Department. Institute Professor Modigliani will complete his year as President of the American Economic Association. Professor Myers received a Distinguished Alumni award from Pennsylvania State University. Professor Fisher was F.W. Paish Lecturer to the Association of (English) University Teachers of Economics. Institute Professor Solow received a D. Litt. from Warwick University, and Institute Professor Samuelson, a D.Sc. from the University of Rochester.

EDGAR CARY BROWN

Source: MIT Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections. MIT Department of Economics Records, Box 1, Folder “Annual Report 1975-6”.

Image Source: Building E52, Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Building, later Morris and Sophie Chang Building

 

https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/subject/building-e52-alfred-p.-sloan-jr.-building-later-morris-and-sophie-chang-building-52

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard

Harvard. Application for PhD candidacy. Frank D. Graham, 1917

Frank Dunstone Graham (1890-1949) taught at Princeton from 1921 up to his premature death in 1949. The portrait above however comes from the Dartmouth yearbook for the class of 1922. Graham was briefly an assistant professor of economics there for the 1920-21 academic year. Previous to that, from 1917-19 while working on his Harvard Ph.D. he worked as an instructor in economics at Rutgers.

Graham’s records in the files of the Division of History, Government, and Economics of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard have been transcribed for this post. From his transcript we now know exactly which courses he attended as a graduate student at Harvard (and his grades) and from his application to candidacy to the Ph.D. we learn a little bit about his undergraduate preparation at Dalhousie University.

_______________________

AER obituary for Frank D. Graham

In Memoriam: Frank Dunstone Graham 1890-1949, American Economic Review,Vol. 40, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Sixty-second Annual Meeting of the American Economic Asociation (May, 1950), pp. 585-587.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate the handwritten entries]

I. Full Name, with date and place of birth.

Frank Dunstone Graham. Dec 31st 1889, Halifax, N.S.

II. Academic Career: (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

Dalhousie University 1906-07: 1910-13
Dalhousie Law School 1913-15
Harvard University 1915-17
Tutor in Classics Dalhousie University 1913-14
Assistant in Political Science Rutgers Univ. 1917-18

III. Degrees already attained. (Mention institutions and dates.)

A.B. Dalhousie Univ. (Halifax N.S.) 1913
LL.B. Ibid 1915

IV. General Preparation. (Indicate briefly the range and character of your undergraduate studies in History, Economics, Government, and in such other fields as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, etc.)

Two courses in English History.
Elementary Economics. Additional Economics for the degree with distinction. Work covered included Gide’s Principles, Hobson’s Evolution of Modern Capitalism and parts of J. S. Mill and Nicholoson’s on Taxation.
No Government studied in undergraduate work but in my Law course was included. Consitutional and International Law and Consitutional History.
Ancient Languages included 4 years work in Latin and 3 in Greek
Modern Languages I did not study until I came to my graduate work. In Philosophy I took two undergraduate courses one of them devoted to psychology.

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., “History,” in “Economics,” or in “Political Science”?)

Economics

VI. Choice of Subjects for the General Examination. (State briefly the nature of your preparation in each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

  1. Economic Theory. Econ 7 and Econ 11 at Harvard. Private reading on the history of economic theory.
  2. Economic History. Econ. 2a and 2b at Harvard. Work read for degree of AB with distinction in Economics, Dalhousie Univ. including English Economic History.
  3. Public Finance. Econ 31. Harvard.
    Course in Economics at Dalhousie included Nicholson’s treatment of Taxation
  4. Sociology. Econ 8, 18a, 18b at Harvard. A considerable amount of private reading
  5. Political Theory. Gov. 6a, 6b Harvard. Degree of LL.B. covers an allied field
  6. International Trade and Tariffs. Econ 33, Econ 20a at Harvard

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

International Trade and Tariffs

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

International Trade of the United States in the Greenbak Period

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of the general and special examinations.)

For general exams. The beginning of the session 1917-18.
For special exam same time toward the close of the session 1917-18.

X. Remarks

[Left blank]

Signature of a member of the Division certifying approval of the above outline of subjects.

[signed] Charles J. Bullock

*   *   *   [Last page of application] *   *   *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: F. D. Graham

Approved: May 25, 1917

Ability to use French certified by C. J. Bullock. 20 May 1917.

Ability to use German certified by  C. J. Bullock. 31 May 1918. [D.N.]

Date of general examination June 3, 1918. Passed [D.N.]

Thesis received December 26, 1919.

Read by Professors Taussig, Persons, Day.

Approved January 22, 1920.

Date of special examination February 4, 1920. Passed. [D.T.]

Recommended for the Doctorate January 21, 1920.

Degree conferred  [left blank]

Remarks.  [left blank]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Record of FRANK DUNSTONE GRAHAM in the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

1915-16
Economics 7a1 [half course]
[Economic Theory. Prof. Taussig]
A
Economics 81 [half course]
[Principles of Sociology, Prof. Carver]
A
Economics 18a2 [half course]
[Analytical Sociology, Asst. Prof. Anderson]
B+
Economics 332 [half course]
[International Trade and Tariff Problems. Prof. Taussig]
B
French A abs.
Government 6a1 [half course]
[History of Political Theories. Asst. Prof. Holcombe]
A
Government 6b2 [half course]
[Political Theories of Modern Times. Asst. Prof. Holcombe]
A
Government 20a
[Selected Topics in Municipal Government. Prof. Munro]
B
1916-17
Economics 2a1 [half course]
[European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. Prof. Gay]
no return
Economics 2b2 [half course]
[Economic History of the United States. Prof. Gay]
B
Economics 11
[Economic Theory. Asst. Prof. Day]
B+
Economics 18b2 [half course]
[Historical Sociology. Asst. Prof. Anderson]
B
Economics 20a [half course]
[Research course: Economic Theory, also International Trade and Tariff Problems. Prof. Taussig]
B
Economics 31
[Public Finance. Prof. Bullock]
B+
German A C
Social Ethics 151 [half course]
[Recent Theories of Social Reform. Asst. Prof. Foerster]
A

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Certification of reading knowledge
of French

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 28, 1917.

Dear Haskins:

This is to certify that I have examined Mr. Graham and found that he has a suitable reading knowledge of French. I understand that he needs this certificate in connection with his candidacy for the master’s degree, but it may cover the French part of the language requirement if he later comes up for the doctor’s degree.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Charles J. Bullock

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Postponing General Examination Date

Camp Aloha Summer School
Lake Asquam
Ashland, N.H.

Sept 10th 1917

Mr. Geo. M. Robinson
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mr. Robinson

After conferring with Professor Bullock and on his advice, I have decided to postpone the date for my General examinations until the Spring rather than this Fall as I requested in my application for the exams for the Ph.D. degree. Will you be so good as to make the necessary alterations?

Sincerely yours,
[Signed]
Frank D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Ph.D. study plan approved
[Carbon copy]

29 May 1917

Dear Mr. Graham:

At its meeting on Friday, May 25, the Division of History, Government, and Economics voted to approve your plan of study for the Ph.D. in Economics.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned]

Mr. F. D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Postponing General Examination Date

Camp Aloha Summer School
Lake Asquam
Ashland, N.H.

Sept 10th 1917

Mr. Geo. M. Robinson
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mr. Robinson

After conferring with Professor Bullock and on his advice, I have decided to postpone the date for my General examinations until the Spring rather than this Fall as I requested in my application for the exams for the Ph.D. degree. Will you be so good as to make the necessary alterations?

Sincerely yours,
[Signed]
Frank D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Scheduling General Examination
[Carbon copy]

7 February 1918

My dear Mr. Graham:

Mr. Robinson has shown me your letter of January 28. It is not easy to arrange examinations for the first of June, as professors’ engagements are very uncertain after the beginning of the final examination period. I would suggest that you arrange to get away some day in May and come up for the examination, say on a Saturday. I should be glad to arrange any such day at your convenience. If that does not work out, let me know and I will see what we can do early in June.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]

Mr. F. D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Certification of reading knowledge
of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J. S. Davis
H. H. Burbank

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 31, 1918.

My dear Haskins:

This is to certify that Mr. F. D. Graham has today passed the examination in French and German required for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Charles J. Bullock

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

General examination passed

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J. S. Davis
H. H. Burbank

Cambridge, Massachusetts
June 4, 1918.

My dear Haskins:

Yesterday afternoon Mr. F. D. Graham passed his general examination for the doctor’s degree. Mr. Graham’s examination was not brilliant in any way, but it was distinctly better than the average general examination.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
Charles J. Bullock

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Expecting Christmas time 1919 for thesis submission

Alumni House,
New Brunswick N.J.
Dec. 13th 1919

Dear Miss Taylor

Your letter of yesterday is under my hand. The preliminary draft of my thesis lay for a long time in the hands of Professor Taussig and of Professor Persons with whom Professor Taussig had consulted about it. Pressure of business prevented them from returning it sooner. As a consequence its completion was a good deal delayed. I have however been hurrying it forward of late as rapidly as possible and expect to have it ready about Christmas time. If you will give me an address to which to send it then, I shall get it off just as soon as possible.

Sincerely yours,
[Signed]
Frank D. Graham

Miss Dorothy Taylor
Secretary of the Division
of History, Government & Economics
Harvard University

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Instructions for thesis drop-off
[Carbon copy]

15 December 1919

My dear Mr. Graham:

Your thesis when completed should be sent to 24 University Hall, in care of Mr. G. W. Robinson, the Secretary of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I shall then see that it is submitted to the committee at once.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned]
Secretary of the Division.

Mr. F. D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Members of thesis committee

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Division of History, Government, and Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts

F. D. Graham
16 December 1919

Committee on Thesis

Professor Taussig or (Prof. Sprague)
Professors Persons and Day

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dropping off copy of thesis
on Christmas day

25th December 1919

Mr. George W. Robinson
Harvard University

Dear Mr. Robinson:

This is my Ph.D. thesis with the required summary. I was passing through Cambridge today and brought it with me. Miss Dorothy Taylor wrote me that if I delivered it to you she would see that it got into the proper hands.

Sincerely yours,
[Signed]
Frank D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Passing completed thesis
around committee
[Carbon copy]

26 December 1919

Dear Taussig:

I find that the other members of Graham’s thesis committee are Professor Persons and Professor Day. If you could get it to either of these before you leave for Chicago, they could doubtless work on it next week. If that is not convenient for you, if you could get it either to Miss Ham or to my office we could see that it reaches the next member of the committee.

Truly yours,
[unsigned]

Professor F. W. Taussig

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Request for Graham’s preference for date of special examination
[Carbon copy]

14 January 1920

My dear Mr. Graham:

Dean Haskins would be glad to know whether you have any preference as to the date of your special examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. If you wish to come up for the degree at mid-years, the examination must be held not later than 7 February. Your thesis is still in the hands of the committee, but will probably be accepted.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned]
Secretary of the Division.

Mr. F. D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Graham Confirms Time and Place
of his Special Examination

Alumni House
New Brunswick N.J.
Jan 28th 1920

My dear Miss Taylor,

Your letter of the 14th inst. [“instant” = of the current month] is under my hand.

My preference as regards a date for my Doctor’s examination is for Wednesday, Febrary 4th, or Thursday, February 5th. If either of those dates is satisfactory to my examiner and to the committee I wish you would so inform me.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Frank D. Graham

Miss Dorothy Taylor
Secretary of the Division
of History, Government & Economics
Harvard University

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Committee Named for the General Exam
[Carbon copy]

[Note: T. N. Carver did not serve on the committee and J. S. Davis added later, see letter from the Secretary of the Division (January 31, 1920) below.]

21 January 1920

My dear Mr. Graham:

Dean Haskins is arranging your special examination for the doctorate for Wednesday, 4 February, at 4 P. M. The committee will consist of Professor Carver (Chairman), and Professors Persons, Day, and Sprague.

I will notify you as to the place later.

Sincerely Yours,
[unsigned]
Secretary of the Division.

Mr. F. D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response Cards from
Examiners for Frank D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Day Requested to Replace Carver
As Chair of Exam Committee
[Carbon copy]

24 January 1920

My dear Mr. Day:

As Professor Carver is to be away at the time of Mr. Graham’s examination on 4 February, Dean Haskins would be glad if you would serve as Chairman of the committee.

Sincerely Yours,
[unsigned]
Secretary of the Division.

Professor E. E. Day.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Time and Place for Special Exam
[Carbon copy]

26 January 1920

My dear Mr. Graham:

I am glad to be able to inform you that your thesis has been accepted. Your examination on 4 February will be held in Widener U at 4 P. M. Will you please acknowledge the receipt of this letter, in order that the Committee may know definitely that you will be present at the examination?

Sincerely Yours,
[unsigned]
Secretary of the Division.

Mr. F. D. Graham

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Graham Confirms Time and Place
of his Special Examination

Alumni House
New Brunswick N.J.
Jan 28th 1920

Dear Miss Taylor,

I have your letter of the 26th reporting the acceptance of my thesis and naming the date and place of my special examination

Sincerely,
[signed]
Frank D. Graham

Miss Dorothy Taylor
Sect’y of the Division
of History, Gov’t & Econ.
Harvard University

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Final Committee
for the Special Examination
[Carbon copy]

31 January 1920

My dear Mr. Day:

I enclose Mr. Graham’s application blank and a copy of his record in the Gradute School of Arts and Sciences for your use at his special examination on Wednesday, 4 February, at 4 P.M. The examination will be held in Widener U. The committee as it now stands consists of Professors Day (Chairman), Persons, Sprague, and Davis.
May I ask you to return the application with a written statement of the quality and result of the examination as soon as possible?

Sincerely yours
Secretary the Division.

Professor E. E. Day.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Passed Special Exam

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Committee on Economic Research

Charles J. Bullock, Chairman
Charles F. Adams
Nicholas Biddle
Frederic H. Curtiss
Wallace B. Donham
Edwin F. Gay
Ogden L. Mills
Eugene V. R. Thayer

W. M. Persons, Statistician
E. E. Day, Consulting Statistician
F. Y. Presley, Business Manager

Wadsworth House
Cambridge, Massachusetts

February 4, 1920

Dean Charles H. Haskins,
Division of History, Government, and Economics,
University Hall,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mr. Haskins,

I return herewith Frank Dunstone Graham’s record in candidacy for the degree of Ph.D. Graham passed his special examination in Widener U this afternoon. It was the unanimous opinion of the members of the committee present – Professor Sprague being absent – that Graham’s examination was disappointing; but there was no question about his having passed.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Edmund E. Day

EED A

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Memo asking for return of thesis
[Carbon copy]

9 February 1920

My dear Professor Davis:

Miss Ham tells me that you were good enough to offer to bring back Mr. Graham’s thesis, which was taken from University 24 last week for use at the examination. We should appreciate it if the thesis could be returned immediately, since it should be on hand in case any of the Faculty wish to examine it at the meeting on Thursday.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
Secretary of the Division.

Professor J. S. Davis

_______________________

Ph.D. Dissertation

Frank Dunstone Graham’s 1920 Ph.D. thesis “The International Trade of the United States in the Greenback Period.” A condensed version was later published “International trade under depreciated paper, the United States, 1862-1879,” Quart. Journ. Econ., 1922, 36: 220-273.

_______________________

Image Source: Dartmouth College, The 1922 Aegis. Vol 64, p. 60.

Categories
Economics Programs Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Ten-Year Projects and Outlook for Department. 1968-1978

The following ten-year plan (1968-1978) proposal for the department of political economy of Johns Hopkins was most likely drafted by senior members of the department, though the precise author(s) is not clear from the document itself. The bottom line of this plan is a request to be allowed to expand the deparment’s faculty and graduate student body by by half and by two-thirds, respectively. Otherwise the department feared  the loss of its national reputation due to having a reduced scope and scale.

The plan is at least as interesting for its obiter dicta regarding e.g., air-conditioning, computer terminals, secretarial staff, etc. 

_______________________

TEN-YEAR PROJECTS AND OUTLOOK FOR
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
[Draft, 1967]

I. Introduction and Summary

The Department of Political Economy, like the rest of the University, has concentrated on small numbers and high quality in its research and instructional programs. It is our intention to continue that tradition.
During the early postwar period, this Department produced as large a group of outstanding young economists as almost any university in the country. Its small faculty included several of the country’s most eminent economists. Between 1958 and 1961 the Department was plagued with resignations of senior faculty. At the same time resources available at other universities were growing rapidly. As a result the Department lost its former status as a major producer of research and scholars. Since 1961, the Department has steadily been rebuilt and is again able to attract its share of outstanding faculty and graduate students. But the Department still suffers to some extent from the factors responsible for its earlier troubles: its small size and limited resource base.
The Department now consists of 11 faculty and 45 resident Ph.D. candidates.
The program outlined in subsequent sections is designed to strengthen the Department by increasing Its size and financial base, while still permitting it to reap the advantages of its relatively small size.
During the next decade, the Department should grow to about 18 faculty members, or about 50%. Its Ph.D. candidates should grow to about 75, or by about two-thirds. Such growth is essential to add stability to the research and instructional programs, and to permit us to cover the growing number of specialties in the subject.
Growth will be expensive. Faculty salaries and graduate fellowships will continue to rise. And no university can retain excellence, let alone improve its position, without substantial budgetary increases. Within a decade, the Department’s budget for salaries and fellowships should almost triple.

II. Immediate Needs and Plans

A. In 1967-68, the Department has ten full-time faculty members, one joint appointment with Operations Research, and one faculty member whose major appointment is in the School of Public Health. (A second joint appointment with Public Health was made in Spring 1967, but the appointee will be in Pakistan for two years.) We have two vacancies. One is a professorship, and results from the Department’s having been permitted to replace Professor Evans prior to his retirement. We have appointed a visiting Professor to this post for 1968-69. The other vacant post is an Assistant Professorship, created in the spring of 1967.
The Department’s full-time faculty ought to expand to about 18 during the next decade. Three purposes would be served by such an expansion. First, it would provide the Department with more depth in the central specialties of economic theory and quantitative methods, so that a resignation or leave of absence would not disrupt the instructional program. Second, it would permit us to make appointments in important specialties not adequately covered by existing faculty. The inevitable increase in specialization through time makes gradual expansion necessary. Third, it would enable us to discharge our obligations to the instructional programs in international relations more adequately.
The Department is now actively seeking funds for the establishment of a Center for International Economic Studies within the Department. This Center would provide a focus for graduate instruction and research in the areas of international trade and economic development. The Center would provide a major substantive focus for the Department in addition to its present focus on economic theory and quantitative methods. In addition, it would help to fill a pressing social need, since the development of poor countries is perhaps the most pressing social problem of our time. Finally, it would permit us to exploit the unique advantages of the University’s proximity to Washington.
Although we are now strong in international economics, we are weak in economic development. Hence, a specialist in economic development is our most pressing need in terms of our proposed Center, our own graduate program, and our participation in the international relations programs. Our next highest priority is in the area of industrial organization, in which we now offer only one course in alternate years. Other fields in which we need additional strength are economic growth, public finance, private finance, econometrics, managerial economics, and Soviet-type economics.
Our needs are not equally urgent in all these areas. And not every specialty requires a separate appointment. Individual scholars often have interests in two or more specialties. Finally, the importance of particular specialties, and the interests of individual faculty members change gradually through time.

B. The most important research facilities for the Economics Department are the library and computational facilities. In both cases, the special needs of the Department will make it increasingly important in the coming decade to supplement the facilities available to the University as a whole.
For many years the Department has felt the need for a workroom where copies of major journals and reference books could be kept. In an important sense, the technical journals and data sources play the role in economics that the laboratory plays in an experimental. science. The movement of the library from Gilman Hall has imposed a major burden on faculty in the Department. In addition, faculty and graduate students in economics are now sufficiently numerous that duplicate copies of major journals are essential. We have made a small beginning toward meeting our library needs by establishing a workroom in our new quarters. A very limited number of journals is being purchased from research funds. In the coming years it will be important to expand the number of journals in our workroom, and to add major reference and data volumes. If a new social science building is constructed, or if the Department is able to expand its quarters as a result of the construction of a humanities building, a departmental library should be a major planning item.
The Department now has 6 desk calculators for use by faculty and students. Most are old and should be replaced with more modern machines within a few years. In the next decade we should at least double the number of calculators available. Some of our faculty now make frequent use of one or more of the real time-saving consoles located around the University. Within a short time, it will be important for the Department to have one or more such consoles in or near the Department area.
The Department now has two full-time and one half-time secretary. The half-time secretary is financed from research funds. Within a year or two she will need to be full time. Within a decade we will probably need five full-time secretaries. We need one additional electric typewriter this fall, and at least three modern tape recorders. During the coming years wo will need several additional typewriters and recorders, and other minor items of office equipment.

C. In the spring of 1967, we substantially revised both our undergraduate and graduate curricula. At the undergraduate level, the major change was to permit most courses to be taken after only two semesters economic theory rather than three as was previously required. This opened up, several courses in the Department to international relations majors and others outside the economics major. At the graduate level, the major change was to provide a more concentrated and integrated program in economic theory for first-year Ph.D. candidates.
During the last few years, the number of undergraduate registrations in economics courses has grown much more rapidly than the undergraduate student body. This is shown in the following table of selected registrations.

1963-64 1964-65 1965-66 1966-67
18.1 241 339 351 358
18.2 50 85 121 107
18.3 50 79 94 108
18.301-302 51 56 52 74
Total 392 559 618 647

This has necessitated our giving some courses each semester which were previously given in alternate semesters. Presumably, future growth in undergraduate registrations will more nearly approximate the growth in the student body. During the next few years our major need at the undergraduate level is to add a few specialized courses that will be available to students with a limited background in economics. Planned economics and urban economics are examples of such courses.
Our Ph.D. program is now too small. We do not have enough students to justify graduate courses in specialties which should be covered in a high quality graduate program, and we do not have enough faculty to offer the courses. We thus need to expand the graduate enrollment and the faculty simultaneously in order to be able to fill gaps in our graduate program in areas such as economic development, fiscal policy and industrial organization.

D. This Department is far smaller than any other major graduate department in economics. The next smallest, Princeton, is approximately the size that our projections indicate we will be in 10 years. Others are much larger.
We do not aspire to match the size and growth of most of the departments with which we compete for faculty and graduate students. We are firmly convinced of the advantages of smallness. But until very recently our size was almost below that required for viability. And we see clear advantages in some further growth, which would still retain the benefits of our relatively small size.

III. In this section I will discuss the undergraduate and graduate instructional programs, and faculty research activities in that order.

Undergraduates can either concentrate or major in economics. Although there is some tendency for better students to major rather than concentrate, some very able students choose the less intensive program. A stronger tendency is for those whose goal is a Ph.D. program in economics to major, and for others to concentrate.
An average senior class contains about 15 concentrators in economics. Some of these graduates take jobs, but many go to graduate school in business, law and economics.
An average senior class contains about 10 majors in economics. Although a few majors take jobs upon graduation, most attend graduate school in economics or business. And the program is designed with this group in mind. In recent years, our majors have undertaken successful graduate study at Chicago, Stanford, M.I.T., Johns Hopkins and other leading institutions. The Department’s requirements of a major include four semesters of economic theory, economic history, a year of statistics, a year of mathematics, a senior essay, and work on one or more advanced fields. We feel that our majors are as well prepared for graduate study as those at any university in the country.
For many years, the goal of our Ph.D. program has been to provide thorough training in economic theory, quantitative methods, and a small number of substantive fields to a small group of high quality students, most of whom intend to enter teaching and research posts. In the years 1950-1966, 63 people received the Ph.D. for work in this Department. This comes to 3.7 per year, but there is a slight upward trend, and we have given about five per year in recent years. Among them are some of the leading academic economists of the postwar generation. Our graduates hold posts at Yale, Chicago, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin and other leading United States universities. They also hold major academic posts in the U.K., Israel, Japan and Australia.
In the early postwar period, Johns Hopkins had among its Ph.D. candidates more than its share of the best students who studied economics. This resulted from the high quality of the faculty, the small and personal nature of the Ph.D. program, and the ability of the Department to offer fellowships that were larger than those offered by competing institutions. In the late 1950’s, this situation changed, partly because of the loss of most of the Department’s senior faculty. Since 1981, the Department has been substantially rebuilt; and is again among the leading economics departments in this country. We have greatly improved the quality of the student body, and are now getting about our share of the best graduate students, but we have not regained our former edge. To do so is the goal of the plans outlined in other sections of this report.
In the Political Economy Department, as elsewhere in the University, most faculty research is basic rather than applied. Within that framework, however, a wide spectrum of subjects and techniques is encompassed. Some of the research is purely theoretical, employing mathematical and logical tools to improve our understanding of economic phenomenon. Most of the research, however, is quantitative, employing not only economic theory but also statistical methods and data.

IV. Relationship to the Hopkins community

A. At the undergraduate level, the enrollment in economics courses has grown rapidly in recent years. Nearly every undergraduate now takes at least one economics course. And for several years we have had more than a hundred students per year in each of our second and third courses in economic theory. About 50 students per year enroll in our course in current economic problems. In 1967-68, the Department will offer 11 semester courses at the 0-99 level, and 13 semester courses at the 300-level, all of them open to undergraduates who are not economics majors.
At the graduate level our Ph.D. candidates frequently take courses in the Departments of Mathematics, Statistics, and Operations Research. Less frequently they take courses in the Departments of Political Science, History, Geography, and Social Relations. Frequently, 300- and 600-level courses in economics are taken by Ph.D. candidates in Operations Research, Environmental Sciences, Statistics, and Geography. Less frequently, they are taken by students in History, Social Relations and Political Science. Sometimes, students from SAIS take our courses in international economics and economic development.
In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in the exchange of graduate students between this Department and others for course work. We expect this trend to continue and feel that it should be encouraged.

B. The Center for International Studies will be established within the Department of Political Economy. However, many problems within the Center’s purview require interdisciplinary study, and we hope to use the Center as a vehicle for joint teaching and research programs. SAIS is the most natural partner for such ventures, but we hope to explore possibilities with Homewood departments also.

C. The Department takes an active part in the A.B.-M.A. and Ph.D. programs in international relations. We give year courses in international economics and economic development mainly for students in these programs. In our curriculum revision last spring, we reduced the prerequisites for these courses to make them more accessible to international relations specialists. We are generally pleased with our success in staffing the economics part of the international relations program. However, we feel a need for a major appointment in economic development before we can be fully satisfied with our contribution.
The Political Economy Department has one joint appointment with the Operations Research Department. In addition, wo have two faculty members in the Department whose major appointments are in the School of Public Health. The Department has no fixed policy regarding joint appointments. Those that wo have are successful because of special circumstances in which such an arrangement is in the interests of all parties. We expect that such circumstances will arise again. But we think it unwise to plan for certain numbers or kinds of joint appointments.

V. Instructional Program

A. The following table summarizes the Department’s instructional program in 1967-68:

Course Number No. of Courses Hours Per Week Credit Hours No. of Courses Hours Per Week Credit Hours No. of Courses Hours Per Week Credit Hours
0 – 99 5 14 14 6 17 17 11 31 31
300-399 7 15 22 ½ 6 13 19 ½ 13 23 42
600-699 11 23 12 24 23 47
Total 23 52 24 54 47 106

Each full-time faculty member except the chairman teaches two courses per semester. The chairman teaches three courses per year. All faculty attend the weekly Department seminar. Most faculty members will attend our dissertation seminar several times a year.
All courses numbered 0-99 are open to all qualified undergraduates, whether they are economics majors or not. All 300-399 numbered courses are open to qualified undergraduates and to graduate students from other departments. A few are not normally taken by Ph.D. candidates in economics. 600-699 numbered courses are open to graduate students in this and other departments.
It is difficult to predict future growth of undergraduate enrollment since, as stated above, we expect it to grow about as fast as the undergraduate student body, which we do not control. However, even in the absence of substantial growth in enrollments, there are several courses that should be added either at the 0-99 or the 300-399 level. These include comparative economic systems, corporation finance, public finance, and economic growth. Some other courses, now given only in alternate years, should be given every year. These include industrial organization, economics of education, and urban economics. Substantial growth in enrollments would require that we offer additional sections of some courses and that we offer some courses every semester rather than once a year.
At the graduate level, our intake of students has been between 10 and 15 for several years, resulting in a body of about 35 students in residence. We have now embarked on a conscious program of increasing the size of our graduate program; in 1967-68, 18 students entered and our student body is 45. Our intake should increase gradually over the coming decade to about 25, with a resulting student body of about 75. Seventy-five is the present graduate enrollment of the next smallest of major graduate programs in economics in other universities. Others are considerably larger. We feel that this growth is necessary to enable us to offer the range of courses now required for proper coverage of our subject matter.
Unless a major expansion of the international relations program is undertaken, we should not have to devote more faculty resources to it, once we have made the appointment we are now seeking in economic development.
Expansion of the faculty from 11 to 18 would permit the addition of 28 semester courses in the Department. The exact nature and level of the courses to added will depend on the interests of faculty members recruited, the interests of undergraduate and graduate students, and developments in the subject matter. However, we expect to continue the policy of devoting roughly half the Department’s teaching resources to courses numbered 0-99 and 300-399, and the other half to 600-level courses.

B. The Department completely reorganized both its undergraduate and graduate curricula in the spring of 1967. This reorganization permitted us to identify clearly the gaps in our program referred to in Section II. We feel that our only pressing curriculum need is now to fill these gaps. Major curriculum reform becomes necessary periodically in a developing discipline, but we have no plans for further reform.

VI. Resources Outside the University

The Department has no formal relationship with organizations outside the University. The Department does, however, benefit from proximity to Washington in several ways. First, proximity to Washington is an attraction to some actual and prospective faculty members. They may obtain data, attend meetings and seminars, and occasionally undertake paid consulting at U.S. Government agencies, international organizations, or private research Institutions. Second, Washington is an attractive source of summer jobs for our graduate students, and a few of our graduates take permanent posts there.

VII. Space requirements

In the spring of 1967 the Department moved into new quarters on the fourth floor of Gilman Hall. These quarters are an important improvement over those previously available to the Department. The new quarters consist of 12 faculty offices, a departmental office, a calculator room, 11 small cubicles for graduate students, a seminar room, and a workroom where recent technical journals are kept.
In terms of space needs, however, the now quarters are already inadequate. We now have 13 faculty posts in the Department, but only 12 offices. In fall 1968 we expect to have all 13 posts filled, and we will have the Hinkley Professor in the Department. We will thus be two offices short. In addition, we recently hired a part-time secretary. The Department office is adequate for only the two secretaries now occupying it and we have to house the new secretary in the calculator room. Within the next year the part-time post will have to be made full time, and the housing problem will be acute.
The ten-year projection for the Department will require major additions to the Department’s space facilities. Faculty offices will have to expand from 12 to 18. The secretarial force will have to expand to at least five, and that will require at least two rooms entirely devoted to secretarial use. The Department now has one seminar room. Virtually all our 300- and 600-level courses are held there and it is in use more than 35 hours per week within a short time it will be necessary to have an additional seminar room. Within ten years it will be important to have a third room that can be used for seminars, conferences and other meetings. Within the next few years we will need a larger calculator room. We already need additional calculators, and this need will grow as the faculty and graduate student body grows. In addition, we will shortly need one or more real time sharing consoles in the Department area.
It is clear that a building to house either the social or behavioral sciences is already overdue at Johns Hopkins. Despite all the building on the campus in the last decade, the social sciences and humanities – as well as statistics and various ancillary facilities are still all housed In Gilman Hall. It is virtually the only building on the campus that is not fully air conditioned. And the removal of the main library has worsened the situation.
The nature of this Department’s space needs would make it difficult, but not impossible, to satisfy them by regrouping the Gilman facilities if some other departments were to be housed in other buildings. A social or behavioral science building – which would include economics ought to be a major part of the 10-year fund raising program.

VIII. Tables and Graphs

A. The following table shows the undergraduate concentrators and majors in Political Economy for 1967-68:

Concentrators Majors
Juniors 5 10
Seniors 16 9

This table does not include the BIM students.
In 1967-68 the Department has 18 entering and 27 returning graduate students. We have no post-doctoral students.

B. Faculty

Edwin S. Mills – Professor and Chairman

Age: 39
econometrics, statistics, microeconomics
Research projects: [blank]

Bela Balassa – Professor

Age: 39
International trade, economic theory, comparative systems, economic development
Research projects: [blank]

Carl F. Christ – Professor

Age: 44
econometrics, macroeconomics, money
Research projects: [blank]

G. Heberton Evans, Jr. – Professor

Age: 67
economic history, history of economic thought, private finance
Research projects: [blank]

Herbert E. Klarman – Professor

Age: 51
economics of health, public finance
Research projects: [blank]

Peter Newman – Professor

Age: 39
economic theory, mathematical economics, economic development
Research projects: [blank]

Jürg Niehans – Professor

Age: 48
economic theory, money
Research Projects: [blank]

Frederick T. Sparrow – Associate Professor

Age: [blank]
operations research, microeconomic theory, managerial economics
Research projects: [blank]

William Oakland – Assistant Professor

Age: 28
public finance, money, economic theory
Research projects: [blank]

John Owen – Assistant Professor

Age: 35
labor, economic theory, education
Research Projects: [blank]

William Poole – Assistant Professor

Age: 30
money, macroeconomics, international trade
Research projects: [blank]

H. Louis Stettler, III – Assistant Professor

Age: 29
economic history, economic theory, statistics
Research projects: [blank]

C. As was stated above, the Department should grow from its present size of 12 faculty members to 18 during the next decade. We feel that the current division by rank — about half the faculty are professors — is about right. The following table shows a feasible growth pattern to meet the projected goal:

1967-68

1968-69 1969-70 1970-71 1971-72 1972-73 1973-74 1974-75 1975-76 1976-77

1977-78

Prof.

6 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 9
Assoc. Prof. 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

2

Asst. Prof.

4 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 7 7 7
Total 11 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17

18

Our priorities among specialties were indicated in Section II. Beyond that, it is not possible to indicate which appointments should be made in which years and at which levels. Much depends on the availability of particular faculty in whom we are interested and on combinations of zfields in which prospective faculty are interested.

D. The Department is not persuaded that there is an important place for postdoctoral studies in economics during the next decade. Promising graduate students now obtain well-paid posts at universities with graduate programs and with relatively light teaching loads. Our impression is that it would be difficult to entice them to post-doctoral fellowships, and that there is little merit in doing so. Nor are we persuaded that there is a substantial group of young economists at small colleges who could produce significant books and papers if given a year off from heavy teaching duties. The only promising possibility seems to be to find a small number of young foreign scholars who have the Ph.D. or its equivalent, and who could spend a year here with mutual benefit to themselves and to us. The Department is not prepared to urge such a program at this time.

E. The accompanying table shows a projected ton-year budget for the Department of Political Economy. The personnel item includes base salaries and fringe benefits of faculty, secretaries and junior instructors. It assumes that faculty salaries will rise by 7% per year over the next decade. It also takes account of the faculty expansion projected in Section E.
The fellowship budget includes graduate fellowships, tuition and stipends, from whatever source. At present, some is University money, some is U.S. Government money funneled through the University (NDEA, NSF), some is fellowship money obtained by students with Department recommendations, and some is money obtained by students (mostly foreigners) entirely on their own (from foreign sources, U.S. State Department, foundations). This budget assumes that fellowships per student will rise by about 5% per year during the next decade. The table also assumes that the number of entering students will rise from 18 to 25, and the total graduate student body from 45 to 75, over the next decade.
The third line projects a growth of the Department’s incidental and telephone accounts by about 5% per year over the decade.
Excluded from the table are research funds for supplemental faculty salary, research assistants, or computing. No attempt has been made to project funds available from sponsored research or from University sources such as the faculty research grants fund.

1967-68

1968-69 1969-70 1970-71 1971-72

1972-73

Personnel

233,640 250,000 306,400 340,700 356,500 395,500
Fellowships 159,500 186,000 207,100 229,700 254,100

280,400

Telephones, Supplies

4,000 4,200 4,400 4,600 4,900 5,100
397,140 440,200 517,900 575,000 615,500

681,000

1973-74

1974-75 1975-76 1976-77 1977-78
Personnel 453,200 484,900 535,800 573,800

653,400

Fellowships

308,600 339,000 371,600 401,200 432,800
Telephones, Supplies 5,400 5,600 5,900 6,200

6,500

767,200

829,500 913,300 981,200

1,092,700

Source: Johns Hopkins University. The Eisenhower Library. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy [Records], Box 5, Folder “Planning Documents: 1938, 1965, 1967”.

Categories
Economics Programs Wisconsin

Wisconsin. Programmes of Political Economy, Political Science, and History. 1904-1905.

A few posts ago Economics in the Rear-view Mirror added the programme of the Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago for 1904-05 to its collection of artifacts. The printed copy that I transcribed for Chicago was filed with an analogous publication of the University of Wisconsin from the same year. Both rest quietly in an archival box at Harvard containing records of the Division of History, Government, and Economics (the exact archival coordinates are provided at the end of this post).

Fun Fact: the text-book used for the graduate course on modern economic theory in 1904-05 was Gustav von Schmoller’s Grundriss der Allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre. Erster Teil, (Leipzig, 1900.) Zweiter Teil (Leipzig, 1904). 

__________________

Research Tip

Lampman, Robert J. (ed.). Economists at Wisconsin: 1892-1992. (Madison: University of Wisconsin, Department of Economics) 1993. A total of 380 pages of information on a century’s worth of insruction and research in the department of political economy/economics at the University of Wisconsin.

__________________

University of Wisconsin
1904-1905

POLITICAL ECONOMY, POLITICAL SCIENCE, AND HISTORY.

Contents

Staff of Instruction
General Statement

Outline of Courses:

Political Economy
Political Science
History

Special Training Courses:

Statistics
Practical Sociology
Public Service
Journalism

__________________

Staff of Instruction.

Van Hise, Charles R., Ph.D., LL.D., President of the University.

Birge, Edward A., Ph.D., Sc. D., LL.D., Dean of the College of Letters and Science.

__________________

Commons, John R., A.M., Professor of Political Economy.

Ely, Richard T., Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy.

Meyer, Balthasar H., Ph.D., Professor of Institutes of Commerce.

Munro, Dana C., A.M., Professor of European History.

Parkinson, John B., A.M., Vice-President of the University. Professor of Constitutional and International Law.

Reinsch, Paul S., Ph.D., Professor of Political Science.

Scott, William A., Ph.D., Director of the Course in Commerce. Professor of Political Economy.

Turner, Frederick T., Ph.D., Professor of American History.

__________________

Adams, Thomas S., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Statistics and Economics.

Burchell, D. Earle, Assistant Professor of Accounting and Business Practice.

Coffin, Victor, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of European History.

Fish, Carl R., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of American History.

Sparling, Samuel E., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science.

Blackmar, Frank W., Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Economics in the University of Kansas. Lecturer in Economics.

Garrison, George P., Ph.D., Professor of History in Texas University. Lecturer in History.

Thwaites, Reuben G., Secretary and Superintendent of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Lecturer in History.

Woodburn, James A., Ph.D., Professor of American History in Indiana University. Lecturer in American History.

__________________

Lorenz, Max O., A.B., Instructor in Economics.

Phillips, Ulrich B., Ph.D., Instructor in History.

Sellery, George C., Ph.D., Instructor in European History.

Taylor, Henry C., Ph.D., Instructor in Commerce.

Dowd, Jerome, A.M., Resident Lecturer in Sociology.

__________________

Barnett, James D., A.B., Assistant in Political Science.

Lyle, Edith K., M.L., Assistant in History.

Putnam, James W., A.M., Assistant in History.

Tuthill, James E., A.M., Assistant in European History.

__________________

Boggess, Arthur C., A.B., Fellow in History.

Field, Arthur S., A.B., Fellow in Economics.

Gannaway, John W., A.B., Fellow in Political Science.

Scholz, Richard F., A.B., Fellow in History.

__________________

Faber, Charlotte A., A.B., Scholar in Economics.

Hockett, Homer C., B.L., Scholar in History

Lloyd-Jones, Chester, B.L., Scholar in Political Science.

Note, —The above lecturers, assistants, fellows, and scholars are members of the instructional staff for 1903-04. Appointments for 1904-05 have not been made as yet.

__________________

General Statement.

                  The departments of Political Economy, Political Science, and History, though separate in organization, have arranged their work so as to coöperate with each other in a systematic attempt to cover the field of the historical and social sciences The undergraduate and graduate courses are so arranged as to furnish a comprehensive general knowledge of political economy, political science, European and American history.

                  Advanced courses and seminaries for special investigations offer an opportunity for detailed work in these allied subjects without sacrificing any to a hard and fast system. The student is thus given an opportunity to gain a sound knowledge of historical method, to secure training and knowledge in contemporary, social and political activities, and to provide for the comparative and analytical study of institutions.

                  The purpose of the department of Political Economy is to afford superior means for systematic and thorough study in economics and social science. The courses are graded and arranged so as to meet the wants of students in the various stages of their progress, beginning with elementary and proceeding to the most advanced work. They are also designed to meet the needs of different classes of students; as, for instance, those who wish to enter the public service, the professions of law, journalism, the ministry, or teaching, and those who wish to supplement their legal, theological or other professional studies with courses in economics or social science.

                  Capable students are encouraged to undertake original investigations, and assistance is given them in the prosecution of such work through seminaries and the personal guidance of instructors. A large fund has been placed at the disposal of the senior professor of the department to defray the expenses of an exhaustive investigation of the history of labor and allied movements in the United States, and special attention will be given to this field of research for several years.

                  The fundamental purpose of the department of History is to develop in the student the power to use critically and constructively the historical method. Familiarity with history and with the historical method of study is an essential element of a liberal education, promotes more intelligent citizenship, and is important in the special training for such professions as law, journalism, and the civil service. The department offers advanced courses leading to the master’s and doctor’s degrees, and prepares students for the teaching of history and for historical investigation. Numerous elementary and advanced courses are offered in the various fields of European history. Training in original research is given by means of seminaries and by special courses in palacography, diplomatics, historiography, editorial technique, and historical bibliography and criticism. In American history the aim is to give a thoroughly continental treatment to the subject. For the study of the interior and the southern states, exceptional opportunity is at. forded by the unique collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and by special courses on western and southern history. Particular attention is given to the study of the evolution of the various sectional groupings — social, economic, and political — in the history of the United States, and to the physiographic factors in American development.

Libraries.

                  The libraries at Madison, all of which are at the service of members of the University, are five in number, viz., the Library of the University of Wisconsin, the Library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Library of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the State Law Library, and the Madison Free Public Library. These libraries duplicate books only to supply exceptional demands, and have an effective strength approximately equal to the total number of volumes possessed by them. The total number of bound volumes and pamphlets exceeds 400,000.

                  The first three libraries above named are all housed in the new library building of the State Historical Society on the Lower Campus of the University. This building, erected by the State of Wisconsin at a cost of $620,000, was occupied in the fall of 1900, and affords exceptional facilities in the way of convenient and commodious quarters to University students. In the planning of the building, the special needs of the University were equally consulted. In the south half of the first floor are located three department libraries of the Historical Society, viz., documents, newspaper files, and maps and manuscripts. In the north end of this floor is a series of five fine seminary rooms, allotted to American history, European history, economics, political science, and mathematics. The greater part of the second or main floor is occupied by the general reading room and the periodical room, which are used in common by the two libraries. In these two reading rooms 275 readers may find ample accommodation at one time. In open cases in the reading room are shelved several thousand reference and “reserved” books. To these, as well as to the large collection of general and engineering periodicals in the adjoining periodical room, all readers have direct access. The main portion of both libraries is stored in the stack wing adjoining the delivery room on the west. Officers of the University have direct access to the shelves in all parts of the library, and students engaged in advanced work, upon recommendation of their instructors, are allowed access to those parts of the collection dealing with their special subjects.

                  In general, the library of the University of Wisconsin aims to be uniformly developed in all fields, but appropriations and gifts in recent years have rendered it especially strong in the lines of European history, economics, political science, and in Germanic and classical philology. During the academic year 1900-1901, the library received two notable gifts, one of $2,000 from three Milwaukee citizens for the purchase of books for the Course in Commerce, and the other of $2,645, contributed by friends of the University in New York City, Milwaukee, and elsewhere, to the departments of Economics and Political Science for the development of the library in those fields. These gifts have greatly increased the library facilities of the two schools mentioned. In December, 1901, the late President Charles Kendall Adams presented to the University his fine private library of 2,000 volumes, especially rich in material on European history. A gift of $500 from Mr. Frederick Vogel, of Milwaukee, in 1902, has been expended for a collection of 600 volumes in the field of political science and modern French legislative history.

                  The library of the State Historical Society is remarkably rich in manuscript and other material for the study of the history of the Mississippi valley. The collections of the late Dr. Lyman C. Draper are included in the library. These manuscripts are particularly useful for the study of the interior of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, and of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Old Northwest. The Society files of newspapers, periodicals and the publications of historical societies are among the most complete in the United States. There is an unusually complete collection of published colonial records and the United States government documents, and the material for the study of American state and local history, western travel, the revolution, slavery, and the civil war, is abundant. Among the sources of English history, the Library possesses the Calendars of State Papers, the Rolls Series, the publications of the Records and Historical Manuscripts Commissions, as well as the journals and debates of Parliament, of almost all the important historical societies, and many works of local history. The Tank collection (Dutch) offers special resources for the study of the Netherlands.

                  More than 500 periodicals are regularly received. The University possesses complete sets of the most important historical, economic, political, and philological journals, and the current publications enable the students to follow the most recent investigations in the various sciences in Europe and America.

                  The State Law Library, of 32,500 volumes, and the especial library of the University College of Law, of 4,000 volumes, furnish an ample law library.

Graduate Work.

                  The graduate work in these departments may lead to the master’s degree in not less than one year, and to the doctor’s degree in not less than three years. Among the subjects offered, any one of the following may constitute a major in the work for a higher degree:

                  Political economy, political science, sociology, European history, or American history.

                  Any one of the following may constitute a minor:

                  Political economy, political science, sociology, statistics, jurisprudence (including public law and historical jurisprudence), administration, European history, or American history.

                  Candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy are required to present in their principal subject the equivalent of at least two full graduate courses during three years; in their first subordinate the equivalent of at least one such course during two years; and in their second subordinate the equivalent of at least one such course during one year.

                  Candidates for the master’s degree must present in their principal subject the equivalent of at least two full graduate courses during one year; and in their subordinate subject the equivalent of at least one such course.

                  Special attention is here called to the fact that graduates who are pursuing the law course may prepare to take their master’s degree at the same time with the degree in law by completing the equivalent of two full studies during one year’s work. Graduates of the College of Law are encouraged to devote an additional year to broadening out their training in economics, polities, and jurisprudence.

                  The University offers each year fourteen fellowships of the annual value of $400, and honorary fellowships and scholarships whose holders are exempt from the payment of fees. One of the University fellowships is permanently assigned to American history, one to European history, and two to economics and political science; applications should be in the hands of the President of the University before May 1. There are also established by the University ten graduate scholarships, two of which are assigned to economics and political science, and one each to American and to European history. They represent an annual value of $225 each; the student pays an incidental fee of ten dollars per semester. For further information concerning the qualifications and duties of fellows see the University Catalogue for 1903-04, or the announcement of the Graduate School.

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OUTLINE OF COURSES.

Department of Political Economy.

Professor Ely, Professor Scott, Professor Meyer,
Professor Commons, Assistant Professor Adams,
Assistant Professor Burchell, Dr. Brauer,
Mr. Dowd, Mr. Lorenz, and Dr. Taylor.
Special lecturers: Professor
Blackmar, Mr. Hunter,
and Dr. Rosewater.

                  The work of this department has the following distinct but related aims:

  1. To provide instruction in economics and sociology for undergraduates in all the courses of the University.
  2. To provide advanced and graduate work in the studies falling within its field.
  3. To assist and encourage the development of these studies.
  4. With the coöperation of other departments, to provide special training courses for various practical pursuits.
  5. To supplement the work of the College of Law.

                  The requirements for an undergraduate major, in addition to the thesis are twenty-one semester hours as a minimum, selected in part from the introductory courses and in part from the advanced courses.

Primarily for Undergraduates.

  1. The Elements of Economic Science. A general survey based upon the study and discussion of a text-book, supplemented by lectures, assigned reading, and exercises. Required of sophomores in the Course in Commerce and of all students beginning the subject of economies. Repeated each semester; M., W., F., at 8, 9, and 10. Mr. Lorenz.
  2. The Elements of Sociology. A study of primitive man, followed by an investigation of the phenomena of civilized societies, leading up to a statement of the general principles of social evolution. First semester; M., W., F., at 10. Mr. Dowd.
  3. Elements of Public Finance. An introductory study of the general principles of public expenditure, public revenue, public indebtedness, and financial administration. First semester; M., W., F., at 9. Assistant Professor Adams.
  4. Agricultural Economics. This course is designed for short-course students in the College of Agriculture. Twelve lectures: December and January; Tu, Th., at Dr. Taylor.
  5. The Elements of Money and Banking. An introductory course, repeated each semester. In the first semester the course will be adapted to the needs of those who expect to continue the subject. In the second semester the needs of those who do not expect to specialize in banking and finance will be chiefly consulted. First semester; M., W., F., at 8; second semester at 9. Professor Scott.
  6. The Economic Functions of the State. This course has special reference to pharmacy. One lecture a week; first semester. Professor Meyer.
  7. Economic Geography. A general survey of the resources, industries, and commerce of the chief countries of the world, followed by a special study of the production and distribution of the staple articles of commerce, with special reference to the foreign trade of the United States. Throughout the year; M., W., F., at 8 and 9. Dr. Taylor.
  8. Business Administration. In this course students are given thorough instruction in bookkeeping, accounting, auditing, and the various other branches of business administration. The work is graded and arranged in three groups, adapted respectively to the attainments of sophomores, juniors, and seniors. In each group a careful study is made of office equipment, business relations, and administrative duties by means of lectures, text-books, and outside reading in trade journals, and this is followed by laboratory practice, each student being appointed to various positions, and promoted through the various branches of administrative work in merchandizing, manufacturing, banking and transportation.
    1. Sophomore Year. The work of this year centers in business forms and correspondence, bookkeeping, and clerical duties.
    2. Junior Year. The special feature of the work of this year is the study of legal forms, credit instruments, funding operations, accounting, and executive duties.
    3. Senior Year. During this year emphasis is placed upon the work of supervision and auditing, especially in connection with passenger transportation, light and power companies, savings institutions, insurance, jobbing, the commission business, brokerage, importing and exporting. Throughout three years; two hours a week. Assistant Professor Burchell.
  9. Commercial Law. The law of contracts, commercial paper, agency, partnership, corporations, sales, bailments, and insurance, treated from the point of view of the business man rather than the lawyer. Three times a week throughout the year. Dr. Brauer.
  1. Senior Seminaries for Thesis Students. Professor Meyer, Professor Scott, Assistant Professor Adams, and Dr. Taylor.

For Graduates and Undergraduates.

  1. Industrial Evolution and its Problems. A general survey of industrial development followed by an examination of special problems such as competition, monopolies and trusts, concentration of wealth, municipal ownership, the inheritance of property, etc. First semester; Tu., Th., at 10. Professor Ely.
  2. History of Economic Thought. The principal topics will be the following: the history of economic thought in classic antiquity; its subsequent development to the time of the mercantilists; the rise and growth of economics as a distinct branch of social science, with a brief discussion of existing schools of economic thought. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 10. Professor Ely.
  3. Modern Socialism. A study of the socialist movement during the nineteenth century, and an examination of the theories of those writers who are usually called socialists. First semester; Tu., Th., at 9. Mr. Lorenz.
  4. Economic Problems. This course is devoted principally to the important labor problems of the day: strikes, trades-unions, employers’ associations, arbitration, immigration, child labor, etc. Second semester; M., W., F., at 9. Assistant Professor Adams.
  5. Problems in Taxation. Comprehends the more concrete problems of the day: mortgage, railroad, insurance, and double taxation, the personal property and inheritance taxes, etc. May be taken by those who have not had course 3. Second semester; M., W., F., at 10. Assistant Professor Adams.
  6. Labor Legislation. Comprehends a study of the labor law of the United States and foreign countries, the practical working of important statutes, and the sphere and function of the labor law in general. First semester; M., W., F., at 10. Assistant Professor Adams.
  7. The Elements of Agricultural Economics. This course treats of the economic principles which underlie the prosperity of the farmer, and of all other classes so far as they are dependent upon agriculture. The subject is divided into two parts. In part one the point of view is that of the farmer, and in part two that of the nation as a whole. First semester; Tu., Th., at 12. Dr. Taylor.
  8. Historical and Comparative Agriculture. This course consists of lectures and assigned readings on the agriculture of the Romans; on the development of agriculture in England and the United States, and on the present status of agriculture in the most important countries, with an attempt to find the explanation of historical changes and geographical differences. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 12. Dr. Taylor.
  9. Agricultural Industries. An investigative course for seniors in the commercial and agricultural courses, and for other advanced students. Second semester; at hours to be arranged. Dr. Taylor
  10. Manufacturing Industries. An investigative course for seniors in the Course in Commerce, and for other advanced students. First semester; at hours to be arranged. Dr. Taylor.
  11. Social Statistics. Includes a study of vital statistics, suicide, crime, pauperism, etc. In this and the following course the laboratory method is followed. Students are required to do a thorough piece of statistical investigation under the immediate guidance of an instructor. This course is specially recommended to students taking thesis work in economics. Two lectures and two hours’ laboratory work a week, for which a credit of three-fifths is given. First semester; Tu., Th., at 12, and M. from 2 to4. Assistant Professor Adams and Mr. Lorenz.
  12. Economic Statistics. Prices, wages, family budgets, labor and financial statistics will be studied. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 12, and M. from 2 to 4. Assistant Professor Adams and Mr. Lorenz.
  13. Government Statistics. A course on public statistical bureaus: their organization, methods, and publications. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 11. Assistant Professor Adams.
  14. Currency History. A systematic presentation of the currency of England, France, Germany, and the United States. Special attention will be given to the history of bimetallism, to the development of the banking system of these countries, and to the chief monetary problems which have arisen in these nations, and the methods which were employed in their solution. An elementary knowledge of money and banking is needed as a preparation for this course. Second semester; M., W., F., at 8. Professor Scott.
  15. Corporation Finance and Securities. A study of the methods of financiering employed in great corporations, with special reference to the various sorts of negotiable securities which they issue, and the circumstances which affect their value. The course includes a study of the stock and produce exchanges, and of their relations to the business of banking. Open to students who have had Money and Banking. Lectures and assigned reading. First semester; Tu., Th., at 12. Professor Meyer.
  16. Transportation and Communication. This is a general introductory course dealing with the most important principles and facts relating to railways, waterways, and the express, telephone, telegraph, and post office services. Repeated each semester; M., W., F., at 9. Professor Meyer.
  17. Special Problems in Transportation. This is an advanced course in which the more important special transportation problems are discussed in detail. Each student pursues an independent line of investigation. Lectures and reports. Open to students who have had course 35 or its equivalent. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 9. Professor Meyer.
  18. Foreign Systems of Railways. This course embraces a study of the railways of the leading countries of the world, historically and economically. Each student may select the railways of a particular country, or read systematically in connection with the lectures on railways in different countries. Open to students who have had course 35 or its equivalent. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 8. Professor Meyer.
  19. This course deals with the general principles of the different forms of personal and property insurance and the main problems connected with each. Lectures and reading. Open to students who have had the Elements of Economic Science. First semester; Tu., Th., at 11. Professor Meyer.
  20. Modern Sociological Thought. A survey of sociological writers, beginning with Bodin and including the principal writers down to Gumplowiez, Schäffle, Giddings, and Small. First semester; M., W., F., at 8. Mr. Dowd.
  21. Charities and Corrections. This course embraces first, a study of the dependent class, with special reference to the slum conditions in London, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia; second, the defective class and the institutional treatment of this class; the delinquent class, causes and prevention of crime, prison management and discipline. Reformatories and other public institutions will be visited. First semester; M., W., F., at 11. Mr. Dowd.
  22. Public and Private Charity. A comparative study of poor relief in the United States, England, and the principal continental countries. Second semester; M., W., F., at 11. (Omitted in 1905.) Mr. Dowd.
  23. Charity Organizations. A study of poverty in American cities, with special reference to the work of charity organization societies. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 9. (Omitted in 1905.) Mr. Dowd.
  24. Field Work. Students are encouraged to study charitable and correctional institutions in Madison and the vicinity, and opportunity is afforded for continuous work elsewhere during the summer months. During the past years students from the University have engaged in field work, and several of these students have taken up work of this kind as a career. It is believed that this method of continuous study, followed by field work, yields the best results. It is the aim of this department to furnish secretaries of charity organization societies, and other trained workers.

Primarily for Graduates.

  1. Economic History. A study of the development of economic institutions and economic doctrines, and of their influence upon each other and upon the other phases of social life. The period 1776 to 1850 will be studied in 1904-05. An investigative course for advanced students and graduates. Two sessions a week, at hours to be arranged. Credited as a full study. Professor Scott.
  2. Modern Economic Theory. Designed to give students some acquaintance with recent movements in economic theory, and practice in reading German texts. As a point of departure and contrast Schmoller’s Grundriss der Allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre will be used as a text. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 9. Assistant Professor Adams.
  3. The Distribution of Wealth. Part I. This course deals chiefly with the fundamental institutions in the existing social order and their relation to the present distribution of wealth. The principal topics discussed are: private property, contract and its conditions, vested interests, custom, competition, monopoly, authority, and the caritative principle. First semester; M., W., Th., from 2:30 to 4:00. Professor Ely.
  4. Distribution of Wealth. Part II. This course deals with the shares of the various factors in distribution, viz.: rent[,] interests, profits, and wages. May be taken by those who have not had Part I, course 52. First semester; M., W., Th., from 2:30 to 4:00. (Omitted in 1904-05) Professor Ely.
  5. Public Finance. This course deals first with the nature of public finance as a science, and with its history, with the development and working of the public economy, and then proceeds to a discussion of public expenditures and a brief examination of public revenues. Second semester Tu., Th., from2:30 to 4:00. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Ely.
  6. American Public Finance. Part I. The financial history of the United States. A critical and historical discussion of the finances of the federal government. Second semester; Tu., Th., 2:30 to 4:00. Professor Ely.
  7. American Public Finance. Part II. An historical and critical account of the finances of the American commonwealths and local political units. Second semester; Tu., Th., 2:30 to 4:00. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Ely.
  8. The Theory of Taxation. This course covers the general theoretical problems of taxation, equality and uniformity, shifting and incidence, etc. First semester; Tu., Th., at 10. Assistant Professor Adams.
  9. Monopolies and Trusts. This course deals with the theories of monopoly, historically and critically; and examines the tendencies of large-scale business with reference to competition and monopoly. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Ely.
  10. Principles of Transportation. This is a lecture course designed exclusively for graduates who do not desire to specialize in transportation. An endeavor will be made to present the most important facts and principles of railway development as illustrated in the leading countries of the world. Second semester; two-fifths study. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Meyer.
  11. The Psychological Sociologist. This course deals with that group of sociologists who approach sociology from a psychological point of view. First semester; Tu., Th., at 8. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Mr. Dowd.
  12. Seminary in Sociology. Topics in theoretical and practical sociology, selected with reference to the needs and interests of the students, will be investigated. Two hours a week. Mr. Dowd.
  13. Race Elements in American Industry. The unique feature of American industrial and labor problems is the variety of races and nationalities that have participated. In order to prepare a way for the proper understanding of labor history in the United States, this course will include an examination of the industrial qualities of the several races, their capacities as producers, their part in promoting American industrial supremacy, their standards of living, the relative influence of climate, civilization, and heredity on industrial capacities, the sources of immigration, the distribution of races in industries and localities, the competition of races, the influence of industry and labor organizations in the assimilation of races, legislation regulating immigration, etc. The course will be divided into two parts: Part I consisting of lectures, three hours a week; Part II consisting of reports and discussions, two hours a week. First semester; M., Tu., W., Th., F., at 8. Professor Commons.
  14. The History of Labor and Industrial Organization Prior to the Civil War. A survey of labor conditions in colonial times, the beginnings of labor agitations, the origins of labor unions, the communistic, sentimental, and utopian programs and experiments, free labor and slavery, political and civil rights of wage-earners, the rise of manufactures and rapid transportation. This course is divided into two parts like the foregoing. First semester; M., Tu., W., Th., F., at 8. (1905-06.) Professor Commons.
  15. The History of Labor and Industrial Organization since the Civil War. The effects of the Civil War on capital and labor, the rise of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, the effects of machinery, inventions, divisions of labor, and large-scale production, the changes in wages, hours of labor, and working conditions, the policies of trade unions, the influence of socialism, radicalism, and conservatism in labor unions, the beginnings of employers’ associations, the concentration of capital, growth of arbitration and trade agreements, and their practical results, labor legislation and judicial decisions, labor and public employment, women’s and children’s work and wages, etc. This course is divided into two parts like the foregoing. First semester; M., Tu., W., Th., F., at 8, (1906-07.) Professor Commons.
  16. Research Course in Labor Problems. This is designed especially for students electing thesis on these subjects. Special attention will be given to thesis work by way of personal and seminary conferences, in which the student will be associated with the instructor in the special investigations of the labor history on which he is engaged. First semester; F., from 2:15 to 4:00. Professor Commons.
  1. Economic Seminary. This is designed for graduate students who wish to carry on special investigations under the guidance which the department affords. A subordinate feature of the seminary work is a review of recent books and important articles published in the periodicals. Tuesday evening, throughout the year, from 7:30 to 9:30. Professor Ely, Professor Commons, Professor Meyer, Assistant Professor Adams, Mr. Dowd, Mr. Lorenz, and Dr. Taylor.

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Department of Political Science.

Professor Parkinson, Professor Reinsch,
Assistant Professor Sparling, and Mr. Barnett.

Arrangement of Courses.

                  The introductory courses are open for election in the sophomore and junior years. As a rule, at least five semester hours of this work should be done before electing any of the advanced courses. The advanced courses are open for election by juniors, seniors, and graduates. Sophomores of advanced standing may make arrangements to take some of these courses (courses 12, 15, and 20). The requirements for an undergraduate major in political science, in addition to the thesis are twenty-one semester hours as a minimum.

Primarily for Undergraduates.

  1. Elements of Political Science. A general survey of the field of political science. First semester; M., W., F., at 8. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  2. Elementary Law. The nature and sources of law, and the methods of its application. First semester; Tu, Th., at 8; M., at 3. Mr. Barnett.
  3. Elements of Administration. The theory of administration, and a survey of the administrative systems of the chief states of modern Europe, and of the United States. First semester; Tu., Th., at 8. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  4. The Constitution of the United States. An outline course of lectures designed, primarily for those who cannot give more time to this subject, but which may be taken with profit in connection with any of the longer courses in constitutional law. Second semester; F., at 10. Professor Parkinson.
  1. Administrative Problems. A survey of the primary administrative activities of the chief states of Europe and the United States. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 8. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  2. Government and Politics in the United States. A general study of the American system of government in its local, state, and federal organs, and their relations to each other, as well as of the methods of political action. Second semester; M., W., F., at 8. Professor Reinsch.

For Undergraduates and Graduates.

  1. Roman Law. a. History of the development of Roman law from the Twelve Tables to the Corpus Juris of Justinian. b. Institutes of Roman law. These divisions are given alternately. First semester; M., W., at 12. Professor Reinsch.
  2. History of English and American Law. Second semester; M., W., at 12. (Omitted in 1905.) Professor Reinsch.
  3. Jurisprudence. Analysis of the main concepts of the science of law on the basis of the juristic classics. Open to students who have had an elementary course in law. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 12. Mr. Barnett.
  4. Constitutional Law. A short course of lectures on the English constitution, followed by a detailed study of the constitution of the United States. Throughout the year; M., W., F., at 9. Professor Parkinson.
  5. Constitutional Law. Designed to follow, or at least to supplement, course 12, with emphasis upon the study of cases; may be taken independently by those of suitable preparation. Open only to graduates and other advanced students. Throughout the year; Tu., Th., at 9. Professor Parkinson.
  6. Seminary in Constitutional Law. A comparative study of the essential features of the leading constitutions of the world. Open to graduates, and to seniors who have had courses 12 and 13, or their equivalent. Second semester; M., W., at 10. Professor Parkinson.
  7. Municipal Government in Europe and the United States. Second semester; M., W., F., at 8. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  8. State Administration. A study of the local and state administrative systems of the United States. First semester; Tu., Th., at 9. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  9. American Administrative Law. This course has in view the needs of the legal profession. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 11. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  10. International Law. First semester; M., W., F., at 10. Professor Parkinson.
  11. Seminary in International Law. Emphasis will be placed upon diplomatic relations, treaties, the rights and obligations of neutrals, and the methods of settling international disputes without resort to war. Open to graduates, and also to others who have had course 18. Second semester; M., W., at 10. (Omitted in 1905.) Professor Parkinson.
  12. Contemporary International Politics. In 1905 the oriental situation will be the special subject of this course. Second semester; M., W., F., at 10. Professor Reinsch.
    In connection with the above course a series of public lectures on problems of international politics will be given.
  13. Colonial Politics. A study of the principal systems of colonial government. First semester; M., W., F., at 10. Professor Reinsch.
  14. Party Government. Special attention will be given to party organization and the methods of legislative bodies. First semester; Tu., Th., at 11. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  15. Federal Administration. A study of the organization and functions of the different branches of our federal service. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 9. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  1. The Law of the Press. The law of copyright, literary property, libel, privileged publications, and other topics relating to the publication of books and newspapers. Designed especially for students preparing for journalism and the law. Second semester; M., at 3. (Omitted in 1905.) Professor Reinsch.

Primarily for Graduates.*

  1. History of Political Thought. The development of political philosophy from the Greeks to the present time, and its connection with political history. (May be taken by seniors of suitable preparation.) First semester; M., W., F., at 11. Professor Reinsch.
  2. Philosophy of the State. A critical study of contemporary political thought and terminology. May be elected by seniors who take their major in political science. Second semester; M., W., at 11. Professor Reinsch.
  3. Juristic Classics. In 1906: Reading of Gaius, with commentaries. Second semester; M., W., at 11. Professor Reinsch.
  1. Seminary in Administration. Some important phases of state administration will be studied. Two hours throughout the year. Assistant Professor Sparling.
  2. Seminary in Politics. For 1904-05: Parliamentary institutions of the present time. A study of parliamentary procedure, legislation, and party development in Germany and Italy during the last quarter century. Throughout the year; W., 7:30 to 9:30. Professor Reinsch.

*Studies given under the heading, “For Undergraduates and Graduates,” may also be taken as graduate work, but in this case special reading will be assigned by the instructor in addition to that required of undergraduate students.

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Department of History.

Professor Turner, Professor Munro,
Assistant Professor Coffin, Assistant Professor Fish,
Dr. Tilton, Dr. Sellery, Dr. Phillips, and Assistants.

Arrangement of Courses.

                  The courses in history are divided into three groups, as follows:

A. Introductory courses 1 to 9 are primarily for undergraduates, and are planned to afford a comprehensive survey of the general field of history. They cannot be counted toward advanced degrees, and graduates are required to have completed an equivalent of sixteen semester hours of these studies as a preparation for graduate work for a degree. It will be noted that a substantial historical basis can be laid for advanced work by such an election as the following: freshman year, Medieval (course 1) and Colonial (course 3) or English (course 6); sophomore year, Modern (course 2) and United States (course 4). The study of Greek and Roman history (courses 8 and 9) is particularly recommended to those who may intend to teach history. It is not recommended that students shall cover all of the introductory courses to the neglect of advanced work.

B. Advanced courses 11 to 45 are designed to continue the work begun in the preliminary courses in the direction of greater specialization. These courses are open to undergraduates and graduates who have taken the necessary preliminary work.

C. Graduate courses 51 to 60 are not open to undergraduates. They consist of courses in the technique of history, and seminaries in American, Medieval, and Modern history, in which the subject of study changes from year to year.

History Major.

                  The requirements for an undergraduate major in history, in addition to the thesis, are twenty-six semester hours as a minimum, selected as follows:

I. One or more introductory courses in both European and American history.

II. Advanced courses to the amount of at least ten semester hours.

For Undergraduates.

  1. Medieval History. A general survey of the history of continental Europe from the barbarian invasions to the close of the fifteenth century. Advanced students will be given special quiz sections and more advanced work. Throughout the year; M., W., at 11, for lectures, and a third hour in sections. Professor Munro, Dr. Tilton, Dr. Sellery, and assistants.
  2. Modern European History. A general survey extending from the close of the fifteenth century to the present day. Not open to freshmen. Throughout the year; Tu., Th., at 11, and a third hour in sections. First semester, Dr. Sellery; second semester, Assistant Professor Coffin.
  3. American Colonial and Revolutionary History. An introduction to the history of the United States, designed to acquaint the student with the beginnings of American institutions. Text-book, lectures, and topics. The class meets in divisions. Throughout the year; Tu., Th., at 9 and 10. Assistant Professor Fish and Dr. Phillips.
  4. History of the United States. A general survey from the Revolutionary era to the present, with emphasis upon political history. Lectures, text-book, collateral reading, and topics. Not open to first year students. This course, or an equivalent, must precede all advanced courses in American history.
    4a. To the presidency of Jackson. First semester; M., W., F., at 11. Assistant Professor Fish.
    4b. From the presidency of Jackson to the present. Second semester; M., W., F., at 11. Assistant Professor Fish.
  5. English History. A general survey with especial reference to economic and social conditions. Text-book, lectures, and topics. Throughout the year; M., W., F., at 9 and 11. Dr. Tilton and Dr. Sellery.
  6. English History. A course with especial reference to social and political conditions, useful for students of English literature, and recommended to those who expect to teach history. Students are not permitted to elect both courses 5 and 6. Throughout the year; Tu, Th., at 9. Assistant Professor Coffin, Dr. Tilton, Dr. Sellery, and Dr. Phillips.
  7. History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1900. Designed for freshmen in the Course in Commerce. Throughout the year; M., W., F., at 11. Assistant Professor Coffin.
  8. Ancient and Greek History. A brief outline of primitive and oriental history and a general course in Greek history. Recommended to all who expect to teach history. First semester; Tu., Th., F., at 11. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Munro and Dr. Tilton.
  9. Roman History. A general survey with especial emphasis on the period of the later Republic and Early Empire. Recommended to all who expect to teach history. Second semester; Tu., Th., F., at 11. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Munro and assistants.

For Undergraduates and Graduates.

  1. The History of the West. Particular attention is paid to the conditions of westward migration and to the economic, political and social aspects of the occupation of the various physiographic provinces of the United States, together with the results upon national development. Lectures, collateral reading, and topics. Throughout the year; M., W., F., at 12. Professor Turner.
  2. History of the South. The course deals with the period since the Revolution, and especial attention is given to the economic and social forces involved in the plantation system, slavery, and the occupation of the Gulf Plains, as a basis for understanding the political history of the South and its place in national history. Throughout the year; Tu., Th. at 3. Dr. Phillips.
  3. History of New England. Special attention will be paid to the colonial period, and to New England expansion. Second semester; M., W., F., at 2. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Assistant Professor Fish.
  4. Economic and Social History of the United States. Designed to treat economic topics in relation to the general movement of national history. Throughout the year; M., W., F., at 12. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Turner.
  5. Diplomatic History of the United States. An historical survey of our foreign relations from the Revolution to the present time. Throughout the year; Tu., Th., at 10. Assistant Professor Fish.
  6. Constitutional and Political History of the United States from the Confederation to the Presidency of Jefferson. First semester; M., W., at 2:15. (Omitted in 1904-05.)
  7. Undergraduate Seminary in American History. Designed to train undergraduates in the use of sources, by studying different problems in different years. The period since the Civil War will probably furnish the field for 1904-05. Elective by semesters to students who have had course 4 or its equivalent. M., W., at 2:15. Assistant Professor Fish.
  1. Roman Imperial Institutions. A study of the organization and government of the Empire, especially in the second century A.D. First semester; Tu., Th, at 10. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Munro.
  1. Medieval Civilization. Designed to supplement course 1 by a more special study of the social and intellectual life of the Middle Ages. First semester; Tu., Th., at 10. Professor Munro.
  2. Feudal Institutions. Tu., Th., at 10. Open to graduate students and seniors of suitable preparation. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Munro.
  3. Constitutional History of the Middle Ages. A comparative study of the governments in Germany and France, especially during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Open to graduate students and seniors of suitable preparation. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 10. Professor Munro.
  1. Period of the Renaissance. An investigation of the chief political problems in the epoch of the foundation of the great European states, 1300-1500. Open to juniors and seniors who have had course 1 or an equivalent. First semester; Tu., Th., at 11. Dr. Sellery.
  2. Age of Louis XIV. A study of the development of the absolute monarchy in continental Europe. Open to juniors and seniors who have had course 1 or 2, or an equivalent. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 11. Dr Sellery.
  1. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Periods, 1789-1814. Open to those who have had course 2 or its equivalent. Throughout the year; M., W., F., at 10. (Not offered in 1904-05.) Assistant Professor Coffin.
  2. History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1900. Open to those who have had course 2 or its equivalent. The work will be devoted especially to tracing in this period the influence of the French revolutionary ideas in the development of social and political institutions. First semester; M., W., F., at 10. Assistant Professor Coffin.
  1. Constitutional History of England. A study of the growth of English institutions. Throughout the year; Tu., Th., at 12. Open to juniors and seniors who have had course 5 or 6. First semester, Dr. Tilton; second semester, Assistant Professor Coffin.
  2. Economic and Social History of England, 1300-1600. A summary of English civilization in the thirteenth century and a view of the chief economic and intellectual changes from medieval to modern civilization. Open only to students who have had course 1, 5, or 6. Second semester; Tu., Th., at 9. Dr. Tilton.
  1. The Development of Modern Prussia, 1640-1871. This course is intended to explain the development of the Prussian state and trace the Prussianizing of modern Germany. Open to those who have had course 2. First semester; Tu., Th., at 12. Assistant Professor Coffin.
  1. Methods of History Teaching, with special reference to the work of secondary schools. For seniors of suitable preparation and graduates. Throughout the year; F., at 3. Professors Turner and Munro.

For Graduates.

  1. Historical Bibliography. An account of the present state of the materials for historical research, and an examination of the bibliographical tools most essential to the special study of history. First semester; W., at 10. (Omitted in 1904-05.) Professor Munro.
  2. Historical Criticism. An introductory survey of the principal problems of historical method, accompanied by practical exercises. Second semester; W., at 10. Given in alternate years. Professor Munro.
  3. Paleography and Diplomatics. (a) Elements of paleography, with practical exercises in the reading of manuscript facsimiles; (b) Elementary exercises in diplomatics. The first part of the course is identical with the first part of course 18 in Latin, and is arranged for the benefit of advanced students of language as well as for students of history. Second semester; F., 9 to 11. Given in alternate years. Professor Munro.
  1. Seminary in Medieval History. In 1904-05 the First Crusade is studied by special topics, illustrating the causes, the relations of the chiefs with the Greek emperor, and the social conditions in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Th., 4 to 6. Professor Munro.
  2. Seminary in Modern European History. The work will center about the diplomatic revolution of 1756. Throughout the year; S., 11 to 1. Assistant Professor Coffin.
  3. Seminary in American History. For 1904-05, the seminary will study the history of Monroe’s administration. Throughout the year; three hours a week in two sessions. Professor Turner.
  1. Historical Conference. A fortnightly meeting of the instructors and graduate students of the school for conference and consideration of papers. A considerable portion of the time of the conference is devoted to a coöperative study of the work of important historians, so planned as to give in successive years a general view of modern historiography. Throughout the year; alternate Fridays, 4 to 6.

Special Lectures.

                  Besides the regular courses of class instruction described above, two series of lectures were given each year by scholars from without the University. In 1903-04, the following were delivered:

                  Transcontinental Explorations, with especial reference to Lewis and Clark. Four lectures by Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

                  The Causes of the Civil War. Four lectures by Professor James A. Woodburn, of Indiana University.

Summer Courses.

                  Elementary and advanced courses in history are offered each year in the Summer Session of the University. For a fuller description see the Summer Session circular, which may be obtained by application to the Registrar of the University.

__________________

Special Training Courses.

Statistics, Practical Sociology, Public Service
and Journalism.

                  In order to offer opportunity for careful and systematic training in practical pursuits, the studies offered by the departments of Political Economy, Political Science, and History, together with a number of allied subjects, have been arranged so as to form four special courses, viz.: in statistics, in practical sociology, in preparation for public service, and in preparation for journalism.

                  The course in statistics will give special training in the use and collection of statistical material, with a view of fitting the student for practical statistical work in connection with public administration or with the business of railway and insurance companies.

                  The course in practical sociology consists of studies in modern social and economics problems, social theory, and practical charity and reform. The class work of the student is to be supplemented by the direct study of social conditions, and reformatory and charitable institutions. The course is primarily intended as a preparation for pastoral work, and the activities connected with organized charity and other ameliorative agencies.

                  The course in public service covers the subjects of politics, administration, diplomacy and modern history. A thorough knowledge of the mechanism and workings of contemporary government is becoming increasingly important with the constantly expanding sphere of political activities. To the training in the general principles of politics and methods of government, there will added in this course specific instruction in the work of the various governmental departments, and the students will be kept informed concerning the various openings for a career in the public service, as well as the requirements and examinations that form a condition for entering thereupon.

                  The course in preparation for journalism does not aim to offer technical instruction in the methods of practical journalism, but to provide a fund of information on social, economic, political, and historical questions, which is indispensable in journalistic work of a high grade.

                  The special training courses cover a period of three years, beginning with the junior year. At the end of the second year the bachelor’s degree is conferred. At the end of the third year the master’s degree. No thesis is required with the latter. Any students in the above courses will be under the special supervision and advice of that member of the instructional force under whom the major part of their work is done. The faculty will keep in close touch with men of experience and representative position in the branches to which these courses relate, and will make use of their aid and suggestions to render the instruction most helpful to the students.

                  Upon the completion of the course of three years the graduate will receive a certificate, stating that he has taken a special course, and indicating to what group of studies he has devoted his attention. No rigid uniformity is required of the students in the matter of selection of their studies. They must, however, select at least ten-fifths a semester from the work recommended, and this work must be taken in the sequence indicated, unless exceptions are made for special cause. Some studies which are absolutely indispensable in a certain course are italicized, and others will be indicated by the special adviser of the student, according to the work for which the latter is pre-paring. Beyond this the students are left free to take electives in other departments.

                  Admission. Students who have completed the sophomore year in any college or university of approved standing are admitted to the special courses, but all such students will be subject to the same conditions as students entering other courses in the junior year. The graduates of any such college or university may arrange to complete any one of the courses in two years. It is presumed that students entering the school have studied ancient, medieval and modern history, as well as the elements of economics and political science. In the absence of such preparation students will be expected to make up their deficiency during the junior year. The language requirements will be adapted to individual needs, but the minimum requirement will be that of the regular course in the College of Letters and Science.

__________________

The Course in Statistics.

[The first numeral following the name of the course indicates the number of hours per week, the Roman numeral the semester.]

Junior.

                  Economic Statistics, 3-II; Social Statistics, 3-I; Analytical Geometry and Calculus, 3; Commercial Geography, 4; Agricultural Industries, 2-II; Economic Problems, 3-II; Money and Banking, 3-I; Elements of Administration, 2-1.

Senior.

                  Railway and Insurance Statistics, 2-I; Government Statistics, 2-II; Theory of Probabilities, 2-II; Expert Accounting, 2-II; Insurance, 2-I; Railways, 2-II; Social and Economic Legislation, 3; State and Federal Administration, 2-II; Markets and Securities, 2-II.

Graduate.

                  Distribution of Wealth, 5-I; Public Finance, 5-II; Economic Seminary; Seminary Administration, 2; Laboratory Work in Statistics, 2; Railway Economies, 2-I; Public Accounting, 2-II.

__________________

The Course in Practical Sociology.

Junior.

                  Charities and Correction, 3-I; Field Work; Elements of Sociology, 3-I; History of Education, 3-I; Municipal Government, 3-II; Physiology, 3-I, 2-II; Psychology, 3-I; Ethics, 3-II; Moral Education, 1-II.

Senior.

                  Social Ethics, 2-I; Social Statistics, 3-I; Psychology and Sociology, 3-I; Modern Sociological Thought, 3-II; Field Work in Charities; Charity Organization, 2-II; Communicable Diseases, 1; Biology of Water Supplies, 5-I; American History, 2.

Graduate.

                  Seminary in Sociology, 2; Advanced Ethics, 3-I; Anthropology, 2-1; Abnormal Psychology, alternating with Comparative Psychology, 2-II; Distribution of Wealth, 5-I; History of Political Thought, 2-I; Labor Legislation, 3-I; Economic and Social History, 3; Laboratory Work in Statistics, 2.

__________________

The Course in Preparation for Public Service.

Junior.

                  Elements of Administration, 2-I; State and Federal Administration, 2-II; Constitutional Law, 3; American History, 2; Elements of Finance, 3-I; Colonial Politics, 2-I; Elementary Law, 3-I; Advanced English, 3; Social and Economic Statistics, 3.

Senior.

                  Federal Services, 2-I (a study of the organization of the various departments of the federal government with methods of work and conditions of entry); International Law, 3-II; Diplomacy, 3-II; Municipal Government, 3-II; Nineteenth Century History, 3; Administrative Law, 2-I; Contemporary Politics, 2; Political Thought, 3; English Constitutional History, 2; Social and Economic History, 3.

Graduate.

                  Seminary in Administration, 2; Administrative Services (relating to state and municipal services), 2-II; Public Finance, 5-II; Seminary in Political Philosophy, 2; American Constitution and Political History, 3; Seminary in Modern European History, 2; Seminary in Public Law, 2; Social Ethics, 2-I; Roman Law, 2-II; Municipal and Sanitary Engineering, 2-I.

                  In order to adapt the course to the special needs in individual cases, the students will be advised to devote a part of the senior and graduate year to more special preparation for some branch of the public service, and will be encouraged to take a group of electives with that end in view. Every student is, moreover, required to take as part of his senior and graduate work one of the following groups of obligatory studies, or one of other groups hereafter to be arranged, intended to form the basis of more special preparation.

a) Financial: Public Finance, 5-II, first half of semester; American Federal Finance, 5-II, second half of semester; Public accounting, 2-II; Money and Banking, 3.

(b) Internal Governments: Agricultural Industries, 2-II; Social and Economic Legislation, 3; Social and Economic Statistics, 3; American Social and Economic History, 3.

(c) State and Municipal Governments: Municipal Government, 3-II; Public Securities, 2; Municipal and Sanitary Engineering 2-I; Public Accounting, 2-II; American State and Municipal Finance, 3-II.

(d) Diplomacy: Diplomacy, 3-II; International Law, 3-I; Contemporary Politics, 2; Nineteenth Century History, 2; Advanced French and a thorough study of another European language (German, Spanish, Italian, Russian or Norse).

__________________

The Course in Preparation for Journalism.

Junior.

                  Economic Problems, 3-II; American History, 2; Constitutional Law, 3; Modern Systems of Education, 2-I; Agricultural Industries; 2-II; Municipal Government, 3-II; Moral Progress and Moral Education, 1-Il; Advanced English, 3; General survey of English Literature (with special reference to the great prose writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), 3; American Literature, 2.

Senior.

                  English Constitutional History, 2; Nineteenth Century History, 2; Political Thought, 2-I; Contemporary Polities, 2; History of the West, alternating with Economic and Social History, 3; Colonial Politics, 2-I; Social Ethics, 2-II; Press Laws, 1; State and Federal Administration, 2-II; International Law, 3-I; Advanced English, 2; English Literature (Courses 32, 33, 36, 39, and 43).

Graduate.

                  Advanced English, 2; Seminary in American History, 2; Distribution of Wealth, 5-I; Public Finance, 5-II; Modern Sociological Thought, 2-II; Seminary in Political Philosophy, 2; Seminary in Economics; Diplomacy, 3-II; History of Institutions, 2.
Seminary work in some line will be required.

Source: “University of Wisconsin, Departments of Political Economy, Political Science, and History.” Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, no. 89 (Madison, Wisconsin: May 1904). Transcription from a copy in the Harvard University Archives, Division of History, Government, and Economics. Ph.D. exams and records of candidates, study plans, lists, etc. pre-1911-1942. Box 2, Unlabeled Folder.

Image Sources: Collage of cropped portraits of Richard T. Ely (left, ca. 1910) and John R. Commons (1904) from University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives and Commons’ autobiography Myself (after p. 94), respectively.

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs

Chicago. Program of Political Economy. Thick course descriptions. 1904-1905

Broschures that advertise economics departments are often useful summaries of the “order of battle” for their educational and research missions. The Chicago Department of Political Economy was about a dozen years in business when this programme, transcribed below, was published. The course descriptions are somewhat thicker than are typically found in full university catalogs that must share space for the many divisions and schools that constitute the larger institution. 

Incidentally, the copy of the printed programme that was transcribed for this post was found in an archival box of material dealing with graduate studies in the Division of History, Government, and Economics at Harvard University. Then as now, prudence demands keeping an eye on your competition. 

______________________________

Related Posts on the Early Years
of the Department of Political Economy
of the University of Chicago

First detailed announcement of Political Economy program at the University of Chicago, 1892.

General Regulations for the degree of Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, 1903.

Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Department of Political Economy, 1916.

______________________________

CONSPECTUS OF COURSES,
1904-1905.
POLITICAL ECONOMY.

All courses are Mj [major] unless otherwise indicated.

SUMMER AUTUMN WINTER SPRING
1 Principles of Political
  Economy
(Hill) 9:00
1 Principles of Political Economy
a (Hill) 8:30
b (Davenport) 12:00
1 Principles of Political Economy
(Hill) 12:00
2 Principles of Political Economy Con’d
a (Hill) 8:30
b (Davenport) 12:00
2 Principles of Political Economy Con’d
(Davenport) 12:00
3 Economic and Social History
(Morris) 2:00
3 Economic and Social History
(Morris) 12:00
4 History of Commerce
(Morris) 12:00
5B Commercial Geography for Teachers
(Goode) 1:30
5 Commercial Geography
(Mr. —) 8:30
8 Mathematical Problems of Insurance
(Epsteen)
6 Modern Industries
(Mr. —) 11:00
7 Insurance
(Davenport) 8:30
[9 Law of Insurance]
(Bigelow)
10 Accounting
(Mr. — ) 11:00
11 Special Problems of Accounting
(Several Experts)
12 Modern Business Methods
(Clow) 8:00
12 Modern Business Methods
(Mr. —) 9:30
20 History of Political Economy
(Veblen) 11:00
21 Scope and Method
(Veblen) 11:00
22 Finance
(Davenport) 8:30
24 Financial History of the United States
(Cummings) 8:00
24 Financial History of the United States
(Cummings) 2:00
23 Tariff Reciprocity and Shipping
(Cummings) 9:30
26 American Agriculture
(Hill) 10:30
26 American Agriculture
(Hill) 10:30
25 Economic Factors in Civilization
(Veblen) 11:00
27 Colonial Economics
(Morris) 9:30
40 Value
(Davenport) 8:30
41 Labor and Capital
(Laughlin) 12:00
44 Socialism
(Veblen) 9:30
46 Trade Unions
(Cummings)
9:30
45 Industrial Combinations (Veblen) 9:30 43 Economics of Workingmen
(Cummings) 9:30
46 Trades Unions
(Cummings) 12:00
50 Money
(Laughlin) 12:00
51 Banking
(Mr. —) 8:30
50 Money
(Laughlin) 12:00
[52 Advertising]

53 Practical Banking
(Mr. — ) 8:30

60 Railways
(Hill) 2:00
61 Railway Rates
(Meyer) 2:00
62 Government Ownership (I)
(Meyer) 2:00
63 Government Ownership (II)
(Meyer) 2:00
64 American Competition
(Meyer) 3:00
70 Statistics
(Cummings) 8:30
71 Statistics of Wages
(Cummings) 12:00
80 Seminar
(Laughlin)
81 Seminar
(Laughlin)
[82 Seminar
(Laughlin)]

______________________________

THE DEPARTMENT
OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

OFFICERS OF INSTRUCTION.

JAMES LAURENCE LAUGHLIN, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Department of Political Economy.

THORSTEIN B. VEBLEN, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy.

WILLIAM HILL, A.M., Assistant Professor of Political Economy.

JOHN CUMMINGS, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy.

HENRY RAND HATFIELD, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy.

HERBERT JOSEPH DAVENPORT, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy.

HUGO RICHARD MEYER, A.B., Assistant Professor of Political Economy.

ROBERT MORRIS, A.B, LL.B., Instructor in Political Economy.

F. R. CLOW, Professor of Political Economy, State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wis. (Summer Quarter, 1904).

FELLOWS.
1904-1905.

EDITH ABBOTT, A.B
EARL DEAN HOWARD, Ph.B.
WILLIAM JETT LAUCK, A.B.

INTRODUCTORY.

The work of the department is intended to provide, by symmetrically arranged courses of instruction, a complete training in the various branches of economics, beginning with elementary work and passing by degrees to the higher work of investigation. A chief aim of the instruction will be to teach methods of work, to foster a judicial spirit, and to cultivate an attitude of scholarly independence. (1) The student may pass, in the various courses of instruction, over the whole field of economics. (2) When fitted, he will be urged to pursue some special investigation. (3) For the encouragement of research and the training of properly qualified teachers of economics, Fellowships in Political Economy have been founded. (4) To provide a means of communication between investigators and the public, a review, entitled the Journal of Political Economy, has been established, to be edited by the officers of instruction in the department; while (5) larger single productions will appear in a series of bound volumes to be known as Economic Studies of the University of Chicago. [For links see below]

FELLOWSHIPS.

The Fellowships here offered by the Department of Political Economy are independent of those offered by the allied departments of History, Political Science, or Sociology.

Appointments will be made only on the basis of marked ability in economic studies and of capacity for investigation of a high character. It is a distinct advantage to candidates to have been one year in residence at the University. Candidates for these Fellowships should send to the President of the University a record of their previous work and distinctions, degrees and past courses of study, with copies of their written or printed work in economics. Applications should be sent in not later than March 1 of each year Appointments will be made during the first week of April.

Fellows are forbidden to give private tuition, and may be called upon for assistance in the work of teaching in the University or for other work; but in no case will they be expected or permitted to devote more than one sixth of their time to such service.

In addition, one Graduate Scholarship, yielding a sum sufficient to cover the annual tuition fees, is awarded to the best student in economics just graduated from the Senior Colleges; and a similar Scholarship is given to the student graduating from the Junior Colleges who passes the best examination at a special test.

CANDIDACY FOR HIGHER DEGREES.

Graduate courses are provided for training and research in subjects such as wages, money, agriculture, socialism, industrial combinations, statistics, demography, finance, and the like. Specialization may be carried on in many parts of the field, under special direction in the Seminar, whereby each student receives a personal appointment for one hour a week. The work is so adjusted as to form an organized scheme leading by regular stages to productive results suitable for publication.

Candidates for the degree of A.M. will not be permitted to offer elementary courses in Political Economy as part of the work during the year’s residence. The work of students taking Political Economy as a secondary subject for the degree of A.M., should include (1) the general principles of economics (as contained in Courses 1 and 2, or an equivalent); (2) the history of Political Economy; and (3) the scope and method of Political Economy.

The work of candidates for the degree of Ph.D., taking Political Economy as a secondary subject, should include, in addition to the above requirements for the degree of A.M., on (1) Public Finance, and (2) on some descriptive subject as, e.g., Money, or Tariff, or Railways, etc.; and the examination will be more searching than that for the degree of A.M.

In all cases candidates should consult early with the heads of the departments within which their Major and Minor subjects are taken.

Before being admitted to candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in case Political Economy is chosen as the principal subject, the student must furnish satisfactory evidence to the head of the department that he has been well prepared in the following courses (or their equivalents at other institutions): History of Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (History 11); Europe in the Nineteenth Century (History 12); Later Constitutional Period of the United States; the Civil War and the Reconstruction (History 18); Comparative National Government (Political Science 11); Federal Constitutional Law of the United States (Political Science 21); Elements of International Law (Political Science 41); and Introduction to Sociology (Sociology 72).

PUBLICATIONS

As a means of communication between investigators and the public, the University issues quarterly the Journal of Political Economy, the first number of which appeared in December of 1892. Contributions to its pages will be welcomed from writers outside as well as inside the University the aim being not only to give investigators a place of record for their researches, but also to further in every possible way the interests of economic study throughout the country. The Journal will aim to lay more stress than existing journals upon articles dealing with practical economic questions. The editors will welcome articles from writers of all shades of economic opinion, reserving only the privilege of deciding as to merit and timeliness.

Longer investigations, translations of important books needed for American students, reprints of scarce works, and collections of materials will appear in bound volumes in a series of Economic Studies of the University of Chicago, of which the following have already been issued:

No. I. The Science of Finance, by Gustav Cohn. Translated by Dr. T. B. Veblen, 1895, 8vo, pp. xi+800. Price, $3.50.

No. II. History of the Union Pacific Railway, by Henry Kirke White, 1895, 8vo, pp. 132. Price, $1.50.

No. III. The Indian Silver Currency, by Karl Ellstaetter. Translated by J. Laurence Laughlin, 1896, 8vo, pp. 116. Price, $1.25.

No. IV. State Aid to Railways in Missouri, by John Wilson Million, 1897, 8vo, pp. 264. Price, $1.75.

No. V. History of the Latin Monetary Union, by Henry Parker Willis, 1901, 8vo, pp. ix + 332. Price $2.00.

No. VI. The History of the Greenbacks, with Special Reference to the Economic Consequences of Their Issue, by Wesley Clair Mitchell, 1903, 8vo, pp. xiv + 500. Price, $4.00, net.

No. VII. Legal Tender: A Study in English and American Monetary History, by Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, 1903, 8vo, pp. xvii + 180. Price, $1.50, net.

LIBRARY FACILITIES.

In the suite of class-rooms occupied by the department will be found the Economic Library. Its selection has been made with great care, in order to furnish not only the books needed for the work of instruction in the various courses, but especially collections of materials for the study of economic problems. The University Library contains an unusually complete set of United States Documents, beginning with the First Congress. It is believed that ample provision has thus been made for the work of serious research. The work of the students will necessarily be largely carried on in the Economic Library where will also be found the past as well as the current numbers of all the European and American economic journals.

The combined library facilities of Chicago are exceptional. The Public Library, maintained by a large city tax, the Newberry Library, and the Crerar Library, with a fund of several millions of dollars, which has provided books on Political Economy, will enable the student to obtain material needed in the prosecution of detailed investigation.

SPECIAL ADVANTAGES.

For the convenience of those who wish to know the branches of economics in which especial advantages are offered by the department, attention is called to the new facilities afforded for specialization in several directions:

RAILWAYS.

Apart from the fundamental training in the general economic field, a new and exceptional series of advanced courses in the economic side of railways has been provided. It is believed that no such extended and useful courses have ever been offered before on this subject. Beginning with the usual general course on railway transportation, four new courses are presented for advanced students.

LABOR AND CAPITAL.

In view of the pressing importance of questions touching upon the rewards of labor and capital, an exceptional arrangement of courses dealing both with the underlying principles and the practical movements of the day have been prepared upon new and extended lines.

MONEY.

Opportunities for specialization in the field of money and banking have been offered in the past, but new courses have been organized in order to permit a more thorough study in these subjects, both theoretical and practical, than has ever been possible before.

LABORATORY FOR STATISTICAL RESEARCH WORK.

The University has equipped a laboratory for statistical research work in which students are given training in the collection and tabulation of statistical data, as well as in the scientific construction of charts, and diagrams. The object of the work is to familiarize students with practical methods employed in government bureaus, municipal, state, and federal, in the United States and in other countries, and in private agencies of sociological and economic investigation. Men are trained to enter the service of such bureaus or agencies of social betterment as statisticians, capable of undertaking any work requiring expert statistical service. The Departments of Political Economy and of Sociology co-operate in the direction of statistical investigations.

COURSES OF INSTRUCTION.
Summer Quarter, 1904—Spring Quarter, 1905.

M=Minor course a single course for six weeks.
Mj=Major course=a single course for twelve weeks

GENERAL.

The courses are classified as follows:

Group 1, Introductory and Commercial: Courses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Group II, Advanced Business Courses: Courses 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

Group III, General Economic Field: Courses 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29-30, 31-32.

Group IV, Labor and Capital: Courses 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47.

Group V, Money and Banking: Courses 50, 51, 52, 53, 54.

Group VI, Railways: Courses 60, 61, 62, 63, 64.

Group VII, Statistics: Courses 70, 71, 72.

Group VIII, Seminars: Courses 80, 81, 82.

Students are advised to begin the study of economics not later than the first year of their entrance into the Senior Colleges; and students of high standing, showing special aptitude for economic study, may properly take the Courses of Group I in the last year of the Junior Colleges.

For admission to the courses of Groups II and III, a prerequisite is the satisfactory completion of Courses 1 and 2 in the department, or an equivalent. Course 1 is not open to students who do not intend to continue the work of Course 2.

JUNIOR COLLEGE COURSES.
Group I. — Introductory and Commercial. 

1 and 2. Principles of Political Economy. — Exposition of the laws of modern Political Economy.

Course 1.

Mj. Summer Quarter; 8:00. Assistant Professor Hill.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 2 sections, 8:30 and 12:00. Assistant Professors Hill and Davenport.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 12:00. Assistant Professor Hill.

Course 2.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 2 sections: 8:30 and 12:00. Assistant Professors Hill and Davenport.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 12:00. Assistant Professor Davenport.

Courses 1 and 2 together are designed to give the students an acquaintance with the working principles of modern Political Economy. The general drill in the principles cannot be completed in one quarter; and the department does not wish students to elect Course 1 who do not intend to continue the work in Course 2. Descriptive and practical subjects are introduced as the principles are discussed, and the field is only half covered in Course 1. Those who do not take both 1 and 2 are not prepared to take any advanced courses.

  1. Economic and Social History. — It is thought that the course may be of advantage to students of Political Science and History by giving them a view of the economic side of the social and political life of the past one hundred and fifty years. Special attention is devoted to the study of the economic effects of the Colonial System; the American and French Revolutions; the “industrial revolution;” the effects of invention and the new transportation upon the movement and grouping of population; the discoveries of the precious metals in North America, South America, Africa, and Australia; slavery, the Civil War, the new South, and the redistribution of industries in the United States; the progress of Great Britain since the repeal of the Corn Laws; and the recent development of German industry.

Mj. Autumn 2:00 and Spring Quarters; 12:00.
Mr. Morris.

Course 3 is required of all students in the College of Commerce and Administration.

  1. History of Commerce. — A brief general survey of ancient medieval and modern commerce. Consideration of the articles of commerce, the market places, the trade routes, methods of transportation, and the causes which promoted and retarded the growth of commerce in the principal commercial nations.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 12:00. Mr. Morris.

  1. Commercial Geography. — A study of the various countries and their chief products; the effect of soil, climate, and geographical situation in determining national industries and international trade, commercial routes, seaports; the location of commercial and industrial centers; exports and imports; the character, importance, and chief sources of the principal articles of foreign trade.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 8:30.
Mr. ———

Required of all students in the
College of Commerce and Administration.

  1. Modern Industries. — This elementary course, requiring no previous study of economics, examines the present organization of some of the leading industries. Study is made of the internal business organization, the processes of manufacture, the effect of inventions, etc. Emphasis will be placed on the manufactures of the United States.
    The class will visit a number of large industrial establishments in and near Chicago.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 11:00.
Mr. ———

SENIOR COLLEGES AND GRADUATE COURSES.
Group II. — Advanced Business Courses.
  1. Insurance. — This course will aim to cover those aspects of insurance important to the practical business man, and to serve at the same time as a descriptive and theoretical treatment adapted to the needs of students intending to specialize in the actuarial and legal aspect of the subject. The history and theory of insurance, the bearing of these on the different insurance relations of modern business, including accident, health, burial, suretyship, credit forms, and the like will be examined. Especial emphasis will, however, be given: (1) to Life Insurance, the various forms of organization, assessment, fraternal, stock, and mutual; the theory of rates, mortality, expense, reserve, and interest aspects; the different combinations of investment and mortality contracts, loan and surrender values, dividends, distribution periods; (2) to Fire Insurance, the various forms of business organization, the terms and conditions of the insurance contract, the different forms of hazard, and the competition and combination of rates therefor; the theory of reserves and co-insurance, and the problem of the valued policy laws; (3) the general principle of public supervision with regard to the different forms of insurance, and the wider question of public ownership.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 8:30.
Assistant Professor Davenport.

  1. The Mathematics of Insurance. — This course presupposes some acquaintance with the descriptive aspect of insurance. The course is devoted particularly to the mathematical principles of Life Insurance. The necessary elements of the theory are selected from the theories of probability, finite differences, and interpolation. Applications are made in particular to the following problems: The examination of the different mortality tables and the basing of mortality rates thereon; the loading of expenses and reserves and the variations of premiums, as affected by the prospective earnings of investments: the computation of total reserves; the fixation of loan and surrender values of paid-up insurance, whether by life or term extension; the computation of present and deferred annuities as affected by considerations of age, life, term, endowment, joint-life, and annuity policies.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 12:00.
Mr. Epsteen.

Prerequisite: Trigonometry and College Algebra
(Mathematical Courses 1, 2 or 1, 5 or 4, 5).
See Mathematics 9.

  1. Law of Insurance. — Insurable interest in various kinds of insurance and when it must exist; beneficiaries; the amounts recoverable and valued policies; representations; warranties; waiver and powers of agents; interpretation of phrases in policies; assignment of insurance.

Mj. Spring Quarter.
Assistant Professor Bigelow.

Text book: Wambaugh, Cases on Insurance.

  1. Accounting. — The interpretation of accounts viewed with regard to the needs of the business manager rather than those of the accountant: the formation and meaning of the balance sheet; the profit and loss statement and its relation to the balance sheet; the capital accounts, surplus, reserve, sinking funds; reserve funds, their use and misuse; depreciation accounts; other accounts appearing on credit side; assets; methods of valuation; confusing of assets and expenses; capital expenditures and operating expenses; capital assets, cash, and other reserves.

Prerequisite: The Course in Bookkeeping offered by the Department of Mathematics.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 11:00.
Mr. ———.

  1. Special Problems in Accounting.
    1. Bank accounting.
    2. The duties of an auditor; methods of procedure; practice; problems frequently met.
    3. Appraisal and Depreciation.
    4. Railway Accounting. A consideration of the principal features. Determination of the four main divisions of expense. The relation between capital expenditures and profit and loss.
    5. The Public Accountant. Legal regulations; duties and methods; constructive work in devising system of accounting to fit special needs. Practice in comparison of various systems. The advantages of various devices, loose-leaf and card systems; voucher system; cost keeping.

Mj. Spring Quarter.
Conducted by experts from Chicago institutions.

  1. Modern Business Methods. Corporation Finance. — Speculation, investment, exchange. The course aims to make clear to the student the meaning of the commercial and financial columns of current journals and to examine the economic significance of the business transactions thus reported. Attention is given among other things to the reports of the money market, the business on stock and produce exchanges, market quotations, the various forms of investment securities, and foreign exchange.

Summer Quarter; 11:30.
Mj. Spring Quarter; 9:30.
Professor Clow.

Group III — General Economic Field.
  1. History of Political Economy. — Lectures, Reading, and Reports. This course treats of the development of Political Economy as a systematic body of doctrine; of the formation of economic conceptions and principles, policies, and systems. The subject will be so treated as to show the continuity and systematic character of Political Economy as an intelligent explanation of economic facts. Both the history of topics and doctrines and that of schools and leading writers will be studied. Attention will be given to the commercial theories of the Mercantile System, the Physiocratic School, Adam Smith and his immediate predecessors, the English writers from Adam Smith to J. S. Mill, and the European and American writers of the nineteenth century. Selection will be made of those who have had great influence, and who have made marked contributions to Political Economy. The student will be expected to read prescribed portions of the great authors bearing on cardinal principles. It is hoped that in this way he will learn to see the consistency and relations of economic theories and to use the science as a whole, and not as a mere mass of arbitrary formulæ or dicta. A special feature of the work will be a thorough study of Adam Smith and of Ricardo.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 11:00.
Assistant Professor Veblen.

  1. Scope and Method of Political Economy. — The course treats of the premises on which the analysis of economic problems proceeds, the range of problems usually taken up for investigation by economists, the methods of procedure adopted in their solution, the character of the solutions sought or arrived at, the relations of Political Economy to the other Moral Sciences, as well as to the influence of the political, social, and industrial situation in determining the scope and aim of economic investigation. Special attention is given to writers on method, as Mill, Cairnes, Keynes, Roscher, Schmoller, Menger.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 11:00.
Assistant Professor Veblen.

  1. Finance. — In this course it is intended to make a comprehensive survey of the whole field of public finance. The treatment is both theoretical and practical, and the method of presentation historical as well as systematic. Most emphasis is placed upon the study of taxation, although public expenditures, public debts, and financial administration are carefully studied.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 8:30.
Assistant Professor Davenport.

  1. Tariffs, Reciprocity, and Shipping. — The course of legislation and the development of our commercial policy is followed, and an effort made to indicate the influence of our protective tariffs upon the development of our domestic industries, upon the growth and character of our international trade, and incidentally upon the occurrence of industrial crises and the continuance of industrial prosperity at different periods in our history. Foreign trade policies and schemes for imperial tariff federation are taken up, and especial attention given to the negotiation of reciprocity treaties, as well as to recent attempts which have been made through federal legislation granting subsidies to build up American shipping.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 11:00.
Assistant Professor Cummings.

  1. Financial History of the United States. — In this course the financial history of the United States is followed from the organization of our national system in 1789 to the close of the Spanish war. The following topics may be mentioned as indicating the scope of the course; the funding and management of the Revolutionary and other war debts; the First and Second United States Banks; the Independent Treasury; the present national banking system; Civil War financiering with especial reference to bond and note issues, and resort to legal tender currency; the demonetization of silver and issue of silver certificates; inflation of the currency and the gold reserve; the currency act of 1900. This study of the course of legislation upon currency, debts, and banking in the United States is based upon first-hand examination of sources, and students are expected to do original research work.

Summer Quarter; 8:00.
Mj. Autumn Quarter; 9:30.
Assistant Professor Cummings.

  1. Economic Factors in Civilization. — The course is intended to present a genetic account of the modern economic system by a study of its beginnings and the phases of development through which the present situation has been reached. To this end it undertakes a survey of the growth of culture as affected by economic motives and conditions. With this in view, such phenomena as the Teutonic invasion of Europe, the Feudal system, the rise of commerce, the organization of trade and industry, the history of the condition of laborers, processes of production, and changes in consumption, will be treated.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 11:00.
Assistant Professor Veblen.

  1. Problems of American Agriculture. — Special attention will be given to the extension and changes of the cultivated area of the United States; the methods of farming; the influence of railways and population, and of cheapened transportation; the fall in value of Eastern farm lands; movements of prices of agricultural products; European markets; competition of other countries; intensive farming; diminishing returns; farm mortgages; and the comparison of American with European systems of culture.

Summer Quarter; 10:30.
Mj. Winter Quarter; 9:30.
Assistant Professor Hill.

  1. Colonial Economics. — The economics of colonial administration, including some account of commercialism, past and present, and of modern trade theories of imperial federation, trade relations, financial policies, and economic development and dependence of colonies.
    A brief historical account of American and foreign experience serves as introduction to a fuller consideration of economic problems involved in modern colonial administration. In the light of this experience study is undertaken of some economic problems which have arisen in Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 9:30.
Mr. Morris.

29, 30. Oral Debates. — Selected Economic Topics. Briefs. Debates. Criticism.

2M. Autumn and Winter Quarters; Mon., 3:00-6:00.
Assistant Professor Hill, Mr. Chandler, and Mr. Gorsuch.

31, 32. Argumentation. — To be taken in connection with English 9.

2 hrs. a week.
2M. Autumn and Winter Quarters; Wed., 3:00.
2M. Autumn and Winter Quarters.
Mr. Chandler.

Group IV. — Labor and Capital.
  1. Theory of Value. — After a brief preliminary survey of the discussions prior to Adam Smith, the cost of production-theory as developed at the hands of Ricardo, McCulloch, James Mill, Senior, J. S. Mill, and Cairnes is taken up for detailed study. Then the utility theory of value, as presented by Jevons and Austrian economists, is examined. Finally, the attempts made by such writers as Marshall, Dietzel, Pantaleoni, Clark, Patten, McFarlane, Hobson, etc., to frame a more satisfactory theory of value by combining the analysis of cost and of marginal utility, are reviewed.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 8: 30.
Assistant Professor Davenport.

  1. Labor and Capital. — Unsettled problems of distribution. The more abstruse questions of distribution will be considered. No student, therefore, can undertake the work of this course with profit who has not already become familiar with the fundamental principles. The course is open only to those who have passed satisfactorily Course 2, or who can clearly show that they have had an equivalent training. The subjects to be considered will be as follows: The wages-fund and other theories of wages, the interest problem, managers’ profits, and allied topics. The discussion will be based upon selected passages of important writers. The study of wages, for example, will include reading from Adam Smith, Ricardo, J. S. Mill, Longe, Thornton, Cairnes, F. A. Walker, Marshall, George, Böhm-Bawerk, Hobson, J. B. Clark, and others. Students will also be expected to discuss recent important contributions to these subjects in current books or journals.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 12:00.
Professor Laughlin.

  1. Economics of Workingmen. — Continuing the study of distribution (Course 41), examination is here undertaken of social movements for improving the condition of labor, to determine how far they are consistent with economic teaching, and likely in fact to facilitate or to retard economic betterment of workingmen. Efforts to increase earnings through modification of the wages system itself, resort to legislation, and the purposes and practices of labor organization are discussed, and the effect upon labor efficiency, earning capacity and steadiness of employment, of modern industrial systems; workingmen’s insurance; co-operation; profit-sharing; competition of women and children; industrial education; social-settlement work; consumers’ leagues. Interest centers about practical efforts for economic amelioration of employment conditions in “sweated” and in other industries. These studies are supplemented by statistical data on the condition of labor in different countries.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 9:30.
Assistant Professor Cummings.

Note. — Although open in certain cases to students of Sociology and others who have had the equivalent of the economic Courses 1 and 2, this course can be taken to best advantage by those only who have already had Course 41.

  1. Socialism — A history of the growth of socialistic sentiment and opinion as shown in the socialistic movements of the nineteenth century, and the position occupied by socialistic organizations of the present time. The course is in part historical and descriptive, in part theoretical and critical. The programmes and platforms of various socialistic organizations are examined and compared, and the theories of leading socialists are taken up in detail. Marx is given the chief share of attention, but other theoretical writers, such as Rodbertus, Kautsky, Bernstein, are also reviewed. The factors which at the present time further or hinder the spread of socialism, and what are its chances of being carried through or of producing a serious effect upon the institutions of modern countries, are considered.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 9:30.
Assistant Professor Veblen.

  1. Organization of Business Enterprise—Trusts. — A discussion of the growth of the conditions which have made large business coalitions possible, the motives which have led to their formation, the conditions requisite to their successful operation, the character and extent of the advantages to be derived from them, the drawbacks and dangers which may be involved in their further growth, the chances of governmental guidance or limitation of their formation and of the exercise of their power, the feasible policy and methods that may be pursued in dealing with the trusts. The work of the course is in large part investigation of special subjects, with lectures and assigned reading.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 9:30.
Assistant Professor Veblen.

  1. Trades Unions and the Labor Movement — An historical and comparative study of the trades union movement in the United States and in foreign countries. Negotiation and maintenance of wage-compacts; methods of arbitration, conciliation and adjustment; trades union insurance and provision for the unemployed; incorporation and employés’ liability; the precipitation and conduct of strikes; and in general all concrete issues involved in the organization of labor for collective bargaining with employers, with especial reference to the working programs of the more important trades unions at the present time.

Summer Quarter; 9:00.
Mj. Spring Quarter; 12:00.
Assistant Professor Cummings.

  1. The Industrial Revolution and Labor Legislation. — The social consequences to the wage-earner of the development of the factory system of industry and of industrial development, more particularly during the last half of the 19th century, are taken up historically and descriptively. The social status of the modern wage-earner is contrasted with that of the handicraftsman working under more primitive conditions, and especial attention is given to the development of the modern wages system of remuneration, the historical modification of the labor contract in its legal aspects, and, finally, to the course of labor legislation which has in different countries accompanied industrial reorganization and development.

Mj.
Assistant Professor Cummings.

[Not to be given in 1904-5.]

Group V — Money and Banking.
  1. Money and Practical Economics.— An examination is first made of the principles of money, whether metallic or paper; then either the subject of metallic or paper money is taken up and studied historically, chiefly in connection with the experience of the United States, as a means of putting the principles into practice. Preliminary training for investigation is combined in this course, with the acquisition of desirable statistical information on practical questions of the day. The student is instructed in the bibliography of the subject, taught how to collect his data, and expected to weigh carefully the evidence on both sides of a mooted question. The work of writing theses is so adjusted that it corresponds to the work of other courses counting for the same number of hours.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 12:00.
Professor Laughlin.

  1. The Theory and History of Banking. — A study is made of the banking systems of leading nations; the relations of the banks to the public; their influence on speculation; and the relative advantages of national banks, state banks, trust companies, and savings banks.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 8:30.
Mr. ———.

  1. Advanced Course in Money. — After having been drilled in the general principles of money (Course 50) the student is given an opportunity to examine the more difficult problems of money and credit.

Mj. Spring Quarter.
Professor Laughlin.

[Not given in 1904-5.1

  1. Practical Banking. — The internal organization and administration of a bank; the granting of loans; the valuation of an account; bank records; arithmetic of bank operations; mechanical and other time-saving devices.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 8:30.
Mr. ———.

  1. Commercial Crises. — A practical study of the operations of credit in the experiences of this and other countries during the periods of crises.

Mj. Spring Quarter.
Mr. ———.

[Not given in 1901-5.]

Group VI — Railways.
  1. Railway Transportation. — The economic, financial, and social influences arising from the growth of modern railway transportation, especially as concerns the United States, will be discussed. An account of the means of transportation developed in Europe and America during the early part of this century; the experiments of the states in constructing and operating canals and railways; national, state, and municipal aid to private companies; the rapid and irregular extension of the United States railway system; the failures of 1893; the reorganizations and consolidations since that time, with some attention to railway building in other countries, will form the historical part of the work. A discussion of competition, combination, discrimination, investments, speculation, abuse of fiduciary powers; state legislation and commissions, and the Inter-State Commerce Act, with decisions under it; and the various relations of the state, the public, the investors, the managers and the employés, will form the most important part of the work. This course gives a general view of the subject. Students who wish to continue the work by investigating special problems will have an opportunity to do so under Courses 61 and 62.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 2:00
Assistant Professor Hill.

  1. The Regulation of Railway Rates. — The efforts of the railways of the United States to regulate railway rates through pools, will be compared with the efforts of the several states, and of the federal government, to regulate rates through legislation and through commissions. Typical decisions of pools, of state commissions, and of the Interstate Commerce Commission, will be studied for the purpose of ascertaining: (a) whether the decisions of the commissions are founded on a body of principles that may be said to have the character of a science, or, whether they express merely the judgment of administrative officers on questions of fact to which no body of scientific principles can be made to apply; (b) whether the past experience warrants the faith that the public regulation of railway rates will leave the railways sufficiently unhampered to develop trade and industry; (c) whether regulation by public authority promises to achieve more substantial justice than regulation by pools. The experience of Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, and Russia with the public regulation of railway rates — exercised either by legislation or by public ownership — will be studied with reference to the effect of such regulation upon the elasticity of railway rates, and upon the ability of the railways to develop trade and industry. In this connection will be studied the part played respectively by the railways and by the waterways in the development of Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. The study will show why the countries in question are obliged to have recourse to the waterways for services that, in the United States, are rendered by the railways.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 2:00.
Assistant Professor Meyer.

  1. Industrial Activities of the State in Europe. — This course reviews the efforts made in Great Britain to secure to the public a share in the profits to be made in those so-called public service industries that use the streets: water, gas, electric light, street-railways, and hydraulic power, or compressed air, power transmission. These efforts consist of the imposition of severe restrictions upon franchises, with the alternative of municipal ownership. The experience of Great Britain will be compared with that of the United States, under: (a) the practice of practically no restrictions upon the industries in question; (b) the Massachusetts practice of regulation by legislation which is enforced and supplemented by state commissions. As for Continental Europe, the course will cover the experience of Prussia, France, and Russia, in attempting to make the railway and public works budgets fit into the state budget. In this connection the inelasticity of state activity in Europe will be compared with the elasticity of private activity in the United States.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 3:00.
Assistant Professor Meyer.

  1. The Industrial Activities of the State in Australasia. — This course will cover the Australasian experience of the last forty years under a wide extension of the functions of the state. Although Australasia is a comparatively small country, the experience in question is more significant than might appear at first sight, for it is the experience of a homogeneous, English-speaking people. The course will cover the management of the state-railways; the administration of the public finances; the civil service; and the legislative regulation of the conditions of labor, such as the fixing of minimum wages, and the establishment of compulsory arbitration. Incidentally comparisons will be made with certain conditions and practices in Great Britain and France, for the purpose of showing how the extension of the functions of the state has made the politics of Australasia resemble, in many vital respects, the politics of France, rather than those of Great Britain.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 2:00.
Assistant Professor Meyer.

  1. American Competition in Europe since 1873. — This course is a study in economics and politics; it purposes to put before the student information equipping him for the critical consideration of the merits of the question: Laissez faire vs. state intervention. To that end it institutes a series of comparisons between the United States and Europe, especially in the fields of agricultural practice and railway transportation. The course begins with the consideration of the nature of the competition to which the opening of new sources of supply of food products exposed Western Europe, the nature of the adjustments demanded by the situation, and the adjustments actually achieved, under free-trade in Great Britain, and under protection on the Continent. The course then proceeds to contrast the comparative failure to develop the agricultural resources of Eastern Europe (the Danubian Provinces and Russia) and Siberia with the rapid development of the agricultural resources of the interior regions of the United States. In this connection will be studied the comparative efficiency of the railway systems of Europe and the United States, with especial reference to the effect of the public regulation of railway rates, either through state-ownership, or through legislative and administrative intervention. Incidental to the main investigation an array of facts will be presented bearing upon questions of economic theory: the growth of population and the raising of the standard of living; some of the principal factors that have determined the present scale of real wages in the several European countries; some instances of the working of natural selection; and the relative merits of large farms and small farms, or of extensive cultivation and intensive cultivation.

Mj. Spring Quarter; 3:00.
Assistant Professor Meyer.

Group VII — Statistics.
  1. Training Course in Statistics. — The object of this course is to train students in the practical use of statistical methods of investigation. Stress is laid upon work done by students themselves in collecting, tabulating, interpreting, and presenting statistics of different orders. Members of the class are also required to make close critical examinations of various publications of statistical nature with a view to determining the accuracy of data and the legitimacy of inferences drawn. Students engaged in any special work of investigation are encouraged to deal mainly with data relevant to their subjects. To others special topics are assigned. It is hoped that the course may prove useful to all students whose work, in whatever department it may lie, whether in history, sociology, or in other fields of study, is susceptible of statistical treatment.
    Courses 70 and 72 will be given in alternate years.

Mj. Autumn Quarter; 8:30.
Assistant Professor Cummings.

  1. Statistics of Wages in the Nineteenth Century. — In this course effort is made to determine what has been the actual movement of wages during the nineteenth century. An examination is undertaken of the more important statistical investigations of wage movements which have been made from time to time by economists, government bureaus, or other agencies, in specific industries; the object being to determine the extent to which the wage-earner has in general participated in the benefits of industrial progress and of the increased economic efficiency of labor and capital. The course is intended to be informational and descriptive in character, as well as to give training in the collection and tabulation of statistical data.

Mj. Winter Quarter; 12:00.
Assistant Professor Cummings.

  1. Demography. — Statistical methods are illustrated by studies in population data, comprising the construction of actuarial tables; determination of the economic value of populations; economic aspects of the data of criminality and pauperism; growth and migration of population in the United States as “labor force,” including statistics of the negro race. The development of official statistics of population, and the demographic work of government bureaus is taken up historically and critically. The object of the course is to give students training in handling population data as a basis of sociological and economic speculation, and to point out the bearing of such data and their importance in the historical development of economic theories.

Assistant Professor Cummings.

[Not to be given in 1904-5.]

Group VIII — The Seminars.

80, 81. Economic Seminar.

2Mj. Autumn and Winter Quarters.
Professor Laughlin.

Source: University of Chicago. Programme of the Departments of Political Economy, Political Science, History, Sociology and Anthropology, 1904-1905. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1904. Transcription from a copy found in the Harvard University Archives, Division of History, Government, and Economics. Ph.D. exams and records of candidates, study plans, lists, etc. pre-1911-1942. Box 2, Unlabeled Folder.

Image Source: Technology Reading Room 2, Crerar Library (Marshall Field Annex). From the University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-01949, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard Race

Harvard. Application for Ph.D. candidacy. W.E.B. Du Bois, 1895

The following “Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.” for William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, who was awarded his Ph.D. in 1895 and whose 1896 publication of his dissertation book is noted, appears to be a record filed ex post. His 1895 Ph.D. was only the 3rd awarded by Harvard’s Division of History and Political Science in political science and it appears to me that the creation of an explicit, real-time record of a candidate’s satisfaction of degree requirements only came later. Similar omissions and ex post inclusions can be found in the similar applications filed for/by Frank W. Taussig and J. Laurence Laughlin.

For the previous post I have transcribed Du Bois’ updates in the reports up through 1920 by the secretary of the Harvard Class of 1890.

Research Tip: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers in the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Cf. the portrait included in above linked page which is dated 1907 with the 1900 portrait  by Paul Nadar of Paris made in 1900. They are not identical, but close enough for me to suspect that they are both from the same Paris studio in 1900.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate handwritten entries]

______________________

William Edward Burghardt DuBois 1895

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY
AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

I. Name (in full, and date of birth).

[Name left blank] Feb 23—1868

II. Academic career. (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

Fisk University 1888
Harvard College 1888-90
Harvard Graduate School 1890-92
Berlin University 1892-94?
Prof. Latin & Greek Wilberforce Univ (Ohio);
Prof. Econ. & Hist. Atlanta Univ (Georgia)

III. Degrees already attained (Mention institutions and dates.)

A.B. Fisk 1888
A.B. Harvard 1890 [cum laude]
A.M. Harvard 1891
Ph.D. Harvard 1895

IV. Academic Distinctions. (Mention prizes, honors, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)

1st Boylston Prize 1890-91 2nd Boylston Prize 1889-90

Matthews Scholarship 1890

Henry Bromfield Rogers Memorial Fellow [1890-91, first year studying Ethics in Relation to Sociology; second year studying history]

Foreign Fellowship on Slater Fund [1891-92, as non-resident at Harvard to study political science at the University of Berlin]

[Other Academic Distinctions not listed here: Honorable Mention in Philosophy awarded A.B.; Delivered the commencement disquisition “Jefferson Davis as a Representative of Civilization.”]

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., in “History” or in “Political Science”?

Political Science

VI. Choice of subjects for the General Examination. (Write out each subject, and at the end put in square brackets the number of that subject in the Division lists. Indicate any digressions from the normal choices, and any combinations of partial subjects. State briefly what your means of preparation have been on each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

1. [left blank]
2. [left blank]
3. [left blank]
4. [left blank]
5. [left blank]
6. [left blank]
7. [left blank]

VII. Special subject for the special examination.

[left blank]

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the United States of America.— ?illegible word? and published Harvard Historical Studies, I (1896).

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of either of the general or special examinations.)

[left blank]

*   *   *   [Last page of application] *   *   *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant.]

Name: William Edward Burghardt DuBois
Date of reception: [left blank]
Approved: [left blank]
Date of general examination: [left blank]
Thesis received: [left blank]
Approved: [left blank]
Read by: [left blank]
Date of special examination: [left blank]
Recommended for the Doctorate: [left blank]
Voted by the Faculty: [left blank]
Degree conferred: 1895 (Pol Sci.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government, and Economics, Box 1, Folder “Ph.D. degrees conferred, 1873-1901 (folder 1 of 2)”.

Image Source: W. E. B. Du Bois, identification card for Exposition Universelle, 1900. Nadar, Paul, 1856-1939 (photographer).

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard

Harvard. Ph.D. candidates examination fields. King, Bushee, Seaman. 1901-1902.

For three Harvard political science Ph.D. candidates in 1901-02 [Note: economics fell under “political science” in the administrative division at the time] this posting provides information about their respective academic backgrounds, the six subjects of their general examinations along with the names of the examiners, their special subject, thesis title and advisor(s) (where available). King and Bushée would have been easily classified under “economics” later. Seaman’s teaching assistantships were in history and constitutional law, so he would have been more likely classified under “government” later.

Other years, previously transcribed and posted:

1903-04
1904-05
1906-07
1907-08
1908-09
1909-10
1910-11
1911-12
1912-13
1913-14
1915-16
1917-18
1918-19
1926-27

___________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY
AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF Ph.D.
1901-02

Eight candidates will take either the first or second examination: two more candidates … will take both. All examinations will be held on Thursday (except Tuesday, May 27, and Wednesday, June 11) at 3.30 p.m. in the Faculty Room.

[…]

6. William Lyon Mackenzie King.

Special Examination in Political Science, Thursday, May 22, 1902.

Committee of Examination: Professors Carver, Macvane, Beale, Ripley, Drs. Durand, Andrew, Sprague, Mr. Meyer.

Academic History: University of Toronto, 1891-96 (A. B. 1895, LL.B. 1896, A.M. 1897); University of Chicago, 1896-97; Harvard Graduate School, 1897-99 (A.M. 1898); Henry Lee Memorial Fellow, 1898-1900; Department of Labour, Canada, 1900-02.

(A) General Subjects. (Examination passed April 14, 1899.)

1. Constitutional Law and Government in England; and Constitutional History of Canada. 2. International Law. 3. Theory of the State. 4. Economic Theory and its History. 5. Applied Economics. 6. Economic History — outline of Europe and the United States. 7. Sociology.

(B) Thesis Subject: “The Sweating System and The Fair Wages Movement.” (With Professor Taussig.)

(C) Special Subject: Labor: History of Labor Organization; History of Labor Legislation.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

7. Frederick Alexander Bushée.

Special Examination in Political Science, Tuesday, May 27, 1902.

Committee of Examination: Professors Carver, Macvane, Gross, Ripley, Drs. Durand, Andrew, Sprague, Mr. Cole, Mr. Meyer.

Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1890-94 (Litt.B.); Hartford School of Sociology, 1895-96; Harvard Graduate School, 1897-1901 (A.M. 1898); Paine Fellow, 1899-1900; Assistant in Economies, 1901-02.

(A) General Subjects. (Examination passed April 11, 1900.)

1. Political Institutions in Continental Europe since 1500. 2. Theory of the State. 3. Modern Government and Comparative Constitutional Law. 4. Economic Theory and its History. 5. International Trade; and Financial Legislation of the United States since 1861. 6. Sociology. 7. Socialism and Communism.

(B) Thesis Subject: “The Population of Boston.” (With Professor Taussig.)

(C) Special Subject: The Theories of Sociology since Auguste Comte.

[…]

12. Charles Edward Seaman.

Special Examination in Political Science, Thursday, June 12, 1902.

Committee of Examination: Professors Hart, Macvane, Ripley, Coolidge, Drs. Durand, Andrew, Sprague, Mr. Meyer.

Academic History: Acadia College, 1888-90 (A.B.); Harvard College, 1894-95 (A.B.); Harvard Graduate School, 1895-98 (A.M. 1896) ; Instructor, University of Vermont, 1901-02.

(A) General Subjects. (Examination passed December 22, 1898.)

1. England to Henry VII. 2. England since Henry VII. 3. Modern Government and Comparative Constitutional Law. 4. Economic Theory and its History. 5. Applied Economics. 6. Economic History. 7. Sociology.

(B) Thesis Subject: “The Intercolonial Railway of Canada.”

(C) Special Subject: Railway Experience and Legislation.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics. Ph.D. Material through 1917, Box 1. Folder “Ph.D. applications pending.”

Image source: Harvard Gate, ca. 1899. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Categories
CUNY Curriculum Economics Programs Economist Market LipseyR Placement Undergraduate

Queens College, NYC. Memo on Responses of Graduates about Department. Lipsey, 1974

The 1974 memo by Professor Robert E. Lipsey that summarizes the responses of recent graduates of Queens College, City University of New York to a questionnaire sent out by the department is included below. It follows a brief timeline for Lipsey’s life and career and a link to a 2001 oral history interview with him about his NBER life conducted by Claudia Goldin

Bottom line of the Queens graduates: not every economics major goes to graduate school in economics so please add more business electives, especially accounting, to the curriculum.

__________________________

Robert Edward Lipsey

1926. Born August 14 in New York City.

1944. B.A. Columbia University.

1946. M.A. Columbia University

1945-53. Research Assistant, NBER

1953-60. Research Associate, NBER

1960-. Senior Research Staff, NBER

1961. Ph.D. Columbia University

1961-64. Lecturer, economics, Columbia University

1967-1995. Professor at Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY

1975-78. Director of international studies, NBER

1978-. Director of the New York Office, NBER

1995-. Professor emeritus, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY

2011. Died August 11, New York City.

Source: Prabook website entry: Robert Edward Lipsey.

__________________________

Bonus Links

Claudia Goldin’s interview with Robert Lipsey
(8 August, 2001)

Obituary/Tribute to Robert Lipsey by J. Devereux and Z.M. Feliciano, (2013), Robert E. Lipsey. Review of Income and Wealth, 59: 375-380.

__________________________

QUEENS COLLEGE
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

MEMO TO: Economics Department
FROM: R. Lipsey
RE: Graduates Comments on Queens College Economics Program
DATE: October 25, 1974

There has been a great change in the last few years in the comments on the economics program made by graduates in response to our questionnaire. The graduates of the 1960’s, particularly graduate students, most frequently complained of their lack of mathematical and quantitative training, which they felt left them unprepared for graduate school. There are still some comments of this nature, made now from business students, but the bulk of complaints now, by far is from graduates who have gone to work directly from school, or tried to. They seem to feel that there were too few business-oriented courses, and even more, that they were not told of the importance of some training in accounting for those looking for jobs.

One indication of graduates’ feelings is that of about 160 respondents, among whom only a minority answered the questions about courses that had been especially helpful and courses they had not taken, but wished they had, 33 listed accounting in one category or the other. The other subjects with more than a few listings were:

Statistics 22 (mainly helpful in graduate school)
Business Law 14
Finance 12
Computer Science 8
Marketing 7

To give the flavor of graduates’ views I have put down the main comments on this issue by those who took the trouble to write at some length. My own reaction to the comments was to wonder whether we should consider offering a Business Economics specialization, geared to those planning to work immediately after graduation and, to a smaller extent, to those aiming at business school. Such a specialization would include the present requirements (Eco. 1, 2, 5, 6, 49) but require also at least 6 credits of accounting and 6 credits chosen from Business Law, Computer Science, Corporation Finance, Business Organization, Money and Banking, Business Cycles, Econometrics or Statistics.

February 1974

“For all economics majors accounting is virtually a necessity in order to obtain a career oriented position.”

“Unfortunately I did not receive enough information with regards to the importance of accounting courses.”

September 1973

“Economics graduates from Queens College get a decent background for further graduate work. However, there is no preparation or placement efforts to speak of for the Q.C. economies graduate with a B.A.

“All economics students should be required to take at least 6 credits in accounting. I have found this to be a major stumbling block on job applications.

Many business related jobs do require that you have at least 6 hours of accounting, and without it your job choice is cut considerably.”

“…School and education should work more with the outside than straight academia.”

“…the economics department is not meeting the needs of all its students. Approximately two thirds of those who attend graduate school go to business and law schools; the economics department does not meet the need of those students.

A course as basic as Econ. 43 (marketing) was not offered once at the day school during my 4 years. This course is a prerequisite for most MBA programs – not offering it during the day is a shame!

“I had to go to night school for my marketing courses. I feel that they should be offered during the day session also.”

“I feel more emphasis should be placed on areas relative to business. These courses should help to prepare one for the business world. As it is now, my degree in economics is of no use to me. Without my background in accounting I would not have been able to find a job. This I feel is a waste of an education.”

“Economics program should be refined to include courses of a more practical nature, i.e., those with a definite business application. Perhaps more diversification in programs offered would be appropriate.

“I regret not having gone into and majoring in accounting. I’d be making more money and would have had my choice of jobs.”

“Economics majors not planning on graduate school should be advised to take accounting courses and should be persuaded to stay away from courses with no value in the ‘real’ world.”

“Queens should offer more economics courses geared towards Marketing and Banking.”

June 1972

“…advanced courses in math and accounting should be required to get the degree.”

“I suggest all economics majors who plan to go to work directly from college have at least 12 credits in accounting. The number of accounting credits I have was a frequently asked question by employment agencies.”

January 1972

“The economics major should be geared to meet the demands of business. Accounting should be permitted to be incorporated in the economies major. The major should also incorporate one or more courses in computer sciences, marketing, merchandising, business administration and a mathematics background. Unless one pursued a master’s degree in economics, the major as previously structured did not help to prepare one to meet the demands of industry.”

“Queens should have more courses relating to business.”

“Some business courses should be required of economies majors.”

“Students who plan to work directly after graduation should take 9-12 credits in Accounting. Most entry level jobs that would interest an Economics major require a basic knowledge of Accounting.”

Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The Papers of Abba P. Lerner. Box 17, Folder 3 “Queens College of the City University of New York, New York, N.Y.: Correspondence 1939-1941, 1963-78”.

Categories
Economics Programs Michigan

Michigan. On the early years of the School of Political Science, 1881-1887

I very much would like to have a few weeks in each of the libraries of the great state universities of Wisconsin and Michigan to be able to add some actual archival artifacts related to the economics programs in Madison and Ann Arbor, but until then I am happy to troll (in a good way) the internet for content to post here.

Today Economics in the Rear-view Mirror presents an excerpt from The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities (1887) by Johns Hopkins history professor Herbert B. Adams. In 1887 political economy was still served as one ingredient in a stew of social sciences that included a big chunk of history and a dash of social statistics.

____________________________

Other posts
with Michigan content:

____________________________

FOUNDATION OF THE SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

In the University of Michigan the development process from the old order to the new was largely aided by the School of Political Science and by the personal influence of Professor Charles Kendall Adams, the first dean of the new school. He appeared as the champion of the Michigan method of realizing the university idea, in a series of letters published in The Nation. A close study of the calendars of the university from 1881 to 1885, and of other official documents, will show that the historical department was foremost in the new movement; and yet the original impulses lay far back in the history of the university, as early as the régime of President Tappan and the opening of senior electives in the year 1856, when Watson took astronomy.

The study of political science was nothing new in Ann Arbor. The subject appears to have been taught by Professor Edward Thomson to the first class that ever graduated from the university. “Political Grammar,” Story on the Constitution, and Wayland’s Political Economy are mentioned in the oldest catalogue (1843-44). The latter subject continued for thirty years in the department of intellectual and moral science. President Tappan (1852-63) taught political economy, protesting that it should be joined with history rather than with philosophy. President Haven (1863-69) taught it in the same old-time way, in connection with mental and moral science and the evidences of Christianity. This was still the situation when President Angell came into office in 1871 (after a presidential interregnum of two years, during which time Professor Frieze was in charge of the university).

In his first annual report President Angell recommended “at an early day a professor to give instruction in political economy, political philosophy, and international law.” He said also that “provision should be made by which every student should be able to take a generous course in the political sciences” (report for 1872, p. 16). So important did the president think these studies that he soon determined to take charge of them himself. His report for 1874 shows that he had conducted a senior elective in political economy for two hours a week, during the first semester, with 48 students; and during the second semester a similar elective in international law, with 46 students. Both classes were taught by dictations and oral expositions, with questions at each meeting upon the topics presented at the previous lecture, In international law the aim was, “after tracing the growth of the laws which govern modern nations in their relations to each other, to expound and criticise the most important of those laws, and to illustrate them as far as practicable from the rich history of our own diplomatic intercourse with the world.” The history of diplomacy and the law of nations have remained to this day the president’s own specialty in the university course. His natural interest in the political sciences; his engagement of Dr. Henry Carter Adams to teach political economy when he himself went abroad for two years upon a diplomatic mission to China, 1881-82; Michigan zeal for political science, kindled by this very appointment; and the conspicuous example of Columbia College in opening a school of political science in 1880 — all these tributary influences entered the historical drift toward a school of politics in 1881. In June of that year the board of regents voted to establish a school of political science within the faculty of literature, science, and the arts.

In the requirements for admission it was provided that matriculated students in the department of literature, science, and the arts, might be admitted as candidates for a degree when they had completed two years of work in the ordinary college curriculum, work which had embraced at least twelve full courses, each averaging five hours a week for one semester, and including all the prescribed studies offered during that period towards the baccalaureate degree. Students with an honorable dismissal from any other college or university, and with a record equivalent to the above, were admitted to the school of political science without examination. Graduates might be received to advanced standing, receiving credit for any portion of the work of the school already completed.

OPENING OF THE SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

On the 3d of October, 1881, the new school of political science was formally opened by an address on the Relations of Political Science to National Prosperity, by the dean of the school, Professor Charles Kendall Adams. The address was published by the university, and is a vigorous plea for the encouragement of political science in the interest of good government and the general welfare of the people. The professor chose for his text a passage from Milton’s tractate on Education, wherein the great publicist and poet calls “a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.” While urging, as educational ground work, the ancient and modern languages, mathematics, and natural science, Milton adds, “The next removal must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they may not, in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth, be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such tottering conscience as many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state.” Professor Adams’ address was a development of this pregnant thought. He showed the necessary dependence of popular government and institutions upon educated public opinion. He showed that the Puritan foundations of New England and the national endowment of the Northwestern Territory both established schools and supplied the means of education.

Reviewing the examples set by European states, he noted that the excellence of French and Italian administration, in recent years, was due to schools of political science. English politics have been shaped by the economists, by the student of Adam Smith, Ricardo, McCulloch, Cairnes, Thorold Rogers, and John Stuart Mill. The upbuilding of Prussia through the economic reforms of Baron vom Stein was primarily due to the influence of the writings of Adam Smith and to the economic teachings of Professor Kraus in the University of Königsberg. New Germany is the result of such beginnings. The present efficiency of German administration is acknowledged to be the product of university-training and of special schools of political science. But are not American methods better than European? Professor Adams then put a few searching questions: “Is it certain that our municipal governments are better than theirs? Are our systems of taxation more equitably adjusted than theirs? Do our public and private corporations have greater respect for the rights of the people than theirs? Can we maintain that our legislatures are more free from corruption and bribery than theirs? Was our financial management at the close of our war wiser than that of France at the close of hers”?

Professor Adams then demonstrated the necessity of political education in our Republic by reference to the three main branches of government, the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive. Admitting the excellence of our federal tribunal and of the supreme courts of some of our States, our lower courts are, in many instances, a standing disgrace by reason of the ignorance and incompetence of judges, the frequent errors of judgment and delays of justice; “the cost of our judicial system is enhanced by the very means which have been taken to reduce it.” In legislation our country has need of all the wisdom that we can command. “Questions in education, questions in finance, questions in sanitary science, questions as to the control of our penal and reformatory institutions, questions as to methods of administration, as to the government of cities, as to the proper restraints to be put upon our corporations, in short, questions of every conceivable nature and of every conceivable difficulty demand consideration, and demand to be settled in the light of all the knowledge that can be gained from the experience of the world, for we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that some of the very evils are beginning to appear that played such havoc with the republics of the Old World.” Regarding the executive service of State and Nation, the necessity of reform is acknowledged by both political parties. The question now is whether we shall grope our way blindly to good methods of civil service, or whether we shall study the experience of England and Germany, countries that long ago reformed their administration. Besides the great branches of Government, there are two other important fields of influential activity — the press and the platform. In molding public opinion newspapers are more powerful than all other agencies combined. How necessary it is that our journals should have, not merely reporters, but educated journalists, competent to grapple with economic questions and to interpret the politics of the world. In this country there is more political speaking than in any other, on account of our frequent elections. What do our people want? “Not political cant, but political candor; not eloquent frivolity, but earnest discussion. If the history of the last twenty-five years in our country teaches anything, it is that there is much greater need of good leading than there is of good following.”

Professor Adams then said it was for the purpose of aiding in these directions that a School of Political Science had been established in the University of Michigan. He proceeded to mark out the proposed course of instruction and to define the relations of the new school to collegiate work, on the one hand, and to genuine university work on the other. He said that no part of the course would range within “the disciplinary studies of the ordinary college curriculum.” The University “has practically fixed the dividing line for its own students at the close of the second year.” Here would begin the work of the School of Political Science, after the usually required work in the ancient and modern languages, in mathematics, and natural science. “We shall give to our students the largest liberties; but we shall accompany those liberties with the responsibilities of a searching final examination. We shall endeavor to bring no reproach upon the school by giving its final degree to unworthy scholarship. In so far as we strive to imitate any we shall strive to follow in the methods and in the spirit of what we believe to be the best universities in the world.”

COURSE OF INSTRUCTION AND PROGRESS OF THE SCHOOL.

The course of instruction provided for the School of Political Science was based, like the Columbia course, upon historical foundations. The courses already described in connection with the work of Professor Adams and Assistant Professor Hudson constituted not only the basis but a considerable portion of the superstructure of the political edifice. To these beginnings were added elementary and advanced courses in political economy, each a course of two hours a week, by Dr. Henry Carter Adams (Ph.D., Baltimore, 1878), who, in the autumn of 1880, began lecturing in the University of Michigan. President Angell contributed his lectures on international law, two hours a week for one semester, to the up-building process. A course of two hours for a half year was given by Assistant Professor Vaughan on Sanitary Science. Judge Cooley introduced a law course on Civil and Political Rights, three hours a week for parts of both semesters. Social Science was represented, two hours a week for one semester, by Professor Dunster, and forestry, for one hour a week, second half year, by Professor Spalding. This was the course of instruction offered in 1881-82. It is impossible to show a tabular view of the arrangement or succession of courses, for, within such limits as those stated in the historical department, the work was more like the elective system of a German university than like the prescribed system of the Columbia School of Political Science.

In the report of the Dean of the Michigan school for 1882-83 may be found evidences of decided progress during the second year. Professor Adams says: “A grouping of the studies shows that there were twelve courses in History, eight courses in Economic Science, seven courses in Social, Sanitary, and Educational Science, and six courses in Constitutional, Administrative, and International Law. Of these the following were given in 1882-83 for the first time: The course in the History of American Finance, the course on Public Scientific Surveys, the course on the Economic Development of Mineral Resources, the course on the Historical Development of Educational Systems and Methods, the course on the Government of Cities, the course on the History of Modern Diplomacy, and the course on methods of Local Government in Europe and America. The studies offered for the first time during the past year, as well as those previously provided for, were open not only to the registered members of the school, but also to all students of proper advancement in the Academic Department of the University. The classes were in all cases attended by encouraging numbers. Of the students of the school who were examined at the end of the year for degrees, six took the degree of Master and one the degree of Bachelor. Three of those who received the Master’s degree had not previously taken the degree of Bachelor. Of these, two were examined at the end of the fourth year and one at the end of the fifth year in the University. A general survey of the work of the year would seem to encourage the belief that the school is doing a useful service. Of the twenty students who enrolled themselves in the school at the beginning of last year, nearly all carried forward their studies with an enthusiasm that is deserving of the highest praise.”

THE POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION.

During the second year of the School of Political Science was organized the Political Science Association. This society was formed “with the design of drawing together into more intimate and sympathetic intercourse the teachers and students of the school, and of encouraging by mutual contact the spirit of scholarly and original research.” The idea of this friendly, co-operative association of students and instructors was probably imported into Ann Arbor from Baltimore by Dr. Henry Carter Adams, who had been one of the original founders of the “Historical and Political Science Association” of the Johns Hopkins University, in 1876, one of the first “Associations” that came into existence in that institution. It was a kind of enlarged form of the “Historical Seminary”; in fact, it was a monthly public session of the same, with invited guests and with an historico-political programme of a somewhat more interesting character than seminary meetings. This appears to have been the complexion of the “Political Science Association” of the University of Michigan. In his report of the School for 1882-83 the Dean said of this society: “Papers were presented by the President of the University, and by several of the professors and students of the school. Reports were given at each meeting of books on Political Science either recently published or recently procured for the University Library.” Some of the papers prepared in connection with the Historical or Political Seminary were finally read before the Association. Several of the subjects mentioned under the head of “Original Work at Michigan” were presented to the larger body. It occupies much the same place in the organization of the historico-political department of the University of Michigan as does the “Academy of Political Science” in Columbia College.

BEGINNINGS OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.

So important is a good working library to a department of historical and political science that the writer has noted with special interest the origin of the present facilities for advanced work in the University of Michigan. It is a striking fact that the first officer appointed by the first board of regents, in 1837, was a librarian, the Rev. Henry Colclazer. One of the first purchases, by vote of the regents, was Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanæ. The first catalogue (1844) mentions a library of between four and five thousand well-selected standard works in literature and science. The selection was largely made in Europe by Dr. Asa Gray, the first appointed professor of Botany, about the year 1840. The library grew by slow accretions, but with no especial vigor, until Dr. Tappan’s election to the presidency in 1852. He stirred the citizens of Ann Arbor to benefactions, and added 1,200 volumes to the old collection. The library and museums developed together. John L. Tappan, son of the president, became the first active librarian. In 1862 Charles Kendall Adams was made instructor in History and assistant librarian — an auspicious connection for the historical department. Soon after (1865) Mr. Andrew Ten Brook, the Historian of State Universities, took charge of the library and administered the same for over ten years, until (1877) the present active and helpful Raymond C. Davis took command of the situation and began to labor, with his colleagues, for a new library building.

THE RAU LIBRARY.

Meantime, in 1870, came the first gift of importance to the University and to the department of History. Acting President Frieze, in his report for 1871, describes the acquisition: “It consists of the entire collection of the late Professor Rau, of Heidelberg, made during his long service of fifty years as professor of Political Economy in Heidelberg University, and embracing all the most valuable literature contained in the European languages on political science and kindred topics. The number of volumes in this collection is 4,034, and of pamphlets more than 6,000. While this munificent gift is of great importance on account of the intrinsic worth of the collection, it is not less valuable as an example which cannot fail to find imitators. It is undoubtedly as nearly perfect as a library can be made on the specialty which it represents. And it was the well authenticated statement of this fact which influenced the authorities at Yale to send an order for the purchase of it before it was known to have been secured for this University. The most important is the series of volumes issued by the Academy of Vienna and those on the original sources of the history of the House of Hapsburg, a work of great importance in the study of European history.” Many of the volumes in the Rau library were unbound, but the donor, the Hon. Philo Parsons,* of Detroit, made provision for binding them and also increased the collection by fresh purchases. (See President’s report for 1874.) The present librarian, Mr. Davis, in his address at the opening of the new library building in 1883, estimated the Rau Library at 4,000 volumes and 6,000 pamphlets.

*The acquisition of the private libraries of distinguished specialists for the collections of American Universities is worthy of mention: Yale has the library of the distinguished Heidelberg publicist, Robert von Mohl, predecessor of Dr. J. C. Bluntschli, whose library went to the Johns Hopkins University, by the gift of German citizens of Baltimore; the library of Francis Lieber was presented to the University of California by [apparently missing text in original] Professor Rau’s collection was given to the University of Michigan by the Hon. Philo Parsons, of Detroit; the library of Neander is now owned by the University of Rochester; the library of Bopp, the German philologist, also that of Professor Anthon, of Columbia College, that of Professor Goldwin Smith, and that of Jared Sparks, of Cambridge, are all owned by Cornell University; the library of Leopold von Ranke has lately been purchased for the Syracuse University.

MOVEMENT TOWARDS THE NEW LIBRARY.

For many years the growth of the library was very slow. In 1874 President Angell reported to the regents that “We are able to add less than 1,000 volumes a year, including public documents of all kinds.” The present librarian, Mr. Davis, states that from 1856 to 1877 the average annual increase was only about 800 volumes; but since that date the increase has averaged 3,000 volumes annually, until, in 1883, the library numbered 40,000 volumes. This increase was largely due to the intelligent demands made by the faculties, by the students, and by the administration. The president in his annual reports repeatedly called attention to the fact that, in proportion to its size, the University library was in more active use than any other in the country.

The files of The Chronicle, the student organ of Ann Arbor, indicate that no need was greater, on the part of the University, than that of a new library and a gymnasium. The editors never ceased to quote mens sana in corpore sano and to reproach the regents for neglecting the body and soul of the University. When Professor Moses Coit Tyler, long the popular champion of the gymnasium cause, accepted a call to the Cornell University the editors understood that he was influenced by “the fact that the Sparks library is there — one of the richest libraries in American literature in the country. It is especially discouraging when it is remembered that the Sparks library might just as well have been secured for this University as not. When it was offered for sale, considerable talk was made about buying it, but the business was managed so slowly and so much time was taken to think about it that President White stepped in and bought it for Cornell.” In the spring of 1882, upon the return of President Angell from his mission to China, the editors promptly observed: “It was very truly said by President Angell, in his address upon the evening of his arrival, that our weak point is our library. It is impossible that in 30,000 volumes can be comprised half the needs of a great and growing institution like this, and equally impossible that, with the present meager appropriation of $2,500 a year, these needs can for a long time be supplied. Harvard has 200,000 volumes in her library, Yale 100,000, Michigan 30,000.”

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. 114-121.

Image Source: An earlier seal for the University of Michigan that gives the year of Michigan’s statehood as the founding year. In 1929 the regents changed the date on the seal to 1817, when the Catholepistemiad Michigania was founded on the Michigan Territory.

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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.

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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.