Category: Popular Economics

The Chautauqua Institution established a four-year cycle of reading assignments that provided a popular college liberal arts education. Beginning in 1885 an introduction to economics was introduced into the program with an economics textbook listed every fourth year among the half-dozen or so books to be read by participants in the circle.

This post begins with a brief history of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (a.k.a. the C.L.S.C.) followed by a list of the economics texts assigned during the first sixty-six years of the C.L.S.C. The economics content from the outline for 1889-90 published in the C.L.S.C. journal, The Chautauqua, is the core artifact of this post. As an added bonus, 140 questions and answers provided for study of Richard T. Ely’s textbook, An Introduction to Political Economy, have been included as well.

On October 24, 1889 the C.L.S.C. held an Adam Smith Memorial Day. Q&A’s for discussion were included in The Chautauqua.

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Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

Excerpt from “A Brief History of the CLSC”

…Bishop [John Heyl] Vincent [cofounder with Lewis Miller of the Chautauqua Institution] conceived the idea of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC), and founded it in 1878, four years after the founding of the Chautauqua Institution.

At its inception, the CLSC was basically a four year course of required reading. The original aims of the CLSC were twofold:

To promote habits of reading and study in nature, art, science, and in secular and sacred literature

and

To encourage individual study, to open the college world to persons unable to attend higher institution of learning.

On August 10, 1878, Dr. Vincent announced the organization of the CLSC to an enthusiastic Chautauqua audience.

Over 8,400 people enrolled the first year. Of those original enrollees, 1,718 successfully completed the reading course, the required examinations and received their diplomas on the first CLSC Recognition Day in 1882.

The idea spreads and reading circles form.

As the summer session closed in 1878, Chautauquans returned to their homes and involved themselves there in the CLSC reading program. Many introduced the CLSC idea to their friends and neighbors and, in turn, additional groups were established for the purpose of studying and discussing the CLSC course of instruction. The concept of local “CLSC Reading Circles” spread and, by the turn of the century, over 10,000 “circles” had been formed.

Clearly, the rapid and widespread growth of the CLSC filled a deeply felt need for a structured program of reading and learning. As such, its importance both to the Chautauqua movement and to the spread of education was significant to the history of our country. Arthur E. Bestor, Jr., president of the Institution 1915-1944, wrote in his Chautauqua Publications: “Through the home reading courses of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, it (Chautauqua) reached into innumerable towns, especially in the Midwest, and made education a powerful force in American life.”

The CLSC becomes a role model.

With the success of its program of planned reading, book selections
and local circles, the CLSC became the prototype for book clubs, study groups and university extension courses. According to the World Book Encyclopedia, the CLSC was “an example to American universities when they developed their extension programs, and influenced adult education leaders in such countries as England, Japan and South Africa.”

Dr. Vincent’s ideal yields nationwide results.

From 1878 through the 1920s the CLSC maintained a preeminent position in the field of adult education and augmented the general support for learning. This, in turn, prompted the spread of libraries in small communities, the extension of adult education, the growth of book clubs, the availability of book review services, the increasing opportunities for enrollment in institutions of higher learning, and the involvement of people in community life and social organizations generally.

More nationwide reading opportunities result in a period of decline.

The accumulated effects of the Depression, the spread of libraries
in small communities, the extension of adult education, the growth
of book clubs, the availability of book review services, the increasing opportunities for enrollment in institutions of higher learning and
the involvement of people in community life and social organizations steadily detracted from the influence of the CLSC….

Economics from the CLSC Book List:
1878-1944

1885-1886

George McKendree Steele. Outline Study of Political Economy. New York: Chautauqua Press, 1885.

1889-1890

Richard T. Ely. An Introduction to Political Economy. New York: Chautauqua Press, 1889.

1893-1894

Richard T. Ely. Outlines of Economics. Meadville, Penn.: Flood and Vincent, 1893.

1895-1896

Carroll D. Wright. The Industrial Evolution of the United States. Meadville, Penn.: Flood and Vincent, 1895.

1899-1900

Richard T. Ely. The Strength and Weakness of Socialism. New York: Chautauqua Press, 1899.

1903-1904

Richard T. Ely. Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society. New York: Macmillan, 1903.

1907-1908

John R. Commons. Races and Immigrants in America. New York: Macmillan, 1907.

1910-1911

Edward P. Cheyney. An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England. New York: Macmillan, 1907.

1915-1916

Albert Bushell Hart, ed. Social and Economic Forces in American History. Chautauqua, New York: Chautauqua Press, 1913.

1943-1944

John W. McConnell. The Basic Teachings of Great Economists. New York: Blakiston, 1943.

Source:  Chautauqua Literary & Scientific Circle. Book List 1878-2017.

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The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
Books for 1889-90.

An Introduction to Political Economy. Ely $1.00

Bible in the Nineteenth Century. Townsend $0.40

How to Judge of a Picture. Van Dyke $0.60

Outline History of Rome. Vincent and Joy $0.70

Physics. Steele $1.00

Preparatory and College Latin Course in English. 1 vol . Wilkinson $1.30

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C. L. S. C. OUTLINE AND PROGRAMS.
FOR OCTOBER [1889]

First week (ending October 8).

“Political Economy.” Chapters I.-VII. inclusive.

Suggestive Programs for Local Circle Work:

The Lesson. (The uneven division of the work in Political Economy as laid out in the Outline is made that the work might be taken up by topics; first, the growth of industrial society; second, the characteristics of industrial society; third, the definition of political economy; fourth, the division, methods, and utilityof political economy.)

Second week (ending October 15).

“Political Economy.” Chapters VIII. and IX.

In the Chautauquan: Helen Campbell, Child Labor and Some of its Results (pp. 21-24)

The Lesson. (As marked out in the Outline)

Debate—Resolved: That the Government should abolish all restrictions on the rate of interest. (See Ely’s “Political Economy,” p. 79.)

Third week (ending October 23)

“Political Economy.” Chapters X. and XI.

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Adam Smith Day.—October 24.

“The wise form right judgment of the present from what is past.”—Sophocles.

1. Paper—Life and Character of Adam Smith.
2. Questions on Adam Smith in The Question Table.

3. A Symposium of Letters—The best method of national taxation. Each member is to write and read a letter addressed to the president of the circle, giving his views on this subject. He is to commend or censure the American system—that of protection—and show that it is either in harmony with, or in opposition to, the four maxims regarding taxation laid down by Adam Smith:

   1. The Subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities: that is, in proportion to the revue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
   2. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor and to every other person.
   3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time and in the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.
   4. Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.

SPECIAL MEMORIAL, DAY.—ADAM SMITH.

1. Of what nationality was Adam Smith?
   A. Scotch
2. What happened him when he was three years old?
   A. He was carried off by Gypsies.
3. His introduction as an author was made by an article in the Edinburgh Review on what famous book?
   A. Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary.
4. Under what sobriquet is Smith spoken of in the “Noctes Ambrosiae”?
   A. Father Adam.
5. Upon what work does his fame mainly rest?
   A. His book “The Wealth of Nations.”
6. What probably induced this “Kirkcaldy recluse” to accept the office of traveling tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch?
   A. The opportunity it would afford him for collecting facts for this book.
7. What great event was transpiring in America at the time the “Wealth of Nations” was published?
   A. The opening of the Revolutionary War.
8. If according to the historian Green, “books are measured by their effect on the fortunes of mankind,” what rank must be assigned to the “Wealth of Nations”?
   A. It must be classed among the greatest of books.
9. Who said that it was “perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilized nations”?
   A. Sir James Mackintosh.
10. What does Smith consider the only source of wealth?
    A. Labor
11. What method of compulsory education did he propose?
    A. That every one wishing to enter upon a trade be required to pass a test examination.
12. From what three classes or orders of civilized society did he contend came all the revenues which supply every other class?
    A. Landlords, laborers, and capitalists.
13. From what great historian did the “Wealth of Nations” receive its first emphatic welcome?
    A. David Hume.
14. What prime minister of England took the principles it taught as the ground-work of his Policy?
    A. William Pitt.
15. What great event not long after its publication set England against the doctrines of political innovation taught in the book?
    A. The French Revolution.
16. What change of opinion did Pitt undergo regarding Smith’s free trade notions?
    A. At first warmly participating in them, he became one of their leading opponents.
17. What habit of Smith’s, indulged even in society, caused much amusement?
    A. The absent mindedness which led him to talk to himself.
18. What acts showed his beneficent nature?
    A. Much of his ample fortune was spent in secret charities.
19. What did he call himself in reference to his weakness, the collection of a fine library?
    A. A “beau in his books.”
20. Throughout his life who was his closest friend?
    A. His mother.

Questions: pp. 97-98. Answers: p. 229.

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Fourth week (ending October 31).

“Political Economy.” Chapters IX.—XV. inclusive.

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 1 (October, 1889), pp. 87-88.

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Questions and Answers.
On Ely’s “Political Economy.”

1. Q. Of what science does political economy form a branch?
   A. Sociology, or social science.
2. Q. What is sociology?
   A. The science which deals with society.
3. Q. Into how many departments has social science been divided?
   A. Eight: language, art, science and education, family life, social life (in the narrower sense), religious life, political life, and economic life.
4. Q. What is meant by economic life?
   A. That part of man’s life which is concerned with “getting a living.”
5. Q. What forms a fundamental fact of economic life?
   A. The dependence of man upon his fellows.
6. Q. In what respect does the economic life of a nation differ from that of an individual?
   A. The basis of national economy is political independence.
7. Q. What is a state?
   A. The union of a stationary people, occupying a defined territory, under a supreme power and a definite constitution.
8. Q. What are the two great factors in a national economy?
   A. Territory and man.
9. Q. Cite one example showing the tendency of a national economy to change?
   A. Landed property was once largely common property; in civilized nations it came into the possession of individuals; now a reverse process is seen in the fact that forests are becoming public property.
10. Q. Viewed from the standpoint of production, into what five stages is the economic progress of humanity divided?
    A. The hunting and fishing stage; the pastoral; the agricultural; the commercial; and the industrial.
11. Q. Viewed from the standpoint of transfer of goods, how many economic stages are there?
    A. Three: truck economy; money economy; and credit economy.
12. Q. What people are a type of the hunting and fishing stage?
    A. The American Indians.
13. Q. Where are vivid pictures of people living in the pastoral stage found?
    A. In the earliest chapters of the Bible.
14. Q. To what manner of life did the pastoral stage give rise?
    A. To the nomadic.
15. Q. What was probably the earliest form of settled agricultural life?
    A. Village communities.
16. Q. What remain to-day as witnesses of the former common ownership of land?
    A. The Boston “Common”’ and the “commons” of other New England towns.
17. Q. What radical changes mark the commercial stage?
    A. Important cities arose along the sea-coast and on rivers; mines were worked; and the use of money became more general.
18. Q. What made possible the far-reaching changes marking the industrial stage?
    A. The application of steam to industry and the improvement in the means of communication and transport.
19. Q. With what periods was the truck, or barter, economy coincident?
    A. The hunting and fishing, the pastoral, and part of the agricultural periods.
20. Q. What one fact is sufficient to show the change from money economy to that of credit?
    A. The fact that banks now form an essential part of the entire national economy.
21. Q. What are some of the main causes for the existence of the present economic problems?
    A. The industrial revolution; the new importance of capital; the possibility of improvement; and the higher ethical standards.
22. Q. What are some of the remarkable features of the recent development of the industrial revolution?
    A. Increased domestic and international commerce; corporations and trusts; problem of the working day; resistance to improvements; and sudden riches.
23. Q. What great change in production occurred during the industrial revolution?
    A. Two of its chief factors, capital and labor, were separated.
24. Q. What has been the result of this division?
    A. Capital has acquired a new power which has created modern socialism.
25. Q. What is the wide-spread belief of reformers regarding the solution of this problem?
    A. That labor and capital must be again united, but they differ as to the methods.
26. Q. In what are three characteristic features of modern economic life to be found?
    A. In the relations which it bears to freedom, to ethics, and to the state.
27. Q. Under what condition has economic freedom ever been absolute?
    A. Under primitive anarchy.
28. Q. In what way may real freedom be increased by restriction laws?
    A. Such laws may remove restrictions to liberty arising outside of law.
29. Q. In what five ways does economic freedom manifest itself?
    A. Freedom of labor, of landed property, of capital with respect to loans, in the establishment of enterprises, and of the market.
30. Q. What restrictions have been placed up on freedom of movement?
    A. Tramp laws, the anti-Chinese legislation, and a law forbidding contracts with foreign laborers to come to the United States to work.
31. Q. In what respect is freedom of the market restricted in the United States?
    A. Heavy taxes are laid on foreign trade.
32. Q. What is mentioned as the leading advantage resulting from a general freedom of the market?
    A. Competition would develop new forces, and reveal new resources of economy, excellence, and variety of products.
33. Q. What disadvantages is it claimed would follow such a freedom?
    A. The moral standard of economic life would be lowered; and there would result longer hours of labor and cheaper prices.
34. Q. What does ethics demand for the truly civilized life of each individual?
    A. That so far as possible each should be supplied with economic goods to satisfy his reasonable wants and afford the completest development of his faculties.
35. Q. What is the basis of the economic life of modern nations?
    A. Individual responsibility.
36. Q. What part, then, does the state enact in this life?
    A. It enters where the individual’s powers are insufficient.
37. Q. Give the derivation and meaning of the term political economy.
    A. It comes from three Greek words and means the housekeeping of the state.
38. Q. Give a definition of political economy in its most general terms?
    A. It is the science which treats of man as a member of economic society.
39. Q. What is the true business of the political economist?
    A. To describe the best means for the promotion of the welfare of the people as a whole.
40. Q. What aims does political economy distinctly include within its province?
    A. Ethical aims; it does not merely tell us how things are, but also how they ought to be, and shows that in many cases the general honesty which exists now as a mere matter of course was once a future ideal.
41. Q. Into what three parts is political economy commonly divided?
    A. Into general eco nomics, special economics, and finance.
42. Q. By what three methods is all knowledge acquired?
    A. The inductive, the deductive, and the statistical.
43. Q. What term has been selected by the author as the most fitting to describe the laws governing political economy?
    A. Social laws.
44. Q. What assertion is often made against political economy by business men?
    A. That it is not practical.
45. Q. In return what assertion may be made against the opinions of business men?
    A. Their range of facts is too narrow, and each man is apt to be absorbed in his own affairs
46. Q. What is brought forward as an illustration of this point?
    A. That the attempt to improve politics by putting practical business men in office has often resulted disastrously.
47. Q. What elements have united in forming the science of political economy?
    A. Business, philosophy, jurisprudence, politics, and philanthropy.
48. Q. Give examples showing how different systems of religion have affected the character of nations?
    A. The fatalism of the Turks led to indolence; the Jewish religion stimulated its followers to activity and accumulation; Christianity dignifies honest labor.
49. Q. What service does political economy perform for law?
    A. It explains the reasons for a great part of the laws, their nature, and the principles which should govern them.
50. Q. For what is a body of international law now needed as never before?
    A. To regulate international economic relations.

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 1 (October, 1889), pp. 94-95.

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C. L. S. C. OUTLINE AND PROGRAMS.
FOR NOVEMBER. [1889]

First week (ending November 8).

“Political Economy.” Part II. Chapters I. and II.

Second week (ending November 15).

“Political Economy.” Part II. Chapters III. and IV.

“Questions and Answers on Political Economy,” in The Chautauquan.

Third week (ending November 22)

“Political Economy.” Part III. Chapters I. and II.

Debate—Resolved: That by granting private ownership in land the state permits a monopoly of one of the bounties of nature. (See text-book on “Political Economy,” pp. 77-78, 161, and 296-297.)

Fourth week (ending November 30).

“Political Economy.” Part III. Chapters III. and IV.

Debate—Question: Is the coinage of silver as authorized by the “Bland Bill” a source of financial danger to the United States?

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 2 (November, 1889), pp. 217-218.

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Questions & Answers
ELY’S “POLITICAL ECONOMY.”

1. Q. What is the only operation man can perform upon matter?
   A. He can simply move it.
2. Q. What can he produce by this action?
   A. Quantities of utility.
3. Q What is the economic term applied to the creation of utilities?
   A. Production.
4. Q. What is the term applied to the results of labor?
   A. Wealth.
5. Q. If the quantity of cotton cloth should double between two censuses, and the price fall one half, would the wealth of the country be increased?
   A. It would be doubled.
6. Q. What sets the limit to all production?
   A. The power of consumption.
7. Q. What supply motives of economic activity to man?
   A. His wants.
8. Q. Into how many classes may those things which man wants be divided?
   A. Into necessaries, comforts, conveniences, and luxuries.
9. Q. What are luxuries?
   A. Whatever contribute chiefly to enjoyment, rather than to a better training of man’s powers.
10. Q. What are the three factors of production?
    A. Nature, labor, and capital.
11. Q. Considered in an economic sense, what is meant by nature?
    A. Simply land.
12. Q. What is capital?
    A. Every laid-by product which may be used for further production.
13. Q. What tendency marks the development of industrial civilization?
    A. It becomes constantly more complex.
14. Q. What forms at present a characteristic feature in the organization of the productive factors?
    A. The division of labor.
15. Q. To what part of political economy is the name exchange applied?
    A. To that dealing with transfers of goods.
16. Q. What is value?
    A. The measure of utility.
17. Q. What is price?
    A. Value expressed in money.
18. Q. Upon what does price depend?
    A. Immediately, upon supply and demand; secondarily, upon cost of production.
19. Q. What is money?
    A. A universal standard of value and a medium of exchange.
20. Q. Under the different conceptions concerning it, what single form of money will pass as money in every sense of the word?
    A. Gold money.
21. Q. When is paper money said to be redeemable?
    A. When government pays coin for it on demand.
22. Q. How much paper money can be issued by a nation with safety?
    A. An amount equal to one-third of the government revenues payable in this kind of money.
23. Q. What effects follow the arbitrary de crease or increase of the amount of money?
    A. In the former case burdens are added to every debtor; in the latter, creditors are robbed.
24. Q. What is the established ratio between gold and silver in the United States?
    A. One to sixteen.
25. Q. What is meant by the term demonetization of silver?
    A. The withdrawing it from current use as full legal tender.
26. Q. What is meant by bi-metalism?
    A. The use of both silver and gold at a fixed ratio of value as legalized currency.
27. Q. On what condition only could the introduction of bi-metalism be regarded with favor by economists?
    A. That it become an international measure.
28. Q. What restriction does the Bland Bill lay upon the coinage of silver in the United States?
    A. Not less than $2,000,000 or more than $4,000,000 worth of silver must be coined every month by the mints.
29. Q. What is John Stuart Mill’s definition of credit?
    A. Permission to use the capital of another person.
30. Q. What instrument of credit is known as a check?
    A. An order on a banker by a person having money on deposit to pay to the bearer a certain specified sum of money.
31. Q. What is a draft?
    A. A check given by one banker against another.
32. Q. What are bankers?
    A. Middle men between borrowers and lenders.
33. Q. What banks are allowed to issue notes which circulate as money?
    A. National banks.
34. Q. What is a clearing-house?
    A. An institution designed to save for the banks of a city, time, labor, and circulating notes.
35. Q. What is protection as used in political economy?
    A. A regulation which lays a tax on all imported commodities when similar commodities can be produced at home.
36. Q. What are the two leading arguments of protectionists?
    A. The diversified-natural industry argument and the protection-to-infant industry argument.
37. Q. What are the leading arguments of free traders?
    A. That protection is not needed to accomplish either of the above mentioned ends; that it is not a benefit to the laboring man; and that it fosters monopolies.
38. Q. What reform is needed at the present time more than a tariff reform?
    A. That of municipal government.
39. Q. What have been far greater forces in adding to the wealth of modern nations than the tariff policy?
    A. Inventions and discoveries, especially the application of steam to industry.
40. Q. If it be true that American labor would be better off without it, why should the protective system not be removed suddenly?
    A. It is an historical growth which has taken deep root, and sudden removal would be dangerous.

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 2 (November, 1889), pp. 225-226.

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C. L. S. C. OUTLINE AND PROGRAMS.
FOR DECEMBER. [1889]

First week (ending December 8).

“Political Economy.” Part IV. Chapters I-V. inclusive.

Book Review—“Looking backward.” By Edward Bellamy.

Debate—Resolved: That the formation of trusts and combinations are a development in the right direction. (See Ely’s “Political Economy,” p. 241.)

Second week (ending December 16).

“Political Economy.” Finish Part IV. Part V.

Third week (ending December 23)

“Political Economy.” Part VI.

Questions and Answers  on “Political Economy,” in The Chautauquan.
Debate—Resolved: That I have a right to know how much I shall do for the state, which is impossible under the present tariff system.

Fourth week (ending December 31).

“Political Economy.” Part VII.

Roll-Call—A written question on any point in political economy.
Table Talk—Discussion of the above named questions. (If preferred, the questions may be taken from the list in the back part of the text-book, or the whole time may be devoted to any one of these questions.)

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 3 (December, 1889), p. 344.

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Questions & Answers
ON ELY’S “POLITICAL ECONOMY.”

1. Q. What is private property?
   A. The exclusive right of a person over economic goods.
2. Q. In the case of what land in the United States was it felt that the individual elements in property encroached upon the social elements?
   A. That surrounding Niagara Falls.
3. Q. Into what four parts are the products of industry usually divided?
   A. Rent, interest, profits, and wages.
4. Q. What is rent?
   A. The annual return of land in itself.
5. Q. What determines the amount of rent?
   A. The surplus yielded above returns on labor and capital.
6. Q. What is interest?
   A. The sum paid for capital lent to others.
7. Q. What determines the rate of interest?
   A. The opportunities for, and the fruitfulness of, investments.
8. Q. What are profits?
   A. Whatever is left after paying rent, interest, and wages.
9. Q. Under what circumstances do profits tend to equality?
   A. When the flow of capital is free—that is out of the power of monopolists.
10. Q. What is the difference between capital and capitalization?
    A. Capital is the amount actually invested in property; capitalization is the amount at which property is valued.
11. Q. What familiar form is often assumed by capitalization?
    A. “Stock-watering.”
12. Q. What determines the wages of labor?
    A. The “standard of life” fixed for the laborer; called also the iron law of wages.
13. Q. What methods have been found better adapted to keep the industrial peace than the ordinary wages system?
    A. The sliding scale of wages, and arbitration and conciliation.
14. Q. What one factor of production is embraced in modern labor organizations?
    A. The laborers.
15. Q. What are mentioned as some of the advantages secured by labor organizations for their members?
    A. Diminished intemperance; educational opportunities; and social culture.
16. Q. What is meant by profit sharing?
    A. Securing to laborers a share of the profits in addition to their wages.
17. Q. Where voluntary co-operation is carried out successfully, what good effects on character has it produced?
    A. It has made men diligent, frugal, intelligent, and considerate of the rights of others.
18. Q. By what name is a coercive co-operation for productive enterprises known?
    A. Socialism.
19. Q. What good service has socialism rendered?
    A. It has called general attention to social problems and to the need of social reform.
20. Q. Of what American laws is it claimed that they create artificial monopolies?
    A. The tariff laws.
21. Q. What other privileges are classed under artificial monopolies?
    A. Copyrights and patents.
22. Q. What are natural monopolies?
    A. Those businesses which become monopolies on account of their own inherent properties.
23. Q. What plan is advocated for the prevention of private monopolies?
    A. The limitation of charters for natural monopolies.
24. Q. What is one of the most serious social evils of the present?
    A. Child labor.
25. Q. What should be the constant aim of public authority and private effort, regarding social troubles?
    A. To anticipate and prevent their existence.
26. Q. What is the meaning of consumption as used in political economy?
    A. The destruction of a utility.
27. Q. When does consumption become wasteful?
    A. When nothing is left to show for it.
28. Q. When is there most danger of a glut in the market?
    A. When least is produced, or in crises of industrial life.
29. Q. What is public finance?
    A. That part of political economy which deals with public revenues.
30. Q. At what are the annual revenues of the various governments of the United States—federal, state, and local—estimated?
    A. At about $800,000,000.
31. Q. What would be the result if these governments received a surplus of money each year and kept it from circulation?
    A. A panic.
32. Q. In the United States how alone can the money flowing into the treasury from the revenues get out again?
    A. In payment of claims on the United States.
33. Q. What makes the importance of finance plainly apparent?
    A. A knowledge of the magnitude of the revenues and expenditures of governments in modern times.
34. Q. Of what in general are these increased expenditures of government a sign?
    A. Of national health.
35. Q. What are the three permanent sources of revenue?
    A. Productive domains, industries, and taxes.
36. Q. How is it shown that by means of taxation popular rights have been secured?
    A. Monarchs were obliged to ask money of the people; the people granted them on condition of receiving their demands.
37. Q. Do large expenditures of public money for the public ever prove ruinous to a nation?
    A. Not if the money to be collected is justly distributed among the people.
38. Q. What are customs duties?
    A. Taxes on imported articles.
39. Q. What are excise taxes?
    A. Taxes on articles produced in the United States.
40. Q. What is one of the greatest evils against the present system of taxation?
    A. It is not properly proportioned, and falls more heavily on the poor than on the rich.
41. Q. What seems the most promising remedy against the evils of taxation?
    A. An income tax.
42. Q. When did political economy as a distinct science come into being?
    A. A little more than a hundred years ago.
43. Q. Why did it not arise earlier as a separate science?
    A. Chiefly because finance and labor—its two most fruitful sources of inquiry—have only in modern times become questions of importance to governments.
44. Q. What side of economics was taught and practiced in the Orient?
    A. The ethical side.
45. Q. How did Aristotle regard industrial life?
    A. He strictly subordinated it to the higher callings of society.
46. Q. What does the economic life of the Romans plainly show?
    A. The disastrous consequences of slave labor and of landed property.
47. Q. In what particular does Christianity teach the opposite of all former instruction in economy?
    A. It asserts the honorableness of toil.
48. Q. To what standpoint have modern economists arrived?
    A. That law, morality, and utility must harmonize.
49. Q. What is the laissez faire theory of political economy?
    A. The non-interference of government in matters of trade.
50. Q. In what two countries is the greatest activity in economics to be found at the present time?
    A. Germany and the United States.

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 3 (December, 1889), p. 352-353.

___________________________

C. L. S. C. OUTLINE AND PROGRAMS.
FOR JANUARY. [1890]

First week (ending January 8).

Second week (ending January 15).

Third week (ending January 23).

In the Chautauquan: The Railroads and the State [by Franklin H. Giddings, pp. 413-417]

Debate—Resolved: The state ownership of railroads is the best remedy for the evils connected with the present system.

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 4 (January, 1890), p. 472-473.

___________________________

C. L. S. C. OUTLINE AND PROGRAMS.
FOR FEBRUARY.

Second week (ending February 15).

In the Chautauquan: “Economic Internationalism.” [Richard T. Ely, pp. 538-542.]

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 5 (February, 1890), p. 602.

___________________________

C. L. S. C. OUTLINE AND PROGRAMS.
FOR MARCH.

Third week (ending March 22)

In the Chautauquan: “The Nationalization of Industry in Europe” [by Franklyn H. Giddings, pp. 668-672]

Source: The Chautauquan. Vol X. No. 6 (March, 1890), pp. 729-730.

[Other economic writings in this issue]

Charles J. Little. Karl Marx. 1818-1883, pp. 693-698

George Gunton. Trusts and How to Deal with Them, Part I,  [Feb. 1890] pp. 573-575

___________.  Trusts, and How to Deal with Them. Part II. pp. 699-703.