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Exam Questions Harvard History of Economics

Harvard. Enrollment and exams on Adam Smith, Ricardo and followers. Mixter, 1902-1903.

 

Charles Whitney Mixter (b. Sept. 23, 1869 in Chelsea, MA; d. Oct. 21, 1936 in Washington, D.C.) taught a year-long course at Harvard on Adams Smith, Ricardo, and their dissenting followers in 1902-03.

Mixter received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1897 with the thesis “Overproduction and overaccumulation: a study in the history of economic theory.” Further biographical information about Charles Whitney Mixter (1869-1936) is found in the post about his course offered 1901-1902. Also Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has a post with a student’s description of Mixter as economics instructor at the University of Vermont.

One of the dissenting followers of Adam Smith considered in Mixter’s course below was John Rae. Mixter edited a reprint of the 1834 book by John Rae, which he retitled The Sociological Theory of Capital. A few years before, Mixter had written two Quarterly Journal of Economics articles comparing Rae with Böhm-Bawerk:

A forerunner of Böhm-Bawerk”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, January, 1897. [“the first article by me upon Rae…had a title which was also in great measure a misnomer. Rae is not a mere ‘anticipator of the discoverer’ (to use one of Cannan’s phrases), but the discoverer himself. By reason of the lack of a theory of invention, Böhm-Bawerk’s doctrine of capital, although coming much later, is in essentials the less complete of the two.”]

Böhm-Bawerk on Rae,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1902. [Review of Chapter XI of the second edition of the Geschichte und Critik der Capitalzins-Theorien].

In the preface to his reprint of Rae’s book, Mixter provides us with some backstory to his research revealing the support of Frank Taussig and Irving Fisher at the beginning and the end of this book project:

When I first became interested in Rae’s theory of capital, under Professor Taussig’s direction in the economic seminary at Harvard University, there existed no printed information (except in his Preface) in respect to Rae himself; and for a long time nothing could be learned through inquiry in quarters which promised well in Canada and Great Britain. The late Professor Dunbar of Harvard, who always displayed a keen interest in the undertaking, urged me to persist, and at length a letter printed in the Montreal Star drew forth two replies, one from the Canadian antiquary Mr. H. J. Morgan, the other from the late Robert S. Knight of Lancaster, Ontario, a grand-nephew of Rae. This set me upon the right road to get into communication with several people who knew Rae personally. Of these the one who could tell me most was the late Sir Roderick W. Cameron of New York, a former pupil and life-long friend, at whose summer residence on Staten Island Rae died. Better still, I was able through the interest and kindness of this gentleman to come into possession of what few papers Rae left at his death. That is, I obtained all Rae’s effects of a literary nature which seem now to be in existence. Apparently, from statements made by Sir Roderick, there was another set of papers which Rae had with him at the time, but which were destroyed or in some way lost. The papers I obtained were little more than odds and ends, mostly unfinished fragments on a great variety of subjects, unfortunately but little on economics. Their chief use has been to help me to a fair understanding of Rae’s life, which I have been able, however, only very imperfectly to set forth.

I have received much information and kind assistance in this part of my work from not a few people in Canada, the United States, Honolulu, and Great Britain. I trust they will accept this general acknowledgment of my sense of indebtedness to them.

To Mr. L. W. Zartman of Yale University my especial thanks are due for assistance in preparing the copy for the printer, and in reading the proofs. I am also much indebted to Mr. Wilmot H. Thompson of the Graduate School of Yale, for revision of the classical quotations.

Finally, I wish here to express my obligations to Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University. His interest and encouragement have been of unfailing support. The proof sheets of the whole book have passed his able scrutiny, and his direct help in many other ways has been invaluable.

C. W. M.

Burlington,
Vermont, July, 1905.

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Course Description

  1. a. Selected Topics in the History of Economic Thought since Adam Smith. , Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri, at 12. Dr. Mixter.

The chief subject to which attention will be directed in this course is the school of dissenting followers of Adam Smith — Lauderdale, Rae, and those influenced by them — who carried forward Smith’s work to very different results from those attained by the Ricardians. This study of a little known tradition gives a fresh point of view as to the general method of formulating and presenting economics. Some of the other subjects to be discussed are, — the classic doctrine of over-production, and the opposition to that doctrine; the economics of absenteeism; the history of the theory of colonization; early American economic theory.
The exercises will be conducted largely by means of discussion. Oral reports on assigned topics will be required.

  1. d 2hf. Adam Smith and Ricardo. Half-course (second half-year). Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

In this course, a careful study will be made of large parts of the writings of Adam Smith and Ricardo, and comparison made with contemporary authors as well as with the later writers who accepted the teachings of the earlier English school.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science  [Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics], 1902-03. Published in The University Publications, New Series, no. 55. June 14, 1902.

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Course Enrollment

Economics 20a. Dr. Mixter. — The History of English Economic Theory from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill.

Total 5: 3 Gr., 2 Se.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.

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Mid-Year Examination 1902-03

ECONOMICS 20a

It is expected that questions 3 and 7 will be answered more at length than the other questions.

  1. Who was Bentham and what does he stand for in the history of economics?
  2. What is the nature of Rae’s reply to Smith’s 5th argument against protection?
  3. What would Adam Smith say to the assertion that trades unions are necessary in the United States to prevent a fall of general wages? In what various aspects did Smith examine the subject of wages?
  4. What are Adam Smith’s four canons or “maxims” of taxation?
  5. Is “capital” or “labor” the leading concept in the economics proper of the Wealth of Nations?
  6. What idea of most value have you obtained from Cannan?
  7. Discuss the Malthusian theory with respect to errors and shortcomings:—
    1. In its original form of statement and proof.
    2. In its original application.
    3. Sum up the modernized Malthusian doctrine in the form which seems to you most sound and useful.
  8. How has “the Commerce of the Towns contributed to the Improvement of the Country”?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).

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Year-End Examination 1902-03

ECONOMICS 20a

Omit two of the last five questions.

  1. Criticise the following statement: “What he [Ricardo] really ‘endeavored to show’ was that the rate of profit depends on the productiveness of the last employed, or no-rent-paying agricultural industry, and it is not of much importance to his theory whether this dependence is brought about through rises and falls of money wages, or also by the direct influence of variations in the productiveness of industry.”
  2. What is Lauderdale’s significance in the history of economics?
  3. What are the points of similarity and of difference between Rae and Böhm-Bawerk?
  4. What portions of a complete treatise on economics are lacking in Rae’s work? Give some examples of peculiar terminology.
  5. Give an account of one of the following writers: Chalmers, Wakefield, Longfield, Senior.
  6. “His [the capitalist’s] profit consists of the excess of the produce above the advances; his rate of profit is the ratio which that excess bears to the amount advanced.” Comment on this.
  7. Criticise the phrase “the profits of stock are only another name for the wages of accumulated labour.” Who first advanced this idea?
  8. What was John Stuart Mill’s treatment of the subject of general overproduction?
  9. When it is said that a certain writer “took as his type of capital, machinery instead of wage-fund,” what do you understand by the expression? Mention several writers who have done this.
  10. Give a brief account of Cannan’s description of the discovery of the law of diminishing returns.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).

Image Source: Harvard scores (1905),  John Jepson (artists), Boston. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

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Economists Funny Business Harvard Undergraduate

Vermont. Yearbook account of economics lecture by Harvard PhD Charles W. Mixter, 1904

While trolling the yearbook of the University of Vermont in search of a portrait of Professor Charles W. Mixter (Harvard Ph.D. 1897), I came across the following student account of what one presumes is a not an untypical classroom performance by Professor Mixter. He appears to have been pretty proud of his Harvard connection, in particular with Professor O.M.W. Sprague.

Incidentally, I have yet to discover a photograph of Charles W. Mixter anywhere on the internet, and I have tried…

…and what pray are “Persian Alexis overshoes” anyhow?

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Pol. Econ. à la Mixter

A room in the Old Mill. The bell strikes and during the next ten minutes the class straggles in. The second bell strikes; some minutes elapse during which Burrows ’o4 amuses himself — and the class — by crayon sketches from life ( ?). Macrae, to whom art of so high an order does not appeal, looks at his watch and announces that the five minutes are up. A discussion follows as to the advisability of cutting. Finally better instincts prevail and the class decides to stay. At the end of another five minutes, Pomeroy, from his lookout at the window, descries the Professor in the distance. Informed of the fact the class rushes up just in time to see His Portlyship, in Persian Alexis overshoes, and English Ulster [Note: apparently the sort of overcoat worn by Sherlock Holmes], rounding the statue of Lafayette and puffing like a tug under full steam.

 

The Professor’s tread is soon heard on the stair and the class take their seats just as he enters the room. In answer to the chorus of good-mornings, he nods a general recognition, divests himself of ulster, overshoes and Alexis and takes his seat. These preliminaries over, he fumbles for some time in the recesses of an inner pocket and at length pulls forth a slip of paper upon which is the frame-work of a lecture. After vainly trying to read his own writing, the Professor gives up in despair, puts back the notes, and launches out on another tack.

 

His eye lighting on Macrae nodding on the back seat, he explodes this poser at the offending member:

 

My friend Sprague — the great economist — of course you’ve all heard of him — edited Dunbar blur—r—r um and all that sort of thing — well he’s just returned from Oklahoma — he says the banks are holding the largest deposit in the Territory’s history. What does that indicate for general prosperity, Mr. Macrae?

 

Macrae, to whom reciting is a bore, pulls himself together with a supreme effort and begins a learned disquisition on the inter-relation of loans to deposits and the utter uselessness as an index to prosperity of bank statements in general and of this report in particular.

 

Whenever a glint of truth appears in Macrae’s remarks — which is far from often — the Professor nods approvingly, assumes his Rooseveltian grin and rumples his hair encouragingly.

 

Macrae finally comes to the end of his rope and the Professor, suddenly recollecting an anecdote that “my friend Sprague” told him at Harvard, springs it on the guileless members of Economics II. When the laughter incident on this effort has subsided, the Professor has some interesting things to say on railroad stocks.

 

Prof. (clearing his throat and groping for his handkerchief in a hip pocket) Um — yum yum yum yum yum — I own some stock myself — huh — oh yes — huh (grimace à la Roosevelt). Hasn’t paid me any dividend for seventeen years, though. Speaking of railroads puts me in mind of a man I met up in the Berkshire Hills once. Oh yes — um I — I was up in the Berkshires and I met a man who had lost his fortune during the war — well he — huh — huh huh. The Professor, anticipating the ludicrous end of his tale, cannot resist the temptation to laugh, and the rest of his speech is lost in a gurgle of merriment, in which the class feels itself called upon to join.

 

Turning from the Berkshire Hermit the Professor travels to Tennessee, where he tells how he proffered a check in payment and how that check was actually received! Next he leads the class a pretty pace through Threadneedle Street, where they enter the Bank of England and help the Professor cash a ten pun’ note, after which they awake to find themselves reposing quietly in their seats none the worse for wear but a little dazed in spirit.

 

The remainder of the Professor’s talk is a brilliant counterpane, with which he covers his subject, resplendent with purple patches of travel, finance, the stock exchange, international trade, panics, industrial organization, underwriting, indigestible securities, and bank history from Daniel to Dunbar, freely interspersed with the dicta of Ami Sprague. The Professor is in the midst of an interesting Harvard reminiscence when the bell strikes and he makes a hasty end, regretting  — as always — that he hasn’t covered as much ground as he had hoped to. The class escapes furtively while the Professor worms himself into his ulster, sticks on the Alexis and descends the stair ruminating on the value of anecdote as a means of inculcating the fundamental principles of that most abstruse science of political economy.

Source: The University of Vermont Libraries, Digital Collections.Yearbook, The Ariel 1905, Vol. XVIII, pp. 277-278.

Image Source: University of Vermont (between 1900 and 1906) from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Economics Programs Harvard

Harvard. Fin de siècle look at the economics department. 1896

The department of political economy at Harvard University was not even two decades old when a Boston newspaper printed the following report about the expansion in economics course offerings that took place between the single prescribed course taught seniors by Francis (a.k.a. Fanny) Bowen in 1849-50 to the twenty or so courses taught in 1896.

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1896 Newspaper Report

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Development of the Department of Economies and the Large Increase in the Number of Students Electing the Study.

The interests aroused during the progress of the recent campaign undoubtedly account to some extent for the unusually large number of men here electing work this year in the department of economics. This increase has been already noted. Courses in finance which have never before numbered above twenty or thirty men have more than doubled, while the course known as economics 1, which last year opened with 370 men, now has 510. [In the President’s Report for 1896-1897 the final number enrolled in Economics 1 was reported as 464] The number of men electing economics 1 has increased from year to year, and now practically every undergraduate takes the course at some time or other during his college career. If he intends to specialise in economics he takes the course usually in his sophomore year; if he does not so intend, he may take it in his junior or senior year.

Within the department of economics are grouped together, with courses purely economic in character, others more properly sociological, political and financial. Those in social ethics are included in the department of philosophy, while those which deal with the forms of government and with the development of social institutions are given in the department of history and government. Within these several departments are minor groups of courses devoted to pretty well-defined lines of social inquiry, and so special and interdependent as to suggest the formation of new departments. The double title of the department of history and government indicates the extent to which the process of bifurcation has gone here, and the lines of separation are unmistakably forming within the department of economics.

A glance at some of the earlier catalogues reveals curious groupings of courses. Professor Francis Bowen, McLean professor of ancient and modern history and instructor in political economy, conducted as early as the year 1849-50 a course in political science, which was prescribed for seniors. In it Professor Bowen used as reference books John Stuart Mill’s “Political Economy,” [1848 ed., Volume I, Volume II] a book which is still used as a basis for the lectures given in the introductory course in economics; and Story’s “Commentaries on the Constitution.” After Professor Bowen was created Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy and civil polity he continued to give the only instruction in economics which the university offered at that time, and his course in philosophy came eventually to embrace a much wider range of topics than those indicated above, and was extended through the entire year. He lectured upon political economy and upon the English and American constitutions, and upon such a wide range of other topics, moral, ethical and metaphysical, that the ground covered by this single course is now apportioned among four departments.

With some modifications from year to year Professor Bowen continued his instruction along these lines, down through the period of the civil war, to the year 1871, when a professor of political economy was appointed. [It is interesting that the name of Charles F. Dunbar is not mentioned here, perhaps he wrote this article? Possibly Taussig?] In the year following two courses were offered under the heading “Political Science,” Mill’s “Political Economy” [1871, seventh edition. Volume I, Volume II] being reintroduced and used along with Bowen’s “Political Economy” and Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” [e.g., 1869, Rogers’ edition. Volume I,Volume II] as a basis for discussion and criticism.

These courses were soon after absorbed in the department of philosophy, where they continued to be offered until the year 1879-80, when the department of political economy was established. Development since, that date has been characterised by a gradual increase in the number of courses, from three in 1880 to the nineteen or twenty courses and half-courses that are now given. The department in the year 1886 began the publication of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which was the first journal devoted exclusively to the advancement of economic theory that was ever printed in English.

Among the more advanced courses are two devoted to the study of economic history[,] two to the history of economic theory, one to the scope and method of economics, three to subjects distinctly sociological — the principles of sociology, socialism and communism, and the labor question in Europe and America — another to the theory and methods of statistics, and a number of half courses devoted to special subjects in taxation, finance, international payments, tariff legislation, railway transportation and the like.

Another significant step was taken in 1891-92 in the organisation of the Economic Seminary, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated. Prior to the establishment of the seminary there had been no systematic provision made for the conduct of graduate work. Graduate students in the department who were working up their doctor’s theses did so under the guidance of the several instructors, but without any very satisfactory or clearly defined official status. All this has been changed and every provision is now made for graduate work. An advanced student may study entirely in connection with the seminary, and so he is freed from the necessity of registering in a certain number of courses where the work outlined is adapted to students less advanced. The Economic Seminary numbers at the present time some twenty-five men, each of whom is engaged in original work. The seminary meets once a week, and at each meeting some member reports upon the results of his investigations, receiving at the same time the criticism of his fellow students and of the instructors in the department.

Source: Boston Evening Transcript, December 16, 1896, p. 10.

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Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Money, Banking, and International Payments. Exams. Andrew, Sprague, Meyer 1901-1902

 

 

The reading list for the first semester (4 pages) of the money, banking, and international payments course taught at Harvard in 1901-02 along with some biographical information for one of the instructors, Abram Piatt Andrew, has been posted earlier.

While I have not found a reading list for the second semester of the course, it is safe to assume that the enlarged second edition of  Dunbar’s Chapters on the Theory and History of Banking, edited by O.M.W. Sprague (1901) was assigned as the primary text. 

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Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 8. Drs. [Abram Piatt] Andrew [Jr.] and [Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] Sprague, and Mr. [Hugo Richard] Meyer. — Money, Banking and International Payments.

Total 78: 5 Graduates, 35 Seniors, 30 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1901-1902, p. 78.

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Course Description

  1. Money, Banking, and International Payments. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Drs. Andrew and Sprague, and Mr. Meyer.

The first part of the year will be devoted to a general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory. The course will begin with a history of the precious metals, which will be connected, in so far as possible, with the history of prices, and with the historical development of theories as to the causes underlying the value of money. The course of monetary legislation in the principal countries will be followed, with especial attention to its relation to the bimetallic controversy; but the experiences of various countries with paper money will also be reviewed, and the influence of such issues upon wages, prices, and trade examined. Some attention, moreover, will be given in this connection to the non-monetary means of payment and to the large questions of monetary theory arising from their use.

The second part of the course will begin with an historical account of the development of banking. Existing legislation and practice in various countries will be analyzed and compared. The course of the money markets of New York, London, Paris, and Berlin will be followed during a series of months, and the various factors, such as stock exchange operations and foreign exchange payments, which bring about fluctuations in the demand for loans and the rate of discount upon them, will be considered. The relations of banks to commercial crises will also be analyzed, the crises of 1857 and 1893 being taken for detailed study.

The course will conclude with a discussion of the movement of goods, securities, and money, in the exchanges between nations and in the settlement of international demands. After a preliminary study of the general doctrine of international trade, it is proposed to make a close examination of some cases of payments on a great scale, and to trace the adjustments of imports and exports under temporary or abnormal financial conditions. Such examples as the payment of the indemnity by France to Germany after the war of 1870-71, the distribution of gold by the mining countries, and the movements of the foreign trade of the United States since 1879, will be used for the illustration of the general principles regulating exchanges and the distribution of money between nations.

Course 8 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1. With the consent of the instructors, it may be taken by Seniors and Graduates as a half-course in either half-year.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902, Box 1. Bound volume: Univ. Pub. N.S. 16. History, etc. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics (June 21, 1901), pp. 42-43.

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Mid-year Examination, 1901-02
ECONOMICS 8

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
Omit one question.

  1. Describe and illustrate with two examples (giving approximate dates): (a) the double standard, (b) the limping standard, (c) the parallel standard, (d) the single standard.
  2. Explain some of the different motives which in earlier centuries led to the debasement of the coins, and show the measure of their justification.
  3. Show how the levying of a seignorage will affect the value of money (a) if the owner of bullion is given back the same number of coins but of lighter weight, (b) if he receives fewer coins but of the same weight.
  4. During the entire century which preceded England’s adoption of gold as her single standard, less than one million pounds sterling of silver were issued from her mints, while in a period of less than a hundred years since then the silver coinage has amounted to fifty millions.
    How do you explain (a) the small amount of silver coined before its “demonetization”? (b) the larger amount coined subsequently?
  5. Before 1873 the United States had coined only about eight million silver dollars ($8,031,238) but since that year, which is often assumed to mark the beginning of demonetization, we have coined over five hundred millions ($522,795,065).
    Explain these two facts.
  6. “No experiment of bimetallism has ever been inaugurated under circumstances more favorable for its success… No fairer field for its trial could have been found.” Describe the conditions under which bimetallism was tried in the United States, and give your opinion of the passage quoted as a characterization of American monetary history.
  7. “Inasmuch as gold [before 1848] was more valuable in the market than at the French mint, relatively to silver, it was impossible that gold should circulate in France.”
    Is this a necessary conclusion?
  8. What does Darwin mean by the labor standard? By the commodity standard? Explain the merits claimed for each, and show the exemplification of the two standards in the history of the precious metals between 1873 and 1896.
  9. What were the reasons which induced Europe to abandon the free coinage of silver during the seventies (a) according to Laughlin? (b) according to Walker? (c) in your own opinion?
  10. State the factors that increased India’s power to purchase in the international markets in the period from 1850 to 1870, and explain what use India made of that increased power, together with the reasons for the use made.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 6. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-years 1901-1902.

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Year-end Examination, 1901-02
ECONOMICS 8

  1. The strength or weakness of the United States in the so-called struggle for the world’s stock of gold.
  2. Applying Mill’s reasoning upon international trade to the situation in the United States, state what you would expect to be the course of prices of imports and exports in the years immediately following.
  3. Why is long exchange quoted at lower rates than sight exchange? If sight is $4.84 and long $4.80, what will be the effect (1) of a reduction of 1% in English rates for money? (2) of the increase of the price of eagles at the Bank of England?
  4. New York Bank Statement, May 31, 1902:—
Loans

$855.60

Increase

15.1

Deposits

$948.30

Increase

16.6

Reserve

$249.00

Increase

1.8

Complete the statement and explain the probable reasons for the increase of deposits and reserve.

  1. Comment on the following: —
    1. 3 per Mills against us.
    2. Bank statement based on falling averages.
    3. U.S. Bond account.
    4. National gold banks.
    5. Recepisse.
  2. Discuss the following:—
    1. The limitation of note issue to capital.
    2. The retirement of the legal tender notes as an essential part of any plan for an asset currency.
  3. Compare the safety fund and the free banking systems of New York.
  4. Regulations of the national banking system other than those of note issue.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1902-03. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College (June, 1902), p. 28.

Image Sources:
Left to right: Andrew (Harvard Classbook 1906, p. 6), Sprague (Harvard Classbook 1912), Meyer, The Minneapolis Messenger, October 12, 1905, Page 4, from Wikipedia.

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Cornell Exam Questions Harvard Public Finance Williams Wisconsin

Harvard. Public Finance Exams. Charles Jesse Bullock visiting from Williams College, 1901-02

Courses in public finance were not offered in the academic year 1900-01 at Harvard. Those courses had last been taught by Charles F. Dunbar and Frank W. Taussig in 1899-1900. Following Dunbar’s death (January, 29 1900) and Taussig’s leave to recover from a nervous breakdown (1901-03), it was necessary to bring in an outsider to cover the public finance offerings. Charles Jesse Bullock was first appointed as an instructor in economics for the 1901-1902 academic year to fill that gap. He was later to return at the rank of assistant professor beginning with the 1903-04 academic year.

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From the Williams College Yearbook

CHARLES JESSE BULLOCK, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Political Science.

Graduated from Boston University, 1889, with Commencement appointment, and received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, in 1895. He taught in high schools from 1889 to 1893 and was traveling fellow in Boston University in 1891. In 1895 he was fellow and assistant at the University of Wisconsin and from 1895 to 1899 was instructor in Economics at Cornell University. Dr. Bullock has written: “The Finance of the United States, 1775-1789,” (1895), “Introduction to the Study of Economics,” (1897), and “Essays on the Monetary History of the United States” (in press [1900]). He also edited William Douglass’s “Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America,” and has contributed various articles to the economic and statistical magazines. He is a member of the American Economic Association and of the American Statistical Association, an associate member of the National Institute of Art, Science and Letters, and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Dr. Bullock is a member of the ΦΔΧ Fraternity.

Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian MCMI, Vol 44 (Williamstown, MA: 1900), p. 23.

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Course Announcements

For Undergraduates and Graduates.

[open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1. Outlines of Economics]

7a1 hf. Financial Administration and Public Debts. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri. at 9. Professor Bullock (Williams College).

7b1 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat. at 10. Professor Bullock (Williams College).

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year, 1901-02 (Second ed., 25 June 1901), p.44.

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Course Enrollments

7a 1hf. Professor Bullock (Williams College). — Financial Administration and Public Debts.

Total 26: 2 Graduates, 16 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

7b 1hf. Professor Bullock (Williams College). — The Theory and Methods of Taxation with special reference to local taxation, in the United States.

Total 26: 2 Graduates, 13 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1901-1902, p. 78.

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Course Descriptions

7a1 hf. Financial Administration. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri. at 9. Professor Bullock (Williams College).

This course will deal with the methods by which governments have attempted to adjust expenditures to revenue, and will study the problems arising from the effort to secure popular control over this process. The budget systems of England, France, and Germany will first receive attention; and study will then be concentrated upon the budgetary methods of our federal government. So far as practicable, also, some consideration will be given to State and local budgets in the United States. The history and present form of our federal budget will offer a large field for investigation, and supply subjects for written reports. Students will be encouraged, furthermore, to gather information concerning the methods followed by State and local governments with which they may happen to be familiar. Candidates for Honors in Political Science or for the higher degrees may advantageously use reports thus prepared by them as material for theses.

Course 7a is open to students who have taken Economics 1

7b1 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat. at 10. Professor Bullock (Williams College).

In this course both the theory and practice of taxation will be studied. Attention will be given at the outset to the tax systems of England, France, and Germany; and the so-called direct taxes employed in those countries will receive special consideration. After this, the principles of taxation will be examined. This will lead to a study of the position of taxation in the system of economic science, and of such subjects as the classification, the just distribution, and the incidence of taxes. Finally, the existing methods of taxation in the United States will be studied, each tax being treated with reference to its proper place in a rational system of federal, state, and local revenues.

Written work will be required of all students, as well as a systematic course of prescribed reading. Candidates for Honors in Political Science and for the higher degrees will be given the opportunity of preparing theses in substitution for the required written work.

Course 7b is open to students who have taken Economics 1.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902, Box 1. Bound volume: Univ. Pub. N.S. 16. History, etc. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics (June 21, 1901), pp. 43-44.

_____________________

Final Examinations

ECONOMICS 7a
FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION

  1. How is budgetary legislation prepared in France, in England and in the United States? In which country are the best results attained?
  2. At what time of the year is the budget prepared and enacted in France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Prussia, and the United States? Why is the time of preparation and adoption an important consideration?
  3. Compare methods of budgetary legislation in England with those prevailing in France.
  4. Describe and criticize federal budgetary procedure in the United States?
  5. What part do supplementary, or deficiency, appropriations play in France, in England, and in the United States?
  6. Compare the English and French methods of accounting. What method is followed in the United States?
  7. What are the methods of collecting and issuing public money in England?
  8. What methods of collection and issue are followed in the United States?
  9. Compare the auditing methods of England, France, and the United States?
  10. Why are unity and universality important elements in any good budget system?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 6. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-years 1901-1902.
Also included in: Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume Examination Papers, 1902-03Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy,… in Harvard College(June, 1902), pp. 26-27.

ECONOMICS 7b
TAXATION

  1. Describe the land taxes of France, Prussia, and Great Britain.
  2. Compare the French and the Prussian business taxes.
  3. Discuss the British income tax, giving special consideration to methods of administration and to financial results.
  4. In a similar manner discuss the Prussian income tax.
  5. Discuss briefly the customs taxes of Great Britain, France, and Germany.
  6. Describe the excise taxes of the same countries.
  7. What reasons are there for thinking that a tax on rent can not be shifted? Discuss the incidence of an excise tax on each unit of the product of an industry.
  8. What arguments are advanced for and against progressive taxation?
  9. Discuss the shortcomings of the property tax in the United States: (a) with reference to the taxation of realty; (b) with reference to the taxation of personalty.
  10. Describe the corporation taxes of Massachusetts.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 6. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-years 1901-1902.
Also included in: Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume Examination Papers, 1902-03Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy,… in Harvard College(June, 1902), pp. 26-27.

Image Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian 1902, Vol. 45, p. 26. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Principles

Harvard. Principles of Economics. Description, Enrollment, Exam Questions. Andrew, Mixter, and Sprague. 1901-1902

 

With the expansion of economics course offerings at Harvard going into the 20th century, Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will continue its collection of semester examinations but limiting each post in the series to a single course per year. This post brings together material from four different sources (announcement, enrollment, mid-year exam and final-year exam) for the first course in economics “Outlines of Economics” that was taught in sections by five instructors in 1901-1902. Frank W. Taussig was on leave in Europe that year which is the reason the course was entrusted to the experienced junior hands of Abram Piatt Andrew and Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague.

The complete battery of 1900-01 course exams can be found in a previous post.

The course material for the 1902-03 academic year has been posted too.

______________________________ 

Course Announcement

…Course 1 is introductory to the other courses. It is intended to give a general survey of the subject for those who take but one course in Economics, and also to prepare for the further study of the subject in advanced courses. It is usually taken with most profit by undergraduates in the second or third year of their college career. Students who plan to take it in their first year are strongly advised to consult the instructor in advance. History 1 or Government 1, or both of these courses, will usually be taken to advantage before Economics 1…

Primarily for Undergraduates

  1. Outlines of Economics. — Lectures on Social Questions and Monetary Legislation. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9.Drs. [Instructor in Political Economy, Abram Piatt] Andrew [Jr.] and [Instructor in Political Economy, Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] Sprague, and Messrs. [Instructor in Political Economy, Charles] Beardsley and [Austin Teaching Fellow, James Horace] Patten.

Course 1 gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, banking, and international trade. Social questions and the relations of labor and capital, and the recent currency legislation of the United States, will be treated in outline.

Course 1 will be conducted partly by lectures, partly by oral discussion in sections. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. Large parts of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, of Walker’s Political Economy (advanced course), and of Dunbar’s Theory and History of Banking will be read; and these books must be procured by all members of the Course.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Annual Announcement of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics (June 21, 1901).  Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902. Box 1. Bound volume: Univ. Pub. N.S. 16. History, etc. pp. 35-36.

______________________________ 

Course Enrollment

Primarily for Undergraduates:—

[Economics] 1. Drs. [Instructor in Economics, Abram Piatt] Andrew [Jr.], [Assistant in Economics, Charles Whitney] Mixter, and [Instructor in Economics, Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] Sprague, and Messrs. [Austin Teaching Fellow, James Horace] Patten and [Assistant in Economics, Gilbert Holland] Montagne. — Outlines of economics.

Total 432: 19 Seniors, 79 Juniors, 239 Sophomores, 37 Freshmen, 58 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1901-1902, p. 77.

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Mid-year Examination 1902
ECONOMICS 1

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

  1. A man increases his capital by saving which involves diminution of his consumption, but his capital can be used only by being consumed. Explain.
  2. What is over-population? What is under-population? Some years ago British India had 200 inhabitants to the square mile; Belgium 469; Rhode Island 254. Which came nearer to over-population and which to under-population?
  3. Why are the wages of servants higher in the United States than in England for the same grade of service?
  4. How does Hadley’s justification of rent resemble that of profits? Does Mill differ from Hadley in regard to the “unearned increment”?
  5. To what other conceptions than that of return from land has the notion of “rent” been applied?
    Explain the analogy between these various sorts of “rent.”
  6. Which of Mill’s laws of value is applicable to
    1. iron ore
    2. shoes
    3. typewriters
    4. street railway fares
    5. postage stamps.

State the law of value governing each case.

  1. A member of Congress maintained that there was not money enough in the country, using the following argument: “Our currency must keep pace with our growth as a nation … France has a circulation per capita of thirty dollars: England, of twenty-five: and we with our extent of territory and improvements, certainly require more than either.” State your opinion of this argument.
  2. When it is asserted that the value of gold rose 40% or 50% between 1873 and 1896, what are the various methods by which such a measurement of the amount of appreciation is affected? Point out the limitations of these methods.
  3. Consider the monetary history of the United States since 1860 with reference to the quantity theory?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 6. Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1901-02.

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Year-end Examination 1902
ECONOMICS 1

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. One question in each group may be omitted.

I.
Answer two.
  1. Are the private ownership of capital, and the payment of interest on capital justified when it is said that interest is the reward of abstinence? If so, in what manner? If not, why not?
  2. Explain what Hadley means when he says that “economic rent and net profit are differential gains.”Does Mill differ from Hadley in regard to these subjects?
  3. What groups of persons are favored by rising prices? by falling prices?
II.
Answer two.
  1. Suppose that labor became twice as productive as it is in all of our industries, what would be the probable effect upon the prices and values of the articles we import? Distinguish between the immediate and the ultimate effects.
  2. It is frequently urged that the high rate of wages prevailing in the United States disables this country from competing with “the pauper labor” of Europe. Examine the grounds of this statement, and consider how far it forms a justification for protection to American industry.
  3. Suppose the discovery of important gold fields in France. What would be the effect upon her foreign trade?
III.
Answer two.
  1. What is the difference between a commercial bank and a savings bank?
  2. “As the exchange of checks through the Clearing House has had results far beyond the mere gain in convenience and safety to which the practice owes its origin, so the redemption of notes by some corresponding mode has important bearings of much greater scope than the convenience of banks in maintaining their issues, and quite independent of any question as to the security of the currency. (Dunbar, p. 74). Explain the system suggested, and the particular advantage referred to.
  3. “The notion is often entertained that the national banks have some peculiar opportunity for making a double profit, by receiving both interest earned by their bonds, and interest earned by the loan of the notes issued upon the bonds” (Dunbar, p. 180).
    Comment upon this.
IV.
Answer three.
  1. Do prices fluctuate because men speculate, or do men speculate because prices fluctuate?
  2. Would the country gain or lose from the abolition (1) of the “produce exchanges”? (2) of the “stock exchanges”? Give reasons in each case.
  3. Assuming that a combination has secured a monopoly, what influences would tend to check an indefinite increase in prices? Illustrate the varying operation of these influences in the case of diamonds, petroleum, and iron and steel.
  4. Discuss the economic effects of the immigration of unskilled labor to the United States?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics… in Harvard College (June 1902) included in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1902-03.

Image Sources: Abram Piatt Andrew (1920) from Wikimedia Commons. O.M.W. Sprague from Harvard Class Album 1920, p. 25.

Categories
Economists Germany Harvard

Harvard. Political Economy tutor, Henry Howland (Heidelberg PhD). 1873-1874

In Charles F. Dunbar’s third academic year of his professorship in political economy at Harvard [course offerings from the first half of the 1870s], a reshuffling of the required (i.e., non-elective) one semester course in political economy to the sophomore year meant that the course would have to be offered twice in 1873-74, once for juniors  and once for sophomores. To handle the increased teaching load, Henry Howland (A.B. Harvard 1869) was appointed tutor in History and Political Economy in 1873-74, having worked as a tutor for German language courses. He had returned to Harvard in the fall term of 1872, after spending a year in France and two years in Germany, where he completed a doctorate in political economy at Heidelberg. Howland went on to Harvard Law School, receiving a law degree in 1878. There he was an instructor on tort law for the years 1879-1883.

Some further research into the life and career of Henry Howland revealed significant episodes of depression (and perhaps other mental illness) that required him to be placed temporarily under the guardianship of his brother. 

I have not yet been able to confirm Howland’s Heidelberg advanced degree in political economy mentioned in the memoir of his classmate that was written shortly after his death following “acute melancholia”.

___________________________________

From  Harvard’s
Report of the President 1873-74

“The courses in Political Economy and the Constitution of the United States are found in both years [Sophomore and Junior classes], as these courses were, last year [1873-74], transferred from the Junior to the Sophomore course of study.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 52.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Required studies.
Sophomores.

Instructor: Mr. Howland
Subject: Political Economy
Text-Books: Elements of Political Economy. — Constitution of the United States.
Number of students: 170
Number of sections: 5
Exercises per week for students: 2
Exercises per week for Instructor: 10 (for a half-year)

Instructor: Mr. Howland
Subject: History
Text-Books: Outlines of General History.
Number of students: 170
Number of sections: 5
Exercises per week for students: 2
Exercises per week for Instructor: 10 (for a half-year)

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 42.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Required studies.
Juniors.

Instructor: Prof. Dunbar
Subject: Political Economy
Text-Books: Elements of Political Economy.— Constitution of the United States.
Number of students: 153
Number of sections: 3
Exercises per week for students: 2
Exercises per week for Instructor: 6 (for a half-year)

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 44.

Elective studies.

Instructor: Prof. Dunbar
Subject: Philosophy 6
Text-Books: Political Economy. J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.— Bagehot’s Lombard Street. — Sumner’s History of American Currency.
Number of students: 1 Junior, 70 Seniors
Number of sections: 2
Exercises per week for students: 3
Exercises per week for Instructor: 6

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard University 1873-74, p. 46.

___________________________________

Obituary from
Boston Evening Transcript
(July 13, 1887)

            Mr. Henry Howland, for a number of years a member of the Boston Bar, died in Somerville, Monday. He was born in Boston, Dec. 23, 1846, and was graduated at Harvard in the class of 1869, and at the Harvard Law School in 1878. From 1872 to 1874 he was a tutor at Harvard, taking charge of history and political economy classes. Mr. Howland also continued his studies abroad, obtaining at Heidelberg the degree of Ph.D. He practiced law in Boston until his health gave out, holding just before retirement a position in the United States district attorney’s office under Judge Sanger.

[Cf. the Death Registry of the City of Somerville gives “Acute Melancholia” as the “Disease, or Cause of Death”.]

___________________________________

Henry Howland (see A.B. 1869), Tutor 1872-1874; Instr. in History and Political Economy 1872-1874; Instr. in Torts 1879-1883.

Source: Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates 1636-1930 (Cambridge, MA: 1930), p. 94.

___________________________________

1888 Memoir of a Harvard Classmate

HENRY HOWLAND

Born in Boston, December 23, 1846. Son of David and Rebecca (Crocker) Howland.
Died July 11, 1887.

The following Memoir, prepared by Henry W. [Ware] Putnam, was read at the Commencement Meeting of the Class, June, 1888:

Henry Howland, son of David and Rebecca Howland, born December 23, 1846, died July 11, 1887. We had hardly separated after our last Commencement reunion when we were startled with the announcement of another gap made in our ranks by the death of Henry Howland. We could hardly have been more unprepared for the death of any one of our number. It had not occurred to his most intimate friends that the disorder which had hung like a cloud over the last years of his life was likely to have any serious physical consequences, much less a fatal termination, and all had cherished the hope that after a while his fine mental powers would reassert themselves undimmed, and that a career which we had at graduation looked forward to as one of the most brilliant that the Class promised, would yet be achieved. But it was not to be, and on July 11, 1887, he died, at the age of forty, after a sudden illness of only a few days’ duration.

After graduating from College, Howland went abroad for purposes of study, intending to make teaching his profession, and spent one year in France and two in Germany. During this period he became a thorough French and German scholar, studied history and political economy at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, taking the degree of Ph.D. at the latter university in political economy. One of the present professors at Harvard who made his acquaintance there, and who remained his devoted and intimate friend till his death, writes as follows of him at that time: “Henry was the first Harvard graduate whom I had ever known well, and from my first meeting with him in Berlin he filled me with admiration by reason of his zeal and enthusiasm in his studies. History was his subject at that time, and he attended the lectures of the university regularly, and had two ‘Docenten’ in addition who went to his room and lectured to him there. He was tireless in finding expedients for increasing his knowledge of German, and accomplished more, I think, in his eighteen months in Germany, than any man of my acquaintance… It was characteristic of Henry,” he continues, “that when he received in Berlin the offer of an appointment in German at Harvard, he came to me and said that he didn’t care for it and would try to get it for me. I knew that he did want it very much, and of course declined to consider the subject of an appointment at all until he had received his. He was appointed in History and German, and it was entirely through his efforts that I was appointed tutor in German. Henry was changed less by his stay in Europe than any American I knew. He absorbed all that was advantageous in his surroundings, and seemed to be affected not at all by that which was worthless or ignoble. Especially in his political and social views he remained a true and steadfast Democrat and high-minded American.”

Returning home in the fall of 1872, he taught for two years at Harvard with success, — the first year as a tutor in German, the second as instructor in History and Political Economy. One of our number who was intimately associated with him during these years, being an instructor in the University at the same time, writes as follows: “He was a close and conscientious student, and possessed a great fund of general information outside of his specialties; but he was always very deferential in making any statement either of fact or opinion even to those who, as he must have known, had but a tithe of his knowledge of the subject in question. He had a happy faculty of making a friend feel at ease while he was imparting to him good information, the faculty of not making an ignorant man feel his ignorance, a faculty which was possessed, as you will remember, in such a marked degree by Professor Gurney. In argument he was always calm and never loud, but very persistent and utterly imperturbable; he never allowed himself to be switched off, and moreover, he never allowed his opponent to jump the track and take to side issues, but held him to the main line of thought until one or the other got somewhere, generally Henry.” His reputation as a teacher at the University was steadily growing, and his outlook for a successful academic career was regarded as very promising by his associates and elders at Cambridge, when he was visited by an attack of mental derangement brought on by overwork in his regular classes and with private pupils, and by the late hours and irregular habits as to sleep and meals, which are apt to accompany excessive application to study. After recovering from this attack he gave up teaching, decided to study law, and entered the Law School in 1876, taking his degree in 1878.

It is not difficult for the rest of us to see now that it was a momentous, probably a mistaken, step to enter so late and so heavily handicapped upon a profession in which one can ill afford to lose any time or have any unnecessary odds against him; but we can also easily see that it was a very natural one under the unsettling and discouraging circumstances of the moment. His natural abilities for the law were indeed fine, lying especially in the direction of a studious and safe adviser in chambers rather than an advocate in court; and with an earlier start and an unobstructed course he would have succeeded in the race; but as it was, the chances were overwhelmingly against him, and the courage with which he entered upon the profession, the patient and unflagging determination with which he clung to it, were at once heroic and pathetic. After being admitted to practice, he gave courses of instruction in torts at the Law School, in addition to his office-work, for three years with great acceptance, and made some scholarly researches in the early literature of the law for one of the professors in the school. During the last of these years he held also the position of Assistant United States District Attorney. The exacting labors of this position, which were not especially adapted to his abilities, nor congenial to his natural tastes, added to his other work, proved too much for him, and in June, 1882, he succumbed to a second attack like the first, but returned to business in December of the same year. Still another slight one occurred in August, 1883, lasting till October of the same year. He then enjoyed entire immunity for three years, and although urged by his closest friends to give up all attempt to practise law and seek some occupation where he would have plenty of outdoor life and leisure for light literary work, he was unwilling to give up his chosen ambition. During this period he did some excellent professional work, chiefly in conveyancing, and in the preparation of briefs and summaries of the law on points placed in his hands by other counsel for his examination, and it seemed as if he might yet get established in the profession; but his father’s illness and death again broke him down in the summer of 1886, and, without again returning to work, and with only a brief interval of even measurably complete restoration to reason in the spring of 1887, he died from a sudden and very brief attack of physical exhaustion.

This long and losing twelve years’ struggle between the finest intellectual gifts and inexorable mental disease is too sad and too pathetic for us, who loved him, and confidently expected so much of him, to be able to dwell upon. As a Class, we can simply put upon our record an expression of our disappointment and grief at this untimely calamity, and then try to put it out of our mind forever. But his character and qualities we shall hold in affectionate and enduring remembrance as long as any of us survive to hold Class meetings. He was the most modest of men — modest to the extent of unjust depreciation of himself. His manners and personal bearing — at all times and in all company — were those of a perfect gentleman; marked as they were, not merely by the friendly good-will and sympathy of the good fellow who is everybody’s friend, but by a certain reserve and formality, not amounting to stiffness, but showing that he made a certain pronounced, though not obtrusive, courtesy of the old school one of the duties of his life never to be forgotten or neglected, even in the society of intimates; and his outward bearing thus never failed to express the real dignity of his character, even when his wit was keenest and his raillery most pungent. His unselfishness, his absolute self-effacement when there was a friend to serve or help in any way, was a part of his very nature, — deep-seated, spontaneous, sincere. Of that fine virtue which the ancients, whose best writings he seems to have absorbed into his very being, placed above all others and called piety, filial devotion, the love of parents, he was the most striking exemplar I have ever known, subordinating every interest of his own — pleasure, social recreation, professional ambition, health — to the unceasing care through long years of an invalid mother and of an aged father. When his love of society is considered, this self-denial — especially when the circumstances did not render it in any sense a necessity — becomes the more striking and admirable. His sense of duty in all the relations of life was so extreme as to be almost morbid, and had in it a touch of Puritanic rigor. His public spirit was strong and his sympathies in this direction broad, and he was active — though not radical or extreme — in all the duties of a citizen and in the movements of social and political reform in his neighborhood. His abilities were peculiarly of a literary kind. His literary taste was of the finest; he was a constant and appreciative reader of the best imaginative literature, a lover of music and the drama. If he could, or would, but have seen it, so rare a spirit was wasted in the study of the law, and would have been so, in a sense, even with health and professional success. The higher fields of literary and historic criticism and, perhaps, composition — of philosophic generalization on literary and particularly on historic subjects — were his true field, and it was only after his first illness had discouraged him somewhat, and perhaps impaired the soundness of his judgment, that he abandoned that career for another. In his death we all mourn a fine, scholarly, high-minded character and loyal classmate; many of us a sympathetic, affectionate, and deeply loved friend.

Source: Eleventh Report of the Class of 1869 of Harvard College. Fiftieth Anniversary (June 1919), pp. 149-154.

Image Source: Title page of the Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1876-1877.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Economics Course Descriptions, Enrollments, and Exams. 1897-98

 

For the academic year 1897-1898 we are blessed with ample records for the economics courses offered (and bracketed) at Harvard. Detailed course descriptions, enrollment figures, semester-end exams are available and have been transcribed below for almost every course.

_______________________

ECONOMICS.
GENERAL STATEMENT.

Course 1 is introductory to the other courses. It is intended to give a general survey of the subject for those who take but one course in Economics, and also to prepare for the further study of the subject in advanced courses. It is usually taken with most profit by undergraduates in the second or third year of their college career. It may be taken with advantage in the second year by those who are attracted to political and social subjects. A knowledge of general history (such as is given in Course 1 in History) is a useful preparation.

The advanced courses divide themselves into two groups. The first group contains Courses 2, 3, 13, 14, 15, which are concerned chiefly with economic and social theory. Courses 2 and 15 follow the development of economic theory from its beginnings to the present time, with critical examination of the conclusions reached by economists of the past and the present. Course 13, on scope and method in economic investigation, continues the same subjects; it is taken to best advantage after either 2 or 15. Course 3 considers the wider aspects of economic and social study, and reviews the progress of sociological inquiry. Course 14 takes up the history and literature of socialistic and communistic proposals, and leads to a discussion of the foundations of existing institutions.

The second group contains the remaining courses, which are of a more descriptive and historical character. In all of them, however, attention is given to principles as well as to facts, and some acquaintance with the outlines of economic theory is called for.

Before taking any of the advanced courses, students are strongly advised to consult with the instructors. Courses 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 may not be taken without the previous consent of the instructors. It is advised that Course 1 be taken in all cases as a preparation for the advanced courses; and such students only as have passed satisfactorily in Course 1 will be admitted to Courses 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. But Courses 5, 7, and 9, may also be taken by Juniors and Seniors of good rank who are taking Course 1 at the same time; Course 6 is open to students who have taken or are taking cither History 13 or Economies 1; and Courses 10 and 11 are open to students who have passed satisfactorily either in History 1 or in Economics 1.

The Seminary in Economics is intended primarily for Graduate Students; but Seniors in Harvard College, who have had adequate training in the subject, may be admitted to it.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98,  pp. 30-31.

_______________________

Outlines of Economics
Economics 1

I. Outlines of Economics. —Principles of Political Economy.— Lectures on Social Questions and Monetary Legislation. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor  [Frank William] Taussig, Asst. Professor Edward Cummings, Dr. John Cummings, assisted by Messrs. [Charles Sumner] Griffin, [Edward Henry] Warren, and ——.

Course 1 gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics sufficient for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It begins with a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, and international trade, which is continued through the first half-year. In the second half-year, some of the applications of economic principles and some wider aspects of economic study are taken up. Social questions and the relations of labor and capital, the theory and practice of banking, and the recent currency legislation of the United States, will be successively treated in outline.

Course 1 will be conducted mainly by lectures. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. Large parts of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy will be read, as well as parts of other general books; while detailed references will be given for the reading on the application and illustration of economic principles.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98,  p. 31.

Economics 1: Enrollment

[Economics] 1. Professor [Frank William] Taussig, Asst. Professor [Edward] Cummings, Dr. [John] Cummings, and Messrs. [Charles Sumner] Griffin, [Charles Whitney] Mixter and [Edward Henry] Warren. — Outlines of Economics. — Principles of Political Economy.— Social Questions, and Financial Legislation.  3 hours.

Total 381: 32 Seniors, 99 Juniors, 199 Sophomores, 14 Freshmen, 37 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98
Economics 1.
[Mid-year Examination]

  1. Is a shop building, situated on a busy city street, capital? is the land on which it stands capital? Is a dwelling on a fashionable city street capital? the land on which it stands?
  2. Does the rent of a piece of land determine its price, and if so, how? or does its price determine the rent, and if so, how?
  3. Do you believe that differences in wages in different occupations would cease if, by gratuitous education and support, access to each occupation were made equally easy for all?
  4. Mention a case in which the income received by a person doing no manual labor is to be regarded as wages; one in which it is to be regarded as profits; one in which it is to be regarded as interest; and one in which the classification would be regarded as doubtful.
  5. Explain what is meant by the effective desire of accumulation; and consider whether, in a country like England, the minimum return on capital fixed by it has been reached.
  6. “The quantity demanded [of any commodity] is not a fixed quantity, even at the same time and place; it varies according to the value; if the thing is cheap, there is usually a demand for more of it than when it is dear. The demand, therefore, depends partly on the value. But it was laid down before that value depends on the demand. From this contradiction, how shall we extricate ourselves? How solve the paradox, of two things, each depending on the other?”
    What answer did Mill give to the question thus put by him?
  7. Does the proposition that value is determined by cost of production hold true of gold?
  8. Is it advantageous to a country to substitute paper money completely for specie?
  9. Trace the consequences of an issue of inconvertible paper, greater in amount than the specie previously in circulation, on prices, on the foreign exchanges, and on the relations of debtor and creditor.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 1.
[Final Examination]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

  1. In what sense does Mill use the terms “value” and “price”? Professor Hadley? What do you conceive to be meant by the “socialistic theory” of value?
  2. “Many people regard the luxury of the rich as being on the whole a means of preventing harm to the poor. They regard free expenditure of the capitalists’ money as a gain to laborers, and its saving as a loss.” Is this view sound?
  3. What services are rendered to society by commercial speculation? by industrial speculation?
  4. Patent-laws, protection by customs duties, private ownership of land, — wherein analogous, in Professor Hadley’s view? in your own view?
  5. Does Mill regard the rent of land as an “unearned increment”? Does Professor Hadley? On what grounds do they reach their conclusions?
  6. “By far the most important form of consumers’ coöperation is exemplified in government management of industrial enterprises.” Why, or why not, is government management to be regarded as a form of consumers’ coöperation? What other forms of such coöperation have had wide development?
  7. The peculiarities of labor considered as a commodity; and the grounds on which it is concluded that “the members of trade unions are in a condition entirely like that of the sellers of other commodities.”
  8. Consider how, according to Mill, successive issues of paper-money will affect the supply of specie in a country; and explain how far this theoretical conclusion was or was not verified by the mode in which the silver currency (dollars and certificates) issued under the act of 1878 affected the supply of gold in the United States.
  9. On what ground does Mill object to the issue of inconvertible paper? On what ground does Professor Dunbar object to the legal tender paper now issued by the United States? Wherein are the objections similar, wherein different?
  10. “If we try to make things for which we have only moderate advantages, and in so doing divert labor and capital from those where we have extraordinary ones, we do not, in general, make money; we lose more than we gain.” — HADLEY. Point out wherein this statement is akin to the analysis of international trade by Mill, and explain precisely what is here meant by making or losing money.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 40-41.

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Mediaeval Economic History of Europe
Economics 10
[Omitted in 1897-98.]

[*10. The Mediaeval Economic History of EuropeTu., Th., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor [William James] Ashley.]

The object of this course is to give a general view of the economic development of society during the Middle Ages. It will deal, among others, with the following topics: — the manorial system in its relation to mediaeval agriculture and serfdom ; the merchant gilds and the beginnings of town life and of trade ; the craft gild and the gild-system of industry, compared with earlier and later forms; the commercial supremacy of the Hanseatic and Italian merchants ; the trade routes of the Middle Ages and of the sixteenth century ; the merchant adventurers and the great trading companies ; the agrarian changes of the fifteenth nd sixteenth centuries and the break-up of the mediaeval organization of social classes ; the appearance of new manufactures and of the domestic industry.

Special attention will be devoted to England, but that country will be treated as illustrating the broader features of the economic evolution of the whole of western Europe; and attention will be called to the chief peculiarities of the economic history of France, Germany, and Italy.

Students will be introduced in this course to the use of the original sources, and they will need to be able to translate easy Latin.

It is desirable that they should already possess some general acquaintance with mediaeval history, and those who are deficient in this respect will be expected to read one or two supplementary books, to be suggested by the instructor. The course is conveniently taken after, before, or in conjunction with History 9; and it will be of especial use to those who intend to study the law of Real Property.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 31-32.

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Modern Economic History of Europe and America
(from 1500)
Economics 11

11. The Modern Economic History of Europe and America (from 1500)Tu., Th., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor [William James] Ashley.

This course, — which will usually alternate with Course 10 in successive years, — while intended to form a sequel to Course 10, will nevertheless be independent, and may usefully be taken by those who have not followed the history of the earlier period. The main thread of connection will be found in the history of trade; but the outlines of the history of agriculture and industry will also be set forth, and the forms of social organization dependent upon them. England, as the first home of the “great industry,” will demand a large share of attention; but the parallel or divergent economic history of the United States, and of the great countries of western Europe, will be considered side by side with it.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 32.

 Economics 11: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 11. Professor Ashley— The Modern Economic History of Europe and America (from 1500). 2 or 3 hours.

Total 16: 9 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Sophomore.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 11.
[Mid-year Examination]

N.B.—Not more than eight questions should be attempted.

  1. “Locutus sum de breviori via ad loca aromatum per maritimam navigationem quam sit ea quam facitis per Guineam.” Translate and comment upon this.
  2. Give some account of the Fairs of Champagne.
  3. What light does Jones’ account of agricultural conditions in Europe in his own time cast upon the agrarian history of England in the 15th and 16th centuries? Be as definite as possible in your answer.
  4. What do you suppose happened to the “craft-gilds” of England during the reign of Edward VI?
  5. Discuss the purpose and effect of the statute 5 Eliz. c. 4, in the matter of the Assessment of Wages.
  6. What were the essential characteristics of the “Domestic System” of Industry?
  7. Give some account of the industrial legislation of France in the 16th century.
  8. “The policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock.” What had the writer of this passage in mind?
  9. Give some account of any four of the following: Albuquerque, Veramuyden, Jacob Fugger, John Hales, Jacques Cartier, Bartholomew Diaz, Barthelemy Laffemas.
  10. Give a critical account of any really important work, not prescribed, of which you have read any considerable portion in connection with this course.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 11.
[Year-end Examination]

N.B.- Not more than eight questions should be attempted.

  1. “Publicae mendicationis licentiam posse civium legibus cohiberi ad liquidum ostendit ille absolutus Theologus, loannes Major.” Translate; and shew the significance of the position thus maintained.
  2. Illustrate from the history of Hamburg the change in the position of the Hanseatic League during the 16th century.
  3. Distinguish between the various races of immigrants into England since 1500, and state shortly the several respects in which the trade and industry of England were influenced by each.
  4. “Perhaps the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.” Give a brief account of the enactment of which Adam Smith thus speaks; distinguish between the various aspects in which it may be regarded; and give your own opinion as to the justice of Adam Smith’s observation.
  5. Explain the position of “les Six Corps” at Paris. Does London furnish any analogous institutions?
  6. “Hitherto,” i.e. up to 1750, “industry had been chiefly carried on in England by numbers of smaller capitalists who were also manual workmen.” Criticise this as a bit of exposition.
  7. The position of Arthur Young in economic history.
  8. The commercial policy of the younger Pitt.
  9. Mention, with the briefest possible comment, some of the more important features in which the agricultural, industrial and commercial life of the England of to-day differs from that of the England of 1750.
  10. What were the principal defects in the administration of the English Poor Laws prior to 1834, and how was it sought to remedy them?
  11. Explain the need for the English Factory Acts, and give some account of their history.
  12. Give a critical estimate of any really important book, not prescribed, of which you have read any considerable proportion in connection with this course during the second half-year.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 50-51.

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The Economic History of the United States
Economics 6

6. The Economic History of the United StatesTu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Mr. [Guy Stevens] Callender.

Course 6 gives a general survey of the economic history of the United States from the formation of the Union to the present time, and considers also the mode in which economic principles are illustrated by the experience so surveyed. A review is made of the financial history of the United States, including Hamilton’s financial system, the second Bank of the United States and the banking systems of the period preceding the Civil War, coinage history, the finances of the Civil War, and the banking and currency history of the period since the Civil War. The history of manufacturing industries is taken up in connection with the course of international trade and of tariff legislation, the successive tariffs being followed and their economic effects considered. The land policy of the United States is examined partly in its relation to the growth of population and the inflow of immigrants, and partly in its relation to the history of transportation, including the movement for internal improvements, the beginnings of the railway system, the land grants and subsidies, and the successive bursts of activity in railway building. Comparison will be made from time to time with the contemporary economic history of European countries.

Written work will be required of all students, and a course of reading will be prescribed, and tested by examination. The course is taken advantageously with or after History 13. While an acquaintance with economic principles is not indispensable, students are strongly advised to take the course after having taken Economics 1, or, if this be not easy to arrange, at the same time with that course.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 32-33.

Economics 6: Enrollment

[Economics] 6. Dr. Callender. — The Economic History of the United States. 3 hours.

Total 94: 4 Graduates, 38 Seniors, 41 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 6.
[Mid-year Examination]

[Omit one question from each group]

I.

  1. “The effect of England’s policy was, through a restriction of the market, to render the production of those staple commodities (i.e. of agriculture, and the fisheries) less profitable. Thus New England, and later the middle colonies, not being allowed to exchange their normal products for England’s manufactures, were forced to begin manufacturing for themselves.”—
    “Briefly describe the measures designed to prevent the rise of manufactures in the colonies; and state whether in your opinion the growth of manufactures in the northern colonies was stopped chiefly by this legislation or by other causes.
  2. The American colonies during the Revolution were in much the same economic position as the South during the Rebellion. The chief resource of the latter was the value of its cotton crop to the world; that of the former was the supposed value of their trade to the nations of Europe. Describe the various ways in which the Revolutionary statesmen made use of this resource.
  3. Judging from the opinions of statesmen as well as from acts of legislation what would you say were the leading objects of American Commercial policy from 1783 to 1789?
  4. State briefly the exact circumstances which permitted the growth of American commerce during the years from 1793 to 1806. How did this temporary commercial prosperity affect the subsequent growth of manufactures?

II.

  1. Compare the conditions which gave rise to manufactures in the northern colonies before 1760 with those which prevailed during the years immediately following 1783 and 1815; and indicate what conclusions you would draw from such a comparison, as to the necessity or expediency of protective legislation to secure the development of manufactures in a new country.
  2. Discuss the effect of the duties on Cotton and Iron during the period from 1816 to 1833.
  3. Compare the treatment of wages in Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures with that which appeared in the debate on the Tariff Act of 1846. How do you explain the change?
  4. Mention several industries which were created or greatly promoted by inventions between 1840 and 1860.

III.

  1. Henry Clay declared in 1832 that the seven years preceding 1824 “exhibited a scene of the most widespread dismay and desolation,” while the seven years following 1824 exhibited the “greatest prosperity which this people, bare enjoyed since the establishment of the present constitution.” How do you explain this change?
  2. In what ways have the people of the United States made use of the Federal and State governments to provide transportation facilities? How do you explain this tendency to State interference in industrial affairs at so early a date in America?
  3. Describe the abuses in Railroad management which the Interstate Commerce Act was intended to correct.
  4. Explain why competition proves less effective in regulating freight rates than in regulating the price of most commodities.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 6.
[Year-end Examination]

Answer at least eight questions.

  1. Give your reasons for agreeing to, or dissenting from, the following proposition: Until the wars of the French Revolution temporarily suspended the colonial policy of Continental Europe, the United States was in a more unfavorable economic position than they had been in prior to the Revolution
  2. Why was the adoption of a liberal tariff policy by the U.S. in 1846 more justifiable than in 1816?
  3. “The provisions of the constitution were universally considered as affording a complete security against the danger of paper money. The introduction of the banking system met with a strenuous opposition on various grounds; but it was not apprehended that bank notes, convertible at will into specie, and which no person could be legally compelled to take in payment, would degenerate into pure paper money, no longer paid at sight in specie… It was the catastrophe of 1814 which first disclosed not only the insecurity of the American banking system, as it then existed, but also that when a paper currency, driving away, and suspending the use of gold and silver, has insinuated itself through every channel of circulation, and become the only medium of exchange, every individual finds himself, in fact compelled to receive such currency, even when depreciated more than twenty per cent. in the same manner as if it had been a legal tender.” — GALLATIN.
    Prior to the adoption of the national banking system in 1863, how did the federal government attempt to prevent the evil here described. and with what success?
  4. How far do the conditions, which render competition ineffective as a regulator of transportation charges, prevail in any of the industries in which Trusts have been formed? — or to ask the same thing in another way, how far is it possible to justify Trusts on the same grounds as Railroad Pools?
  5. What reasons would you assign for the change in the relative value of gold and silver which occurred after 1873?
  6. What difficulty did the Treasury department encounter in administering the silver act of 1878, and what means were used to overcome it?
  7. Compare the effect of the protective duties on wool and woollens since 1867 with the effect of those on silk and steel during the same time.
  8. “In the division of employments which has taken place in America, the far preferable share, truly, has fallen to the Northern States…The states, therefore, which forbid slavery, having reaped the economical benefits of slavery, without incurring the chief of its moral evils, seem to be even more indebted to it than the slave states.” — WAKEFIELD.
    How would you explain this statement?
  9. According to Mr. Cairnes, what constituted the economic basis of Negro slavery in the Southern States and enabled it to successfully resist the competition of free white labor? Do you consider this economic basis of slavery to have been permanent?
  10. Describe the most important change in Southern agrarian conditions which has resulted from emancipation.
  11. What influences can you mention that have contributed to the fall in the prices of the staple products of Northern agriculture during the last ten years?
  12. Why has this fall in the price of agricultural products caused greater hardship to the farmers than the corresponding fall in the price of manufactured products has caused among manufacturers?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 45-47.

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History and Literature of Economics to the Close of the 18th Century
Economics 15

*15. The History and Literature of Economics to the Close of the Eighteenth CenturyMon., Wed., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12.     Professor[William James] Ashley.

The course of economic speculation will here be followed, in its relation alike to the general movement of contemporary thought and to contemporary social conditions. The lectures will consider the economic theories of Plato and Aristotle; the economic ideas underlying Roman law; the mediaeval church and the canonist doctrine; mercantilism in its diverse forms; “political arithmetic;” the origin of the belief in natural rights and its influence on economic thought; the physiocratic doctrine; the work and influence of Adam Smith; the doctrine of population as presented by Malthus; Say and the Erench school; and the beginnings of academic instruction in economics.

The lectures will be interrupted from time to time for the examination of selected portions of particular authors; and careful study will be given to portions of Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics (in translation) to Mun’s England’s Treasure, Locke’s Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, certain Essays of Hume, Turgot’s Réflexions, and specified chapters of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and Malthus’ Essay. Students taking the course are expected to procure the texts of the chief authors considered, and to consult the following critical works:

Ingram, History of Political Economy; Cossa, Introduction to the Study of Political Economy; Cannan, History of the Theories of Production and Distribution; Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy; Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest; Taussig, Wages and Capital.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 33-34.

Economics 15: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 15. Professor Ashley. — The History and Literature of Economics to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. 2 or 3 hours.

Total 6: 3 Graduates, 1 Senior, 2 Sophomores.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 15.
[Mid-year Examination]

N.B.—Not more than eight questions should be attempted.

  1. Compare the Republic of Plato with the Politics of Aristotle, as to purpose and temper.
  2. Expound Aristotle’s teaching with regard to Slavery.
  3. “He is supposed to have given a striking proof of his wisdom, but his device for getting money is of universal application.” Comment, and explain the context.
  4. What parts of Aristotle’s criticism of Communism seem to you pertinent to modern Socialism. Explain what particular kind of Socialism you have in mind.
  5. Set forth, and criticise, Maine’s account of the influence in modern times of the conception of a Law of Nature.
  6. Were the early Christians communists?
  7. How did “Inter-est [sic],” in its original meaning, differ from “Usury.”
  8. The position in economic literature of Nicholas Oresme.
  9. What principles, if any, of the canonist teaching seem to you to have any bearing on modern economic problems.
  10. What were “the particular ways and means to encrease our exportations and diminish our importations,” according to Mun?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 15.
[Year-end Examination]

  1. Criticise the current conception of “Mercantilism” in the light of your own study of the later English mercantilist writers.
  2. The place of Locke in English economic thought.
  3. “Tout ce qu’il y a de vrai dans ce volume estimable, mais pénible à lire, en deux gros volumes in-4°, se trouve dans les Réflexions de Turgot; tout ce qu’Adam Smith y a ajouté manque d’exactitude et même de fondement.”
    Translate, and then criticise this remark of Du Pont’s.
  4. Trace the various elements which went to make up the idea of Nature in Adam Smith’s mind, and then explain Smith’s application of it to any particular subject.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, p. 53.

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Economic Theory
in the 19th Century
Economics 2

*2. Economic Theory in the Nineteenth CenturyMon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor [Frank William] Taussig.

Course 2 is designed to acquaint the student with the history of economic thought during the nineteenth century, and to give him at the same time training in the critical consideration of economic principles. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the important writers; and in this discussion students are expected to take an active part. Lectures are given at intervals, tracing the general movement of economic thought and describing its literature. Special attention will be given to the theory of distribution.

The course opens with an examination of Ricardo’s doctrines, selections from Ricardo’s writings being read and discussed. These will then be compared with the appropriate chapters in Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, and further with passages in Cairnes’ Leading Principles. The theory of wages, and the related theory of business profits, will then be followed in the writings of F. A. Walker, Sidgwick, and Marshall, and a general survey made of the present stage of economic theory in England and the United States. The development on the continent of Europe will be traced chiefly in lectures; but toward the close of the year a critical examination will be made of the doctrines of the modern Austrian school.

Course 2 is taken with advantage in the next year after Course 1; but Course 15 may also be taken with advantage after Course 1, and then followed by Course 2, or taken contemporaneously with it.

Source:  Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 34.

 Economics 2: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. 3 hours.

Total 32: 9 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 2.
[Mid-year. 1898.]

[Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. One question may be omitted.]

  1. According to Ricardo, what is the effect, if any, of a rise in the price of food on wages? on profits? on the prices of commodities?
  2. “Ricardo expresses himself as if the quantity of labor which it costs to produce a commodity and bring it to the market, were the only thing on which its value depended. But since the cost of production to the capitalist is not labor but wages, and since wages may be greater or less, the quantity of labor being the same; it would seem that the value of the product cannot be determined solely by the quantity of labor, but by the quantity together with the remuneration; and that values must depend on wages.” — Mill.
    What do you conceive Ricardo would have said to this?
  3. “We have therefore remarked that the difficulty of passing from one class of employments to a class greatly superior, has hitherto caused the wages of all those classes of laborers who are separated from one another by any very marked barrier, to depend more than might be supposed upon the increase of population of each class, considered separately; and that the inequalities in the remuneration of labor are much greater than could exist if the competition of the laboring people generally could be brought practically to bear on each particular employment. It follows from this that wages in each particular employment do not rise or fall simultaneously, but are, for short and sometimes even for long periods, nearly independent of each other. All such disparities evidently alter the relative costs of production of different commodities, and will therefore be completely represented in the natural or average value.” — Mill.
    What has Cairnes added to this?
  4. “He [Mr. Longe] puts the case of a capitalist who, by taking advantage of the necessities of his workmen, effects a reduction in their wages; and asks how is this sum, thus withdrawn, to be restored to the fund? . . . The answer to the case put by Mr. Longe is easy on his own principles; and I am disposed to flatter myself that the reader who has gone with me in the foregoing discussion will not have much difficulty in replying to it on mine.” — Cairnes.
    Give the reply.
  5. “Fixity or definiteness is the very essence of the supposed wages-fund. No one denies that some amount or other must within a given period be disbursed in the form of wages. The only question is whether that amount be determinate or indeterminate.” — Thornton.
    What is Cairnes’s answer to the question put in this passage?
  6. What would you expect the relation of imports to exports to be in a country whose inhabitants had for a long time been borrowing, and were still borrowing, from the inhabitants of other countries?
  7. Are general high wages an obstacle to a country’s exporting?
  8. “Granted a certain store of provisions, of tools, and of materials for production, sufficient, say, for 1000 laborers, those who hold the wage-fund theory assert that the same rate of wages (meaning thereby the actual amount of necessaries, comforts, and luxuries received by the laborer) would prevail whether these laborers be Englishmen or East Indians. . . . On the contrary, it is not true that the present economical quality of the laborers, as a whole, is an element in ascertaining the aggregate amount that can now be paid in wages; that as wages are paid out of the product, and as the product will be greater or smaller by reason of the workman’s sobriety, industry, and intelligence, or his want of these qualities, so wages may and should be higher or lower accordingly?”
    Give your opinion.
  9. What do you conceive to be the “no profits class of employers” in President Walker’s theory of distribution?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 2.
[Final Examination]

The answer to one question may be omitted.

  1. The analysis of capital in its relation to labor and wages at the hands of Ricardo and of Böhm-Bawerk, — wherein the same? wherein different?
  2. The contributions of permanent worth for economic theory by Cairnes? by F.A. Walker? [Consider one.]
  3. The position of Carey and Bastiat in the development of economic theory.
  4. “If the efficiency of labor could be suddenly doubled, whilst the capital of the country remained stationary, there would be a great and immediate rise in real wages. The supplies of capital already in existence would be distributed among the laborers more rapidly than would otherwise be the case, and the increased efficiency of labor would soon make good the diminished supplies. The fact is that an increase in the efficiency of labor would bring about an increase in the supply of capital.” — Marshall. Why? or why not?
  5. “The capital of the employer is by no means the real source of the wages even of the workmen employed by him. It is only the intermediate reservoir from which wages are paid out, until the purchasers of the commodities produced by that labor make good the advance and thereby encourage the undertaker to purchase additional labor.” W. Roscher.
    What do you say to this?
  6. “If the rate of profit falls, the laborer gets more nearly the whole amount of the product. But if the rate of wages falls, we have a corresponding fall in prices and little change in the relative shares of labor and capital.” Hadley.
    Why, or why not, in either case?
  7. “In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers or merchants by profession, and who hold an amount of commodities entirely beyond any needs of their own. Consequently, for them the subjective use-value of their own wares is, for the most part, very nearly nil; and the figure which they put on their own valuation almost sinks to zero.” Explain the bearing of this remark on the theory of value as developed by Böhm-Bawerk.
  8. What, according to Böhm-Bawerk, is the explanation of interest derived from “durable consumption goods”? And what is your own view?
  9. How far do you conceive that there is a “productivity” of capital, serving to explain the existence of interest, and the rate?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 41-42.

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Scope and Method in Economic Theory and Investigation
Economics 132

*132 hf. Scope and Method in Economic Theory and Investigation. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Professor [William James] Ashley.

Course 13 will examine the methods by which the important writers, from Adam Smith to the present time, have approached economic questions, and the range which they have given their inquiries; and will consider the advantage of different methods, and the expediency of a wider or narrower scope of investigation. Mill’s essay on the Definition of Political Economy; Cairnes’ Logical Method of Political Economy; Keynes’ Scope and Method of Political Economy; certain sections of Wagner’s Grundlegung and Schmoller’s essay on Volkswirthschaft will be carefully examined. The conscious consideration of method by the later writers of the classic school and by their successors in England; the rise of the historical school and its influence; the mode in which contemporary writers approach the subject, — will he successively followed.

Course 13 is open to students who take or have taken Course 2 or Course 15. A fair reading knowledge of German as well as of French will be expected of students, and the opportunity will be taken to assist them to acquire facility in reading scientific German. Subjects will be assigned for investigation and report, and the results of such investigations will be presented for discussion.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 34-35.

Economics 132: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 132. Professor Ashley. — Scope and Method in Economic Theory and Investigation. 3 hours.

Total 5: 3 Graduates, 1Senior, 1 Sophomore.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 132.
[Year-end Examination]

  1. “Ganz unabhängig von der deutschen historischen National-Ökonomie haben Sociologen wie A. Comte ähnliche, freilich auch zu weit gehende Bedenken gegen Deduction und Abstraction der britischen Oekonomik erhoben.”
    Translate this; and then (1) state Comte’s position with regard to economic method, (2) criticise it.
  2. “Die besondere Leistung des wissenschaftlichen Socialismus ist der Nachweis des beherrschenden Einflusses der Privateigenthums ordnung, speciell des Privateigenthums‚ an den sachlichen Productionsmitteln’, auf die Gestaltung der Production und der Vertheilung des Productionsertrag, zumal bei Wegfall aller Beschränkungen der Verfügungsbefugnisse des Privateigenthümers im System der freien Concurrenz…Durch den Socialismus ist aber auch das andere grosse Hauptproblem, dasjenige der Freiheit und ihrer Rechtsordnung, in ein neues Stadium getreten. Hier begeht der Socialismus nun jedoch trotz seiner scharfen Kritik der wirthschaftlichen Freiheit im System der ökonomischen Individualismus und Liberalismus principiell denselben Fehler, wie letzterer: auch er fasst die Freiheit als Axiom, statt als Problem auf, ein schwerstes Problem gerade jeder socialistischen Rechts- und Wirtschaftsordnung.”
    (1) Translate, (2) explain, and (3) comment on this.
  3. Discuss the questions raised by the application to Economies of the distinction between a Science and an Art.
  4. What did J. S. Mill mean by the Historical Method? Consider (1) the source of the idea, (2) its characterization by Mill, and (3) the bearing of his utterances with regard to it upon the question of economic method.
  5. Examine either (1) the Malthusian doctrine of Population or (2) the Ricardian doctrine of Rent as a specimen of an economic “law.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 52-53.

_______________________

Principles of Sociology
Economics 3

*3. The Principles of Sociology. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

Course 3 begins with a general survey of the structure and development of society; showing the changing elements of which a progressive society is composed, the forces which manifest themselves at different stages in the transition from primitive conditions to complex phases of civilized life, and the structural outlines upon which successive phases of social, political, and industrial organization proceed. Following this, is an examination of the historical aspects which this evolution has actually assumed: Primitive man, elementary forms of association, the various forms of family organization, and the contributions which family, clan and tribe have made to the constitution of more comprehensive ethnical and political groups ; the functions of the State, the circumstances which determine types of political association, the corresponding expansion of social consciousness, and the relative importance of military, economic, and ethical ideas at successive stages of civilization. Special attention is given to the attempts to formulate physical and psychological laws of social growth; to the relative importance of natural and of artificial selection in social development; the law of social survival; the dangers which threaten civilization; and the bearing of such general consideration upon the practical problems of vice, crime, poverty, pauperism, and upon mooted methods of social reform.

The student is thus acquainted with the main schools of sociological thought, and opportunity is given for a critical comparison of earlier phases of sociological theory with more recent contributions in Europe and the United States. Regular and systematic reading is essential. Topics are assigned for special investigation in connection with practical or theoretical aspects of the course.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 35.

 Economics 3: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 3 Asst. Professor E. Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 2 or 3 hours.

Total 59: 4 Graduates, 30 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 6 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 3.
[Mid-year examination]

[Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Give one hour to each group.]

I.

Discuss the merits and defects of the following conceptions of society:

A) Society as an organism.
B) Society as a physio-psychic organism.
C) Society as an organization.
D) Society as an “organisme contractuel.”

What in your opinion are the essential differences between an ant hill and a human society?

II.

Give a critical summary and comparison of the views of Spencer, Giddings, Ritchie in regard to (a) the origin, (b) the development and forms, and (c) the functions of political organization.
Contrast the ancient, medieval and modern views of the relations of the State to Society and to the Individual.

III.

Discuss the views of Spencer, Westermarck, Giddings and others on the causes and the effects of the successive phases of family organization.
What claims has the family to be regarded as the “social unit”?
Discuss the significance of existing tendencies.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 3.
[Final Examination]

I.

The nature, the causes, and the criteria of progress, according to (a) Spencer, (b) Kidd, (c) La Pouge, (d) Haycraft, (e) Giddings, (f) Tarde? State and illustrate by historical examples your own views in regard to the “curve of progress.”

II.

“The special feature of the final adjustment secured by our occidental civilizations, contrary to what has been seen on the earth before them, will therefore have been the subordination of the social to the individual. This singularly daring enterprise is the true novelty of modern times. It is well worth living to second it or to participate in it.”— TARDE.
“There seems no avoiding the conclusion that these conspiring causes must presently bring about that lapse of self-ownership into ownership by the community, which is partially implied by collectivism and completely by communism.” — SPENCER.
Discuss carefully the merits of these opinions, and the evidence on which they rest.

III.

What do you conceive to be some of the dangerous tendencies of our civilization? And what are the remedies?

IV.

State the subject of your final report and the reading you have done in connection with it.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, p. 42.

_______________________

Socialism and Communism
Economics 14

*14. Socialism and Communism. — History and Literature. Tu., Th., and at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

Course 14 is primarily an historical and critical study of socialism and communism. It traces the history and significance of schemes for social reconstruction from the earliest times to the present day. It discusses the historical evidences of primitive communism, the forms assumed by private ownership at different stages of civilization, the bearing of these considerations upon the claims of modern socialism, and the outcome of experimental communities in which socialism and communism have actually been tried. Special attention, however, is devoted to the recent history of socialism, — the precursors and the followers of Marx and Lassalle, the economic and political programmes of socialistic parties in Germany, France, and other countries.

The primary object is in every case to trace the relation of historical evolution to these programmes; to discover how far they have modified history or found expression in the policy of parties or statesmen; how far they must be regarded simply as protests against existing phases of social evolution; and how far they may be said to embody a sane philosophy of social and political organization.

The criticism and analysis of these schemes gives opportunity for discussing from different points of view the ethical and historical value of social and political institutions, the relation of the State to the individual, the political and economic bearing of current socialistic theories.

The work is especially adapted to students who have had some introductory training in Ethics as well as in Economics. A systematic course of reading covers the authors discussed; and special topics for investigation may be assigned in connection with this reading.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 35-36.

Economics 14: Enrollment

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor E. Cummings. — Communism and Socialism. — History and Literature. 2 or 3 hours.

Total 12: 3 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 14.
[Mid-year Examination]

Outline briefly the characteristics of socialistic theory and practice in ancient, medieval and modern times, — devoting about an hour to each epoch, and showing —

(a) so far as possible the continuity of such speculations; the characteristic resemblances and differences;
(b) the influence of peculiar historical conditions;
(c) the corresponding changes in economic theory and practice.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

No Year-end Examination for 1898 found.

_______________________

Labor Question
in Europe and the U.S.
Economics 9.

9. The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings and Dr. John Cummings.

Course 9 is a comparative study of the condition and environments of workingmen in the United States and European countries. It is chiefly concerned with problems growing out of the relations of labor and capital. There is careful study of the voluntarily organizations of labor, — trade unions, friendly societies, and the various forms of cooperation; of profit-sharing, sliding scales, and joint standing committees for the settlement of disputes; of factory legislation, employers’ liability, the legal status of laborers and labor organizations, state courts of arbitration, and compulsory government insurance against the exigencies of sickness, accident, and old age. All these expedients, together with the phenomena of international migration, the questions of a shorter working day and convict labor, are discussed in the light of experience and of economic theory, with a view to determining the merits, defects, and possibilities of existing movements.

The descriptive and theoretical aspects of the course are supplemented by statistical evidence in regard to wages, prices, standards of living, and the social condition of labor in different countries.

Topics will be assigned for special investigation, and students will be expected to participate in the discussion of selections from authors recommended for a systematic course of reading.

The course is open not only for students who have taken Course 1, but to Juniors and Seniors of good rank who are taking Course 1.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 36-37.

Economics 9: Enrollment

[Economics] 9. Asst. Professor E. Cummings and Dr. J. Cummings. — The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. 3 hours.

Total 108: 1 Graduate, 39 Seniors, 51 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 78.

No Mid-year Examination found.

1897-98.
Economics 9.
[Year-End Examination]

I.
WORKINGMEN’S INSURANCE.

“After a preliminary examination of the various kinds of working-men’s insurance, and the chief methods by which its provision can be accomplished, we have considered the history and present condition of the problem in each of the great countries of Europe and in the United States. It now remains to pass in review the whole field, to contrast, in a measure, the various policies that have been pursued, and to indicate some of the ways in which this rich experience can be of assistance in any attempt that may be made in this country to further similar movements.”
Devote one hour (a) to analyzing the present condition in each country; (b) to indicating the ways in which this rich experience can be of assistance.

II.

a) Give the name, the size, the characteristics of the important labor organizations in the United States.

b) Compare the development and present condition of labor organizations in the United States, with the movement in England.

c) How do you account for the differences in success attending trade union and coöperative enterprises in the two countries?

III.

a) What agencies, public and private, are available for settling disputes between employers and employed in the United States?

b) To what important legal questions have these disputes given rise? What has been the attitude of the judiciary and what are the merits of the present controversy in regard to injunctions?

c) What has been the general character and value of labor legislation during the last decade?

IV.

Indicate approximately the husband’s earnings, the family income and the standard of living among laborers in coal, iron, steel, textile or other industries,

1) in the United States.
2) in European countries.
3) Compare the native with the foreign-born American in these respects.
4) What conclusions do you draw from the evidence?

V.

What is the subject of your special report? State briefly (a) the method of your research, (b) the conclusions reached.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 49-50.

_______________________

Statistics
Economics 4

*4. Statistics. — Applications to Social and Economic Problems. — Studies in Movements of Population. — Theory and Method. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. John Cummings.

This course deals with statistical methods used in the observation and analysis of social conditions, with the purpose of showing the relation of statistical studies to Economics and Sociology, and the scope of statistical inductions. It undertakes an examination of the views entertained by various writers regarding the theory and use of statistics, and an historical and descriptive examination of the practical methods of carrying out statistical investigations. The application of statistical methods is illustrated by studies in political, fiscal, and vital statistics, in the increase and migration of population, the growth of cities, the care of criminals and paupers, the accumulation of capital, and the production and distribution of wealth.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 37.

Economics 4: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 4. Dr. J. Cummings. — Statistics. — Applications to Economic and Social Questions. — Studies in the Movement of Population. — Theory and Method. 3 hours.

Total 18: 7 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 4.
[Mid-year Examination]

[Divide your time equally between A. and B.]

A.

[Take two.]

  1. In what sense do you understand Quetelet’s assertion that “the budget of crime is an annual taxation paid with more preciseness than any other”?
    Comment upon the “element of fixity in criminal sociology.”
    What are the “three factors of crime”?
    Can you account for the “steadiness of the graver forms of crime”? for the increase or decrease of other crimes?
    Define “penal substitutes.”
    What determines the rate of criminality?
    Comment upon the tables relating to crime in the last federal census, and explain how far they enable one to estimate the amount of crime committed and the increase or decrease in that amount.
  2. Comment upon the movement of population in the U. S. as indicated in the census rates of mortality and immigration. Upon the movement of population in France and in other European countries during this century. Can you account for the decline in the rates of mortality which characterize these populations?
    Give an account of the growth of some of the large European cities and of the migratory movements of their populations.
    Give an account for the depopulation of rural districts which has taken place during this century?
  3. Give some account of the Descriptive School of Statisticians and of the School of Political Arithmetic.
    Of the organization and work of statistical bureaus in European countries during this century.
    Of the census bureau in the United States.

B.

[Take four.]

  1. What are some of the “positive” statistical evidences of vitality in a population? “negative”?
  2. Define “index of mortality.”
  3. Comment upon the density and distribution of population in the United States.
  4. What do you understand by “normal distribution of a population according to sex and age”? Define “movement of population.”
  5. Explain the various methods of estimating a population during intercensal years.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 4.
[Final Examination]

A.

I.

“The wealth of a nation is a matter of estimate only. Certain of its elements are susceptible of being approximated more closely than others; but few of them can be given with greater certainty or accuracy than is expressed in the word ‘estimated.’” Why? State the several methods used for determining the wealth of a nation. Give some account of the increase and of the present distribution of wealth in the United States.

II.

What statistical data indicate the movement of real wages during this century? What facts have to be taken into account in determining statistically the condition of wage earners? State the several methods of calculating index numbers of wages and prices, and explain the merits of each method. Explain the use of weighted averages as indexes, and the considerations determining the weights. What has been the movement of wages and prices in the United States since 1860?

III.

Statistical data establishing a hierarchy of European races, the fundamental “laws of anthropo-sociology,” and the selective influences of migratory movements and the growth of cities.

B.

Take six.

  1. “I have striven with the help of biology, statistics and political economy to formulate what I consider to be the true law of population.” (Nitti.) What is this law? Is it the true law? Why?
  2. Upon what facts rests the assertion that “the fulcrum of the world’s balance of power has shifted from the West to the East, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific”?
  3. What factors determine the rate of suicide? Consider the effect upon the rate of suicide of the sex and age distribution of the population, of the social and physical environment, and of heredity.
  4. Statistical determination of labor efficiency, and the increase of such efficiency during this century.
  5. How far are statistics concerning the number of criminal offenders indicative of the amount of criminality? Statistics of prison populations? Of crimes? What variables enter in to determine the “rate of criminality”? What significance do you attach to such rates?
  6. The statistical method.
  7. Graphics as means of presenting statistical data.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 43-44.

_______________________

Railways and other Public Works
Economics 52

52 hf. Railways and other Public Works, under Government and Corporate management. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 1.30. Mr. [Hugo Richard] Meyer.

In this course it is proposed to review the history and working of different modes of dealing with railway transportation, and to deal summarily with other similar industries, such as the telegraph, street railways, water and gas supply. Consideration will be given to the economic characteristics of these industries, the theory and history of railway rates, the effects of railway service and railway charges on other industries, the causes and consequences of monopoly conditions. The history of legislation in the more important European countries will be followed, as well as the different modes in which they have undertaken the regulation and control of private corporations, or have assumed direct ownership, with or without management and operation. Some attention will be given also to the experience of the British colonies, and more especially of those in Australia. In the United States, there will be consideration of the growth of the great systems, the course of legislation by the federal government, the working of the Interstate Commerce Act, and the modes of regulation, through legislation and through Commissions, at the hands of the several States. So far as time permits, other industries, analogous to railways, will be discussed in a similar manner.

Written work, in the preparation of papers on assigned topics, will be expected of all students in the course.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 37-38.

Economics 52: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 52. Mr. Meyer. — Public Works, Railways, Postal and Telegraph Service, and Monopolized Industries, under Corporate and Public Management. Hf. 3 hours. 2d half year.

Total 65: 31 Seniors, 16 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 78.

1897-1898.
Economics 52.
[Final Examination]

  1. “The principle [of railway rates] commonly advocated by the antagonists of the railways, as well as by the would-be reformers, is that of cost of service. Charges should be regulated in accordance with the cost of the particular transaction to the company. This is certainly not the actual method. Is it the correct method?”
    Give your reasons for accepting or rejecting the “cost of service” principle.
  2. What were the causes of the so-called granger agitation of 1871-74; of the reappearance of this agitation in 1886-88?
  3. What were the principal reasons for the instability of railway pools in the United States?
  4. By what means did the Trunk Line Associations which succeeded the Trunk Line Pool seek to limit competition and attain the effects of pooling?
  5. Discuss the working of the Interstate Commerce Act under the following headings:—
    The prohibition of undue or unreasonable preference or advantage and the prohibition of pooling.
    The construction by the United States Courts of the clause that the findings of the Commission shall be prima facie evidence in judicial proceedings.
    Legal embarrassments and other obstacles encountered by the Commission in obtaining testimony in penal cases.
    The attitude of the railways to the Act.
  6. The history of the application of the long and short haul clause to competitive rates made by railways not subject to competition from railways which are beyond the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission; and to rates on imported commodities. Discuss under the following heading:—
    “The construction put upon the long and short haul clause by the Interstate Commerce Commission; by the United States Supreme Court.
  7. Discuss the working of the German legislation prescribing for distances over 100 km a uniform rate per ton per kilometer.
    Should you expect the practice of equal mileage charges to work with more friction or with less in the United States than in Germany?
    Alternative:
    The important points of difference between the management of the Prussian State Railways and the management of the Australian State Railways; between the management of the English Railways and the management of the American Railways.
  8. The reasons for the failure of the De Freycinet (1879) railway construction schemes; and the effect upon the French Budget of the “agreements” negotiated in 1883 between the French Government and the Six Companies.
    Alternative:
    The effect upon the Italian Budget of the “conventions” made in 1885 between the Italian Government and the Three Companies. The effect upon the Italian Exchequer of the railway construction carried out under the act of 1879 and the supplementary acts of 1881, 1882, and 1885.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 44-45.

_______________________

Theory and Methods of Taxation
Economics 71

*71 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 1.30. Professor [Frank William] Taussig.

Course 71 undertakes an examination of the theory of taxation, based upon the comparative study of methods as practised in different countries and in different States of the American Union. This examination necessarily includes some discussion of leading questions in revenue legislation, such as the taxation of incomes and personal property, the single tax, progressive taxation, and indirect taxes.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 38.

Economics 71: Enrollment

[Economics ] 71. Professor Taussig.—The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to Local Taxation in the United States. 2 or 3 hours. 1st half year.

Total 42: 5 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

Economics 71.
Readings

Seligman—Essays in Taxation.
Bastable—Public Finance.
Leroy-Beaulieu—Science des Finances, Vol. I.
Say—Dictionnaire des Finances.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, cited as Q. J. E.
Dowell—History of Taxation in England.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS: CLASSIFICATION.

Seligman, Ch. IX.
Bastable, Bk. II, Ch. I; Bk. III, Ch. 1

TAXES ON LAND.

{Leroy-Beaulieu. Bk. II, Ch. VI;
Say, article “Foncière (Contribution).” 233-241.}
Bastable, Bk. IV, Ch. I.
Dictionary of Political Economy, article “Land Tax.”

HABITATION TAXES.

{Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. VII.
Say, article “Personelle-Mobilière,” 850-857.}
Dowell, Vol. III, 186-192.

INCOME TAXES.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. X.
Bastable, Bk. IV, Ch. IV.
{Dowell, Vol. III, 99-122;
Article “Income Tax in the United Kingdom,” in Dictionary of Political Economy, Vol. II.}
J. A. Hill, The Prussian Income Tax, Q. J. E., January, 1892.
Seligman, Ch. X, iii, iv.

BUSINESS TAXES.

{Say,  article “Patentes,” pp. 743-752;
Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. VIII.}
J. A. Hill—The Prussian Business Tax, Q. J. E., October, 1893.

SUCCESSION TAXES.

Seligman, Ch. V; Ch. IX, i.
Bastable, Bk. III, Ch. III.

PROGRESSION.

{Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. II;
Bastable, Bk. III, Ch. III.}
Seligman, Progressive Taxation, pp. 190-200; pp. 39-53 (Switzerland).

DIRECT TAXES BY THE UNITED STATES.

C. F. Dunbar,The Direct Tax of 1861, Q. J. E., July, 1889; Vol. III, pp. 436-446.
J. A. Hill,The Civil War Income Tax, Q. J. E., July, 1894.
C. F. Dunbar, The New Income Tax, Q. J. E., October, 1894.

LOCAL TAXES IN ENGLAND.

Blunden, Local Taxation and Finance, Ch. III, IV, V.

LOCAL TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Seligman, Ch. II, IV, VI, XI.
Ely, Taxation in American States, part III, Ch. VII.
Plehn, The General Property in California, (Economic Studies, Vol. II, No. 3), Part II, 151-178.
Angell, The Tax Inquisitor System in Ohio, in Yale Review, February, 1897.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 1, folder “1897-1898”.

1897-98.
Economics 71.
[Mid-year Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Give and answer, however brief, to each question]

  1. Consider which of the following combinations, if any, bring about “double taxation”: (1) the impôt sur la propriété batie and the personelle-mobilière, in France; (2) local rates and schedule A of the income tax, in Great Britain; (3) the taxation of mortgaged property and of mortgages, as commonly provided for in American States.
  2. It has been said that the taxation of merchants’ stock in trade in Massachusetts, by assessors’ estimate, if effect proceeds in a somewhat similar fashion to that of the French impôt des patentes and of the Prussian business tax. Why? or why not?
  3. Are there good reasons for taxing funded incomes at a higher rate than unfunded?
  4. It has recently been proposed in Great Britain to impose a general tax on property, based on the income tax returns, and levied at the rate of (say) five per cent. on the income derived from the property; reducing at the same time the income tax to one-half its present rate. Point out what important changes in the British tax system would result; consider what examples in other countries may have suggested the proposal: and give an opinion as to its expediency.
  5. What do you conceive to be the “compensatory theory” in regard to progressive taxation?
  6. What reasoning pertinent in regard to the principle of progression in taxation is also pertinent in regard to taxes on successions? in regard to the single tax?
  7. As between owner and occupier of real estate who is responsible for local rates in England? for local taxes in the United States? Do you believe that the differences have important consequences in the incidence of these taxes?
  8. Consider points of resemblance, points of difference, in the modes in which the States of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania tax (1) domestic corporations (2) the securities issued by foreign corporations.
  9. What grounds are there in favor, what against, the imposition of income taxes by the several States?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 47-48.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers in economics 1882-1935, Prof. F. W. Taussig. Scrapbook. (HUC 7882), p. 61.

_______________________

Financial Administration and Public Debts
Economics 72

*72 hf. Financial Administration and Public Debts. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar.

Course 72 is devoted to an examination of the budget systems of leading countries, and their methods of controlling expenditure, the methods of borrowing and of extinguishing debts practised by modern states, the form and obligation of the securities issued, and the general management of public credit.

Topics will be assigned for investigation by the students, and a list of topics, references, and required reading will be used.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 38.

Enrollment data not published for 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 72
[Final Examination]

  1. What are the comparative advantages of (a) an Independent Treasury like that of the United States, and (b) the use of a bank or banks by the government, as practised in England or Germany?
  2. What changes (if any) of constitution, law or practice would be required, in order to establish a thorough-going budget system in the United States?
  3. Compare the French budget procedure with the English, and point out their respective advantages or disadvantages.
  4. Suppose a fiscal year to have ended before financial measures for the new year have been agreed upon. How would current expenditure be provided for in the United States? In England? In France? In Germany?
  5. What is the practice of those four countries respectively as regards the control of revenue by means of annual grants?
  6. Suppose the case of a country having a depreciated paper currency, but expecting the ultimate resumption of specie payments, and compelled to borrow on a large scale. Which method of borrowing upon bonds (principal and interest payable in gold) would be the best,—
    (a), To sell the bonds for par in gold and make the rate of interest high enough to attract buyers;
    (b) To sell the bonds for gold at such discount as might be necessary, their interest being fixed, say, at six per cent;
    (c) To sell the bonds for their nominal par in depreciated paper. Give the reasons for and against each method.
  7. State the probable effect on the selling value of bonds when their terms provide for, —
    (a) Annual drawings by lot for payment;
    (b) Reserved right to pay at pleasure after some fixed date;
    (c) Obligation to pay at some fixed date;
    (d) “Limited option” like that of the “five-twenties.”
  8. Examine the reasoning involved in the following expression of opinion:—
    “There is one essential difference between the anticipation of interest. payments, and the anticipation of the payment of the principal of a debt by purchases on the market. This latter procedure…requires a larger sum of money to extinguish a given debt than will be required after the debt comes to be redeemable; but no such result follows the anticipation of interest-payments. These are determined by the terms of the contract, and may be calculated with accuracy. The interest does not, like the market value of a debt, fall as the bonds approach the period of their redemption, and it is but the application of sound business rules to use any surplus money on hand in making advanced payments of interest.”
  9. Describe the existing arrangements for the reduction of the English debt.
  10. State, with reasons, your own conclusion as to the real advantage (if any) derived from the system of terminable annuities.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 48-49.

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Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems
Economics 122

*121 hf. Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Half -course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar.]

[Note: originally announced as omitted for 1897-98.]

In Course 12[1] the modern system of banking by deposit and discount is examined, and its development in various countries is studied. The different systems of note-issue are then reviewed and compared, and the relations of banks to financial crises carefully analyzed. Practical banking does not come within the scope of this course. The study is historical and comparative in its methods, requiring some examination of important legislation in different countries, practice in the interpretation of banking movements, and investigation of the general effects of banking. The course, therefore, naturally leads to an examination of the questions now raised as to bank issues in the United States.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 38-39.

Economics 12: Enrollment

[Economics ] 121. Professor Dunbar.—Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Hf. 3 hours. 1st half year.

Total 12: 5 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 121.
[Mid-year Examination]

A.

Give ONE THIRD of your time to these two questions.

  1. Suppose that, in the period 1848-70, India had had a banking system as extensively used and as efficient as that of England or the United States, and that in the East prices had depended upon competition as much as they did in the Western nations? How would these altered conditions have affected the drain of silver to India, and the value of the precious metals in America and Europe?
  2. What do you say to the general proposition, that England, “being a debtor nation,” can draw gold at pleasure from any part of the world?

B.

  1. A few years ago an American writer said:—
    “We will be able to resume specie payments when we cease to rank among the debtor nations, when our national debt is owed to our own people, and when our industry is adequate to the supply of the nation’s need of manufactured goods.”
    To what extent should you regard the circumstances of the resumption in 1879 as a verification of the reasoning implied in this statement?
  2. In what way did the payment of the French Indemnity, 1871-73, tend to stimulate affairs in England, Austria, and the United States?
  3. What economic conditions or events tended to make the year 1890 a turning point, both in domestic and in international finance? Give a clear statement of such as you recall.
  4. How do the banking and currency systems of England, France and the United States differ, as regards their ability respectively to resist export movements of gold?
  5. What temporary changes in the general level of prices in this country should you expect to see, as the result of a large permanent withdrawal of foreign capital? What ultimate change of prices should you expect?
  6. State the general conditions which determine the movement of gold as it issues from the mining countries and is distributes over the world?
  7. Cairnes discusses some of the conditions which determine the relative quickness with which countries raise their general scale of prices when a rapid depreciation of gold is in progress. Consider how far the effect upon a given country would be influenced by the fact that its exports were

(a) chiefly manufactured articles;
(b) chiefly articles of food.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.
Also: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 51-52.

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International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals
Economics 121

[Was not offered first nor second term, instead see above]

[* 121 hf. International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar and Mr. [Hugo Richard] Meyer.

Course 121 is taken up with the discussion of the movements of goods, securities, and money, in the exchanges between nations and in the settlement of international demands. After a preliminary study of the general doctrine of international trade and of the use and significance of bills of exchange, it is proposed to make a close examination of some cases of payments on a great scale, and to trace the adjustments of imports and exports under temporary or abnormal financial conditions. Such examples as the payment of the indemnity by France to Germany after the war of 1870-71, the distribution of gold by the mining countries, and the movements of the foreign trade of the United States since 1879, will be investigated and used for the illustration of the general principles regulating exchanges and the distribution of money between nations.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 38-39.]

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Selected Topics in the Financial Legislation of the United States
Economics 162

*162 hf. Selected Topics in the Financial Legislation of the United States. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., at 2.30. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar.

The topics for study in this course for 1897-98 will be: (1) The Legal Tender Issues of the Civil War; (2) Development of the National Banking System. Subjects will be assigned and reports called for, requiring thorough investigation in the debates of Congress and other contemporary sources of information, for the purpose of tracing the history and significance of the legislative acts to be discussed, and a close study of such financial and commercial statistics as may throw light upon the operation of the acts.

Arrangements will be made by which graduate students and candidates for Final Honors in Political Science may take this course in connection with the Seminary in Economics as a full course running through the year.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 39.

Economics 162: Enrollment

[Economics ] 162. Professor Dunbar.—Selected Topics in the Financial History of the United States. Hf. 2 hours. 1st half year.

Total 8: 3 Graduates, 3 Seniors, 2 Juniors.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 162
[Year-end Examination]

A.

Give one-half of the time allowed for this examination to the discussion of any two of the questions stated under B.

B.

Answer, with such fulness as the remaining time allows, those of the following questions which you have not selected for discussion under A.

  1. Rhodes (History of the United States since 1850, iii., 567) states as “the conclusion which it seems to me a careful consideration of all the facts must bring us to,” that “The Legal Tender act was neither necessary nor economical.”
    Discuss this conclusion.
  2. In December, 1868, Senator Morton introduced a bill providing that specie payments should be resumed, by the government July 1, 1871, and by the banks January 1, 1872, greenbacks ceasing to be a legal tender at the latter date; gold to be provided in the Treasury by the accumulation of surpluses and by the sale of bonds, but no greenbacks to be redeemed until the date fixed for resumption by the United States.
    What would have been the probable operation of such a measure?
  3. Sherman said in January, 1874,—
    “The plan, which in my judgment presents the easiest and best mode of attaining specie payments, is to choose some bond of the United States which in ordinary times, by current quotations, is known to be worth par in gold in the money markets of the world, where specie is alone the standard of value, and authorize the conversion of notes into it.”
    Discuss the probable working of such a plan, having in view also Mr. Sherman’s strong objection to a contraction of the currency
  4. Suppose an Issue department of the Treasury, completely separated from all other business, provided with an ample reserve and strictly limited to the exchange of coin for notes and notes for coin as required by the public; what would you say would then be the nature and the force of the objections, if any, to the permanent maintenance of our legal tender issues?
  5. The greenbacks having been regarded originally as the temporary element in our paper currency and the bank notes as the permanent element, what were the one or two great turning points in the development which reversed this relation?
  6. If the issue of bank-notes were made equally available for all parts of the country, so far as the requirements of the system are concerned, would the South and South West find themselves more amply provided with paper currency than at present?
  7. What in your judgment is the most important function discharged by banks in this country, and what is your estimate of the importance and practicability of national supervision of their discharge of that function?
  8. The act just passed by Congress to provide ways and means for the expenditures occasioned by the war, contains the following section:—
    “That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and directed to coin into standard silver dollars as rapidly as the public interests may require, to an amount, however, of not less than one and one-half millions of dollars in each month, all of the silver bullion now in the Treasury purchased in accordance with the provisions of the act approved July 14, 1890, entitled “An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes, and said dollars, when so coined, shall be used and applied in the manner and for the purposes named in said act.”
    State carefully the use and application of the dollars thus required by the act of 1890.

Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 554-55.

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Economics Seminary
Economics 20

20. Seminary in EconomicsMon., at 4.30. Professors [Charles Franklin] Dunbar, [Frank William] Taussig, and [William James] Ashley, and Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

In the Seminary the instructors receive Graduate Students, and Seniors of high rank and adequate preparation, for training in investigation and discussion. No endeavor is made to limit the work of the Seminary to any one set of subjects. Subjects are assigned to students according to their needs and opportunities, and may be selected from any of the larger fields covered by the courses in which stated instruction is given. They may accordingly be in economic theory, in economic history, in applied economics, in sociology, or in statistics. It will usually be advisible for members of the Seminary to undertake their special investigation in a subject with whose general outlines they are already acquainted; but it may sometimes be advantageous to combine general work in one of the systematic courses with special investigation of a part of the field.

The general meetings of the Seminary are held on the first and third Mondays of each month. The members of the Seminary confer individually, at stated times arranged after consultation, with the instructors under whose special guidance they are conducting their researches.

At the regular meetings, the results of the investigations of members are presented and discussed. The instructors also at times present the results of their own work, and give accounts of the specialized literature of Economics. At intervals, other persons are invited to address the Seminary on subjects of theoretic or practical interest, giving opportunity for contact and discussion with the non-academic world. Among those who thus contributed to the Seminary in 1895-97 were President Francis A. Walker, Dr. Frederick H. Wines, Mr. S. N. D. North, Mr. A. T. Lyman, Mr. E. W. Hooper, and Mr. F. C. Lowell.

In 1896-97 the Seminary had fifteen members, of whom twelve were Graduate Students, two were Seniors in Harvard College, and one was a Law Student. Among the subjects under investigation in that year were: The Woollen Industry in England during the 17th and 18th centuries; Over-production and Over-accumulation in Economic Theory; The Taxation of Sugar in the United States and in Foreign Countries; The National Banking System with regard to its operation in the West and South; The Financial History of the Pennsylvania Railway; The Financial History of the Union Pacific Railway; The History of Immigration into the United States.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 39-40.

Economics 20: Enrollment

[Economics ] 20. Professors Dunbar, Taussig and Ashley, and Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.—Investigation of topics assigned after consultation.

Total 12: 11 Graduates, 1Senior.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

Members of the Harvard Economics Seminary, 1897-1898

https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-members-of-the-economics-seminary-1897-1898/

Image Source: Harvard Hall (1906). From the Center for the History of Medicine (Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine).

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Economics Programs Harvard

Harvard. Visiting Committee Reports. 1895, 1901, 1903, 1906, 1908, 1914

Around the turn of the 20th century visiting committees to the Harvard economic department were supposed to submit reports to the Board of Overseers of Harvard College at least once every three years. When I first saw that at archive.org there were six items listed dealing with Harvard’s visiting committees I was excited, hoping to find a rich mine of material as extensive as Arthur F. Brimmer’s 1974 Report of Economics Department Visiting Committee. As you can see from below, quite the opposite is the case. The early Visiting Committees submitted the nano-reports transcribed and posted below.

Perhaps one indication of the purely formal nature of the reporting system is that the “department of political economy” was renamed the “department of economics” in 1892 but the visiting committee was still referred to the visiting committee “on political economy” as late as 1912-1913.

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LII.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE TO VISIT THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
May 22, 1895

To the Board of Overseers of Harvard College:

ln the department of Political Economy the Professors feel the pressure of increased numbers of students, the lack of satisfactory space for lecture rooms, and the lack of time for independent work and research.

The difficulty is most serious in Economics 1. The lecture room available is ill-fitted for speaking or hearing, and the great number of students make it impossible, with the present corps of instructors, to divide them into sections small enough for adequate teaching and discussion. The difficulty has been met, as far as practicable, by strenuous and continuous work on the part of the Professors and instructors. This department, like others, feels the want of more books for reference, and of more library space for books and reading.

ARTHUR T. LYMAN, Chairman

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from February 6, 1890 to January 8, 1902. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1902), p. 299.

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XCIX.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
June 5, 1901.

To the Board of Overseers of Harvard College:––

The Committee on Political Economy has had this year and last year long conferences with the Professors in the Department, and members of the Committee have also corresponded with the head of the Department.

A very large proportion of the students take Political Economy, and many take the more advanced courses. The courses seem to be satisfactorily conducted and the lecture system is supplemented by conferences and teaching in sections.

A course in Accounting has been taken by a considerable number of students, and next year an excellent programme is proposed for a course in business law. It is intended that such special courses should be confined to graduates or to seniors, and it seems best that they should not interfere with the general and broader courses of instruction in this or any other department.

The great loss to the University and to the Department of Political Economy from the death of Professor Charles F. Dunbar has been referred to by the President in his report.

For the Committee,

ARTHUR T. LYMAN,
Chairman

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from February 6, 1890 to January 8, 1902. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1902), p. 621.

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CXXXIV.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
September 30, 1903.

To the Board of Overseers of Harvard College:—

The Committee on Political Economy met the professors and instructors.

Professor Taussig, who has been absent for a long time on account of illness, will resume a part of his work in October.

There continues to be a very large attendance in the courses of Economics — 519 in Economics 1, which deals with the general outlines of the subject, and one hundred or more in four other courses on banking, economic history of the United States, problems of labor and industrial organization, and currency legislation with recent experience and theory. These large classes involve the usual difficulties in giving interesting and adequate instruction, but they are gratifying evidences of the interest in this important subject. They make necessary many instructors for proper division of large classes, and consequently large expense.

The list of courses in the Catalogue shows the wide range of the instruction.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, published by the Department, is well worthy of your attention. In recent numbers Professor Taussig has given an interesting and instructive history of the iron industry in this country, and the sugar problem has been fully treated.

Many other articles on important practical and theoretical questions have appeared in this Journal, which, like all publications of this class, needs the increased subscriptions and financial support to which its merits fully entitle it.

For the Committee,

ARTHUR T. LYMAN,
Chairman

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from January 8, 1902 to July 30, 1909. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1909), p. 741.

Visiting Committee Members (1903):

Arthur T. Lyman, Charles S. Fairchild, Horace E. Deming, John E. Thayer, John F. Moors.

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from January 8, 1902 to July 30, 1909. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1909),  following p. 708.

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CLXXVIII.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
May 9, 1906.

To the Board of Overseers of Harvard College:—

The Committee on Political Economy met the Professors in the Department at a long conference. They are able, accomplished, and interesting, and there is, as usual, a very large attendance on their various courses of instruction. These courses deal not only with economic theory, but with transportation, finance, taxation, currency legislation, and banking, economic history, the distribution of wealth, labor, socialism, commercial law, and accounting.

The course on the principles of accounting is taken chiefly by Graduates and Seniors, and it is the purpose of the Department not to sacrifice to it the general and fundamental courses, but to confine it mainly to Seniors or Graduates rather than to follow the plan of some of the Western State Universities in which courses are given throughout the college terms treating in an elaborate way the practical details of business in various branches.

The large attendance in several of the courses in Economics requires subdivisions and conferences, and instructors for such divisions. There is naturally considerable difficulty in securing the desired or desirable instructors, owing to the small salaries that can be afforded and the consequent lack of permanency of employment, and it is much desired that the needed competency and permanency should, if possible, be secured by the assignment of some fellowships to the best of the instructors in the subdivisions and conferences. Much of the time of the Professors might be saved by the addition of various apparatus needed. Some help in this matter has been given by members of the Committee and others.

For the Committee,

ARTHUR T. LYMAN,
Chairman

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from January 8, 1902 to July 30, 1909. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1909), p. 925.

Visiting Committee Members (1906):

Arthur T. Lyman, Charles S. Fairchild, Horace E. Deming, John F. Moors, J. Wells Farley.

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from January 8, 1902 to July 30, 1909. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1909), after p. 843.

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CCVIII.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
April 8, 1908.

To the Board of Overseers of Harvard College:—

The Committee on Political Economy met the Professors of the Department, and considers that the conditions are satisfactory.

There seems to be nothing new to report, except that arrangements have become possible through the generosity of various persons for carrying on for five years advanced business courses, such as have been under consideration for several years past.

More space is needed for conferences and books, and some plans are under consideration for relief in these matters.

For the Committee,

ARTHUR T. LYMAN,
Chairman

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from January 8, 1902 to July 30, 1909. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1909), p. 1128.

Visiting Committee Members (1908):

Arthur T. Lyman, Frederic A. Delano, John F. Moors, Charles S. Fairchild, William Endicott, Jr., J. Wells Farley, Charles G. Washburn.

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College from January 8, 1902 to July 30, 1909. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1909), after p. 1118.

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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 1913-14.
April 13, 1914.

5. Economics. — The enrolment of students in Economics for the first, half of the academic year shows a falling off from 1634 to 1520 students, the most significant loss taking place in the course on Banking. The amount of instruction offered at Harvard in Economics exceeds that offered at any other University except Michigan, while in the amount of money expended Harvard is far in the lead. The Committee notes the continuing eminence and prosperity of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, published by the Department since 1886, which maintains its place as one of the foremost periodicals in the subject in the English Language, and perhaps the foremost. It has the largest circulation of any periodical published by the University, except the Law Review, and there is no more certain way of making a reputation as a writer on Economic subjects than to publish an article in this journal. The most important need of the Department is a fund for the endowment of Economic Research, which will make possible the scientific investigation of pressing economic questions. A very interesting supplemental report is made by Mr. John Wells Morss, one of the members of the Committee, representing the views and experience of a man of business, rather than of a student of education. It should be read as a whole, as it is difficult to give a satisfactory impression of its interest and value by quotations or a summary.

Source: Appended to: Harvard University. Reports of the Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College for the Academic Year, 1914-15. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1915), three pages after page 260.

Image Source: John Harvard statue, ca. 1904. U.S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Mid-year and Year-End Final Exams in Economics and Social Ethics, 1894-1895

 

 

With this post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror adds yet another annual collection of final examination questions for the economics courses offered at Harvard together with the questions from Professor Peabody’s “Ethics of the Social Questions” that covered issues such as poverty, labor relations, and socialism (as opposed to doctrines of individualism). In 1894-95 Frank Taussig was on sabbatical leave in Italy which accounts for his whereabouts that academic year.  Today I learned that “doctrine” was understood as a synonym for “theory” during the gay nineties, see Economics 2 (Economic Theory from Adam Smith to the present time) below.

Exams for one course taught were not included in the published collection of exams. It was Edward Cummings course Economics 14 (Philosophy and Political Economy.—Utopian Literature from Plato’s Republic to the present time). Exams for Economics 14 given in other years have been transcribed and posted.

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1894-95.
PHILOSOPHY 5.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[PHILOSOPHY] 5. Professor [Francis G.] Peabody. — The Ethics of the Social Questions. — The questions of Charity, the Family, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question, as problems of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. 2 hours.

Total 84: 1 Graduate, 40 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 25 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 59.

 

PHILOSOPHY 5.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

[Omit one question.]

  1. The Ethical Idealism of Plato, of Aristotle, and of Kant, compared with the modern doctrine of duty.
  2. Professor Sumner’s doctrine of the Social Fulcrum vs. the philosophy of scientific charity.
  3. Indicate, very briefly, the place in the History of Philanthropy of:

Frédéric Le Play,
Dorothea Dix,
Pastor von Bodelschwingh,
Charles L. Brace,
Samuel G. Howe.

  1. The Elberfeld System — its organization, officials, relation tomunicipal government, and practical working.
  2. The Liverpool System of Collection.
  3. Mr. Charles Booth’s eight classes of East London,— their definition, dimensions, traits, and proportion. (Labor and Life of the People, I. pp. 37-62.) Mr. Booth’s view of the children of Class E (p. 160).
  4. Compare Mr. Booth’s method and results in East London with his method and results in all London.
  5. Compare the principle as to direct relief of the London Charity Organization Society with that of the Boston Associated Charities. (Loch, Charity Organization, pp. 59, 82.) Which is the sounder principle? Why?
  6. The Belgian Labor Colonies,— their scope and method of classification. Compare their aims with those of the colonies of Holland and Germany.
  7. The Christian doctrine of the Social Order — its principles and its peril.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

PHILOSOPHY 5.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

  1. Explain the theory of ethics which makes the basis of this course of study; and the way in which this theory is practically illustrated by phases of the modern labor question.
  2. In what respect do the social ideals of Carlyle and Ruskin seem identical, and in what respect do they appear to be inconsistent with each other?
  3. The authorship and the significance of the following phrases:

“There is no wealth but Life…. A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can be.”

“I am for permanence in all things. Blessed is he that continueth where he is.”

“The gospel of dilettantism.”

“Roots of honour.”

“Ricardo is the parent of Socialism.”

“The value of a thing is independent of opinion and of quantity.”

“The reformation was the work of a monk; the revolution must be the work of a philosopher.”

“The people are the Rock on which the Church of the future must be built.”

  1. The practical programme proposed by Scientific Socialism; the chief advantages claimed for it by its adherents; and the criticisms on it which appear to you most serious. Utilize here your reading of Naquet and The Social Horizon.
  2. Socialism and Religion. The apparent grounds for sympathy and the practical reasons for antagonism. The teachings concerning socialism in the Encyclical of 1891.
  3. The philosophy of history which encourages the Socialist, and the “Opportunist’s” view of this “Law” of social evolution.
  4. The growth of Trades Unionism in Great Britain, and its contribution to moral education.
  5. Federalism and Individualism in English Coöperation. The issue involved, and the advantages of each scheme of expansion.
  6. Compare the characteristics of the forms of Liquor Legislation in force in Massachusetts and in Pennsylvania. (Fanshawe, XI, XII.) How are licenses granted under the Brooks Law? What is the function of probation-officers in Massachusetts?
  7. How far do physiological considerations go to determine one’s duty as to drink?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 6-7.

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1894-95.
ECONOMICS 1.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 1. Professor [William] Ashley, Asst. Professor [Edward] Cummings, Dr. [John] Cummings, and Mr. [Frederick Redman] Clow. — Outlines of Economics. — Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures on Economic Development, Distribution, Social Questions, and Financial Legislation. 3 hours.

Total 277: 2 Graduates, 39 Seniors, 18 Juniors, 159 Sophomores, 9 Freshmen, 50 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 1.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the question. One question may be omitted.]

  1. “All members of the community are not laborers, but all are consumers, and consume either unproductively or productively.” Explain and illustrate by examples. Suppose everybody resolved to consume “productively” only, what would be the result?
  2. “The distinction, then, between capital and not-capital, does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist — in his will to employ them for one purpose rather than another.” Discuss this statement, using the following illustrations:—

Bread.
A knitting machine.
A steam engine.
A carriage.

  1. Where does true economic rent appear in the following cases:—

(a) The cultivation of a farm by its owner.
(b) The rental of a farm under a long lease by a tenant who has made permanent improvements on the land.

  1. What is the effect on values of a general fall of profits? Of a general fall of wages?
  2. What is the effect on rents of (1) an improvement in the methods of agriculture, (2) an improvement in transportation?
  3. “The price of land, mines, and all other fixed sources of income, depends on the rate of interest.” Explain.
  4. According to Mill, “Every addition to capital gives to labor either additional employment, or additional remuneration.” Why? What is the effect of an increase of labor-saving machinery on employment and on remuneration? Illustrate carefully.
  5. “Money cannot in itself perform any part of the office of capital, since it can afford no assistance to production.” Do you agree or disagree? Why? Is money capital? Is credit money? Is credit capital?
  6. What does Mill mean by “stationary state”? And what changes would bring about a progressive state?
  7. What would be the effect on prices of (1) adding to a gold and silver currency a small issue of inconvertible paper money, (2) the discovery of very rich gold fields?
  8. What do you understand by the Domestic system? By Competition? By Labor?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 1.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

(Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the question. Omit three of the even numbers: answer all others.)

  1. “We must suppose the entire savings of the community to be annually invested in really productive employment within the country itself; and no new channels opened by industrial inventions, or by more extensive substitution of the best known processes for inferior ones.” How would profits be affected supposing population (a) to remain stationary; (b) to increase in proportion to the increase in capital?
  2. The operations, therefore, of speculative dealers, are useful to the public whenever profitable to themselves; and although they are sometimes injurious to the public, by heightening the fluctuations which their more usual office is to alleviate, yet, whenever this happens the speculators are the greatest losers. Explain Mill’s reasoning.
  3. Mill says of the stationary state, “I am inclined to believe that it would be, on the whole, a very considerable improvement on our present condition.” Why? Explain carefully.
  4. Is there a necessary hostility of interests between consumers organized in co-operative associations and producers organized in trade unions?
  5. Describe the different results obtained in co-operation by distributing profits in the form of dividend (a) on capital, (b) on labor (in proportion to wages), (c) on purchases. Illustrate by the experience of co-operation in France and England.
  6. How do you distinguish between what Mill calls the necessary and the optional functions of government?
  7. “We have had an example of a tax on exports, that is, on foreigners, falling in part on ourselves. We shall therefore not be surprised if we find a tax on imports, that is, on ourselves, partly falling on foreigners.” Explain carefully each case, tracing the possible effects upon prices and international trade of taxes (a) upon exports; (b) upon imports.
  8. “Equality of taxation, therefore, as a maxim of polities, means equality of sacrifice.” Apply this maxim to a tax on incomes.
  9. Suppose a tax of a fixed sum per bushel to be laid upon corn; what would be the effect (a) upon prices; (b) upon population; (c) upon profits; (d) upon rents?
    How would the results differ if instead of a fixed sum per bushel the tax were…

(i) …a fixed proportion of the produce;
(ii) …proportioned to the rent of the land;
(iii) …a fixed sum of so much per cultivated acre? Explain carefully each case.

  1. Describe the kinds of currency used in the United States, indicating briefly the conditions of issue in each case.
  2. Explain the causes and effects of (a) combined reserves, (b) a suspension of the Bank Charter Act in England.
  3. What are the provisions of the law in regard to the issue of bank notes at the present day in England? In Germany?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 33-34.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 2.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 2. Professors Ashley and [Silus Marcus] Macvane. — Economic Theory from Adam Smith to the present time. — Selections from Adam Smith and Ricardo. — Modern Writers. — Lectures. 3 hours.

Total 34: 9 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 2.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

N.B.—Not more than seven questions must be attempted.

  1. “The study which lately in England has been called Political Economy is, in reality, nothing more than the investigation of some accidental phenomena of modern commercial operations, nor has it been true in its investigation even of these. It has no connection whatever with political economy, as understood and treated of by the great thinkers of past ages; and as long as its unscholarly and undefined statements are allowed to pass under the same name, every word written on the subject by those thinkers—and chiefly the words of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, and Bacon—must be nearly useless to mankind” (Ruskin, Munera Pulveris). Consider some or all of these assertions.
  2. Give a brief account of the Physiocrat doctrine, and state to what extent it was “corrected” by Adam Smith.
  3. Explain the origin and content of Adam Smith’s conception of “Nature.”
  4. “A diamond has scarcely any value in use.” Consider this statement in its relation to the discussion since Adam Smith’s time of the doctrine of Value.
  5. How does the doctrine of Rent expounded by Adam Smith agree with, and differ from, that of Ricardo?
  6. Compare Adam Smith’s “natural rate of wages” with Ricardo’s “natural price of labour.”
  7. “Population tends to outstrip the means of subsistence.” Distinguish the various meanings assignable to this phrase, and indicate which was meant by Malthus.
  8. What does Adam Smith understand by “Capital”? Compare his conception with that of John Stuart Mill.
  9. Present a critical estimate—based upon your own study—of one of the following:

1. Ingram, History of Political Economy.
2. Price, Political Economy in England.
3. Cossa, Introduction to the Study of Political Economy.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 2.
Year-end Examination, 1895

Answer at least four, but not more than six, of the following questions:

  1. What is the economic source of Interest? Examine the proposition that “interest is the price paid for the use of capital.”
  2. State briefly your conclusions as to the law of general wages.
  3. Apply the Austrian theory of wages to the following case:
    Number of laborers 1,000,000; total subsistence fund $600,000,000; scale of increase of productiveness of labor as the “productive period” is lengthened from one year to seven years: $350, $450, $530, $580, $620, $650, and $670.
  4. How, in your opinion, are the profits of employers determined? What is your conclusion as to the function, in distribution, of the so-called “no profits employers.”
  5. Discuss the following passages:
    “This National Dividend is at once the aggregate Net product of, and the sole source of payment for, all the agents of production within the country: it is divided up into Earnings of labour, Interest of capital, and lastly the Producer’s Surplus, or Rent, of land and of other differential advantages for production. It constitutes the whole of them and the whole of it is distributed among them.”
    “The proposal to put rent aside while we are considering how earnings and interest are determined, has been found to suggest that rent is determined first and then takes part in determining earnings and interest; and this is, of course, the opposite of what really occurs.”
  6. It has been said that Mill expresses his meaning badly when he said that demand for commodities is not a demand for labor. Does the proposition seem to you to need revision!
  7. Does increase of saving tend to make the supply of goods outrun the demand for goods?
  8. Examine the doctrine that the exchange value of commodities is determined by marginal utility.
  9. Past and present relations between gold and silver.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” p. 35.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 3.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 3. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 2 hours.

Total 52: 10 Graduates, 30 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 3.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit three questions.

  1. State accurately the reading you have done in this course to date.
  2. “But now let us drop the alleged parallelism between individual organizations and social organizations. I have used the analogies elaborated but as a scaffolding to help in building up a coherent body of sociological inductions. Let us take away the scaffolding: the inductions will stand by themselves.” What are these inductions?
  3. “The family relinquishes one provisional and temporary function after another; its only purpose being to fill gaps in social offices, it made way for independent institutions … as soon as these institutions arose.” Explain and illustrate. How far would Spencer assent to this doctrine?
  4. “Most anthropologists who have written on prehistoric customs believe, indeed, that man lived originally in a state of promiscuity or ‘communal marriage’; but we have found this hypothesis is essentially unscientific.” Discuss the evidence.
  5. “The status of children, in common with that of women, rises in proportion as the compulsory coöperation characterizing militant societies, becomes qualified by the voluntary coöperation characterising industrial societies.” Why? Trace the rise, and illustrate.
  6. “These three distinct states of mind, all of which, in point of fact, are admitted to exist together at the present time, and perhaps to have always done so to a greater or less extent, Comte declares to have undergone a regular progressive movement in the history of society. There have been three successive epochs, during which these philosophic principles, each in its turn, preponderated over both the others and controlled the current of human events.” Explain.
  7. “So that as law differentiates from personal commands, and as morality differentiates from religious injunctions, so politeness differentiates from ceremonial observance. To which I may add, so does rational usage differentiate from fashion.” Explain and illustrate.
  8. How does Spencer account for the diverse types of political organization; and what influences determine the order in which they arise? Illustrate.
  9. “From the Evolution-standpoint we are thus enabled to discern the relative beneficence of institutions which, considered absolutely, are not beneficent; and are taught to approve as temporary that which, as permanent, we abhor.” Explain and illustrate. Does our idea of progress then include all social changes?
  10. “In all ways, then, we are shown that with this relative decrease of militancy and relative increase of industrialism, there has been a change from a social order in which individuals exist for the State, to a social order in which the State exists for individuals?” Explain and illustrate.
  11. According to Spencer, what are likely to be the future forms of political organization and action in societies that are favorably circumstanced for carrying social evolution to its highest stage?
  12. “At bottom this is a physical explanation, and Spencerian sociology in general, whether formulated by Mr. Spencer or by other writers under the influence of his thought, is essentially a physical philosophy of society, notwithstanding its liberal use of biological and psychological data.” Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 3.
Year-end Examination

[Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit one question.]

  1. State accurately the reading you have done in this course to date.
  2. What has been the function of religion in social evolution? (Compare Spencer and Kidd.) Do you find reasons for thinking society will become more religious?
  3. “The only conclusion to which we are brought by this prolonged examination of authorities is that community of land has not yet been historically proved.” Discuss the evidence.
  4. “And as of old, Society and State tend to coincide, political questions to become identical with social questions.” Discuss the historical changes and tendencies in question. Distinguish carefully between Society, the State, the Government, the Nation.
  5. “It is becoming clear that, when people speak of natural rights of liberty, property, etc., they really mean, not rights which once existed and have been lost, but rights which they believe ought to exist, and which would be produced by a condition of society and an ordering of the State such as they think desirable.” Explain. How far do changes in the theory and practice of penal legislation substantiate this view?
  6. “The gulf between the state of society towards which it is the tendency of the process of evolution now in progress to carry us, and socialism, is wide and deep.”
    “The Individualism of the past is buried, and the immediate future is unmistakably with a progressive Socialism, the full extent of which no man can get see.” Discuss carefully the facts and theories upon which these opposing views are based.
  7. “The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a conspicuous rôle before 1848, perished then in the wreck of the Revolution, and have never risen to life again.” What were the characteristics of these earlier forms; and what was their relation to the movements which preceded them and followed them?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 35-36.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 5.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 52. Mr. George Ole Virtue. — Railway Transportation. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 21: 2 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 5.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

  1. Sketch the railroad history of France.
  2. “The [Reilly] bill now before Congress proposes to extend the debt for another fifty years and a grand opportunity will thus be let slip for trying, under the most favorable circumstances, an experiment whose possibilities no man can measure.”
  3. What legislation can you suggest for improving the relations between the different classes of owners of railway capital? For the protection of the interests of investors in railway capital generally?
  4. State briefly the significance in railway history of the following cases: Munn v. Illinois; Wabash, etc. Ry. Co. v. Illinois; Ames v. U. P. Ry. Co.; Budd v. New York; In re Louisville & Nashville; The Denaby Main Colliery Case.
  5. Choose one:

(a) The bearing upon the making of rates, of the “cost of service”; “value of service”; “charging what the traffic will bear”; “joint cost.”
(b) “Group rates,” “equal mileage rates,” “the blanket rate,” “the postage rate,” “Wagen-raum tarif,” “differentials.”
(c) A “reasonable rates.”

  1. Recount the experience which has led the Interstate Commerce Commission to recomment an amendment to the Act to Regulate Commerce: (a) Construing the meaning of “the word ‘line’ when used in the act to be a physical line and not a business arrangement”; (b) relieving “shippers and individuals not connected with railway employment from liability to fine and imprisonment under Section 10,” with certain exceptions.
  2. What would be the probable effect of giving the Commission power to prescribe minimum as well as maximum rates? Would it obviate the necessity now claimed for pooling?
  3. “When the first bill to regulate commerce was passed the great and powerful wedge of State socialism, so far as government control of railroads is concerned, was driven one-quarter of its length into the timber of conservative government. … The pending bill, [the pooling which passed the House at the last session is referred to] the moment it becomes a law, will drive the wedge three-quarters of its length into the timber.”
    Give your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with each of the above statements.
  4. What conclusions on the question of public management can you draw from the experience of the states in the internal improvement movement?
  5. Why is it peculiarly true in railway business that “competition must end in combination”?
  6. The success of the State Railroad Commissions and suggestions for increasing their efficiency.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 36-37.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 71.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 71. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar. — The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 28: 6 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 71.
Mid-year Examination. 1895.

  1. What is the “Benefit Theory” of taxation? What is the “Faculty Theory”? Define “Faculty” as used in this expression.
  2. What are the leading points of difference between the English, Prussian and American income tax systems?
  3. What reasons are there for having income tax levied by national authority rather than local? To what extent, if at all, do these reasons apply also to a general property tax?
  4. In levying a general property tax, should the debts of the taxpayer be deducted from the property held by him?
  5. By what reasoning is it maintained that,—
    “When the local real estate tax is levied according to rental value and assessed in the first instance on the occupier, as is the case in England, the main burden of the tax will rest ultimately on the occupier, not the owner of the premises.”
    Will the same reasoning apply to the income tax on rent, assessed under Schedule A., and collected from the occupier?
  6. What are the leading points of difference between the German method of taxing distilled liquors and the method practised in England and the United States?
  7. The theories of Canard, Thiers and Stein are,—
    “That every tax is shifted on everybody — that every consumer will again shift the tax on a third party, and that this third party who is again a consumer will shift it to someone else — and so ad infinitum. And since everyone is a consumer, everyone will bear a portion of the taxes that everybody else pays.”
    Professor Seligman’s comment is that “the error of this doctrine lies in the failure to distinguish between productive and unproductive consumption.” Is this answer complete? If not, wherein does it fail?
  8. In a statement of the circumstances under which a tax may or may not be capitalized, it is said,—
    “The principle would not apply to special taxes on property or profits if the capital value of this class of commodities should for any other reason fluctuate in price. For example, if a special tax were levied on government securities it might nevertheless happen that if some reason confidence in government bonds, as over against general securities, might decrease to such an extent as to counterbalance the decreased returns from the investment. In such a case there would be no capitalization of the tax.”
    What criticism have you to make on this reasoning?
  9. Can the theory of progressive taxation be satisfied by a gradually decreasing rate of progression [“degressively progressive taxation”]. or does it require a rate which shall cut off all income or accumulation above a certain level?
  10. What practical difficulties does the taxation of real estate offer in shaping a system of progressive taxation?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 37-38.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 72.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 72. Professor Dunbar. — Financial Administration and Public Debts. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 28: 7 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 72.
Year-end Examination

[Spend an hour on A, and the remainder of the time on B.]

A.

  1. Give an account of the management of the English debt in the decade 1880-90.
  2. Do “sound rules of finance” demand that the principal of the debt or the rate of interest shall be determined by the government? that securities shall never be issued below par? that a government shall not buy in its securities at a premium?

B.

  1. How far, if at all, is the government justified in pledging itself to any fixed policy of debt payment?
    How may the policy of conversation conflict with the policy of debt payment?
  2. Give an account of the United States refunding operations in the decade 1865-75.
  3. Discuss the respective powers of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain, the minister of finance in France.
    In each case where does the responsibility for the financial policy of the government rest?
  4. Give an account of the creation of Pit’s sinking fund and of the successive modifications made in the sinking fund provisions down to 1803.
  5. Discuss the various methods of placing government securities in the market, and the conditions of contract which make one form of security more attractive to buyers than another.
  6. The United States 4 per cent. 30-year bonds are quoted at about 123¼; how is the present worth of these securities determined?
    What determines the present worth of a terminable annuity? of a perpetual annuity? of a life annuity?
  7. Discuss the manner of making up the estimates of public income and expenditure in Great Britain and in France; the manner of providing for any deficits which may occur in any department during the year; the manner of providing for carrying on the government where the enactment of the budget is delayed until after the beginning of the year; and the disposal of balances unexpended at the end of the year.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” p. 39.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 8.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 81. Professor Dunbar. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 2 hours.

Total 52: 5 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 8.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

  1. Hamilton is sometimes said to have favored the policy of perpetual debt, and Gallatin, on the other hand, to have established the policy of debt-payment. How far are these statements confirmed by the measures of Hamilton and Gallatin respectively?
  2. How far should you say that Hamilton was justified in his expectation (stated in the Report on Public Credit), (1) That the public debt, if properly funded, would answer most of the purposes of money, and (2) that it would increase the amount of capital for use in trade and lower the interest of money?
  3. When were the several classes of obligations in which the revolutionary debt was funded finally paid off?
  4. Was it fortunate or unfortunate that Congress did not adopt Madison’s policy as to a United States Bank in January, 1815? Why?
  5. Give a list, with dates, of the cases in which bills for establishing a United States Bank have been vetoed.
  6. Give as complete a chronology as you can of the events connected with the Bank, from President Jackson’s first attack upon it down to its final failure.
  7. The removal of the deposits is sometimes spoken of as a fatal blow to the United States Bank. What do you gather from your reading as to its importance as regards the business position or credit of the Bank?
  8. What was the Specie Circular of 1836, and what serious financial results did it produce?
  9. What led to the adoption of the National Bank system in 1863?
  10. How would it have eased the financial difficulty in 1861, if the Secretary of the Treasury had made more free use of his authority, under the act of August 5, for suspending some of the provisions of the Independent Treasury act?
  11. The earlier legal-tender acts provided for funding the notes, at the pleasure of the holder, in United States bonds. When and why was this privilege of funding withdrawn? What would probably have been the effect if it had been retained until the close of the war?
  12. What were the steps by which the legal tender issues came to be treated as the practically permanent element in our paper currency and to be fixed in amount?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 9.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 9. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries. 3 hours.

Total 79: 3 Graduates, 34 Seniors, 31 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 9.
Mid-Year Examination, 1895.

(Arrange your answers, in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries.)

  1. State accurately the reading you have done in this course to date.
  2. “The interests of the working classes are identical in all lands governed by capitalist methods of production. The extension of the world’s commerce and production for the world’s markets, make the position of the workman in any one country daily more dependent upon that of the workmen in other countries.” Why? Explain how in the history of trade unions this community of interest among workmen, not only of the same trade and the same country but of different trades and different countries, has actually manifested itself. Illustrate.
  3. Precisely what answer to the “lump of labor” theory is to be drawn from that version of the wage-fund doctrine adopted by Mill, by Walker, by yourself?
  4. How far has the theory and the practice of coöperation offered a complete remedy for the evils of the existing industrial organization? and at precisely what points has the theory and the practice broken down? Illustrate carefully.
  5. “The struggle of the working classes against capitalist exploitation must of necessity be a political struggle.” How far does the history of trade unions and of coöperation show a tendency in this direction? Illustrate carefully.
  6. “But above all things, observe that all types of piece wage, whether single or progressive, and whether individual or collective, possess this most marked superiority over Profit-sharing.” … “At the same time, it is right to remark that there are many cases, in which the method of Profit-sharing surpasses in important respects any form of the ordinary wage-system.” Explain carefully the grounds of the alleged inferiority and superiority in each case.
  7. “Before, therefore, the trade union can realize its policy of ‘collective bargaining,’ it must solve the two-fold problem – how to bind its own constituents, and how to obtain the recognition of employers.” By what methods have trade unions endeavored to solve this problem? Illustrate.
  8. Trace the successive stages of the so-called “industrial revolution” during the last hundred and fifty years.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 9.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

[Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by statistical and descriptive matter showing the relative condition of working people in the United States and in other countries.]

I.

State accurately the reading you have done in this course since the mid-year examinations.

II.

Devote three hours to a careful discussion of the merits and defects of the German system of compulsory insurance, under the following general heads:

  1. An accurate account of the origin, scope, organization, administration of the system in Germany, — stating approximately the numbers insured, the cost of insurance to all parties concerned, the benefits provided, the methods of collection, distribution, etc.;
  2. Difficulties, opposition, and criticisms thus far encountered;
  3. Progress of similar movements towards compulsory insurance in other countries;
  4. Facts bearing upon the adequacy of existing provisions for sickness, accident, old age in England and the United States;
  5. A biographical sketch showing at what age and in what respects the State already interferes to prescribe conditions of employment, education, etc., for operatives reared from childhood to old age in the factory system of Massachusetts: showing also the additional interference which would be involved in the adoption of the German system of compulsory insurance;
  6. Conclusion.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” p. 40.

__________________

1894-95.
ECONOMICS 10.

Course Title, Staffing, and Enrollment

[ECONOMICS] 10. Professor Ashley. — The Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. 2 hours.

Total 61: 9 Graduates, 20 Seniors, 21 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-1895, p. 62.

 

ECONOMICS 10.
Mid-Year Examination. 1895.

I. To be first attempted by all.

Translate, and comment on, the following passages:

  1. Quomodo vocatur mansio; quis tenuit eam T. R. E.; quis mod tenet; quot hidae; quot carrucae in dominio; quot hominum; quot villani; quot cotarii; quot servi; quot liberi homines; quot sochemanni.
  2. De virgis operantur ii diebus in ebdomada.
  3. Rex. . . destinavit per regnum quos ad id prudentiores.. . . cognoverat, qui circumeuntes et oculata fide fundos singulos perlustrantes, habita aestimatione victualium quae de hiis solvebantur, redegerunt in summam denariorum.
  4. Interiors plerique frumenta non serunt, sed lacte et carne vivunt, pellibusque sunt vestiti.
  5. Ideo rogamus, sacratissime imperator, subvenias. . . . ademptum sit jus etiam procuratoribus, nedum conductori, adversus colonos ampliandi partes agrarias.
  6. Arva per annos mutant et superest ager.
  7. Ego Eddi episcopus terram quae dicitur Lantocal tres cassatos Heglisco abbati libenter largior.
  8. Rex misit in singulos comitatus quod messores et alii operarii non plus caperent quam capere solebant.
  9. Noveritis nos concessisse omnibus tenentibus nostris . . . . quod omnia praedicta terrae et tenementa de cetero sint libera, et liberae conditionis.

II. Write on two only of the following subjects.

  1. The reasons for believing in the survival in Britain of the Roman agrarian organisation.
  2. A comparison, from the economic point of view, of the open-field system with modern methods of farming.
  3. The condition of the tillers of the soil in England in A.D. 1381 as compared with A.D. 1066.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3. Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1894-95.

 

ECONOMICS 10.
Year-end Examination. 1895.

I.
[To be first attempted by all.]

TRANSLATE, and comment on, the following passages:—

  1. In Kateringes sunt x. hidae ad geldum Regis. Et de istis
  2. hidis tenent xl. villani xl. virgas terrae. … Et omnes isti homines operantur iiibus diebus in ebdomada.
  3. Agriculturae non student; majorque pars eorum victus in lacte caseo carne consistit; neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios; sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum qui una coierunt, quantum et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt atque anno post alio transire cogunt.
  4. Nul ne deit rien acheter a revendre en la vile meyme, fors yl serra Gildeyn.
  5. Cives Londoniae debent xl marcas pro Gilda Telaria delenda; ita ut de cetero non suscitetur.
  6. Johannes Hore mortuus est, qui tenuit de domino dimidiam acram terrae cujus heriettum unus vitulus precii iiii d. Et Johanna soror dicti Johannis est proximus heres, quae venit et gersummavit dictam terram tenendam sibi et suis in villenagio ad voluntatem per servicia et consuetudines.

II.
[Write on four only of the following subjects.]

  1. “I contend that from 1563 to 1824, a conspiracy, concocted by the law and carried out by parties interested in its success, was entered into, to cheat the English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.” Consider this.
  2. Discuss the question whether the statute of 5 Eliz. c. 4, displays any distinct economic policy.
  3. Explain the causes, nature and consequences of the change in commercial routes in the sixteenth century.
  4. What is meant by a national economy, as contrasted with a town economy? Illustrate from European conditions in the 15th and 16th centuries.
  5. What has been the economic gain to England from immigration?
  6. Mention briefly those respects in which the economic development of England has resembled that of Western Europe, and those respects in which it has been peculiar.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College, June, 1895,” pp. 40-41.