Tag: Mayo-Smith

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Columbia Economics Programs

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

 

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

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

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Biography of Columbia Trustee,
Samuel Bulkley Ruggles

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

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

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

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Research tip

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whereupon it was

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

§. 4. SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

June 7th, 1880.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEA

American Economic Association. Economic Studies, 1896-1899

 

A few posts ago I put together a list of links to the contents of eleven volumes of monographs published by the American Economic Association from 1886 through 1896.

Those eleven published volumes were briefly followed (1896-1899) by two series of AEA publications, viz.: the bi-monthly Economic Studies, and an extremely short “new series” of larger monographs that would be printed at irregular intervals. In 1900 the American Economic Association reverted to the policy of issuing its monographs, called the “third series” of the publications, at quarterly intervals.

This post provides links to the 1896-1899 intermezzo of AEA publications.

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American Economic Association
ECONOMIC STUDIES.

Price of the Economic Studies $2.50 per volume in paper, $3.00 in cloth. The set of four volumes, in cloth, $10.00.

VOLUME I, 1896
[prices in paper]

No. 1 (Apr., Supplement) Eighth Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 178. Price 50 cents.

No. 1 (Apr.). The Theory of Economic Progress, by John B. Clark, Ph.D.; The Relation of Changes in the Volume of the Currency to Prosperity, by Francis A. Walker, LL.D. Pp. 46. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Jun.). The Adjustment of Wages to Efficiency. Three papers: Gain Sharing, by Henry R. Towne; The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor, by F.A. Halsey; A Piece-Rate System, by F.W. Taylor. Pp. 83 Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Aug.). The Populist Movement. By Frank L. McVey, Ph.D. Pp. 81 Price 50 cents.

No. 4 (Oct.). The Present Monetary Situation. An address by Dr. W. Lexis, University of Göttingen translated by Professor John Cummings. Pp. 72. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 5-6 (Dec.). The Street Railway Problem in Cleveland. By W.R. Hopkins. Pp. 94. Price 50 cents.

 

VOLUME II, 1897

No. 1 (Feb., Supplement). Ninth Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 162. Price 50 cents.

No. 1 (Feb.). Economics and Jurisprudence. By Henry C. Adams, Ph.D. Pp. 48. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). The Saloon Question in Chicago. By John E. George, Ph.B. Pp. 62. Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Jun.). The General Property Tax in California. By Carl C. Plehn, Ph.D. Pp. 88. Price 50 cents.

No. 4 (Aug.). Area and Population of U. S. at Eleventh Census. By Walter F. Willcox, Ph.D. Pp. 60. Price 50 cents.

No. 5 (Oct.). A Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America, etc. By William Douglass. Edited by Charles J. Bullock, Ph.D. Pp. 228. Price 50 cents.

No. 6 (Dec.). Density and Distribution of Population in U.S. at Eleventh Census. By Walter F. Wilcox, Ph.D. Pp. 79.Price 50 cents.

 

VOLUME III, 1898

No. 1 (Feb., Supplement). Tenth Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 136. Price 50 cents.

No. 1 (Feb.). Government by Injunction. By William H. Dunbar, A.M., LL.B. Pp. 44. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). Economic Aspects of Railroad Receiverships. By Henry H. Swain, Ph.D. Pp. 118. Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Jun.). The Ohio Tax Inquisitor Law. By T. N. Carver, Ph.D. Pp. 50. Price 50 cents.

No. 4 (Aug.). The American Federation of Labor. By Morton A. Aldrich, Ph.D. Pp. 54. Price 50 cents.

No. 5 (Oct.). Housing of the Working People in Yonkers. By Ernest Ludlow Bogart, Ph.D. Pp. 82. Price 50 cents.

No. 6 (Dec.). The State Purchase of Railways in Switzerland. By Horace Micheli; translated by John Cummings, Ph.D. Pp. 72. Price 50 cents.

 

VOLUME IV, 1899

No. 1 (Feb.). I. Economics and Politics. By Arthur T. Hadley, A.M.; II. Report on Currency Reform. By F. M. Taylor, F.W. Taussig, J.W. Jenks, Sidney Sherwood, David Kinley; III. Report on the Twelfth Census. By Richmond Mayo-Smith, Walter F. Willcox, Carroll D. Wright, Roland P. Falkner, Davis R. Dewey. Pp.70. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). Eleventh Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 126. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). Personal Competition: Its Place in the Social Order and Effect upon Individuals; with some Consideration upon Success. By Charles H. Cooley, Ph.D. Pp. 104. Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Jun.). Economics as a School Study. By Frederick R. Clow, A.M. Pp. 72. Price 50 cents.

Nos. 4-5 (Aug.-Oct.). The English Income Tax, with Special Reference to Administration and Method of Assessment. By Joseph A. Hill, Ph.D. Pp. 162. Price $1.00.

No. 6. (Dec.) The Effects of Recent Changes in Monetary Standards upon the Distribution of Wealth. By Francis Shanor Kinder, A.M. Pp.91. Price 50 cents.

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NEW SERIES

No. 1 (Dec., 1897). The Cotton Industry. By M. B. Hammond. Pp. 382. (In cloth $2.00.) Price $1.50.

No. 2 (Mar., 1899). Scope and Method of the Twelfth Census. Critical discussion by over twenty statistical experts. Pp. 625. (In cloth $2.50.) Price $2.00.

 

 

Categories
AEA Bibliography

American Economic Association. Monographs: 1886-1896

 

Besides transcribing and curating archival content for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, I occasionally put together collections of links to books and other items of interest on pages or posts that constitute my “personal” virtual economics reference library. In this post you will find links to early monographs/papers published by the American Economic Association. 

Links to the contents of the four volumes of AEA Economic Studies, 1896-1899 have also been posted.

A few other useful collections:

The virtual rare-book reading room (classic works of economics up to 1900)

The Twentieth Century Economics Library

Laughlin’s recommended teacher’s library of economics (1887)

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PUBLICATIONS OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION. MONOGRAPHS.
1886-1896

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General Contents and Index to Volumes I-XI.
Source: Publications of the American Economic Association, Vol XI (1896). Price 25 cents.

VOLUME I

No. 1 (Mar. 1886). Report of the Organization of the American Economic Association. By Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., Secretary. Price 50 cents.

Nos. 2 and 3 (May-Jul. 1886). The Relation of the Modern Municipality to the Gas Supply. By Edmund J. James, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 4 (Sep. 1886). Co-öperation in a Western City. By Albert Shaw, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 5 (Nov. 1886). Co-öperation in New England. By Edward W. Bemis, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 6 (Jan. 1887). Relation of the State to Industrial Action. By Henry C. Adams, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME II

No. 1 (Mar. 1887). Three Phases of Co-öperation in the West. By Amos G. Warner, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 2 (May 1887). Historical Sketch of the Finances of Pennsylvania. By T. K. Worthington, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 3 (Jul. 1887). The Railway Question. By Edmund J. James, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 4 (Sep. 1887). The Early History of the English Woolen Industry. By William J. Ashley, M.A. Price 75 cents.

No. 5 (Nov. 1887). Two Chapters on the Mediaeval Guilds of England. By Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 6 (Jan. 1888). The Relation of Modern Municipalities to Quasi-Public Works. By H. C. Adams, George W. Knight, Davis R. Dewey, Charles Moore, Frank J. Goodnow and Arthur Yager. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME III

No. 1 (Mar. 1888). Three Papers Read at Meeting in Boston: “The Study of Statistics in Colleges,” by Carroll D. Wright; “The Sociological Character of Political Economy,” by Franklyn H. Giddings; “Some Considerations on the Legal-Tender Decisions,” by Edmund J. James. Price 75 cents.

No. 2 (May 1888). Capital and its Earnings. By John B. Clark, A.M. Price 75 cents.

No. 3 (Jul. 1888) consists of three parts: “Efforts of the Manual Laboring Class to Better Their Condition,” by Francis A. Walker; “Mine Labor in the Hocking Valley,” by Edward W. Bemis, Ph.D.; “Report of the Second Annual Meeting,” by Richard T. Ely, Secretary. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 4 and 5 (Sep.-Nov. 1888). Statistics and Economics. By Richmond Mayo-Smith, A.M. Price $1.00.

No. 6 (Jan. 1889). The Stability of Prices. By Simon N. Patten, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME IV

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Image Source: As of 1909 the former Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.) in Reuben G. Thwaites “A Notable Gathering of Scholars,” The Independent, Vol. 68, January 6, 1910, pp. 7-14.

Categories
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Survey of Economics Education. Colleges and Universities (Seligman), Schools (Sullivan), 1911

 

In V. Orval Watt’s papers at the Hoover Institution archives (Box 8) one finds notes from his Harvard graduate economics courses (early 1920s). There I found the bibliographic reference to the article transcribed below. The first two parts of this encyclopedia entry were written by Columbia’s E.R.A. Seligman who briefly sketched the history of economics and then presented a survey of the development of economics education at  colleges and universities in Europe and the United States. Appended to Seligman’s contribution was a much shorter discussion of economics education in the high schools of the United States by the high-school principal,  James Sullivan, Ph.D.

_________________________

 

ECONOMICS
— History —

Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D., LL.D.
Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University

The science now known as Economics was for a long time called Political Economy. This term is due to a Frenchman — Montchrétien, Sieur de Watteville — who wrote in 1615 a book with that title, employing a term which had been used in a slightly different sense by Aristotle. During the Middle Ages economic questions were regarded very largely from the moral and theological point of view, so that the discussions of the day were directed rather to a consideration of what ought to be, than of what is.

The revolution of prices in the sixteenth century and the growth of capital led to great economic changes, which brought into the foreground, as of fundamental importance, questions of commerce and industry. Above all, the breakdown of the feudal system and the formation of national states emphasized the considerations of national wealth and laid stress on the possibility of governmental action in furthering national interests. This led to a discussion of economic problems on a somewhat broader scale, — a discussion now carried on, not by theologians and canonists, but by practical business men and by philosophers interested in the newer political and social questions. The emphasis laid upon the action of the State also explains the name Political Economy. Most of the discussions, however, turned on the analysis of particular problems, and what was slowly built up was a body of practical precepts rather than of theoretic principles, although, of course, both the rules of action and the legislation which embodied them rested at bottom on theories which were not yet adequately formulated.

The origin of the modern science of economics, which may be traced back to the third quarter of the eighteenth century, is due to three fundamental causes. In the first place, the development of capitalistic enterprise and the differentiation between the laborer and the capitalist brought into prominence the various shares in distribution, notably the wages of the laborer, the profits of the capitalist, and the rent of the landowner. The attempt to analyze the meaning of these different shares and their relation to national wealth was the chief concern of the body of thinkers in France known as Physiocrats, who also called themselves Philosophes-Économistes, or simply Économistes, of whom the court physician of Louis XVI, Quesnay, was the head, and who published their books in 1757-1780.

The second step in the evolution of economic science was taken by Adam Smith (q.v.). In the chair of philosophy at the University of Glasgow, to which Adam Smith was appointed in 1754, and in which he succeeded Hutcheson, it was customary to lecture on natural law in some of its applications to politics. Gradually, with the emergence of the more important economic problems, the same attempt to find an underlying natural explanation for existing phenomena was extended to the sphere of industry and trade; and during the early sixties Adam Smith discussed these problems before his classes under the head of “police.” Finally, after a sojourn in France and an acquaintance with the French ideas, Adam Smith developed his general doctrines in his immortal work. The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. When the industrial revolution, which was just beginning as Adam Smith wrote, had made its influence felt in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Ricardo attempted to give the first thorough analysis of our modern factory system of industrial life, and this completed the framework of the structure of economic science which is now being gradually filled out.

The third element in the formation of modern economics was the need of elaborating an administrative system in managing the government property of the smaller German and Italian rulers, toward the end of the eighteenth century. This was the period of the so-called police state when the government conducted many enterprises which are now left in private hands. In some of the German principalities, for instance, the management of the government lands, mines, industries, etc., was assigned to groups of officials known as chambers. In their endeavor to elaborate proper methods of administration these chamber officials and their advisors gradually worked out a system of principles to explain the administrative rules. The books written, as well as the teaching chairs founded, to expound these principles came under the designation of the Chamber sciences (Camiralia or Cameral-Wissenschaften) — a term still employed to-day at the University of Heidelberg. As Adam Smith’s work became known in Germany and Italy by translations, the chamber sciences gradually merged into the science of political economy.

Finally, with the development of the last few decades, which has relegated to the background the administrative and political side of the discipline, and has brought forward the purely scientific character of the subject, the term Political Economy has gradually given way to Economics.

Development of Economic Teaching

Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D., LL.D.
Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University

— Europe —

As has been intimated in the preceding section, the first attempts to teach what we to-day would call economics were found in the European universities which taught natural law, and in some of the Continental countries where the chamber sciences were pursued. The first independent chairs of political economy were those of Naples in 1753, of which the first incumbent was (Genovesi, and the professorship of cameral science at Vienna in 1763, of which the first incumbent was Sonnenfels. It was not, however, until the nineteenth century that political economy was generally introduced as a university discipline. When the new University of Berlin was created in 1810, provision was made for teaching in economics, and this gradually spread to the other German universities. In France a chair of economics was established in 1830 in the Collège de France, and later on in some of the technical schools; but economics did not become a part of the regular university curriculum until the close of the seventies, when chairs of political economy were created in the faculties of law, and not, as was customary in the other Continental countries, in the faculties of philosophy. In England the first professorship of political economy was that instituted in 1805 at Haileybury College, which trained the students for the East India service. The first incumbent of this chair was Malthus. At University College, London, a chair of economics was established in 1828, with McCulloch as the first incumbent; and at Dublin a chair was founded in Trinity College in 1832 by Archbishop Whately; at Oxford a professorship was established in 1825, with Nassau W. Senior as the first incumbent. His successors were Richard Whately (1830), W. F. Lloyd (1836), H. Merivale (1838), Travers Twiss (1842), Senior (1847), G. K. Richards (1852), Charles Neate (1857), Thorold Rogers (1862), Bonamy Price (1868), Thorold Rogers (1888). and F. Y. Edgeworth (1891). At Cambridge the professorship dates from 1863, the first incumbent being Henry Fawcett, who was followed by Alfred Marshall in 1884 and by A. C. Pigou in 1908. In all these places, however, comparatively little attention was paid at first to the teaching of economics, and it was not until the close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth that any marked progress was made, although the professorship at King’s College, London, dates back to 1859, and that at the University of Edinburgh to 1871. Toward the close of the nineteenth century, chairs in economics were created in the provincial universities, especially at Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Durham, and the like, as well as in Scotland and Wales; and a great impetus to the teaching of economics was given by the foundation, in 1895, of the London School of Economics, which has recently been made a part of the University of London.

— United States —

Economics was taught at first in the United States, as in England, by incumbents of the chair of philosophy; but no especial attention was paid to the study, and no differentiation of the subject matter was made. The first professorship in the title of which the subject is distinctively mentioned was that instituted at Columbia College, New York, where John McVickar, who had previously lectured on the subject under the head of philosophy, was made professor of moral philosophy and political economy in 1819. In order to commemorate this fact, Columbia University established some years ago the McVickar professorship of political economy. The second professorship in the United States was instituted at South Carolina College, Columbia, S. C, where Thomas Cooper, professor of chemistry, had the subject of political economy added to the title of his chair in 1826. A professorship of similar sectional influence was that in political economy, history, and metaphysics filled in the College of William and Mary in 1827, by Thomas Roderick Dew (1802-1846). The separate professorships of political economy, however, did not come until after the Civil War. Harvard established a professorship of political economy in 1871; Yale in 1872; and Johns Hopkins in 1876.

The real development of economic teaching on a large scale began at the close of the seventies and during the early eighties. The newer problems bequeathed to the country by the Civil War were primarily economic in character. The rapid growth of industrial capitalism brought to the front a multitude of questions, whereas before the war well-nigh the only economic problems had been those of free trade and of banking, which were treated primarily from the point of view of partisan politics. The newer problems that confronted the country led to the exodus of a number of young men to Germany, and with their return at the end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties, chairs were rapidly multiplied in all the larger universities. Among these younger men were Patten and James, who went to the University of Pennsylvania; Clark, of Amherst and later of Columbia; Farnam and Hadley of Yale; Taussig of Harvard; H. C. Adams of Michigan; Mayo-Smith and Seligman of Columbia; and Ely of Johns Hopkins. The teaching of economics on a university basis at Johns Hopkins under General Francis A. Walker helped to create a group of younger scholars who soon filled the chairs of economics throughout the country. In 1879 the School of Political Science at Columbia was inaugurated on a university basis, and did its share in training the future teachers of the country. Gradually the teaching force was increased in all the larger universities, and chairs were started in the colleges throughout the length and breadth of the land.

At the present time, most of the several hundred colleges in the United States offer instruction in the subject, and each of the larger institutions has a staff of instructors devoted to it. At institutions like Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and Wisconsin there are from six to ten professors of economics and social science, together with a corps of lecturers, instructors, and tutors.

Teaching of Economics in the American Universities. — The present-day problems of the teaching of economics in higher institutions of learning are seriously affected by the transition stage through which these institutions are passing. In the old American college, when economics was introduced it was taught as a part of the curriculum designed to instill general culture. As the graduate courses were added, the more distinctly professional and technical phases of the subject were naturally emphasized. As a consequence, both the content of the course and the method employed tended to differentiate. But the unequal development of our various institutions has brought great unclearness into the whole pedagogical problem. Even the nomenclature is uncertain. In one sense graduate courses may be opposed to undergraduate courses; and if the undergraduate courses are called the college courses, then the graduate courses should be called the university courses. The term “university,” however, is coming more and more, in America at least, to be applied to the entire complex of the institutional activities, and the college proper or undergraduate department is considered a part of the university. Furthermore, if by university courses as opposed to college courses we mean advanced, professional, or technical courses, a difficulty arises from the fact that the latter year or years of the college course are tending to become advanced or professional in character. Some institutions have introduced the combined course, that is, a combination of so-called college and professional courses; other institutions permit students to secure their baccalaureate degree at the end of three or even two and a half years. In both cases, the last year of the college will then cover advanced work, although in the one case it may be called undergraduate, and in the other graduate, work.

The confusion consequent upon this unequal development has had a deleterious influence on the teaching of economics, as it has in many other subjects. In all our institutions we find a preliminary or beginners’ course in economics, and in our largest institutions we find some courses reserved expressly for advanced or graduate students. In between these, however, there is a broad field, which, in some institutions, is cultivated primarily from the point of view of graduates, in others from the point of view of undergraduates, and in most cases is declared to be open to both graduates and undergraduates. This is manifestly unfortunate. For, if the courses, are treated according to advanced or graduate methods, they do not fulfill their proper function as college studies. On the other hand, if they are treated as undergraduate courses, they are more or less unsuitable for advanced or graduate students. In almost all of the American institutions the same professors conduct both kinds of courses. In only one institution, namely, at Columbia University, is the distinction between graduate and undergraduate courses in economics at all clearly drawn, although even there not with precision. At Columbia University, of the ten professors who are conducting courses in economics and social science, one half have seats only in the graduate faculties, and do no work at all in the college or undergraduate department; but even there, these professors give a few courses, which, while frequented to an overwhelming extent by graduate students, are open to such undergraduates as may be declared to be advanced students.

It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish, in principle at least, between the undergraduate or college courses properly so-called, and the university or graduate courses. For it is everywhere conceded that at the extremes, at least, different pedagogical methods are appropriate.

The College or Undergraduate Instruction. — Almost everywhere in the American colleges there is a general or preliminary or foundation course in economics. This ordinarily occupies three hours a week for the entire year, or five hours a week for the semester, or half year, although the three-hour course in the fundamental principles occasionally continues only for a semester. The foundation of such a course is everywhere textbook work, with oral discussion, or quizzes, and frequent tests. Where the number of students is small, this method can be effectively employed; but where, as in our larger institutions, the students attending this preliminary course are numbered by the hundreds, the difficulties multiply. Various methods are employed to solve these difficulties. In some cases the class attends as a whole at a lecture which is given once a week by the professor, while at the other two weekly sessions the class is divided into small sections of from twenty to thirty, each of them in charge of an instructor who carries on the drill work. In a few instances, these sections are conducted in part by the same professor who gives the lecture, in part by other professors of equal grade. In other cases where this forms too great a drain upon the strength of the faculty, the sections are put in the hands of younger instructors or drill masters. In other cases, again, the whole class meets for lecture purposes twice a week, and the sections meet for quiz work only once a week. Finally, the instruction is sometime carried on entirely by lectures to the whole class, supplemented by numerous written tests.

While it cannot be said that any fixed method has yet been determined, there is a growing consensus of opinion that the best results can be reached by the combination of one general lecture and two quiz hours in sections. The object of the general lecture is to present a point of view from which the problems may be taken up, and to awaken a general interest in the subject among the students. The object of the section work is to drill the students thoroughly in the principles of the science; and for this purpose it is important in a subject like economics to put the sections as far as possible in the hands of skilled instructors rather than of recent graduates.

Where additional courses are offered to the Undergraduates, they deal with special subjects in the domain of economic history, statistics, and practical economics. In many such courses good textbooks are now available, and especially in the last class of subject is an attempt is being made here and there to introduce the case system as utilized in the law schools. This method is, however, attended by some difficulties, arising from the fact that the materials used so quickly become antiquated and do not have the compelling force of precedent, as is the case in law. In the ordinary college course, therefore, chief reliance must still be put upon the independent work and the fresh illustrations that are brought to the classroom by the instructor.

In some American colleges the mistake has been made of introducing into the college curriculum methods that are suitable only to the university. Prominent among these are the exclusive use of the lecture system, and the employment of the so-called seminar. This, however, only tends to confusion. On the other hand, in some of the larger colleges the classroom work is advantageously supplemented by discussions and debates in the economics club, and by practical exercises in dealing with the current economic problems as they are presented in the daily press.

In most institutions the study of economics is not begun until the sophomore or the junior year, it being deemed desirable to have a certain maturity of judgment and a certain preparation in history and logic. In some instances, however, the study of economics is undertaken at the very beginning of the college course, with the resulting difficulty of inadequately distinguishing between graduate and undergraduate work.

Another pedagogical question which has given rise to some difficulty is the sequence of courses. Since the historical method in economics became prominent, it is everywhere recognized that some training in the historical development of economic institutions is necessary to a comprehension of existing facts. We can know what is very much better by grasping what has been and how it has come to be. The point of difference, however, is as to whether the elementary course in the principles should come first and be supplemented by a course in economic history, or whether, on the contrary, the course in economic history should precede that in the principles. Some institutions follow one method, others the second; and there are good arguments on both sides. It is the belief of the writer, founded on a long experience, that on the whole the best results can be reached by giving as introductory to the study of economic principles a short survey of the leading points of economic history. In a few of the modem textbooks this plan is intentionally followed. Taking it all in all, it may be said that college instruction in economics is now not only exceedingly widespread in the United States, but continually improving in character and methods.

University or Graduate Instruction. — The university courses in economics are designed primarily for those who either wish to prepare themselves for the teaching of economics or who desire such technical training in methods or such an intimate acquaintance with the more developed matter as is usually required by advanced or professional students in any discipline. The university courses in the larger American institutions which now take up every important subject in the discipline, and which are conducted by a corps of professors, comprise three elements: first, the lectures of the professor; second, the seminar or periodical meeting between the professor and a group of advanced students; third, the economics club, or meeting of the students without the professor.

(1) The Lectures: In the university lectures the method is different from that in the college courses. The object is not to discipline the student, but to give him an opportunity of coming into contact with the leaders of thought and with the latest results of scientific advance on the subject. Thus no roll of attendance is called, and no quizzes are enforced and no periodical tests of scholarship are expected. In the case of candidates for the Ph.D. degree, for instance, there is usually no examination until the final oral examination, when the student is expected to display a proper acquaintance with the whole subject. The lectures, moreover, do not attempt to present the subject in a dogmatic way, as is more or less necessary in the college courses, but, on the contrary, are designed to present primarily the unsettled problems and to stimulate the students to independent thinking. The university lecture, in short, is expected to give to the student what cannot be found in the books on the subject.

(2) The Seminar: Even with the best of will, however, the necessary limitations prevent the lecturer from going into the minute details of the subject. In order to provide opportunity for this, as well as for a systematic training of the advanced students in the method of attacking this problem, periodical meetings between the professor and the students have now become customary under the name of the seminar, introduced from Germany. In most of our advanced universities the seminar is restricted to those students who are candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, although in some cases a preliminary seminar is arranged for graduate students who are candidates for the degree of Master of Arts. Almost everywhere a reading knowledge of French and German is required. In the United States, as on the European continent generally, there are minor variations in the conduct of the seminar. Some professors restrict the attendance to a small group of most advanced students, of from fifteen to twenty-five; others virtually take in all those who apply. Manifestly the personal contact and the “give and take,” which are so important a feature of the seminar, become more difficult as the numbers increase. Again, in some institutions each professor has a seminar of his own; but this is possible only where the number of graduate students is large. In other cases the seminar consists of the students meeting with a whole group of professors. While this has a certain advantage of its own, it labors under the serious difficulty that the individual professor is not able to impress his own ideas and his own personality so effectively on the students; and in our modern universities students are coming more and more to attend the institution for the sake of some one man with whom they wish to study. Finally, the method of conducting the seminar differs in that in some cases only one general subject is assigned to the members for the whole term, each session being taken up by discussion of a different phase of the general subject. In other cases a new subject is taken up at every meeting of the seminar. The advantage of the latter method is to permit a greater range of topics, and to enable each student to report on the topic in which he is especially interested, and which, perhaps, he may be taking up for his doctor’s dissertation. The advantage of the former method is that it enables the seminar to enter into the more minute details of the general subject, and thus to emphasize with more precision the methods of work. The best plan would seem to be to devote half the year to the former method, and half the year to the latter method.

In certain branches of the subject, as, for instance, statistics, the seminar becomes a laboratory exercise. In the largest universities the statistical laboratory is equipped with all manner of mechanical devices, and the practical exercises take up a considerable part of the time. The statistical laboratories are especially designed to train the advanced student in the methods of handling statistical material.

(3) The Economics Club: The lecture work and the seminar are now frequently supplemented by the economics club, a more informal meeting of the advanced students, where they are free from the constraint that is necessarily present in the seminar, and where they have a chance to debate, perhaps more unreservedly, some of the topics taken up in the lectures and in the seminar, and especially the points where some of the students dissent from the lecturer. Reports on the latest periodical literature are sometimes made in the seminar and sometimes in the economics club; and the club also provides an opportunity for inviting distinguished outsiders in the various subjects. In one way or another, the economics club serves as a useful supplement to the lectures and the seminar, and is now found in almost all the leading universities.

In reviewing the whole subject we may say that the teaching of economics in American institutions has never been in so satisfactory condition as at present. Both the instructors and the students are everywhere increasing in numbers; and the growing recognition of the fact that law and politics are so closely interrelated with, and so largely based on, economics, has led to a remarkable increase in the interest taken in the subject and in the facilities for instruction.


Economics
— In the Schools —

James Sullivan, Ph.D., Principal of Boys’ High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.

This subject has been defined as the study of that which pertains to the satisfaction of man’s material needs, — the production, preservation, and distribution of wealth. As such it would seem fundamental that the study of economics should find a place in those institutions which prepare children to become citizens, — the elementary and high schools. Some of the truths of economics are so simple that even the youngest of school children may be taught to understand them. As a school study, however, economics up to the present time has made far less headway than civics (q.v.). Its introduction as a study even in the colleges was so gradual and so retarded that it could scarcely be expected that educators would favor its introduction in the high schools.

Previous to the appearance, in 1894, of the Report of the Committee of Ten of the National Educational Association on Secondary Education, there had been much discussion on the educational value of the study of economics. In that year Professor Patten had written a paper on Economics in Elementary Schools, not as a plea for its study there, but as an attempt to show how the ethical value of the subject could be made use of by teachers. The Report, however, came out emphatically against formal instruction in political economy in the secondary school, and recommended “that, in connection particularly with United States history, civil government, and commercial geography instruction be given in those economic topics, a knowledge of which is essential to the understanding of our economic life and development” (pp. 181-183). This view met with the disapproval of many teachers. In 1895 President Thwing of Western Reserve University, in an address before the National Educational Association on The Teaching of Political Economy in the Secondary Schools, maintained that the subject could easily be made intelligible to the young. Articles or addresses of similar import followed by Commons (1895), James (1897), Haynes (1897), Stewart (1898), and Taussig (1899). Occasionally a voice was raised against its formal study in the high schools. In the School Review for January, 1898, Professor Dixon of Dartmouth said that its teaching in the secondary schools was “unsatisfactory and unwise.” On the other hand, Professor Stewart of the Central Manual Training School of Philadelphia, in an address in April, 1898, declared the Report of the Committee of Ten “decidedly reactionary,” and prophesied that political economy as a study would he put to the front in the high school. In 1899 Professor Clow of the Oshkosh State Normal School published an exhaustive study of the subject of Economics as a School Study, going into the questions of its educational value, its place in the schools, the forms of the study, and the methods of teaching. His researches serve to show that the subject was more commonly taught in the high schools of the Middle West than in the East. (Compare with the article on Civics.)

Since the publication of his work the subject of economics has gradually made its appearance in the curricula of many Eastern high schools. It has been made an elective subject of examination for graduation from high schools by the Regents of New York State, and for admission to college by Harvard University. Its position as an elective study, however, has not led many students to take it except in commercial high schools, because in general it may not be used for admission to the colleges.

Its great educational value, its close touch with the pupils’ everyday life, and the possibility of teaching it to pupils of high school age are now generally recognized. A series of articles in the National Educational Association’s Proceedings for 1901, by Spiers, Gunton, Halleck, and Vincent bear witness to this. The October, 1910, meeting of the New England History Teachers’ Association was entirely devoted to a discussion of the Teaching of Economics in Secondary Schools, and Professors Taussig and Haynes reiterated views already expressed. Representatives of the recently developed commercial and trade schools expressed themselves in its favor.

Suitable textbooks in the subject for secondary schools have not kept pace with its spread in the schools. Laughlin, Macvane, and Walker published books somewhat simply expressed; but later texts have been too collegiate in character. There is still needed a text written with the secondary school student constantly in mind, and preferably by an author who has been dealing with students of secondary school age. The methods of teaching, mutatis mutandis, have been much the same as those pursued in civics (q.v.). The mere cramming of the text found in the poorest schools gives way in the best schools to a study and observation of actual conditions in the world of to-day. In the latter schools the teacher has been well trained in the subject, whereas in the former it is given over only too frequently to teachers who know little more about it than that which is in the text.

See also Commercial Education.

 

References: —

In Colleges and Universities: —

A Symposium on the Teaching of Elementary Economics. Jour. of Pol. Econ., Vol. XVIIl, June, 1910.

Cossa, L. Introduction to the Study of Political Economy: tr. by L. Dyer. (London, 1893.)

Mussey, H. R. Economies in the College Course. Educ. Rev. Vol. XL, 1910, pp. 239-249.

Second Conference on the Teaching of Economics, Proceedings. (Chicago, 1911.)

Seligman, E. R. A. The Seminarium — Its Advantages and Limitations. Convocation of the University of the State of New York, Proceedings. (1892.)

In Schools: —

Clow, F. R. Economics as a School Study, in the Economic Studies of the American Economic Association for 1899. An excellent bibliography is given. It may be supplemented by articles or addresses since 1899 which have been mentioned above. (New York, 1899.)

Haynes, John. Economics in Secondary Schools. Education, February, 1897.

 

Source: Paul Monroe (ed.), A Cyclopedia of Education, Vol. II. New York: Macmillan, pp. 387-392.

Source: E.R.A. Seligman in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 484-6.

 

Categories
Race Sociology Statistics

Atlanta University. W.E.B. Dubois’ choice of economics and sociology textbooks, 1897-98

 

This post follows up the previous one that reports the economics textbooks used at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. at the time W. E. B. Du Bois was an undergraduate. Artifacts transcribed below highlight the “sociological turn” taken by Du Bois upon his appointment to a professorship in economics at history at Atlanta University after he obtained his Harvard Ph.D. in political science for a dissertation on the history of the slave trade.

As can be seen in the department descriptions  for 1896-97 and 1897-98, the name of the department of instruction was changed from “Political Science and History” to “Sociology and History” in the first year that Du Bois was included among the faculty of Atlanta University. Du Bois’ research on “Negro problems” would have been unduly restricted if conducted within the methodology of economics of his time (or ours for that matter) which we can see must have been a factor that pushed him to the broader perspective offered by the sociology of his time with its emphasis on empirical material and statistical methods.

A relevant artifact here is the library card issued to W. E. B. Du Bois by the Royal Prussian Statistical Bureau in 1893 during his time as a student in Berlin.

Source:  University of Massachusetts Amherst. Special Collections and University Archives. W. E. B. Du Bois papers, Series 1A. General Correspondence. Bücherzammlung [sic] des königlich preussischen statistischen Bureaus zu Berlin, Zulassungscarte.  

__________________

VI. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HISTORY.
[1896-97, Du Bois not yet listed as a member of the faculty]

It is intended to develop this department more fully, especially along the line of Sociology. Interest has been awakened throughout the country in the annual conferences held at Atlanta University in May — the first in 1896 — concerning problems in city life among the colored population. The library will soon be rich in books pertaining to Sociology.

As it now stands, the work of this department is as follows:

Political Science. Dole’s American Citizen, studied during the first year of the Normal and Preparatory courses, gives to our younger students an excellent introduction to this department. Civil Government in the Senior Normal year, and Civil Liberty in the Junior College, enrich this department still more; while International Law in the Senior year introduces the student to the principles underlying many burning questions of the day.

Economics. During Senior year Walker’s Political Economy, and White’s Money and Banking, also introduce the student to important national questions.

History, General and United States, is studied in the second and third years of the Normal course; while the College students have Guizot’s History of Civilization. For Greek History in the College, see Greek.

 

Source:  Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1896-97, p. 31,

__________________

W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and History

VII. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY.
[1897-98]

It is intended to develop this department not only for the sake of the mental discipline but also in order to familiarize our students with the history of nations and with the great economic and social problems of the world, so that they may be able to apply broad and careful knowledge to the solving of the many intricate social questions affecting their own people. The department aims therefore at training in good intelligent citizenship, at a thorough comprehension of the chief problems of wealth, work and wages; and at a fair knowledge of the objects and methods of social reform. The following courses are established:

Citizenship. In the Junior Preparatory and Junior Normal classes Dole’s American Citizen is studied as an introduction. The Normal classes follow this by Fiske’s Civil Government in the Senior year, while Political Science has an important place in the Junior College year.

Wealth, Work and Wages. Some simple questions in this field are treated in the Junior Preparatory year, and the science of Economics is taken up in the Junior College year.

Social Reforms. Three terms of the Senior year are given to Sociology; the first term to a general study of principles, the second term to a general survey of social conditions, and the third term to a study of the social and economic condition of the American Negro, and to methods of reform.

In addition to this, graduate study of the social problems in the South by the most approved scientific methods, is carried on by the Atlanta Conference, composed of graduates of Atlanta, Fisk, and other institutions. The aim is to make Atlanta University the centre of an intelligent and thorough-going study of the Negro problems. Two reports of the Conference have been published, and a third is in preparation.

History. General and United States History are studied in the second and third years of the Normal course. Ancient history is taken in connection with the Ancient Languages and Bible study. Modern European history is studied in the Sophomore year; and some historical work is done in connection with other courses.

The library contains a good working collection of treatises in History and Sociology.

 

Source:  Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1897-98, p. 4, 13.

__________________

Textbooks assigned in Economics and Sociology
[1898-99]

Junior year Economics. Fall term.  Hadley. (Economics)

Senior year Sociology. Fall term. Mayo-Smith (Statistics and Sociology).

 

Source:  Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1898-99.

 

Economics
[Fisk University, Junior Year College textbook]

Arthur Twining Hadley. Economics. An Account of the Relations Between Private Property and Public Welfare. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896.

Economics I. A Summary of Hadley’s Economics. Copyright Edw. W. Wheeler. Cambridge, Mass.: E. W. Wheeler, Printer, 1898. 53 pages.   “A convenient hand-book for preparing the weekly written questions and all examinations…with an appendix containing suggestive topics for review.” [included in this post as a  study guide]

Sociology and Statistics
[Fisk University, Senior Year College textbook]

“The present volume is issued as Part I. of a systematic Science of Statistics, and is intended to cover what is ordinarily termed Population Statistics…”

Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and Sociology. New York: Macmillan, 1895.

[Note:  Mayo-Smith later published the second part of his systematic Science of Statistics as…]

“Part II., Statistics and Economics [covers] the statistics of commerce, trade, finance, and economic social life generally.
Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and Economics. New York: Macmillan, 1899.

 

Image Source: “W.E.B. Du Bois Educational Series at Great Barrington” webpage at the Housatonic Heritage webpage.

Categories
Columbia Curriculum Gender Undergraduate

Columbia. Economics and social science curriculum as of Dec. 1898

Columbia 1890-1898

 

One of the duller parts of my project that covers roughly a century’s development (1870-1970) of undergraduate and graduate economics education is gathering information on the nuts-and-bolts of curriculum structure. Today, looking at a report of the Faculty of Political Science published in the December 1898 issue of Columbia University Quarterly, I saw the announcement that 1898-99 was the first time that women were admitted to graduate courses in history and economics. The report also presented an easy to follow outline of the four or five year curriculum in economics and the social sciences. The idea behind the curriculum was to provide an orderly and logical sequence of courses, yet with sufficient flexibility to serve the needs of undergraduates, graduates (a.k.a. specialists), and special students (those from outside the Faculty of Political Science).

_____________________________

Other Relevant Columbia University Artifacts

_____________________________

Highlights from the December 1898 report of the Faculty of Political Science

“For the first time in its history women are admitted to its courses in history and economics, but only women who are graduates and who are competent to carry on the work of the courses. No women are admitted as special students or to the courses given to the undergraduates, the idea being to put the women graduate students on the same footing as the men, giving them the same opportunities.” p. 75.

“Several new volumes in the series of Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law are now completed, including volumes eight and nine. These studies comprise the most successful of the dissertations which are submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the doctor’s degree.”

Economics and social science curriculum (four or five years)

“Columbia University has attempted thus to formulate in the Department of Economics and Social Science a programme that shall be systematic, in the sense of orderly development and logical sequence (the course covers four or five years), and at the same time flexible, for the purpose of meeting the just demands of a great variety of students—the undergraduate, the specialist, and the special student.” p. 77.

Junior year economics:

“The undergraduate begins with the Economic History of England and America (Economics 1), which gives him that understanding of the evolution of economic institutions, such as the systems of land tenure, the factory system, the institutions of commerce and trade, which is necessary for any approach to economic discussion. That is followed by the Elements of Political Economy (Economics A), where the fundamental principles of the science are laid down and illustrated by contemporary events. These courses are usually taken during the Junior year, but may be taken a year earlier by students desiring to specialize in this direction. The lettered course is required of every student, and is in the nature of logical discipline for clear reasoning and a preparation for good citizenship. The College is held thereby to have discharged its duty to itself, in fulfilling the minimum required for the degree of A.B., and to the community, in inculcating sound principles in its graduates.” p. 76.

Senior year economics:

“For the majority of undergraduates these courses are but the preliminary sketch, the details of which are to be filled out by the more intensive study of Senior year. For this abundant opportunity is offered in the course on modern industrial problems, money, and labor (Economics 3), in the treatment of finance and taxation (Economics 4) and in the critical consideration of theories of socialism and projects of social reform (Economics 10 and 11). At the same time the elements of sociology (Sociology 15) furnish a broader foundation for generalization in regard to the fundamental principles of social life, and afford the student on the eve of graduation an opportunity to coordinate his knowledge of history, economics, philosophy, and ethics into a theory of society.

These courses of Senior year constitute the fundamental university courses, and are frequented by graduates of other colleges and by many students from the law school, the theological seminaries, and Teachers College, who find them valuable as auxiliary to their main lines of study. For the specialist and special student these courses in their turn are preliminary. They form the introduction to the university courses proper.” pp. 76-77.

Graduate (or specialist) economics:

“Here the specialist finds opportunity for development in economic theory (Economics 8, 9, and 10) and for further practical work (Economics 5 and 7), for sociological theory (Sociology 20, 21, and 25), for the treatment of problems of crime and pauperism (Sociology 22 and 23). and for the theory and practice of statistics as an instrument of investigation in all the social sciences (Sociology 17, 18, and 19). Crowning the whole are the seminars in political economy and sociology, and the statistical laboratory, where the student is trained for original work.” p. 77.

_____________________________

Faculty of Political Science
[Full Report for Dec. 1898 Columbia University Quarterly]

Department of History.—The late war seems to have had its effect on educational matters, and several resulting tendencies have been particularly marked at Columbia University. Thus, in the School of Political Science the attendance of students in the course on the general principles of international law has been very large and much interest is being manifested in the subject. Ordinarily this course, as well as a number of others treating of kindred subjects, is given by Professor Moore, who is at present in the service of the United States government. In his absence the course is being conducted by Mr. Edmond Kelly, who has lectured before the school on numerous occasions. Professor Moore’s course on diplomatic history is now being given by Dr. Frederic Bancroft, formerly librarian of the State Department, and a former lecturer in this Faculty.

The Faculty of Political Science has commenced the term with every indication of a most prosperous year. For the first time in its history women are admitted to its courses in history and economics, but only women who are graduates and who are competent to carry on the work of the courses. No women are admitted as special students or to the courses given to the undergraduates, the idea being to put the women graduate students on the same footing as the men, giving them the same opportunities.

The number of publications from the members of this faculty is constantly increasing, and several important works have recently been published or are in preparation. The Macmillan Company will soon publish Professor John B. Clark’s two-volume work on the distribution of wealth and the new edition of Professor Seligman’s Shifting and Incidence of Taxation. Several new volumes in the series of Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law are now completed, including volumes eight and nine. These studies comprise the most successful of the dissertations which are submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the doctor’s degree. Professor Robinson has just published a volume entitled Petrarch’s Letters, and Professor Munroe Smith’s Study of Bismarck has been issued from the University Press.

As Wednesday, October 19, was appointed Lafayette Day, President Low arranged for an address on “The Life and Services to this Country of Lafayette,” by Professor J. H. Robinson.

The department of history has enrolled about four hundred students from Columbia and Barnard. It offers a total of thirty-three courses. The new circular which explains fully its resources and gives a detailed account of its work can be had on application to the Secretary of the University. Professor Dunning is absent on leave. He is spending the winter in Rome, engaged in certain researches connected with the history of political theories and ancient institutions.

W. M. S. [William M. Sloane]

 

Department of Economics and Social Science.—The courses in this department have been so systematized as to meet the needs of both undergraduate and graduate students, while offering to other members of the University and of allied institutions the opportunity to broaden their studies by some knowledge of social theory and social problems.

The undergraduate begins with the Economic History of England and America (Economics 1), which gives him that understanding of the evolution of economic institutions, such as the systems of land tenure, the factory system, the institutions of commerce and trade, which is necessary for any approach to economic discussion. That is followed by the Elements of Political Economy (Economics A), where the fundamental principles of the science are laid down and illustrated by contemporary events. These courses are usually taken during the Junior year, but may be taken a year earlier by students desiring to specialize in this direction. The lettered course is required of every student, and is in the nature of logical discipline for clear reasoning and a preparation for good citizenship. The College is held thereby to have discharged its duty to itself, in fulfilling the minimum required for the degree of A.B., and to the community, in inculcating sound principles in its graduates.

For the majority of undergraduates these courses are but the preliminary sketch, the details of which are to be filled out by the more intensive study of Senior year. For this abundant opportunity is offered in the course on modern industrial problems, money, and labor (Economics 3), in the treatment of finance and taxation (Economics 4) and in the critical consideration of theories of socialism and projects of social reform (Economics 10 and 11). At the same time the elements of sociology (Sociology 15) furnish a broader foundation for generalization in regard to the fundamental principles of social life, and afford the student on the eve of graduation an opportunity to coordinate his knowledge of history, economics, philosophy, and ethics into a theory of society.

These courses of Senior year constitute the fundamental university courses, and are frequented by graduates of other colleges and by many students from the law school, the theological seminaries, and Teachers College, who find them valuable as auxiliary to their main lines of study. For the specialist and special student these courses in their turn are preliminary. They form the introduction to the university courses proper.

Here the specialist finds opportunity for development in economic theory (Economics 8, 9, and 10) and for further practical work (Economics 5 and 7), for sociological theory (Sociology 20, 21, and 25), for the treatment of problems of crime and pauperism (Sociology 22 and 23). and for the theory and practice of statistics as an instrument of investigation in all the social sciences (Sociology 17, 18, and 19). Crowning the whole are the seminars in political economy and sociology, and the statistical laboratory, where the student is trained for original work.

Columbia University has attempted thus to formulate in the Department of Economics and Social Science a programme that shall be systematic, in the sense of orderly development and logical sequence (the course covers four or five years), and at the same time flexible, for the purpose of meeting the just demands of a great variety of students—the undergraduate, the specialist, and the special student.

R. M.-S. [Richmond Mayo-Smith]

 Source: Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 1 (December 1898), pp. 74-77.

Image Source:  Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1890). Columbia University Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-cc6c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard

Harvard. Career of A.M. in economics alumnus, Arthur Morgan Day (1867-1942)

 

This post began as a simple transcription of two typed pages that Alvin S. Johnson sent to Joseph Dorfman, who at the time was collecting material on the history of economics at Columbia University. The Columbia economics instructor who was the subject of Johnson’s letter, Arthur Morgan Day, was new to me, and I presume something of an unknown even to Joseph Dorfman. My curiosity sparked a chase through a variety of genealogical sources accessible at Ancestry.com, then a search through yearbooks of Barnard College and Columbia University catalogues at archive.org, and eventually a discovery of the reports of the Harvard Class of 1892 (available at hathitrust.org) that taken together provide us a fairly good account of Day’s life and career through age 55.

I have located only a single source that gives the year of his death: “Arthur Morgan Day (1867-1942)” in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. 31. New York: James T. White & Co., 1944.

_______________

Alvin Johnson’s recollection of Arthur Morgan Day at Columbia College

THE NEW SCHOOL
66 West 12th St. New York 11
[Tel.] Oregon 5-2700

July 17, 1951

Dear Joe Dorfman:

This is the best I can do on Day. If you don’t like it, throw it into the waste-basket.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Alvin Johnson

encl.

Dr. Joseph Dorfman
Faculty of Political Science
Columbia University
New York 27, N.Y.

[Handwritten addition by Johnson]

I’m trying to write
something on the
Faculty
AJ

* *  *  * *

Alvin Johnson’s attachment to his letter to Joseph Dorfman of July 17, 1951

When I presented myself to Dean Burgess for registration in November 1898 and announced that I wished to study economics, the Dean advised me to register for the Marshall course by Mayo-Smith, the course on History of Economics by E. R. A. Seligman, the course on theory by John Bates Clark. I confessed that my training had been in classics; that I had never attended a course, nor even a single lecture in economics. I asked whether I ought not to take the course in elementary economics, under an instructor, Arthur Morgan Day. No, said Dean Burgess, that course was only for undergraduate cubs, who had no desire to know economics. The Committee on College Requirements had seen fit to make a required course out of it; but a mature man would be wasting his time under Day.

I did not register for Day’s course. I’m sorry I did not. For Day was a true representative of the old, solid economics of Adam Smith and Malthus and Ricardo, of Senior and Cairnes and John Stuart Mill. He made shift to comprehend the marginal utilitarianism of Marshall, but it gave him no inspiration. He saw no advance in Clark’s theory and he regarded Seligman’s Historismus as merely a change of venue in economic reasoning.

Day detested me, for my ardent devotion to J. B. Clark, for my eager acceptance of Seligman’s wide explorations in all literatures. He pitied me for my destiny of going forth into the world equipped only with fluff and froth, with no sense of the grand old economists who looked facts in the face and wrote in language that the most unlicked cub of a business man could understand. When I was awarded a fellowship Day proposed that I should have the privilege of reading and grading all his examination papers, a privilege I was too immature to appreciate. The President of the University vetoed the proposal. I had my year of complete freedom, to follow my teachers, Clark and Seligman, with uncrippled ardor.

Yet I came to realize that Day was a better economist than we then assumed. It was not possible for him to follow the marginal utility calculus into a field of abstractions divorced from the comprehension of the ordinary citizen. Any man, however sodden in business thinking, could follow John Stuart Mill, agreeing, or most likely disagreeing. Only the intellectual elite could follow Menger and Wieser and Böhm[-]Bawerk, Marshall and Clark, Fisher and Fetter.

If Day were living he would find justification for his repugnance to the marginal utility theories. Keynes, an adept in marginal theory, shifted the emphasis from value to price.

Said Chesterfield, “In mixed company I always talk bawdy, for that is something in which all men can join.” Keynes always talked price. Day, prematurely, talked price, believed in talking price. There was no place for him in the marginal utility universe of talk, of those days. But I surmise, Day was a good deal of a man.

[signed]
Alvin Johnson

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13, Folder “C.U. Dept.al history”.

_______________

From the Columbia College Catalogue, 1898-99

Economics A—Outlines of Economics—Recitations, lectures, and essays. 3 hours, second half-year. Professor Mayo-Smith and Mr. Day. [Economics A was required of juniors in the College, and open to sophomores who have taken economics I.]

Economics 1—Economic history of England America—Selected textbooks, recitations, essays, and lectures. 3 hours, first half-year. Professor Seligman and Mr. Day. [Economics I was open to juniors and qualified sophomores in the College.]

[Note: p. 11 under officers of instruction, Assistants. Address given as 128 West 103d Street.]

Source:  Columbia University in the City of New York. Catalogue 1898-99, p. 74.

_______________

1900 U.S. Census

Name: Arthur M Day
Age:    33
Birth Date:     Apr 1867
Birthplace:      Connecticut
Home in 1900:           Danbury, Fairfield, Connecticut
Ward of City: 2
Street: Westoria Avenue
House Number:          28
Race:   White
Gender:           Male
Relation to Head of House:   Son
Marital Status:           Single
Father’s name:            Josiah L Day
Father’s Birthplace:    New York
Mother’s name:          Ellen L Day
Mother’s Birthplace:  Connecticut
Occupation:    College Instructor
Months not employed:         0
Can Read:       Yes
Can Write:      Yes
Can Speak English:    Yes
Household Members:

Josiah L Day  60
Ellen L Day    58
Arthur M Day           33

_______________

From Mortarboard 1902
[Barnard College Yearbook]

Leisure Hours of Great Men
or
Intimate Glimpses of the World’s Workers at Play

Arthur Morgan Day

It is certainly pathetic
How he smothers the aesthetic
Under money, banking, trusts and corporations,
But he soothes his longing heart,
Studying dramatic art,
And high tragedy completes his aspirations.

Source: 1902 Mortarboard , p. 71.

_______________

From the Columbia Daily Spectator, 1902

Mr. Day Resigns

Mr. A. M. Day, Instructor in Economics, has resigned his position at Columbia to take a position on the new Tenement House Commission of New York City. He is to serve as one of two men to take charge of registration and compilation of statistics of tenement houses in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Mr. Henry Raymond Mussey, Fellow in the Department, has taken Mr. Day’s position as instructor in Economics for the time being. Mr. Mussey has already acquired much popularity and confidence among the students in his classes.

*  *  *  *  *

Congratulations for Mr. Day.

The members of the Course Economics I have sent the following message of congratulation to their instructor, upon his appointment as chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the New York City Tenement House Commission. “We the undersigned members of the course, Economics I, of the current University year, having heard with pleasure of the great honor which has been conferred upon our former instructor Mr. Arthur Morgan Day, desire to extend to him our sincere congratulations and to assure him of our best wishes for a successful career in his new office.

 

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume XLV, Number 42, 21 March 1902, page 1.

_______________

From Harvard College Class of 1892 Reports

Arthur Morgan Day (1892)

[Joined the Harvard Class of 1892 in the junior year, received A.B. together with the degree of A.M.]
Honorable Mention: English Composition; Political Economy; History.

 

Source:  Secretary’s Report Harvard College Class of 1892, Number I, (1893), pp. 6, 27, 29.

 

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1896)

“1892-93, graduate student in History and Economics, H.U.; 1893-94, graduate student in History and Economics and assistant in History, H.U.; 1894-95, assistant in Economics, School of Political Science, Columbia College; 1895-96, assistant and lecturer in Economics, School of Political Science, Columbia College, and lecturer in Economics, Barnard College.”

Published “Syllabus of six lectures on ‘Money’ for Extension Department of Rutgers College, 1895.”

Delivered “six lectures on ‘Money,’ Univ. Ex. course, New Brunswick, N.J., December-January, 1894-95; two lectures on ‘Monetary Literature in U.S.’ in course of ‘Free Lectures to the People,’ under direction of Board of Education, N.Y.”

Source:  Secretary’s Report Harvard College Class of 1892, Number II, (1896), pp. 30-31.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1902)

From 1892 to 1894 was graduate student in History and Economics at Harvard; 1893-4, was assistant in History at Harvard; 1894-1902, was successively assistant lecturer, and instructor in Economics at Columbia and Barnard Colleges, and also assistant editor of “Political Science Quarterly” and “Columbia University Quarterly “; in March, 1902, resigned from Columbia to become Registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond.

Has given numerous courses of lectures for the New York Board of Education; has lectured also in extension department of Rutgers College and in the Educational Alliance. Has published syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History”, signed reviews in the “Political Science Quarterly” and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and “Incidence of Taxation”, Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire “, Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.”

Source:  Harvard College, Record of the Class of 1892. Secretary’s Report No. III for the Tenth Anniversary (1902),  pp. 46-47.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1907)

Son of Josiah Lyon Day and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Born at Danbury, Connecticut, April 12, 1867. Prepared for college at the Danbury High School.

Received A.M. in 1892. From 1892 to 1894 was a graduate student in History and Economics at Harvard; 1893-94, was Assistant in History at Harvard; 1894-1902, was successively Assistant, Lecturer, and Instructor in Economics at Columbia and Barnard Colleges; also Assistant Editor of Political Science Quarterly and Columbia University Quarterly; in March, 1902, resigned from Columbia to become Registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. In May, 1902, resigned Registrarship to become Assistant to President of Manhattan Trust Co.; in July, 1903, was made Secretary and Treasurer of Casualty Company of America; in January, 1905, entered publicity business. Has published syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History,” signed reviews in the Political Science Quarterly and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and ” Incidence of Taxation,” Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire,” Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.” Belongs to Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Secretary’s Report for the Fifteenth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, Number IV, (1907), p.48.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1912)

Son of Josiah Lyon Day and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Born at Danbury, Connecticut, April 12, 1867. Prepared for college at the Danbury High School.

Attended Harvard 1888-92, A.B. and A.M.; Graduate School 1892-94.

1892 to 1894, graduate student in history and economics at Harvard; 1893-94, assistant in history at Harvard; 1894-1902, successively assistant, lecturer, and instructor in economics at Columbia and Barnard colleges; also assistant editor of Political Science Quarterly and Columbia University Quarterly; in March, 1902, resigned from Columbia to become registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. In May, 1902, resigned registrarship to become assistant to president of Manhattan Trust Company; in July, 1903, was made secretary and treasurer of Casualty Company of America; in January, 1905, entered publicity business; in June, 1906, employed by United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia; in August, 1906, serious attack of typhoid caused long absence from business; in June, 1908, with Blair & Co., bankers, New York; in April, 1910, began independent work as financial agent for various clients; in January, 1912, entered bond department of Prudential Insurance Company at Newark. Has published syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History,” signed reviews in the Political Science Quarterly and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and “Incidence of Taxation,” Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire,” Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.” Belongs to Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Secretary’s Report for the Twentieth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, [Number V, (1912)], p.54.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1917)

Born at Danbury, Conn., April 12, 1867. Son of Josiah Lyon and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Prepared for College at Danbury High School, Danbury, Conn.

Attended Harvard:  1888-92; Graduate School, 1892-94.

Degrees: A.B. and A.M. 1892.

Occupation: Investments.

Address: (home) 28 Westville Ave., Danbury, Conn.; (business) 37 Wall St., New York, N.Y

FROM 1892 to 1894 I was a graduate student in history and economics at Harvard, and during 1893-94 I was assistant in history at Harvard. From 1894 to 1902 I was successively assistant, lecturer, and instructor in economics at Columbia and Barnard colleges; also assistant editor of the Political Science Quarterly and the Columbia University Quarterly. In March, 1902, I resigned from Columbia to become registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. I held this position until May, 1903, when I resigned to become assistant to the president of the Manhattan Trust Company. In July, 1903, I was made secretary and treasurer of the Casualty Company of America; and in January, 1905, I entered publicity business. I was employed by the United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia in June, 1906, but a serious attack of typhoid fever in August of that year caused a long absence from business. In June, 1908, I was with Blair & Co., bankers, in New York, and in April, 1910, I began independent work as financial agent for various clients. In January, 1912, I entered the bond department of the Prudential Insurance Company at Newark, and since December 1, 1915, I have been with Wood, Struthers & Co., bankers, 37 Wall St., N. Y.

Publications: Syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History,” signed reviews in the Political Science Quarterly and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and “Incidence of Taxation,” Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire,” Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.”

Clubs and Societies: Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Secretary’s Report for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, Number VI, (1917), pp. 68-69. Includes Graduation picture.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1922)

Born at Danbury, Conn., April 12, 1867. Son of Josiah Lyon and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Prepared for College at Danbury High School, Danbury, Conn.

Attended Harvard: 1888-92; Graduate School, 1892-94.
Degrees: A.B. and A.M. 1892.

Occupation: Investments.
Address: (home) 152 Deer Hill Ave., Danbury, Conn.; (business) 5 Nassau St., New York, N.Y.

Since December 1, 1915, I have been with Wood, Struthers & Co., bankers, 5 Nassau Street, New York.

Clubs and Societies: Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Harvard College Class of 1892, Thirtieth Anniversary Report, Number VIII, (1922), p. 70.
[note: Number IX, June 19-22, 1922 is the Supplementary Report of the Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration]

_______________

From the State of Connecticut, Military Census of 1917

State of Connecticut

By direction of an act of the Legislature of Connecticut, approved February 7th, 1917, I am required to procure certain information relative to the resources of the state. I therefore call upon you to answer the following questions.

MARCUS H. HOLCOMB, Governor.

TOWN or CITY: Danbury
DATE: March 4, 1917
POST OFFICE ADDRESS: 28 Westville Ave.

  1. What is your present Trade, Occupation or Profession ? Banking and Brokerage
  2. Have you experience in any other Trade, Occupation or Profession? College Professor
  3. What is your Age? 49
    Height? 5 ft 8 in
    Weight? 165
  4. Are your Married? Single? or Widower? Single
  5. How many persons are dependent on you for support? None wholly
  6. Are you a citizen of the United States? Yes
  7. If not a citizen of the United States have you taken out your first papers? [not applicable]
  8. If not a citizen of the United States, what is your nationality? [not applicable]
  9. Have you ever done any Military or Naval Service in this or any other Country? No
    Where? [not applicable]
    How Long? [not applicable]
    What Branch? [not applicable]
    Rank? [not applicable]
  10. Have you any serious physical disability? Yes
    If so, name it. Near sighted
  11. Can you do any of the following:
    Ride a horse? [No]
    Handle a team? [No]
    Drive an automobile? [No]
    Ride a motorcycle? [No]
    Understand telegraphy? [No]
    Operate a wireless? [No]
    Any experience with a steam engine? [No]
    Any experience with electrical machinery? [No]
    Handle a boat, power or sail? [No]
    Any experience in simple coastwise navigation? [No]
    Any experience with High Speed Marine Gasoline Engines? ? [No]
    Are you a good swimmer? [Yes]

I hereby certify that I have personally interviewed the above mentioned person and that the answers to the questions enumerated are as he gave them to me.

[signed]
Chas A Stallock[?]
Military Census Agent

Source: Connecticut Military Census of 1917. Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut State Library. [available as database on-line at Ancestry.com]

 

Image Source: Class portrait and current portrait (ca 1917) of Arthur Morgan Day from Secretary’s Report for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, Number VI, (1917), pp. 68-69.

 

Categories
Columbia Curriculum

Columbia. School of Political Science. Faculty and Curriculum, 1890-91

 

 

I have included everything in this Circular that describes the graduate program offered by the School of Political Science at Columbia except for a list of the trustees and a time-slots by day-of-the-week schedule matrix of courses for the three year program. This shows how political economy was embedded within a broad public policy framework at Columbia. Because of the length of the circular, I have provided visitors with a linked table of contents.

Information for the School of Poltical Science for 1882-83 is available in a previous post.

___________________________

Columbia College
School of Political Science
Circular of Information 1890-91

Officers of Instruction and Government

General Statement

Purposes of the School
Admission
Matriculation and Tuition Fees

Course of Instruction General Scheme

Undergraduate Courses

Graduate First Year

First Session
Second Session

Graduate Second Year

First Session
Second Session

Graduate Third Year

First Session
Second Session

Course of Instruction in Detail

I. Constitutional History

II. Constitutional and Administrative Law

III. Political Economy and Social Science

IV. History of European Law and Comparative Jurisprudence

V. Diplomacy and International Law

VI. History of Political Theories

Prizes

Preparation for the Civil Service

Admission to Other Courses

Library

Examinations and Degrees

Examination Fees
Commencement

Academy of Political Science

Prize Lectureships

Calendar

 

OFFICERS OF INSTRUCTION AND GOVERNMENT.

Seth Low, President of Columbia College.

John W. Burgess, Ph.D., LL.D.,

Professor of Constitutional and International History and Law.

Richmond Mayo Smith, A.M.,

Professor of Political Economy and Social Science.

Edmund Munroe Smith, A.M., J.U.D.,

Adjunct Professor of History and Lecturer on Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence.

Frank J. Goodnow, A.M., LL.B.,

Adjunct Professor of Administrative Law. Secretary of the Faculty.

Edwin R. A. Seligman, LL.B., Ph.D.,

Adjunct Professor of Political Economy.

Frederick W. Whitridge, A.M., LL.B.,

Lecturer on the Political History of the State of New York.

William A. Dunning, Ph.D.,

Lecturer on Political Theories.

A. C. Bernheim, LL.B., Ph.D.,

Prize Lecturer, 1888-91, on New York State and City Politics.

Frederic Bancroft, Ph.D.,

Prize Lecturer, 1889-92, on Diplomatic History of the United States.

_____________

Prize Lecturer, 1890-93.

William B. Nye,

Registrar.

 

 

GENERAL STATEMENT.

 

PURPOSES OF THE SCHOOL.

The School of Political Science was opened on Monday the fourth day of October, 1880.

The purpose of the school is to give a complete general view of all the subjects, both of internal and external public polity, from the threefold standpoint of history, law, and philosophy. Its prime aim is therefore the development of all the branches of the political sciences. Its secondary and practical objects are:

a. To fit young men for all the political branches of the public service.

b. To give an adequate economic and legal training to those who intend to make journalism their profession.

c. To supplement, by courses in public law and comparative jurisprudence, the instruction in private municipal law offered by the School of Law.

d. To educate teachers of political science.

            To these ends the school offers a course of study of sufficient duration to enable the student not only to attend the lectures and recitations with the professors, but also to consult the most approved treatises upon the political sciences and to study the sources of the same.

 

ADMISSION.

Any person may attend any or all of the courses of the School of Political Science by entering his name with the registrar and paying the proper fee.

Students proposing to enter the school are desired to present themselves for matriculation on the Friday next before the first Monday in October.

The names of students intending to become members of the school may be entered at the room of the president on the Monday immediately preceding commencement day in June, or on the day appointed as above for matriculation.

Students desiring the degree of Ph.B. or A.B. must matriculate in the first year of the school, and follow faithfully the studies of that year, or part of the studies of that year, together with studies in the senior year of the School of Arts. For the courses in the senior year of the School of Arts, see infra, ” Admission to Undergraduate Courses.” Any combination desired by the student is allowed, provided that he takes not less than fifteen hours per week.

Students desiring the degree of A.M. must matriculate in the second year of the school, and follow faithfully all the studies of the second year. But students who are at the same time students in the School of Law, or students in the graduate department of philosophy, philology, and letters, taking courses which offer at least six hours per week, shall not be required to take more than nine hours per week in the School of Political Science. Any combination desired by the student is allowed.

Students desiring the degree of Ph.D. must matriculate in the third year of the school, and follow faithfully all the studies of the third year. But students who are at the same time students in the School of Law, or students in the graduate departments of philosophy, philology, and letters, taking courses which offer at least six hours per week, shall not be required to take more than nine hours per week in the School of Political Science. Any combination desired by the student is allowed, but he must pass a satisfactory examination on all the subjects he has chosen, and must present an acceptable thesis on some subject previously approved by the faculty.

Students not candidates for any degree may, after matriculating, attend any of the courses of the school.

 

MATRICULATION AND TUITION FEES.

Matriculation fee. — A fee of five dollars is required for matriculation at the beginning of each scholastic year.

Tuition fee. — The annual tuition fee of each student of the school taking the full course is one hundred and fifty dollars, payable in two equal instalments of seventy-five dollars each, the first at matriculation, and the second on the first Monday of February of each year. For single courses of lectures the fee regulates itself according to the number of lectures per week; during the first year the annual fee for a one-hour course being ten dollars; for a two-hour course, twenty dollars; for a three-hour course, thirty dollars; for a four-hour course, forty dollars; and during the second and third years, the annual fee for a two-hour course, thirty; for a three-hour course, forty-five; for a five-hour course, seventy-five; for a six-hour course, ninety dollars. In every case the fee covers the specified number of hours throughout the year — no student being received for a less period than one year. Such fees, when not more than one hundred dollars, are payable in advance; otherwise, in half-yearly instalments at the same time as regular fees.

 

COURSE OF INSTRUCTION GENERAL SCHEME.*

[*For details of each course and schemes of lectures — infra, “Course of Instruction in Detail.”]

 

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES.
(Hours per week per half year)

Outline of Mediaeval History (2 hours).
Outline of Modern History (2 hours).
Outline of European History since 1815 (2 hours).
Elements of Political Economy (2 hours).

 

[GRADUATE] FIRST YEAR

FIRST SESSION.

Physical and political geography; Ethnography; General political and constitutional history of Europe (4 hours).
Political and constitutional history of England to 1688 (2 hours)
Political economy: historical and practical (3 hours)
Seminarium in political economy (2 hours)
History of political theories (3 hours)
Historical and political geography (1 hour)
Political history of the State of New York (1 hour)
The relations of England and Ireland (1 hour)

 

SECOND SESSION.

Political and constitutional history of the United States (4 hours)
Political and constitutional history of England since 1688 (2 hours)
Political economy: taxation and finance (3 hours)
Seminarium in political economy (2 hours)
History of political theories (3 hours)
Historical and political geography (1 hour)
Political history of the State of New York (1 hour)

 

[GRADUATE] SECOND YEAR.

FIRST SESSION.

Comparative constitutional law of the principal European states and of the United States (3 hours)
History of European law (3 hours)
Comparative administrative law of the principal European states and of the United States (3 hours)
Social science: communistic and socialistic theories (2 hours)
History of political economy (2 hours)
Financial history of the United States (2 hours)
Seminarium in political economy (1 hour)

 

SECOND SESSION.

Comparative constitutional law of the several commonwealths of the American union (3 hours)
History of European law (3 hours)
Comparative administrative law of the principal European states and of the United States — Financial administration and administration of internal affairs (3 hours)
Social science: communistic and socialistic theories (2 hours)
History of political economy (2 hours)
Financial history of the United States (1 hour)
Tariff history of the United States (1 hour)
Seminarium in political economy (1 hour)

 

[GRADUATE] THIRD YEAR.

FIRST SESSION.

General history of diplomacy (2 hours)
International private law (1 hour)
Comparative jurisprudence (2 hours)
Local government (2 hours)
Social science: statistics, methods, and results (2 hours)
Seminarium in political economy (1 hour)
Ethnology and social institutions (1 hour)
New York city politics (1 hour)

 

SECOND SESSION.

Public international law (2 hours)
International private law (1 hour)
Comparative jurisprudence (2 hours)
Municipal government (2 hours)
Social science: statistics, methods, and results (2 hours)
Railroad problems (1889-90) (3 hours)
Seminarium in political economy (1 hour)
Ethnology and social institutions (1 hour)
Diplomatic history of the United States (1 hour)

 

 

COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN DETAIL.

I.—CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.

The student is supposed to be familiar with the outlines of European history, ancient and modern. Students who are not thus prepared are recommended to take the undergraduate courses in mediaeval and modern history. The courses of lectures held in the school are as follows:

  1. General political and constitutional history, comprehending in detail: a view of the political civilization of imperial Rome; the history of the development of the government of the Christian church into the form of papal monarchy; the overthrow of the Roman imperial system and the establishment of German kingdoms throughout middle, western, and southern Europe; the character and constitution of these kingdoms; the conversion of the Germans to the Christian church, and the relations which the Christian church assumed towards the Germanic states; consolidation of the German kingdoms into the European empire of Charlemagne: character and constitution of the Carolingian state; its disruption through the development of the feudal system and the independent hierarchic church, and division into the kingdoms of Germany, France, and Italy; character and history of the feudal system as a state form; reestablishment of the imperial authority by the re-connection of Germany with Italy; conflict of the middle ages between church and state; the political disorganization and papal despotism resulting from the same: the development of the absolute monarchy and the reformation; the limitation of absolute kingly power and the development of constitutionalism — first in England, then in the United States, thirdly in France, and fourthly in Germany; lastly, the realization of the constitutional idea of the nineteenth century. [Professor Burgess]
  1. Political and constitutional history of England. — This course supplements the general course above outlined, giving a fuller view of the constitutional development of England from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day. [Professor R. M. Smith]
  1. Political and constitutional history of the United States. — This course of lectures covers the history of the colonies and of the revolutionary war; the formation and dissolution of the confederate constitution; the formation of the constitution of 1787, and its application down to the civil war; the changes wrought in the constitution by the civil war, and the resulting transformation of the public law of the United States. [Professor Burgess]
  1. The political and constitutional history of Rome is contained in the general history of Roman law. The topics to which especial attention is paid are: the probable origin of the city and its relation to the Latin confederacy; the character and mutual relation of the gentes and the kingship; the Servian constitution and the aristocratic reaction; the establishment of the aristocratic republic; the struggle between the orders and the modification of the constitution; the conquest of Italy and the relations established between Rome and the conquered states; the increase of the powers of the Roman senate; the conquest of the Mediterranean basin and the organization and government of the provinces; the social and economic effects of the conquest upon the Roman people; the struggle between the senatorial clique and the party of reform; the social and civil wars and the establishment of the principate; the development, in the third century after Christ, of the absolute empire; the alliance of the empire with the Christian church; the conquest of Italy by the Germans. [Professor Munroe Smith]
  1. Political history of the State of New York. — The purpose of this course is to give a knowledge of the constitutional development and political history of the State of New York, beginning with the foundation of the colony by the Dutch and extending to the present time. It gives a brief account of the condition of the colony of New York, and the constitution of its government; then of the constitution made in 1777, and of each of the constitutions of 1821 and 1846, the amendments of 1875, together with the conventions in which each of these constitutions was made; also the history of political parties in the State of New York, showing their particular relation to these constitutions, and showing finally the methods of procedure of those parties and the influence exercised by them upon the legislation and procedure, or “practical politics,” of other states and of the great national political parties. [Mr. Whitridge]
  1. Historical and Political Geography. — The purpose of this course is to give a description of the physical geography of Europe; to point out the various sections into which it is divided; to trace the territorial growth of modern European states; to describe the various geographical changes that have been made in the history of Europe; and to point out the ethnic conditions of the present states of the continent. [Professor Goodnow]
  1. The relations of England and Ireland. — In a general way the Irish question has been the question of imposing upon the last and most persistent remnant of the old Celtic race the Teutonic ideas and institutions that have been developed in England. Three phases of the process are clearly distinguishable in history — the political, the religious, and the economical. It is designed in the lectures to follow out in some detail the modifications in the relations of the two islands affected by the varying prominence of these different phases. The long struggle for English political supremacy over all Ireland, from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, the religious wars, and the ruthless suppression of the Catholic population during the two succeeding centuries, and the origin and development of the land question out of the circumstances of both these periods, are described with special reference to their influence on the modern state of Irish affairs. Incidentally to these leading topics, the questions of governmental organization that have been prominent from time to time since the conquest are discussed, and the history of the Irish parliament is followed out in such a way as to illustrate the nature and importance of the agitation for home rule. [Dr. Dunning]
    1. New York City politics. — This course treats of the relations of the city to the state, showing the growth of municipal independence. The early charters conferred but few rights on the city, the selection of the most important city officials being made at Albany. Tammany Hall has been the most important and powerful party organization. A brief history of the Tammany organization, its rulers, and its method of nominating public officers will be given. The “Tweed Ring” and the efforts of purifying city politics since its downfall will be described, including the reform charter of 1873, the amendments of 1884, the report of the Tilden Committee in 1875, and of the Roosevelt and Gibbs investigating committees. [Dr. Bernheim]

 

II.— CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW.

  1. Comparative constitutional law of the principal European states and of the United States; comprehending a comparison of the provisions of the constitutions of England, United States, France, and Germany, the interpretation of the same by the legislative enactments and judicial decisions of these states, and the generalization from them of the fundamental principles of public law, common to them all. [Professor Burgess]
  1. Comparative constitutional law of the several commonwealths of the American Union. — In this course of lectures comparison is made in the same manner of the constitutions of the thirty-eight states of the Union.
  1. Comparative administrative law of the principal European states and of the United States. — The purpose of this course of lectures is to give a description of the methods of administration in the United States, France, Germany, and England. Special attention will be given to the laws both of Congress and of the different state legislatures, while the laws of foreign countries will be referred to for the purpose of instruction and comparison. The following list of topics will give a general idea of the subject, for which the name of administrative law has been chosen, because both in France and Germany, where this special part of the public law has been selected as the object of a thorough course of instruction, a similar name has been made use of.

General Part.

The separation of powers; the executive power; administrative councils; heads of departments; their tenure of office, their powers and duties; the general system of local government; officers, their appointment or election, their duties, their rights, removal from office; the administration in action; the control over the administration. This control is threefold in its character. I. — Administrative control. This is exercised by the superior over the inferior administrative officers by means of the power of removal and the power (given in many cases) to annul or amend administrative acts. II. — Judicial control. This is exercised by the courts, to which recourse is often granted against the action of the administration. Here the new courts will be examined, which have been established in France and Germany during this century, and to which the name of administrative courts has been given. III. — Legislative control. This is exercised by the legislature by means of its power to inform itself of the acts of the administration, and, if need be, to impeach administrative officers. [Professor Goodnow]

Special Part.

This part of the lectures will treat of the relations of the administrative authorities, both general and local, with the citizens. BOOK I. Financial administration. The management of public property, taxation, and public accounts, considered from the administrative rather than from the financial standpoint.— BOOK II. Internal administration. The legal provisions which aim at the prevention of evil, and which are sometimes designated as police measures — measures tending to prevent public disorder, public immorality, and disease. Further, provisions of a more positive character, whose purpose is to promote the public welfare; thus measures taken to provide means of public communication; to further the interests of trade, commerce, and industry; to ensure the control of the state over enterprises of a quasi-public character, such as railway companies and institutions of credit; to assist the poor, and educate the ignorant.

Each topic which will come under consideration will be treated historically, and with reference to the positive existing law: and for matters of special interest the comparison of systems of legislation will be extended to other countries than the four mentioned, when it is thought that this may be done with profit. In general, however, the comparison will be limited to the United States, France, Germany, and England.

  1. — Local government. — This course will be devoted to the consideration of the various important systems of local government in the rural districts. The organization of the town and county and their corresponding divisions in other countries will be treated; and special attention will be directed to the historical development of existing systems, and to the question of administrative centralization. [Professor Goodnow]
  2. — Municipal administration.— -The subjects to which special attention will be directed in these lectures are: the growth and importance of cities; the independence of cities from state control; the city as a public organ, and as a juristic person— a corporation; city organization and municipal elections; municipal civil service; city property and local taxation. In these lectures special attention is given to American cities and the City of New York; but the experience of foreign cities will be appealed to whenever it is thought that any thing may be learned therefrom. [Professor Goodnow]
  3. — Seminarium in constitutional and administrative law.

 

III.— POLITICAL ECONOMY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE.

It is presumed that students possess a knowledge of the general principles of political economy as laid down in the ordinary manuals by Walker or Mill, before entering the school. Students who are not thus prepared are recommended to take the undergraduate course on the elements of political economy.

The courses of lectures held in the school are as follows:

  1. Historical and practical political economy.— This course is intended to give the student a knowledge of the economic development of the world, in order that he may understand present economic institutions and solve present economic problems. The principal topics are: Introduction, concerning the study of political economy and its relation to political science; general sketch of the economic development of the world; the institutions of private property, bequest, and inheritance, and the principle of personal liberty as affecting the economic condition of the world; the problems of production, such as land tenure, population, capital, different forms of productive enterprise, statistics of production, particularly the natural resources of the United States; problems of exchange, such as free trade and protection, railroads money, bimetallism, paper-money, banking, commercial crises, etc.; problems of distribution, such as wages, trades-unions, co-operation, poor relief, factory laws, profit and interest, rent, progress and poverty; and finally a consideration of the function of the state in economic affairs. [Professor R. M. Smith]
  1. Science of finance.— This course is also historical as well as comparative and critical. It treats of the expenditure of the state, and the methods of meeting the same among different civilized nations. It describes the different kinds of state revenues, especially taxes, and discusses the principles of taxation. It considers also public debt, methods of borrowing money, redemption, refunding, repudiation, etc. Finally it describes the financial organization of the state, by which the revenue is collected and expended. Students are furnished with the current public documents of the United States treasury, and expected to understand all the facts in regard to public debt, banking, and coinage therein contained. [Professor Seligman]
  1. Financial history of the United States. — This course endeavors to present a complete survey of American legislation on currency, finance, and taxation, as well as its connection with the state of industry and commerce. Attention is called in especial to the financial history of the colonies, (colonial currency and taxation); to the financial methods of the revolution and the confederation; to the financial policy of the Federalists and the Republicans up to the war of 1812, including the refunding and payment of the debt, the internal revenue, and the banking and currency problems; to the financial history of the war with England; to the changes in the methods of taxation, and the crises of 1819, 1825, 1837; to the distribution of the surplus and the United States bank; to the currency problems up to the civil war; to the financial management of the war; to the methods of resumption, payment of the debt, national banks, currency questions, and problems of taxation; and finally to the recent development in national, state, and municipal finance and taxation. [Professor Seligman]
  1. Industrial and tariff history of the United States. — The arguments of extreme free-traders as of extreme protectionists are often so one-sided that an impartial judgment can be formed only through a knowledge of the actual effects of the tariffs. It is the object of this course to give a detailed history of each customs tariff of the United States from the very beginning, to describe the arguments of its advocates and of its opponents in each case; to trace as far as possible the position of each of the leading industries before and after the passage of the chief tariff acts, and thus to determine how far the legislation of the United States has developed or hampered the progress of industry and the prosperity of the whole country. Attention is called in especial to the industrial history of the colonies; to the genesis of the protective idea and to Hamilton’s report; to the tariffs from 1789 to 1808; to the restriction and the war with England; to the tariffs of 1816, 1824, and the “tariff of abominations” of 1828; to the infant-industry argument; to the compromise and its effect on manufactures; to the era of moderate free trade; to the tariff of 1857, to the war tariffs; to their continuance, and to the pauper-labor argument; to the changes up to the present time. [Probably Professor Seligman]
  1. History and criticism of economic theories. — This course comprises two parts. In the first the various systems are discussed, attention being directed to the connection between the theories and the organization of industrial society. In the second, the separate doctrines — e. g, of capital, rent, wages, etc. — are treated in their historical development. [Professor Seligman]

The first part is subdivided as follows:

I. Antiquity: Orient, Greece, and Rome.
II. Middle ages: Aquinas, Glossators, writers on money, etc.
III. Mercantilists: Stafford, Mun, Petty, North, Locke; Bodin, Vauban, Forbonnais; Serra, Galiani, Justi, etc.
IV. Physiocrats: Quesnay, Gournay, Turgot, etc.
V. Adam Smith and precursors: Tucker, Hume, Cantillon, Stewart.
VI. English school: Malthus, Ricardo, Senior, McCulloch, Chalmers, Jones, Mill, etc.
VII. The continent: Say, Sismondi, Hermann, List, Bastiat, etc.
VIII. German school: Roscher, Knies, Hildebrand.
IX. Recent development: Rogers, Jevons, Cairnes, Bagehot, Leslie, Toynbee; Wagner, Schmoller, Held, Brentano; Cherbuliez, Leroy-Beaulieu, De Laveleye; Cossa, Nazzani, Loria; Carey, George, Walker.

  1. Communistic and socialistic theories: — The present organization of society is attacked by socialistic writers, who demand many changes, especially in the institution of private property and the system of free competition. It is the object of this course to describe what these attacks are, what changes are proposed, and how far these changes seem desirable or possible. At the same time an account is given of actual socialistic movements, such as the international, social democracy, etc. Advantage is taken of these discussions to make the course really one on social science, by describing modern social institutions, such as private property, in their historical origin and development, and their present justification. [Prof. R. M. Smith]
  1. Statistical science; methods and results.— This course is intended to furnish a basis for a social science by supplementing the historical, legal, and economic knowledge already gained by such a knowledge of social phenomena as can be gained only by statistical observation. Under the head of statistics of population are considered: race and ethnological distinctions, nationality, density, city, and country, sex, age, occupation, religion, education, births, deaths, marriages, mortality tables, emigration, etc. Under economic statistics: land, production of food, raw material, labor, wages, capital, means of transportation, shipping, prices, etc. Under the head of moral statistics are considered: statistics of suicide, vice, crime of all kinds, causes of crime, condition of criminals, repression of crime, penalties and effect of penalties, etc. Finally is considered the method of statistical observations, the value of the results obtained, the doctrine of free will, and the possibility of discovering social laws. [Prof. R. M. Smith]Railroad problems; economical, social, and legal. — These lectures treat of railroads in the fourfold aspect of their relation to the investors, the employees, the public, and the state respectively. A history of railways and railway policy in America and Europe forms the preliminary part of the course. All the problems of railway management, in so^ far as they are of economic importance, come up for discussion. Among the subjects treated are: financial methods, railway construction, speculation, profits, failures, accounts and reports, expenses, tariffs, principles of rates, classification and discrimination, competition and pooling, accidents, employers’ liability, etc. Especial attention is paid to the methods of regulation and legislation in the United States as compared with European methods, and the course closes with a general discussion of state versus private management. [Professor Seligman]
  1. Ethnology and social institutions of the people of the United States — This course is an analysis of the ethnic elements in the population of this country, of the influences affecting the character of the people, and deals with pertain social institutions that are neither purely economic, nor political, nor legal. It treats particularly of the effects of immigration in the past and at the present time. [Prof. R. M. Smith]

An outline of the course is as follows:

I. The original ethnic elements in the population; the process of colonization; influence of climate and geographical position; influence of slavery; present distribution of population, by areas, by altitude, rain-fall, temperature, etc.
II. The elements added by immigration; history of immigration; political economic and social effects of immigration; legislation restricting immigration, etc.
III. Social institutions and customs; marriage and divorce; poor relief and pauperism; charitable institutions, public and private; penology, prisons, convict labor; religious associations; social classes.

  1. Seminarium in political economy. — Outside of the regular instruction in political economy and social science, it is the intention to furnish the students of the school an opportunity for special investigation of economic and social questions under the direction of the professor. This is done by means of original papers prepared by such students as choose to engage in this work. The papers are read before the professor and the students, and are then criticised and discussed. The number of meetings and the topics to be discussed are determined each year. During the coming year it is proposed to investigate various aspects of the labor problem.

 

IV— HISTORY OF EUROPEAN LAW AND COMPARATIVE JURISPRUDENCE.

  1. History of European law.

BOOK I. Primitive law. The following topics are discussed from the comparative standpoint: evolution of the primitive state; the sanction of law, the redress of wrongs in primitive society, and the evolution of criminal and civil jurisdiction and procedure; early family and property law. — BOOK II. Roman law: the national system. (Royal and republican period.) The struggle between the orders and the development of a common law (XII Tables). The leading principles and juristic technique of the national system (jus civile). — BOOK III. Roman law: the universal system. Chapter I. Later republican period. The conquest of the entire civilized world, and the social, economic, and legal changes produced by the conquest. Reform of criminal law and procedure. The development of a universal commercial law by means of the praetorian edicts. The praetorian formulae of action. Chapter II. Early imperial period. The empire under republican forms. Development of criminal and civil procedure extra ordinem. The classical jurisprudence. Chapter III. Later imperial period. Social, economic, and legal decadence. Codification of the law by Justinian.— BOOK IV. Mediaeval law. Chapter I. German law. Character of early German law; the reforms of Charles the Great; maintenance of Carolingian institutions in Normandy, and further development of these institutions in Norman England; general disappearance of the Carolingian institutions on the continent, and arrest of the legal development. Chapter II. Roman law. Survival of the Roman law (i) in the Byzantine empire; (2) in the new German kingdoms, as personal law of the conquered Romans; (3) in the Christian church. Establishment and extent of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the development and the codification of the Canon Law; influence exercised by this law upon the subsequent development of Europe. Revival of the study of the Justinian or Civil Law in Italy; influx of foreign students. The theory of imperium continuum. Reception of the Justinian law in the German empire; partial reception in France and Spain; failure of the Roman law to gain footing in England. Influence of the Roman law in other countries: the ”scientific” as distinguished from the “practical” reception.— BOOK V. Modern law. The reaction against the Roman law (1) among the people; (2) among the jurists; (3) in modern legislation. The great national codes of the 18th and 19th centuries. Relation of these codes to the Roman and German law. [Professor Munroe Smith]

  1. Comparative jurisprudence. — This course of lectures presents succinctly the leading principles of modern private law. The order of treatment is as follows: BOOK I. Law in general: conception, establishment, and extinction, interpretation and application. BOOK II. Private legal relations in general: nature of private rights; holders of rights (physical and juristic persons); establishment, modification, and extinction of rights (legal acts, illegal acts or torts, operation of time); enforcement of rights. BOOK III. Legal relations concerning things. BOOK IV. Legal relations arising from executory contracts. BOOK V. Family relations and guardianship. BOOK VI. Relations mortis causâ (inheritance). [Professor Munroe Smith]
  1. International private law. — In this course the theories of the foreign authorities are noticed, and the practice of the foreign courts in the so-called conflicts of private law is compared with the solution given to these questions by our own courts. [Professor Munroe Smith]
  1. Seminarium for studies in comparative legislation. — The courses above described lay the basis for the comprehension of foreign legislations. The object of the seminarium is to train the student in the practical use of these legislations. Participation in the seminarium is optional. The work is to be done by the students themselves, under the direction and with the assistance of the professor in this department. It is intended that they shall devote themselves to the study of questions of practical interest de lege ferenda, and that they shall collate and compare the solutions given to these questions in our own and in foreign countries.

 

V.— DIPLOMACY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW.

  1. The history of diplomacy from the peace of Westphalia to the treaty of Berlin. — The object of this course is to present, in their historical connection, the international treaties and conventions framed between these two periods, and to trace through them the development of the principles of international law. [Professor Burgess]
  1. International law. — In this course the principles attained through usage, treaty, and convention are arranged in systematic form. [Professor Burgess]
  1. Diplomatic history of the United States. — The purpose of this course is to treat primarily of the diplomatic history of Lincoln’s and Johnson’s administration. An outline and characterization of the policies of Marcy, Cass, and Black will also be given. [Professor Burgess]

 

VI.— HISTORY OF POLITICAL THEORIES.

Every people known to history has possessed some form, however vague and primitive, of political government. Every people which has attained a degree of enlightenment above the very lowest has been permeated by some ideas, more or less systematic, as to the origin, nature and limitations of governmental authority. It is the purpose of this course to trace historically the development of these ideas, from the primitive notions of primitive people to the complex and elaborate philosophical theories that have characterized the ages of highest intellectual refinement. [Dr. Dunning]

BOOK I., after a short survey of the theocratical system of the Brahmans and the rationalistic doctrine of Confucius, treats mainly of the political philosophy of Greece and Rome, with especially attention to the profound speculations of Plato and Aristotle.

BOOK II. discusses the political doctrines of early Christianity and the Christian church, with the controversy of Papacy and Empire, and the elaborate systems of St. Thomas Aquinas and his adversaries.

BOOK III. treats of that age of renaissance and reformation in which Machiavelli and Bodin, Suarez and Bellarmino, Luther and Calvin worked out their various solutions of the great problem, how to reconcile the conflicting doctrines of theology, ethics, and politics.

BOOK IV. covers the period of modern times, as full of great names in political philosophy, as of great events in political history. Here are examined the doctrine of natural law, as developed by Grotius and Puffendorf, the doctrine of divine right of kings with its corollary of passive obedience, as in Filmer and Bossuet, the theory of the constitutionalists, Locke and Montesquieu, the idea of social contract, made most famous by Rousseau, and the various additions to and modifications of these doctrines down to the present day.

 

PRIZES.

PRIZE FELLOWSHIPS.

In 1886 Mr. Jesse Seligman founded four fellowships of the annual value of two hundred and fifty dollars each. These fellowships are awarded at the discretion of the faculty to students of the third year in the School of Political Science, under the sole condition that the recipient of the fellowship be a candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy.

PRIZE IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.

An annual prize of one hundred and fifty dollars for the best essay on some subject in political economy has been established by Mr. Edwin R. A. Seligman, of the class of 1879. Competition for the prize is open to all members of the School of Political Science. The topic selected must be approved by the faculty, and the essay itself must not be less than twenty thousand words in length.

 

PREPARATION FOR THE CIVIL SERVICE.

Young men who wish to obtain positions in the United States Civil Service—especially in those positions in the Department of State for which special examinations are held — will find it advantageous to follow many of the courses in the School of Political Science. Some of the subjects upon which applicants for these positions are examined are treated very fully in the curriculum of the school. Thus, extended courses of lectures are given on political geography and history, diplomatic history and international law, government and administration.

Full opportunity is given in the School of Arts for the study of the principal modern languages, and all the courses in that school are open to the students of the School of Political Science.

 

ADMISSION TO OTHER COURSES.

ADMISSION TO UNDERGRADUATE COURSES.

Any student of the School of Political Science may attend any or all of the courses of the School of Arts, with the permission of the instructors concerned, without the payment of any further tuition fee than that due to the School of Political Science.

ADMISSION TO GRADUATE COURSES.

The trustees have provided that courses of instruction shall be given in the college to graduates of this and other colleges in a large variety of subjects. Students of the School of Political Science, who may be bachelors of arts, of letters, or of science at entrance, or who, after having completed their first year in the School of Political Science, shall have received their first degree, may be admitted without additional tuition fee to the graduate classes, in such subjects as they may desire to pursue.

Among the cognate courses which may be taken without conflict of hours are:

History of Philosophy, two hours a week. Ethics, two hours a week. Readings in Gaius and Ulpian, one hour a week. Courses in the various modern languages, and others.

Students who are candidates for the degrees of Ph.B., A.B., A.M., and Ph.D., and who take senior and graduate studies in the School of Arts to the amount of six hours per week, are not required to take more than nine hours a week in the School of Political Science.

Information in regard to the undergraduate courses and a list of the subjects embraced in the scheme of graduate instruction for the ensuing year will be furnished on application to the registrar of Columbia College, Madison avenue and 49th street, New York City.

ADMISSION TO THE COURSES OF THE SCHOOL OF LAW.

Those students who intend to make law their profession may combine the ordinary course of study required for admission to the bar with the course in political science. The hours of lectures in the two schools are so arranged as to make this combination feasible; and experience has shown that the satisfactory completion of both courses within three years is not beyond the powers of an industrious student of fair ability.

The instruction offered in the School of Political Science upon constitutional, administrative, and international law, and upon Roman law and comparative jurisprudence, furnishes the natural and necessary complement to the studies of the School of Law. Law is, with us, the chief avenue into politics; and for this, if for no other reason, a complete legal education should include the science of politics. But the importance to the lawyer or the subjects above mentioned does not depend simply on the prospect of a political career. To become a thorough practitioner, the student must acquire a thorough knowledge of public law; and if he wishes to be any thing more than an expert practitioner, if he wishes to know law as a science, some knowledge of other systems than our own becomes imperative. From this point of view the Roman law is of paramount importance, not merely by reason of its scientific structure, but because it is the basis of all modern systems except the English. Elsewhere than in our own country these facts are uniformly recognized, not in the schemes of legal instruction only, but in the state examinations for admission to the bar.

In order to encourage, by the combination of the two courses, the acquisition of a well-rounded juristic training, the trustees have provided that any student of the School of Political Science may attend any or all of the courses of the School of Law, without the payment of any further tuition fee than that due to the School of Political Science; and, conversely, that any student of the School of Law may attend any or all of the lectures in the School of Political Science, without payment of any further tuition fee than that due to the School of Law; and that the student registered in both schools may be a candidate for degrees in both schools at the same time.

Students in the School of Law are required to take only nine hours per week in the School of Political Science. For further information see law school circular.

 

LIBRARY.

The special library of political science was begun in 1877, and it was intended to include the most recent and most valuable European and American works in this department. Particular attention was, and is, given to providing the material needed for original investigation.

The total number of volumes in the department of history and political science is at present (1890) more than 18,000. In the department of law the total number of volumes is about 10,000. The original material requisite for the study of foreign law has been largely increased during the last two years.

The students of the School of Political Science are entitled to the use, subject to the rules established by the library committee, of the entire university library. The library is open from 8½ A.M. to 10 P.M. Information concerning the sources and literature of the political sciences is given in the various courses of lectures held in the schools. The students can obtain supplementary information and general guidance and assistance in their investigations, from the librarian in special charge of law, history, and political science.

 

EXAMINATIONS AND DEGREES.

No student of the school can be a candidate for any degree unless he have successfully pursued a course of undergraduate study in this college, or in some other maintaining an equivalent curriculum, to the close of the junior year.

Students thus qualified, who shall satisfactorily complete the studies of the first year or their equivalent in the senior year in the School of Arts, shall be entitled, on examination and recommendation of the faculty, to receive the degree of bachelor of philosophy or the degree of bachelor of arts. The latter degree requires the concurrence of the Faculty of Arts, and is not conferred unless the student has taken courses, in the first year of the School of Political Science, or courses in that year and in the senior year of the School of Arts, amounting to fifteen hours a week.

Students of the school who have obtained the degree of bachelor of arts at this or at any other college maintaining an equivalent curriculum, and who are at the same time students in the School of Law, or who have pursued studies in the graduate department of philosophy, philology, and letters, to the amount of six hours per week, will, after passing satisfactorily through courses in the school, amounting to nine hours per week, be recommended by the faculty of the school for the degree of master of arts. The purpose of this provision is to allow students to pursue a course either mainly in law or mainly in economics. These courses may be continued through the third year, so that students who have obtained the degree of bachelor of arts are offered a two years’ course in either law or economics. (See supra, “Course of Instruction in General and in Detail.”) Students in the School of Political Science alone are required to pursue all of the studies of the second year, and to pass a satisfactory examination in them, in order to obtain the degree of master of arts.

Students in the School of Political Science who are at the same time students in the School of Law, or who are taking at least six hours a week in the graduate departments of philosophy, philology, and letters, who elect and satisfactorily complete courses in the third year of the School of Political Science embracing nine lectures per week, shall be entitled, on recommendation of the faculty of the school, to receive the degree of doctor of philosophy. Students who are in the School of Political Science only must take the entire work of the third year of the school.

To obtain recommendation for the last degree, the candidate will be required:

1. To prepare an original dissertation, not less than 20,000 words in length, upon a subject approved by the faculty.
2. To defend such dissertation before the faculty.
3. To pass collateral examinations (reading at sight) upon Latin and either French or German.
4.Candidates who have obtained the degree of bachelor of arts or bachelor of philosophy in this school, or bachelor of arts in this or any other college maintaining an equivalent curriculum, will be required to pass, further, an oral examination on their work in the last two years of the school; candida tes who have obtained the degree of master of arts from this school will be required to pass an oral examination on their work in the last year of the school. Candidates who have none of these degrees will be required to pass an oral examination on the entire work of the school.

The candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy may present himself for examination at any time when the college is in session, excepting the month of June. The subject chosen by the candidate for his dissertation, which may be presented to the faculty before or after the examination on the work in the school, should be made known to the faculty at least four months before the proposed time of examination thereupon. A printed (or type-written) copy of the dissertation must be submitted to each member of the faculty at least one month before the day of such examination. The title-page must contain the name of the candidate and the words “Submitted as one of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in the School of Political Science, Columbia College.”

The successful candidate must present a copy of his dissertation to the college library.

All degrees awarded will be publicly conferred at commencement.

 

EXAMINATION FEES.

Examination fees are as follows: For the degree of bachelor of arts, fifteen dollars; for the degree of bachelor of philosophy, twenty-five dollars; for the degree of master of arts, twenty-five dollars; for the degree of doctor of philosophy, thirty-five dollars. The examination fee must in each case be paid before the candidate presents himself for examination for the degree.

 

COMMENCEMENT.

The commencement exercises of the college take place annually on the second Wednesday of June.

 

ACADEMY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

This institution is devoted to the cultivation and advancement of the political sciences. It is composed mainly of graduates of the Schools of Law and Political Science of Columbia College, but any person whose previous studies have fitted him to participate in the work of the academy is eligible to membership.

Meetings of the academy are held on the first and third Mondays of each month. At these meetings papers are read by members presenting the results of original investigation by the writers in some department of political science.

 

PRIZE LECTURESHIPS.

The trustees have established in the School of Political Science three prize lectureships of the annual value of five hundred dollars each, tenable for three years. The power of appointment is vested in the faculty. One of these three lectureships becomes vacant at the close of each academic year. The previous holder may be reappointed. The conditions of competition are as follows:

1. The candidate must be a graduate of the School of Political Science or of the Law School of Columbia College. In the latter case he must have pursued the curriculum of the School of Political Science for at least two years.
2. He must be an active member of the Academy of Political Science.
3. He must have read at least one paper before the Academy of Political Science during the year next preceding the appointment.

The duty of the lecturer is to deliver annually, before the students of the School of Political Science, a series of at least twenty lectures, the result of original investigation.

 

[3 pages of hour by weekday tables of course schedules for six semesters over three years]

 

CALENDAR.

1890 —

. — Examinations for admission begin, Monday.
Oct. . — Matriculation, Saturday.
Oct. 6. — Lectures begin, Monday.
Nov. 4. — Election day, holiday.
Nov. . — Thanksgiving day, holiday.
Dec. 22. — Christmas recess begins, Monday.

1891 —

Jan. 3. — Christmas recess ends, Saturday.
Feb. 4. — First session ends, Wednesday.
Feb. 5. — Second session begins, Thursday.
Feb. 11. — Ash-Wednesday, holiday.
Feb. 22. — Washington’s birthday, holiday.
Mar. 27. — Good-Friday, holiday.
May 18. — Examinations begin, Monday.
June 10. — Commencement, Wednesday.

 

Source: Columbia College. School of Political Science. Circular of Information 1890-91.

Image Source: Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Columbia College, Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed January 27, 2017. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-cc61-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

 

 

Categories
Columbia Curriculum Germany

Columbia. Political Economy Courses Compared to Courses at the University of Berlin, 1897

___________________

 

An excerpt from a newspaper report comparing political economy as taught in New York at Columbia University with political economy as taught in Berlin was published in the Columbia University Bulletin in 1897.  The unnamed author of the report concluded that “the primacy which Germany enjoyed a few years ago has passed away”. Compare this to a report (1884) overflowing with praise for the research “seminary” of  German universities.

___________________

In the Evening Post of October 25, 1897, will be found an interesting discussion of the value of German university degrees in comparison with similar honors in American universities. The writer, who is apparently a student in the University of Berlin, holds that the requirements for the degree of Ph. D. are higher in several American institutions than in the average German university. His points are, first, that it takes a shorter time to obtain the degree in Germany than from any of the reputable American universities; and second, that the average size and value of the dissertations of Harvard and Columbia doctors of philosophy are certainly greater than those of the German universities, with the exception, probably, of Berlin. Indeed, he concludes, “the progress of American universities has been so rapid in recent years, and the entrance requirements have been so largely increased, that the bachelor’s degree is actually approaching the German doctorate in essential worth.” A few selections from the body of the article, comparing the instruction in political science at Columbia with that given at Berlin, are of special interest.

“Further light on the question will be thrown by a comparison of the courses of lectures in American and German universities. Confining attention to the various studies in the domain of political economy and social science, we may select Berlin as the strongest representative of German Institutions.* * * * Of the American schools of political science, it is not easy to select the strongest. Columbia is usually regarded as the best equipped, although several others are but little inferior. Let us compare, then, the courses offered at Columbia and Berlin in political economy.

“At Berlin, Professor Wagner gives three courses, aggregating ten hours, that cover the field of general and theoretical economics, and practical economics, including money and banking, etc. At Columbia, almost precisely the same field is covered by Professor Mayo-Smith’s “Historical and Practical Economy,” running through three semesters and aggregating nine hours. Almost the only difference is that Professor Wagner devotes more time to agricultural economics, a subject that has as yet received little attention in American schools of political economy. In finance Professor Wagner offers a four-hour course for one semester. Professor Seligman at Columbia covers the same ground, with more discrimination, in a two-hour course running two semesters. He also offers in alternate years a two-hour course on the financial history of the United States.

“In economic or industrial history Columbia stands the comparison very well. It has an introductory course on the economic history of Europe and America conducted by Professor Seligman and Mr. Day, and an advanced course on the industrial and tariff history of the United States by Professor Seligman. The two courses aggregate the same number of hours as Professor Schmoller’s “practical political economy,” which is nothing but industrial history, and history of Prussia at that—a course valuable to the specialist, but not of great value to the average American student. Professor Meitzen also gives a course on the history of agriculture, but it concerns the early land systems of Europe and other subjects that can have no application to American conditions. The essential forms of land tenure are described at Columbia in Professor Mayo-Smith’s historical political economy.

“In the field of statistics, the subject of demography or population statistics is treated at Berlin by Professor Boeckh in a two-hour course, and at Columbia by Professor Mayo-Smith in a similar course. Economic statistics are treated by Professors Meitzen and Mayo-Smith in much the same manner, while the history, theory, and technique of statistics receives attention in both institutions.

“At Berlin, Professor Wagner reads a critique of socialism and Dr. Oldenburg gives its history. The two courses aggregate the same number of hours as Professor Clark’s course on socialism at Columbia. Professor Clark’s criticism of “scientific socialism” is at least equal to that of any German professor, and it proceeds from the Anglo-Saxon point of view. In a second semester Professor Clark deals with projects of social reform, especially those of American origin. Somewhat similar is Dr. Oldenburg’s course on Socialpolitik at Berlin, and Dr. Jastrow reads in addition a course on labor legislation.

“In social science Columbia is clearly in advance of Berlin. Sociology is scarcely recognized at the German universities, but at Berlin Dr. Simmel, privat-docent, offers a two-hour course on sociology and political psychology. This is the nearest approach to a study of the growth and structure of society that one finds at Berlin. Columbia, on the other hand, offers a course on the evolution of society and social institutions, with a review of the principal theoretical writers, and another course on sociological laws. These are both given by Professor Giddings, who also reads courses on crime and pauperism. No such practical study of these problems is made in Berlin.

“Several minor courses are offered at each university—as, for example, railway problems—and all of the professors conduct seminars for the purpose of encouraging and supervising original investigations. The only subject in which Berlin offers superior advantages is agricultural economics, while Columbia is doing much more work in both theoretical and practical social science. Two courses remain to be mentioned. One of these is a course by Dr. Jastrow at Berlin on the literature and methodology of all the political sciences, an introductory course of considerable value to freshmen, which has no parallel in any other German or American university known to the writer. But Columbia offers a course that can scarcely be duplicated in Germany, namely, the abstract theory of political economy given by Professor Clark, one of the acutest and most original thinkers of our day. It is a course that is taken by not more than a dozen or fifteen men, but they are advanced students who can appreciate such a course. Professor Clark’s power of inspiring young men to do theoretical work of high quality is evidenced by the writings of such men as the late Dr. Merriam, of Cornell, and Professor Carver, of Oberlin College. But in Germany pure theory has been neglected since the time of Hermann. Only now, as the result of an impulse proceeding from Austria, is theory regaining its place in German economic circles. Professor Dietzel and some of the other younger scholars are doing good work in this line, which is hardly comparable, however, with that of Professors Clark, Patten, etc., in the United States, and Marshall in England. German economists are making valuable contributions to economics in other ways, but the primacy which Germany enjoyed a few years ago has passed away.”

 

Source: Columbia University Bulletin, Vol. XVIII (December, 1897), pp. 67-69.

Image Source: The University of Berlin between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. Digital ID: ppmsca 00342.

 

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Debate Briefs on Immigration, ca. 1886-96

A few posts ago I provided a short selection from Harvard Professor Thomas Nixon Carver’s autobiography that reminded me of the current Republican U.S. Presidential candidate’s immigration policy. I must still have had Donald Trump on the mind when I stumbled upon a book of model debate briefs for issues of the late 19th/early 20th century. One might want to first watch the speech Donald Trump gave on immigration policy last night (August 31, 2016) in Phoenix, Arizona and then examine the debate briefs below for the following three resolutions:

Resolved, That immigration should be further restricted by law.

Resolved, That a high tax should be laid on all immigrants to the United States.

Resolved, That the policy excluding Chinese laborers from the United States should be maintained and rigorously enforced.

Zombie ideas are everywhere. 

 _______________________

Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics.

Edited by
W. Du Bois Brookings, A.B. of the Harvard Law School
And
Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, A.B.
Assistant in Rhetoric in Columbia University

With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D.
Professor of Harvard University.

[Rerpinted in 1908]

[From the Preface:]

“The basis of the work has been a collection of some two hundred briefs prepared during the past ten years [ca. 1886-96] by students in Harvard University, under the direction of instructors. Of these briefs the most useful and interesting have been selected; the material has been carefully worked over, and the bibliographies enlarged and verified….

…” the brief is a steady training in the most difficult part of reasoning; in putting together things that belong together; in discovering connections and relations; in subordinating the less important matters. The making of a brief is an intellectual exercise like the study of a disease by a physician, of a case by a lawyer, of a sermon by a minister, of a financial report by a president of a corporation. It is a bit of the practical work of life.

 

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION.

Question: ‘Resolved, That immigration should be further restricted by law.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

New-York Tribune (May 17, 1891);
Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955 (February 19, 1891);
Political Science Quarterly, III., 46 (March, 1888), 197 (June, 1888); IV., 480-489 (September, 1889);
J. A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives;
Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration;
North American Review, Vol. 152, p. 27 (January, 1891);
Atlantic Monthly, LXXI., 646 (May, 1893);
Public Opinion, XVI., 122 (November 9, 1893);
F. L. Dingley on European Emigration, United States Special Consular Reports, 1890, II., 211.

I. There is no longer any necessity for immigration:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

II. Immigration has led to many bad effects.

(a) Political.

(1) Large proportion of adults gives too great voting power:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 79.

(2) Our degraded municipal administration due to it:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 87.

(b) Economic.

(1) Immigrants offset what they produce by remittances home.

(2) Nearly half the immigrants are without occupation and this ratio is still increasing:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(3) There is already a large unemployed class of native laborers:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 127.

(4) Displacement of American labor:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(5) By classes used to a lower standard of living.

(6) Introduction of the system:

How the Other Half Lives, pp. 121-123.

(c) Social effects.

(1) Our high rates of mortality, vice, and crime are due to immigration:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 150.

(2) Immigration the prevailing cause of illiteracy in the United States:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 161.

III. The present laws are insufficient.

(a) Diseased persons are allowed entrance:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(b) Agents for steamship lines induce men to emigrate.

(c) Pauper laws admit immigrants possessing less than the average wealth of residents:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 101.

 

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 347 (April, 1882); Vol. 154, p. 424 (April, 1892); Vol. 158, p. 494 (April, 1894);
Journal of Social Science, 1870, No. 2;
Forum, XIII., 360 (May, 1892).

I. The policy of the United States in regard to immigration has been successful and its continuance is necessary to develop the resources of the country:

Lalor’s Cyclopaedia, II., 85-94.

II. Immigration is an advantage to the country:

North American Review, Vol. 134, pp. 364-367.

(a) The prosperity brought by immigrants.

(b) The addition to the national power of production.

(c) The money value of the immigrants as laborers.

III. The interests of American labor do not suffer by immigration:

Westminster Review, Vol. 130, p. 474 (October, 1888);
J. L. Laughlin in International Review, XI., 88 (July, 1881).

(a) Immigrants form ‘non–competing groups.’

(b) Are ultimately Americanized.

IV. The present immigration laws are satisfactory:

Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the United States, 1874-1891, I., Chap. 551;
Nation, XLV., 518 (December 29, 1887).

(a) The worst class of immigrants is excluded.

(b) The interests of American labor are fully protected.

(c) More stringent regulations, even if desirable, could not be enforced.

 

 _______________________

 

A TAX ON IMMIGRANTS.

Question: ‘Resolved, That a high tax should be laid on all immigrants to the United States.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration;
Forum, XI., 635 (August, 1891); XIV., 110 (September, 1892);
Andover Review, IX., 251 (March, 1888);
Yale Review, I., 125 (August, 1892);
Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955 (February 19, 1891);
Political Science Quarterly, III., 46 (March, 1888), 197 (June, 1888); IV., 480-489 (September, 1889);
North American Review, Vol. 152, p. 27 (January, 1891);
J. A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives;
F. L. Dingley on European Emigration, in United States Special Consular Reports, 1890, II., 211;
House Miscellaneous Documents, 1887-1888, No. 572, part 2, Report on Importation of Contract Labor.

I. Immigration should be further restricted.

(a) On social grounds.

(1) The proportion of paupers, diseased, and criminal, is great.

(b) On economic grounds.

(1) No longer needed to develop the country:

Popular Science Monthly, XLI., 762 (October, 1892).

(2) The lower wages and the standard of living:

Forum, XIV., 113 (September, 1892).

(3) Unskilled occupations are already overcrowded:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 117-122.

(c) On political grounds.

(1) The immigrants do not understand our institutions.

(2) They become tools of machine politicians:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 79-88.

(3) They form communities by themselves.

(d) The dangers are increasing.

(1) The immigrants congregate in cities more than formerly:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 69-70.

(2) The character of the immigrants is deteriorating:

Yale Review, I., 132.

II. A high tax would stop undesirable immigration.

(a) It would make impossible the sending of undesirable classes.

(1) Paupers.
(2) Convicts.
(3) Contract laborers.
(4) Shiftless and ignorant persons whom agents of steamship companies induce to come:

Yale Review, I., 132.

(b) The Italians and Slavs can barely raise the passage money, and they could not raise the tax.

(c) Tax would not keep out the desirable immigrants, such as Germans, Swedes, and Irish.

(1) They bring enough money to pay the tax.

III. A tax is the simplest effective restriction.

(a) It cannot be evaded.

(b) It is the surest practical guarantee of the qualities desired:

Yale Review, I., 141.

(c) It is a just means.

(1) One immigrant is worth to the country one hundred dollars:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 204-207 (June, 1888).

(2) Per capita wealth of the United States is one thousand dollars.

(3) The immigrant should pay to be admitted to the wealth and privileges of this country.

 

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Westminster Review, Vol. 130, p. 474 (October, 1888);
North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 347 (April, 1882); Vol. 154, p. 424 (April, 1892); Vol. 156, p. 220 (February, 1893);
Forum, XIII., 360 (May, 1892);
Lalor’s Cyclopedia, II., 85;
Friedrich Kapp, ‘Immigration,’ in Journal of Social Science, 1870, No. 2, pp.21-30.

I. A continuance of immigration is desirable:

Forum, XIV., 601 (January, 1893);
Public Opinion, III., 251 (July 2, 1887); XIV., 297 (December 31, 1892).

(a) There is need of laborers in the South and West:

North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 350 (April, 1882).

(b) Voluntary immigrants are thrifty and active:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 61 (March, 1888).

(c) The troublesome and mischievous immigrants are a small part of the whole:

Nation. XLV., 519 (December 29, 1887);
Forum, XIV., 605-606.

II. The present immigration laws are sufficient:

Public Opinion, III., 249;
Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the United States, 1874-1891, I., Chap. 551.

(a) Laws now exclude paupers, criminals, insane people, and persons liable to become a public charge, as well as imported labor.

(b) Immigration is practically self-regulating:

Forum, XIV., 606.

III. The proposed measure of a high tax is undesirable.

(a) It would literally mean prohibition, which is a complete reversal of American policy.

(b) It would be unjust.

(1) It would debar families from emigrating.

(2) It would discriminate against the peasant class, women and the younger men, who are often the most desirable immigrants.

(c) It is impracticable:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 420.

(1) It would be difficult to collect the tax:

Forum, XIII., 366 (May, 1892).

(2) Our extensive frontiers would make the law perfectly useless.

(d) It would create an undesirable class of immigrants.

(1) Those who evaded the laws would be an adventurous, restless element.

(2) Those who paid the tax would be embittered by our narrow policy.

 

 _______________________

THE EXCLUSION OF THE CHINESE.

Question: ‘Resolved, That the policy excluding Chinese laborers from the United States should be maintained and rigorously enforced.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Forum, VI., 196 (October, 1888);
North American Review, Vol. 139, p. 256 (September, 1884); Vol. 157, p. 59 (July, 1893);
Overland Monthly, VII., 428 (April, 1886);
Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 862 (October, 1876);
J. A. Whitney, The Chinese and the Chinese Question.

 

I. The Chinese are a source of danger to American civilization.

(a) Morally.

(1) Barbarity of Chinese character:

The Chinese and the Chinese Question, p. 21.

(2) Inhuman treatment of women.

(3) Practice of gambling.

(4) Degraded religion:

Forum, VI., 201.

(5) Utter disregard for oaths.

(6) Criminality:

Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 862.

(b) Socially.

(1) Unhealthy mode of living.

(2) Impossibility of amalgamation:

Overland Monthly, VII., 429.

(3) Contamination through opium smoking, leprosy, and small-

pox.

(4) Dangers to American youth of both sexes.

(c) Politically.

(1) Inability and unwillingness to become citizens:

Senate Reports, 1876-1877, No. 689.

(2) Refusal to obey our laws.

(3) Secret system of slavery:

Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 860-865.

(d) Economically.

(1) Impossibility of competition with Chinese.

(2) Gradual encroachment on all occupations.

(3) Does away with the Middle class of artisans and results in the concentration of capital:

Forum, VI., 198;
North American Review, Vol. 139, pp. 257, 260-273.

II. Exclusion furnishes-the best remedy.

(a) It is constitutional under decision of Supreme Court:

Fong Yue Ting v. U. S., 149 U. S., 698.

(b) It will not materially affect our commercial relations with China.

(c) It is beneficial to the Chinamen who are legally in the United States.

(d) It is practicable.

(1) Rules are simple and can be readily complied with or enforced.

 

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Nation, LVI., 358 (May 18, 1893);
Forum, XIV., 85 (September, 1892); XV., 407 (June, 1893);
North American Review, Vol. 148, p. 476 (April, 1889); Vol. 154, p. 596 (May, 1892); Vol. 157, p. 52 (July, 1893);
Nation, XXVIII., 145 (February 27, 1879);
Scribner’s Monthly, XIII., 687 (March, 1887);
Nation, XXXIV., 222 (March 16, 1882);
Overland Monthly, VII., 414 (April, 1886); XXIII., 518 (May, 1894);
Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, Chap. xi.

I. The exclusion of the Chinese is at variance with fundamental American principles:

Nation, XXXIV., 222.

(a) It is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution:

Constitution of the United States, Amend. XV.

(b) It is founded on race prejudice.

(c) It violates our treaty obligations and good faith between nations:

Forum, XV., 407; XIV., 85-90.

II. Chinese immigration is no menace to American interests.

(a) The Chinese do not immigrate in large numbers.

(b) They do not multiply after their arrival.

(c) They take only money—and little of that—out of the country, and leave finished products.

(d) They compete with unskilled labor and do not affect the wages of skilled labor.

(e) They are honest, industrious, peaceable, and frugal.

(f) They form but a small element in political life, and the fact that they are not citizens makes them less dangerous than other immigrants.

III. The policy of exclusion is harmful.

(a) It injures good feeling between the two countries.

(b) It menaces commerce:

Forum, XIV., 87-88.

(1) China may retaliate any time.

(c) It discourages missionary work.

(d) It deprives the United States of effective labor suitable for large enterprises.

(1) Work on transcontinental railroads.

(2) In mines.

(3) Farming.

(4) Construction of irrigation works.

IV. The difficulty in enforcing the legislation makes it impracticable.

(a) The penalty for violation has no terrors for the Chinese immigrant:

Popular Science Monthly, XXXVI.,185 (December, 1889).

(b) Many citizens oppose the legislation.

(c) It has failed thus far.

 

 

Source: W. Du Bois Brookings and Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, eds., Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908, pp. 68-75.

Image Source:  F. Victor Gillam, “The immigrant. Is he an acquisition or a detriment?” Illustration in Judge (September 19, 1903). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.