Author: Irwin Collier

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Chicago Exam Questions Theory

Chicago. PhD Exam in Economic Theory. Autumn 1946

 

Links to previously posted Chicago prelim exams.

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ECONOMIC THEORY

Written Examination for the Ph.D. Degree
Autumn Quarter, 1946

Ph.D. Candidates:  4 hours.  Answer all the questions.  Papers will be taken up after 10 or 15 minutes warning.

  1. Define or explain:
    1. Elasticity of Demand; point and arc elasticity; income elasticity; cross elasticity.
    2. Demand curve; utility curve; indifference curve; indifference map; marginal rate of substitution.
    3. Substitution effect and income effect.
    4. Complementary goods.
    5. Real vs. alternative cost.
    6. Price-determined vs. price-determining cost.
    7. Rent and quasi-rent.
    8. Profit.
  2. In what sense and under what conditions (if at all) does cost of production determine price, (a) in the long run, (b) in the short run.(If it never does, explain the fallacy.)
  3. Briefly describe the three or four main contributions (naming the chief author of each) to the development of the concept of capital and theory of interest, beginning with Ricardo and ending with what you consider “correct” doctrine.In each case bring out the relation of capital to other “productive factors” and to money, and that of its yield to other forms of income.
  4. —
    1. Define profit for the purpose of distribution theory.
    2. Discuss the social advisability of a legal limitation, in advance from the beginning, on the rate of return on investment in fields where it is highly uncertain (such as public utilities and explorative and development of natural resources – i.e. single tax).
    3. Comment on the ethics and policy of imposing such a limitation, by regulation or taxation, on enterprises already proven highly profitable.
  5. Discuss the wisdom of the policy described in the following quotation:

“In conversations with gold mining engineers a phrase glibly and frequently repeated is ‘sweetening the ore.’ By this phrase reference is made to the practice of diverting production in profitable periods to the poorer ores and perhaps restricting output in the richer fields. Under this practice the better ores are preserved for periods in which mining costs have risen so that over a long period of time output can be held more steady. Contributing also to a policy of sweetening the ores is the reluctance of producers to install capital equipment in a period in which the tendency is for mining expenses to increase with the general advance of wages and living costs. By the time the equipment is installed it might be expected that wages and price levels would be adjusted to the increased price of gold.”

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 76, Folder “76.2 “University of Chicago ‘Economic Theory’”.

Image Source: Detail from the Social Science Research Building. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07448, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Preliminary and Field Exams from the economics graduate program of the University of Chicago

Note: The chronological ordering of quarters at the University of Chicago during a calendar year goes Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. For this reason the following is arranged chronologically.

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Bryn Mawr Economists Gender Illinois

Illinois. Economics PhD alumna. Janet Montgomery Hooks. 1960

Janet Montgomery Hooks, 1933 and 1967

For the post on the Rockefeller Foundation funded series: The Ethics and Economics of Society, I came across the name of Janet M. Hooks who collaborated with Elizabeth E. Hoyt, Margaret G. Reid, and Joseph L. McConnell, on the volume American Income and Its Use (1954). Because I found relatively little about her through my  searches, I figured I ought to share those facts that I have been able to string together about Janet M. Hooks’ life and career. 

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Janet Montgomery Hooks (Bassie)
Her Biographical Timeline

Born April 25, 1912, in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Parents: David Munro Hooks and Maud E. Montgomery.

A.B., Mount Holyoke College, 1933 — major in Economics (Honor Work), minor in History.

A.M. Bryn Mawr College (1934).

1936. Federal Consumer Purchases Study at Toledo, Ohio.

Married Oct. 2, 1937 (Saturday), to V. Lewis Bassie of Chicago, in a private ceremony at the Hooks family home in West Englewood, N.J., performed by the Rev. William K. Russell of Christ Episcopal Church, West Englewood. Attendants were her sisters Vida and Maida Hooks; best man was Charles Coe of Washington, D.C. The couple honeymooned to Bermuda on the S.S. Monarch of Bermuda and settled in Washington, D.C.

Source: “Miss Hooks Married to V. L. Bassie,” The Record (Hackensack, N.J.), Oct. 4, 1937, p. 14.

Groom’s background per the same announcement: “Mr. Bassie is an alumnus of the University of Chicago and is with the Federal Reserve Board.”  V. Lewis Bassie (1907/08–June 5, 1997) took his Ph.D. at Chicago in 1931, later becoming a well-known business-cycle forecaster, joining the University of Illinois economics faculty in 1948 as director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, and retiring in 1976. Illinois economics department’s historical profile of V. Lewis Bassie.

She was to publish professionally under her maiden name “Janet M. Hooks”.

1940 U.S. Census: listed as “Jr. economist,” Government — living in Arlington, Va., with her husband, economist V. Lewis Bassie. By the April 1940 census date she was already a federal government economist.

1940-48: Research Division, U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau.

Source: Biographical Listing of Members of the American Economic Association. American Economic Review, December 1989), p. 221.

Catalog record: catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003493587
Full view: babel.hathitrust.org (uiug.30112104139305)

1941: Employment of women in the Federal Government, 1923 to 1929 by Rachel Fesler Nyswander and Janet M. Hooks.  U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, no. 182.

Catalog record: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003493587 
Full view: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112104139305

Feb. 2, 1942, p. 24 — Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) identified her as an active member on the Workers’ Education Committee that sponsored a party to raise funds for the American Labor Education Service. Others named in the article constitute a list of a Washington women’s who’s who of economic policy loc.gov (Feb. 2, 1942, p. 24)

1944: author, British Policies and Methods in Employing Women in Wartime, Women’s Bureau Bulletin No. 200 (Washington: GPO, 1944).

Catalog record: catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003493702
Full view: babel.hathitrust.org (uiug.30112102049118)

1947: author, Women’s Occupations Through Seven Decades, Women’s Bureau Bulletin No. 218 (Washington: GPO, 1947). The bulletin’s own foreword states: “The analysis was made and the report written by Janet M. Hooks, of the Bureau’s Research Division.”

PDF: fraser.stlouisfed.org (Bulletin 218)
Full text: fraser.stlouisfed.org (fulltext)
FRASER author page: fraser.stlouisfed.org/author/hooks-janet-m

1948: Her husband V. Lewis Bassie joined the University of Illinois faculty.

1949–1950: co-author (with Mary E. Pidgeon), Women in the Federal Service, 1923–1947. U.S. Dept. of Labor, Women’s Bureau, 1949–1950), 2 vols. NOTE: vol. 2 was written without participation of Janet M. Hooks.

Catalog record: catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011397919
Full view Volume 1: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112102049753
Full view Volume 2: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112102049761

1950: U.S. Census. Family of V. Lewis Bassie (age 42, b. in Illinois) and Janet M. Bassie (age 37, b. in Massachusetts), daughter Carol M. (age 6, b. in Virginia) and son William C. (age 1, b. in Washington, DC) Father is listed as Professor of Economics, Director of Business research at the state university. Mother has no occupation listed.

1954: Co-author with Joseph L. McConnell of Part III The Changing Family and its Dependents in the volume American Income and Its Use (1954) by Elizabeth E. Hoyt, Margaret G. Reid, Joseph L. McConnell, and Janet Montgomery Hooks, published in the Rockefeller Foundation funded series: The Ethics and Economics of Society (Harper & Brothers). Note: Margaret Reid was at the University of Illinois 1948-51. Also Howard Bowen (a principal in the Rockefeller Foundation project was Dean at the University of Illinois, removed as dean in 1951).

1960: Awarded Ph.D. in economics per the Report of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, meeting of June 14, 1960 (pp. 1333–35): under “In Economics” — “Janet Montgomery Hooks, A.B., Mount Holyoke College, 1933; A.M., Bryn Mawr, 1934.” Dissertation: The Contribution of Household Production to the National Income.

1963-1977. Eastern Illinois University. [Just over 50 years old, having completed her doctorate in Economics at Illinois in 1960 — 26 years after her Bryn Mawr A.M., about a decade after her husband V. Lewis Bassie joined the Illinois faculty (1948), and roughly a decade after her last confirmed Women’s Bureau byline (1949–50), she becomes a full fledged academic economist.]

Source: Biographical Listing of Members of the American Economic Association. American Economic Review, December 1989), p. 221.

1967: Assistant Professor of Economics, Eastern Illinois University (The Warbler, 1967, p. 67)

1977: Professor emeritus. Eastern Illinois University

Source: Biographical Listing of Members of the American Economic Association. American Economic Review, December 1989), p. 221.

Died April 4, 2002, in Urbana, Illinois.

Source: Obituary: “Janet Montgomery Hooks Bassie,” News and Record (Greensboro, N.C.), April 6, 2002, p. 19.

Image Sources: Yearbook of Eastern Illinois University, The Warbler, 1967

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Social Insurance Social Work

Harvard. Social Ethics Courses. Enrollments and Final Exams. Peabody et al., 1911-1912

Harvard's Social Museum, Room 1

Harvard professor Francis G. Peabody and his team tried to establish something like a school of social work at Harvard that offered courses covering a great range of economic and social policy. As befitting a “Department of Social Ethics” the emphasis was on applied ethics, which is something distinct from the interest of a Department of Economics in applied economics. The intersection of the two was located in real-world problems.

Previously posted course material for social ethics at Harvard.

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Social Ethics Instructors
1911-12

Jeffrey Richardson Brackett
Robert Franz Foerster
James Ford
Ray Madding McConnell
Francis Greenwood Peabody

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Social Ethics 1-7
1911-12

Social Ethics 1. Application of Ethical Theory
Social Ethics 2. Practical Problems of Social Service
Social Ethics 3. Criminology and Penology [omitted 1911-12]
Social Ethics 4. Selected Topics in Social Ethics
Social Ethics 5. The Moral Responsibilities of the Modern State [omitted 1911-12]
Social Ethics 6. Social Amelioration in Europe
Social Ethics 7. Rural Social Development

The courses in this group are designed to apply philosophical principles to the modern problems of philanthropy, industry, and social life. They begin with a general introduction to Social Ethics and proceed to methods of applied ethics which approach those of a professional school. Students should have already elected courses both in Philosophy and in Economics, and should regard the courses in Social Ethics as concerned with the transition from academic to practical life.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), pp. 70-74.

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Application of Ethical Theory
to Present Social Problems

Course Description
1911-12

  1. The Problems of Poor-Relief, The Family, Temperance, and various phases of the Labor Question, in the light of Ethical Theory. Lectures, special researches, and prescribed reading. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Peabody, Dr. McConnell, Dr. Ford, and Dr. Foerster.

This course is an application of ethical theory to the social problems of the present day. It is to be distinguished from economic courses dealing with similar subjects by the emphasis laid on the moral aspects of the social situation and on the philosophy of society involved. In addition to lectures and required reading a special and detailed report is made by each student, based as far as possible on personal research and observation of scientific methods in industrial reform. These researches are arranged in consultation with the instructors; and an important feature of the course is the suggestion and direction of such personal investigation and the provision to each student of special literature and opportunities for observation. Students are advised, before beginning the study of Social Ethics, to take courses both in Economics and Philosophy; and must have taken a course, or the equivalent of a course, in one of these subjects.

The following courses are planned for students who take or have taken Social Ethics 1 or its equivalent.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 70.

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Social Ethics 1 2hf. Professor Peabody, Drs. Ford and Foerster. — Social Problems in the light of ethical theory.

Total 43: 3 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 69.

SOCIAL ETHICS 1
Year-end Final Examination
1911-12

This paper should be considered as a whole. The time should not be exhausted in answering a few questions, but such limits should be given to each answer as will permit the answering of all the questions in the time assigned.

  1. Explain briefly: —

“Economic determinism”;
“Social labor time”;
“The capitalistic appropriation of surplus value”;
“The class-conscious conflict.”

  1. Lassalle and Marx compared as influences on German socialism.
  2. What legislation on Woman and Child Labor has been enacted in the United States? (Adams & Sumner, pp. 30–37.)
  3. What is the Sweating-System, and what forms does it take? (Adams & Sumner, pp. 114–119.) What legislation has been enacted to deal with it? (pp. 122–126.)
  4. Explain and criticise the following statement: “Co-operation differs from profit-sharing primarily by reason of the fact that, in its industrial form, at least, its aim is to modify radically, and finally to utterly abolish, the wage system.” (Adams & Sumner, p. 379, and Dr. Ford’s Lectures.)
  5. Compare the advantages of industrial partnership under the direct-bonus plan with those of a pension system or a stock offering.
  6. The conclusions of physiology concerning the function of alcohol.
  7. The history of the liquor traffic in Boston from 1875 to 1894. What are the comparative merits of the three types of licensing boards operating in Boston during that period?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 87-88.

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Public Aid, Charity, and Neighborhood Work:
Practical Problems

Course Description
1911-12

  1.  2hf. Practical Problems of Social Service: Public Aid, Charity, and Neighborhood Work. Lectures, prescribed reading, and observation of work under skilled direction. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., at 2.30. Dr. Brackett.

This course is for advanced students, especially for those who plan, as ministers, teachers, or as citizens, whatever their vocation, to be actively interested in charity, correction, or any form of social work. It is also an introduction to Social Ethics 20c, the School for Social Workers. It is a study of tendencies in Social Service, of law and custom, especially in England and the United States, bearing directly on such topics as neighborhood improvement, forms and sources of relief, modification of charitable trusts, treatment of special types of the needy, organization of charity, financial management, supervision of work by public and private agencies.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), pp. 70-71.

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Social Ethics 2 2hf. Dr. Brackett. — Practical Problems of Social Service: Public Aid, Charity, and Neighborhood Work.

Total 14: 2 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 69.

SOCIAL ETHICS 2

In all answers, give your reasons.

  1. “A community can have as much pauperism as it will pay for.” Comment on this, with illustrations from English or American history.
  2. What are the “feeble-minded”? In what ways would you have provision made for them?
  3. A homeless, able-bodied machinist, who says there is no one dependent upon him, but he is at the end of his money, tells you he can have a good job in Providence, R.I., where he formerly lived, if he can get there tomorrow and be ready for work the next morning. He asks a railroad ticket to that place. What would you do, and why?
  4. What have been the chief steps in progress in the treatment of offenders?
  5. —
    1. What was the chief principle for administration of public aid, laid down by the English poor-law commission of 1832–34?
    2. How was it to be carried out?
  6. —
    1. In taking up neighborhood work, what kinds of persons in the neighborhood, would you aim primarily to reach?
    2. When and how would you decide what methods to use for reaching them?
  7. What is meant by “organizing charity”? I.e., when we speak of the work of an associated charities or other agency for organizing charity.
  8. —
    1. To what extent would you advise residents in a “settlement” to give material relief to persons in the community?
    2. To what extent would you advise pastors of churches to give it?
  9. What are the chief lessons you have learned from your field work connected with this course?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 88-89.

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Criminology and Penology

Course Description
Not taught in 1911-12

  1.  ¹hf. Criminology and Penology. Lectures, prescribed reading, and reports. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Dr. McConnell.

This course aims to offer a brief general study of crime and its prevention. As a necessary preparation for the meeting of present problems some investigation of historical as well as of present conditions will be attempted. The subjects considered will include the following: methods of study in criminology; classes of crimes and of criminals; causes and effects of crime; prevalent conceptions of crime and of the treatment which society should accord it; agencies especially intended for the punishment and prevention of crime (including certain features of criminal law and its administration, the identification of criminals, the indeterminate sentence, institutions for the detention, punishment, and reformation of criminals, the supervision and aid of convicts on probation or parole or after discharge, and special methods for dealing with young criminals); the influence on the volume of crime of various agencies designed for general social betterment.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 71.

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Selected Topics in Social Ethics

Course Description
1911-12

  1. ¹hf. Selected Topics in Social Ethics. Lectures and prescribed reading. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12.

Subjects for 1911-12: –

The State and Charity. Dr. Brackett.
The Ethical Relations of the State to Industrial Affairs. Dr. McConnell.
The Ethical Aspects of Industrial Coöperation. Dr. Ford.
The Ethics of Immigration. Dr. Foerster.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 71.

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Social Ethics 4 1hf. Selected Topics in Social Ethics.

Dr. Brackett. — The Ethics of Public Aid and Private Charity.
Dr. Ford. — The Ethical Aspects of Industrial Coöperation.
Dr. Foerster. — The Ethics of Immigration.

Total 10: 2 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 69.

SOCIAL ETHICS 4

  1. What do you say (1) in favor of, and (2) in opposition to the provision by the state of non-contributory old-age pensions for all persons beyond the age of 69, and below a small income line?
  2. How are profits divided in (1) the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers’ Society; (2) the Scottish Wholesale Society; (3) a typical Copartnership Housing Association; (4) an Irish Co-operative Dairy; (5) the New England Cranberry Sales Co. (or some other American Co-operative Sales Association)?
  3. Describe the economic and co-operative features of the credit unions of Massachusetts. What are the essential dissimilarities in method and purpose between the credit unions and the “co-operative banks” of this State?
  4. “Distributive co-operators are anti-capitalists and class-conscious.” Examine carefully and in detail the truth of this statement as applied to the distributive movements of England, Belgium and Germany.
  5. What are the usual features of the padrone commissary system?

Devote not less than one hour to this question.

  1. The following citations give the main arguments of an address recently reported in the newspapers.
      1. “Why exclude the immigrant when there is so much room for him? . . . Texas alone could support our entire population without worrying about the problem of congestion. . . . The trouble in America is usually not a lack of work but a lack of workers.”
      2. “If he accepts a small wage, his need is responsible and it is to be deplored that Americans should be content to take advantage of this desperate need and convert the hunger of this stranger into more dollars for themselves.”
      3. “Thirty of every ten thousand immigrants become paupers. . . . While the thirty are costing us $3000 a year, the other 9970 are adding almost $40,000,000 to the wealth of the land. And this exclusive of the taxes each pays.”
      4. “There is a higher rate of crime among the native born than among the foreign born.”
      5. “The solution . . . is distribution, not exclusion. . . . We should be undeserving our blessings if we selfishly refused to share them.”

Illustrate your answer to the following questions from the reading and lectures of the course. So divide your time that you may write upon all questions; avoid generalities. The lettered divisions correspond with those just given.

    1. In what sense does a lack of workers exist? When would it not exist, — e.g., when Texas should be as densely populated as Europe?
    2. Is the immigrant underpaid? What consequences would follow for employers, consumers, and immigrants if employers were compelled to pay their immigrant workmen wages not less than twice as high as they are now paying? What effect has immigration had on wages in the United States?
    3. In what sense is wealth “added”? If, by adding wealth, immigrants save Americans labor, should they not be welcomed like any other labor-saving device — a machine, typically? What kind of relation has immigration with dependency?
    4. Describe the criminal aspects of immigration.
    5. What can the best system of distribution accomplish? What can it not accomplish?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 89-90.

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Moral Responsibilities
of the Modern State

Course Description
Not taught in 1911-12

  1. 2hf. The Moral Responsibilities of the Modern State. Lectures and prescribed reading. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12. Dr. McConnell.

This course considers the fundamental ethical principles involved in the organization of the modern State, and the duties of public authorities in regard to defectives, charity, the child, and public health.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 72.

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Social Amelioration in Europe

Course Description
1911-12

  1. 2hf. Social Amelioration in Europe. Lectures and prescribed reading. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. Foerster.

This course is mainly concerned with schemes of social amelioration that have so far been little considered in the United States. Remedial methods of dealing with poverty will be treated only incidentally. Chiefly the course will make a comparative study of the preventive and constructive measures, public and private, of several countries. After a brief consideration of the place of thrift institutions, unemployment and the important recent efforts to meet it will be discussed at some length. The experience of several countries in providing for the indigent in case of accident, sickness, invalidity, and old age will, in turn, be examined. The course will close with a study of recent developments of legislation governing conditions of labor.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 72.

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Social Ethics 6 2hf. Dr. Foerster. — Social Amelioration in Europe.

Total 19: 7 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 7 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 69.

SOCIAL ETHICS 6

So allot your time that you may answer all questions.

  1. “Putting these unemployed men to work in industries already fully manned or over-manned would solve nothing. . . . The problem which the Labour Party desires the state to face is therefore that of the development of its unused resources. . . . Neither relief works nor the National Workshops of 1848 (except for training, perhaps) are asked for, but a policy of national development. . . . As part of this programme, the Socialist has long been crying for afforestation, national drainage and reclamation, labour farm colonies . . . and the pressure of social misery and depopulation has at length come to his aid.” (J. R. Macdonald, The Socialist Movement.) What is the value of such a policy in dealing with the problem of unemployment?
  2. What are the salient features of the English Workmen’s Compensation Act? What are its defects? How are these defects avoided in the legislation of other countries?
  3. What effect upon the industriousness and thrift of the population have the following?
    1. Provision for old age in Denmark.
    2. Provision for old age in England.
    3. Savings bank insurance in Massachusetts.
    4. Provision for sickness, old age, etc., in the mutual aid societies of France.
    5. Unemployment benefits under the Ghent system.

In each case show specifically to what feature of the institution in question the effect is to be traced.

  1. Why did state insurance in Germany signify a less radical departure from previous social policy and thought than it would signify in the United States? How serious a burden has it laid on employers?
  2. Mr. Lloyd George said of the English old age pensions plan, that “it is just as much a contributory scheme as one financed directly by means of contributions arranged on the German basis.” Indicate in detail by what course of reasoning this statement may be supported. Or, if you believe it false or in part false, indicate precisely the gounds of your opinion.
  3. Present the best arguments you can for compulsory (and subsidized) insurance against unemployment. Then make out the best case against compulsion. Which way does the net advantage lie? In answering this question it may be assumed that a system of well-organized labor exchanges exists.
  4. Outline the Swiss methods of dealing with vagrancy.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 90-91.

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Rural Social Development

Course Description
1911-12

  1. ¹hf. Rural Social Development. Lectures and prescribed reading. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. Dr. Ford.

This course is concerned with rural life as a problem in itself and as a solution of urban problems. It will study the distribution of population and its consequences; the development of country life from without, through suburban, “Garden-city, “ “Back-to-the-land,” and other movements, and rural reconstruction from within, through private initiative, coöperative movements, and State activity.

One hour will be devoted each week to the discussion of prescribed reading.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 72.

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Social Ethics 7 1hf. Dr. Ford. — Rural Social Development.

Total 17: 1 Graduate, 8 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 1 Freshman.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 69.

SOCIAL ETHICS 7

  1. What is meant by a “rural social survey”? What facts must be gathered? (Give reasons in each instance.) What are the probable sources of this material for a Massachusetts or New York community?
  2. —
    1. What essential differences do you note between the pleasures of the village and of the rural population in Blanktown?
    2. What is meant by pleasures of receptive sensation? What part have they played in the social evolution of Blanktown? (Williams, An American Town.)
  3. What is the rural housing problem in America? State the problem in detail with reference to construction and interior arrangement of farm houses.
  4. (a) Outline the rural health problem. (b) Under what conditions do each of the following matters require action by local or state boards of health? What sort of action is necessary? Why?
      1. Illness in the farm home.
      2. Farm water supply.
      3. Farm sanitation.
      4. Milk production.
  5. —
    1. “When the rural social sense is thoroughly established, we shall be in a new epoch of rural civilization.” (Bailey, The Country Life Movement.) What is meant by this statement?
    2. By what methods can the “rural social sense” be developed in this generation? In the next?
    3. Describe in detail the structure and function of any three local socializing agencies (excluding church and school).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], p. 92.

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Social Ethics à la Peabody
1888/89—1910/11

A short history of Harvard’s Department of Social Ethics through 1920.

Exam questions for late 19th century versions of Francis Greenwood Peabody’s course on the Ethics of Social Reform have been transcribed and posted:

1888-1889; 1889-1890; 1890-1891; 1892-1893; 1893-1894; 1894-1895; 1895-1896.

Earlier 20th century course material:

1902-03. Listed as Philosophy 5. Taught by Peabody and Ireland.
1904-05. Listed as Philosophy 5 and Ethics 1. Taught by Peabody and Rogers.
1906-07. Taught by Peabody and Rogers.
1907-08. Taught by Peabody and Rogers.
1908-09. Taught by Peabody, McConnell, Ford and Foerster.
1909-10. Taught by Peabody, McConnell, Ford, and Foerster.
1910-11. Taught by Peabody, McConnell, Ford, Foerster, and Brackett. [complete set of social ethics exams]

Image Source: Francis G. Peabody, The Social Museum as an Instrument of University Teaching. Publications of the Department of Social Ethics in Harvard University, Number 4 (Cambridge, MA: 1911).

Categories
Accounting Exam Questions Harvard Industrial Organization

Harvard. Corporation Finance. Description, Enrollment, Final Exam. Dewing, 1911-1912

Arthur Stone Dewing was reborn as an economics instructor in 1911 according to his own account. He went on to become a finance professor at the Harvard Business School. A busy, full and complete life, successful by any metric, and yet the sort of academic that requires a professional historian of economics to go deep into the weeds just to seek an interesting trace of a lasting contribution. His Boston Globe obit credits him with the introduction of the case method into the Harvard Business School program. Worth checking if in fact a true claim.

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From Dewing’s Entry in the 1922 Report of the Harvard Class of 1902

ARTHUR STONE DEWING

BORN at Boston, Mass., April 16, 1880.
PARENTS: Charles Hamlet, Eliza Williams Stone (Paine) Dewing.
SCHOOL: Cambridge High School, Cambridge, Mass.

DEGREES: A.Β. 1902; A.M. 1903; Ph.D. 1905.

MARRIED: Frances Hall Rousmaniere, Boston, Mass., June 3, 1910.
CHILDREN: Mary Stone, March 18, 1911; Abigail Starr, June 1, 1912; Ruth Rousmaniere, Aug. 31, 1915.

OCCUPATION: Assistant Professor of Economics.

ADDRESS: (home) 469 Broadway, Cambridge, Mass.; (business) Upper Massachusetts Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

THE proper preface to an account of this kind is the altogether prosaic comment that my biography is of little interest; it is quite uninteresting and adventureless. After graduation I spent a year in the Graduate School, and later a year in Germany studying philosophy. I tutored awhile and taught science in a private school to keep the pot boiling, meanwhile serving as an assistant in philosophy courses at Harvard. For a while I taught philosophy at Simmons, and then spent some time in Europe. The outstanding feature of this period was a delightful trip through Greece. In 1911 I decided to teach economics instead of philosophy, and somewhat later was appointed instructor at Harvard. I was at Yale for a couple of years, and saw the “bowl” properly baptized by the victorious Harvard eleven. Not having absorbed enough of that subtly elusive Yale spirit I was told to return whence I had come, a wiser but not a sadder man. Incompatibility of temperament, ran the decree. For three years I lived quietly in Belmont doing some writing and some private work and teaching. I had devoted quite a little study to the Sherman Act of 1890 and its judicial interpretation; and a considerable task at this time was the preparation of the appellant’s brief of the facts for a larger industrial consolidation in its appeal to the United States Supreme Court from a decree of dissolution. In 1920 I was appointed Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard. Since that time I have also taught in the Business School. Needless to say I am especially interested in the ideals of the Business School as interpreted by the present Dean. As I understand them they are the inculcation in college graduates, likely to become business executives, of the economic and social foundations of modern industry; and with this goes the belief that the morale of business can be put on a new and lighter level by developing a professional spirit among business executives.

My hobbies are few and simple. I am as interested as ever in mountain climbing and the woods. I don’t play golf, nor belong to a country club. I’m a director of a number of public utilities. I’m cursed with the collectors’ bacillus, — at present it’s old colonial furniture, and if any of you gentlemen know of any old chairs made here in New England before 1620, please send word.

PUBLICATIONS: Chemistry laboratory note book, L. E. Knott, Boston; Biology laboratory note book, L. E. Knott, Boston; Introduction to the History of Modern Philosophy, 1903, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia; Life as Reality, 1910, Longman’s, New York. In National Cordage Company, 1913, Harvard University Press, Cambridge; Corporate Promotions and Reorganizations, 1914, Harvard University Press, Cambridge; The Financial Policy of Corporations, 5 volumes, 1920, The Ronald Press, New York. Have also published numerous magazine articles.

MEMBER: American Economic Association; New England Historical Geneological society; Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants.

Source:  Secretary’s Sixth Report, Harvard College Class of 1902 (June, 1922), pp. 134-135.

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Obituary
Arthur Stone Dewing
(b. 16 Apr 1880 in Boston;
d. 29 Jan 1971 in Cambridge)

Arthur Stone Dewing, 90, of 8 Willard st., Cambridge, noted author, philosopher, professor and businessman, died yesterday afternoon at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Mr. Dewing, once referred to as the “best loved professor at Harvard,” was still active in business and various other interests until he entered MGH in the first week of December.

He was born in Boston April 16, 1880, to Charles Hamlet and Eliza Williams Stone and spent most of his life in this area.

Mr. Dewing received an A.B. degree in 1902, an A.M. in 1903, and a Ph D in philosophy in 1905, all from Harvard University. He also did graduate work at the University of Munich in Germany.

In 1910, he married the late Frances Hall Rousmaniere, by whom he had three daughters, all of whom survive.

Mr. Dewing served in the Harvard faculty as an assistant in philosophy between 1902 and 1911, when he became an instructor in economics for a year before resigning his time solely to business.

He rejoined the Harvard faculty in 1919 as an assistant professor of economics and served as an associate professor of finance from 1922 until 1927, when he was made a full professor.

Mr. Dewing, who was considered an international authority in the field of corporation practice, was one to the professors who founded the Harvard University School of Business.

He resigned his position of professor of finance at the school in 1933 because of what he termed attempts by Dean Wallace B. Donham to direct by dictation his teaching methods and private affairs.

Dr. Dewing was considered an innovator while at Harvard and formulated the case study method, which is still in use. In 1951, Business Week magazine referred to him as “the best loved professor at Harvard.”

Among the companies he headed were: the Portland, Chatham, Hazardville and Jewett City water companies; the Illinois Gas Co.; Pinetum, Inc.; Wetmore Gas Producing Co.; and the Granite State Gas and Electric Co.

He was also on the board of directors of the Manchester (N.H.) Gas Co.; Edward Durant Investment Co.; Fall River Gas Co.; and the Keene (NH.), Sentinel Publishing Co. He was chairman of the board of the Old Colony R.R. Bondholders Protective Committee.

Dr. Dewing was a member of the Numismatic Society and Royal Numismatic Society, and his extensive collection of Greek coins is presently on loan at the Fogg Art Museum.

He was a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was a member of the board of visitors to the classical art department of the Boston Museum of Science.

His other memberships included the American Friends of Greece, Massachusetts Historical Society, Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, Society for Preservation of New England Antiquities (past president), and the Archeological Institution of America.

He had a life-long interest in wild animals and was vice president of the Ross Allen Reptile Institute in Florida.

Among the many books he authored were Corporate Promotions and Reorganization, published in 1914, which is considered a classic. It was reprinted in American Life and Culture in 1969.

He also wrote Life as Reality (1910) Financial Policy of Corporations (1920) The Corporation — A Study of Its Financial Structure (1934), two books on philosophy, and one each on chemistry and biology.

Mr. Dewing leaves three daughters, Mrs. Lloyd L. Morain of San Francisco; Mrs. Stuart B. Avery Jr. of Lincoln; and Mrs. James D. Ewing of Keene, N.H. He also leaves eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

Arrangements for a memorial service are being made.

Source: The Boston Globe, January 21, 1971, Page 47.

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Course Description
1911-12

[Economics] 30 1hf. The Financial Aspects of Combinations. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Dr. [Arthur Stone] Dewing.

The course considers the financial aspects of combinations in the United States, giving attention, however, to the economic rather than to the business or legal problems involved. Examples of financial history and policy will be considered in some detail. The psychological as well as the economic conditions that determine the market price of railroad and industrial securities will be described with the purpose of formulating general principles. Each student will select a typical episode in the history of some combination and some general subject, such as promotion, minority rights, effect on prices, and will present reports at conferences which will sometimes replace the lectures of the course. This course is open only to those who have passed in Economics 1.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), pp. 65-66.

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Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 301 hf. Dr. [Arthur Stone] Dewing. — The Financial Aspects of Industrial Combinations.

Total 19: 1 Graduate, 8 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 30
CORPORATION FINANCE
Mid-year Final Exam
1911-12

Be concise.

THEORY. (¾ hour.)

  1. Does the law of diminishing returns usually operate in the investment of capital in (a) new steam railroads in an undeveloped country; (b) four tracking of steam railroad in a thickly settled region; (c) extensions to an electric lighting system; (d) a large cotton mill; (e) the “Westinghouse Company” (see Haskins & Sells report to receivers)?
  2. (a) What is pure interest? (b) Compensation for risk? (c) How do you determine what proportion of any given dividend return belongs to each? (d) Are there other factors included in the ordinary returns on capital? If so state the relation to (a) and (b).
  3. State briefly the most universal circumstance that has led to the necessity of re-organization in those industrial corporations which you have studied?

FINANCE

The following questions are to be answered directly from the Corporation reports PLACED IN YOUR HANDS. (1¼ hours.)

  1. See U. P. Reports for 1909–10, page 29. The capital liability on June 30, 1910 is less than on June 30, 1909. Explain.
  2. See “Western Maryland Railroad Co.’s” report June 30, 1907, page 2. Note decrease of surplus for year. Show from statistics in other parts of the report, whether or not this decrease foretells impending disaster.
  3. See U. S. Steel Report, 1910. Consolidated balance sheet (between pages 32 and 33). The last entry of liabilities calls for $33,704,439.32. Explain the significance of this entry. Should it be used as a basis for the declaration of dividends? Could a similar entry appear in a railroad report? Why?
  4. See Massachusetts Electric Company’s Report, 1910. Explain the presence of the two balance sheets, pages 10, 12 and 13. From an examination of these balance sheets what would you consider the weakest point, from an investment point of view, of the stocks of Massachusetts Electric Companies?
  5. Amalgamated Copper Company’s Report, 1911, p. 10.

Assets. Is “investment in securities” a good basis for estimating the assets of a mining corporation? Why? Suggest, if you can, a better basis?

INVESTMENTS.  (1 hour.)

  1. A trust estate purchased two underlying bonds of the “Illinois Central” of approximately the same security and both maturing the same year (1951); one bears interest at 3% and is bought at 75; the other bears interest at 5% and is bought at 115. State how you would think it just to deal with the interest and principal in both cases.
  2. The following securities all pay 8% on par value. They are all non-taxable in Massachusetts. Which one should you select for a trustee to invest in, provided the trust already held none of them?
    Arrange the others in the order of their intrinsic merit. Give basis for your judgment.
  1. New York, New Haven, & Hartford Stock, market price 140. (For financial condition see your reports.)
  2. Arlington Mills. (Lawrence, Mass.)

Dividends, 1877–1903, 6%; 1903, to date, 8%; market price, 124; 63,000 cotton spindles, 202,804 worsted spindles.

Assets

1910 1909 1908 1907
Real Estate & Machinery $4,750,000 $3,500,000 $3,500,000 $3,500,000
Merchandise & in Process 7,884,672 8,630,718 6,729,446 5,784,449
Cash & Debts Receivable 2,550,891 2,213,565 1,810,229 2,650,131
Miscellaneous 257,741 207,457 179,934 163,865
$15,443,304 $14,551,740 $12,219,609 $12,098,445

Liabilities

1910 1909 1908 1907
Capital stock $8,000,000 $6,000,000 $6,000,000 $6,000,000
New Cap. stock pay Acc’t. 1,434,530
Debts payable 4,924,911 4,292,901 4,499,662 4,187,708
Surplus 2,518,393 2,824,309 1,719,947 1,910,737
$15,443,304 $14,551,740 $12,219,609 $12,098,445
    1. American Glue Company—Preferred Stock, market price 152.

Assets

1910 1909 1908
Real Estate & Machinery $477,412 $508,701 $520,597
Stock in Process 1,015,578 941,247 1,361,245
Cash & Debts Receivable 1,551,164 1,394,607 830,917
Other items — (largely securities) 1,439,520 1,503,032 1,489,616
$4,483,674 $4,347,587 $4,202,375

Liabilities

1910 1909 1908
Capital Stock Preferred $1,600,000 $1,600,000 $1,364,300
Capital Stock Common 800,000 800,000 800,000
Account Payable 1,120,165 1,054,290 1,257,714
Surplus 963,509 893,297 780,361
$4,483,674 $4,347,587 $4,202,375
    1. American Telephone & Telegraph Company Stock, market price, 139.

Assets

Stocks & Bonds of Associates Co.’s $393,712,837.53
Telephones, Real Estate & Lines 59,702,088.10
Cash & Short Term Notes 13,736,806.84
Special Demand Notes 16,970,229.34
Accounts Receivable 6,093,415.42
Treasury Bonds 17,300,000.00
$507,515,377.23

Liabilities

Capital Stock $263,335,600.00
Bonds, etc. 146,618,000.00
Dividend, Interest, and Taxes accrued but not due 8,027,025.26
Depreciation Reserve 37,425,080.08
Surplus 52,109,671.89
$507,515,377.23

 

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF EARNINGS AND EXPENSES FOR 1909–1910

Earnings

1909 1910
Dividends $15,949,213.73 $19,205,494.35
Interest and other revenue from Ass. Co.’s 10,661,431.03 10,838,442.84
Telephone Traffic (net) 4,360,104.94 4,893,513.39
Real Estate 95,723.97 95,119.69
Other sources 1,694,867.76 325,758.44
Total $32,761,341.43 $35,358,328.71
Expenses 2,570,575.57 3,425,114.22
Net Earnings $30,190,765.86 $31,933,214.49
Deduct Interest 7,095,377.34 5,077,321.33
Balance $23,095,388.52 $26,855,893.16
Dividends Paid 17,036,275.64 20,776,822.12
Balance $6,059,112.88 $6,079,071.04
Carried to Reserves 3,000,000.00 3,000,000.00
Carried to Surplus 3,059,112.88 3,079,071.04
$6,059,112.88 $6,079,071.04
  1. Examine carefully the following investment list. The current rates of dividend for stocks can be ascertained from your reports. (a) Arrange the securities by letters (not repeating the titles), in the order of their merit, bearing in mind both security and return. (b) If the list were to be taken over by a trust, the beneficiary of which was a widow of middle age, what securities, if any, should be sold? . . . Briefly indicate the basis for your judgment. Suggest other securities which it would be desirable to purchase in place of those sold.

The principal is about evenly divided among the following:—

    1. Union Pacific stock at 166.
    2. Chicago & Alton 1950 Prior lien 3½’s at 67.
    3. N. Y. Westchester & Boston 1st M. 1946 4½’s at 98. (N. Y. New Haven & Hartford guarantor.)
    4. Brooklyn Rapid Transit stock at 74.
    5. Westinghouse Electric & Manuf. Co. stock at 73%.
    6. U. S. Steel Preferred stock at 111.
    7. New York Central Lines Equipment 1925 4½’s at 102.
    8. Detroit Edison Convertible 6’s 1920 at 115.
    9. Southern Pacific stock at 110.
    10. Erie Ry. (N. Y. & Erie 1st M. 4’s 1947) at 100.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 66-70.

Image Source: The Harvard Business School Yearbook 1924-25, p. 14.

Categories
Agricultural Economics Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Agricultural economics. Description, enrollment, final exam. Carver, 1911-1912

In 1911 Harvard economics professor Thomas Nixon Carver published a textbook Principles of Rural Economics  that undoubtedly encompassed the content of his course on agricutural economics first taught in 1903-04. Somewhat unusually his book is prefaced with an eight page bibliography.

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Carver’s Earlier Courses
on Agricultural Economics

Links to earlier course material for agricultural economics at Harvard, 1903-04 through 1908-09.

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Course Description
1911-12

[Economics] 23 2hf. Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., at 2.30. Professor Carver.

A study of the relation of agriculture to the whole industrial system, the relative importance of rural and urban economics, the conditions of rural life in different parts of the United States, the forms of land tenure and methods of rent payment, the comparative merits of large and small holdings, the status and wages of farm labor, the influence of farm machinery, farmers’ organizations, the marketing and distribution of farm products, agricultural credit, the policy of the government toward agriculture, and the probable future of American agriculture.

This course is open to students who have passed in Economics 1, and, with the consent of the instructor, to Juniors and Seniors of good standing who are taking Economics 1 at the same time.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 65.

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Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 23 2hf. Professor Carver. — Economics of Agriculture. With special reference to American conditions.

Total 95: 4 Graduates, 36 Seniors, 44 Juniors, 9 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 23
Year-end Final Exam
1911-12

  1. Why is agriculture growing less rapidly than other industries in the United States?
  2. What new agricultural products did the American continent contribute to the commerce of the world?
  3. For what is American agriculture indebted to the following countries: England, Holland, France?
  4. What determines the migrations of rural and of urban people?
  5. Why does an excessive economy of land sometimes result in a waste of labor?
  6. How, in general, do the problems of the producer of staple crops differ from those of the producer of agricultural specialities?
  7. What are the functions of the middleman, and what are the advantages of co-operation?
  8. What are some of the social results of absentee landlordism?
  9. Outline the chief stages in the development of the public land policy of the United States.
  10. What is meant by non-competing crops?
  11. Is tenancy increasing or decreasing in the United States? Why?
  12. Does the landowner as such perform any useful functions? Give your reasons.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], p. 65

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Earlier material

ca. 1904 Problem set
1903-04 Final exam
1905-06 Final exam
1908-09 Description, enrollment, final exam
1910-11 Description, enrollment, final exam

 

Image Source: Ruddy Harvest Oil, the farmer’s friend (ca. 1870-1900). 19th Century American Trade Cards collection of the Boston Public Library.

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Exam Questions France Germany Harvard History of Economics

Harvard. German and French Economics. Description, enrollment, final exam. Gay, 1911-1912

Gustav (von) Schmoller

An interesting difference between the final exams for this course is that all the earlier exams included a translate-from-German question or two. This time around the presumed “moderate reading knowledge” was not put to the test.

This picture of the young Gustav Schmoller with his hairless chin reveals what would appear to have been an incel long before it was fashionable.

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Gay’s Earlier Courses
on French and German Economists

Links to earlier course material for 19th century French and German Economists at Harvard, 1902-03 through 1908-09.

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Course Description
1911-12

[Economics] 22. German and French Economists of the Nineteenth Century. Two consecutive evening hours per week, to be arranged with the instructor. Professor Gay.

In this course selections from the works of a number of the more important German and French economists will be read and informally discussed. The influence of the English classical school will be traced, together with the criticism directed against this school by the socialists and the historical economists. Attention will also be given to the question of methods in economic investigation.

A moderate reading knowledge of German and French will of course be necessary.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 60.

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Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 22. Professor Gay. — French and German Economists of the Nineteenth Century

Total 5: 5 Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 22

  1. Discuss the value theories of Hermann, Cournot, Marx, and von Wieser.
  2. Trace the development of the theory of business profits.
  3. The views of Bastiat, List, Schmoller and Wagner on a protective tariff policy.
  4. Compare the English classical school and the German historical school as to motives, methods, and results.
  5. Assuming that you are writing a text-book on economics, how would you outline the chapters on capital and interest?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], p. 64.

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Previously offered

1902-03. Exam for 19th century German Economic Thought

1904-05. No exam found for 19th century French and German Economics.

1906-07. Exam for 19th century French and German Economics

1908-09. Enrollment, description, final exam for 19th century French and German Economists.

Image Source: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Webpage “Gustav (von) Schmoller” of the Universitätsarchiv.

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Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Socialism and Social Movement in Europe. Description, Enrollment, Final Exam. Rappard, 1911-1912

 

Biographical information for this socialism course’s instructor, William Emmanuel Rappard, and the final exam for his course on the labor movement in Europe (1912-13) have been posted earlier. Worth noting is that Karl Marx is explicitly mentioned in over half of the questions on the final examination. So Marxian socialism moves from one of many to leader of the pack.

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Course Description
1911-12

[Economics] 29 1hf. Socialism and the Social Movement in Europe. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. Dr. [William Emmanuel] Rappard.

A careful examination is made of the theories of the chief social reformers and of the leading socialists, both “Utopian” and “scientific.” There follows a study of those revolutionary outbursts of the nineteenth century which were primarily economic in their origin and social in their aims. The course concludes with a summary of the positive political and institutional achievements of the social movement of the nineteenth century.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911). p. 59.

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Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 29 1hf. Dr. [William Emmanuel] Rappard.— Socialism and the Social Movement in Europe.

Total 41: 3 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 20 Juniors, 3 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 63.

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ECONOMICS 29
Mid-year Final Exam
1911-12

  1. State briefly the socialist elements contained in the doctrines of any two pre-revolutionary French authors.
  2. State briefly the historical and logical relations existing between the Industrial Revolution and modern socialism.
  3. Give a very brief outline of the lives and works of any three of the following men: Godwin, Owen, Sismondi, Saint Simon, Fourier, Cabet, Louis Blanc, Weitling, Proudhon.
  4. Can Chartism be called a socialist movement? Why or why not?
  5. Compare Thompson’s and Marx’s theories of value with special reference to non-improved land.
  6. Discuss briefly the theory of wages involved in the Communist Manifesto.
  7. State and discuss briefly the “apparent contradiction” between the first and the third volume of Marx’s Capital.
  8. Fill out the blanks in the following table, according to the Marxian phraseology and theory.
Constant capital Variable capital Rate of surplus value Capital consumed Individual rate of profit Value of commodities produced Cost price of commodities produced Average rate of profit Price of commodities Deviation of price from value
80 20 75% 20 _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______
70 30 75% 10 _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______
  1. Discuss the nature of Marx’s originality.
  2. What have the socialists of the present day, as you know them, retained of the Marxian teachings?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 65-66.

 

Categories
Columbia Philosophy

Columbia. Ethical Issues in Economic Life. Rockefeller Foundation Sought Advice. J.M. Clark, 1948

This is a two-part post. It begins with four pages found in the papers of John Maurice Clark — a request for informal feedback regarding a new area for social science funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, “Ethical Issues in Economic Life”, followed by a two page informal response by the Columbia economics professor (son of John Bates Clark whose face appears in the rear-view mirror of our homepage).

Out of curiosity, I followed up to see what, if anything, followed this exchange of letters. The funding resulted in ten volumes published in a series “On the Ethics and Economics of Society” published by Harper & Brothers for the National Council of Churches (the National Council included the Federal Council of Churches that had received the first Rockefeller Foundation grant for the project in 1949). Participating economists included John Maurice Clark, Kenneth E. Boulding, William Vickrey, Frank H. Knight, Elizabeth E. Hoyt, Margaret G. Reid, Joseph L. McConnell, Janet M. Hooks, and Howard R. Bowen. Bowen’s notion of Corporate Social Responsibility captured the souls and minds of  many business leaders of the time — of course in the era of Charles and David Koch, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, et al. this sounds rather quaint, but it was indeed a thing! New Harmony was once a thing too.

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Brainstorming with John Maurice Clark

THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
49 WEST 49th STREET, NEW YORK 20

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

JOSEPH H. WILLITS, DIRECTOR
LELAND G. ALLBAUGH, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
NORMAN S. BUCHANAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
LELAND C. DEVINNEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
ROGER F. EVANS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
BRYCE WOOD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

CABLE ADDRESS:
ROCKFOUND, NEW YORK

July 7, 1948

Dear Clark:

I turn to you on a problem which I would very much like to think out with you. The object of this letter is to begin that process. Perhaps it is presumptuous on my part to ask to share your considered reflection on a difficult subject; but such assaults on your time are the price you pay for possessing the kind of experience and insights that men respect.

The program of The Rockefeller Foundation has emphasized support to expand knowledge. I assume it will continue to do so, since the foundation provided by such work is basic in any effort to serve human welfare. But it grows steadily more evident that illumination in the moral issues of modern society is needed, not as a substitute for, but as a building upon, the best of scientific knowledge and the facts of experience.

Each division of the Foundation has to approach this problem in terms of its own area of responsibility. In the Social Sciences division we are trying to answer the question whether Rockefeller Foundation support can function effectively in this area by examining the questions involved in this subject: “Ethical Issues in Economic Life.” In is in this connection that I would very much value your judgment.

I don’t need to elaborate this subject to you. It is evident that the ethical issues of western civilization – those growing out of corporate organization, and the organization of labor, those of individuals acting in behalf of and under the direction of others, and all those involved in the great complexities of modern social relations that lead to conflict of loyalties – are subjects of the greatest confusion in men’s minds. Studies to define these issues more clearly have the possibility of being a fruitful supplement to efforts to expand knowledge. But, I repeat, that such studies should be built upon the best of human experience and scientific knowledge and should not attempt to detour the findings from these areas.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I am asking a few men whose judgment and insights I respect whether they would assist the Foundation in its consideration of possibilities of Foundation action in the field of “Ethical Issues in Economic Life.” You are one of these.

Specifically, I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to give us, as soon as convenient, your advice on such questions as the following:

(1) Do you think this field offers a constructive opportunity for The Rockefeller Foundation?

(2) What are the objectives that could be set up to guide studies in this field?

(3) From your own study and experience, what do you consider the aspects of the problem which may most fruitfully be given attention?

(4) Do you care to suggest the names of persons who would be competent or eligible to work on the problems you indicate as important?

(5) Any suggestions as to auspices, set-up, and procedure of attack which might occur to you would be appreciated.

This sounds as though I were asking for a formal document. I do not expect that. What I am asking for is an informal, conversational letter giving your first reactions to issues in policy we are facing. I would deeply appreciate it if you would give us your views.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Joseph H. Willits

Professor J. Maurice Clark
512 Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

JHW:DAA
Dictated by Mr. Willits but signed in his absence.

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John Maurice Clark’s Response

3-Corner Pond, R.D.6, Augusta, Maine, July 13, ’48

Dr. Joseph H. Willits;
Rockefeller Foundation;
49 West 49 St.;
New York 20, N.Y.;

Dear Joe:

Needless to say, your question about ethical issues in economic life interests me hugely. It’s a tremendous set of problems, and can be approached in a variety of ways which might make useful contributions, including some that might be superficially inconsistent with one another. It might be approached by separate studies, or merely by broadening the perspective of the ordinary kinds of studies so as to admit ethical questions. It might attempt to formulate ethical standards and apply them, or to preserve “scientific” objectivity and impartiality and merely report what judgments and standards of an ethical sort enter into the motivation of actual behavior. Or it may describe actual processes, and the alternatives involved in policy decisions, in terms of the values that enter into ethical judgments. In such cases the verdict may be fairly self-evident, or it may not. It may reveal a conflict of values which existing ethical generalizations do not resolve – for example, different kinds of “freedom” in conflict with one another. I am enough of a Dewey disciple to feel that one of the great services of the “social sciences” is to increase the detail and specific content of our knowledge of the nature of the alternatives that face us, thereby leading to inevitable modifications of the judgments we have made in the past, thereby causing ethical standards to evolve. In some cases, the verdict is plain enough so that the “social scientist” is warranted in recording it for himself, without fear of doing violence to accepted and prevailing standards; in other cases, it may constitute a problem needing to be submitted to whatever is the proper tribunal or symposium.

One form of approach would try to make a connection between two kinds of ethical standard, either of which might be taken as the initial starting-point. One is the kinds and degrees of consideration for the “rights” of others that are necessary to make our system work; the other is the existing conceptions of “rights” and obligations which people have to start with, on which to build toward the further developments that have been revealed as necessary. The result may be to put new content into the existing standards.

I tend to accept the prevailing set of standards of western or American society – the underlying ones, as I conceive them – as given data for most of our studies. I have been looking at a little book called “Advanced Economic Theory” by an Indian, J.K. Mehta, which undertakes the interesting job of tying together the neo-classical standard of maximizing utility with the Indian standard of attaining happiness through elimination of all wants, which he accepts as the highest standard, but attainable by only a select few. I don’t see that he succeeds very well – after all, even the select few have to eat, though he appears explicitly to disregard this necessity. For us, the expansion of wants seems to be dictated by the requirement of jobs, in our system; also by the requirement of economic power available for defense, as long as there is threat of war, and as long as we are incapable of living up to the ethic of non-resistance.

All of this may not be getting very close to the specific problems of Foundation studies. I think the field is tremendously important; but I have reservations about the advantage of setting it up as a distinct field, with the “ethical” label. There are undoubtedly some studies that could be set up in that way; but they make up only a part, and perhaps a relatively small part, of the whole area involved.

In the field of actual loyalties and conceptions of rights, the work that Bakke is doing at Yale seems significant, from what little I know about it. And you might get good leads from Ordway Tead and Beardsley Ruml. From the more distinctively ethical angle, I have a nephew, John Alden Clark, who is professor of philosophy at Colby College, who is trying to relate the development of ethical standards to the kind of findings as to facts and relations which the social sciences deal with; and you might be interested in getting in touch with him and finding out more than I can tell you offhand about what he is doing and whether it would fit in. There seems to be an important, and tremendously difficult job, in the field of actual motivation of business in its price and production policies, including the elements of responsibility for long-run good social policy, insofar as it may enter in. I’m thinking of the doing of a bigger and better job of the sort Hall and Hitch did in their Oxford study. The abstract theorists have given unconscious testimony to the significance of that job by the fervor with which they have attacked it. It seems to have gotten to them where they live – got under their skins. I am casually wondering whether Joel Dean would be useful in that connection.

Well, I have taken you at your word, and been thinking out loud, not too formally or systematically, and seem to have run out of constructive suggestions. There’s a lot there.

Sincerely yours;

J.M.Clark.

Source: Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. John M. Clark Collection. Box 28 (Economic Theory and Methodology). Folder “Welfare Economics”.

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MORAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS
IN MODERN SOCIETY
EXPLORATORY STUDIES

Thanks to grants from the Rockefeller Foundation program, the Study Committee of the Federal Council of Churches published the  multi-volume series The Ethics and Economics of Society (Harper & Brothers). The first Rockefeller Foundation grant was for 1949-51, the second grant for 1952-[ca. 1955/56].

The Department of the Church and Economic Life of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America began the study of Christian Ethics and Economic Life in 1949.  At the beginning of 1951 the Federal Council merged with other interdenominational organizations to form the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.

The Rockefeller Foundation in 1948 appropriated a fund of $25,000 to be used by officers of the Social Sciences in exploring opportunities for research on the moral and ethical problems in modern society.
It is planned to make a few grants to other agencies and to invite memoranda from men of affairs who have significant ideas to contribute.

Source: The Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report 1948, p. 250.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Project Publications
  • Goals of Economic Life (1953) edited by A. Dudley Ward (Director of the Project, staff member of the National Council of Churches)

Editorial Committee: John Maurice Clark (economist); Theodore M. Greene (philosopher); Reinhold Niebuhr (theologian); William Vickrey (economist).

Other contributors: Kenneth E. Boulding (economist); Clarence H. Danhof (economist); Eduard Heimann (economist); Robert Morrison MacIver (sociologist/political scientist); Frank H. Knight (economist); Clark C. Bloom (economist); Walton Hamilton (jurist); Alfred E. Emerson (zoologist); Ralph Linton (anthropologist); Donald Snygg (psychologist); John C. Bennett (theologian).

  • The Organizational Revolution. A Study in the Ethics of Economic Organization (1953) by Kenneth E. Boulding (economist).
  • Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (1953) by Howard R. Bowen (economist). – Considered to be the origin of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility.
  • American Income and Its Use (1954) by Elizabeth E. Hoyt (economist), Margaret G. Reid (economist), Joseph L. McConnell (economist), and Janet Montgomery Hooks (economist).
  • The American Economy—Attitudes and Opinions (1955) by A. Dudley Ward.
  • Christian Values and Economic Life (1954) by John Coleman Bennett (theologian), Howard R. Bowen (economist), William Adams Brown, Jr. (economist) and G. Bromley Oxnam (president of World Council of Churches, 1948-54).
  • Ethics in a Business Society (1954) by Marquis W. Childs (journalist) and Douglass Cater (journalist, later special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson).  “Our volume was originally stimulated by the series itself. During our writing we have had access to both the published volumes and the manuscripts wstill to be published and other sources. What we have written, therefore, is not a part of the study series itself but rather our interpretaion and reflection on all the materials we have used.”
  • Social Responsibility in Farm Leadership (1956) by Walter W. Wilcox (agricultural economist).
  • Social Responsibilities of Organized Labor (1957) by John A. Fitch (industrial relations)
  • Responsibility in Mass Communication (1957) by Wilbur Schramm

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Christian Principles and Assumptions for Economic Life. Adopted by the General Board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (September 15, 1954).

“Ten Books on Ethics and Economics” article in Christianity Today (22 June 1959). Full access requires subscription.

 

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economist Market Economists

Columbia. Background inquiry regarding John Maurice Clark. Seligman, 1925

John Maurice Clark

Apparently what happened in Chicago didn’t have to stay in Chicago, judging from the casual background check on John Maurice Clark seen in the letter sent to the chairman of the political science department there, Charles E. Meriam (Columbia PhD, 1900), by Edwin R.A. Seligman, the executive officer [chairman] of the department of economics at Columbia. It would be interesting to know whether or what the colleagues at Chicago answered. In any event John Maurice Clark was appointed professor of economics as of the academic year 1926-27. I must say November 1925 seems rather late in the game to be making such discrete inquiries. Was Seligman looking to cover his backside or was he looking for evidence to possibly block Clark’s appointment. Under either interpretation, the matter would have been delicate.

___________________________

Cast of Characters

The economists have been introduced in other posts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:

John Maurice Clark. …graduated from Amherst in 1905 and received his Ph.D. at Columbia five years later. He taught at Colorado College, Amherst and the University of Chicago before joining the Columbia faculty in 1926. He retired in 1956.

Source: From his obituary in the New York Times (June 28, 1963).
Incidentally, the biographical notes for Clark have incorrect dates for his professorship, but for the sake of completeness I include the link to the finding guide to his papers. Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book & Manuscript Library. John Maurice Clark papers, 1920-1963. Collection Overview.

Image Source: John Maurice Clark. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-0171.  Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Edwin R. A. Seligman. Columbia A.B. 1879; A.M. 1884; L.L.B. 1884; Ph.D. 1885; L.L.D. 1904. Seligman served on the Columbia University faculty 1885-1931; the Tax Committee of New York City 1914-1916 and of New York State 1929-1931; the League of Nations committee on economics and finance 1922-1923; financial advisor to Cuba in 1931; editor of the Political Science Quarterly and the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, among many other roles.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Edwin Anderson Seligman papers, 1750-1939. Collection Overview.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Ernst Freund, 1864-1932, was professor of law at the University of Chicago from 1902 to his death. Born in New York City during a brief visit by his German parents, Freund was raised in Dresden and Frankfurt-am-Main. He was educated at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, receiving a Doctor of Law degree from the latter in 1884. Soon after, Freund immigrated to the United States where he practiced law in New York City. In 1892, he expanded his career by accepting a position as acting professor of administrative law at Columbia College. This position sparked an interest in teaching, which led Freund, in 1894, to abandon his law practice in order to accept a full-time appointment on the political science faculty at the University of Chicago as instructor of Roman law and jurisprudence. During his early years at Chicago, Freund pursued a part-time graduate career at Columbia, which awarded him a Ph.D. in political science in 1897.

Ernst Freund played a significant role in the founding of the University of Chicago Law School. William Rainey Harper’s original plan for legal education at Chicago was to integrate a research-oriented institute of jurisprudence into the graduate programs of the university proper. In spite of his interest in political science and jurisprudence, Freund urged Harper to develop instead a professional graduate law school whose standards would surpass those of Harvard and Columbia. It was Freund’s argument that legal research was already being conducted in the Departments of History, Political Science, Sociology, and Political Economy. If the new Law School attracted a quality faculty interested in the teaching of law, a research relationship would naturally develop. Freund’s idea of legal curriculum incorporated traditional methods with a new emphasis on the Law School’s responsibility to the University and community at large. In addition to standard courses, Freund advocated the teaching of constitutional and international law, administrative law, and various courses under the rubric of jurisprudence, which were then being taught in other departments of the University. This curriculum broke with the Harvard plan that stressed more strictly legal subjects which was then accepted as the model for American legal education. In spite of this concept of legal education, Freund turned to Harvard for leadership in organizing the new Law School. He recommended that Harper recruit Harvard’s Joseph H. Beale, one of the foremost legal scholars in the nation, on a two-year appointment to put the new school in order. Beale accepted Harper’s offer only after making it clear that Freund’s plan would have to be modified. The resulting curriculum is described by Frank Ellsworth in his Developments in American Legal Education at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation, 1976). Ellsworth writes:

By merging the traditional technical insight of Beale with the innovative ideals of Freund, a blend of the traditional and a farsighted curriculum occured and resulted in the first significant effort to liberalize the curriculum in legal education since Langdell’s work at Harvard.

Freund joined the faculty of the new Law School as Professor in 1902. He continued in that position until 1929 when he was appointed the first holder of the John P. Wilson Professorship in Law, a position he held until his death in 1932.

Freund’s career was composed of three basic parts: teacher, scholar, and advisor. In each of these areas, he integrated traditional legal scholarship, augmented by his experience in the German university, with a new emphasis on the interdisciplinary approach to legal education. Freund taught subjects which ranged from administrative law to social legislation and domestic relations. His scholarship rested on such significant contributions as The Police Power: Public Policy and Constitutional Rights (1904) and Standards of American Legislation (1917) for which he was awarded the James Barr Ames medal of the Harvard Law School. Along with these and other major works were numerous articles in the Social Science Review, Labor Legislation Review, and the Political Science Quarterly, which dealt with subjects that ranged from health insurance to illegitimacy. Freund played a major role as advisor to legislative agencies around the United States. He served as commissioner from Illinois to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. He drafted the act creating the Illinois State Immigrant’s Commission and served as president of the Immigrant’s Protective League. His devotion to these and other social welfare activities led Jane Addams to eulogize him as one who, “never once failed to be sensitive to injustice and preventable suffering.”

Source: Guide to the Ernst Freund Papers 1882-1934. University of Chicago Library, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Charles E. Merriam was a Political scientist and politician. A.B., Lenox College, 1893; A.B., State University of Iowa, 1895. A.M., Columbia University, 1898; Ph.D., 1900. Docent in political science, University of Chicago, 1900-1902; associate, 1902-1903; instructor, 1903-1905; assistant professor, 1905-1907; associate professor, 1907-1911; professor, 1911-1940; chairman, Department of Political Science, 1923-1940; Morton D. Hull Distinguished Professor of Political Science. Chicago alderman, 1909-1911 and 1913-1917. Candidate for mayor of Chicago, 1911 and 1919. Founder, Social Science Research Council, 1924.

Source: Guide to the Charles E. Merriam Papers 1893-1957, p. 8. University of Chicago Library, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center.

___________________________

What’s John Maurice Clark really like?… asking for a friend?

[Copy of typed letter]

Also to Professor Ernst Freund

November 4, 1925

Professor Charles E. Merriam,
University of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois.

My dear Merriam:

            I am taking the liberty of writing to you on a very private and confidential matter and I hope that you will respond in an equally frank and confidential way. The point is this: we are thinking of adding to our corps of professors in the Faculty of Political Science (and we are on the lookout for the biggest man in the United States who is available). One of the two or three men that I have in mind is Maurice Clark, who of course I know very well as an old and excellent student. I want, however, to ascertain a little more about the following points:

1) Is it true, as is sometimes stated, that he is an exceptionally poor teacher and that he does not even interest the best graduate students, for the alleged reason that he is more of a closet philosopher who takes very little interest in human beings?

2) Is it true that he does not pull his oar in the ordinary departmental and faculty work and that he is of a rather non-cooperative disposition?

As to his brilliancy and creative power, I need no advice because those qualities are perfectly familiar to me, and while I am not at all sure that even if your answers to my questions were in the affirmative, those defects would outweigh his qualities, but I do count upon your giving me confidentially your opinion about these matters.

Of course it goes without saying that things are still in the embryo condition and that all I am trying to do now is to get a little more light on the situation so that I can bring it to the attention of my colleagues.

I am by no means sure that even if we should decide that Clark was the right man for us, he could be prevailed upon to leave the place where he is so happy as he is with you, — but all that is in the distant future.

With kind regards,

Faithfully yours,

P.S. Of course you will say nothing of this to anyone else.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson Collection, Box 37 (Box 100: Columbia 1924-1930).

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Law and Economics

Harvard. Law of Competition and Combination. Description, enrollment, final exam. Wyman, 1911-1912

Law professor Bruce Wyman offered a regular course covering aspects of business law that together with William M. Cole’s Principles of Accounting helped to serve the demand of many students for some vocational training to help prepare themselves for life after Harvard.

Bruce Wyman resigned his professorship of law in December 1913 when it came out that he was drawing $833 per month from the New Haven and the Boston & Maine (railroads)…

“…for delivering lectures favorable to the roads without the fact being known that he was a paid employe. He admitted that, while employed as their consulting counsel he helped Gov. Foss to frame the Public Utilities bill, which was designed to give the State better control of the railroad situation.”

Source: New York Times, December 21, 1913, p. 30.

 

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Business Law for Economics Students
pre-1911/12

Links to earlier course material for Wymans’s course offering for the Harvard economics department 1900-01 through 1910-11.

________________________

Course Description
1911-12

*211hf. The Law of Competition and Combination. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12. Professor Wyman, assisted by Mr. —— . (V)

Course 21 is not open to students before their last year of undergraduate work, and is only open to those who have passed in Economics 1.

The course considers certain rules of the law governing the course of modern trade and the organization of modern industry. As the course deals with adjudication and legislation on questions of first importance in the economic development of modern times, it is of advantage to all those who wish to equip themselves for the intelligent discussion of issues having both legal and economic aspects. In 1911-12 four principal topics will be discussed: competition; combination; association; consolidation, — some very briefly, some with more detail. The conduct of the course will be by the reading and discussion of cases from the law reports, which are contained in an edited series of case books.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 67.

________________________

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 21 1hf. Professor Wyman, assisted by Messrs. Hughes and [R. M.] Johnson. — The Law of Competition and Combination.

Total 156: 3 Graduates, 107 Seniors, 44 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.

________________________

ECONOMICS 21¹
Mid-year Examination, 1911-12

Give your reasons fully but briefly.

  1. The X oil company, selling oil at wholesale to grocers in a certain state, finds that the Y oil company is getting away part of its customers. The X company thereupon sends out retail wagons, selling oil at a 33⅓% discount, letting the grocers know that this retailing at this price will be continued so long as the grocers buy from the Y company. The grocers soon withdraw their patronage from the Y company, which thereupon sues the X company. What result?
  2. The union employes in a certain mill vote a strike, ostensibly for higher wages, but in reality to get the non-union men thrown out of employment by the closing of the mills. As soon as the mills shut down, they offer to pay the expenses of the non-union men to other towns where they can get work. The employers take the union men back as a body at higher wages. Afterwards learning of the facts, they sue the officers of the unions for damages. What result?
  3. There is a water company in a certain city which refuses to sell its works to the city at the price offered. Thereupon the city installs a sewerage system and a water works of its own, charging $10 a year for sewerage service to all persons except those who take water from the city works, such takers not being charged anything for sewerage service. Has the water company any legal complaint?
  4. A wall paper jobber having on hand a lot of wall paper which he has bought from the Wall Paper Trust under the agreement that he will not sell it below certain prices, a rival of the wall paper trust offers him better prices for its own goods if he will throw the trust paper on the market below the price restriction and thereby make other jobbers throughout the country uneasy. Can the Wall Paper Trust sue its rival for damages?
  5. All the shop-keepers but one in a certain village sign an agreement that they will no longer give trading stamps to their customers and that they will not sell any goods to any person who buys of the shop-keeper who has refused to sign. One of the signers announces the next day that he is going to give trading stamps again. Can he be enjoined?
  6. An association of dealers in plumbers supplies makes a list of those who owe any member, which is regularly circulated among the members. A certain plumber, who has not paid one of his bills because of a dispute as to its accuracy, finds that he cannot get any more supplies on credit. What remedy has he?
  7. A corporation in which X owns all the stock is owed $5000 by A, due January 1, 1912. X owes A $5000 due on the same day. X wants to know whether if A sues him he (X) can set off what he (A) owes the corporation.
  8. A corporation organized to make padlocks buys on credit, at a certain price, some brass which, unknown to the seller, it intends to make into candle sticks. What can the seller sue it for?
  9. A corporation, 51% of the stock in which is held by the Sugar Trust, sells sugar on credit to jobbers with the proviso that no sugar shall be sold by them to retailers who handle a rival brand. What can the trust sue the jobbers for?
  10. A corporation having control of 60% of the match business contracts with the owners of 51% of the shares of a rival match company for the purchase of its property at a certain number of its shares or a fair cash option to the dissenting holders. Can it get specific performance of this contract?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 63-64.

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Earlier Law Courses taught at the Harvard Economics Department

1901-02. Autobiographical note, enrollment, course description, syllabus, exams.

1902-03. Obituary, enrollment, course description, exams.

1903-04. Enrollment and exams.

1904-05. Enrollment, course description, exams.

1905-06. Enrollment, paper assignments, exams.

1906-07. Enrollment, paper topics, exams.

1908-09. Enrollment and exams.

1909-10. Enrollment and exam.

1910. About Wyman’s reputation as a soft-grader (a “snapper problem”) and the scandal that led to the resignation of his Harvard law professorship in 1913.

1910-11. Description, enrollment and exam.

Image Source: Professor of Law Bruce Wyman. The Harvard Classbook 1913.