Author: Irwin Collier

Michigan. Account of lecture on economic and sociological theory. Boulding, 1961

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-09-06

My first presentation at an ASSA annual meeting took place in an 8-10 a.m. session on Sunday, December 30, 1979 in Atlanta, Georgia. At “my” session were three paper authors together with the chair. Across from the four economists sitting at the panelists’ table was a public of three. Sitting in the first row of chairs was the thesis advisor of my fellow panelist Robert Scott Gassler, Professor Kenneth Boulding. So considering the product of quality and quantity of attendees, I was pretty fortunate with that early Sunday morning public. Most of the economists following Economics in the Rear-view Mirror have their own stories of brushes with legendary economists and that was mine with Kenneth Boulding. But let’s get to the Boulding content of today’s post.

Kenneth Boulding has always been a favorite of economists with interdisciplinary leanings. Fewer probably remember him as the John Bates Clark medalist (1949) who followed Samuelson and preceded Friedman, Tobin, Arrow, Klein, and Solow. He was one of a dying breed of economists having a range and depth of interests that spanned the social sciences. He has no single method or empirical finding that has survived in the textbooks that I am familiar with. However, in most every random foray into his writings I have usually found some nugget of insight or wisdom to keep.

This post began as an exploration of the University of Michigan student newspaper archives. I stumbled upon an account of a 1961 lecture given by Kenneth Boulding. The newspaper story included a photo of him that I had not ever seen. Most images one finds are typically of the later, American bald eagle look that was iconic Boulding and how he is etched on my memory. The image from the newspaper article is presumably from 1960 or 1961 and worth including among the economist mugshots shared by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Prefacing the transcribed newspaper report of Kenneth Boulding’s 1961 lecture “Economic Theory and Sociological Theory” are (i) an interdisciplinary verse composed by Boulding (included in his contribution to the 1963 AEA Papers and Proceedings); (ii) the University of Michigan’s tribute to him on the occasion of the award of an honorary doctor of laws degree (1978); (iii) a brief biographical sketch from the finding aid to Boulding’s papers at the University of Michigan.

Links to four published works from 1962 have been appended to the post to provide some meat to the skeleton of a lecture reported in the University of Michigan newspaper account.

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A Boulding Verse

Four things that give mankind a shove
Are threats, exchange, persuasion, love;
But taken in the wrong proportions
These give us cultural abortions.
For threats bring manifold abuses
In games where everybody loses;
Exchange enriches every nation
But leads to dangerous alienation;
Persuaders organize their brothers
But fool themselves as well as others;
And love, with longer pull than hate,
Is slow indeed to propagate.

Source: Boulding, Kenneth E. “Towards a Pure Theory of Threat Systems.” The American Economic Review 53, no. 2 (1963): 424–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1823883.

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Honorary Degree
University of Michigan
(December 17, 1978)

Since Kenneth Boulding, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, was Professor of Economics at The University of Michigan for twenty years, we may claim him as our own. Here, stimulated by our Institute for Social Research, he was able to go “beyond economics” into the philosophical and psychological problems, ranging from consumer-behavior to war-and-peace, of conflict resolution.

Honors soon followed: the John B. Clark medal for Economics, the American Council of Learned Societies’ prize in the Humanities, the Presidency of the American Association, memberships in the National Academy of Science and the American Philosophical Society. He has been visiting Professor at the University College of Kingston, Jamaica; the University of Natal; the University of Edinburgh; and the International Christian University in Tokyo. He is at home in the world as well as the universe.

A member of the Society of Friends, Professor Boulding has carried his religious commitment into the practice of love to achieve through his more than thirty challenging books goals heretofore deemed unattainable. Early he discovered that the actual writing of poetry is a whetstone with which to sharpen one’s English prose. Out of his discipline, his humanity, and his
faith, Kenneth Boulding, to quote one of his own “eiconic” phrases from The Image, has built a true “Temple of the Mind.”

With admiration and love, therefore, The University of Michigan bestows upon him the degree Doctor of Laws.

Source: University of Michigan. Faculty History Project.

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Biographical Note from the Boulding papers at Michigan

Kenneth Ewart Boulding, professor of economics and pacifist, was born in Liverpool, England, January 18, 1910. He was educated at New College, Oxford, England (1928-1932) and the University of Chicago (1932-1934). Boulding taught economics at Colgate (1937-1941), Fisk (1942-1943), Iowa State (1943-1946), and McGill University (1946-1947) before joining the University of Michigan as a professor of economics, 1949-1967. Since 1968, Boulding has been associated with the University of Colorado at Boulder as a professor of economics and director for the Program on General Social and Economic Dynamics and the Institute of Behavioral Science.

Some of his related activities and honors included receiving the John Bates Clark Medal for Economics for 1949; a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1954-1955; visiting professorships in Jamaica (1959-1960) and Japan (1963-1964); and directing the University of Michigan Center for Research in Conflict Resolution (1964-1966). Boulding also wrote numerous books, articles, and book reviews. Boulding was active in several peace, anti-nuclear, and disarmament groups, notably the Society of Friends and the National Council of Churches Department of the Church and Economic Life, and UNESCO. His wife, Elise (Biorn-Hansen) Boulding, was a sociologist and also very active in the international peace movement, women’s issues, and Quaker activities.

Kenneth Boulding viewed economics as a creative and philosophical integration of various disciplines–political science, sociology and anthropology. He coined the word “eiconics” to describe the weaving together and restructuring of interdisciplinary knowledge.

Source: Finding aid for the Kenneth Ewart Boulding Papers, 1880-1968, University of Michigan Library.

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Boulding Cites Passage To ‘Post Civilization Era’

By PHILIP SUTIN
The Michigan Daily (March 2, 1961)

“The world is passing from the civilization era to a post civilization era,” Prof. Kenneth Boulding of the economics department said yesterday in, his lecture on “Economic Theory and Sociological Theory.”

He noted that many of the characteristics of civilization are disintegrating. Cities, national defense, poverty, and exploitation which distinguishes this order are now changing.

National Defense

As an example he cited national defense. “National defense as a social system ended in 1945,” he said.

He explained his hypothesis by the theory of oligopoly. In a bipolar situation, for example, each nation has a certain basic home strength and declining foreign power as the distance from that nation increases. A boundary of equal strength exists between the two which shifts with variations in power until one is no longer viable.

However, today nations are at a point where they are no longer unconditionally viable due to their lack of desire or inability to reduce the power of the opposition, he said.

“Oligopoly can be demonstrated by two firms, A and B, which produce identical commodities. The total costs of transportation increase with increasing distance from the firm.

“A boundary of indifference exists between them where the consumer goes equally to both.

Push Boundary

“If A should cut his price, the boundary will be pushed toward B. This price cutting and shifting of boundaries will continue until one cannot cut his price. He can then no longer be viable,” Boulding explained.

“This is analogous to the arms race,” he said.

In discussing social theory, Boulding noted that all social sciences are essentially one. Each discipline takes pieces of the social system, often in incompatible ways.

In their studies social scientists take different levels of abstraction and parcel out the various institutions. The first action, he said, is laudable while the second is deplorable.

However, social scientists cannot study people, as they are much too complicated. So they try to develop a series of abstractions which are relevant to reality.

Meet Difficulties

They run into difficulties, however, in trying to find the level of abstraction. Society encompasses the entire social systems which is fundamentally symbolic, he explained.

“Social scientists have never succeeded in developing a level of abstraction to deal with symbolic systems. They do not know what to abstract out of them or what gives these symbolic systems power,” Boulding said.

Sociology can learn a great deal from economics as many social phenomena have exchange relationships like those that occur in economics.

The basic unit of economics, he noted is the commodity. This world of commodity is seen in terms of price. “It is only accidental to the economist that people move commodities,” Boulding noted,

Generalize Exchange

However, exchange can be generalized, missing important factors in social relationships. As an example, Boulding cited labor relations. “The economist pulls out the commodity from labor, but leaves a great residue. Group relations and alternative uses of time are important factors. A great cloud of reality overshadows- the economic framework of labor relations,” Boulding said.

He noted other comparisons between economics and sociology. The economist, he said, looks at behavior as fundamentally a problem of choice.

The individual looks over the field of alternatives, puts an evaluation in terms of ordinal numbers on each possibility, and chooses number one.

However, “rational behavior may not be sensible behavior” as rationality is merely ordering the field.

The economists view people in terms of this field theory, Boulding explained. Behavorial action tends toward the point of highest utility.

Source: The Michigan Daily, vol. 71, issue 105 (March 2, 1961), p. 5.

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Sample of Boulding’s Writings
(1962)

Boulding, Kenneth E. Conflict and Defense. New York: Harper & Bros., 1962.
Boulding, Kenneth E. “Where Are We Going If Anywhere? A Look at Post-Civilization.” Human Organization 21, no. 2 (1962): 162–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44127756 .
Boulding, Kenneth E. “The Death of the City: A Frightened Look at Post-Civilization.” Ekistics 13, no. 75 (1962): 19–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43617612 .
Davis, James A., and Kenneth E. Boulding. Review of Two Critiques of Homans’ Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms, by George Caspar Homans. American Journal of Sociology 67, no. 4 (1962): 454–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2775146.

Image Source: The Michigan Daily, vol. 71, issue 105 (March 2, 1961), p. 5.

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Cornell Dartmouth Economists Harvard Michigan Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Recitation section work described. Day, 1914

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-09-05

About 110 years ago the structure of a common lecture and smaller recitation sections for large college courses was novel enough to warrant a description with explanation. The assistant professor of economics and statistician, Edmund Ezra Day (Harvard Ph.D., 1909) penned a two page article for the Harvard Illustrated Magazine that is transcribed following a brief overview of Day’s career.

Day went on to professorships at Harvard and the University of Michigan followed by a detour through the Rockefeller Foundation that took him to the Presidency of Cornell University. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror begins this post with a chronology of Edmund Ezra Day’s life.

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Biographical Timeline

1883. Born December 7 to Ezra Alonzo and Louise Moulton (Nelson) Day at Manchester, New Hampshire.

1905. B.S., Dartmouth College (Phi Beta Kappa).

1906. A.M., Dartmouth College.

1906-10. Instructor of economics, Dartmouth College.

1909. Ph.D., Harvard University. Thesis: “The History of the General Property Tax in Massachusetts.”

1910-20. Assistant professor of economics, Harvard University.

1912. Married June 5 to Emily Sophia Emerson (daughter of Dean Charles F. Emerson of Dartmouth College). Two sons and two daughters.

1915. Questions on the Principles of Economics (with Joseph Stancliffe Davis). New York: Macmillan.

1918. Seven months as statistician of the division of planning and statistics of the U. S. shipping board. Director, in 1919.

1918. September to December 1918 as statistician of the central bureau of planning and statistics of the war industries board.

1920-23. Professor of economics, Harvard University.

1920. “An Index of the Physical Volume of Production”. The Review of Economic Statistics (September 1920—January 1921).

1922. Revised edition of Questions on the Principles of Economics (with Joseph Stancliffe Davis). New York: Macmillan.

1920-23. Chairman of the department of economics.

1923-27. Professor of economics, University of Michigan. Beginning second semester of 1922-23 academic year)

1923-24. Chairman department of economics, University of Michigan.

1925. Statistical Analysis. New York: Macmillan.

1924-28. Founding dean of the school of business administration, University of Michigan. (leave of absence during 1927-28).

1927. Dean of Administration, University of Michigan.

1927. President of the American Statistical Association.

1927-28. Leave of absence to act as administrative head of Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial for the promotion of social sciences in New York City.

1928. The Growth of Manufactures, 1899 to 1923. A Study of Indexes of Increase in the Volume of Manufactured Products (with Woodlief Thomas). Census Monographs VIII. Washington, D.C.: USGPO.

1928-37. Director for the social sciences of the Rockefeller Foundation.

1930-37. Director for general education and for the social sciences with the General Education Board.

1932-33. U.S. representative on the preparatory commission of experts for the economic conference, held in London in 1933.

1937-49. President of Cornell University.

1941. The Defense of Freedom: Four Addresses on the Present Crisis in American Democracy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

1941 or 1942. Oncoming Changes in the Organization of American Public Education. By Edmund E. Day, Chairman of the Committee on Teacher Education of the Association of Colleges and Universities of the State of New York.

1949-50. Chancellor, Cornell University.

1951. March 23. Died from a heart attack.

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

Other misc. facts: Edmund Ezra Day was president of the New York State Citizens Council, the Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, the World Student Service Fund; he was chairman of the American Council on Education, director of the National Bureau of Economic Research, director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (appointed January 1937), Councillor of the National Industrial Conference Board, and a trustee of Tuskegee institute beginning 1939. He held fifteen honorary degrees.

Sources:

Memorial minute. Cornell, 1951.
Ithaca Journal, March 23, 1951. p. 1. “Dr. Day, President Emeritus of Cornell, Dies at 67 of heart Attack in his Car.”
The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1942.

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Section Work in Economics

EDMUND E. DAY, ’09, Assistant Professor in Economics.

Among the methods of undergraduate instruction, the section-meeting is of large importance. By the section-meeting is meant an exercise attended by only a fraction of the men enrolled in the course. Usually it stands combined in varying proportions with the lecture. Usually, too, it is not in charge of the instructor “giving the course” (sic), but rather of an assistant. But neither of these common features is essential to the section idea.

The most important single question raised by the section method is: What is its purpose? Undoubtedly the section may, and does, serve many ends. It clearly is valuable in the grading of undergraduate work. It is in this rôle that, in many courses, the section is really significant. Such are the cases in which one-half of the only section-hour each week is devoted to a written test, and the balance of the hour to remarks by the assistant. But the section may certainly be made more than an adjunct to the College Office. Obviously, the section-meeting fosters that familiarity between student and instructor which should invariably exert a wholesome influence; serving the same purpose in undergraduate instruction that publicity does in politics.

Furthermore, in many courses the section-meeting offers the only opportunity for open discussion, for a free give and take between instructor and instructed. Such discussion is the sine qua non of effective teaching in many, if not in most, subjects. It develops clear thinking, power in logical analysis, and effective speech. It stimulates that interest which encourages faithful work from day to day, instead of hasty cramming at examinations. In general, it makes for permanent intellectual power as against temporary mental acquisition.

Such being the opportunities of the section-meeting, by what organization and methods may they best be seized? The immediate interest of the student might seem to demand that the instructor in charge of the course should conduct its sections. But this would violate every rule of good economy. Professors of scholarly and scientific experience and reputation, while they would probably give section instruction better than most assistants, have a vastly greater advantage in the work they are at present doing. In the long run they best advance undergraduate instruction by delegating section work to the younger men. Nor is this so generally to the disadvantage of the section as is commonly supposed. As a rule, the young instructor of promise brings to his task a zest, a sympathetic knowledge of college ways and ideals, an appreciation of the difficulties of the beginner which the older man has long since lost. And after all, teaching ability is in large measure a gift which needs little polishing by experience, good teachers are just as rare among older men as among the younger.

Section instructors and students should be, as we have noted, on terms of familiarity. Therefore assistants should be selected with great care. Appointments in the past have perhaps too little emphasized the need of certain human qualities not weighted in the Ph.D. examination. The leaven of a little sympathy, of more good humor, and of still more downright fairness and good sense works wonders in raising the level of section instruction.

Grading seems an essential element in section work, but it should be reduced to a minimum. This does not mean that it should be confined to a written test. Some grading had best accompany work in discussion. This seems necessary to compel intelligent discussion. Too often discussion degenerates into what the undergraduate expressively calls “drool.” Upon the other hand, so-called discussion sometimes is narrowed into mere drill upon the text. The assistant must steer the difficult course between the two extremes. In this endeavor a reasonable amount of inconspicuous “policing” is desirable.

Spirited and stimulated discussion is, after all, the most significant aim of the section-meeting. This imposes responsibilities upon instructor and student alike. The instructor must be able to direct and control discussion, the student must contribute his share of thought and interest; together they coöperate to make section work a success. The test of the section work in any course lies in the quality of the discussion provoked.

The weaknesses of the section are such as to call for improvement, rather than abolition, of the method. Improvement is in large measure a question of money cost. Adequate outlay would probably guarantee section instructors satisfactory alike to students and department staffs. Sufficient outlay to secure assistants with a firm grasp of their subjects is absolutely essential. But some improvements probably are within reach without much additional cost. Thus, by careful provision for standardizing grading, we may reduce the risks involved in the assignment of different students to assistants in the same course but of different experience and temperament. The value of section work may be more generally recognized and upheld. Greater emphasis may be laid on teaching ability in selecting assistants. And finally, possibly in coöperation with the Education Department, assistants may be helped to acquire the gentle art of section work.

Other improvements of the section method will undoubtedly be suggested. But to give it up entirely seems unwise; the section has probably come to stay. It seems, for the present, an advisable concession to large-scale education.

Source: The Harvard Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 15, No. 6 (March 1914), 295-296.

Image Source: Edmund Ezra Day in Harvard Class Album 1915.

Tags Day

Germany Harvard

Germany. Harvard Man’s Impressions of Berlin University. Gannett, 1914

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-09-04

Lewis Stiles Gannett (Harvard A.B., 1913) was awarded a 1913-14 Robert Treat Paine Traveling Fellowship to pursue studies in social ethics in Berlin. He returned to Harvard as a graduate student in social science where his fellowship was continued and he went on to receive an A.M. degree in 1915.

Gannett was born in Rochester N.Y. in 1891. He was a journalist and editor at the New York World. Later he worked as an editor at Survey and The Nation. Beginning in 1930 he wrote a thrice-weekly, then daily review column “Books and Things” in the New York Herald Tribune. He retired from that paper in 1956. Lewis S. Gannett died in 1966.

For readers who find the following comparisons of interest, similar observations can be found in the earlier post “University Life in Germany“.

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A Harvard Man’s Impressions
of Berlin University

LEWIS S. GANNETT, ’13, Robert Treat Paine Travelling Fellow.

The first thing Professor Paszkowski (pronounce it if you can) says in his course in German for foreigners at the University of Berlin is, “Um Gottes willen, don’t go home and write about Germany. If you don’t know why, go over to the library and read what Germans have written about America.”

We Harvard men in particular ought to have learned the dangers of superficial observation. Yet it is the superficial differences that first impress one at another university. For instance, one has long known that women were admitted to the German universities, and perhaps one has wondered how the Germans solved the problem of co-education. There is no problem. The women do not sit in an isolated group in one corner. They sit here, there, one or two in every row. No one “fusses” with them, no one protests against their enervating influence. They are there to hear the lectures: they hear them, go away, and that is all there is to it. There is no complicating factor of student life. Altogether it is a rather pleasing contrast to the schoolboy self-consciousness of some of our American youth.

Indeed, they could not all sit together if they would — they could not get seats together. The first week of lectures each student goes about leaving his calling-card wherever he has secured a favorable seat. He writes upon it — if Schmoller be the lecturer — “Schmoller Di Fr 6-7,” and thereafter Tuesdays and Fridays, from six until seven, that place is his seat. Let an unwary American think a seat unclaimed because empty, and he soon learns the contrary. “Dieser Platz ist schon belegt,” he hears, and any thought of argument is soon drowned in a torrent of impossible German expostulation. The card may have been lost or be otherwise missing — but the German gets the seat.

[Cf.: a video clip of the German team winning the pool lounge chair Olympics when a vacation pool opened in the morning.]

“Akademische Freiheit” is the Veritas of the German university. It means many things — the right of the student to attend only when it fits his convenience (no record of attendance is kept), the right of the professor to begin lecturing when he sees fit. Lectures begin as a rule two weeks after the semester officially opens — sometimes not for a month. No professor would think of entering a class-room until fifteen or twenty minutes after the hour. Imagine Harvard’s students eagerly awaiting the professor — often until almost the half hour!

[Note: The so-called “Academic quarter” with classes beginning 15 minutes after the hour has its roots in historical past when students would hear church bells designating the hour, giving them 15 minutes to get to their class posted for the hour.]

The German is perpetually hungry. One does not appreciate meal hours of eight, two and eight, until one learns the secrets of second breakfasts, afternoon coffee and the other opportunities that are not listed. Yet even after two months in Germany, it is somewhat of a surprise, on entering for the first time the main building of the University of Berlin, to find staring one in the face a large sign “Erfrischungs-Raum,” which, upon investigation, is found to offer beer, milk, sundry poor substitutes for ginger ale, excellent “kerchen” [sic, presumably a misprint of “kuchen”=”cake”] and execrable sandwiches. From a thoroughly Teutonic viewpoint, even eight minutes to Boston and a dozen new lunch-rooms cannot compensate for such a Bierhalle within the academic walls.

Almost equally astonishing are pocket-lunches. Between classes one is quite expected to promenade the hall munching a dingy brown sandwich of rye bread and ham, or a “brotchen mit leberwurst belegt” (which means a perfectly good roll spoiled by sausage) or if one prefers to sit in the lecture room, he will be in good company in satisfying his hunger there.

These all are superficial differences. So, too, are the eccentricities of costume, evidences of that German individualism so startling to one who has heard glib talk of German socialism. It is verboten to walk three abreast or to whistle too loudly on Unter den Linden, but to trot about with weirdly-cut hair undefiled by hat or cap, clad in Shelleyesque blouses and poetically short trousers — these are but evidences of genius. At home we are accustomed to sartorial individuality in musicians, but our students are often only too conspicuous for their unity of “taste.” The brightly-colored corps caps — often of absurd and always of conspicuous design — are almost the only evidences of student-life at Berlin. Between classes it is a common sight to see a group of purple, or red, or green-capped students, each with a cane upon his arm, one or two even daring a monocle, gathered together in as conspicuous a position as possible, to gaze upon the passing herd.

Berlin is a city university. The buildings are in the heart of the biggest city in Germany, on the Linden, flanked by the Guard-House and the Royal Library, opposite the Opera-House and Crown Prince’s Palace. There is no room for expansion. The pitiful little “Chestnut-wood” that used to cover the tiny space behind it, is now as desolate a mass of building material as was ever our library-site in the days when the grandeur that was Gore’s was gone, and Widener was not yet. The classrooms in the old building are fragrantly reminiscent of some of Sever’s time-honored halls, but the ventilation is even worse. The old library, now become a university building, is somewhat better, but the department seminars and many of the overflow class-rooms are to be found in various off-corners in the neighboring streets. It is as if we availed ourselves of rooms in College House and Little’s Block and the Abbott Building as class-rooms. If one wants to hear Professor Roethe, now the only German university professor who refuses to admit women into his class-room, one does well to start early, to allow time to hunt.

There are no dormitories in any of the German universities. The fifteen thousand Berlin students are scattered all over the big city and far out into the suburbs. Hence, partly, the absence of student life. The students meet in the class-rooms, greet each other, and go their separate ways. It is individualism carried to such an extreme that the university seems rather a great knowledge factory than a college organism.

There are more fundamental differences. The academic freedom is not a matter of lecture attendance alone — there is a significant difference of attitude toward the student. He is regarded as a grown man — somewhat as he was under President Eliot’s administration at Harvard — whereas in America today he is almost always treated as a boy. In Germany (where he is a year or two older), the opportunities are laid before him. If, as too often proves true, he is still a boy, he squanders his first semesters recklessly, and begins to work only when the day of reckoning approaches. It is not until the end of the eighth semester (there are two semesters in the year) that the German student is examined at all. Then comes such an examination as the American undergraduate never knows. He is then, indeed, two years beyond our A.B. stage, for as is well known, the first two years of our college work correspond roughly to the last two of the German “gymnasium.” The surprising thing-to an American — is the amount of work that is done. A great number of German students loaf as no American student would be allowed to, but it is doubtful if in America so many would work without any incentive of test or examination. The system of treating the student as a man perhaps sends more students to the bottom, but I think it sends the top men higher.

That was the old theory at Harvard — that it was a college for the exceptional man, that the average man, or the a-little-under-the-average man, if he lacked the spunk to make his own way, had no business to be there. That, it would seem, must be the justification of the endowed universities in the future to train leaders, not masses. The state universities are bound by the very nature of their position, to concentrate their attention upon the average man. It would seem that we would only enter a useless competition unless we set ourself a higher, or at least different task. Whether our present tendency away from the German system will succeed in lifting the bottom men to a higher average without degrading the top men toward that same average, remains to be seen. The attempt is at least worth the venture.

The title “professor” is perhaps a higher honor in Germany than in any other nation of the world. The students pick their courses somewhat at haphazard, but they select their professors with a deal of care. The theological students are few, but [Adolph von] Harnack’s course in Church History is one of the biggest in the university. Students who would otherwise never think again of Greek, flock to hear [Ulrich von] Wilamowitz[-Moellendorff]. One elects to hear [Georg] Simmel or [Adolf] Lasson or [Alois] Riehl lecture, instead of choosing Philosophy X or 47. Four or five men give parallel courses in general Economics — the student hears him whom he most respects. And as the best professors are concentrated in no one university, no German student thinks of remaining eight semesters at any one. He travels about, and when he is done, he has heard all the best men in his special subject. (Hence again the comparative lack of student life, and the utter lack of university loyalty.)

Berlin is one hundred and seventy three years younger than Harvard, but from the very beginning, hers has been an illustrious faculty. Fichte, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Humboldt, Helmholtz, Virchow, Mommsen, Treitschke, Eric Schmidt — it is hard to select.

No examination-schedule compels the lecturers to cover any given field — they may wander as they choose. Hence, often, such veritable culture-courses as that of [Ulrich von] Wilamowitz[-Moellendorff] of which a friend writes: “His words were hard to catch, but I found him a most wonderful old man, with the sweetest enthusiastic smile. I began to appreciate more than ever the fire of scholarship. This morning he was discussing lost manuscripts, what we would know if we only had certain now lost — e. g., Plutarch’s ‘Lives of the Emperors.’ I never before so felt the enthusiasm of the philologist or the archæologist. His smile was the delicate child-like smile of an old man. I felt as if he were telling us a fairy-tale, or rather letting us into some pretty secret — as indeed he was, the secrets of a life-time of scholarship.”

The large American colony, the small but enthusiastic Harvard Club, the Exchange Professor — especially if he be Professor [Archibald Cary] Coolidge all combine to make a Harvard man at home in Berlin. So, too, the appreciation of Harvard by the Berlin press. Let me close this pot-pourri of random impressions with a quotation from the Berliner Tageblatt, which, perhaps the most influential of the Berlin dailies, recently headed a contributed article upon its front page, as follows: “Professor B. [Hiram Bingham III, publicized the existence of the Machu Picchu Incan citadel in Peru] is professor of South American history at Yale University, which, next to Harvard, is the most distinguished in America.”

Source: The Harvard Illustrated Magazine. Vol. 15. No. 6 (March 1914), pp. 297-301.

Image Source: Professor Aloph von Harnack, ditto, p. 300.

Exam Questions Harvard Sociology Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Course readings, final exams, and enrollment for Principles of Sociology. Carver and Field, 1904-1905

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-09-03

The post begins with excerpts from Thomas Nixon Carver’s autobiography dealing with his own training and teaching of sociology. He was an economist back when most sociology courses were taught within economics departments as was the case at Harvard up through the early 1930’s. Carver’s recollections are followed by the enrollment figures, the reading list, and the semester examinations for his Principles of Sociology course from the 1904-05 academic year.

Likely readings for this course can be found in Sociology and Social Progress, compiled by Thomas Nixon Carver (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1905).

__________________________

Carver’s background and institutional legacy in sociology
(From his autobiography)

Graduate Coursework at Cornell

[p. 105] The economics faculty consisted of Jeremiah W. Jenks, chairman, Walter F. Willcox, Charles H. Hull, and young [Lucius S.] Merriam. The history department was very strong but I did not take any history courses, to my later regret. My fellowship was officially a teaching fellowship, but I was told that the holders had never been called upon to teach. It paid $550 which proved sufficient for my needs. I took courses under all three of the older men in the department of economics, but none under Merriam. Jenks conducted the seminar and gave a course on economic legislation, both of which I took. Hull gave a course on the history of economic thought, which I took, and another on industrial history. Willcox gave a course in statistics and another on sociology, both of which I took….

[p.111] … Johns Hopkins at that time was known principally because of its graduate school. Cornell had a growing graduate school but it was an appendage rather than the main part of the university. At Johns Hopkins, graduate students were segregated and had relatively few contacts with undergraduates. At Cornell, on the other hand, they were pretty well mixed.

Cornell had a larger faculty than Johns Hopkins and probably as many distinguished scholars, but the average was perhaps not so high, most of them being concerned with undergraduate teaching.

In the Department of Economics, Jenks was the oldest member and chairman of the department. He was more interested in the practical than in the theoretical side of economics. Merriam was a brilliant theorist and, had he lived, would have strengthened that side of their work. Jenks was a wide awake and interesting teacher, a man of the world who could meet on equal terms men prominent in government and business and might have done well in the diplomatic service.

Hull had an encyclopedic knowledge of American industrial history and should have written books on the subject, but he was so afraid that he might overlook something that he never got quite ready to write.

Probably the most brilliant of the three was Walter F. Willcox. Before the rise of the mathematical school of statisticians he was the leading statistician of the country. He also took us through Spencer’s Principles of Sociology and added a good many original ideas of his own. He was one of the few teachers of sociology whom I have known who were capable of taking a realistic and rational view of things.

Teaching at Oberlin

[pp. 122-123] Professor Hull had returned from his sojourn at Johns Hopkins. This relieved me of the classes in English and American history which I had carried the year before [1894-1895]. I added a course [in 1895-1896] in anthropology and one in sociology to my offering.

Teaching at Harvard
(Carver joined the faculty 1900-01)

[p. 132] There was no Department of Sociology at Harvard, but Edward Cummings had given a course on principles of sociology in the Department of Economics. Since I had been giving a course in that subject at Oberlin it was suggested that I continue it at Harvard. [1901-02; 1902-03 (taught by Ripley and Carver); 1903-04] In addition I gave a course on economic theory and a half course on methods of economic investigation.

[p. 172] The course on the principles of sociology developed into a study of the Darwinian theory as applied to social groups. Variation among the forms of social organization and of moral systems, and the selection or survival of those systems and forms that make for group strength, were considered to constitute the method of social evolution.

The Harvard Illustrated, a student publication, at that time conducted a poll of the senior class, asking the students to name the best courses they had taken. For a number of

years Professor Palmer’s course in ethics ranked highest. My course on principles of sociology began to climb until it finally achieved first place. Then the poll was discontinued.

[pp. 210-212] I have mentioned several times the courses which I had developed at Harvard: principles of agricultural economics, principles of sociology, methods of social reform, and the distribution of wealth. I was, all those years, covering more ground than any other member of the department…
…Up to this time there had been no department of sociology at Harvard. There was a Department of Anthropology and a Department of Social Ethics, but the only course in sociological principles was the one which I gave in the Department of Economics. At one of the meetings of the American Sociological Society I heard Sorokin of the University of Minnesota read a paper. I was impressed by his prodigious learning and general sanity. I began to cultivate his acquaintance and finally was instrumental in bringing him to Harvard….The Department of Economics, on my motion, invited him to give a course of three lectures at Harvard. While he was in Cambridge, I introduced him to President Lowell. Later, on my motion, the department voted to recommend to the Corporation that Sorokin be offered a professorship in the Department of Economics to give courses in sociology at Harvard. The offer was made, he accepted, and a beginning was made toward starting a department of sociology.

Source: Thomas Nixon Carver. Recollections of an Unplanned Life. Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1949.

__________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 3. Professor Carver and Mr. J. A. Field. — Principles of Sociology. Theories of Social Progress.

Total 47: 10 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 18 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 74.

__________________________

ECONOMICS 3
Prescribed Reading and Collateral References. 1904-05

TO BE READ IN FULL

Herbert Spencer. Principles of Sociology.
Walter Bagehot. Physics and Politics.
Benjamin Kidd. Social Evolution.
F. H. Giddings. Principles of Sociology.

COLLATERAL READING. STARRED REFERENCES ARE ESPECIALLY RECOMMENDED

I. SCOPE AND METHOD OF SOCIOLOGY

Auguste Comte. Positive Philosophy. Book VI. Chs.2-4.
Herbert Spencer. Classification of the Sciences, in Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Vol. II.
*Herbert Spencer. The Study of Sociology. Chs. 1-3.
J. S. Mill. System of Logic. Book VI.
W. S. Jevons. Principles of Science. Ch. 31. Sec. 11.
Lester F. Ward. Outlines of Sociology. I.
W. H. Stuckenberg. Introduction to the Study of Sociology. Chs. 2 and 3.
Émile Durkheim. Les Regles de la Méthode Sociologique.
Guillaume de Greef. Les Lois Sociologiques.
Arthur Fairbanks. Introduction to Sociology. Introduction.

Il. THE FACTORS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS

A. Physical and Biological Factors

Herbert Spencer. The Factors of Organic Evolution, in Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Vol. I.
Herbert Spencer. Progress, its Law and Cause, in Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Vol. I.
Auguste Comte. Positive Philosophy. Book VI. Ch. 6.
Lester F. Ward. Dynamical Sociology. Ch. 7.
Simon N. Patten. The Theory of Social Forces. Ch. 1.
Geddes and Thompson. The Evolution of Sex. Chs. 1, 2, 19, 21.
Robert Mackintosh. From Comte to Benjamin Kidd.
*G. de LaPouge. Les Sélections Sociales. Chs. 1-6.
August Weismann. The Germ Plasm: a Theory of Heredity.
George Job Romanes. An Examination of Weismannism.
Alfred Russell Wallace. Studies: Scientific and Social.
*R. L. Dugdale. The Jukes.
Oscar C. McCulloh. The Tribe of Ishmael.
*Francis Galton. Hereditary Genius.
Arthur Fairbanks. Introduction to Sociology. Pt. III.
H. W. Conn. The Method of Evolution.

B. Psychic

Auguste Comte. Positive Philosophy. Book VI. Ch. 5.
*Jeremy Bentham. Principles of Morals and Legislation. Chs. 1 and 2.
Lester F. Ward. The Psychic Factors of Civilization.
Tarde. Social Laws.
[G. Tarde]. The Laws of Imitation.
[G. Tarde]. La Logique Sociale.
Gustar Le Bon. The Crowd.
The Psychology of Peoples.
Mark Baldwin. Social and Ethical Interpretations.
[J. Mark Baldwin]. Mental Development in the Child and the Race.
John Fisk. The Destiny of Man.
Henry Drummond. The Ascent of Man.
Simon N. Patten. The Theory of Social Forces. Chs. 2-5.
*E. A. Ross. Social Control.

C. Social and Economic

Lester F. Ward. Outlines of Sociology. Pt. II.
*[Lester F. Ward]. Dynamical Sociology. Ch. 10.
Brooks Adams. The Law of Civilization and Decay.
D. G. Ritchie. Darwinism and Politics.
*A. G. Warner. American Charities. Pt. I. Ch. 5.
*G. de LaPouge. Les Sélections Sociales. Chs. 7-15.
T. R. Malthus. Principle of Population.
H. Bosanquet. The Standard of Life.
W. H. Mallock. Aristocracy and Evolution.
T. V. Veblen. The Theory of the Leisure Class.
W. S. Jevons. Methods of Social Reform.
Jane Addams and Others. Philanthropy and Social Progress.
Demolins. Anglo-Saxon Superiority.
*Thomas H. Huxley. Evolution and Ethics.
Georg Simmel. Ueber Sociale Differencierung.
Émile Durkheim. De la Division du Travail social.
J. H. W. Stuckenberg. Introduction to the Study of Sociology. Ch. 6.
Achille Loria. The Economic Foundations of Society.
[Achille Loria]. Problems Sociaux Contemporains. Ch. 6.
William Z. Ripley. The Races of Europe.

D. Political and Legal

Jeremy Bentham. Principles of Morals and Legislation. Chs. 12-17.
F. M. Taylor. The Right of the State to Be.
*W. W. Willoughby. Social Justice. Chs. 5-9.
*D. G. Ritchie. Principles of State Interference.
W. S. Jevons. The State in Relation to Labor.
Henry C. Adams. The Relation of the State to Industrial Action, in Publications Am. Econ. Assoc. Vol. I. No. 6.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and readings in economics, 1895-2003. Box 1. Folder “Economics, 1904-1905.”

__________________________

ECONOMICS 3
Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

What is meant by a rational sanction for conduct? How is it distinguished from the rationalization of religion and law?
Has resentment, or the desire for vengeance, any place as a factor in producing social order? Explain your answer.
Describe Spencer’s conception of the Industrial Type of Society and give your opinion of its validity.
(a) as representing an actual stage in social progress;
(b) as an ideal social type.
What accounts for the force of the religious sanction for conduct among primitive peoples? What does Spencer believe will be the place of ethics in the religion of the future, and what are his reasons? Are the two explanations in harmony?
Describe the principal forms of the family relation, and the type of society in which each form prevails.
Comment briefly but specifically upon any five of the following topics:—
(a) Exogamy.
(b) The domestic relations of the Veddahs.
(c) The domestic relations of the Thibetans.
(d) The Ynca political system.
(e) Political organization among the Eskimos.
(f) The political system of the Dahomans.
(g) The industrial attainments of the Fuegians.
What is Spencer’s explanation of the origin of ceremonial in general; and how does he account for particular forms? According to this theory what does the formality of our social relations indicate concerning the original social or anti-social traits of mankind?
By what stages has the medical profession been evolved, and how does it perform the general social function which according to Spencer characterizes the professions?
“The salvation of every society, as of every species, depends on the maintenance of an absolute opposition between the regime of the family and the regime of the State.” Spencer, Vol. I, p. 719.
What opposition is referred to? Does it appear more conspicuously in the militant or in the industrial type of society?
“From war has been gained all that it has to give.” Spencer, Vol. II, p. 664.
What has war done to develop society? Why is its work done? Why, if war is now intolerable, is it improper to check the conflicts of classes and individuals within the state?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1904-05.

__________________________

ECONOMICS 3
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

Omit one question.

“Can we then allege special connexions between the different types of family and the different social types classed as militant and industrial?” (Spencer, Principles of Sociology, I, p. 675.) Explain.
In what particulars is society fundamentally unlike a biological organism?
Can you define social progress in terms of human well-being and at the same time make it consistent with a general theory of evolution? Explain.
What is meant by the storing of social energy and what are the agencies by which it is accomplished?
What is meant by the power of idealization and how does it affect social progress?
Under what conditions and on what grounds would you justify the interference of the state with the liberty of the individual?
Give the titles and authors of such books as you have read of sociological topics, including those prescribed in the course, and write your impression of one which is not prescribed.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1905), p. 24.

Image Source: “Thomas Nixon Carver, 1865-1961” link at the History of Economic Thought Website. “Portrait of Carver (as a young man)“.
Detail in the Oberlin College Yearbook 1901 Hi-o-hi (no. 16)

Tags Carver, CummingsEdward, Hull, Jenks, Merriam, Willcox

Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Final exam for Price Theory (B). Friedman. Winter quarter 1964

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-08-31

The spirit of Chicago’s boot-camp training in price theory with Milton Friedman as canonical drill instructor is captured in the examination transcribed below.

Trivial observation: Questions 9 through 11 are based on a fictional monopoly Gimcrack Company that appears to be a homage to the old song “Jim Crack Corn” (a.k.a. “Blue tail Fly”). One can imagine the American graduate students hearing the voice of the folk singer Burl Ives rendering the tune as they attempted to answer the questions.

* * * * * * * * * *

Some other exams for the second quarter of graduate price theory at Chicago from this period have been previously posted:

December 16, 1959 (Friedman); December 1960 (Friedman?); February 10/March 15, 1965 (Griliches); December 1965 (Telser)

___________________________

ECONOMICS 301
FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

M. Friedman
March 19, 1964

I. [25 Points] Indicate whether each of the following statements is true (T), false (F), or uncertain (U) and state briefly (on this paper) the reason for your answer.

The elasticity of a straight line demand curve varies from point to point.
In the long run, demand has no influence on the price of the product of a competitive industry that uses no specialized resources.
Marginal revenue is always greater than average revenue when average revenue is rising as quantity increases.

[4. and 5.] Assume that the government is going to purchase a predetermined quantity of rice for foreign relief and that it is considering making its purchases (a) directly from the growers of rice, or (b) through the regular dealer on the grain exchange. Assume also that there are no other governmental actions affecting rise growing or marketing.

The price to the domestic consumer of rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).
The price received by the farmer for the rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).

An “inferior” good is one such that a larger quantity is demanded at a high than at a low price.
If the quantity of Y increases and the quantity of X decreases in such a way as to keep total utility constant, then the rate of substitution of Y for X is independent of the quantity of X.
The income of the farmers raising corn increases when the price of corn rises. The rise in income is the “income effect of the rise in price.”

[9., 10., 11.] The Gimcrack Company is a monopoly, selling in two distinct markets. Transportation costs between the two markets can be neglected.

The company will always charge the same price for gimcracks in the two markets.
The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make the elasticities of demand the same in the two markets.
The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make marginal revenue the same in the two markets.

II. [25 Points] Fill in the blanks in the following questions.

Consider three demand curves for commodity X: A for given money income and other prices; B, for given apparent real income in Slutsky’s sense; C, for given real income in Hick’s sense. Let all three curves go through the point (p_o , x_o)
If X is a superior good, then for a price lower than p₀, the quantity demanded will be larger for_____ than for _____. (Insert A, B, C, in correct spaces.)
If X is an inferior good, then for a price lower than p₀, the quantity demanded will be larger for _____ than for _____.
Suppose p₀ = $5, X₀ = $20, the corresponding money income $1, 000, and the income elasticity of demand for X is 2. Suppose that at a price $4, the quantity demanded on curve A is 25. Then the income compensation required to pass from A to B is $_____ (be sure to indicate sign of change) and the quantity demanded on curve B is _____.
Blank is indifferent whether he wagers $1 at even-money that a coin he regards as fair will come up heads. He is eager to wager $1 against $3 (i.e., he pays $1 if he loses, receives $3 if he wins) that heads will come up twice in two successive throws of this coin. (He regards the throws as independent and so the chances of two successive heads as one in four.) Let the utility of his income if he loses $1 be 100; if he wins $1, 101. Then the utility to him of his present income can be taken to be _____ (insert a number); the utility to his present income plus $3 _____ (insert the most accurate statement the evidence permits).

III. [25 Points.] Find the mistakes (there are at least six) in the accompanying diagram showing long run and short run marginal and average cost curves for an individual firm, and explain the general principle corresponding to each particular mistake.

[NOTE: The answer to question III has been transcribed and posted with the Friedman’s December 16, 1959 exam for Economics 301.]

IV. [25 Points] Consider two alternative taxes imposed on a commodity: (a) a specific tax of T dollars per unit sold: (b) an ad valorem tax of t per cent of the price of the product.
Assume that the commodity is produced and sold under strictly competitive conditions and that the price inclusive of tax when the tax of T is imposed is P₀. (i) Prove graphically that an ad valorem tax of t – T/P₀will result in the same equilibrium price. (ii) Suppose a tax rate slightly greater than t – T/P₀ is imposed. Under what conditions, if any, is it certain that the revenue will increase? (iii) Decrease?
Assume alternatively that the commodity is produced and sold by a monopoly. Suppose that, when a specific tax of T is imposed, the monopolist chose to sell at a price (inclusive of tax) of P₁. Suppose now, an ad valorem tax of t – T/P₁ is imposed. (iv) Will the monopolist’s optimum price be P₁? If not, will it be higher? or lower? Prove your answer.

V. [20 Points] When someone offers a cigarette to pipe-puffing Surgeon General Luther Terry, he always grabs it. “Every one I accept I tear up,” he says. “That way there’s one less cigarette.” (Time, February 7, 1964).
Analyze the economics of the Surgeon General’s policy. In doing so, assume of course, that a substantial class of people with similar beliefs behave the same way, so the effect is at least potentially appreciable. Would it contribute to his objective of reducing smoking? If so, through what channels?

___________________________

PROBLEM
for
ECONOMICS 301
Winter Quarter, 1964

Analyze the business practice discussed in the accompanying excerpt from a Wall Street Journal story of December 4 1963.

Under what circumstances, if any would you expect such a practice to be in the self-interest of the participating companies? How would you suggest testing your explanation?

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 77. Folder: University of Chicago, Econ. 301.

Image Source: Detail from picture of Milton Friedman (November 1957) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, pf1-06234, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags Friedman

Exam Questions Harvard Principles

Harvard. Enrollment and exams for Outlines of Economics. Taussig et al., 1904-1905

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-08-30

From the final exams for the two semester introductory economics course run by Frank Taussig and A. Piatt Andrew in 1904-05 we see (among other things) that John Stuart Mill provided the backbone of theory and that there was room for a compare and contrast question regarding a liberal market economy vs a socialist economy.

________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 1. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig, Asst. Professor [Abram Piatt] Andrew, and Messrs. [Vanderveer] Custis, [James Alfred] Field, [Silas Wilder] Howland, [Selden Osgood] Martin, and [Chester Whitney] Wright. — Outlines of Economics.

Total 438: 10 Seniors, 84 Juniors, 232 Sophomores, 54 Freshmen, 58 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 74.

________________________

ECONOMICS 1
Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

One question in each group may be omitted.
Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions
Give your reasons in all cases.

I

Which among the following would you consider (1) “productive laborers,” (2) otherwise useful to society: actors, manufacturers of gambling implements, stock-brokers, landlords receiving and spending the rents of land.
It has been laid down that,—
Capital is distinguished from non-capital by its nature, — it consists of machinery, materials, and other apparatus for production;
Capital is distinguished from non-capital by the intention of the owner in dealing with his wealth;
Capital, though the result of saving, is yet continually consumed.
Can you reconcile these propositions? If not, which do you consider sound?
“The laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths.” Is this true of the law stating the conditions under which the accumulation of capital takes place? of that stating the conditions under which production upon land takes place?
Define briefly: value in use, value in exchange, utility, marginal utility, margin of cultivation, consumer’s rent.
Can a person having a monopoly of a given commodity control its price at will? If so, how? If not, why not?
“An individual speculator cannot gain by a rise in price of his own creating . . . when there is neither at the time nor afterwards any cause for a rise of prices except his own proceedings.”
On what reasoning does this statement of Mill’s rest? Does the practice of dealings for future delivery (“futures”) affect the reasoning.

II

What is the difference between a wages-fund and a wages-flow? Which seems to you the better mode of describing the influences that act on the general rate of wages?
“The expectations of profit, therefore, in different employments, cannot long continue very different: they tend to a common average.”
“It is true that, to persons with the same amount of original means, there is more chance of making a large fortune in some employments than in others.”
“Gross profit varies greatly from individual to individual, and can scarcely be in any two cases the same.”
Can these statements of Mill’s be reconciled?
Is the return from capital sunk in the soil to be regarded as rent or interest? Is the return from urban real estate to be regarded as rent or interest? Is the return on corporate securities (stocks and bonds) to be regarded as rent or interest?
How will a rise in the rate of interest affect the selling value of land? that of securities yielding a fixed income?
“But it is impossible for anyone to study political economy, even as at present taught, or to think at all upon the production and distribution of wealth, without seeing that property in land differs essentially from property in things of human production, and that it has no warrant in abstract justice.” Henry George.
Do you think this statement true in view of what you have learned in this course? Consider both your reading and the lectures.
What would become of interest, rent, business profits, in a socialist state? what if there were an all-embracing régime of coöperative production?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1904-05.

________________________

ECONOMICS 1
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

Omit one question from each group.

I

What is meant by the equilibrium of demand and supply? How is it secured?
Suppose there were a general rise in wages: could capitalists, by charging higher prices for their goods, prevent profits from falling?
Suppose a rise of wages in a particular trade: could the capitalists in that trade, by charging higher prices, keep their profits from falling?
Under what head — wages, rent, interest, profits — would you class the remuneration of (1) an apothecary; (2) a city merchant who owns the building in which he carries on his business; (3) an author who receives copyright payments on books which he has written; (4) a stockholder in a company which owns a lucrative patent?
Is land capital? Are buildings capital? Are the skill and capacity of a workman — such as a trained engineer or a great inventor — to be regarded as capital?

II

What would be the effect on the price of beef if a high protective tariff were levied on the import of hides?
Which of the economic advantages and disadvantages of combination, in the broad sense, result from (a) pooling, (b) merger in a single corporation, (c) monopoly?
President Roosevelt in a recent message said that our tariff “duties must never be reduced below the point that will cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad.” Discuss this statement.
Suppose that a country which manufactures only enough to supply half the home market, and which has a large export trade in wheat, imposes a uniform import duty of 50% on all commodities. What will be the effect on the nominal and the real wages of agricultural laborers, absolutely, and as compared with wages in manufacturing industries?

III

How do you explain the fact that there is less than 1/10 as much silver in a dime as in a silver dollar? Is there any reason why this should be so?
Explain briefly:—

(a) Deposit.
(b) Suffolk Bank system.
(c) Clearing House certificate.
(d) Post-note.
(e) Discount.
(f) Reserve city.
(g) Central reserve city.
(h) Asset currency.

Secretary Shaw has said “Without claiming that the national banking act is perfect or that our currency system is free from objection I think that the world joins us in the verdict that it is the best system known to man.”
Discuss this statement, comparing the American system as regards security and elasticity with those of England and Germany.
If a national bank examiner should discover the following to be the account of a bank in Boston to what would he object:

Capital	200,000	Loans	733,000
Surplus	24,000	U.S. Bonds	75,000
Undivided profits	43,000	Other assets	42,000
Notes	78,000	Deposits in U.S. Treas.	3,500
Deposits	745,000	Deposits in other banks	150,000
		Clearing House certificate	14,000
		Coin & legal tender notes	72,500
	1,090,000		1,090,000

Would his objections differ at all if the bank were located in Cambridge?

Image Sources: Frank W. Taussig (Original black and white image from of Frank William Taussig from a cabinet card photograph, 1895, at the Harvard University Archives HUP); Abram Piatt Andrews (Picture from ca. 1909 used in a magazine article about Andrew’s appointment to the directorship of the U. S. Mint. Hoover Institution Archives. A. Piatt Andrew Papers, Box 51). Images colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Tags AndrewAP, Custis, FieldJA, Howland, Taussig

Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Enrollment and exam questions for agrarian history. Gay, 1903-04

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-08-28

Edwin F. Gay only taught the graduate economics course “General Outlines of Agrarian History” once. As we see from the course enrollment for this course offered at Harvard during the first term of 1903-04, only four students attended. Who among us has not been personally confronted with the reality that our supply does not necessarily generate its own demand?

___________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 24 ¹hf. Asst. Professor Gay. — General Outlines of Agrarian History.

Total 4: 3 Seniors, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 24
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

Explain briefly:

(1) emphyteusis.
(2) massa and fundus.
(3) mainmorte.
(4) gavelkind and Borough English.
(5) common recovery.
(6) copyhold.
(7) majorat and seniorat.
(8) Norfolk husbandry.

Describe briefly:

(1) the provisions of the Capitulare de villis; its date and significance.
(2) the system of estate settlement by “Familienfideikommisse.”
(3) the place in agrarian history of Colbert, Orlando Bridgman, Arthur Young and Albrecht Thaer.

“It seems to be almost certain that the ‘hams’ and ‘tuns’ [of England] were, generally speaking, and for the most part from the first, practically manors with communities in serfdom upon them.” Whose view is this? State succinctly the chief arguments for and against.
What were the chief factors in the emancipation of the medieval serf and how far had the movement of emancipation progressed by 1500 in England, France and Northern Italy?
What were the causes of the Peasant War of 1525? How did the condition of the peasant of South Germany differ from that of the peasant in the North-east and North-west?
Summarize (with dates of the more important statutes) the changes of policy in the English Corn-laws.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1914.

Tags Gay

Agricultural Economics Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Enrollment and final exam for economics of agriculture. Carver, 1903-1904

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-08-27

In the second term of the 1903-04 academic year at Harvard, Professor Thomas Nixon Carver added a course in agricultural economics to his teaching portfolio. He was raised on a farm so this applied field must have been close to his heart. Details of his rural upbringing can be found in his autobiography, Recollections of an Unplanned Life (Los Angeles: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1949).

A problem set for this course has been transcribed and posted previously.

___________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 23 ²hf. Professor Carver. — The Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions.

Total 99: 5 Graduates, 32 Seniors, 28 Juniors, 17 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 15 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 23
Year-End Examination. 1903-04

How does the agricultural group of industries in the United States compare in importance with the manufacturing group?
Describe the principal classes of soils found in the United States, and state, in a general way, in what regions each class pre-dominates.
What are the chief advantages of the rotation and diversification of crops?
What, according to the evidence collected by the United States Industrial Commission, are the chief obstacles to successful agriculture?
What are the chief factors which tend to build up the cities more rapidly than the rural districts?
Why does wheat growing tend to move more rapidly than corn growing toward newer countries?
What are the chief factors affecting international competition in corn, wheat, and cotton?
How do the price of land and the cost of labor affect the intensity of cultivation in any community? Explain fully.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College, p. 41.

Image Source: Figure 15, “A pioneer mode of breaking the land.” from T.N. Carver’s “Historical Sketch of American Agriculture,” in the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vol. IV, edited by Liberty Hyde Bailey. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909, pp. 39-70.

Tags Carver

Exam Questions Harvard Law and Economics

Harvard. Enrollment and semester exams in law and economics. Wyman, 1903-1904

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-08-27

To the archive of old economics exams this post adds the mid-year and final exams for the course “Principles of Law governing Industrial Relations” taught at Harvard in 1903-04 by assistant professor Bruce Wyman.

Since most undergraduate economics majors then as now do not pursue further graduate studies in economics, the Harvard economics department offered introductory courses in accounting and business law as a vocational sop in its early 20th century course offerings.

Two earlier sets of exams for this course have been transcribed and posted: 1901-02 (includes his 1921 report to the Class of 1896).; 1902-03 (includes an obituary for Bruce Wyman).

Fun fact: Wyman was alleged to offer “snapper” (i.e., easy) courses for Harvard undergraduates. Included in that post is a New York Times report of a scandal that led to his resignation from the Harvard Law School faculty.

___________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 21. Asst. Professor Wyman. — Principles of Law governing Industrial Relations.

Total 148: 11 Graduates, 89 Seniors, 30 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 21
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

Answer eight questions. Give reasons with care.

The general manager of the New York Magazine resigned his position to set up a rival magazine which he called the Empire Magazine. Before and after his resignation he solicited business for his new magazine from advertisers in the old. When he left he took a copy of the list of subscribers, intending to write them just before their subscriptions expired, urging them not to renew, but to subscribe to his new magazine, as all the good features of the New York would be found in the Empire in improved form. May the owner of the New York have any injunction against the former manager?
Taddy & Co., manufacturers, sold large quantities of Myrtle Grove tobacco to Nelten & Co., jobbers, upon certain conditions in the invoices headed “minimum retail prices,” and below “acceptance of the goods will be deemed a contract between the purchaser and Taddy & Co.” Stenous & Co., retailers, bought a large amount of this Myrtle Grove tobacco from Nelten & Co., which they later offered to their customers at less than the minimum retail price. Can Taddy & Co. have an injunction against Stenous & Co.?
A travelling agent of the Globe Stove Works goes through the Southwest getting small dealers to sign contracts for stoves. The travelling agent of the World Stove Works crosses his track often. In several instances the agent of the World Company, acting under orders from headquarters, makes a special price to dealers that have bought from the Globe Works, and induces them to cancel their orders for Globe stoves and buy the World stoves. Has the Globe Company any remedy against the World Company?
The National Harrow Company sent broadcast the following circular: “We believe that we have the patents, and we have determined henceforth to sue any dealer handling these infringing harrows wherever they are found.” The infringing harrows referred to were those of the Davison Company. During the year following these circulars the business of the Davison Company fell off 50 per cent. In the year after that the Supreme Court decided in one of the suits which the National Company had prosecuted in good faith that their principal patents were invalid. The Davison Company now sue the National Company for damages done their business by the circulars quoted above. What decision?
Most of the employees in certain breweries belong to a union, most of the brewers are in an association. By an agreement between the union and the association, any brewer must discharge any employee not belonging to the union, if the employee refuses for one week to join the union after being requested to do so. An engineer is taken on at one of the breweries; he refuses to join the union at request; one week later the secretary of the union gave notice to the brewer to discharge the engineer, which was accordingly done. Has the engineer any suit for damages against the secretary of the union?
By a contract between the United States Fuel Company and the Ohio Operators Association, composed of ten concerns engaged in producing coal and coke in a certain district, the company was to handle for a term of years the entire output of the mines of the association intended for the western market. The amount to be furnished by each member of the association was to be fixed by its executive committee; the fuel company was to fix a uniform price from time to time at which it should sell the products turned over. The net profits of the fuel company less its commission were to be turned back to the members of the association pro rata. Is this agreement enforceable?
There are two ice manufacturing companies in Tuscalosa, Ala. The second makes a lease of all its plant to the first for ten years for a high rental; then the first leases this same plant to third parties to be used only as a store house; thereupon the first ice company increases its rate 50 per cent. according to the previous understanding with the second company. This situation lasts for a year, when a new third company constructs a new plant with modern machinery and puts its rates at 50 per cent. below the first company. The first company reduces its rates, and thereupon refuses to pay the full rental to the second company according to the terms of the lease. What rights has the second company against the first company?
An act of legislature provided: “That all the proprietors of the Charles River Marshes, are hereby constituted a corporation under the name of the Marsh Company, with authority to assess and collect from each member ten per cent. upon the valuation of his land, to be expended in making and maintaining a street across the same.” Nine of the ten proprietors after giving the tenth notice of the proposed meeting, meet, organize the corporation, and vote an assessment upon all the members for the amount specified in the charter. Suit by the company against the tenth man to collect the assessment. What decision?
A company was formed by A. Solomon and his two sons, each subscribing one share, the statute for incorporations requiring “three associates each subscribing at least one share.” The capital stock was fixed at $100,300 of which $300 was paid in cash for the three original shares. A. Solomon then conveyed the real estate, machinery, stock in trade and good-will of his shoe business to this corporation for $100,000, which it was all worth at a conservative valuation. He took in payment debenture bonds to the amount of $50,000, a note for $25,000 and paid up shares to the face of $25,000. The remaining 50,000 shares later were sold at 50 each by the company, a discount of 50 per cent. being allowed. A year later a financial crisis comes, and the company is put in a receiver’s hands. He finds besides what has been related that the company has incurred new floating indebtedness to the amount of $25,000, while the property left may be sold for $65,000. How should the receiver wind up this corporation?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

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ECONOMICS 21
Year-End Examination. 1903-04

Answer any six questions. Give reasons.

A soap company buys the majority of the stock in a competing soap company. At the next meeting of this corporation it elects a board of directors. This new board of directors of the second company vote to enter into a five years’ contract with the first company to sell to it the whole product of the factory at a price which will barely cover the cost of production. Have the minority stockholders in the second company any relief at law?
Three competing steel corporations agree to manufacture and sell rails at joint profit, accounting to each for a pro rata share upon each sale, settlements to be made semi-annually. One of these companies manufactures as much as possible, then sells all at the high prices prevailing since the arrangement, and then withdraws from the pool refusing to account to the others. Have the other two any remedy against it?
An oil corporation is organized with an authorized capitalization of $500,000,000. It issues all its stocks for a variety of properties (distilleries, pipe lines, etc., etc.) which its directors value at $500,000,000, as these properties before consolidation are earning for their owners $50,000,000 per annum. As a result of this monopolization the new corporation earns $100,000,000 per annum. Is there any relief against this situation at law?
A natural gas company is engaged in the supply of gas to a certain city. After about two thirds of the inhabitants have been taken on, it was discovered that by sinking more wells no more gas is gotten. The present supply is no more than enough to keep up a sufficient pressure to give the present takers proper service. In this condition of things a householder who lives upon the pipe lines of the company, in the centre of the city, applies to the company for gas. The company refuses him. Should a mandamus be granted?
A telephone company in New York operates as a separate branch of its business a service of messengers on call. A messenger company applies to the telephone company for a telephone. The telephone company refuses upon the ground that the messenger company wish the telephone connection in order that people all over the city may summon messengers from it, which would be competition with the business of the telephone company. What decision?
A traveller took a train on a railroad and presented to the conductor an excursion ticket which was in two parts. The conductor accidentally punched the wrong coupon; he then wrote on the back “cancelled by mistake” and signed the statement. The rules of the company also required a conductor under such circumstances to draw a circle about the hole accidentally punched. This circle not having been drawn, the conductor on the return trip refused to accept the punched ticket, and ejected the passenger upon his refusal to pay fare. Has the passenger any cause of action? If so, for what?
A State passes a statute forbidding the sale of oleomargarine colored any shade of yellow. Is this constitutional?

Image Source: Harvard Law School ca. 1901 from the Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection (Library of Congress).

Tags Wyman

Gender Kansas

Kansas. Seminary meeting on “Status of Woman”. Blackmar, 1892

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-08-26

The previous post provided material about the founding of the Seminary of Historical and Political Science in 1889 at the University of Kansas, together with information about the scholarly career of one of its co-founder, Frank Wilson Blackmar. Kansas at that time was fairly progressive with respect to the admission of women to higher education and it was only a few days ago when I learned that “co-educator” was a label once used to denote a male instructor willing/capable of teaching both males and females.

What I found worth sharing here is the report of a new course introduced on the “Status of Woman” for the spring semester of 1892. Also worth the effort of transcription is a summary of a session of Blackmar’s Seminary devoted to “Status of Woman”. I have tracked down the five women participants named in that session as well as the Topeka businessman who donated $100 to acquire books on the topic for the new course on women’s issues.

___________________________

“Co-educator”

…[Frank Wilson] Blackmar is married, has had experience as a co-educator, and has served as an assistant here [at Johns Hopkins], as well as a popular lecturer to workingmen…

Source: From a recommendation letter by Johns Hopkins history professor Herbert Baxter Adams, quoted in The University Courier (Lawrence, Kansas), May 10, 1889, p. 2.

___________________________

The elective course
“Status of Woman”

A number of inquiries have been made about the new optional [i.e., elective course] introduced by Prof. Canfield, called the Status of Woman in the United States. (See the course description below.) To those interested in this subject it may be said that the optional will be given as advertised. The course is in the program for the second half year, and consequently nothing can yet be said as to the success of the study. An alcove has been set apart for the literature of this subject, and already over half a hundred volumes have been added to the collection.

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

The Status of Woman in the United States. Three conferences each week during the second term, on the Status of Woman in all countries and times; with special investigation of the present legal, political, industrial, and professional position of women in the different States of the American Union.

Source: Seminary Notes published by the Seminary of Historical and Political Science, Vol. I, No. 2 (October 1891), pp. 44, 47.

___________________________

Donation to buy books for
“Status of Woman”

Shortly before Prof. James H. Canfield left Kansas University to become Chancellor of Nebraska University, he announced that a new course of study would be offered in the ensuing year upon the “Status of Woman.” Considerable interest was taken in this throughout the state, and a gentleman of Topeka, Mr. T. E. Bowman, generously contributed $100 as a nucleus for the purchase of reference books upon the subject. The gift was acknowledged both by Chancellor Snow and by Prof. Canfield, but in the unlooked for resignation of Prof. Canfield, the gift was lost sight of for the moment and has since lain in the Clerk’s office until recently brought to light. The Notes regrets that acknowledgement was not made earlier for this gift. The course “On the Status of Woman” is now being given by Prof. Blackmar, and many reference books have been purchased for the study. Mr. Bowman’s gift is, however, an addition, and more than that such gifts are always an encouragement to the instructors of the Historical department.

Source: Seminary Notes published by the Seminary of Historical and Political Science, Vol. I, No. 7 (April 1892), p. 165.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Thomas Elliot Bowman was born September 30, 1834 in Westford, Vermont; he died May 25, 1896 in Topeka, Kansas. He and his family moved to Kansas ca. 1879.

“T. E. Bowman is a Vermonter by birth, though prior to coming to Kansas, his business life was spent chiefly in Boston and vicinity, as a partner in the firm name of Seavey, Foster & Bowman silk manufacturers. Ill health caused him to leave New England and brought him to this state 16 years ago, and his residence since that time has been in this city [Topeka]. Upon his coming to Kansas he began loaning his own funds and the funds of a few of his old business associates, upon real estate, and from this beginning developed the successful business which is still existing under the firm name of T. E. Bowman & Co….he was the leading spirit in several philanthropic enterprises; latterly being deeply interested in the kindergarten movement.”

Source: The Topeka State Journal, May 25, 1896, p. 3.

“It would not be easy to name the different causes which appealed to his sympathies and his practical financial support. Much that he did was done so quietly that very few persons know of all his careful personal touch with the best life of the city.”

Source: Tribute published in The Topeka Daily Capital, May 26, 1896, p. 4.

___________________________

“Status of Woman”
Seminary Session
March 22, 1892

The Seminary met on March 22, to listen to papers on the “Status of Woman.”

Miss Nina Bowman read a paper on the “Property Rights of Women.” In primitive times women were thought to have no rights at all. In France no married woman has any property rights and the common law prevails.

In England women have no voice in parliament. A single woman has the same rights of property as a man; has the same protection of law, and is subject to the same taxes. After marriage the husband has absolute power over the wife’s jewels, money and clothes. In 1870 a law was passed which gave women a right to their separate earnings.

In America the common law restrains married women from all custody over their own property, either real or personal. Since 1848 many changes have been made in the property rights of married women. In our own state the wife has full power over her own property and earnings and may dispose of them in any way pleasing to her. After marriage a woman may sue and be sued in the same manner as if not married. A woman may convey or mortgage her own property without her husband’s signature, but the husband in disposing of property must secure his wife’s signature.

Miss Amy Sparr then read a paper on “Woman’s Suffrage.” The woman question is still young in years, but its strength and growth are not to be measured by its age. Those who have taken the practical side of the question are those who have made such remarkable progress. In England women have been admitted to many electoral privileges and to public work involving great responsibility. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Mill have aided much in changing public opinion in England. Great progress is being made with the general public but is much less assured and rapid in Parliament. In England, Scotland and Ireland women may vote for nearly all elective officers.

In the United States women have with difficulty succeeded in getting the right to vote in municipal elections in a single state, namely Kansas, where they have the right to vote for any city or school officers. Several states have admitted women to the membership of school boards of primary public schools. In Wyoming women vote at all elections and in Kansas they have full local suffrage. All statistics show a gain in women’s votes.

Following this a paper on “Women in the Professions” was read by Miss Maggie Rush. It began with women in the ministry. Once women were not allowed to sing in church choirs because Paul had commanded that they should keep silent. The Universalist church was the first to open the doors of its theological schools to women. About fifty women have been ordained in this church. Theological seminaries for women have been opened in Oberlin, Ohio; Evanston, Illinois, and Boston. As lawyers women in England have been permitted to qualify for and practice as attorneys at law. The first woman admitted to the bar in this country was Arabella Mansfield, of Iowa, in 1869. Seven women have been admitted to practice before the supreme court of the United States. Most law schools now admit women. Some women prefer office practice and others court work. In Wyoming and Washington mixed juries have been tried and found perfectly satisfactory.

Women have taken a stand in medicine which is rapidly growing in favor. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman physician. She graduated in 1849. The American Medical Association first admitted women to membership in 1876. In 1880 there were 2,432 women registered as physicians in the United States. Teaching is peculiarly adapted to women. Women were recognized as teachers for the first time in 1789. Vassar, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr all have women among the members of their faculties.

Miss Martha Thompson then read a paper on “Women in Industrial Pursuits.” More than one-half of the human family consists of women and the greater portion of these must earn their own living. As they become more skillful and capable their wages will be brought more on an equality with those of men. Women do not work together as men do, and their political disabilities deprive them of the influence which men often have to control wages. In the largest cities about three hundred different employments are open to women.

Factory work brought women into competition with men. When sewing machines were introduced one woman could do the work for which formerly six had been required. In large cities many homes have been provided for working girls, where they can secure board, protection, and recreation. Many women who are not compelled to work for bread, work for pin money and can work for much less than otherwise; therefore wages are decreased. A great many women will not enter domestic service because they think it more servile and menial than other employments. In Massachusetts 64 per cent, of the women are engaged in housekeeping and laundry work.

Eleanor Blaker, Reporter.

Source: Seminary Notes published by the Seminary of Historical and Political Science, Vol. I, No. 8 (May 1892), pp. 193-194.

A few details about the women participants

Nina Bowman. [became a teacher]

Kansas State Census (March 1, 1895): age 24, born in Ohio, residing in the town of Newton in Harvey County. Parents: C. S. Bowman and Clara Bowman.
University of Kansas, Twenty-Fifth Annual Catalogue, 1890-1891: Nina Claire Bowman of Newton. Member of the Freshman class. L.Sc. (p. 15).
Find a Grave webpage: Nina Clare Bowman (1870-1955) in the Greenwood Cemetery in Newton, Harvey County, Kansas. Parents: Cyrus S. Bowman (1840-1917) and Clara Bates Bowman (1840-1931)
1920 US Census. Single teacher in high school, living in Manhattan, New York City.
University of Kansas Alumni Directory, 1873-1928, p. 27. “Bowman, Nina Claire, ’93, N.Y. City, 527 West 121st St., Teacher.”
1950 US Census. Single, never married.

Amy Sparr [became the wife of a cattleman and banker]

The Eureka Herald and Greenwood County Republican, October 6, 1893: “Cards are out announcing the marriage of Miss Amy Laurene Sparr to Mr. Howard D. Tucker, at the Lutheran church, this city, at 10 o’clock a.m., Wednesday, October 18, 1893.”
Lawrence Daily Record, October 9, 1893. “Miss Amy Starr and Mr. E.[sic] D. Tucker will be married at Eureka on October 18. Mr. Tucker was formerly a Washburn student and Miss Sparr attended Kansas University a year and was a very popular society girl.”
Find a Grave: Born in Iowa (February 1871) and died March 1948 in Eureka, Greenwood County, Kansas. Spouse: Howard David Tucker.

Maggie [Margaret] Rush [became a teacher]

Kansas State Census (March 1, 1895): Maggie Rush, age 24, born in Illinois, residing in the city of Lawrence in Douglas County. Parents: J. Rush and E.A. Rush.
The Abilene Monitor, November 30, 1893. “Miss Rush, one of Minneapolis’ charming school teachers, arrived on the Santa Fe last night, and is visiting with Miss Martha Thompson [see below], of the High School.”
US Census 1920: occupation, school teacher.
University of Kansas Alumni Directory, 1873-1928, p. 162. “Rush, Margaret Sarah, ’93, Overland Park, Kan.”
Find a Grave website: Margaret Rush, born 1870 and died 1949. Grave is at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas. Parents: Jacob Rush and Eliza Ann Stout Rush.

Martha [Alice] Thompson [became a teacher]

University of Kansas, Twenty-Fifth Annual Catalogue, 1890-1891: Martha Allen [sic] Thompson of Lawrence. Member of the Sophomore class. Cl. (p. 15). Note: Alumna Martha Alice Thompson, B.D., Class of 1885 (p. 112), same person.
Lawrence Daily Gazette, June 5, 1894. “Miss Martha Thompson and W.W. Brown of the class of ’92 are here attending the exercises in company with their pupils in the Abilene schools.”
Lawrence Daily Gazette, August 3, 1892. W. W. Brown and Miss Martha Thompson, who graduated with the class of ’92, K.S.U., will teach in the High School at Abilene.
Abilene Weekly Chronicle, June 7, 1895. Martha Thompson appointed one of two assistant teachers at the Abilene high school.
Abilene Weekly Chronicle, July 5, 1895. Parents circulated a petition not to renew her teaching contract. “It has been openly charged that the lady is no disciplinarian, that she is not so patient as she should be and has frequently addressed pupils who were not so bright or quick as she would like in a manner calculated to humiliate them before other scholars.”
Lawrence Daily Journal, July 12, 1895. “Today [Miss Martha Thompson] sent the superintendent notice that she would not accept the position [i.e., assistant teacher at Abilene high school] and will go elsewhere.”
Abilene Weekly Chronicle, August 23, 1895. “Miss Martha Thompson has been elected to a position as teacher of Greek and Latin in the Lawrence high school.”
Sigma Xi, Quarter Century Record and History (1886-1911). Sigma Xi (Iota Chapter) of University of Kansas, p. 401: “Martha Alice Thompson, U 1892, Kansas City, Kansas. Instructor in Latin high school”
University of Kansas Alumni Directory, 1873-1928, p. 188.
Thompson, Martha Alice, n’85, ’92, K.C. [Kansas City], Kan., 1044 Barnett St., Teacher.”

Eleanor Blaker [became a pastor’s wife]

University of Kansas, Twenty-Fifth Annual Catalogue, 1890-1891: Eleanor H. Blaker of Pleasanton. Member of the Freshman class. G.Sc. (p. 15).
The Iola Register, May 17, 1901. “…marriage of Rev. Jay Withington, of Humboldt, to Miss Eleanor Blaker, of Pleasanton…Miss Blaker is the daughter of the wealthy miller and lumberman of Pleasanton.”
The Pleasanton Herald, April 5, 1907. Obituary for Eleanor’s mother: her brother “Ernest, now professor of mathematics in Cornell University.” Eleanor B. wife of H.J. Withington of La Cygnet, and William W. of Longville, La.
Find a Grave website: Born September 8, 1872; died December 18, 1945. Grave in Portland, Oregon. Husband Henry Jay Withington (married May 15, 1901 in Linn, Kansas). Parents: Alfred Blaker and Anna H. Blaker.

Image Source: Faculty Group Photo of the University of Kansas Faculty, 1892/1893. University of Kansas Archives.

Tags BlackmarFW

A Boulding Verse

Honorary Degree University of Michigan (December 17, 1978)

Biographical Note from the Boulding papers at Michigan

Sample of Boulding’s Writings (1962)

Biographical Timeline

Section Work in Economics

A Harvard Man’s Impressions of Berlin University

Carver’s background and institutional legacy in sociology (From his autobiography)

Graduate Coursework at Cornell

Teaching at Oberlin

Teaching at Harvard (Carver joined the faculty 1900-01)

Course Enrollment

ECONOMICS 3 Prescribed Reading and Collateral References. 1904-05

TO BE READ IN FULL

COLLATERAL READING. STARRED REFERENCES ARE ESPECIALLY RECOMMENDED

ECONOMICS 3 Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

ECONOMICS 3 Year-end Examination, 1904-05

ECONOMICS 301 FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

PROBLEM for ECONOMICS 301 Winter Quarter, 1964

Course Enrollment

ECONOMICS 1 Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

I

II

ECONOMICS 1 Year-end Examination, 1904-05

I

II

III

Course Enrollment

ECONOMICS 24 Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

Course Enrollment

ECONOMICS 23 Year-End Examination. 1903-04

Course Enrollment

ECONOMICS 21 Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

ECONOMICS 21 Year-End Examination. 1903-04

“Co-educator”

The elective course “Status of Woman”

Donation to buy books for “Status of Woman”

“Status of Woman” Seminary Session March 22, 1892

A few details about the women participants

Honorary Degree
University of Michigan
(December 17, 1978)

Sample of Boulding’s Writings
(1962)

A Harvard Man’s Impressions
of Berlin University

Carver’s background and institutional legacy in sociology
(From his autobiography)

Teaching at Harvard
(Carver joined the faculty 1900-01)

ECONOMICS 3
Prescribed Reading and Collateral References. 1904-05

ECONOMICS 3
Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

ECONOMICS 3
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

ECONOMICS 301
FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

PROBLEM
for
ECONOMICS 301
Winter Quarter, 1964

ECONOMICS 1
Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

ECONOMICS 1
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

ECONOMICS 24
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

ECONOMICS 23
Year-End Examination. 1903-04

ECONOMICS 21
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

ECONOMICS 21
Year-End Examination. 1903-04

The elective course
“Status of Woman”

Donation to buy books for
“Status of Woman”

“Status of Woman”
Seminary Session
March 22, 1892