While even economists lacking the slightest interest in the history of economics are aware that Adam Smith lectured and wrote on moral philosophy, few probably appreciate the fact that up through the last quarter of the 19th century political economy was still a relatively minor subfield of academic philosophy. The following account provides a nice sketch of that philosophical backstory to economics instruction at Harvard.
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Looking back from 1928-1929 at instruction in philosophy at Harvard
…With the opening of the nineteenth century philosophy at Harvard enters upon a period about which information is more available than in the preceding centuries. The annual catalogue superseded the broadside in 1819. With the year 1826 begins the annual report of the President of the University. The deans’ reports date from 1869. Since 1883 a description of the courses [Note: link is for Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 1879-1880] has been published yearly by the philosophical department. From such sources reliable data may be gained of Harvard’s philosophical developments throughout the last century.
Levi Hedge (H.C. [Harvard College] 1792), who had received annual appointment as tutor in philosophy beginning in 1795, was given in the year 1800 the first permanent tutorship ever established in Harvard. For the support of this tutorship authority was obtained from the legislature to transfer to it the income then received by the College from tolls on the West Boston Bridge. The permanent tutor was assigned the same duties as the others, but in the event of marriage twenty per cent was to be added to his salary and a parietal tutor was to be appointed to supply his place within the College walls. In 1810, shortly after the administration of President Kirkland began, Mr. Hedge was promoted to a College Professorship of Logic and Metaphysics. He is therefore the first Professor of Philosophy in Harvard University. After appointment he continued his former duties with such other tasks as the boards constituting the government of the College might assign. He held this College Professorship of Philosophy from 1810 to 1827, when it was abandoned owing to the necessity of retrenchment. He was then given the Alford Professorship of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity made vacant by the death of Mr. [Levi] Frisbie who had become his associate in the department. His academic career as Alford Professor continued until 1832, when he resigned owing to an attack of paralysis. He recovered from this attack and enjoyed the twelve remaining years of his life in quiet retirement with his books and in pleasant intercourse with his friends.
Mr. Hedge taught philosophy in Harvard for the long period of thirty-seven years. His reputation as a scholar has been best established by his excellent textbook in logic. His method of instruction was the customary one at that time of recitation. He was, however, far more punctilious than other teachers in exacting adherence to the language of the book. “Students expected,” says Professor Andrew Preston Peabody, who was his pupil, “to gain his permanent good will and lasting favor by reciting his ‘Logic’ verbatim, and there were myths afloat as to his own laudation of the book: ‘It took me fourteen years, with the assistance of the adult members of my family, to write this book; and I am sure that one cannot do better than to employ the precise words of the author.’ If Dr. Hedge thought well of his ‘Elements of Logic,’ he was entirely in the right. There is not in the whole book a definition, or the statement of a principle, or a rule that would bear abbreviation and that would not lose by being simplified.”
In 1817 Mr. Levi Frisbie (H.C. [Harvard College] 1802) who had previously been a Tutor (1805-11) and Professor (1811-17) of Latin, was elected the first Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity. This new professorship had been made possible through the bequest of John Alford, a wealthy merchant of Charlestown, Massachusetts. This benefactor had died in 1761 leaving a large portion of his estate to “pious and charitable purposes.” His executors selected Harvard College as a proper beneficiary and in 1782 transferred to it somewhat over £1300 on condition that the Corporation retain this sum and add the interest to the principal until the capital should suffice to endow a professorship. They also stipulated at considerable length the functions and duties of this chair, and some of the details which are the product of a past age. Mr. Frisbie, the first incumbent of the professorship thus established in 1817, held it till his death in 1822. His successors have been Professors Hedge, Walker, Bowen, Palmer and Hocking. Both the philosophical and the preceding classical instruction by Mr. Frisbie were attended with a considerable degree of success. “Few men,” says President Quincy, “have left deeper traces of their moral and intellectual excellence in the memories of their contemporaries than Mr. Frisbie. In the collegiate circle in which he moved, he was the object of universal confidence and affection. He united a classic taste with great acuteness of intellect and soundness of judgment; and with a mind highly gifted and highly cultivated, rich in the powers of conversation and research he regulated his life by a standard of moral and religious principle exquisitely pure and cultivated.”
After Professor Frisbie’s death on July 9, 1822, the Alford Chair remained vacant until 1827, when Professor Levi Hedge, as already mentioned, was transferred to it from his College professorship. Accompanying this change instruction in logic was assigned to the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, and the teaching of metaphysics was retained by Dr. Hedge “as not inconsistent with the Alford statutes.” After the resignation of Professor Hedge in 1832, the Alford Professorship was again permitted from considerations of economy to remain vacant until the appointment of the Reverend James Walker to it in 1838. Meanwhile, between 1832 and 1838 instruction in philosophy was given by two tutors. Joseph Giles (H.U. [Harvard University] 1829) was Tutor in Natural, Intellectual, and Moral Philosophy from 1832 to 1834, and Instructor in the same subject from 1834 to 1836. He afterwards became a lawyer in Boston, where he lived until his death in 1882. Francis Bowen was the Tutor and Instructor in Natural and Intellectual Philosophy from 1836 to 1839. Of him we later shall have much more to say.
During the period of Professors Hedge and Frisbie the courses of instruction and the textbooks underwent changes, due to a modernizing tendency. Instruction in logic, ethics, and metaphysics was given wholly by Dr. Hedge from 1795 to 1817. But when the philosophical work was shared with Professor Frisbie from 1817 to 1822, the Alford Professor taught the intellectual philosophy as well as the natural religion. After 1822 Dr. Hedge was again in complete charge of the courses, but, as he became Alford Professor from 1827 to 1832, he surrendered the logic and devoted his attention more particularly to intellectual and moral philosophy.
An examination of the annual catalogues as issued after 1819 reveals both the subjects taught and the textbooks used by the professors. From 1820 to 1827 Professor Hedge taught logic and intellectual philosophy to the Sophomores. He used his own “Logic,” and Locke’s “Essay” as textbooks. To the Juniors he gave instruction in ethics and metaphysics, using as the textbooks Paley’s “Moral Philosophy” and Stewart’s “Philosophy of the Human Mind.” Professor Frisbie gave the course to the Seniors in intellectual philosophy and political economy. For textbooks he employed Brown’s “Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind” and Gay’s [sic, “Say’s” is correct here] “Political Economy.” [Vol. I; Vol. II] He also taught a course in natural religion to the Juniors, using Paley’s “Evidences of Christianity,” and another to the Seniors, using Butler’s “Analogy of Religion.” These various courses were termed private exercises or recitations.
In addition lectures were given by the Alford Professor upon which the students were frequently or regularly examined.
For the later period of Professor Hedge’s incumbency very complete information about the philosophical department is afforded by the report of the President, who had been asked by the Overseers to include in it annually an account of the state of the departments, the duties of the instructors and the progress of the students. Instruction in the department from 1828 to 1838, it is said, was conducted through study and recitations. The studies commenced in the Junior year with Stewart’s “Elements of the Philosophy of Mind,” and concluded with Paley’s “Moral Philosophy.” Recitations were heard six days in the week from the class in two divisions. About two thirds of each division were questioned at every recitation. The Juniors also had a forensic exercise under the instruction of the philosophical professor every other Friday. In the Senior year the study of philosophy was continued with Brown’s “Treatise on the Mind.” When both volumes of this work were completed, the class entered upon the study of Gay’s [sic, “Say’s” is correct] “Political Economy,” and concluded with Levi Hedge’s “Elements of Logic.”
During the first term recitations were heard for two hours in the afternoon five days in the week, and during the second and third terms for one hour every day. On all the books used in this department twelve pages constituted the average length of the lessons assigned. Besides the preceding work two lectures were delivered every week during the second term on Civil Polity and Locke’s “Essay on the Human Understanding.”
With the advent of Mr. Giles as Instructor in 1833-34, Locke’s “Essay” was substituted for Brown’s “Philosophy of the Mind.” He also required of the students a written analysis, upon which commentary was made by the Instructor “exhibiting the opinions of other philosophers on controversial questions.” This is the first mention of direct instruction akin to the history of philosophy. The only new feature during the term of Mr. Bowen as Instructor (1836-39) is the statement in the President’s Reports that his method included “familiar lectures.” In this direction great changes were later to be effected.
In addition to the instruction given in the philosophical department, logic, as already stated, had been transferred in 1827 to the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at the time Professor Hedge became Alford Professor of Natural Religion. It was taught to the Sophomores during the third term by Professor Edward Channing, who at first used Hedge’s “Logic,” but in 1833 introduced Whately’s “Logic.” This work was long employed by the department of rhetoric.
It is evident from this detailed review of the courses of instruction and of the textbooks between 1800 and 1840 that the introduction of the Scottish philosophy chiefly characterized the progress of philosophical thought at Harvard during the first half of the nineteenth century. The devotion of Professor Hedge to the Scotch school is particularly revealed by the fact that he made an abridgment of Brown’s “Philosophy of the Mind” for the use of his students. The philosophy of Stewart and Reid, moreover, was prescribed throughout this period. English philosophy, however, maintained a foothold in the continuance of the study of Locke. In ethics Paley’s “Morals,” which was used at this period, offered a splendid presentation of the utilitarianism of the eighteenth century for study. The supernatural sanction added by its author to the principles of Bentham, as evidenced by his well-known definition of virtue, would also tend to make the doctrine more acceptable in New England. But Paley is a wonderful expositor and has seldom been surpassed in this respect as a writer of textbooks. Doubtless, too, this was an important factor which commended his work for use in the curriculum of instruction at Harvard. As regards the general method of instruction in the subjects here described, the change from the close adherence to textbooks by Professor Hedge to the written exercises under Mr. Giles and to the “familiar lectures” of Mr. Bowen is also an advance which occurred during the early portion of the nineteenth century.
[…]
Francis Bowen accepted the chair of Alford Professor as successor to President Walker in 1853. He was born in Charlestown in 1811 and was graduated from Harvard in the Class of 1833, that later became famous in academic circles for such members as Professors Lovering, Torrey, and Wyman. From 1833 to 1839 he had been instructor, as already mentioned, in intellectual philosophy at Harvard. From 1843 to 1854 he was editor and proprietor of the North American Review. The Alford professorship was held by him for the long period of thirty-six years, extending from 1853 to his resignation in 1889. To ascertain the influences which moulded his thought and later entered into his philosophical instruction, one must revert briefly to various papers written by him during the period when he was instructor. These are to be found in his “Critical Essays” and concern the history and existing condition of speculative philosophy. In 1837 he wrote an article upon “Locke and the Transcendentalists.” Its purport was to prove that while the transcendentalists decry Locke, he had diffused a juster mode of thinking and a clearer knowledge of the human intellect than they possessed and that his work in consequence has been of incomparable value to philosophy. “The new philosophy,” he writes, “of transcendentalism comes from Germany, and is one of the first fruits of a diseased admiration of everything from that source, which has been rapidly gaining ground of late till in many individuals it amounts to sheer midsummer madness. In the literary history of the last half-century there is nothing more striking than the various exhibitions of this German mania. The peculiarities of the German mind are too striking to grace any other people than themselves.” But for the German language, literature, and philosophy Bowen had real admiration. He perceived that the study of philosophy by the Germans was a national passion. They had produced a race of metaphysicians after Kant, while among the countrymen of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume the taste for metaphysical speculation had declined.
It is thus not surprising that Bowen turned his attention at an early date to the understanding of Kant. The first fruits of this attempt was an article on Kant and his philosophy which appeared in the North American Review in 1839. This paper consists of a review of the translation of the “Critique of Pure Reason” which had appeared in London in 1838 and in it he gives a comprehensive outline of the system of this Copernicus of philosophy. It is, so far as I am aware, the first direct presentation of the critical philosophy in America. Kant, Bowen believed, needed an interpreter, rather than a translator, and Cousin he regarded as the best qualified for this task. Nevertheless, Bowen’s own interpretations of various philosophical systems always possessed the lucidity of the French. The presentation he made of the Kantian philosophy did not lead him to become an adherent of it. A system that coupled the refutation of idealism with the denial of space and time he viewed as certainly original; but it could scarcely be expected that such a doctrine would find acceptance by a follower of the common-sense philosophy.
Both the German successors of Kant and the French philosophers were likewise studied during the period of Bowen’s instructorship. In 1841, shortly after he became an editor, his familiarity with them is revealed in two reviews, one on “Fichte’s Exposition of Kant” in the Christian Examiner (1841) and the other on “The Philosophy of Cousin” in the North American Review (1841). The latter paper consists of a detailed criticism of Cousin’s “Elements of Psychology: included in a Critical Examination of Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding,” which had recently been translated from the French by Rev. C. S. Henry. It is to Cousin rather than to Jouffroy, as attested by the translations of this work and by the use of his textbook, that the French School is indebted for the influence which it then began to acquire in England and America. Cousin’s “Elements of Psychology,” which was reviewed by Bowen, was used at Harvard in 1845–46, and became a favorite textbook in a number of other American universities. The fact that Bowen had gained a thorough acquaintance of French and German philosophy while instructor from 1836 to 1839 must be kept in mind, as it was many years after he became a professor before these subjects found a large place in his courses of instruction.
There are two distinct and separate periods both in the method and in the character of instruction given by Bowen as successor to President Walker in the Alford professorship. The first period was from 1853 to 1870, during which he employed the customary method of recitations and adhered to the prevailing Scottish philosophy. The second period lasted from 1870 to his resignation in 1889, in which he gradually adopted the method of lectures as in harmony with the elective system, and introduced the Harvard students for the first time through regular instruction to the domain of German philosophy.
The instruction during the first period of his incumbency from 1853 to 1870 was mainly based upon Reid’s “Intellectual Powers of Man,” Stewart’s “Active and Moral Powers,” Bowen’s “Ethics and Metaphysics,” Hamilton’s “Metaphysics,” edited by Bowen, and Bowen’s “Logic.” From 1853 to 1856 during the first term the junior class recited three times a week in Reid’s “Intellectual Powers of Man” and the seniors three times a week in Stewart’s “Active and Moral Powers.” During the second term the juniors recited three times a week in Bowen’s “Ethics and Metaphysics” while the seniors studied political economy and constitutional law. From 1856 to 1857 the seniors only were taught philosophy. During the first academic term throughout the year this class recited four times a week from Bowen’s “Ethics and Metaphysics,” and likewise from 1860 to 1867 in Hamilton’s “Metaphysics.” During the second term the same class recited four times a week mainly on logic, using in successive years the logic of Mill, of Hamilton, and of Bowen. From 1867 to 1870 the sophomores and juniors were again included with the seniors in the study of philosophy. The sophomores recited at this time during one term, twice a week, in Stewart’s “Metaphysics” and the juniors in Bowen’s “Logic” and Hamilton’s “Metaphysics.” The senior class recited the first term three times a week in Bowen’s “Logic[”] and [“]Political Economy,” and the second term in Hamilton’s “Metaphysics” and Bowen’s “Ethics and Metaphysics.” Forensics were also read in alternate weeks throughout the year by the juniors and seniors. From this survey of the textbooks during the first period of Bowen’s teaching, between 1853 and 1870, it is evident that the Scottish philosophy still predominated in the philosophical instruction at Harvard.
[…]
In 1869, Charles W. Eliot became President of Harvard University. Almost immediately a radical change was effected in the entire method of instruction by the permanent adoption of the elective system. Bowen proved equal to the new demands in the philosophical department. He abandoned in large measure the method of recitation and gradually adopted the lecture system. The range of his textbooks was greatly enlarged. He broadened the entire scope of instruction in philosophy and between 1870 and 1874 introduced no less than five new courses. In 1870-71 he offered a course on formal logic, using doubtless De Morgan’s “Formal Logic,” in conjunction with Bowen’s “Ethics” and Mansel’s “Metaphysics.” He also founded a course in the same year which later was the first to receive in the curriculum the formal designation of “Psychology.” The textbooks used in it were Porter “On the Human Intellect,” Locke’s “Essay,” Cousin “On Locke,” and Mill’s “Examination of Sir William Hamilton.” This course was given for five years from 1870 to 1876. A course was also given for one year (1872-73) in ancient philosophy in which the textbooks studied were by Renouvier, Ueberweg, and Bouillier.
In the development of Bowen’s instruction during the second period, two courses in the history of philosophy are of greatest importance. In 1868 to 1870 a course had been introduced in the general history of philosophy with the use of Schwegler and Kant; and in 1870–71 this course became permanently established as part of the curriculum under the title of “French and German Philosophy.” It continued to be included in Bowen’s teaching for nineteen years, until his resignation in 1889. The textbooks used in it were Bouillier’s “Historie de la philosophie cartésienne” and Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” for the entire period; Schwegler’s “History of Philosophy” from 1870 to 1879; and Bowen’s “Modern Philosophy” from 1879 to 1889. In this course, in addition to Kant, the study of the later German metaphysicians was pursued by him with the aid in 1870 of his own excellently written sketches on the “History of Modern Philosophy.” The other course by Bowen mentioned as of significance in his philosophical instruction was one in modern German philosophy. It was first offered in 1873-74 and was given until 1889 throughout the remaining period of his academic instruction. In it German textbooks were for the first time used in the study of philosophy at Harvard. The authors and the works studied were Hartmann’s “Philosophie des Unbewussten” and Schopenhauer’s “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.” These works were translated by the students in the classroom and their philosophical doctrines discussed. To Bowen thus fairly belongs the credit during this period of introducing the study of German philosophy into Harvard. He also laid thereby broad foundations for the future development of the entire field of the history of philosophy in the University.
Bowen’s resignation as Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity took place at the close of the College year, 1888-89. In the annual Report, dated January 16, 1890, President Eliot wrote of him: “Mr. Bowen had been forty years in the service, four years as tutor (1835–39) and thirty-six years as Alford Professor (1853-89). In the earlier part of his service as Alford Professor he gave instruction in all the great subjects mentioned in the title of his chair: in the later years the Plummer Professor and the Professor of Political Economy had relieved him of large portions of the work assigned by its founder to the Alford Professorship. As teacher and author Professor Bowen was always learned, clear, positive, and incisive; as a member of the Faculty he was punctual in attendance, usually, but not uniformly conservative in his action, and courteous though strenuous in debate. In recognition of his long, faithful, and distinguished service he has been elected, since the beginning of the current year, Alford Professor Emeritus.”
Bowen lived only six months after his resignation. His death occurred January 21, 1870. Of him a writer at the time said: “The late Professor Bowen was in some respects a more remarkable man than the comments upon him since his death would indicate. He had not an original mind, but, like Mr. John Fiske, who has given a new popular rendering to American history, he had the faculty of using the knowledge accumulated or the results reached by others in a remarkable degree. He accumulated what was going in economics, politics, literary criticism, philosophical investigation and religious thought, as if in each department he were a specialist and his long list of works shows his versatility in this respect to have been, perhaps, more remarkable than that of any American of his time.”
An innovation in academic instruction occurred during the period of Bowen’s teaching by the addition to the regular curriculum of courses of university lectures. These were given by eminent men in different domains who received annual appointment. Only a few lectures were delivered by any one individual; so that in a course given throughout a single year six lecturers were employed. The system failed as a scheme for giving advanced instruction. The treatment of subjects was too disconnected. Students in the higher branches demanded more continuous and systematic training. The system, therefore, disappeared in 1871-72 after a trial of nine years. The best results, however, according to the President’s Report were attained by it in the year 1869–70 from the courses through the year in modern languages and philosophy. The success of the course in philosophy was undoubtedly due to the brilliant array of lecturers appointed in that year. The list included Ralph Waldo Emerson of Concord, J. Elliot Cabot of Brookline, George P. Fisher of Yale College, Charles S. Pierce and John Fiske of Cambridge. In 1870-71, which was the last year of this University lecture course in philosophy, R. W. Emerson lectured “On the Natural History of the Intellect”; J. E. Cabot on “Kant”; Chauncy Wright of Cambridge on “Psychology” C. S. Pierce on “Logic”; and John Fiske “On the Positive Philosophy.”
III
The development of religious and moral instruction in the University has always been closely associated with the philosophical department. Natural religion and moral philosophy were among the subjects specifically assigned to the Alford Chair. They likewise formed a part of the instruction given by the Hollis Professor of Divinity. Upon the appointment of Professor Bowen in 1853 the teaching of the religious and practical aspects of these subjects, as already mentioned, was transferred to President Walker, although he continued to give a course in “Religious Instruction,” as these branches were then designated, from 1853 to 1855. In 1855, however, a new professorship of “Christian Morals” was established through the will of Caroline Plummer. The full title of the incumbent was at first “Preacher to the University” and “Plummer Professor of Christian Works”; but in 1886 it was changed to “Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.” The course in religious instruction and Christian ethics which had been given by the President was then assigned to the Plummer Professor. The first incumbent of the new chair of Christian Morals was Frederic Dan Huntington (A.B. Amherst 1839), who held it from 1855 to 1860. Instruction was given by him to the freshman class in Whately’s “Lessons in Christian Morals,” and in Paley’s “Evidences of Christianity.” He also heard recitations from the seniors in Butler’s “Analogy.” In 1860 Professor Huntington resigned to become President of Saint Andrew’s Divinity School at Syracuse, New York. Later he became “Episcopal Bishop of Central New York,” an office he held until his death in 1904.
Professor Andrew Preston Peabody (H.U. [Harvard University] 1826) received in 1860 the second appointment made to the chair of Christian Morals. He retained this professorship for the long period of twenty-one years. From 1860 to 1875 he gave instruction twice a week both to the freshman and the senior classes; but from 1875 to 1881 his work was limited mainly to the senior class. With the freshmen he used from 1862 to 1873 Champlin’s “First Principles of Ethics,” which was an elementary textbook devoted chiefly to practical ethics. In 1873 Professor Peabody published a “Manual of Moral Philosophy,” which he had prepared for the special use of his freshman class. This work contained, in addition to a discussion of the motives of action and of the various virtues, an excellent outline of the history of moral philosophy. The textbook prescribed by him for the senior class was changed nearly every year. He used in turn Hopkins’s “Lectures on Moral Science,” Peabody’s “Lowell Lectures on Christian Doctrine,” Bulfinch’s “Evidences of Christianity,” Peabody’s “Christianity, the Religion of Nature,” Fleming’s “Manual of Moral Philosophy,” Stewart’s “Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man,” Calderwood’s “Handbook of Ethics,” Jouffrey’s “Ethics,” Upham’s “Elements of Mental Philosophy,” Hodgson’s “Theory of Practice on Ethical Inquiry,” Grote’s “Treatise on the Moral Ideals,” Janet’s “Ethics,” and Plutarch’s “Morals.” No better evidence than this list of works need be offered of the wide range of his knowledge and of the character of his instruction in Christian ethics. Upon his resignation in 1884, he was appointed Professor Emeritus. Thereafter he was engaged in constant literary activity, of which one result was the publication of his “Moral Philosophy” in 1887. His death occurred on the 10th of March, 1893. It was the personality of Professor Peabody, even more than the instruction he gave, which proved an inspiration to successive generations of students. He was a modern saint, and, as is said upon his memorial tablet in Appleton Chapel, “Wist not that his face shone ?”
In the foregoing description of the progress of philosophical instruction at Harvard during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we have dealt with the work of successive professors each of whom was responsible for teaching almost all the courses in philosophy. The system of instruction, moreover, during this period was organized to correspond with the four successive years of the college course. A new era was inaugurated with the adoption of the elective system. The classification of courses based upon college classes now gave place to a grouping according to subjects from the elementary to the most advanced. The gradual growth of the elective system resulted in 1879-80 in the entire disappearance of prescribed work in philosophy. Political economy had for many years been taught as part of the work of the Alford Professor of Civil Polity and was included in the department of philosophy even after a special instructor was appointed for the subject. In 1879-80, however, a separate department of political economy was formed. From a very early date forensics also had been regarded the peculiar work of the teacher of philosophy and Professor Palmer had charge of them after his appointment, until they too, in 1879-80, ceased to be required. Henceforward the work of the philosophical department was limited to its own peculiar sphere and the changes which take place therein are those due to development within its own domain. Philosophical instruction under the elective system now devolved upon a staff of teachers each of whom became responsible in large degree for special subjects or branches of philosophy.
Prior even to the adoption of the elective system a beginning had been made towards the enlargement of the philosophical staff. In 1866, Ephraim Gurney was appointed Assistant Professor of Intellectual Philosophy and as an associate of Professor Bowen taught for two years the course given in Bowen’s “Logic” and Hamilton’s “Metaphysics” to the junior class. He had as his immediate successors, who taught the same course, William Wells Newell, Instructor in Philosophy for the year 1868-69, and Ellis Peterson, Assistant Professor of Philosophy for the years 1870-72. But with the transition to the elective system and the consequent formation of a philosophical department, in the early history of which, as already described, Professors Bowen and Peabody had shared, there was made in successive years a series of appointments to the philosophical staff of younger men who were to assume the large responsibilities of the successful development of this important division under the newly adopted elective method of instruction.
[…]
In 1880, Francis Greenwood Peabody (H.U. [Harvard University] 1869) was appointed Parkman Professor in the Harvard Divinity School, where he taught homiletics, ethics, and the philosophy of religion. In 1882-83 he added to the scope of the philosophical instruction by offering two courses in the philosophical department of the College. One of these courses was upon the philosophy of religion and the other upon ethics in relation to religion. In the latter course, he used Spencer’s “Data of Ethics” and Maurice’s “Social Morality.” The social aspects of moral questions here discussed proved significant of the future development of his work. In 1883-84 he offered a course on ethical theories and the social problem, in which he treated the topics of charity, divorce, labor, Indians, prisons, and temperance. Thereafter, in a course designated “The Ethics of the Social Questions,” he discussed the practical ethics of modern society and required of students personal investigation of various institutions of charity or reform. In 1886 he was transferred from the Parkman professorship to the Plummer professorship of Christian Morals as successor to Professor Andrew Preston Peabody and thereby maintained the prestige of an honored name in the department. The work of social ethics developed under him to such proportions as to be formed in 1905 into a separate department of the philosophical division. This department, thoroughly equipped with a library and museum of social ethics, found permanent quarters for social research in 1905 in Emerson Hall.
[…]
A systematic course in which ethical theory was applied to the social problems owed its founding at Harvard, as already stated, to Professor Francis Greenwood Peabody. It was first given by him under the designation of “Social Ethics” in 1884, having been preceded by his course on “ethics in relation to religion” from 1882 to 1884. Religious instruction, Christian ethics, and Social ethics has thus been the progressive terminology applied to their courses of instruction by the three successive Plummer Professors of Christian Morals. In the course on social ethics emphasis was laid by Professor Peabody upon the moral aspects of the social questions as well as the philosophy of society involved. The ethics of the family, of poor relief, of the labor question, and of the drink question, were studied. In addition, students made personal investigations of various institutions for the amelioration of society. Dr. Benjamin Rand was associated with Professor Peabody in the successful development of this course from 1894 to 1902. The staff for the practical study of social problems was further enlarged by the appointments of Professor David Camp Rogers and Professor Jeffrey Richardson Brackett. Through the efforts of Professor Peabody a finely equipped department for instruction in social ethics was made possible by the wise gifts of Mr. Alfred Tredway White, toward the construction and endowment of it in Emerson Hall.
Source: Benjamin Rand. Philosophical Instruction in Harvard University from 1636-1906. pp. 14-19, 23-25, 28-33, 35-36, 41-42. Reprinted from The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, 1928-1929.
