The systematic transcription of economics exam questions and course materials through the years can be tedious even for the curator of the artifacts collected here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, so I’ll try to make such posts a bit livelier adding a dash or two of additional anecdotal material about the instructor or the course itself.
From the obituaries for Charles Jesse Bullock inserted immediately below we learn that in his pre-economics life Bullock taught Latin and Greek. This perhaps accounts for his interest in early, as in ancient Greek early, economic thought. Also interesting is to learn that after his retirement from Harvard that he served as the chief of the research division for the Republican National committee and provided advice to the 1936 Republican presidential nominee, Alf Landon.
Bullock’s pre-Harvard career is sketched in a note taken from the Williams College yearbook, The Gulielmensian (1900).
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A Pair of Obituaries
FORMER WILLIAMS TEACHER IS DEAD
Prof. Charles J. Bullock,Retired Harvard Economist,
on Faculty Here at Century’s Turn.
The North Adams Transcript (March 20, 1941)
Dr. Charles Jesse Bullock, professor emeritus of economics at Harvard university, a nationally known tax authority and a former member of the Williams college faculty, died Monday at his home in Hingham. He was 72 years old.
From 1899 until 1903 when he went to Harvard, Dr. Bullock taught at Williams, first as an assistant professor of economics and sociology and then as Orrin Sage professor of history and political science. He became a full professor at Harvard in 1908 and continued to teach there until 1935 when he took the title of professor emeritus.
Prof. Bullock was the author of many books and articles on economics. In the presidential campaign year of 1936, after his retirement, he served as chief of the research division of the Republican National committee and conferred with Alfred M. Landon, the Republican candidate, on many occasions.
A native of Boston, Dr. Bullock was graduated from Boston university in 1889. He taught Greek and Latin in New England schools and served as principal of the Middlebury, Vt. high school before entering the University of Wisconsin to study economics. He earned a doctorate there in 1895.
Prof. Bullock returned to Williamstown in 1921 to receive an honorary degree of doctor of laws from Williams.
Dr. Bullock married Helena M. Smith of Washington in 1895 and they had one daughter, Grace Helena Bullock.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Prof. Chas. J. Bullock
Middlebury Register and Addison County Journal (Mar 28, 1941)
Word has been received in Middlebury of the death at Hingham, Mass. on Mar. 17 of Prof. Charles Jesse Bullock of Harvard University, who was principal of Middlebury High School in 1891 and whose wife was the former Helena Smith of Middlebury. Funeral services were held Mar. 19. After he left Middlebury Prof. Bullock served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin, Cornell, Williams, and Harvard. He became widely noted as an economist, specializing in taxation and monetary problems. In an editorial tribute to him the Boston Herald said: “He saw the necessity of elevating the standards of business and of giving some of the aspects and ideals of the professions. It was due largely to his quiet preliminary work over a considerable period that the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration was initiated and endowed liberally. . . It was not the least of his services that he made academic and nonacademic circles understand each other better, and work together in harmony and with mutual respect.”
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Course Enrollment
1904-05
Economics 7a 1hf. Asst. Professor Bullock. — Introduction to Public Finance.
Total 26: 5 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 1 Other.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 74.
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Course Description
1904-05
[Economics] 7a 1hf. Introduction to Public Finance. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. Asst. Professor Bullock.
This course is designed to cover the general field of Public Finance exclusive of Taxation. After a brief survey of the scope and history of Public Finance, the following subjects are studied: Public Expenditures, Public Revenues other than Taxes, Public Debts, Financial Administration, and Budgetary Legislation. Attention is given both to theory and to the practice of various countries.
A systematic course of reading will be prescribed, and most of the exercises conducted by the method of informal discussion. Graduate Students and candidates for Honors will be given the opportunity of writing theses.
The course is open to students who have taken Economics 1.
Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05 (May 16, 1904), p. 41.
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ECONOMICS 7a1
Final Examination, 1904-05
PUBLIC FINANCE
- Discuss the history of federal expenditures in the United States since 1860.
- What can you say concerning the probable future of the following classes of public expenditures: outlay for external defence, out lay for police purposes, outlay for dependent and defective classes, outlay for the benefit of industry and commerce?
- What is your opinion of the arguments advanced in favor of municipalization of the lighting and street-transportation industries?
- Discuss the past and the present policy of the United States with respect to its public lands.
- Discuss in broad outline the history of the British national debt from 1630 to 1815 and that of the French national debt from 1815 to the present day.
- Should a national debt be repaid? State and criticise the theory of Pitt’s sinking fund of 1786.
- What is your opinion of the proposition to pay off a national debt by accumulating a fund which, invested and improved at interest, will be sufficient to meet the principal of the debt at maturity?
- Compare British and American methods of preparing and voting the national budget.
- What are the comparative merits of the British and the French methods of public accounting?
- Describe in outline the experience of the United States with the independent treasury from 1846 to the present day.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1904-05. Copy also available in 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), pp. 26-27.
Image Source: Interior of Gore Hall, the library at Harvard University from 1838 to 1913. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. For a colorized mugshot of Charles Jesse Bullock.