Thomas Nixon Carver taught or co-taught sociology in the Harvard economics department eight times in the first decade of the twentieth century. Carver lists sixteen items in his chapter on sociology in A guide to reading in social ethics and allied subjects (1910), by Francis G. Peabody et al.
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Carver’s teaching assistant was J. S. Davis [Ph.D., 1913] whose obituary, “Joseph Stancliffe Davis, (1885-1975)” , was written by Joseph H. Willits. It was published in The American Statistician 30, no. 4 (1976), p. 199.
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Sociology exams from earlier years
1901-02 (taught by T. N. Carver)
1902-03 (taught by T. N. Carver and W. Z. Ripley)
1903-04 (taught by T. N. Carver)
1904-05 (taught by T. N. Carver and J. A. Field) Includes the reading list for the course and additional biographical information.
1905-06 (taught by T. N. Carver)
1906-07 (taught by J. A. Field)
1907-08 (taught by T. N. Carver)
1908-09 (taught by T. N. Carver and C. W. Thompson)
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Course Announcement and Description
1909-10
- Principles of Sociology. — Theories of Social Progress. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30. Professor Carver, and an assistant.
The purpose of this course will be to make an analytical study of social life in order to discover the elementary factors and forces which hold society together and give it an orderly development. The development of social institutions, such as the family, the state, religion, property, and contract, will also be studied with a view to finding out their true relation to social well-being and progress.
Reading in connection with the lectures will be assigned in such works as Spencer’s Principles of Sociology, Bagehot’s Physics and Politics, Kidd’s Social Evolution, and in Carver’s Sociology and Social Progress. Students are expected to take part in the discussion of the books read and of the lectures delivered.
Course 3 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.
Source: History and Political Science, Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1909-10. Published in the Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. VI, No. 29 (July 23, 1909).
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Course Enrollment
1909-10
Economics 3. Professor Carver, assisted by Mr. [Joseph Stancliffe] Davis [Ph.D., 1913]. — Principles of Sociology. Theories of Social Progress.
Total 70: 12 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 26 Juniors, 9 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 9 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1909-1910, p. 45.
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ECONOMICS 3
Mid-year Examination, 1909-10
Do not try to write too much. Think out your answers and express yourself clearly.
- How would you define Sociology, and into what departments would you divide it?
- How does the problem of the transmissibility of acquired characters affect the problem of race improvement?
- Do geographical conditions exercise as powerful an influence upon mental and social life in advanced stages of civilization as in the lower stages? Explain your position.
- How is the form of social organization affected when the social group is compelled to wage its chief struggle against other social groups? How is it affected when the group must wage its chief struggle against the forces of nature?
- Compare the views of Buckle and Kidd as to the relative importance of intellectual and moral development.
- What is meant by the standard of living, how is it maintained, and how does its maintenance affect the general problem of adaptation?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1909-10.
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ECONOMICS 3
Year-end Examination, 1909-10
- What, according to Spencer, are the original external and the original internal factors of sociology?
- What professions have developed from the priesthood, and how has the development taken place?
- What are the points of resemblance between the mediaeval prince and the modern political boss?
- What is Spencer’s opinion as to the development of European society in the near future?
- How, according to Buckle, is civilization affected by the “aspects of nature”?
- What is meant by the “zone of the founders of religion”?
- What is meant by “The Productive Life”?
- What is the relation of morality to adaptation?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 9, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1910-11 (HUC 7000.25) Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1910), pp. 39-40.
Image Source: Portraits of Thomas Nixon Carver and Joseph Stancliffe Davis from the Harvard Class Album 1916.