Edward Cummings, the father of the poet E. E. Cummings, covered the social economics course offerings at Harvard at the end of the 19th century. These included courses in labor economics and social reform movements (esp. “socialism and communism”). The exams for his comparative labor course from 1893-94 mostly consisted of specific unidentified quotations, with students asked to provide explanations or comments. The text-search functions at hathitrust.org, archive.org and google located a dozen of the quotations used by Cummings and links to the texts have been provided below.
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Course Description
(from 1896-97)
The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings and Dr. John Cummings. (VIII)
Course 9 is a comparative study of the condition and environments of workingmen in the United States and European countries. It is chiefly concerned with problems growing out of the relations of labor and capital. There is careful study of the voluntarily organizations of labor, — trade unions, friendly societies, and the various forms of cooperation; of profit-sharing, sliding scales, and joint standing committees for the settlement of disputes ; of factory legislation, employers’ liability, the legal status of laborers and labor organizations, state courts of arbitration, and compulsory government insurance against the exigencies of sickness, accident, and old age. All these expedients, together with the phenomena of international migration, the questions of a shorter working day and convict labor, are discussed in the light of experience and of economic theory, with a view to determining the merits, defects, and possibilities of existing movements.
The descriptive and theoretical aspects of the course are supplemented by statistical evidence in regard to wages, prices, standards of living, and the social condition of labor in different countries.
Topics will be assigned for special investigation, and students will be expected to participate in the discussion of selections from authors recommended for a systematic course of reading.
The course is open not only for students who have taken Course 1, but to Juniors and Seniors of good rank who are taking Course 1.
Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 36-37.
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Course Enrollment
1893-94
[Economics] 9. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries. 3 hours.
Total 43: 7 Graduates, 16 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 5 Other.
Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.
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Mid-year Examination
ECONOMICS 9
1893-94.
(Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Omit two questions.)
- “It becomes my duty, therefore, in undertaking to interpret the social movement of our own times, to disclose, first, those changes in industrial methods by which harmony in industries has been disturbed, and then to trace the influence of such changes into the structure of society.” State carefully what these changes have been; and trace their influence.
[Henry C. Adams. “An Interpretation of the Social Movements of our Time”, International Journal of Ethics, Vol II, October, 1891), p. 33] - Discuss the effect upon wages of machinery, — (a) as a substitute for labor (b) as auxiliary to labor; (c) as affecting division of labor; (d) as concentrating labor and capital; (e) as affecting the nobility[sic, “mobility”] of labor and capital.
- “In my opinion, combination among workingmen is a necessary step in the re-crystallization of industrial rights and duties.” State fully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with this opinion. What forms of combination do you include?
[Henry C. Adams. “An Interpretation of the Social Movements of our Time”, International Journal of Ethics, Vol II, October, 1891), p. 45] - “Trade-unions have been stronger in England than on the Continent, and in America….” In what respects stronger? Why? Contrast briefly the history and present tendencies of the trade-union movement in the United States, England, France, Germany, and Italy.
[Alfred Marshall, Elements of Economics of Industry: being the First Volume of Elements of Economics (London: Macmillan, 1892), Book VI, Ch. XIII. §18, p. 404] - “Trade-unions have been stronger in England than on the Continent, and in America; and wages have been higher in England than on the Continent, but lower than in America.” “Again, those occupations in which wages have risen most in England happen to be those in which there are no unions.” How far do such facts impeach the effectiveness of trade-unions as a means of raising wages and improving the condition of workingmen? What do you conceive to be the economic limits and the proper sphere of trade-union action?
[Alfred Marshall, Elements of Economics of Industry: being the First Volume of Elements of Economics (London: Macmillan, 1892), Book VI, Ch. §18, pp. 404-405.] - “We saw at the beginning that in comparatively recent years the difficulties of keeping up a purely offensive and defensive organization had brought many of the unions back nearer their old allies, the friendly societies, and emphasized the friendly benefits in proportion as the expenditure for trade disputes seemed less important.” Explain carefully this earlier and later relation of trade-unions and Friendly Societies in England.
[Edward Cummings, The English Trades-Unions, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. III (July, 1889), p. 432.] - “This spirit of independent self-help has its advantages and its disadvantages. We have already had occasion to remark how slow in these Friendly Societies has been the progress of reform, and we must repeat that up to the present day it still exhibits defects.” Explain and illustrate the progress of the reform and the nature of existing defects. Does English self-help experience suggest the desirability or undesirability of imitating German methods of compulsory insurance?
- “Countless[sic, “Doubtless” in original] boards of arbitration and conciliation, the establishment of certain rules of procedure, agreements covering definite periods of time, may aid somewhat in averting causes of dispute or in adjusting disputes as they arise; but if we have these alone to look to, strife will be the rule rather than the exception.” Explain the various methods adopted and the results obtained. What have you to say of “compulsory arbitration?”
[Francis A. Walker. “What Shall We Tell the Working Classes?” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 2, 1887. Reprinted in Discussions in Economics and Statistics, edited by Davis R. Dewey. Vol. II. 315-316.] - “The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be, that what is desirable is not so much to put a stop to sub-contracting as to put a stop to ‘sweating,’ whether the man who treats the workman in the oppressive manner which the word ‘sweating’ denotes be a sub-contractor, a piece-master, or a contractor.” Indicate briefly some of the principal forms of industrial remuneration, — giving the special merits and defects of each.
[David F. Schloss. Methods of Industrial Remuneration (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), p. 140.] - “Now that I am on piece-work, I am making about double what I used to make when on day-work. I know I am doing wrong. I am taking away the work of another man.” State and criticize the theory involved in this view of production.
[David F. Schloss. Methods of Industrial Remuneration (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), p. 43-44.]
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.
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Year-End Examination
ECONOMICS 9.
1893-94.
(Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Take the first three questions and four others.)
- “As soon, however, as the factory system was established, the inequality of women and children in their struggle with employers attracted the attention of even the most careless observers; and, attention once drawn to this circumstance, it was not long before the inequality of adult men was also brought into prominence.” How far is this true (a) of England, (b) of the United States? Trace briefly the legislative consequences for children and for adults in the two countries.
[Arnold Toynbee. Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century in England (The Humboldt Library of Popular Science Literature, Vol. 13. New York: Humboldt Publishing Co.), p. 17.] - “It will be necessary, in the first place, to distinguish clearly between the failure of Industrial Coöperation and the failure of the coöperative method—a method, as we have seen, adopted, even partially, by only a very small fraction of Industrial Coöperation.” Explain carefully, discussing especially the evidence furnished by France and England.
- “These four concerns—the Maison Leclaire, the Godin Foundry, the Coöperative Paper Works of Angoulême and the Bon Marché—are virtually coöperative; certainly they secure to the employers and stockholders the substantial benefits of purely coöperative productive enterprises, while they are still, logically, profit-sharing establishments.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing. Indicate briefly the characteristic features of each enterprise.
- “What inferences are we to draw from the foregoing statistics? Unmistakably this, that the higher daily wages in America do not mean a correspondingly enhanced labor cost to the manufacturer. But why so?” Discuss the character of available evidence in regard to the United States, Great Britain and the continent of Europe.
[E. R. L. Gould. The Social Condition of Labor (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, January 1893), pp. 41-2.] - “The juxtaposition of figures portraying the social-economic status of workmen of different nationalities in the country of their birth and the land of their adoption furnishes lessons of even higher interest. From this we are able to learn the social effect of economic betterment.” Explain. How do the facts in question affect your attitude toward recent changes in the character and volume of our immigration?
[E. R. L. Gould. The Social Condition of Labor (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, January 1893), pp. 35-6.] - “The Senate Finance Committee issued some time ago a comparative exhibit of prices and wages for fifty-two years, from which the conclusion is generally drawn that the condition of the wage earner is better to-day than it was thirty or forty years ago. A conclusion of this kind reveals the weakness of even the best statistics. No one can doubt that the work of the Finance Committee is work of high excellence, but for comparing the economic condition of workers it is of little value.” Do you agree or disagree? Why? Indicate briefly the character of the evidence.
- What are the principle organizations which may be said to represent the “Labor Movement” in the United States at the present time? How far are they helpful and how far hostile to one another?
- “In a preceding chapter I have said that as a moral force and as a system the factory system of industry is superior to the domestic system, which it supplanted.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.
[Carroll D. Wright. Factory Legislation from Vol. II, Tenth Census of the United States, reprinted in First Annual Report of the Factory Inspectors of the State of New York (Albany, 1887), p. 41.] - Contrast the English and the German policy in regard to Government Workingmen’s Insurance.
- “Gladly turning to more constructive work, I next consider some industrial changes and reforms which would tend to correct the present bias towards individualism.” What are they?
- Give an imaginary family budget for American, English and German operatives in one of the following industries, — coal, iron, steel, cotton, wool, glass, indicating roughly characteristic differences in such items as throw most light on the social condition of labor.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95.pp. 39-41.
Image Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Vol II (1899), pp. 155-156.