Examinations from Edward Cummings’ Harvard courses on socialism and communism 1893-1900 have been transcribed and posted earlier. Biographical information about him from 1899 has also been posted.
Thanks to Cummings’ examination style that used exact citations from the literature for students to explain or comment upon, I was able to reverse-engineer some of the key readings that were either assigned or discussed in class. Links to those readings follow the individual examination questions.
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Enrollment
[Economics] 3. Mr. Cummings.—The Principles of Sociology. —Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 3 hours.
Total 22: 5 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1892-1893, p. 67.
ECONOMICS 3
Mid-Year Examination (1893)
Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit two.
- “We have just seen that a one-sided application of the conception that society is of organic growth leads to difficulties, as well as the conception of artificial making. These we can only escape by recognizing a truth which includes them both.”
What are these difficulties, and what is this truth?
[David George Ritschie. The Principles of State Interference. Chapter 1, Herbert Spencer’s Individualism and his Conception of Society (London, 1891), pp. 49-50] - “If societies have evolved, and if that mutual dependence of parts which coöperation implies, has been gradually reached, then the implication is that however unlike their developed structures may become, there is a rudimentary structure with which they all set out.”
What evidence do you find of such a structure?
[Herbert Spencer. The Principles of Sociology, Vol. 2, Chapter 5, Political Forms and Forces (New York, 1883), p. 311] - According to Aristotle, “Man is by nature a political animal.” According to Thomas Aquinas, “homo est animal sociale et politicum.” How far is this insertion of “sociale” alongside of “politicum” significant of the different way in which the State presented itself to the mind of the Greek and to the mind of the mediaeval philosopher?
[David George Ritschie. The Principles of State Interference. Appendix Note A: The Distinction between Society and the State (London, 1891), p. 157] - “The theory of the social contract belongs in an especial manner to the political philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But it did not originate with them. It had its roots in the popular consciousness of mediaeval society. As a philosophical theory, it had already been anticipated by the Greek Sophists.”
Indicate briefly some of the important changes which the doctrine underwent.
[David George Ritschie. Contributions to the History of the Social Contract Theory, Vol. 6 Political Science Quarterly (1891), p. 656.] - “In primitive societies the person does not exist, or exists only potentially, or, as we might say, in spe. The person is the product of the State.” Explain. What is the theoretical and historical justification of this doctrine, as against the contention that the individual loses what the State gains?
[David George Ritschie. The Principles of State Interference. Chapter 1, Herbert Spencer’s Individualism and his Conception of Society (London, 1891), p. 29.] - Discuss the relative preponderance of free and of un-free elements at different stages of social development.
- It has been remarked by Spencer that those domestic relations which are ethically the highest, are also biologically and sociologically the highest. Discuss the historical evidence on this point. What is the test of this ethical superiority?
[Herbert Spencer. The Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, Part III, Chapter 2, The Diverse Interests of the Species, of the Parents, and of the Offspring (New York, 1883), p. 630] - To what extent is there ground for saying that the influence of militant and of industrial organization is traceable in the status of women and the duration of marriage in the United States and in other countries?
[Herbert Spencer. The Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, Part III, Chapter 10, The Status of Women (New York, 1883), p. 765] - “We find ourselves applying the ideal of a Greek city to our vast and heterogeneous modern political structures—a tremendous extension of the difficulties. If we are not more successful than the Greeks, the task is greater and the aim higher.” Explain.
[Frederick Pollock. The History of the Science of Politics, (1883), p. 13. Originally published serially in the Fortnightly Review (August 1882—January 1883).] - “The unit of an ancient society was the family, of a modern society the individual.”
Describe the tendencies which have brought about this change.
[David George Ritschie. The Principles of State Interference. Chapter 1, Herbert Spencer’s Individualism and his Conception of Society (London, 1891), p. 30.] - “The ultimate responsibility of the ultimate political sovereign is a question for the philosophy of history; in other words, one may say it is a matter of ‘natural selection.’” Explain.
[David George Ritschie. The Principles of State Interference. Appendix Note B: The Conception of Sovereignty (London, 1891), pp. 165-166.] - What is your criterion of social progress? Why?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 3, Vol. Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.
ECONOMICS 3
Final Examination (June, 1893)
[Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit one.]
- “The different forms of the State are specifically divided, as Aristotle recognized, by the different conceptions of the distinction between government and subjects, especially by the quality (not the quantity) of the ruler.” Explain. Indicate briefly the relation of the different forms of the State to one another.
[Johann Caspar Bluntschli. The Theory of the State (translation from 6th German edition), Chapter IV, The Principle of the Four Fundamental Forms of the State (Oxford, 1885), p. 318.] - “If there is any one principle which is clearly grasped in the present day, it is that political power is a public duty as well as a public right, that it belongs to the political existence of life of the whole nation, and that it can never be regarded as the property or personal right of an individual.” How far did this principle secure recognition in Greek, in Roman, and in mediaeval times?
[Johann Caspar Bluntschli. The Theory of the State (translation from 6th German edition), Chapter XIV, Constitutional Monarchy (Oxford, 1885), p. 398.] - “The past seems to prove that kings and aristocracies make States, and that left to themselves, the people unmake them.” State carefully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the political philosophy here involved.
[Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. The Modern State in Relation to Society and the Individual. (London, 1891), p. 100.] - “This one of the curious phases of the railway problem in Europe, which has a tendency to show how multiform and various are the influences at work to modify and change the conditions of the railway problem, and how little can be gathered from mere government documents and laws to shed light upon this most interesting and intricate of all modern industrial questions.” What light does Italian, French and Austrian experience with railroads throw on the general question of State control?
[Simon Sterne. Some Curious Phases of the Railway Question in Europe. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 1, No. 4 (July, 1887), p. 468.] - “Expediency and the results of experience must determine how far to go. They seem to justify public ownership of gas works, water works and electric lights. The same would doubtless be true of the telegraph and telephone.” Discuss the evidence.
[From conclusion of Edward W. Bemis. Municipal Gas Works in The Chautauquan, Vol. 16, no. 1 (October 1892), pp. 15-18. Cf. his Municipal Ownership of Gas in the United States published by the American Economic Association, Publications Vol. VI, Nos. 4 and 5 (July and September, 1891).] - “We will first concentrate our attention on the economic kernel of socialism, setting aside for the moment the transitory aspect it bears in the hands of agitators, its provisional passwords, and the phenomena and tendencies in religion by which it is accompanied.” State and criticize this “economic kernel.”
[Albert Schäffle. The Quintessence of Socialism, 3rd edition (London, 1891), p. 3] - “The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a conspicuous role before 1848, perished then in the wreck of the Revolution, and have never risen to life again.” What were the characteristics of these earlier forms; and what was their relation to the movements which preceded them and followed them?
[John Rae. Contemporary Socialism. Chapter 1, Introductory (London, 1884), p. 2] - How are the socialistic teachings of Lasalle and Marx related to the economic doctrines of Smith and Ricardo?
[John Rae. Contemporary Socialism. Chapter 2, Ferdinand Lassalle; Chapter 3, Karl Marx (London, 1884)] - What ground do you find for or against the contention that “socialism is the economic complement of democracy”?
[E.g., Thomas Kirkup. An Inquiry into Socialism (London, 1887), p. 184; or his A History of Socialism, (London: 1892) p. 8.] - “Not only material security, but the perfection of human social life is what we aim at in that organized co-operation of many men’s lives and works which is called the State…..But where does protection leave off and interference begin?”
[Frederick Pollock. The History of the Science of Politics, (1883), p. 49. Originally published serially in the Fortnightly Review (August 1882—January 1883).]
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Vol. Examination Papers, 1893-95. Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1893), pp. 36-37.
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.