The Harvard Archives has five folders of undated syllabi/reading lists from the economics department. Every so often as curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror I cannot resist the urge to attempt dating artifacts that have been unceremoniously dumped into folders labelled e.g. “Economics, Undated (5 of 5)”.
The following prescribed reading list can be dated with extremely high probability to the course taught by William James Ashley from the turn of the 20th century (1899-90) for which exams have already been transcribed. I have used square brackets to designate additional bibliographic information.
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Evidence of
(i) Ashley’s course and (ii) 1899-1900
Note the close correspondence of the authors in the prescribed reading list to the course announcement below for the 1897-98 academic year (it was not offered 1898-99 when Ashley was on leave). The course description for 1899-1900 would have been helpful, but I have not located a copy yet.
Economics in the Rear-view Mirror posted a first term reading list in the Harvard Archives for Ashley’s course Economics 11: The Modern Economic History of Europe that has a stamp: “Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass. Jan 15, 1900” along with a handwritten note in pencil on the second term’s reading list “1899-1900”. Those semester reading lists bear distinct similarities to the reading list featured in this post, both begin with “Prescribed Reading” and we see that almost all authors of items in the reading list are only identified by last name.
The translation of Turgot’s Réflexions in Ashley’s own series Economic Classics was published in 1898. Also the use of many other texts from Ashley’s Economic Classics as well as his use relevant chapters of his own Economic History are strong evidence that we are dealing with Ashley’s course.
Ashley resigned from Harvard effect September 1, 1901. He did not offer Economics 15 in his final year.
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Course Enrollment
Primarily for Graduates:—
[Economics] 15. Professor Ashley. — The History and Literature of Economics to the close of the Eighteenth Century. Lectures (2 or 3 hours).
Total 11: 6 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.
Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.
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Cf. Course Announcement
1897-98
[Economics] 15. The History and Literature of Economics to the Close of the Eighteenth Century. Mon., Wed., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor ASHLEY.
The course of economic speculation will here be followed, in its relation alike to the general movement of contemporary thought and to contemporary social conditions. The lectures will consider the economic theories of Plato and Aristotle; the economic ideas underlying Roman law; the mediaeval church and the canonist doctrine; mercantilism in its diverse forms; “political arithmetic;” the origin of the belief in natural rights and its influence on economic thought; the physiocratic doctrine; the work and influence of Adam Smith; the doctrine of population as presented by Malthus; Say and the French school; and the beginnings of academic instruction in economics.
The lectures will be interrupted from time to time for the examination of selected portions of particular authors; and careful study will be given to portions of Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics (in translation) to Mun’s England’s Treasure, Locke’s Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, certain Essays of Hume, Turgot’s Réflexions, and specified chapters of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and Malthus’ Essay . Students taking the course are expected to procure the texts of the chief authors considered, and to consult the following critical works:
Ingram, History of Political Economy; Cossa, Introduction to the Study of Political Economy; Cannan, History of the Theories of Production and Distribution; Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy; Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest; Taussig, Wages and Capital.
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. 33-34.
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ECONOMICS 15.
PRESCRIBED READING.
Ingram, History of Political Economy. [Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1888.]
Taussig, Wages and Capital, pp. 124-215. [New York: D. Appleton and company, 1896.]
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Plato, The Republic, 368-376, 414-424, 462-465, 473 [note: these are not page numbers but rather text section numbers printed in margins], in the translation either of Jowett or of Davies and Vaughan [London and New York: Macmillan, 1892]; with Jowett’s Introduction. pp. cli-clxxv, clxxxv-cxcii. [Jowett’s third edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888]
Aristotle, The Politics, Bk. I and Bk. II, 1-7, in Jowett’s translation; with Jowett’s Introduction, pp. ix-xxxvii. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885]
The teaching of mediaeval Schoolmen and Canonists; as set forth in Ashley, Economic History, I, pp. 124-159, II, ch. vi. [2nd edition. 1892-93.]
Mun, England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade. [See this title in Ashley’s “Economic Classics”. London: Macmillan, 1895.]
Locke, Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest. (in Ward, Lock & Co.’s edition of his Essays, pp. 559-614).
Hume, Essays, “Of Commerce” (23), “Of Money” (25), “Of Interest” (26), “Of the Balance of Trade” (27), “Of Taxes” (30). [David Hume. Essays, Literary, Moral, and Political. London: Ward, Lock & Bowden, Limited, printed sometime after Aug 1891 and 1897. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100193633].
Turgot, Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (in [L.] Robineau’s Turgot [Administration et oeuvres Économiques] in “Petite Bibliothèque Economique” [Paris: Guillaumin et Cie (1889), pp. 46-148; or English translation in Ashley’s “Economic Classics”. London: Macmillan, 1898.]
Adam Smith, “Select Chapters and Passages from The Wealth of Nations [See this title in Ashley’s “Economic Classics”. New York and London: Macmillan, 1895.]
Malthus, “Parallel Chapters of the 1st and 2d editions of An Essay on the Principle of Population” [See this title in Ashley’s “Economic Classics”. New York and London: Macmillan, 1895.]
Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, ch. I-VI. [See this title in Ashley’s “Economic Classics”: New York and London: Macmillan, 1895.]
J. S. Mill, Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, II-V. [2nd ed. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1874.]
Two theses are required: one, before the Christmas Recess, on Mercantilism (illustrated from Mun, or any other important mercantilist writer); the other, before the Spring Recess, on Physiocracy (with a discussion of Turgot’s relation thereto).
Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. HUC(522.2.1) Box 10. Folder “Economics, Undated (5 of 5)”.
Image Source: “Ashley, William James, 1860–” in 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), p. 595.