According to a story in The San Francisco Call Bulletin (19 June 1910), the head of the Stanford department of economics, Allyn A. Young, was to go on leave for a year to take the place of Professor Taussig at Harvard. Perhaps Taussig planned on going on leave himself when the original invitation to Young was made, but Taussig did end up teaching his courses as scheduled at Harvard in 1910-11. Young returned to Harvard in 1920.
This post adds links to the statistics exams of courses offered earlier at Harvard by John Cummings and William Z. Ripley. The exam questions for Allyn Abbott Young’s visiting year at Harvard have been previously posted so the value-added to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is the added course description along with links to earlier statistics exams in the economics department beginning in 1896.
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Statistics (Econ 4), previous years
1896-1900, John Cummings.
1900-01 [omitted]
1901-02, Ripley.
1902-03, Ripley.
1903-04, Ripley. [only mid-year exam found]
1904-05, Ripley.
1905-06 [omitted]
1906-07. [offered but no printed exam found]
1907-08, Ripley. [only mid-year exam found]
1908-09, Ripley.
1909-10, Ripley.
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Course Description
1910-11
[Economics] 4. Statistics. — Theory, method, and practice. Tu., Th., at 11. Professor [Allyn Abbott] Young (Leland Stanford Jr. University).
This course is intended rather as an analysis of methods of research and sources of information than as embodying mere results. A brief history of statistics will be followed by an account of census and other statistical methods in the United States and abroad, with the scientific use and interpretation of results. The main divisions of vital statistics, relating to birth, marriage, morbidity, and mortality, life tables, etc.; the statistics of trade and commerce, such as price indexes, etc.; industrial statistics relating to labor, wages, and employment; statistics of agriculture, manufactures, and transportation, will be then considered in order. Laboratory work, amounting to not less than two hours per week, in the preparation of charts, maps, and diagrams from original material, will be required.
Course 4 is open to students who have taken Economics 1; and it is also open to Juniors and Seniors who are taking Economics 1.
Source: History and Political Science, Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1910-11. Published in the Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. VI,I No. 23 (June 21, 1910), p. 53
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Course Enrollment
1910-11
Economics 4. Professor [Allyn Abbott] Young (Leland Stanford Jr. University). — Statistics. Theory, method, and practice.
Total 26: 5 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Freshmen, 1 Others
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1909-1910, p. 49.
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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 4
Mid-year Examination, 1910-11
[There was no mid-year exam in the collection of printed exams.]
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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 4
Year-end Examination, 1910-11
Answer eight questions.
- In what ways did (1) “German university statistics” and (2) “political arithmetic” differ from modern “statistics”?
- What errors are found in age statistics?
- In what ways may the death rates of two or more cities be accurately compared?
- What are the best methods of measuring the change in the length of human life? What different things may be meant by the “length of human life”?
- Discuss census statistics of manufactures, with special reference to the definitions of (1) “manufactures,” and (2) “capital.”
- What are the chief uses of price statistics? How are the problems of (1) choosing quotations, and (2) weighting, affected by the intended use?
- What different methods of “smoothing” a statistical diagram can you suggest? When should diagrams “smoothed” and when not?
- What refinements of method should be observed in making comparisons of the birth rate at different periods or for different classes of the population?
- May it be expected that most frequency curves will approximate the normal curve of error? Why?
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, 1911), p. 42.
Image Source: Portrait of Allyn A. Young from the 1918 Cornell yearbook, The Cornellian (vol. 50), p. 18. Image enhanced by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.