A century ago economics at M.I.T. was struggling to grow beyond being a mere service department for science and engineering students, having particular emphasis on the intersection of engineering and administration. The following two-page report of the M.I.T. Corporation’s Visiting Committee on the Department of Economics and Statistics (1924) provides us relatively little programmatic grist to grind, so I have chosen to let the report speak for itself and add notes regarding the members of the 1924 Visiting Committee.
The Committee included one of the members of the Jekyll Island group responsible for an initial draft of the proposal for a Federal Reserve System (Frank Arthur Vanderlip), a Harvard-educated man from the Forbes family business (William Cameron Forbes), and my personal favorite, one of the co-founders of Thom McAn’s Shoes (New Hampshire shoe manufacturer, J. Franklin McElwain). Personal favorite because in high-school and the summer before going off to college, I worked as a floor salesman for Thom McAn at the Parmatown Mall.
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MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
REPORT OF THE
CORPORATION VISITING COMMITTEE ON THE
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
Submitted March 12, 1924
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TO THE CORPORATION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY:
The Visiting Committee on the Department of Economics and Statistics begs to report as follows:
Your committee met at the Union Club on January 7, 1924. There were present Messrs. Vanderlip, McElwain, Miller, Humphreys, and Forbes, chairman. We were privileged to have President Stratton as our guest, and Professor [Davis Rich] Dewey brought with him Professors [Martin Joseph] Shugrue, [Erwin Haskell] Schell, [Willard Eldridge] Freeland and Mr. [Oscar William] Hausserman of his department.
At our meeting last year, there was discussion as to the possibility of limiting the course in engineering administration. This limitation has been effectively accomplished by making the conditions of entrance somewhat more drastic, the number reported for this year being three hundred fifty-one as compared with three hundred eighty-four last year, and four hundred sixty-four in 1922. There has also been a falling off of twenty-three in the course in Elementary Economics.
Your committee again agreed on the importance and necessity of an advisory council, to be selected from different industries in different localities and thus to put the Department in touch with representative people whose industrial enterprises are benefited by the training given to young men capable of entering their service. It is believed that the Department is now taking steps to secure such a council, and it is expected that the Visiting Committee will invite the advisory council to sit with it at least once a year.
The need was pointed out in the last report of your committee for an auditorium or lecture hall sufficiently large to hold the entire class in Elementary Economics or in Engineering Administration. This need is recognized by President Stratton and we are assured that in making plans for the future an effort will be made to provide such a room.
In this year’s budget for the Department an appropriation for an additional assistant professor of accounting was recommended and was allowed. Professor Dewey reports that as yet he has been unable to fill this position as he has not found the right person. But efforts are under way to secure a suitable appointee. Meanwhile an instructor has been secured who is assisting in this direction.
Your committee recommended last year that a fifth-year course is desirable and that the staff of the Department be increased by two additional members, to be selected primarily for their research ability and qualification in some specialized field of economics. These men would enable the Department to provide extra courses in subjects usually covered by business schools and not covered by the Institute, such as railroad economics, public utilities, foreign trade, etc. This would give a broader curriculum and an opportunity for advanced students to obtain a master’s degree. We beg to repeat this recommendation and urge that whenever funds of the Institute are available, such increase in staff and courses be established.
We repeat, too, the recommendation of last year that a man be employed to travel from plant to plant where students of the Institute are taking vacation or even term time employment and supervise their work, making sure that they are getting the most out of it and giving the best service to it. As this travelling would not necessarily take his whole time, such an officer could be of great assistance to the Department while not travelling, and could supervise the theses requirements in the fourth year.
Your committee, in closing, calls attention to the low scale of salaries paid in the Department and the difficulty encountered in obtaining and retaining men of the class needed with the meager salaries allowed, and urges that wherever possible more liberal salaries be paid for the staff of this important Department.
Respectfully submitted,
W. CAMERON FORBES, Chairman
J. FRANKLIN McELWAIN
WALTER HUMPHREYS
FRANKLIN T. MILLER
FRANK A. VANDERLIP
LESTER D. GARDNER
Source: M.I.T. Archives. Office of the President. Box 426. Folder “Economics, 1924, 1936-37”.
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Meet the Visiting Committee of the M.I.T. Corporation
Chairman. William Cameron Forbes (1870-1959).
Life member of the Corporation, 1913-51. Life Member Emeritus 1951-1959.
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- A.B. Harvard 1892.
- Becomes partner in J. M. Forbes & Co., merchants, 1899.
- Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, 1909-13.
- Overseer of Harvard University from 1914-20.
- Ambassador to Japan, 1930-32.
- Obituary in The Boston Globe (26 December 1959).
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James Franklin McElwain (1874-1958).
Term member of the Corporation, 1919-24.
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- Attended M.I.T., 1893-94. Not listed in the Register of Former Students (1912, p. 266) of being awarded a degree!
- In 1922 the J.F. McElwain Shoe Company and Melville Shoe opened their first Thom McAn store in New York.
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Franklin Thomas Miller (1873-1940).
Term member of the Corporation, 1920-25.
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- S.B. (M.I.T.) in naval architecture, 1895.
- Assistant Secretary of Commerce under Herbert Hoover as secretary of commerce.
- Director of the Division of Construction in the Department of Labor during WWI.
- Retired in 1927 after serving as publisher of architectural and engineering magazines.
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Walter Dexter Humphreys (1874-1970).
Alumni term member of the Corporation, 1923-28.
Life member of the Corporation, 1929-1960.
Secretary of the Corporation, 1929-1960.
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- S.B. (M.I.T.) in mechanical engineering, 1897.
- Registrar (M.I.T.), 1902-1922.
- Instructor (1907-19); Associate Professor (1919-22).
- Secretary-Treasurer of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers 1922-1952.
- Obituary shared with the MIT Faculty written by J. R. Killian, Jr.
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Frank Arthur Vanderlip (1864-1937).
Life member of the Corporation, 1916-37.
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- Begins serious career in journalism as the city editor of the Aurora Evening Post (Illinois), 1885.
- Becomes financial editor at the Chicago Tribune, 1892. Takes extension course in political economy at the University of Chicago.
- Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 1897-1901.
- November 1910, at the invitation of Senator Nelson Aldrich, Vanderlip joined a small group of leading bankers on a train to Jekyll Island that would lead to the early plans for the Federal Reserve system.
- President of National City Bank 1909-19.
- Finding Aid to the Frank Arthur Vanderlip papers at Columbia University (includes short biography).
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Lester Durand Gardner (1876-1956).
Term member of the Corporation, 1922-27.
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- S.B. from M.I.T. in 1898
- Obituary published by the Daniel Guggenheim Board of Awards. Recipient of the 1947 Daniel Guggenheim Medal for outstanding achievement in advancing aeronautics.
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Image Source: M.I.T. Museum website, Great Court with Dome, [April 5,] 1924. Object ID: GCP-00030328.