The previous post included a column from a table that ranked economics graduate programs in 1957 included in the appendix to a study written at the University of Pennsylvania that also included the following table.
I cannot help but tweak an old joke,
What do you call a graduate student who knows three languages?…Trilingual.
What do you call a graduate student who knows two languages?…Bilingual
What do you call a graduate student who knows one language?…An American economics graduate student.
(I’ll show myself out…)
_____________________
Before economists stopped writing their Ph.D. dissertations in English…
A study of the doctoral dissertations accepted [at the University of Pennsylvania] in 1954-1955 shows the extent to which foreign language titles were used in the preparation of the dissertation.
|
Foreign languages |
100% |
| Linguistics |
80% |
|
Natural Sciences |
77% |
| Political Science |
58% |
|
History |
50% |
| English |
43% |
|
Education |
33% |
| Behavioral Sciences |
21% |
Economics |
17% |
Source: Hayward Keniston. Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (January 1959), p.95.
Image Source: Cover of English Sounds for Foreign Tongues: A Drill Book by Sarah Tracy Barrows (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1918).