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Courses Harvard Principles

Harvard. Report on the Recitation Sections of Principles of Economics, 1913-14

 

 

A member of the Department of Economics Visiting Committee, John Wells Morss, took it upon himself to sit in and observe classroom performance in the recitation sections of the Harvard Principles of Economics course during the Fall term of 1913-14. From the first paragraph of his report it would appear that the department of economics had invited him to provide a report to serve as a complementary (friendly?) assessment to the survey being (or to be) conducted by the Harvard Division of Education on teaching in the economics department. That Division of Education report was later published: The Teaching of Economics in Harvard University—A Report Presented by the Division of Education at the Request of the Department of Economics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917. 

Morss’ report was passed along to President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard by the chairman of the department of economics, Charles Bullock, for-the-(positive)-record. While the report seems rather long-winded by today’s standards, it does provide us some good information, e.g. about the importance of the weekly questions discussed in the recitation sections. For a sample of the questions we are fortunate to have the published record.

Edmund Ezra Day and Joseph Stancliffe Davis. Questions on the Principles of Economics. New York: 1915.
“A few of the questions here presented are frankly borrowed from previously published collections…More of the questions have been drawn from a stock accumulated through several years in the hands of the instructing staff of the introductory course in Economics at Harvard University.” (p. vii)
The questions were arranged by topics to follow Taussig’s own textbook Principles of Economics (Second, revised edition of 1915: Volume One; Volume Two).

Another interesting takeaway is that Morss noted that over the four weeks that he attended sections, the average amount of assigned reading for these recitations was 33 pages per week from the Taussig textbook. This certainly seems modest from the perspective of today’s nominal reading lists but perhaps actually corresponds to the actual reading completed by the average undergraduate in an introductory or intermediate economics course.

Note: Since the following items come from the last folder from a box that contains the papers of President Lowell of 1909-14 and the month of February is significantly closer to the start than the end of the year, it seems likely that the date, “1913”, found in the typed date on Charles Bullock’s cover letter was mistaken and that both items transcribed below are from February 1914.

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Course Announcement and Description, 1913-14

[Economics] A. (formerly 1). Principles of Economics. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11.

Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Messrs. Burbank, J. S. Davis, R. E. Heilman, and others.

            Course A gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, banking, international trade, and taxation The relations of labor and capital, the present organization of industry, and the recent currency legislation of the United States will be treated in outline.

The course will be conducted partly by lectures, partly by oral discussion in sections. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. course A may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

Source: Harvard University. Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1913-14, published in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. X, No. 1, Part X (May 19, 1913) , p. 60.

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Course Enrollment, 1913-14

[Economics] A (formerly 1). Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Dr. J. S. Davis, and Messrs. P. G. Wright, Burbank, Eldred, and Vanderblue.—Principles of Economics.

Total, 494: 1 Graduate, 1 Business School, 13 Seniors, 129 Juniors, 280 Sophomores, 24 Freshmen. 46 Others.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1913-1914, p. 54.

 

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Examination Questions for Economics A, 1913-14

Mid-year and Year-end final exams for 1913-14 for Economics A have been transcribed and posted earlier. 

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Cover letter from Professor Bullock (Economics)
to President Lowell

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 20, 1913 [sic].

Dear Mr. Lowell:

Mr. John Wells Morss of our Visiting Committee has recently completed a very thoro investigation of the work done in the sections of Economics A. I enclose herewith a copy of the Report, which I think, will be of great interest to you. Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of an hour’s conference with Mr. Morss, in which he told me somewhat more fully about this investigation; and I think it may be worth your while to confer with him upon the subject.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
C. J. Bullock.

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Harvard University

THE SECTION MEETINGS OF ECONOMICS A

Notes by John Wells Morss
February, 1914.

When an amateur attempts to pass upon the work of professionals, a knowledge of his point of view is essential to one who would consider his conclusions. It therefore seems fitting to state that I was invited by the Department of Economics to make an examination of some of its work not because I was expected to reach results comparable to those expected from the examination now being conducted by the Department of Education, but because, as my invitation expressed it, the Department of Economics believed it “important to secure the opinion of some one who represents a different point of view, and brings to the work of inspection the experience of a man of business rather than of a student of education”. I have limited my examination to the work of the section meetings of the Economics Department, and shall limit this report to the work of the section meetings of Economics A, as that course has a large majority of the section meetings of the Department, and to consider them only greatly simplifies what I have to say. I have not compared my results with those of the Department of Education, and I have sought but little to obtain the views of those who conduct the section meetings as to their problems and difficulties lest they overwhelm my own observation.

Economics A, the introductory course to the subject most popular in Harvard College, has an enrollment of students this year of about five hundred and twenty-five. On Saturdays a lecture is delivered to the students in a body in the New Lecture Hall. On two other days of the week each student attends a meeting of the section to which he is assigned. There are twenty-one sections, each with a membership of about twenty-five. They are conducted by five instructors and Assistant Professor Day, all of whom will be referred to as the instructors. Twenty minutes or more of the one hundred minutes given weekly to the section meetings are devoted to writing an answer to a question set by the instructor. As twenty-one section meetings cannot be held at once, the same question cannot be put to all the students of the course; but the six different questions, prepared at a conference of the instructors, are all designed to serve the same purpose of testing the students’ knowledge and comprehension of recent work. I have not attempted to judge either questions or answers, but their usefulness seems to me to be unquestionable. After the answer is written the rest of the two meetings is devoted to a quiz with explanations and discussions based on the required reading which is usually from twenty to fifty pages of Prof. Taussig’s “Principles of Economics”. It is to this part of the work that I have given the most of my attention.

The attendance has been excellent at all the meetings at which I have been present. The maximum number of absences in a section of twenty-five does not ordinarily exceed two. One section had but five absences in six successive meetings beginning in the second week of the fall term. This record may not be equaled at meetings close to holidays and other special occasions, but on the whole the attendance is surprisingly good.

The preparation of the students is stimulated and tested by the questions asked of them by the instructor. So generally did it appear that substantially all the students of a section were called upon in an hour that I ceased after a time to attend to the point, though it seems plain that care should be used not to miss sluggish students assigned to seats in the back of the room. How generally the required reading had been done it was difficult to judge. Perhaps on the average three or four at each meeting answered that they were not prepared. At one meeting near the end of the year in another course than Economics A the preparation had been widely neglected, but that was a single case in my experience, and on the whole it seems that success is attained in the attempt to cause the students to work throughout the year with reasonable regularity.

The attention of the students seemed also satisfactory. Nobody went to sleep and apparently very few were near it. I saw no carving of the desks, though many results of such handiwork are visible. A half dozen raised hands would often indicate a strong desire to answer a question or join in the discussion. A considerable number of questions were asked in the class, some showing thought above the realization of ignorance. At some meetings a few students asked questions after the class, though the total number of those so doing was rather disappointing, considering the theoretical and stimulating nature of the subject.

The quality of the thinking done by the students did not seem to equal their attention. That they should show a lack of practical knowledge and of well considered opinions was to be expected in an elementary course; but they showed a striking incapacity for the simplest mental arithmetic, and on one occasion but few, if any, of them had had the curiosity, when studying the different kinds of currency, to look at the bills in their own pockets. And there was frequently illustrated the difference in result between reading and hard study. Often their ideas seemed hazy and too often a whole class seemed unable to answer a question adequately explained in the text. In other words, one who seeks the thoroughness required of a man is disappointed as is also he who expects to find among these students the indifference of an idle boy. When however one remembers that the average student of an elementary course in college is neither boy nor man, but in progress of development from one to the other, one is reasonably satisfied with the attitude and work of the students, and with their response to what is done for them.

In one particular however it seems that special effort should be made to improve the work of the students. In all the section meetings I attended comparatively few notes were taken. A reason may be that it is difficult to take notes of a running discussion; but the results of the discussions are often summarized by the instructor, and nobody can really take notes who can only report a slowly delivered lecture. Moreover in one case apparently not a single member of a section copied from the blackboard figures excellently illustrating the working of a clearing house. I for one should be glad to see lectures delivered to all the students of the College explaining the importance of note taking, and suggesting various practical methods. Further I would have the instructors of this course informally supplement such lectures from time to time by encouraging good note taking.

When the work of the instructor of a section meeting is considered, it is necessary early to realize that one of the most serious limitations under which he works is that of time. The maximum time available weekly for discussion in the section meetings is a short eighty minutes. The average number of pages assigned to be read in four successive weeks was thirty-three, and an experiment showed that it takes three minutes to read aloud one of those pages very rapidly. In other words there are but eighty minutes to discuss a text which cannot be read rapidly in less than one hundred minutes, and which is usually condensed in statement, closely reasoned and in many points debatable. There has therefore arisen a demand for an additional section meeting. This does not appeal to me. Economics A is a course which should be taken by every student in the College, and it should not require an exceptional amount of time from its students lest the number of them taking it be thereby limited. Moreover an additional fifty minutes would not solve the problem; the cry for still another hour would inevitably follow.

The work of the instructor is also rendered difficult by the exceptional nature of the course itself. Economics A is not only an introductory course, but is also the only course in Economics taken by a large proportion of its members. It embraces a great number of topics, each as a rule involving difficult questions of theory and based on a great variety of facts. The amount of ground to be covered is so great that of most topics only a cursory view can be had. It is impossible to pursue to any considerable extent the method of teaching by asking questions introduced into the Law School by Prof. Langdell. With that method, at least in the first year, but little ground can be covered, the facts must be few and certain, and the students either trained to reason closely or ambitious to become so trained. In Economics A the students are two or three years younger than in the Law School, and the facts and principles involved in a simple economic problem are generally of much greater complexity than those contained in the printed report of a law case. Moreover it is a rare person who does not believe that his general knowledge of economics questions is valuable. Therefore the attempt to teach elementary economics by questioning usually leads into a maze of disputed facts. Frequently therefore the instructor can ask questions only until the points are developed and then must make a statement relative to the matter under discussion. These statements are necessary and save much time, but one wonders occasionally if they are fully understood by the students, and whether a question or two after the statement would not furnish a useful test.

The variety, and to some extent the inconsistency, of the objects sought to be accomplished in the section meetings is another difficulty of the instructor. He seems called upon to see that his students do steady work; to check that work for deficiencies; to emphasize the more important, and explain the more difficult parts of a difficult subject; to stimulate intellectual interest and develop good mental habits; and, so far as time allows, to add to the contribution of others further facts and principles. In other words he must be a drill sergeant, an efficient and inspiring teacher, and an authority overflowing with his subject. An illustration of the problems caused by this diversity of objects presents itself when we consider whether it is better to ask single questions of one student after another, or to ask a considerable number of questions of one student before calling on another. If the latter course is followed, the subject can be more thoroughly and consistently developed, and the questioned student better tested and aroused. But then the poorer members of the class may fail to follow the line of questioning or may even regard the considerable time given to one man as an opportunity mentally to go to sleep. A rattling fire of single questions keeps the whole class wide awake.

An observer who has come to realize some of the difficulties of conducting a section meeting, and has seen different methods pursued by different instructors, is tempted to theorize and to select the methods which he thinks he would adopt if he were himself conducting a meeting. He would call upon his students in an order which they could not forsee, and would call on each one of them at least weekly to test his reading of the text. He would use the single question when the simplicity of the subject matter encouraged it, or the class seemed dull, and would seek the opportunity to develop with one student a more complicated problem by a series of questions. He would realize that the limitation of time made it necessary not to attempt to cover in the class all the ground covered by the text, but to plan carefully what topics should be touched upon and the amount of time to be given to each of them, even if his intention was not to hold rigidly to his plan, but to meet the needs of his class as it developed in the meeting. He would try to present in some measure of scale the most important points, although saving time on those which could not fail to be seized by the students because of their relative simplicity or general popular interest. In such an introductory course he would tend to emphasize reasons rather than conclusions, and theory rather than facts, although he would welcome an opportunity to explain and illustrate the actual working in detail of practical affairs. He would as a rule follow the opinions of the text and not complicate a problem by introducing too often his own opinions or those of other authorities; nor would he expect himself largely to contribute additional material to the discussion; yet he would avoid frequent references to the text by name, but endeavor to have a proposition rest not on the authority of the writer but on its own reasonableness. Realizing that a problem is half solved when the definitions of its terms are accurately determined, he would emphasize the importance of the exact meaning of words, and would not infrequently write on the blackboard a list of significant words and phrases as an outline for the work of the meeting.

But even if a method could be determined upon which would be better than any other, its creator would still be far from his goal. The very perfection of the method of one instructor may cause his class to bow to it and hardly ask a question, while the apparent deficiencies of another’s method seems to stimulate his class to ask questions until the ground is well covered. Again a method highly successful with one teacher cannot be effectively pursued by another; and the needs of the students, even of the students of the same section, vary greatly from time to time. Moreover almost every conclusion embodied in a method is a resultant of conflicting considerations and its application is a question of degree. One therefore is here led to an opinion often reached before in similar cases that good teaching is primarily a matter not of method, but of judgment, energy and skill in the teacher.

In studying the characteristics of the instructors of Economics A, one first notes that they are men of very diverse temperaments, experience and methods. So different are they that when I learned that they had a weekly meeting I thought that they might greatly help each other by consultation about their common work, especially as most of them obtain in in this course their first experience in teaching. I was distinctly disappointed when I learned that the object of their weekly meeting was mainly to prepare the questions for the written answer, rather than to consult about the next week’s teaching. Still much consultation, if attempted, might easily become formal or cramping, and it may be better that each should be left alone to work out his results, and that we should trust that freedom will continue to justify itself by its fruits. Whichever plan is followed, the probability that there will occasionally be employed an instructor of inferior quality is sufficiently great to raise the question whether it would not be desirable to have each section taught by different instructors in the first and second half years. This would guarantee to each section at least a half year’s good instruction, and in addition would give to the students the advantage of two methods and two points of view.

In conclusion I am happy to be able to report that in my opinion the instructors of the section meetings of Economics A, with all their differences, are men of an exceptionally high average of ability and earnestness, and that their instruction is notably good,–much better than I had expected to find. The expenditure in the past few years of additional money to better the grade of these instructors has been justified by results, and those responsible for it are entitled to congratulations.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. President Lowell’s Papers 1909-1914, Box 14, Folder 404.

Image Source:  Wikimedia Commons photograph by Bill McLaughlin : Lowell Hall, originally called “New Lecture Hall”, Harvard University.

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Harvard Regulations

Harvard. Report on Graduate Economics Instruction, 1945

 

One interesting take-away is that the size of the graduate economics student body is discussed, given the faculty size, rather than the reverse. Also of interest is the proposal for a distinction to be made between a terminal Ph.D. exam failure and a failure meriting a second chance.

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REPORT ON GRADUATE INSTRUCTION
December 10, 1945

TO: Professor H.H. Burbank
FROM: The Ad Hoc Committee on Graduate Instruction

This committee was asked to consider the following three questions: (1) How can the increased burden of Ph.D. examinations best be met? (2) Should any limit be set to the number of graduate students in economics and, if so, what should be the limit? (3) How can inadequate graduate students be most effectively eliminated? After a consideration of these questions, the ad hoc committee wishes to make the following recommendations:

I. Ph.D. Examinations.

The committee is of the opinion that the total number of general and special examinations scheduled and to be scheduled for this academic year does not present a serious problem. The examinations already scheduled number thirty-nine and the total number, to the end of the year, may reach sixty. If equally distributed this would mean ten to twelve examinations for each officer between now and June. The burden of the examinations however is unequally distributed among the officers of the Department, and certain of the recommendations which follow are designed to lessen this inequality.

If the number of graduate students doubles, or increases to anything like that figure, the examination burden will become serious, and our recommendations are chiefly directed toward this contingency. We recommend that the Department give consideration to the following possibilities:

  1. Officers of the Department who are lightly burdened with examinations may in most cases be asked to examine in certain fields outside those in which they are now giving instruction.
  2. Since the examination load is now concentrated in the months of January and May, students should be encouraged to stand for examination in less crowded periods.
  3. Instructors should be asked to share the burden of examining as soon as they receive their doctor’s degree.
  4. In exceptional cases (but only in such cases) one examiner can be made responsible for two fields; for example, the same examiner could, in certain cases, be made responsible for money and banking and business cycles. In others, the examination in theory and international trade could be given by on man. If and when this expedient is followed, the officer examining in two fields should vote on these two fields. All three examiners should be responsible for a judgment on the examination as a whole.
  5. As the examining burden becomes heavier, two fields rather than one (but not including theory) might be written off and the examination shortened to an hour and a half.
  6. The last two measures are suggested as temporary expedients only—not as permanent policies.

The committee discussed the possibility of substitution written examinations and although a definitive view was not reached, the consensus of opinion was against the written examination on these grounds:

(1) Students are required to take extensive written course examinations and as far as their capabilities to satisfy such requirements are concerned they are already adequately tested. The oral examination constitutes a different and important kind of test.

(2) If the written general examinations were adequate to their purpose, and if at least a short oral were included as for the undergraduate divisionals, the committee doubts whether any time would be saved.

II. Size of the graduate school in economics.

The committee believes that if standards of graduate instruction are to be maintained a limit must be set to the number of students admitted to the graduate school and suggests tentatively about two hundred and fifty. This would involve limiting the number of first year students to approximately one hundred. Substantial increase in the number of students will increase markedly the amount of time which will have to be given to the direction of theses and to other forms of individual instruction. It is probable that with a graduate school of two hundred and fifty, less time will in any case be available for such instruction but the committee feels that no appreciable lowering of standards need accompany an increase to the suggested size.

A second major burden will be imposed on instruction in the fields of theory, statistics and economic history. In order to lighten this burden the committee recommends that the Department take the following steps:

  1. The basic graduate course in theory should be offered anew each term. The committee is of the opinion that the staff of theory instructors is adequate for this purpose.
  2. The Department should proceed forthwith to the appointment of its full quota of faculty and annual instructors and teaching fellows. We understand that the Department is entitled to six faculty instructors and we urge that the available positions be filled as soon as possible.
  3. In making the appointments, particular attention should be given to securing an adequate number of instructors and assistants in the field of statistics. One or more of the people appointed in this area should be Ph.D.’s in order that the examining burden on present officers may be lightened.
  4. It is imperative that an able young man be appointed in the field of economic history and he must have his degree if the very heavy examining load in this field is to be shared.

III. Weeding out incompetents.

The committee is agreed that to the greatest extent possible this weeding out process should begin with the raising of standards of admission to the graduate school. It urges on the Chairman of the Department that he throw his influence in favor of rejecting the lower fringe of candidates who in ordinary times would have been admitted and that he emphasize strongly to the Dean of the Graduate School the necessity of applying higher standards. With respect to students already admitted the committee recommends:

  1. that ordinarily the failure to receive an average of two B’s and two B+’s for the first year of work in the graduate school be considered reason for refusing students permission to continue their studies;
  2. that, in addition to raising the standard required to be satisfied in the general examination, failures be divided into two categories:

(1) Failed, but permitted to apply for re-examination.
(2) Failed, and prohibited from applying for re-examination.

Respectfully submitted,

Edward S. Mason, Chairman
Edward H. Chamberlin
Alvin H. Hansen

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers Department (UAV349), Box 13.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams from Principles of Economics. Day, Davis, Burbank et al., 1917-18

 

 

For most students who go on to concentrate in economics, the principles of economics course is the first contact with the discipline. Like they say, you have only one try to make a first impression. We’ll see in a coming post that Taussig’s textbook Principles of Economics still served as the backbone of the Harvard principles course twenty years later.

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Course Description

INTRODUCTORY COURSES
Primarily for Undergraduates

[Economics] A. Principles of Economics. , Th., Sat., at 11. Asst. Professor Day and Dr. Davis, Dr. Burbank and Messrs. P. G. Wright, Monroe, Lincoln, and Van Sickle.

Course A gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes an analysis of the present organization of industry, the mechanism of exchange, the determination of value, and the distribution of wealth.

The course is conducted partly by lectures, more largely by oral discussion in sections. Taussig’s Principles of Economics is used as the basis of discussion.

Course A may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics. 1917-18. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XIV, No. 25 (May 18, 1917) p. 58.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] A. Asst. Professor Day and Asst. Professor J. S. Davis, Dr. Burbank, Mr. Monroe, and Dr. E. E. Lincoln.—Principles of Economics.

Total 258: 1 Graduate, 8 Seniors, 73 Juniors, 150 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 23 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1917-18, p. 53.

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1917-18
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS A
Mid-year Final Examination

Plan your answers carefully before writing. Write concisely. Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions, beginning each on a new page.

  1. What is labor? To what extent is it irksome? How, if at all, is the irksomeness of labor to be minimized?
  2. Explain “producers’ surplus.” Under what conditions of cost does it arise? How is monopoly profit to be distinguished from producers’ surplus? Illustrate throughout by diagram.
  3. “Before the war started the bullion value of the U.S. silver dollar, measured in gold, was about 42c. At this rate it took 37 ounces of silver to equal one of gold. Today [October, 1917], with silver bullion at about $1.00 an ounce, the value of a silver dollar is 77c., a ratio of about 20 to 1. It would only take another advance such as occurred within the last month for silver to reach the U.S. coinage ratio of ‘16 to 1.’”
    In this case what would happen, and why? Would the consequences be objectionable? If so, on what grounds? If not, why not?
  4. Explain briefly: (a) commercial banking; (b) “deposits as currency”; (c) bank reserves; (d) Federal Reserve notes; (e) Gold Settlement Fund.
  5. Analyze the factors contributing to the present “high cost of living.”
  6. “The nations of the world should adopt a uniform system of currency with a common standard. This would do away with all this bother about ‘par of exchange,’ ‘gold points,’ ‘rate of exchange,’ etc.”
    To what extent is this conclusion warranted? Explain.
  7. To what extent does the following offer a solution of the tariff problem?
    “In all tariff legislation the true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad.”
  8. Comment briefly upon the following:
    “During the days and weeks and months ahead there must be no cessation or lessening of effort on the part on any one of us—man or woman—to keep business healthy and normal.
    “Industries of every kind must be maintained to their fullest capacity. Money must be kept in circulation. There must be no hysterical, misguided retrenchment, masquerading under the cloak of economy.
    “The nation calls for every encouragement and support that the commercial and industrial forces can supply—and that means everybody doing his bit to keep business booming.”

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Course reading lists, syllabi, and exams 1913-1992 (UA V 349.295.6). Box 1, Folder “Economics I, Final Exams 1913-1939”.

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 1917-18
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS A
Year-end Final Examination

Plan your answers carefully before writing. Write concisely. Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions, beginning each on a new page.

  1. What factors tend to limit the extension of (a) large-scale production in agriculture? (b) large-scale production in manufacture? (c) large-scale management, or industrial combination?
  2. Explain briefly: (a) demand; (b) decreasing cost; (c) internal economies; (d) “dumping.”
  3. State carefully: (a) Gresham’s law; (b) the law of diminishing returns; (c) the law of monopoly price; (d) Malthus’s law of population.
  4. To what extent and for what reasons should taxes be employed in financing the present war?
  5. In what respects are business profits like, in what unlike, (a) wages? (b) rent?
  6. What practical expedients would you suggest for raising the wages of workers in the lowest social group?
  7. Discuss the following contention: “One objection to having the state pay people when they are ill or old or out of work is that it saps that personal initiative and prudence and foresight which lie at the basis of an orderly civilization.”
  8. What grounds are there for saying that under a socialistic régime the efficiency of the rank and file of workers would be (a) greater? (b) less?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Course reading lists, syllabi, and exams 1913-1992 (UA V 349.295.6). Box 1, Folder “Economics I, Final Exams 1913-1939”.

Categories
Curriculum Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Report on the Tutorial System in History, Government and Economics. Burbank, 1922

 

Harold Hitchings Burbank (1913-1951) will probably best be remembered in the history of economics for topping Paul Samuelson’s “Dishonor Roll” for antisemitism in the Harvard economics department ca. 1939 (the list is reproduced on p. 281 of Roger E. Backhouse’s first volume Becoming Samuelson, OUP 2017) as well as for being an all around bête noire in matters regarding mathematical economics at Harvard, though Backhouse (pp. 421-2) has at least been able to acquit Burbank of the charge of the premeditated “killing of the type” for Foundations of Economic Analysis [Plot spoiler: the printer did it (metal shortage)].

Burbank has in fact left a fundamental institutional legacy at Harvard College, having played a major role in the establishment and running management of the tutorial system that was set up to prepare undergraduates for the general examinations in their respective divisions of study. Many a Harvard economics graduate student, instructor, and  faculty member have served as economics tutors so that no study of the education of economists would be complete without a serious examination of Harvard’s tutorial system in which economists have been active from the very beginning.

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Harvard College President Lowell on the undergraduate general examination for divisions and the Tutorial System (1922)

The effect of the general examination upon the choice of subjects for concentration is interesting. When first introduced for History, Government, and Economics it diminished the number of students electing those studies as their main field of work, presumably frightening away the faint-hearted. But the dread soon passed off, and at present seems to have little influence.

[…]

The framing of general examination papers which shall be comprehensive enough to cover the subject, at the same time shall be fair, and which give the student a chance to show his knowledge or ignorance, his comprehension or vacuity, demands much skill, ingenuity and labor. Moreover, a great deal of time is required to read the books, or conduct the oral examinations, in any department where the candidates are numerous. Clearly members of the instructing staff cannot be expected to do this in addition to their ordinary work. Some provision ought, therefore, be made in such cases for relieving them of a part of their teaching; and in the Division of History, Government, and Economics, where the plan has been in operation much longer than in any other, the examiners are relieved of about half their courses, either by reducing these throughout the year, or by exemption from course instruction in the second half-year, that being the period when by far the heaviest burden of the examinations falls. In conducting them the committee in charge is really examining not only the candidates, but also the instructors in courses and the tutors if any, because they can hardly avoid forming some impression of the thoroughness with which teaching is done by the different members of the staff; and although they make no report upon the matter, the opinions they form cannot fail in the long run to have an effect upon the instruction in the departments of which they are members. Moreover, their examinations determine the requirements for a degree in the various subjects of concentration, and the standard of attainment on the part of undergraduates. Their selection is therefore a matter of the utmost importance. In those departments that have recently adopted the plan, and where the number of candidates is too large to be examined by the instructors as a whole, a committee is appointed by the department itself; but in the Division of History, Government, and Economics it is appointed by the Corporation. The first members of this committee, Professors G. G. Wilson, R. B. Merriman, and E. E. Day, were the pathfinders, and to their wisdom and labor is due from the outset the success of the project.

When the general examination was introduced for History, Government, and Economics, it was perceived that in these subjects it could not work well unless the students were provided with the assistance of tutors in correlating what they had learned in their courses, and in mastering the parts of the field which courses do not cover. At first it was difficult to find men qualified for this task, quite unknown as it was in American college education, since no one had any experience in doing it. A new form of instruction had to be devised; new men had to teach themselves a new art. They have done so, until at present an excellent corps of tutors is working systematically in this division. No doubt experience will still farther perfect their methods, and by frequent conferences they are seeking constant improvement. A tutor, who by the way may be of any academic grade, is by no means wholly confined to tutorial work. A number of them are also conducting courses, and that is a distinct advantage. The only college work which they cannot do is obvious. They should not be on the committee in charge of the examinations. There is no better way of stating what they strive to do, and what they have accomplished, than by inserting as an appendix hereto the report of Assistant Professor H. H. Burbank, the Chairman of the Board of Tutors for the division.

Source: President’s Report in Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1921-1922, p. 13-4.

________________________________

Report on the Tutorial System in the Division of History, Government and Economics at Harvard University, 1922

To THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY:

SIR, — I have the honor to submit a report on the Tutorial System in the Division of History, Government and Economics.

The tutorial system of the Division of History, Government and Economics was made possible and necessary by the introduction of the general examinations. When this Division accepted the principle of these examinations it declared that they could be made effective and, at the same time, just to the student only by the development of a system of individual guidance. Tutorial instruction began in 1914 with a staff of six tutors supervising the work of some one hundred and fifty students. At that time the Division expected the number of concentrators would not at any time exceed four hundred. During the present academic year sixteen tutors have given instruction to six hundred and forty-eight students.

When provision was made for tutors, the Division contemplated only indefinitely their functions and the scope of their work. There were no examples to be followed; no system of like nature had been established in any American university and the precedents afforded by Oxford and Cambridge could give little guidance. During the first three years many experiments were necessary. The place of the tutor’s work in the general system of instruction had to be found, methods of work had to be developed. These problems could be met only by a process of trial and selection. At first there were many false starts; undoubtedly there was some lost effort, but there was also appreciable growth and development. The War brought an abrupt cessation of activities. With the resumption of normal academic conditions in 1919-20, tutorial work was reorganized, and it is from this time that the more important growth of the system is to be recorded.

Different methods of tutorial instruction are still being tried and probably will continue for some time, but the experience of the years since 1914 has been sufficient to give a definite indication of the processes which are best suited to our needs. Because of the several experiments which different tutors are undertaking, all generalizations regarding tutorial work are open to some exceptions.

Each tutor has under his supervision approximately forty students, selected in about equal proportions from the senior, junior and sophomore concentrators. The tutor meets his students regularly, usually once each week, in individual conferences. In some few instances, especially with sophomores, groups of two or, at the most, three students are found advantageous, but such group conferences are used sparingly; the characteristic method is the individual conference. Usually the conference lasts for about half an hour, but here the exceptions are many. The student is never limited in the matter of time. If he wishes to see his tutor with greater frequency it is his privilege to do so and he is encouraged to take full advantage of the unusual opportunities offered to him by individual instruction. The unwilling students — and they are so few that they leave no mark on the system — are obliged to do a minimum amount of work and to give a minimum amount of time to the tutor. The interested students can have about all they desire in time and instruction.

The introduction of the tutorial system was not accompanied by any change in course requirements. The student who elects to concentrate in History, Government or Economics, and thereby comes under the direction of the tutor, carries the usual number of courses from which he secures the groundwork for his general and special concentration. But courses are not synonymous with subjects; they cut through or across subjects. The first work of the tutor is to help the student organize and correlate this course material so that his chosen field of study appears to him as continuous and homogeneous rather than as groups of data or ideas with little or no relation. For seven years the tutors proceeded on the principle that class instruction could be taken for granted, that the material offered in courses had been accepted and assimilated by the students. The results of the examinations lessened confidence in the validity of this position and pointed directly to the need for further instruction along the same line. Many of the courses in this Division have very large numbers; the majority of those which are elected by undergraduates are conducted by the lecture method with little or no opportunity for discussion or for a thorough test of the student’s grasp of the subject matter. Further study and emphasis in the tutorial conference of material already presented in courses is proving of inestimable value. The data frequently is the same, — an historical period, a theory of government, a principle of economics, — the point of view is different, the stimulus is different. In the tutorial conference there is no question of marks or discipline; the one important object is to understand something which appears to be important.

Thus the tutor’s work deals in part with the materials already presented in class instruction — correlating it, focusing it, teaching it. But to arrive at the standards imposed by the general examinations requires a very considerable amount of additional reading. The tutor must and does expand the field of study by assigning and discussing problems not within the limits of courses now offered. In this connection as well as in the reconsideration of course material the tutor strives to interest his students in general reading. This is a very great opportunity. The student at Harvard as well as at the other colleges of this country has been so beset with textbooks, books of selected readings, page assignments and the like, that the reading habit not only has gone undeveloped but has tended to become stultified. Through conferences with his tutor and by means of his reading, the student gains a familiarity with his subjects of study that courses alone cannot impart. Furthermore, if he responds adequately to tutorial direction, he forms, largely unconsciously, a reading habit, a critical judgment and a discriminating taste that the established system of college education seldom produces. Another phase of this subject, or perhaps a by-product of this tendency, is found in the matter of general reading during the vacations. Ten years ago the student was rarely found who did not regard the final examinations in June as the terminus of his educational effort for that year. By small degrees this is changing. With the inauguration of tutorial instruction students were urged to continue their reading during the vacations, especially during the summer months. The cumulative effect has been important. Students in sufficient numbers are undertaking this work, to call for facilities to direct their reading between June and September. A plan is now under consideration whereby tutors will be in Cambridge during the summer either to take personal charge of students or to direct their work by correspondence. The significance of this development is apparent when the reader is reminded that such work is not only voluntary but receives no credit in terms of grades or courses.

The tutor has still another function, less tangible perhaps, but no less important than those already mentioned. A cursory study of the college records of undergraduates is sufficient to indicate that a relatively small proportion achieve anything above mediocrity — that is, above a “C” grade. This is not because of limitation of capacity. Undergraduates are capable of accomplishment far beyond that registered in courses. But they have many interests other than those which find their expression in the class-room. Their interests and their efforts are scattered; much time and energy are wasted. A tutor of the type sought by this Division has the power and capacity to stimulate the undergraduate to real intellectual achievement. When a student comes to him with a predominating intellectual curiosity — the type of student who is usually a candidate for distinction — he has but to mould the material into finished form. The more difficult, but possibly the more important, task is to stimulate the less eager student, to make his subject of study real and alive, to make it attractive, to inspire the student to want to learn not because of the record that may be involved nor because of any particular honors that may be granted, but for the sake of the achievement itself. To do this on an increasingly larger scale is one of the main objects of the tutorial system. During the last three years there has been perceptible progress in this direction. A great deal remains to be done, but very definite limitations are imposed by the inflexible requirements of university instruction. Without any substantial change in these requirements considerably more can be accomplished. It depends upon securing the unusual type of tutor. With more flexibility and perhaps with some reasonable reduction of the requirements in terms of courses, progress is possible and probable that will be significant in the trend of American college education.

One might expect that the improvement in academic interest which the tutorial system has been able to stimulate would express itself in an increase in the number of candidates for distinction. To some extent such an increase has appeared; students have become candidates who would not have done so without the stimulation of individual direction and instruction. But there has been a concurrent counter effect. Candidacy for distinction is dependent upon grades in courses. Unfortunately, intellectual interest, sustained work and broad accomplishment are not always synonymous with a high grade in the particular course which covers a part of the field of study. Undergraduates in appreciable numbers are showing a distinct preference for tutorial rather than for class work — less effort is given to courses, more is devoted to the more intimate work with the tutor. No attempt is being made to pass upon the desirability of this tendency. It is simply presented as a tendency which is showing increasing strength.

Among the various experiments which the tutors have made in the effort to secure broader and better preparation for the general examinations have been those connected with written work. For some time it has been clear to the tutors that one of the most effective methods of instruction is found in the construction and repeated criticism of written reports, essays and theses. Incidentally, very few of the students do not need the added instruction in composition and expression that written work entails. Recently this Division, recognizing and emphasizing the value of written work, has voted that a satisfactory thesis shall be required of all candidates. To provide more adequate opportunity for writing of this character, each Department is now offering a course in thesis work.

The most significant development in connection with the tutorial system has been the very favorable response of the students. Tutorial instruction is an addition to the usual requirements for the degree. At the minimum this increase is equivalent, in terms of courses, to about one course a year or, during the three years of concentration, it approaches an additional requirement of a year’s work. At the maximum the only limitations are those set by the available time of the student and the tutor. Each year there are some students who give considerably more time to their tutorial instruction than to their more formal requirements. These, however, are exceptional instances. Yet, as a group, the majority of concentrators accept tutorial instruction as an educational opportunity rather than as a demand for additional hours of study. In spite of the very considerable increase in the work involved, concentration in this Division has increased steadily. When the system of general examinations and tutorial instruction was announced, concentration in the Division, especially in Economics, declined heavily. Almost immediately, however, the Division proceeded to win back the numbers it had lost through the additional requirements. In part, this may be explained by the introduction of general examinations in other Divisions, but there is reason to believe that concentration in this Division would have approximated its present position if the examinations had been confined to History, Government and Economics. Although this increase in numbers has been gratifying, a more pronounced reason for satisfaction is found in the distinct improvement in the quality of the student and in the level of accomplishment. To a large degree this is due to the failure of the unwilling or the less capable student to choose this Division as the field for his special study. In part, also, it is due to the increasingly effective work of the tutor. Indifferent students still choose this field, but in decreasing numbers, and as the sophomore and junior years pass by they are weeded out in considerable proportions or, responding to the efforts of the tutor, their work improves. After a trial, more or less prolonged, the indifferent student seeks other Departments, but during the last two years transfers to this Division have more than filled these vacancies.

Another aspect of tutorial work is indicative of the attitude of the student. Attendance at the conferences is not compulsory. There is no system of monitoring or reports of absences to the college office. The fear of disciplinary action cannot serve as a stimulus to meet appointments or to prepare assignments. It is true that the authority to employ disciplinary measures can be invoked if the occasion arises, but in eight years no resort to such measures has been necessary. Yet the cutting of tutorial appointments is comparatively rare, far less than the cutting of courses. The majority of concentrators, well over ninety per cent, seldom fail to meet their engagements. The tradition of tutorial work has become firmly established.

H. H. BURBANK.

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1921-22, pp. 34-38.

Image Source: Assistant Professor of Economics Harold Hitchings Burbank in Harvard Class Album, 1920.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus William Thomas Ham, 1926

 

 

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Today’s post provides biographical information about a fresh Harvard economics Ph.D. contained in a memo (ca. 1930) filed along with correspondence between that alumnus, William Thomas Ham, and Harvard economics department chair (1927-1939)  Professor Harold H. Burbank.

From genealogical data bases I have assembled a few additional items: William Thomas Ham was born 8 Jan 1893 in Chasewater, Cornwall, England; his family arrived in New York Sept. 22, 1899 on the St. Louis from Southhampton, England.

Ham originally came to Harvard in 1920 to do work in entymology but due to an eye problem was unable to work with microscopes so he switched to graduate work in industrial relations in the department of economics (social ethics). He received a Ph.D. in economics in 1926 with the dissertation “Employment relations in the construction industry of Boston.” In the Harvard Classbook of 1937 under his faculty picture is printed “Former Assistant Professor of Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics”.

According to the 1940  U.S. Census, he and his family lived at 3618 Wisconsin Ave. , Washington, D.C.   His occupation was listed at that time as economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. From the Social Security death records we learn that he died in November 1973 and Washington, D.C. was reported to be his last residence. 

_________________

MEMO.
William T. Ham.

Period prior to coming to Cambridge

1893, Jan. 8, date of birth
1905-09 Tuolumne County High School, California.
1909-13 College of the Pacific, San Jose, California.
1913 A.B.
1913-15 Graduate student (part-time) Stanford University, and teacher, College of the Pacific, San Jose, California
1915-16 Instructor (part time) Stanford University. [penciled in: “Eng.”]
1916 A. M., Stanford
1916-17 Instructor, State College of Washington, Pullman, Washington, and assistant to the State Entomologist.
1917-20 Scientific Assistant and Field Agent in Oregon and Washington, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology. Worked under the direction of the State Entomologist.

 

Period of Residence in Cambridge, 1920-.

1920. Came to Harvard from the state of Washington, where I had been stationed, under the Civil Service, as Scientific Assistant and Field Agent of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture.
Entered the Bussey Institution for work in genetics and entomology, but was forced to discontinue in the spring of 1921 owing to the recurrence of an old eye trouble, arising in connection with microscopic work.
1921, Autumn. Began work in Economics and Social Ethics, at first under the direction of Prof. Robert Foerster. This change was due to a felling that, if I was debarred from a microscope, the next best thing I could do would be to get to the bottom of certain problems in industrial relations which had attracted my attention during my years of sojourn in the northwest.
1921-22. Assistant in Social Ethics under Prof. James Ford.
1922-26. Instructor in Social Ethics. (1925-26, Tutor.)
1924, April. Passed General Examination in Economics (Social Ethics.)
1924-25. Taught Social Ethics 1b (Labor, Industrialism, Social Reform.)
1925-26. Taught Social Ethics 1b and also S. E. 4 (Problems of Population and Immigration) and S. E. 6 (Problems of Unemployment and Social Insurance.)
1924 Summer School: Taught two courses (Social Ethics 1 a and 1 b.)
1926 Summer School: Taught two courses (Social Ethics 1 b and 4.)
1926 Ph.D. in Economics (Social Ethics.)
1926-27 Instructor and Tutor in the Division of history, Government and Economics.
1927-29 Fellow of the Social Science Research Council, studying the labor situation in England and Germany.
1929-30 Instructor and Tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics. Courses:   Economics A; Economics 6 b.
(Appointed in 1928, but given leave of absence for the year 1928-29.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers, 1902-1950 (UAV349.10). Box 5, Folder “H”.

Image Source:  William Thomas Ham “Former Assistant Professor of Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics”, in Harvard Classbook 1937.

 

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Principles of Economics. Enrollment, Staffing, Readings, 1947-48

 

The previous post provided transcriptions of the mid-year and end-year final examinations for Harvard’s principles of economics course for the academic year 1947-48. The second-term examination included over fifty multiple choice questions, which appears to me to be the first use of that examination format in the Harvard economics department. Today’s post gives additional information for the course: the course announcements, staffing, enrollment and reading lists. Should I ever come across the printed Course Syllabus: Economics A, I will try to get at least portions of it transcribed.

_____________________________

Course Announcements

Economics Aa. Principles of Economics

Half-course (fall term). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Depending on enrolment, sections will also be arranged at other hours. Radcliffe sections will meet Tu., Th., Sat., at 11 and at such other times as the enrolment may justify.
Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, Dr. Papandreou, and other Members of the Department.

Economics Aa may be taken by properly qualified Freshmen with the consent of the instructor.

Economics Ab. Principles of Economics

Half-course (spring term). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Depending on enrolment, sections will also be arranged at other hours. At Radcliffe Tu., Th., Sat., at 11 and at such other times as the enrolment may justify.
Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, Dr. Papandreou, and other Members of the Department.

Economics Aa is a prerequisite for this course.

 

Source: Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1947-48, published in Official Register of Harvard University , Vol. XLIV, No. 25 (September 9, 1947), p. 69.

_____________________________

Course Enrollments and Staffing

[Economics] Aa. Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, and Messrs. Brecher, Campbell, M.G. Clark, Duesenberry, Farrell, Fels, Ferguson, Garbarino, Heany, Hunter, Kahn, Meredith, Passer, Powelson, Schelling, Thompson, Ulman.—Principles of Economics (F).

Total 834: 1 Graduate, 52 Seniors, 134 Juniors, 453 Sophomores, 184 Freshmen, 10 Other.

 

[Economics] Ab. Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, and Messrs. Brecher, Campbell, M.G. Clark, P. Clark, Cochrane, Eckley, Farrell, Fels, Ferguson, Garbarino, Heany, Hirchleiger, Hunter, Kahn, McClelland, Margolis, Meredith, Morgan, Passer, Powelson, Reynolds, Thompson, Ulman.—Principles of Economics (Sp).

Total 747: 1 Graduate, 57 Seniors, 209 Juniors, 358 Sophomores, 109 Freshmen, 13 Other.

 

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1947-48,p. 89.

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Course Readings

ECONOMICS Aa
Fall, 1947

Benham and Lutz Economics, American Edition (1941)
Bowman and Bach Economic Analysis and Public Policy (1944)
*Chandler, L. V. A Preface to Economics (1947)
*Federal Reserve System Federal Reserve Charts on Bank Credit, Money Rates and Business
Federal Reserve System Its Purposes and Functions (1939)
Luthringer, Chandler and Cline Money, Credit, and Finance (1938)
*Staff Members Syllabus: Economics A

*To be purchased by the students.

 

PART I. INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS (1 week)
A. THE INSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUND
Chandler, Ch. 1, The Scope of Economics 16
Chandler, Ch. 2, Production and Exchange; Their Meaning and Structure 21
Chandler, Ch. 3, Technology and Economics 28
Chandler, Ch. 4, Business Firms 29
Chandler, Ch. 5, Some Implications of the Industrial Revolution 14
103
B. THE COORDINATION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
Chandler, Ch. 8, The Social Control of Economic Processes 20
Chandler, Ch. 9, Laissez-Faire and Competition 18
Chandler, Ch. 10, Competitive Control of Rationing, Price and Production 19
57
PART II. THE NATIONAL INCOME, MONEY, AND PRICES
A. THE NATIONAL INCOME
Syllabus, The National Economy

Ch. 1, National Income

 48
48
B. MONEY
Syllabus, The National Economy
Ch. 2, Nature and Functions of Money 4
Ch. 3, The Existing Supply of Money in the United States 1
Ch. 4, The Banking System of the United States 9
Ch. 5, The Federal Reserve Banks and the Money Supply 4
Luthringer, Ch. 6, Quantitative Control of Bank Credit
Fed. Res. System
Ch. 1, A General Outline of the Federal Reserve System 12
Ch. 2, The Service Functions of the Federal Reserve Banks 14
Ch. 7, Federal Reserve Powers and Limitations 11
Ch. 8, Member Bank Reserves and Related Items 9
81
C. MONEY, PRICES AND THE NATIONAL INCOME
Syllabus, The National Economy

Ch. 6, Money, Prices, and the National Income

 41
41
PART III. MARKET DETERMINATION OF THE RELATIVE PRICE OF CONSUMER GOODS AND SERVICES (4 weeks)
A. MARKETS
Benham, Ch. 2, Markets, omit Appendix A. 21
B. CONSUMER DEMAND
Benham, Ch. 3, Demand 16
Benham, Ch. 4, Price with a Fixed Demand, pp. 71-74 4
Benham, Ch. 5, Changes in Demand 11
31
C. THE BUSINESS FIRM—COST AND REVENUE
Bowman and Bach, Ch. 4, The Unit of Business Enterprise 15
Syllabus, Value
Ch. 1, Problems of the Firm 17
Ch. 2, Problems of Production, Real Input and Real Output 16
Ch. 3, Problems of Production: Money Costs and Money Returns 18
66
D. THE INDUSTRY—DEMAND AND SUPPLY
Bowman and Bach
Ch. 14, Pure Competition and the Law of Supply and Demand 9
Ch. 15, The Firm and Short-run Market Adjustments, pp. 216-220 4
Ch. 16, Long-run Price and Output Adjustments 14
27
E. MODIFICATIONS OF COMPETITION
Chandler, Ch. 12, Competition Today 27
PART IV. PUBLIC CONTROL OF MARKETS (2 weeks)
Bowman and Bach
Ch. 26, Foundations of Power 29
Ch. 27, Some Monopolistic Price Policies 17
Ch. 28, Public Policy Attacking Restraints of Trade in Business 18
Ch. 29, Public Utility Regulation 21
Ch. 56, Agriculture: A Case Study 31
Chandler, Ch. 13, Laissez-Faire Today 21
137

 

ECONOMICS Ab
Spring 1948

Benham and Lutz Economics, American Edition (1941)
Bowman and Bach Economic Analysis and Public Policy (1944)
Committee for Economic Development Taxes and the Budget
*Hoover, C. B. International Trade an Domestic Employment
*League of Nations Economic Stability in the Post-War World (1945)
Slichter, S. H. Basic Criteria Used in Wage Negotiations
Slichter, S. H. Trade Unions in a Free Society
*Staff Members Syllabus: Economics A
Twentieth Century Fund How Collective Bargaining Works
Williamson and Harris Trends in Collective Bargaining
Witte, Edwin Labor-Management Relations Under Taft-Hartely Act
*U.S. Dept. of Commerce The United States in the World Economy

*To be purchased by the students.

 

PART V. THE MARKETS FOR FACTOR SERVICES
(15 sessions including Part VI)
A. PRINCIPLES GOVERNING FACTOR COMBINATIONS
Review Syllabus: VALUE
Ch. I—Problems of the Firm 16
Ch. II—Problems of Production 16
Ch. III—Problems of Production 18
50
B. GENERAL THEORY OF DISTRIBUTION
Syllabus: DISTRIBUTION
Ch. I—Definitions 3
Ch. II—General Theory of Distribution 15
Benham & Lutz
Ch. 18: Rent 13
Ch. 17: Interest 31
62
C. PERSONAL DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME
Class Discussion: No assignment
PART VI LABOR ORGANIZATION AND LABOR MARKET
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 30: History and Philosophy of Trade Unionism 16
Williamson & Harris
Ch. 1: What is Collective Bargaining 8
Ch. 2: Bargaining Agencies for the Workers 11
Ch. 3: Employer Bargaining Agencies 11
Ch. 4: Union Recognition 14
Ch. 5: Collective Agreements 11
Ch. 6: Wages 17
Slichter
Sections I and II: Basic Criteria Used in Wage Negotiations 34
20th Century Fund
How Collective Bargaining Works 47
Slichter
Trade Unions in a Free Society 31
Witte
Labor-Management Relations Under the Taft-Hartley Act 22
222
PART VII. INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF MARKETS AND FINANCE
(7 sessions)
Benham & Lutz
Ch. 25: The Theory of International Trade 22
Ch. 26: Balances of Payments 10
Ch. 27: Free Exchange Rates 10
Ch. 28: The Gold Standard 22
Ch. 29: Exchange Control 8
Ch. 30: Import Duties and Quotes 9
The United States in the World Economy
Summary and Recommendations 26
Ch. 1: The Setting of the Problem 9
Hoover
Ch. 1: The Determination of National Policy and National Trade 17
Ch. 2: The International Monetary Fund 16
Ch. 3: The Problem of International Loans and Investments 19
Ch. 4: The Newer Forms of Trade Barriers 15
Ch. 5: Our Tariff Policy 15
198
PART VIII. PUBLIC FINANCE AND THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM
(7 sessions)
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 46: Introduction to the Public Economy 11
Ch. 47: Public Expenditures 13
Ch. 48: Public Revenues: Taxation 26
Ch. 49: Taxation (continued) 29
C.E.D., Taxes and the Budget
II. Tax Program for Nineteen-Fifty-X 25
III. Tax Policy for 1948 5
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 50: Fiscal Policy and the National Income 18
Ch. 51: Social Security 16
143
PART IX. PROSPERITY AND DEPRESSION
(7 sessions)
Section I: The Nature of Depressions
League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World
Ch. 1: The Nature of Depression 16
Ch. 2: Types of Depression 5
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 44: General Business Fluctuations 24
League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World
Ch. 4: The Strategic Role of Investment 26
Ch. 5: Depressions and Primary Production 11
Ch. 6 International Spread of Booms and Depressions 23
125
Section II: Anti-Depression Policies
League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World
Ch. 7: Regulation of Total Expenditure 9
Ch. 8: Constituents of national Expenditures 6
Ch. 9: Private Consumption Expenditure 10
Ch. 10: Private Investment 17
Ch. 11: Credit Policy and the Stabilization of Total Expenditure 10
Ch. 12: Public Expenditure and Fiscal Policy 26
Ch. 13: Foreign Investment 12
Ch. 14: Employment and Inflation 14
104

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1). Box 4, Folder “1947-48, (1 of 2)”.

Image Source:  Harold H. Burbank in Harvard Class Album, 1934.

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Harvard Yale

Harvard. Mason, Domar and Samuelson at Metzler Memorial Service, 1980

 

These memorial remarks for Lloyd Metzler come from Evsey Domar’s papers. Edward S. Mason and Evsey D. Domar’s remarks have been transcribed in full. I have only provided excerpts of those by Paul Samuelson that were published later in Vol. V of his Collected Scientific Papers. The common denominator of all three remembrances is that Metzler was an outlier among economists both with respect to his analytical abilities and contributions to economics as well with respect to his uncommon utter decency. It appears even back then, nice guys in economics attracted as much attention as an albino moose today. Samuelson’s speculative remark regarding Metzler’s assignment to the “Burbank ghetto” is priceless as is his recounting of Keynes’ less than sage advice to Sidney Alexander.

___________________

LLOYD A. METZLER
1913-1980
by Edward S. Mason

We are here to celebrate the life of Lloyd Metzler who gave comfort and pleasure not only to his family but to a host of friends. In the six short years he was at Harvard, he made a name for himself as a scholar of promise and a man to whom others turned for help and companionship.

Lloyd took his first degree at the University of Kansas and studied under a man who was my own teacher and who taught John Lintner and a number of others who later came to Harvard. I’d like to say a word about this man, John Ise, who left his imprint on Lloyd, on me, and on all those who passed through his hands. Ise was one of five children who grew up on the Kansas prairies just after the Sod House days that he later wrote about. All of these children went through the University and all made their mark in life. He was a strong man who fought for his unpopular opinions and encouraged his students to strike out for themselves. I know he impressed Lloyd as much as he did me.

After teaching two years at Kansas, Lloyd came to the Graduate School at Harvard in 1936. It was an interesting period in Cambridge and in the Department of Economics. The old guard was leaving the Department and a new crew coming in. Taussig, Carver, and Bullock retired; Ripley died; and Gay left for the Huntington library. These were the stalwarts who had dominated the Department since 1900. Early in the 1930s, Schumpeter, Leontief, and Haberler joined the Department and, later, Hansen, Schlichter, and Black. They were a vigorous crew. Lloyd early discovered his major interest in international trade and worked, in particular, with Hansen and Haberler. Harvard economics was also fortunate in attracting during that period a number of exceptional graduate students, a number of whom are here with us today. I am sure that Lloyd learned as much from them as from his teachers and, in the process, gave as much as he took.

The 1930s were also a period of upheaval in the country and in the University. In some respects it resembled the late 1960s though the protagonists and antagonists were not as strident or violent. It was a period when new ideas percolated the environment and questions of public policy were much to the fore. The influence of Keynes dominated the last few years of the decade, and Lloyd soon found himself in the middle of Keynesian controversies.

After leaving Harvard in 1942, he spent a year as a Guggenheim Fellow and then joined the Office of Strategic Services for a year. Although OSS had a good stable of economists, I am sure that he felt more at home at the Federal Reserve Board where he served from 1944 to 1946. After that a brief period at Yale, and then the University of Chicago where he was a distinguished member of the Economics Department for the rest of his life.

I leave it to others to comment on his considerable scholarly accomplishments, but want to say something about how Lloyd impressed me as a young man. He was obviously much more than an economist, with deep interests in music and literature. He was a cultivated man who in some respects reminded me of Allyn Young who also had a great interest in music and who, for a brief moment in the 1920s, shed his light on Harvard. Young looked more like a poet than an economist though I admit it is difficult for me to describe just what an economist is supposed to look like. Lloyd was a sensitive gentleman with a gift for friendship. Everyone who knew him like him and all of us join Edith in deeply mourning his departure.

 

ON LLOYD METZLER
by Evsey D. Domar

Last Sunday, The New York Times reviewed another book on President Truman. He is a gold mine for historians. A man of modest ability, yet a good president. Well, perhaps not quite so good… On the other hand, by comparison with our presidents in the recent past and, may I add, expected in the near future, a giant indeed… Many contradictions in his character and performance and so on. Could you find a better man to write about?

Lloyd Metzler does not offer such wonderful opportunities. As I look back over nearly forty years since I first met him, I don’t find contradictions either in his character nor in his actions; what stands out is a man of rare intellectual ability, remarkable modesty and much kindness.

Over my lifetime I have known a number of very bright people, including some economists; and a number of very modest and kind people, also including some economists. But I have never met one who could excel Lloyd in the combination of ability, modesty and kindness.

This was true at Harvard where he was finishing his thesis when I first met him in 194’ [sic]. If a visitor asked then, “Who is your brightest graduate student?” the answer, without any hesitation was “Lloyd Metzler, of course.” If the question was, “Who is your nicest graduate student?” the answer was once again, “Lloyd, of course.” Ant the same was true at the Federal Reserve where he spent a couple of years during the War. It was true in his office, in the cafeteria, in the afternoon math class which he gave for the staff, and outside of that marble building which has lately appeared several times on TV. (Hard to believe now that in those days the interest rate of government securities was something like 2½ per cent.)

As Solzhenitsyn said, he “was the one righteous person without whom, as the saying goes, no city can stand. Neither can the whole world.”

 

LLOYD METZLER
(April 3, 1913—October 26, 1980)
by Paul A. Samuelson

[Excerpts]

That we should hold this memorial service in the Harvard Yard is fitting. Widener Library was Lloyd’s first stamping grounds after he came to Harvard in 1937 from Kansas. Later, when the Littauer building was new, he switched his battleground to the other side of where we now meet. In my mind’s eye, I can still see Lloyd Metzler walking across the Harvard Yard, with his little dachshund in tow, engaged in animated badinage with Bob Bishop or Dan Vandermeulen. A young resident of Winthrop House, destined to be president of the United States [John F. Kennedy], used to be disturbed in his studies by our revels in Lloyd’s Winthrop House tutorial suite.

…To be near K.U., the family finally moved to Lawrence, Kansas. There the spellbinder populist, John Ise, rescued Lloyd from the swamp of the business school. Just as Ise had done with Ed Mason, and as he was to do with John Lintner, Challis Hall, and a host of other sons of the middle border, Ise sent Metzler on to his old graduate student at Harvard.

Harold Hitchings Burbank, noting the Germanic “z” in Lloyd’s name and recognizing his egregious talent, probably mistook him for a Jew…Like other able people Burbank didn’t favor, Lloyd was put in the galleys of Frickey and Crum, to serve as assistant in the undergraduate courses in statistics and accounting. Since I never had that honor, I can with good grace report that the cream of the graduate school, those who have won the Wells Prizes and top honors of our profession, all came from this Burbank ghetto.

…What is in order is to speak of Wassily Leontief and E.B. Wilson We few mathematical economists at Harvard were blessed by these great teachers…Wilson spotted Metzler’s genius. One of President Conant’s few stupid decisions was to retire Wilson at the earliest possible age, and this in a period of teacher shortages, thereby depriving the post-Metzler generations of the consumers’ surplus that Metzler, I, Bergson, Tsuru, Alexander, and some other happy few enjoyed.

That, however , was par for the critics of mathematical economics. In the year that Metzler came to Harvard, Sidney Alexander was Keynes’s last tutee at Cambridge University. Keynes seriously advised Alexander not to waste his time with mathematical economics…

…All in all, Lloyd Metzler added enormously to economic science. And that sense of humor and sweet nature lives on in our happy memories.

Note: Samuelson’s complete remarks at the memorial service were published in The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, Vol. V (Kate Crowley, ed.) pp. 827-830. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1986.

 

Source: Duke University. Rubenstein Library. Papers of Evsey Domar, Box 6, Folder “Correspondence: Lloyd Metzler etc.”

Image Source: “Lloyd A. Metzler/Fellow: Awarded 1942/Field of Study: Economics”John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Webpage .

Categories
Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. 13 Ph.D. Candidates, General or Special Examinations by Field, 1912-13

 

For thirteen Harvard economics Ph.D. candidates this posting provides information about their respective academic backgrounds, the six subjects of their general examinations along with the names of the examiners, the subject of their special subject, thesis subject and advisor(s) (where available). This transcribed announcement is for the academic year 1912-13.

________________________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.
1912-13

Notice of hour and place will be sent out three days in advance of each examination.
The hour will ordinarily be 4 p.m.

Charles Edward Persons.

Special Examination in Economics, Wednesday, January 15, 1913.
General Examination passed February 25, 1909.
Academic History: Cornell College (Iowa), 1898-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-05, 1906-09. A.B., Cornell, 1903; A.M., Harvard, 1905. Instructor in Economics, Wellesley, 1908-09; Preceptor in Economics, Princeton, 1909-10; Instructor in Economics, Northwestern, 1910-12; Assistant Director, St. Louis School of Social Economy, Washington University, 1913-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Transportation.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Ripley and Rappard.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the Ten-Hour Law in Massachusetts.”
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Ripley.

Clyde Orval Ruggles.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, January 17, 1913.
General Examination passed May 20, 1909.
Academic History: Hedrick Normal School, 1895-96; Iowa State Normal School and Teachers’ College of Iowa, 1901, 1903-06; State University of Iowa, 1906-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09. A.B., Teachers’ College, 1906; A.M., State University, 1907. Professor of Economics, State Normal School, Winona, Minn., 1909-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Statistics. 4. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 5. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Money and Banking.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Sprague, Turner, and Dr. Day.
Thesis Subject: “The Economic Basis of the Greenback Movement in Iowa and Wisconsin.”
Committee on Thesis: Professors Sprague, Turner, and Dr. Day.

Harold Hitchings Burbank.

General Examination in Economics, Monday, April 28, 1913.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Channing, Taussig, Gay, and Dr. Day.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1905-10; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. A.B., Dartmouth, 1909; A.M. ibid., 1910. Instructor in Economics, Dartmouth, 1910-11; Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1911-12; Instructor in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Money, Banking, and Crises. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Tariff History and International Trade. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Taxation.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the General Property Tax in Massachusetts since 1775.” (With Professor Bullock.)

John Alvin Bigham.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, April 30, 1913.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Bullock, Cole, Fite, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: University of Kansas, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1908-10, 1911-12. A.B., Kansas, 1908; A.M., Harvard, 1909. Instructor in Economics, St. Augustine’s School, Raleigh, N.C., 1910-11.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Economics of Agriculture. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Economics of Agriculture, with especial reference to American conditions.
Thesis Subject: (undecided).

John Ise.

General Examination in Economics, Friday, May 2, 1913.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Wyman, Carver, Sprague, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: University of Kansas, 1904-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. MUS.B, Kansas, 1908; A.B., ibid., 1910; LL.B., ibid., 1911; A.M., Harvard, 1912. Assistant in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Money, Banking, and Crises. 6. Jurisprudence.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Thesis Subject: “The Government Land Policy since 1880.” (With Professor Bullock.)

Lloyd Morgan Crosgrave.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 7, 1913.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Bullock, Fite, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: Indiana University, 1905-09; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-13. A.B., Indiana, 1909; A.M., Harvard, 1911. Teacher of History, Decatur High School, Ill., 1909-10; Instructor in Economics, Harvard, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Public Finance and Railroads. 5. Labor Problems, including Social Reforms. 6. History of American Institutions since 1789.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “The American Glass Industry.” (With Professor Taussig.)

Lucius Moody Bristol.

Special Examination in Economics (Social Ethics), Thursday, May 8, 1913.
General Examination passed May 4, 1911.
Academic History: University of North Carolina, 1894-95; Boston University School of Theology, 1896-99; Harvard Divinity School, 1909-10; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-11. A.B., North Carolina, 1895; S.T.B., Boston University, 1899; A.M., Harvard, 1910. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1911-13; Instructor in Sociology and Applied Christianity, Tufts, 1910-12; Assistant Professor of Applied Christianity, Tufts, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Ethical Theory. 2. Economic Theory. 3. Labor Problems. 4. Social Reforms. 5. Sociology. 6. Statistics.
Special Subject: Sociology.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Taussig, Bullock, and Dr. Brackett.
Thesis Subject: “The Development of the Doctrine of Adaptation as a Theory of Social Progress.” (With Professor Carver.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Carver, Sprague, and Dr. Brackett.

Yamato Ichihashi.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, May 12, 1913.
General Examination passed May 1, 1912.
Academic History: Leland Stanford Junior University, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-12; A.B., Leland Stanford, 1907; A.M., ibid., 1908. Assistant in Economics, Leland Stanford, 1908-10.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Statistics. 5. Anthropology. 6. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Taussig, Carver, and Dr. Day.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Japan, and Japanese Immigration into the State of California.” (With Professor Ripley.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Ripley, Turner, and Carver.

George Henry von Tungeln.

General Examination in Economics (Social Ethics), Wednesday, May 14, 1913.
Committee: Dr. Ford (chairman), Professors Taussig, Turner, R.B. Perry, Drs. Brackett and Foerster.
Academic History: Central Wesleyan College, 1904-06, 1907-09; Northwestern University, 1909-10; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. Ph.B., Central Wesleyan, 1909; A.M., Northwestern, 1910.
General Subjects: 1. Ethical Theory. 2. Economic Theory. 3. Poor Relief. 4. Social Reforms. 5. Sociology. 6. Criminology and Penology.
Special Subject: Criminology and Penology.
Thesis Subject: “Boston Juvenile Offenders in their Economic and Moral Relations.” (With Professor Peabody and Dr. Ford.)

Eliot Jones.

Special Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 15, 1913.
General Examination passed May 19, 1910.
Academic History: Vanderbilt University, 1900-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-10, 1911-12; A.B. Vanderbilt, 1906; A.M., Harvard, 1908. Austin Teaching Fellow, 1909-10, 1911-12; Instructor in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Money, Banking, and Industrial Organization. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Railroad Transportation.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Carver, Sprague, and Dr. Copeland.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the Anthracite Coal Industry, with especial reference to the Development of Combination.” (With Professor Ripley.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Ripley, Taussig, and Sprague.

Joseph Stancliffe Davis.

Special Examination in Economics. Friday, May 16, 1913.
General Examination passed May 17, 1909.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1908-12; A.B., 1908. Assistant in Economics, 1908-10, 1911-12; Instructor in Economics and Sociology, Bowdoin College, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Progress. 4. Money, Banking, and Industrial Organization. 5. History of American Institutions, especially since 1783. 6. Anthropology, especially Ethnology.
Special Subject: Business Corporations, with especial Reference to the Development of Corporate Enterprise in the United States.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Ripley, Carver, and Schaub.
Thesis Subject: “Corporations in the American Colonies.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Channing, and Taussig.

Ralph Emerson Heilman.

Special Examination in Economics (Social Ethics), Monday, May 19, 1913.
General Examination passed May 11, 1911.
Academic History: Morningside College, 1903-06; Northwestern University, 1906-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1909-13; Ph.B., Morningside, 1906; A.M., Northwestern, 1907. Instructor in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Ethical Theory. 2. Economic Theory and its History. 3. Poor Relief. 4. Social Reform. 5. Sociology. 6. Labor Problems.
Special Subject: The Control of Municipal Public Service Corporations.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Sprague, and Dr. Copeland.
Thesis Subject: “Chicago Traction—A Study in the Efforts of the City to Secure Good Service.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Munro.

Rufus Stickney Tucker.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 28, 1913.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Turner, Ripley, Sprague, and Dr. Gray.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1907-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. A.B., 1911; A.M., 1912.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Statistics. 3. Money and Banking. 4. Economic History since 1750. 5. History of American Institutions. 6. Public Finance.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Thesis Subject: “The Incidence of Real Estate Taxation.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1912-13”.

 

Image Source: Harvard University, card catalogue in Widener Library (ca 1915). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Introductory Economics, Final Exams. Taussig, 1914-1915

 

Frank W. Taussig played a central role in Harvard’s economics at two important stages. He was the lecturer for the entry-level Principles of Economics course for undergraduates and the core economic theory course for graduate students. In addition he covered the field of international economics.

The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions for his principles course come from four different sources, three of which are available on-line. Over the past few weeks, I have posted corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered at Harvard during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The following year (1915) Edmund E. Day and R. S. Davis (who belonged to the team of instructors and assistants for this principles course) published their Questions on the Principles of Economics (New York, Macmillan) that was arranged by topics to follow Taussig’s own textbook Principles of Economics (Second, revised edition of 1915: Volume One; Volume Two).

______________________ 

Course Announcement

Economics A. (formerly 1). Principles of Economics. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11.
Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day and five assistants.

Course A is introductory to the other courses. It is intended to give a general survey of the subject for those who take but one course in Economics, and also to prepare for the further study of the subject in advanced courses. It is usually taken with most profit by undergraduates in the second year of their college career. It may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor. History 1 or Government 1, or both of these courses, will usually be taken to advantage before Economics A. [p. 61]

Course A gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, banking, international trade, and taxation. The relations of labor and capital, the present organization of industry, and the recent currency legislation of the United States will be treated in outline.

The course will be conducted partly by lectures, partly by oral discussion in sections. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. [p. 62]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

______________________ 

Course Enrollment

[Economics] A. Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Dr. J. S. Davis, and Messrs. P. G. Wright, Burbank, Vanderblue, W. C. Clark, and Monroe.—Principles of Economics.

Total 491: 1 Graduate, 30 Seniors, 137 Juniors, 260 Sophomores, 11 Freshmen, 52 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

______________________ 

Mid-year Examination

ECONOMICS A

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Answer all the questions; be concise; plan your answers with care; and leave time for revision at the close.]

  1. In what ways, if at all, is the development of the complex division of labor connected with (a) the monotony of labor; (b) the Industrial Revolution; (c) integration of industry; (d) the recurrence of industrial crises?
  2. Explain: external economies; internal economies. Which set of economies is most significant for the explanation of (a) the localization of industry; (b) increasing returns; (c) the development of monopoly?
  3. If possible distinguish between

(a) diminishing returns and diminishing utility;
(b) by-product and joint product;
(c) joint cost and joint demand;
(d) “corners” and monopolies;
(e) median and arithmetical mean.

  1. Explain briefly the immediate and the ultimate effects (if any) which each of the following changes, taken separately, will tend to have on the price of cotton, cotton-seed oil, and cotton-mill machinery; (a) prohibition of organized speculation; (b) a change of fashion toward greater use of cotton fabrics; (c) doubling of the population of the country. (Assume for all three cases that there is no international trade, and that the quantity of money remains the same.)
  2. In what direction and by what process, if at all, would the following tend to affect the value of money in the United States; (a) increased demand for gold ornaments; (b) increasingly lavish expenditures by spendthrifts; (c) a continued drain of specie to the East; (d) a larger output of silver in the United States; (e) abolition of all legally required banking reserves?
  3. Under what conditions does inconvertible paper money circulate as readily as specie? Under what conditions, not as readily?
    Under what conditions is the value of inconvertible paper money as great as that of specie? Under what conditions is its value less than that of specie?
    State two indications of its having less value than specie. Which of the two is the more significant? Which is the more easily ascertained?
  4. State points of similarity, points of difference, between the Federal Reserve system and the English banking system as regards (a) centralization of reserves; (b) centralization of note issue; (c) measures available for preventing panics.
  5. Under what circumstances, if any, can a country have a permanent excess of imports? Under what circumstances, if any, a permanent outflow of specie? Does an excess of imports lead to an outflow of specie?
    Wherein, if at all, does a country gain or lose in its foreign trade (a) if prices and money incomes are higher than in foreign countries; (b) if prices and money incomes are lower?

Mid-Year. 1915.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers in Economics, 1882-1935. Prof. F. W. Taussig. (HUC 7882). Scrapbook, p. 106.

______________________ 

Final Examination

ECONOMICS A

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
Answer all the questions.

  1. Explain concisely: —

diminishing returns,
margin of cultivation,
equilibrium of supply and demand,
economic rent.

  1. Construct a simple index number of prices for 1914, using 1908 as the base.

 

1908

1914
Wheat, bbl.

$8.00

$12.00
Coal, ton

8.00

8.00
Iron, ton

18.00

9.00
Lumber, 1000 feet

20.00

15.00
Meat, lb.

.20

.30
Sugar, lb.

.10

.10

(1) Would the index-number point to a rise or a fall in the value of money? (2) Would a Board of Arbitration be justified in recommending a change in wages? If so, on what basis? If not, why not?

  1. Under what circumstances, if under any, will the imposition of a import duty cause the price of the dutiable commodity to fall? Under what will it fail to affect the price? Under what will it cause the price to rise?
  2. To what cause or causes should you ascribe: —

(a) the high level of general wages in the United States;
(b) the high wages of skilled workmen such as plumbers;
(c) the high wages of domestic servants in the United States;
(d) the high wages of trained nurses.

  1. Why is saving no less advantageous for laborers than lavish expenditure? Why do laborers usually favor ” making work “?
  2. “The standard of living affects wages not directly, but ” — how?
    What evidence of varying standards of living appears in the statistics of births and deaths for different countries? for different social classes?
  3. “The special question presented in this regard by the trust movement seems to be whether large-scale management adds something to the gains from large-scale production in the narrower sense. Here, too, it would appear at first sight that the matter may be allowed to settle itself. Let them fight it out and let that form of organization survive which does the work most cheaply.”
    Explain (a) what is meant by large-scale management and large-scale production; (b) what grounds there are for saying that they should be allowed to fight it out, what grounds for saying that they should not; (c) what legislation has recently been enacted in the United States on this subject.
  4. “Important distinctions exist between full-fledged socialism and public management of selected industries.” What are the distinctions?

Final. 1915.

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 39-59.

Image Source: Frank W. Taussig in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

Categories
Bibliography Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Books on reserve in economics tutorial department, ca. 1927

 

In one of the folders containing economics course reading lists in the Harvard University Archives, I found a single sheet of paper with a typed list of books in the Harvard College economics tutorial office (a hand-written note above the list: “1926-27 or 1927-28”). Beginning with the Class of 1917, a general examination of candidates for the A.B. degree with a concentration in the Division of History, Government, and Economics was required. Following the English model, special tutors were appointed to supervise and provide supplementary non-course instruction in preparation for the general examination. This posting begins with some background material regarding both the general final examination and the tutorial system. Division exams for 1939 have already been transcribed and posted in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror–see the Economics General Exam for 1939 where links to the five specific (i.e. field) exams and six so-called correlation exams for honors candidates are provided. 

Today’s posting ends with the list of 45 economics titles (multiple copies, from 2-12) available in the economics tutorial office in the late 1920s.

______________________________

Introduction of the general final examination and tutorial system

…Beginning with the Class of 1917, students concentrating in the Division of History, Government, and Economics will be given a general final examination upon the field of their concentration. This examination will be so arranged as to test the general attainments of each candidate in the field covered by this Division and also in a specific field of study pursued by the student within the Division. The specific field will be selected by the student himself upon the basis of his courses and his reading. The following list gives examples of such fields of study, but is in no sense exhaustive, and any other field of work within the Division may be presented by the candidate for approval:

Ancient History
American History and Government
Modern European History
Municipal and State Government
International Law and Diplomacy
Economic Theory
Economic History
Applied Economics

The general final examination has been established, not in order to place an additional burden upon candidates for the A.B., but for the purpose of securing better correlation of the student’s work, encouraging better methods of study, and furnishing a more adequate test of real power and attainment. To this end students concentrating in the Division will from the beginning of their Sophomore year have the guidance and assistance of special Tutors. The work of these Tutors will be to guide students in their respective fields of study, to assist them in coördinating the knowledge derived from different courses, and to stimulate in them the reading habit. Students will meet the Tutors in small groups and for individual conferences at intervals depending upon the nature of the student’s work, the rate of his progress, and the number of courses which he may be taking in this Division in any particular year. The work of Tutors will be entirely independent of the conduct of courses, and the Tutors as such will have no control over the work or the grades of any student in any college course. Their guidance and assistance will naturally be of indirect benefit to the student in his work in individual courses, but their main function will be to help the student and guide him in the kind of reading and study which will be most useful toward his general progress in this Division. The attitude of the Tutor will be that of a friend rather than of a task-master, and students may consult him freely and informally concerning any phase of their work.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914), pp. 79-80.

______________________________

From The Harvard Crimson

Tutorial System Hereafter
Rules for Concentration in History, Government and Economics Will Apply Next Year.
April 10, 1914

Beginning with the class of 1917 and applying to all subsequent classes, a new rule in regard to concentration in the Division of History, Government and Economics has been adopted.Concentration in this Division requires at least six courses which are related to each other. Under the new system all students concentrating in this division will be required to pass in their Senior year a final examination covering their special field within the Division, and consisting of a written examination early in the spring, and an oral examination toward the close of the year. In order to prepare students for these examinations the University will provide special tutors beginning with the Sophomore year.

Only Two Introductory Courses.

Every student intending to concentrate in History, Government, and Economics should state the Department in which he will take at least four courses and the Department in which he will take the remaining two. He will not be allowed to count towards his concentration more than two of the introductory courses, History 1, Government 1, and Economics A. The aim of the system is to enforce a more accurate knowledge and comprehension of studies as a whole. This aim has frequently not been achieved owing to the wide scattering of courses.

 

The Tutorial System
April 10, 1914

There are two new features in the recently announced requirements of the Division of History, Government and Economics, namely, the general examination and the tutorial system. And they are complementary. The task of the tutor is to intelligently guide the student in his preparation for the final examination, to assist him in that organization and correllation of his work which is the key-note of the plan. His work begins where the adviser’s work ends. The adviser still superintends the choice of courses made by the student although it is to be expected, probably, that a capable tutor will tend to influence this choice. It will be impossible so sharply to distinguish the task of choosing courses and correlating them as to prevent this. The sanction of the adviser may approximate formal permission, with the guiding force held by the tutor.

The general examination on the other hand, modelled after the plan in use for doctorate examinations, including a general examination for the division work and a supplementary special test for the department or field, reaches over the whole matter of choice and organization and focuses the work of the adviser, tutor and student.

One result is inevitable, that is, the effect of producing a more serious scientific attitude toward the work. The student who chooses this Division will be presumed to have made the choice with serious intent to perfect himself in that line. The student who chose that work because he had to concentrate in something may well feel he is getting more than he bargained for. This is not a criticism; the result-to make study in that division more in the way of laboratory work, to lift it out of the region of inconsequent eclectic undergraduate education may be more serious. The decline or increase in the number of men in the Division will show to what an extent the work there is taken for serious reasons, not as a line of least resistance.

The effect in minimizing course grades, cramming, and mechanical study can only be helpful. To produce capable and broad-minded students, with a wide grasp of their field and an accurate knowledge of their specialty is the very desirable end to which the system aims. And that not by more work but by better organization.

Excerpt from
Will Exchange Two Tutors [with Oxford and Cambridge] Next Year
March 19, 1923

…the work of the tutor is independent of courses, not subordinate to them; for tutorial instruction is quite separate from course instruction.

Started Here in 1912

The tutorial system was inaugurated Harvard in 1912. At that time a general examination for graduation was established experimentally for men concentrating in History, Government and Economics. It was felt that these examinations could be made effective and, at the same time, fair to the student only by the development of a system of individual guidance, so six tutors were appointed. Since then the general examination, with or without tutors, has been put into effect as a requirement for men concentrating in a number of other subjects, all in fact, except Mathematics and the natural sciences,–and the number of tutors having been accordingly increased from six to over 30.

Of the conditions here, Professor H. H. Burbank, G. ’15 says in his recent annual report as chairman of the board of tutors in History, Government and Economics. “Attendance at the conferences is not compulsory. There is no system of monitoring or reports of absences to the college office. The fear of disciplinary action cannot serve as a stimulus to meet appointments or to prepare assignments. It is true that the authority to employ disciplinary measures can be invoked if the occasion arises, but in eight years no resort to such measures has been necessary. Yet the cutting of tutorial appointments is comparatively rare, far less than the cutting of courses. The majority of concentrators, well over 60 per cent, seldom fail to meet their engagements. The tradition of tutorial work has become firmly established”….

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READINGS IN ECONOMIC TUTORIAL DEPARTMENT
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
[1926-27 or 1927-28]

6 Dunbar Theory and History of Banking Putnam, New York
6 Cannan Money King, London
12 Bagehot Lombard St. Murray, London
12 Robertson Money Harcourt Brace Co., N.Y.
5 Cassell Money and Foreign Exchange MacMillan, N.Y.
6 Carver Essays in Social Justice Harvard University Press
6 White Money and Banking Ginn and Co., Boston
6 Hawtrey Monetary Reconstruction Longmans Green & Co., N.Y.
6 Hawtrey Currency and Credit Longmans Green & Co., N.Y.
3 Hawtrey Economic Problem Longmans Green & Co., N.Y.
6 George Progress and Poverty Garden City Pub. Co., N.Y.
3 Andreades History of Bank of England King, London
5 Withers Meaning of Money E.P. Dutton Co., N.Y.
3 Toynbee Industrial Revolution Longmans Green & Co., N.Y.
4 Morley Life of Cobden, Vol. I; Vol. II. MacMillan, N.Y.
4 Trevelyan John Bright Houghton Mifflin Co., N.Y.
5 Fisher Purchasing Power of Money MacMillan, N.Y.
2 Chamberlain Bond Investment Henry Holt & Co., N.Y.
3 Lough Corporation Finance Alex. Hamilton Institute, N.Y.
2 Henderson Federal Trade Commission Yale University Press, New Haven
12 Smith Wealth of Nations (Everyman’s Lib.)  Vol. I; Vol. II. E.P. Dutton Co., N.Y.
6 Ricardo Political Economy (Everyman’s Lib.) E.P. Dutton Co., N.Y.
3 Ricardo First Six Chapters of Political Economy MacMillan, N.Y.
12 Ricardo Political Economy (Gonner Editor) George Bell, London
3 Malthus Essay on Population MacMillan, N.Y.
6 Mill Political Economy (Ashley Edition) Longmans Green & Co., N.Y.
2 Mill Political Economy (2 vols) Vol. I; Vol. II. Appleton & Co., N.Y.
6 Marshall Principles of Economics MacMillan, N.Y.
6 Marshall Industry and Trade MacMillan, N.Y.
3 Hobson Work and Wealth MacMillan, N.Y.
3 Pigou Economics of Welfare MacMillan, N.Y.
12 Henderson Supply and Demand Harcourt Brace Co., N.Y.
6 Cannan Wealth King, London
3 Davenport Economics of Enterprise MacMillan, N.Y.
6 Carver Distribution of Wealth MacMillan, N.Y.
6 Ely Outlines of Economics MacMillan, N.Y.
6 Clark Economics of Overhead Costs University of Chicago Press
6 Gide & Rist History of Economic Thought D.C. Heath & Co., Boston
3 Fairchild, Furniss & Buck Principles of Economics MacMillan, N.Y.
2 Flux Economic Principles E.P. Dutton Co., N.Y.
6 Veblen Theory of the Leisure Class Vanguard Press, N.Y.
3 Cassell The Theory of Social Economy Harcourt Brace Co., N.Y.
4 Böhm-Bawerk Positive Theory of Capital G.E. Stecher Co., N.Y.
3 National Indust. Conference Public Regulation of Competitive Practices
3 National Indust. Conference Trade Associations

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC8522.2.1), Folder “1927-28”.

Image Source:  Harold Hitchings Burbank in Harvard Class Album 1925.