At the turn of the 20th century social policy at Harvard was a subject for the department of social ethics located at the intersection of economics and philosophy. It was taught as a subfield of philosophy (Social Ethics) by divinity professor Francis Peabody together with a changing cast of junior instructors to assist him.
__________________________
Exams from past years
Exam questions this course from the late 19th century have been transcribed and posted: 1888-1889; 1889-1890; 1890-1891; 1892-1893; 1893-1894; 1894-1895; 1895-1896.
1902-03. Listed as Philosophy 5. Taught by Peabody and Ireland.
1904-05. Listed as Philosophy 5 and Ethics 1. Taught by Peabody and Rogers.
1906-07. Taught by Peabody and Rogers.
1907-08. Taught by Peabody and Rogers.
__________________________
Francis Greenwood Peabody. The Approach to the Social Question. New York: Macmillan, 1912. “The substance of this volume was given as the Earle Lectures at the Pacific Theological Seminary in 1907.”
Peabody’s own short bibliography on the Ethics of Social Questions was published in 1910.
Another post provides the history of Harvard’s Department of Social Ethics up through 1920.
________________________
DR. RAY MADDING McCONNELL
Harvard Instructor in Social Ethics Had Made Long Study of Important Problems
Dr. Ray Madding McConnell, long active in educational work, died early this morning at a private hospital in Cambridge. Dr. McConnell, who was a graduate of Harvard, class of 1902, was born in Tennessee in 1875, and had been since his college days a great student of sociological problems and recently instructor in social ethics at Harvard.
Dr. McConnell received numerous honorary degrees, including his A.B. from Southern University in Alabama, in 1899, his S.T.B. from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee in 1901, his A.M. from Harvard in 1902, and from that university his Ph.D. in 1908. He was a writer on the subject to which he had given so many years of earnest study and research, and last year his book on “The Duty of Altruism” was brought out and he had at this time another book in preparation, “Philosophy of Crime.” He had contributed frequently to the International Journal of Ethics, and at Harvard he had given courses of lectures on “Moral Obligations of the Modern State.”
Dr. McConnell was married, in 1907, to Miss Phoebe Estes Bedlow of Ithaca, N.Y., by whom he is survived, as well as by a young son, Frank McConnell.
Source: Boston Evening Transcript (June 24, 1911), p. 14.
________________________
Course Description
1908-09
- Social Ethics. — The problems of Poor-Relief, the Family, Temperance, and various phases of the Labor Question, in the light of ethical theory. Lectures, special researches, and prescribed reading. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Peabody assisted by Messrs. [Ray Madding] McConnell [d. 1911 of thematic fever and pneumonia], [James] Ford, and [Robert Franz] Foerster.
This course is an application of ethical theory to the social problems of the present day. It is to be distinguished from economic courses dealing with similar subjects by the emphasis laid on the moral aspects of the Social Question and on the philosophy of society involved. Its introduction discusses various theories of Ethics and the nature and relations of the Moral Ideal [required reading from Mackenzie’s Introduction to Social Philosophy, and Seth’s Study of Ethical Principles]. The course then considers the ethics of the family [required reading from Bosanquet’s The Family]; the ethics of poor-relief [required reading from Devine’s Principles of Relief]; the ethics of the labor question [required reading from Adams and Sumner’s, Labor Problems]; and the ethics of the drink question [required reading from The Liquor Problem; a Summary of Investigations]. In addition to lectures and required reading two special and detailed reports are made by each student, based as far as possible on personal research and observation of scientific methods in poor-relief and industrial reform. These researches are arranged in consultation with the instructor or his assistant; and an important feature of the course is the suggestion and direction of such personal investigation, and the provision to each student of special literature or opportunities for observation.
Rooms are expressly assigned for the convenience of students of Social Ethics, on the second floor of Emerson Hall, including a large lecture room, a seminary-room, a conference-room, a library, and two rooms occupied by the Social Museum. The Library of 1800 volumes is a special collection for the use of students of Social Ethics, with conveniences for study and research. The Social Museum is a collection of graphical material, illustrating by photographs, models, diagrams, and charts, many movements of social welfare and industrial progress.
Source: Announcement of the Divinity School of Harvard University, 1908-09, p. 24.
________________________
Course Enrollment
1908-09
Social Ethics 1. Professor Peabody, assisted by Dr. McConnell and Messrs. Ford and Foerster. — Social Ethics. The problems of Poor-Relief, the Family, Temperance, and various phases of the Labor Question, in the light of ethical theory.
Total 136: 3 Graduates, 23 Seniors, 65 Juniors, 29 Sophomores, 6 Freshmen, 10 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 68.
________________________
SOCIAL ETHICS 1
Year-end Examination 1908-09
This paper should be considered as a whole. The time should not be exhausted in answering a few questions, but such limits should be given to each answer as will permit the answering of all the questions in the time assigned.
- The place in the modern labor question of:—
Leclaire.
Lassalle.
Conseils des Prud’hommes.
- Discuss the following:—
“Labor is the original source of all value.”
“Property is robbery.”
“Surplus-value.”
- What is:—
“Economic determinism”;
“A class-conscious conflict”;
“Collective bargaining”?
- Ruskin’s criticism of the economists, and his own theory of value. [“Unto this Last” by John Ruskin]
- The evidences of progress on the part of the working-classes since the introduction of the factory-system. (Adams and Sumner, pp. 502-526.)
- The legal aspects of strikes. (Adams and Sumner, p. 187 ff.)
- The development in England of the principle of Employer’s Liability.
- The prospects of Industrial Co-operation in Great Britain and in the United States. The relative advantage of Federalism and of Individualism applied to Coöperation.
- The Pennsylvania Railroad Relief-Department; its organization, operation, and the criticisms which it encounters.
- The physiological action of alcohol and its relation to intellectual work. (Lectures, and The Liquor Problem, pp. 19-42.)
- The Scandinavian Liquor-System. (The Liquor Problem, p. 153ff.)
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1909), p. 69.
Image Source: Harvard University Archives. Francis Greenwood Peabody [photographic portrait, ca. 1900], Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.