Today’s post provides transcriptions for five examinations in political economy used at Harvard between 1868 and 1872. Links to two previously transcribed examinations from that time are provided as well. Information about course enrollments and textbooks come from the annual reports of the President of Harvard College.
Before Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy were assigned beginning with the 1870-71 academic year, the following textbooks were listed for Harvard’s political economy courses:
As an introductory textbook for the junior year course in political economy:
James E. Thorold Rogers, A Manual of Political Economy for Schools and Colleges. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1868.
“Advanced” Textbooks in political economy for senior year courses by Francis Bowen:
The Principles of Political Economy applied to the Condition, the Resources, and the Institutions of the American People (2ndedition, 1859). American Political Economy; including Strictures of the Currency and the Finances since 1861 (1870). One might presume Bowen’s lectures were closer to what is found in the later of these two books.
About the instructors…
Harvard Crimson’s obituary for Francis Bowen. Profile of “Francis Bowen, 1811-1890” at the History of Economics Website.
Obituary for Nicholas St. John Green in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 12 (May, 1876-May 1877), pp. 289-291.
Frank Taussig’s 1900 obituary for Charles Franklin Dunbar. Profile of “Charles Franklin Dunbar, 1830-1900” at the History of Economics Website.
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Academic Year 1867-68.
Seniors.
“During the First Academic Term, the Senior Class recited six times a week in Bowen’s Logic, and Bowen’s Political Economy.”
Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1867-68, p. 24.
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POLITICAL ECONOMY
SENIORS, JANUARY, 1868.
- Wherein does value differ from utility? What are the two elements of value, and what becomes of the value, when either of these elements is wanting?
- Explain the nature of Capital, wherein it differs from Wealth, and what is its source or the means of its increase. Distinguish productive from unproductive consumption.
- Which are the three functions of banks, and which of these three is unessential, so that banks could exist and do their work without it? Wherein do our present National Banks differ from the old State banks?
- What is the operation of funding a National Debt? By what vicious method of funding was the English National Debt made over 40 per cent. larger than the amount actually received by the government as a loan? In what different way was our own National Debt, contracted during the Civil War, made largely to exceed the amount received?
- Distinguish Direct from Indirect Taxes? Why is our present Income Tax said to be unconstitutional? Why are legacy taxes and other taxes on succession to property said to be the best of all forms of taxation?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943 (HUC 7000.55), Box 1, Folder “Mid-year examinations, 1867-1868”.
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Academic Year 1868-69.
Seniors.
“During the First Academic Term the Senior Class recited three times a week in Bowen’s Ethics and Metaphysics, and Bowen’s Political Economy.”
Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1868-69, p. 32.
Exam Questions in Political Economy for Seniors, June 1869.
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Academic Year 1869-70.
Seniors. First Term.
Prof. Bowen. Political Economy.
Text-Book: Bowen’s Political Economy.
Number of students: 129
Number of Sections: 2 & 3
Number of exercises per week: 3
Number of hours per week: 3
Source: Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1869-70, p. 36.
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Academic Year 1869-70.
POLITICAL ECONOMY
SENIORS, DECEMBER, 1869.
- Explain the distinction between Property and Wealth; between Wealth and Capital; between the Price of a commodity and its natural Exchangeable Value; between Simple and Complex Coöperation, the two kinds of Division of Labor. What are the two elements of Exchangeable Value, and what is its measure?
- What is Wakefield’s theory of Colonization, and how did it work? In what respects was an ancient Colony unlike a modern one? Explain the United States system of disposing of the public lands.
- What were the old guilds of trade, and the old meaning of the word University? How does Caste, or the fixity of ranks and classes, affect the Increase of Capital?
- Explain briefly the Malthusian theory of population; refute it by facts and arguments.
- Give an outline of Ricardo’s theory of Rent, Wages, and Profits, showing the connection in each case with Malthusianism. How does Ricardo explain the steady decline of the rate of Profit? What better explanation can be given of this phenomenon?
- Explain Bills of Exchange; the course and par of exchange between London, New York, and Paris; the difference between the nominal and the real par.
- Prove that a gradual decline is now taking place in the value of money, — e.of the two precious metals; and show how this decline will affect the value of different investments and various kinds of property.
- What change was made in the dollar by the law of 1834, and again by the law of 1853? Why was the gold dollar altered in the former case, and the silver dollar in the latter?
- Distinguish Paper Money properly so called from Bank Currency; and trace the causes and consequences of the issue of the former in Revolutionary times.
- Explain the three functions of a Bank: prove that convertible Bank-bills cannot be issued in excess. What was the “Allied Bank” system in Boston, and what circumstances led to its adoption?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943 (HUC 7000.55), Box 1, Folder “Mid-year examinations, 1869-1870”.
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Academic Year 1869-70.
Juniors. Second Term.
Mr. N. St. John Green. Instructor in Philosophy
Text-Books: Hamilton’s Metaphysics and Rogers’s Political Economy.
Number of students: 158
Number of Sections: 3
Number of exercises per week: 3
Number of hours per week [for instructor]: 9
Source: Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1869-70, p. 38.
Examination questions in Political Economy for Juniors, June 1870.
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Academic Year 1870-71.
Seniors.
Mr. N. St. John Green. Instructor in Political Economy.
Text-Books: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.
Number of students: 99
Number of Sections: 2
Number of exercises per week for students: 3
Number of hours per week for instructor: 6
Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1870-71, p. 52.
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POLITICAL ECONOMY.
SENIORS, FEBRUARY 1871.
- What are the laws which fix the natural rate of wages?
- What are the laws which fix the natural rate of profit?
- What is the nature of rent?
- How does rent enter into the price of commodities?
- What is capital, and what is the difference between fixed and circulating capital?
- What are the principles which determine the rate of interest?
- What are the advantages of a division of labor, and how far can the division of labor be carried to advantage?
- What is price and what [is] the difference between nominal and real, natural and market price?
- Suppose a prosperous people hitherto untaxed. It becomes necessary to raise a moderate amount of money by taxation. What kind of tax should, in your opinion, be resorted to? Why? To what objections would such a tax be liable?
- Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, says, “I put a question to him (Johnson) upon a fact in common life which he could not answer, nor have I found any one else who could: What is the reason that women servants, though obliged to be at the expense of purchasing their own clothes, have much lower wages than men servants, to whom a great proportion of that article is furnished, and when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?” How do you answer Boswell’s question?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943 (HUC 7000.55), Box 1, Folder “Mid-year examinations, 1870-1871”.
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Academic Year 1871-72.
Seniors.
Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy. (elective)
Text-Books: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.
Number of students: 75
Number of Sections: 2
Number of exercises per week for students: 3
Number of hours per week for instructor: 6
Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1871-72, p. 48.
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POLITICAL ECONOMY.
SENIORS, January 1872.
- What is the distinction between wealth and capital?
- What is the difference between fixed and circulating capitals? — and to which does money belong?
- When either of the precious metals becomes more abundant, and the remedy of over-valuation and limitation of the right of tender is to be applied, does it make any difference which metal is over-valued, and if so, what difference?
- On what basis is the circulation of the Bank of England established?
- How does Smith distinguish between productive laborers and unproductive?
- Explain the paradox that “what is annually saved is as regularly consumed as what is annually spent?”
- What was the error of Locke and Montesquieu as to the supposed connection between the depreciation of value of gold and silver and the lowering of the rate of interest?
- What is Adam Smith’s view as to the point at which the rate of interest should be fixed by law, and what is his mistake?
- How can a paper currency be kept at a par with gold?
- What was the theory of the balance of trade, and in what respect was it fallacious?
- Why do manufactures often flourish while a nation is carrying on a foreign war?
- What was the theory of the agricultural system, and what was its great error?
- State the general objection to any system for the extraordinary encouragement of a particular branch of industry, and such partial or complete answers to that objection as may occur to you.
- What is the chronological relation of the several systems of Political Economy?
For Consideration.
[From a Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, December, 1871.]
“The tenacity with which the Pacific States adhere to a gold currency is quite notable. Whether it is equally praiseworthy, is another thing. It is not clear that those States derive any substantial benefit from the course they have pursued, and it is beginning to be manifest that the United States are not at all benefited by it. The substitution of a paper currency in California and the other gold-producing States for their present hard money would probably set free for the use of the government and the whole country some thirty or forty millions of gold, and at the same time provide those communities with a more economical, active, and accommodating circulating medium.”
Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943 (HUC 7000.55), Box 1, Folder “Mid-year examinations, 1871-1872”.
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Academic Year 1871-72.
Juniors.
Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy [required course]
Text-Books: Rogers’s Political Economy.
Number of students: 128
Number of Sections: 3
Number of exercises per week for students: 1
Number of hours per week for instructor: 3 (for a half-year)
Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1871-72, p. 46.
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POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Juniors, February 1872.
- What is the difference between price and value?
- What is capital, and whence is it derived?
- Is a legal tender note of the United States money? If not then what is it?
- What effect has an excessive issue of paper currency upon prices?
- In an estimate of public wealth, what kinds of individual wealth are excluded? And why?
- Why is the rate of interest high in a newly settled western state?
- What determines the rate of wages?
- What was the theory of Malthus as to the growth of population?
- What effect has the introduction of machinery upon the rate of wages?
- What is rent and how does it depend upon the cost of production?
- In the trade between nations, how is the transmission of gold and silver for the most part avoided?
- If there is a scarcity of some article of which there are several qualities of different prices, will the cheapest or the dearest quality rise most? And why?
- What is the difference between direct and indirect taxation, and what are their respective advantages?
- Why is a tax on raw materials a bad tax?
- How does our national debt differ in form from the English, and what advantage has either form?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943 (HUC 7000.55), Box 1, Folder “Mid-year examinations, 1871-1872”.
Image: Memorial Hall (ca. 1900), Harvard University from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.