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Columbia. On Rev. John McVickar’s political economy. Herbert B. Adams, 1887

The subject of political economy and its instructors received much attention in the 1887 survey of the study of history in the United States by Johns Hopkins history professor Herbert B. Adams. In this post Economics in the Rear-View Mirror shares those pages dedicated to the work of Rev. John McVickar (1787-1868) of Columbia College.

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McVickar’s political economy textbooks

Outlines of Political Economy. “A republication of the article [by J.R. McCulloch] upon that subject contained in the Edinburgh Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica together with notes explanatory and critical, and a summary of the science.” (New York: Wilder & Campbell, 1825).

Introductory Lecture to a Course of Political Economy (London: John Miller, 1830).

First lessons in political economy: for the use of primary and common schools. Albany: Common School Depository, 1837.
(Seventh edition. New York: Saxton and Miles, 1846)

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A Pair of McVickar Biographies

Langstaff, John Brett. The Enterprising Life, John McVickar 1787-1868. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1961.

Dorfman, Joseph and R. G. Tugwell. “The Reverend John McVickar: Christian Teacher and Economist” in Early American Policy: Six Columbia Contributors  (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 99-154.
Originally published in Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 4 (December 1931), pp. 353-401.

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Historian Herbert B. Adams on Professor John McVickar and historical political economy at Columbia College

…In the continuity of historico-political studies at Columbia College there was another important influence contemporary with Professor Anthon; namely, the Rev. John McVickar, who was appointed Professor of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Belles Letters in the year 1817. This man, the successor of the Rev. Dr. [John] Bowden, is too little known to American students of History and Economics—in both of which studies he was a remarkable pioneer. It would be a useful, as well as pious service, if some one of the present instructors in the School of Political Science at Columbia would prepare an academic memorial of John McVickar, as he did of his worthy predecessor, Dr. Bowden (1751-1817), in an address delivered to the Alumni of Columbia College, October 4, 1837. Although the life of the Rev. John McVickar has been written, as a “clerical biography,” by his son [William A. McVickar, The Life of the Reverend John McVickar, S.T.D.] (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1872), there is so much of academic interest in his life and writings, so much unused biographical material in the archives of Columbia College, that a special study of his professorial career would certainly repay the younger generation of teachers.

In general, the service rendered by Professor McVickar to Historical and Political Science at Columbia College resembles that rendered by Profesor Francis Bowen in Harvard College. Under the broad ægis of a philosophical professorship, both teachers protected and encouraged historico-political studies. Both inclined most strongly toward politico-economics. Both produced text-books of political economy, which, in their day and generation, proved very helpful to American students. In these days, when the study of economics is coming to the front in our colleges and universities, it will be recognized as a distinguished honor for Professor McVickar that he was one of the first men in this country to lecture upon political economy to students, and also one of the first to publish a text-book upon the subject.

John McVickar (1787-1863) was the son of a leading merchant of New York City, and was of Scotch descent. Heredity and environment gave him a natural inclination toward the study of economic questions. Born in the business center of the United States, into family acquaintance with wealthy and influential men, into association with Albert Gallatin, Isaac Bronson, and Mr. Biddle, young McVickar could not escape the great problems of currency and banking which agitated his times. Although, after his graduation from Columbia College, educated as a theologian and for a time settled as rector of a parish in Hyde Park, he readily accepted the philosophical professorship made vacant by the death of Dr. Bowden in 1817; and, within a year, petitioned to have Political Economy added to his already wide domain, without any increase of salary. The year 1818 marks the establishment of economic science in Columbia College, [see William and Mary’s claim to priority] which was one of the first to recognize this subject in the United States. For several years the need of a text-book of Political Economy was deeply felt by McVickar as an aid to his lectures. In 1821 he appears to have urged Edward Everett to prepare a suitable hand-book; but the great orator, while expressing interest in the subject, pleaded other engagements. In 1825 McVickar brought out his Outlines of Political Economy. This thin octavo volume, which an American student may well prize if he can now secure a copy, was an American adaptation of J. R. McCulloch’s article on Political Economy originally published in the Edinburgh supplement to the old Encyclopædia Britannica [1824, vol. 6, pp. 216-278]. This article, by the first Ricardo lecturer on Political Economy, well deserves comparison with that in the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica [by J. K. Ingram in the 9th ed., vol. 19 (1885), pp. 346-401], for the sake of the historical method which both articles represent. McCulloch, with his review of the rise of economic science, the mercantile system, the manufacturing system, the opinions of Mr. Mun, Sir Josiah Child, Dudley North, Mr. Locke, et al., may be as truly called a representative of the historical school of economics as Knies or Roscher.

It is interesting to reflect that the English historical method of J. R. McCulloch was introduced into America by John McVickar, more than twenty-five years before the rise of either of these German pioneers. By more than fifty years did the Scotch student of McCulloch and Adam Smith anticipate the American disciples of Knies and Roscher in advocating historico-political economy. McVickar appended many original notes to McCulloch; and, among other good things, he said of political economy: “To the rising government of America it teaches the wisdom of European experience.” He called economics “the redeeming science of modern times-the regenerating principle that, in connection with the spirit of Christianity, is at work in the civilized governments of the world, not to revolutionize, but to reform.” Besides his original notes, which show not only deep moral, but profound practical insight into economic questions, McVickar appended a general summary of economic science, which probably reveals something of his own method of presenting the subject to his classes. This text-book, which is said to be “the first work on the science of political economy published in America,”* (McVickar’s Life of John McVickar, 85) was welcomed by Chancellor Kent and Thomas Jefferson in the warmest terms. The sage of Monticello said of the subject which the book represented: “I rejoice to see that it is beginning to be cultivated in our schools. No country on earth requires a sound intelligence of it more than ours.” Among the early economic writings of McVickar are the following pamphlets: Interest Made Equity (1826), an English article, like his textbook, with American notes; Hints on Banking (1827), an original paper of forty or more pages, addressed to a member of the New York legislature, and said to have been the origin of the free banking law of New York (1833), and the scientific forerunner of practical reforms in the Bank of England, 1844, and also the National Bank Act of the United States in 1863 (Appendix to the Life of McVickar, 411). A more distinct foreshadowing of our present national system of banking was Professor McVickar’s article, published in 1841, entitled “A National Bank: Its Necessity and most Advisable Form.” This and other financial articles were published by McVickar in the New York Review, which closed its influential career in 1842. He wrote on “American Finance” [“American Finances and Credit,” The New York Review, Vol. VII, (July 1840).]; on “The Expediency of Abolishing Damages on Protested Bills of Exchange”; on “The Evils of Divers State Laws to regulate Damages on Foreign Bills of Exchange,” &c. A complete bibliography of the writings of John McVickar would be a helpful addition to the Dewey system of classification in the excellent library of Columbia College. In the history of economic thought in the United States John McVickar will surely take an honorable place as an academic pioneer. Practical economists, like Franklin, Robert Morris, and Alexander Hamilton, this country had, indeed, developed; but professorial economists, with original and independent views, were rare in America before the days of John McVickar. His chief rival to priority was Professor [Thomas] Cooper, of Dickinson College and of the University of Pennsylvania, the friend of Jefferson, and the predecessor of Francis Lieber, in Columbia, S.C. By a singular chance the two lines of economic teaching came together at last in Columbia College, New York, when, in 1857, Francis Lieber was called to that institution as the successor to John McVickar.

* This statement… is not strictly true, for Destutt Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy appeared in 1817. McVickar undoubtedly deserves great credit for pioneer work, but the claim to absolute priority in this country as a lecturer upon Political Economy, asserted for him by his filial biographer, should be viewed with caution until the facts are more fully known,

The subject of History was also taught by Professor McVickar as a branch of his philosophical department. The statutes of Columbia College show that from the beginning of the present century Greek and Roman History, or Classical Antiquities, remained in the hands of the classical department. But some attention was always given to Modern History; and this appears to have been intrusted to the professor of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Belles Lettres. It was probably a natural continuation of the original historical work of John Gross, teacher of Geography and German, who was made Professor of Philosophy, also, in 1787. The preparation which Professor McVickar enjoyed for the teaching of history was not as good as that which came to him by nature and associations for the teaching of political economy. While yet a theological student, he appears, however, to have pursued a course of historical reading, and to have invented a system of mnemonics which he applied to Bossuet’s Chronology. Entering upon his professorship, McVickar worked out his own methods of instruction by a long course of experience, the results of which may be generalized upon the basis of the following authentic testimony.

In a report of a committee of the trustees of Columbia College, a statement was made, in 1856, by Professor McVickar, with respect to the duties of his department. He said his professorship comprised a “union of historical and philosophical studies,” of which he advised the division. To the sophomores, during their first semester, he taught “Modern European History, more especially from the latter half of the fifteenth century, being the period suggested by Heeren as the true commencement of the European system. The second session was the exact and critical study of English History, as the great storehouse of our political wisdom. In addition to this, there were essays on subjects connected with the course read and criticised in the lecture-room; the whole embodied in notes, as stated in my annual reports.” In regard to his method of teaching, Professor McVickar told the committee that any good history in the hands of students was sufficient. He said, “The subject is studied, not the text-book. My practice is, at the commencement, to explain the subject of text-books, and to give the class a list of the best, any one of which would be satisfactory. I have made it a point to ascertain from the best students of other colleges the results of studying from text-books, and have felt that such instruction makes little impression on the memory.” In reply to a question from the committee as to whether he delivered his lectures from notes, Professor McVickar said: “I have written notes; and in the earlier periods I used to read lectures. Experience brought me to a freer use of notes, as guiding the analysis of the subjects, but not controlling the words.” All this has a modern tone, and indicates a man of sensible ideas. There was, however, one radical fault found with Professor McVickar, which he perhaps inherited from Dr. Bowden; he did not succeed in keeping good discipline among his students. In his eulogy of Dr. Bowden, McVickar said, with a certain reflex significance, “As a disciplinarian he held lightly the staff of authority.” McVickar’s own students appear to have recognized this amiable weakness in their master, and to have presumed upon it. Some dissatisfaction was felt by the administration with what was allowed in the recitation-room of Professor McVickar; and the inquiry into his methods of instruction reveals a certain animus, with a decided tendency toward a reconstruction of the entire department.

In 1857, by the advice and consent of Professor McVickar, the duties of his too laborious and too comprehensive professorship were divided into three independent chairs: (1) Moral and Intellectual Philosophy; (2) Ancient and Modern Literature (Belles Lettres); (3) History and Political Science. Professor McVickar was transferred to the chair of Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion which he held until 1864, when he retired from office, his duties passing to the then president. The chair of Philosophy was given to Professor Charles Murray Nairne. The chair of Belles Lettres was offered to Samuel Eliot, of Boston; but he declined it, and the duties were then intrusted to Professor Nairne.

Source: Adams, Herbert B. The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, No. 2, 1887. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1887), pp. 61-63.

Image Source: Frontispiece from William A. McVickar, The Life of the Reverend John McVickar, S.T.D.] (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1872.

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Columbia Economists

South Carolina and Columbia. Two inaugural lectures by Francis Lieber, 1835 and 1858

Having just posted some early college exams in political economy from courses taught by Francis Lieber, I thought it would be useful to add this complementary post to provide some biographical content. This is probably as good as any place to add key sections from his inaugural lectures at South Carolina College (1835) and Columbia College (1858) that addressed the topic of political economy.

“Fun” fact: as an enlisted boy-soldier in the Prussian army, Lieber was wounded at the Battle of Waterloo.

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Principal Biographical Works

Thomas Sergeant Perry, editor. The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber (Boston, 1882)

Lewis R. Harley, Francis Lieber: His Life and Political Philosophy (New York, 1899).

Chester Squire Phinney, Francis Lieber’s Influence on American Thought and Some of His Unpublished Letters (Philadelphia, 1918). [Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania]

“Lieber. (1800-1872.) Reception of the Lieber Manuscripts” in Daniel Coit Gilman, Bluntschli, Lieber and Laboulaye. Commemorating acquisition of Bluntschli and Lieber collections by the Library of the Johns Hopkins University, pp. 13-26.

Frank Dreidel, Francis Lieber: Nineteenth-Century Liberal. (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1948).

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An Appreciative South Carolina wrote in 1859…

Francis Lieber was born March 18, 1800, in Berlin, Prussia. He went first to a private Grammar School in Berlin, and then to one of the old gymnasia in that city, called the Gray Convent. When but a lad, he left the school-house for the tented field, and had the good fortune to bear a part in some of the most renowned battles in modern times. I need only mention the names of Ligny, Waterloo and Namur. Upon his return from his campaign, he set to work to prepare himself for the University of Berlin, to which, in a short time, he was admitted, and where he was first matriculated. Subsequently he became connected with the University of Jena, a Saxon University, where, to secure himself against the interference of the Prussian Government, he was obliged to acquire the right of academic citizenship, by procuring the title of Doctor of Philosophy. From the University of Jena, he went to the University of Halle, and thence to Dresden, to pursue his studies privately. The oppressions of Greece now touched his heart, and he could not resist her appeals for help. He joined the Philhellenes, and repaired to that country to fight her battles. He next made his way to Rome in spite of the vigilance of the police, and was cordially received by the great historian Niebuhr, then the Prussian embassador, and made an inmate of his family. From Rome he went to his native city Berlin, and from Berlin he fled to England. He had now left his native country, and before I accompany him on his voyage to the New World, which, was to be his future home, let me mark some of the more interesting events of his past life. He belonged to the party of Liberals, and this party was persecuted throughout Germany. When a student at Berlin, he was charged with being a Revolutionist, and committed to prison. Upon his return to Berlin from Rome, he was a second time thrown into prison, and released by the influence of Niebuhr. Being threatened with a third arrest for the publication of certain poems written while in confinement, he fled the country as the only means of escape. Before leaving Germany, he published the Journal of his sojourn in Greece, which he wrote in Niebuhr’s house in Rome, and which has the distinction of being the first book which he gave to the public. This work was well received, and translated into several languages. In England certain tracts and contributions to German periodicals embraced pretty much his published labors. He arrived at New York in 1827, and took the preliminary steps at once to become a citizen of the United States. He made up his mind to fix his residence at Boston. He was a stranger, poor and friendless, and knew not what to do. But he could not remain idle. The consciousness of being in a land of liberty, where there were no restraints upon free inquiry, where the press was not muzzled, and where there were no dungeons for the expression of honest opinion, gave him courage. He conceived the bold idea of writing an American Encyclopedia. I have conversed with him about this period of his life, and as it was the beginning of a brilliant career of author ship in this country, a word of private history may not be without interest. One afternoon in Boston, when a dark cloud was resting upon his mind, he threw himself upon his bed, and indulged in profound reflection. “What shall I do?” was the overwhelming question. He felt that his brain was the only thing which he could draw upon for support. But how was that brain to be used? In what channel were his labors to be directed? In reading the lives of eminent scholars, how often do we find that at the outset they have been borne down, and for a period made miserable by this burdensome and heart-rending thought! Many a genius, under similar circumstances, has sunk never to rise again. A volume of the Conversationes-Lexicon happened to lie on a table in his room. As his eye rested upon it, he exclaimed. aloud, “That’s the thing; I’ll write an Encyclopedia.” He wrote out a plan at once, carried it to some of the leading men of Boston, and they gave it a hearty approval. He left immediately for Philadelphia, contracted with the publishing house of Carey and Lea, and sat down at once to the performance of his herculean task. The Encyclopedia was begun in 1828, and finished in 1831. From Boston he went to New York, where he resided for upwards of a year. He was not idle, but published none of his leading works during that period. His next residence was at Philadelphia, and there it was his fortune to become acquainted with the Hon. Mr. Drayton, formerly of Charleston, South Carolina, and to enjoy the respect and regards of that distinguished gentleman. The close of the year 1834, as has been previously stated, was marked by an almost desperate condition of the South Carolina College, and a thorough re-organization became a matter of necessity. A temporary arrangement was made to carry on the College for the first half of the year 1835, and Dr. Lieber, urged by his friend, Col. Drayton, left for Charleston with letters to Governors Hamilton and Hayne, who at once became his ardent supporters, and procured his consent to have himself put in nomination for a place in the new Faculty. June 5, 1835, he was unanimously elected Professor of History and Political Economy. At a subsequent period Political Philosophy was added to his department. Most of his principal works were written when he held a Professorship in the South Carolina College. Among these may be mentioned his Manual of Political Ethics, his Legal and Political Hermeneutics, or Principles of Interpretation and Construction in Law and Politics, his Essays on Property and Labor, and his Civil Liberty and Self-Government.

In 1844 and 1848, by permission of the Board of Trustees, he visited Europe, and while in Germany, published certain essays, which attracted attention. I have mentioned only the chief works of Lieber; those upon which his fame as an author is to rest. Beside these he published various tracts and essays on different subjects; all of them are valuable, and several are regarded as of high merit. I think that his reputation as a thinker and author, must finally rest, however, upon his Ethics, his Hermeneutics, his Labor and Property, and his Civil Liberty and Self-Government. I would not have the reader suppose that I attach but little value to his Encyclopedia. This is truly a great work of its kind. It met a pressing want. Something of the sort was much needed, and it accomplished the entire purpose for which it was designed. Perhaps a more acceptable service could not have been rendered. The great end was to diffuse knowledge in a country whose happiness is founded on liberty, and whose liberty is only to be preserved by widely spread information. Though the German work was adopted as the basis, it was the leading idea to make it an American Encyclopedia, by embodying in it all the valuable information relating to America, and I believe that this purpose was thoroughly accomplished. If he had left nothing else, this would be sufficient to secure for him an enviable reputation. Perhaps no book published in this country ever met with greater favor from the public. The necessities of the author compelled him to part with the copy-right, and others have received the pecuniary reward for his labors. But he had a higher compensation. His name soon became known to the people of this vast confederacy, and he was proud in the consciousness that whatever might be done in the future in this department of literature, he had led the way, and could not be forgotten. But the work was an Encyclopedia, and the world is apt to believe that an Encyclopedia is nothing more than an alphabetic digest, and arrangement of present science and knowledge. They regard it only as a monument of industry, and are reluctant to accord to the author the honors of original contribution. Though a book to make him remembered, it was not a book to give him reputation as a thinker, and his highest fame, therefore, must rest upon his other publications. Let not my remarks be construed into a disparagement of this truly valuable work. It soon became in truth the American Encyclopedia, and there is, perhaps, little risk in saying, that it has contributed more to the diffusion of general knowledge among us, than any book which was ever issued from the American press. It is not my design to give a notice of his many works. The greatest minds of our country have passed judgment upon them, and he would be truly a bold man who would now question their rank and position. The Manual of Political Ethics, the Essay on Property and Labor, the Hermeneutics, the Treatise on Civil Liberty and Self-Government, have received the highest praise from Story, Kent, Greenleaf, Prescott, Bancroft, and others in this country, and many of the best minds of Europe have added their warmest commendations. His works have been translated into several of the languages of Europe, and adopted as text-books in many of the highest Colleges and Universities. Perhaps no living author is more frequently referred to on all the great questions which he has discussed. Having written so much, and written so well, and in all exhibited the spirit of the true philosophical thinker, there are few subjects in any department of inquiry which cannot be illustrated by an appeal to his works. His service in this respect cannot be more strikingly set forth than by mentioning the fact, that in the discussion of the Elder question in the Presbyterian Review, a clergyman of the Presbyterian denomination, who in genius and learning is surpassed by no Divine in our country, refers to him in language of highest compliment. Can it be doubted that he is one of the great writers of the 19th century! Surely not when the United States, England, France and Germany, all unite in his praises, and have bestowed upon him the honors which are reserved only for the most successful authorship. It is to be remarked, that he has grappled with the most abstract and complex problems, and that he has earned his rewards, therefore, in the fields of highest thought and reflection. He has kept company with master minds, and vindicated his title to fellowship with them. The nature and philosophy of government, the application of the principles of ethics to the science of politics, the principles of interpretation as applicable to the duties of the law-giver, and the science of jurisprudence, the subjects of liberty, labor and property, these are the mighty themes to which he has consecrated his talents and his learning, and on which he has ventured to teach and enlighten his age. In such a field no common mind, no common learning could have achieved any measure of success. Known as he is throughout this country, he is one of a few American citizens who have an enviable European reputation. The estimate in which he is held is exhibited in the many honors and distinctions which have been conferred upon him by various learned Societies and Universities. I will only say here, that Harvard conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., that the French Institute elected him and Archbishop Whately on the same day, corresponding members to fill two vacancies, and that the King of Prussia offered him a Chair in the University of Berlin. He is enrolled among that select number described by Carlyle, “whose works belong not wholly to any age or nation, but who, having instructed their own con temporaries, are claimed as instructors by the great family of mankind, and set apart for many centuries from the common oblivion which soon overtakes the mass of authors, as it does the mass of other men.”

I have now made an allusion to the literary labors of Dr. Lieber. The character of his mind is well displayed in his works. The feature which perhaps would first strike the reader, is the fullness of his information, the amount of his laborious research. All that is known of his subject seems to have been stored away in his capacious brain, and he deals it out with a generous prodigality that looks like waste and extravagance. The whole encyclopedia of knowledge seems to be at his command, and he scatters it like one who feels that his treasures are exhaustless. His memory then is of the largest capacity. And will any of my readers give utterance here to the notion, that this great memory is proof that he possesses no extraordinary strength and vigor of understanding, and that he is wanting in high original powers? It is a popular idea, but I have ever regarded it as the refuge of ignorance and indolence. It is true that Lieber has mastered the thoughts of others; that in the particular department of inquiry to which he has devoted himself, he has gathered all that is valuable. But is this to be matter for reproach? He has not been content, however, with it: he is an earnest and bold thinker, and the knowledge and the speculations of others are not unfrequently used by him as stepping-stones to conduct him to still greater heights. I know that I am not mistaken when I say that he is no servile copyist, no mere follower in the footsteps of other men. On the contrary, he is remarkable for independence of thought, whether in conversation or in writing, and is prone to give utterance to his opinions now and then, with what might be called offensive dogmatism. I think that an examination of any one of his leading works will exhibit very prominently this feature in his mental constitution. He hesitates not to assail the opinions of any author, however renowned, and is ever ready to make battle with the most formidable antagonist. In this he displays a high courage, and a perfect self-confidence. I have sometimes suspected that he carries this too far; that in his eagerness for battle, he may fall short of full justice to his adversary. In all his writings he shows an independence and a love of liberty, which might be called Miltonic. Oppression, despotism in all its forms, whether of the mind or body, is abhorrent to his nature. There is no greater lover of law and of order, and he gives his love to Anglican, American liberty, or, to use his own phrase, to Institutional liberty. Feeling the foot of the oppressor when but a youth, immured in a dungeon because of his liberal principles, it may be said that his life has been one continued struggle for the cause of freedom. Nothing could be more congenial to his tastes, his habits of thought and his principles, than the Institutions of the United States, and feeling all the protection of a well-regulated government, here was opened for him a wide field, where he could labor unrestrained for the great cause to which he had consecrated himself with such devotion. He was the same man; he had changed his home, but not his principles. Even in his adopted country, the victory was not complete. He found the despotism of a fettered commerce, of an exorbitantly taxed industry, and a consequent odious discrimination by government. Could he take any other side than the side of Free Trade! He soon became one of the distinguished champions of the cause, and had the high honor of being styled by Robert J. Walker, the able Secretary of the Treasury, “the philosophic head of the Free Traders of the United States.” But this is not all. Our infant country is rapidly progressive. From causes easily understood, and which it is not necessary to enumerate, we are exposed to peculiar danger from the rise of every possible opinion on every variety of subject, the rapidity with which they are propagated, the facility with which organizations are effected, and the great power which they acquire, and bring to bear in the issues of the country. Some of these are indigenous, while the seeds of others are imported from foreign lands, and find here a genial soil, which soon stimulates them to germination. We have our Masonic and Anti-Masonic parties, our Seers and Prophets, our Socialists, Communists, Agrarians, Free Love Societies, Mormonists, Women’s Rights Parties, Polygamists, Know Nothings, and a long list of societies and associations, in too many instances based upon principles utterly subversive of right and order, and which, if not checked, would soon bring about anarchy and ruin. That man knows but little of the nature and philosophy of the human mind, and of the history of popular delusions, who is not prepared to concede that the grossest errors and superstitions, the wildest and most dangerous hypotheses, may take root and rally to their support a host of zealous and devoted advocates. Of this whole class of reckless innovators and insane enthusiasts, this motlied crew whose sole principle of cohesion is to war upon law and order, and to unsettle the great truths which have been sanctified by the experience of ages, Lieber indulges a feeling of abhorrence, and looks upon them as enemies of progress and the human race. The tone of his works cannot be too much commended. The spirit of justice, of morality and of liberty, breathes though them all. But the effects of his teachings are not limited to America. The press has borne them to the despotisms of the Old World, and wherever there is a struggle for the rights of man, he may be said to be present and bearing his part.

But I am to speak of him as a Professor in the South Carolina College. He was connected with it for upwards of twenty years, and closed his labors in December, 1856. From what has already been said, there can be no doubt that he had all the fullness of learning which could be demanded. With the details of history, with the speculations and systems of philosophy connected with the departments of which he had charge, it is hard to conceive of greater familiarity. To his classes he poured out his learning in one continued stream; and sometimes it confounded from its very profusion. Full of enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge, elevating it almost to the rank of a Divinity, he always exhibited the greatest earnestness of purpose. Of the amount of his labors in the College it is not easy to form a correct estimate. His whole time, with but little relaxation, was devoted to the severest toil. From his study to his class room, from his class room to his study — this was his life; and yet, with all this labor, his spirit was fresh, and his ardor unabated. Never have I known a more insatiable appetite, and he was ever in search of food for its gratification. But, not to indulge in metaphor, I have never met a more inquiring mind. He was always in quest of knowledge, and drew it from every source. Like Franklin, he would extract it even from the ignorant and unthinking, and thus he levied his contributions upon all. All know how suggestive a fact may be to a thoughtful mind, and what beautiful superstructures of knowledge have been reared from the humblest beginnings. Overflowing with information on such a variety of subjects, he had it in his power to render a particular service to the young men of the College, which I have always regarded of immense value. In the many public exercises which they are required to perform, such as speeches at the Exhibition, at Commencement, before the Societies, and Prize Essays, nothing was more common than to seek a conversation with Lieber, who would suggest the plan of discussion, and point to the best sources of information. His lectures and his published works, too, furnished a mine of thought and knowledge, from which the richest treasures were drawn. I must call attention for a moment to the arrangements in his lecture room. One would expect to find maps, and charts and globes, in the room of a Historical Professor, as these are the indispensable tools with which he has to work. There is nothing in this, then, to distinguish the room in which Lieber met his classes. But there is something besides which rivets the attention, and appeals to the noblest affections. The walls are graced with busts of the immortal men of ancient and modern times, and thus is brought to bear something of the power of a real presence. Here in mute but expressive silence stand Homer, Demosthenes, Socrates, Cicero, Shakspeare, Milton, Kant, Goethe, Luther, Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Humboldt and William Penn. Here, too, are to be seen the illustrious trio, Webster, Calhoun and Clay, and two of the favorite public servants of Carolina, Preston and McDuffie. I need not insist that these are not to be regarded in the light of mere ornament; that they speak to the souls of all who look upon them, and tend to arouse into activity all that is noble, refining and elevating.

Dr. Lieber’s resignation was accepted by the Board of Trustees December, 1856, and the following proceedings were had on the occasion:

Whereas, The resignation of Dr. Lieber has been accepted by this Board:

Resolved, That the Board of Trustees have a full appreciation of the eminent learning and just reputation of Dr. Lieber.

Resolved, That the Board tender to Dr. Lieber their hearty and sincere good wishes for his future welfare and prosperity.

It is worthy of note, that at a meeting of the alumni of the College, resolutions of a most complimentary character were adopted, and two massive silver vessels presented to him in token of their regard and admiration. I have now brought to a close my very imperfect notice of Lieber as a Professor in the South Carolina College. I have but a single additional remark to make. He must take his place as a star of the first magnitude. In all future time the State will regard his name as one of the brightest and most illustrious on the roll of her Faculty. That he honored her cherished Institution, that he spread her fame to distant lands, and contributed in largest measure to her exaltation and glory, none will question. He will live forever in her history, and never, never, will it be forgotten that her chosen temples of learning were adorned by his ministrations, and that he devoted the best portion of his life to her service and honor.

I shall now dismiss him as an author and a Professor, but I must be permitted to say a word of him as a man. Associated with him for thirteen years as his colleague in the Faculty, and sustaining towards him relations of confidence throughout that period, I think that I have had ample opportunities for forming a right estimate, and that my judgment is entitled to some measure of value. He knows his strength, and never distrustful of his powers, always exhibits a spirit of bold self-reliance. In the ardor of discussion he may become too dogmatic and peremptory, and act like one who never shows mercy, or “gives quarters.” This may create the impression that his character is cast in too stern a mould to allow of the existence of the tender and sympathetic affections. But this is a mistake. His heart is as large as his brain, and endued with a tender sensibility. He can carry out the lesson of the poet:

—— — — — — “to feel another’s woe,
To hide the fault I see.”

I know that he is kindly-natured, free to forgive, and incapable of malice. His personal morality is without reproach, and he illustrates in his life the doctrines so impressively inculcated in his published works. He is fond of the beautiful, and is arrested in admiration whenever it is presented. Is it beneath the dignity of my subject to say that he will almost steal a flower, that he may send it with a complimentary note to a young lady! He loves to look out upon a May-day when the earth teems with buds and blossoms, and how responsive is his heart with its hopes and its joys! Shall I add that he has a youthful fondness for the society of girls, and that no young gallant can surpass him on such occasions in light and airy conversation. But I must not forget his sympathy with little children; “those flowers that make the hovel’s earthen floor delightful as the glades of paradise.” He will play with them by the hour, and leading the way, forget his manhood, and become as one of them. Does not this speak volumes for his heart? Shall I say more? He has left the South Carolina College, but his affections still linger around it. He loves the trees under whose shades he walked for twenty years, the lecture room where he so long labored in the cause of knowledge; and the ivy which he planted, and which now spreads itself in rich luxuriance over the house which he occupied, has fastened its tendrils upon his heart, and is entwined in everlasting embrace around it.

But I have concluded what I had to say. Dr. Lieber is residing at present in New York, and fills the Professorship of History and Political Science in the School of Jurisprudence of the Columbia University, to which he was unanimously elected May 18, 1857. Here is a wide field congenial to his tastes and attainments. He is in the vigor of life, and to human eye many years of labor are yet before him. Long may he live to instruct the youth of America, and to scatter over the world the fruits of his genius and learning!…

Source: M. LaBorde, History of the South Carolina College (Columbia, S.C.: Peter B. Glass, 1859), Chapter XVI. Pp. 395 -410.

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From Lieber’s Inaugural Lecture at South Carolina College (1835)

…Civil history, the main subject of instruction in history in the college, will necessarily lead to inquiries into the various subjects of politics. It is not only my intention to treat of them while I am proceeding in history, but also to teach them, if time can be found, in separate lectures. On the other hand I shall always endeavor to exhibit the whole state of civilization of a country or period under discussion, and try to give a rapid sketch of the literature, the state of sciences, the arts, its commerce and agriculture, which will lead to touch upon subjects more properly belonging to the other science for which you have appointed me. As I shall have frequent occasion to speak on the subject of politics, so will the introduction of history often lead me to topics of political economy, and in the same way shall I make them the subject of separate instruction.

Political Economy, treated as a scientific whole, is of comparatively late origin, though various subjects, belonging to its province, have at different times been treated even in remote periods. There are still many persons, who “do not believe in political economy,” and will of course not allow it the rank of a science, as a few years ago, when Werner broke a new path for mineralogy, many people, and most distinguished ones among them, smiled at the idea of calUng mineralogy a science, or believing in the possibility of systematically and scientifically treating what they called “the stones.”* Nay, there are still persons who deny that geology be a science. Whether political economy be a science or not, it is not here the place to discuss, though it is difficult to see why the difference of opinion and contradictory results at which some, though few, political economists have arrived, should any more deprive their study of the character of a science, than natural philosophy, metaphysics, medicine or theology; nor is it required that any one should believe in political economy. The simple question is whether the subjects it considers as peculiarly belonging to its forum, are susceptible of scientific inquiry, and whether they are of sufficient importance to require investigations of this kind and to be taught in our college.

* See among others some of the letters written by Herder to Goethe, who, it is well known, was an ardent mineralogist and geologist to the end of his life.

I believe it is easy to show that the same relation, which physiology of the human body bears to anthropology and philosophy in general, subsists between political economy and the higher branches of politics — or, political economy has precisely all the importance with regard to society, which the material life bears throughout to the moral and intellectual world. Political economy might be defined by being the science which occupies itself essentially with the material life of society — with production, exchange and consumption; and no one can possibly have thrown a single glance at these subjects, and deny that theystand in the most intimate connection with the moral and intellectual interests of a nation.

If subjects of such universal influence and so extensively affecting the existence of human beings, as labor, wages, capital, interests, commerce, loans, banks, &c. are not matter of sufficient interest for inquiry, then few things are; if they do not depend upon general causes cognizable by the reason of man, then every thing around us is chance, and what is very striking, most regular chance, for it would be strange indeed that in the United States, for instance, many millions of people agree, without exchange of opinions, to pay throughout an immense territory about seventy-five cents for a day‘s work of a common laborer, and that in another immense country, at the north of Europe, many millions of people receive for the same work a few kopecks only, with a uniformity which is perfectly perplexing if the same general cause does not produce respectively this uniform effect. No believer in chance has ever dreamt that the regularity in form, process of growth and ripening of a species of plant be the results of mere chance. Though he might believe that the first cause was chance, he would always allow that by the original mixture of atoms or elements, certain laws were produced according to which nature now effects all the processes which strike us by their regularity; but in our own case, when we speak of human society, we shall at once change the test, and not believe that general, uniform and regular efiects must depend upon fixed causes!

If these causes can be discovered, and what earthly reason is there that they should not? then it is the duty of man to discover them. Having found them, he will be able to subject them to the same processes of reasoning which he applies to every mass of homogeneous facts. Judicious combination and cautious induction will enable him to reason from them and conclude upon new results. If, however, these inquiries are of general interest and importance, they are certainly so to a citizen, who takes an active and direct part in the making of the laws which govern his own society, for they touch upon matters which most frequently become the subject of legislation. It is necessary then that the youths be instructed in this science.

Political economy has not appeared under the most favorable train of circumstances. It is not its lot quietly to investigate a given subject, but it has to combat a series of systematized prejudices, which have extended their roots far and wide into all directions and deep into every class of society, for many centuries past — prejudices which are intimately connected with the interest of powerful classes.

Strange, that man should have seriously to debate about free trade any more than about free breathing, free choice of color of dress, free sleeping, free cookery, and should be obliged to listen to arguments, which, if true, would also prove that the cutting, clipping and shaving of trees, fashionable in the times of Louis XIV, produced most noble, healthful oaks. Still, so ancient is the prejudice, that even Strabo mentions the fact that the Cumæans did not levy any duties on merchandize, imported into their harbor, as a proof of their enormous stupidity. The transition is not easy from so deep-rooted a prejudice and whole systems of laws built upon it, to the natural, simple and uncorrupted state of things, in which man is allowed to apply his means as best he thinks, without fettering and cramping care from above, which is like the caresses of the animal in the fable — stifling.

Two different directions of scientific inquiry seem to be characteristic of our age — minute, extensive and bold inquiry into nature and her laws and life, and equally bold and shrewd examination of the elements and laws of human society, and all that is connected with its physical or moral welfare. Hence we see at once the human mind following two apparently opposite directions with equal ardor — history and political economy. No age has pursued with so much zeal the collection of every remnant and vestige, which may contribute to disclose to us the real state of former generations; and in no age have the principles upon which the success of the human species depends, been investigated with less reserve. Your Board of Trustees has appointed me for these two important sciences, and I feel gratified thus to be placed in a situation, in which I am able to contribute largely to the diffusion of two sciences, which are cultivaied with such intense activity by the age in which my lot has been cast.

Source: On history and political economy, as necessary branches of superior education in free states. An inaugural address, delivered in South Carolina college, before the governor and the legislature of the state, on Commencement day the 7th of December, 1835. By Francis Lieber, LL.D. Printed by order of the Board of trustees.  Pp. 23-26

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From Lieder’s Inaugural Lecture at Columbia College (1858)

…A wise study of the past teaches us social analysis, and to separate the permanent and essential from the accidental and superficial, so that it becomes one of the keys by which we learn to understand better the present. History, indeed, is an admirable training in the great duty of attention and the art of observation, as in turn an earnest observation of the present is an indispensable aid to the historian. A practical life is a key with which we unlock the vaults containing the riches of the past. Many of the greatest historians in antiquity and modern times have been statesmen; and Niebuhr said that with his learning, and it was prodigious, he could not have understood Roman history, had he not been for many years a practical officer in the financial and other departments of the administration, while we all remember Gibbon’s statement of himself, that the captain of the Hampshire militia was of service to the historian of Rome. This is the reason why free nations produce practical, penetrating and unravelling historians, for in them every observing citizen partakes, in a manner, of statesmanship. Free countries furnish us with daily lessons in the anatomy of states and society; they make us comprehend the reality of history. But we have dwelled sufficiently long on this branch.

As Helicon, where Clio dwelt, looked down in all its grandeur on the busy gulf and on the chaffering traffic of Corinth, so let us leave the summit and walk down to Crissa, and cross the isthmus and enter the noisy mart where the productions of men are exchanged. Sudden as the change may be, it only symbolizes reality and human life. What else is the main portion of history but a true and wise account of the high events and ruling facts which have resulted from the combined action of the elements of human life? Who does not know that national life consists in the gathered sheaves of the thousand activities of men, and that production and exchange are at all times among the elements of these activities?

Man is always an exchanging being. Exchange is one of those characteristics without which we never find man, though they may be observable only in their lowest incipiency, and with which we never find the animal, though its sagacity may have reached the highest point. As, from the hideous tattooing of the savage to our dainty adornment of the sea-cleaving prow or the creations of a Crawford, men always manifest that there is the affection of the beautiful in them —  that they are æsthetical beings; or as they  always show that they are religious beings, whether they prostrate themselves before a fetish or bend their knee before their true and unseen God, and the animal never, so we find man, whether Caffre, Phoenician or American, always a producing and exchanging being; and we observe that this, as all other attributes, steadily increases in intensity with advancing civilization.

There are three laws on which man’s material well being and, in a very great measure, his civilization are founded. Man is placed on this earth apparently more destitute and helpless than any other animal. Man is no finding animal —  he must produce. He must produce his food, his raiment, his shelter and his  comfort. He must produce his arrow and his trap, his canoe and his field, his road and his lamp.

Men are so constituted that they have far more wants, and can enjoy the satisfying of them more intensely, than other animals; and while these many wants are of a peculiar uniformity among all men, the fitness of the earth to provide for them is greatly diversified and locally restricted, so that men must produce, each more than he wants for himself, and exchange their products. All human palates are pleasantly affected by saccharine salts, so much so that the word sweet has been carried over, in all languages, into different and higher spheres, where it has ceased to be a trope and now designates the dearest and even the holiest affections. All men understand what is meant by sweet music and sweet wife, because the material pleasure whence the term is derived is universal. All men of all ages relish sugar, but those regions which produce it are readily numbered. This applies to the far greater part of all materials in constant demand among men, and it applies to the narrowest circles as to the widest. The inhabitant of the populous city does not cease to relish and stand in need of farinaceous substances though his crowded streets cannot produce grain, and the farmer who provides him with grain does not cease to stand in need of iron or oil which the town may procure for him from a distance. With what remarkable avidity the tribes of Negroland, that had never been touched even by the last points of the creeping fibres of civilization, longed for the articles lately carried thither by Barth and his companions! The brute animal has no dormant desires of this kind, and finds around itself what it stands in need of. This apparent cruelty, although a real blessing to man, deserves to be made a prominent topic in natural theology.

Lastly, the wants of men I speak of their material and cultural wants, the latter of which are as urgent and fully as legitimate as the former infinitely increase and are by Providence decreed to increase with advancing civilization; so that his progress necessitates intenser production and quickened exchange.

The branch which treats of the necessity, nature, and effects, the promotion and the hindrances of production, whether it be based almost exclusively on appropriation, as the fishery; or on coercing nature to furnish us with better and more abundant fruit than she is willing spontaneously to yield, as agriculture; or in fashioning, separating and combining substances which other branches of industry obtain and collect, as manufacture; or on carrying the products from the spot of production to the place of consumption; and the character which all these products acquire by exchange, as values, with the labor and services for which again products are given in exchange, this division of knowledge is called political economy — an unfit name; but it is the name, and we use it. Political economy, like every other of the new sciences, was obliged to fight its way to a fair acknowledgment, against all manners of prejudices. The introductory lecture which archbishop Whately delivered some thirty years ago, when he commenced his course on political economy in the university of Oxford, consists almost wholly of a defense of his science and an encounter with the objections then made to it on religious, moral, and almost on every ground that could be made by ingenuity, or was suggested by the misconception of its aims. Political economy fared, in this respect, like vaccination, like the taking of a nation’s census, like the discontinuance of witch trials.

The economist stands now on clearer ground. Opponents have acknowledged their errors, and the economists themselves fall no longer into the faults of the utilitarian. The economist indeed sees that the material interests of men are of the greatest importance, and that modern civilization, in all its aspects, requires an immense amount of wealth, and consequently increasing exertion and production, but he acknowledges that “what men can do the least without is not their highest need.”* He knows that we are bid to pray for our daily bread, but not for bread alone, and I am glad that those who bade me teach Political Economy, assigned to me also Political Philosophy and History. They teach that the periods of national dignity and highest endeavors have sometimes been periods of want and poverty. They teach abundantly that riches and enfeebling comforts, that the flow of wine or costly tapestry, do not lead to the development of humanity, nor are its tokens; that no barbarism is coarser than the substitution of gross expensiveness for what is beautiful and graceful; that it is manly character, and womanly soulfulness, not gilded upholstery or fretful fashion — that it is the love of truth and justice, directness and tenacity of purpose, a love of right, of fairness and freedom, a self-sacrificing public spirit and religious sincerity, that lead nations to noble places in history; not surfeiting feasts or conventional refinement. The Babylonians have tried that road before us.

* Professor Lushington in his Inaugural Lecture, in Glasgow, quoted in Morell’s Hist. and Crit. View of Specul. Phil. London, 1846.

But political economy, far from teaching the hoarding of riches, shows the laws of accumulation and distribution of wealth; it shows the important truth that mankind at large can become and have become wealthier, and must steadily increase their wealth with expanding culture.

It is, nevertheless, true that here, in the most active market of our whole hemisphere, I have met, more frequently than in any other place, with an objection to political economy, on the part of those who claim for themselves the name of men of business. They often say that they alone can know anything about it, and as often ask what is Political Economy good for? The soldier, though he may have fought in the thickest of the fight, is not on that account the best judge of the disposition, the aim, the movements, the faults or the great conceptions of a battle, nor can we call the infliction of a deep wound a profound lesson in anatomy.

What is Political Economy good for? It is like every other branch truthfully pursued, good for leading gradually nearer and nearer to the truth; for making men, in its own sphere, that is the vast sphere of exchange, what Cicero calls mansueti, and for clearing more and more away what may be termed the impeding and sometimes savage superstitions of trade and intercourse; it is, like every other pursuit of political science of which it is but a branch, good for sending some light, through the means of those that cultivate it as their own science, to the most distant corners, and to those who have perhaps not even heard of its name.

Let me give you two simple facts one of commanding and historic magnitude; the other of apparent insignificance, but typical of an entire state of things, incalculably important.

Down to Adam Smith, the greatest statesmanship had always been sought for in the depression of neighboring nations. Even a Bacon considered it self-evident that the enriching of one people implies the impoverishing of another. This maxim runs through all history, Asiatic and European, down to the latter part of the last century. Then came a Scottish professor who dared to teach, in his dingy lecture-room at Edinburgh, contrary to the opinion of the whole world, that every man, even were it but for egotistic reasons, is interested in the prosperity of his neighbors; that his wealth, if it be the result of production and exchange, is not a withdrawal of money from others, and that, as with single men so with entire nations the more prosperous the one so much the better for the other. And his teaching, like that of another professor before him the immortal Grotius went forth, and rose above men and nations, and statesmen and kings; it ruled their councils and led the history of our race into new channels; it bade men adopt the angels’ greeting: “Peace on earth and good will towards men,” as a maxim of high statesmanship and political shrewdness. Thus rules the mind; thus sways science. There is now no intercourse between civilized nations which is not tinctured by Smith and Grotius. And what I am, what you are, what every man of our race is in the middle of the nineteenth century, he owes it in part to Adam Smith, as well as to Grotius, and Aristotle, and Shakespeare, and every other leader of humanity. Let us count the years since that Scottish professor, with his common name, Smith, proclaimed his swaying truth, very simple when once pronounced; very fearful as long as unacknowledged; a very blessing when in action; and then let us answer, What has Political Economy done for man? We habitually dilate on the effect of physical sciences, and especially on their application to the useful arts in modern times. All honor to this characteristic feature of our age the wedlock of knowledge and labor; but it is, nevertheless, true that none of the new sciences have so deeply affected the course of human events as political economy. I am speaking as an historian and wish to assert facts. What I say is not meant as rhetorical fringe.

The other fact alluded to, is one of those historical pulsations which indicate to the touch of the inquirer, the condition of an entire living organism. When a few weeks ago the widely spread misery in the manufacturing districts of England was spoken of in the British house of lords, one that has been at the helm,** concluded his speech with an avowal that the suffering laborers who could find but half days’, nay, quarter days’ employment, with unreduced wants of their families, nevertheless had resorted to no violence, but on the contrary universally acknowledged that they knew full well, that a factory can not be kept working unless the master can work to a profit.

** Lord Derby, then in the opposition, and since made premier again.

This too is very simple, almost trivial, when stated. But those who know the chronicles of the medieval cities, and of modern times down to a period which most of us recollect, know also that in all former days the distressed laborer would first of all have resorted to a still greater increase of distress, by violence and destruction. The first feeling of uninstructed man, produced by suffering, is vengeance, and that vengeance is wreaked on the nearest object or person; as animals bite, when in pain, what is nearest within reach. What has wrought this change? Who, or what has restrained our own sorely distressed population from blind violence, even though unwise words were officially addressed to them, when under similar circumstances in the times of free Florence or Cologne there would have been a sanguinary rising of the “wool weavers,” if it is not a sounder knowledge and a correcter feeling regarding the relations of wealth, of capital and labor, which in spite of the absurdities of communism has penetrated in some degree all layers of society? And which is the source whence this tempering knowledge has welled forth, if not Political Economy?

True indeed, we are told that economists do not agree; some are for protection, some for free trade. But are physicians agreed? And is there no science and art of medicine? Are theologians agreed? Are the cultivators of any branch of knowledge fully agreed, and are all the beneficial effects of the sciences debarred by this disagreement of their followers? But, however important at certain periods the difference between protectionists and free traders may be, it touches, after all, but a small portion of the bulk of truth taught by Political Economy, and I believe that there is a greater uniformity of opinion, and a more essential agreement among the prominent scholars of this science, than among those of others excepting, as a matter of course, the mathematics….

Source: Francis Lieber, “History and Political Science, Necessary Studies in Free Countries” — an Inaugural Address delivered on the Seventeenth of February, 1858. New York: 1858. Pages 25-36.

Image Source: Portrait photograph of Professor Francis Lieber from the Brady-Handy photograph collection at the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

Categories
Columbia Exam Questions

South Carolina and Columbia College. Political Economy Exams. Francis Lieber, 1855, 1863

Francis Lieber (1800-1872)

What is a curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror to do when he stumbles across college exams in political economy from 1855 and 1863? Of course, there is no choice but to stop everything and post the material immediately. I had no reason to either like or dislike Francis Lieber when I started this post, but the more I see of him (not all posted here…yet), the more I get to like him as a scholar.

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Specimens of Francis Lieber’s Examinations

The numbers at the [left] of the questions in Sections A and B represent the point values of the questions.

A. South Carolina College.
Junior Class in Political Philosophy, 18551

The Juniors stand on Paley’s Elements of Political Knowledge, to Chap. VII, and five lectures.

  1. [35 points] What is absolutism or an absolute Government: What is an absolute Monarchy, and what is absolute Democracy? Why is an absolute Democracy one of the worst governments? Compare the reality of power and the responsibility of the power-holder in the absolute Monarchy with those in the absolute Democracy.
  2. [20 points] Define Obedience and state whether obeying is passive submission or an attribute of rational beings and free agents. Show how man is familiarized with the idea of authority before he becomes an active citizen, and show, moreover, how it is that we ought to obey laws which were made generations before us, and, in the making of which, consequently, we have no direct or indirect share.
  3. [25 points] What is meant by the theory of the civil compact, implied or positive? Give the most serious objection to this theory.
  4. [20 points] Give the first and the last division of the general classification of all governments and politics, written in such a way as to show the subordination of the different parts.

1Printed copy in Lieber papers, Columbia University Libraries. A handwritten note at the bottom reads: “N. B. These refer to a course which commenced Oct. 1, and ended Nov. 10. F. L.”

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B. South Carolina College.
Senior Class in Political Economy, 18552

The Seniors stand on the entire annual course of Political Economy, including a course of lectures and the whole of Say’s Political Economy, except the Book on Distribution.

Subjects.

  1. [25 points] Louis the Fourteenth was in the habit of saying that royal profusion is the charity of kings, or, that lavish governments are a blessing to the people. Show what is meant by this assertion and its grave error.
  2. [10 points] Define the term “Itinerant Merchant” or Pedlar. Does the Itinerant form an essential link in the long chain of commerce?
  3. [30 points] Enumerate the characteristics of a sound acceptable tax, according to Mr. Say, and also the characteristics as your teacher has given them — adding to each characteristic an explanatory note or two, in order to show what is meant by it.
  4. [15 points] Is machinery objectionable on the ground that it saves labor? If this were so, would the objection apply to machinery alone?
  5. [30 points (sic, perhaps only 20?)] A hotel or bridge is built for a capital, say, of $100,000. The undertakings prove failures in spite of the prudent management of the concern either, because the buildings were erected on an extravagant plan, or because the number of people making use of them, falls short of that calculated upon. The hotel, or the bridge, is sold for $25,000 and now the number of boarders in the hotel, or of the passengers over the bridge, is sufficient to pay for the interest of the latter sum, as well as for all other outlays, and yields a fair profit. Hereupon the general remark is made: “Well, the capitalist who first undertook the thing is ruined, it is true, but the people,” or “the community at large have gained by it; for, here, they are living in this fine hotel,” or “here is the bridge still standing.” Similar remarks are made on large, yet unprofitable, under takings, of governments, with this difference that, generally, it is added, “There is no harm in the original outlay, although it proves unprofitable, inasmuch as the capital laid out has returned to the people.” For instance, one hundred millions of dollars laid out by government for a railway to the Pacific, would be no loss, although the railway should yield no profit, nor even pay for the interest of the capital, because the whole amount of the capital, would have returned to the people, by the laying of the road itself.

You meet with this argument every day in the debates in Congress, as well as in common life. Show its utter fallacy, or which amounts to the same thing, answer the question: Can the capitalist who pays for a work, be ruined by it, yet the community, or people at the same time be benefitted? And is there any difference in point of political economy, whether government, or a private individual be the capitalist? And also, whether there be any difference if the iron, in the case of the railway, be American iron, or purchased abroad?

2A printed copy is in the Columbia University Libraries.
Lieber elaborated the answer to the main part of the fifth question in his Some Truths Worth Remembering, Given as a Recapitulation, in a Farewell Lecture to the Class of Political Economy of 1849, Published by the Class.

“No enterprise, failing by its own unprofitable nature, can be, at the same time, ruinous to the adventurers, yet advantageous to the community. If a railway cost $500,000, and shares fall to $25 in the hundred, because travelling and freight pay a fair interest of $100,000 only, in that case the community has for ever lost the value of $400,000, and the passengers and freight are carried at the regular and fair price plus the interest of $400,000 proportionately divided in the course of the year. Nothing is more common than to hear that a hotel or a canal has been ruinous to the adventuring individuals, but that the people have reaped the advantage of it. This cannot be. The case applies to government undertakings. They cannot be advantageous to the whole (as far as productive effects are concerned), although they would be ruinous to individuals.”

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Columbia College.
Senior Class in Political Economy, 18633

  1. Definition of Money.
  2. Immigration Into the U. States considered in an economical point of view.
  3. Error of Montesquieu concerning Money.
  4. Define direct and indirect taxation.
  5. How does a Bill of Exchange become a commodity?
  6. Communism and Socialism.
  7. Enumerate the characteristics of an acceptable tax.
  8. The N[ew] York Clearing House.

3In Lieber papers, Columbia University Libraries.

Source:  Appendix to “Francis Lieber: German Scholar in America,” reprinted in the collection of essays by Joseph Dorfman and R.G. Tugwell, Early American Policy: Six Columbia Contributors (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 339-341. The article was originally published without the above appendix in Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 30 (Sept. and Dec.), 1938, pp. 159-90; 267-93.

Image Source: Thomas Sergeant Perry, editor. The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber (Boston, 1882).

Categories
Columbia Economics Programs

Columbia. Trustee behind the establishment of the School of Political Science. Ruggles, 1880

 

Today’s post introduces us to someone who was critical in creating the institutional infrastructure that promoted the development of economics at Columbia University. Samuel Bulkley Ruggles wanted political economy and public policy to be taught and as a trustee of Columbia College worked to have John W. Burgess hired in the first place and then supported Burgess’s plan to form a faculty of political science to fit between the School of Arts and the School of Law. There in the School of Political Science founded in 1880 would be the origins of the department of economics (sociology, mathematical statistics, public law, international institutes etc, etc).

Note: As far as the curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror can determine, there is no relation between Samuel Bulkley Ruggles and the Ruggles dynasty of modern economics.

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Biography of Columbia Trustee,
Samuel Bulkley Ruggles

RUGGLES, Samuel Bulkley, lawyer, b. in New Milford, Conn., 11 April, 1800; d. on Fire island, N. Y., 28 Aug., 1881. He removed at an early age to Poughkeepsie, was graduated at Yale in 1814, studied law in the office of his father, Philo, who was surrogate and district attorney at Poughkeepsie, and was admitted to the bar in 1821. He was elected a member of the assembly of 1888, and, as chairman of the committee on ways and means, presented a “Report upon the Finances and Internal Improvements of the State of New York,” which led the state to enter upon a new policy in its commercial development. This report proposed to borrow sums of money sufficient to enlarge the Erie canal within five years, and not, as had been at first decided, to rely upon part of the tolls to pay for the enlargement while waiting twenty years. The enlargement was not made at once, but Mr. Ruggles’s views, which were much assailed, were amply vindicated by the event. He was a commissioner to determine the route of the Erie railroad, and a director in 1833-’9, a director and promoter of the Bank of commerce in 1839, commissioner of the Croton aqueduct in 1842, delegate from the United States to the International statistical congresses at Berlin in 1863 and the Hague in 1869, U. S. commissioner to the Paris exposition of 1867, and delegate to the International monetary conference that was held there. He laid out Gramercy park, in the city of New York, in 1831, gave it its name, and presented it to the surrounding property-owners. He also had a considerable influence upon shaping Union square, where he resided, and he selected the name of Lexington avenue. He was for a long term of years a trustee of the Astor library, and he held the same office in Columbia college from 1836 till the end of his life. He was also a member of the Chamber of commerce of the state of New York, and of the General convention of the Protestant Episcopal church.

Mr. Ruggles’s claim to distinction rests chiefly upon his canal policy, and the steadfast attention that he continued to give to the Erie canal, both as a private citizen during his life and as canal commissioner, in which office he served from 1840 till 1842, and again in the year 1858. Yale gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1859. Among his numerous printed papers are “Report upon Finances and Internal Improvements” (1838); “Vindication of Canal Policy” (1849); “Defence of Improvement of Navigable Waters by the General Government” (1852); “Law of Burial” (1858); “Report on State of Canals in 1858” (1859); reports on the Statistical congress at Berlin (1863), the Monetary conference at Paris (1867), and the Statistical congress at the Hague (1871); “Report to the Chairman of the Committee on Canals” (1875); and a “Consolidated Table of National Progress in Cheapening Food” (1880).

Source: Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Vol. 5, Pickering-Sumter (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1888), pp. 343-344.

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Research tip

Ruggles of New York: A Life of Samuel B. Ruggles by Daniel Garrison Brinton Thompson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946).  Includes a bibliography primary and secondary sources regarding Samuel Bulkeley Ruggles.

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Excerpt from Joseph Dorfman’s 1955 History of the Economics Department of Columbia

…In 1876, four years after [Francis] Lieber’s death, John W. Burgess was called from Amherst to revive Lieber’s work in the College as well as in the School of Law; it was expected that he would teach political economy. The subject was especially important in the eyes of Samuel B. Ruggles, the Trustee who led this movement for the revival of Lieber’s chair and who was well aware of the developments at Yale, Harvard, and abroad. A lawyer by profession, with extensive business interests, Ruggles was genuinely interested in the advancement of learning in general and political economy in particular. He had a reputation as a statistician, especially in monetary matters. He had served as American Commissioner to a number of international statistical and monetary conferences, had taken an active interest in the enactment of the Coinage Act of 1873, and was one of the leaders in the subsequent controversy over bimetallism.

To Ruggles, Burgess looked like the right person to teach political economy, for Burgess had taught the subject at Knox College from 1869 to 1871 as Professor of English Literature and Political Economy and had subsequently studied at Leipzig under Wilhelm Roscher, the foremost figure in the German historical school of economics. Burgess felt, however, that he could not do justice to the field because of his already heavy program, and he proposed that an assistant be secured especially for instruction in economics. A report presented by Ruggles, for the Trustees’ Committee appointed to inquire into the matter, marked the first definite, explicit recognition by a leading institution of the “historical school.” The report, submitted on October 1, 1877, declared that since [Charles Murray] Nairne had not specialized in political economy, he taught it

“…in a rather peremptory way in conformity with the methods of the old text books, in which certain general principles are first assumed to be true, and are subsequently followed out to their natural conclusions by applying to them the processes of logic. That the results thus reached have failed to command general acceptance not merely among the uneducated, but also with many who have made questions of Political Economy the principal study of their lives, is made evident by the widely discordant opinions which continue to be maintained by writers of ability in regard to matters which concern the very fountain springs of national prosperity. Either the truth of the assumed general principles of the theoretic writers is denied, or it is claimed that these principles are only true with so many qualifications and limitations as to render them practically useless. During the past half century, however, there has arisen a school of political economists, principally on the continent of Europe, who have endeavored to apply to this branch of science the same methods which have long been recognized as the only sure methods in physics and natural history, viz., the methods of induction from ascertained facts. These investigators have, with great labor, brought together and classified the immense amount of varied information in regard to the industrial condition of different countries under different systems of legislation gathered by the statistical bureaus of the several governments, and from these have sought to infer, not what on abstract principles ought to be, but what actually is, the system most favorable to industrial development, to growth in national wealth and to the fairest and most equal distribution of the rewards of labor. It was in the hope that these later views of a subject of so vast importance to the future of the world, and especially of our own country, in which questions of public economy must soon absorb the attention of our lawgivers to the exclusion of almost every other, might be introduced into our course of instruction that the Committee of this Board on the course, when, in 1876, it was proposed to appoint a professor of History and Political Science, gave their assent to such appointment on the condition that the professor so appointed should be charged with the duty of giving instruction on Political Economy.”

The report agreed with Burgess’s view that his value lay in the other branches in which he had specialized. Consequently, he should have an assistant to handle political economy. The report went on to point out that there was available for this post a former student of Burgess’s, a man who had for the “past two years been pursuing a course of instruction in Political Economy under the ablest teachers of this Science in Germany.” Accordingly, Richmond Mayo-Smith was, at the same Trustees’ meeting, appointed as an instructor to assist the Professor of History and Political Science. This was the first time in the College’s history that an appointment depended primarily on the candidate’s qualifications in political economy. Two years later he was promoted to Adjunct Professor of History, Political Science and International Law, and in 1883, at the age of twenty-seven, he obtained a full professorship. It is interesting that among the grounds given for his promotion was the fact that he had spent “three entire summers, in recent years, in study with his old instructors at Heidelberg and Berlin.” At first, half his teaching time was devoted to English constitutional history, which he taught until 1890. From the very beginning, however, he tripled the time allotted to the instruction in political economy. To the two-hour, one-semester course required of all juniors he added an elective, two-hour, one-year course for seniors. He gave the juniors “systematic work” with the aid of the familiar elementary textbooks of Fawcett or Rogers and the use of quizzes. For the seniors, however, he used the more sophisticated and advanced Principles of Political Economy of John Stuart Mill, the great codifier of classical economics.* Mayo-Smith supplemented it with lectures on “practical economics” and with “statistical and documentary works” that reflected the controversies over the tariff, bimetallism, greenbacks, the stir over Irish land reform, and Henry George’s single tax. His lecture topics included land tenure in Europe, monetary systems of Europe and America, and the financial history of the United States.

*The term “political economy” was then generally used in official records, but “economics” was often used, certainly as early as 1878. The printed form of the student’s periodical report card sent to the parent, lists “economics.” (See the report entry November 27, 1878, on E.R.A. Seligman, in Seligman Papers.)

Source: Joseph Dorfman, Chapter 9, “The Department of Economics” in A History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), pp. 169-172.

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Burgess Recounts Ruggles’ Role in the Establishment of the School of Political Science

In the early autumn of 1875 I received from Professor Theodore W. Dwight, warden of Columbia Law School in New York City, a communication to the effect that the trustees of Columbia College had voted to invite me to deliver a course of lectures on political science to the students of the Law School during the following winter and had authorized him to transmit the invitation to me and to request from me an early reply. This was the second or third time that they had made this offer to me. I had declined it on account of lack of time to prepare the course, but now that I was to have no graduate students in the year 1875-76, I accepted the call and occupied all of my surplus time and energy during the autumn of 1875 in constructing the desired lectures. The month of January, 1876, was employed in the delivery of the same. The audiences were very large, consisting of the trustees of the college, members of the faculty, and the students of the Law School.

It was on the occasion of the first lecture that I made the acquaintance of Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles, the chairman of the committee of the trustees on the Law School, one of the most extraordinary men whom it has ever been my privilege to know. Mr. Hamilton Fish once said to me: “Ruggles can throw off more brilliant and pregnant ideas in a given moment than any man I ever saw.” He was then already seventy-five years of age and I but thirty-one, but from the first moment of our meeting we flew together like steel and magnet. He came to every lecture, and at the end of the course he said to me, “You are the man we have been looking for ever since Lieber’s death. You must come to Columbia.”…

… The months of February, March, April, and May of the year 1876 were among the most distressing of my life. Mr. Ruggles was continually writing and urging me to give my consent to his bringing my name before the trustees of Columbia College for election to a chair in that institution. Professor Dwight and President Barnard were doing likewise, and I was inventing all sorts of subterfuges for delay. At last, on the first Monday of May, 1876, the trustees, on recommendation of the committee of which Mr. Ruggles was chairman, backed by the approval of Professor Dwight and President Barnard, unanimously elected me professor of history, political science, and international law, without my having given any assurance of accepting the office. The action of the trustees was so cordial and complimentary that I cannot refrain from transcribing the resolution in the language of their own records. It ran as follows:

At a meeting of the Trustees of Columbia College of the City of New York on Monday, May 1st, 1876, it was

RESOLVED, that during the pleasure of the Trustees the salary of the Professor of History, Political Science and International Law shall be. . . . The Board then proceeded to an election for Professor and on counting the ballots Professor John W. Burgess was found to be unanimously elected.

Whereupon it was

RESOLVED, that Professor John W. Burgess be appointed Professor of History, Political Science and International Law to hold his office during the pleasure of the Trustees.

Notwithstanding this unanimous and hearty invitation, I still hesitated. Towards the end of the month of May I received a letter from Mr. Ruggles and also one from President Barnard urging me to send my answer before the meeting of the trustees on the first Monday of June following. At the last moment, with a heavy heart and many misgivings, I accepted the call….

…With the assistance of Mayo-Smith alone, I had worked on thus through the four years from 1876 to 1880, both in the School of Arts and in the School of Law, with some moderate measure of success, and had learned the obstacles to greater success and had felt the way towards it. My first plan was to have a third year added to the curriculum of the School of Law and expand the courses in political science and public law in the law curriculum. But Professor Dwight was distinctly opposed to this as impairing the practical nature of the law instruction according to his view. The peculiar relation of the Law School to the college at that time, which I have already stated, made his opposition to any project for change therein fatal to the undertaking. In the School of Arts all the time had been assigned to the courses in history and political economy which could be afforded in the stiff, required program of studies then obtaining in this school. No relief could be found there.

There was only one other way out of the cramping, unbearable situation, and that was to found a new faculty and a new school for the study, teaching, and development of the historical, political, economic, and social sciences. This was so progressive an idea that I did not dare to broach it for a long time to anybody. I had learned from experience with the vanity of man, to say nothing of that of woman, that the way to succeed in realizing any idea when it must be done through the will of another or others is to make the person or persons in the controlling position think that the idea emanates from him or them. This is not always an easy thing to do. It requires a good deal of skill in psychology to construct approaches through suggestion to the customary obstinacy and obstructiveness of American character. I felt almost instinctively that the man to whom I should turn was Mr. Ruggles. On the evening of the fifth of April, 1880, I went by appointment to his house, then 24 Union Square, for an interview with him. I found two other men with him, his nephew Mr. Robert N. Toppan and Mr. Toppan’s bosom friend John Durand, the American translator of the works of the French author Taine. At first I thought that their presence would prevent me from saying anything to Mr. Ruggles on the subject which I had been for months revolving in mind. But to my surprise and delight I found that Mr. Ruggles had asked them to come in for the purpose of talking with me on points nearly related to my intended proposition. Toppan had taken great interest in my work in the Law School from the beginning and had founded and endowed an annual prize for the best work in public law and political science, and Durand had just returned from Paris and had been telling Toppan about a project in which some of their French friends were participants. Mr. Ruggles immediately opened the conversation and asked me how things were going in my department. I told him and his visitors very frankly of the obstacles in the way of developing these studies in manner and degree as I thought required in a great republic like ours.

They all listened with great attention and evident interest, and when I finally paused in my account of the situation, Mr. Ruggles spoke up quickly and, as was his habit, with apparent impatience, and said: “Well, I do not see but we shall have to found a school for the political sciences separate from both the School of Arts and the School of Law.” At this my heart leaped with gladness into my throat, and it was with a great effort that I restrained myself from saying, “That is the idea I have been for some time entertaining.” I was happily, however, able to modify this into the reply that this would presumably solve the question, but that I knew of no precedent, except perhaps the faculty of “Cameralwissenschaften,” as it was called, of the German Imperial University at Strasbourg very recently founded. At this Mr. Durand said that he had just returned from Paris and while there had by his friend Taine been introduced to one Émile Boutmy, who, with such publicists as Casimir-Périer and Ribot and several others had just founded in Paris the École libre des sciences politiques and had already put it into successful operation. Mr. Ruggles suggested that I draw up a plan for a separate faculty and school of political science in Columbia College and put it into his hands and go myself immediately to Paris, enter the École libre as a student and study carefully its scheme and methods. This suggestion was seconded by both Mr. Toppan and Mr. Durand.

To me it promised the fulfillment of the hope which had been my life’s guide for more than fifteen years. So soon as proper courtesy would allow, I took my leave and hastened home to begin the draft of the proposed new development and to prepare for my journey to Paris. I did not sleep any that night. I did not even retire to rest, but spent the entire night in my study formulating my project. The next morning I summoned Richmond Mayo-Smith to my house and related to him the results of the conference at Mr. Ruggles’s house on the evening before. He, also, was overjoyed at the turn things had so suddenly taken. We talked over the general outline of the plan which I had drawn up and made a few modifications in it, and he agreed to join me in Paris so soon as his duties at the college would allow. I handed the plan to Mr. Ruggles after a few days of reflection upon it, and he assumed the burden of laying it before the trustees and of securing leave of absence for both Professor Mayo-Smith and myself in order that we might have as full an opportunity as possible to investigate the organization and operation of the École libre in Paris….

…At the meeting of the trustees of the college on the first Monday in May, 1880, Mr. Ruggles secured leave of absence for me to go immediately to Paris for the purpose above mentioned, and for Professor Mayo-Smith to go at the end of the month, and laid the plan for the new faculty and School of Political Science before them. This plan was in outline as follows:

  1. A faculty of Political Science should be created, composed of all professors and adjunct and associate professors already giving instruction in history, economics, public law, and political science to the senior class in the School of Arts and the classes of the School of Law and of such other officers of these grades as might be called to chairs in the new faculty.
  2. The plan provided a program of studies in history, economics, public law, and political philosophy, extending over a period of three years, and for a degree of Ph.B. or A.B. to be conferred upon students completing successfully the curriculum of the first year and of Ph.D. to be conferred upon students completing successfully the curricula of the three years and presenting an approved thesis.
  3. The plan provided, further, that members of the senior class of the School of Arts of Columbia College might elect the curriculum of the first year in the School of Political Science and have it take the place of the senior curriculum in the School of Arts and that members of the School of Law who had advanced successfully to the end of the junior year in any college of equal standing with Columbia might enter the School of Political Science as fully qualified candidates for the degrees conferred by recommendation of the faculty of that school.
  4. It provided, finally, that all “persons, of the male sex, having successfully completed the curricula of the first three years of any American college having the same standing as the School of Arts of Columbia College, were qualified to enter the proposed School as candidates for the degrees conferred upon recommendation by the Faculty of the School.”

Such was, in brief, an outline of the project which Mr. Ruggles laid before the trustees of the college at their regular meeting on the first Monday of May, 1880. The trustees referred the proposition to a committee for examination, report, and recommendation at their meeting to be held on the first Monday of the following June, and also granted leave of absence to Professor Mayo-Smith and myself to go to Paris…

…[In Paris] on Tuesday morning after the first Monday of June, I was awakened by a loud knock on the door of my sleeping room about five o’clock. On going to the door, an American cablegram was handed me. It read: “Thank God, the university is born. Go ahead.” It was signed “Samuel B. Ruggles.” This meant that the trustees of Columbia College had, on the day before, adopted the plan for founding the School of Political Science in the college and had authorized me to invite Edmund Munroe Smith, then student in Berlin, and Clifford R. Bateman, then student in Heidelberg, to join Mayo-Smith and myself in forming the new faculty and putting the new school into operation at the beginning of the academic year 1880-81, in the following October.

Source: John W. Burgess, Reminiscences of an American Scholar (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), pp. 150-153; 187-192; 194-195.

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Resolution of the Columbia College Trustees to Establish a School of Political Science

§. 4. SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

June 7th, 1880.

Resolved, That there be established to go into operation at the opening of the academic year next ensuing, a school designed to prepare young men for the duties of public life to be entitled a School of Political Science, having a definitely prescribed curriculum of study extending over a period of three years and embracing the History of Philosophy, the History of the Literature of Political Sciences, the General Constitutional History of Europe, the Special Constitutional History of England and the United States, the Roman Law and the jurisprudence of existing codes derived therefrom, the Comparative Constitutional Law of European States and of the United States, the Comparative Constitutional Law of the different States of the American Union, the History of Diplomacy, International Law, Systems of Administrations, State and National, of the United States, Comparison of American, and European Systems of Administration, Political Economy and Statistics.

Resolved, That the qualifications required of the candidate for admission to this School, shall be that he shall have successfully pursued a course of undergraduate study in this College or in some other, maintaining an equivalent curriculum to the close of the Junior year.

Resolved, That the students of the School, who shall satisfactorily complete the studies of the first year, shall be entitled on examination and the recommendation of the Faculty to receive the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, and those who complete the entire course of three years, shall on similar examination and recommendation, be entitled to receive the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Resolved, That the annual tuition fee required of students of this School shall be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150).

Resolved, That Edmund Munroe Smith be appointed Lecturer on Roman Law in the School of Political Science, to enter upon his duties on the first day of October next, and to hold office for one year, or during the pleasure of the Board, at a compensation of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) per annum.

Resolved, That Clifford Rush Bateman be appointed Lecturer on Administrative Law and Government in the School of Political Science, to enter upon duty on the first day of October, 1881, and to serve for the term of one year, or during the pleasure of the Board, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) per annum.

Source: Columbia College. Resolutions of the Trustees, Volume VIII, 1880-85, pp. 140-141.

Image Source: Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Vol. 5, Pickering-Sumter (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1888), p. 344.

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. History of Economics Department. Luncheon Talk by Arthur R. Burns, 1954

The main entry of this posting is a transcription of the historical overview of economics at Columbia provided by Professor Arthur R. Burns at a reunion luncheon for Columbia economics Ph.D. graduates [Note: Arthur Robert Burns was the “other” Arthur Burns of the Columbia University economics department, as opposed to Arthur F. Burns, who was the mentor/friend of Milton Friedman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Fed, etc.]. He acknowledges his reliance on the definitive research of his colleague, Joseph Dorfman, that was published in the following year:

Joseph Dorfman, “The Department of Economics”, Chapt IX in R. Gordon Hoxie et al., A History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.

The cost of the luncheon was $2.15 per person. 36 members of the economics faculty attended, who paid for themselves, and some 144 attending guests (includes about one hundred Columbia economics Ph.D.’s) had their lunches paid for by the university.

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[LUNCHEON INVITATION LETTER]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

March 25, 1954

 

Dear Doctor _________________

On behalf of the Department of Economics, I am writing to invite you to attend a Homecoming Luncheon of Columbia Ph.D.’s in Economics. This will be held on Saturday, May 29, at 12:30 sharp, in the Men’s Faculty Club, Morningside Drive and West 117th Street.

This Luncheon is planned as a part of Columbia University’s Bicentennial Celebration, of which, as you know, the theme is “Man’s Right to Knowledge and the free Use Thereof”. The date of May 29 is chosen in relation to the Bicentennial Conference on “National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad” in which distinguished scholars and men of affairs from the United States and other countries will take part. The final session of this Conference, to be held at three p.m. on May 29 in McMillin Academic Theater, will have as its principal speaker our own Professor John Maurice Clark. The guests at the Luncheon are cordially invited to attend the afternoon meeting.

The Luncheon itself and brief after-luncheon speeches will be devoted to reunion, reminiscence and reacquaintance with the continuing work of the Department. At the close President Grayson Kirk will present medals on behalf of the University to the principal participants in the Bicentennial Conference.

We shall be happy to welcome to the Luncheon as guests of the University all of our Ph.D.’s, wherever their homes may be, who can arrange to be in New York on May 29. We very much hope you can be with us on that day. Please reply on the form below.

Cordially yours,

[signed]
Carter Goodrich
Chairman of the Committee

*   *   *   *   *   *

Professor Carter Goodrich
Box #22, Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

I shall be glad…
I shall be unable… to attend the Homecoming Luncheon on May 29.

(signed) ___________

Note: Please reply promptly, not later than April 20 in the case of Ph.D.’s residing in the United States, and not later than May 5 in the case of others.

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[INVITATION TO SESSION FOLLOWING LUNCHEON]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

May 6, 1954

 

TO:                 Departments of History, Math. Stat., Public and Sociology
FROM:            Helen Harwell, secretary, Graduate Department of Economics

 

Will you please bring the following notice to the attention of the students in your Department:

            A feature of Columbia’s Bicentennial celebration will be a Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad, to be held May 27, 28 and 29.

            The final session of the Conference will take place in McMillin Theatre at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 29. The session topic is “Economic Welfare in a Free Society”. The program is:

Session paper.

John M. Clark, John Bates Clark Professor. Emeritus of Economics, Columbia University.

Discussants:

Frank H. Knight, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
David E. Lilienthal, Industrial Consultant and Executive
Wilhelm Roepke, Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva

 

Students in the Faculty of Political Science are cordially invited to attend this session and to bring their wives or husbands and friends who may be interested.

Tickets can be secured from Miss Helen Harwell, 505 Fayer.

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[REMARKS BY PROFESSOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

Department of Economics Bicentennial Luncheon
May 29th, 1954

President Kirk, Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the Department of Economics I welcome you all to celebrate Columbia’s completion of its first two hundred years as one of the great universities. We are gratified that so many distinguished guests have come, some from afar, to participate in the Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad. We accept their presence as testimony of their esteem for the place of Columbia in the world of scholarship. Also, we welcome among us again many of the intellectual offspring of the department. We like to believe that the department is among their warmer memories. We also greet most pleasurably some past members of the department, namely Professors Vladimir G. Simkhovitch, Eugene Agger, Eveline M. Burns and Rexford Tugwell. Finally, but not least, we are pleased to have with us the administrative staff of the department who are ceaselessly ground between the oddity and irascibility of the faculty and the personal and academic tribulations of the students. Gertrude D. Stewart who is here is evidence that this burden can be graciously carried for thirty-five years without loss of charm or cheer.

We are today concerned with the place of economics within the larger scope of Columbia University. When the bell tolls the passing of so long a period of intellectual endeavor one casts an appraising eye over the past, and I am impelled to say a few retrospective words about the faculty and the students. I have been greatly assisted in this direction by the researches of our colleague, Professor Dorfman, who has been probing into our past.

On the side of the faculty, there have been many changes, but there are also many continuities. First let me note some of the changes. As in Europe, economics made its way into the university through moral philosophy, and our College students were reading the works of Frances Hutcheson in 1763. But at the end of the 18th century, there seems to have been an atmosphere of unhurried certainty and comprehensiveness of view that has now passed away. For instance, it is difficult to imagine a colleague of today launching a work entitled “Natural Principles of Rectitude for the Conduct of Man in All States and Situations in Life Demonstrated and Explained in a Systematic Treatise on Moral Philosophy”. But one of early predecessors, Professor Gross, published such a work in 1795.

The field of professorial vision has also change. The professor Gross whom I have just mentioned occupied no narrow chair but what might better be called a sofa—that of “Moral Philosophy, German Language and Geography”. Professor McVickar, early in the nineteenth century, reclined on the even more generous sofa of “Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric, Belles Lettres and Political Economy”. By now, however, political economy at least existed officially and, in 1821, the College gave its undergraduates a parting touch of materialist sophistication in some twenty lectures on political economy during the last two months of their senior year.

But by the middle of the century, integration was giving way to specialization. McVickar’s sofa was cut into three parts, one of which was a still spacious chair of “History and Political Science”, into which Francis Lieber sank for a brief uneasy period. His successor, John W. Burgess, pushed specialization further. He asked for an assistant to take over the work in political economy. Moreover, his request was granted and Richmond Mayo Smith, then appointed, later became Professor of Political Economy, which, however, included Economics, Anthropology and Sociology. The staff of the department was doubled in 1885 by the appointment of E. R. A. Seligman to a three-year lectureship, and by 1891 he had become a professor of Political Economy and Finance. Subsequent fission has separated Sociology and Anthropology and now we are professors of economics, and the days when political economy was covered in twenty lectures seem long ago.

Other changes stand out in our history. The speed of promotion of the faculty has markedly slowed down. Richmond Mayo Smith started as an instructor in 1877 but was a professor after seven years of teaching at the age of 27. E. R. A. Seligman even speeded matters a little and became a professor after six years of teaching. But the University has since turned from this headlong progression to a more stately gait. One last change I mention for the benefit of President Kirk, although without expectation of warm appreciation from him. President Low paid J. B. Clark’s salary out of his own pocket for the first three years of the appointment.

I turn now to some of the continuities in the history of the department. Professor McVickar displayed a concern for public affairs that has continued since his time early in the nineteenth century. He was interested in the tariff and banking but, notably, also in what he called “economic convulsions”, a term aptly suggesting an economy afflicted with the “falling sickness”. Somewhat less than a century later the subject had been rechristened “business cycles” to remove some of the nastiness of the earlier name, and professor Wesley Mitchell was focusing attention on this same subject.

The Columbia department has also shown a persistent interest in economic measurement. Professor Lieber campaigned for a government statistical bureau in the middle of the 19th century and Richmond Mayo Smith continued this interest in statistics and in the Census. Henry L. Moore, who came to the department in 1902, promoted with great devotion Mathematical Economics and Statistics with particular reference to the statistical verification of theory. This interest in quantification remains vigorous among us.

There is also a long continuity in the department’s interest in the historical and institutional setting of economic problems and in their public policy aspect. E. R. A. Seligman did not introduce, but he emphasized this approach. He began teaching the History of Theory and proceeded to Railroad Problems and the Financial and Tariff History of the United States, and of course, Public Finance. John Bates Clark, who joined the department in 1895 to provide advanced training in economics to women who were excluded from the faculty of Political Science, became keenly interested in government policy towards monopolies and in the problem of war. Henry R. Seager, in 1902, brought his warm and genial personality to add to the empirical work in the department in labor and trust problems. Vladimir G. Simkhovitch began to teach economic history in 1905 at the same time pursuing many and varied other interests, and we greet him here today. And our lately deceased colleague, Robert Murray Haig, continued the work in Public Finance both as teacher and advisor to governments.

Lastly, among these continuities is an interest in theory. E. R. A. Seligman focused attention on the history of theory. John Bates Clark was an outstanding figure in the field too well known to all of us for it to be necessary to particularize as to his work. Wesley C. Mitchell developed his course on “Current Types of Economic Theory” after 1913 and continued to give it almost continuously until 1945. The Clark dynasty was continued when John Maurice Clark joined the department as research professor in 1926. He became emeritus in 1952, but fortunately he still teaches, and neither students nor faculty are denied the stimulation of his gentle inquiring mind. He was the first appointee to the John Bates Clark professorship in 1952 and succeeded Wesley Mitchell as the second recipient of the Francis A. Walker medal of the American Economic Association in the same year.

Much of this development of the department was guided by that gracious patriarch E. R. A. Seligman who was Executive Officer of the Department for about 30 years from 1901. With benign affection and pride he smiled upon his growing academic family creating a high standard of leadership for his successors. But the period of his tenure set too high a standard and executive Officers now come and go like fireflies emitting as many gleams of light as they can in but three years of service. Seligman and J. B. Clark actively participated in the formation of the American Economic Association in which J. B. Clark hoped to include “younger men who do not believe implicitly in laisser faire doctrines nor the use of the deductive method exclusively”.

Among other members of the department I must mention Eugene Agger, Edward Van Dyke Robinson, William E. Weld, and Rexford Tugwell, who were active in College teaching, and Alvin Johnson, Benjamin Anderson and Joseph Schumpeter, who were with the department for short periods. Discretion dictates that I list none of my contemporaries, but I leave them for such mention as subsequent speakers may care to make.

When one turns to the students who are responsible for so much of the history of the department, one is faced by an embarrassment of riches. Alexander Hamilton is one of the most distinguished political economists among the alumni of the College. Richard T. Ely was the first to achieve academic reputation. In the 1880’s, he was giving economics a more humane and historical flavor. Walter F. Wilcox, a student of Mayo Smith, obtained his Ph.D. in 1891 and contributed notably to statistical measurement after he became Chief Statistician of the Census in 1891, and we extend a special welcome to him here today. Herman Hollerith (Ph.D. 1890) contributed in another way to statistics by his development of tabulating machinery. Alvin Johnson was a student as well as teacher. It is recorded that he opened his paper on rent at J. B. Clark’s seminar with the characteristically wry comment that all the things worth saying about rent had been said by J. B. Clark and his own paper was concerned with “some of the other things”. Among other past students are W. Z. Ripley, B. M. Anderson, Willard Thorp, John Maurice Clark, Senator Paul Douglas, Henry Schultz and Simon Kuznets. The last of these we greet as the present President of the American Economic Association. But the list grows too long. It should include many more of those here present as well as many who are absent, but I am going to invite two past students and one present student to fill some of the gaps in my story of the department.

I have heard that a notorious American educator some years ago told the students at Commencement that he hoped he would never see them again. They were going out into the world with the clear minds and lofty ideals which were the gift of university life. Thenceforward they would be distorted by economic interest, political pressure, and family concerns and would never again be the same pellucid and beautiful beings as at that time. I confess that the thought is troubling. But in inviting our students back we have overcome our doubts and we now confidently call upon a few of them. The first of these is George W. Stocking who, after successfully defending a dissertation on “The Oil Industry and the Competitive System” in 1925, has continued to pursue his interest in competition and monopoly as you all know. He is now at Vanderbilt University.

The second of our offspring whom I will call upon is Paul Strayer. He is one of the best pre-war vintages—full bodied, if I may borrow from the jargon of the vintner without offense to our speaker. Or I might say fruity, but again not without danger of misunderstanding. Perhaps I had better leave him to speak for himself. Paul Strayer, now of Princeton University, graduated in 1939, having completed a dissertation on the painful topic of “The Taxation of Small Incomes”.

The third speaker is Rodney H. Mills, a contemporary student and past president of the Graduate Economics Students Association. He has not yet decided on his future presidencies, but we shall watch his career with warm interest. He has a past, not a pluperfect, but certainly a future. Just now, however, no distance lends enchantment to his view of the department. And I now call upon him to share his view with us.

So far we have been egocentric and appropriately so. But many other centres of economic learning are represented here, and among them the London School of Economics of which I am proud as my own Alma Mater. I now call upon Professor Lionel Robbins of Polecon (as it used sometimes to be known) to respond briefly on behalf of our guests at the Conference. His nature and significance are or shall I say, is, too well known to you to need elaboration.

[in pencil]
A.R. Burns

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Bicentennial Celebration”.

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[BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

 

BURNS, Arthur Robert, Columbia Univ., New York 27, N.Y. (1938) Columbia Univ., prof. of econ., teach., res.; b. 1895; B.Sc. (Econ.), 1920, Ph.D. (Econ.), 1926, London Sch. of Econ. Fields 5a, 3bc, 12b. Doc. dis. Money and monetary policy in early times (Kegan Paul Trench Trubner & Co., London, 1926). Pub. Decline of competition (McGraw-Hill 1936); Comparative economic organization (Prentice-Hall, 1955); Electric power and government policy (dir. of res.) (Twentieth Century Fund, 1948) . Res. General studies in economic development. Dir. Amer. Men of Sci., III, Dir. of Amer. Schol.

Source: Handbook of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 47, No. 4 (July, 1957), p. 40.

 

Obituary: “Arthur Robert Burns dies at 85; economics teacher at Columbia“, New York Times, January 22, 1981.

Image: Arthur Robert Burns.  Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.