Tag: Seager

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Barnard Columbia Economics Programs Gender Undergraduate

Columbia. Splitting the costs. Department of Economics v. Barnard College, 1906-9

 

The growing pains of the modern university can be seen in attempts to mould ad hoc understandings made earlier into long-term, binding, and explicit rules and regulations. We see this in E. R. A. Seligman’s untiring reminders to the Columbia University central administration and to Barnard College deans as to how to manage the legacy of having first hired John Bates Clark to fill a Barnard position while swapping Clark Barnard hours with the Department of Economics in the Faculty of Political Science hours, either by having department professors offer courses in Barnard College or by allowing Barnard women to take Columbia College or graduate courses. It was complicated, leaving plenty of room for misunderstandings. Seligman can be seen in the following memo and letters to have been one smooth intra-university operator. Still we come away (at least hearing his side of the story) that he would neither give nor take an inch. His motto apparently: Pacta sunt servanda.

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MEMORANDUM AS TO PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN BARNARD COLEGE AND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN RESPECT TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS. [Carbon copy, 1906]

I. HISTORICAL STATEMENT.

In 1895 a friend of Barnard College established for three years the Professorship of History and the Professorship of Economics, on the understanding that each of these departments should offer a corresponding amount of separate instruction to Barnard seniors and graduates, and that the Barnard Corporation would endeavor to maintain these Professorships after the expiration of such term. It was arranged that these professors should lecture at Columbia as well as at Barnard, and that for every course given by them at Columbia, a course should be given at Barnard by them or their departmental associates. The normal number of lectures by a professor was fixed at six; so that the Professor of Economics gave 2 hours at Barnard, the other four being supplied by his colleagues.

In 1898 Barnard College agreed to continue those professorships; and as a recognition of the action of the Barnard Trustees, the Faculty of Political Science decided to open to women holding a first degree, the graduate courses in History and Economics.

When Barnard College was incorporated into the educational system of the University, this arrangement was perpetuated. The 5th and 6th Sections of the Agreement of June 15, 1900, read in part, as follows:

“On and after January 1st, 1904, all of the instruction for women leading to the degree of B.A. shall be given separately in Barnard College……Barnard College will assume as rapidly as possible all of the instruction for women in the Senior year ****** and undertakes to maintain every professorship established thereof or an equivalent therefor shall be rendered in Barnard College; and when means allow, establish additional professorships in the University which shall be open to men and women, to the end that opportunities for higher education may be enlarged for both men and women.

The University will accept women who have taken their first degree on the same terms as men, as students of the University and as candidates for the degree of M.A. and Ph.D. under the Faculty of Philosophy, Political Science and Pure Science, in such courses as have been or may be designated by those Faculties, with the consent of those delivering the courses.

From the foregoing it is clear that so far as the Faculty of Political Science is concerned the opening of the University courses to women was in return for the establishment and maintenance of the professorships, and Barnard College thus declared itself ready to pay one-third of the salary of the professors of Economics, at that time three in number. In addition, Barnard College paid for the Junior work under the Department of Economics.

On this basis the whole system has reposed and has been continued. Changes in the personnel have been made in the mean time, and the instruction given to Juniors by the Department of Economics has been strengthened. Two professors, (or as during this year a professor and an instructor) have taken the place of what was originally an assistant. These changes, which called for an additional outlay on the part of Barnard College, were made with the consent of Barnard.

The Department of Economics and Social Science as it existed up to last spring, has kept strictly to the letter of the agreement. At an earlier period Professor Giddings had agreed to give at Barnard College a course in sociology in return for a suitable compensation. In 1900, however, he ceased to be paid an additional sum and his two hours were counted with the consent of Barnard College toward the six due from the Department, the other four being provided by Professors Seligman and Clark. In 1902 two additional hours were given at Barnard College by the new instructor, Professor Moore. Since then the Department has provided six hours of instruction at Barnard College, (two hours by Professor Clark, two by Professor Seager, and two by Professor Giddings.) It has given an additional two hours by Professor Moore to the Seniors, and it has put the Junior work in the hands of Professors Moore and Johnson (this year [word torn off from corner] Moore and Dr. Whitaker.) Every course given to the Columbia College undergraduates is duplicated at Barnard College, with the exception that it seemed unwise to the Barnard authorities to give the course on Taxation and Finance as being somewhat too remote from the interests of the Barnard undergraduates. The substance of this course is however included in that given by Professor Seager. This explains the fact that 12 hours are given at Barnard College whereas 14 hours are given at Columbia College. This arrangement was made with the consent of the Barnard authorities. In 1906 again with the consent of Barnard College, Barnard Seniors were admitted to the course of Prof. Giddings at Columbia, the Barnard course being discontinued. This arrangement has, however, not yet received the permanent sanction of the Faculty of Political Science.

Although Barnard College is not only getting all that was bargained for at the time, and although it has in addition the services of a full professor for both Senior and Junior work (Prof. Moore.), and although the proportion of the original expense of the Department of Economics paid by Barnard College was at the outset considerably over e4%,–being one-third of the salaries of the professors plus a payment for the Junior work, the proportion of the total expense of the Department of Economics and Social Science borne by Barnard College has now been reduced to 29.19%, Barnard paying at present $8350 out of a total budget of $28,600.

 

Barnard pays:

Columbia pays:
Seligman $5000
Giddings $5000
Seager $3500
Moore $1750
Clark $5000 Devine $3500 University Courses
Moore $1750 Simkhovitch $500
Whitaker $1600 Tenney $1000
$8350 $20250 Total $28600

 

In other words Barnard College receives more than it originally did and pays proportionately less.

 

II. WHAT SHOULD BE THE SHARE OF BARNARD COLLEGE.

Up to the year 199[blank] Barnard College made a money contribution to Columbia for each of the women graduate students enrolled, under the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science. In that year the money contribution was abandoned, and since then women graduate students have paid their fees directly to Columbia. It might be claimed by Barnard College that this new arrangement absolved it in future from all financial responsibility for or interest in the purely university (graduate) work. This claim is however, negatived by the provisions of the agreement of June 15, 1900 still in force, whereby Barnard College obligated itself to “maintain every professorship established at its instance” and to “establish additional professorships in the University upon foundations providing for courses which shall be open to men and women.” These contractual obligations are in no wise impaired or weakened by the modification subsequently introduced in the method of payment of fees by women students.

It might again be claimed that the financial obligations of Barnard are reduced whenever a Senior course, hitherto repeated at Barnard, is given only at Columbia, but open to Barnard Seniors. This claim, however, is likewise inadmissible if the change be made by and with the consent of Barnard College. For as long as the Barnard undergraduates receive the instruction, and as long as the Barnard authorities consent for any reason, that this instruction be given at Columbia, the financial obligation cannot be deemed to be impaired. As a matter of fact, this situation has not permanently arisen in the department of Economics and Social Science. In only one case, that of the Senior course by Professor Giddings, has a purely provisional arrangement been made for the year 1906-’07, with the understanding and the express statement on the part of the Barnard authorities that this would make no difference whatever in the financial arrangement for the year. It was on this understanding that the scheme was provisionally ratified by the Faculty of Political Science.

No opinion is here expressed by the Department of Economics as to the desirability of opening Senior courses at Columbia to Barnard students. It may be that for pedagogical reasons it is desirable in some cases to repeat courses at Barnard, or in other cases to admit Barnard Seniors to the Columbia courses. It may also be desirable to utilize the services of a professor, hitherto repeating a Senior course at Barnard for instruction in one of the lower classes at Barnard. But whatever decision may be reached by the Barnard authorities in conjunction with the Department of Economics, it is clear that this will not change the financial obligations of Barnard, as long as the Barnard undergraduates receive the same amount of instruction as before.

If it be maintained that the existing contract should be abrogated, the question arises: What share should Barnard College in equity contribute to the expenses of the Department? This question may be discussed on the basis of the number of hours given by the members of the department at Barnard College, at Columbia College, and in the University courses which are open to men and women graduates.

In any such computation it must be recognized that some part of the cost of the graduate instruction should be borne by Barnard College. For, irrespective of the existing contract, it cannot be claimed that women ever possessed a right to share in the advantages offered by an institution, originally established and endowed for the instruction of men without making some proportionate contribution to the support of that institution. The force of this argument is strengthened when it is remembered that every student costs the University more than he or she pays and that every increase in the student body entails the necessity of increasing the teaching course and of providing additional lecture rooms, educational appliances and library facilities.

It is for this reason that in any estimate of the share of the University expenses which is to be borne by Barnard College, a proportionate share of the expense of graduate instruction should be allotted to that institution.

On this assumption, the figures would be as follows:

 

Hours given

Barnard College

 Columbia College

University
Clark

2

 2 (109-110)

3 (205-6 & 291)
Seligman

—

 3 (1 & 101-102)

3 (203-4 & 292)
Seager

2

 2 (105-106)

2 (233 & 289)
Moore

3

 1 (104)

2 (210 & 255)
Whitaker

3

 4 (1-2)

—
Giddings

2

 2 (151-152)

3 (251-2 & 279)

12

 14

13

 

For undergraduate instruction

For Professors giving undergraduate instruction

Barnard pays:

Columbia pays:
Seligman

$5000
Clark

$5000

 Moore

$1750
Moore

$1750

 Seager

$3500
Whitaker

$1600

 Giddings

$5000

$8350

$15250

 =Total $23600
In addition Columbia pays for Purely University work

$5000
Grand Total

$28600

Total hours given as above by Professors giving undergraduate instruction = 41.

There is thus chargeable to:

The University 15/41 of $23600 = $8635 + $5000 = $13,635
Columbia College 14/41 of $23600 = $8,058
Barnard College should pay 12/41 of $23,600= $6907
                                                + 1/3 of $13,635= $4543[sic]
$11450

 

Barnard gets 12 hours to Columbia’s 14 and both share equally in the University work, although Barnard is here charged with only 1/3, not ½ of the purely university expenses. Yet Barnard pays $8350 instead of $11,450.

In the above computation Barnard College is charged with 1/3 of the purely university instruction because this was the proportion as arranged when the original professorship was established. On the basis, however, of the actual enrolment of women students the obligation of Barnard College would be slightly less. In the year 1906-07 there re-enrolled (not counting duplicates) in the purely university courses 60 women out of 251 students or 23.90%, i.e. roughly ¼. The contribution of Barnard College on this basis ought then to be: 12/41 of $23,600 = $6,907 + ¼ of $13,635 = $3,490 [sic, should be $3409] or a total of $10,316 in lieu of $8350, the present payment.

 

III. THE REDUCTION CONTEMPLATED BY BARNARD COLLEGE.

Although the authorities of Barnard College have not yet formulated any definite scheme it is understood that they have in contemplation a plan which calls on the one hand for a considerable reduction of the contribution, and on the other hand, the opening to Barnard Seniors of several Senior courses at Columbia College to make good the reduced facilities at Barnard College. In other words, Barnard College does not propose more opportunities with the same contribution as hitherto, nor does it demand the same opportunities with a smaller contribution; but it suggests more opportunities with a smaller contribution.

In considering the contemplated proposition of Barnard College it must finally be remembered that the Department of Economics has been built up on the assumption that the original scheme would be adhered to. All the instructors giving courses in Barnard College have been called with the advice and consent of Barnard College. Some of them have been put in part on the Barnard salary list. The contractual obligation “to maintain the professorships established at its instance” clearly attaches to the new professorships, which were established in 1902 in the department of Economics at the joint instance and expense of Barnard and Columbia. Any financial comparison between the Department of Economics and other departments on the basis of relative hours of instruction given at Barnard College is not pertinent in view of the contractual obligations hereinbefore recited. Barnard College entered at the outset into a definite contractual relation which has been perpetuated by the agreement of 1900 and which has not been impaired by the minor changes of 190[blank] hereinbefore referred to. Above all, the admission of women to university courses was arranged as a quid pro quo, and is specifically restricted in the agreement of 1900 to such courses “as have been or may be designated by these Faculties, with the consent of those delivering the courses”.

It is sincerely hoped that no action will be taken that might imperil this arrangement and that Barnard College may see its way, if not to make what it here suggested as an equitable contribution, at all events to maintain the status quo so that on the one hand Columbia may not be made to assume a still heavier burden, or that on the other hand the department of Economics may not be seriously crippled in its endeavor to provide adequate instruction at Columbia and Barnard alike.

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Papers of Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman. Box 36, Folder “Barnard 36-37”.

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Letter of Seligman to Gill [carbon copy]

New York, December 30, 1906.

Miss Laura D. Gill, Dean,
Barnard College, Columbia University
New York City.

My dear Miss Gill:

Your letter of December 13th was received shortly before the Holidays. In reply, I would say that several weeks ago, at the request of the University authorities I submitted to the Committee on Education of Columbia University a detailed memorandum giving facts and suggestions as to the financial arrangements between Barnard College and Columbia University so far as the Department of Economics is concerned. That matter has now passed out of my hands entirely.

Let me however call your attention to the fact that these suggestions contained in your letter will require action not alone by the Department of Economics, but also by the Faculty of Political Science, as well as by the Faculty of Columbia College. If the recommendation contained in my memorandum to the Trustees were carried out, I think that I could urge the Department of Economics to prevail upon the Faculties concerned to take action in accordance with your wishes; but I am quite decidedly of the opinion that until some definitive financial arrangement is entered into between Barnard College and Columbia University, so far as the Department of Economics is concerned, it will be hopeless for the Department of Economics to expect any action whatever on the part of the Faculties concerned; and without such action nothing could of course be done.

Again assuring you of my readiness to co-operate with you and to take up the matter with the Department and with the respective Faculties as soon as we can learn from the Committee on Education what the financial arrangements are for next year,

I remain
Very respectfully yours

[E.R.A. Seligman]

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

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President Butler to Seligman [carbon copy]

December 28, 1908

Professor E. R. A. Seligman,
324 West 86 Street,
New York

My dear Professor Seligman:

I beg to hand you for your information an important letter which I have received today from the Acting Dean of Barnard College. Mr. Brewster points out that Barnard, under the present arrangement, is not securing its just due in the matter of economics teaching. Will you give this matter your attention and offer such suggestions as seem to you appropriate as to how the situation can be bettered?

Very truly yours,
President

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

____________________

Seligman to President Butler

Columbia University
in the City of New York
School of Political Science

January 4, 1909

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University, City.

My dear President Butler:

In reply to your letter of December 24th, 1908, I take pleasure in stating that I had a very satisfactory talk with Acting Dean Brewster a few days ago. I am enclosing to you herewith copy of the letter which I have sent to him as to the historical development, and which explains itself.

As to the new scheme, permit me to state that in my Budget letter I assumed that there would be hereafter in the second term in the Junior course at Barnard, four sections, as is now the case in the first term. It was on that assumption that I made the recommendations as to assistants.

I quite agree with Acting Dean Brewster that if the situation is to remain as at present, namely, nine hours in the first term and five hours in the second term, the new Adjunct Professor will be entirely competent to take charge of this. That would mean an average of seven hours per week, and as he is to do three hours’ work at Columbia that would mean a total of ten hours per week, which is not excessive. This would, however, reduce the Budget at Barnard from $2,700 to $2,500.

On the other hand, if, as there now seems to be some possibility, the Committee on Instruction of Barnard College decides to make the second term work nine hours (with four sections) the Acting Dean of Barnard agrees with me that the work will be a little too much for one man, and that he ought to have the aid of at all events the part time of an assistant.

Upon the decision to be reached, however, depends therefore the final recommendation of the Department for the assistants in the University as a whole. If no assistance is required at Barnard College the Department of Economics will be able to get on, although with some difficulty, with one high-class tutor, for his work will be to take charge not only of three of the four sections at Columbia, but also of the three new sections in the School of Mines, and this would mean the assumption by Columbia of his salary of $1,000. On the other hand, if the additional work is taken up at Barnard, it will be imperative to have a second man as assistant, at a salary of $500., as the amount of work to be done will be entirely too much for one tutor. We should then arrive at the final conclusion reached in my original Budget letter, which is the employment of two men, at a joint salary of $1,500., in addition to the new Adjunct Professor. What part of this salary of $1,500 is to be paid by Barnard, is, of course a matter on which I am not asked to express an opinion.

Permit me to say in conclusion that I am deeply sensible of the cordial way in which the Acting Dean of Barnard has accepted the propositions of the Department for the improvement of the work. Under the scheme as outlined not only will the work be, I think, entirely satisfactory to the authorities of Barnard College, but it will also be a considerable improvement at Columbia. The Department of Economics will be very glad indeed to adjust itself to whichever of the two alternative schemes may be adopted by Barnard: the one being the maintenance of the present situation calling for an appropriation for assistants of $1,000., to be paid entirely by Columbia, the other—involving additional work at Barnard—calling for an appropriation of $1,500 for assistants, to be defrayed in part by Barnard College.

Respectfully submitted,
[signed]
Edwin R. A. Seligman

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

____________________

Seligman to Brewster [carbon copy]

January 4, 1909

Professor William T. Brewster,
Acting Dean, Barnard College, City.

My dear Sir:

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of a letter of December 24, 1908, from President Butler, enclosing your letter of December 23, 1908, in which you refer to the courses offered by the Department of Economics at Barnard College.

As the existing situation is the result of steps taken by the administrative authorities of Barnard College and Columbia University, and as these agreements and instructions were never embodied in formal written documents, I venture to send you a written statement of the history of the case, in the hope that this letter may be put on file with the original agreement, in order that the question as to the interpretation of the original agreement may be settled, if it should again arise in the future.

The original agreement made with Professor Clark and the Faculty of Political Science, when he was called to the University in 1895, was to the effect that for every hour given by him at Columbia a member of the existing Columbia staff should give an hour at Barnard College. Under this agreement it was arranged that Professor Clark should give two hours at Barnard and four hours at Columbia. Of the four exchange hours due to Barnard, two were given by Professor Giddings and two by Professor Seligman. Several years later, when Professor Seager was called to Columbia, he took the courses previously given by Professor Seligman.

In the year 1905 when the Chair of the History of Civilization was founded at Columbia University, an arrangement was effected between the Dean of Barnard and the President of Columbia University, whereby the two hour course of Professor Giddings, given at Barnard, was transferred to Columbia, the Columbia course being now, however, open to Barnard students. This was recognized as a substantial equivalence, and since that time the Barnard students have been coming to Professor Giddings’ course at Columbia.

When Professor Henry L. Moore was called to the University in 1902 an arrangement was made whereby a portion of his work was to be done at Barnard in return for the payment of aa portion of his salary b Barnard College. Under this arrangement Professor Moore offered a two hour course to the Seniors at Barnard College, and took general supervision of the Junior work in Economics, which was, however, actually carried on by assistants. Several years later, as the Junior work at Barnard was not entirely satisfactory, the Dean of Barnard College suggested that Professor Moore give up his Senior course and in exchange take an active part in the lecturing and teaching of the Juniors at Barnard. This suggestion was adopted, and as the number of sections gradually increased at Barnard the work was finally divided between Professor Moore and two assistants, the class being divided into four sections in the first term and into two sections in the second term. As a compensation for the Senior course which was now dropped by Professor Moore, the Dean of Barnard College suggested that courses 107-108, given by Professor Seligman at Columbia University be open to Barnard students. This suggestion was adopted by the Department, and ratified by the Columbia Faculty, and has continued ever since.

What I desire especially to emphasize is the fact that in no case did the initiative for any of these changes come from the Department of Economics, but that in every case the initiative came either from the Dean of Barnard College or from the President of Columbia University in conjunction with the Dean of Barnard College. The Department of Economics has been at all times willing and anxious to live up to the terms of the original and supplemental agreements, and has in every case been glad to adopt the suggestions of the authorities of Barnard College. It so happens that during the present year Professor Seager is on his Sabbatical leave of absence, and that Courses 107-108 were not given at Columbia; but this is an exceptional situation, including the $5,000 salary of Professor Clark, with the corresponding work given in exchange at Barnard, the number of hours of instruction given at Barnard are economics A, 9 hours, Economics 4, 5 hours, or an annual average of seven hours per week. The salary list has been $2,700.,–$1,700 for Professor Moore and $1,000 for two assistants. This is an average of less than $400 per hour, and if we include Courses 107-108 at Columbia, which were open to the Barnard students when the supplemental agreement was made, it would reduce the cost per year to considerably less than $400, which I understand is the average in other Departments.

The new scheme of courses which has been elaborated by the Dean of Barnard College to take effect next year, meets with the entire approval of the Department of Economics, and is outlined in another letter a copy of which I have the honor of submitting herewith. I venture to hope, however, that this statement of the historical development of the situation may be put on file, in order to show that the Department of Economics has at all times endeavored to abide loyally by the spirit of the agreement between Barnard College and Columbia University.

Respectfully submitted,
[stamped signature: Edwin R. A. Seligman]

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

Image Source:  Barnard College, Columbia University. Boston Public Library, The Tichnor Brothers Collection.

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia Rochester

Columbia. Economics PhD Alumnus, Meyer Jacobstein, 1907

 

Today in our continuing historical series “Get to know an economics Ph.D.”, we meet Meyer Jacobstein (1880-1963), a Columbia University Ph.D. (1907) who, before serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1923-1929), taught economics at the University of North Dakota and the University of Rochester.

Jacobstein’s disssertation was published by the Columbia Faculty of Political Science in its house journal:

Meyer Jacobstein. The Tobacco Industry in the United States. Studies in History, Economics and Public Law (Vol. XXVI, No. 3), 1907.

In his introduction Jacobstein thanks E.R.A. Seligman, H. R. Seager and H.L. Moore for criticism and suggestions.

______________

From: Columbia University Catalogue of Officers and Graduates

Meyer Jacobstein, A.B., 05; A. M., 05; Ph. D, 07; Asst. Prof. Univ. N. Dak. (University, N. Dak.)

Source:  Catalogue of Officers and Graduates of Columbia University from the Foundation of King’s college in 1754.(XVI edition, 1916), p. 200.

______________

From: Biographical Director of the U.S. Congress

JACOBSTEIN, Meyer, a Representative from New York; born in New York City, January 25, 1880; moved with his parents to Rochester, N.Y., in 1882; attended the public schools and the University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.; was graduated from Columbia University, New York City, in 1904; pursued postgraduate courses at the same university in economics and political science; special agent in the Bureau of Corporations, Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., in 1907; assistant professor of economics, University of North Dakota at Grand Forks 1909-1913; professor of economics in the University of Rochester 1913-1918; was a director in emergency employment management at the University of Rochester under the auspices of the War Industry Board 1916-1918; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-eighth, Sixty-ninth, and Seventieth Congresses (March 4, 1923-March 3, 1929); was not a candidate for renomination in 1928; delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1924 and 1932; declined the nomination of mayor of Rochester, N.Y., in 1925; engaged in banking in Rochester, N.Y., 1929-1936; in 1936 became chairman of the board of the Rochester Business Institute; member of the Brookings Institution staff 1939-1946; economic counsel in the legislative reference service of the Library of Congress from 1947 until his retirement May 31, 1952; resided in Rochester, N.Y., until his death there on April 18, 1963; interment in Mount Hope Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

______________

Obituary

Dr. Meyer Jacobstein, Noted Economist and Educator, Dies in Rochester
(Apr. 21, 1963)

Funeral services were held here for Dr. Meyer Jacobstein, former member of the U.S. Congress, college professor and publisher of the Rochester Journal-American, who died last Thursday at the age of 83.

Born in New York, Dr. Jacobstein spent most of his life in Rochester. He was elected in 1922 to Congress on the Democratic ticket, and was the second Democratic representative from the 38th Congressional District since the Civil War. He was reelected twice but chose not to run in 1928. He was assistant professor of economics in the University of North Dakota from 1909 until 1913. In 1913 he joined the faculty of the University of Rochester as professor of economics.

Dr. Jacobstein was publisher of The Journal American here, from 1924 until the newspaper suspended in 1937. He then became a research consultant for the Brookings Institute in Washington. In 1944, he was director of a Senate special committee on postwar economic policy and planning. He retired from public life in 1957, after completing a one-year study of Rochester employment at the request of Governor Averell Harriman. He is survived by his widow, Lena (Lipsky), two daughters and eight grandchildren.

Source: Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 22, 1963.

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Image Source: Campaign button from U.S. Congress, History of the House website; Meyer Jacobstein in Wikipedia.

Categories
Columbia Economists Pennsylvania

Columbia. Memorial minute for Professor Henry Seager, 1930

 

Earlier posts dealing with Columbia professor Henry Seager provided his syllabus on the trust problem and a link to his 22-page general lecture on economics from 1907/08. This post provides a report of his death in Kiev from bronchial pneumonia while traveling through the Soviet Union, details from an endowment for economic research in his will, and a memorial minute delivered by his colleague Wesley Clair Mitchell (that probably reveals at least as much about Mitchell as it does about Seager.

_________________

HENRY SEAGER DIES ON TOUR OF RUSSIA
Columbia Spectator.  September 30, 1930.

Professor Henry Roger Seegar [sic], former professor at Columbia, […] died during the Summer vacation period.

Professor Seegar [sic], formerly of the Department of Political Economy, died in Kiev, Russia, in August. He was on tour with twenty-five other economists who were making a study of the Soviet Government’s five-year industrialization plan. After spending some time in France and Germany, the group left for Russia on July 7.

Professor Seegar [sic], was taken ill with bronchial pneumonia a month later. His condition grew worse and several days after the first attack, he died.

Member of Party

One of the leading economists in the country, Professor Seegar [sic],  had been asked to accompany the party which was under the leadership of one of his former pupils, David Ostrinsky. The purpose of the expedition was to study at first-hand the conditions in the Soviet Republic.

[…]

Source:  The Columbia Spectator, Vol. 54, No. 1 (September 25, 1930) p. 8.

_________________

ENDOWMENT GIVEN BY SEAGER’S WILL
Late Professor Leaves Fund for Advancement of Study and Research
Columbia Spectator. October 16, 1930.

A foundation to be known as the Schuyler Fiske Seager Endowment for the Advancement of Economic Study and Research “is to be established at Columbia from the residuary estate of the late Dr. Henry Rogers Seager, Professor of Political Economy here for twenty-five years, according to terms of his will published yesterday. Since the will has not as yet been probated, the total amount of the endowment cannot be ascertained yet, it was learned yesterday at the office of Frederick A. Goetze, Treasurer of the University, who was named executor of the estate.

The will falls in line with a statement recently made by Professor James C. Egbert of the School of Business, who declared in his report to Dr. Butler that an endowment for economic study would be highly desirable. Professor Egbert was of the opinion that such a sum could be used for the formation of a bureau of public utility economics.

Was Noted Economist

Dr. Seager who died this Summer while at the head of a group of economists studying conditions at Kiev, Russia, was known as an outstanding figure in academic economics. He was classed as an authority whose opinion frequently was sought in the practical determination of affairs.

Until the death of the first of seven relatives, the will stipulates, the foundation will not be started. These seven are to receive the residuary income during their lives and upon the death of the survivors the balance of the share of each in the principal is to be added to the fund.

The Trustees of the University have been named trustees of the residuary fund by Dr. Seager and they are to make the payments to the seven beneficiaries, who include his an uncle, an aunt, two nieces and two nephews. Dr. Seager wrote that he was establishing the foundation in memory of his father, Schuyler Fiske Seager, and his son who bears the same name. The will directs the trustees to expend the incom. of the fund each year “for such purposes as they shall deem most likely to contribute to the advancement of economic study and research during such year.”

Source:  The Columbia Spectator, Vol. 54, No. 16 (October 16, 1930) pp. 1,3.

_________________

Memorial minute for Professor Seager

There being no reports from the Standing committees the Faculty proceeded to the election of a Chairman of the Committee on Instruction to succeed Professor Seager. The President [Nicholas Murray Butler] recognized Professor [Wesley Clair] Mitchell, who offered the following resolution:

The Faculty of Political Science records with deep sorrow the loss of one of its most distinguished and best-loved members, Professor Henry Rogers Seager, who died in Kiev, August 23rd, 1930.

Coming to Columbia from the University of Pennsylvania in his thirty-second year, Professor Seager gave his life to those high interests for which universities stand—the increase of knowledge, the training of future investigators, and the effort to raise the level of human life by taking thought. His contributions to economics were characterized by keen analytic insight and by wide acquaintance with actual conditions. No student of labor problems was held in higher esteem by the various interests concerned with that warmly controversial field. His sound judgment, his accurate knowledge, and is impartiality made him equally successful in dealing with the various forms assumed by business organizations and the efforts of government to prevent abuses of corporate powers. As a teacher Professor Seager won the affectionate gratitude of successive generations of students, whom he helped with their personal as well as their intellectual problems. As a colleague, he was generous and just, winning the confidence and the affection of his associates, young and old. As a citizen he was zealous and sensible: working ardently for causes which commanded his sympathy, yet shrewd in planning and efficient in execution—the type of “social reformer” who uses the wisdom of the serpent in the service of noble ideals.

It was characteristic of Professor Seager’s fresh mind and courage at an age when most men relax that he should become an active student of the extraordinary experiment in social reorganization now being conducted in Russia. Popular prejudice had never deterred him from taking a scientist’s interest in any social development and he hesitated as little at sixty as in his youth. Always eager for first-hand knowledge, and eager to share with others, he organized a group of economists to make a tour of inspection in Russia, with the expectation of returning presently for more through researches. It was characteristic also that he should overtax his physical strength in making the most of the opportunities for observation by his companions and himself. He died as he had lived, in the pursuit of knowledge and in the service of others.

The Resolution was adopted by a rising vote of the Faculty…

 

Source:  From the copy of the official minutes of the regular meeting of the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University (October 10, 1930) in Columbia University Archives, Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-29, pp. 656-657.

Image Source: Henry R. Seager (1915) from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Categories
Courses Curriculum Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. Economics Course Offerings, 1897-98

 

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania in 1897/98 corresponded to what today is generally called the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The subjects of economics, politics, sociology, and statistics constituted the tenth group of the sixteen groups making up the Department of Philosophy. A Ph.D. candidate would select a major subject from the group and two minor subjects (recommended that “at least one minor be taken outside the group in which the major lies”). The course offerings and their short descriptions for group X have been transcribed below.

___________________

Departments of the University of Pennsylvania
as of 1897/98
and the year they were established.

(1740. Charitable School; out of which grew, in)
1751. The College.
1765. The Department of Medicine.
1 790-1850. The Department of Law.
1865. The Auxiliary Department of Medicine.
1874. The University Hospital.
1878. The Department of Dentistry.
1883. The Department of Philosophy.
1884. The Department of Veterinary Medicine.
1885. The Veterinary Hospital.
1885. The Department of Physical Education.
1889. The Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology.
1891. The University Library. (Building erected)
1892. The Laboratory of Hygiene.
1892. The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology.

Department of Philosophy

  1. Semitic Languages
  2. American Archaeology and Languages
  3. Indo-European Philology
  4. Classical Languages
  5. Germanic Languages
  6. Romanic Languages
  7. English
  8. Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology and Pedagogy
  9. History
  10. Economics, Politics, Sociology and Statistics
  11. Mathematics
  12. Astronomy
  13. Physics
  14. Chemistry
  15. Botany and Zoölogy
  16. Geology and Mineralogy

 

The degrees conferred in the Faculty of Philosophy are Doctor of Philosophy, (Ph. D. ), Master of Arts, (A. M.), and Master of Science, (M.S.).

___________________

Faculty: 10. Economics, Politics, Sociology and Statistics

Simon N. Patten, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy
Roland P. Falkner, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Statistics
John Quincy Adams, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science
Emory R. Johnson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Transportation and Commerce.
Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology
Leo S. Rowe, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science
Henry R. Seager, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy
James T. Young, Ph.D., Lecturer, Administration

___________________

X. ECONOMICS, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY AND STATISTICS.

Professor Patten, Chairman; Associate Professor Falkner; Assistant Professors Adams, E. R. Johnson, Lindsay, Rowe and Seager; Dr. Young.

Majors —

Political Science, Economics, Transportation and Commerce, Statistics, Sociology.

Minors —

1. Political Science; A 1, 4; B 10.
2. Public Finance; A 3, and B 1, 2, or C 1, 2.
3. Administration; A 8, 6, 3, or A 9, 2, 4b; and C 5d.
4. Economic Theory; B 1, 2, and, B 10, or Mill’s Political Economy(2 hours a week).
5. History of Economic Thought; B 1, 2, 3, 4.
6. Economic History; B 10, and Group IX. C 2, 4.
7. Transportation and Commerce; B 11, 12, and A 4, or B 1, 2, or C 1, 2.
8. Statistics; C 1, 2, 3, 4, or C 1, 2, 3, and A3 (one term), or B 11.
9. Sociology; C 5c, 6, B 1, or C 5b, 6, 1, or C 5c 5d, A 4.

A.—POLITICAL SCIENCE, FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION.

Assistant Professor Adams.

  1. History of Modern Political Ideas (2 hours per week)

Lectures covering the period from Bodin to the present, supplemented by prescribed reading. Relation between political thought and economic and social conditions will be studied, with special reference to the recent political development of England.

  1. Readings in Political Science (1 hour per week)

Reading and discussion of a few recent works on special phases of political problems.

  1. Public Finance (2 hours per week)

Taxation; the classification, incidence and effect of the several taxes. Methods of raising federal revenue in the United States; the revenue systems of the leading States (Second Term).

Assistant Professor Rowe.

  1. The Individual and the State (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The concept of individual liberty at different periods of political development. Relation to law and government. Distinction between civil and political liberty.  Guarantees, legal and political. The idea of social liberty in democratic communities.

(b) (Second Term.) Relation of the State to industrial action. Socialism and Individualism. Influence of economic and social changes on the sphere of activity of the State. Growth of free contract. Effect of recognition by the State of new forms of association.

  1. History and Theory of the State (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The general principles of political science. Its province and problems. Relation to the social sciences. Nature of political association; origin of the State; source and function of law. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

(b) (Second Term.) The concept of the State at different epochs. Growth of the distinction between State and government. Ends of the State; sphere of its authority; forms of the State and of government. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. Municipal Government and Institutions (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The city and conditions of city life in the ancient, mediaeval and modern world. The relation between city and State in Europe and the United States.

(b) (Second Term.) Problems of modern city life. Relation to quasi-public works. Social problems.

  1. The Analytical School of Jurisprudence in its Relation to Political Science. (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

Selected readings from Bentham, Austin, Holland, Maine and Pollock. Relation of this school of thought to the doctrine of natural law and natural rights. Contrast between the historical and analytical concepts in political science.

Dr. Young.

  1. Administration (1 hour per week)

Local rural administration. A comparison of the organization and methods of local administration in Europe and America. Provinz, Bezirk, Kreis; Department, Arrondissement ; County, Township, etc. Modern growth and tendencies.

  1. Practical Problems in Administration (1 hour per week)

Studies in special questions, such as the formation and growth of systems of Civil Service; the development of boards and commissions of administrative control; the administration of factory legislation.

 

B. — ECONOMIC THEORY, ECONOMIC HISTORY, AND TRANSPORTATION AND COMMERCE.

Professor Patten.

  1. History of Political Economy (First Term) (2 hours per week)

The rise and development of the classical school of economists. Adam Smith and Ricardo form the natural centre of the study. Especial attention is given to the sources on which Smith’s Wealth of Nationsis based; and, in the latter part of the course, to the interpretation of Ricardo’s writings.

  1. Recent Development of Political Economy (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The American economists are carefully studied. Prominence is given to the recent development of the theory of rent, to the theory of marginal utility, to the new aspects of the science resulting from an emphasis of the dynamic causes of social progress, to recent attempts to substitute consumption for production as the starting point of investigation and the basis of theory.

  1. The Relation of English Philosophy to Economics in the Eighteenth Century (First Term) (2 hours per week)

Philosophy and economics have in England been intimately related. The purpose of this course is to bring out the facts, character and extent of this relation and its results on both  sides.

  1. Scope and Method of Political Economy (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

Limitations of scope in economic investigation; its causes as deducible from the history of the science. The method of this science will be compared with that of others. The processes by which the great writers established their characteristic doctrines will be particularly considered. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. Practical Applications of Economic Theory (First Term) (2 hours per week)

The object is to show the practical importance of the new theories, and the changes they will work in public opinion. Among the topics considered will be: taxation, wages, money, retail prices, population, the causes of poverty, the standard of life, co-operation, trades unions, the dependent classes. The distribution of the surplus will be specially considered, along with its proper weight as a factor in practical problems. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. The Problems of Sociology (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The possibility of a science of sociology; the attempts to found such a science, and the obstacles encountered; the relation of economics to sociology.

  1. Investigation of Special Topics (2 hours per week)

To promote original work and aid in the preparation of theses, special hours are assigned for the discussion of these investigations. Each student must select a topic, and give three hours a week to it throughout the year.

Assistant Professor Seager.

  1. Economic Conference (2 hours per week)

Assigned portions of the following works will be read and discussed: Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital; Hadley, Economics; Smart, Studies in Economics. Reports will be made on cognate topics of special interest.

  1. Advanced Reading in German and French Economics (2 hours per week)

Roscher, Grundlagen der Nationalökonomieand Philippovich, Allgemeine Volkswirthschaftslehre.
Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité théorique et pratique d’économie politique.

  1. The Industrial History of England and the Development of Economic Theory from 1750 to 1870 (2 hours per week)

The main features of the industrial revolution will be described, and the effects of the growth of the factory system on the position of the wage-earner, on legislation and on economic thought, will be considered. Then attention will be directed to the Corn-Law agitation, growing out of the Napoleonic war period; and the results of the Free Trade policy, inaugurated in 1846, will be discussed. Topics will be assigned for special reports. Lectures and assigned reading.

Assistant Professor E. R. Johnson.

  1. Theory of Transportation (1 hour per week)

General Theory of Transportation. The economic functions and the ideal organization of transportation. Competition and co-operation in railway management. The past and present functions of traffic associations. Relation of the State to transportation. Theories underlying governmental regulation in the United States and other countries. The theory of rates. Lectures accompanied by an outline of assigned readings.

  1. American Railway Transportation (2 hours per week)

Seminary, based mainly upon documentary sources. The work comprises (1) an examination of the salient features of the organization and management of railway transportation in the United States; and (2) a special study of railway regulation by the States and by the Federal government.

  1. Transportation Systems of the United Kingdom and Germany (1 hour per week)

Organization, relation to the government, results of regulation of railways in the United Kingdom, and of State ownership in Germany. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. History of Commerce since 1500 (1 hour per week)

Lectures, assigned readings and investigations. Special attention will be given to the causes that have given the United Kingdom the commercial supremacy of the world. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

 

C. — SOCIOLOGY AND STATISTICS.

Associate Professor Faulkner.

  1. Introduction to Statistics (First Term) (2 hours per week)

A study of the statistics of population will serve to develop the general aspects of the science, the organization of statistical work, and the possibilities and limitations of statistical argument. Familiarity with the literature and the sources of statistical information will be the chief aim.

  1. Statistics of Economic Problems (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

This course supplements course 1: foreign commerce, railroads, banks, coinage, prices, strikes, wages, cost of living, will be studied from a statistical point of view. The literature will be reviewed and criticised.

  1. History and Theory of Statistics (First Term) (2 hours per week)

Summary of statistical efforts and statistical theory, culminating in the elaboration of statistical methods. Consideration of statistics as a science of method; the basis and form of  statistical judgments. (Open to students who have taken courses 1 and 2.)

  1. Statistical Organization (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The history, organization and function of statistical agencies at home and abroad will be surveyed. The factors that contribute to the efficiency of census departments, labor bureaus, etc., will be studied. The statistical offices of the United States will be studied and their methods criticised. (Open to students who have taken courses 1 and 2.)

Assistant Professor Lindsay.

  1. Theory of Sociology (Two Years) (2 hours per week)

A systematic course in four parts; each part requiring two hours per week for half a year, and constituting an independent course.

(a) Methodology of the social sciences; their relations to economics. The problems of sociology. Brief review of the leading attempts to construct sociology as a science — Aristotle, Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Ward and Giddings.

(b) Primitive Society. Evolution of social organization and social control among primitive men. Special study of the forms of the family, and of the psychology of primitive society. Particular attention is given to the records of the American Indians.

(c) Structure of Modern Society. A study of the forms of social organization and social control resulting from modern demogenic association. The basis and relative strength of educational, political, religious and philanthropic factors.

(d) Social Movements of Modern Times. A discussion of the leading practical social problems of to-day, with a view to establishing a consistent theoretical point of view, and a method as a guide to the study of temporary and changing social conditions.

Note. — 5 d is open only to students who have had parts a, bor c, or an equivalent.

  1. Social-Debtor Classes (2 hours per week)

This course deals with those groups and individuals in modern society who contribute nothing to the social surplus, but who participate in it, and hence are social debtors. They are considered under the heads of (1) the reclaimable class; (2) the naturally dependent class; (3) the pauper class; (4) the criminal classes. The methods of dealing with these groups are likewise classified and discussed.

  1. Sociological Field Work (2 hours per week)

For special investigation of local social conditions and institutions. Opportunities for visiting industrial, educational and philanthropic institutions are afforded. Each student is expected to select a topic and make a careful study of some concrete social problem, with special reference to conditions in Philadelphia. Meetings for private conference and discussion are assigned.

Note. — In the academic year 1896-97, a special sociological investigation of the condition of the Negroes in the Seventh Ward of Philadelphia, is being carried on under the direction of William E. Burkhardt Du Bois, A. B., Ph. D., who was appointed for the year Assistant in Sociology for this purpose. The College Settlement of Philadelphia is co-operating in this investigation, and has appointed Miss Isabel Eaton, B. L., Fellow in charge of its work.

 

SEMINARY.

Seminary in Political Science, Economics and Sociology (2 hours per week)

The seminary meets each Monday evening during the academic year, for the presentation and discussion of papers prepared by the members under the direction of the professors in charge of the several topics in Group IX.

 

Source: Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania. Fasciculus of the Department of Philosophy. Announcements for Session 1897-98, pp. 44-50.

 

Categories
Amherst Chicago Columbia Economists

Columbia. John Maurice Clark. Autobiographical notes, 1949

 

The following recollections of John Maurice Clark of his earliest contacts with economic problems is found in a folder of his papers containing notes about his father, John Bates Clark. The hand-written notes are fairly clear until we come to a clear addition on the final page. Abbreviations are used there and the handwriting is not always clear. Still the pages together provide a few nice stories and short lists of J.M. Clark’s teachers and students.

______________________

June 8, 1949

J.M.C.’s recollections of his earliest contacts with economic problems.

I think my earliest contact with an economic problem came on learning that the carpenter who sometimes came to do odd jobs for us at 23 Round Hill got $2.00 a day. I had a special interest in that carpenter. He was a tall man, with a full, dark beard; and it had been my imprudent interest in his operation with the kitchen double-windows (putting on? taking off?) that led me to lean out of a hammock and over the low rail of our second-story porch, to watch him (I was between two and three at the time). Mechanical consequences—I descended rapidly, landing on my head, but apparently suffering no injury except biting my tongue. Subjective consequences – maybe it pounded a little caution into me at an early age; but the present point is that it fixed that carpenter in my memory as “the man who picked me up.” It was some time later I learned that he got $2.00 a day.

I don’t remember whether I took the initiative and asked, or not. The cost of things was often discussed in our house, and my mother often talked of the difficulty of making both ends meet. I knew my father’s salary, though I can’t be sure now whether it was $3,500 or less. Anyhow, it was maybe eight or ten times the carpenter’s pay; and I began wondering how he made both ends meet, and remarked to my father that $2.00 a day wasn’t much to live on. He answered that it was pretty good pay for that kind of work. So I learned there were two ways of looking at a daily stipend—as income to live on and as the price of the service you gave your employer. Or perhaps simply the standpoints of the recipient and the payer. But especially I learned there were people who had to adjust their ideas of what they could live on, to a fraction of the income we found skimpy for the things we thought of as necessary. In short, I had a lesson in classes and their multiple standards to ponder over; without reaching any very enlightening conclusions.

I don’t think I connected this with our friends the Willistons (of the family connected with Williston seminary in Easthampton) who lived in the big house above us and from whom we rented ours. They were evidently much richer than we. They had gone to Europe (and been shipwrecked on the way, and had to transfer at sea to a lumber-schooner, which threw its deckload of lumber overboard to enable it to take on the people from the helpless steamship. — but that’s another story.)

To return to the carpenter. I suppose today he’d get perhaps $16, more?, and a Smith College salary, for a full professor, might be $7,000 or $8,000. The discrepancy has shrunk to maybe 2/5—certainly less than half—of what it was then. That puzzling discrepancy was my first lesson in economics—the first I remember.

There was another lesson—if you could call it that—the summer we spent a while at the Stanley House (now gone) in Southwest Harbor, on Mt. Desert. The rich people went to Bar Harbor. At Southwest, there was Mr. Brierly who had a yacht. We took our outings in a rowboat, sometimes with the help of a spritsail. One time we were going up Somes Sound, and were passed by one of the biggest ocean-going steam yachts—the “Sultana”. It was a very impressive sight, in those narrow waters, and looked about as big as the “Queen Mary” would to me now. I don’t remember anybody doing any moralizing; but if they did, the impression it left was that we, in our fashion, were doing the same kind of thing they were.

My first contact with economic literature (not counting the subversive economics of Robin Hood, which we boys knew by heart, in the Howard Pyle version) was at 23 Round Hill, so I must have been less than nine. I found a little book on my father’s shelves that had pictures in it – queer pictures done in pen and ink, which puzzled me. There was a boy not much bigger than I was, in queer little knee-britches, acting as a teacher to a class of grown men (including I think a Professor Laughlin, under whom I later taught at the University of Chicago.) And there were classical females being maltreated by brutal men, and other queer things. I was curious enough to read some of the text, to find out about the pictures. It was “Coin’s Financial School,” the famous free-silver tract.

I read enough to become a convinced free-silverite. And then I had the shock of discovering that my beloved and respected father was on the wrong side of that question. I decided there must be more to it than I’d gotten out of the queer picture-book. I suppose that was my first lesson in the need of preserving an open mind and holding economic ideas subject to possible reconsideration. Davenport and Veblen gave me more extensive lessons, fifteen or twenty years later, only this second time it was my father’s ideas I had to rethink, after reluctantly admitting that these opposing ideas represented something real, that needed to be reckoned with. One had to do something about it, though the something didn’t mean substituting Veblen for my father. It was a more difficult and discriminating adjustment that was called for.

To return to my boyhood. It may have been about this time that I learned something about mechanical techniques, when my father took me to see the Springfield Arsenal. They had a museum, with broadswords that had been used in battle—one was so nicked up that its edge had disappeared in a continuous series of surprisingly deep nicks—but the mechanical process that impressed me was a pattern-lathe, rough-shaping the stocks of Krags. On one side was a metal model of the finished stock revolving, with a wheel revolving against it. On the other side was the wooden blank revolving, and a wheel like the one on the model, and linked to it so as to copy its movements, and armed with knives. So the machine could make complicated shapes following any model you put into it, and do it faster and more accurately that a hand worker.

Incidentally (and as a digression) that was our first military rifle with smokeless powder, more powerful than black; our first regular military magazine rifle of the modern kind with a bolt action and a box magazine. The regulars were just getting them. The militia still had the black-powder 45-70 Springfields at the time of the Spanish War, and a Massachusetts regiment had to be ordered off the firing-line at El Caney because their smoke made too good a target. Teddy Roosevelt had pull enough to get Krag carbines for his Rough Riders plus the privilege of using their own Winchesters if individuals preferred, and, if they had the 30-40-220, which took the Krag cartridge.

But my regular education in economic theory began at the age of 9 or 10, in our first year at Amherst, when we lived on Amity Street, opposite Sunset Ave. My father had in mind James Mill’s training of his son, John Stuart Mill, and he copied the techniques of explaining something during a walk, but he didn’t follow James Mill’s example by making me submit a written report for criticism and revision. All he did was to explain about diminishing utility and marginal utility—using the illustration of the oranges. And he was satisfied that I understood it, and concluded that the simple fundamentals of economics could be taught to secondary school or “grammar-school” students. Later, my friend and former graduate student, Leverett Lyon, pithily remarked that I probably understood it better then than I ever had since. Maybe he was right. I know when I met Professor Fetter, the year the Ec. Ass. met in Princeton, he told me I didn’t understand the theory, because I had said (in print, I think) that there were some dangers about the concept of “psychic income.” I didn’t say it was wrong, but I did think it was likely to be misleading to use a term that was associated with accountants’ arithmetic. So I did probably understand the theory “better” at the age of 9 or 10. Twenty ears later, it didn’t look so simple. This was long before I disagreed with Fetter about basing-point pricing and the rightness of the uniform FOB mill price, as the price “true” competition would bring about.

______________________

J.M.C. later history.

Amherst, C in Ec tho 85 on exam, & written work not credited. (cf French A from Wilkins, C from [William Stuart] Symington (father of present (1951) W. Stuart Symington, head of nat security Resources Board). Symie sized my attitude up as that of a gentleman & gave me a gentleman’s mark)ache Crook said he “didn’t get hold” of me. He was correct.

 

Columbia: Giddings, A. S. Johnson, H.L. Moore, Seligman, Seager, Hawkins [?], Chaddock, Agger, Jacobstein. indoctrinated: J. B. C. orthodoxy modified by overhead costs (catalogued as “dynamics”) Dynamics (defined as) everything statics leaves out. & much induction. Take “Essentials” on slow dictation.

Veblen: slow infiltration of its logical & progre[?] rel. to the abstractions of J.B.C.: reverse normalizing might make[?] an arguable claim to equal legitimacy.

1912 ed. of Control of Trusts

“Contribution to theory of competive price” [QJE, August 1914] forerunner of “mon-comp”, largely empirical basis.

Germs of social & inst. ec. Rich-poor, Freedom as val in ec.[??] B. M. Anderson cf. Cooley

Revs of Hobson?, Pigou, Davenport Economics of Enterprise [Political Science Quarterly, Vol 29, no. 2]

 

To Chi. 1915 Changing basis of economic responsibility [JPE, March 1916] on moving to Chi. open declar[ation] of non-Laughlinism: backfire to an Atlantic article of Laughlin’s.

Modern Psych.

1917-18. War-ec. (“basis of war-time collectivism.”)

Students: Garver oral. Slichter, Lyon, Innis, Martin [?], Goodrich, Copeland, O’Grady [John O’Grady ?]

Ayres, Knight on faculty.

Ov. C. [Studies in the Economics of Overhead Costs]

Social Control [of Business]

 

Columbia. Students, Friedman, Ginzberg, Salera, Kuznets’ oral

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. John M. Clark Collection. History of Economic Thought. Box 37, Folder “J. B. Clark, 1847-1938”.

Image Source: John Maurcie Clark. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-0171.  Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Barnard Columbia Courses Curriculum

Columbia. Economics Courses with Descriptions, 1905-07

 

 

From time to time I mistakenly repeat the preparation of an artifact, as is the case with this list of instructors and courses offered in economics and social sciences by the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science in 1905-07. Still, I am getting better with respect to formatting, so I am replacing the V1.0 with this V2.0 today.

________________________________

OFFICERS OF INSTRUCTION
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
[Economics and Social Sciences (1905-07)]

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Ph.D., LL.D., McVickar Professor of Political Economy
[Absent on leave in 1905-06.]
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Sociology
JOHN B. CLARK, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy
HENRY R. SEAGER, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy, and Secretary
HENRY L. MOORE, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Political Economy
VLADIMIR G. SIMKHOVITCH, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Economic History
EDWARD THOMAS DEVINE, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Social Economy

OTHER OFFICERS

ALVIN S. JOHNSON, Ph.D., Instructor in Economics
GEORGE J. BAYLES, Ph.D Lecturer in Ecclesiology [A.B., Columbia, 1891; A.M., 1892; LL.B., 1893; Ph.D., 1895.]
ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS, Ph.D., Lecturer in Sociology in Barnard College

________________________________

GROUP III—ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

GRADUATE COURSES

It is presumed that students who take economics, sociology or social economy as their major subject are familiar with the general principles of economics and sociology as set forth in the ordinary manuals. Students who are not thus prepared are recommended to take the courses in Columbia College or Barnard College designated as Economics 1 and 2 (or A and 4) and Sociology 151-152.

The graduate courses fall under three subjects: A—Political Economy and Finance; B—Sociology and Statistics; C—Social Economy.

Courses numbered 100 to 199 are open to Seniors in Columbia College.

Courses numbered 200 and above are open to graduate women students upon the same terms as to men.

All the courses are open to male auditors. Women holding the first degree may register as auditors in Courses numbered 200 and above.

Subject A—Political Economy and Finance

ECONOMICS 101-102—Taxation and Finance. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 1.30. 422 L.

This course is historical, as well as comparative and critical. After giving a general introduction and tracing the history of the science of finance, it treats of the various rules of the public expenditures and the methods of meeting the same among civilized nations. It describes the different kinds of public revenues, including the public domain and public property, public works and industrial undertakings, special assessments, fees, and taxes. It is in great part a course on the history, theories, and methods of taxation in all civilized countries. It considers also public debt, methods of borrowing, redemption, refunding, repudiation, etc. Finally, it describes the fiscal organization of the state by which the revenue is collected and expended, and discusses the budget, national, state, and local. Although the course is comparative, the point of view is American. Students are furnished with the current public documents of the United States Treasury and the chief financial reports of the leading commonwealths, and are expected to understand all the facts in regard to public debt, revenue, and expenditure contained therein.

Given in 1906-07 and in each year thereafter.

ECONOMICS 103—Money and Banking. Professor H. L. MOORE.
Tu. and Th. at 10.30, first half-year. 415 L.

The aim of this course is (1) to describe the mechanism of exchange and to trace the history of the metallic money, the paper money, and the banking system of the United States; to discuss such questions as bi-metallism, foreign exchanges, credit cycles, elasticity of the currency, present currency problems, and corresponding schemes of reform; (2) to illustrate the quantitative treatment of such questions as variations in the value of the money unit, and the effects of appreciation and depreciation.

ECONOMICS 104—Commerce and Commercial Policy. Dr. JOHNSON.
Tu. and Th. at 10.30, second half-year. 415 L.

In this course the economic bases of modern commerce, and the significance of commerce, domestic and foreign, in its relation to American industry, will be studied. An analysis will be made of the extent and character of the foreign trade of the United States, and the nature and effect of the commercial policies of the principal commercial nations will be examined.

ECONOMICS 105—The Labor Problem. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, first half-year. 415 L.

The topics considered in this course are: The rise of the factory system, factory legislation, the growth of trade unions and changes in the law in respect to them, the policies of trade unions, strikes, lockouts, arbitration and conciliation, proposed solutions of the labor problem, and the future of labor in the United States.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 106—The Trust Problem. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, second half-year. 415 L.

In this course special attention is given to the trust problem as it presents itself in the United States. Among the topics considered are the rise and progress of industrial combinations, the forms of organization and policies of typical combinations, the common law and the trusts, anti-trust acts and their results, and other proposed solutions of the problem.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

[ECONOMICS 107—Fiscal and Industrial History of the United States. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 3.30, first half-year. 415 L.

This course endeavors to present a survey of national legislation on currency, finance, and taxation, including the tariff, together with its relations to the state of industry and commerce. The chief topics discussed are: The fiscal and industrial conditions of the colonies; the financial methods of the Revolution and the Confederation; the genesis of the protective idea; the fiscal policies of the Federalists and of the Republicans; the financial management of the War of 1812; the industrial effects of the restrictive and war periods; the crises of 1819, 1825, and 1837; the tariffs of 1816, 1824, and 1828; the distribution of the surplus and the Bank war; the currency problems before 1863; the era of “free trade,” and the tariffs of 1846 and 1857; the fiscal problems of the Civil War; the methods of resumption, conversion and payment of the debt; the disappearance of the war taxes; the continuance of the war tariffs; the money question and the acts of 1878, 1890, and 1900; the loans of 1894-96; the tariffs of 1890, 1894, and 1897; the fiscal aspects of the Spanish War. The course closes with a discussion of the current problems of currency and trade, and with a general consideration of the arguments for and against protection as illustrated by the practical operations of the various tariffs.

Not given in 1905-07.]

[ECONOMICS 108— Railroad Problems; Economic, Social, and Legal. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 3.30, second half-year. 415 L.

These lectures treat of railroads in the fourfold aspect of their relation to the investors, the employees, the public, and the state respectively. A history of railways and railway policy in America and Europe forms the preliminary part of the course. The chief problems of railway management, so far as they are of economic importance, come up for discussion.

Among the subjects treated are: Financial methods, railway constructions, speculation, profits, failures, accounts and reports, expenses, tariffs, principles of rates, classification and discrimination, competition and pooling, accidents, and employers’ liability. Especial attention is paid to the methods of regulation and legislation in the United States as compared with European methods, and the course closes with a general discussion of state versus private management.

Not given in 1905-07.]

ECONOMICS 109 — Communistic and Socialistic Theories. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 2.30, first half-year. 406 L.

This course studies the theories of St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Rodbertus, Marx, Lassalle, and others. It aims to utilize recent discoveries in economic science in making a critical test of these theories themselves and of certain counter-arguments. It examines the socialistic ideals of distribution, and the effects that, by reason of natural laws, would follow an attempt to realize them through the action of the state.

ECONOMICS 110 — Theories of Social Reform. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 2.30, second half-year. 406 L.

This course treats of certain plans for the partial reconstruction of industrial society that have been advocated in the United States, and endeavors to determine what reforms are in harmony with economic principles. It treats of the proposed single tax, of the measures advocated by the Farmers’ Alliance, and of those proposed by labor organizations, and the general relation of the state to industry.

ECONOMICS 201—Economic Readings I: Classical English Economists. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, first half-year. 415 L.

In this course the principal theories of the English economists from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill are studied by means of lectures, assigned readings and reports, and discussions. Special attention is given to the Wealth of Nations, Malthus’s Essay on Population, the bullion controversy of 1810, the corn law controversy of 1815, and the treatises on Political Economy of Ricardo, Senior, and John Stuart Mill.

Given in 1905-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 202—Economic Readings II: Contemporary Economists. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, second half-year. 415 L.

In this course the theories of contemporary economists are compared and studied by the same methods employed in Economics 201. Special attention is given to Böhm-Bawerk’s Positive Theory of Capital and Marshall’s Principles of Economics.

Given in 1905-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 203-204—History of Economics. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 3.30. 415 L.

In this course the various systems of political economy are discussed in their historical development. The chief exponents of the different schools are taken up in their order, and especial attention is directed to the wider aspects of the connection between the theories and the organization of the existing industrial society. The chief writers discussed are:

I. Antiquity: The Oriental Codes; Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Cato, Seneca, Cicero, the Agrarians, the Jurists.

II. Middle Ages: The Church Fathers, Aquinas, the Glossators, the writers on money, trade, and usury.

III. Mercantilists: Hales, Mun, Petty, Barbon, North, Locke; Bodin, Vauban, Boisguillebert, Forbonnais; Serra, Galiani ; Justi, Sonnenfels.

IV. Physiocrats: Quesnay, Gournay, Turgot, Mirabeau.

V. Adam Smith and precursors: Tucker, Hume, Cantillon, Stewart.

VI. English school: Malthus, Ricardo, Senior, McCulloch, Chalmers, Jones, Mill.

VII. The Continent: Say, Sismondi, Cournot, Bastiat; Herrmann, List, von Thünen.

VIII. German historical school: Roscher, Knies, Hildebrandt.

IX. Recent Development—England: Rogers, Jevons, Cairnes, Bagehot, Leslie, Toynbee, Marshall; Germany: Wagner, Schmoller, Held, Brentano, Cohn, Schäffle; Austria: Menger, Sax, Böhm-Bawerk, Wieser; France: Leroy Beaulieu, Laveleye, Gide, Walras; Italy: Cossa, Loria, Pantaleoni; America: Carey, George, Walker, Clark, Patten, Adams.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 205—Economic Theory I. Professor CLARK.
M. and W. at 2.30, first half-year. 406 L.

This course discusses, first, the static laws of distribution. If the processes of industry were not changing, wages and industry would tend to adjust themselves according to certain standards. A study of the mechanism of production would then show that one part of the product is specifically attributable to labor, and that another part is imputable to capital. It is the object of the course to show that the tendency of free competition, under such conditions, is to give to labor, in the form of wages, the amount that it specifically creates, and also to give to capital, in the form of interest, what it specifically produces. The theory undertakes to prove that the earnings of labor and of capital are governed by a principle of final productivity, and that this principle must be studied on a social scale, rather than in any one department of production. The latter part of this course enters the field of Economic Dynamics, defines an economic society and describes the forces which so act upon it as to change its structure and its mode of producing and distributing wealth.

ECONOMICS 206—Economic Theory II. Professor CLARK.
M. and W. at 2.30, second half-year. 406 L.

This course continues the discussion of the dynamic laws of distribution. The processes of industry are actually progressing. Mechanical invention, emigration and other influences cause capital and labor to be applied in new ways and with enlarging results. These influences do not even repress the action of the static forces of distribution, but they bring a new set of forces into action. They create, first, employers’ profits, and, later, additions to wages and interest. It is the object of the course to show how industrial progress affects the several shares in distribution under a system of competition, and also to determine whether the consolidations of labor and capital, which are a distinctive feature of modern industry, have the effect of repressing competition. It is a further purpose of the course to present the natural laws by which the increase of capital and that of labor are governed and to discuss the manner in which the earnings of these agents are affected by the action of the state, and to present at some length the character and the effects of those obstructions which pure economic law encounters in the practical world.

ECONOMICS 207—Theory of Statistics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, first half-year. 418 L.

The aim of this course is to present the elementary principles of statistics and to illustrate their application by concrete studies in the chief sources of statistical material. The theoretical part of the course includes the study of averages, index numbers, interpolation, principles of the graphic method, elements of demography, and statistical principles of insurance. The laboratory work consists of a graded series of problems designed to develop accuracy and facility in the application of principles. (Identical with Sociology 255.)

ECONOMICS 208—Quantitative Economics I: Advanced Statistics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
W. and F. at 11.30, second half-year. 418 L.

Quantitative Economics I and II (see Economics 210) investigate economics as an exact science. This course treats economics from the inductive, statistical side. It aims to show how the methods of quantitative biology and anthropology are utilized in economics and sociology. Special attention is given to recent contributions to statistical theory by Galton, Edgeworth, and Pearson. Economics 207, or an equivalent, is a prerequisite.

Given in 1905-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 210—Quantitative Economics II: Mathematical Economics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
W. and F. at 11.30, second half-year. 418 L.

This course treats economics from the deductive side. It aims to show the utility of an analytical treatment of economic laws expressed in symbolic form. The work of Cournot is presented and used as a basis for the discussion of the contributions to the mathematical method by Walras, Marshall, and Pareto. Economics 207, or an equivalent, is a prerequisite.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 241—The Economic and Social Evolution of Russia since 1800. Professor SIMKHOVITCH.
M. and F. at 9.30, first half-year. 418 L.

This course describes the economic development of the country, the growth of slavophil, liberal and revolutionary doctrines and parties, and the disintegration of the autocratic régime. (Identical with History 281.)

ECONOMICS 242—Radicalism and Social Reform as Reflected in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century. Professor SIMKHOVITCH.
M. at 9.30 and 10.30, second half-year. 418 L.

An interpretation of the various types of modern radicalism, such as socialism, nihilism, and anarchism, and of the social and economic conditions on which they are based.

ECONOMICS 291-292—Seminar in Political Economy and Finance. Professors SELIGMAN and CLARK.
For advanced students. Tu., 8.15-10.15 P.M. 301 L.

 

Subject B—Sociology and Statistics

SOCIOLOGY 151-152—Principles of Sociology. Professor GIDDINGS.
Tu. and Th. at 3.30. 415 L.

This is a fundamental course, intended to lay a foundation for advanced work. In the first half-year, in connection with a text-book study of theory, lectures are given on the social traits, organization, and welfare of the American people at various stages of their history and students are required to analyze and classify sociological material of live interest, obtained from newspapers, reviews, and official reports. In the second half-year lectures are given on the sociological systems of important writers, including Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Schäffle, De Greef, Gumplowicz, Ward, and Tarde. This course is the proper preparation for statistical sociology (Sociology 255 and 256) or for historical sociology (Sociology 251 and 252).

SOCIOLOGY 251—Social Evolution—Ethnic and Civil Origins. Professor GIDDINGS.
F. at 2.30 and 3.30, first half-year. 415 L.

This course on historical sociology deals with such topics as (1) the distribution and ethnic composition of primitive populations; (2) the types of mind and of character, the capacity for coöperation, the cultural beliefs, and the economic, legal, and political habits of early peoples; (3) early forms of the family, the origins, structure, and functions of the clan, the organization of the tribe, the rise of the tribal federations, tribal feudalism, and the conversion of a gentile into a civil plan of social organization. Early literature, legal codes, and chronicles, descriptive of the Celtic and Teutonic groups which combined to form the English people before the Norman Conquest, are the chief sources made use of in this course.

SOCIOLOGY 252—Social Evolution—Civilization, Progress, and Democracy. Professor GIDDINGS.
F. at 2.30 and 3.30, second half-year. 415 L.

This course, which is a continuation of Sociology 251, comprises three parts, namely: (1) The nature of those secondary civilizations which are created by conquest, and of the policies by which they seek to maintain and to extend themselves; (2) an examination of the nature of progress and of its causes, including the rise of discussion and the growth of public opinion; also a consideration of the policies by which continuing progress is ensured,—including measures for the expansion of intellectual freedom, for the control of arbitrary authority by legality, for the repression of collective violence, and for the control of collective impulse by deliberation; (3) a study of the nature, the genesis, and the social organization of modern democracies, including an examination of the extent to which non-political associations for culture and pleasure, churches, business corporations, and labor unions, are more or less democratic; and of the democratic ideals of equality and fraternity in their relations to social order and to liberty. The documents of English history since the Norman Conquest are the chief sources made use of in this course.

SOCIOLOGY 255—Theory of Statistics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, first half-year. 418 L.

This course is identical with Economics 207 (see [above]).

SOCIOLOGY 256—Social Statistics. Professor GIDDINGS.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, second half-year. 418 L.

Actual statistical materials, descriptive and explanatory of contemporaneous societies, are the subject-matter of this course, which presupposes a knowledge of statistical operations (Sociology 255) and applies it to the analysis of concrete problems. The lectures cover such topics as (1) the statistics of population, including densities and migrations, composition by age, sex, and nationality, amalgamation by intermarriage; (2) statistics of mental traits and products, including languages, religious preferences, economic preferences (occupations), and political preferences; (3) statistics of social organization, including families, households, municipalities, churches, business corporations, labor unions, courts of law, army, navy, and civil service; (4) statistics of social welfare, including peace and war, prosperity, education or illiteracy, vitality, and morality, including pauperism and crime.

SOCIOLOGY 259—Ecclesiology. Dr. BAYLES.
Tu. and F. at 4.30, first half-year. 405 L.

The purpose of this course is to define the present relations of the ecclesiastical institutions to the other institutions of American society: the state, the government, marriage, family, education, and public wealth. An analysis is made of the guarantees of religious liberty contained in the federal and commonwealth constitutions; of the civil status of churches in terms of constitutional and statute law; of the methods of incorporation, of the functions of trustees, of legislative and judicial control; of denominational polity according to its type; of the functional activity of churches in their departments of legislation, administration, adjudication, discipline, and mission; of the influence of churches on ethical standards; of the distribution of nationalities among the denominations, of the territorial distribution of denominational strength, of the relation of polity to density of population, and of the current movements in and between various organizations tending toward changes of functions and structure.

SOCIOLOGY 279-280—Seminar in Sociology. Professor GIDDINGS.
W. at 3.30 and 4.30, bi-weekly. 301 L.

The Statistical Laboratory, conducted by Professors GIDDINGS and H. L. MOORE, is equipped with the Hollerith tabulating machines, comptometers, and other modern facilities.

Subject C—Social Economy

SOCIAL ECONOMY 281—Poverty and Dependence. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, first half-year. 418 L.

The purpose of this course and of Social Economy 282, which follows, is to study dependence and measures of relief, and to analyze the more important movements which aim to improve social conditions. An attempt is made to measure the extent of dependence, both in its definite forms, as in charitable and penal institutions, and in its less recognized and definite forms, as when it results in the lowering of the standard of living or the placing of unreasonably heavy burdens upon children or widows. Among the special classes of social debtors which are studied, besides the paupers, the vagrants, the dissipated, and the criminals, who require discipline or segregation as well as relief, are: Orphans and other dependent children; the sick and disabled; the aged and infirm; the widow and the deserted family; the immigrant and the displaced laborer; the underfed and consequently short-lived worker.

Given in 1905—06 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 282—Principles of Relief. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, second half-year. 418 L.

In this course the normal standard of living is considered concretely to secure a basis from which deficiencies may be estimated. A large number of individual typical relief problems are presented, and from these, by a “case system,” analogous to that of the modern law school, the principles of relief are deduced. Among the larger movements to be considered are: Charity organization; social settlements; housing reform; the elimination of disease; the restriction of child labor; and the prevention of overcrowding, and especially the congestion of population in the tenement-house districts of the great cities.

Given in 1903-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 283—Pauperism and Poor Laws. Professor SEAGER.
M. at 3.30 and 4.30, first half-year. 418 L.

This is an historical and comparative course intended to supplement Social Economy 281 and 282. Lectures on the history of the English poor law are followed by discussions of farm colonies, the boarding-out system for children, old-age pensions, and other plans of relief currently advocated in England. On this basis the public relief problems of New York State and City and the institutions attempting their solution are studied by means of excursions, lectures, and discussions.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 285—The Standard of Living. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, first half-year. 418 L.

A concrete study of the standard of living in New York City in the classes which are above the line of actual dependence, but below or near the line of full nutrition and economic independence. While this course will not be given in the year 1905-06, assignments will be made in the School of Philanthropy for research in such portions of this field as suitably prepared students may elect to undertake.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 286—The Prevention and Diminution of Crime. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, second half-year. 418 L.

This course will deal with the social function of the penal and police systems. Special attention will be given to such subjects as juvenile courts; the probation system; indeterminate sentence; treatment of discharged prisoners; the system of local jails; segregation of incorrigibles, and prison labor.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 290—Crime and Criminal Anthropology. Professor GIDDINGS.

Students desiring to make a special study of crime, criminal anthropology, and the theory of criminal responsibility may take the lectures of Sociology 256 or of Social Economy 286 and follow prescribed readings under the direction of Professor GIDDINGS.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 299-300—Seminar in Social Economy. Professor DEVINE.
Two hours a week. Hours to be arranged.

The work of the Seminar for 1905-07 will be a study of recent developments in the social and philanthropic activities of New York City; e. g., the social settlements; parks and playgrounds; outside activities of public schools; children’s institutions; relief societies; agencies for the aid of immigrants, and the preventive work of organized charities.

COURSES IN THE SCHOOL OF PHILANTHROPY

The School of Philanthropy, conducted by the Charity Organization Society, under the direction of Professor Devine, offers courses* aggregating not less than ten hours a week throughout the academic year, and also a Summer School course of six weeks in June and July. These courses are open to regular students of Columbia University who satisfy the director that they are qualified to pursue them with profit, and are accepted as a minor for candidates for an advanced degree.

The program of studies for 1905-06 is as follows:

            A—General survey (forty lectures) ; B—Dependent families (fifty lectures); C—Racial traits and social conditions (thirty-five lectures); D—Constructive social work (fifty lectures) ; E—Child-helping agencies (forty lectures); F—Treatment of the criminal (thirty lectures); G—Administration of charitable and educational institutions (thirty lectures); H—The State in its relation to charities and correction (forty lectures).

* These courses are given in the United Charities Building, corner Fourth Avenue and 22d Street.

 

COURSES IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ECONOMICS 1-2—Introduction to Economics—Practical Economic Problems. Professors SELIGMAN and SEAGER, and Dr. JOHNSON.
Section 1, M. and W. at 9.30, and F. at 11.30. Section 2, M., W., and F. at 11.30. M. and W. recitations in 415 L. F. lecture in 422 L.

 

COURSES IN BARNARD COLLEGE

ECONOMICS A—Outlines of Economics. Professor MOORE and Dr. JOHNSON.
Three hours, first half-year.
Section 1, Tu., Th., and S. at 9.30. Section 2, Tu. and Th. at 11.30, and S. at 9.30.

ECONOMICS 4—Economic History of England and the United States. Professor MOORE and Dr. JOHNSON.
M., W., and F. at 10.30, second half-year.

ECONOMICS 105—The Labor Problem. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, first half-year.

The topics treated in this course are the rise of the factory system, factory legislation, the growth of trade unions and changes in the law in respect to them, the policies of trade unions, strikes, lockouts, arbitration and conciliation, proposed solutions of the labor problem, and the future of labor in the United States.

ECONOMICS 120—Practical Economic Problems. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, second half-year.

The topics treated in this course are the defects in the monetary and banking systems of the United States, government expenditures and government revenues, protection vs. free trade, the relation of the government towards natural monopolies, and federal control of trusts.

ECONOMICS 121—English Social Reformers. Professor MOORE.
W. and F. at 1.30, first half-year.

A critical study of the social teachings of Carlyle, Ruskin, John Stuart Mill, Kingsley, and Thomas H. Green.
Open to students that have taken Course A or an equivalent.

ECONOMICS 122—Economic Theory. Professor MOORE.
W. and F. at 1.30, second half-year.

A critical study of Marshall’s Principles of Economics. The principal aim of this course is to present the methods and results of recent economic theory.
Open to students that have taken Course A or an equivalent.

ECONOMICS 109—Communistic and Socialistic Theories. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, first half-year.

In this course a brief study is made of the works of St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Owen, and Lassalle, and a more extended study is made of Marx’s treatise on capital. Recent economic changes, such as the formation of trusts and strong trade unions, are examined with a view to ascertaining what effect they have had on the modern socialistic movement.

ECONOMICS 110—Theories of Social Reform. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, second half-year.

In this course a study is made of modern semi-socialistic movements and of such reforms as have for their object the improvement of the condition of the working class. Municipal activities, factory legislation, the single tax, recent agrarian movements and measures for the regulation of monopolies are studied.

SOCIOLOGY 151-152—Principles of Sociology. Professor GIDDINGS.
Tu. and Th. at 2.30.

This is a fundamental course, intended to lay a foundation for advanced work. In the first half-year, in connection with a text-book study of theory, lectures are given on the social traits, organization, and welfare of the American people at various stages of their history, and students are required to analyze and classify sociological material of live interest, obtained from newspapers, reviews, and official reports. In the second half-year, lectures are given on the sociological systems of important writers, including Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Schäffle, De Greef, Gumplowicz, Ward, and Tarde.

SOCIOLOGY 153-154 —Family Organization. Dr. ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS.
Tu. at 3.30, bi-weekly.

Field work in the study of family groups. Consultations.
Open to Seniors.

In connection with the lectures and field work of this course opportunities are given to students to become acquainted with the more important private institutions for social betterment in New York City, and to study the organization and activity of the various public agencies charged with the welfare of the community.

 

COURSES IN THE SUMMER SESSION

sA—Economic History of England and America. Lectures, recitations, and essays. Dr. JOHNSON.
Five hours a week at 1.30. 501 F. Credit I
(Equivalent, when supplemented by prescribed reading, to Economics 4.)

sB—Principles of Economics. Lectures and class discussions. Dr. JOHNSON.
Five hours a week at 2.30. 501 F. Credit I.
(Equivalent, when supplemented by prescribed reading, to Economics 1.)

sA1—Principles of Sociology. Descriptive and theoretical. Professor GIDDINGS.
Five hours a week at 10.30. 415 L. Credit I, II.
(Equivalent to Sociology IS1-)

sA2—Principles of Sociology. History of sociological theory. Professor GIDDINGS.
Five hours a week at 9.30. 415 L. Credit I, II.
(Equivalent to Sociology 152.)

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information. Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science and the Several Undergraduate Faculties. Announcement 1905-07. pp. 3, 24-36.

Image Source: Roberto Ferrari, Unveiling Alma Mater [Sept 23, 1903]. Columbia University Libraries. July 15, 2104.

Categories
Barnard Columbia Economists

Columbia. Budgeting John Bates Clark’s Salary After His Retirement, ca. 1911

 

The following undated memorandum comes from Prof. E.R.A. Seligman’s papers in a folder of Columbia related material for 1911-1913. From the Bulletin of the Faculty of Political Science we know that Prof. Simkhovitch took over Clark’s course on socialism in 1908 (Seligman below writes that Simkhovitch gave a similar course “at Columbia for the last two or three years”). Robert E. Chaddock took up the statistics assistant professorship mentioned in the memo in 1911. So it is pretty clear that this memorandum was written to motivate the economics department decision not to seek a senior professor with the funds released by Clark’s retirement but instead divided the funds between hiring someone for statistics, additional compensation for Henry Roger Seager to continue his teaching a labor course at Barnard and additional compensation for Professor Vladimir Simkhovitch to take over Clark’s course on Socialism at Barnard.

_____________________________

MEMORANDUM in reference to PROFESSOR CLARK’S RETIREMENT.

Professor Clark’s retirement is a serious loss to the Department of Economics and to Barnard College. Ordinarily the withdrawal of such a distinguished member of the faculty should lead to the appointment of a successor of equal prominence. In this case, however, there is no one of equal distinction available, and after making a thorough and impartial survey of the field, the department is convinced that it will be wiser to call the most promising younger man to be found as assistant professor then to call in a full professor who might prove disappointing. This plan has the advantage, moreover, of permitting a readjustment of the courses in economics to be open to Barnard students that would be highly advantageous for the College.

It will be remembered that when the original arrangement was entered into the trustees of Barnard agreed to provide the sum of $5,000 toward the higher or university work in economics at Columbia, on condition that certain courses at Columbia be open to women graduates, and on the further understanding that the Department of Economics should provide six hours a week of lectures in economics to Barnard Seniors at Barnard College. Later on, by special arrangement with Dean Gill, as ratified by the trustees, it was provided that two of these six hours might be given at Columbia instead of Barnard. It is now proposed to readjust the courses so as to provide ampler opportunities for Barnard students.

In considering the interests of Barnard, three facts should be held in view. First, experience has shown that merely throwing open courses given at Columbia to Barnard students fails adequately to meet their needs. The plan adopted when Professor Clark was called here of having six hours advanced work in economics given at Barnard ought to be reintroduced. Second, the number of students desiring to take advanced work in economics is steadily increasing and for their benefit every opportunity should be seized which will open to them additional courses at Columbia. Third, the most important field of economics study not now covered by the courses offered at Barnard is that of economic and social statistics. Not only does the ordinary student need a knowledge of statistical methods to apply economic theories to the facts of every day life, but Barnard graduates are concerned to an ever increasing extent with different forms of social service. Some become the paid agents of settlement, charitable societies or municipal departments concerned with social work. Others become officers in reform and charitable organizations. For both classes, training in the manipulation and interpretation of statistics would be of great value.

Having regard to these three facts the plan which the Department of Economics recommends is as follows: –

(1) that $2,500 of the $5,000 released by Professor Clark’s withdrawal be used to pay the salary of an assistant professor, who shall give a course on social and economic statistics to Barnard Seniors. While this professor under the terms of the original agreement, is to be primarily a graduate professor, he may, if so desired, be asked temporarily to relieve Professor Mussey of one of the Junior sections in Economics A1–A2 in exchange for a university course by Professor Mussey. It is also proposed that in further recognition of a similar course to be given by the new instructor at Columbia and of supervising work in the statistical laboratory at Columbia, which might be open to Barnard students for research work, the Department of Economics should admit Barnard Seniors to Columbia courses given by Professors Seligman, Giddings, Seager, and Mussey, that is, Sociology 151-152, Economics 101-2, Economics 107-108, Economics 106, and Economics 104.

(2) That Professor Seager be asked to continue his course on the Labor Problem at Barnard and that a contribution of $1,500 towards his salary be paid out of the $5,000 released. Professor Clark’s withdrawal will add to Professor Seager’s burdens at Columbia and his natural inclination would be to meet the situation by discontinuing his course at Barnard. If he continues his course it seems but fair that a contribution toward his salary should be paid out of Barnard funds.

(3) That Professor Simkhovitch be asked to give at Barnard the course on Socialism and Social Reform formerly given by Professor Clark and that the remaining $1,000 of the $5,000 fund be contributed to his salary. Fortunately Professor Simkhovitch is specially qualified to give such a course acceptably, having given a similar course at Columbia for the last two or three years.

By carrying out this plan the Barnard trustees will not only secure a reintroduction of the six hours of advanced instruction in economics for the special benefit of Barnard Seniors, courses even better adapted to the present needs of such Seniors than those previously given, but will also secure admission for Barnard students to eight of the most valuable courses in economics and social science offered at Columbia, without any increase in the appropriation for economic instruction. Inasmuch as at the present time only four hours are given to Barnard Seniors, and only five Columbia courses are open to them, we believe that the plan is fair to all concerned and that it will prove highly advantageous to Barnard College.

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson Collection. Box 98a, Folder “Columbia (A-Z) 1911-1913”.

Image Source:  Barnard College student council. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Syllabus for Money, Banking & Commercial Crises. Anderson, 1917-18.

Benjamin McAlester Anderson (1886-1949) was awarded a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in 1911. His dissertation, Social Value–A Study in Economic Theory Critical and Constructive was published in the Hart, Schaffer & Marx Prize Essays series. From 1913-18 he held the rank of Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Today I post his syllabus for the course “Money, Banking and Commercial Crises” from 1917-18 that is wonderfully detailed  both with respect to topics and detailed reading assignments. The final examination questions for the second-term of the two-term course have been transcribed and posted too. I have included Anderson’s c.v. as of the publication of his dissertation in November, 1911 below. I’ll next post the University of California’s brief biography of Anderson published in its “In Memoriam” series.

_______________________

VITA
[Benjamin M. Anderson 1911]

The author was born in Columbia, Missouri, May 1, 1886. He was prepared for college in the high
school in Columbia, and attended the State University of Missouri, receiving the A. B. degree from that institution in 1906. His work in economics at Missouri was chiefly with Professor J. E. Pope. He was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha of Missouri, in 1905. He filled a temporary vacancy in the chair of history at the State Normal School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, during the summer session of 1905. He was Professor of Political Economy at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri, 1906-7, and from 1907 to 1911 was Head of the Department of History and Political Economy in the State Normal School at Springfield, Missouri, though on leave of absence during the years 1909-10 and 1910-11. He was Fellow in Economics at the University of Illinois during the term 1909-10, working in the seminars of Dean Kinley and Professor E. L. Bogart, and, in philosophy, in the seminar of Professor B. H. Bode. He received the A. M. degree at Illinois in 1910. As Garth Fellow in Political Economy at Columbia University, 1910-11, he studied under Professors Seligman, Seager, H. L. Moore, Giddings and John Dewey, doing seminar work with Professors Seligman, Seager and Giddings. He was appointed in 1911 Instructor in Political Economy at Columbia University. In May, 1909, he was married to Miss Margaret Louise Crenshaw, at St. Louis, Mo.

Source: Benjamin M. Anderson, Social Value–A Study in Economic Theory Critical and Constructive, p. i.

_______________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 3. Asst. Professor Anderson, assisted by Mr. Laporte.—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 38: 13 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 6 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1917-18, p. 54.

_______________________

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
1917-18

SYLLABUS FOR ECONOMICS 3

(Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises)
Assistant Professor Anderson

Required reading is marked with an asterisk

 

Part I. MONEY

  1. FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS.
    1. Definitions: money; specie; currency, etc.
    2. Origin of money; origin of gold and silver money; gold as a commodity.
    3. Functions of money; common measure of values; medium of exchange; legal tender; standard of deferred payments; store of value; bearer of options; reserve for credit operations.
    4. Standard and subsidiary money; Gresham’s law and monometallism; the gold standard.
    5. Value of money: preliminary statement.

Reading.

Anderson, Value of Money, pp. 397-427.*
Phillips, Readings in Money and Banking, pp. 1-26.*
Moulton, Money and Banking, Pt. I, pp. 45-62.*
Laughlin, Principles of Money, passim.
Menger, art. “Geld” in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften.

  1. GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY.
    1. Colonial and Revolutionary Paper Money.
    2. The French Assignats.
    3. The Greenbacks.
    4. Causes governing the value of inconvertible paper.
      1. Gold premium and index numbers.
    5. Financial results of inconvertible paper.
    6. Social and industrial consequences of inconvertible papers.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 134-162; 168 (chart); 178-209, 260-66.*
Horace White, Money and Banking, chs. on Revolutionary Bills of Credit, and Greenbacks.*
Phillips, pp. 26-70, 115-120.*
Mitchell, W. C., History of the Greenbacks, and Gold, Wages and Prices under the Greenback Standard.

  1. THE STANDARD QUESTION.
    1. Early history of metallic money.
    2. History of bimetallism.
      1. Mediaeval and early modern times.
      2. England
      3. France
      4. United States.
    3. Theory of bimetallism:
      1. Theory of the ratio:
        1. Gresham’s Law.
        2. The compensatory principle.
      2. The standard of deferred payments: justice between debtor and creditor:
        1. Index numbers: of commodity prices; of wages.
        2. The commodity standard upheld by bimetallists.
        3. The labor standard by monometallists.
      3. Theory of exchanges between gold and silver countries.
    4. The monetary system of the United States.

Reading.

Phillips, Chs. VI and VII.*
Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 66-68, Chs. IV, VI, and VIII.*

    1. The gold exchange standard, and the triumph of the gold standard.
      1. India.
      2. Philippines.
      3. Mexico.
      4. Straits Settlement.
      5. Gold standard in 1914.

Reading.

Phillips, Chs. XII and XIV.*
Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms.

  1. THE VALUE OF MONEY.
    1. Economic Value.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. I.

    1. Must the value of money rest on a commodity basis? Quantity theory doctrine that inconvertible paper may be sustained in value by limitation in supply.
    2. The quantity theory v. Gresham’s Law.

Reading.

Anderson, Chs. VII and XVII.
Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 14-32.*

  1. STABILIZING THE GOLD DOLLAR.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 258-60; 266-71.*
Phillips, Ch. XIII.*

PART II. CREDIT AND BANKING

  1. NATURE OF CREDIT.
    1. Kinds of credit instruments.
    2. Definitions of credit.
    3. Bank-credit—analysis of bank statement.
    4. The mechanism of the modern bank.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 12-37.*
Anderson, Ch. XXIII.*
Dunbar, Theory and History of Banking, Chs. I-V.*
Fiske, The Modern Bank, pp. 25-260, omitting Chs. XXI, XXVIII, XXX.*
Horace White, ch. on Bank Statement.*

    1. The use of checks in payments in the United States.

Reading.

Phillips, pp. 150-58.*
Kinley, The Use of Credit Instruments in Payments in the United States, National Monetary Commission Report.

    1. The volume of money and credit and the volume of trade,—trade and speculation.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. XIII.*

  1. BANK-NOTES AND BANK DEPOSITS: “CURRENCY SCHOOL” v. “BANKING SCHOOL.”
    1. Currency School and the quantity theory.
    2. Essential identity of notes and deposits under “assets banking.”
    3. Systems of bank-note issue: Suffolk system; Canada; England; France; Germany; Austria; United States national banking system.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. XIV.*
Mill, J. S., Principles of Political Economy, Bk. III, Ch. XXIV, pars. 1 and 2.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 225-58.*
Conant, Modern Banks of Issue, passim.

  1. THE ENGLISH BANKING SYSTEM.
    1. History.
    2. Analysis of present system in London: Bank of England; Joint Stock Banks; branches of foreign banks; discount houses; acceptance houses; bill brokers; Stock Exchange; commodity speculation; warehousing system and commission houses; insurance; foreign exchange.

Reading.

Withers and Palgrave, English Banking System, National Monetary Commission Report, pp. 3-110.*
Phillips, pp. 435-442; 464-473.*
Withers, The Meaning of Money.
Bagehot, Lombard Street.
Conant, Modern Banks of Issue.

  1. FOREIGN EXCHANGE.

Reading.

Escher, Foreign Exchange.*
Anderson, Ch. XVI, and Appendix to Ch. XIII.*
Weekly article in Annalist on foreign exchange market.

  1. SPECULATION ON THE STOCK AND PRODUCE EXCHANGES.
    1. Theory of speculation.
    2. The New York Stock Exchange.
      1. Methods of doing business.
      2. Contrasted with London, Paris, and Berlin exchanges.
    3. Investment bankers and underwriters.
    4. Chicago Board of Trade; New York Cotton Exchange.

Reading.

Emery, Speculation on the Stock and Produce Exchanges.
Pratt, Work of Wall Street.
Van Antwerp, The Stock Exchange from Within.
Passages to be assigned.
Weekly articles in Annalist on stock and bond markets.

  1. “COMMERCIAL BANKING” AND SPECULATION; BANK ASSETS AND BANK RESERVES.

Reading.

Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 47-54.*
Anderson, Ch. XXIV, and pp. 363-81, and 177-85.
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 66-89.*

  1. CLEARING HOUSES.
    1. Methods.
    2. Extraordinary functions.
    3. The interpretation of “clearings.”

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XIX.

  1. THE “MONEY MARKET.”
    1. “Money” v. money.
    2. “Money rates” v. interest rates.
    3. Analysis of causes governing money rates:
      1. General causes.
      2. Causes affecting special types of “paper.”

Reading.

Scott, W. A., Money and Banking, ch. on “Money Market.”* (1910 or later editions.)
Anderson, pp. 375-79; 425-32; 453-58;495-97; 516-27; 529-44.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 120-136.*
Weekly article on “Money” in the Annalist.

  1. BANKING IN GERMANY.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXV.*

  1. BANKING IN CANADA.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXI.*

  1. BANKING IN FRANCE.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXIV.*

  1. BANKING IN THE UNITED STATES.
    1. Before the Civil War.
      1. The two National Banks.
      2. State and private banks.
    2. Origin of the national banking system.
    3. State banks and trust companies; private banks; savings banks, etc.
    4. Comparative growth and present status of different classes of institutions. Geographical distribution.

Reading.

Horace White, Chs. on First and Second National banks, The Bank War, The Suffolk Bank System, The Safety Fund System, The Free Bank System, The National Bank System.*
Phillips, Chs. XV and XX.*
Barnett, State Banks and Trust Companies.

 

PART III. CRISES AND PANICS

  1. THEORY OF CRISES.
  2. FINANCIAL PANICS.

Reading.

Phillips, pp. 644-71.*

  1. HISTORY OF CRISES UNDER THE NATIONAL BANKING ACT.

Reading.

Sprague, History of Crises under the National Banking System, National Monetary Commission Report, pp. 153-320.*

  1. THE ENGLISH BANKING SYSTEM DURING THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
  2. NEW YORK AND THE CRISIS OF 1914.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXXII.*

  1. REMEDIES FOR CRISES AND PANICS. BUSINESS BAROMETERS.

 

PART IV. THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 259-337.*

 

PART V. MISCELLANEOUS

  1. AGRICULTURAL CREDIT.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXVII.*

  1. THE “MONEY TRUST.”

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXVIII.*
Anderson, pp. 516-20.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 471-95.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 1, Folder “Economics 1917-1918”.

Image Source: Benjamin M. Anderson in Harvard Album, 1915.

Categories
Columbia Regulations

Columbia. Requirements for Ph.D., 1920

The following requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science were published in the Columbia University Bulletin of Information. Announcement 1920-1921 of Courses offered in History, Economics and Public Law. The date of publication of the Bulletin is January 31, 1920 which is two weeks before the Faculty officially approved the requirements proposed by the Committee on Instruction. This would suggest that in this matter the Faculty served as a rubber-stamp for its Committee on Instruction.

Of particular interest are two resolutions that follow these requirements, one that would have opened all courses to women (unless the professor in charge objected!!) and a second proposed by the economist Henry Seager to allow greater flexibility in the choice of a second foreign language. The women’s resolution was tabled (!) and the language resolution was adopted.

 

Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science
Feb. 13, 1920

Upon motion of Professor [Carlton J. H.] Hayes [Professor of History] on behalf of the Committee on Instruction, the Faculty then approved the following requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, as a substitute for the requirements adopted by the Faculty at its meeting on March 28, 1919, and set forth on pages 468 to 471 of the Minutes of the Faculty:

I. Requirements

  1. General. The degree is conferred upon such students as shall satisfy the requirements as to preliminary training, residence, languages, subjects, and dissertation.
  2. Preliminary Training. The candidate must have received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University or from some other approved university or college, or have had an education equivalent to that represented by such a degree, and must have been regularly accepted as a graduate student by the University Committee on Admissions.
  3. Residence. The candidate must have pursued graduate studies for at least two academic years, one of which must have been spent at this University, and the other of which, if not spent here, at an institution accepted as offering courses of similar standard. A year’s residence at this University is defined as registration for and attendance upon courses aggregating not less that thirty tuition points distributed over a period of not less than one academic year or its equivalent.
  4. Languages. The candidate must have demonstrated his ability to express himself in correct English and to read at last one European language other than English and such additional languages as may, within the discretion of the Executive Officer of the appropriate Department, be deemed essential for the prosecution of his studies. Normally, the language requirements for each subject are as indicated in the following paragraph.
  5. Subjects. The candidate must have familiarized himself with one subject of primary interest and at least one subject of secondary interest, chosen from the following list of subjects. Information with reference to the scope of each of these subjects and special departmental requirements may be obtained from the Executive Officer of the Department within which it belongs.

Ancient History (French, German, Latin, and Greek)
Medieval History (French, German, Latin)
Modern European History (French & German)
American History (French or Spanish or Portuguese)
Political and Social Philosophy (French, German, and Latin)
American Government (French or German)
European Governments (French and German)
Constitutional Law (French or German)
International Law (French and either German or Latin)
Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence (Latin and either French or German)
Economic Theory, History, and Statistics (French and German)
Public and Private Finance (French and German)
Social Economic Problems, including Labor, Industrial Orgnization, Trade, Transportation, etc. (French & German)
Sociology, Historical, Statistical and Political (French and German)
Social Legislation and Statistics (French and German)

  1. Dissertation. The main test of the candidate’s qualification is the production of a dissertation which shall demonstrate his capacity to contribute to the advancement of learning within the field of his selection. Such dissertation must give evidence of the candidate’s capacity to present in good literary form the results of original researches upon some approved topic. The dissertation must be printed in a form acceptable to the Faculty before the degree will be awarded.

 

II. Procedure

  1. Notice of Prospective Candidacy. As soon as possible after the beginning of his graduate residence the student shall give notice of prospective candidacy to the Executive Officer of the Department in which the subject of his primary interest lies, and in consultation with him make a choice of subjects.
  2. Languages and Written Work. As soon as possible after giving notice of prospective candidacy, the student shall submit to the Executive Officer of the Department concerned an essay or other paper giving satisfactory evidence of his ability to make researches and to express himself in correct English. At the same time the student shall be tested, by some officer of instruction designated by the Executive Officer of the Department, as to his ability to read the required languages; language tests are normally given in October and February.
  3. Examination on Subjects. Having pursued graduate studies in this University, or in some other institution approved by it, for the equivalent of at least six months after the satisfactory completion of the tests on languages and written work, the student, upon the advice of the professor in charge of the subject of his primary interest or of his researches, shall make application, through the Executive Officer of the Department concerned, to the Dean for examination in subjects. Such application may be made at any time, but to secure the examination in any given academic year the application must be made before April 15. The applicant will be notified by the Dean of the date of his examination. This examination is an oral examination, which may be supplemented by a written examination when required by the Department concerned, and is conducted by a committee of the Faculty appointed by the Dean. By it the applicant will be expected to demonstrate an adequate knowledge of the subjects of his primary and secondary interest and of the literature pertaining thereto.
  4. Matriculation. Upon the successful passing of the required examination in his subjects, the applicant will be recommended by the Executive Officer of the appropriate Department to the Dean for matriculation, which is admission to candidacy for the degree.
  5. Dissertation. Soon after beginning his graduate residence, the student should choose the subject of his dissertation. His investigations and researches may be pursued either in connection with the work of some research course or under the direction and supervision of some member of the Faculty independently of any course. In either case a very considerable part of the time of the candidate or prospective candidate for the degree should be devoted to work upon his dissertation. The dissertation may be completed either during the period of residence, or in absentia. In advance of its being printed for presentation to the Faculty it must be approved by the professor in charge and accepted by the Executive Officer of the Department concerned. Such acceptance, however, is not to be construed as acceptance by the Faculty.
  6. Final Examination: Defense of the Dissertation. At least one month in advance of the time at which he wishes to present himself for the defense of his dissertation, but not later than March 15 in any academic year, the candidate must make application therefor to the Dean, who will thereafter notify him of the date of the final examination. This examination is an oral examination conducted by a Committee of the Faculty appointed by the Dean. By it the candidate will be held to a defense of his dissertation in respect of its content, the sources upon which it is based, the interpretations that are made, the conclusions that are drawn, as well as in respect of the candidate’s acquainted with the literature and available sources of information upon subjects that are cognate to the subject of his dissertation.

 

On behalf of the Committee on Instruction, Professor Hayes then presented the following resolution:

RESOLVED: That all courses offered under the Faculty of Political Science, except those in which the Professor in charge objects, be open to women graduates.

            Upon motion the Faculty voted to lay this resolution on the table.

 

On behalf of the Committee on Instruction, Professor [Henry Rogers] Seager [Professor of Political Economy] then moved the following resolution, which was adopted:

RESOLVED: That the foreign language requirement prescribed as “normal” in the Faculty regulations governing the award of the doctorate may be modified: either by the substitution of another language for a prescribed language, with the approval of the Department concerned; or by the omission of a prescribed language, with the approval of the Committee on Instruction on the recommendation of the Executive Officer of the Department concerned; provided that one European language other than English shall be required.

 

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-1939. Minutes of February 13, 1920, pp.488-493.

 

Image Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections, Image ID 68250.

 

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.

_____________________________

[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.

_____________________________

[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.

_____________________________

[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”.