Categories
Columbia Regulations

Columbia. Regulations for Ph.D. candidacy and general examination, 1916

This posting provides the menu of subject choices for the general examination to be admitted to Ph.D. candidacy in economics at Columbia as of 1916. We see that the history of economics and economic theory were still joined at the hip and that economic history was a compulsory field. Also interesting to note: the optional field “The labor problem”  included “Socialism”; two graduate courses in another social science or philosophy were required as was an ability to read at least one of French and German plus one additional language. 

To denote insertions in pencil, I have used bold-italics within square brackets. For text to be cut, I have included the original text, crossed-out.

__________________________________

[p. 410]

May 25, 1916

[…]

Professor Seligman, on behalf of the Committee on Instruction, recommended that the Faculty approve of the regulations governing admission to candidacy and the final examination for the doctorate of Philosophy as proposed by the various departments giving work under the jurisdiction of the Faculty of Political Science. This recommendation was adopted by the Faculty. The regulations of the several departments are as follows:

[…]

[p. 413]

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION TO CANDIDACY FOR THE DOCTORATE OF PHILSOPHY

Each [The] applicant for matriculation as a candidate for the degree of Ph.D. whose subject of major interest lies in the field of Economics must satisfy the Department

  1. That he is qualified in the general principles of Economics as taught in Columbia College or a full equivalent thereof.
  2. That he is qualified in such advanced or graduate work in the general field of Economics as is represented by approximately six full graduate courses in Columbia University or the equivalent thereof.
  3. That he is qualified in two full graduate courses as given at Columbia or the equivalent thereof under one of the following Departments:

Politics

Psychology

Public Law

Anthropology

History

Sociology

Philosophy

  1. That he is able to read French and German and to use these languages in seminar work and in research. In the discretion of the Department another language may be substituted for French or German.
  2. That he is able to express himself in correctly written English.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FINAL ORAL EXAMINATION

Every student [The candidate] presenting himself for the degree of Ph.D. under the Department of Economics will be examined in the following three topics:

1) The history and theory of Economics

2) Statistics

3) Economic History

He will also be expected to present for examination four out of the following eight topics:

1) Public finance

2) Money and banking

3) The labor problem (including Socialism)

[p. 414]

4) Trade and transportation

5) Corporations and trusts

6) Business economics, including accounting, business organization and allied topics

7) Insurance

8) Agriculture

He will also be examined in such cognate fields as are intimately related to the special topic of his dissertation.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of The Faculty of Political Science, May 25, 1916.

Image Source: Museum of the City of New York. Kent Hall, Columbia University (1910). McKim, Mead & White.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Henry L. Moore’s Memorial Minute, 1959. Salary issue, 1924.

 

 

We begin with an example of the honored academic tradition of a faculty minute entered into the record following the death of a present or former colleague. In the year that the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Angus Deaton, in part, for his work in applied consumption analysis, I post the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science memorial minute for Henry L. Moore.

I follow the Memorial Minute with a letter written by Moore to his chairman Edwin R. A. Seligman appealing for a pay raise on the grounds that his research performance had been undervalued relative to administrative work and teaching of a colleague.

________________________________

[Memorial Minute]

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

April 17, 1959

Henry L. Moore

Henry Ludwell Moore was born in southern Maryland in 1869, the seventh in direct male line of descent from a Henry Moore who settled in Virginia in 1635 and who later moved to Maryland. After obtaining a B.A. at Randolph Macon in 1892, he pursued his studies at the University of Vienna and later received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1896. After one year as instructor of economics at Johns Hopkins and five years at Smith College, he came to Columbia in 1902 as adjunct professor, continuing as Professor of Political Economy from 1906 to his premature retirement from professional activity for reasons of health in April, 1929. He died at the age of 88 on April 28, 1958.

Professor Moore was a pioneer in the application of statistical theory, founded on the calculus of probabilities, to the evaluation of economic relationships in a context of a mathematically developed economic theory. Under the influence of his colleague John Bates Clark, 22 years his senior, and of Karl Pearson, Moore developed a statistical verification and extension of Clark’s theory of distribution in his “Laws of Wages,” published in 1911. In his “Forecasting the Yield and the Price of Cotton,” published in 1917, the inherent brilliance of his use of multiple correlation techniques by which he was able to outpredict, in retrospect at least, the elaborate crop forecasting machinery set up by the Department of Agriculture is in no way diminished, though somewhat disguised by the fact that the advent of the boll weevil completely upset the older relationships and made his formulas useless for subsequent forecasting, though the techniques remained valid.

In addition to his interest in economics, Moore had a deep attachment to classical philosophy and an interest ranging over many other fields; one of his courses was entitled “Interrelations of Political Economy and Sociology.” His interest in astronomy is perhaps responsible for his ill-fated attempt to relate the eight year business cycle, which he considered to be well established, to a corresponding weather cycle, and thereby to the corresponding periodicity of the transits and near-transits of Venus. In this he demonstrated a willingness to look for hypotheses to test wherever the data seemed to lead him, regardless of how remote the connection may initially seem, a procedure which, however dangerous it may be for the individual, is salutary for the progress of a science that finds it easier to weed out error than to develop new truth.

Moore’s pioneering steps have been to a considerable extent eclipsed in the minds of the current generation of economists by the tracks of those who have used the methods he pioneered. Henry Schultz’ all too brief but important career was given its initial impetus under Moore’s tutelage. Among the many others whose work was strongly influenced by Moore are Holbrook Working, Hugh Killough, Bradford Smith, Edmund Daggit, Fred Waugh, Louis Bean, and Mordecai Ezekiel. Moore’s final work, “Synthetic Economics” provided a significant bridge between the now classic work of Walras and Pareto in the field of mathematical economics and the more recent formulations of Hotelling and Samuelson.

In the nearly 30 years that have elapsed since his retirement, most of those who knew him intimately have left the science; yet it is appropriate to recall once more the significant role he had in the advancement of quantitative economics before the onrush of his successors hides his work completely from view.

 

Source: Department of Economics Collection, Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Box 8, Faculty of Political Science Minutes 1913-1959; Folder, “Faculty of Political Science Minutes”.

________________________________

The following letter of Henry L. Moore reflects a severe salary structure problem within the Columbia economics department going into 1924-25. Professors Wesley C. Mitchell, Henry L. Moore and Vladimir G. Simkhovitch were all receiving $6,000 annual salaries whereas the second-highest paid professor, Henry R. Seager, was getting paid $7,500. Highest paid was the chairman, Edwin R. A. Seligman at $10,000. In his departmental budget request to Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler (November 23, 1923), Seligman reminded Butler of an “understanding that the salaries of a number of professors now receiving $6,000 will be advanced next year to $7,500, the minimum, as everyone must agree, compatible with the maintenance of the standing of living desirable for Columbia professors” and made the case for pay raises for Mitchell, Moore and Simkhovitch. The pay raises were ultimately granted, not for 1924-25, but for the following year.

Henry L. Moore’s lament should probably be read as expressing as his disappointed hope and/or that he might have been unaware of Seligman’s efforts in 1923 to get him the parity with Henry R. Seager that he was petitioning for.

________________________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

September 20, 1924

My dear Professor Seligman:

We are about to begin the work of another year and I am anxious to do all in my power to contribute toward the solution, within the Department, of the personal problem before us. I ask leave, therefore, to present to you and, if you think it advisable, to other members of the Department, a statement of the relative amounts received in salary by Professor Seager and myself from the University:

 

Year Prof. Seager Prof. Moore
1902-3 3000 3000 I have had to rely on my memory for the changes in Prof. Seager’s salary. The figures relating to my own income are taken from my records.
1903-4 3500 3500
1904-5 3500 3500
1905-6 3500 3500
1906-7 3500 3500
1907-8 3500 3500
1908-9 4000 4000
1909-10 4500 2800 Here Professor Seager’s salary went up $500 and mine down $1200
1910-11 4500 2800
1911-12 6000 2800
1912-13 6000 2800
1913-14 6000 2800
1914-15 6000 2800
1915-16 6000 2800
1916-17 6000 2800
1917-18 6000 2800
1918-19 6000 4500
1919-20 6000 4000
1920-21 7500 6000
1921-22 7500 6000
1923-24 7500 6000
$117500 $82200

Several facts in this table need comment:

(1) Our salaries and rank were the same until the year 1909-10 when, at my request, in order that I might devote more time to research, I was relieved of much teaching and administrative work. I gladly paid for the increased leisure by suffering a reduction of my salary from $4000 to $2800. The same year Professor Seager’s salary was increased from $4000 to $4500. This annual difference of $1700 continued until 1911-12.

(2) In 1911-12 Professor Seager’s salary was increased to $6000; mine remained at $2800. The annual difference of $3200 continued until 1918-19 when, during the War, I was transferred to Barnard College at a salary of $4500. Professor Seager’s salary was $6000.

(3) The next year, 1919-20, I was transferred to Columbia, with a salary of $4000. Professor Seager’s remained at $6000.

(4) In 1920-21 Professor Seager’s salary was increased to $7500 and mine to $6000. The annual difference of $1500 has continued to the present time.

It would appear from these figures that if no account be taken of the reduction in our pay when we have been on leave of absence, Professor Seager’s aggregate salary has exceeded mine by more than thirty five thousand dollars.

*   *

A few years ago there was a Convocation of the Faculties of the University to consider methods of promoting research. You made a memorable speech in which you went directly to the heart of the matter in saying: “The only way to promote research is to find a man who can do it and then let him alone”. You were absolutely right. But how does it work in the particular case of our own Department? For twenty odd years Professor Seager and myself, who entered Columbia together with the same rank and same salary, have pursued different ends. he has preferred administration and teaching and has justly prospered in honors and income. I have accepted the necessary isolation and incurred the risks of the investigator who attacks new problems and devises new methods, but after nearly a quarter of a century of unremitting labor I have received from the University some thirty thousand dollars less than my honored colleague.

*   *

I am grateful to the University for giving me the opportunity for creative thought, and you will bear witness that I have never evinced any other sentiment than pleasure in the progress of a colleague. But isn’t there a principle at stake? Is it just to permit the financial discrimination between us to continue?

Yours sincerely,

[signed]
Henry L. Moore

Source: Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Seligman Collection Box 37 (aggregation of original Seligman boxes 100-102). Folder: “Box 100, Seligman, Columbia 1924-30”.

________________________________

For more about Henry Moore, see George J. Stigler, Henry L. Moore and Statistical Economics. Econometrica, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1962), pp. 1-21.

Image Source: Precedes the Stigler article.

Categories
Columbia Salaries

Columbia. 1931-50 graduate economics alumni survey 1950

Robert M. Haig was a public finance economist at Columbia University, the successor to Edwin R. A. Seligman as McVickar Professor of Political Economy. In Haig’s papers is the following memo from James Angell (the “Executive Officer”, i.e. chairperson, of the department of economics within Columbia’s faculty of political science) reporting the results of a 1950 survey of former graduate students in the department. Just under 1,200 questionnaires were sent out. The response rate was about one-third. Duration data for different stages of graduate study, occupations/salaries in 1950 by final completed stage of graduate study were tabulated.

A gender breakdown for occupation/salaries is also provided. It is interesting to note that the 1950 gender gap between men and women for people with economics Ph.D.’s from Columbia (1931-50) who were teaching was 7.2%.

In current prices, the average 1950 salaries of the economics Ph.D.’s from Columbia (1931-50) were: $59,000 (teaching); $88,500 (government); $94,000 (other economics related work); $108,000 (all non-economic-research related work).

Note: The urban CPI has increased by a factor of 9.9 since then: (CPI July 1950 24.1, July 2015 238.7).

_____________________________

June 20, 1951

To: The Members of the Department of Economics
From: James W. Angell
Subject: Occupations and Salaries of Our Former Graduate Students

Last summer, in order to improve our records on former graduate students in the Department, brief questionnaires were sent out to the 1,182 students who had received the M.A. degree, or passed the Ph.D. oral examination, or received the Ph.D. degree, in the twenty years 1931-1950. We were primarily concerned to obtain their present addresses and occupations, but we also asked for the dates when the several academic standings had been achieved, and for the latest (1950) salary.

We received only 377 replies, or 32 per cent of the number of questionnaires sent out. Of the total sent, 84 questionnaires, or 7 per cent, were returned because the Post Office could not locate the addresses.

It is probably that the replies received do not constitute a representative sample, especially with respect to salaries: in the main, the less successful students are presumably those who are less likely to reply to such inquiries. But a partial check of the names of those who did not reply shows that this was not always so. A number of the group who did not reply are known to be holding good positions.

An analysis of the replies has been made by our colleague, Frank W. Schiff chiefly with respect to (1) the time intervals between the dates of achievement of the several academic standings, (2) present (1950) occupation, and (3) present (1950) salary. Not all those who replied answered all the questions, and the several group totals are hence not always consistent. The various results are summarized in the following tables.

 

  1. Number of Replies, Grouped by Half-Decade When Highest Academic Standing Achieved by Student Was Attained: 1931-1950

 

Highest Standing Attained
Years

Total Replies

M.A. Passed Orals

Ph.D.

1931-35

39 18 4 17

1936-40

60 26 11

23

1941-45

68 26 12

30

1946-50

210 126 48

36

1931-1950 377 196 75

106

 

Table 2 shows the arithmetic average of the number of years which were required to move from one level of academic standing to another. Because the number of observations is small, extreme values have considerable influence. It was felt that eliminating a few extreme values would hence give a more representative result; but the unadjusted totals are also shown, for comparison. The retarding effect of the war is conspicuous in most cases. Table 3 shows the distribution for each stage, over the period as a whole, of the numbers of years required; and the median values to the nearest whole year (these values in some cases differ markedly from the arithmetic averages shown in Table 2).

 

  1. Average (Arithmetic) Number of Years Elapsed Between Dates of Attainment of Levels of Academic Standing: 1931-1950 (Extreme Values Omitted)

Years

A.B. to M.A.  A.B. to Orals A.B. to Ph.D. M.A. to Orals M.A. to Ph.D.

Orals to Ph.D.

1931-35

2.8 6.2 9.4 3.7 6.3 2.5

1936-40

2.4 5.2 10.8 3.1 7.6 3.1
1941-45 2.3 4.7 9.8 2.9 7.1

3.7

1946-50 3.6 6.6 11.7 2.2 9.3

5.6

1931-1950a

 

3.0

 

5.8 10.6 2.8 7.8

4.1

Number of observations before adjustment

324

155 98 145 87

78

Number omitted

20

6 3 9 2

3

1931-50: unadjusted averagesa

3.8

6.4 11.2 3.5 8.4

4.5

 

aArithmentc averages for the whole period, not of the averages for the sub-periods.

 

  1. Distribution, by Numbers of Years, of Periods Elapsed Between Dates of Attainment of Levels of Academic Standing, 1931-1950

Number of Years Elapsed

A.B. to M.A. A.B. to Orals A.B. to Ph.D. M.A. to Orals M.A. to Ph.D.

Orals to Ph.D.

1-2

179 31 0 78 3 28

3-4

56 32 2 31 12 18

5-6

36 28 11 12 19 15
7-8 19 26 19 13 18

8

9-10

11 13 15 2 16 3
11-12 5 11 21 5 8

4

13-14

6 7 13 3 3 1
15-16 7 2 7 0 5

0

17-19

2 2 4 0 0 1
20-29 2 2 4 1 2

0

30-40 1 1 2 0 1

0

Totals

 

324 155 98 145 87

78

Medians

2 6 11 2 8

4

 

It is interesting to note that although the sum of the medians of the numbers of years elapsed between A.B. and M.A., plus M.A. to Orals, plus Orals to Ph.D. is only eight, the median for that relatively small number of students (less than one-third of the whole sample: Table 1.) who actually covered the whole course to the Ph.D. itself is 11 years. This is presumably due in largest part to the fact that relatively few students had the financial means to go straight through from A.B. to Ph.D. without interruption. Most of them had to take time out to earn more money.

Table 4, taken from a study by Professor Stigler, compares data for Harvard and Columbia.1 The Harvard students may or may not be brighter; but the substantially greater financial assistance given to students at Harvard must also help to account for the conspicuous differences in most years and fields.

 

  1. Average Number of Years Elapsed Between A.B. and Ph.D. at Columbia and Harvard, 1900-1940

1900

1910 1930

1940

Natural Sciences

Columbia

7.6 8.0 9.4 9.2
Harvard 6.8 8.3 6.2

6.1

Social Sciences

Columbia

4.3 9.8 10.3 12.9
Harvard 4.8 4.5 10.5

8.7

Human-ities

Columbia

4.7 9.3 13.9 14.3
Harvard [6.3] [9.2] [7.9]

[8.8]

All Fields

Columbia

6.3 9.2 10.8 11.7
Harvard 6.2 8.4 8.0

7.8

1George J. Stigler, Employment and Compensation in Education (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1950), p. 37.

[Note to Table 4: I have added the figures for the row Humanities/Harvard from Stigler (1950). In the original memo this row was for some reason left blank.]

 

Table 5 shows the percentage distribution of students, by the highest academic standing achieved and by half-decades, according to their 1950 occupations. The category “Other Economic Work” includes those engaged in economic research and economic advisory work with business firms, banks and foundations, and those who are self-employed in such work. It excludes those who are in business management or operation. The absolute numbers in each group were given in Table 1, above.

 

  1. Occupations in 1950, Grouped by Half-Decades When Highest Academic Standing Was Attained: 1931-1950 (In Per Cents)

 

Occupation, and Highest Academic
Standing Attained
Entire Period 1931-
50
1931-
35
1936-40 1941-
45

1946-50

M.A.
Teaching

29.1

27.8 23.1 23.1

31.7

Govern-ment

24.5

11.1 46.2 34.6

19.8

Other economic work

25.5

33.3 11.5 34.6

25.4

All other

20.9

27.8 19.2 7.7

23.1

100.0

100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0

Passed Orals
Teaching

53.3

0 36.4 50.0

62.5

Govern-ment

21.3

50.0 27.2 50.0

10.4

Other economic work

22.7

50.0 36.4 0

22.9

All other

2.7

0 0 0

4.2

100.0

100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0

Ph.D.
Teaching

59.4

58.8 47.8 63.3

63.9

Govern-ment

17.9

11.8 26.2 16.7

16.7

Other economic work

17.0

17.6 21.7 20.0

11.1

All other

5.7

11.8 4.3 0

8.3

100.0

100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0

Totals
Teaching

42.4

38.5 35.0 45.6

44.3

Govern-ment

22.0

15.4 35.0 29.4

17.1

Other economic work

22.6

28.2 20.0 22.1

22.4

All other

13.0

17.9 10.0 2.9

16.2

100.0

100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0

 

Finally, Table 6 shows the average sizes and distribution of salaries, by occupation and by highest academic standing attained, on the same general basis as Table 5. But not all the replies received contained data on salaries, so that this sample is 12 per cent smaller than that used for Table 5 (331 replies instead of 377). The omissions are fairly uniform by major groups, however, and to avoid complicating the Table, the absolute numbers of relies in each group are not given. The few groups in which high average salaries were reported each contain, regrettably, only 1 to 4 cases; even the $10,300 group (Ph.D.’s, Other Economic Work, 1936-40) has only 5 members. It should also be emphasized that the data cover salaries only, not total earnings. Royalties, lecture fees and the like are not included. Thirty-one, or 9.4 per cent of the total, reported salaries of $10,000 or more.

All figures are arithmetic averages for the relevant groups. Thus the first column shows the averages for the entire period, 1931-1950, not the averages of the sub-period averages. Since the lowest-paid group (1946-50) is also much the largest (Table 1), the averages for the period 1931-50 as a whole are in one sense heavily biased downward. For example, for the period as a whole the average salary as computed by averaging the sub-period figures is $6,579, not $5,714.

 

  1. Average Salaries in 1950, Grouped by occupations and by Half-Decades When Highest Academic Standing Was Attained: 1931-1950
 

Highest Academic
Standing Attained

Entire Period 1931-50

1931-
35
1936-
40
1941-
45

1946-
50

M.A.: aver-ages

$4,772

$6,709 $6,830 $5,534

$3,988

Teaching

3,891

5,294 5,525 3,980

3,503

Govern-ment

5,436

8,113 6,867 5,881

4,110

Other economic work

5,123

7,890 11,150 5,371

4,240

All other

4,660

4,625 4,900 12,000

3,935

Passed Orals: aver-ages  

5,862

 

11,375 7,055 6,738

4,709

Teaching

4,066

5,438 4,737

3,783

Govern-ment

6,993

7,250 6,450 8,340

5,760

Other economic work

7,887

15,500 8,975

5,711

All other

16,000

16,000

Ph.D.: aver-ages  

7,175

8,593 7,719 6,691

6,622

Teaching

5,964

7,700 6,009 6,077

5,017

Govern-ment

8,936

8,350 8,900 9,360

8,808

Other economic work

9,494

17,250 10,300 6,480

11,167

All other

10,900

10,900

Totals: aver-ages  

5,714

 

8,089 7,240 6,306 4,679
Teaching

4,806

7,023 5,786 5,531

3,979

Govern-ment

6,523

7,904 7,358 7,628

5,331

Other economic work

6,592

10,495 9,973 5,833

5,031

All other

5,963

6,166 4,900 12,000

5,747

 

Table 6 makes no differentiation between men and women. Of the 377 replies received, 73 (19 per cent) were from women. Of these women, 49 were regularly employed in 1950 and reported their salaries. Of the remaining 24, most were apparently married (though information on marital status was not requested), and either not working for a salary or only working part-time.

Table 7 therefore shows the break-down for average salaries as between the 282 reporting men and the 49 reporting women who were regularly employed in 1950. There is no category for “unemployed;” no respondent, with one possible exception, reported difficulty in finding employment.

It is striking that although the average salaries for women usually run well below those for men in comparable brackets, the difference for teachers in the various categories is relatively small.1 The table also does not indicate the wide dispersions for the several groups of women. In 1950 2 women Ph.D.’s were earning $10,000 or more.

1No significance should be attached to the fact that the average salary for all women in teaching slightly exceeds the salary shown for men. These figures are not comparable because a much higher percentage of women teachers who reported were in the Ph.D. category than of men teachers.

For the group as a whole, 28 men and 3 women were earning $10,000 or more in 1950.

 

  1. Average Salaries in 1950 (Table 6), Grouped by Sex: for Entire Period, 1931-1950
 

 

Men

Women

All Graduates

 

Num-ber

Aver-age Salar-ies  

Num-ber

Aver-age Salar-ies  

Num-ber

Aver-age Salar-ies

M.A.: aver-ages

134

$4,843 30 $4,455 164

$4,772

Teaching 43 3,923 7 3,695 50 3,891
Govern-ment 34 5,758 12 4,524 46 5,436
Other economic work 37 5,129 8 5,125 45 5,123
All other 20 4,734 3 4,173 23 4,660

Passed Orals: aver-ages

62 5,939 6 5,066 68

5,862

Teaching 37 4,066 37 4,066
Govern-ment 10 7,480 4 5,775 14 6,993
Other economic work 13 8,538 2 3,650 15 7,887
All other 2 16,000 2 16,000

Ph.D.: aver-ages

86 7,368 13 5,892 99

7,175

Teaching 53 6,033 10 5,600 63 5,964
Govern-ment 18 8,936 18 8,936
Other economic work 13 10,100 3 6,666 16 9,494
All other 2 10,900 2 10,900

Totals: aver-ages

282

5,854 49 4,912 331

5,714

Teaching 133 4,803 17 4,816 150 4,805
Govern-ment 62 6,959 16 4,837 78 6,523
Other economic work 63 6,858 13 6,300 76 6,592
All other 24 6,186 3 4,173 27 5,963

 

Source: Robert M. Haig Papers, Columbia University Archives. Box 107, Folder: “Haig Correspondence A, 1949-1952”.

Image Source:Unveiling Alma Mater by Roberto Ferrari (July 15, 2014).

 

Categories
AEA Economists

AEA Twenty-fifth Anniversary Celebration, NYC 1909

MAYOR McCLELLAN, OF NEW YORK, ADDRESSING THE CONVENTION OF HISTORIANS AND ECONOMISTS AT CARNEGIE HALL, DECEMBER 27.

Others on the platform, beginning at left, are: William Jay Schieffelin, Isaac N. Seligman, Davis R. Dewey, John B. Clark, Albert Bushnell Hart, William M. Sloane, Ambassador James Bryce, Governor Hughes, Nicholas Murray Butler, Frank A. Vanderlip, Waldo Lincoln and Edwin R. A. Seligman.

____________________________________

The last posting came from the 25th anniversary celebration of the University of Chicago. It just so happens that I came across a clipping from the New York periodical The Independent in the John Bates Clark Papers in the Columbia University Archive that was about the joint 25th anniversary celebration of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association held in New York City from December 27-31, 1909. Political Science, Sociology and Labor Legislation Associations also participated in the meetings. The report includes several photos of the men who were the movers-and-shakers of their respective associations (though none from the “playlet” and tableaux provided by the “ladies’ reception committee of the Waldor Astoria”).

As I like to provide the visitors of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror both accurate transcriptions and interesting images from yore, I hunted down scanned copies of The Independent at www.archive.org and www.hathitrust.org to extract a rough text file and better images than my amateur photographs of those in John Bates Clark’s clipping to create this posting.

 

____________________________________

A Notable Gathering of Scholars

BY REUBEN G. THWAITES

[Dr. Thwaites is secretary and superintendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. He was for ten years managing editor of the Wisconsin State Journal and is well known as an author and editor of historical works. He attended the recent convention in New York as a delegate from Wisconsin. — EDITOR.]

 

THE twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association, held in New York City from December 27 to 31, brought together the largest and doubtless the most distinguished assemblage of students of the social sciences ever convened in this country. In addition to the meetings of the two principal societies, which thus rounded out the quarter-centenary of their existence, were conferences by seven closely-related organizations—the American Political Science Association, the American Statistical Association, the American Sociological Society, the American Association for Labor Legislation, the American Social Science Association, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Society of Church History. Eleven hundred persons, engaged either in teaching or studying these several specialties, were gathered here from nearly every State or important institution of learning in the Union, and meetings, either — singly or jointly, occupied four busy days.

The attendance of several representative scholars from both Europe and Asia, who took part in many of the discussions, some of whom presented formal papers, and whose presence was recognized by numerous receptions and other social functions in their honor, gave to the gathering much of the significance of an international congress. Most prominent among the foreigners was the British Ambassador, Mr. Bryce, whose appearance at any of the meetings was invariably greeted with spontaneous applause, and whose many impromptu responses to calls by chairmen and toastmasters were never happier than on this anniversary occasion, into whose buoyant spirit he appeared keenly to enter.

Among other prominent foreign guests were: G. W. Prothero, of London, editor of the Quarterly Review, and former president of the Royal Historical Society; Prof. Herbert A. L. Fisher, fellow of New College, Oxford; Camille Enlart, director of comparative sculpture, of the Trocadero; Eduard Meyer, professor of ancient history, University of Berlin, exchange professor of Harvard; Dr. Cellenbrander, advisory secretary of the Dutch commission on governmental historical publications; Prof. Rafael Altamira y Crevea, professor-elect in the University of Madrid; Dr. Higgs, representing the Royal Economic Society of Great Britain, and Signor Maffeo Pantaleoni, of Rome, attending the Economic convention.

On occasions such as this presidential addresses are generally didactic, and by many of the older habitués are scrupulously avoided. But President Hart, of the Historical Association; President Lowell, of the Political Science, and President Dewey, of the Economic, always have something worth saying, and did not lack large and interested audiences. Dr. Hart’s discussion of “Imagination in history” was keen in its penetration and aglow with humor; he dwelt on the practical importance of the imaginative faculty on the part of the historian, but pointed out its manifest dangers, arising from a disposition to overemphasize dramatic episodes that really are rare in the history of a nation, whereas the most vital factors in its development are generally slow moving and commonplace. Dr. Lowell discussed “The physiology of politics”; while not deprecating the importance of library collections in the study of political science, the most useful laboratory work is, he said, the observation of the practical workings of political institutions, about which we are still insufficiently informed. Dr. Dewey spoke of “Observation in economics”; his thought being much in line with that of President Lowell, that field observation is of greater value than closet study, altho both are essential.

Ex-Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.)
Ex-Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.)

 

 

 

 

EARLY PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Photograph by Brady, Washington, D. C. Beginning at left: William F. Poole, Justin Windsor, Charles Kendall Adams, George Bancroft, John Jay, Andrew D. White, Herbert B. Adams standing in rear.
EARLY PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Photograph by Brady, Washington, D. C.
Beginning at left: William F. Poole, Justin Windsor, Charles Kendall Adams, George Bancroft, John Jay, Andrew D. White, Herbert B. Adams standing in rear.
LIVING EX-PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. (Clockwise from upper-left) James Ford Rhodes, Goldwin Smith, James Schouler, James Burrill Angell.

 

The programs of the nine associations were crowded with what the sporting gentry style “events,” but popular interest appeared chiefly to be with the joint sessions, some of which would have been noteworthy occurrences had they not jostled one another in this remarkable conference week. Wednesday morning’s joint session of the Historical and Economic associations called out a large and brilliant audience, with President Lowell in the chair. The general topic was “British constitutional and political development with special reference to the Gladstone centenary.” Professor Wrong, of Toronto, was hopeful concerning “Canadian nationalism and the imperial tie”; Professor Fisher, of Oxford, gave an exceptionally clear and informing account of the South African union, and Ambassador Bryce spoke forcefully on recent English history in its constitutional aspects.

Another excellent joint session was that held by the political scientists and the, association charging itself with scientific suggestion in the matter of labor legislation. The relation of the State to labor was interestingly and suggestively discussed by delegates from the Mississippi basin, where, perhaps, the best opportunities just now exist for trying out some of the theories of economic and sociological reformers.

The Historical Association, with its three thousand members, has of late years been doing its most effective work thru an admirable and impressive congerie of, commissions and conferences. This year’s meeting was chiefly noticeable for the variety and general success of these conferences, several of which were generally in session at one and the same time. One morning the topics were ancient, medieval, and American history and the treatment of archives. Later in the day the historians were conferring upon modern, European and American history, and relative to the methods and aims of State and local historical, a fertile theme, now engaging much attention in all parts of the country. One of the most interesting of the conferences was devoted to the consideration of “The contribution of the romance nations to the history of America,” in which Spain, France, Portugal and the Latin- American republics were represented either by scholars from those nations or by American specialists in the topics treated. A general session on Southern history brought out an interesting group of papers; while another on the work of historical societies in Europe was noticeable for careful reports from representatives of Great Britain, Germany, France. Holland and Spain, by the delegates from those countries.

The Economic Association has less varied interests, altho it also held a round-table conference on “Rural economics in relation to conservation.” At its first general session economic theory was treated both from the stand of “dynamic economics” and that of “theory of wages.” It was plain from the vigor of the discussion that economic theory, as doubtless it always will be, is in a state of flux, few men agreeing as to any one cure for the existing ills of the body politic. Another general session was held at the Chamber of Commerce, in connection with the financial magnates. Hereat was frankly considered “the causes and remedies for trusts,” in which the several divergent points of view, practical and theoretical, were squarely presented, presumably with mutual enlightenment.

For a young society, the Political Science people were exceptionally busy and vigorous. Ballot reform, the valuation of public service corporations (jointly with the economists), the relation of the State to labor (jointly with the labor legislation association), methods of instruction in municipal government and government of the Far East, were all duly considered, exhibiting a wide range of interest and possible future usefulness.

FRANK J. GOODNOW, Columbia University, first president American Political Science Association.

The sociologists were concerned (jointly with the Statistical Association) in such topics as the next census, the standardizing of units in studying public administration under democratic conditions, and the social marking system; and, individually, in the problems of methods in teaching psychological sociology, and in the religious factor in social revolution.

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Columbia University, vice-president Sociological Society.
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Columbia University, vice-president Sociological Society.

The labor legislation folk and the. statisticians chiefly held their sessions in conjunction with other bodies. For the most part the remainder of the participating societies confined themselves to listening to the usual presidential addresses and the transaction of necessary routine business.

HENRY W. FARNAM. Yale University, president of the American Association for Labor Legislation
HENRY W. FARNAM. Yale University, president of the American Association for Labor Legislation

The social side of the great conference was in every way notable. The entertainments offered to the thousand and more delegates ranged from receptions and breakfasts to formal dinners. The two most striking features of the daily and remarkably diverse program of hospitality were the great welcome meeting at Carnegie Hall, on Monday night, and the very attractive “historical playlet” and tableaux given by the ladies‘ reception committee at the Waldorf-Astoria (the headquarters of the several associations) on Wednesday night.

At Carnegie Hall the delegates were given the freedom of the city and State by Mayor McClellan and Governor Hughes. President Butler extended the welcome of Columbia University, and Mr. Joseph H. Choate and Professor Sloane spoke for the Committee of Arrangements. All were excellent addresses, but the Governor in particular rose to the occasion and earnestly commended the work of his hearers, who in their several ways are striving to find the correct principles underlying human society and seeking practically to apply these to the manifold problems of the State

In addition to the formal entertainments provided by the general committee were numerous unofficial attentions paid to various groups of visiting scholars. Among the most welcome of the unannounced gatherings of this character was the dinner given to fifty members of the American Antiquarian Society at the Metropolitan Club—the joyous forerunner, it was hoped, of annual banquets of these gentlemen at successive conferences of the American Historical Association. In all of these hospitalities practically every learned institution in the city, Columbia University properly leading, actively participated.

WALDO GIFFORD LELAND, A. M.,Carnegie Institution of Washington, secretary American Historical Association; THOMAS N. CARVER, Harvard University, secretary and treasurer, American Economic Association.
WALDO GIFFORD LELAND, A. M.,Carnegie Institution of Washington, secretary American Historical Association; THOMAS N. CARVER, Harvard University, secretary and treasurer, American Economic Association.

In every respect, professionally and socially, the great conference has been a marked success. The attendance was record-breaking, and the quality of the personnelle probably quite unexcelled in this country, even by the literary congresses at Chicago and St. Louis. The delegates, domestic and foreign, returned to their homes more than ever imprest [sic] by the hospitality, greatness and potentialities of America’s much favored metropolis.

Madison, Wis.

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Source:  Reuben G. Thwaites “A Notable Gathering of Scholars,” The Independent, Vol. 68, January 6, 1910, pp. 7-14.

  • Copy in John Bates Clark Papers, Series II.4, Box 9, Folder 11, Report on American Economic Association’s 25th Anniversary, 1910”.
  • At www.archive.org the 68th volume of The Independent.    There I downloaded “Single Page Original JPS TAR” (warning: > 1 GB and then extracted the pages of the article, from which I have clipped the photos.
Categories
Economists Pennsylvania

Philadelphia. Summer Meeting of Economists. University Extension, 1894

We have here I think the first major extracurricular Summer Workshop in Economics for university graduates, post-docs and teachers of social studies and college instructors. Perhaps a dream-team of 1894 American economists (note the absence of Ely of Wisconsin, Taussig of Harvard and Laughlin of Chicago, though I don’t know if they might have been approached). The overview of Economic Science in America is really very interesting, both for ringing the exceptionalism bell and the light it casts on German graduate training in economics. The (approximate) ages of the lecturers in the Summer Meeting of Economists: Andrews (50), Clark (47), Giddings (39), Hadley (38), Jenks (38), Mayo-Smith (40), Patten(42), and Seligman (33).

Here the Announcement of the Summer Meeting of Economists by section:

Corps of Lecturers
Economic Science in America
To Graduates of Colleges
A Word to Students and Teachers of History
Statement of Courses
Program of Lectures
Preparatory Reading
More about University Extension

 

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Summer Meeting of Economists

IN CONNECTION WITH
The Second Session of the University Extension Summer Meeting,
JULY 2-28, 1894.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA.

 

CORPS OF LECTURERS:

E. B. ANDREWS, Brown University; J. B. CLARK, Amherst College; F. H. GIDDINGS, Bryn Mawr College; A. T. HADLEY, Yale University; J. W. JENKS, Cornell University; R. MAYO-SMITH, Columbia College; S. N. PATTEN, University of Pennsylvania; E. R. A. SELIGMAN, Columbia College.

The Summer Meeting of Economists is held for the purpose of giving expression to present American Economic thought. The instructors are all identified with the recent remarkable expansion of Economic science and they have made important additions to its literature. The lectures which they will deliver in the Summer Meeting are intended primarily for students and teachers of economics, rather than for the diffusion of elementary knowledge.

The lectures will occupy about three hours daily for the four weeks. After each lecture an opportunity will be given for general discussion of the subject presented in the lecture. Besides the lectures and discussions, arrangement has been made for informal talks from several of the regular lecturers of the corps on methods of teaching. The program will be of interest to teachers of History, Political Science and similar subjects and to University students looking forward to any profession in which will be found useful a knowledge of economic science, and of the relations between economics and sociology on the one hand and economics and politics on the other.

Statement of the courses offered in the Economics Department of the Summer Meeting, program of lectures, and other information relating to the meeting, are contained in this number of the Bulletin. We present our readers also with a supplement with portraits of the lecturers in the Economics Department. An early number of the Bulletin, containing full announcement of other Summer Meeting Departments, will be sent on application.

Inaugural Lecture of Summer Meeting, Saturday evening, June 30, by Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the Century Magazine. Admission free by ticket.

Registration for Department of Economics, Ten Dollars.

Inclusive Ticket admitting to all Departments of Summer Meeting, Fifteen Dollars.

Instruction in other departments in Literature, Science, Architecture, Music, History, Mathematics, and Pedagogy.

For information concerning the Department of Economics or other Departments, address:
EDWARD T. DEVINE, Director, Fifteenth and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia.

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Economic Science in America.

The eight economists who constitute the corps of instructors in the Summer Meeting are representative of various phases of the new economics which, since the seventies, has swept like a wave over Europe and America. Until the appearance of General Walker’s “The Wages Question,” in 1876, there had been in the economic thought of the United States, two distinct and antagonistic schools. The orthodox English system had its chief interpretation in a translation of the Political Economy of J. B. Say, though there were American editions of the “Wealth of Nations” in its author’s lifetime, and the works of Ricardo, Malthus and McCulloch were familiar to students. After 1848, Mill’s Political Economy to some extent supplanted that of Say as the standard textbook. The native American economics dates not from Rae, who is properly of the English school, though he was a protectionist, and though by accident his book was published in Boston instead of in Scotland, nor from List, whose National System although contained in brief outline in a series of letters written in 1827 at Reading, Pa., had little or no influence on any American writers until it came through the medium of a French translation from the German work, but from Henry C. Carey, the Philadelphia economist, whose first book appeared in 1835.

The orthodox Political Economy, strongest in the New England colleges and in the South, stood for hard money and free trade. The Economics of Carey stood for protection and expansion of the currency. The former was in harmony with the naturally conservative temper of the English race, embodied, perhaps, more fully in Americans than in the English themselves, the latter was an expression of the spirit of enterprise which was called forth in the American people, or better, perhaps, forced upon them by their economic conditions. This first school of American thinkers was fortunate in thus being identified with what came to be known as the characteristic American spirit; it was unfortunate in its lack of conservatism on the question of money, and the resumption of specie payments in 1879, must be looked upon as a final victory for its opponents on the subject in which, if there is to be prosperity and progress, conservatism is essential.

Both these tendencies, that toward conservatism and that toward industrial enterprise, were characteristically American, but the one found its most natural expression in the English economics, the other in Carey’s system. Both schools influenced political thought. Daniel Webster in the Senate, would not have delivered his phillipic against “Political Economy” if that which he attacked had not had an active influence. Carey would not have found his German, French and Italian disciples if his system had been without scientific basis, and had been calculated like the essays of Mathew Carey, merely to exercise a temporary political influence. No doubt Carey cared much more about converting voters to his own views than he did about accomplishing a revolution in the science, yet he professed and, perhaps, came nearer than his critics have cared to admit in realizing both aims.

Such was the general condition of economic science in America when, in 1876, General Walker published his “Wages Question.” This book and the “Political Economy” of 1883, mark a new epoch. General Walker would doubtless prefer to be classed, if a classification is necessary, with the orthodox school of economists. He does not break with its earlier representatives on what they would have regarded as fundamental questions. His book naturally displaced Mill as the ordinary text at Oxford and Cambridge. Even in the discussion of distribution where Walker proposes his most radical departures, he starts with the Ricardian doctrine of rent, and declares, explicitly, that on this question he is a “Ricardian of Ricardians.” Nevertheless the appearance of these books in America mark the close of a long and, with the exceptions that have been noted, an almost barren epoch. Several textbooks, a few of them excellent for their purpose, had been prepared by American writers, but whatever originality they contained appeared chiefly in the omission, from the reproduction of the orthodox system, of particular dogmas which were felt to be inconsistent with the industrial conditions with which the writers were familiar.* Unlike his predecessors General Walker did not merely omit, he examined and analyzed those conditions, and when he was compelled to form new conclusions he neither attacked the old system entire, because of its errors, nor made the mistake of regarding his discoveries as slight modifications of detail. It has become clear that the changes were important though they were not revolutionary.

[footnote: *One exception to this statement must be made in favor of the clear and vigorous writings of Professor A. L. Perry, who did much to keep alive an interest in Political Economy in its languishing days and whose text-books have perhaps had more readers than those of any other American writer.]

In view of the introduction of a marked German influence almost immediately after Walker’s views became known, it is fair to regard the Political Economy of 1883 as the culmination of the influence of the “English economics” as it was also the most important contribution to economic science by the writers of that school since the appearance of the Political Economy of John Stuart Mill. If Walker belongs to the English school it must not be forgotten that his system is that of the English school remoulded by a man who understood and felt the full significance of American industrial conditions, and who was entirely free from any notion that Political Economy is a science comprising only a few ready-made principles and laws which are capable of statement in formal propositions.

Soon after the close of the Civil War, there was noticed a new interest in the scientific study of monetary and industrial, financial and economic problems. The pen of David A. Wells is to be credited in very large part with the creation of this new interest and with the diversion of public attention from the purely political to the economic aspects of the issues then in the public mind. His treatment of the probable issue of the war itself is typical of the character of his discussions. Far in advance of general public opinion, Mr. Wells discerned that the North would win because of its greater economic resources. This insistence on a controlling economic element in questions of public policy is always needed, but never more than in this period when political passions had dominated the country so completely and when a depreciated currency, a large national debt, and when a devastated South called for careful attention to sound policy in recuperative measures and in the new industrial activity which peace was to inaugurate. The reputation of the author of “Recent Economic Changes,” does not rest entirely upon the pamphlets which he issued at this time; but if we are to estimate rightly the causes of the intense interest in economics during the past twenty years we must not ignore their influence both on public opinion in general and particularly upon the young men who were interested in the great problems of the day, but were dissatisfied with the conventional political arguments.

And now began a new influence in American economics. The universities were unable to meet the demand for competent guidance in these studies and students began to seek such instruction abroad. The greater hospitality of the German universities, the unrivaled reputation of the founders of the German historical school of economics, and a feeling that more would be gained by foreign residence in a country whose institutions differ radically from our own were among the causes that combined to attract the American students almost exclusively to the German universities. Within a few years the American colleges began to give evidence of the new movement in the expansion of the curricula, the founding of new chairs, and the increase of students.

The English influence had been communicated by the importation and the republication of books. The German influence came through personal channels. This difference in the method of communication accounts in part for the astonishing differences in results. In the case of the English economics there were at hand standards of orthodoxy, a “system” in crystallized form. In the college classes there was produced a ready conviction of the correctness of certain principles and dogmas. In the case of the German influence such standards were lacking. Each new doctor of philosophy brought back the ideas of his instructors and associates in the foreign universities not in a formulated exact system, but in the form in which they had been impressed upon himself. He brought not so much a system of economics as an enthusiasm for independent research. The result is that no “system” has been transplanted by the newer economics, but only tendencies and a quickening impulse to activity in every branch of economic investigation, and already the impulse is seen to be of more importance than the particular tendencies.

When the American Economic Association was formed in 1885, as a tangible evidence of the new birth, a platform was adopted committing the association though not the individual members to favor increased industrial activity in the State, increased emphasis on the ethical element in economics, and increased attention to the historical method as distinguished from the deductive method which some of the leaders of the new organization believed to have been responsible for the decay of interest in economic science. But this platform was found to be too narrow, and in a few years it was discarded for a simple statement that any one might be chosen a member who is interested in the study of economics. General Walker was elected the first president of the association and continued in that office until 1892. Dr. Richard T. Ely, who served as secretary until the same year, labored indefatigablv in the interests of the association, building up its membership and also for a time editing its publications. In 1893 Professor Charles F. Dunbar, of Harvard, became president, and Professor Edward A. Ross, then of Cornell, secretary, and for the present year Professor John B. Clark, of Amherst, is president, and Professor J. W. Jenks, of CornelI, the secretary of the association. Professor F. H. Giddings succeeded Dr. Ely as chairman of the publication committee, a position which is held at present by Professor H. H. Powers, of Smith College.

The seven annual meetings of the American Economic Association have served as milestones of a rapid development of the science. Its position in the universities as a regular discipline of the university curriculum has become every year more secure. Thirty or forty professors and assistants are engaged in teaching its principles. Schools of finance and economy, departments of political and social science, lectureships on special economic topics abound. Every college has either an independent chair of Political Economy or a combined chair of economics and history, or some other subject. The larger universities have now organized, and in some instances liberally endowed these departments until they rival the best equipped corresponding departments of German, French and Italian universities. The movement which began in the seventies by sending dozens of students across the Atlantic, already bears fruit in courses of study sufficiently attractive to hold at home scores of students quite as ambitious and as discriminating.

There must be noticed finally, a new movement coming in part from the Austrian economists, in part from the English economist, Jevons, and in part originating with native-American writers, a movement which has been pronounced by some critics reactionary, but by its friends the most promising of all the various phases of our economic thought, the movement in the direction of deductive theory. Professor Patten’s “Premises of Political Economy” and Professor Clark’s “Philosophy of Wealth,” published respectively in 1885 and 1886, were its first fruits; and abundant evidences of its subsequent fruitfulness are to be found in the monographs of the Economic Association, in articles published in the economic journals and in the later literature generally. The translation of Böhm-Bawerk’s works by Professor William Smart, and the appearance of Professor Marshall’s “Principles of Economics,” both of which have had great influence in America, are landmarks in the progress of this movement. The “newer economics” has much to say of the relation between value and utility, the economic basis of prosperity and progress, the effects of dynamic forces. It seeks a new correlation of the social sciences, and in its scheme of human progress does not omit to take account of costs, and to distinguish sharply individual costs or “expenses” from social costs, which latter item it measures subjectively and ventures to compare directly with utilities or “satisfactions” as a means of determining the, social surplus.

One group of writers belonging with the newer movement, but devoting its energies directly to sociological studies, gives promise of rescuing that much misconceived branch of study from the hands of its injudicious representatives and putting it upon a high scientific plane. Professor F. H. Giddings who will become Professor of Sociology in Columbia College on July 1 of the present year, is the foremost scholar of this group, and the first man in any American university to occupy a chair with this designation. The future of economic science in American universities is bright with promise of scholarly and useful work. The attitude of the university world and of the public toward what is after all a new science, is all that could be desired. One indication of the present healthy and vigorous condition of this branch of science in American universities, is the quality and quantity of its scientific literature. The “younger economists” are already mature in years and in scholarship, and the publications of the American Economic Association, of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, of the separate universities in their series of Political Economy, Public Law, of studies in Historical and Political Science, etc., add to the stock of valuable economic literature no less than the regular issues of such quarterly journals as the Yale Review, the Journal of Political Economy the Political Science Quarterly and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, or the bi-monthly journal, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

The Summer Meeting of economists, of which announcement is made in full in this number of the Bulletin, may well become a great landmark, an emphatic sign of the golden opportunities awaiting students who turn their attention seriously to these problems.

Edward T. Devine.
The American Society for the Extension of University Teaching

 

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To Graduates of Colleges.

The increasing tendency toward specialization in the upper college classes makes it difficult for the college student to secure an acquaintance with as many different subjects properly falling within the college curriculum as every cultured man or woman considers desirable. College students who have specialized on economics and finance, may have left serious gaps in their knowledge of the physical sciences and vice versa, while both may have neglected the humanities, belles lettres and philosophy. University Extension courses in the local centres have already been eagerly utilized by many college graduates to supply such deficiencies and even if the purpose of the movement be chiefly, as some contend, to carry university privileges to those that have them not, it is attaining that purpose in meeting just such demands. The University Extension Summer Meeting offers similar opportunities. It takes place in a vacation month. It calls to the lecture room eminent specialists in many departments of university study. The student who is proficient in literature may hear brief courses in science or philosophy. The teacher who is thoroughly familiar with his special subject may make a careful study of a pedagogical system, or may refresh his intellectual powers by attacking vigorously a new line of study. It is true that every teacher should at some time or other have “specialized” to such an extent as to understand and to share somewhat the modern university spirit, but it is also true that modern culture demands of persons trained in a special subject a sufficient knowledge of other and entirely distinct fields of knowledge to awaken an intelligent interesting the achievements of the specialists of those fields.

In two ways therefore the Summer Meeting may be of use to college graduates. It will give to the student of a particular subject a favorable opportunity to supplement his specialized knowledge by a general—not necessarily a superficial—knowledge of other subjects. It will enable the student who wishes to broaden his knowledge of his own subject to do so by acquainting himself at first hand with a knowledge of the systems held and the methods employed by teachers of that subject in other institutions. It will be of great advantage for instance for the young man who has studied Political Economy in the University of Pennsylvania, or Johns Hopkins, or Cornell, to hear lecturers from Yale and Columbia discuss the same subject; and to become acquainted with the men who have studied that subject in those institutions, and vice versa. No student of history in an Eastern institution could fail to profit by the course of lectures on the Place of the West in our history by the professor of History in the University of Wisconsin. Graduates of normal schools, or of departments of pedagogy will derive more benefit than any others from the course on the Herbartian pedagogy by one who vigorously champions the system and has studied it at its fountain head in the University of Jena, and from the lectures on child study and its pedagogical value by the specialist who has been prosecuting an investigation of that subject in the State Normal School of Massachusetts, and under the direction of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University.

This is the great advantage of the Summer Meeting over a summer session of corresponding length in any single university. We plan not a summer school, but a meeting, a mingling of students and lecturers, a gathering with all the definiteness of aim and of program which characterizes a school or the summer term of a university, but with the added advantages of a University Extension spirit as an esprit de corps and a union of progressive elements from many universities in an elective system of lectures and classes.

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A Word to Students and Teachers of History.

The now famous report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies contains the following resolutions from the “Conference on History, Civil Government and Political Economy:”

Resolved: That formal instruction in Political Economy be omitted from the school program; but that economic subjects be treated in connection with other pertinent subjects. (Resolution 9.)

Resolved: That no formal instruction in Political Economy be given in the secondary schools, but that in connection particularly with United States History, Civil Government and Commercial Geography, instruction be given in those economic topics, a knowledge of which is essential to the understanding of our economic life and development. (Resolution 30.)

Accompanying the resolutions is a memorandum in which it is stated that “in making these recommendations the Conference does not intend to suggest that less time than is customary be given to Political Economy or that less emphasis be given to its importance as a study in the high schools;” and the report of the Conference elsewhere contains the following significant statements: “The methods of teaching the economic principles thus indicated must be left to the discretion of the teacher. It is a subject in which textbook work is particularly inefficient, and no teacher ought to undertake the work who has not had some training in economic reasoning.”

The unavoidable inference from these resolutions and recommendations is that every teacher of history, civil government, or commercial geography in the schools of secondary grade should have some opportunity for training in economic reasoning. Since, in the opinion of the committee, there are no “proper text-books for high school use” it becomes of importance that teachers should become familiar at first hand with the vital principles as taught by the best economic authorities. A few years ago it was thought necessary to visit the German or other foreign universities for such contact with leaders of economic thought. At present the men who are teaching these subjects in Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Cornell and Pennsylvania, are scholars of international reputation and are original contributors to economic science.

The program of the Department of Economics in the Summer Meeting is framed with the express end of giving a rapid view of such principles as are by the economists deemed essential, and illustrating the methods of instruction in vogue in the leading universities. Those who expect to teach Political Economy in university, college or secondary school, those who are expecting to give instruction in history, civil government or commercial geography, and those who are regularly engaged in teaching these branches are cordially invited to examine carefully the courses announced for the Summer Meeting of Economists, and to avail themselves of the opportunities offered by the meeting.

The president, first vice-president and secretary of the American Economic Association are included in the corps of instructors. Among higher institutions Amherst, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania and Yale are represented. One of the instructors is a university president, the others are university or college professors. All have written important books or monographs on economic subjects. All have national and even international scientific reputation. All are associated with the recent notable development of economic science, and the corresponding expansion of economic departments in the higher educational institutions. They do not however, all represent the same or similar tendencies. The corps includes the two or three economists who have done most among American writers to emphasize the importance of deductive work, and the necessity of reforming economic theory, but it also contains the two or three men who would be first thought of in connection with such practical topics as public finance, railways and trusts.

It is difficult to imagine a more profitable method of spending a vacation month for a person who has a professional interest in acquainting himself with the methods used and the conclusions held by the men whose scientific reputation and academic standing entitle them to speak with a certain degree of authority. If the Committee of Ten and the Conference on History, Civil Government and Political Economy are correct in their view, this includes not merely the teacher of Political Economy and Political Science, but also teaches of such allied subjects as commercial geography, civil government and history.

The above considerations are strengthened by the fact that parallel with these economic course there will be instruction in European and American history by such distinguished and competent lecturers as Professor John Bach McMaster and Mr. W. H. Munro, of the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Frederick J. Turner, of the University of Wisconsin, Professor W. H. Mace, of Syracuse University and Dr. Edward Everett Hale, of Boston. A fuller announcement of these courses will be sent on application. Round-Table Conferences on the teaching of history in secondary schools will be conducted by Professor Ray Greene Huling, of Boston, and Professor Edward G. Bourne, of Adelbert College, both of whom were members of the conference from whose report extracts have been made.

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Statement of Courses in the
Summer Meeting of Economists,

July 2-28, 1894.

 

Course I—Money. By E. Benjamin Andrews, LL. D., President of Brown University.

Five Lectures—July 16-20. (1) Money and the Times; (2) England’s Monetary Experiment in India; (3) “Counter” and Quality in Monetary Theory; (4) What Fixes Prices; (5) Labor as a Standard of Value.

Course II—Distribution. By J. B. Clark, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy in Amherst College, and Lecturer in Johns Hopkins University.

Ten Lectures—July 2-18. (1) Normal Distribution equivalent to Proportionate Production; (2) The Relation of the Law of Value to the Law of Wages and Interest; (3) The Social Law of Value; (4) Groups and Sub-groups in Industrial Society; (5) The Nature of Capital and the Source of Wages and Interest; (6) The Static Law of Distribution ; (7) Dynamic Forces and their Effects; (8) The Origin and the Distribution of Normal Profits; (9) Trusts and Public Policy; (10) Labor Unions and Public Policy.

Course III—Scientific Subdivision of Political Economy. By F. H. Giddings, M. A., Professor of Political Science in Bryn Mawr College and Professor elect of Sociology in Columbia College.

Five Lecture»—July 2-7. (1) The Conception and Definition of Political Economy; (2) The Concepts of Utility, Cost and Value; (3) The Theory of Consumption; (4) The Theory of Production; (5) The Theory of Relative Values.

Course IV—Theories of Population. By Arthur T. Hadley, M. A., Professor of Political Economy in Yale University.

Two Lectures—July 5, 6.

Course V—Relations of Economics and Politics. By J. W. Jenks, Ph. D, Professor of Political Economy and Civil and Social Institutions in Cornell University.

Five Lectures—July 16-20. (1) The Nature and Scope of Economics and of Politics Compared; (2) Influence of Economic Conditions upon Political Constitutions; (3) The Influence of Economic Conditions and Theories upon Certain Social and Legal Institutions not Primarily Political; (4) The Influence of Present Economic Conditions and Beliefs upon Present Political Methods and Doctrine; (5) The Political Reforms that would be of most Economic Advantage.

Course VI—Ethnical Basis for Social Progress in the United States. By Richmond Mayo-Smith, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy and Social Science in Columbia College.

Three Lectures— July 24-26. (1) Theories of Mixture of Races and Nationalities and Application to the United States; (2) Assimilating Influence of Climate and Intermarriages; (3) Assimilating Influence of Social Environment.

Course VII—Introduction to the Ricardian Economics. By Simon N. Patten, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Pennsylvania.

Five Lectures—July 9-13.

Course VIII—Premises of Political Economy. By Simon N. Patten, Ph. D.

Five Lectures—July 16-20.

Course IX—Theory of Dynamic Economics. By Simon X. Patten, Ph. D.

Five Lectures—July 23-27.

Course X—Public Finance. By Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy and Finance in Columbia College.

Five Lectures—July 23-27. (1) The Development of Taxation; (2) The Effects of Taxation; (3) The Basis of Taxation; (4) The Principles of Taxation; (5) The Single Tax.

Course XI—Various Phases of the Money Question. By Professor Clark, Professor Giddings, Professor Patten and Professor Seligman.

Address “The Monetary Conference of 1 892.” By President Andrews. July 19.

Address on Methods of Teaching Political Economy. By members of the corps of lecturers.

Discussion of the subjects presented in each of the various courses by those in attendance. The lecture will usually last for sixty minutes, and the discussion for thirty minutes. An hour and a half is allowed for each exercise.

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Program of Lectures.
Summer Meeting of Economists.

[For program of other departments apply to the Director.]

July 2.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Giddings.

The Conception and Definition of Political Economy.

10 A. M.—Professor Clark.

Normal Distribution Equivalent to Proportionate Production.

July 3.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Giddings.

The Concepts of Utilitv, Cost and Value.

10 A. M— Professor Clark.

The Relation of the Law of Value to the Law of Wages and Interest.

July 4.

10 A. M.—Address by Edward Everett Hale, D. D., in the University Library.

July 5.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Giddings.

The Theory of Consumption.

10 A. M.—Professor Clark.

The Social Law of Value.

11.30 A. M.—Professor Hadley.

Theories of Population.

July 6.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Giddings.

The Theory of Production.

10 A. M.—Professor Clark.

Groups and Sub-Groups in Industrial Society.

11.30 A. M.—Professor Hadley.

Theories of Population.

5 P. M.—Professor Clark.

An Ideal Standard of Value.

July 7.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Giddings.

The Theory of Relative Values.

10 A. M—Professor Clark.

The Nature of Capital and the Sources of Wages and Interest.

July 9.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Ricardian System of Economics.

10 A. M.—Professor Clark.

The Static Law of Distribution.

5 P. M.—Address on Methods.

July 10

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Ricardo’s Theory of Distribution.

10 A. M.—Professor Clark.

Dynamic Forces and their Effects.

5 P. M.—Address on Methods.

July 11.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Ricardo’s Theory of Money.

10 A. M— Professor Clark.

The Origin and Distribution of Normal Profits.

5 P. M.—Address on Methods.

July 12.

8.30 A. M— Professor Patten.

The Confusion of Industrial and Monetary Problems.

10 A. M.—Professor Clark.

Trusts and Public Policy.

July 13.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Ricardian System of Economics.

10 A. M.—Professor Clark.

Labor Unions and Public Policy.

July 16.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Premises of Political Economy.

10 A. M.—President Andrews.

Money and the Times.

July 17.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Premises of Political Economy.

10 A. M.—President Andrews.

England’s Monetary Experiment in India.

July 18.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

The Stability of Prices.

10 A. M.—President Andrews.

“Counter” and Quality in Monetary Theory.

July 19.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

The Law of Diminishing Returns.

10 A. M.—President Andrews.

What Fixes Prices?

8 P. M.—President Andrews.

Monetary Conference.

July 20.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

The Consumption of Wealth.

10 A. M.—President Andrews.

Labor as a Standard of Value.

July 23.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Theory of Dynamic Economics.

5 P. M.—Professor Seligman.

Development of Taxation.

8 P. M.—Professor Jenks.

Nature and Scope of Economics and Politics Compared.

July 24.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Theory of Dynamic Economics.

10 A. M.—Professor Seligman.

The Effects of Taxation.

11.30 A. M.—Professor Mayo-Smith.

Theories of Mixture of Races, and Nationalities.

8 P. M.—Professor Jenks. Influence of Economic Conditions upon Political Constitutions.

July 25.

8.30 A. M — Professor Patten.

Theory of Dynamic Economics.

10 A. M.—Professor Seligman.

Basis of Taxation.

11.30 A. M.—Professor Mayo-Smith.

Assimilating Influences of Climate and Intermarriages.

8 P. M.—Professor Jenks.

Influence of Economic Conditions and Theories upon Certain Social and Legal Institutions not Primarily Political.

July 26.

8.30 A. M.—Professor Patten.

Theory of Dynamic Economics.

10 A. M.—Professor Seligman.

The Principles of Taxation.

11.30 A. M.— Professor Mayo-Smith.

Assimilating Influences of Social Environment.

8 P. M.—Professor Jenks.

Influence of Present Economic Conditions and Beliefs upon Present Political Methods and Doctrine.

July 27.

8.30 A. M — Professor Patten.

Theory of Dynamic Economics.

10 A. M.—Professor Seligman.

The Single Tax.

11.30 A. M.—Professor Jenks.

The Political Reforms that would be of Most Economic Advantage.

 

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Preparatory Reading.

Those who expect to attend the sessions of the Summer Meeting of Economists will find it of advantage to possess a knowledge of the elements of the science such as may be obtained by the study of Walker’s Political Economy, Marshall’s Principles of Economics or Mill’s Political Economy.

In special preparation for the meeting, Giddings’ The Theory of Sociology (in press) will be found useful. In special preparation for Course I, students may read Andrews’ An Honest Dollar, and Nicholson’s Money and Monetary Problems; for Courses II and III, Clark’s Philosophy of Wealth, and Modern Distributive Process, by Clark and Giddings; for Course VII, Patten’s The Interpretation of Ricardo in Quarterly Journal of Economics for April, 1893; for Course VIII, Patten’s Premises of Political Economy; for Course IX, The Theory of Dynamic Economics.

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Source: American Society for the Extension of University Teaching. The University Extension Bulletin. Vol. I, No. 8. Philadelphia: May 10, 1894.

Image Source: American Society for the Extension of University Teaching. Supplement to the The University Extension Bulletin. Vol. I, No. 8. Philadelphia: May 10, 1894. Copy found in Box 2 of Franklin Henry Giddings Papers, Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Folder “Photographs”.

 

More on what University Extension was all about.

 

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Categories
Columbia Courses Curriculum

Columbia. Economics Curriculum 1898-99

In the December 1898 issue of the Columbia University Quarterly an overview of the curriculum for economics and social science (i.e. sociology with a bit of anthropology without political science that was split between the subjects  of history and public law) offered by the Faculty of Political Science was sketched by Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith. I have appended the Economics and Sociology course offerings for 1898-99 (which can be compared to an earlier posting for 1905-07). In the early years of graduate education there was considerable overlap between undergraduate and graduate course offerings so that an understanding of the graduate training in economics at least in these early years requires us to keep an eye on undergraduate curriculum as well.

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Department of Economics and Social Science.—The courses in this department have been so systematized as to meet the needs of both undergraduate and graduate students, while offering to other members of the University and of allied institutions the opportunity to broaden their studies by some knowledge of social theory and social problems.

The undergraduate begins with the Economic History of England and America (Economics 1), which gives him that understanding of the evolution of economic institutions, such as the systems of land tenure, the factory system, the institutions of commerce and trade, which is necessary for any approach to economic discussion. That is followed by the Elements of Political Economy (Economics A), where the fundamental principles of the science are laid down and illustrated by contemporary events. These courses are usually taken during the Junior year, but may be taken a year earlier by students desiring to specialize in this direction. The lettered course is required of every student, and is in the nature of logical discipline for clear reasoning and a preparation for good citizenship. The College is held thereby to have discharged its duty to itself, in fulfilling the minimum required for the degree of A.B., and to the community, in inculcating sound principles in its graduates.

For the majority of undergraduates these courses are but the preliminary sketch, the details of which are to be filled out by the more intensive study of Senior year. For this abundant opportunity is offered in the course on modern industrial problems, money, and labor (Economics 3), in the treatment of finance and taxation (Economics 4) and in the critical consideration of theories of socialism (Economics 11) and projects of social reform (Economics 12). At the same time the elements of sociology (Sociology 15) furnish a broader foundation for generalization in regard to the fundamental principles of social life, and afford the student on the eve of graduation an opportunity to coordinate his knowledge of history, economics, philosophy, and ethics into a theory of society.

These courses of Senior year constitute the fundamental university courses, and are frequented by graduates of other colleges and by many students from the law school, the theological seminaries, and Teachers College, who find them valuable as auxiliary to their main lines of study. For the specialist and special student these courses in their turn are preliminary. They form the introduction to the university courses proper.

Here the specialist finds opportunity for development in economic theory (Economics 8, [Economics] 9, and [Economics] 10) and for further practical work (Economics 5 and [Economics] 7), for sociological theory (Sociology 20, [Sociology] 21, and 25 [sic, perhaps “Sociology 24” intended, no record found here or in earlier/later years for a course “Sociology 25”], for the treatment of problems of crime and pauperism (Sociology 22 and [Sociology] 23), and for the theory and practice of statistics as an instrument of investigation in all the social sciences (Sociology 17, [Sociology] 18, and [Sociology] 19). Crowning the whole are the seminars in political economy and sociology, and the statistical laboratory, where the student is trained for original work.

Columbia University has attempted thus to formulate in the Department of Economics and Social Science a programme that shall be systematic, in the sense of orderly development and logical sequence (the course covers four or five years), and at the same time flexible, for the purpose of meeting the just demands of a great variety of students—the undergraduate, the specialist, and the special student.

R. M.-S. [Richmond Mayo-Smith]

 

Source: Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 1, December, 1898, pp. 76-77.

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COURSES OF STUDY AND RESEARCH
Group III — Economics and Social Science

It is presumed that students before entering the school have studied the general principles of political economy as laid down in the ordinary manuals, and possess some knowledge of the facts of economic history. Students who are not thus prepared are recommended to take the following courses in Columbia College: [The lettered course is required of all candidates for A.B. in Columbia College.]

Economics 1 — Economic History of England and America. — This course studies primarily the economic history of England, as affording the clearest picture of the evolution of economic life from primitive society to the complicated mechanism of modern industrial life. Incidentally a comparison is made with the contemporary movements in other European countries. Beginning with the seventeenth century, attention is directed to facts of American economic development, and the last part of the course is devoted exclusively to the study of the economic and social conditions underlying the history of the United States.-Three hours a week, first half-year: Prof. [Edwin R. A.] Seligman and Mr. [Arthur M.] Day.

Economics A — Outlines of Economics. — Bullock’s introduction to the study of economics, and lectures on the evolution of the modern economic organization, the principle of economic freedom and the institution of private property.— Three hours a week, second half-year: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith and Mr. [Arthur M.] Day.

The university courses fall under two subjects: A. Political Economy and Finance. B. Sociology and Statistics.

Courses 3, 4, 11, 12, 15 and 16 are open to Seniors in Columbia College, and count towards the degree of A. B. If taken for the higher degrees, such additional work must be done in connection with them as may be prescribed by the instructor.

Subject A — Political Economy and Finance

Economics 3 — Practical Political Economy. — This course is divided into four sections as follows:

(a) Problems of Modern Industry . — This part of the course is devoted to a special study of the modern industrial organization and of the application of economic principles to social life. The principal topics are: The scope, method and function of political economy; the physical environment; law of population; economic freedom and private property; theory and problems of consumption; theory and problems of production, land-tenure, labor and machinery, the growth of capital; forms of productive enterprise, the concentration of industry; monopolies and trusts; governmental enterprise; effects of modern methods of production on producer and consumer. Three hours a week, first half-year: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

(b) The Problems of Exchange. — (Money and Trade.) This course is devoted to a study of the mechanism of exchange with special reference to modern currency and commercial questions. The principal topics are: Value and prices, speculation, law of monopoly prices, commercial crises; money, bimetallism, the silver question in the United States; credit, banking, paper money; international exchange; transportation and commerce. Three hours a week, second half-year (1899-1900) [For students desiring to take (a), (b) and (c) in one year a short résumé of the omitted course (b) or (c) will be given.]: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

(c) The Problems of Distribution. — (Labor and Capital.) This course is devoted largely to the labor question. The principal topics are: The theory of distribution, history and present condition of the laboring class, wages, trades unions and strikes, arbitration and conciliation, co-operation and profit-sharing; factory laws, employer’s liability; interest, profit and rent; social distribution; distributive justice. Three hours a week, second half-year (1898—’99), alternates with above. [For students desiring to take (a), (b) and (c) in one year a short résumé of the omitted course (b) or (c) will be given.]: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

(d) Readings in Marshall’s Principles of Economics. — This course constitutes a fourth hour in connection with the lectures under (a), (b) and (c). It is open to candidates for A.B. by special permission, but the hour cannot be counted towards that degree. It, or its equivalent, is required of all candidates for the degrees of A.M. and Ph.D., taking Economics III. as a major or minor. One hour a week: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

Economics 4 — Science of Finance. — This course is historical as well as comparative and critical. After giving a general introduction and tracing the history of the science, it treats of the various rules of public expenditures and the methods of meeting the same among different civilized nations. It describes the different kinds of public revenue, 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 therein contained. — Two hours a week: Prof. [Edwin R. A.] Seligman. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

Economics 5 Fiscal and Industrial History of the United States. — 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. Attention is called to the fiscal and industrial conditions of the colonies; to the financial methods of the revolution and the confederation; to the genesis of the protective idea; to the fiscal policies of the Federalists and of the Republicans; to the financial management of the war of 1812; to the industrial effects of the restriction war period; to the crises of 1819, 1825 and 1837; to the tariffs of 1816, 1824 and 1828; to the distribution of the surplus and the Bank war; to the compromise tariff and its effect on industry; to the currency problems before 1863; to the era of “free trade,” and the tariffs of 1846 and 1857; to the fiscal problems of the Civil War; to the methods of resumption, conversion and payment of the debt; to the disappearance of the war taxes; to the continuance of the war tariffs; to the money question and the acts of 1878 and 1890; to the loans of 1894-1896; to the tariffs of 1890, 1894 and 1897. The course closes with a discussion of the current problems of currency and coinage, and with a general consideration of the arguments for and against protection as illustrated by the practical operation of the various tariffs. Two hours a week, first half year (1899-1900): Prof. [Edwin R. A.] Seligman.

Economics 7 Railroad Problems; Economic, Social and Legal. — 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 construction, 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. — Two hours a week, second half-year (1899-1900): Prof. [Edwin R. A.] Seligman.

Economics 8 History of Economics. — 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, etc.

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

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

VII The continent: Say, Sismondi, Cournot, Bastiat; Herrmann, List, and Thunen.

VIII German historical school: Roscher, Knies, Hildebrand.

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

—Two hours a week: Prof. [Edwin R. A.] Seligman.

Economics 9 — Economic Theory I. — This course discusses 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. — Two hours a week, first half-year: Prof. [John Bates] Clark.

Economics 10 — Economic Theory II. — This course discusses 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 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 cf modern industry, have the effect of repressing competition. — Two hours a week, second half-year: Prof. [John Bates] Clark.

Economics 11 — Communistic and Socialistic Theories. — 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. — Two hours a week, first half-year: Prof. [John Bates] Clark. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

Economics 12 — Theories of Social Reform. — 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. It studies the general relation of the state to industry. — Two hours a week, second half-year: Prof. [John Bates] Clark. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

Economics 14 — Seminar in Political Economy and Finance. — For advanced students. — Two hours, bi-weekly: Professors [Edwin R. A.] Seligman and [John Bates] Clark.

Subject B— Sociology and Statistics

Sociology 15 — Principles of Sociology. — This is a textbook course. — Two hours a week: Professor [Franklin H.] Giddings. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

Sociology 16 — Applied Anthropology. — This course is composed of two distinct parts. In the first half-year under Dr. Farrand of the Faculty of Philosophy, primitive institutions, language, mythology and religions are considered primarily from the psychological point of view. This is important for sociological work. Anthropometry and the history of the science of anthropology are also treated. The second half-year work given by Dr. [William Z.] Ripley is primarily concerned with the anthropology and ethnology of the civilized peoples of Europe. This is intended to subserve two ends. It is an ethnological preparation for the historical courses, especially those concerning the classic peoples of antiquity; and it also provides a groundwork for the statistical and demographic study of the populations of Europe. In this sense it is distinctly sociological in its interests. — Two hours a week. [Open to Seniors in Columbia College]

Sociology 17 — Statistics and Sociology. — This course is given every year, and is intended to train students in the use of statistics as an instrument of investigation in social science. The topics covered are: Relation of statistics to sociology, criteria of statistics, population, population and land, sex, age and conjugal condition, births, marriages, deaths, sickness and mortality, race and nationality, migration, social position, infirmities, suicide, vice, crime, nature of statistical regularities. — Two hours a week, first half-year: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith.

Sociology 18 — Statistics and Economics. — This course covers those statistics of most use in political economy, but which have also a direct bearing on the problems of sociology. These include the statistics of land, production of food, condition of labor, wages, money, credit, prices, commerce, manufactures, trade, imports and exports, national wealth, public debt, and relative incomes. Two hours a week, second half-year, given in 1898-99 and each alternate year: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith.

Sociology 19 — Theory, Technique, and History of Statistical Science. — This course studies the theory of statistics, law of probabilities, averages, mean error, rules for collecting, tabulating and presenting statistics, graphical methods, the question of the freedom of the will, the value of the results obtained by the statistical method, the possibility of discovering social laws. Some account will also be given of the history and literature of statistics, and the organization of statistical bureaus. — Two hours a week, second half-year, given in 1899-1900, and each alternate year: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith.

Sociology 20 — General Sociology . — A foundation for special work is laid in this fundamental course. It includes two parts, namely: (1) the analysis and classification of social facts, with special attention to the systems of Aristotle, Comte, Spencer, Schäffle, De Greef, Gumplowicz, Ward, Tarde and other theoretical writers; (2) an examination of sociological laws, in which the more important social phenomena of modern times and the principles of theoretical sociology are together brought under critical review in a study of social feeling, public opinion, and organized action. In this second part an attempt is made to analyze the causes of emotional epidemics, panics, outbreaks of mob violence, and revolutions; to explain by general principles the growth of public opinion on great questions; and to prove from history and from current events that public action is governed by definite laws of social choice. — Two hours a week, first half-year: Prof. [Franklin H.] Giddings.

Sociology 21 Progress and Democracy. — The phenomena of social progress are the general subject of this course, which includes two parts, namely: (1) a study of the historical evolution of society, with special attention to social origins; to the development of the family, of the clan and of the tribe; and to the beginnings of civilization; (2) the social as distinguished from the political organization of modern democracies. This part of the course may otherwise be described as a study of the modern “state behind the constitution.” The forms of voluntary organization are observed, and the question is raised, To what extent are the non-political associations of men in modern democracies themselves democratic? Do business corporations labor unions, churches, and associations for culture and pleasure, tend to become more or less democratic? The democratic social ideals of equality and fraternity are examined, and an attempt is made to show their relations to social order and to liberty. Modern philanthropic movements, including the work of university and other social settlements, and many social phases of municipal reform are touched upon in this course. —Two hours a week, second half-year: Prof. [Franklin H.] Giddings.

Sociology 22 Pauperism, Poor Laws and Charities. — This course begins with a study of the English poor law, its history, practical working, and consequences. On this foundation is built a study of pauperism in general, but especially as it may now be observed in great cities. The laws of the different commonwealths in regard to paupers, out-relief, alms-houses, and dependent children, are compared. Finally the special modern methods of public and private philanthropy are considered, with particular attention to charity organization, the restriction of out-door alms, and the reclamation of children.— Two hours a week, first half-year: Prof. [Franklin H.] Giddings.

Sociology 23 — Crime and Penology — The topics taken up in this course are the nature and definitions of crime, the increase of crime and its modern forms, criminal anthropology, the social causes of crime, surroundings, parental neglect, education, the question of responsibility, historical methods of punishment, the history of efforts to reform prison methods, modern methods, the solitary system, the Elmira system, classification of criminals, classes of prisons, reformatories, and jails. — Two hours a week, second half year: Prof. [Franklin H.] Giddings.

Sociology 24 — The Civil Aspects of Ecclesiastical Organizations. — The purpose of this course is to define the present relations of the institutional church 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 function and structure. One hour a week: Dr. [George James] Bayles.

Sociology 29 — Laboratory Work in Statistics. — The object of the laboratory is to train the student in methods of statistical analysis and computation. Each student will pursue a course of laboratory practice dealing with the general statistics of population, the relation of classes, the distribution of wealth, and the statistics of crime, vice and misfortune. He will be taught how to judge current statistics and to detect statistical fallacies; in short, to become an expert in judging of the value of sociological evidence. Each year some practical piece of work on an extensive scale is undertaken by the class. — In connection with courses 17, 18 and 19: Prof. [Richmond] Mayo-Smith.

Sociology 30 — Seminar in Sociology and Statistics. — Discussions and papers, theses and dissertations presented in the seminar may be upon any of the following topics:

I
POPULATION

1 The growth of population in the United States, inducing studies of birth rates and death rates.
2 Immigration into the United States.
3 The migration of population within the United States.

II
RACES AND NATIONALITIES

4 The social traits, habits and organization of any race (e. g. negro or Indian) in the United States.
5 The social traits, habits and organization of any nationality (e. g. Irish or German or Italian) in the United States.

Ill
THE FAMILY

6 Historical or statistical studies of marriage, of divorce, or of the parental care and education of children in the United States.
7 Studies of legislation affecting the family in the United States.

IV
COMMUNITIES

8 Descriptive or historical studies of peculiar, exceptional or otherwise noteworthy communities or sections.

V
THE SOCIAL LIFE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE SELF-SUPPORTING POOR

9 Dwellings and surroundings.
10 Expenditure and domestic economy.
11 Marriages, domestic festivals, funerals, family life and morals.
12 Education.
13 Religious ideas, habits, meetings, festivals and institutions.
14 Amusements, celebrations, social festivals and clubs.
15 Trade unions.
16 Political and legal ideas, affiliations and activities.

VI
PAUPERISM AND CHARITY

17 Historical studies of the origin, growth and forms of pauperism.
18 Statistical studies of the extent and causes of pauperism.
19 Historical and comparative studies of poor laws and public relief.
20 Historical and comparative studies of the methods of private charity.

VII
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

21 Historical studies of the origin, increase and forms of crime.
22 Statistical studies of the extent and causes of crime.
23 Critical studies of criminal anthropology or criminal sociology.
24 Historical and comparative studies of punishment and reformation.

Two hours bi-weekly: Profs. [Franklin H.] Giddings and [Richmond] Mayo-Smith.

Source: Columbia University, School of Political Science, Announcement, 1898-99, pp. 29-40.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Cornell Curriculum Harvard Johns Hopkins Pennsylvania Princeton Wisconsin Yale

Columbia Economics’ Market Share in 1900

The School of Political Science at Columbia University was divided into three groups of subjects: History and Political Philosophy, Public Law and Comparative Jurisprudence, and Economics and Social Science.

Economics and Social Science comprised the two subject groups: Political Economy and Finance; Sociology and Statistics. 

Seligman figured that of the approximately 135 graduate students specializing in economics in 1899-1900 in the seven eastern departments (Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale), about 75 were at Columbia.

___________________

SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Department of Economics.—Since the recent reorganization of the work in economics, there has been a marked increase in the number, as well as in the quality of the students. Numbers, indeed, constitute no adequate test of the real work done by the various departments within a university; for the subject which attracts the fewest students may possess the highest scientific value and may be presided over by the ablest professors. But, when an institution is compared with others of about the same grade and size, the relative number of students in any one department affords a fair indication of the importance to be assigned to it. Hence, the following table is of much interest:

 

1900_ColumbiaEconomics

*By graduate student is meant a student holding a first degree.
1 Attending for three terms.
2 Including Economics and Public Law.
3 Including Economics, Politics and History.

The number of graduate students in economics and social science at Columbia is much greater than the number in any other American institution. If we compare Columbia with six Eastern universities,—Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Pennsylvania and Princeton,—we find that Columbia has almost as many such students as all six, that is, 75 as against 89. And if it were possible to separate the students working primarily in economics at Johns Hopkins, Yale, and Cornell (where the figures include other students in political science as well), it is practically certain that Columbia would be found to possess more graduate students working primarily in economics and social science than the other six institutions together. Assuming that half of the students returned in Johns Hopkins, Yale and Cornell are working primarily in economics,—a very liberal assumption, —we should have a total of 60 in the six Eastern universities, as against 75 in Columbia. This is a remarkable showing.

In order that it may not be supposed that the basis of classification varies, it may be added that each of the students at Columbia is enrolled primarily under the Faculty of Political Science and is a candidate for the master’s or doctor’s degree, with the major subject in economics and social science. Every such student is required to attend a seminar. In addition to the seminar, 35 of the 75 students are taking 3 or more courses in economics or social science and 20 are taking 2 such courses. The remainder, who are taking one course in addition to the seminar, are chiefly students who have taken most of their lecture work in previous years.

The following figures, as to enrollment in economics and social science, will prove instructive:

Graduate students, primarily enrolled in political science, taking graduate courses (whether as a major or minor) 95
Graduate students (male) in the whole university taking graduate courses 123
Non-graduates (male), primarily registered in political science, doing chief work in economics 22
Students, graduates and non-graduates (male, but exclusive of seniors and other college students) in the whole university, taking graduate courses 149
Enrollment of students, as above (not deducting duplicates), in graduate courses in economics and social science 559
Enrollment of under-graduates in Columbia College 179
Enrollment of students of all kinds (male) pursuing these studies 738
Enrollment of Barnard students 140
Total enrollment in the University 878

The relative importance of the university work may also be seen by this comparison with Harvard:

Harvard Columbia
Total students primarily registered in non-professional (graduate) schools 341 331
Total graduates in non-professional (graduate) schools 323 292
Total graduates in political science 52 or 16% 114 or 39%
Total graduates primarily in economics and social science 8 or 2½% 17 or 26%

This showing is doubtless due in part to the system on which the work in economics and social science at Columbia is organized. The department has four full professors, one instructor and two lecturers. The work has been so apportioned that each professor devotes himself primarily to his own specialty—Professor Mayo-Smith to statistics and practical economics, Professor Clark to economic theory, Professor Giddings to social science, and Professor Seligman to economic history and finance. Another explanation of the large numbers is the facility afforded to students to combine with their studies in economics the courses in history, public law and general political science.

Among the recent graduates in economics of the School of Political Science, no less than 25 are now giving instruction in economics at other institutions, including Yale, Cornell, Amherst, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Syracuse, the Universities of Illinois, Indiana, and Colorado, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A number of graduates have become editors of important daily or weekly papers, in New York, Buffalo, Omaha and other cities, and a large number occupy administrative positions in the service of the national and state governments. Among the latter may be mentioned one of the chief statistician in the census office, a number of expert agents and chief clerks in the departments of the treasury and of agriculture in Washington; and the deputy commissioner of labor statistics and the sociology librarian in the State Library at Albany.

E. R. A. S. [Edwin R. A. Seligman]

___________________

Source: Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 2, June, 1900, pp. 284-287.

Categories
Columbia Courses Syllabus

Columbia. Public Finance Syllabus. Seligman circa 1923

A printed copy of the syllabus and list of readings for the one-year, two course sequence for public finance of Edwin R. A. Seligman can be found in the papers of Robert Murray Haig who succeeded Seligman in teaching this public finance course at Columbia  in 1931-32.  The latest date in the list of readings is 1923, so I date the syllabus to the 1923-24 academic year. I have merged the reading list with the syllabus so that the reading assignments are paired with the class session(s).

_____________________________

Economics 101–Public Finance. 3 points Winter Session. Professor Seligman.
M. and W. at 1:10. 515 Kent.

General introduction and history of public finance. Different kinds of public revenues, including public domain and public property, public works or industrial undertakings, fees, and special assessments. General theories and principles of taxation, incidence of taxation, and newer social theories of taxation.

Economics 102–Public Finance. 3 points –Spring Session. Professor Seligman.
M. and W. at 1:10. 515 Kent.

Application of general principles to consideration of actual systems of taxation. Practical American problems of federal, state, and local taxation. Classes of public expenditure and fiscal principles which govern them. Public debt, methods of borrowing, redemption, etc. Fiscal organisation of state. Budgets, national,  state, and local.

Students who have not completed Economics 101 are admitted to Economics 102 only by special permission.

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information, 23rd Series, No. 35 (June 2, 1923). History, Economics and Public Law: Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science. Announcement 1923-1924,  p. 20.

_____________________________

Columbia University
In the City of New York
ECONOMICS 101-102

OUTLINE OF LECTURES
ON
PUBLIC FINANCE

By Edwin R. A. Seligman

ECONOMICS 101

Part I
Introduction

  1. Finance and the Science of Finance. Public Finance and Fiscal Science.
  2. Relation to Economics. Content and Method.

Shirras, ch. i; Lutz, ch. i; Bastable, introduction, ch. i; Dalton, ch. i.

  1. Growth of Public Finance.

Bullock, ch. iii; Lutz, ch. ii.

  1. History and literature of Fiscal Science

Bullock, ch. i; Bastable, ch. ii; Shirras, ch. ii.

  1. The general theory of Public Finance.

Adams, introduction; Dalton, chs. ii, iii; Peck, ch. ii.

Part II
Public Revenues

  1. Historical development of public revenues.
  2.      The ancient world: Greece, Rome.
  3.      The middle ages: feudal income.
  4.      The absolute monarchy: England, the Continent.
  5.      The modern state.

Seligman I, ch. i.

  1. Classification of public revenues.

Seligman I, ch. xiv; Adams, part II, preliminary chapter; Shirras, ch. xiii; Lutz, ch. ix; Bastable, book II, ch. i; Plehn, part II, ch. i; Dalton, ch. iv.

Book I
Quasi-public Revenues

  1.    I. Prices.

   Bastable, book II, ch. ii.

  1.           Public domain.

Lutz, ch. x; Bullock, ch. v; Davies, ch. iii.

  1.                The public domain of the United States.

Adams, part II, book I, ch. i; Hibbard, chs. iv-vi, x, xv.

  1.           Public property; funds and investments.

Bastable, book II, ch. v; Dalton, ch. xiv.

  1.           Public industry: business enterprise.

Shirras, ch. xxx; Bastable, book II, ch. iii.

  1.                Fiscal monopolies.

Adams, part II, book i, ch. ii; Madsden, ch. ii.

  1.                Social monopolies: commercial undertakings.

Lutz, ch. xi; Davies, chs. vii, x, xiii.

  1.                     Coinage, credit and insurance.
  2.                     Post office, telegraph and telephone.
  3.                     Markets, docks and harbors.

Bullock, ch. vi; Smith, chs. i-iii, viii;
Barker, ch. xvi.

  1.                     Roads, canals and railways.

Dixon, chs. ix-xiv; Barker, chs. x-xii.

  1.                     Municipal monopolies; water, light and power.

Lutz, ch. xii; Watkins, passim; Barker, chs. i-ix, xiii-xv.

  1.                Public prisons and workshops.

Bastable, book II, ch. iv.

  1.    II. Fees: history, classification, description, criticism.

Bullock, ch. vii; Urdahl, part I, chs. i, ix, x; part II, chs. vi and viii; Lutz, ch. xiii.

  1.    III. Special assessments: history, theory, purposes, methods, extent, criticism.

Rosewater, chs. i, ii and v.

Book II
Taxation—General

  1. Definitions and terminology.

Lutz, ch. xiv; Bastable, book III, ch. i.

  1. Classification of taxes.

Adams, part II, book II, ch. i; Dalton, ch. v.

  1. Historical development of taxation.

Plehn, part II, ch. iv.

  1.           Ancient taxation.

Seligman I, pp. 34-37.

  1.           Mediaeval taxation.

Kennedy, chs. ii-iv; Seligman I, pp. 38-56.

  1.           Modern taxation.

Plehn, ch. v.

  1.           Local taxation.

Cannan, chs. i-iv.

  1. Essentials of taxation.

Lutz, ch. xv; Bastable, book III, ch. ii.

  1.           Reason of taxation.

Weston, ch. iii

  1.           Function of taxation.

Stamp, ch. vi; Bullock, ch. ix.

  1.           Nature of taxation.

Seligman I, ch. x; Jones, ch. i.

  1.           Limits of taxation.

Adams, ch. i.

  1.           Source of taxation.

Bullock, ch. viii.

  1. Incidence of taxation.

Seligman II, introduction; Bastable, book III, ch. v; Plehn, part II, ch. x.

  1.           Theories of incidence.

Seligman II, part I; Dalton, ch. vii; Hobson, ch. iii;
Brown, chs. iii, v; Shirras, ch. xviii; Lutz, ch. xvii.

  1.           General principles.

Conference I, pp. 424-433; Seligman II, part II, ch. i.

  1.           Application to separate taxes.

Seligman II, part II, chs. ii-viii; Seligman III, ch. ii [iii?]; Brown, chs. vii-x; Shirras, ch. xix.

  1. Influence and effects of taxation.

Seligman III, ch. iii; Stamp I, ch. v; Stamp II, ch. iv; Bullock, ch. viii; Dalton, chs. x-xii.

  1. Canons and principles of taxation.

Bastable, book iii, ch. vi; Jones, ch. iii; Stamp I, ch. i.

  1.           Secondary canons.

Jones, ch. iv; Stamp I, ch. iv.

  1.           Primary canons.

Plehn, part II, ch. iii; Bullock, ch. ix.

  1.    I. Uniformity and equality of taxation.

Bastable, book III, ch. iii; Weston, chs. v-vi; Robinson, ch. ii.

  1.           Basis of taxation.

Hobson, part I, chs. i, ii; Dalton I, part II, ch. ix.

  1.           Norm of taxation.

Seligman IV, introduction; Robinson, ch. iv.

  1.           Graduation of taxation.

Seligman III, introduction; Adams, part II,
book ii, ch. ii; Stamp I, ch. ii.

  1.                History of progressive taxation.
  2.                Facts of progressive taxation.

Seligman III, part i.

  1.                Theory of progressive taxation.

Seligman III, part ii, chs. i-iv; Weston, ch. vii.

  1.           Differentiation of taxation.

Seligman IV, pp. 22-25; Weston, ch. vii; Stamp I, pp. 83-91.

  1.    II. Universality of taxation.
  2.           Exemptions.

Seligman IV, pp. 25-29; Conference, xii, p. 477.

  1.           Double taxation.
  2.                 By the same jurisdiction.

Seligman I, ch. iv.

  1.                 By competing jurisdictions.

Conference, ii, p. 547; iv, p. 261; ix, p. 358.

  1. The tax system. Single versus plural taxation.

Bastable, book III, ch. iv.

  1.           The single tax.

Seligman I, ch. iii; Hunter, ch. xvi.

  1. Tax administrations. Tax commissions.

Seligman I, chs. xiii, xix-xxi; Lutz, passim.

 

Book III
Taxation—Special

Part I.—Direct Taxes: Taxes on Wealth.

  1. Impersonal taxes.

Bastable, book IV, ch. i.

  1.    I. Tax on real estate.

Bullock, ch. xiv.

  1.           Land tax. Taxation of forests and mines.

Conference, v, p. 345, iv, p. 313; vi, p. 371; vii, 387; viii, 338; xiii, p. 405; xiv, p. 36; xv, p. 127; Young, chs. i, v-vi and ix; King, chs. i-iv.

  1.                Unearned increment and land-value taxes.

Sheftel, chs. i, vii-x; Seligman I, ch. xvii; New York Report, pp. 100-120; Bullock, ch. xix.

  1.                House tax.

Haig I, pp. 262-280; New York Report, pp. 7-60, 85-99.

  1.    II. Tax on personal property.

Conference, xi, pp. 118, 218.

  1.           Tax on tangibles.

Hunter, ch. xi.

  1.           Tax on intangibles.

Conference, viii, p. 207; Wells, chs. xviii-xix; Hunter, ch. xii.

  1.    III. Business tax.

Bastable, book iv, ch. ii; Conference, i, p. 442; xl, p. 185.

  1.           License tax.

Bullock, ch. xvi; Conference, ii, p. 273; Hunger, ch. x.

  1.           Corporation tax.

Seligman I, chs. vi-viii; Conference, v, p. 139; vii, p. 372; Bullock, ch. xvii.

  1.           Excess-profits and other business taxes.

Haig II, summaries.

  1. Personal taxes.
  2.           Poll tax.

Bastable, book iv, ch. iii; Bullock, ch. 4.

  1.           Expenditure tax. Luxury tax.

Seligman I, ch. ii; Conference, iv, p. 299.

  1.           General property tax.

Pethick-Lawrence, passim; Soward, ch. xi; Allen, ch. viii; Pigou, part IV, ch. xi; Dalton II.

  1.                     The capital levy. Capital increment tax.

Seligman IV, part ii; Conference, vi, p. 321; ix, p. 279; x, pp. 126, 279; Haig III, pp. 1-20; Bullock, ch. xii; Comstock, chs. i, xi.

  1.           Income tax.

Seligman I, ch. v; Bullock, ch. xviii; Hunter, ch. xiv.

  1. Mixed taxes. Inheritance tax.

Conference, iv, p. 279; Soward, chs. viii, xiii.

Part II.—Indirect Taxes: Taxes on Exchange and Consumption.

  1. General considerations.

Bastable, book IV, ch. vi; Robinson, ch. iii; Pigou, part IV, ch. v.

  1. Taxes on commodities.

Bullock, ch. xxi; Plehn, part II, ch. vi; Smith, chs. viii, ix.

  1.           Customs duties.

Bastable, book IV, ch. vii; Plehn, part II, ch. vii.

  1. Stamp taxes.

Bullock, ch. xxi.

  1. Taxes on transactions.

Smith, ch. vi.

  1.      Sales tax. Luxury tax.

Industrial Conference Board, ch. iv; Seligman VI, passim.

  1. Taxes on transportation and communication.

Bastable, book IV, ch. viii.

Part III.—Local Taxation.

  1. English system.

Grice, chs. ii, iii; Cannan, ch. vi; Webb, chs. i-iii; Robinson, ch. vii.

  1. Continental systems.

Grice, chs. viii, xi, xv-xviii.

  1. American system.
  2. Relation of local, state and federal finance.

Seligman I, chs. xii, xxi.

  1. Local option and separation.

Seligman I, ch. xi; Conference, v, p. 271; ix, p. 42.

  1. Selection of local revenues.
  2. General conclusion.

Bullock, ch. xiii; Adams I, part II, ch. vi; Seligman I, [no chs. listed]

_____________________________

ECONOMICS 102

Part III
Public Expenditures

  1. General considerations.

Lutz, ch. iii; Shirras, ch. iii; Bastable, book i, ch. i; Bullock, chs. ii, iii; Adams, part i, book i.

  1. History.

Lutz, ch. v; Dalton, ch. xvi.

  1. Principles

Lutz, ch. vii; Shirras, ch. iv.

  1. Classification.

Lutz, ch. iv; Shirras, ch. v.

  1.           A. General governmental expenditures.

Bastable, book i, ch. vi.

  1.           B. Protective expenditures.

Shirras, ch. vi; Bastable, book i, ch. ii.

  1.           C. Judicial and reformatory expenditures.

Bastable, book i, ch. iii.

  1.           D. Educational and charitable expenditures.

Shirras, ch. viii; Bastable, book i, ch. v.

  1.           E. Health and recreation expenditures.

Shirras, ch. vii; Bastable, book i, ch. iv.

  1.           F. Commerce and industry expenditures.

Shirras, ch. ix.

  1.           G. Public debt expenditures.

See Part IV.

  1. Conclusion

Lutz, ch. viii; Shirras, ch. xii; Bastable, book i, ch. viii; Dalton, chs. xviii-xx; Rosa, passim.

Part IV
Public Credit

  1. General considerations

Bastable, book v, ch. ii; Dalton, part iii, ch. xxi; Lutz, ch. xxiv; Shirras, ch. xxxiii.

  1. History of public credit.
  2. War chests and reserves.

Bastable, book i, ch. iii, iv; Shirras, ch. xxxv-xxxvi.

  1. Theories of public credit.

Bullock, ch. xxii; Bastable, book v, ch. v.

  1. Influence of public indebtedness.

Bullock, ch. xxiii; Adams, book iii, ch. i; Dalton, ch. xxii; Pigou, part iv, ch. viii.

  1. Debts versus Peace and war finance.

Seligman, ch. xxiii; Adams II, part ii, ch. i; Allen, ch. vi; Robinson, ch. viii; Hunter, ch. xix; Pigou, part iv, chs. viii and ix.

  1. Classification of public debts.
  2.           A. Compulsory, patriotic and voluntary loans.
  3.           B. Funded and floating debts.
  4.           C. Bonds and annuities.
  5.           D. Temporary and perpetual debts.
  6.           E. Premium and discount bonds.

Bastable, book V, ch. vi; Adams II, part ii, ch. ii; Hollander, passim; Hunter, ch. xvi; Lutz, ch. xxvi.

  1. Contraction of public debts. Methods of emission.

Adams II, part ii, ch. iii.

  1. Conversion of public debts. Refunding.

Bastable, book v, ch. vii; Lutz, ch. xxvii.

  1. Redemption and payment of public debts.

Adams II, part ii, ch. iv; Bullock, chs. xxiv-xxv; Dalton, ch. xxiii; Shirras, ch. xxxviii.

  1. Government paper money.

Seligman V, passim.

  1. Local indebtedness.
  2.      State debts.
  3.      Municipal debts.

Bastable, book v, ch. vii; Bullock, ch. xxvi.

 

Part V
The Budget

  1. History of the budget.

Stourm, introduction; Bastable, book vi, ch. i.

  1. Comparison of European and American budgets.

Adams I, book ii, ch. i; Ford, chs. ii, iv, viii.

  1. Preparation, form and composition of the budget.

Stourm, part i; Higgs, ch. i; Adams, book ii, ch. ii; Bastable, book vi, ch. ii; Buck, chs. vi-viii; Shirras, ch. xxxviii.

  1. Presentation, discussion and vote of the budget.

Stourm, part ii; Higgs, ch. iii, iv; Adams, book ii, ch. iii; Bastable, book vi, ch. iii; Shirras, ch. xxxvix.

  1. Execution of the budget.

Stourm, part iii; Higgs, ch. v,vi; Adams, book ii, ch. iv; Buck, chs. xi-xii; Lutz, ch. xxx; Shirras, ch. xl.

  1. Control of the budget.
  2.      Administrative control.
  3.      Judicial control.
  4.      Legislative control.

Stourm, part iv; Adams, book ii, chs. iv, v.

  1.      Conclusion.

Higgs II, passim.

_____________________________

REFERENCES

Allen, J. E.—The War Debt. 1919.

Adams I, Adams, H. C.—The Science of Finance. 1898.

Adams II, Adams, H. C.—Public Debts. 1887.

Bastable, C. F.—Public Finance. 3d ed., 1903.

Buck, A. E.—Budget Making. 1921.

Bullock, C.—Selected Readings in Public Finance 2d ed., 1920.

Cannan, E.—History of Local Rates in England. 2d ed., 1912.

Comstock, A.—State Taxation of Personal Incomes. Columbia Studies, no. 223. 1921.

Conference—Proceedings of the Conference of the National Tax Association, vols. i-xv, 1907-1923.

Daniels, W. M.—The Elements of Public Finance. 1889.

Dalton I, Dalton, H.—Principles of Public Finance. 1923.

Dalton II, Dalton, H.—The Capital Levy Explained. 1923.

Ford, H. J.—The Cost of our National Government. 1910.

Grice, J. W.—National and Local Finance. 1910.

Haig I, Haig, R. M.—The Exemption of Improvements from Taxation. 1915.

Haig II, Haig, R. M.—The Taxation of Excess Profits in Great Britain. 1920.

Haig III, Haig, R. M.—The Federal Income Tax. Columbia Lectures, ed. by Haig, 1921.

Higgs, H.—The Financial System of the United Kingdom. 1914.

Hobson, J. A. Taxation in the New State. 1919.

Hollander, J. H.—War Borrowing. 1919.

Hunter, M. H.—Outlines of Public Finance. 1921.

Industrial Conference Board—Report of the Tax Committee of the National Industrial Conference Board, no. 18. 1920.

Jones, R.—The Nature and First Principles of Taxation. 1914.

Kennedy—English Taxation, 1640-1799. 1913.

King, W. I.—The Valuation of Urban Realty for Taxation. 1914. (University of Wisconsin Series.)

Lutz, H. L.—State Tax Commissions. 1918.

New York Report—Final Report of the committee on Taxation of the City of New York, 1916.

Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.—A Levy on Capital. 1918.

Pigou, A. C.—Economics of Warfare. 1920.

Plehn, C. C.—Introduction to Public Fiance. 4th ed., 1920.

Robinson, M. E.—Public Finance. 1922.

Rosa, E.-B.—Expenditures and Revenues of the Federal Government. In Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. XCV. May, 1921.

Seligman I—Essays in Taxation. 9th ed., 1921.

Seligman II—The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation. 4th ed., 1921.

Seligman III—Progressive Taxation. 2d ed., 1908.

Seligman IV—The Income Tax. 2d ed., 1914.

Seligman V—Currency Inflation and Public Debts. 1921.

Secrist, H.—An Economic Analysis of the Constitutional Restrictions upon Public Indebtedness in the U. S. (University of Wisconsin Series.)

Sheftel, Y.—The Taxation of Land Values. 1916.

Smith, H. F.—The United States Federal Internal Tax History. 1914.

Soward, A. W., and Willan, W. E.—The Taxation of Capital. 1919.

Stamp I, Stamp, Sir Josiah—The Fundamental Principles of Taxation. 1921.

Stamp II, Stamp, Sir Josiah—Wealth and Taxable Capacity. 1922.

Stourm, R.—The Budget, American Translation, 1917.

Webb, S.—Grants in Aid., New ed., 1920.

Wells, D. A.—The Theory and Practice of Taxation. 1900.

Weston, S. F.—Principles of Justice in Taxation. Columbia Studies, vol. xviii, 1903.

Young, L. E.—Mine Taxation in the United States. University of Illinois Studies, 1916.

Seligman—Studies in Public Finance [last item typed addition]

 

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Robert M. Haig Papers. Box 15 Lecture Notes (3). Folder “Bibliography”.

Image Source: National Civic Federation Review (1905), p. 229.

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Columbia Courses Economists Syllabus

Columbia. Introductory Economics. First-term, 1912-13.

According to the Columbia University Catalogue for 1912-13, Economics 1-2, Introduction to economics–Practical economic problems was a 3 hour course taught by Professors Seager, Mussey, Agger, and Dr. Anderson. According to this outline it would appear that these instructors taught the material in the assigned textbook readings listed and once a week, a professor from the graduate faculty of Political Science would hold a lecture. The printed copy of the lectures and assignments transcribed here was found in the Papers of John Bates Clark.

________________________

Columbia College

Lectures and Assignments, Economics I.
[1912-13]

 

SEPTEMBER
27 Introductory Lecture. Professor H. R. Seager
30 ELY, Chapter I.—Nature and Scope of Economics.
OCTOBER
2 SELIGMAN, Chapter V.—The Economic Stages.
4 Lecture. The Accumulation of Economic Facts. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
7 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER IV.—The Historical Forms of Business Enterprise
9 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER IX.—Private Property
11 Lecture. Conservation as an Economic Movement. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
14 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER X.—Competition
16 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER XI.—Freedom
18 Lecture. A Method of Approaching and Testing Economic Reforms. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
21 ELY, Chapter VII.—Elementary Concepts. To page 101.  
23 ELY, Chapter VIII.—Consumption. Pages 106 to 113 to “Luxury”
25 Lecture. Value and Price. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
28 ELY, Chapter IX.—Production. Pages 121-131 incl. (omitting 132-145).
30 Written Quiz covering all the above.
NOVEMBER
1 Lecture. Normal Price. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
4 ELY, Chapter XI.—Value and Price. Pages 156-163 to “Elasticity”. [corrected by hand from “Electricity”]
6 ELY, Chapter XI.— Value and Price. Pages 163-168 incl.
8 Lecture. Capitalization of Value. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
11 ELY, Chapter XII.—Value and Price. Pages 170-177 to “The Surplus of Bargaining”.
13 ELY, Chapter XII.— Value and Price. Pages 177-186.
15 Lecture. The Size of the Population. Prof. H. L. Moore.
18 ELY, Chapter XIII.—Monopoly. Pages 187-192 to “Classification” and page 197 “Monopoly Price” to page 201.
20 ELY, Chapter XIII.—Monopoly. Pages 201-208 to “Monopolies and the Distribution of Wealth”.
22 Lecture. The Quality of the Population. Prof. H. L. Moore.
25 Review.
27 Written quiz.
29 Thanksgiving Holidays.
DECEMBER
2 ELY, Chapter XIX.—Distribution as an Economic Problem, Pages 315-325.
4 ELY, Chapter XIX.— Distribution as an Economic Problem, Pages 326-333.
6 Lecture. Efficiency and Income. Prof. H. L. Moore.
9 SELIGMAN, Chapter XXIII.—Profits. Sections 152-154 incl.
11 SELIGMAN, Chapter XXIII.—Profits. Sections 155-157 incl.
13 Lecture. Profits. Prof. J. B. Clark.
16 ELY, Chapter XXI.—Rent of Land. Pages 348-357 to “The Different Uses of Land”.
18 ELY, Chapter XXI.—Rent of Land. Pages 357-366.
20 Lecture. The Rent of Land and the Single Tax. Prof. J. B. Clark.
Christmas Holidays
JANUARY, 1913
6 ELY, Chapter XXII.—The Wages of Labor. Pages 367-376 to “Subsistence Theory.”
8 ELY, Chapter XXII.—The Wages of Labor. Pages 376-385.
10 Lecture. Wages of Labor. Prof. J. B. Clark.
13 ELY, Chapter XXIV.—Interest. Pages 416-425 to “The Shifting of Investment”.
15 ELY, Chapter XXIV.—Interest. Pages 425 to 438 omitting fine print.
17 Lecture. Capital and Interest. Prof. J. B. Clark.
20 Review

The text assignments are to the 1910 editions of Prof. E. R. A. Seligman’s Principles of Economics and to Prof. R. T. Ely’s Outlines of Economics.

 

            COLLATERAL READING: (Pages to be assigned)

Bücher Industrial Evolution

Bullock Readings in Economics.

George Progress and Poverty. [Memorial Edition(1898): Vol. I, Vol. II.]

 

Source: John Bates Clark Papers, Series II.4. Box 9. Folder “Administrative Records and Course Material Undated”; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.

 

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Portrait of Eight Economists. University Extension Summer Meeting. 1894

This set of pictures was found in Box 2, Folder “Photographs” of the Franklin Henry Giddings papers, 1890-1931, Columbia University, Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Judging from the college/university affiliations given (about a two year window) and the fact that the Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association was held with Columbia College, New York City, December 26-29, 1894, my first guess was that this was related to the AEA event and put together by the local organizers.

However we can be certain that this handsome collection of portraits was published instead as a supplement to the University Extension Bulletin. Exactly these eight economists are the “corps of lecturers” for the University Extension Summer Meeting held July 2-28, 1894 at the University of Pennsylvania as described in The University Extension Bulletin, Vol. I, No. 8 (May 10, 1894). Further it is announced: “We present our readers also with a supplement with portraits of the lecturers in the Economics Department.” Here at haithitrust.org is that supplement.

 

Probably this collection of portraits is related to the 7th Annual AEA Meeting at Columbia Dec 26-29, 1894.