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Harvard. Mid-year and Final Exams for Economics courses, 1899-1900

 

With this post the Harvard economics exam collection of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror enters the 20th century. 

All the printed exams for the academic year 1899-1900 have been transcribed for the digitized record.

Economics 1. Outlines of Economics
Economics 2. Economic Theory of the 19th Century
Economics 3. Principles of Sociology
Economics 4. Statistics
Economics 5. Railways and Other Public Works
Economics 6. Economic History of the U.S.
Economics 7a. Financial Administration and Public Debts
Economics 7b. Theory and Methods of Taxation
Economics 8. Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects
Economics 9. [Labor Question in Europe and the U.S.]
Economics 10. [European Mediaeval Economic History]
Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe
Economics 12. [Banking and Leading Banking Systems]
Economics 12a. [International Payments and Gold/Silver Flows]
Economics 13. [Methods of Economic Investigation]
Economics 14. Socialism and Communism
Economics 15. The History of Economics to close of the 18th Century
Economics 16. Financial History of the U.S.
Economics 20a. Economics of Ancient World
Economics 20b. Commercial Crises
Economics 20c. Tariff History of the U.S.
Economics 20e. Ethnology Applied to Economics

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Economics 1.
Outlines of Economics

Course Announcement

[Economics] 1. Outlines of Economics. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor  [Frank William] Taussig, Asst. Professor Edward Cummings, Dr. John Cummings, Dr. [Guy Stevens] Callender, Dr. [Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] Sprague, Messrs. [Abram Piatt] Andrew and [Edward Henry] Warren.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 367.

Course Enrollment
1899-1900

Primarily for Undergraduates:—
[Economics] 1. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings, Dr. John Cummings, Dr. Callender, Dr. Sprague, Messrs. Andrew and Warren. — Outlines of Economics. Lectures and recitations (3 hours); prescribed reading. Recitations in 12 sections.

Total 461: 1 Graduate, 15 Seniors, 85 Juniors, 277 Sophomores, 23 Freshmen, 60 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 68.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 1
[Mid-year examination]

One question may be omitted from each of the two groups.
Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

I.

  1. Explain what is meant by

positive and preventive checks;
effective desire of accumulation;
margin of cultivation.

  1. In what manner the investment of capital is promoted

by the payment of interest;
by corporations or joint stock companies;
by private ownership of land.

Are there differences between the conclusions of Mill and Hadley on these subjects?

  1. Does Mill believe there is an “unearned increment”? does Hadley?
  2. “Profits are neither more nor less than the selling price of the products of industry above the amount advanced in wages.” Hadley
    “Profits do not depend on prices, nor on purchase and sale.” Mill
    Can you reconcile these two statements? and how is either of them to be reconciled with the expenditure incurred by capitalists for materials and machinery ?
  3. “The separation of interest from net profit and rent results in a separation of the reward for waiting from the rewards for rent and foresight.” Explain wherein this separation at the hands of Hadley is different from the treatment of the same subject by Mill.

II.

  1. Mention special circumstances which act on the remuneration of (take three),

domestic servants;
physicians;
artists of eminence;
business men.

  1. For each of the three groups into which Mill divides commodities according to the laws of value governing them, mention an example, giving your reasons for the classification.
  2. Suppose two kinds of shoes, one made chiefly by hand, the other made chiefly in factories where much machinery is used. How will a general rise in wages affect their relative value?
  3. Explain what is meant by commercial speculation; by industrial speculation; and set forth (as to one) the advantages and disadvantages.
  4. Wherein is Mill’s attitude toward socialism more or less sympathetic than Hadley’s?
  5. “Coöperation is often confounded with profit-sharing, but the two things are radically distinct in their nature.”
    Would Mill’s discussion of these subjects lead you to think him likely to accede to this statement of Hadley’s? What is your own opinion?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, containing the volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 1
[Year-end examination]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

I
Three questions from this group.

  1. Is rent a return different in kind from interest? Is interest a return different in kind from profits? Do Hadley and Mill differ as to these distinctions?
  2. Is the stock of money in a country, metallic and paper, part of its capital? Why, or why not?
  3. A large increase in population has taken place in most countries during this century; and the well-being of laborers has advanced. Are these facts inconsistent with the principles that there is a law of diminishing returns from land, and that a rapid increase of population causes wages to be low?
  4. If the efficiency of labor in a given community were suddenly doubled as to all commodities, how would their values be affected? their prices? How would international trade be affected?

II.
Three questions from this group.

  1. Explain what is meant by (a) index numbers, (b) tabular standard. Would the adoption of a tabular standard make the adjustment of relations between debtor and creditor more equitable? more convenient?
  2. What would you expect to be the effect of a great increase in the exports of a given country on the foreign exchanges, on the movement of specie, on the rate of discount, on prices?
  3. Is there any ground for the feeling of apprehension often expressed when gold is exported from a country?
  4. Can you reconcile the statement that a country’s exports tend usually to be equal in money value to its imports, with the statement that the country may gain more from the exchange than do the countries with which it trades?

III.
Four questions from this group.

  1. “The distinctive function of the banker begins as soon as he uses the money of others.”
    “Banks make the larger portion of their profits, not from their capital, but from the use of money furnished them by their customers.”
    Should you accede to these statements?
  2. To what peculiar expedients do banks resort in time of crisis in (a) England, (b) Germany, (c) the United States?
  3. The provisions of the acts of 1878 and 1892. Why did the one cause much embarassment, the other little?
  4. Points of resemblance, points of difference, between the Issue Department of the Bank of England, and the Division of Issue and Redemption established by the act of 1900 in the Treasury of the United States.
  5. In view of what you learned about credit and banking, do you believe that the general range of prices depends on the plentifulness of specie? If so, how? if not, why not?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, bound volume Examination Papers 1900-01, pp. 27-28.

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Economics 2
Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century

Course Announcement

[Economics] 2. Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 367.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. Lectures and discussions (3 hours); required reading.

Total 65: 8 Graduates, 17 Seniors, 27 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 9 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-year examination]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
One question may be omitted.

  1. “That high wages make high prices, is a popular and widely-spread opinion. The whole amount of error involved in this proposition can only be seen thoroughly when we come to the theory of money.”“It is another common notion that high prices make high wages; because the producers or dealers, being better off, can afford to pay more to their labourers.”What would Cairnes say was the “amount of error” in the opinions here stated by Mill?
  2. “What was Cairnes’s answer to the question put by him: “Are these grounds for a separate theory of international trade?”
  3. Suppose country A to have to remit regularly a tribute to country B: trace the effects on imports and exports, on the usual rates of foreign exchange, on the level of prices in the two countries.
  4. Is Cairnes’s reasoning as to the effect which trade unions may exercise on wages consistent with his reasoning as to “a certain proportion of the sums invested, which must go to the payment of wages”?
  5. (a) “The tiller of the soil must abide in faith of a harvest, through months of ploughing, sowing, and cultivating; and his industry is only possible as food has been stored up from the crop of the previous year . . . To the extent of a year’s subsistence, then, it is necessary that some one should stand ready to make advances to the wage-laborer out of the products of past industry. All sums so advanced came out of capital.”(b) ”But how largely, in fact, are wages advanced out of capital?. . . In some exceptional industries [e.g. transportation companies] it happens that the employer realizes on his product in a shorter time than once a week, so that the labourer is not only paid out of the product of his industry, but actually advances to the employer a portion of the capital on which he operates.”(c) “In new countries . . . the wages of labor are paid only partially out of capital . . . A collection of accounts from the books of farmers in different sections before 1851 shows the hands charged with advances of the most miscellaneous character. Yet in general the amount of such advances does not exceed one third, and it rarely reaches one half, of the stipulated wages of the year. Now it is idle to speak of wages thus paid as coming out of capital. At the time these contracts were made the wealth which was to pay those wages was not in existence.”Consider whether an advance from capital, or the absence of an advance, is made out in the cases here described by Walker.
  6. How far you regard wages and other incomes as predetermined, — i.e. determined by causes that have operated in the past; and how far your conclusion is affected by the saving and investment of a part of current money income.
  7. Your conclusion as to what share in distribution is “residual” (a) over short periods, (b) over long periods.
  8. Is the doctrine of a rigid and predetermined wages-fund set forth by Ricardo? By Mill?
  9. The “laissez-faire” and “natural rights” theory at the hands of Adam Smith, of Bastiat, of John Stuart Mill.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Prof. F. W. Taussig, Examination Papers in Economics 1882-1935 (Scrapbook). Also in Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, containing the volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Year-end examination]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

  1. a) “The analysis of consumer’s surplus, or rent, gives definite expression to familiar notions, but introduces to new subtlety.”Explain.b) Consider qualifications to be borne in mind in measuring consumer’s surplus; and give your conclusion as to helpfulness of the doctrine thus qualified.
  2. “When we speak of the national dividend, or distributable net income of the whole nation, as divided into the shares of land, labour, capital, we must be clear as to what things we are including, and what things we are excluding . . . The labour and capital of the country, acting on its natural resources, produce annually a certain net aggregate of commodities, material and immaterial, including services of all kinds. This is the true net annual income, or revenue, of the country; or, the national dividend.”“It is to be understood that the share of the national dividend, which any particular class receives during the year, consists either of things that were made during the year, or the equivalents of those things. For many of the things made, or partly made, during the year are likely to remain in the possession of capitalists and undertakers of industry and to be added to the stock of capital; while in return they, directly or indirectly, hand over to the working classes some things that had been made in previous years.“Consider as to these passages, (1) their relation to the doctrine of total utility and consumer’s rent, (2) whether you would accede to either statement, or to both.
  3. Define monopoly revenue; and consider the effect on monopoly and on the prices of the monopolized article of (1) a tax proportional to monopoly revenue, (2) a tax fixed in total amount, (3) a tax proportional to quantity produced.
  4. “We might reasonably dispute whether it is the upper blade of a pair of scissors or the lower that cuts a piece of paper, as whether value is governed by utility or cost of production. It is true that when one blade is held still, and the cutting is effected by moving the other, we may say with careless brevity that the cutting is done by the second; but the statement is not strictly accurate, and is to be excused only so long as it claims to be merely a popular and not a strictly scientific account of what actually happens.” Explain; and consider whether Mill or Cairnes would have accepted this conclusion.

5, 6, 7 (answer separately, or as one question, at your pleasure).

Rent and quasi-rent;
Producer’s rent and saver’s rent;
Producer’s rent and business profits, —

wherein like, wherein unlike; with a consideration of the helpfulness of the distinctions for the solution of economic problems.

  1. Compare the conclusions of Mill, Cairnes, Marshall, as to the causes of the differences in remuneration in different social strata.
  2. Suppose France, Germany, and the United States had not legislated as they did in 1873-75, what would have been, in your opinion, the course of the price of silver?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Prof. F. W. Taussig, Examination Papers in Economics 1882-1935 (Scrapbook). Also in Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, bound volume Examination Papers 1900-01, pp. 28-29.

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Economics 3
Principles of Sociology

Course Announcement

[Economics] 3. The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 367.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 3. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. Lectures (3 hours); excursions; 6 reports or theses.

Total 105: 7 Graduates, 35 Seniors, 37 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 16 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 3
[Mid-year examination]

In discussing these topics, indicate so far as you can in each case the views held by the several authors read and discussed during the half-year; and state clearly your own conclusions.

  1. The peculiar relations of man to his environment:—
    1. The relative importance of human, or non-human elements of environment at different stages of progress.
    2. The ideal adjustment of man to the several elements of his environment.
  2. a) The Biological conditions of progress; b) the Economic conditions; c) the Ethical conditions.How related; and how reconcilable?
  3. The family and progress
  4. Reason and progress.
  5. Religion and progress.
  6. Imitation and “consciousness of kind.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, containing the volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 3
[Year-end examination]
  1. State the subject of your final report, and the amount of reading or other work done in preparation of it.
  2. The Social Contract:(a) Origin and successive phases of the theory; comparing the views of its chief expounders and critics.(b) Bearing of the Social Contract theory upon recent speculations in regard to the nature and origin of social and political institutions.
  3. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Explain carefully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with these statements.
  4. (a) Spencer’s theory as to the origin and development of political forms and forces;(b) The value of his practical conclusions in regard to the legitimate function of the modern State;(c) Laissez-faire and the survival of the unfit.
  5. The conditions making for race progress and for race deterioration:(a) Analyse Haycraft’s Evidence and his conclusions;(b) Analyse Kelly’s evidence and his conclusions.
  6. Tarde’s laws of Repetition, Opposition, Adaptation: explain and illustrate their sociological significance.
  7. The curve of social progress.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, bound volume Examination Papers 1900-01, p. 30.

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Biographical information for John Cummings has been posted earlier:

https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-semester-exams-for-statistics-john-cummings-1896-1900/

Economics 4.
Statistics

Course Announcement

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 4. Statistics. — Theory, method, and practice. — Studies in Demography. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. John Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

Course Enrollment 1899-1900
(Year-course)

[Economics] 4. Dr. John Cummings. — Statistics. — Theory, method, and practice. — Studies in Demography. Lectures (3 hours) and conferences; 2 reports; theses.

Total 10: 1 Graduate, 2 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 4.
[Mid-year examination]

Devote one hour to A and the remainder of your time to B.

A.

  1. Urban growth and migration. Consider the sex and age distribution of migrants, the natural increase of urban and rural populations, and the causes of migration into urban centres. Illustrate by considering the actual conditions and movement in some one country or important urban centre.
  2. The data of criminal statistics as an index of amount of criminality. Consider the tables relating to crime in the United States census; the several statistical methods of dealing with crime and with the criminal classes; age, sex, and civil status as a factor in criminality; and the law of criminal saturation.

B.
Elect ten, and answer concisely.

1 and 2. [counts as two questions]. Statistical measurements of agglomeration. Consider statistical methods of determining degree of concentration, also definition of the urban unit.

2 and 4. [counts as two questions]. Causes tending to make the rate of mortality lower for urban than for rural populations? Causes tending to make it higher? The rate of natality?

5. Methods of estimating population for intercensal years.

6. Statistical laws and freedom of the will

7. Define “life-table population.”

8. Define carefully the following terms: “birth rate,” “rate of natality”; “rate of mortality”; death rate”; “rate of nuptialité”; “marriage rate”; index of mortality.”

9. What do you understand by normal distribution of population by sex? By age? By civil status?

10. Economic value of a population as effected by its age and sex distribution? By movement? by immigration?

11. Of what statistical significance is the doubling period for any population?

12. Can you account for the retardation in the rate of movement of population during this century?

13. Tell when, if ever, the following terms are identical:—

(a) mean age at death.
(b) mean age of living.
(c) mean duration of life.
(d) expectation of life.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year Examination papers, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers. Mid-years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 4.
[Year-end examination]

Divide your time equally between A and B.

A.

  1. Statistical methods of estimating wealth accumulated.Comment critically upon the census statistics of wealth accumulated in the United States.
  2. Statistical evidences of the progress of the working classes in the last half-century. Discuss the movement of wages and prices.What do you understand by “index figures,” “average wages,” “average prices,” “weighted averages”? Explain methods of weighting.
  3. The growth of cities and social election.

B.
Two questions may be omitted.

  1. How far are social conditions in a community revealed in the birth rate? the death rate? by the “index of mortality”? What do you understand by “movement of population”?
  2. In constructing a life table what correction must be made for abnormal age and sex distribution? Define “mortality,” “natality,” “expectation of life.” How should you calculate the “mean duration of life” from the census returns?
  3. The limit to the increase of population in the food supply? In other forms of wealth?
  4. Can you formulate any laws which will be true in general of the migrations of population?
  5. Methods of estimating population for intercensal years.
  6. Statistics of manufacturers in the United States census.
  7. How should you calculate the economic value of a population?
  8. Take one:—The rate of suicide as evidence of degeneration.The tables relating to crime in the Federal census of the United States.
  9. How far is it possible to give to moral and social facts a quantitative statement?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, p. 31.

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Economics 5
Railways and other Public Works

Course Announcement

[Economics] 5. Railways and other Public Works, under Public and Corporate Management. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 1.30. Mr. Meyer.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

Course Enrollment
(Year-course)

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 5. Mr. Meyer. Railways and other Public Works, under Public and Corporate Management. Lectures (2 or 3 hours); prescribed reading.

Total 62: 3 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 19 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 5
[Mid-year examination]
  1. Illustrate by means of such leading facts as you have at your command the statement that the railway problem is the problem of the adjustment of
    1. The claims of rival railways occupying the same territory;
    2. The claims of railways occupying widely separated sections of the country but competing for a “common market”;
    3. The claims of rival producing and distributing centres.
  1. “Had [railroad] building been checked by the censorship of a board of commissioners, and charters granted by the State only upon a showing of necessity, to be determined by the population, density of traffic, and like warrantable reasons, a large percentage of the roads which today constitute the disturbing element of interstate commerce, would never have been built.” — Clark: State Railroad Commissions.Give your reasons for accepting or rejecting the statement that the control here suggested could not have been exercised.
    Alternative:
    The working in Massachusetts of the practice of incorporating railway companies by special charter only.
    The working of the New York legislation of 1892 and 1895 enacting that no new railroad or street railway shall be built in New York State unless the Board of Railroad Commissioners shall certify that public convenience and necessity require the construction.
  2. The analysis of the expense account of railways upon which is based the “joint cost of production” theory of railway rates.
  3. The nature of the statistics used in illustrating in a general way the statement that railway charges are based upon what the traffic will bear: in discussing the bearing of stock-watering upon railway rates.
  4. Pools under the common law: in England; in the United States.
    Alternative:
    The effect upon the railway rate situation at the north-west of the railroad building of 1886 to 1888, and the federal prohibition of pooling, together with the enactment of the “long and short haul” principle.
  5. The decision of the court in Munn v. Illinois; Brass v. North Dakota; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul v. Minnesota; and Smythe, Attorney-general. v. Ames.
  6. What were the causes of the so-called granger agitation of 1871-74; of the reappearance of this agitation in 1886-88?
  7. The two currents of thought in the Interstate Commerce Act.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year Examination papers, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers. Mid-years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 5
[Year-end examination]

Discuss questions 1 and 2 as thoroughly as you can, and give to question 3 whatever time remains.

  1. Transportation by rail and by water in Prussia and the Prussian Provinces. — A critical account of the working of the Prussian scheme of railway charges.
  2. Should the Interstate Commerce Commission have power to fix railway rates; or should the adjustment of railway rates be left to pools?
  3. The history of electric street railway traction in the United States, and of electric street railway traction and electric lighting in Great Britain. — A critical discussion of the American policy of little or no restriction upon the industries in question, and the British policy of severe restriction coupled with a tendency to municipal ownership and municipal operation.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, p. 32.

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Economics 6.
Economic History
of the United States

Biographical Note for Guy Stevens Callender: https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-final-examination-u-s-economic-history-callender-1899-1900/

Course Description
1897-98

[Economics] 6. The Economic History of the United States. Tu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Mr. Callender.

Course 6 gives a general survey of the economic history of the United States from the formation of the Union to the present time, and considers also the mode in which economic principles are illustrated by the experience so surveyed. A review is made of the financial history of the United States, including Hamilton’s financial system, the second bank of the United States and the banking systems of the period preceding the Civil War, coinage history, the finances of the Civil War, and the banking and currency history of the period since the Civil War. The history of manufacturing industries is taken up in connection with the course of international trade and of tariff legislation, the successive tariffs being followed and their economic effects considered. The land policy of the United States is examined partly in its relation to the growth of population and the inflow of immigrants, and partly in its relation to the history of transportation, including the movement for internal improvements, the beginnings of the railway system, the land grants and subsidies, and the successive bursts of activity in railway building. Comparison will be made from time to time with the contemporary economic history of European countries.

Written work will be required of all students, and a course of reading will be prescribed, and tested by examination. The course is taken advantageously with or after History 13. While an acquaintance with economic principles is not indispensable, students are strongly advised to take the course after having taken Economics 1, or, if this be not easy to arrange, at the same time with that course.

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98,  pp. 32-33.

Course Announcement

[Economics] 6. The Economic History of the United States. Tu., Th., at 2.30. Dr. Callender.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 367.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 6. Dr. [Guy Stevens] Callender.—The Economic History of the United States. Lectures (2 hours); discussions of assigned topics (1 hour); 2 theses.

Total: 163.  11 Graduates, 64 Seniors, 58 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 11 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Annual report of the President of Harvard College 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 6
[Mid-Year Examination]

Answer ten questions, including 5, 6, 7, and 8.

  1. “The English commercial legislation; I conclude, did the colonies no harm prior to 1760; and the English connection did them much good.” — Ashley, in Quarterly Journal of Economies, November 1899.
    Do you agree with this conclusion? Be careful to explain why various features of English colonial policy were, or were not, burdensome to the colonies.
  2. Do you consider the following extract a sufficient explanation of the great prosperity of the colonies in the eighteenth century, or the new states of the West during the fifty years before the Civil War? If not point out the neglected factor.“The colony of a civilized nation which takes possession of a waste country … advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than any other human society.The colonists carry with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other useful arts. … Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent and scarce any taxes to pay. No landlord shares with him in its produce, and the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great as possible a produce, which is thus to be almost entirely his own. … He is eager, therefore, to collect labourers from all quarters, and to reward them with the most liberal wares. … The liberal reward of labour encourages marriage. The children, during the tender age of infancy are well fed and properly taken care of, and when they are grown up, the value of their labour greatly overpays their maintenance. When arrived at maturity, the high price of labour and the low price of land, enables them to establish themselves in the same manner as their fathers did before them.”“Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own way, seems to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new colonies.” — Wealth of Nations.
  3. Briefly describe the experience of the American people with paper currency prior to the formation of the federal constitution, noting the different kinds of paper money used.
  4. In what respect did the revenue system of the United States in 1830 differ from that in operation in 1800? Do you think the change was a change for the better?
  5. “It is now proper to proceed a step further, and to enumerate the principal circumstances from which it may be inferred that manufacturing establishments not only occasion a positive augmentation of the produce and revenues of the society, but that they contribute essentially to render them greater than they could possibly be without such establishments.” — Hamilton, Report on Manufactures.
    Enumerate as many of these “circumstances” as you can and discuss the one which seems to you to furnish the strongest argument for the Protective policy.
  6. “…The Protective policy of the United States has had unexpected successes and surprising failures. By successes, here I mean that sometimes the duties have brought about a considerable development of the protected industry; while by failures, I would describe those cases in which there has been an absence of such development…” — Taussig, Tariff History.
    Mention several cases of each and point out the causes for success or failure in every case.
  7. What were the principal features of our tariff legislation from the close of the Civil War to 1883?
  8. “There seem, however, to be two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign, for the encouragement of domestic industry.” — Wealth of Nations.
    What are these two exceptions to Adam Smith’s free trade principles? Has either of them ever had any influence in determining American tariff policy?
  9. “It is not uncommon to meet with an opinion, that though the promoting of manufactures may be the interest of a part of the Union, it is contrary to that of another part. The northern and southern regions are sometimes represented as having adverse interests in this respect. These are called manufacturing; those agricultural states; and a species of opposition is imagined to subsist between the manufacturing and agricultural interests. …” — Hamilton, Report on Manufactures.
    How far had this supposed opposition of interest between the North and South respecting the tariff a real basis? Was there not the same opposition of interest between the East and West?
  10. “The material progress during 1850-60 was greater than that of any preceding decade. To excel it, we must look forward to the time intervening between the end of the Civil War and the present. …”— Rhodes, History of United States.
    What were the principal causes of this prosperity?
  11. Does the experience of the United States at any period of its history confirm or refute the following proposition?
    “…The inevitable consequence of free trade and constantly increasing commercial intercourse between the two countries (e. United States and Great Britain) must be, to establish among the inhabitants of both of them the same standard of material well being, the same measure and distribution of individual prosperity. Great Britain is now (1855) pouring upon us in a full tide both the surplus of her population and the products of her over-tasked manufacturing industry. … To expect that, in two countries thus situated, without any special direction of public policy toward maintaining some barrier between them, the pressure of population, the profits of capital. And the wages of labor can long remain very unequal, would be as idle as to believe that, without the erection of a dam. Water could be maintained at two different levels in the same pond ….” — Bowen, American Political Economy, p. 216.
  12. How would you explain the prevalence of public enterprises in transportation and banking in the United States between 1815 and 1850?
  13. In what respects should conclusions, drawn from the experiences of European countries, regarding the effects of a Protective Tariff, be modified, when applied to the United States?
  14. Compare the main features of the commercial policy of Europe and America at the present time with the mercantile system of the eighteenth century.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, containing the volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 6
[Final examination, 1900]
  1. Into what periods may the economic history of the United States be properly divided? Give your reasons for making such a division, pointing out the chief characteristic of each period.
  2. “A monopoly may be either legal, natural, or industrial.”—Distinguish each of these from the others by examples, and explain at length what is the character of an “industrial monopoly.”
  3. What legislation, if any, do you think is needed for the control of trusts? Give in full the reasons for your opinion.
  4. What features of American railway legislation do you consider open to criticism?
  5. “…As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, cotton culture offered many and great advantages over other crops for the use of slave labor; but slavery had few, if any advantages over free labor for the cultivation of cotton….”—(a) Point out some of the advantages of cotton over other crops for the use of slave labor. (b) How do you reconcile the last part of the statement with the fact that cotton was produced chiefly by slave, instead of free, labor?
  6. Considering the conditions prevailing among the negroes in the South as well as in the West Indies since emancipation, what criticism, if any, would you make upon the policy of emancipation as actually carried out by the federal government during and after the war?
  7. What influences can you mention which have contributed to the recent depressed condition of cotton producers? (Do not confine your attention to the “credit system.”)
  8. What were the principal provisions of the resumption act? Explain the conditions under which it was carried into effect.
  9. Explain the conditions which led to the crisis or 1893.
  10. What reasons can you give to support the proposition that immigration has increased the population of the United States but little, if any?

Source:  Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. Box 2, Folder “Final examinations, 1899-1900”.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, pp. 32-33.

_______________________

Economics 7a
Financial Administration and Public Debts

Course Announcement

[Economics] 7a1 hf. Financial Administration and Public Debts. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) at 11. Professor Dunbar.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 7a1 hf. Professor Dunbar. — Financial Administration and Public Debts. Lectures (2 or 3 hours); prescribed reading; report.

Total 36: 7 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 7a
[Mid-year examination]

Divide your time equally between A and B.

A.
Question A.2 may be omitted and your time devoted to Question A.1; or A.1 and A.2 may be treated together as forming one question.

  1. Give some account of English sinking fund provisions enacted since 1860, and of operations looking toward reduction of the English debt during that period. If you prefer, take instead the period 1790-1820.
  2. What determines the present worth of government securities in general? and in particular, of the following sorts of securities at the date of their issue:—
    1. a terminable annuity?
    2. a perpetual annuity?
    3. a life or a tontine annuity?
    4. a five-twenty bond? an English consol? of the French rentes?
    5. of paper currency?

What effect upon the present worth of a public security has lengthening the term for which it is to run? Consider inconvertible paper currency

B.
Take six.

  1. What do you understand by “floating debt”? by “funded debt”? “unliquidated debt”? “credit supplementaire”?
  2. Discuss the “use and disuse of ‘relishes,’ gambling risks which are added in order to commend a public loan to the taste of creditors,” as a factor in the development of public credit
  3. Compare the development of public credit in Prussia with that in Great Britain at the beginning of this century.
  4. and 5. [counts as two questions] Compare the manner of making up estimates of public income and expenditures, and the responsibility of the finance minister in England, France and the United States. The manner of appropriating funds out of the treasury in these several countries.
  1. How far, if at all, is a government justified in pledging itself to any fixed policy of debt payment? How may a policy of conversion conflict with a policy of payment?
  2. Give an account of any important refunding operation with which you are familiar.
  3. Examine and criticise the following selection: “As regards the relation of public control to public credit, there is obviously a long step taken in advance when the public control comes to be so employed as to not discriminate in its own favor.”
  4. Criticise the opinions set forth in the following selections:—“A large national debt is a ‘canker which consumes the political energy and the wealth of a nation’ and will sooner or later destroy it.”“Public debt is debt only in form; in point of substantial fact every loan is an independent method of taxing the future for all those government expenses which go to build up permanent government establishments for the benefit of the future by means of advances furnished by the present.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, containing the volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.
Also: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, p. 34.

________________________

Economics 7b
The Theory and
Methods of Taxation

Course Announcement

[Economics] 7b2 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Half-course(second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) at 8. Professor Taussig.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 7b2 hf. Professor Taussig. — The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Lectures and discussions (hours); required reading.

Total 73: 6 Graduates, 25 Seniors, 27 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 7b

[Year-end examination]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
Give your reasons in all cases.

  1. How far something analogous to the end which is proposed by the “single tax” is attained by (1) the French impôt foncier, (2) the English Land Tax, (3) local taxes on urban realty in the United States.
  2. “(1) It is maintained by some economists that the taxes on rented real estate are shifted entirely to the tenants, and result by just so much in an increase of rents. (2) It is maintained by others that, when land has a considerable value, the taxes are shifted to tenants only in part, and in part have the effect of lessening the selling price of site on which the buildings stand. … (3) But in either case the investment price of the property has long since been adjusted to the tax.”Explain which among these three statements, if any, you think accurate, giving your reasons.
  3. The relation of local taxes on real property to central taxes thereon, in France, in England, in American states?
  4. Are there features in the Prussian tax reforms of 1891-93 which may be commended for imitation in American states?
  5. The nature of the advantages secured by the combination of local with central administration in the income tax legislation of England and of Prussia.
  6. “Is it quite honest for a government to keep back part of what it has promised to pay a pensioner, an annuitant, or the holder of public obligations? Is it reasonable to tax public salaries when the result of such a tax is to increase the expense of administration without increasing by one penny the clear income to the government? Can a man who knows how contracts are drawn between debtors and creditors be convinced that equity is the result of attempting to tax a money-lender through the agency of the borrower? Can it be denied that the application of the principle of “tapping” at their source the incomes which, unfortunately for the recipients, are recorded, while permitting other incomes to pay on the basis of self- assessment by the individual, is to perpetuate one of the worst features of the general property tax, namely, inequality of assessments as between individuals?”
    Answer these questions, separately or as a whole, with regard to the tax system which is referred to by the writer.
  7. Is the Massachusetts system of taxing corporations and corporate securities open to the charge of leading to double taxation?
  8. The reasons for and against the establishment of an income tax by the United States.
  9. Do you believe the principle of progression in taxation to be sound?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, pp. 35-36.

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Economics 82
Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects

Course Announcement

8hf. Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects. (Mediaeval and Modern.) Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructorFri., at 12.Dr. Cunningham (Trinity College, Cambridge, England).

Source:   Harvard University, Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1898-1899.Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1898, p. 41.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 8hf. Dr. Cunnningham.— Western Civilization, mediaeval and modern, in its Economic Aspects. Lectures (3 hours). 4 reports.

Total 105:  13 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 23 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 12 Others

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-99, p. 72.

Reading List transcribed at: Harvard. Economic Aspects of Western Civilization. Cunningham, 1899

Note: no examinations found.

_______________________

Economics 9
[Omitted in 1899-1900]

[The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. The Social And Economic Condiditon of Workingmen. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.]

_______________________

Economics 10
[Omitted in 1899-1900]

[The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. Tu., Thu., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat. at 12. Professor Ashley.]

_______________________

Economics 11
Modern European and American Economic History

Course Description (from 1897-98)

[Economics] 11. The Modern Economic History of Europe and America (from 1500). Tu., Th., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor Ashley.

This course, — which will usually alternate with Course 10 [The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe] in successive years, — while intended to form a sequel to Course 10, will nevertheless be independent, and may usefully be taken by those who have not followed the history of the earlier period. The main thread of connection will be found in the history of trade; but the outlines of the history of agriculture and industry will also be set forth, and the forms of social organization dependent upon them. England, as the first home of the “great industry,” will demand a large share of attention; but the parallel or divergent economic history of the United States, and of the great countries of western Europe, will be considered side by side with it.

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. [Announcement of theDivision of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics 1897-98, pp. 31-32.

Course Announcement

[Economics] 11. The Modern Economic History of Europe and America (from 1500). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor)Sat., at 12. Professor Ashley.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 367.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 11. Professor Ashley.—The Modern Economic History of Europe. Lectures (2 or 3 hours).

Total 76: 15 Graduates, 21 Seniors, 26 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 8 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1899-1900, p. 69.

Course Readings

Harvard. Readings for Modern Economic History. Ashley, 1899-1900

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 11.
[Mid-year examination]

N.B. — Not more than eight questions should be attempted,
of which the first must be one.

  1. Comment upon, and (where the text is not English) translate,the following passages:—
    1. Exemplar bullae seu donationis auctoritate cujus episcopus Romanus Alexander, ejus nominis sextus, concessit et donavit Castellae recibus et suis successoribus regiones et insulas novi orbis in Oceano occidentali Hispanorum navigationibus repertas.
    2. Ibi enim tanta copia navigantium est cum mercimoniis ut in toto reliquo orbe non sint sicuti in uno portu nobilissimo vocato Zaitun. Asserunt enim centum naves pipis magnae in eo portu singulis annis deferri, sine aliis navibus portantibus alia aromata.
    3. The Flemings there sometimes had a house of merchandise, but by reason that they used the like ill-dealing there which they did with us, they lost their privileges.
    4. There is good hope that the same law being duly executed should yield unto the hired person both in the time of scarcity and in the time of plenty a convenient proportion of wages.
    5. Wo jetzt eine grosse Gesellschaft ist, da nährten sich sonst wohl 20 oder mehr.
  1. Give some account of the Portuguese policy in Asia during the sixteenth century.
  2. Trace the origin and development of the class of English farmers up to the middle of the seventeenth century.
  3. Compare the industrial conditions indicated by the craft ordinances of the later Middle Ages with those described in Defoe’s Tour.
  4. Explain the importance of the statute of 1536 in the history of the English Poor Law.
  5. Give some account, and explain the significance, of the statutes of Edward VI and of Mary touching the manufacture of cloth.
  6. “The popular fears of engrossing and forestalling may be compared to the popular terror of witchcraft.” Criticise this dictum of Adam Smith in relation to (a) the Middle Ages; (b) the Age of Elizabeth; (c) our own time.
  7. What is meant by a national economy, as contrasted with a town economy? Illustrate from European conditions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
  8. Indicate the points of contact between the life of Sir Thomas Gresham and the economic movements of his time.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, containing the volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 11

[Year-end examination]

Not more than eight questions should be attempted,
of which the first must be one.

  1. Explain briefly the significance of the following passages:—
      1. No sugars, tobacco, cotton wool, indigoes, ginger, fustic or other dyeing wood, of the growth, production or manufacture of any English plantations in America, Asia or Africa shall be shipped, carried, conveyed or transported from any of the said English plantations to any land . . . or place whatsoever, other than to such English plantations as do belong to His Majesty or to the Kingdom of England or Ireland or principality of Wales, &c.
      2. The churchwardens of every parish and four substantial householders there … shall take order from time to time … for setting to work of the children whose parents … shall not be able to keep and maintain their children, and also all such persons as, having no means to maintain them, use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by.
  2. Compare the industrial and political life of one of the larger cities of the 15th century — say London or Norwich — with that of a great American city to-day.
  3. State and criticise Seeler’s view of the meaning of English history in the 17th and 18th centuries.
  4. What were the features common to the South Sea Company and the Mississippi Scheme, and wherein did they differ?
  5. Discuss the question as to the practical effect of the Justices’ Assessment of Wages.
  6. What suggestions or warnings for the U. S. in their treatment of the Philippine Islands may be derived them the history of English or Dutch experience in the East?
  7. “It is in the highest degree improbable that the industrial system, which has been gradually superseded in the last 150 years, over had those pleasing characteristics which have been attributed to it.” Consider this.
  8. “The historical method not always conservative — Changes commonly attributed to natural law are sometimes shown by it to be due to human injustice — The decay of the Yeomanry a case in point.” Is it a case in point or no? Explain your judgment, in either event.
  9. Consider either Sir Josiah Child or the first Sir Robert Peel as typical merchants of their times.
  10. Describe briefly the agrarian measures of Stein, and compare them with any other agrarian legislation in other countries and other times that may be familiar to you.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, pp. 35-36.

_______________________

Economics 121
[Omitted in 1899-1900]

[Banking and the history of the leading Banking Systems. Half-course (first half-year) Tu., Thu., Sat. at 11.Professor Dunbar.]

Economics 122
[Omitted in 1899-1900]

[International payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals. Half-course (second half-year) Tu., Thu., Sat. at 11. Professor Dunbar.]

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

_______________________

Economics 13
[Omitted in 1899-1900]

[Methods of Economic Investigations. — English Writers. — German Writers. Tu., Th., at 1.30. Professor Taussig.]

Courses 15 and 13 are usually given in alternate years.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

_______________________

Economics 14
Communism and Socialism.
History and Literature.

Course Announcement

[Economics] 14. Socialism and Communism. — History and Literature. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9.Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 367.

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.—Communism and Socialism.—History and Literature. Lectures (3 hours); 6 reports or theses.

Total 22: 2 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 14
[Mid-year examination]
  1. How, according to Plato, are economic organization, and the problems of production and distribution related (a) to social development; (b) to social and political degeneration?
  2. What do you conceive to be his most permanent contribution to social philosophy? What his chief defect?
  3. How far do the teachings of the Christian church and the Canon Law throw light on the gradual development of our fundamental economic ideas in regard to wealth, capital, trade, commerce?
  4. How far is there ground for the contention that the writings of Rousseau have been the chief arsenal of social and political revolutionists?
  5. “The right to the whole produce of labor—to subsistence—to labor:”What, according to Menger, have been the most important contributions to the successive phases of this discussion?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, containing the volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 14

[Year-end examination]
  1. The subject of your last report, and the authors read in preparation; summarize briefly your conclusions.
  2. Socialistic and communistic experiments in America:
    1. Character and chronological sequence of the several groups, and their relation to special phases of socialistic thought in other countries;
    2. Name and location of typical communities;
    3. The practical and the theoretical significance of such experiments.
  3. Recent American socialism:
    1. Successive phases and present aspects;
    2. Impressions derived from the propagandist press.
  4. Recent English socialism:
    1. Attitude toward Trade Unionism; toward “ unearned increment”;
    2. Toward the doctrines of the classic economists;
    3. Toward the doctrines of Karl Marx.
  5. The psychology of socialism:
    1. Summarize the main conclusions of Le Bon;
    2. Discuss critically the evidence on which these conclusions rest.
  6. The economic lessons of socialism: Analyze Sidgwick’s conclusions; state your own opinions.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, p. 37.

_______________________

Economics 15
History of Economics to the Close of the 18th Century

Course Announcement

[Economics] 15. The History and Literature of Economics to the close of the Eighteenth Century. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor Ashley.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

Course Enrollment

Primarily for Graduates:
[Economics] 15. Professor Ashley. — The History and Literature of Economics to the close of the Eighteenth Century. Lectures (2 or 3 hours).

Total 11: 6 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 15
[Mid-year examination]

Not more than eight questions should be attempted,
of which the first must be one.

  1. Explain the significance and context of the following passages:
    1. “If you were making a city of pigs, this is the way you would feed them.”
      [Plato, The Republic, Book II]
    2. “If a child be born in their class with an alloy of copper or iron, they are to have no manner of pity upon it.”
      [Plato, The Republic, Book III]
    3. “Each of them is very many cities, – in any case there are two.”
      [Plato, The Republic, Book IV]
    4. “A slave is an animate instrument.”
      [Aristotle. The Politics. Book I, Chapter IV.]
    5. “Every article admits of two uses.”
      [Aristotle. The Politics. Book I, Chapter IX.]
    6. Mutuum date, nihil inde sperantes.”

[“Lend hoping nothing thereby.” Luke 6:35. Originally from the Vulgate, Latin version of the Bible prepared mainly by St. Jerome in the late 4th century.
35 verumtamen diligite inimicos vestros et benefacite et mutuum date nihil inde sperantes et erit merces vestra multa et eritis filii Altissimi quia ipse benignus est super ingratos et malos”
35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”]
cf. Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. Second Division of the Second Part of Question LXXVIII. Of the Sin of Usury That is Committed in Loans.
Also, Théodore Reinach, Mutuum date nihil inde sperantes. Revue des Ètudes Grecques, 1849, pp. 52-48.]

  1. Compare Plato’s conception of the division of labor with that of Adam Smith.
  2. Explain and illustrate the attitude of Aristotle towards the working classes.
  3. It has been remarked that after all Aristotle’s ideal polity is half communistic.
    Criticize this opinion.
  4. Describe the economic organization of the Spartan state. What do you gather from Plato and Aristotle as to the effects of the system?
  5. In one sense, if at all, can the early Christian Church be called communistic? Set forth briefly the nature of the evidence.
  6. Explain what you suppose to be the doctrine of Aquinas as tojust price, and then consider whether the idea is in any way practically applicable under modern circumstances.
    [From the Second Division of the Second Part of Summa Theologica. Question LXXVII. Of Fraudulent Dealing in Buying and Selling.]
  7. Wherein did the medieval contract of partnership approach and wherein did it differ from usury?
  8. Distinguish between the various senses attached to the word “Mercantilism”.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 15
[Year-end examination]

Not more than eight questions should be attempted.

  1. Distinguish between the several lines of thought concerning the causes determining Value to be found in the various writings of John Locke.
  2. The place in economic literature of either Sir Josiah Child or Sir William Petty.
  3. Estimate the influence upon Adam Smith of the economic writings of Hume.
  4. “Es lässt sich ja auch nicht leugnen, dass gerade das Beste an der physiocratischen Theorie: die Darstellung des Wirtschaftlichen Kreislaufs, die Lehre von der Reproduktion der Urstoffe, ihre Formung, Cirkulation und Verteilung, die Berechnung des Kapitalzinses, welchen die Pächter haben muss, und anderes auf einer Beobachtung des wirtschaftlichen Lebens beruhte; kurz sich als eine Beschreibung der französischen Wirtschaft des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts darstellte.”—Hasbach. Translate and comment
    [Wilhelm Hasbach. Die allgemeinen philosophischen grundlagen der von François Quesnay und Adam Smith begründeten politischen ökonomie, 1890, p. 138]
  5. “La division du travail rend de si grands et si évidents services qu’on les a remarqués dès l’antiquité….Mais personne n’en a tiré parti au point de vue économique avant Adam Smith; aussi le considère-t-on en quelque sort comme l’inventeur de la division du travail.” — Block. Translate and comment
    [Maurice BlockLes Progrès de la Science Économique depuis Adam Smith. Tome Premier, Chapitre XVII, La Division du Travail, p. 433.]
  6. A rapid sketch of the literary history of the doctrine of the Balance of Trade.
  7. “The Component Parts of Price.” The significance of the phrase.
  8. Compare Adam Smith’s doctrine of Wages with that of Ricardo.
  9. State and criticise Adam Smith’s Canons of Taxation.
  10. “Un autre progrès doctrinal réalisé depuis Ad. Smith…c’est la part faite aux entrepreneurs.” Translate and comment
    [Maurice Block, Les Progrès de la Science Économique depuis Adam Smith. Revue des Deux Mondes (1890, Vol. 97), p. 940.]
  11. The Historical School: its merits and defects.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1900-01, p. 38.

_______________________

Economics 16
Financial History
of the United States

Course Announcement

[Economics] 16. Financial History of the United States. First half-year: from 1789 to the Civil War. Second half-year: from 1860 to the present time.  Tu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Professor Dunbar.

Course 16 may be taken as a half-course during either half-year.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

Course Enrollment
(First half-year)

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 161 hf. Professor Dunbar. Financial History of the United States from 1789 to the Civil War. Lectures (2 hours); prescribed reading; thesis.

Total 22: 7 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

Course Enrollment 1899-1900
(Second half-year)

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—
[Economics] 162 hf. Mr. E. H. Warren. Financial History of the United States from 1860 to the present time.Lectures; prescribed reading; thesis.

Total 25: 5 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 16.
[Mid-year examination]

Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.

I.

Omit at least one question; and omit others in addition if your essay under Part II gives the answers.

  1. Wherein Hamilton and Gallatin differed as to the principles on which federal taxes should be levied; and how far legislation during their respective terms in the Treasury differed.
  2. At what time before 1860 did the United States most nearly approach the issue of Treasury Notes designed to circulate money? Give the grounds of your opinion.
  3. The changes introduced in the sinking fund policy of the United States in 1802.
  4. The causes of the suspension of specie payments in 1814.
  5. When and how the removal of the deposits by Jackson was brought about; and its effect on the Bank.
  6. What do you find noteworthy in the relation of the United States to the banking system of the country in 1837? in 1847? in 1857?

II.

Write an essay on one of the following subjects:

(a) The history of the debt of the United States from 1789 to 1836.

(b) The advantages and disadvantages which experience shown to inhere in the establishment of has a great Bank of the United States; with a final statement of your opinion as to expediency of such an institution.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 16
[Year-end examination]
  1. In what were duties on imports into the U. S. payable in 1860? 1862? 1878? 1880? 1891? What were the people of the northern states using as currency in 1860? 1865? 1879? 1893?
  2. What caused the suspension of specie payments by the banks of New York in December 1861?
  3. State seven different ways in which the U. S. borrowed during the Civil War, and the effect of each upon the currency.
  4. Why was the Civil War indebtedness rapidly reduced down to 1891? For what purposes since 1865 has the U. S. incurred additional indebtedness?
  5. Trace briefly the changes in the volume of U. S. Notes outstanding from 1865 to the present day. What do you think would have been the fate of the U. S. Notes if the act of May 31, 1878, had not been passed?
  6. How do you account for the fact that silver certificates are at a par with gold?
  7. What are the provisions of the act of March 14, 1900, as to the Treasury Notes of 1890? What will eventually be the effect upon the currency of the issue of these Notes?
  8. Which notes are better protected, those issued by the U. S. or those issued by national banks?
  9. Does the act of March 14, 1900, “break the endless chain”?
  10. What effect will this act probably have upon the bonded indebtedness of the U. S.?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1900-01, p. 38.

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Note: “Competent students will be guided in independent investigation, and the results of work done in Courses 20a, 20b, 20c, 20d, 20e, will be presented for discussion [in Economics 20 Seminary in Economics, meeting Mondays at 4.30]

Economics 20a
The Economic Life and Thought of the Ancient World

Course Announcement

[Economics] 20a hf. The Economic Life and Thought of the Ancient World. Half-course. Once a week. Professor Ashley.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 368.

Course Enrollment

Primarily for Graduates:
[Economics] 20a hf. Professor Ashley. — The Economic Life and Thought of the Ancient World. Lectures (1 hour) and conferences (monthly).

Total 2: 2 Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

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Economics 20b
Commercial Crises

Course Announcement

[Economics] 20b hf. Commercial Crises. Half-course. Once a week. Professor Dunbar.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 369.

Course Enrollment

Primarily for Graduates:
[Economics] 20b hf. Professor Dunbar. — Commercial Crises. Thesis.

Total 1: 2 Graduate.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

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Economics 20c
The Tariff History
of the United States

Course Announcement

[Economics] 20c1 hf. The Tariff History of the United States. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Th., at 1.30. Professor Taussig.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 369.

Course Enrollment

Primarily for Graduates:
[Economics] 20c hf. Professor Taussig. — The Tariff History of the United States. Lectures (1 hour); required reading; thesis

Total 8: 4 Graduates, 1 Senior, 1 Junior, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 70.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 20c.
[Mid-year examination]

I.
Two questions from this group.

  1. “The difference between the price at which a manufacturer can afford to sell the whole amount of the commodities produced by him in one year, and that at which the same quantity of the same articles may be, or might have been, purchased from others [abroad], is therefore equal to the annual profit or loss resulting from his application of capital and labor to that instead of another branch of industry.” — Gallatin.The reasoning on which this conclusion rests; and your own opinion.
  2. Mill’s reasoning as to the effects of import duties, for revenue or for protection, on the terms of international exchange; your own opinion thereon; and Mill’s probable opinion on Gallatin’s conclusion as quoted in question l.
  3. The export-tax theory; the soundness of the reasoning on which it rested; how far it held good under the conditions of 1830; how far such reasoning would hold good in 1900.

II.
Three questions from this group.

  1. The arguments for (a) protection to young industries (b) the creation of a home market; how far tenable in theory, how far applicable to the conditions of the United States in 1820-30.
  2. The tariff act of 1833; the wisdom of its general plan (assume that a reduction of duties was called for); whether well framed in its details; how far it achieved the results aimed at.
  3. The duties on wool and woolens since 1867; the theory on which they are framed, and the degree of success with which that theory is carried out.
  4. “The phenomena described in the preceding pages [as to flax, silks, glassware…] reduce themselves, in the last analysis, to illustrations of the doctrine of comparative costs.” — Taussig. Why?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1899-1900.

1899-1900
ECONOMICS 20c
[Year-end examination]

I.
Two questions from this group.

  1. “The difference between the price at which a manufacturer can afford to sell the whole amount of the commodities produced by him in one year, and that at which the same quantity of the same articles may be, or might have been, purchased from others [abroad], is therefore equal to the annual profit or loss resulting from his application of capital and labor to that instead of another branch of industry.” — Gallatin.The reasoning on which this conclusion rests; and your own opinion.
  2. Mill’s reasoning as to the effects of import duties, for revenue or for protection, on the terms of international exchange; your own opinion thereon: and Mill’s probable opinion on Gallatin’s conclusion as quoted in question 1.
  3. The export-tax theory; the soundness of the reasoning on which it rested; how far it held good under the conditions of 1830; how far such reasoning would hold good in 1900.

II.
Three questions from this group.

  1. The arguments for (a) protection to young industries (b) the creation of a home market; how far tenable in theory, how far applicable to the conditions of the United States in 1820-30.
  2. The tariff act of 1833; the wisdom of its general plan (assume that a reduction of duties was called for); whether well framed in its details; how far it achieved the results aimed at.
  3. The duties on wool and woolens since 1867; the theory on which they are framed, and the degree of success with which that theory is carried out.
  4. “The phenomena described in the preceding pages [as to flax, silks, glassware …] reduce themselves, in the last analysis, to illustrations of the doctrine of comparative costs.” —Taussig. Why?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1900-01, pp. 39-40.

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Economics 20d
Workingmen’s Organizations
in the United States

Course Announcement

Primarily for Graduates:
[Economics] 20d hf. Workingmen’s Organizations in the United States. Half-course. Once a week. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 369.

[Apparently zero student enrollment in 1899-1900: see Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 70.]

_______________________

Economics 20e
Ethnology in its Applications
to Economic and
Social Problems

Course Announcement

Primarily for Graduates:
[Economics] 20e2 hf. Ethnology in its Applications to Economic and Social Problems. Half-course (second half-year) Tu., Th., at 9. Dr. John Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1899-1900, p. 369.

Course Enrollment

Primarily for Graduates:
[Economics] 20e2. Dr. John Cummings. — Ethnology in its applications to Economic and Social Problems.

Total 5: 1 Graduate, 3 Seniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 70.

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Image Source: Harvard University Archives. Hollis Images. College Yard, ca. 1900.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Economics Course Examinations, 1898-99

Another year of staffing, enrollments and semester examinations for the economics department at Harvard has been transcribed for the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror test-bank.

Worth noting is that half of the questions in the second semester exam for Frank Taussig’s advanced course on methodology (Economics 13) were in German. John Cummings’ course “Ethnology in its Applications to Economic and Social Problems” (Economics 17) was entirely what one would expect from a turn-of-the-century course of racist anthropology — e.g. “What do you understand by ‘cephalic index’? of what is it an index? Consider its validity as a test of (a) race origin, (b) of individual capacity”

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Outlines of Economics.

[Economics] 1. Outlines of Economics. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor [Frank William] Taussig, Asst. Professor Edward Cummings, Dr. John Cummings, Dr. [Morton Arnold] Aldrich, Mr. [Edward Henry] Warren, and Mr. [Charles] Beardsley.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 351.

1898-99 Enrollment
Outlines of Economics.

[Economics] 1. [Outlines of Economics] — Professor [Frank William] Taussig, Asst. Professor Edward Cummings, Dr. John Cummings, Dr. [Morton Arnold] Aldrich, Dr. [Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] Sprague, Mr. [Edward Henry] Warren, and Mr. [Charles] Beardsley. Lectures (2 hours); recitations and conferences (1 hour) in 14 sections.

Total 443: 26 Seniors, 88 Juniors, 259 Sophomores, 13 Freshmen, 57 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 72.

1898-99.
Economics 1.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.

  1. It has been said that “the laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths.” Do you believe this to be true of the “laws and conditions” which Mill sets forth as to the accumulation of capital? as to the increase of production from land?
  2. Suppose greater and greater amounts of capital to be saved and invested, other things remaining the same: would wages rise or fall? profits? Would there be a limit to the rise or fall in either case?
  3. If all landlords owning advantageous sites remitted to tenants all economic rent, would the prices of commodities produced on those sites be affected? If so, how? If not, why not?
  4. Would you expect wages in agreeable occupations to be high or low? Why? Are they in fact high or low? Why?
  5. “The value or purchasing power of money depends, in the first instance, on demand and supply. But demand and supply, in relation to money, present themselves in a somewhat different shape from the demand and supply of other things.” Wherein different, and why?
    “The sequel of our investigation will point out many qualifications with which the proposition must be received, that the value of the circulating medium depends on the demand and supply, and is in the inverse ratio of the quantity; qualifications which prove the proposition an extremely incorrect expression of the fact.” What are the qualifications? and how far do they make the proposition incorrect?
  6. Wherein do the causes determining the level of prices remain the same, wherein become different, when specie has been displaced by inconvertible paper money?
  7. What determines the exchange value of
    an ounce of gold bullion,
    a bale of wool,
    English wheat in England,
    Dakota wheat in Dakota,
    Dakota wheat in England.
  8. If American shoes sell at the same price in New York and in Mexico (allowance being made for cost of transportation) can it be said that their value in the one case is determined by cost of production, in the other case not?
  9. What do you say to the common opinion that it is to a country’s advantage to dispose of an increasing quantity of exported goods?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99
Economics 1.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions,
Answer concisely.
Take nine questions, and from each group at least two.

I.

  1. Does the rate of interest depend on the abundance of money? does the rate of discount? If so, how? if not, why not?
  2. Is the exportation of specie from a country to be regarded with apprehension?
  3. In what way is the price of landed property likely to be affected by a rise in the rate of interest? by an increase in the quantity of money? by a growth of population?

II.

  1. Assuming Mill’s theory as to the causes determining the rate of wages to be sound, how far can trade union action influence the rate? State concisely whether you accede to Mill’s theory, and why or why not.
  2. What light does the experience of English coöperators throw on the contention that the discontent of the workingmen would cease if coöperative organization were extended to all branches of industry?
  3. Brentano’s reasoning as to the nature of the bargaining between employer and workman, and the policy therefore necessary on the workman’s part; and your own opinion as to his conclusion.

III.

  1. (a) In what manner the exigencies of a commercial crisis are best met by banking institutions; (b) how far the legislation of England and the United States aids, in a time of crisis, in the pursuance of the best policy by the banking institutions of these countries.
  2. Does the mode of regulating the issue of bank-notes in Germany proceed on a principal essentially different from that in England? Does the mode of regulation under the National Bank system?
  3. Arrange in their proper order the following items:
Capital

$1,000,000

Specie

$1,100,000

Notes

$   400,000

Surplus

$   200,000

Securities

$   450,000

Loans

$4,200,000

Deposits

$4,100,000

Undivided Profits

$   100,000

Expenses

$     50,000

 

Consider how the account would stand if the bank sold $100,000 of securities for cash, and with the proceeds met demands by depositors for the like sum; and whether the bank, before or after this operation, could carry on its operations as a National Bank?

IV.

  1. How the resumption of specie payments in the United States was promoted by the condition of international trade and by the course of prices in the years preceding resumption.
  2. Are there important differences between the modes in which the functions of money are fulfilled in the United States by National Bank notes, deposits in National Banks, legal tender notes, silver certificates?
  3. Explain to whom and in what manner what manner the changes in general prices during the last twenty years have been harmful.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899) in bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99, pp. 26-27.

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1898-99  Course Announcement
Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century

[Economics] 2. Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 352.

1898-99 Enrollment
Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century.

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. Discussion of selected passages from leading writers. The history of theory. Lectures and recitations (3 hours).

Total 67: 5 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 72.

1898-99.
Economics 2.
[Mid-Year Exam, 1899]

  1. Are the high wages earned by some kinds of skilled laborers cause or effect of high prices of commodities made by them?
  2. Many Americans annually visit European countries, and there spend freely. Supposing this to be the only cause, beside the imports and exports of merchandise, affecting the international trade of the United States, what would you expect the usual relation of its imports and exports to be? and what the usual flow of specie to or from the country?
  3. “What a nation is interested in is, not in having its prices high or low, but in having its gold cheap — understanding by cheapness not low value, butlow cost — a small sacrifice of ease and comfort; and it generally happens that cheap gold is accompanied by a high scale of prices.”
    How does a country gain from having its gold cheap? and why need cheap gold not be accompanied by a high scale of prices?
  4. “The distinction, then, between capital and non-capital does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist — in his will to employ them for one purpose rather than another; and all property, however ill adapted in itself for the use of laborers, is a part of capital, so soon as it, or the value to be received from it, is set apart for productive reinvestment.” Is this true?
  5. “The multitudes who compose the working class are too numerous and too widely scattered to combine at all, much more to combine effectually. If they could do so, they might doubtless succeed in diminishing the hours of labor, and obtaining the same wages for less work. But if they aimed at obtaining actually higher wages than the rate fixed by demand and supply — the rate which distributed the whole circulating capital of the country among the working population — this could only be accomplished by keeping a part of their number permanently out of employment. . . . The workpeople collectively would be no better off than before, having to support the same numbers out of the same aggregate wages.”
    Whom do you suppose to be the writer of this passage? What would Cairnes say to it? Professor Taussig?
  6. “If the efficiency of labor could be suddenly doubled, whilst the capital of the country remained stationary, there would be a great and immediate rise in real wages. The supplies of capital already in existence would be distributed among the laborers more rapidly than would otherwise be the case, and the increased efficiency of labor would soon make good the diminished supplies. The fact is that an increase in the efficiency of labor would bring about an increase in the supply of capital.” — Marshall.
    Why? or why not?
  7. Do you believe Walker’s discussion of the theory of wages has promoted the better understanding of the causes affecting the welfare of laborers? If so, how? If not, why not?
  8. “The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talents for business, or superior business arrangements, are very much a similar kind [to rent]. If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to their customers, through the diminished value of the article: he only retains it for himself because he is able to bring his commodity to market at a lower cost, while its value is determined by a higher. All advantages, in fact, which one competitor has over another, whether natural or acquired, whether personal or the result of social arrangements . . . . assimilate the possessor of the advantage to a receiver of rent.” — Mill.
    Wherein does Walker’s doctrine differ from this?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99.
Economics 2.
[Year-end Exam, 1899.]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

I.

Three questions from this group.

  1. J. S. Mill’s contributions to economic theory, and his position as regards the development of theory.
  2. “Cost of production” and “expenses of production”: what Marshall designates by these phrases; whether he believes that “expenses” measure “cost”; and how far Cairnes and Mill believed “expenses” to measure “cost.”
  3. It has been said that the wages-fund doctrine grew out of the industrial conditions of England during the Napoleonic wars, — capital having then been accumulated to such an extent as to enable employers to pay their laborers by the month, week, or day, without waiting for the marketing of the product. It has been said also that its general acceptance was favored by the fact that it afforded a complete justification, as to wages, for the existing order of things. — Give your opinion as to the historical accuracy of these statements as to the origin and the ready acceptance of the doctrine.
  4. Marshall’s conclusions on the relation of cost and of utility to the value of a commodity, —

(a) for long periods, if it be subject to the law of constant returns;
(b) for short periods, if it be subject to the law of constant returns;
(c) for long periods, if it be subject to the law of increasing returns.

Which among these conclusions has been heretofore most dwelt on by economists? and which is applicable to the greatest range of phenomena?

II.

Three questions from this group.

  1. Explain “consumers’ rent” (or “surplus,”) “producers’ rent,” “savers’ rent,” “quasi-rent”; and consider how far any or all of these conceptions are analogous to the traditional one of “economic rent.”
  2. The effect on consumers’ rent of a tax on a commodity subject to the law of diminishing returns; and the mode in which the reasoning would be affected according as the commodity were tobacco or diamonds.
  3. Admitting that interest is the reward of “abstinence,” does it follow that the rate of interest is a measure of the “abstinence” undergone by the several receivers of interest? Why or why not?
  4. The rent of rare natural abilities may be regarded as a specially important element in the income of business men, so long as we consider them as individuals. In relation to normal value, the earnings even of rare abilities are, as we have seen, to be regarded rather as a quasi rent than as a rent proper.” Is the rent of rare abilities specially important in the case of business men? if so, why? and why not to be regarded as rent in relation to normal value?

III.

Two questions in this group.

  1. “ The instructed man of today desires that the world generally and all other countries should have a full circulation, while he would like for his own country, if that were possible, a trifle less than its distributive share of that supply, so that it may be a good country to buy in and not a very good country to sell in. He desires to have prices everywhere sustained, in order that trade may be good. He would like, if that were possible, to have prices in his own country permanently lower, though only a shade lower, than anywhere else, in order that his countrymen may get the largest share of that trade.’ Walker
    Would you agree?
  2. Your conclusion as to whether in general a régime of falling prices is a cause of depression and an obstacle to prosperity; and whether the actual fall in prices during the past generation has had ill effects of this sort.
  3. The compensatory action of bimetallism, in regard to the ratio between the metals, and in regard to their stability in value: is it made out in either way? in both ways?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899) in bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

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1898-99 Course Announcement
The Principles of Sociology

[Economics] 3. The Principles of Sociology. —Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30. Asst. Professor E. Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 352.

1898-99 Enrollment
Principles of Sociology.

[Economics] 3. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. Lectures (2 or 3 hours) and conferences. 4 reports or theses.

Total 83: 4 Graduates, 42 Seniors, 21 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 11 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 72.

1898-99.
Economics 3.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]

Answer the questions in the order in which they stand.

I.

  1. What as a matter of history, has been the contribution of the family to
  2. a) Social organization?
    b) Social ideals?
  3. What does Spencer mean by saying, The Salvation of every society, as of every species, depends on the maintenance of an absolute opposition between the regime of the family and the regime of the State?
  4. a) Does Haycraft agree?
    b) Does Kidd?
    c) Does Plato?

II.

  1. “Man has been supposed to be a ‘free agent,’ which meant that there were no laws to which his activities were subject. There could be no science of man and hence no science of society.
  2. a) What do the authors we have examined think?
    b) What do you think about it?

III.

  1. “In his Social Evolution he makes religion the mainspring of human progress and charges reason with anti-social and anti-progressive tendencies.”
    “Religion is rational through and through.”
  2. a) Expound and discuss these views.
    b) Do you see any way of reconciling the demands of Biology and Ethics. — progress and justice?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99.
Economics 3.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

  1. “The whole history of the world bears witness to the different endowments of races, and even to the unequal capacity of the nations which have grown out of them.” (Explain and illustrate.)
    State some of the theoretical consequences drawn from these alleged differences.
  2. How far can you trace the influence, good or bad, of biological conceptions in Bluntschli’s theory of the State? For example, in his analysis of sovereignty, division of powers, and the like.
  3. “Another error, which is almost childish, is that which treads the organism of the State as a logical syllogism.” Discuss.
    Contrast Tarde’s analysis of Social phenomena with the legal and biological conceptions of other writers with whom you are familiar.
  4. The modern conception of the State and of its relation to the individual, contrasted with the ancient and the mediaeval.
  5. State briefly the work done on your last report and the conclusions you reached.
  6. Does the realization of social justice make for “equality” or the reverse? Why?
    Does social progress call for the sacrifice of the weak to the strong or of the strong to the weak? Why?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899) in bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

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1898-99 Course Announcement
Statistics.

[Economics] 4. Statistics. — Theory, Method, and Practice. — Studies in Demography. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. J. Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 353.

1898-99 Enrollment
Statistics.

[Economics] 4. Dr. John Cummings. — Statistics. Theory, method, and practice. Studies in Demography. Lectures (3 hours) and conferences; 2 reports; theses.

Total 19: 10 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

1898-99.
Economics 4.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]

Devote one hour to A and the remainder of your time to B.

A.
Take two.

  1. The growth of modern cities and the laws governing the migrations of population as illustrated in the growth and constitution of the populations of London, Berlin, and other large cities.
  2. Define fully a “normal or life-table population,” considering its age and sex constitution and its movement.
  3. Discuss the development and predominance of the statistical method, and the gradual limitation of the field of statistical science.

B.
Take six.

  1. What do you understand by the “law of large numbers”? Discuss some of the principles which should govern the formation of statistical judgments.
  2. The “new law of population.”
  3. The value of criminal statistics and the nature of the statistical proofs that the value of punishments is over-estimated.
  4. “Several tests are employed to measure the duration of human life, and we are at present concerned to determine their precise value, and the relationship existing between them.” What are some of these tests, their precise value and inter-relationship?
  5. What is the nature of the statistical evidence that the “influx of the population from the country into London is in the main an economic movement”?
  6. The rate of mortality in urban and in rural populations.
  7. Decline in the rates of natality in the populations of Europe and the United States.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99
Economics 4.
[Year-end Exam, 1899.]

Devote at least one hour, but not more than one hour and a half, to A, and the remainder of your time to B.

A.

  1. Statistics of wages, manufactures, and capital in the eleventh census of the United States.
  2. Movement of population and the standard of living. Consider in connection with the growth of population the movement of wages, prices, efficiency of labor and capital, the exploitation of new natural sources of power and wealth, and the relative movements of industrial groups.

B.
Take six.

  1. Average wages as an index of social condition.
  2. Statistical indexes of pauperism.
  3. What is the statistical basis for calculating the doubling period of a population and of what is that period an index?
  4. Define normal distribution of population (a) by sex, (b) by age.
  5. Show how the economic value of a population is affected by its age and sex distribution.
  6. To what extent may the prison population of the United States as given in the eleventh census be accepted as an index of criminality for the population of the United States?
  7. The growth of cities and the movement of population. Consider the effect of “urbanization” upon rates of criminality, natality, and mortality.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899) in bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Railways and Other Public Works.

[Economics] 51 hf. Railways and other Public Works under Public and Corporate management. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 1.30. Mr. [Hugo Richard] Meyer.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 353.

1898-99 Enrollment
Railways and Other Public Works.

[Economics] 51 hf. Mr. Meyer. — Railways and other Public Works under Public and Corporate Management. Lectures (3 or 2 hours).

Total 85: 1 Graduate, 49 Seniors, 16 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 12 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

1898-99.
Economics 51.
[Mid-year (Final) Exam, 1899]

Omit one of the last four questions.

  1. “And the Commission elsewhere says that the question of rates is not so much one between the railroads and the body of shippers, as between different classes of shippers, or rival localities.” — Railroad Gazette, June 22, 1888.
    Illustrate by means of the following complaints brought before the Interstate Commerce Commission:
      • Rates on sugar from Pacific Coast points to Fargo and St. Paul; V. 234.
      • Relative rates on wheat from certain “common territory” to Minneapolis and Duluth; V, 571.
      • Relative rates on salt from Hutchinson and St. Louis to certain “common points” in Texas; V, 299.
      • Export rates on wheat: III, 137.
      • Relative rates from Atlantic sea-board points to the interior on imported commodities and domestic; IV, 448.
      • Group rates on vegetables shipped from points between Mobile and East St. Louis; VII, 43.
      • Group rates on milk shipped from points in New York State to Jersey City; VII, 93.
      • Relative rates on hogs, dressed pork, and dressed beef: IV, 611.
  1. To what extent have Germany, France, and the Australian Colonies been able to enforce their rigid schemes of railroad charges? What is the nature of the evidence that such enforcement has prevented the railroads from fully developing traffic? Why has not enforcement of these schemes worked with greater friction?
  2. “Had [railroad] building been checked by the censorship of a board of commissioners, and charters granted by the State only upon a showing of necessity, to be determined by the population, density of traffic, and like warrantable reasons, a large percentage of the roads which to-day constitute the disturbing element of interstate commerce, would never have been built.” — Clark: State Railroad Commissions.
    Give your reasons for accepting or rejecting the statement that the control here suggested could not possibly have been exercised.
  3. State Railroad Control and Politics in California.
  4. Why was the Interstate Commerce Commission unable to enforce the prohibition of special rates?
  5. Contrast the working of the state ownership of railways in Prussia with the working of the state ownership of railways in Australia.
  6. The Massachusetts Gas and Electric Light Commission.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899) in bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Economic History of the U.S.

[Economics] 6. The Economic History of the United States. Tu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Dr. [Guy Stevens] Callender.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 352.

1898-99 Enrollment
Economic History of the U.S.

[Economics] 6. Dr. Callender. — The Economic History of the United States. Lectures (2 hours) and discussions of assigned reading (1 hour). 2 theses.

Total 122: 6 Graduates, 60 Seniors, 38 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 11 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

1898-99.
Economics 6.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]
 

  1. “Between England and the American Colonies there was a real interchange of services. England gave defence in return for trade privileges. In the middle of the last century, at the time when the American quarrel began, it was perhaps rather the colonies than the mother country that had fallen into arrears.” — Seeley.
    Do you agree with this view of English Colonial Policy?
  2. Compare the following statement, with what you know of the views of commercial policy entertained by leading American statesmen during and after the Revolution:
    “From all this (i.e. the tariff acts passed by the various States between 1783 and 1789) it is clear enough that the States sought protection for the sake of building up manufactures. It was natural that they should. To suppose that they had any special predilection for free trade, at a time when restriction was the policy of the world, and while the mercantile system had not yet lost its grip save among a few economists, is to suppose them far ahead of their time.
    “Nor would their policy have been different if England had practiced perfect reciprocity with them at the beginning.” —  Kelley. Quarterly Journal of Economics II, 481.
  3. What were the “Great Inventions” and how did they chiefly influence the economic growth of the United States down to 1860?
  4. How would you explain the absence of commercial banks in America in Colonial times?
  5. According to Adam Smith “there seems to be two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry.” Do you think the tariff act of 1816 could be fairly considered as coming under either of his exceptions to general free trade principles?
  6. “It is now proper to proceed a step further, and to enumerate the principal circumstances from which it may be inferred that manufacturing establishments not only occasion a positive augmentation of the produce and revenue of the society, but that they contribute essentially to render them greater than they could possibly be without such establishments.” — Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures.
    Mention as many of these “circumstances” as you can, and discuss one.
  7. How do you explain the prevalence of much higher protective duties since the civil war than before it?
  8. Mention three cases in which high duties have failed to cause any considerable growth of the industries affected, and compare these with any others in which the high duties did cause a growth of industry, pointing out a reason for the difference in result.
  9. Compare the conditions which gave rise to the trade on the western rivers between 1815 and 1845 with the conditions which caused the growth of trade in the English colonies between 1700 and 1760.
  10. To what extent have the people of the United States relied upon the assistance of government to supply transportation facilities? How would you explain the tendency to state intervention in this industry in the United States before 1850?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99.
Economics 6.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

Select at least eight questions and answer them concisely.

  1. “The Southern States, then, are reduced to the very same relation to the tariff states, in point of principle, as that in which all the colonies formerly stood to Great Britain….
    I confidently assert that the restrictions imposed by the tariff states upon the commerce of the planting states, are more injurious and oppressive than all the colonial restrictions and taxes which Great Britain ever imposed upon the commerce of our forefathers…” — McDuffie.
    Do you think there is any grounds for such a comparison as this?
  2. “It is sometimes loosely said, that America has been settled by the European races, and different portions are distinguished, as settled by the English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The truth really is, that America, including its islands, has been settled chiefly from Africa, and by negroes….” — Weston.
    How did African slavery affect the settlement and growth of the thirteen continental colonies?
  3. How far has the United States applied the protective system to agriculture? Compare its policy in this respect with that of Continental Europe.
  4. Point out the main causes of agricultural discontent in the following sections of the country: the South; the northern states east of the Mississippi River; the northern states west of the Mississippi River.
  5. “Trusts have not yet been properly discriminated, and such a discrimination is necessary to a correct understanding of them. Some of the trusts have in them permanently vicious elements, whilst others, although not by any means harmless in their effect on political right, are so incapable of working prolonger and serious mischief that they may be left to the usual methods of relief or to their own inevitable dissolution.” — Bonham.
    Discuss this proposition, pointing out the circumstances which render the power of a trust formidable to competitors, and how far all trusts are in possession of such advantages.
  6. What reasons can you give for the failure of competition to regulate railway rates so as to secure justice to both buyer and seller of transportation? How far does the same reasoning apply to such industries as the manufacture of steel rails, and coal mining?
  7. “Before inquiring as to general changes in our national condition which may justify a change of opinion and policy in this respect (i.e. restriction of immigration), let us deal briefly with two opinions regarding the immigration of the past, which stand in the war of any fair consideration of the subject. These two opinions were, first, that immigration constituted a net reinforcement of our population: and secondly, that, in addition to this, or irrespective of this, immigration was necessary, in order to supply the laborers who should do certain kinds of work, imperatively demanded for the building up of our industrial and social structure, which natives of the soil were unwilling to undertake.” — Walker. Discuss one of these opinions.
  8. “In the early days of cotton growing it had been supposed that the cultivation of this staple would be carried on by white labor… It was a misfortune for Southern agriculture that slave labor was ever applied to the cultivation of the cotton plant. As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, cotton culture offered many and great advantages over other crops for the use of slave labor; but slavery had few, if any, advantages over free labor for the cultivation of cotton…” — Hammond.
    “Taking infants, aged, invalid, and vicious and knavish slaves into account, the ordinary and average cost of a certain task of labor is more than double in Virginia what it is in the adjoining free states.” — Olmsted.
    Granting the truth of these statements how would you explain the growth of slavery in the United States after 1790? Compare these conditions with those existing in Virginia one hundred years earlier.
  9. Sketch briefly the history of the legal tenders from the close of the civil war to the resumption of specie payments.
  10. Compare the condition of the United States Treasury so far as its ability to maintain gold payments was concerned, in the years 1884-1885 and 1891-1893.
  11. “…Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the great West. The existence of an area of free land, its constant recession, and the advance of American settlements westward, explain American development.” — Turner.
    What features of American social and political development have been influenced or determined by the conditions here referred to?
  12. Describe what you consider to be the most important change which has taken place in the South as a result of Emancipation.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), pp. 32-34. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects

[Economics] 82 hf. Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects. (Mediaeval and Modern.) Half-course(second half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Dr. [William] Cunningham (Trinity College, Cambridge, England).

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 352.

1898-99 Enrollment
Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects.

[Economics] 82 hf. Dr. Cunningham. — Western Civilization, mediaeval and modern, in its Economic Aspects. Lectures (3 hours). 4 reports.

Total 105: 13 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 23 Sophomores, 1 Freshmen, 12 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 72.

Course Reading List (1899)

https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-economic-aspects-of-western-civilization-cunningham-1899/

1898-99.
Economics 82.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

Answer the first 3 questions and any 3 of the later questions.

  1. “In any community where there is wealth to spare, which can be sunk in magnificent buildings or other public works, there is a permanent record of its greatness or of the riches of its rulers. On the whole, when the characteristic buildings of each civilization were erected was the time of its greatest material prosperity; this gives us the means of gauging most definitely the precise nature of its contribution to the growth of Western Civilization as a whole.”
    Explain and criticise.
  2. Take any two of the evils of which complaint is made in the “Common Weal of the Realm.” What were the causes of those evils given in the dialogues? Were they, in your opinion, the real causes?
  3. Why can we obtain a greater knowledge of medieval Europe generally through the study of a single country than we could obtain for modern Europe by the use of a similar method?
  4. Trace the change from a natural to a money economy in agriculture, and in taxation.
  5. Compare the policy of a medieval town with the national policy of European States which followed.
  6. In what new direction and with what results was capital invested at the close of the Middle Ages?
  7. Compare the commercial policies of Portugal, Holland, and England with reference to the East India trade.
  8. (Take one.) For what is Western Civilization indebted to:

(a) The monastery.
(b) The crusades.
(c) The craft guild.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), p. 34. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Labor Question in Europe and the U.S.

[Economics] 9. The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor E. Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 352.

1898-99 Enrollment
Labor Question in Europe and the U.S.

[Economics] 9. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings. — The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. Lectures (3 hours) and conferences; 2 reports; thesis.

Total 129: 2 Graduates, 51 Seniors, 42 Juniors, 22 Sophomores, 12 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

1898-99.
Economics 9.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]

So far as possible discuss both the historical and the theoretical aspects of the questions.

  1. Is the principle of coöperation capable of indefinite extension and application? If not what are its limits?
  2. Compare the English Trade Union congress with the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor.
  3. Is the programme of trade unionism inconsistent with the coöperative ideal?
  4. What do you understand by the English working classes; and what proportion do they bear to other classes in the community?
  5. Indicate the manner in which English working people have met the exigencies of sickness, accident, old age, out of work.
    What proportion of the working classes is identified with

a) the coöperative movement?
b) trade unionism?
c) the various forms of insurance?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99.
Economics 9.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

  1. On what elements does the strength of a trade union depend? In what directions does it seem to you that American trade unions most need to develop in the future? In what specific respects may they profit by the policy and experience of European organizations?
  2. “The workers should certainly not fail to realize how important is the recognition by them that only by unity and solidarity is there any hope for protection and progress.” — President Gompers.
    Do the various forms of workingmen’s organizations give evidence of any distinctly differentiated wages class in the United States? Discuss carefully the evidence as to the extent and the limitations of class feeling among American workingmen.
  3. “If unemployment insurance should follow trade lines, every argument would seem to indicate that such efforts should be made through existing organizations of workingmen.” Discuss the various forms of insurance against unemployment, and indicate the advantages and disadvantages of each form.
  4. “France has joined Germany, Austria, Great Britain and Norway in the indorsement of the principles so boldly inaugurated by the first of these countries, — that the compensation of injured workmen should be compulsory upon their employers.”

(a) Explain the differences between the systems adopted in the countries named.
(b) Discuss the present status of employers’ liability and of accident insurance in the United States.

  1. Contrast the condition of workmen in the United States, England, and on the Continent as regards earnings, conditions of employment, cost of living, and effectiveness of organization, — taking the condition of railway labor as the basis of your comparison.
  2. Discuss the relative merits of the form which government interference on behalf of working people has taken in the United States and in European countries.
  3. State briefly the most important conclusions which you have arrived at regarding the subject assigned you for special investigation

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), p. 35. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Industrial Revolution in England

[Economics] 112 hf. The Industrial Revolution in England. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 11. Dr. [William] Cunningham (Trinity College, Cambridge, England).

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 352.

 

1898-99 Enrollment
Industrial Revolution in England.

[Economics] 112 hf. Dr. Cunningham. — The Industrial Revolution in England. Lectures (2 hours) and conferences. 6 reports.

Total 98: 8 Graduates, 30 Seniors, 21 Juniors, 17 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 21 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 72.

1898-99.
Economics 112.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
Take the first 2 and any 3 of the later questions.

  1. (Devote at least one third of your time to this question.) Compare industry before and after the Industrial Revolution with reference to —
    1. The function of capital.
    2. The control of the capitalist or entrepreneur over production.
    3. Status of the artisan, which should include discussion of mobility of labor, stability of employment, and extent and objects of associated activity.
  2. Give some account of Francis Place and his importance as a social reformer.
  3. An account of the silk industry in England. Show how it illustrates the economic policy of England during the 17th and 18th century?
  4. Why was the mercantile policy ultimately given up? Was that policy, in your opinion, advantageous to England during the 18th century?
  5. Arrange in order of importance causes of distress in the factory towns during the first quarter of this century. To what causes may the subsequent improvement be ascribed?
  6. Discuss distress among the agricultural population in the same way.
  7. Contrast the English Corn Laws of the 18th century with the law of 1815 with special reference to its results on different elements in the agricultural interest.
  8. Describe the chief improvements which have been introduced into English mines with special reference to the work of Alexander Macdonald.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), p. 36. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems

[Economics] 121 hf. Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Half-course (first half-year).Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 353.

1898-99 Enrollment
Banking and the History of the Leading Banking Systems.

[Economics] 121 hf. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar. — Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Lectures (3 hours).

Total 61: 2 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

1898-99.
Economics 121.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

Reserve ONE THIRD of your time for questions under section B. Answer ALL the questions under A, and TWO of those under B.

A.

  1. Explain carefully the following terms:

(a) Safety or Guaranty Fund;
(b) Free banking;
(c) Reserve;
(d) Surplus;
(e) Daily Redemption;
(f) Clearing House Loan Certificates.

  1. Compare Ricardo’s scheme for a national bank with the existing law for the bank of England.
  2. What are the most striking advantages of the Scotch system of note issue?
  3. Why is the Bank of France able to maintain a more uniform rate of discount than the Bank of England?
  4. What provisions are made by the German bank law protecting, or tending to protect,

(a) notes;
(b) deposits?

  1. White says [Money and Banking, p. 327], “In 1845 the State of Massachusetts passed a law providing that no bank should pay out over its counter any notes but its own.”
    Was this law necessary for the working of the Suffolk Bank System?
  2. What are the chief arguments for and against a system of banking with a central reserve as in England?

B.

  1. Discuss the following extract, and its consistency with the author’s aphorism that “money is that money does”:—
    “Bankers’ deposits or liabilities are not money. Inscribed on the books of the bank itself, divided into no definite parts, constituting no tangible thing, having no outside course to run, with no separate identifiable existence, they are not money: they are simply an instrumentality for saving the use of money.” [Walker, in Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1893, p. 69.]
  2. In what ways, if any, do the different proposals for modifying our present banking system appear to fall short of a theoretically perfect system of banking for the United States?
  3. What are the circumstances which, beginning with 1865, have caused and kept up the great inequality observed in the distribution of national banks among the different sections of the Union?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), pp. 37-38. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

_______________________

1898-99 Course Announcement
Methods of Economic Investigation

[Economics] 13. Methods of Economic Investigation. — English Writers. — German Writers. Tu., Th., at 1.30. Professor Taussig.

Course 13 may also be taken in either half-year as a half-course.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 352.

 

1898-99 Enrollment
Methods of Economic Investigation.

[Economics] 13. Professor Taussig. — Methods of Economic Investigation. Rapid reading in English and German books, and discussion of questions of method and scope. Lectures and conferences. 2 hours.

Total 5: 2 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 72.

1898-99.
Economics 13.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]

  1. Point out, as to one of the subjects named below, the nature of the problems in economics according as its scope is believed to be that of a positive science, a normative science, an art formulating precepts:

Bimetallism.
Economic Rent and the “nationalization” of land.
Wages and Trade Unions.

  1. The nature and extent of the aid given by statistical and historical inquiry in solving the problems of international trade and of tariff legislation.
  2. Adam Smith’s and Ricardo’s methods of reasoning on wages and profits.
  3. “The method by which Economic Science should be carried into regions never penetrated by Ricardo was simple. It was only necessary to draw from the actual observation of affairs fresh premises relating to forces of what we have called the secondary order.”
    Consider how far this general proposition is illustrated or confirmed by (1) Cairnes’s reasoning on the relation between cost, value, wages in different occupations; (2) Marshall’s reasoning as to demand-schedules, supply-schedules, and the theory of value and distribution.
  4. The questions of definition arising as to the terms capital, rent, money; and your grounds for believing one or another use of these terms to be advantageous.
  5. Keynes’s conclusions as to the mode in which economic history bears on economic theory; and your own.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99.
Economics 13.
[Year-End Exam, 1899]

  1. “Alle konkreten volkswirthschaftliche Organisationsfragen sind also bedingt durch die Vorfrage, wie die psychologischen Grundtriebe bei dem fraglichen Volke durch Sitte und Recht modifiziert sind. Darum ist mir auch die Lehre von dem Egoismus oder dem Interesse, als dem psychologischen steten und gleichmässigen Ausgangspunkt aller wirthschaftlichen Handlungen nichts als eine bodenlose Oberflächlichkeit.” — Schmoller.
    Explain; and give your own opinion.
  2. “Die Geschichte bietet den Wissenschaften vom Staate und von der Volkswirthschaft . . . ein Erfahrungsmaterial ohne gleichen. Dieses Erfahrungsmaterial dient nun, wie jede gute Beobachtung und Beschreibung, dazu [1] theoretische Sätze zu illustrieren und zu verifiziren, die Grenzen nachzuweisen innerhalb deren bestimmte Wahrheiten gültig sind, [2] noch mehr aber neue Wahrheiten induktiv zu gewinnen. [3] Zumal in den komplizierteren Gebieten der Volkswirthschaftslehre ist nur auf Boden historischer Forschung voranzukommen; z. B. über die Wirkung der Maschineneinführung auf die Löhne, der Edelmetallproduktion auf den Geldwert, ist jedes bloss abstrakte Argumentieren wertlos. [4] Noch mehr gilt dies in Bezug auf die Entwickelung der volkswirthschaftlichen Institutionen und Theorien, sowie auf die Frage des allgemeinen wirthschaftlichen Fortschrittes.” – Schmoller.
    Explain; and give your opinion as to the several conclusions as numbered.
  3. “Das ist das Dilemma, vor welchem der Socialismus steht. Gelingt es ihm nicht, dem ersten Motiv noch eine genügende Wirksamkeit für die Arbeitsleistungen, für den technischen Fortschritt zu belassen, was nicht unmöglich, aber schwer, wen überhaupt mit den sonstigen Principien des Socialismus … in Einklang zu setzen ist; vermag er nicht das dritte, vierte, und vor Allem das fünfte Motiv in seinem System zu ordentlicher, mächtiger, wiederum mit seinen Principien aber noch vereinbarer Function zu setzen … was wen möglich, jedenfalls wieder ausserordentlich schwierig ist … so bleibt eben nichts Anderes übrig, als auf Zwang, Strafandrohung, kurz auf das zweite Motiv zurückzugreifen.”
    Explain; and consider whether the difficulties and inconsistencies which Socialism must face are equally strong with the first motive as with the others referred to.
  4. “Die Ergebnisse jedes der beiden Verfahren [Deduktion und Induktion] für sich allein haben hiernach ohne oder vor der Prüfung mittelst des anderen Verfahrens in Bezug auf die Wirklichkeit der Erscheinungen und auf deren Erklärung stets nur einen solch hypothetischen Werth.” — Wagner.
    The reasoning which led to this conclusion; and your own opinion.

Answer summarily as many of the following as time permits.

  1. Schmoller’s and Wagner’s statements of the ideal which the theory of distribution should set forth.
  2. How far the scope of economics is differently defined by Cairnes, by Schmoller, by Wagner; and how far their conclusions as to methods of investigation rest on their demarcation of the science.
  3. Schmoller’s views as to the nature of the services rendered by Adam Smith for economic theory; and your opinion as to the justice of these views.
  4. The mode in which Wagner thinks the development of motives was affected by the system of restriction (e.g. guild system) and has been affected by the modern system of free competition.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), pp. 38-39. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

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1898-99 Course Announcement
Selected Topics in U.S. Financial Legislation

[Economics] 16. Selected Topics in the Financial Legislation of the United States. Tu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar.

Course 16 may be taken as a half-course during either half-year.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 353.

 

1898-99 Enrollment
Selected Topics in U.S. Financial Legislation.

[Economics] 16. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar. — Selected Topics in the Financial Legislation of the United States. Lectures (2 hours). 4 reports.

Total 22: 4 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Sophomore, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

1898-99.
Economics 16.
[Mid-year Exam, 1899]

Give one half of the time allowed for this examination to the discussion under Section B.

A.

  1. Give the reasons which would lead you to justify, or reject, the following sentence:
    “It is sometimes said that Mr. Hamilton believed in a perpetual debt, and when one notices the form into which he threw the obligations of the United States, the only escape from this conclusion is to say that he was ignorant of the true meaning of the contracts which he created.” [H. C. Adams, Public Debts, p. 161.]
  2. What is the historical value of Jefferson’s account of the adopting of the funding and assumption measure, given in his Ana?
  3. The plan on which the first Bank of the United States was organized has been criticised as unsound,
    (a) because subscriptions for stock could be paid in part in “public debt” instead of cash;
    (b) because of the provision as to the mode of paying the subscription to stock made by the government.
    Give your own judgment as to the weight of these criticisms.
  4. What was the real importance of the resort to excise duties as a regular source of revenue under the Federalist administration?
  5. Suppose that in collecting the direct tax of 1798 it had been found that a part of the taxpayers in the State of X were unable to pay the amount assessed upon them, — would this deficiency have remained as a debt due by the State, or would it have been lost by the United States?
  6. What untoward events, tending to defeat calculations made as to the income and expenditure of the government, occurred between 1794 and 1800?

B.

Discuss the following extract,

(a) with respect to the statement of fact;
(b) with respect to the conclusion arrived at:—

“The result of financial operations during the twelve years of Federalist administration was to increase rather than to decrease the Federal debt. Upon January 1, 1791, the amount of outstanding obligations was $75,463,476; upon the corresponding date for 1795 the debt had risen to $80,747,587. While Wolcott was Secretary of the Treasury, the operations of the sinking-fund made no impression whatever upon the amount of indebtedness, and there was left by the Federalists as a legacy to the Jefferson administration a debt of $80,700,000. Nothing is here said in criticism of the fact that the debt increased. That may have been a necessity under the circumstances. Nor do we undertake to decide whether this necessity was due to inefficiency on the part of the Federalist administration, or to the carping criticisms of the Republicans out of office; our only conclusion is, that it is unwise to play at paying a debt while the debt is in reality growing. This leads to false security, and becomes a most prolific source of new loans.” [H. C. Adams, Public Debts, p. 266.]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-years 1898-1899.

1898-99.
Economics 16.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

In answering those questions do not change their order.

A.

  1. In what ways did the revulsion of 1873 affect the question of specie resumption?
  2. Has the coinage of silver dollars since 1878 at any time been a seriously inflating influence? If not, how and when has its influence been counteracted?
  3. What modes of redemption of legal tender notes are contemplated by the act of 1890, or are practicable under its terms? How is the gold reserve affected by redemptions thus carried on?
  4. What special phenomena gave an unusual character to the financial crisis of 1893?
  5. What was the seignorage bill of 1894, its purpose, and its fate?
  6. What were the operations by which the syndicate of 1895 undertook to protect the Treasury against demands for gold?
  7. What is the precise relation between “the endless chain” and deficient revenue?

B.

Choose one of these two subjects, and discuss it carefully, devoting to it at least one-third of your time.

  1. The possibility of returning to the specie basis after the great depreciation of the Civil War, without contraction, either open or disguised.
  2. Sherman’s qualities and rank as a financier, as exhibited in the history of the great financial measures with which, as Senator or as Secretary, he has associated his name.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), pp. 39-40. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

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1898-99 Course Announcement
Ethnology in its Applications to Economic and Social Problems.

[Economics] 172 hf. Ethnology in its Applications to Economic and Social Problems. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Dr. J. Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 353.

1898-99 Enrollment
Ethnology in its Applications to Economic and Social Problems.

[Economics] 172 hf. Dr. John Cummings. — Ethnology in its Applications to Economic and Social Problems. Lectures and discussions (3 or 2 hours); conferences; 2 reports; 2 theses.

Total 16: 1 Graduate, 4 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

1898-99.
Economics 172.
[Year-end Exam, 1899]

Devote one hour, but not more than one hour and a half, to A, and the remainder of your time to B.

A.

  1. “When the skulls are compared of the various human races, belonging to the past and present, it is found that the races in which the volume of the skull presents the greatest individual variations are the most highly civilized races. … Anatomical and physiological equality only exist in the case of individuals of quite inferior races.”
    “The superior races are distinguished from the inferior races by their character as well as by their intelligence. … Character is formed by the combination, in varying proportions, of the different elements which psychologists are accustomed at the present day to designate by the name of sentiments.”
    “The inequality between the different individuals of a race is greater in proportion to the superiority of the race.”
    “Whether in the race or the individual a correlation exists between the psychological character, the cerebral structure and the form of the skull.”
    Consider each of these statements carefully and comment at length.
  2. The race history of the French people.

B.
Two questions may be omitted.

  1. The colored population of the United States: its physical, moral, and intellectual character and progress since emancipation.
  2. What do you understand by “cephalic index”? of what is it an index? Consider its validity as a test of (a) race origin, (b) of individual capacity.
  3. “The constant immigration from all countries (to America) brings to light the question of adaptability and non-adaptability of the different races to the special conditions of American life.”
    How is this question being answered in America? in other countries? Consider in this connection the ethnical composition of the slum populations of American cities, and some social problems which arise in connection with these populations.
  4. In what sense are Anglo-Saxons as a race more hostile to socialism than other races?
  5. Take one:—

The French Canadian population of the United States.
The population of the city of Boston.

  1. State and explain some of the more important “laws” of Anthropo-Sociology.
  2. The growth of cities and social selection.
  3. “Anthropology is destined to revolutionize the political and social sciences as radically as bacteriology has revolutionized the science of medicine.” Comment upon and explain.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1899), pp. 40-41. In bound volume Examination Papers 1898-99.

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1898-99 Course Announcement
Seminary in Economics

[Economics] 20. The Seminary in Economics. Mon., at 4.30.

Subjects for 1898-99:—

(a) The Theory of Money. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar.
(b) Local Taxation in the United States. Professor Taussig.
(c) Socialism and Communism. Asst. Professor E. Cummings.

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Science 1898-99 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898), p. 353.

 

1898-99 Enrollment
Seminary in Economics.

[Economics] 20. The Seminary in Economics. — Conferences (weekly); open meetings (fortnightly); thesis. Instructors and topics for 1898-99:

(a) Professor  [Charles F.] Dunbar. — The Theory of Money. 1 Graduate.
(b) Professor Taussig. —  Local Taxation in the United States. Total 7: 6 Graduates, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1898-99, p. 73.

Topics and Speakers at the
Seminary of Economics,
1898-99

  • Aids in economic investigation. Professor Taussig.
  • Economic study in England. Dr. O.M.W. Sprague.
  • The growth and the constituent elements of the population of Boston. Mr. F. A. Bushée (2).
  • Some operations of the United States Treasury in 1894-96. Professor Taussig.
  • The Interstate Commerce Act as interpreted by the courts. Mr. F. Hendrick.
  • The English industrial crisis of 1622. Dr. O. M. W. Sprague.
  • The earlier history of the English income tax. Dr. J. A. Hill.
  • The theory of savers’ rent and some of its applications. Dr. C. W. Mixter.
  • The working of the French Railway Conventions of 1883. Mr. F. Hendrick.
  • The adoption of the gold standard by England in 1816. Mr. D. F. Grass.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1899-1900, p. 417.

Image Source: Walter Babcock Swift (Photographer), Harvard Square looking south, ca. 1900. Harvard University Archives, Hollis Images.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Economics Course Descriptions, Enrollments, and Exams. 1897-98

 

For the academic year 1897-1898 we are blessed with ample records for the economics courses offered (and bracketed) at Harvard. Detailed course descriptions, enrollment figures, semester-end exams are available and have been transcribed below for almost every course.

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ECONOMICS.
GENERAL STATEMENT.

Course 1 is introductory to the other courses. It is intended to give a general survey of the subject for those who take but one course in Economics, and also to prepare for the further study of the subject in advanced courses. It is usually taken with most profit by undergraduates in the second or third year of their college career. It may be taken with advantage in the second year by those who are attracted to political and social subjects. A knowledge of general history (such as is given in Course 1 in History) is a useful preparation.

The advanced courses divide themselves into two groups. The first group contains Courses 2, 3, 13, 14, 15, which are concerned chiefly with economic and social theory. Courses 2 and 15 follow the development of economic theory from its beginnings to the present time, with critical examination of the conclusions reached by economists of the past and the present. Course 13, on scope and method in economic investigation, continues the same subjects; it is taken to best advantage after either 2 or 15. Course 3 considers the wider aspects of economic and social study, and reviews the progress of sociological inquiry. Course 14 takes up the history and literature of socialistic and communistic proposals, and leads to a discussion of the foundations of existing institutions.

The second group contains the remaining courses, which are of a more descriptive and historical character. In all of them, however, attention is given to principles as well as to facts, and some acquaintance with the outlines of economic theory is called for.

Before taking any of the advanced courses, students are strongly advised to consult with the instructors. Courses 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 may not be taken without the previous consent of the instructors. It is advised that Course 1 be taken in all cases as a preparation for the advanced courses; and such students only as have passed satisfactorily in Course 1 will be admitted to Courses 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. But Courses 5, 7, and 9, may also be taken by Juniors and Seniors of good rank who are taking Course 1 at the same time; Course 6 is open to students who have taken or are taking cither History 13 or Economies 1; and Courses 10 and 11 are open to students who have passed satisfactorily either in History 1 or in Economics 1.

The Seminary in Economics is intended primarily for Graduate Students; but Seniors in Harvard College, who have had adequate training in the subject, may be admitted to it.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98,  pp. 30-31.

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Outlines of Economics
Economics 1

I. Outlines of Economics. —Principles of Political Economy.— Lectures on Social Questions and Monetary Legislation. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor  [Frank William] Taussig, Asst. Professor Edward Cummings, Dr. John Cummings, assisted by Messrs. [Charles Sumner] Griffin, [Edward Henry] Warren, and ——.

Course 1 gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics sufficient for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It begins with a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, and international trade, which is continued through the first half-year. In the second half-year, some of the applications of economic principles and some wider aspects of economic study are taken up. Social questions and the relations of labor and capital, the theory and practice of banking, and the recent currency legislation of the United States, will be successively treated in outline.

Course 1 will be conducted mainly by lectures. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. Large parts of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy will be read, as well as parts of other general books; while detailed references will be given for the reading on the application and illustration of economic principles.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98,  p. 31.

Economics 1: Enrollment

[Economics] 1. Professor [Frank William] Taussig, Asst. Professor [Edward] Cummings, Dr. [John] Cummings, and Messrs. [Charles Sumner] Griffin, [Charles Whitney] Mixter and [Edward Henry] Warren. — Outlines of Economics. — Principles of Political Economy.— Social Questions, and Financial Legislation.  3 hours.

Total 381: 32 Seniors, 99 Juniors, 199 Sophomores, 14 Freshmen, 37 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98
Economics 1.
[Mid-year Examination]

  1. Is a shop building, situated on a busy city street, capital? is the land on which it stands capital? Is a dwelling on a fashionable city street capital? the land on which it stands?
  2. Does the rent of a piece of land determine its price, and if so, how? or does its price determine the rent, and if so, how?
  3. Do you believe that differences in wages in different occupations would cease if, by gratuitous education and support, access to each occupation were made equally easy for all?
  4. Mention a case in which the income received by a person doing no manual labor is to be regarded as wages; one in which it is to be regarded as profits; one in which it is to be regarded as interest; and one in which the classification would be regarded as doubtful.
  5. Explain what is meant by the effective desire of accumulation; and consider whether, in a country like England, the minimum return on capital fixed by it has been reached.
  6. “The quantity demanded [of any commodity] is not a fixed quantity, even at the same time and place; it varies according to the value; if the thing is cheap, there is usually a demand for more of it than when it is dear. The demand, therefore, depends partly on the value. But it was laid down before that value depends on the demand. From this contradiction, how shall we extricate ourselves? How solve the paradox, of two things, each depending on the other?”
    What answer did Mill give to the question thus put by him?
  7. Does the proposition that value is determined by cost of production hold true of gold?
  8. Is it advantageous to a country to substitute paper money completely for specie?
  9. Trace the consequences of an issue of inconvertible paper, greater in amount than the specie previously in circulation, on prices, on the foreign exchanges, and on the relations of debtor and creditor.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 1.
[Final Examination]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

  1. In what sense does Mill use the terms “value” and “price”? Professor Hadley? What do you conceive to be meant by the “socialistic theory” of value?
  2. “Many people regard the luxury of the rich as being on the whole a means of preventing harm to the poor. They regard free expenditure of the capitalists’ money as a gain to laborers, and its saving as a loss.” Is this view sound?
  3. What services are rendered to society by commercial speculation? by industrial speculation?
  4. Patent-laws, protection by customs duties, private ownership of land, — wherein analogous, in Professor Hadley’s view? in your own view?
  5. Does Mill regard the rent of land as an “unearned increment”? Does Professor Hadley? On what grounds do they reach their conclusions?
  6. “By far the most important form of consumers’ coöperation is exemplified in government management of industrial enterprises.” Why, or why not, is government management to be regarded as a form of consumers’ coöperation? What other forms of such coöperation have had wide development?
  7. The peculiarities of labor considered as a commodity; and the grounds on which it is concluded that “the members of trade unions are in a condition entirely like that of the sellers of other commodities.”
  8. Consider how, according to Mill, successive issues of paper-money will affect the supply of specie in a country; and explain how far this theoretical conclusion was or was not verified by the mode in which the silver currency (dollars and certificates) issued under the act of 1878 affected the supply of gold in the United States.
  9. On what ground does Mill object to the issue of inconvertible paper? On what ground does Professor Dunbar object to the legal tender paper now issued by the United States? Wherein are the objections similar, wherein different?
  10. “If we try to make things for which we have only moderate advantages, and in so doing divert labor and capital from those where we have extraordinary ones, we do not, in general, make money; we lose more than we gain.” — HADLEY. Point out wherein this statement is akin to the analysis of international trade by Mill, and explain precisely what is here meant by making or losing money.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 40-41.

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Mediaeval Economic History of Europe
Economics 10
[Omitted in 1897-98.]

[*10. The Mediaeval Economic History of EuropeTu., Th., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor [William James] Ashley.]

The object of this course is to give a general view of the economic development of society during the Middle Ages. It will deal, among others, with the following topics: — the manorial system in its relation to mediaeval agriculture and serfdom ; the merchant gilds and the beginnings of town life and of trade ; the craft gild and the gild-system of industry, compared with earlier and later forms; the commercial supremacy of the Hanseatic and Italian merchants ; the trade routes of the Middle Ages and of the sixteenth century ; the merchant adventurers and the great trading companies ; the agrarian changes of the fifteenth nd sixteenth centuries and the break-up of the mediaeval organization of social classes ; the appearance of new manufactures and of the domestic industry.

Special attention will be devoted to England, but that country will be treated as illustrating the broader features of the economic evolution of the whole of western Europe; and attention will be called to the chief peculiarities of the economic history of France, Germany, and Italy.

Students will be introduced in this course to the use of the original sources, and they will need to be able to translate easy Latin.

It is desirable that they should already possess some general acquaintance with mediaeval history, and those who are deficient in this respect will be expected to read one or two supplementary books, to be suggested by the instructor. The course is conveniently taken after, before, or in conjunction with History 9; and it will be of especial use to those who intend to study the law of Real Property.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 31-32.

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Modern Economic History of Europe and America
(from 1500)
Economics 11

11. The Modern Economic History of Europe and America (from 1500)Tu., Th., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor [William James] Ashley.

This course, — which will usually alternate with Course 10 in successive years, — while intended to form a sequel to Course 10, will nevertheless be independent, and may usefully be taken by those who have not followed the history of the earlier period. The main thread of connection will be found in the history of trade; but the outlines of the history of agriculture and industry will also be set forth, and the forms of social organization dependent upon them. England, as the first home of the “great industry,” will demand a large share of attention; but the parallel or divergent economic history of the United States, and of the great countries of western Europe, will be considered side by side with it.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 32.

 Economics 11: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 11. Professor Ashley— The Modern Economic History of Europe and America (from 1500). 2 or 3 hours.

Total 16: 9 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Sophomore.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 11.
[Mid-year Examination]

N.B.—Not more than eight questions should be attempted.

  1. “Locutus sum de breviori via ad loca aromatum per maritimam navigationem quam sit ea quam facitis per Guineam.” Translate and comment upon this.
  2. Give some account of the Fairs of Champagne.
  3. What light does Jones’ account of agricultural conditions in Europe in his own time cast upon the agrarian history of England in the 15th and 16th centuries? Be as definite as possible in your answer.
  4. What do you suppose happened to the “craft-gilds” of England during the reign of Edward VI?
  5. Discuss the purpose and effect of the statute 5 Eliz. c. 4, in the matter of the Assessment of Wages.
  6. What were the essential characteristics of the “Domestic System” of Industry?
  7. Give some account of the industrial legislation of France in the 16th century.
  8. “The policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock.” What had the writer of this passage in mind?
  9. Give some account of any four of the following: Albuquerque, Veramuyden, Jacob Fugger, John Hales, Jacques Cartier, Bartholomew Diaz, Barthelemy Laffemas.
  10. Give a critical account of any really important work, not prescribed, of which you have read any considerable portion in connection with this course.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 11.
[Year-end Examination]

N.B.- Not more than eight questions should be attempted.

  1. “Publicae mendicationis licentiam posse civium legibus cohiberi ad liquidum ostendit ille absolutus Theologus, loannes Major.” Translate; and shew the significance of the position thus maintained.
  2. Illustrate from the history of Hamburg the change in the position of the Hanseatic League during the 16th century.
  3. Distinguish between the various races of immigrants into England since 1500, and state shortly the several respects in which the trade and industry of England were influenced by each.
  4. “Perhaps the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.” Give a brief account of the enactment of which Adam Smith thus speaks; distinguish between the various aspects in which it may be regarded; and give your own opinion as to the justice of Adam Smith’s observation.
  5. Explain the position of “les Six Corps” at Paris. Does London furnish any analogous institutions?
  6. “Hitherto,” i.e. up to 1750, “industry had been chiefly carried on in England by numbers of smaller capitalists who were also manual workmen.” Criticise this as a bit of exposition.
  7. The position of Arthur Young in economic history.
  8. The commercial policy of the younger Pitt.
  9. Mention, with the briefest possible comment, some of the more important features in which the agricultural, industrial and commercial life of the England of to-day differs from that of the England of 1750.
  10. What were the principal defects in the administration of the English Poor Laws prior to 1834, and how was it sought to remedy them?
  11. Explain the need for the English Factory Acts, and give some account of their history.
  12. Give a critical estimate of any really important book, not prescribed, of which you have read any considerable proportion in connection with this course during the second half-year.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 50-51.

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The Economic History of the United States
Economics 6

6. The Economic History of the United StatesTu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Mr. [Guy Stevens] Callender.

Course 6 gives a general survey of the economic history of the United States from the formation of the Union to the present time, and considers also the mode in which economic principles are illustrated by the experience so surveyed. A review is made of the financial history of the United States, including Hamilton’s financial system, the second Bank of the United States and the banking systems of the period preceding the Civil War, coinage history, the finances of the Civil War, and the banking and currency history of the period since the Civil War. The history of manufacturing industries is taken up in connection with the course of international trade and of tariff legislation, the successive tariffs being followed and their economic effects considered. The land policy of the United States is examined partly in its relation to the growth of population and the inflow of immigrants, and partly in its relation to the history of transportation, including the movement for internal improvements, the beginnings of the railway system, the land grants and subsidies, and the successive bursts of activity in railway building. Comparison will be made from time to time with the contemporary economic history of European countries.

Written work will be required of all students, and a course of reading will be prescribed, and tested by examination. The course is taken advantageously with or after History 13. While an acquaintance with economic principles is not indispensable, students are strongly advised to take the course after having taken Economics 1, or, if this be not easy to arrange, at the same time with that course.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 32-33.

Economics 6: Enrollment

[Economics] 6. Dr. Callender. — The Economic History of the United States. 3 hours.

Total 94: 4 Graduates, 38 Seniors, 41 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 6.
[Mid-year Examination]

[Omit one question from each group]

I.

  1. “The effect of England’s policy was, through a restriction of the market, to render the production of those staple commodities (i.e. of agriculture, and the fisheries) less profitable. Thus New England, and later the middle colonies, not being allowed to exchange their normal products for England’s manufactures, were forced to begin manufacturing for themselves.”—
    “Briefly describe the measures designed to prevent the rise of manufactures in the colonies; and state whether in your opinion the growth of manufactures in the northern colonies was stopped chiefly by this legislation or by other causes.
  2. The American colonies during the Revolution were in much the same economic position as the South during the Rebellion. The chief resource of the latter was the value of its cotton crop to the world; that of the former was the supposed value of their trade to the nations of Europe. Describe the various ways in which the Revolutionary statesmen made use of this resource.
  3. Judging from the opinions of statesmen as well as from acts of legislation what would you say were the leading objects of American Commercial policy from 1783 to 1789?
  4. State briefly the exact circumstances which permitted the growth of American commerce during the years from 1793 to 1806. How did this temporary commercial prosperity affect the subsequent growth of manufactures?

II.

  1. Compare the conditions which gave rise to manufactures in the northern colonies before 1760 with those which prevailed during the years immediately following 1783 and 1815; and indicate what conclusions you would draw from such a comparison, as to the necessity or expediency of protective legislation to secure the development of manufactures in a new country.
  2. Discuss the effect of the duties on Cotton and Iron during the period from 1816 to 1833.
  3. Compare the treatment of wages in Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures with that which appeared in the debate on the Tariff Act of 1846. How do you explain the change?
  4. Mention several industries which were created or greatly promoted by inventions between 1840 and 1860.

III.

  1. Henry Clay declared in 1832 that the seven years preceding 1824 “exhibited a scene of the most widespread dismay and desolation,” while the seven years following 1824 exhibited the “greatest prosperity which this people, bare enjoyed since the establishment of the present constitution.” How do you explain this change?
  2. In what ways have the people of the United States made use of the Federal and State governments to provide transportation facilities? How do you explain this tendency to State interference in industrial affairs at so early a date in America?
  3. Describe the abuses in Railroad management which the Interstate Commerce Act was intended to correct.
  4. Explain why competition proves less effective in regulating freight rates than in regulating the price of most commodities.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 6.
[Year-end Examination]

Answer at least eight questions.

  1. Give your reasons for agreeing to, or dissenting from, the following proposition: Until the wars of the French Revolution temporarily suspended the colonial policy of Continental Europe, the United States was in a more unfavorable economic position than they had been in prior to the Revolution
  2. Why was the adoption of a liberal tariff policy by the U.S. in 1846 more justifiable than in 1816?
  3. “The provisions of the constitution were universally considered as affording a complete security against the danger of paper money. The introduction of the banking system met with a strenuous opposition on various grounds; but it was not apprehended that bank notes, convertible at will into specie, and which no person could be legally compelled to take in payment, would degenerate into pure paper money, no longer paid at sight in specie… It was the catastrophe of 1814 which first disclosed not only the insecurity of the American banking system, as it then existed, but also that when a paper currency, driving away, and suspending the use of gold and silver, has insinuated itself through every channel of circulation, and become the only medium of exchange, every individual finds himself, in fact compelled to receive such currency, even when depreciated more than twenty per cent. in the same manner as if it had been a legal tender.” — GALLATIN.
    Prior to the adoption of the national banking system in 1863, how did the federal government attempt to prevent the evil here described. and with what success?
  4. How far do the conditions, which render competition ineffective as a regulator of transportation charges, prevail in any of the industries in which Trusts have been formed? — or to ask the same thing in another way, how far is it possible to justify Trusts on the same grounds as Railroad Pools?
  5. What reasons would you assign for the change in the relative value of gold and silver which occurred after 1873?
  6. What difficulty did the Treasury department encounter in administering the silver act of 1878, and what means were used to overcome it?
  7. Compare the effect of the protective duties on wool and woollens since 1867 with the effect of those on silk and steel during the same time.
  8. “In the division of employments which has taken place in America, the far preferable share, truly, has fallen to the Northern States…The states, therefore, which forbid slavery, having reaped the economical benefits of slavery, without incurring the chief of its moral evils, seem to be even more indebted to it than the slave states.” — WAKEFIELD.
    How would you explain this statement?
  9. According to Mr. Cairnes, what constituted the economic basis of Negro slavery in the Southern States and enabled it to successfully resist the competition of free white labor? Do you consider this economic basis of slavery to have been permanent?
  10. Describe the most important change in Southern agrarian conditions which has resulted from emancipation.
  11. What influences can you mention that have contributed to the fall in the prices of the staple products of Northern agriculture during the last ten years?
  12. Why has this fall in the price of agricultural products caused greater hardship to the farmers than the corresponding fall in the price of manufactured products has caused among manufacturers?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 45-47.

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History and Literature of Economics to the Close of the 18th Century
Economics 15

*15. The History and Literature of Economics to the Close of the Eighteenth CenturyMon., Wed., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12.     Professor[William James] Ashley.

The course of economic speculation will here be followed, in its relation alike to the general movement of contemporary thought and to contemporary social conditions. The lectures will consider the economic theories of Plato and Aristotle; the economic ideas underlying Roman law; the mediaeval church and the canonist doctrine; mercantilism in its diverse forms; “political arithmetic;” the origin of the belief in natural rights and its influence on economic thought; the physiocratic doctrine; the work and influence of Adam Smith; the doctrine of population as presented by Malthus; Say and the Erench school; and the beginnings of academic instruction in economics.

The lectures will be interrupted from time to time for the examination of selected portions of particular authors; and careful study will be given to portions of Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics (in translation) to Mun’s England’s Treasure, Locke’s Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, certain Essays of Hume, Turgot’s Réflexions, and specified chapters of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and Malthus’ Essay. Students taking the course are expected to procure the texts of the chief authors considered, and to consult the following critical works:

Ingram, History of Political Economy; Cossa, Introduction to the Study of Political Economy; Cannan, History of the Theories of Production and Distribution; Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy; Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest; Taussig, Wages and Capital.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 33-34.

Economics 15: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 15. Professor Ashley. — The History and Literature of Economics to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. 2 or 3 hours.

Total 6: 3 Graduates, 1 Senior, 2 Sophomores.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 15.
[Mid-year Examination]

N.B.—Not more than eight questions should be attempted.

  1. Compare the Republic of Plato with the Politics of Aristotle, as to purpose and temper.
  2. Expound Aristotle’s teaching with regard to Slavery.
  3. “He is supposed to have given a striking proof of his wisdom, but his device for getting money is of universal application.” Comment, and explain the context.
  4. What parts of Aristotle’s criticism of Communism seem to you pertinent to modern Socialism. Explain what particular kind of Socialism you have in mind.
  5. Set forth, and criticise, Maine’s account of the influence in modern times of the conception of a Law of Nature.
  6. Were the early Christians communists?
  7. How did “Inter-est [sic],” in its original meaning, differ from “Usury.”
  8. The position in economic literature of Nicholas Oresme.
  9. What principles, if any, of the canonist teaching seem to you to have any bearing on modern economic problems.
  10. What were “the particular ways and means to encrease our exportations and diminish our importations,” according to Mun?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 15.
[Year-end Examination]

  1. Criticise the current conception of “Mercantilism” in the light of your own study of the later English mercantilist writers.
  2. The place of Locke in English economic thought.
  3. “Tout ce qu’il y a de vrai dans ce volume estimable, mais pénible à lire, en deux gros volumes in-4°, se trouve dans les Réflexions de Turgot; tout ce qu’Adam Smith y a ajouté manque d’exactitude et même de fondement.”
    Translate, and then criticise this remark of Du Pont’s.
  4. Trace the various elements which went to make up the idea of Nature in Adam Smith’s mind, and then explain Smith’s application of it to any particular subject.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, p. 53.

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Economic Theory
in the 19th Century
Economics 2

*2. Economic Theory in the Nineteenth CenturyMon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor [Frank William] Taussig.

Course 2 is designed to acquaint the student with the history of economic thought during the nineteenth century, and to give him at the same time training in the critical consideration of economic principles. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the important writers; and in this discussion students are expected to take an active part. Lectures are given at intervals, tracing the general movement of economic thought and describing its literature. Special attention will be given to the theory of distribution.

The course opens with an examination of Ricardo’s doctrines, selections from Ricardo’s writings being read and discussed. These will then be compared with the appropriate chapters in Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, and further with passages in Cairnes’ Leading Principles. The theory of wages, and the related theory of business profits, will then be followed in the writings of F. A. Walker, Sidgwick, and Marshall, and a general survey made of the present stage of economic theory in England and the United States. The development on the continent of Europe will be traced chiefly in lectures; but toward the close of the year a critical examination will be made of the doctrines of the modern Austrian school.

Course 2 is taken with advantage in the next year after Course 1; but Course 15 may also be taken with advantage after Course 1, and then followed by Course 2, or taken contemporaneously with it.

Source:  Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 34.

 Economics 2: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. 3 hours.

Total 32: 9 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 2.
[Mid-year. 1898.]

[Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. One question may be omitted.]

  1. According to Ricardo, what is the effect, if any, of a rise in the price of food on wages? on profits? on the prices of commodities?
  2. “Ricardo expresses himself as if the quantity of labor which it costs to produce a commodity and bring it to the market, were the only thing on which its value depended. But since the cost of production to the capitalist is not labor but wages, and since wages may be greater or less, the quantity of labor being the same; it would seem that the value of the product cannot be determined solely by the quantity of labor, but by the quantity together with the remuneration; and that values must depend on wages.” — Mill.
    What do you conceive Ricardo would have said to this?
  3. “We have therefore remarked that the difficulty of passing from one class of employments to a class greatly superior, has hitherto caused the wages of all those classes of laborers who are separated from one another by any very marked barrier, to depend more than might be supposed upon the increase of population of each class, considered separately; and that the inequalities in the remuneration of labor are much greater than could exist if the competition of the laboring people generally could be brought practically to bear on each particular employment. It follows from this that wages in each particular employment do not rise or fall simultaneously, but are, for short and sometimes even for long periods, nearly independent of each other. All such disparities evidently alter the relative costs of production of different commodities, and will therefore be completely represented in the natural or average value.” — Mill.
    What has Cairnes added to this?
  4. “He [Mr. Longe] puts the case of a capitalist who, by taking advantage of the necessities of his workmen, effects a reduction in their wages; and asks how is this sum, thus withdrawn, to be restored to the fund? . . . The answer to the case put by Mr. Longe is easy on his own principles; and I am disposed to flatter myself that the reader who has gone with me in the foregoing discussion will not have much difficulty in replying to it on mine.” — Cairnes.
    Give the reply.
  5. “Fixity or definiteness is the very essence of the supposed wages-fund. No one denies that some amount or other must within a given period be disbursed in the form of wages. The only question is whether that amount be determinate or indeterminate.” — Thornton.
    What is Cairnes’s answer to the question put in this passage?
  6. What would you expect the relation of imports to exports to be in a country whose inhabitants had for a long time been borrowing, and were still borrowing, from the inhabitants of other countries?
  7. Are general high wages an obstacle to a country’s exporting?
  8. “Granted a certain store of provisions, of tools, and of materials for production, sufficient, say, for 1000 laborers, those who hold the wage-fund theory assert that the same rate of wages (meaning thereby the actual amount of necessaries, comforts, and luxuries received by the laborer) would prevail whether these laborers be Englishmen or East Indians. . . . On the contrary, it is not true that the present economical quality of the laborers, as a whole, is an element in ascertaining the aggregate amount that can now be paid in wages; that as wages are paid out of the product, and as the product will be greater or smaller by reason of the workman’s sobriety, industry, and intelligence, or his want of these qualities, so wages may and should be higher or lower accordingly?”
    Give your opinion.
  9. What do you conceive to be the “no profits class of employers” in President Walker’s theory of distribution?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 2.
[Final Examination]

The answer to one question may be omitted.

  1. The analysis of capital in its relation to labor and wages at the hands of Ricardo and of Böhm-Bawerk, — wherein the same? wherein different?
  2. The contributions of permanent worth for economic theory by Cairnes? by F.A. Walker? [Consider one.]
  3. The position of Carey and Bastiat in the development of economic theory.
  4. “If the efficiency of labor could be suddenly doubled, whilst the capital of the country remained stationary, there would be a great and immediate rise in real wages. The supplies of capital already in existence would be distributed among the laborers more rapidly than would otherwise be the case, and the increased efficiency of labor would soon make good the diminished supplies. The fact is that an increase in the efficiency of labor would bring about an increase in the supply of capital.” — Marshall. Why? or why not?
  5. “The capital of the employer is by no means the real source of the wages even of the workmen employed by him. It is only the intermediate reservoir from which wages are paid out, until the purchasers of the commodities produced by that labor make good the advance and thereby encourage the undertaker to purchase additional labor.” W. Roscher.
    What do you say to this?
  6. “If the rate of profit falls, the laborer gets more nearly the whole amount of the product. But if the rate of wages falls, we have a corresponding fall in prices and little change in the relative shares of labor and capital.” Hadley.
    Why, or why not, in either case?
  7. “In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers or merchants by profession, and who hold an amount of commodities entirely beyond any needs of their own. Consequently, for them the subjective use-value of their own wares is, for the most part, very nearly nil; and the figure which they put on their own valuation almost sinks to zero.” Explain the bearing of this remark on the theory of value as developed by Böhm-Bawerk.
  8. What, according to Böhm-Bawerk, is the explanation of interest derived from “durable consumption goods”? And what is your own view?
  9. How far do you conceive that there is a “productivity” of capital, serving to explain the existence of interest, and the rate?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 41-42.

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Scope and Method in Economic Theory and Investigation
Economics 132

*132 hf. Scope and Method in Economic Theory and Investigation. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Professor [William James] Ashley.

Course 13 will examine the methods by which the important writers, from Adam Smith to the present time, have approached economic questions, and the range which they have given their inquiries; and will consider the advantage of different methods, and the expediency of a wider or narrower scope of investigation. Mill’s essay on the Definition of Political Economy; Cairnes’ Logical Method of Political Economy; Keynes’ Scope and Method of Political Economy; certain sections of Wagner’s Grundlegung and Schmoller’s essay on Volkswirthschaft will be carefully examined. The conscious consideration of method by the later writers of the classic school and by their successors in England; the rise of the historical school and its influence; the mode in which contemporary writers approach the subject, — will he successively followed.

Course 13 is open to students who take or have taken Course 2 or Course 15. A fair reading knowledge of German as well as of French will be expected of students, and the opportunity will be taken to assist them to acquire facility in reading scientific German. Subjects will be assigned for investigation and report, and the results of such investigations will be presented for discussion.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 34-35.

Economics 132: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 132. Professor Ashley. — Scope and Method in Economic Theory and Investigation. 3 hours.

Total 5: 3 Graduates, 1Senior, 1 Sophomore.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 132.
[Year-end Examination]

  1. “Ganz unabhängig von der deutschen historischen National-Ökonomie haben Sociologen wie A. Comte ähnliche, freilich auch zu weit gehende Bedenken gegen Deduction und Abstraction der britischen Oekonomik erhoben.”
    Translate this; and then (1) state Comte’s position with regard to economic method, (2) criticise it.
  2. “Die besondere Leistung des wissenschaftlichen Socialismus ist der Nachweis des beherrschenden Einflusses der Privateigenthums ordnung, speciell des Privateigenthums‚ an den sachlichen Productionsmitteln’, auf die Gestaltung der Production und der Vertheilung des Productionsertrag, zumal bei Wegfall aller Beschränkungen der Verfügungsbefugnisse des Privateigenthümers im System der freien Concurrenz…Durch den Socialismus ist aber auch das andere grosse Hauptproblem, dasjenige der Freiheit und ihrer Rechtsordnung, in ein neues Stadium getreten. Hier begeht der Socialismus nun jedoch trotz seiner scharfen Kritik der wirthschaftlichen Freiheit im System der ökonomischen Individualismus und Liberalismus principiell denselben Fehler, wie letzterer: auch er fasst die Freiheit als Axiom, statt als Problem auf, ein schwerstes Problem gerade jeder socialistischen Rechts- und Wirtschaftsordnung.”
    (1) Translate, (2) explain, and (3) comment on this.
  3. Discuss the questions raised by the application to Economies of the distinction between a Science and an Art.
  4. What did J. S. Mill mean by the Historical Method? Consider (1) the source of the idea, (2) its characterization by Mill, and (3) the bearing of his utterances with regard to it upon the question of economic method.
  5. Examine either (1) the Malthusian doctrine of Population or (2) the Ricardian doctrine of Rent as a specimen of an economic “law.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 52-53.

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Principles of Sociology
Economics 3

*3. The Principles of Sociology. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

Course 3 begins with a general survey of the structure and development of society; showing the changing elements of which a progressive society is composed, the forces which manifest themselves at different stages in the transition from primitive conditions to complex phases of civilized life, and the structural outlines upon which successive phases of social, political, and industrial organization proceed. Following this, is an examination of the historical aspects which this evolution has actually assumed: Primitive man, elementary forms of association, the various forms of family organization, and the contributions which family, clan and tribe have made to the constitution of more comprehensive ethnical and political groups ; the functions of the State, the circumstances which determine types of political association, the corresponding expansion of social consciousness, and the relative importance of military, economic, and ethical ideas at successive stages of civilization. Special attention is given to the attempts to formulate physical and psychological laws of social growth; to the relative importance of natural and of artificial selection in social development; the law of social survival; the dangers which threaten civilization; and the bearing of such general consideration upon the practical problems of vice, crime, poverty, pauperism, and upon mooted methods of social reform.

The student is thus acquainted with the main schools of sociological thought, and opportunity is given for a critical comparison of earlier phases of sociological theory with more recent contributions in Europe and the United States. Regular and systematic reading is essential. Topics are assigned for special investigation in connection with practical or theoretical aspects of the course.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 35.

 Economics 3: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 3 Asst. Professor E. Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 2 or 3 hours.

Total 59: 4 Graduates, 30 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 6 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

1897-98.
Economics 3.
[Mid-year examination]

[Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Give one hour to each group.]

I.

Discuss the merits and defects of the following conceptions of society:

A) Society as an organism.
B) Society as a physio-psychic organism.
C) Society as an organization.
D) Society as an “organisme contractuel.”

What in your opinion are the essential differences between an ant hill and a human society?

II.

Give a critical summary and comparison of the views of Spencer, Giddings, Ritchie in regard to (a) the origin, (b) the development and forms, and (c) the functions of political organization.
Contrast the ancient, medieval and modern views of the relations of the State to Society and to the Individual.

III.

Discuss the views of Spencer, Westermarck, Giddings and others on the causes and the effects of the successive phases of family organization.
What claims has the family to be regarded as the “social unit”?
Discuss the significance of existing tendencies.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 3.
[Final Examination]

I.

The nature, the causes, and the criteria of progress, according to (a) Spencer, (b) Kidd, (c) La Pouge, (d) Haycraft, (e) Giddings, (f) Tarde? State and illustrate by historical examples your own views in regard to the “curve of progress.”

II.

“The special feature of the final adjustment secured by our occidental civilizations, contrary to what has been seen on the earth before them, will therefore have been the subordination of the social to the individual. This singularly daring enterprise is the true novelty of modern times. It is well worth living to second it or to participate in it.”— TARDE.
“There seems no avoiding the conclusion that these conspiring causes must presently bring about that lapse of self-ownership into ownership by the community, which is partially implied by collectivism and completely by communism.” — SPENCER.
Discuss carefully the merits of these opinions, and the evidence on which they rest.

III.

What do you conceive to be some of the dangerous tendencies of our civilization? And what are the remedies?

IV.

State the subject of your final report and the reading you have done in connection with it.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, p. 42.

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Socialism and Communism
Economics 14

*14. Socialism and Communism. — History and Literature. Tu., Th., and at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

Course 14 is primarily an historical and critical study of socialism and communism. It traces the history and significance of schemes for social reconstruction from the earliest times to the present day. It discusses the historical evidences of primitive communism, the forms assumed by private ownership at different stages of civilization, the bearing of these considerations upon the claims of modern socialism, and the outcome of experimental communities in which socialism and communism have actually been tried. Special attention, however, is devoted to the recent history of socialism, — the precursors and the followers of Marx and Lassalle, the economic and political programmes of socialistic parties in Germany, France, and other countries.

The primary object is in every case to trace the relation of historical evolution to these programmes; to discover how far they have modified history or found expression in the policy of parties or statesmen; how far they must be regarded simply as protests against existing phases of social evolution; and how far they may be said to embody a sane philosophy of social and political organization.

The criticism and analysis of these schemes gives opportunity for discussing from different points of view the ethical and historical value of social and political institutions, the relation of the State to the individual, the political and economic bearing of current socialistic theories.

The work is especially adapted to students who have had some introductory training in Ethics as well as in Economics. A systematic course of reading covers the authors discussed; and special topics for investigation may be assigned in connection with this reading.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 35-36.

Economics 14: Enrollment

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor E. Cummings. — Communism and Socialism. — History and Literature. 2 or 3 hours.

Total 12: 3 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 14.
[Mid-year Examination]

Outline briefly the characteristics of socialistic theory and practice in ancient, medieval and modern times, — devoting about an hour to each epoch, and showing —

(a) so far as possible the continuity of such speculations; the characteristic resemblances and differences;
(b) the influence of peculiar historical conditions;
(c) the corresponding changes in economic theory and practice.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

No Year-end Examination for 1898 found.

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Labor Question
in Europe and the U.S.
Economics 9.

9. The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings and Dr. John Cummings.

Course 9 is a comparative study of the condition and environments of workingmen in the United States and European countries. It is chiefly concerned with problems growing out of the relations of labor and capital. There is careful study of the voluntarily organizations of labor, — trade unions, friendly societies, and the various forms of cooperation; of profit-sharing, sliding scales, and joint standing committees for the settlement of disputes; of factory legislation, employers’ liability, the legal status of laborers and labor organizations, state courts of arbitration, and compulsory government insurance against the exigencies of sickness, accident, and old age. All these expedients, together with the phenomena of international migration, the questions of a shorter working day and convict labor, are discussed in the light of experience and of economic theory, with a view to determining the merits, defects, and possibilities of existing movements.

The descriptive and theoretical aspects of the course are supplemented by statistical evidence in regard to wages, prices, standards of living, and the social condition of labor in different countries.

Topics will be assigned for special investigation, and students will be expected to participate in the discussion of selections from authors recommended for a systematic course of reading.

The course is open not only for students who have taken Course 1, but to Juniors and Seniors of good rank who are taking Course 1.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 36-37.

Economics 9: Enrollment

[Economics] 9. Asst. Professor E. Cummings and Dr. J. Cummings. — The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. 3 hours.

Total 108: 1 Graduate, 39 Seniors, 51 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 78.

No Mid-year Examination found.

1897-98.
Economics 9.
[Year-End Examination]

I.
WORKINGMEN’S INSURANCE.

“After a preliminary examination of the various kinds of working-men’s insurance, and the chief methods by which its provision can be accomplished, we have considered the history and present condition of the problem in each of the great countries of Europe and in the United States. It now remains to pass in review the whole field, to contrast, in a measure, the various policies that have been pursued, and to indicate some of the ways in which this rich experience can be of assistance in any attempt that may be made in this country to further similar movements.”
Devote one hour (a) to analyzing the present condition in each country; (b) to indicating the ways in which this rich experience can be of assistance.

II.

a) Give the name, the size, the characteristics of the important labor organizations in the United States.

b) Compare the development and present condition of labor organizations in the United States, with the movement in England.

c) How do you account for the differences in success attending trade union and coöperative enterprises in the two countries?

III.

a) What agencies, public and private, are available for settling disputes between employers and employed in the United States?

b) To what important legal questions have these disputes given rise? What has been the attitude of the judiciary and what are the merits of the present controversy in regard to injunctions?

c) What has been the general character and value of labor legislation during the last decade?

IV.

Indicate approximately the husband’s earnings, the family income and the standard of living among laborers in coal, iron, steel, textile or other industries,

1) in the United States.
2) in European countries.
3) Compare the native with the foreign-born American in these respects.
4) What conclusions do you draw from the evidence?

V.

What is the subject of your special report? State briefly (a) the method of your research, (b) the conclusions reached.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 49-50.

_______________________

Statistics
Economics 4

*4. Statistics. — Applications to Social and Economic Problems. — Studies in Movements of Population. — Theory and Method. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. John Cummings.

This course deals with statistical methods used in the observation and analysis of social conditions, with the purpose of showing the relation of statistical studies to Economics and Sociology, and the scope of statistical inductions. It undertakes an examination of the views entertained by various writers regarding the theory and use of statistics, and an historical and descriptive examination of the practical methods of carrying out statistical investigations. The application of statistical methods is illustrated by studies in political, fiscal, and vital statistics, in the increase and migration of population, the growth of cities, the care of criminals and paupers, the accumulation of capital, and the production and distribution of wealth.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 37.

Economics 4: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 4. Dr. J. Cummings. — Statistics. — Applications to Economic and Social Questions. — Studies in the Movement of Population. — Theory and Method. 3 hours.

Total 18: 7 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 4.
[Mid-year Examination]

[Divide your time equally between A. and B.]

A.

[Take two.]

  1. In what sense do you understand Quetelet’s assertion that “the budget of crime is an annual taxation paid with more preciseness than any other”?
    Comment upon the “element of fixity in criminal sociology.”
    What are the “three factors of crime”?
    Can you account for the “steadiness of the graver forms of crime”? for the increase or decrease of other crimes?
    Define “penal substitutes.”
    What determines the rate of criminality?
    Comment upon the tables relating to crime in the last federal census, and explain how far they enable one to estimate the amount of crime committed and the increase or decrease in that amount.
  2. Comment upon the movement of population in the U. S. as indicated in the census rates of mortality and immigration. Upon the movement of population in France and in other European countries during this century. Can you account for the decline in the rates of mortality which characterize these populations?
    Give an account of the growth of some of the large European cities and of the migratory movements of their populations.
    Give an account for the depopulation of rural districts which has taken place during this century?
  3. Give some account of the Descriptive School of Statisticians and of the School of Political Arithmetic.
    Of the organization and work of statistical bureaus in European countries during this century.
    Of the census bureau in the United States.

B.

[Take four.]

  1. What are some of the “positive” statistical evidences of vitality in a population? “negative”?
  2. Define “index of mortality.”
  3. Comment upon the density and distribution of population in the United States.
  4. What do you understand by “normal distribution of a population according to sex and age”? Define “movement of population.”
  5. Explain the various methods of estimating a population during intercensal years.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 4.
[Final Examination]

A.

I.

“The wealth of a nation is a matter of estimate only. Certain of its elements are susceptible of being approximated more closely than others; but few of them can be given with greater certainty or accuracy than is expressed in the word ‘estimated.’” Why? State the several methods used for determining the wealth of a nation. Give some account of the increase and of the present distribution of wealth in the United States.

II.

What statistical data indicate the movement of real wages during this century? What facts have to be taken into account in determining statistically the condition of wage earners? State the several methods of calculating index numbers of wages and prices, and explain the merits of each method. Explain the use of weighted averages as indexes, and the considerations determining the weights. What has been the movement of wages and prices in the United States since 1860?

III.

Statistical data establishing a hierarchy of European races, the fundamental “laws of anthropo-sociology,” and the selective influences of migratory movements and the growth of cities.

B.

Take six.

  1. “I have striven with the help of biology, statistics and political economy to formulate what I consider to be the true law of population.” (Nitti.) What is this law? Is it the true law? Why?
  2. Upon what facts rests the assertion that “the fulcrum of the world’s balance of power has shifted from the West to the East, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific”?
  3. What factors determine the rate of suicide? Consider the effect upon the rate of suicide of the sex and age distribution of the population, of the social and physical environment, and of heredity.
  4. Statistical determination of labor efficiency, and the increase of such efficiency during this century.
  5. How far are statistics concerning the number of criminal offenders indicative of the amount of criminality? Statistics of prison populations? Of crimes? What variables enter in to determine the “rate of criminality”? What significance do you attach to such rates?
  6. The statistical method.
  7. Graphics as means of presenting statistical data.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 43-44.

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Railways and other Public Works
Economics 52

52 hf. Railways and other Public Works, under Government and Corporate management. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 1.30. Mr. [Hugo Richard] Meyer.

In this course it is proposed to review the history and working of different modes of dealing with railway transportation, and to deal summarily with other similar industries, such as the telegraph, street railways, water and gas supply. Consideration will be given to the economic characteristics of these industries, the theory and history of railway rates, the effects of railway service and railway charges on other industries, the causes and consequences of monopoly conditions. The history of legislation in the more important European countries will be followed, as well as the different modes in which they have undertaken the regulation and control of private corporations, or have assumed direct ownership, with or without management and operation. Some attention will be given also to the experience of the British colonies, and more especially of those in Australia. In the United States, there will be consideration of the growth of the great systems, the course of legislation by the federal government, the working of the Interstate Commerce Act, and the modes of regulation, through legislation and through Commissions, at the hands of the several States. So far as time permits, other industries, analogous to railways, will be discussed in a similar manner.

Written work, in the preparation of papers on assigned topics, will be expected of all students in the course.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 37-38.

Economics 52: Enrollment
1897-98

[Economics] 52. Mr. Meyer. — Public Works, Railways, Postal and Telegraph Service, and Monopolized Industries, under Corporate and Public Management. Hf. 3 hours. 2d half year.

Total 65: 31 Seniors, 16 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 78.

1897-1898.
Economics 52.
[Final Examination]

  1. “The principle [of railway rates] commonly advocated by the antagonists of the railways, as well as by the would-be reformers, is that of cost of service. Charges should be regulated in accordance with the cost of the particular transaction to the company. This is certainly not the actual method. Is it the correct method?”
    Give your reasons for accepting or rejecting the “cost of service” principle.
  2. What were the causes of the so-called granger agitation of 1871-74; of the reappearance of this agitation in 1886-88?
  3. What were the principal reasons for the instability of railway pools in the United States?
  4. By what means did the Trunk Line Associations which succeeded the Trunk Line Pool seek to limit competition and attain the effects of pooling?
  5. Discuss the working of the Interstate Commerce Act under the following headings:—
    The prohibition of undue or unreasonable preference or advantage and the prohibition of pooling.
    The construction by the United States Courts of the clause that the findings of the Commission shall be prima facie evidence in judicial proceedings.
    Legal embarrassments and other obstacles encountered by the Commission in obtaining testimony in penal cases.
    The attitude of the railways to the Act.
  6. The history of the application of the long and short haul clause to competitive rates made by railways not subject to competition from railways which are beyond the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission; and to rates on imported commodities. Discuss under the following heading:—
    “The construction put upon the long and short haul clause by the Interstate Commerce Commission; by the United States Supreme Court.
  7. Discuss the working of the German legislation prescribing for distances over 100 km a uniform rate per ton per kilometer.
    Should you expect the practice of equal mileage charges to work with more friction or with less in the United States than in Germany?
    Alternative:
    The important points of difference between the management of the Prussian State Railways and the management of the Australian State Railways; between the management of the English Railways and the management of the American Railways.
  8. The reasons for the failure of the De Freycinet (1879) railway construction schemes; and the effect upon the French Budget of the “agreements” negotiated in 1883 between the French Government and the Six Companies.
    Alternative:
    The effect upon the Italian Budget of the “conventions” made in 1885 between the Italian Government and the Three Companies. The effect upon the Italian Exchequer of the railway construction carried out under the act of 1879 and the supplementary acts of 1881, 1882, and 1885.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 44-45.

_______________________

Theory and Methods of Taxation
Economics 71

*71 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 1.30. Professor [Frank William] Taussig.

Course 71 undertakes an examination of the theory of taxation, based upon the comparative study of methods as practised in different countries and in different States of the American Union. This examination necessarily includes some discussion of leading questions in revenue legislation, such as the taxation of incomes and personal property, the single tax, progressive taxation, and indirect taxes.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 38.

Economics 71: Enrollment

[Economics ] 71. Professor Taussig.—The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to Local Taxation in the United States. 2 or 3 hours. 1st half year.

Total 42: 5 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

Economics 71.
Readings

Seligman—Essays in Taxation.
Bastable—Public Finance.
Leroy-Beaulieu—Science des Finances, Vol. I.
Say—Dictionnaire des Finances.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, cited as Q. J. E.
Dowell—History of Taxation in England.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS: CLASSIFICATION.

Seligman, Ch. IX.
Bastable, Bk. II, Ch. I; Bk. III, Ch. 1

TAXES ON LAND.

{Leroy-Beaulieu. Bk. II, Ch. VI;
Say, article “Foncière (Contribution).” 233-241.}
Bastable, Bk. IV, Ch. I.
Dictionary of Political Economy, article “Land Tax.”

HABITATION TAXES.

{Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. VII.
Say, article “Personelle-Mobilière,” 850-857.}
Dowell, Vol. III, 186-192.

INCOME TAXES.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. X.
Bastable, Bk. IV, Ch. IV.
{Dowell, Vol. III, 99-122;
Article “Income Tax in the United Kingdom,” in Dictionary of Political Economy, Vol. II.}
J. A. Hill, The Prussian Income Tax, Q. J. E., January, 1892.
Seligman, Ch. X, iii, iv.

BUSINESS TAXES.

{Say,  article “Patentes,” pp. 743-752;
Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. VIII.}
J. A. Hill—The Prussian Business Tax, Q. J. E., October, 1893.

SUCCESSION TAXES.

Seligman, Ch. V; Ch. IX, i.
Bastable, Bk. III, Ch. III.

PROGRESSION.

{Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. II;
Bastable, Bk. III, Ch. III.}
Seligman, Progressive Taxation, pp. 190-200; pp. 39-53 (Switzerland).

DIRECT TAXES BY THE UNITED STATES.

C. F. Dunbar,The Direct Tax of 1861, Q. J. E., July, 1889; Vol. III, pp. 436-446.
J. A. Hill,The Civil War Income Tax, Q. J. E., July, 1894.
C. F. Dunbar, The New Income Tax, Q. J. E., October, 1894.

LOCAL TAXES IN ENGLAND.

Blunden, Local Taxation and Finance, Ch. III, IV, V.

LOCAL TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Seligman, Ch. II, IV, VI, XI.
Ely, Taxation in American States, part III, Ch. VII.
Plehn, The General Property in California, (Economic Studies, Vol. II, No. 3), Part II, 151-178.
Angell, The Tax Inquisitor System in Ohio, in Yale Review, February, 1897.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 1, folder “1897-1898”.

1897-98.
Economics 71.
[Mid-year Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Give and answer, however brief, to each question]

  1. Consider which of the following combinations, if any, bring about “double taxation”: (1) the impôt sur la propriété batie and the personelle-mobilière, in France; (2) local rates and schedule A of the income tax, in Great Britain; (3) the taxation of mortgaged property and of mortgages, as commonly provided for in American States.
  2. It has been said that the taxation of merchants’ stock in trade in Massachusetts, by assessors’ estimate, if effect proceeds in a somewhat similar fashion to that of the French impôt des patentes and of the Prussian business tax. Why? or why not?
  3. Are there good reasons for taxing funded incomes at a higher rate than unfunded?
  4. It has recently been proposed in Great Britain to impose a general tax on property, based on the income tax returns, and levied at the rate of (say) five per cent. on the income derived from the property; reducing at the same time the income tax to one-half its present rate. Point out what important changes in the British tax system would result; consider what examples in other countries may have suggested the proposal: and give an opinion as to its expediency.
  5. What do you conceive to be the “compensatory theory” in regard to progressive taxation?
  6. What reasoning pertinent in regard to the principle of progression in taxation is also pertinent in regard to taxes on successions? in regard to the single tax?
  7. As between owner and occupier of real estate who is responsible for local rates in England? for local taxes in the United States? Do you believe that the differences have important consequences in the incidence of these taxes?
  8. Consider points of resemblance, points of difference, in the modes in which the States of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania tax (1) domestic corporations (2) the securities issued by foreign corporations.
  9. What grounds are there in favor, what against, the imposition of income taxes by the several States?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 47-48.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers in economics 1882-1935, Prof. F. W. Taussig. Scrapbook. (HUC 7882), p. 61.

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Financial Administration and Public Debts
Economics 72

*72 hf. Financial Administration and Public Debts. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar.

Course 72 is devoted to an examination of the budget systems of leading countries, and their methods of controlling expenditure, the methods of borrowing and of extinguishing debts practised by modern states, the form and obligation of the securities issued, and the general management of public credit.

Topics will be assigned for investigation by the students, and a list of topics, references, and required reading will be used.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 38.

Enrollment data not published for 1897-98.

1897-98.
Economics 72
[Final Examination]

  1. What are the comparative advantages of (a) an Independent Treasury like that of the United States, and (b) the use of a bank or banks by the government, as practised in England or Germany?
  2. What changes (if any) of constitution, law or practice would be required, in order to establish a thorough-going budget system in the United States?
  3. Compare the French budget procedure with the English, and point out their respective advantages or disadvantages.
  4. Suppose a fiscal year to have ended before financial measures for the new year have been agreed upon. How would current expenditure be provided for in the United States? In England? In France? In Germany?
  5. What is the practice of those four countries respectively as regards the control of revenue by means of annual grants?
  6. Suppose the case of a country having a depreciated paper currency, but expecting the ultimate resumption of specie payments, and compelled to borrow on a large scale. Which method of borrowing upon bonds (principal and interest payable in gold) would be the best,—
    (a), To sell the bonds for par in gold and make the rate of interest high enough to attract buyers;
    (b) To sell the bonds for gold at such discount as might be necessary, their interest being fixed, say, at six per cent;
    (c) To sell the bonds for their nominal par in depreciated paper. Give the reasons for and against each method.
  7. State the probable effect on the selling value of bonds when their terms provide for, —
    (a) Annual drawings by lot for payment;
    (b) Reserved right to pay at pleasure after some fixed date;
    (c) Obligation to pay at some fixed date;
    (d) “Limited option” like that of the “five-twenties.”
  8. Examine the reasoning involved in the following expression of opinion:—
    “There is one essential difference between the anticipation of interest. payments, and the anticipation of the payment of the principal of a debt by purchases on the market. This latter procedure…requires a larger sum of money to extinguish a given debt than will be required after the debt comes to be redeemable; but no such result follows the anticipation of interest-payments. These are determined by the terms of the contract, and may be calculated with accuracy. The interest does not, like the market value of a debt, fall as the bonds approach the period of their redemption, and it is but the application of sound business rules to use any surplus money on hand in making advanced payments of interest.”
  9. Describe the existing arrangements for the reduction of the English debt.
  10. State, with reasons, your own conclusion as to the real advantage (if any) derived from the system of terminable annuities.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 48-49.

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Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems
Economics 122

*121 hf. Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Half -course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar.]

[Note: originally announced as omitted for 1897-98.]

In Course 12[1] the modern system of banking by deposit and discount is examined, and its development in various countries is studied. The different systems of note-issue are then reviewed and compared, and the relations of banks to financial crises carefully analyzed. Practical banking does not come within the scope of this course. The study is historical and comparative in its methods, requiring some examination of important legislation in different countries, practice in the interpretation of banking movements, and investigation of the general effects of banking. The course, therefore, naturally leads to an examination of the questions now raised as to bank issues in the United States.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 38-39.

Economics 12: Enrollment

[Economics ] 121. Professor Dunbar.—Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Hf. 3 hours. 1st half year.

Total 12: 5 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 121.
[Mid-year Examination]

A.

Give ONE THIRD of your time to these two questions.

  1. Suppose that, in the period 1848-70, India had had a banking system as extensively used and as efficient as that of England or the United States, and that in the East prices had depended upon competition as much as they did in the Western nations? How would these altered conditions have affected the drain of silver to India, and the value of the precious metals in America and Europe?
  2. What do you say to the general proposition, that England, “being a debtor nation,” can draw gold at pleasure from any part of the world?

B.

  1. A few years ago an American writer said:—
    “We will be able to resume specie payments when we cease to rank among the debtor nations, when our national debt is owed to our own people, and when our industry is adequate to the supply of the nation’s need of manufactured goods.”
    To what extent should you regard the circumstances of the resumption in 1879 as a verification of the reasoning implied in this statement?
  2. In what way did the payment of the French Indemnity, 1871-73, tend to stimulate affairs in England, Austria, and the United States?
  3. What economic conditions or events tended to make the year 1890 a turning point, both in domestic and in international finance? Give a clear statement of such as you recall.
  4. How do the banking and currency systems of England, France and the United States differ, as regards their ability respectively to resist export movements of gold?
  5. What temporary changes in the general level of prices in this country should you expect to see, as the result of a large permanent withdrawal of foreign capital? What ultimate change of prices should you expect?
  6. State the general conditions which determine the movement of gold as it issues from the mining countries and is distributes over the world?
  7. Cairnes discusses some of the conditions which determine the relative quickness with which countries raise their general scale of prices when a rapid depreciation of gold is in progress. Consider how far the effect upon a given country would be influenced by the fact that its exports were

(a) chiefly manufactured articles;
(b) chiefly articles of food.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1897-98.
Also: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 51-52.

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International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals
Economics 121

[Was not offered first nor second term, instead see above]

[* 121 hf. International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar and Mr. [Hugo Richard] Meyer.

Course 121 is taken up with the discussion of the movements of goods, securities, and money, in the exchanges between nations and in the settlement of international demands. After a preliminary study of the general doctrine of international trade and of the use and significance of bills of exchange, it is proposed to make a close examination of some cases of payments on a great scale, and to trace the adjustments of imports and exports under temporary or abnormal financial conditions. Such examples as the payment of the indemnity by France to Germany after the war of 1870-71, the distribution of gold by the mining countries, and the movements of the foreign trade of the United States since 1879, will be investigated and used for the illustration of the general principles regulating exchanges and the distribution of money between nations.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 38-39.]

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Selected Topics in the Financial Legislation of the United States
Economics 162

*162 hf. Selected Topics in the Financial Legislation of the United States. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., at 2.30. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar.

The topics for study in this course for 1897-98 will be: (1) The Legal Tender Issues of the Civil War; (2) Development of the National Banking System. Subjects will be assigned and reports called for, requiring thorough investigation in the debates of Congress and other contemporary sources of information, for the purpose of tracing the history and significance of the legislative acts to be discussed, and a close study of such financial and commercial statistics as may throw light upon the operation of the acts.

Arrangements will be made by which graduate students and candidates for Final Honors in Political Science may take this course in connection with the Seminary in Economics as a full course running through the year.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 39.

Economics 162: Enrollment

[Economics ] 162. Professor Dunbar.—Selected Topics in the Financial History of the United States. Hf. 2 hours. 1st half year.

Total 8: 3 Graduates, 3 Seniors, 2 Juniors.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

1897-98.
Economics 162
[Year-end Examination]

A.

Give one-half of the time allowed for this examination to the discussion of any two of the questions stated under B.

B.

Answer, with such fulness as the remaining time allows, those of the following questions which you have not selected for discussion under A.

  1. Rhodes (History of the United States since 1850, iii., 567) states as “the conclusion which it seems to me a careful consideration of all the facts must bring us to,” that “The Legal Tender act was neither necessary nor economical.”
    Discuss this conclusion.
  2. In December, 1868, Senator Morton introduced a bill providing that specie payments should be resumed, by the government July 1, 1871, and by the banks January 1, 1872, greenbacks ceasing to be a legal tender at the latter date; gold to be provided in the Treasury by the accumulation of surpluses and by the sale of bonds, but no greenbacks to be redeemed until the date fixed for resumption by the United States.
    What would have been the probable operation of such a measure?
  3. Sherman said in January, 1874,—
    “The plan, which in my judgment presents the easiest and best mode of attaining specie payments, is to choose some bond of the United States which in ordinary times, by current quotations, is known to be worth par in gold in the money markets of the world, where specie is alone the standard of value, and authorize the conversion of notes into it.”
    Discuss the probable working of such a plan, having in view also Mr. Sherman’s strong objection to a contraction of the currency
  4. Suppose an Issue department of the Treasury, completely separated from all other business, provided with an ample reserve and strictly limited to the exchange of coin for notes and notes for coin as required by the public; what would you say would then be the nature and the force of the objections, if any, to the permanent maintenance of our legal tender issues?
  5. The greenbacks having been regarded originally as the temporary element in our paper currency and the bank notes as the permanent element, what were the one or two great turning points in the development which reversed this relation?
  6. If the issue of bank-notes were made equally available for all parts of the country, so far as the requirements of the system are concerned, would the South and South West find themselves more amply provided with paper currency than at present?
  7. What in your judgment is the most important function discharged by banks in this country, and what is your estimate of the importance and practicability of national supervision of their discharge of that function?
  8. The act just passed by Congress to provide ways and means for the expenditures occasioned by the war, contains the following section:—
    “That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and directed to coin into standard silver dollars as rapidly as the public interests may require, to an amount, however, of not less than one and one-half millions of dollars in each month, all of the silver bullion now in the Treasury purchased in accordance with the provisions of the act approved July 14, 1890, entitled “An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes, and said dollars, when so coined, shall be used and applied in the manner and for the purposes named in said act.”
    State carefully the use and application of the dollars thus required by the act of 1890.

Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Examination Papers 1898-99, Bound Volume, pp. 554-55.

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Economics Seminary
Economics 20

20. Seminary in EconomicsMon., at 4.30. Professors [Charles Franklin] Dunbar, [Frank William] Taussig, and [William James] Ashley, and Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

In the Seminary the instructors receive Graduate Students, and Seniors of high rank and adequate preparation, for training in investigation and discussion. No endeavor is made to limit the work of the Seminary to any one set of subjects. Subjects are assigned to students according to their needs and opportunities, and may be selected from any of the larger fields covered by the courses in which stated instruction is given. They may accordingly be in economic theory, in economic history, in applied economics, in sociology, or in statistics. It will usually be advisible for members of the Seminary to undertake their special investigation in a subject with whose general outlines they are already acquainted; but it may sometimes be advantageous to combine general work in one of the systematic courses with special investigation of a part of the field.

The general meetings of the Seminary are held on the first and third Mondays of each month. The members of the Seminary confer individually, at stated times arranged after consultation, with the instructors under whose special guidance they are conducting their researches.

At the regular meetings, the results of the investigations of members are presented and discussed. The instructors also at times present the results of their own work, and give accounts of the specialized literature of Economics. At intervals, other persons are invited to address the Seminary on subjects of theoretic or practical interest, giving opportunity for contact and discussion with the non-academic world. Among those who thus contributed to the Seminary in 1895-97 were President Francis A. Walker, Dr. Frederick H. Wines, Mr. S. N. D. North, Mr. A. T. Lyman, Mr. E. W. Hooper, and Mr. F. C. Lowell.

In 1896-97 the Seminary had fifteen members, of whom twelve were Graduate Students, two were Seniors in Harvard College, and one was a Law Student. Among the subjects under investigation in that year were: The Woollen Industry in England during the 17th and 18th centuries; Over-production and Over-accumulation in Economic Theory; The Taxation of Sugar in the United States and in Foreign Countries; The National Banking System with regard to its operation in the West and South; The Financial History of the Pennsylvania Railway; The Financial History of the Union Pacific Railway; The History of Immigration into the United States.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 39-40.

Economics 20: Enrollment

[Economics ] 20. Professors Dunbar, Taussig and Ashley, and Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.—Investigation of topics assigned after consultation.

Total 12: 11 Graduates, 1Senior.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

Members of the Harvard Economics Seminary, 1897-1898

https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-members-of-the-economics-seminary-1897-1898/

Image Source: Harvard Hall (1906). From the Center for the History of Medicine (Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine).