Today’s post provides the earliest set of university examination questions thus far at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. The examiners for political economy at the University of Toronto in 1858 were the Reverends James Beaven and George Paxton Young. Two of the exams focus exclusively on political economy as found in texts by Richard Whately and Adam Smith. The other two exams are split equally between political economy (Nassau Senior and John Stuart Mill) and political philosophy (Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and Francis Lieber)
Interesting to note are the misspellings of the names of both Richard Whately and John Stuart Mill as well as getting the title incorrect for Nassau Senior’s book.
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[Richard Whately, Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, 2nded. London: B. Fellowes, 1832.]
University of Toronto
ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS: 1858.
THIRD YEAR.
WHATELEY’S [sic] POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Examiners: Rev. James Beaven, D.D. and Rev. G.P. Young, M.A.
- (a) What is the subject matter of the science of political economy?
(b) What three other names does Whateley mention as having been applied to
the science?
(c) State and illustrate the objections to two of them, and the recommendations
of the third. - (a) Shew that, even on the supposition that wealth is an evil, it is right to study
the subject of wealth.
(b) Show that what may appear an increase of luxury is not necessarily pernicious. - Discuss the question, whether the savage state is the original condition of mankind.
- Illustrate the beneficent wisdom of Providence, in directing towards the public
good the conduct of those who act from selfish motives. - (a) Show that it is most probable a priorithat advancement in national prosperity should be favourable to moral improvement.
(b) Show that we have no sufficient ground for thinking poverty by itself favourable to moral improvement. - (a) Show the evils of an ill-conducted diffusing of knowledge.
(b) Explain how they are to be avoided. - (a) Give examples of the need of definition in political economy.
[SECOND PAGE OF EXAM APPARENTLY MISSING]
Source: University of Toronto. Examination papers, 1858. Arts.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086615500?urlappend=%3Bseq=269
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[Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural and Politic Law, 1747]
[Nassau W. Senior. An Outline of the Science of Political Economy, 1836.]
University of Toronto
ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS: 1858.
Third Year.
CIVIL POLITY.
BURMALAQUI’S NATURAL LAW, AND SENIOR’S OUTLINES [sic] OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
Honors and Scholarships
Examiners: Rev. James Beaven, D.D. and Rev. G.P. Young, M.A.
- (a) What are the different primitive and original states of man, as set forth by Burmalaqui?
(b) Why, and under what restrictions, may the adventitious states produced by human consent be considered, for the purposes of argument, as so many natural states? - (a) Explain Burmalaqui’s view of what is implied in the term Obligation.
(b) How does he discuss the opinion, That the principle of obligation is the will of a superior?
(c) May obligation be more or less rigorous? - State the principal theories of the origin and foundation of sovereignty. What is Burmalaqui’s view?
- (a) What are the conditions, internal and external, requisite to constitute a law?
(b) Define natural law, and natural jurisprudence.
(c) Give the leading steps in the argument by which the existence of natural laws is established.
(d) Enunciate the two propositions laid down by Burmalaqui, as the general foundation of the whole system of natural law. - (a) What is meant by Sociability?
(b) Mention some of the natural laws which flow from it.
(c) What place is assigned to this principle in the system of Puffendorf? How far does Burmalaqui agree with, or differ from, Puffendorf? And on what grounds? - (a) Define Imputation
(b) Distinguish simple from efficacious imputation.
(c) Notice a difference between the imputation of good and bad actions.
(d) Can forced actions be imputed? Give Puffendorf’s view.
(e) What principles does Burmalaqui lay down for determining whether the action of one person be imputable to another? - How can the authority of natural laws be evinced?
- What probable arguments does Burmalaqui advance in favour of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul? And in what connexion is the discussion of this doctrine introduced?
* * *
- (a) What is Value?
(b) Point out, and illustrate, the intrinsic and extrinsic causes of the value of a commodity.
(c) Explain what is meant by steadiness of value; shewing how far it depends on intrinsic, and how far on extrinsic, causes. - (a) Define Production.
(b) What are the instruments of production?
(c) Classify and describe the parties among whom the results of the different instruments of production are divided.
(d) How does Senior remark on the doctrine of over-production or universal glut? - (a) What does Senior understand by cost of production?
(b) Explain his views on the question, whether profit forms a part of the cost of production?
(c) Show how it happens that the influence of cost of production in regulating price, under free competition, is subject to much occasional interruption. - What are the obstacles which limit the supply of all that is produced? And what is the mode in which these obstacles affect the reciprocal values of all the subjects of exchange?
- (a) Trace the progress of a colony, so as to illustrate the view, that, in the absence of counteracting causes, an increase of population would tend to make the obtaining of raw produce a matter of greater difficulty.
(b) Point out the principal causes which, as the population of a new colony increases, are likely for a period to fully counteract the tendency referred to. - (a) Illustrate the proposition, That additional labour, when employed in manufactures is more, and when employed in agriculture is less, efficient in proportion.
(b) Point out some of the principal consequences of this proposition. - (a) What does Senior lay down as the proximate cause of the rate of wages?
(b) Show that his view is inconsistent with the opinion that the general rate of wages can (except in two cases) be diminished by the introduction of machinery? - (a) Mention the causes on which the extent of the fund for the maintenance of labour depends.
(b) Two parishes contain each twenty-four labouring families. In the one, eighteen families are employed in producing commodities for the whole twenty-four: in the other only twelve are so employed. What, on Senior’s principle, would be the comparative rate of wages in these parishes, first, on the supposition that labour in the two parishes is equally productive; and, next, on the supposition that in the latter parish labour is more productive by one-half than in the former? Point out the reason of the answer.
Source: University of Toronto. Examination papers, 1858. Arts.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086615500?urlappend=%3Bseq=308
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Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations (1776), Cannan Edition.
University of Toronto
ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS: 1858.
FOURTH YEAR.
SMITH’S WEALTH OF NATIONS.
Examiners: Rev. James Beaven, D.D. and Rev. George Paxton Young, M.A.
- Give the general plan of the work.
- State and illustrate the causes of the superior productiveness of the division of labour.
- (a) Shew that labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of commodities.
(b) Shew by what steps money comes to represent such value.
(c) Illustrate the variableness of the valueof money itself. - (a) What general circumstances regulate the rent of land?
(b) Shew that it bears very little relation to any outlay of the landlord upon it.
(c) Of the materials of clothing and the materials of lodging, which commonly first pays rent to the owner of the land on which they are produced? and why?
(d) Illustrate the variations in the quantity of rent which they yield. - (a) What is the relation of the accumulation of stock to the division of labour? Explain.
(b) What is capital and its relation to stock?
(c) Into what two parts is the capital of a community divided? And what does each part consist of? - (a) Give an account of the causes which have retarded the improvement of agriculture in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire.
(b) What state of things in this country resembles the Metayersystem? - (a) What, according to Smith, are the two objects of political economy?
(b) What relation do the system of commerce and the system of agriculture bear to one of those objects?
(c) What is the principle of the agricultural system?
(d) What nations have adopted such a system? - (a) State the principle of bounties?
(b) To what branch of trade is it proposed to apply them in this country? And on what grounds?
(c) What is Smith’s opinion of this class of bounties? Explain. - (a) Under what branchof political economy is the subject of the public revenue treated?
(b) What are the three duties of a sovereign which require that a public revenue should be raised? - (a) Under what four general heads does Smith rank the taxes of a country?
(b) Under which of these heads does a tax upon consumable commodities come?
(c) What circumstances render a tax on the interest of money less expedient than a tax upon land?
(d) In what respect does a tax upon necessaries produce the same effect as a tax upon wages? - (a) Trace the origin and growth of public debts.
(b) What is Smith’s opinion of the operation?
Source: University of Toronto. Examination papers, 1858. Arts.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086615500?urlappend=%3Bseq=292
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[Francis Lieber. Manual of Political Ethics Volume I, Volume II]
[John Stuart Mill. Principles of Political Economy (7th ed.), Ashley edition.]
University of Toronto
ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS: 1858.
Candidates for B.A.
CIVIL POLITY.
LIEBER’S POLITICAL ETHICS.—MILLS’ [sic] POLITICAL ECONOMY
Honors and Scholarships
Examiners: Rev. James Beaven, D.D. and Rev. G.P. Young, M.A.
- (a) What place in the chain of sciences do Political Ethics occupy? And what forms the subject matter of this division of Ethics?
(b) What historical instances of the pressing necessity of justifying public acts, are brought forward by Lieber, for the purpose of proving that: politics may be treated in an ethic point of view?
(c) Shew that Ethics cannot be applied to politics precisely as to private relations. - (a) Supposing a society to be defined by the nature of the relation existing between its members, what is the peculiar relation on which the State is founded?
(b) Distinguish the fundamental idea of the State from that of the family; and illustrate, by reference to a difference between the ancient Areopagites and an English jury, the circumstance that the line of demarcation between the State and the family is less strongly drawn in the early history of nations than at a more advanced period.
(c) What particulars are included in the protection which the State is bound to afford to each individual?
(d) “The State has been compared to an insurance company in which property forms the share each citizen holds.” “All the State has to do is to look outthat my neighbourdoes not pick my pocket or boxmy ears.”How doesLieber remark on the views of the State and of its office presented in these quotations?
(e) Develop [sic] the maxims; “The State exists of necessity.” “The State does not absorb individuality.” “La justice constituée, c’est l’état.” - (a) What is government? Point out a serious misconception which has arisen from confounding Government and State.
(b) Does Lieber hold that Government has sovereign (as distinguished from supreme) power? What is the distinction referred to? Illustrate by an example from Roman history? Mention an important instrument in British history to which Lieber refers in this connexion; and give the substance of his remarks on the words for everin the instrument in question.
(c) In what different ways may governments be established?Give an historical example of each kind. - “Hamarchy signifies something entirely different from the ancient synarchy, which merely denoted a government in which the people had a share together with the rulers proper.”
(a) Describe what Lieber terms hamarchy, pointing out the difference between it and the ancient synarchy.
(b) What proof does he adduce of the hamacratic character of the English polity? And what historical circumstances contributed to give this character to the English polity? - (a) Mention some of those habits in which it is most important, as respects political ends for the young to be educated.
(b) How does Lieber shew the importance of the classical department in superior education by a reference to the elements or factors out of which our peculiar civilization arises. Specify the ffactors referred to. What remark does he make in this connexion on Chinese education? - (a) What are the characteristics of a sound political party?
(b) To what dangers are party organizations exposed?
(c) When a party is in opposition, what are the rules it ought to follow, in order not to be liable to the charge of factiousness? - Explain and illustrate the following propositions:
(a) Industry is limited by capital.
(b) Capital is the result of saving
(c) Capital, though saved, and the result of saving, is nevertheless consumed. - If one of two things commands on the average a greater value that the other, to what causes must this be attributable? And which of the causes is the most important?
- Notice and examine any popular remedies for low wages.
- State the true theory of rent by whom was it first propounded, and when? By whom was it rediscovered, after having been for some time neglected?
- (a) Explain and prove the following proposition:“The quantity [of money]wanted [in a country] will depend partly on the cost of producing gold, and partly on the rapidity of its circulation.”
(b) What difference can be pointed out betwixt money and other things in respect of the law, that value conforms to the cost of production? - How does Mill discuss the doctrine of Protection to Native Industry?
Source: University of Toronto. Examination papers, 1858. Arts.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086615500?urlappend=%3Bseq=312
Image Source: Quadrangle of University College under construction – This view of the south side of the quadrangle, taken in the summer of 1858, show the rafters to the museum partially in place. Construction has begun on the section east of the central tower, the upper floor of which would house the University library. Website: University of Toronto, Heritage. Webpage “Building a College”. [A1977-0049/001(13)] – Digital I.D.: 2012-02-3MS.jpg]