While trolling the yearbook of the University of Vermont in search of a portrait of Professor Charles W. Mixter (Harvard Ph.D. 1897), I came across the following student account of what one presumes is a not an untypical classroom performance by Professor Mixter. He appears to have been pretty proud of his Harvard connection, in particular with Professor O.M.W. Sprague.
Incidentally, I have yet to discover a photograph of Charles W. Mixter anywhere on the internet, and I have tried…
…and what pray are “Persian Alexis overshoes” anyhow?
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Pol. Econ. à la Mixter
A room in the Old Mill. The bell strikes and during the next ten minutes the class straggles in. The second bell strikes; some minutes elapse during which Burrows ’o4 amuses himself — and the class — by crayon sketches from life ( ?). Macrae, to whom art of so high an order does not appeal, looks at his watch and announces that the five minutes are up. A discussion follows as to the advisability of cutting. Finally better instincts prevail and the class decides to stay. At the end of another five minutes, Pomeroy, from his lookout at the window, descries the Professor in the distance. Informed of the fact the class rushes up just in time to see His Portlyship, in Persian Alexis overshoes, and English Ulster [Note: apparently the sort of overcoat worn by Sherlock Holmes], rounding the statue of Lafayette and puffing like a tug under full steam.
The Professor’s tread is soon heard on the stair and the class take their seats just as he enters the room. In answer to the chorus of good-mornings, he nods a general recognition, divests himself of ulster, overshoes and Alexis and takes his seat. These preliminaries over, he fumbles for some time in the recesses of an inner pocket and at length pulls forth a slip of paper upon which is the frame-work of a lecture. After vainly trying to read his own writing, the Professor gives up in despair, puts back the notes, and launches out on another tack.
His eye lighting on Macrae nodding on the back seat, he explodes this poser at the offending member:
My friend Sprague — the great economist — of course you’ve all heard of him — edited Dunbar blur—r—r um and all that sort of thing — well he’s just returned from Oklahoma — he says the banks are holding the largest deposit in the Territory’s history. What does that indicate for general prosperity, Mr. Macrae?
Macrae, to whom reciting is a bore, pulls himself together with a supreme effort and begins a learned disquisition on the inter-relation of loans to deposits and the utter uselessness as an index to prosperity of bank statements in general and of this report in particular.
Whenever a glint of truth appears in Macrae’s remarks — which is far from often — the Professor nods approvingly, assumes his Rooseveltian grin and rumples his hair encouragingly.
Macrae finally comes to the end of his rope and the Professor, suddenly recollecting an anecdote that “my friend Sprague” told him at Harvard, springs it on the guileless members of Economics II. When the laughter incident on this effort has subsided, the Professor has some interesting things to say on railroad stocks.
Prof. (clearing his throat and groping for his handkerchief in a hip pocket) Um — yum yum yum yum yum — I own some stock myself — huh — oh yes — huh (grimace à la Roosevelt). Hasn’t paid me any dividend for seventeen years, though. Speaking of railroads puts me in mind of a man I met up in the Berkshire Hills once. Oh yes — um I — I was up in the Berkshires and I met a man who had lost his fortune during the war — well he — huh — huh huh. The Professor, anticipating the ludicrous end of his tale, cannot resist the temptation to laugh, and the rest of his speech is lost in a gurgle of merriment, in which the class feels itself called upon to join.
Turning from the Berkshire Hermit the Professor travels to Tennessee, where he tells how he proffered a check in payment and how that check was actually received! Next he leads the class a pretty pace through Threadneedle Street, where they enter the Bank of England and help the Professor cash a ten pun’ note, after which they awake to find themselves reposing quietly in their seats none the worse for wear but a little dazed in spirit.
The remainder of the Professor’s talk is a brilliant counterpane, with which he covers his subject, resplendent with purple patches of travel, finance, the stock exchange, international trade, panics, industrial organization, underwriting, indigestible securities, and bank history from Daniel to Dunbar, freely interspersed with the dicta of Ami Sprague. The Professor is in the midst of an interesting Harvard reminiscence when the bell strikes and he makes a hasty end, regretting — as always — that he hasn’t covered as much ground as he had hoped to. The class escapes furtively while the Professor worms himself into his ulster, sticks on the Alexis and descends the stair ruminating on the value of anecdote as a means of inculcating the fundamental principles of that most abstruse science of political economy.
Source: The University of Vermont Libraries, Digital Collections.Yearbook, The Ariel 1905, Vol. XVIII, pp. 277-278.
Image Source: University of Vermont (between 1900 and 1906) from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.