Economic essays

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Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: The early teaching of economics in the United States / Edwin R.A. Seligman

Collection:: Economics Books

THE EARLY TEACHING OF ECONOMICS IN THE UNITED STATES 295 We find an interesting development in the views entertained from time to time by President Tyler. In 1890 he simply “thinks that political economy was added to the curriculum in 1784, when President James Madison instituted lectures on Adam Smith as part of the course given by the incumbent of the chair of moral philosophy.” * Jefferson became a member of the board of visitors and governors in 1779 and caused the enactment of a statute which reorganized the college. In lieu of the existing chairs of divinity there were now insti- tuted three professorships. George Wythe was made professor of law and police; Robert Anderson was made professor of moral philosophy, the laws of nature and of nations; and Bishop Madi- son was made professor of natural philosophy and mathematics. In 1784 President Madison was transferred to the chair pre- viously occupied by Mr. Anderson. Eight years later Mr. Tyler's opinion is strengthened. He now says: “There is reason to believe that Adam Smith was taught at William and Mary earlier than at any other college”; and he hazards the conjecture that “the use of the Wealth of Nations perhaps dates from 1784, when President Madison was made professor of moral philosophy, international law, ete.” As to the first part of this statement, he refers to an assertion of Bishop Meade, and writes: “We are told that President Madison was the first to introduce into the College a regular system of lectures on political economy.” As to the latter part of the statement the evidence which appears to President Tyler as conclusive is the fact that “in the library of Mr. Stanard is an old edition of Adam Smith, with the autograph of ‘Robert Stanard, William and Mary College, 1798,’ upon the flyleaf.” * In 1900 more confirmatory evidence is supposed to be found in the correspondence of Andrew Reid who refers to forty-three pages of questions on Smith's Wealth of Nations, propounded by Bishop Madison.® In the next year Mr. Tyler quotes a letter from R. A. Brock, referring to the three-volume edition of Smith's Wealth of '“A Few Facts from the Records of William and Mary College,” American Historical Association Papers, IV (1890), 455-469. ! * William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, vi (1898), 181-182. * Op. cit., ix (1901), p. 213.

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