Economic essays

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Monograph

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 313 free trade and not, as was the case at that time in New York, the result of a special charter of incorporation in each instance. He suggested further that nine-tenths of the banking capital should be invested in government stock, to be held as a pledge of the redemption of the outstanding circulation. MecVickar, therefore, really deserves credit for the introduction of the free banking system of New York, nine years later, which soon spread to other states.” Inasmuch as the essence of McVickar’s suggestion also formed one of the fundamental principles of the national banking system which existed prior to the inception of the Federal Reserve system, McVickar may be declared in a certain sense to be at least a joint author of the national banking system which governed this country for over half a century. In 1830 MecVickar published a Lecture Introductory to a Course on Political Economy recently delivered at Columbia College, republished in London in the same year. This was fol- lowed in 1835 by First Lessons in Political Economy for the Use of Primary and Common Schools, in which he describes himself as Professor of Political Economy in Columbia College. Finally, in 1841, McVickar issued A Tract on a National Bank in which he upheld the need of a central bank. It is interesting to learn that McVickar and Cooper were both opposed to the destruction by Jackson of the Bank of the United States. Whether Political Economy was taught at Columbia in the opening years of the century by the incumbent of the chair of Moral Philosophy, cannot now be ascertained, although it is by no means improbable. Nor do we know whether MecVickar taught the subject during the first year of his incumbency. What we do know, however, is that in the next year, 1818, he per- suaded the trustees of Columbia to add the subject of Political Economy to the title of his chair, which was thereafter known as that of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy. It is thus the earliest chair of the subject in the country. McVickar continued to teach at Columbia until 1857, when he was transferred to the chair of the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, occupying this until his retirement in 1864. We are told that “his learning was extensive and accurate, and * When we called the attention of Mr. Horace White to this fact many years ago he inserted into a later edition of his Money and Banking, pn. 348, a statement giving Professor McVickar credit for this idea.

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