2908 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK : 
nowhere to be found in the designation of the chair or in any 
other college document during the eighteenth century. Dr. Tyler 
has been good enough to confirm this fact in a letter to us in 
which he explains his inferences: “While not certain as to the 
exact time the lectures on political economy were introduced, I 
came at last to the conclusion that they began in 1784 when Dr. 
Madison took over the duties of the moral chair.” In another 
letter Dr. Tyler was good enough to go into greater detail. 
After repeating some of the above statements he adds: “It is not 
a farfetched conclusion that Bishop Madison was teaching 
political economy in 1798 and using Smith’s book. I first assumed 
that the date of the printing of this edition (1796) was the begin- 
ning of the study in the College, but later assumed that the sub- 
ject was taken up in 1784, when the duties of the ‘Moral Chair’ 
were taken over by Dr. Madison, political economy being a 
subject properly coming under that Chair. The terms moral 
philosophy and politics had to the minds of our predecessors a 
much broader signification than they have at present. Moral 
philosophy appears to have meant anything that was not 
mathematics and natural philosophy. Politics covered every- 
thing political and political law covered political economy and 
nolitical science.” 
With reference to this statement, however, it must be observed 
that the term ‘political law” is not found in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. It was first used at William and Mary in 1817, when 
Thomas R. Dew was made professor of that subject. Mr. Tyler 
was mistaken when in 1901 he stated that “Thomas R. Dew was 
advanced to a chair and given History, Metaphysics, Natural 
and National Law, Government and Political Economy.” * In 
the Faculty minutes of the College of October 7, 1826, as we are 
officially informed, there is an entry that “Thomas R. Dew, who 
was yesterday appointed professor of Political Law, took his seat 
at the board.” The secretary first wrote “Political Oeconomy,” 
but later carefully cancelled “oeconomy” and inserted the word 
“law.” As late as 1829, Dew published his Lectures on the 
Restrictive System, delivered to the Senior Class of William and 
Mary College, in which he still describes himself as “Professor 
of History, Metaphysics, and Political Law.” 
We are thus reduced to Mr. Tyler's statement that Bishop 
William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, ix, p. 81.