THE EARLY TEACHING OF ECONOMICS IN THE UNITED STATES 319 
4. Conclusion 
The conclusions from the foregoing investigations seem to be 
fairly definite. The earliest course in any American college 
dealing with Political Economy as a science can be traced to 
the year 1801, when it was given at William and Mary College. 
It is probable, though not certain, that the subject was taught 
there a few years earlier and it is barely possible that such 
instruction may have existed from 1784 on. 
Many, if not most, of the topics now included in the term 
Political Economy were taught at Columbia College for several 
years before its definite appearance at William and Mary. 
Although the professorship of Economics at Columbia, which 
dates from 1792, was really a chair of Economic Botany, the 
general topics of Trade, Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture 
were treated in both their historical and their practical aspects 
after 1784 and were probably included in the teaching of Moral 
Philosophy in Kings College after 1763. 
In the next place, so far as the first chair of Political Economy 
is concerned, we must distinguish between the title and the subject 
matter. As to the subject matter, there is no doubt that it was 
taught in 1815 at William and Mary; and there is every reason 
to believe that it was so taught from the beginning of the century 
as part of Moral Philosophy, reaching the dignity of an inde- 
pendent course in 1826. The subject was first introduced at 
Harvard in 1820 (although possibly taught after 1817) as a part 
of Moral Philosophy; it did not become an independent course 
until 1841. So far as the title is concerned, however, it is certain 
that the term Political Economy is found for the first time in 
1818 at Columbia College, when McVickar was made Professor 
of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy; and that the second 
chair was that of Dr. Cooper at the College of South Carolina, 
in Columbia, South Carolina, when he was made Professor of 
Chemistry and Political Economy in 1824. In the meantime, both 
the title and the subject are found in the curriculum of Princeton 
College and of Dickinson College—at Princeton from 1819; at 
Dickinson in 1822, although the term was not included in the 
title of the chair at Princeton, and is found at Dickinson only 
in 1826. In the interval it is first found in New England in 
1824 at Bowdoin College. At Yale and at Rutgers the subject was 
introduced in 1825. but not as an independent course, and