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

202 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK Our final conclusion as to the eighteenth century is that while the Wealth of Nations was probably used as a text in Willlam and Mary, as early as 1798, the subjects included under what we call political economy were first taught in Columbia College surely in 1792, and probably in 1784. And in so far as moral philosophy may be supposed to have comprised economic sub- jects, it was taught at Columbia (Kings College) from 1763 on. 3. The Nineteenth Century It has long been supposed that the first chair of political economy in the United States was instituted at South Carolina College in 1824. This understanding is due to a statement of its president, Dr. Thomas Cooper, who published, in 1826, a volume entitled Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy. In the title page of this he describes himself as “President of the South Carolina College and Professor of Chemistry and Political Economy ;” and in the preface we find the following statement: At the commencement held in the South Carolina College in 1824 [ delivered an address recommending the study of political economy and the regular appointment of a professor for the purpose—a pro- posal at that time new in the United States. The culpable inattention in our country to a science of such extensive application, and the manifest ignorance or neglect of its first principles among our states- men and legislators, seemed to me imperiously to call for some meas- ures which should force to the public notice a branch of knowledge in which human happiness so much depended. The Trustees of the College were of opinion with me and requested that I should draw up and deliver a course of lectures on political economy to the senior class of the students of the College. On being freed from the professorship of rhetoric, criticism and belles lettres, I delivered in conformity to the request of the trustees the following course of lectures, in addition to my professorship of Chemistry. I hope with good effect. Thomas Cooper was born in London in 1759, and enjoyed the anusual good fortune of being both a lawyer and a physician. In England he became as a barrister so wedded to radical doc- trines that he met with political trouble, especially after paying a visit to revolutionary France in company with Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, as a representative of the British societies. When his friend Priestley emigrated to the United States, he followed and soon attained a distinguished position. He first came into prominence in 1799 when he fell afoul of

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