College Teaching Part 23

(_a_) The Faculty Athletic Committee, which has to do with all athletic activities that involve academic relationships.

(_b_) The Athletic Council, a committee of the Department of Hygiene, charged with the supervision of all business activities connected with student athletic enterprises.

(_c_) The Athletic a.s.sociation of the Student Body.

(2) _Athletic Instruction._

The Department utilizes various intramural and extramural athletic activities for the purpose of securing a further influence on the promotion of health habits, the development of physical power, and the establishment and maintenance of high standards of sportsmanly conduct on part of the individual and the group.

At present the schedule includes the following sports: baseball, basket ball, track and field, swimming and water polo, tennis, soccer foot ball, and hand ball.

THOMAS ANDREW STOREY, M.D.

_College of the City of New York_

[It was hoped that it would be possible to include with Professor Storey's chapter a number of forms and photographs calculated to serve as aids in the organization and conduct of a College Department of Hygiene. As Professor Storey's work is very distinctive, other inst.i.tutions which are striving to organize effective departments of physical education would have found his experiences as graphically depicted in these photographs and summed up in these charts extremely helpful. Unfortunately it has proved impossible to print them here on account of limitations of s.p.a.ce, but all who are interested in securing further information can obtain these valuable guides in the introductory stages of the inauguration of a Department of Hygiene by applying to the College of the City of New York. EDITOR.]

Footnotes:

[12] The construction of this chapter on the teaching of physical training is based very largely upon the experiences and organization of the Department of Hygiene in the College of the City of New York.

[13] This precollegiate instruction is, unfortunately, uniformly poor in so far as it relates to health.

[14] The present enrollment in these cla.s.ses, February, 1919, is approximately 1500.

PART THREE

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

CHAPTER

X THE TEACHING OF ECONOMICS _Frank A. Fetter_

XI THE TEACHING OF SOCIOLOGY _A. J. Todd_

XII THE TEACHING OF HISTORY A. AMERICAN HISTORY _H. W. Elson_

B. MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY _Edward Krehbiel_

XIII THE TEACHING OF POLITICAL SCIENCE _Charles Grove Haines_

XIV THE TEACHING OF PHILOSOPHY _Frank Thilly_

XV THE TEACHING OF ETHICS _Henry Neumann_

XVI THE TEACHING OF PSYCHOLOGY _Robert S. Woodworth_

XVII THE TEACHING OF EDUCATION A. TEACHING THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION _Herman H. Horne_

B. TEACHING EDUCATIONAL THEORY _Frederick E. Bolton_

X

THE TEACHING OF ECONOMICS

=Conception and aims of economics=

Even though economics be so defined as to exclude a large part of the field of the social sciences, its scope is still very broad. Economics is less h.o.m.ogeneous in its content, is far less clearly defined, than is any one of the natural sciences. A very general definition of economics is: The study of men engaged in making a living. More fully expressed, economics is a study of men exercising their own powers and making use of their environment for the purposes of existence, of welfare, and of enjoyment. Within such a broad definition of economics is found room for various narrower conceptions. To mention only the more important of these we may distinguish individual economics, domestic economics, business economics, governmental economics (public finance), and political (or national) economics. Any one of these subjects may be approached and treated primarily either with regard to its more immediate financial, material, acquisitive aspects, or to its more far-reaching social, psychical, and welfare aspects. These various ideas appear and reappear most confusingly in economic literature.

The aims that different students and teachers have in the pursuit of economics are as varied as are the conceptions of its nature. The teaching aims are, indeed, largely determined by those conceptions.

Moreover, the teaching aims are modified by still other conditions, such as the environment of the college and its const.i.tuency, and such as the temperament, business experience, and scholarly training of the teacher. We may distinguish broadly three aims: the vocational, the civic, and the cultural.

_The vocational aim_ is the most elementary and most usual. Xenophon's treatise on domestic "economy" was the nucleus from which have grown all the systematic formulations of economic principles. Vocational economics is the economics of the craftsman and of the shop. Every practical craft and art has its economic aspect, which concerns the right and best use of labor and valuable materials to attain a certain artistic, mechanical, or other technical end in its particular field.

Economics is not mere technology, which has to do with the mastery of materials and forces to attain any material end. Vocational economics, however, modifies and determines technical practice, which, in the last a.n.a.lysis, is subject to the economic rule. The economic engineer should construct not the best bridge that is possible, mechanically considered, but the best possible or advisable for the purpose and with the means at hand. The economic agriculturist should not produce the largest crop possible, but the crop that gives the largest additional value. The rapidly growing recognition of the importance, in all technical training, of cultivating the ability to take the economic view has led to the development of household economics in connection with the teaching of cooking, sewing, decorating, etc.; of the economics of farm management to supplement the older technical courses in natural science, crops, and animal husbandry; of the economics of factory management in connection with mechanical engineering; of the economics of railway location in connection with certain phases of civil engineering; and many more such special groupings and formulations of economic principles with reference to particular vocations and industries.

The ancient and the medieval crafts and mysteries undoubtedly had embodied in their maxims, proverbs, traditional methods, and teachings, many economic principles suitable to their comparatively simple and unchanging conditions. The rapid changes that have occurred, especially in the last half century, in the natural sciences and in the practical arts have rendered useless much of this wisdom of the fathers. Recently there has been a belated and sudden awakening to the need of studying, consciously and systematically, the economic aspects of the new dynamic forces and industrial conditions. Hence the almost dramatic appearance of vocational, or technical, economics under such names as "scientific management" and the "economics of engineering." Viewed in this perspective such a development appears to be commendable and valuable in its main purpose. Unfortunately, some, if not all, of the adherents of this new cult of "economy" and "efficiency" fail to appreciate how very restricted and special it is, compared with the whole broad economic field.

_The civic aim_ in teaching economics is to fit the student to perform the duties of a citizen. We need not attempt to prove here that a large proportion of public questions are economic in nature, and that in a democracy a wise decision on these questions ultimately depends on an intelligent public opinion and not merely on the knowledge possessed by a small group of specialists.

The civic conception of economics, seen from one point of view, shows little in common with the vocational conception. Yet from another point of view it may be looked upon as the vocational conception "writ large" and is the art of training men to be citizens in a republic.

Good citizenship involves an att.i.tude of interest, a capacity to form judgments on public economic issues, and, if need be, to perform efficiently public functions of a legislative, executive or judicial nature. The state-supported colleges usually now recognize very directly their obligation to provide economic training with the civic aim, and, in some cases, even to require it as a part of the work for a college degree. Often also is found the thought that it is the duty of the student while obtaining an education at public expense, to take a minimum of economics with the civic aim even if he regards it as in no way to his individual advantage or if it has in his case no direct vocational bearings. In the privately endowed inst.i.tutions this policy may be less clearly formulated, but it is hardly less actively practiced. Indeed, the privately endowed inst.i.tutions have been recognizing more and more fully their fiduciary and public nature.

Their public character is involved in their charters, in their endowments, in their exemption from taxation, and in their essential educational functions. The proudest pages in their history are those recording their services to the state.[15]

=Evaluations of aims of teaching economics in college=

_The cultural aim_ in economics is to enable the student to comprehend the industrial world about him. It aims to liberate the mind from ignorance and prejudice, giving him insight into, and appreciation of, the industrial world in which he lives. In this aspect it is a liberal study. Economics produces in some measure this cultural result, even when it is studied primarily with the vocational or with the civic aim. But in vocational economics the choice of materials and the mode of treatment are deliberately restricted by the immediate utilitarian purposes; and in economic teaching with a civic purpose there is the continual temptation to arouse the sympathies for an immediate social program and to take a view limited by the contemporary popular interest in specific proposals for reform. Economics at its highest level is the search for truth. It has its place in any system of higher education as has pure natural science, apart from any immediate or so far as we may know, any possible, utilitarian application. It is a disinterested philosophy of the industrial world. Though it may not demonstrably be a _means_ to other useful things, it is itself a worthy _end_. It helps to enrich the community with the immaterial goods of the spirit, and it yields the psychic income of dignity and joy in the individual and national life. And as a final appeal to any doubting Philistine it may be said that just as the cult of pure science is necessary to the continual and most effective progress in the practical arts, so the study of economics on the philosophical plane surely is necessary to the highest and most lasting results in the application of economics to the arts and to civic life.

The differences in aims set forth in this paragraph result in much of the futile discussion in recent years regarding methods of teaching.

Enthusiastic innovators have debated at cross purposes about teaching methods as if they were to be measured by some absolute standard of pedagogic values, not recognizing that the chief differences of views as to teaching methods were rooted in the differing aims. This truth will reappear at many points in the following discussion. "What will you have," quoth the G.o.ds, "pay the price and take it."

=Place of economics in the college curriculum=

The place a.s.signed to economics in the college curriculum in respect to the year in which the student is admitted to its study is very different in various colleges. In the last investigation of the subject it appeared that the first economics course might be taken first in the freshman year in 14 per cent of cases, in the soph.o.m.ore year in 31 per cent of cases, in the junior year in 42 per cent of cases, in the senior year in 13 per cent of cases.[16]

Among those inst.i.tutions giving an economic course in the freshman year are some small and some large inst.i.tutions (some of the latter being Stanford, New York University, Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr, and the state universities of California, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Colorado, Utah). Frequently the elementary course given to freshmen is in matter and method historical and descriptive, rather than theoretical, and is planned to precede a more rigid course in the principles.[17]

The plan of beginning economics in the soph.o.m.ore year is the mode among the state universities and larger colleges, including nearly all of the larger inst.i.tutions that do not begin the subject in the freshman year. This group includes Yale, Hopkins, Chicago, Northwestern, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Va.s.sar, and (after 1919) Princeton.

The group of inst.i.tutions beginning economics in the junior year is the largest, but consists mostly of small colleges having some advanced economics courses, but no more than can be given in the senior year. It contains, besides, a few colleges of arts which maintain a more strictly prescribed curriculum for undercla.s.smen (freshmen and soph.o.m.ores), such as Dartmouth, Columbia, Smith, and Simmons. It should be observed also that in a great many inst.i.tutions, where economics may be taken by some students in the first two years, it is in fact scheduled as late as junior or senior year in the prescribed courses of students in special departments such as agriculture, engineering, and law. This statement applies doubtless to many thousands of technical students.[18]

In view of these divergencies in practice we must hesitate to declare that the subject should be begun at precisely this or that point in the college course. These differences, to be sure, are in many cases the result of accidental factors in the college curriculum, and often have been determined by illogical departmental rivalries within the faculty rather than by wise and disinterested educators studying the merits of the case. But in large part these differences are the expression of different purposes and practical needs in planning a college curriculum, and are neither quite indefensible nor necessarily contradictory in pedagogic theory. In the small college with a nearly uniform curriculum and with limited means, a general course is perhaps best planned for the senior year, or in the junior year if there is an opportunity given to the student to do some more advanced work the year following. At the other extreme are some larger inst.i.tutions in which the pressure of new subjects within the arts curriculum has shattered the fixed curriculum into fragments. This has made possible specialization along any one of a number of lines. Where this idea is carried out to the full, every general group of subjects eventually must make good its claim to a place in the freshman year for its fundamental course. But inasmuch as, in most inst.i.tutions, the freshman year is still withheld from this free elective plan by the requirement of a small group of general subjects, economics is first open to students in the soph.o.m.ore year. The license of the elective system is of course much moderated by the requirement to elect a department, usually at the beginning either of the soph.o.m.ore or of the junior year, and within each department both a more or less definite sequence of courses and a group of collateral requirements are usually enforced. Where resources are very limited it is probably best to give the economics course in the last two years, but where several more specialized courses in economics are given, it should be introduced as early as the soph.o.m.ore year. If a freshman course in the subject is given it should be historical, descriptive, or methodical (e.g., statistical methods, graphics, etc.) rather than theoretical. The experience (or lack of experience) and knowledge of the industrial world, past and present, possessed by the average American college student is such that courses of that kind meet a great need.[19]