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CORCORAN SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL AND
ECONOMICAL SCIENCE.
Professor Dabney.
In this School two distinct sciences are taught. For, although economic
conditions have profoundly influenced the history of nations, and
although there is such a thing as the history of Economics (just as, for
that matter, there is a history of Mathematics, and as there has been a
decided influence of mathematical discoveries upon History), still History
and Economics are distinct subjects, and are investigated by different
methods.
HISTORY.
The study of History, like that of other great subjects, has its own
peculiar charms and advantages. It cannot equal the study of language
in cultivating the habit of minute accuracy and attention to
details. Nor can it compete with mathematical study in accustoming
the student to habits of clear and rigidly consecutive thought. But,
on the other hand, there is no other subject that surpasses History in
its power to broaden and deepen both the mind and the heart. Its
charm lies in its human interest. For its theme is man—"the proper
study of mankind"—a theme that must ever be more attractive to the
majority of human beings than either the asymptotes of the hyperbola
or the subjunctive mood. But, while History deals with man, it should
not be confounded with biography, which deals with individual men.
Biography is an invaluable adjunct to History, but History deals with
the life of societies, nations and states. Fully, fairly, and impartially
to comprehend this life in all its marvelously varied social, political,
religious, moral and intellectual manifestations, is totally beyond the
power of any human brain. Yet the earnest student, who seeks the
truth and resolutely turns his back upon partisanship in every from,
can learn enough of even so vast a theme to reward him richly for his
History is "easy" to learn,—a mere collection of entertaining anecdotes
concerning eminent men. To understand the life of nations—
the evolution and dissolution of organized masses of men—is a fascinating,
but immensely difficult task. Such a task is, very properly, not
attempted in primary schools, children being taught the rediments of
History with other purposes in view. Nor is it wise for the younger
students at a university to attempt the task. The greater their maturity,
the greater also will be the benefit they may derive from historical
study; and they are therefore advised, as a general rule, to defer its
pursuit until they have had at least one year's training in other university
work.
Two courses in History are offered: one in General History and one
in English and American History.
B. A. COURSE.
General History.—In this course, which comprises the historical
work required for the B. A. degree, great stress is laid on the view that
the career of man as revealed in History, is not a mere jumble of disconnected
dates and facts, but a continuous stream, having its sources
and tributaries in the far-off past, its outlet in the remote future. No
attempt is made, however, to traverse in the classroom the entire
length of this stream; for, although constant efforts are made to demonstrate
the vital connection of nation with nation, of generation with
generation, and of anterior with ensuing conditions of historical development,
the lectures are confined to the more important periods, the
student being required to fill the gaps by private reading. These
periods, and therefore, the text-books studied, may be more or less
varied each year. Three lectures a week.
Text-Books.—Fisher's Outlines of Universal History; Grant's Greece in the
Age of Pericles; Froude's Caesar: Capes's Age of the Antonines; Thatcher's
and Schwill's Europe in the Middle Age; Seebohm's Era of the Protestant
Revolution: Gardiner's Thirty Years' War; Longman's Frederick the Great
and the Seven Years' War; Dabney's Causes of the French Revolution;
Morris's French Revolution and First Empire.
GRADUATE COURSE.
M. A.
English and American History.—In this higher course the principles
taught in the one preceding will be applied to a more special field;
and, in order that the students may be encouraged to exercise independent
thought and judgment, they will be required to write essays
on assigned topics. Moreover, it should be distinctly understood that
the text-books are by no means regarded by the Professor as infallible
authorities. On the contrary, some of them contain much that is
emphatically rejected by him. And yet such books may be exceedingly
opinions, but rather to draw forth and develop his own judgment by
presenting to his mind opinions that oppose and even clash violently
with each other. Graduates in General History will derive most benefit
from this course. It may be taken, however, by others; and, as considerable
attention will be paid to constitutional development, students
intending to study Law will find the course of advantage. Candidates
for the M. A. degree selecting History as one of their four subjects
must graduate both in this course and in the preceding. Three lectures
a week.
Text-Books.—Gardiner's History of England; Green's Short History of the
English People; Gardiner's Atlas of English History; Percy Greg's History
of the United States; Thwaites's Colonies; Hart's Formation of the Union;
Wilson's Division and Re-union; Curry's Southern States of the American
Union.
ECONOMICS.
In its value both as a mental discipline to the student, and as a subject
of practical interest to the citizen, it is difficult to over-estimate
the importance of this science.
As a mental discipline the study of Economics combines to a certain
extent the advantages of linguistic, mathematical and historical training.
One of the most serious difficulties of the subject is the fact that
many of its technical terms are also used in loose popular significations;
and a close study of Economics teaches a man to be very careful
in the exact and discriminating use of words. The rigid reasoning, too,
by which economic laws are deductively derived from a few simple and
fundamental facts in human and physical nature is as relentlessly logical
as that by which the properties of triangles or circles are deduced
from the axioms of Geometry. And, finally, the historical investigation
of economic phenomena with a view to the verification, modification
or refutation of the laws deductively ascertained, or to the
inductive discovery of other laws, is attended with the advantages of
other historical study, as above set forth, and sheds a flood of light
upon many questions in social, political, or even religious history.
B. A. COURSE.
Like Mathematics, Economics is treated as Pure and Applied. In
the first term of the session the whole field of Pure or Deductive Economics,
an abstract science which deliberately and properly ignores,
for the sake of clearness and simplicity, many important phases of
social life, is traversed in outline; and a few brief practical applications
are made to special topics. In the second term a thorough deductive,
as well as inductive and historical, investigation of the principles of
Money and Credit is undertaken; while a few lectures are devoted to
the consideration of protective tariffs. The third term is devoted to a
discussion of the periodical commercial panics and crises of the nineteenth
transportation and industrial organization that have taken place
throughout the world in recent years.
Text-Books.—Walker's Political Economy, (Advanced Course); Horace
White's Money and Banking; selected pamphlets from the Sound Currency
series published by the N. Y. Reform Club, viz: Nipher's The Appreciation of
Gold, Warner's The Currency Famine of 1893, Watkins's Cotton and the
Currency, White's Coin's Financial Fool, and the Report of the Monetary
Commission of the Indianapolis Convention of 1897; Philpott's Tariff Chats;
Porter Sherman's Tariff Primer; Hyndman's Commercial Crises of the Nineteenth
Century; Wells's Recent Economic Changes.
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