Teaching of Economics

THEEE are obvious differences between the students in high schools or academies, studying elementary economics, and the older students engaged in collegiate or university work, in both maturity and general training. Hence, methods of instruction should be fittingly adapted to their differing needs. If I were to begin with the elementary and lead up to the advanced work, assuming that the two were quite alike, it might be said of this treatment as of Bishop Berkeley’s Siris (1744), that it began with Tar Water and ended with the Trinity. But as theology and ethics may possibly underlie the virtues of tar water as well as those of the Trinity, it is also possible that we may find a common characteristic running through both the elementary and the advanced work of instruction. At least, it will be at once apparent that the special peculiarities of the subject, whatever they may be, should shape the methods of teaching, in both its earlier and its later stages.

These distinguishing features of our subject are not difficult to determine. Economics deals not only with psychological, but also with physiological and physical phenomena, — that is, with mental operations as well as with bodily and physical facts ; and it aims at the discovery and exposition of causes and effects in regard to this subject-matter. Preëminently concerned as it is with every-day life, it demands careful investigation into the accuracy of data, and a keen sense to note their relations to existing science. The field of economics is, fortunately, quite definite, but it includes differing orders of things. It does not deal solely with physical nature, as do the natural sciences ; nor solely with ethical or psychic data, as do the moral sciences. It deals with conclusions taken from both these groups of sciences. Therefore its field is somewhat peculiar, although its aim, common to other sciences, is the discovery and verification of a body of principles. This is a point of particular importance to us in discussing methods of teaching.

A science is a body of principles. While principles may abide, the phenomena in which they appear may change. For instance, the hot debates on the inflation of the currency by greenbacks in 1874 may seem to the public quite dissimilar to the rancorous struggle on silver of our day ; but the same fundamental monetary principles underlay both discussions. So, as in all science, the first and primary interest of economics is not in its subject-matter, but in the validity and scope of its principles. One realizes instinctively that a mathematician, for example, is less occupied with the whole mass of matter in the world having length, breadth, and thickness, than with the principles which may apply to any and all of this matter. Similarly, economics, when properly understood, is seen to be a body of principles, and not a description at any given moment of mere concrete facts. Any student, therefore, who aims at more than narrow or superficial knowledge should be directed not merely to collate the data in which the principles appear, but to comprehend the principles themselves. (It should be here noted that I am not now discussing in any way the methods of discovering these principles, but only the methods of teaching existing principles.) From this point of view, to teach a science is to teach, first, how to understand and assimilate this body of principles; and then, how, by constant practice, to apply them to every kind of its own subject-matter. This furnishes us our bearings in teaching economics. For the economic student, who has been taught merely the facts of a certain period or subject, and who has not been trained primarily in using principles to explain these facts, has been given the counterfeit of an education, and not the real thing. If he has been plunged at once into figures and facts before he has received a careful preliminary training in principles, he is cheated by his instructor into a false belief that he is being educated, when he is not. Such a student is like a traveler in the dark, who has a lantern, but, when an emergency arises, finds, to his chagrin, that it contains no light.

Therefore, whether we are speaking of the tar water or of the Trinity of economics, of teaching the elementary or the advanced work, it must be quite clear that the nature of our subject prescribes a common point of view which the instructor should never forget. No matter with what class of students he is dealing, even though he may change his detailed processes of teaching to suit different ages, he cannot overlook the fact that he is teaching a science. It may seem too simple a matter to enforce this point of view; but it is, and has been, constantly overlooked. So with purpose aforethought, let us emphasize here that it is the fundamental aim of the instructor in economics to give power, and not mere information ; to teach how to apply principles to groups of complicated facts ; to train students to explain, not merely to collate; in short, to teach them to think, and not merely to know.

No apology, however, need be offered for setting forth so plain a lesson of pedagogics, because the study of economics in this country is relatively young, and its teaching methods have not yet had proper examination. In the beginning, economic instructors adopted the methods they had been familiar with in other fields. The other and older studies, with long-established methods of teaching, naturally handed down their habits and traditions to their younger sister. But we are now breaking away from these ties, in the process of a natural evolution into better things. An experience of twenty years or more has brought about a better understanding of the nature of economics and of its characteristics, and consequently has given a distinct impetus towards applying appropriate methods of training economic students. In regard to teaching, economics is declaring its independence.

The earlier teacher in economics, as in history and law, generally spoke through a formal textbook. A great dependence on a textbook, however, is a clear indication of that lack of thorough and broad training in the whole subject, on the part of the instructor, which necessarily followed from the meagreness of the opportunities for economic training of a few years ago. Or if the earlier instructor did not rely on a formal textbook, he not infrequently went to another extreme of relying entirely upon lectures, after the German fashion. In first introducing a student to economics, be he young or old, some textbook, as an exposition of principles, is a necessity. That goes without saying; but the textbook, if properly used, should be regarded only as a means of grasping principles, and not as a record of dogma. The effect of a hard-and-fast set of lectures may not differ in practice from that of a textbook ; the lectures may be only the equivalent of a textbook of which the instructor is the author, and may be subject, to the same abuses. They are often more objectionable than a textbook, because not accessible to the student for study in accurate form, and they often degenerate into directions as to what the student should believe. Without getting trained, in such cases, the student takes the facts, the interpretation, and a bias from the lecturer.

Not so much stress, of course, can be put upon teaching how to think, in the elementary as in the advanced work, but this aim must still control the policy of the teacher. While keeping this general principle in view, more emphasis could be laid upon clear exposition and illustration of elementary principles. For the younger mind, more time could be wisely devoted to instructive and interesting information upon questions of the day. But it is dangerous to carry this too far. These questions of the day often change their shape, and much of the information-teaching soon becomes obsolete ; and only that teaching remains which gave a grasp of governing principles persisting in varying forms of actual life. Consequently, elementary textbooks for high schools or academies might be divided into two parts : one devoted to an exposition of the main and undisputed principles of economics, and the other to materials of practical interest to which these principles are to be applied. In this way, the materials of the second part could be modified as the questions of the day come and go.

In collegiate and university work, however, the instructor will find his students older and more mature, and can exact scientific methods with rigor and success. In introductory work with mature students, the necessity of grasping an abstract principle and working out its application in every-day life can be urged at once. Unexpected tests upon practical problems made in writing drive this operation home, and force habits of precision and accuracy. But an increase of numbers in the class-room, which makes these tests every few days impossible, will result in a less seasoned student for advanced work. As soon as the introductory work is passed, it is often assumed as a matter of course that lecturing is the only method of teaching : it has a more learned sound, and suggests the great, man whose every word is eagerly swallowed by admiring students. Some of the evils of this system, which is common in Germany and elsewhere to-day, are doubtless familiar to all of us. In proportion as the lecturer is learned and gifted with the art of lucid and attractive exposition, he saves his hearers from study and thinking ; the more thorough and masterly his treatment, the more completely he removes from the student the incentive to independent thinking. Such a system of teaching is ingeniously devised to prevent a young man from getting a real education, and yet lead him to believe the contrary. It is a brilliant plan for developing power in the instructor, and false conceit in the student. When the latter has been separated from his thinking-guide, new facts, new arguments, find him unprotected, and there result strange reversals of opinion and belief.

There is another method of teaching, in which the lecturer is no longer the main source of information and belief for the student. To distinguish it from the others, I may call it, in default of a better name, the laboratory method. As its name implies, it requires a collection of documents, materials, and treatises wherein the student can take his sources at first hand; and this workshop with its materials is to the economist what the laboratory with its appliances is to the chemist or biologist. The purpose of study is not the absorption of a given author, but the understanding of a subject through many sources and many authors. Instructed to report upon a given topic, the student is obliged to learn methods of work and study of far greater importance than any acquired information ; he learns how to use books, and he learns to weigh and discriminate between statements. Instead of accepting a carefully prepared exposition by the lecturer, with its logic and its resulting conclusions fully worked out, he is taught how to prepare the data, to exercise himself in the application of principles, and to draw his own conclusions. Instead of having the ground covered for him in a masterly way by the instructor, he is obliged to cover it himself, to learn by his own mistakes, and to gather experience from the fate of his own performances under the most rigorous criticism. The purpose of such a system is the acquisition of independent power and methods of work, rather than any specific beliefs. Indeed, the instructor may never know what the final beliefs of his student are. To the extent to which the laboratory method is used, the scientific spirit drives out prejudice and partisanship, and the instructor finds the time has gone by when it seemed proper to urge the acceptance of any specific beliefs.

If the instructor, then, granting the adoption of such a system, is called upon to lecture, as he often is, on some practical and descriptive subjects, like Railways or Tariffs, he is in effect only saving the student’s time by collecting for him some of the materials which otherwise he must gather for himself, and upon which he will have to use his principles ; while, on other topics, the student is at the same time fully occupied. Or the instructor presents his treatment of a subject as a model and stimulus. It becomes clear that the student and his instructor are doing field work together, and the former gains the best things from his superior with amazing rapidity. To see a thing well done before one’s very eyes is sure to excite effort and bring out latent power. In this process, as in the “ natural method ” of teaching modern languages, the necessary accumulation of technical and useful information comes as a matter of course. So that while we can readily admit that the possession of mere learning is highly useful and desirable, yet we are saved from regarding industry and collation as the cardinal virtues, because we have set the chief value upon the higher mental processes, in which those like synthesis and the explanation of cause and effect play the principal rôle. The result of such a system is that the instructor is left free to put emphasis upon that which is of lasting value to the student. He can naturally urge a non-partisan, judicial attitude of mind in weighing evidence and balancing arguments. His chief concern is in showing how to approach a subject, how to gather materials and use books, how to treat and analyze the results, to be orderly and logical, to preserve the homely virtue of common sense, and, not least, to demand that the conclusions be expressed in tolerable English.

In the natural sciences this laboratory method has long been familiar ; and recently it has succeeded in working a veritable revolution in the teaching methods of American law schools. That which in economics I have called the laboratory method is in law the case system. This reference to what has been going on in the teaching of law has more than passing significance for the teaching of economics, because the mental processes required in the study of law are strikingly like those required in the study of economics. The student of law is obliged to discover the pivotal point in a case, grasp clearly a general principle of law, and apply the relevant principle to the point at issue. The power to assimilate principles and apply them to facts of some complexity with accuracy and logic makes the successful jurist. Similarly, as we have seen, the power to grasp a general principle, to weigh facts, and to apply principles logically to particular cases makes the successful economist. In short, the training in economics is largely the same as the training in law. A student of economics, however loaded his mind may be with information, if untrained in the power to trace the operation of cause and effect in his facts, is distinctly not an economist. On the other hand, he is just as distinctly not a jurist, who has gathered all the facts material to his client’s case, if he is untrained in applying the principles of law governing legal contests.

The similarity, consequently, between economics and law gives a peculiar interest to the parallel development which is even now going on in the methods of teaching these two subjects. The case system has already an established place in the leading schools of law ; its purpose is to train, not merely to inform ; and by a study of numerous cases under given branches of law, students are forced to acquire relevancy, and to practice themselves in applying precedents to facts under the fire of galling criticism. It has a different aim from the old system, in which the lecturer, usually a successful practitioner, told the student what the law was. Not content with merely instructing him as to existing law, the new system sends out a man with a seasoned mind, ready to apply principles in sudden emergencies in the court-room. In law as in economies, the laboratory system is driving out the textbook and the lecture. To crowd the mind of an economic student with information is by far the easiest method for the instructor ; in this way he may give the raw young student arms and ammunition with which to take the field at once, and externally he looks like a soldier. But the laboratory method produces men of a different fibre. It is not sufficient to throw a uniform over a new recruit and thrust a musket into his hand, to make him a soldier; on the contrary, it requires a seasoning of body and nerve and will by years of training, to create the kind of soldier who marched from the Rhine through Gravelotte and Sedan to Paris. So, likewise, long and careful training is needed for the economist, in order that he may deal with his subject independently, freshly, and with individuality ; that he may be prepared not only to deal adequately with a single issue, — a special phase of the tariff, or taxation, or socialism, — but to think and reason correctly on any and all the forms into which the various issues may shape themselves.

From the basis of the newer and better methods thus explained and illustrated, many corollaries may be drawn by the reader himself; and the practical teacher will see many. I shall take space here to notice only a very few, quite briefly. One of vital importance concerns the order of teaching the introductory work in economics. From the modern point of view, it must be regarded as a high crime and misdemeanor to set mere information above training and power. And yet it has not infrequently happened that an instructor has precipitated a new student into economic history and the history of the development of economic thought before he was in the least familiar with the principles which explain the relations of economic phenomena. The effects upon the student are evil and lasting, and just what might be expected. Such a man is like a door without a latch ; it flies open at the pressure of every passing breeze. This kind of a door is worse than no door; it is an annoyance to the ear. It is criminal pedagogics to plunge the student into complicated facts before he has become familiar with methods of reasoning on the primary principles of his science. A process of this nature, moreover, wastes time. If given the proper preliminary training, on the other hand, he will enter upon the descriptive courses, or upon the more exacting and later work of research, with intelligence and facility.

Since a characteristic of the later methods is the study of a Subject rather than of an author, we are likely to see less imitation of German forms of organizing departments of economics. In the past, with a proper regard for the influence of a great spirit, a distinguished master was appointed to lecture at will. There are evident gains in giving a great personality free play, but the progress of the subject may suffer. The subject will gain by a just subdivision of the field and a corresponding division of labor. No one man can pretend to cover the whole field of economics; indeed, there are numerous sections, to one of which a man may well give his great abilities and training, and then with humility admit that he cannot be familiar with all parts of it. Hence, a division of departments into subjects, each being given its relative weight and attention, leads to the selection of men for each subject, to work in common for an organized whole. In this way the student meets with intensity of effort in each branch of economics, and obtains greater insight into the problems of each division of it. Such organization, moreover, with a less number of geniuses, may with more effectiveness train students throughout the whole field, and save no little duplication of work and waste of power among instructors. Certainly, there does not exist in German universities to-day an organized system of training men to become economists equal to that of the best American universities. And it is still more true that our system is not equaled in France; while England gives little chance for graduate work.

Such phenomenal development in America in a subject scarcely twenty-five years old is worth noting, and could not have come about without a proper understanding of its value on the part of those who have furnished the material equipment to our institutions of learning. The laboratory method, like most good things, is expensive. The student must have free access to a large and carefully arranged library, especially rich in all records of legislation, statistics, reports, and the like for each country in the world. Such a system, of course, means a large and generous expenditure. But this new need should cause no surprise, because no greater demands are made in behalf of economic science than are justly accepted as proper for biological and physical laboratories. In both cases the end is the same: the development of eager, independent research on subjects intimately and directly affecting the welfare of the human race.

The work of research, however brilliant, is, in a way, of no greater importance to the good of our nation than that elementary teaching of economics to the great masses who never enter a college, but who form the majority of those who enter a polling-booth. In what has been said above, this elementary instruction has been found to be affected by the same characteristics which are common to it as well as to the advanced work. To the reader it will be left to determine where the tar water of my discussion leaves off, and where the Trinity begins. It may possibly result, as was finally held by Bishop Berkeley’s critics, that the discussion of tar water was more important than that of the Trinity.

J. Laurence Laughlin.