The moot questions in the teaching of the subject have, perhaps, been sufficiently indicated, but we may here add a word as to the bearings which certain moot questions in the theory of the subject may have on the methods of teaching. The fundamental theory of economics has, since the days of Adam Smith, been undergoing a process of continuous transition, but the broader concepts never have been more in dispute than in the last quarter century in America. The possibility of such diversity of opinion in the fundamentals among the leading exponents of the subject argues strongly that economics is still a philosophy—a general attitude of mind and system of opinion—rather than a positive science. At best it is a "becoming science" which never can cease entirely to have a speculative, or philosophic character. This is not the place to go into details of matters in controversy. Suffice it to say that in rivalry to the older school—which is variously designated Ricardian, Orthodox, English, or classical—newer ideas have been developed, dating from the work of the Austrian economists, of Jevons, and of J. B. Clark in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The older school had sought the explanation of value and the theory of distribution in objective factors,—partly in the chemical qualities of the soil, partly in labor, partly in the costs (or outlays) of the employing class. The psychological factor in value had been almost eliminated from this older treatment of value and price, or at best was imperfectly recognized under the name of "utility." The newer school made the psychological element primary in the positive treatment of economic principles, and launched a negative criticism against the older terms and ideas that effectively exposed their unsoundness considered separately and their inconsistency as a system of economic thought. Both the negative criticisms and the proposed amendments taken one by one gained wide acceptance among economists. But when it came to embodying them in a general theory of economics, many economists have balked.[[33]] Most of the American texts in economics and much of our teaching show disastrous effects of this confusion and irresolution. The newer concepts, guardedly admitted to have some validity, appear again and again in the troubled discussions of recent textbook writers, which usually end with a rejection, "on the whole," of the logical implications of these newer concepts. Many teachers thus have lost their grip on any coördinating theory of distribution. They no longer have any general economic philosophy. The old Ricardian cock-sureness had its pedagogic merits. Without faith, teaching perishes. The complaints of growing difficulty in the teaching of the introductory course seem to have come particularly from teachers that are in this unhappy state of mind. They declare that it is impossible longer to interest students successfully in a general theoretical course, and they are experimenting with all kinds of substitutes—de-nicotinized tobacco and Kaffee Hag—from which poisonous theory has been extracted. At the same time, economics "with a punch in it," economics "with a back bone," is being taught by strong young teachers of the new faith more successfully, perhaps, than economics has ever been taught in the past. This greater question of the teacher's conception of economics dominates all the minor questions of method. Economics cannot be taught as an integrated course in principles by teachers without theoretical training and conceptions; in such hands its treatment is best limited to the descriptive phases of concrete special problems,—valuable, indeed, as a background and basis, but never rising to the plane upon which alone economics is fully worth the student's while as a college subject.
Frank Albert Fetter
Princeton University
Bibliography
The literature on the teaching of economics in the secondary schools, its need and its proper scope and method, is somewhat extensive. Another goodly group of articles discusses the teaching of economic history and of other social sciences related to economics, either in high schools or colleges. A somewhat smaller group pertains to graduate instruction in the universities. The following brief list of titles, arranged chronologically, is most pertinent to our present purpose:
"The Relation of the Teaching of Economic History to the Teaching of Political Economy" (pages 88-101), and "Methods of Teaching Economics" (pages 105-111), A. E. A. Economic Studies, Vol. 3, 1898.
Proceedings of a conference on the teaching of elementary economics, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 17, December, 1909.
Taylor, F. M. "Methods of Teaching Elementary Economics," Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 17, December, 1909, page 688.
Wolfe, A. B. "Aim and Content of a College Course in Elementary Economics," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 17, December, 1909, page 673.
Symposium by Carver, Clark, Seager, Seligman, Nearing, et al., Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 18, 1910.
Report of the Committee on the Teaching of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 19, 1911, pages 760-789.