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 attitude 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 institutions this policy may be less clearly formulated, but it is hardly less actively practiced. Indeed, the privately endowed institutions 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 Gods, "pay the price and take it."
Place of economics in the college curriculum
The place assigned 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 sophomore 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 institutions giving an economic course in the freshman year are some small and some large institutions (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 sophomore year is the mode among the state universities and larger colleges, including nearly all of the larger institutions that do not begin the subject in the freshman year. This group includes Yale, Hopkins, Chicago, Northwestern, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Vassar, and (after 1919) Princeton.
The group of institutions 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 underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores), such as Dartmouth, Columbia, Smith, and Simmons. It should be observed also that in a great many institutions, 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 institutions 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 institutions, 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 sophomore 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 sophomore 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 sophomore 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]]
Time to be given to economics in a college curriculum