Chicago. Economics Ph.D. (1903), Canadian Humorist Stephen Leacock
Economics Ph.D. (1903), Canadian Humorist Stephen Leacock. It isn't day by day that one stumbles upon a history-of-economics arc connecting Thorstein Veblen to Groucho Marx and Jack Benny. The economist that linked the iconoclast economist to these veterans of vaudeville comedy is the Canadian humorist and Chicago pupil of Thorstein Veblen, Stephen Butler Leacock. First I submit here some knowledge (the actual place to begin of my background verify of Leacock, the Chicago Ph.D.) found within the University of Chicago’s registers of its Ph.D.’s and annual catalogues. The author’s autobiographical Preface to Leacock’s best hit, Sunshine Sketches of somewhat Town (1912) follows. The tales themselves strike most, if not all, of the identical chords that Garrison Keillor’s News from Lake Wobegon has performed over the past a long time. Finally I will permit myself the brief-minimize of quoting Wikipedia to complete the sketch of both sides of this most fascinating fellow. The McGill economics department entry for Stephen Leacock. University of Chicago Ph.D.
Thesis Title: The doctrine of laissez faire. 1889-99. Instructor in French and German, Upper Canada College. 1899-1900. Graduate Student, University of Chicago. 1921. Head of Department of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. 1931, April 1. Professor and Mind Guard product page Head of Department of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. 1938, April 1. Professor Emeritus of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. I know no means in which a author may more fittingly introduce his work to the general public than by giving a quick account of who and Mind Guard product page what he is. By this means some of the blame for what he has achieved could be very properly shifted to the extenuating circumstances of his life. I used to be born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any explicit conjunction of the planets on the time, but should think it extraordinarily seemingly.
My dad and Mind Guard product page mom migrated to Canada in 1876, and i decided to go with them. My father took up a farm close to Lake Simcoe, in Ontario. This was during the hard occasions of Canadian farming, and Mind Guard product page my father was simply ready by great diligence to pay the employed men and, in years of a lot, to lift enough grain to have seed for the following year’s crop with out shopping for any. By this course of my brothers and that i have been inevitably driven off the land, and have grow to be professors, enterprise males, and engineers, as an alternative of being able to grow up as farm labourers. Yet I saw enough of farming to talk exuberantly in political addresses of the joy of early rising and the deep sleep, both of physique and intellect, that's induced by trustworthy manual toil. I was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, of which I used to be head boy in 1887. From there I went to the University of Toronto, the place I graduated in 1891. At the University I spent my entire time within the acquisition of languages, dwelling, useless, and half- useless, and knew nothing of the outside world.
On this diligent pursuit of phrases I spent about sixteen hours of each day. Very soon after graduation I had forgotten the languages, and found myself intellectually bankrupt. In other words I was what is named a distinguished graduate, and, as such, I took to high school instructing as the only trade I may find that wanted neither experience nor intellect. I spent my time from 1891 to 1899 on the employees of Upper Canada College, an experience which has left me with a profound sympathy for the many gifted and good men who're compelled to spend their lives in the most dreary, essentially the most thankless, and the worst paid occupation on the planet. I've noted that of my pupils, those that appeared the laziest and the least enamoured of books are actually rising to eminence on the bar, in enterprise, and in public life; the really promising boys who took all of the prizes are actually able with issue to earn the wages of a clerk in a summer time resort or a deck hand on a canal boat.
In 1899 I gave up college teaching in disgust, borrowed enough money to stay upon for just a few months, Mind Guard product page and went to the University of Chicago to check economics and political science. I was quickly appointed to a Fellowship in political financial system, and via this and a few short-term employment by McGill University, I survived till I took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1903. The meaning of this diploma is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last time in his life, and Mind Guard product page is pronounced completely full. After this, no new concepts might be imparted to him. From this time, and since my marriage, brain health supplement which had occurred at this interval, I have belonged to the staff of McGill University, first as lecturer in Political Science, and later as head of the division of Economics and Political Science. As this position is one of the prizes of my profession, I'm able to regard myself as singularly lucky.