Chicago. Economics Ph.D. 1903 Canadian Humorist Stephen Leacock
Economics Ph.D. (1903), Canadian Humorist Stephen Leacock. It is not every day that one stumbles upon a historical past-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 scholar of Thorstein Veblen, Stephen Butler Leacock. First I put up here some knowledge (the actual start line of my background examine of Leacock, the Chicago Ph.D.) found in the University of Chicago’s registers of its Ph.D.’s and annual catalogues. The author’s autobiographical Preface to Leacock’s biggest hit, Sunshine Sketches of a little bit Town (1912) follows. The tales themselves strike most, if not all, of the identical chords that Garrison Keillor’s News from Lake Wobegon has played over the previous decades. Finally I'll enable myself the short-lower of quoting Wikipedia to complete the sketch of each sides of this most attention-grabbing fellow. The McGill economics division 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 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 way by which a author may extra fittingly introduce his work to the public than by giving a quick account of who and what he is. By this means some of the blame for what he has accomplished is very correctly shifted to the extenuating circumstances of his life. I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am not conscious that there was any particular conjunction of the planets on the time, however ought to assume it extremely possible.
My mother and father migrated to Canada in 1876, and that i determined to go together with them. My father took up a farm near Lake Simcoe, in Ontario. This was throughout the arduous instances of Canadian farming, and my father was simply ready by nice diligence to pay the hired males and, in years of a lot, to lift enough grain to have seed for the following year’s crop without buying any. By this process my brothers and that i were inevitably pushed off the land, and have turn into professors, business men, and engineers, instead of having the ability to develop up as farm labourers. Yet I saw sufficient of farming to talk exuberantly in political addresses of the joy of early rising and the deep sleep, each of body and intellect, that's induced by honest 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. On the University I spent my entire time in the acquisition of languages, dwelling, useless, and half- useless, and knew nothing of the outside world.
On this diligent pursuit of words I spent about sixteen hours of every day. Very quickly after graduation I had forgotten the languages, and located myself intellectually bankrupt. In other phrases I was what is called a distinguished graduate, and, as such, I took to high school instructing as the one trade I could discover that wanted neither experience nor intellect. I spent my time from 1891 to 1899 on the workers of Upper Canada College, an experience which has left me with a profound sympathy for the many gifted and brilliant males who're compelled to spend their lives in the most dreary, essentially the most thankless, and the worst paid occupation on this planet. I have famous that of my pupils, those who appeared the laziest and the least enamoured of books at the moment are rising to eminence at the bar, Mind Guard cognitive support in enterprise, and in public life; the actually promising boys who took all the prizes are now in a position with issue to earn the wages of a clerk in a summer hotel or a deck hand on a canal boat.
In 1899 I gave up school teaching in disgust, borrowed sufficient cash to reside upon for a number of months, and went to the University of Chicago to check economics and political science. I was soon appointed to a Fellowship in political financial system, and via this and a few non permanent employment by McGill University, I survived till I took the diploma of Doctor of Philosophy in 1903. The that means of this diploma is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last time in his life, and is pronounced utterly full. After this, no new ideas can be imparted to him. From this time, and since my marriage, which had occurred at this period, I have belonged to the employees of McGill University, first as lecturer in Political Science, and later as head of the department of Economics and Political Science. As this position is without doubt one of the prizes of my occupation, Mind Guard cognitive support I am in a position to regard myself as singularly fortunate.