SELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS IN ECONOMICS EDITED BY WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY SELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS IN ECONOMICS TRUSTS, POOLS AND CORPORATIONS (Revised Edition) By William Z. Ripley, Ph.D., Professor of TRADE UNIONISM AND LABOR PROBLEMS By John R. Commons, Professor of Political SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS SELECTED READINGS IN PUBLIC FINANCE By Charles J. Bullock, Ph.D., Professor of RAILWAY PROBLEMS (Revised Edition) By William Z. Ripley, Ph.D., Professor of SELECTED READINGS IN ECONOMICS ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED By Guy Stevens Callender, Professor of Political SELECTED READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS By Thomas N. Carver, Ph.D., Professor of CORPORATIONS EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH.D. NATHANIEL ROPES PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY .R5 1916 cop.3 IN PREFACE IN THE preface to the first edition of this collection of reprints in 1905 the distinction between its purpose and that of such predecessors as Dunbar's "Laws Relating to Currency, Finance and Banking" and Rand's "Economic History was pointed out. This volume, according to its announcement, was intended for use especially as a textbook rather than for handy reference or as a collection of original documents. Similarly, it is hoped, this present enlarged edition is in no sense a rival, but rather complementary to such recent volumes as Stevens' "Industrial Combinations and Trusts" (1913) and Gerstenberg's "Materials of Corporation Finance" (1915). Each of these may greatly enrich instruction by affording a convenient store of well-chosen illustrative material. But this volume is intended to accomplish something more. It is a deliberate attempt to apply the case system, so successfully evolved in the Harvard Law School, to the study of economics. A systematic textbook, supplemented by lectures, is expected to provide the background so essential to a complete understanding of each selected case. But, this being done, most of these chapters purport to deal with a single, definite, typical phase of the general subject of industrial combination. The primary motive is to further the interests of sound economic teaching, with especial reference to the study of concrete problems of great public and private interest. A difficulty in the substitution of present-day social and economic studies for the good old-fashioned, linguistic ones, or for the modern sciences, a difficulty especially peculiar to descriptive economics as differentiated from economic theory, has always been to secure data sufficiently concrete, definite and convenient to form a basis for analysis, discussion and criticism. The lecture system has its M703061 |