Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Current Economic Affairs (1924).pdf/15



When I was a boy, political economy was taught in the old fashioned New England high school that I attended. I still possess my text-book, an abridgment of one of the old classics, and I referred to it a few days ago. It began with the definition that “political economy is the science which investigates the nature of wealth, and the laws which govern its production, exchange and distribution.” That definition of 50 years ago strikes me still as being a good one.

In college I sat under Francis A. Walker, the greatest of American economists. I still have his old text-book, which begins with substantially the same definition as Fawcett, but adds that “political economy has to do with no other subject, whatever, than wealth.”

As so developed economics was a dry study which captivated but few. It was characterized as the dismal science. It seemed to lead nowhither. This was perhaps due to the inadequacy of the data available to economists. Consequently, their discussions and deductions were founded largely on conjecture and assumptions. Naturally this resulted in differences in