Academic Anecdotage.

KINDLEBERGER, CHARLES P.

Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian finance minister and professor of economics at Bonn and then Harvard University, amused himself and his classes with jokes widely circulated among students. In one, he said that the ordinary student in Bonn going for a doctorate would be asked on his oral examination, "When did Goethe go to Weimar?" Bright students were asked, "When did who go to Weimar?" And brilliant students were asked, "When did who go where?" I learned the answer to the "when" the other day in an article on Goethe in the New York Review of Books: April 13, 1775.

Another famous trip occurred five days later, as Longfellow commemorates: "Listen my children, and you shall hear/ Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,/On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;/ Hardly a man is now alive/Who remembers that famous day and year."

The next year is memorable for an anti-climax. What three events occurred in 17767 The signing of the Declaration of Independence, the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, and the establishment of the honor society, Phi Beta Kappa, at the College of William and Mary.

Jacob Viner, a distinguished professor of economics first at Chicago and then at Princeton, believed that New England held the record for anti-climaxes, with two winners: the New York/New Haven/Hartford railroad and for God, for Country, and for Yale.

Princeton was the venue for another memorable oral examination in economics, with Professor Frank D. Graham reputedly questioning his candidate in the following manner: Graham posed a question. Candidate gave an answer. Graham: no. Candidate tried another answer. Graham: no. Candidate tried a third. Graham: no. The candidate then said: "Professor Graham, I'm afraid I don't know the answer you are seeking. Please fail me on that question, and move to another." Graham: no. The other professors on the inquisitor's panel had to break it up.

An MIT colleague told me of a feud between two economics professors at the University of Vienna, Professors Meyer and Spann. One was so hostile that he taught his dog to bark when he saw a book by the other. The two were assigned to the same oral examination on one occasion, and one led off. When the second's turn came, he asked exactly the same questions. The candidate was cooked. If he gave identical answers to the same questions, number two would fail him; if different, number one would.

Columbia University in my graduate days had an economic-history professor of Russian origin, Vladimir Gregorovitch Simkovitch, who shared an office with another economics professor from Russia, Mihail Florinsky. A friend of mine visiting Florinsky heard Simkovitch interrupt to say to Horinsky: "Mihail, let me tell you about teaching. Take one cup of ideas. Mix in a bucket of water. And give the students one drop an hour."

Simkovitch was a character around whom many stories circulated. In one examination of an undistinguished student, three other panelists respectively failed the student in economic theory, monetary theory, and statistics, while Simkovitch gave him a pass in economic history. In those days, one was allowed to repeat the oral without having to take a passed subject again. So the candidate reapplied and was examined in economic theory, statistics, and socialism, the last by Professor Simkovitch. He failed theory and statistics, but passed socialism. The student applied yet again, incidentally at a time when theorists Wesley Mitchell, J.M. Clark, and Ralph Souder all happened to be out of town. The panel consisted of a Professor Chaddock in statistics and Simkovitch in economic theory. When Chaddock said that the candidate had failed in statistics, Simkovitch is alleged to have said: "Professor Chaddock, boy wants Ph.D., give him Ph.D. We have planty Ph.D.s" (sic).

But to return to Schumpeter, it's worth remembering his most famous remark: "When I was a young man, I had three ambitions: to be the greatest lover in Vienna, the greatest horseman in Austria, and the greatest economist in the world. Unfortunately, I was able to succeed in only two of these."

Charles R Kindleberger is Professor Emeritus at MIT.