THE

ELEMENTS

OF

176

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

BY

FRANCIS WAYLAND, D.D

LATE PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY.

MICHIGAN

University of

GENERAL LIBRAN

RECAST BY

AARON L. CHAPIN, D.D.,

PRESIDENT OF BELOIT COLLEGE

NEW YORK:

SHELDON & COMPANY,

8 MURRAY STREET.

1881.

11712

DR. FRANCIS WAYLAND'S TEXT-BOOKS.

MORAL SCIENCE, 1 vol. 12mo. Revised just before the author's

death.

MORAL SCIENCE, 1 vol. 18mo. Abridged by the author and adapted to schools and academies.

INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY, 1 vol. 12mo. Revised just before the author's death.

POLITICAL ECONOMY, 1 vol. 12mo. Revised by A. L. Chapin, in 1878.

POLITICAL ECONOMY, 18mo. Abridged by the author and adapted to schools and academies.

As an educator, no man in this country ever stood higher than Dr. Wayland. These books were built up from his work in the class-room, and are, therefore, adapted to meet the wants of both teacher and scholar. They are now used in most of the leading schools and colleges in the country.

COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY SHELDON & COMPANY.

PREFACE.

R. WAYLAND'S work on Political Economy was the first atteinpt in our country to present the principles of that science in the form of a text-book of instruction. His aim was to put into simple statement under a natural and methodical arrangement, the doctrines of Adam Smith, Say and Ricardo, who were in his day, as they still continue to be, leading authorities on the subject. To the public generally the whole subject was new. Dr. Wayland therefore used abundant illustration and frequent repetition in this introduction of the science to youth and practical business men. His effort was attended with remarkable success, and no other text-book on the subject has gained such general acceptance and been so extensively and continuously used.

But the forty years that have elapsed since Dr. Wayland finished his work, have been years of wonderful activity and enterprise in all departments of productive industry and trade. Many practical problems of Political Economy have thus come to be studied in a new light and have elicited discussions earnest and profound from

philosophers, statesmen, and practical manufacturers and merchants. The science itself has made progress, and its elementary principles have become more or less familiar and are readily apprehended by all. Special treatises on Capital, Labor and Wages, Money and Currency, Taxation, Free Trade, etc., have thrown much light on the complicated problems which concern the development and distribution of wealth. While these things have caused little change in the real elements of the science as presented by our author, they demand that as a text-book of instruction adapted to our times, his work should be very considerably modified.

Some months ago, the present publishers of Dr. Wayland's book requested the writer to make a rcvision of that work. Fully believing that the doctrines and the general aim and methods of that eminent instructor on this subject were sound and wise, and that the pressing want of the class-room in our institutions of higher education, was not fully met by any one of the excellent treatises before the public, he consented and assumed the undertaking. It was soon found, however, that a mere revision of the book would not accomplish the desired object. Comparatively few pages of the original work could be used as they stood. In the result, while scarcely any change has been made in the opinions presented, the arrangement and the forms of statement have been quite generally recast with considerable condensation and many needed additions.

In the prosecution of his work, the writer has had chiefly in mind the wants of the class-room as suggested by an experience of many years in the instruction of successive classes in college. His aim has been to give in full and proportioned, yet clear and compact statement the elements of this important branch of science, in their latest aspects and applications. In thus recasting the treatise, he has followed his habit before his own classes, and drawn freely from various writers, sometimes in formal quotations, but oftener by catching apt thoughts and happy expressions as they might serve his purpose. The writings of McCulloch, Mill, Fawcett, Thornton, Jevons, and Brassey, of England, and those of Bowen, Perry, Carey, Thompson, A. Walker, F. A. Walker, Sumner, and D. A. Wells, of our own country, have been thus freely referred to and drawn upon.

The work in its present form is offered to the public, not as an original contribution to the science treated of, but as a compilation of well defined principles of the science, which, in the writer's view, are to be accepted as sound and true. On some disputed topics, positive opinions are expressed, with due respect for the sincerity of those who may think differently, but in the strong conviction that they will stand the test both of philosophy and of practical experience.

BELOIT COLLEGE, March 1, 1878.

A. L. C.