Murphy : Outlines Of Economics

Professor Murphy's book is welcome as a timely reminder that the professorial function in a University is not confined to the exposition of one or two standard textbooks and the dictation of voluminous notes to remedy local deficiencies. Were this so, we could well dispense with lectures altogether and devote ourselves to the consumption of those invaluable tabloids of concentrated wisdom which are so obligingly supplied by commercial correspondence schools. This, indeed, would in some respects be a distinct gain; for, instead of exhausting our energy in scribbling fifty-minutes' worth of "notes" and then ruining our eyesight in deciphering the product, we should he availing ourselves of the best modern devices which Caxton's successors have to offer. Why should even a University ignore the fact that the art of printing has been invented? We are, however, far from urging that University tuition should be more closely assimilated to the methods of the correspondence school; the preliminary point we want to make is that professors and students alike would gain immensely by the publication of the bulk of the material which, day after day, year after year, is being dictated to students, a scheme of things which is only slightly ameliorated by informal co-operative ventures undertaken by groups of students for the multiple production of the year's lectures. Professor Murphy's students, then, should count themselves lucky.

The first thing to strike the reader of the "Outlines" is a pithy confession of unoriginality, and our next impression on glancing through its numbered and sub-numbered sections is that we have hit upon a carefully-compiled compendium of answers to possible exam. questions. But neither of these features is to be counted a demerit. After all, the most urgent need of the world to-day is not the formulation of new ideas, but rather the sifting, the synthesising, the practical application of existing knowledge; this is particularly true in the field of Economics, where a surfeit of competing theories is positively obstructing progress. And, while conceding that undue stress has been laid on examinations, we must yet recognise the necessity for objective standards, if not to goad us into activity, at least to furnish some definite record of academic attainment. There is nothing intrinsically sinful in preparing oneself for an examination. Professor Murphy's method of setting out the subject is admirably suited to the needs of the student, though it would scarcely commend itself to the general reader. We hope that advantage will be taken of the first reprint to divide the text into chapters, and we suggest, too, that a bibliography might be appended to each chapter in case any student is ambitious enough 10 contemplate a little concurrent reading.

The Outlines are also excellent from the point of view of the student in that they compress into some five hundred pages a fairly exhaustive treatment of an inexhaustible subject. We could plod wearily through half-a-dozen standard books of fearsome dimensions—each of them modestly termed an "Introduction to the Elements,' etc.—and in the result gain less of the principles of Economics than we have within this respectable-sized book. In examination of orthodox economic theory we have the whole story, even if the newer schemes of social amelioration do not receive very extensive page 24 or very patient consideration. It seems to us, too, that a book published in this year of grace 1924 might well give a somewhat more extended treatment of the economic aspects of the war and the post-war periods. The special problems attaching to an essentially rural country like New Zealand have also a claim to more space than they have here been allotted. One of these days we shall waken up to find that such prosaic matters as the tenure of land or the city drift of population have ceased to be merely academic questions.

We gladly admit that it is not the business of either the professor or the student to thrust himself into the centre of current controversy in the sense of taking sides in the petty bickerings of party politics. But surely the danger is all in the other direction. The student in any of the social sciences must handle and interpret the present; his subject bristles with contentious points, and it is futile to seek to escape from these. Beyond doubt we in this country have to guard our academic freedom against encroachments by bureaucratic officials and politicians. But it is scarcely less necessary to free ourselves from those persecutory delucions which lead many worthy pedagogues to conjure up gloomy forebodings of the retribution which must ensue if they dare to descend from abstract principles to their concrete application. What is the use of our academic freedom if we will not avail ourselves of it'? Sapere aude.

X.Y.Z.