merce and manufactures are of inestimable value in the development of any country. The Mercantilists have learned, through the facts of international commerce, that "the favorable balance of trade" is more useful as a political club than as a safe guide in the policies of nations.

The theory of supply and demand was clearly endorsed by history in the time of the Black Death, for the slack supply of labor after that devastating scourge caused a marked increase in wages in spite of the repeated enactment of laws forbidding any change in the customary wage. The same principle was again verified when Henry VIII confiscated the monasteries, distributing their estates among his courtiers who sold the stock and offered the bare land for rent, thus destroying the class of small farmers and forcing them into the already overcrowded class of wage-earners, and still further depressing wages although general prices were at the time inflated by the repeated debasement and consequent inflation of the coinage. But if the principle of supply and demand has been confirmed, the wage fund theory, which for over a century was prominent in classical economics, has practically lost all recognition among the theories of wages.

Before the time of Adam Smith government interference, in various forms, had been the accepted rule through all the history of the manor, the gild, the merchant adventurers, and the monopolies of Elizabeth and the Stuarts. To be sure, even in those days, experience was modifying public opinion and public policy in the direction of individual rights and the public good. But it required the clear reasoning and cogent illustrations of The Wealth of Nations to establish the Laissez Faire doctrine as the recognized policy in English legislation. And right here is an example of the great modification of an economic principle through the influence of current history, for the theory of non-interference was hardly a quarter of a century old before the cruel prosecution of women and children in the mines and cotton mills brought about a reaction, leaving its mark in the long list of factory acts and, later, of sumptuary laws of all sorts, increasing in stringency and scope until in our own country the inspection laws, prohibitory amendments, pure-food and anti-trust laws, and the recent two-cent rail-road fare would seem to indicate that the Laissez Faire doctrine lives only to be applied where, for some reason, we wish to be "let alone."

As to European history, we might recall Spain's sharp lesson in free trade when, under

the joint government with Portugal, she punished little Holland by forbidding her merchants to enter the harbor of Lisbon to secure the products brought from India by the Portuguese, and waked up later to realize that she had simply precipitated the establishment of the Great Dutch East India Company.

England learned some excellent lessons in politico-economics by the loss of her most valuable possessions in America, and made changes in her colonial policy which have been a blessing to herself and to all her dependencies. The political economy of Adam Smith and Ricardo called for international free trade, but the experiences in commerce during the Napoleonic wars and the War of 1812 almost forced Americans into a protective policy as the only means of saving their infant industries. Since then nearly a century of history has passed before us, and today no argument in favor of revision of the tariff is stronger than a careful review of the tariff history and the origin of certain favored industries which have grown to gigantic power and unbearable insolence under the fostering care of unlimited protection.

The early settlers of Iowa, with half-developed economic theories and influenced by the unfortunate banking history of the previous thirty years, introduced into their first State

Constitution heavy restrictions on corporations and absolute prohibition of banks. Eleven years of retarded development, due to a lack of railroads and a surplus of the wildcat currency of other States, was scarcely sufficient to convince them of their error and bring about the revision of policy which marks the new Constitution whose Fiftieth Anniversary we celebrate today.

The great economic problems of today municipal ownership, control of the trusts, tariff, patents, and taxation - are being settled as much by the study of current history as in any other way; and they will be more safely settled in this manner than by any pure "a priori" method. The socio-economic questions of our slum districts are being most successfully studied by our college settlements, and this is only a very practical application of current history to economics.

The danger of wrong conclusions drawn from the comparative study of such questions as municipal ownership and government ownership of rail-roads is evident enough; but forewarned is forearmed. Moreover, every year we are getting better and more reliable statistics; more skilled, unbiased and fearless talent is being given to the work; and the prospect is reasonably bright that the American people, working with the student of history past and present, will gradually secure for themselves a

purer political life, a larger industrial liberty, and a far nobler manhood and womanhood than seems to be indicated by the actual conditions of society today.

Professor ISAAC A. Loos: - The second paper on the program will be read by Professor Cessna, of the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. His subject is The Place of History in the Technical School.

Professor O. H. CESSNA:- Ladies and Gentlemen: When Professor Loos visited our College last Sunday, I remarked, in talking with him concerning the program of this Conference, that it was not possible to settle even one of these questions in ten minutes. He said that it was not intended, perhaps, to settle any of these questions, but rather to have a fellowship meeting, that the Conference was called. We have a method at the State College by which when we exhibit stock we show their gait by trotting them up and down, while some one holds the whip. On this occasion I am to be trotted up and down to be exhibited, and Professor Loos holds the whip.

Formerly there were four great professions, the law, ministry, medicine, and teaching. But in more recent years the horizon has been greatly