SECTION F 

 HISTORY OF ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS 



(Hall 2, September 23, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR FRANK A. FETTER, Cornell University. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR J. E. CONRAD, University of Halle. 



PROFESSOR SIMON N. PATTEN, University of Pennsylvania. 

 SECRETARY: DR. J. PEASE NORTON, Yale University. 



ECONOMIC HISTORY IN RELATION TO KINDRED 



SCIENCES 



BY JOHANNES EVAST CONRAD 



[Johannes Evast Conrad, Professor of Political Science, University of Halle, and 

 Privy Councilor, b. February 28, 1839, Borkau, West Prussia. Ph.D. Jena, 

 1864; LL.D. Princeton. Member of Commission to revise the Code of Civil 

 Law; Member of the Institute of France; Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg; 

 American Academy of Social Science, Philadelphia; International Institute of 

 Stafistics. Author of many books and essays on Political Economy. Editor of 

 Annals of Political Economy and Statistics, Jena, 1870; Collections of Essays 

 on Political Science; co-editor of Manual of Political Economy, Jena, 1899, 1902.] 



THE enormous extension of the field of knowledge, together with 

 its more thorough cultivation, has in modern times led almost all 

 sciences to apply the principle of division of labor. Such is the trend 

 in the recent development of the science of history. Beginning 

 naturally with the description of the political life of a country in 

 some period, history then turned its attention to the phases of the 

 development of national life which underwent the greatest modi- 

 fications and because of their striking features attracted general 

 interest, that is, political events, struggles at home and abroad, 

 changes in the governing forces of the state, etc. It was only gradually 

 that interests enlarged and began to embrace other phenomena, as 

 manifested in science and art or in economic activity. 



There have been hitherto only three periods in which these sides 

 of life have assumed such general importance as to demand equally 

 with political events an historical presentation. This was the case in 

 classical antiquity when philosophy and art were most flourishing, 

 in the period of the Reformation when questions of religion stirred 



