Old Lecturers Fund Accumulates; Economics Department Is Puzzled

A fund for outside economics lecturers, donated in 1889 and limiting cash outlay to $2,000 each year, has snowballed incredibly from the initial gift of $6,527.79 to well over $35,000.

The stated purpose of this fund is to enable the President and the Fellows, with the express consent of the Board of Overseers, to appoint lecturers "from time to time" who discuss such topics as "practical affairs of business, the mutual relations of capital and labor, and the development of national resources. . ."

An interesting stipulation, in this age of political censure, is that the lecturers are not permitted to discuss protective duties and free trade, "controversial" subjects in 1859.

For many years this fund had been more or less neglected, but in comparatively recent times an average of four speakers have come here annually. Professor Walter Hoffman, University of Munster, Germany, will deliver the next lecture in this series on Tuesday, December 18.

In the fiscal year 1950, the interest from this fund totaled $1437, more than enough to finance last year's lecturers. And so the reserve of money keeps growing, and growing, and growing....

The economics department is frankly puzzled as to what will be done with the continuously accumulating fund. Said Professor Arthur Smithies, Chairman of the Department. "I'll be damned if I know . . . we'll decide when the time comes."