North, he resumed the study of social and economic science, studying for a year at Columbia university, New York, and receiving the degree of Ph.D. Occupied in social research into conditions in the metropolis, he had charge of the educational inquiry of the Tenement House Commission of 1894. From 1894 to 1896 he was in charge of the department of Economics and Sociology at Smith college, for women, Massachusetts. Returning to New York he sent to the press "Logical Process of Social Development," and "Synthetic Study of the Theoretical Foundations of Educational Policy from the Standpoint of Sociology."
The growing importance of our national relations with the tropics in 1898 led Dr. Crowell to a period of research in Europe, chiefly at the University of Berlin and at the London School of Economics. The authorities at Washington had their attention drawn to his manner of analyzing commercial conditions and policies. His book on the Distribution of Farm Products (Industrial Commission, 1900), has been spoken of by European economists and statisticians as breaking ground in the study of commercial organizations in the United States in their domestic and foreign trade relations.
As expert on Commerce for the United States Government (1899-1904), Dr. Crowell made reports on the iron and steel trade, the shipping industry, the warehousing industry, and trunk line traffic and differential freights to the sea-board— seeking to combine a scientific method with practical insight into actual conditions of trade and transportation.
At Washington he has been lecturer on Commercial Geography and International Trade in Columbian (now George Washington) university. He is the educational director of the Intercontinental Correspondence university at Washington; and is secretary of the Social and Economic Science section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to which position he was elected in 1902 for a term of five years.
He regards his home training as having had the strongest influence upon his subsequent life; and he names Yale college as "among the paramount factors in shaping his intellectual development." "The spirit of nationality, and the subordination of personality to the general welfare," are ideas which he feels that he owes to Yale. He says that in preparation for his work he perhaps "made the mistake of trying to cover too much ground, and has
