ABSTRACT
As Guidi and Augello have remarked, the study of early textbooks of economics raises some conceptual problems. The very existence of textbooks presupposes the existence of a curriculum or a canon of scholarship. Now the first professors and teachers of economics were largely self-taught and spread the gospel of Smith, Say and Ricardo. Sometimes they grasped the research programme of these pioneers, sometimes they did not. If at all, most of them had been raised in a tradition – such as cameralism – of primarily describing economic activities and institutions. In the Netherlands, some economists believed in the universal character of economic laws. Others still thought that national characteristics were an important element in explaining economic development.
