ABSTRACT
Knut Wicksell was a Stockholmer. He said that it was music for him to walk along the streets of Stockholm when, on reaching his retirement, he had the opportunity of living once more in the neighbourhood of the capital. His father, who was descended from a farming family, was a provisions dealer. After five years at the Maria Elementary School, and four at Stockholm Secondary School, Knut Wicksell passed the mogenhetsexamen (school-leaving examination) in 1869, and in the autumn went to Uppsala, to study, first of all, Mathematics, in which he had already particularly interested himself at school. He had also learnt Latin and Greek at school, however, and the fil.-cand. (B.A.) examination, which he passed at the beginning of 1872, after only five semesters of study, included, besides
two betyg (honours marks) in Mathematics, one in each of the following subjects: Latin Language and Literature, Scandinavian Languages, History, and Theoretical Philosophy. After this, it was not until 1885 that he was ready for hisfil.-lic. (M.A.) examination, in which his subjects were Mechanics, Mathematics, and Physics. In the meantime, however, Wicksell had gone through the experiences that brought him over into the social sciences.
