ABSTRACT
In the German university system of the eighteenth and nineteenth century the academic lecture had been the principal medium of teaching. The first two chairs in economics had been established as early as 1727 at the Universities in Halle and Frankfurt/Oder, two of the main centres of cameralism where the leading bureaucrats were trained. Most other German and Austrian universities followed, especially in the 1760s and 1770s, so that at the end of the eighteenth century nearly every university had a chair for economics (Waszek 1988). Whereas in Austria economics was taught at the law faculty and was an integral part of the final exams, it played a less important role in the Prussian university system where it was taught at the philosophical faculty and was only part of the second exam at the end of the practical training period for higher civil servants. Due to the fact that the great majority of examiners were practitioners and not university professors most students did not invest great efforts into the study of economic theory.
