Joseph Alois Schumpeter · 2012
This file is a short archival seminar report, not a theoretical treatise: Schumpeter records the first semester in which he conducted national-economic seminar exercises at the University of Graz, while the editorial apparatus situates the text among his annual Graz reports. Its scope is institutional and pedagogical, but its argument is substantial: economic education requires disciplined participation, written work, discussion, and theoretical exercise rather than passive reception of doctrines.
Das laufende Semester ist das erste, in dem ich die Ehre hatte, an dieser Universität Seminarübungen abzuhalten.
English translation: The current semester is the first in which I have had the honor of holding seminar exercises at this university.
Schumpeter begins from institutional scarcity. There was no established group of advanced students, and the seminar lacked adequate literary resources and even a consultation room. Yet the complaint is not merely administrative. He treats these deficiencies as obstacles to the formation of economically competent judgment, especially for future civil servants.
Bei der praktischen Wichtigkeit solcher Übungen, die den Studierenden allein tiefer in die Sache eindringen lassen, die so viel tun können ihn als Beamten brauchbar zu machen und vor dem Radikalismus der Unwissenheit zu bewahren, erscheinen diese Zustände doppelt bedauerlich.
English translation: Given the practical importance of such exercises, which alone allow students to penetrate more deeply into the subject, which can do so much to make them serviceable as officials and to preserve them from the radicalism of ignorance, these conditions appear doubly regrettable.
This is the report’s central pedagogical claim. Seminar work is valuable because it makes students “eindringen” into the subject: it trains judgment, professional usefulness, and intellectual restraint. Schumpeter’s phrase “Radikalismus der Unwissenheit” shows that he links economic instruction to public responsibility; ignorance is not only an academic failure but a political danger.
The middle section turns from principle to inventory. The seminar drew a surprisingly large audience for a new undertaking, including early-stage students and young doctors, and Schumpeter emphasizes that many participants undertook substantial written work.
Etwa 50 Herren, darunter einige aus dem ersten Studienabschnitt und drei bis vier junge Doktoren, nahmen regelmäßig an den Übungen teil, etwa 20 haben größere schriftliche Arbeiten übernommen, so dass im künftigen Semester ein guter Fonds von Arbeiten vorhanden sein wird.
English translation: About 50 gentlemen, including some from the first stage of studies and three or four young doctors, regularly took part in the exercises; about 20 have undertaken larger written works, so that in the coming semester a good stock of papers will be available.
The range of topics—Germany’s economic development from 1880 to 1910, capital and labor, methodological debates since 1870, social insurance, class, unemployment, ground rent, state railways, and the women’s question—shows a seminar conceived broadly across theory, policy, and contemporary social problems. Schumpeter also notes that discussion is still awkward, and he remains cautious about students’ motives:
Welche Rolle Prüfungsstreberei spielt, kann ich jetzt noch nicht mit Bestimmtheit sagen.
English translation: What role mere striving for examinations plays, I cannot yet say with certainty.
The final structural move is the distinction between the general seminar and a more intensive “Proseminar.” Six students sought deeper initiation into economic theory, and Schumpeter organized additional meetings around theoretical detail and selected readings by Diehl and Mombert.
Die Zusammenkünfte, die fortan unter „Proseminar“ angekündigt werden, dienen der Diskussion theoretischer Detailfragen und zwar zunächst an der Hand der ausgewählten „Lesestücke zum Studium der politischen Ökonomie“ von Diehl und Mombert.
English translation: The meetings, which will henceforth be announced under "Proseminar," are devoted to the discussion of particular theoretical questions, in the first instance on the basis of the selected "Readings for the Study of Political Economy" by Diehl and Mombert.
The report closes by sharpening its anti-dogmatic teaching philosophy. Schumpeter contrasts genuine mastery with the mere lecture of economic propositions, arguing that theory is learned through exercise in thinking, not through compressed exposition.
Wirkliches Verständnis und dauernder Gewinn kann nur durch eine solche Einübung erzielt werden; sie beginnen auch in Deutschland üblich zu werden; und der Wunsch der Studierenden danach ist ein bedeutendes Symptom der Bedürfnisse nach gründlicher Ausbildung im ökonomischen Denken.
English translation: Real understanding and lasting benefit can be achieved only through such practice; it is beginning to become customary in Germany as well; and the students' desire for it is a significant symptom of the need for thorough training in economic thinking.
The relevance of the document lies in this compact view of Schumpeter as institution-builder and teacher. Even in an administrative report, he presents economics as a discipline requiring method, practice, and intellectual formation. The seminar becomes a miniature program for modern economic education: empirical themes, theoretical rigor, written research, guided discussion, and resistance to both rote examination culture and uninformed radicalism.
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