Joseph A. Schumpeter: Review of Lesebuch der Volkswirtschaftslehre (1910)

Schumpeter’s review of Otto Neurath and Anna Schapire-Neurath’s reader treats introductory teaching materials as a condition of adequate economic training. It moves from a diagnosis of deficient instruction to an appraisal of the anthology’s pedagogical value. German economics lacks the elementary aids available in other disciplines and, for economics, in America. Although American teaching practices can seem schoolmasterly to German observers, Schumpeter insists that established university formats are insufficient:

Allein weder durch Vorlesungen noch durch Seminararbeit an einem Probleme kann die wissenschaftliche Technik ausreichend gelehrt oder ausreichendes Eindringen in das ganze weite Gebiet erzielt werden.

English translation: But neither by lectures nor by seminar work on a single problem can scientific technique be adequately taught, nor can adequate penetration into the whole wide field be achieved.

The distinction between studying a particular problem and acquiring both scientific technique and breadth of knowledge grounds his argument. Schumpeter connects weaknesses in economic writing to the absence of systematic training; the reader therefore addresses a disciplinary problem, not merely a beginner’s inconvenience.

The anthology offers selections from twenty-five authors, each briefly introduced and presented in German, some for the first time. Schumpeter welcomes its accessibility especially where social-scientific study is subordinated to other subjects, as in law faculties, and substantial independent reading cannot reasonably be expected. His qualified praise acknowledges that individual selections will not satisfy everyone, while endorsing the execution overall:

Das Buch stellt ein sehr brauchbares Lehrmittel dar, und es wäre die größte Unaufrichtigkeit, zu leugnen, daß es einem Bedürfnisse entgegenkommt, das weit über den Interessenkreis der Handelsschulen hinausreicht, für welche es unmittelbar bestimmt ist.

English translation: The book constitutes a very serviceable teaching aid, and it would be the greatest insincerity to deny that it meets a need which extends far beyond the circle of interest of the commercial schools for which it is immediately intended.

The concluding judgment extends the book’s relevance beyond its intended commercial-school audience. The review’s central move is to make elementary instructional support integral to scholarly competence: accessible selections can help remedy gaps that lectures and specialized seminars leave unfilled.