ON ECONOMIC TRAINING IN THIS AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 379 



ITALY. 



Outside the universities there are in Italy but few institutions which 

 give much instruction in Economics. Though courses are delivered at the 

 superior schools of commerce, as, for instance, at Genoa, Venice, and 

 Bari, and the Polytechnic School of Milan, which compare in their nature 

 with those existing at similar places in Austria and Germany, the main 

 aim of such schools, and the limited extent to which they are frequented, 

 prevent them from obtaining any control over the development of 

 economic teaching in the country. It is, then, to the universities that 

 we must look for information as to the methods chiefly employed. At 

 them Economics is studied as a subsidiary subject to law, being taken by 

 students in their second year. There are three courses at which attend- 

 ance, or, to speak more accurately, inscription is obligatory on legal 

 students. In the case of the three obligatory courses the attendance is 

 fairly regular, owing, it is said, to the combined effect of the latitude 

 allowed in the teaching of the subject and the position of the professor as 

 examiner. Without passing the economic examinations students cannot 

 attain to legal degrees. The courses are those in Economic Theory and 

 Administration, Finance, and Statistics. According to the condition of 

 the university these are taught by the same or ditfei-ent teachers, in most 

 cases by the professors who are appointed and paid by the State. In 

 addition to these courses others are given at the option of the teachers, 

 either professors or docents. The attendance at these is not good, though 

 in many cases a large number of students enter themselves as a mark of 

 courtesy towards the lecturer. It costs them nothing, as they pay a 

 compound fee, and it benefits him considerably if a docent, as he receives 

 from the State a payment proportionate to the number of students 

 registered for his courses. In addition to the examination, a candidate 

 for the legal degrees presents a thesis which may, and not infrequently 

 does, deal with some economic subject.' The study of Economics is, 

 moreover, obligatory on students seeking the higher official careers. 

 Many complaints are made as to the position occupied by economic 

 studies in Italy. Their connection with law creates no doubt a certain 

 and a large audience in the lecture room ; but, as one Italian professor 

 points out, students do not remain there long enough to acquire anything 

 like a sufficient knowledge of the subject. They come from the schools 

 wholly unprepared, and they leave the university without having under- 

 gone a training thorough enough to counterbalance the loose economic 

 notions gathered from their more diligent study of the newspapers. The 

 study of economic facts does not seem to have had sufficient place in the 

 universities of Italy. Attempts are now being made to remedy this 

 defect by the formation of discussion societies among the students of 

 Economics, and the encouragement of research into statistical and similar 

 questions. 



At the minor technical schools lectures are delivered on Elementary 

 Economics, Finance, and Statistics. 



' Professor TuUio Martello calculates that at the University of Bologna some 

 15 per cent, of those graduating in Law present a thesis dealing with Economics. 



