summary Many were critical. Knut Olivecrona had already condemned the law course in 1859 and claimed that the lectures did not provide students with any understanding at all of the concepts of ‘jurisprudence as a science’. The subjects of administrative law became his target in 1886 and he considered these to be undoubtedly ‘somewhat subordinate subjects’ in relation to private law, criminal law, law of procedure, constitutional law, legal history and economics. Rather than cramming detailed knowledge, the students ought to learn the main points of certain rules, their historical origin, the fundamental principles of legislation and their relationship to ‘abstract legal concepts’. There were two parts to this message: administrative law was definitely not part of central law, but if the subject now had to be studied then the focus should be on its ‘general part’, on concepts and principles that were common to the various detailed laws. Olivecrona’s outpouring in 1886 testifies to the ambition of enhancing the scientific level of Swedish law and reflects the period of transition prevailing within administrative law. Should teaching concern detailed knowledge or overall analyses? The professors’ quandaries were closely linked to political shifts. The public sector was expanding, government appropriations for the law faculties were increasing and a generational change was underway at both Uppsala and Lund. Demand for a scietific and specialised legal analysis was growing. His Royal Majesty decided in 1889 on the recommendation of the Faculty in Uppsala that a new professorship should be established in Uppsala as well as Lund, for a chair in the subjects of ‘constitutional law and administrative law together with public international law’. This established ‘administrative law’ as a subject intended for the education of lawyers and likewise for legal scientific analyses. However, the period from statute to action would take time, and was particularly slow in Lund. A professor of ‘administrative law’ was appointed in 1844, but almost half a century elapsed before the subject was included in the degree certificates, in 1893. As mentioned, the subject of ‘administrative law’ was linked to aprofessor in 1889, but it was only just over ten years later that the subject appeared in Lund’s degree lists in 271
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