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schools. However, in eighteenth century Europe, the State began to participate
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establishment of public schools of commerce.This article explores changes in
commercial education in eighteenth-century Portugal and the role the state played in
those changes. It attempts to falsify the claim that the Portuguese School of
Commerce, established in Lisbon in 1759, was Europe’s first official,
government-sponsored school to offer formal instruction in commerce, including in
double-entry bookkeeping. The archival and literature searches conducted, and the
various other enquiries we have made are such that we are unable to falsify the
claim.The results point to the likelihood that the Portuguese School of Commerce was
the first government sponsored business school in Europe.
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