Harvard Business School

"In the very beginning," recalled railroad administrator-turned-professor William J.   Cunningham in 1938, "we made an effort to follow the Law School practice of teaching by means of cases, but inasmuch as cases of the right kind were not available and the financial resources of the School would not permit the organization of a research staff to gather and prepare such cases, the case system was more a wish than a reality.  

"With the small numbers of students in a class, however, the instructors as a rule conducted the cases more by general discussion than by lectures, and within the first two or three years a start had been made toward the collection of cases."