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.]. 08_069 Ch 15.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 188 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 189VNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 190 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 19116The Study of Administration*Woodrow WilsonPerhaps Woodrow Wilson s most famous and influential scholarly essay, TheStudy of Administration introduces into American political thinking a centralfeature of administrative science that Wilson had learned from his extensivestudy of the theory and practice of Prussian bureaucracy: its separation frompolitics.Wilson here suggests that there are significant governmental powersadministrative powers that exist, for the most part, outside of the boundariesof the Constitution and its separation-of-powers framework.This essay is cred-ited by many public administration scholars as the launching point for their dis-cipline in the United States.I suppose that no practical science is ever studied where there is no need toknow it.The very fact, therefore, that the eminently practical science of ad-ministration is finding its way into college courses in this country wouldprove that this country needs to know more about administration, were suchproof of the fact required to make out a case.It need not be said, how ever,that we do not look into college programmes for proof of this fact.It is a thingalmost taken for granted among us, that the present movement called civilservice reform must, after the accomplishment of its first purpose, expandinto efforts to improve, not the personnel only, but also the organization andmethods of our government offices: because it is plain that their organizationand methods need improvement only less than their personnel.It is the object* Editors Note: Woodrow Wilson, The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2(July 1887): 197 222.191 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 192192 Woodrow Wilsonof administrative study to discover, first, what government can properly andsuccessfully do, and, secondly, how it can do these proper things with the ut-most possible efficiency and at the least possible cost either of money or ofenergy.On both these points there is obviously much need of light among us;and only careful study can supply that light.Before entering on that study, however, it is needful:I.To take some account of what others have done in the same line; thatis to say, of the history of the study.II.To ascertain just what is its subject-matter.III.To determine just what are the best methods by which to develop it,and the most clarifying political conceptions to carry with us into it.Unless we know and settle these things, we shall set out without chart orcompass.I.The science of administration is the latest fruit of that study of the science ofpolitics which was begun some twenty-two hundred years ago.It is a birth ofour own century, almost of our own generation.Why was it so late in coming? Why did it wait till this too busy century ofours to demand attention for itself? Administration is the most obvious partof government; it is government in action; it is the executive, the operative,the most visible side of government, and is of course as old as government it-self.It is government in action, and one might very naturally expect to findthat government in action had arrested the attention and provoked the scrutinyof writers of politics very early in the history of systematic thought.But such was not the case.No one wrote systematically of administrationas a branch of the science of government until the present century had passedits first youth and had begun to put forth its characteristic flower of system-atic knowledge.Up to our own day all the political writers whom we nowread had thought, argued, dogmatized only about the constitution of govern-ment; about the nature of the state, the essence and seat of sovereignty, pop-ular power and kingly prerogative; about the greatest meanings lying at theheart of government, and the high ends set before the purpose of governmentby man s nature and man s aims.The central field of controversy was thatgreat field of theory in which monarchy rode tilt against democracy, in whicholigarchy would have built for itself strongholds of privilege, and in whichtyranny sought opportunity to make good its claim to receive submission 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 193The Study of Administration 193from all competitors.Amidst this high warfare of principles, administrationcould command no pause for its own consideration.The question was always:Who shall make law, and what shall that law be? The other question, how lawshould be administered with enlightenment, with equity, with speed, andwithout friction, was put aside as practical detail which clerks couldarrange after doctors had agreed upon principles.That political philosophy took this direction was of course no accident, nochance preference or perverse whim of political philosophers.The philosophyof any time is, as Hegel says, nothing but the spirit of that time expressed inabstract thought ; and political philosophy, like philosophy of every otherkind, has only held up the mirror to contemporary affairs.The trouble in earlytimes was almost altogether about the constitution of government; and con-sequently that was what engrossed men s thoughts.There was little or notrouble about administration, at least little that was heeded by administra-tors.The functions of government were simple, because life itself was sim-ple.Government went about imperatively and compelled men, withoutthought of consulting their wishes.There was no complex system of publicrevenues and public debts to puzzle financiers; there were, consequently, nofinanciers to be puzzled.No one who possessed power was long at a loss howto use it.The great and only question was: Who shall possess it? Populationswere of manageable numbers; property was of simple sorts.There wereplenty of farms, but no stocks and bonds: more cattle than vested interests.I have said that all this was true of early times ; but it was substantiallytrue also of comparatively late times.One does not have to look back of thelast century for the beginnings of the present complexities of trade and per-plexities of commercial speculation, nor for the portentous birth of nationaldebts.Good Queen Bess, doubtless, thought that the monopolies of the six-teenth century were hard enough to handle without burning her hands; butthey are not remembered in the presence of the giant monopolies of the nine-teenth century.When Blackstone lamented that corporations had no bodies tobe kicked and no souls to be damned, he was anticipating the proper time forsuch regrets by full a century.The perennial discords between master andworkmen which now so often disturb industrial society began before theBlack Death and the Statute of Laborers; but never before our own day didthey assume such ominous proportions as they wear now [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.]. 08_069 Ch 15.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 188 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 189VNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 190 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 19116The Study of Administration*Woodrow WilsonPerhaps Woodrow Wilson s most famous and influential scholarly essay, TheStudy of Administration introduces into American political thinking a centralfeature of administrative science that Wilson had learned from his extensivestudy of the theory and practice of Prussian bureaucracy: its separation frompolitics.Wilson here suggests that there are significant governmental powersadministrative powers that exist, for the most part, outside of the boundariesof the Constitution and its separation-of-powers framework.This essay is cred-ited by many public administration scholars as the launching point for their dis-cipline in the United States.I suppose that no practical science is ever studied where there is no need toknow it.The very fact, therefore, that the eminently practical science of ad-ministration is finding its way into college courses in this country wouldprove that this country needs to know more about administration, were suchproof of the fact required to make out a case.It need not be said, how ever,that we do not look into college programmes for proof of this fact.It is a thingalmost taken for granted among us, that the present movement called civilservice reform must, after the accomplishment of its first purpose, expandinto efforts to improve, not the personnel only, but also the organization andmethods of our government offices: because it is plain that their organizationand methods need improvement only less than their personnel.It is the object* Editors Note: Woodrow Wilson, The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2(July 1887): 197 222.191 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 192192 Woodrow Wilsonof administrative study to discover, first, what government can properly andsuccessfully do, and, secondly, how it can do these proper things with the ut-most possible efficiency and at the least possible cost either of money or ofenergy.On both these points there is obviously much need of light among us;and only careful study can supply that light.Before entering on that study, however, it is needful:I.To take some account of what others have done in the same line; thatis to say, of the history of the study.II.To ascertain just what is its subject-matter.III.To determine just what are the best methods by which to develop it,and the most clarifying political conceptions to carry with us into it.Unless we know and settle these things, we shall set out without chart orcompass.I.The science of administration is the latest fruit of that study of the science ofpolitics which was begun some twenty-two hundred years ago.It is a birth ofour own century, almost of our own generation.Why was it so late in coming? Why did it wait till this too busy century ofours to demand attention for itself? Administration is the most obvious partof government; it is government in action; it is the executive, the operative,the most visible side of government, and is of course as old as government it-self.It is government in action, and one might very naturally expect to findthat government in action had arrested the attention and provoked the scrutinyof writers of politics very early in the history of systematic thought.But such was not the case.No one wrote systematically of administrationas a branch of the science of government until the present century had passedits first youth and had begun to put forth its characteristic flower of system-atic knowledge.Up to our own day all the political writers whom we nowread had thought, argued, dogmatized only about the constitution of govern-ment; about the nature of the state, the essence and seat of sovereignty, pop-ular power and kingly prerogative; about the greatest meanings lying at theheart of government, and the high ends set before the purpose of governmentby man s nature and man s aims.The central field of controversy was thatgreat field of theory in which monarchy rode tilt against democracy, in whicholigarchy would have built for itself strongholds of privilege, and in whichtyranny sought opportunity to make good its claim to receive submission 08_069 Ch 16-Pt 5.qxd 4/7/08 1:40 PM Page 193The Study of Administration 193from all competitors.Amidst this high warfare of principles, administrationcould command no pause for its own consideration.The question was always:Who shall make law, and what shall that law be? The other question, how lawshould be administered with enlightenment, with equity, with speed, andwithout friction, was put aside as practical detail which clerks couldarrange after doctors had agreed upon principles.That political philosophy took this direction was of course no accident, nochance preference or perverse whim of political philosophers.The philosophyof any time is, as Hegel says, nothing but the spirit of that time expressed inabstract thought ; and political philosophy, like philosophy of every otherkind, has only held up the mirror to contemporary affairs.The trouble in earlytimes was almost altogether about the constitution of government; and con-sequently that was what engrossed men s thoughts.There was little or notrouble about administration, at least little that was heeded by administra-tors.The functions of government were simple, because life itself was sim-ple.Government went about imperatively and compelled men, withoutthought of consulting their wishes.There was no complex system of publicrevenues and public debts to puzzle financiers; there were, consequently, nofinanciers to be puzzled.No one who possessed power was long at a loss howto use it.The great and only question was: Who shall possess it? Populationswere of manageable numbers; property was of simple sorts.There wereplenty of farms, but no stocks and bonds: more cattle than vested interests.I have said that all this was true of early times ; but it was substantiallytrue also of comparatively late times.One does not have to look back of thelast century for the beginnings of the present complexities of trade and per-plexities of commercial speculation, nor for the portentous birth of nationaldebts.Good Queen Bess, doubtless, thought that the monopolies of the six-teenth century were hard enough to handle without burning her hands; butthey are not remembered in the presence of the giant monopolies of the nine-teenth century.When Blackstone lamented that corporations had no bodies tobe kicked and no souls to be damned, he was anticipating the proper time forsuch regrets by full a century.The perennial discords between master andworkmen which now so often disturb industrial society began before theBlack Death and the Statute of Laborers; but never before our own day didthey assume such ominous proportions as they wear now [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]