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April 10, 2026
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"The executive in every walk of life, whether he knows it or not, directs social forces and determines the destiny of countless people, not only those who work in his immediate organization but among the larger public as well. He should comprehend this and recognize his responsibility. The role of statesman is thrust upon him by the nature and demands of the position he occupies. To fulfill it he mnst be a philosopher. But he cannot be a successful philosopher unless he understands the inherent life of institutions, the reasons why people in institutional situations behave as they do. This knowledge is the philosophy and technique of management."
"Administration is both social engineering and applied psychology. It is apparatus and mechanics, incentives and human nature. Let no one think it is merely the former. Nowhere is the need for psychology greater than in the organization, direction, and inspiration of men working in large groups. Outstanding administrative results are produced by spirit, morale, atmosphere; these, in turn, are the product of psychological mainsprings and invigorating incentives. As Benjamin Lippincott has recognized, both governmental and business administration resolve fundamentally into the role played by effective incentives."
"Administration is generic. It is a social science concept which applies to all organized group activity. Administration arises whenever organization occurs. There are common problems and processes in the household, the school, the church, the business corporation, and the vast modern state. After deciding upon objectives, means must be devised for carrying out the program. This latter process is administration. Anyone who is responsible for directing the work of others thereby becomes an administrator"
"Public administration is a process or a theory, not merely an accumulation of detailed facts. It is Verwaltungslehre. The object of administrative study should be to discover, first, what government can properly and successfully do, and secondly, how it can do these proper things with the utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible cost both of money and of energy."
"It is now fifty years since Woodrow Wilson wrote his brilliant essay on public administration.' It is a good essay to reread every so often; there is so much in it that sounds modern, so much that will hold permanently true... Political scientists owe Woodrow Wilson a debt of gratitude for opening their eyes to the broader importance and implications of administration. His keen mind also discerned the task which would occupy the attention of administrative theorists long after he was gone."
"Organization is the arrangement of personnel for facilitating the accomplishment of some agreed purpose through the allocation of functions and responsibilities. It is the relating of efforts and capacities of individuals and groups engaged upon a common task in such a way as to secure the desired objective with the least friction and the most satisfaction to those for whom the task is done and those engaged in the enterprise."
"The authors purport to delineate sharply those essential factors which are the special attributes of "what can properly be called a utopia". (p. 3). According to their definition utopia is, first of all, fictional; secondly, it is a description or plan of a particular state or community; and, finally, its theme must be the political structure of that fictional state or community. Dr. Negley and Mr. Patrick offer an astonishing variety of "proper" utopias, all of which meet the requirements of their definition. Notable, amongst others, are Campanella's "City of the Sun" (in a new and superior translation by. William J. Gilstrap), Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis," and James Harrington's. "The Rota."..."
"Administration may possess scientific qualities, but does it have a sufficiently coherent body of knowledge to justify recognition as an independent discipline which may stand side by side with the major sciences? This issue constitutes in itself a technical problem in epistemology. However, the student of administration who wishes to establish his field of study as a scientific discipline or as a recognized profession will soon wish to inquire into this question. The broad answer seems to be that few epistemologists or philosophers consider administration as worthy of recognition as a separate science."
"Perhaps the last philosopher who gave any significant attention to the privacy of the individual was Jeremy Bentham; his strongly expressed view that law was an invasion of privacy that must be justified on the ground of necessary utility was somewhat, but not profoundly, modified by John Stuart Mill."
"It seems apparent that the circumstances of existence in modern society are in many ways more restrictive of privacy than conditions in the past; we seem haunted by specters of the organization man, Big Brother, and the omnipresent state. Yet the facts of a changing social and political structure do not themselves attest the badness of that change."
"The increasing importance of advanced manufacturing technology, total quality management, and just-in-time to manufacturing firms raises some basic questions as to the strategic use of these techniques in manufacturing. Does strategic use of these techniques influence performance? How is the impact of these techniques influenced by the competitive environment? Are the techniques actually being used strategically? A study in a large sample of manufacturing organizations confirms that the use of integrated manufacturing techniques-particularly total quality-influences performance, and that these effects are magnified or diminished by both the competitive environment and manufacturing strategy. It also shows that, in some cases, firms are missing opportunities to combine integrated manufacturing and strategy in ways that would substantially impact their performance."
"Philosophical literature has given scant attention to the problem of privacy as such; the framework of reference within which privacy has so recently and widely become a matter of controversy is a distinctly contemporary one. What has not been discussed, or at least made clear, is why privacy is commonly considered a right or a value to be protected by the law. There is no historical consensus, in philosophy, politics, or law, that it is such a right. Few philosophers would argue that privacy is a "natural" right or that the intrinsic nature of privacy establishes it as a legal right."
"Utopias are expressions of political philosophy and theory, to be sure, but they are descriptions of fictional states in which the philosophy and theory are already implemented in the institutions and procedures of the social structure."
"In the first place, utopia literally means "no place", and the use of the fiction of an imagined or mythical state is indeed a characteristic mark of utopian writing. This primary and necessary discrimination eliminates from utopian literature all speculation the form of which indicates that it should properly be designated political philosophy or political theory."
"What can properly be called a utopia?"
"It seems that the best method of utilizing the sciences for purposes of analysis-and this would include the science of Administration - is to conceive of them as concentrating upon the relations existing between categories rather than as describing particular categories themselves. The various sciences or fields of investigation are not distinguished because they investigate different kinds of facts or subject matter; they differ because they have developed a specialized technique for observing different aspects of the same subject matter. A rock is an adequate subject of observation for any science whatsoever. What geology does, for example, is to restrict its observations to certain aspects of the rock; economics may look at the rock from another point-of-view, chemistry from still another, and so on through the entire range of science, Geology cannot break from the rock a fragment which is of geological interest only; the sciences are distinguished according to the viewpoint taken by each in observing the rock, not by a specific difference in content in the rock."
"Any pattern of analysis or any system of categories for the classification of knowledge is simply a suggestion for the arrangement of the data of experience. An analysis of this experience can be made in terms of certain points-of-view, categories and sciences (including Administration)."
"Administration is an activity which demands correct analysis and accurate orientation with relation to other sciences. To analyze and through analysis to understand and through understanding to make possible the final fruition of rational and creative action-this is the highest end which man can conceive for himself. The primary problem of rational activity is one of method, of organization. If society is to be ordered intelligently, the intelligence which is to serve as the ground of order cannot itself be without organization. Our knowledge must have some order, some method, or its application in ordering activity will be haphazard. It is often said that "man's reach exceeds his grasp"; but in regard to the knowledge contributed by research and analysis, it seems at present rather more appropriate to say that man's grasp greatly exceeds his reach. The pressing problem for most of us is not so much the acquisition of more knowledge as the more adequate employment and organization of the knowledge we already have."
"ANALYSIS is the recognition and description of points-of-view which can be taken in the process of thinking about a problematic situation. To discuss the analysis of action is to make at the outset some kind of distinction between analysis and action. That we normally make some such distinction is patent; we admit that "thinking doesn't make it so." Problems are not solved merely by analysis; the active implementation of analytic solutions is what is meant by control, the direction of activity by thought. Many quibbling problems might be suggested by the distinction of analysis, control, and action; but we shall proceed upon the commonsense assumption that there is a distinguishable difference between the analysis of a problem and the effort to realize a solution of that problem in activity."
"MAN, the thinking animal, seeks the revealing light which discloses to his curious eyes the nature of things. The ages of his history in which he learned he calls enlightened; the ages of intellectual sterility are dark. It is in the daylight that man moves and has his active being; yet there is beauty in the night, when the concealing cloak of darkness shrouds the harsh and sordid realities which appear in the penetrating light of day. Why should man not prefer to live in a world of night? Why does he not go to bed with the dawn, pull the covers over his head, and shut out the stark disillusion of a world revealed nakedly in the light?"
"The excess of presumption which is implied in so grandiose a project as the "organization of knowledge" will, it is hoped, be tempered by a word of explanation. It is an explanation with admission, first, of limited aim; second, of minimum anticipation of achievement. Such an apologetic implies, however, no plea of pardon for sins of omission and commission; on these let the axe hew and the quips fall where they may."
"To Donham, the case study stood squarely in the legal and cultural tradition of Anglo-American thought. Unlike French or Spanish law. Donham emphasized, English law was grounded on the doctrine of stare decisis, in which the written case decisions of the past shape, and instantiate, the law. Just as the recording of cases allowed English common law to break the arbitrariness of local law. Donham argued in 1925, business needed to universalize its procedures by itself adopting the case system. The chaos of local law that ruled in England before the common law. Donham contended, "is exactly the same situation that we have [in the world of business] where practically every large corporation is tightly hound by traditions which are precedents in its particular narrow field and narrow held only The recording of decisions from industry to industry [enables] us to start from facts and draw inferences from those facts; [it] will introduce principle... in the field of business to such an extent that it will control executive action in the field where executive action is haphazard or unprincipled or bound by narrow, instead of broad precedent and decision" ( W. Donham, transcript of talk to the Association of Coll. School of Business Committee Reports and Other Literature, 5-7 May 1925. Harvard Business School, box 17, folder 10. 62)."
"The search for original cases and the "superior" rules that would emerge from them spread far outside legal practice. Wallace Donham, dean of the Harvard Business School from 1919 to 1942, was trained at the law school in the heady days of the case system's early and enthusiastic reception. Where law and business parted ways was in the contingent matter of the availability of ready- made cases — law faculty simply reached for their shelves, while professors of business needed to create a new literary species — the business case book."
"Brownlow was instrumental in channeling foundation money for research in public affairs. His widespread contacts and conciliatory manner made him an invaluable liaison not only among opposing professional factions but between governmental officials and members of the public service. A clear indication of his talent as a mediator at conferences is revealed in a discussion of a housing conclave which he chaired.. All of these qualities made Brownlow an important figure in the first administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. With the expansion of government in order to meet the crisis of the depression, Brownlow was consulted on a number of appointments, as well as with respect to the institutionalization of the prolific bureaus. The culmination of this activity was his selection by President Roosevelt to head the President's Committee on Administrative Management in order to recognize the executive branch of the federal government."
"They [the association directors] worked together in such bodies as the Board of Directors of the Public Administration Service. They worked together well in smaller groups when matters came up of common interest. But I was always careful, extremely careful, not to attempt to bind them together in any way as a corporate body, and I was meticulous in observing their utter independence."
"We have called attention to this difficulty with respect to fiscal accountability. We hold that once the Congress has made an appropriation, an appropriation which it is free to withhold, the responsibility for the administration of the expenditures under that appropriation is and should be solely upon the Executive. The Executive then should be held to account through an independent audit made by an independent auditor who will report promptly to the Congress his criticisms and exceptions of the actions of the Executive."
"The preservation of the principle of the full accountability of the Executive to the Congress is an essential part of our republican system. In actual practice the effectiveness of this accountability is often obstructed and obscured, and sometimes is defeated by the processes of diffusion, processes which are at work, not only in the Executive Branch but in the Congress itself."
"Administrative efficiency is not merely a matter of paper clips, time clocks, and standardized economies of motion. These are but minor gadgets. Real efficiency goes much deeper down. It must be built into the structure of a government just as it is built into a piece of machinery. Fortunately the foundations of effective management in public affairs, no less than in private, are well known. They have emerged universally wherever men have worked together for some common purpose, whether through the state, the church, the private association, or the commercial enterprise. They have been written into constitutions, charters, and articles of incorporation, and exist as habits of work in the daily life of all organized peoples. Stated in simple terms these canons of efficiency require the establishment of a responsible and effective chief executive as the center of energy, direction, and administrative management."
"And what (else} did we discover? We discovered that it was exceedingly profitable to get garbage from large parts of the town; that garbage was rich in grease and in sugar. And we took it to the reduction plant and we turned that grease into a very acceptable and delightful non-odorous product which you a little later bought in the form of soap."
"The successful public administrator is curious about everything. Perhaps you don't see just why it is that a public administrator should go about continually asking questions of everything and everybody about him. Well, let us take one functional phase of public administration in a municipal government."
"I am going to give you for what it may be worth what I think are some of the qualifications a public administrator should have. I have tried to think of it in terms of personality, of training, of experience, and in none of those terms have I been able to discover what to me is a satisfactory answer. And no doubt the one thing that does satisfy my searching is susceptible of being termed as an oversimplification, but as I have looked about for administrators over a quarter of a century, I think I have discovered one thing that characterizes those that have been successful in many administrative positions of different types. It characterizes those that have been successful so far as their administrative work is concerned in the position of Presidents of the United States and Governors of states and Mayors of cities. It characterizes equally those that have been successful as the head of a finance department, the head of a unit of the health department, the head of a minor division in the police department, and the foreman of a garbage collecting gang. That is, to be a successful administrator one must have a catholic curiosity."
"As the honeymoon draws to its inevitable end, we no longer expect the President completely to fulfill our notion of what the symbol of the nation should be, but by the same token we tend to emphasize and insist upon our expectations that he will do for us certain things."
"Public Administration, in my opinion, is one of the most important things in the world; but it has little sex appeal."
"In 1789, for the first time, at least in modern history and in the western world, there was set up an executive who was at one and the same time the chief of state, the leader of the legislature, the leader of a political party, the commander in chief of the military forces of the nation, and toe executive manager of the government."
"The man instrumental in the creation of the Brookings Institution, Charles E. Merriam, sought to move toward a “science of politics.” In his presidential address to APSA in 1921, he spoke of what he called a pressing problem, the reconstruction of the methods of political study (Merriam 1921, 174). Thus began a trend that placed increasing emphasis on the development of theories and testable hypotheses."
"Charles E. Merriam... attributed a decisive position to the managers of a democratic society. As Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago between the two World Wars, Professor Merriam inspired a generation of students and practitioners of public administration. As a local political leader in Chicago and as a national adviser to liberal American Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt, Merriam recognized the practical significance of public management. In his overall treatise on Systematic Politics, Merriam devoted the final but perhaps the most significant section of his chapter on "The Organs of Government" to what he calls "the managerial organ.""
"Much attention has been given in recent years to what might be called the "higher organization" of the state, both in the practical experimentation of modem nations and in the domain of theoretical analysis. In almost every country in the world there has been experimentation with and discussion of the emerging evolution of political-economic forms and forces, now everywhere challenging the peace and security of mankind technology, cartels, unions, business and agricultural associations, armies, professions, churches, schools. The problem of a socialistic or a mixed economy has led to vigorous debate not only upon economic principles but upon the whole political setting of economics."
"The earlier political thinkers used the term "organization" in the broadest sense of the term, that is, with reference to the widest aspects of the patterns of political forces in a given state. Thus a political society might be organized as a monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, as a city-state, feudal state, a national state, imperial state, or a world state. Emphasis was also placed on the organs of organization. These came to be standardized in the course of time under the categories of legislative, executive, and judicial organs, the combination of which in some form of balance was held to be the indispensable basis of sound organization."
"We now know how to produce, how to fight, how to administer social affairs, public or private, on a massive scale; and no modern group is unmindful of the technical tools available for this purpose. Masses of men and women-millions of them-now know more about organization, its meaning and apparatus, than ever before in human history. Its cult is no longer secret or magic. What now appears is a reasonable expectancy by those concerned that under such and such conditions such and such an outcome will follow, in an organizational pattern, of which they are parts, and in which they share responsibility."
"It is not necessary to conclude that the managerial groups have assumed complete domination over the concerns in which they are found, although this may be the fact in various instances, but only to reckon with the undoubted truth that the managerial factor in public and private enterprise has taken on a far more significant role than before."
"In modern industry the managerial groups in many areas rise to a position more significant than that of the owners or the workers. Decision often rests largely in their hands, providing, of course, they are able to point to a generous measure of financial success in their particular enterprise. Wages to the workers, profits to the owners, prices and goods to the consumers--these are allocated in great measure by the managers of the concern and tolerated on the terms just stated."
"The technical apparatus of modem organization is far more complicated, elaborate, and scientific than that of preceding generations."
"This volume is an analysis of the American party system, an account of the structure, processes and significance of the political party, designed to show as clearly as possible within compact limits what the function of the political party is in the community. My purpose is to make this, as far as possible, an objective study of the organization and behavior of our political parties. It is hoped that this volume may serve as an introduction to students and others who wish to find a concise account of the party system; and also that it may serve to stimulate more intensive study of the important features and processes of the party. From time to time in the course of this discussion significant fields of inquiry have been indicated where it is believed that research would bear rich fruit. In the light of broader statistical information than we now have and with the aid of a thorough-going social and political psychology than we now have, it will be possible in the future to make much more exhaustive and conclusive studies of political parties than we are able to do at present. The objective, detailed study of political behavior will unquestionably enlarge our knowledge of the system of social and political control under which we now operate. But such inquiries will call for funds and personnel not now available to me."
"The development of American political theories has received surprisingly little attention from students of American history. Even the political ideas of the Revolutionary fathers and the tenets of such important schools as those represented by Jefferson and Adams have not been carefully analyzed or put in their proper perspective. The political theory of the controversies over slavery and the nature of the Union has generally been presented from the partisan point of view, while recent tendencies in political thought have received no adequate notice."
"His imaginative nature led him to a wider conception of the character of business administration than had been current. The administrator, he said, must "look all around things before interpreting them" and be aware that administration takes place in a context of face-to-face human relations and of conditions imposed by the broader social situation. Thus he came to develop a new way of teaching businessmen about their work and to encourage a field of research that has subsequently had an important influence on the growth of the social sciences generally."
"As Dean, Donham developed the "case method" of teaching business administration by the study of actual experiences from day-to-day business life. He was also a leader in the scientific study of human relations, and after World War II helped to introduce human relations courses in Harvard College... When he resigned from the deanship in 1942, Donham still continued as George F. Baker Professor of Business Administration until 1948. During this six year period, he especially studied the human factor in economic relationships. His book, "Education for Responsible Living," in 1944 was a critique of college education and stressed the importance of courses in human relations."
"Admitting that business and government are both bureaucratic giants, most authorities take the view that an intrinsic difference separates them. This position was expressed effectively by: (a) Professor Wallace Donham, Dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University; (b) Sir Josiah Stamp, an English businessman and public servant; and (c) Professor Nathan Isaacs, also of Harvard University."
"p. 176; cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 194-5"