Introduction to the Study of Public Administration

Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, By LEONARD D. WHITE '14. 495 pp.,

The Macmillan Company, New York, 1926. Increasingly, throughout the past decade, administration has come to be recognized as the heart of the problem of modern government. Reflecting this interest there has appeared a mass of literature dealing with specific aspects of administration, its legal phases, the organization and experience of the administrative services of the nation, states, and municipalities, as well as innumerable official reports and documents. There has not been available, however, a systematic study of the general problems of administration common to all types of government until Dr. White published the present work.

The author, correctly, approaches the subject as essentially a problem in management, not of law, and in the belief that administration, in whatever governmental unit found, is substantially uniform in its essential characteristics, problems, principles, and practices. The greatest single aspect of the subject he rightly holds to be that of personnel organization, recruitment, classification, management, discipline, and morale. Nearly one-half of the book is devoted to the personnel problem, of which his analysis and discussion of "morale" is quite the best chapter in the work and constitutes a real contribution to the literature of political science. The second most important phase is the general organization of the administrative machine, involving questions of structure, departmentalization, coordination of services, centralization, integration, bureaucracy, and control. A study of the relations of administrative agencies with the legislature, the courts, and the electorate serves to place the law-enforcing machinery in its proper relations with the other branches of government.

The work is pleasingly free of dogmatism as it deals with general principles and emphasizes problems to be solved. Frequent references are made to American and English experience and organization but as there is no systematic description of existing machinery the book will more profitably be read by those who already possess a substantial knowledge of administrative organization in this country.