“Students of administration, writes J. M. Gaus, have become "more uncertain in recent years as to the ends, aims and methods which they should advocate/' It is difficult to view in their entirety and in perspective the writings on public administration that now pour from the presses. But this is hardly necessary to confirm the truth of Gaus' statement.”

— Dwight Waldo

Source: The Administrative State, 1948, p. 206

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Dwight Waldo 13

American political scientist 1913–2000

Leonard D. White (1891–1958) American historian

1936

“This is a study of the public administration movement from the viewpoint of political theory and the history of ideas. It seeks to review and analyze the theoretical element in administrative writings and to present the development of the public administration movement as a chapter in the history of American political thought.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Preview; lead paragraph
The Administrative State, 1948

“In a speech which he made in the House of Commons in 1804 the Lord Advocate, Charles Hope, claimed to be not only public prosecutor, coroner's jury, and grand jury, which he undoubtedly was, but also Home Secretary, Privy Council, and Lord-Lieutenant! … The anomalous combination of legal and administrative duties in the person of the Lord Advocate came to an end on the passing, in 1885, of the Secretary for Scotland Act which transferred to the Secretary, now the Secretary of State, for Scotland, most of the responsibility for the administration of Scottish affairs.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 86

“It is now fifty years since Woodrow Wilson wrote his brilliant essay on public administration.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

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.
Source: "The Study of Administration." 1937, p. 28

“The engines that have driven poetry's institutional success — the explosion of academic writing programs, the proliferation of subsidized magazines and presses, the emergence of a creative-writing career track, and the migration of American literary culture to the university — have unwittingly contributed to its disappearance from public view.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991)

“The habit of using ardent spirit, by men in public office, has occasioned more injury to the public service, and more trouble to me, than any other circumstance which has occurred in the internal concerns of the country, during my administration. And were I to commence my administration again, with the knowledge which from experience I have acquired, the first question which I would ask, with regard to every candidate for public office, should be, "Is he addicted to the use of ardent spirit?"”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Attributed by an unnamed "distinguished officer of the United States Government" in the Sixth Report of the American Temperance Society, May, 1833, pp. 10-11 http://books.google.com/books?id=h_c0wbAOQ5kC&pg=PA237&dq=%22The+habit+of+using+ardent+spirit%22.
Later variant: Were I to commence my administration again,... the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, "Does he use ardent spirits?"
Attributed

“The Court must not depart from those rules which have been considered necessary for the due administration of justice.”

Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale (1783–1851) British lawyer

Symonds v. The Gas Light and Coke Co. (1848), 11 Beav. 285.
Quote

“The idea of "full time administrators" is palpably a bad one — especially in schools — and we say to hell with it. Most of the "administration" of the school should be a student responsibility.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: Adminstrators are another curious consequence of a bureaucracy which has forgotten its reason for being. In schools, adminstrators commonly become myopic as a result of confronting all of the problems the "requirements" generate. Thus they cannot see (or hear) the constituents the system ostensibly exists to serve — the students. The idea that the school should consist of procedures specifically intended to help learners learn strikes many administrators as absurd — and "impractical." …Eichmann, after all, was "just an adminstrator." He was merely "enforcing requirements." The idea of "full time administrators" is palpably a bad one — especially in schools — and we say to hell with it. Most of the "administration" of the school should be a student responsibility. If schools functioned according to the democratic ideals they pay verbal allegience to, the students would long since have played a major role in developing policies and procedures guiding its operation. One of the insidious facts about totalitarianism is its seeming "efficiency." …Democracy — with all of its inefficiency — is still the best system we have so far for enhancing the prospects of our mutual survival. The schools should begin to act as if this were so.

“At the time of its initial publication, Public Administration helped to define this field of study and practice by introducing two major new emphases: an orientation toward human behavior and human relations in organizations, and an emphasis on the interaction between administration, politics, and policy. Without neglecting more traditional concerns with organization structure, Simon, Thompson, and Smithburg viewed administration in its behavioral and political contexts. The viewpoints they express still are at the center of public administration's concerns.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Book abstract, 1991
1940s-1950s, Public administration, 1950

“MAJOR URWICK and Dr. Metcalf have rendered a conspicuous service by editing this collection of Mary Follett’s lectures on business management. They contain teaching which was of importance when the lectures were delivered, and which many people felt should be preserved in a collated form and given a wider public. The circumstances of today have increased that importance. Many people are being called upon to fill new administrative posts, and these lectures teach the principles which should underly all administrative method.”

Seebohm Rowntree (1871–1954) British philanthropist industrialist and sociologist writer

Seebohm Rowntree, "Preface" to Mary Parker Follett with Henry C. Metcalf, and Lyndall Urwick (eds.). Dynamic administration: the collected papers of Mary Parker Follett. Harper & Brother Publishing, 1942

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