Science in Public Affairs 



the central government an initiative which can 

 never be expected from ordinary permanent 

 officials, however admirable, but which must be 

 given by the free play of scientific criticism, and 

 suggestion on the work of administration in its 

 largest and most general aspects. 



For, in the end, it is to the central government 

 that we must look for science in administration 

 for the deliberate selection of administrative objects 

 and the adaptation of means to secure them. 



But how is science to be imparted to adminis- 

 tration by the central government ? 



We cannot seriously look to the politicians. 

 Governments are not composed with an eye to 

 the scientific attainments of their members. If 

 we look back along the roll of British Prime 

 Ministers, we shall not find one who could be 

 said to have been chosen as the man in all the 

 kingdom most able to calculate and provide for 

 the general welfare of the people. A man does 

 not become Prime Minister on such grounds as 

 these. The task of forming a government falls to 

 him perhaps because he is the fitting instrument 

 of the nation's will in some enterprise on which 

 its heart is set an enterprise political, imperial, 

 ecclesiastical perhaps, and wholly remote from 

 all the administrative issues that determine the 

 life of the people. He may be chosen even on 

 less relevant grounds because he excels in the 

 gifts that make for Parliamentary success ; because 

 he has done great service to one of the parties 

 in the State ; or because he is the only man with 



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