SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 20, 1891. 



THE SCIENCE AND ART OF GOVERNMENT.' 



Government should be looked upon as the business agency 

 of the nation, and the science and art of government are the 

 science and art of conducting this business agency. The 

 various branches of administration have arisen through 

 pressure from witliout. Everything that the people have 

 demanded to be done with sufficient unanimity and persis- 

 tence has been eventually undenalien by the government. 

 One bureau after another has been created by law, placed in 

 charge of proper officers, and conducted to the best of the 

 latter's ability. Most bureaus have grown and expanded in 

 their scope and ussfulness. Many have been several times 

 reorganized and the service perfected. 



Although the various systems of administrative operation 

 have been largely empirical, devised by men who had little 

 preliminary preparation for the work, improved through the 

 growth and demands of the service, and brought to perfec- 

 tion by thoughtful study of the needs of the public in each 

 individual case, still the whole rests on a rational basis and 

 constitutes a great system of government. The general laws 

 and principles underlying this system constitute the sci- 

 ence of government. The carrying out of these laws and 

 principles is the art of government, and although, as in the 

 case of almost all the practical arts, it was empirically de- 

 veloped, there is no reason to doubt that it will be as greatly 

 improved and perfected by its reduction to a science and its 

 enlightened prosecution as such as all the other great indus- 

 trial arts have been since science has been applied to them. 



Among the most promising sources of advantage in the 

 scientific method is the comparative study of government 

 operations. While from a very broad point of view all gov- 

 ernment is the same, when viewed at all in detail the great- 

 est individual differences are found. Much of this diver- 

 sity grows out of the natural differences in the conditions of 

 nations, but fully as much is due to the differences in the 

 methods adopted to accomplish the same purpose. Amid all 

 these varying methods there must be great differences in 

 their efttciency. Some are coarse and clumsy, while others 

 are precise and refined. There are all the grades that exist 

 in the manifold mechanical devices of the otherarts, those 

 which are best being always those which have most thor- 

 oughly utilized natural forces, including the social forces. 



The scientific study of government would make the com- 

 parative study of methods a leading feature, with a view to 

 the recommendation of those which under all circumstances 

 are the very best. This is only one out of any required 

 number of illustrations that might be given of the superior- 

 ity of the scientific method in government. 



In the science of political economy the subject of govern- 

 ment operations is destined to occupy an increasingly prom- 

 inent place. It is safe to say that no chair of political econ- 

 omy in any institution of learning has ever taught or at- 

 tempted to teach the practical workings of public adminis- 



^ Kead before Section I of the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, at Washington, D.C., by Lester F. Ward, Aug. 20, 1891. 



tration — the way in which the business of a nation is 

 conducted. It is impossible to teach this branch of political 

 economy without the means of a direct examination of the 

 different systems of government business as they are con- 

 ducted by their respective bureaus. Each great syslem, 

 such as those of finance, land, patents, etc., would require a 

 course of lectures, with repeated visits to the departments, 

 inspection of records, books, papers, merchandise, etc. This 

 would require a legal right to prosecute the study in this 

 only practicable way. Nothing short of a national institu- 

 tion, created and authorized by law to teach the science and 

 art of government, could successfully carry out this scheme 

 of education. As a safeguard to our institutions, not less 

 than as means of national progress and enlightenment, no 

 other educational scheme is equal to it in importance. 



A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, ITS CHARACTER AND 

 PURPOSE.' 



The National University recommended by Washington, 

 Jefferson, Madison, and many later presidents and states- 

 men is almost certain to be realized in the near future. It is 

 the object of this paper to offer some hints as to what ought 

 to be its character and purpose. 



In the first place, it should be distinctly national, the 

 creature of the American people and devoted to their use and 

 needs. To this end it should he located at the seat of gov- 

 ernment and should be exclusively the product of the federal 

 government. It should also be in the fullest sense repre- 

 sentative, as is the government itself. Its scholarships should 

 be held entirely by .\mericans, and should be distributed 

 with local uniformity throughout the entire domain of the 

 United States.^ Recognizing the intellectual homogeneity of 

 the whole American people, it should have representatives 

 from every section of the country. This could probably 

 best be secured by allotting a given number of scholarships 

 to each congressional district on the basis of representation 

 as determined by the census enumeration. Candidates 

 should be admitted by competitive examination held by the 

 faculty or an examining board appointed by the faculty, to 

 be absolutely free from all political influence. As the intel- 

 lectual homogeneity of the American people relates to 

 capacity and not to attainment, in order to secure such uni- 

 versal representation, the university should be accompanied 

 by a preparatory department, and those who pass the exam- 

 ination for the university should have no advantage over 

 those who pass for the preparatory department, except that, if 

 a sufficient number pass for the former, examinations for the- 

 latter need not be held. Candidates who enter the prepara- 

 tory dep.artment should be given precedence over those from 

 the same district at the end of that course for admission to 

 the university. 



The faculty should be chosen by a commission consisting 

 of the most eminent scholars and scientific men in the coun- 

 try, who are entirely above personal and political bias, such, 

 for example, as the National Academy, the Board of Regents 



* Read before Section I of the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science at Washington, D.C., by Lester F. Ward, Aug. iO, 1891. 



