The staff officer must be kept in his place. But this does not mean that he must be kept down, that he must be discouraged, that his initiative and i… - Marshall E. Dimock

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.

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.

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.