Woodrow Wilson and Public Administration

THIS year, 1956, in many parts of the world, in many universities, in many states and countries, in many cities, we are celebrating the iooth anniversary of the birth of a great American scholar, politician, administrator, and statesman, Woodrow Wilson. I think it is particularly appropriate for the American Society for Public Administration to play a part in this centennial celebration. And since no topic was assigned to me, I decided I would today pay my personal tribute to Mr. Woodrow Wilson. When the Public Administration Review was founded as the organ of this Society sixteen years ago, it was our purpose to start that journal with an acknowledgment of Mr. Wilson's leadership in our field. It was our purpose to begin Volume I, page i, with a certain essay. It was an essay first published in the second issue of the Political Science Quarterly of Columbia University, an essay written by Woodrow Wilson, a young instructor then engaged in teaching politics to girls at Bryn Mawr College. He entitled his essay, The Study of Administration. It is significant, I think, that while administration was then already being taught in a few American institutions of learning, this particular essay has often since that time been considered to be the very beginning of the study of the science of administration, as Mr. Wilson called it, and it also has inspired a great many who did not take that formal educational course but who learned to practice the art of administration. Let us remember that that essay was published in 1887. We desired to start the new