teachers, mail carriers, stenographers, engravers, brick layers, paper makers, printers, book binders, and a score of other occupations employing in the United States service nearly 300,000 persons. These persons are employed by the government because of the facility and skill with which they do certain kinds of work. They have nothing to do with the policy of the government. It makes no more difference to the government what the political theories of the ship builder are if he can build ships than it makes to us whether our shoemaker is a Democrat or a Republican. We require him to make shoes and do it well, and then he may vote as he likes so far as we are concerned. Such persons are called civil servants or servants of the state. In most civilized countries they are regarded as practically permanent after they have once been appointed, as much so as are our judges or our school teachers where the schools are well organized. They may exercise all the normal functions of citizens without fear of being disturbed in their occupations; but they recognize of course that among the normal functions of the citizen is not included what PRESIDENT CLEVELAND called "offensive partisanship."

We have viewed the organization of the public administration from the citizen thru the representative assembly and the head of the organization downward to the civil servants. It may now be profitable to glance at the structure from the civil servants upward. Suppose there are fifty thousand permanent employees of some political unit such as the City of New York or the State of Connecticut. These fifty thousand persons are en

gaged in all the various kinds of work mentioned above. Their work goes steadily on from year to year and decade to decade just as if administrations did not change. The chemist makes his analyses, the draftsman perfects his charts, the biologist dissects his specimens, the engineer surveys his problems, the criminologist studies his charges; all go on as steadily as does the research of the private scholar.

But the policies of the government are constantly changing; and it is necessary for the change of public policy, the new direction given to it, to be reflected in the conduct of the departments of public endeavor in which these permanent servants (I use the word in its highest sense) are engaged. We look from the biologist in the bureau of entomology in the department of agriculture up to the newly-selected head of the administration, who represents the majority of the representative assembly. This assembly has been elected possibly under a mandate to give a new direction to the work of the department of agriculture; and it is the duty of the head of the administration to obey that mandate. He wishes to impress the public will upon the bureau of entomology, but he has ten or a dozen other departments which are also important. He cannot give all of his time to this one, yet he is responsible to the state or the city for the conduct of this one. There remains for him to multiply himself as the representative of public opinion. His work is political, not scientific or mechanical as is that of the civil servants. duty is to bring the public will to bear on the administrative departments. He must appoint political aides who

His

in sympathy with his views of the public mandate will bring him into relation with the departments, each of these aides being appointed the head of one department, and, if the department be large, give several assistants, who are also political or policy directing officials.

The astounding ignorance of this principle which prevails in many of our states, cannot be better indicated than by citing the fact that these heads of departments, whose sole function must be to bring the work of the departments into line with the policies of the administration, are elective, independent of the head of the administration, and therefore more likely to work confusion than efficiency. Such an organization of a state is what is called, in common parlance, the long ballot; and its antithesis, expressing the principle which we have been discussing, has been dubbed for purposes of propaganda, the short ballot.

In conclusion, then, our principle of administration may be summed up as follows: The administration should have an actual head, one person, who is conspicuously responsible; this head should not be popularly elected, but should be the leader of a majority of the legislative assembly. He should appoint all heads of departments and such assistants to these heads as are needed to bring him into intelligent co-operation with the departments. The civil servants who really constitute the departments should be permanently engaged, but should be easily removable for cause without appeal to courts, which appeal would imply some sort of proprietorship in their positions.

It is possible even in the schools to

substitute for the mere description of government s method in which a limited number of principles, generally accept by the advocates of conservative political reform, may be made the basis of instruction and the descriptive facts of present constitutional arrangements treated as illustrative of these principles? No one would maintain that such a principle as has been outlined in this paper is accepted by everyone as finally demonstrated, like a mathematical proposition, but it may be maintained that such a principle would give to a class a basis for intelligent discussion and difference of opinion and would make it possible to develop in the mind of the pupil some processes of political thought which might remain with him after all the facts of government which he learned for examination had departed with his mathematics and his irregular verbs.

If a high school boy is taught, as is often the case in good schools, that government grows out of the conditions of the community, as it does; that our government has certain characteristics which are exceedingly objectionable to all good citizens, is it the case; that our government is characterized by a system of separation of powers which has never been anything more than a plague to our institutions; and if he is then given no introduction to a philosophy which may lead him to think soberly enough about the basic principles of government to see that we might evolve a system out of our present conditions which would throw aside this superstition of the separation of powers, is he not likely to become pessimistic and indifferent as a result of his political education? Is he not likely to look upon politics as something that the busy man

must put up with as he does with the other results of weak human nature?

The instruction begins with a description of a business corporation such as a railroad. The interest of the stockholders is explained; then the function of a board of directors as the representative, single-chambered legislature of the corporation. It is made clear that the railroad business is extremely simple as compared with the affairs of a state or city; but that the selection of an efficient head is still

difficult enough. The administrative The administrative head of such a corporation is selected by this representative single chamber and is given complete control of the business as long as his services are retained. He is permitted to select all his subordinates; is encouraged to lead the directors in legislation if his force of will and character and his store of information are sufficient to enable him to do so. In fact, under the general management of such a man as PRESIDENT UNDERWOOD, of the Erie Railroad, the board of directors seems to be not much more than an observing and a safeguarding body.

From the private corporation we go to the discussion of the commissionmanager plan of city government. The evolution of the plan is outlined. It is shown that the commission plan worked well enough at first when the broom was new and civic enthusiasm in Galveston and Des Moines at a high pitch; but that after the abnormal conditions had passed and life had flattened out, it was necessary to find a normal method of governing cities. The citizens of a municipality are its stockholders, they elect a board of directors large enough to be fairly representative of the composite in

terests of the whole city, and the directors (the commission) select a general manager and turn the city over to him for as long as he can retain their confidence. He is permitted to appoint his subordinates, more or less hampered by what we call civil service rules.

This reference to the merit system of civil service protection makes it necessary to recognize that Jacksonian Democracy brought into our government a sort of plague called the spoils system, which took deep root in a country which did not respect efficiency of any kind; a country living on the fat of new lands with inexhaustible natural resources; a country in which the orator and the general held a higher place in public esteem than the engineer, the accountant, and the chemist. In order to get rid of the relics of Jacksonian Democracy it was necessary to set up a wall of protection around public servants which has served to protect the incapable with the capable, the disloyal with the faithful; and it is rapidly becoming apparent that if the chief of the administration is selected as he should be, and given the responsibility and power he should have, much of civil service red tape may be unwound, and the administration may be given power to remove those who would as parasites abuse public confidence. The manager of a city should have a means of removing any public servant in his city, very much as the manager of the railroad may. If he cannot, then he cannot be held responsible for the efficient administration of the affairs of the city.

Next, it is unfortunately necessary to bring to the attention of the student

IN the midst of the rush of preparations for departure from Paris to take up the work assigned to me among the Poilus, I found time for a long anticipated interview with M. Emile Boutroux, the distinguished French scholar and educator. I located him at the Foundation Thiers. In order to find entrance to the Institution one must manipulate a brass handle which advertises its own mission by the side of the great iron gate opening into the spacious grounds. By this action a bell is rung in the lodge, the tinkle of which is quickly followed by the click of the latch as the door is unlocked permitting the visitor to step within the enclosure.

Using my recently acquired conversational powers, I readily made myself understood to the faithful custodian of the portal who affirmed that it would be impossible for me to see M. Boutroux before six o'clock which meant a delay of about two hours of most precious time. She was finally persuaded to take my letter of introduction to the study and in a few minutes returned with gracious bows and smiles and with the enclosing information that M. Boutroux would see me at once.

With characteristic French politeness and with a sincere cordiality the savant welcomed me into his library. He is rather slight in build, has iron-gray hair and mous tache, moves about with nervous energy and has the traditional stoop of the scholar. Most amiably

he complimented me on my familiarity with his native language and proceeded to communicate in choice French. As my vocabulary had been exhausted after the first few sentences of formal greeting we soon reached an agreement that English should be the official language of the interview.

Taking as his text an editorial reference in an American magazine with which we were both familiar, M. Boutroux was soon launched on a most earnest dissertation on the German idea of liberty and government. He has spent much time in Germany and has made a thorough study of German history, literature and philosophy. His conclusion is that it is not only true that the Prussian machine has imposed itself upon the German people but that the people themselves have a strong predilection toward Prussian theories and practices. He thus explains the fact that all the states of the Empire are so united in the present struggle. "Luther," said he "may fairly be taken as the spokesman of the people. He expressed the real thought and purpose of his race prior to the extension of the Prussian rule. His belief was that princely classes ruled by divine right. They represented the will of the Almighty upon earth and were to be so regarded by the people of all other classes. On the other hand we find in the philosophy of Calvin the diametrically opposite theory, namely that God never appointed vice-regents to represent Him among men but