A FIRST TEXT Book pol PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION While Woodrow Wilson provided the ratimale publie administratian to be n academic disapline and professional specialty, it remained for leonard D White(18a dearly preliminary objectives. A US Civil service ommissioner from in white spent mast of his career at the University of Chicagu In the pref to his pioneering lo2ti bonk of Pullie Administration, the first xt in the field, he noted iour assumptions that formed the basis for the study of public administration(l) administration is a unitary process an be studied uniformly, at the federal, state, and local levels, (2) the basis for study is managem not law(3) administration is still an art, but the ideal of transformance to a science is both feasible and worthwhile and(4) the recognition that administration"has become, and will continue to be the heart of the problem of modern government' Reprinted here is the preface and first chapter from Whiles 1926 book, which, through four decades and four editions, became one of the most influential of public administration text White's text was remarkable for its resuaint in not taking a prescriptive cookbook approach to public administration. He recognized that public administration was above all a field of study that had to stay close to reality--the reality of its largely untrained practitioner base that still professed great belief in the art of administration. Even more unteresting, his work avoided the potential pitfall of the politics- administration dichotomy Defining public administration as emphasizing the managerial phase, he left unanswered"the question[of to what extent the administration itself participates in formulating the purposes of the state and avoided any controversy as to the precise nature of administrative action.