E ARE all too busy in the modern world
to be sensible or deliberate. We get too
hot and bothered by events, and pres-
sures, and ambitions, most of which have little
significance. For this reason I propose today to
take a long look at our profession, with its
practices and theories, and sketch out, if I can,
the next lines of development we may expect
and reach for in the field of public administra-
tion.
Our world differs from the world of one
hundred years ago in three important ways.
First, the number of human beings has vastly
increased, and the rate of increase has been
speeded up. Second, science and technology
not only can give us the food and material re-
sources to support this population increase
with rising standards of living; they have also
so broken down the barriers of time and space
and so increased the drain upon unevenly dis-
tributed resources that no humans can live
from now on in isolation. And finally, these
forces are producing a cultural accommoda-
tion by means of which mankind will probably
escape a self-destruction of the proportions
which inspired the mythical story of Noah and
the ark.
Government is the most important single
element in this new culture because it is the
jural, social order (locally, regionally, and in-
ternationally) through which alone willful,
strong, and selfish men can live together coop-
eratively. Only through government will the
disturbers be drawn or forced to keep the
peace locally and on a global basis.
Since "public administration" is the science
and art of governmental systems, operation,
and service, particularly on the managerial
NoTE: This article was a luncheon address at the
annual conference of the American Society for Public
Administration, March 18, 1955.
side, we need make no apology for the state-
ment that public administration is an essential
ingredient of the new culture, without which
mankind, as we know it, will not long survive
on this planet. This recognition is a sobering
fact, because we all recognize how much is to
be learned and done before we can say with
any confidence that we have built an adequate
ark for the human race!
However, the flood is upon us.
Under these conditions it is surely not a mis-
take to devote this session of our convention to
looking soberly into the future to see how we
may help to make public administration more
adequate to the task that lies ahead.
As we look at the art and science of public
administration today, it seems to me that there
are five forward steps that need to be taken for
the sake of the future. I venture to state these
in the following terms.
1. Public administration as a field of action
needs to be more closely adapted to changing
human requirements, particularly in three
areas of spectacular development; the interna-
tional, the economic, and the metropolitan. I
will come back to these in a moment.
2. Public administration as a field of analy-
sis and understanding needs to be more closely
related to the study of business and other ad-
ministration.
3. For the next decade, at least, public ad-
ministration needs to bring the problem of
personnel into the center of its attention as
never before.
4. Public administration must accept and
move forward with the new opportunities of
automation.
5. Public administration must reexamine
and reformulate its doctrine and practice with
reference to the use and control of the expert
in public as well as private management