Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/217

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ADMINISTRATION
193

versity to teach administration of this kind, teach not only the accounting principles of it, but the formulation of the legal basis of it, the relations of the jurisprudence and the statute law, and the entire methodical and scientific standardization of efficiency methods. What will work in business will work in the state, if applied with true knowledge of political science.

Expert help in administration should be freely recognized and men trained for it in our colleges should be used in our government. The state of Wisconsin has frankly recognized the expert in all these matters and is trying to persuade bright young men from the graduate schools of the university to do voluntary work in the study of these different departments, so that they may be prepared to fill their places in this new service for government. This does not mean a change in the making of the law nor the domination of legislation—it merely means that there is a capable servant at hand to carry out the decree of the people in an efficient manner.

Granted that the legislature is fearless and honest and fully able to control the most powerful commission, the question of regulation resolves itself into a half-dozen concrete, vital elements,—the accountant, the statistician, the actuary, the chemist, red blood and a big stick.