Institute Notes and News
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1939.tb03029.x |
| Date | 01 January 1939 |
| Published date | 01 January 1939 |
Institute Notes
and
News
Birmingham
and
West
Midlands Regional Group
Lord Stamp, this year’s President of the Institute, gave the opening address
of
the new session
on
October 18th. The title of his address was
I‘
Is
Public
Administration
a
Science or an
Art?”
Many people, Lord Stamp said, asserted that public administration is not
a
separate organic coherent science.
It
is, they argued,
a
collection of bits of other
subjects lying within
or
special to particular areas or functions-bits of constitu-
tional law, of history, of Government machinery and practice, of legal procedure
and rights, of medicine, engineering, and accountancy,
of
psychology-all
of
which
an
administrator ought to
know.
But there are administrators doing work with
more
or
less success at various costs
in
money and people and degrees of friction
or
satisfaction.
Referring to the
“
intractable, impalpable, elusive personal factor,” Lord
Stamp
said that dealings with men and women and their co-operation were the central
dynamic of administration and the least sciensc. The idea that leadership and
administration could not be taught save by experience would die hard because
experience showed it
to
be
so
largely true.
“
Leaders are born, not made.”
It
was clear that several factors must continue to keep administration, however
many techniques it might be handling, in the realm of art. There was
a
con-
tinuous process of adjustment to changing outside factors, unknown, often unseen,
which must defy generalisation
or
classification.
If
they studied the achievements of great administrators, they would probably
find they were artists, relying on their individuality, more than careful gatherers
of highest common factors. Most of them succeeded in spite of glaring faults.
But most
of
them had the power and pluck
of
decision, right or wrong, and most
were
so
kind that they won,
or
so
brutal that they scared men into action and
co-operation.
On
November 16th,
Mr.
J.
R.
J.
Passmore, Chief Inspector of Training
at
the
Ministry
of
Labour, spoke
on
training schemes for the unemployed.
He
described
the three branches of training-local, instructional and Government training
centres. Mr. Passmore summed up his own view of the achievements in this field
by saying
:
-
‘‘
On the whole,
I
think we can say that this effort, while in relation to the
total volume
of
unemployment may not be very big, has made some dent
in
that problem, and has,
in
any
case,
been
worth
while.”
Subscriptions
for
1939.-It will be
a
help and an economy
if
members will send
their subscriptions, now due for
1939,
to the office of the Institute (using the form
distributed with this number of the Journal) and not wait to receive personal
reminders.
Southern Rhodesia Regional Croup.-The formation of
a
branch
of
the tnstitute
in Bdawayo
is
under consideration. Mr.
H.
Holden, Chairman
of
the Southern
All
human successes must
start
as
art.
114
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