The question of training for administrative posts in the Public Service gives rise to certain questions regarding administration in general, and public administration in particular. What do we mean by administration? Does public administration differ from private administration? What qualities are necessary to make a good public administrator? Can training aid in the development of these qualities? If so, what form should it take? And how can it best be given?
“Administration” has been defined as “the performance of the executive duties of an institute or business”; and “public administration” as “the activities of the executive departments in the conduct of government.” “Executive duties” as related to public administration have again been defined as “pertaining to the execution of the country's laws,” and for the purpose of this discussion, we can perhaps agree that the public administration which we have in mind consists of the carrying out of the law in the various departments of government.
Are there fundamental differences between this form of administration and that which prevails in private business? There are at least certain distinctive elements in each. In industry the profit motive is a much more important factor than it is in government. Similarly the question of remuneration bulks more largely in private industry than it does in public administration. While the old conception of a post in the Public Service as “a job for life and a pension afterward” may have passed away, the financial rewards at present attached to administrative positions in the Public Service are not such as to render the public administrator subject to what Seneca speaks of as the most fertile source of human sorrow, namely, great possessions. A public servant, on the other hand, must be much more responsive to public opinion than his counterpart in industry. He must not only carry out a policy but must sense whether or not that policy meets with public approval. He is subject at all times to public criticism and to investigations as to his acts, and this factor has a determining effect upon his methods of administration to a greater degree than exists in industry.
