ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that American students of administration have elaborated theories of "Who should rule?" is an unnecessary labor. The notion that a skilled bureaucracy, particularly a highly competent administrative class, is a necessary "balance wheel" or "cambium layer"—the essential organ of a modern democracy—is quite common. The Administrator: Function and Virtues.—The Chairman of the President's Committee on Administrative Management, Louis Brownlow, has also meditated upon "The New Role of the Public Administrator". The Administrative Class can also be required to have had the benefit of a college education, without doing violence to democratic principles. Meriam is skeptical of training for public administration, as such, and he is skeptical of the value of cultural education for administrators. An "administrator" is a certain amount of natural talent, plus certain useful techniques, such as knowledge of statistics, plus training on the job.
