Charles A. Beard
30 quotes
Biography
"What hope lies anywhere save in the widest freedom to inquire and expound — always with respect to the rights and opinions of others? As my friend, James Harvey Robinson, once remarked, the conservative who imagines that things will never change is always wrong; the radical is nearly always wrong too, but he does insure some slight risk of being right in his guess as to the direction of evolution. It is in silence, denial, evasion and suppression that danger really lies, not in open and free analysis and discussion ... everywhere there seems to be a fear of reliance upon that ancient device so gloriously celebrated by John Milton three hundred years ago — the device of unlimited inquiry. Let us put aside resolutely that great fright, tenderly and without malice, daring to be wrong in something important rather than right in some meticulous banality, fearing no evil while the mind is free to search, imagine, and conclude, inviting our countrymen to try other instruments than coercion and suppression in the effort to meet destiny with triumph, genially suspecting that no creed yet calendared in the annals of politics mirrors the doomful possibilities of infinity."
"If this statement by Judge Cooley is true, and the authority for it is unimpeachable, then the theory that the Constitution is a written document is a legal fiction. The idea that it can be understood by a study of its language and the history of its past development is equally mythical. It is what the Government and the people who count in public affairs recognize and respect as such, what they think it is. More than this. It is not merely what it has been, or what it is today. It is always becoming something else and those who criticize it and the acts done under it, as well as those who praise, help to make it what it will be tomorrow."
"The scientific method is only a method. Dreams, plans, purposes, and collective will must come from the human mind and heart. Where they exist, science can discover the facts that condition realization and furnish instrumentalities for carrying plan and purpose into effect. Science without dreams is sterile. Dreams without research and science are empty. The deed of ignorance is perilous; deedless information is futile. United, idea and deed may create a civilization. A revolution in thought is at hand, a revolution as significant as the Renaissance: the subjection of science to ethical and esthetic purpose. Hence the next great survey undertaken in the name of the social sciences may begin boldly with a statement of values agreed upon, and then utilize science to discover the conditions, limitations, inventions, and methods involved in realization."
"If I were compelled to state in a single sentence the most significant contribution of our movement to modern civilization, I should say that it is the application of the idea of continuous and experimental research, found so effective in economic enterprise, to the business of public administration intimately and in a deep-thrusting sense, a contribution to the processes by which modern mankind is striving with all its resources to emancipate itself from the tyranny of rules of thumb and the blind regimen of nature, becoming conscious of its destiny as an all conquering power."
"The word science of administration has been used. There are many who object to the term. Now if by science is meant a conceptual scheme of things in which every particularity coveted may be assigned a mathematical value, then administration is not a science. In this sense only astro-physics may be called a science and it is well to remember that mechanical laws of the heavens tell us nothing about the color and composition of the stars and as yet cannot account for some of the disturbances and explosions which seem accidental. If, on the other hand, we may rightly use the term science in connection with a body of exact knowledge derived from experience and observation, and a body of rules or axioms which experience has demonstrated to be applicable in concrete practice, and to work out in practice approximately as forecast, then we may, if we please, appropriately and for convenience, speak of a science of administration. Once, when the great French mathematician, Poincaré, was asked whether Euclidean geometry is true, he replied that the question had no sense but that Euclidean geometry is and still remains the most convenient. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that a science is, among other things, a particular branch of knowledge or study; a recognized department of learning."
"The administrator is more like the engineer who constructs a power plant, that is, he is concerned with the realization of conscious human purposes by the conscious use of human beings and materials. It is true that the mere student of administration may be just an observer, but he does not merely observe natural, unconscious, and automatic operations. He observes the formulation of human purposes, consciously and deliberately and operations designed to effect given results. And he sees calculations of results in advance realized later in practice with a high degree of approximation. The degree of approximation between advance calculations and results is not often, if ever, as exact as in the case of a hydro-electric plant, but it is constantly exact enough for practical purposes."
"In other words, there are in administration things analogous to, if not identical with, the mechanical tracts or deterministic sequence, of physics. If, for example, it is decided by government to accomplish the purpose of providing compensation at given rates for men and women employed in industry who sustain injuries in connection with their occupations, the administrator can, like the engineer, estimate in advance the probable cost of such a design, indicate the types of officers and employees necessary to administer the design, and the administrative procedures appropriate to the whole process from beginning to end. And, as in the case of the hydro-electric engineer, the administrator, later sees the results of his operations and can compare them with his advance estimates. There are more variables and incalculables in human affairs than in hydroelectric affairs, but even so administration achieves pre-determined results with an approximation which is often amazing for its exactness. If administrative designs and estimates were not realized in practice with a high degree of exactness, both industry and government would collapse."
"And if the experience of natural science is any guide, then as the science of administration advances, we may reasonably expect it to take on an increasingly deterministic character. As research, scientific societies, and the exchanges of knowledge and hypotheses by natural scientists have advanced the exactness of knowledge in the domain of natural science, so we may expect research, administrative societies, and the exchanges among administrators to advance the exactness of knowledge in the domain of administration."
"Already, we may truly say, we have an enormous body of exact and usable knowledge in the domain of administration. It would be easy to list thousands of volumes and articles on the subject, from the hands of high competence. I have seen this body of literature grow from a few items in 1898 to an enormous mass in 1939. During this period I have seen the number of research workers increase from a mere handful to hundreds. This is a fact also, at least for informed and competent persons. During this period the opportunities for life work in administration have multiplied many times. I dare say, though I shall not try to prove it, that the body of exact literature in administration is many times larger than the body of exact literature in natural science when Bacon, Galileo, and Newton, began the revolution in natural science three hundred years ago. During this same period I have seen the number of societies and organizations among administrators, local and general, increase from nothing to fifty or sixty."
"This body of administrative literature can be taught to young men and women; perhaps also to the aged, if they are not hopeless. And it is possible by tests to discover whether or how far the process of communicating and imparting administrative knowledge has been successful, [although] not precisely in all cases. Moreover, and this is highly important, young men and women who have more or less mastered the principles, maxims, and axioms of administrative science can now, by what is called in-training, fortify their formal knowledge by living experiences in and with administration. There is, then, a science of administration, in the sense in which I have used the term, and it can be taught, learned, and used."
"All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."
"All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."
"All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."
"When it is dark enough you can see the stars."
"It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
"American government did not originate in any abstract theories about liberty and equality, but in the actual experience gained by generation after generation of English colonists in managing their own political affairs. The Revolution did not make a breach in the continuity of their institutional life."
"It would indeed be a sad misfortune if man were released from the necessity of work and struggle, for it is a well-known fact that organs which do not function atrophy; and according to the old saying, 'Idleness is the devil's workshop.'"
"The crowning feature of the federal system is the supremacy of the judiciary over all other branches of government in matters relating to the rights of persons and property."
"The Industrial Revolution has two phases: one material, the other social; one concerning the making of things, the other concerning the making of men."
"When its dark enough you can see the stars."
"When it is dark enough you can see the stars."
"When it is dark enough you can see the stars."
"When it is dark enough you can see the stars."
"When it is dark enough you can see the stars."
"When it is dark enough you can see the stars."