A Laboratory Method for Teaching Public Administration

Few American political scientists have heard of the “Federal Labor Relations Commission,” but to a small group of students at Stanford and Columbia Universities the Commission was very real. It is true that its work did not attract as much attention from the great metropolitan journals as did the operations of its rival, the National Labor Relations Board; but to the students who were members of its staff it provided a first-rate laboratory for the study of public administration. For that reason, a brief review of the Commission's operations may be of some interest to teachers of public administration.Political scientists have always been interested in teaching methods; and the war and the experience gained in having to train large numbers of men for the armed services seem to have stimulated that interest. Articles which appeared in the June issue of this Review were evidence of that concern. While these articles were directed primarily toward teaching methods in political science courses generally, many of the suggestions were particularly applicable to teaching public administration. Francis Wilcox's regret that “there is one problem in particular which should give us pause, our slowness to utilize laboratory methods in political science,” is largely responsible for this article, since the operations of the Federal Labor Relations Commission were an attempt to provide such a laboratory.