Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/94

90 economists to direct national operations. On the other hand, our economists themselves are becoming more and more worthy of such trusts. The inductive study of their science brings them into closer contact with men and with enterprises. By this means they become students of administration as well as of economics. They realize the value of individual effort as well as the limitations which bound all sorts of executive work, in a republic. "Only a few years ago," writes a correspondent, "the teachers of economics were far more generally unfavorable critics of government work which interested them. They have become more and more disposed to cooperate at the beginning rather than to condemn at the end. Just as economics has taken a more kindly and hospitable attitude towards politics, so similarly has it towards business, as illustrated in the rapid rise of courses in commerce." The demand for trained economists in public affairs is 'compelling the teachers of economics more and more to seek contact with the men who are grappling face to face with economic problems.'

The relation of economic theory to administration is a subject on which there is much diversity of opinion. It is claimed by able authority that "Economic science, by becoming ultra-theoretical, has come into far closer touch with practical life than it ever attained before. Laws, the statement of which seems like a refinement of theory, determine the kind of legislation required on the most practical of subjects." On another hand, it is claimed by high authority that our country must have its own political economy. "The generalizations arising solely from the uniformity of human nature are so few that they can not constitute a science. The classical or orthodox Political Economy of England was conditioned from start to finish by the political problems it had to face. We are only beginning to acquire our national independence."

Still another view is that "all that has been achieved in the field of economics that is of any value, has been the result of logical analysis applied to the phenomena and experiences of every-day industrial life. The stages of past development can be determined and interpreted only in the light of this analysis. The lesson which the historical economist has never learned, is the importance of that principle, which lies at the bottom of the whole modern theory of evolution, and which was made use of by Lyell and Darwin, namely, the principle that historical changes of the past are to be accounted for by the long continued action of causes which are at this present moment in operation and can be observed and measured at the present day." "This," says my correspondent, "needs saying and resaying, until it is burned into the minds of all students of economics."

The recent progress of economics in America has lain in part in the development of economic theory by critical and by constructive methods. An important reason for welcoming the exact and critical study of economic theory is this: In the promulgation of imaginary