Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/276

 or the courts—but by allof them. If the legislature constructs the law properly, there is a chance that the administration and the interpretation of the courts will be good. But if the legislation is wrong in the beginning, there is no chance for any other body to rectify it to any degree. So the suggestion is simply this: we must build behind the legislature a body of comparative law and experience to demonstrate how these laws may be better made. To accomplish this we need the architectural department which has been described in the preceding chapter.

This mass of comparative data cannot be properly built up unless our law schools, our political science and economic departments, coöperate so that we may study the principles of statute law, of legislative procedure, and the whole machinery of law-making. Our schools must go even further than this; they must study scientifically the whole question of administration. In the diagram on page 251, "A" must accompany "B." Our administrative bodies must be based upon solid principles and to thoroughly understand these principles of administration, we must study and-discuss them. The establishment of the "Training school for public service" in New York City, connected with the "Bureau of municipal research," is an example of what may be done in this field. The time has passed when political scientists only talk of these things; they must be studied close at