The papers brought together in this collection are essays by men scientifically interested in the phenomena of administration. Most of these writers did their thinking independently, in some cases without any acquaintance with the others, or with their writings. The striking similarity and harmony of the analyses, nomenclature, and hypotheses, frequently set forth as principles, is thus doubly significant. Few of these papers have been published or publicly circulated in such a way as to make them accessible to practical administrators, scholars, or students. The immediate occasion for this publication is the fact that no copies of the essential papers in this collection could be found in any library in Washington at the time when the President's Committee on Administrative Management required these documents for the use of members of its research staff. In considering the proper content of this volume and in securing the permission of the authors, or of their executors and heirs, for publication, it was only natural to draw into the enterprise as associate editor L. Urwick. His contributions speak for themselves...