Viewing Government at Work

T HE Colgate University experiment in laboratory work in political science was projected in the spring of 1935 and was put into operation in September of the same year. Carrying out the general policy of the University regarding visual education and the laboratory approach to learning, a plan was developed which would give the students actual contact with government agencies through a real acquaintance with the administrative and legislative personnel of the national government. Under this plan a dozen Juniors were offered an opportunity to study political science in Washington for one semester under the supervision of a member of the Colgate staff. Twentyfour third-year students offered themselves for the experiment, and twelve of them were selected. These men were chosen upon the basis of their scholastic standing in high school, their standings in the general-science and the general-culture tests, and their intelligence quotients. They were required to have a standing of B or better in their first two years of work at Colgate. The recommendations of the faculty men who had served as their preceptors and tutors during their first and second years, respectively, were also considered, and only those men were chosen who had given evidence, at Colgate, of high scholastic purpose and ability to prosecute academic work upon their own initiative. The University sought to select those students who possessed both personal and temperamental qualities which would enable them to fit into the life and work of a group doing off-campus study in the national capital. This laboratory curriculum included public administration, political process, and Latin-American history. Credit of fifteen hours was given for the successful completion of the assigned work in these fields. Six hours of credit were given for public administration, six hours for political process, and three hours for LatinAmerican history. These three fields were considered in tandem fashion although it was necessary to overlap certain elements of the work due to the problem of appointments and conferences. Approximately six-weeks time was devoted to each of the first two fields and three weeks to the last. The work in administration, through the class and observational opportunities, gave the student a knowledge of the organization, the personnel, the

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