Academics’ Participation In Public Service As Govenrment Experts During The Progressive Era In The United States,1900-1920

During the Progressive Era of the early20century, a new phenomenonappeared in American politics, that is, a large number of professional academics suchas university professors left their campuses and participated in public service asgovernment experts. This phenomenon became increasingly wide-spread andconspicuous as the Progressive reforms were developing throughout the country.After the United Stated entered WWI in1917, academics’ participation in publicservice reached a level which had never been seen.The reason for university academics’ participation in public service asgovernment experts at the beginning of the20thcentury lies in two historical factors.For one thing, a profound reform of higher education had taken place around theyear1870in America, which is commonly called the “Higher Education Revolution”by later scholars. The revolution not only contributed to the rise of American modernresearch universities, but also resulted in the specialization and professionalization ofacademic life, which made the university faculty truly professional academics.Driven by their sense of the social responsibility and their ideal of service, universityacademics were willing to come out of the ivory tower and take part in the public lifeby serving governments with their expertise. For another thing, the Post-bellumAmerica had undergone a great social transformation as a result of industrializationand urbanization, which led to various technical difficulties as well as serious socialproblems. It was progressive reformers’ belief that all these new problems of the“Industrial-Urban” Society couldn’t be resolved by the common sense, moraljudgment or legal knowledge under the traditionally weak governments of the“Agrarian Republic”. Thus, these reformers advocate strong governments as well asefficient governance relying on the expertise provided by university acadmics.Not surprisingly, when the Progressive reforms were launched at state,municipal and federal levels, more and more university academics began toparticipate in public service through different channels. At the state level, Wisconsintook the lead in the partnership and cooperation between the state government and the University of Wisconsin which was quickly known as a model for other states inthe name of “Wisconsin Idea”. Meanwhile, municipal reforms took place inAmerican large cities such as New York City, Chicago, etc. In these cities, universityacademics not only served their municipal governments as individual experts, butalso organized themselves into non-governmental expert organizations to provideadvice for the reforms at the municipal level. Such a non-governmental expertorganization was first founded in New York City and soon had its transplantedcounterparts in more than50cities all over the country. As for the academics’participation in public service as government experts at the federal level, it began totake place in Washington during Theodore Roosevelt’s administrations, and lasted inthe years of Taft and Wilson as the presidents of the United States. Most academicexperts served the federal government in the fields of science, technology,economical regulation, and foreign affairs until WWI. Under the pressure of thewar-time emergency, much more university academics were involved in much widerareas of public service which could hardly be imagined during the peace timeTo be sure, university academics such as professors actively participated inpublic service during the Progressive Era from1900to1920by assistinggovernments to resolve various kinds of political, economic, social problems andeven those problems related to the War. Their participation and assistance not onlycontributed to the improvement of national governance and administrative efficiencyin the process of modern state building, but also realized the social value ofspecialized higher learning and enhanced the social status of American highereducation and university professors. However, such academics participation inpublic service as experts also had its negative outcomes in several repscts such as thefailure to pay enough attention to common folk’s thinking. More importantly, weshould not overestimate academic experts’ actual role and their influence inAmerican politics. After all, the university academics serving as government expertsonly performed technical, advisory or administrative functions, which kept them acertain distance away from the center of political power. Therefore, academics’participation in public service as government experts cannot be equated with what isdescribed in the well-known theory of “Technocracy”.