The first thing to observe is that, in any very large organization,
and above all in a great state, officials and legislators are usually
very remote from those whom they govern, and not imaginatively
acquainted with the conditions of life to which their decisions will
be applied. This makes them ignorant of much that they ought to know,
even when they are industrious and willing to learn whatever can be
taught by statistics and blue-books. The one thing they understand
intimately is the office routine and the administrative rules. The
result is an undue anxiety to secure a uniform system. I have heard
of a French minister of education taking out his watch, and remarking,
"At this moment all the children of such and such an age in France are
learning so and so." This is the ideal of the administrator, an ideal
utterly fatal to free growth, initiative, experiment, or any far
reaching innovation. Laziness is not one of the motives recognized in
textbooks on political theory, because all ordinary knowledge of human
nature is considered unworthy of the dignity of these works; yet we
all know that laziness is an immensely powerful motive with all but a
small minority of mankind.
Unfortunately, in this case laziness is reinforced by love of power,
which leads energetic officials to create the systems which lazy
officials like to administer.
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