Knowledge that Transforms

There is perhaps no more remarkable phenomenon in the literature of economics than the paucity of general treatises in the English language on government finance. The only book of this kind by an English writer, Bastable's Public Finance, is scholarly, thorough, and comprehensive, but it has not been revised since I903, for the undergraduate student it is too densely packed with details of only antiquarian interest, it is heavy reading, and on matters of special concern to American students it is very often uncomprehending, almost always inadequate. Of American treatises, except the two which are the subject of this article, there are only two others. Of these the late H. C. Adams' Science of Finance was a landmark in the history of American literature in its field. It had the outstanding merits of originality, of power of analysis, and of maturity of thought. As a teaching text, however, it had the serious defect that it was excessively abstract in character, and took too much knowledge on the part of the reader for granted. It contained very little descriptive matter, even for illustrative purposes, and it made no attempt to describe the current financial practices and taxation methods of American governments. Moreover, it is now ten years since the latest edition was published, and too much has happened to government finance in the last decade to make anything but a post-war treatment suitable for the college instructor who wishes either to derive his general principles from a discussion of recent developments or to use accepted general principles in the explanation and appraisal of recent developments. The other American text, W. M. Daniels' Public Finance, was, for its purposes and within its set limits, excellent. It combined acute analytical power with a generous acquaintance and use of both the literature and the facts of government finance. Above all, it was written in a clear and highly read-