Better municipal administration will come when the people awaken to the need of it. As Dr. Goodnow in his “Politics and Administration” (which in a way is an outgrowth of the National Municipal League's work on the Municipal Program) said in regard to the use of permanent experts in the higher posts of the public service, “That this can be accomplished by any changes in the law may, perhaps, be doubted. That it will be accomplished so soon as an educated and intelligent public demands it, is a moral certainty.”

The League is an active agency in the betterment of American municipal administration in that it is directly and particularly engaged in creating “an educated and intelligent public” in the matter of municipal government. From the beginning of its activities in 1894 it has sought to promote a more general interest in municipal questions and especially in their political and administrative aspects.