XIII
THE TEACHING OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
Scope of political science
Certain phases of what is known as political science form to no small degree the content of courses in other branches of study. The engineering schools in their effort to set forth the regulation of public utilities with respect to engineering problems have begun to offer courses which deal extensively with politics and government. In political and constitutional history, considerable attention is given to the organization and administration of the various divisions of government. To a greater degree, however, the allied departments of economics and sociology have begun, in the development of their respective fields, to analyze matters which are primarily of a political nature. Especially in what is designated as applied economics and applied sociology there is to be found material a large part of which relates directly to the regulation and administration of governmental affairs. Thus in portions of the courses designated as labor problems, money and banking, public finance, trust problems, public utility regulation, problems in social welfare, and immigration, primary consideration is frequently given to government activities and to the influences and conditions surrounding government control.
While these courses, then, deal in part with subject matter which belongs primarily to the science of politics and while any comprehensive survey of instruction in political science would include an account of the phases of the subject presented in other departments, for the present purpose it has been advisable to limit the consideration of the teaching of political science to the subjects usually offered under that designation.[[40]] Some attention, however, will be given later to the relation of political science to allied subjects.
A difference of opinion exists as to the meaning of political science, some institutions using the term in a broad sense to embody courses offered in history, economics, politics, public law, and sociology, and others giving the word a very narrow meaning to include a few specialized courses in constitutional and administrative law. There is, nevertheless, a strong tendency to have the term "political science" comprise all of the subjects which deal primarily with the organization and the administration of public affairs.
Courses usually offered in political science
Through an exhaustive survey made by the Committee on Instruction of the American Political Science Association, covering instruction in political science in colleges and universities, the subjects which are usually offered may be indicated in two groups: