Norman Thomas yesterday criticized the projected Graduate School of Public Administration because it would only train men for minor administrative posts. That's half of a good point.

For the jobs in the civil service and in public administration of all kinds are at present, on the whole, minor and limited. The scope provided by most such jobs would not lure any man of education; the salaries paid would not even recompense the holders for the cost of their graduate work.

In this respect, the success of the new school will depend largely on the reversal of the spoilsiation of the permanent administrative parts of government. Training for this sort of public service will be wasted if the opportunities for a career are as limited as they are now.

But when Norman Thomas started talking about the need, not of trained men in the government, but of men who could answer the questions: "What is the government for, and what are the motives of its officers?" he was descending into the realms where Poppycock is King. If that were the need in government, any professor of Government would be a good President, any man who was full of sound and theory.

As a matter of fact, if that were so, Norman Thomas would be a good President, which of course reduces the matter to absurdity.