This volume includes perspectives on public service selected from six decades of major public administration journals. Recurring themes include: motivations to enter the public service, positive and negative images of public servants and of government, conflicts between loyalty to the organization and loyalty to the public, morale, burnout, and turnover. The volume also includes cross-national analyses of the public service in other systems, proposals for rethinking public service systems,and questions as to the future of the public service. It recaptures a long, continuing debate as to the health of the public service, and in so doing suggests agendas for university research and administrative action.