In Good Administration the artist depicts a noble female figure who holds an open book in her lap and in her hand a pair of scales, evenly balanced. She rests her left hand upon a shield, quartered to represent the even balance of parties and classes that should exist in a well-ordered democracy. On the shield are a weight, scales, and a rule, the emblems of a just government. The frame of her chair forms an arch, a construction where every stone performs an equal service, symbolic of the equal part that all should play in a democratic form of government. On the right a youth casts his ballot into a voting urn, his decision informed by the study of the books he carries under his arm. On the left a young girl winnows wheat into another voting urn so that the good grains fall into its mouth, while the chaff is scattered by the wind, an action symbolic of the care with which a people should elect its public servants. In the background a field of wheat is symbolic of prosperous and careful toil and intelligent and virtuous government.