exigencies not allowing time to hold a competitive examination, and there is occasionally a place demanding such peculiar qualifications. that not more than one person can be found ready to be examined for it. There are also a few places closely analoguous to those which should be exempted wholly from examinations for which an open competition is hardly appropriate. Pass-examinations are, in fact, a sort of intermediate stage between a partisan patronage or Spoils System and a Merit System of office. When, more than forty years ago, the Spoils System and mere recommendations had become intolerable in Great Britain, the first step toward reform was a limited system of mere pass-examinations. Attention has been called to the fact that in 1853, our Congress, for the same reasons, sought relief from like abuses by a law requiring pass-examinations, Formerly boys intended for any branch of the public service had no motive to exert themselves, because, however idle they might be, they were certain to get an appointment. Now, from their earliest years, boys know that their future depends upon themselves, and a new spirit of activity has supervened. * * * All this has led to a great improvement in the efficiency of the administrative service." The aristocratic classes, with many honorable exceptions, opposed the introduction of the merit system on the same ground that they opposed popular education at the public expense; that is, that both would weaken their means of controlling the Government, at the same time that they would give greater opportunities and influence to the sons and daughters of the common people. * * In a volume of official papers issued by the British Government in 1855, when the subject of introducing examinations was under consideration, it is declared that "the encouragement given to education would no doubt be great, but it will all be in favor of the lower classes of society and not of the higher. Appointments now conferred on young men of aristocratic connection will fall into the hands of a much lower grade in society. Such a measure will exercise the happiest influence on the education of the lower classes throughout England, acting by the surest of all motives, the desire a man has for bettering himself in life." The volume shows that the examinations were opposed by the privileged classes because they foresaw that such would be the effects. * No opinion can be more unfounded or repugnant to the teachings of history than that which regards examinations, and especially competitive examinations, in an aristocratic country or any other, as favorable to aristocratic interests. These examinations and the movement for popular education based on general taxation in Great Britain went on together; and by the exertion of common friends both gained their greatest victory at the same session of Parliament in 1870. No triumph of democratic or republican principles in that country has been greater than that achieved by the establishment of these examinations, which have largely contributed to that growing liberal policy which has been so prominent in her history during the last decade. Now, the son of a bishop or of a duke, if he would gain a place in her executive service, must compete side by side with the sons, perhaps, of chimney-sweeps, educated at the public expense, who are just as free to seek an examination for the same branch of the service and just as apt to get a place. It should be added that in the State and municipal services of New York and Massachusetts, where a Merit System, based on competitive examinations after the Federal Civil Service Act, has been established, and also in the Dominion of Canada, in a limited way, the effects of competitive examinations have been found as salutary as in Great Britain or the service of the United States. which was enforced until competitive examinations were first substituted by President Grant, in January, 1872. The result was the same in both countries. Mere dunces were arrested by them. The average capacity of those who passed them was consequently decidedly greater than that of the unassorted favorites and dependents who had before been pushed in. And, what was far more important, it was made plain that a just and well-ordered system of examinations would cause a great improvement in the public service. But a partisan and official or bureaucratic monopoly of appointments continued under pass-examinations. The party managers, members of Congress, the great officers of the dominant party, and their powerful friends, in either country, designated the persons who alone could be examined. These recommendations were the equivalent of a ticket of admission, which was indispensable. No man of his own motion, in his own name, or by virtue of his common rights as a citizen, could enter one of those examinations. The pass examination system was naturally and inevitably partisan, despotic, exclusive, and bureaucratic. The class that held the elective offices, by controlling admis sion to the examinations, decided who might hold the appointive offices. The system was emphatically bureaucratic and feudal. The power that designated a favorite or henchman for appointment was generally sufficient to force him over the minimum standard of examination, if he was not a dullard of a very low degree. Thus that standard was more and more forced down at these private examinations of single applicants under the pressure of great officials and party leaders. The extraneous partisan power that opened and closed the gates of the pass-examina tion, in the main, decided how large assessments those who passed them should pay, how much work they should do both for the party and for their patrons, as well as how long they should remain in office.. It was this inherent feebleness and viciousness in the pass examination system which made it intolerable and forced Congress to the enactment of the Civil Service Law requiring the free, competitive system in 1883. In Great Britain the competitive system had, as we have seen, been established many years before. We have thought this experience of pass-examinations worthy of special attention at a time when pot a few by no means friendly to a reform policy, and many more not well-informed persons, incline to favor a retrograde movement for their restoration. It hardly need be stated that a repeal of the Civil Service Act would be in itself a restoration of this old, condemned, despotic, bureaucratic system. A CRITICISM OF COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS CONSIDERED. It is often said that, in private business, examinations are not made before employing clerks. Why, then, should they be required for the public service? It might be simply answered that Congress, several Presidents in succession, and every enlightened nation have found them necessary.* But more elementary reasons may be stated. Every office-seeker claims an equal right to enter the public service. The appointing officer cannot, like a man in private business, reject arbitrarily. He must reject on some reasonable basis. Shall the test be a party test, shall it be official favoritism, or shall it be the merit of the office-seeker? If superior merit is to prevail, how shall it be ascertained? This brings us again to the main question-the value of examinations for testing merit. Even large business firms and corporations are more and more resorting to examinations for discovering merit. No attack upon examinations is so common, on the part of the supporters of a spoils system, or perhaps is so frequently expressed by others not well informed, as that which asserts that examinations cannot absolutely test either character or capacity for rapid work or directing the work of others. Those who make it have not generally constructive minds, and they rarely appreciate how poor and shallow is the criticism which is unable to suggest anything better than that which they simply declare not to be perfect. If we cannot go back to the old system, which has been found to be intolerable; if what we have got is much better than the old system, and if nothing preferable to what we have can be suggested by its enemies, may it not be wisest to mature and get the best possible results from what we have, even if it be not yet perfect? But the criticism itself is in large measure unfounded. It overlooks the condition that no person can be examined until he has filed a formal application paper in which he has stated, under oath, facts concerning himself which greatly aid a correct judgment both as to character and business capacity. He must set forth the facts as to his birth, age, residence, occupation, education, physical condition, and capacity for doing the public work. He must declare year by year, for the last five years, what has been his residence, occupation, and business. He must state whether he has been in the military, naval, or civil service of the country, and the cause of any dismissal from the latter; whether he has been lately convicted of any crime, or imprisoned; whether he uses intoxicating drinks to excess; when and by whom he has been employed each year during the last three years, and if he has been discharged, the cause thereof; and whether he has any defect of sight, hearing, speech, or limb, or any other incapacity or infirmity which impairs his ability for the full discharge of the duties of the place he seeks to enter. Following answers in writing on these points in the application paper, not less *In England, for many years past, banks, railroad managers, and great business houses have resorted to examinations in the selection of their clerks. During the past year a great business firm in Chicago has instituted examinations for the same reasons, and it is understood they are about to be adopted by some of our railroad corporations. 12435 c s--3 than four reputable persons, who have known the applicant well, must vouch in writing for the truth of what he says, and must declare him to be a man of exemplary habits and that the applicant is in all respects competent for the service he seeks, and that they would be willing to give him private employment under them. They must state that they have read all the statements in his application, and that they believe the same to be true. The answers in the application paper are in one sense a part of the examination. The substance of it is given in Appendix No. 5. It should further be borne in mind that the publicity of an examination and the interest on the part of every competitor in preventing others getting above him, or practicing any fraud to his disadvantage, is no inconsiderable protection against the unworthy securing appointments. Any person who, by fraud, or notwithstanding infamous character, has got upon the registers of those eligible for appointment, will be struck therefrom upon the facts being presented to the Commission. It is a significant evidence of the sufficiency of such safeguards that among the more than seventeen thousand persons examined, not more than six or seven such cases have occurred. It is the right, and, so far as practicable, it is apparently the duty of the appointing officer, if he has doubts as to the character of the appli cant, to request the persons who have vouched for the character of an applicant certified to him for appointment, to appear before him and answer all appropriate questions on that subject. The officer may and should also seek that kind of information elsewhere if he is not otherwise satisfied. Such precautions, when there seems to be occasion for them, would not probably occupy a fourth of the time devoted to adjusting contentions for places under the old system. It seems to be the duty of the appointing officer to use all appropriate means for ascer taining the most worthy among the four certified to him. It is plain, therefore, that whoever goes into a competitive examination must be prepared to have the weak points in his character and reputation fully probed and exposed. The Commission has reason to believe that the dread of this exposure prevents a considerable number of those who request the application blanks from going into the exami nations. On the other hand, there is more and more being disclosed a tendency on the part of those in private business to select for their service those who have shown good character and capacity in their application and examination. The Commission has several times found that the examinations have been the means of the most worthy secur ing private employment. Another view of the matter deserves attention. It must be admitted that good character and superior business capacity are by no means always found associated with competent attainments for passing the examinations. But more frequently than otherwise this is believed to be the case. However it may be in the large range on that point with men in middle life, there is little ground for doubt that among the young men and women who enter the examinations the superiority which they attest is evidence of industry, intelligence, devotion to duty, and freedom from those vicious babits and demoralizing associations which tend to dullness, ignorance, or inability to command the faculties in the schools and in the examination room alike. We have seen that more than 82 per cent. of those examined have had only a public-school education, and that their average age is thirty years. From the very nature of a competitive examination it brings to the head of the regis ters those most competent in what the schools have taught. Now, if superiority shown in the schools or acquired there is not generally a test of the scholar's attention to duty, and hence of patience, industry, good habits, and the command of the mental faculties, which promises business capacity and ability to lead others, and if faithful study in the schools does not tend to increase these qualities, then indeed we have overestimated the good effects of our public-school system. If the best informed mechanics and laborers are not generally the most trustworthy and successful; if, on the other hand, the uninstructed are just as successful in business and just as useful to the community, there would seem to be little to say in defense of universal taxation imposed for educating all the children in the very subjects which the Civil Service Examinations cover. Though there are many exceptions, yet as a rule the best scholars in our public schools are the worthiest boys and girls, and are likely to make the best men and women of business and the best citizens. There are bright rogues in school, but as a rule the boys who most regularly and thoroughly learn and remember what they are required to study are the boys who will certainly make the best clerks, if not the best men of business. If bad habits are, as may be well believed, more frequently than dullness the cause of little being learned in the schools or remembered, the conclusion is inevitable that good scholars are more moral and trustworthy than bad scholars. Consequently, the schoolmaster's test is not a mere test of learning, but is indirectly a test of character also. It could be shown statistically that those who pass highest in the examinations are likely to make the most useful public servants. The first person to enter the public service anywhere under the present rules-a young man at the post-office at Saint Louis-was the first in the competition, and he was the first to be promoted for merit at the end of his probation. The first person appointed under the rules to a Department at Washington was a lady, who stood first on the competitive list of her sex. Her practical capacity has proved to be as excellent as her attainments. These cases but illustrate the general rule. A man taken from the head of a register is far more likely to be a valuable public servant than one taken from the foot, and therefore the examinations do test superior capacity for the public service. Already evidence on these points |