tion, some of it with little foundation and some of it with real foundation. There are difficulties in the way of competitive examination which although small theoretically are large practically. We are limited in trying to carry out a system of examination by the geographical feature. The United States commission has to carry its examinations all over the country so as to make them truly open competitive examinations, so that all qualified citizens may have their equal or nearly equal opportunity to demonstrate their capacity and to obtain employment in the public service, and that very fact that the examinations must be carried all over the country limits the field for tests which may be applied. In a smaller way the state commission meets the same difficulty. The city commissions at first were mainly copies of the state and federal commissions, but they were relieved from that difficulty arising from the geographical distribution of their competitors and so they have been able in some ways to work out schemes and methods which were applicable in a city but would not be applicable nearly as well to the state or to the nation. Resulting then from this state of things the competitive examination in the popular notion and to a very great extent in actual practice is nothing more or less,--or was not for many years anything more or less than a written examination upon a set of uniform questions submitted to all candidates at the same time in a large number of places under proper supervision. After some years of experience with this class of examinations which, although valuable for a great variety of positions, could not be treated as conclusive demonstrations of fitness for many positions, the first departure was the increasing weight and importance given in the rating to what we call in a general way experience, meaning by that the personal history, including age, education, previous employments, state of health and physical condition. That question was at first considered as meriting a small relative weight in comparison with a written examination, and the various commissions, some copying from the others and improving on their methods and gradually working the system out, have devised plans for getting first the candidate's own statement in detail

as to what he is, and second, the statements of those who had employed him or taught him or otherwise become acquainted with his personal history. All of this can be done on paper and all of it can be done without particular regard to the geographical limitations. The United States mail goes everywhere and pretty nearly reaches everybody. There is another difficulty in the way of written examinations being sufficient tests in that the examination is necessarily limited to a short time, usually to one day. The examinations of the colleges on which they graduate their students and give them their diplomas last over many days-perhaps final examinations lasting over a period of several days; at any rate examinations and tests scattered all through the course. Obviously it is not possible to determine in an examination of a single day anything like the same measure of a man's capacity as is determined by such a system. So in particular for those positions requiring a special kind of experience or educational attainment greater weight was given to the personal history including education and experience. But the operation of the present law in this state brought into the classified competitive service a great many positions which were originally not contemplated by the civil service law and among them positions where a great many people could claim proper qualifications in the way of education and decent citizenship and so on, where in fact very little is required in the way of education or of the things that can be tested on paper by a written examination. There are many positions for which the great consideration, the main thing to be sought, is the personal fitness to do a sort of charity work. It is more a matter of temperament than of knowledge. And it is for these positions where what we call personality is of great importance, that the oral examination, so called, comes into particular importance. Now the oral examination as we have carried it out in a few instances and as it might be applied in many more instances, does not mean a set of questions as to the knowledge of the candidate; it does not mean particularly a lot of questioning about his previous history, although a little more intimate knowledge of that can be gained by an oral examination than by a

written examination; but it does mean a questioning by a board of competent examiners familiar with the needs of the position in question, designed to bring out the intimate personal peculiarities of the candidates. A case in point which I have described many times but possibly not to many of you arose with regard to an institution recently established in this state, or rather, recently changed in its character, the institution for delinquent boys, Industrial School, at it is called, formerly in the city of Rochester and now established on a farm of some 1,400 acres outside of Rochester. At that institution, a plan, so far as I know, new in this country, was carried out, namely, the cottage plan, with the boys colonized in small enough colonies so that they could be taken care of by two officers, a man and his wife. The cottage or colony plan has been tried before, but with larger colonies, so that several officers were required. In this case the plan was to have the colonies small enough-22 being the maximum number-so that two officers, a man and his wife, could give the necessary discipline and instruction in the colony, barring certain school instruction from other sources; and it fell to the state civil service commission of this state to furnish the combination of man and wife for about 30 or 35 of these colonies. How much difference would it make what kind of a written examination on scholastic subjects those people could pass? They of course must have a certain knowledge of farming and farmhouse keeping, sufficient to carry on this colony and instruct these boys in the duties connected with that work, but that is quite difficult to test from written examinations. As a matter of primary plan we worked the thing out in this way: We got a detailed personal statement from a man and his wife as to their education and previous history; we investigated their reputation as known to their neighbors, to whom they referred in their applications, and then we organized an examining board consisting of the superintendent and one of the managers of the institution and myself as chief examiner and we interviewed these people couple by couple, with a result that we placed upon an eligible list in order of percentage of some 20 names. We have done that three

times. This plan was worked out in opposition to the request of the managers of the institution and the superintendent, who thought that nothing of the kind was feasible, but after the first list was made up I was told not only by the superintendent but by several of the managers in practically these words, their judgment of our success. They said: "You have found numbers of excellent people whom we would never have discovered." And I think to-day, after three trials of that examination, that no one of the authorities of the institution would think of going back to free selection on their part.

We made a stenographic record of the oral examination, but so far as I know the oral examination was never referred to except by the superintendent to refresh his memory as to who the candidates were. In other words, it was not the answers to the questions that we rated on, but it was the personality developed in the talk of the candidates.

MR. SPRAGUE: On what basis did you mark them? MR. FOWLER: Well, we marked them on the scale of 100.

MR. SPRAGUE: Well, just as it occurred to you at the time, each particular instance?

MR. FOWLER: Yes. Then after we had got our list of 25 together we went carefully over the whole lot to see that we had done justice in all the cases. There were five elements entering into the rating. The first was the personal history as developed in the written papers of the man; the second, that of his wife; the third, the replies to letters of inquiry which the commission sent out; and the fourth and fifth were the personality ratings of the man and his wife respectively, those five items being given equal weight in arriving at the marking, each being marked on the scale of 100. Now that plan of examination is diametrically opposed to one of the original fundamental principles of examination which everybody was supposed to hold, namely, that the identity of the applicant must not be known to the examiner. But how much can you tell about the qualifications of a man for a place where personality counts for anything without knowing who he is? It is the demand on civil service

commissions for filling places where personality is perhaps the main consideration that has compelled the departure from the ancient principle and the adoption of this kind of methods.

This system, however, has its difficulties. It is impracticable for this examining board to sit in as many places in the state as we should naturally, ordinarily, hold written examinations, with a result that candidates are put to some inconvenience to come and meet the examining board. It is difficult sometimes to assemble an examining board whose knowledge of the requirements and interest in them and whose interest in obtaining the very best is sufficient to be depended on for the examination, and so the application of this plan of examination, although theoretically it might be very wide, has practically to be limited to a certain class of positions where it is most important. It would be difficult probably for the United States commission to carry out such a plan at all, because the success depends upon having the same examining board see all the candidates and that is only possible within narrow geographical limits.

Now a word as to practical tests in examinations. They are under development along the same line. And by practical tests I mean and I think we all mean the setting of the candidate to do some pieces, greater or jess, of the actual work which he will have to do if appointed to the position. Trades examinations for labor positions as carried out by the municipal commission in New York city are a fair example. Candidates for positions in the mechanical trades are sent to the trade school and there required to do certain set pieces of work, and are marked as either efficient or not efficient, "passed" or "not passed," upon that test. Some similar applications have been made in some of our cities in the matter of drivers of automobiles and drivers of fire wagons and so on, but it seems to me that in a few of those cases there has possibly been too great a development of the detail of that kind of system. That is, that the work has been carried rather to an absurdity. But Mr. Davidson, who will talk after me, is more familiar with the municipal situation. Bear in mind, however, the limitation of