tions before the close of the present year. Nothing, therefore, short of a restoration of proscription, favoritism, and patronage, by the exercise of superior authority, can arrest the steady growth of the new system based on competitive examinations.*

In seeking to make the examinations as practical and appropriate as possible for testing the precise qualifications needed in the different branches of the service, the Commission provides a distinct examination for each of these separate branches. No applicant, therefore, whether examined for the departmental, the customs, or the postal service can by virtue of that examination be admitted to either of the other two branches.

Still further adapting the questions to the needs of the several parts of each branch of the service, there are distinct series of questions for the several grades in each of these branches; as for carriers, clerks, porters, messengers, &c., in the postal service; for clerks, inspectors, night inspectors, weighers, gaugers, examiners, &c., in the customs service; and for different grades of clerks and for particular offices needing peculiar capacity in the departmental service; as to which a fuller explanation will be given.

DEPARTMENTAL EXAMINATIONS.

There are two distinct grades of examinations for the departmental service, each of which is common for all the places in each of the Departments at Washington for which it is appropriate. The places to be filled from these two grades of examinations embrace about 90 per cent. of all the clerkships in the Departments. No separate examination is held for any place in either Department which is within the range of either of these two grades of examinations. The other 10 per cent. of the departmental service is reached through various special examinations which are appropriate for testing the peculiar, and in general, the higher attainments which are essential in the parts of the service to which the special examinations extend.

The two grades of examination referred to are designated the General examination and the Limited examination. The subjects covered by each may be found in Rule 7 and in the Instructions to Applicants to be found in Appendix No. 5.

There is a considerable number of clerkships in the departmental service for which only very limited attainments, little beyond penmanship and the capacity to spell ordinary words and to apply the element

* Many persons who see the need of some examination for ascertaining whether applicants are competent for the public work seem to hesitate at competitive examinations, having a vague idea that they are technical, very literary, or peculiarly difficult. The fact is that, so far as questions and subjects are concerned, they are precisely like any other examination. Their peculiarity is their justice. They are open and free to all. Not being confined to favorites or adherents of one party, they show not only the merit of each competitor, but the order of merit and the highest in merit among them.

ary rules of arithmetic, are required. A promotion, however, beyond a salary of $900 a year cannot be made without passing the general examination.

But it should be observed in regard to the general examinations that they include no foreign language, no technical word, no terms of art or science, no problem in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, or astronomy, no question concerning the history or geography of any foreign country, nothing, in short, beyond, and not everything within, the teaching of a good public school; facts which should silence much of the criticism of the ignorant, even if they do not meet the approval of the educated. In Appendix No. 7 may be found examples of the questions of various grades which are fair specimens of those which have been used.

SPECIAL DEPARTMENTAL EXAMINATIONS.

For the State Department, the Patent Office, the Pension Office, the Geological Survey, and the Signal Office, special examinations are held. Examinations in special subjects are also held, supplementary to, and commonly at the same time with the general and limited examinations, for places in which a knowledge of law, medicine, stenography, typewriting, book-keeping or of the French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian language is required.

BOARD OF EXAMINERS.

The members of the boards, all selected by the Commission from those in the public service, for conducting these various examinations are given in Appendix No. 4.

QUESTIONS.

In order to secure uniformity and justice, the questions for all these examinations, as well as for all examinations for the postal service and the customs service, are prepared at Washington under the supervision of the Commission, and the examination papers of all applicants for the departmental service, are marked by the proper examining Board at Washington.

THE NUMBER EXAMINED FOR THE DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE.

The whole number examined for the Departmental Service during the past year has been 2,276, of whom 1,742 were males, and 534 were females. Of the males 965 attained the grade of sixty-five or upwards; of the females 373 attained that grade.

Further particulars of these examinations, and of the special examinations can be found in the tables in the Appendix No. 6.

APPOINTMENTS TO THE DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE.

The whole number of appointments during the past year to the departmental service from those examined has been 438, of whom 391 were males, and 47 were females. The residence and apportionment of those

appointed under the rules appear in Table No. 4 of Appendix No. 6; except that the original appointments to the pension service, under the act of July 7, 1884, were apportioned separately. This apportionment appears in Table No. 5 of that Appendix. Special Rule No. 3, under which the apportionment was made is given in Appendix No. 2.

PERMANENT APPOINTMENTS AFTER PROBATION, PROMOTIONS, RESIGNATIONS, AND REMOVALS IN THE DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE.

(1.) The distinction of classes or grades is not sufficiently defined in the postal service to constitute a common basis of comparison in making promotions, and owing to the different arrangement in different offices in the customs service, promotions there cannot be very definitely tabulated for a comparison.

(2.) It is only in the classified departmental service that the facts in regard to permanent appointments and promotions can be set forth with sufficient precision to aid much in forming correct conclusions as to the effects of the new system. The number of promotions of those appointed under the rules in this service during the year has been 55.

(3.) There have been during the year 109 cases in which the probationary appointments of six months have expired, and in every instance, except 2, a permanent appointment has been made.

(4.) There have been during the year three removals among those appointed to the departmental service who had been examined under the Commission. To these must be added a single case of discharge from the service, in conformity with section 9 of the civil service act, by reason of more than two members of the same family being in the service. The just inference in favor of the good character and efficiency of those appointed under the new system to be drawn from this very small number of removals would seem to be obvious.

EXAMINATIONS AND APPOINTMENTS IN THE CUSTOMS SERVICE.

(1.) The whole number examined during the past year for the classified customs service was 838, all of whom were males. The whole num. ber who passed at a grade of sixty-five and upwards was 541.

(2.) The whole number appointed during the past year to the classified customs service was 119. Most of the customs offices do not find it practicable to employ any females. Further particulars of these examinations and of the appointments will be found in Table No. 3 of Appendix No. 6.

EXAMINATIONS AND APPOINTMENTS IN THE POSTAL SERVICE.

(1.) The whole number examined for the postal service during the past year, was 3,233, of whom 2,945 were males, and 288 were females.

(2.) The whole number employed (or appointed) during the past year for the classified postal service, was 1,249. There are no carriers, and very few clerks at the post-offices who are females.

Fuller particulars of these examinations and appointments will be found in Table 5 of Appendix 6.

SOME PRACTICAL METHODS, AND NEEDED PRECAUTIONS.

The report made a year ago, when the need of exposition and expla nation were much greater than now, sets forth at considerable length the objects, theory, and practical methods of the new system; and copies of that report can be supplied to those who may regard this as too meager on such points. It is clear that Congress in the law, and the President in the rules, have alike in principle, declared so far at least as the classified service is concerned

(1.) That neither political nor religious opinions, nor work for the party, nor servility to great officers and politicians, are a proper basis of appointments to that service, the duties of which should be performed in the same non-partis n and business-like manner, whatever party may be in power, or whatever may be the opinions or affiliations of the public servant.

(2.) That neither the party controlling the Administration, nor a party seeking such control, nor any public officer whatever, has a right to use the power of appointment or removal to reward adherents, to punish opponents, or to gain votes.

(3.) That the claim of every citizen for an appointment is strong, not in proportion to the influence behind him or to the anxiety of others to get a place for him, but in the measure of the capacity and good charac ter which he offers in his own person for the salary offered by the Government.

(4.) That the system so long pursued, under which official favoritism and political and social influence, not infrequently united with intrigue and corruption in some of its manifold forms, have been efficient for securing appointments, should give place to a system based on character, capacity, and justice, irrespective of political or religious views or affiliations.

(5.) And that as a consequence there should be free public examinations for testing such character and capacity, together with a rigid enforcement of the duty of the appointing officer to fill the vacancies by selecting those whose superior merit has been demonstrated by the examinations.

The declaration and required enforcement of these fundamental principles of justice, duty, and sound policy in the true spirit of our Government and social life, together with the prohibition of political assessments, are the substance and purpose of both the law and the rules. The methods employed for executing them are sound and valuable in the degree that they tend to advance that paramount and all-comprehending purpose of substituting a merit system and a merit service in the place of the old system of favoritism and proscription. Under the new system every applicant practically makes for himself the evidence

of merit or lack of merit disclosed in his application paper and examination, and hence determines for himself whether he can gain, or deserves to have, a place in the public service.

In the true development of the new system, merit or the lack of it, shown in the degree of fidelity and efficiency with which official duties are discharged, will be substituted for solicitation, influence, and official favor, as the criterion for all promotions and removals, within the limits of any restrictions which the public interests may demand as to age and tenure of office. Only when such results are reached will the merit system now established by law give the Government a true merit service for doing the vast and varied work of administration.* Then only will public office be in fact, as it is in theory, a public trust.

APPLICATION TO BE EXAMINED.

It is plainly important under a merit system that the application to be examined should, as far as practicable, be made a test of the conditions and qualifications essential for entering the service, without excluding any whose examination may disclose a fitness not apparent on the face of the application itself. As the examination is not the end sought, it should not be accorded when it is certain, under the law and rules, that the applicant cannot be appointed; unless indeed the Government wishes to maintain a system of examinations merely for the sake of the stimulus they would give to the public-school system of the country. The relation between the merit system and the public-school was pointed out by Governor Cleveland in his message to the New York legislature in 1884. But the Commission has not felt authorized to treat the strengthening of the public-school system as one of the direct objects of the national civil service act. If, however, on such a theory the examinations were to be extended beyond the range required for securing those abundantly competent for the public service, it would be necessary to largely increase the number of examiners and clerks serving under the Commission.

It is further a condition quite essential in order to break up the old partisan and patronage mongering methods of applications for appointments, that the making of the application to be examined should be open and free to all alike, who are apparently qualified, without the need of any appeal whatever to influence or official favor. The application paper of which the blank form is printed in the Appendix, seems to conform to these essential conditions.

Under the old system not only party tests but sometimes pledges of

*So little is this distinctive and essential purpose and effect of the new system heeded by many, and even by some writers of distinction, that they express their adherence to the system by declaring themselves in favor of "civil service,” as if that meant anything, or we had not always had "civil service" of some kind. But, what kind of civil service do they favor, is the question? Do they favor a spoils service or a merit service?