there will be many places in the county service which will properly fall into the competitive class. At present it is the unanimous opinion of the Commission that subordinates who are paid solely from the fees which come to their superiors and which are the personal emolument of these superiors, should not be put in the competitive class. They are for all practical purposes the servants of their superiors, rather than of the county or of the state. Being paid by their superiors out of money which would otherwise be retained by them, the latter are interested in securing efficient service and economical administration. There seems in these cases to be a personal relation and a right of individual contract which should not be impaired by civil service examinations. Furthermore, the subordinates not being paid out of state moneys, the Commission is deprived of that power of enforcing its rules and classifications which it possesses in other cases, namely, the power, by a refusal to certify to the regularity of the appointment, to withhold the pay of those illegally appointed. The adoption of this policy of leaving in the exempt class all subordinates who are paid solely from fees which would otherwise be the personal property of their superiors, results that, outside of the largely populated counties and exclusive of officers who have been put upon a salary rather than a fee basis, there will be comparatively few of the county officials falling under civil service regulation. But the necessity of classifying the service in the counties with a population of a hundred thousand is so great that it cannot be overlooked. The efficiency of the enforcement of civil service rules and regulations in the cities is greatly impaired in all cases where the county service (often largely centralized in the same buildings or in the same vicinity) is unclassified and left as a matter of patronage.

Consistency also requires that county offices which in their nature are similar to existing city offices, shall be classified in a similar manner. We doubt not but that the bringing of this service under civil service rules and regulations will produce great benefits to the service. In fact, already we have been strongly urged to place in the competitive class many county positions. The State Board of Charities, in the latter part of the year which has just closed, and before active steps had been taken by the Commission to classify the county service, presented to us a formal request that persons having the care and custody of the various county almshouses should be placed in the competitive class, and asserted as their opinion, based upon official experience, that such a classification would greatly benefit the persons who were inmates of these almshouses.

Legal Questions for Solution by the Commission

The prescription of rules and regulations by the Commission with the consequence of their having the effect of law has caused the Commission to be called upon with great frequency for a construction of these rules and for an expression of opinion as to their bearing upon facts either real or hypothetical and for the judgment of the Commission as to the rights and remedies of claimants or suitors. While the opinion of the Commission in such matters is, of course, in no sense final or conclusive, yet such requests are undoubtedly natural on the part of the inquirers and are at least inevitable. The questions raised are of such importance that the Commission is obliged at almost every meeting to refer these inquiries to the attorney-general for his opinion. We take this occasion to gratefully acknowledge our obligation to him for his services in this connection, but so great

is the amount of this work that it is not improper to call attention to the fact that either one of the deputy attorneys-general must be assigned almost constantly to work of this character, or else provision must be made by law for a counsel to the Civil Service Commission. Such an official will be needed not only for the work just mentioned, but quite as much to aid and advise the Commission in the conduct of investigations which will be

necessary.

Examinations

The matter of examinations has occupied much of the time of the Commission during the past year. The principle of selection of public servants because of their merit or fitness, ascertained when practicable by a competitive examination, being permanently embodied in the organic law of the state and enacted in a statute so broad in its scope and so capable of vigorous enforcement, supplemented by appropriate rules and regulations, it has been manifest to the Commission that much of the success of the system depended upon the character of its examinations. To secure examinations which would be at once practical and yet sufficient as tests, to eliminate all that might seem absurd or purely academic, the Commission appointed one of its number a committee in the spring of 1899 to examine into the subject and after a careful consideration formulated its views and declared it to be its intention to confine its examinations to those subjects a knowledge of which is essential to the successful and proper performance of the duties of the positions for which the examined party is a candidate, and also to confine within the same limits the questions in the respective subjects. While the requirement of a high standard of education might have desirable results in raising the esprit de corps and might give to the

state a superior body of civil service employees, the Commission feels that under existing industrial, educational and political conditions, no question should be asked in Civil Service examinations unless ability to answer it is necessary to enable the candidate to discharge the duties of the position to which he aspires, or of those in the natural course of promotion, or unless ignorance of the matter involved in the question is evidence of a deficient mental attainment.

To secure the hearty cooperation of the heads of departments, to obtain the benefits of their knowledge of the duties of the subordinate positions and the results of their experience, as well as to estop ill-founded criticism, the Commission has adopted as its policy in preparing schemes of examinations the sending of a notice by the chief examiner to the heads of departments of his intention to hold examinations for subordinates in their respective departments and a request for them to submit appropriate schemes of examinations embracing subjects deemed by them appropriate for the examination, with samples of appropriate questions, and a statement of the proper preliminary requirements and of such tests of experience and practical ability as are thought desirable by them, and a further statement of the relative weights which, in their opinion, should be given to the several subjects. The information received is treated as matter of suggestion and is not regarded as absolutely binding the Commission to its acceptance; still the greatest consideration is given to it. It must be admitted that the Commission has received in response to these requests very few suggestions, scarcely enough to justify the effort that has to be put forth in making the request, or to justify the delay which is often necessitated; but the policy appears to us to be a good one, if for no

other reason than that it should be a complete estoppel of criti

cism by those who, having an opportunity to make suggestions, do not avail themselves of the privilege.

Abolition of Age Limits

A candidate's

One of the important actions taken by the Commission during the past year relating to the subject of examinations, was the abolition in the spring of 1899 of maximum age limits for all positions other than those which from their nature required the services of boys or girls rather than of matured men and women, that is, of all positions other than pages, junior clerks, etc. This action was taken by the Commission because it was felt that the adoption of any maximum age limit was more or less an arbitary measure which might debar many persons who were physically perfect, while on the other hand, it might not prove a restriction upon many who were physically incompetent. physical ability to perform the duties of a position, in our opinion, should be determined by personal physical examination, rather than be conclusively presumed from an age arbitrarily adopted as a point where physical impairment sets in. Steps have been taken to give all candidates for positions in which physical ability is a necessary qualification, a rigid and thorough examination which will ascertain their degree of physical vigor. The Commission was not unmindful of the injustice which an arbitrarily fixed maximum age limit might do to the veterans of the state. While not being willing to concede that the preference given to this class is anything more than a preference of appointment after undergoing the same examination as other persons, we nevertheless bore in mind that the constitutional and statutory preference given to them would be rendered ineffectual in nearly every