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and Appeal, consisting of their chairmen. This supervisory board was deemed essential, in order to secure, as far as practicable, uniform methods of action and of examination among the subordinate boards. The chairman of the board, Silas W. Burt, Esq., special deputy naval officer, has submitted an interesting report on the operation of the system in New York city, which is published in the Appendix to this report.

The Board desires to place on record an expression of its appreciation of the zeal and judgment which the members of the several boards in New York have brought to the discharge of their duties, and of the conscientious fidelity with which they have adhered to both the letter and the spirit of the rules. To the chairman of the Board of Revision and Appeal, whose duties have been of the most exacting and delicate nature, the friends of reform are largely indebted for the success which the measure has gained in New York.

The offices mentioned are the only ones connected with the Treasury Department outside of this city to which the rules have been applied. The Board has been prepared to extend them to other cities and other branches of the service for several months, and on the 10th of October, 1872, it notified the Secretary, in writing, that the rules were in operation in New York, and of the readiness of the Board to extend them to other places, but the Secretary deemed it prudent to test the system thoroughly at New York before extending it elsewhere.

CONTINUOUS EXAMINATIONS.

It has been proposed that, instead of examinations of large classes of candidates at the same time, acceptable candidates whose names are on the eligible list shall be permitted to appear at their convenience, or on any one of certain days in each week or month. It is undoubtedly true that applicants are sometimes put to great inconvenience, and to considerable expense, by being required to await both the occurrence of a vacancy and the holding of an examination. If they are temporarily in the city, they dislike to return to their homes or enter into other engagements until they have been examined, and doubtless some hardship has resulted from this cause. Under the plan proposed the occurrence of a vacancy need not precede the examination. The candidate could appear for examination at his convenience, the result could be made up and his standing determined, and his name could be placed on a list from the head of which names would be certified whenever vacancies should occur. It is more than probable that this plan would secure some, perhaps many, competent candidates who do

not think it worth their while to submit to the delay and expense of awaiting an examination under the present system, and therefore do not even apply for places. But the difficulties pointed out as standing in the way of a more extended examination, stand also in the way of the adoption of this plan. The labor of determining the standing of fifty candidates examined separately would be much greater than it is when they are examined together, and, as before mentioned, the time of the subordinates of the Board is already fully occupied.

EXAMINATIONS IN THE STATES.

The question of examinations in different States will require attention after a time. The rules provide for them, and popular sentiment will, doubtless, demand them. It has been suggested that the Governors of the several States, through their educational departments, might be willing to cooperate with the Board in holding examinations at the State capitals. If the occasion arose and the Board were provided with the necessary means, the carrying out of a plan for examinations in the States would be simple enough. Applications could be made to the head of the Department at Washington as at present, but the applicants could be requested to state at which of the places fixed for holding examinations in the several States they would prefer to appear for examination. It would then only be necessary for the Board to procure a proper room for a day or two, summon the candidates to appear at a certain day, and to dispatch an officer of the Board to the appointed place with the necessary blanks. The examination over, the officer could return to Washington with the examination-papers, and the result could be made up here and the candidates notified thereof by mail.

The question of the apportionment of appointees among the States does not seem to demand immediate attention. The results of the examinations show that thus far the proportion of appointments from the District of Columbia, as determined by the legal residences of the persons appointed, is little greater than under the old system. But even if an undue proportion of appointments be made for a time from the vicinity of Washington, the inequality will not be beyond remedy, since equality may be restored by examinations in the States having less than their proportion, whenever the system of local examinations shall be adopted.

The feeling is very strong among the people that the executive offices should be apportioned among the States, if not in exact proportion to population, at least in such a manner as to give to each

section a fair proportion of the appointments; and as the reform, if not supported by the people, must fail, it would not be the part of wisdom to disregard such a sentiment. It must be admitted that it would be a misfortune, no matter how great the merit of the persons entering the service might be, if any section should have so large a share of the appointments as to justify the charge that Civil Service reform had given a sectional character to the public service. But any difficulty of this kind could be met readily, if the plan of local examinations should be carried out, without changing the rules or lowering the standard of attainment. If it should be found that any State or section was receiving too large a proportion of the appointments, it would only be necessary to refrain from holding examinations in it until equality should be restored. This plan would satisfy all objections, and, as it would not be likely to lower the standard for appointment, would not be open to the censure of those who de mand that only those who give the best proofs of competency shall be admitted to the public service.

These views and suggestions are put forward not as of present practica! utility, but as conclusions drawn from our experience and our study of the system, which may be of value in its future development, and, perhaps, in the formation by others of correct views upon the subject. Experience has led the Board to the conclusion that, in order to reap the full measure of advantage from the reform, there must be constituted an independent board, composed, not of officers already laden with weighty and engrossing duties, but of earnest and competent men, whose sole functions shall be those connected with the selection of fit persons for the civil service, and who shall be invested with all requisite powers, and provided with all suitable means, to secure the success of their efforts. This result the system, if persisted in, will undoubtedly reach. The present organizations can only be regarded as temporary, and the present condition of things as transitionary. The most that the present Boards can do is to test the usefulness and feasibility of the measure, and to pave the way to a larger and more effectual reform.

SUMMARY OF STATISTICS.

Attention is invited to the interesting statistical tables printed in the Appendix. It will be seen (Table A) that seven hundred and six applications have been received for clerkships of class one, and two hundred and thirty-eight for the position of female clerk, at $900 a year. Of the whole number, thirty-two were rejected because the applicants

were manifestly not qualified, and five hundred and thirty-seven for incompleteness. Of the latter, three hundred were subsequently completed. To the date of this report the Board has held twenty-eight examina tions-seven for admission and twenty-one for promotion-has examined six hundred and thirteen candidates, and has filled one hundred and forty vacancies, (Table B.) Table C shows each candidate's standing in each subject, general average, sex, age, nativity, legal residence, education, and occupation; whether the candidate had served in the army or navy, or in the civil service, and the general average of all in each subject. A summary of the nativity and residence of the candidates for admission to the Department and of the appointees, the number and percentage of each born and residing in each State, and the proportion of appointees to candidates from each State are given in Table D, as well as the number and proportion of persons from each State and Territory in the Department at the time of the adoption of the Civil Service rules. For the sake of easy comparison, the percentage of those appointed from each State under the old system and under the new rules is printed in bold-face type. Table E gives the average standing of candidates for admission, and of appointees, averaged according to age, sex, education, and occupation. The standing of candidates from twenty-four to thirty years of age is the highest, and the proportion of the candidates of that age appointed is considerably the largest. Of sixty-one persons appointed, only seven were more than forty-eight years of age, and only fourteen more than thirty-six. The average standing of men is a little higher than that of women, as is also the proportion of appointees to candidates. The occupations of the appointees were as follows: Clerks, forty-two; mercantile, seven; teachers, seven; book-keepers, two; students, two; and domestic duties, one. The proportion of appointees to candidates of each of these occupations was as follows: Mercantile, 63.63 per cent.; book-keepers, 25 per cent.; clerks, 24.42 per cent.; teachers, 14.29 per cent.; students, 10 per cent.; and domestic duties, 7.69 per cent. The education of thirteen appointees is collegiate; of twenty, academic; and of twenty-eight, common-school. The other tables are elsewhere referred to in the report, and need not be explained here.

RESULTS.

It is believed that, in a large majority of instances, the results of the examinations for promotions have been beneficial to the service, and satisfactory to the officers and employés of the Department. Notwithstanding the natural feeling on the part of heads of Bureaus that the

nomination of persons for promotion is their prerogative, sanctioned by long practice, if not by law, they have, in nearly every instance, given the Board their hearty cooperation, and have usually expressed their gratification with the results. In some of the larger offices especially, a gratifying coincidence has occurred between the standing of clerks in the examination and their efficiency as marked by the head of the Bureau. If it be asked of what advantage, then, is the examination, it may be answered that, at worst, it does no harm, while, by furnishing a confirmation of the judgment of the head of the office, it relieves him of the ill-feeling which promotions almost always arouse; and, further, that, were it not for the examination, extraneous influences might defeat the promotion of the most efficient.

There are in every branch of the service some men appointed without regard to general intelligence or educational acquirements, who have obtained so great a mastery of special subjects as to render them of great service to the Department. Many of them are so ignorant of everything not pertaining to the special subject upon which they are engaged as to be unable to gain promotion under any system of examination which can be devised. Even if the examination were limited to the very subjects in which they are proficient, they would fail-in some cases because their proficiency is merely mechanical, in others because of their inability to put what they know into intelligible form. Experts in the handling of money, in the detection of counterfeits, and in other matters requiring manual dexterity or quickness of the senses, are often of this class. Such persons are often pointed out as examples of a kind of fitness which the system of competitive examinations would have prevented from entering the Departments.

To this criticism it may be replied that, in almost every instance, these persons acquired their technical knowledge after they entered the Departments, and that it is not likely that they would have been slower in acquiring it had their general acquirements been greater. On the contrary, if the present system had been earlier enforced, the Departments would have had quite as many persons of technical acquirements, and many more possessing general intelligence, adaptability, and usefulness. But if it should be thought that technical knowledge should outweigh general intelligence, in any particular case, it would not be difficult, under the present system, to so arrange the examination and the scale of weights as to give the former a controlling influence over the result of the examination.

The system of competition for promotion in its general operation

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