open to every qualified citizen upon equal terms, without regard to race, religion, or political opinions, places the access to the civil service upon a basis as purely democratic as is the election of officers by popular suffrage. It is this feature that must commend the competitive system to every patriotic citizen, who believes in those principles of popular rights and equality that lie at the very foundation of all our political institutions. The son of the poorest and most obscure citizen can compete for a clerkship on equal ternis with .the son of the richest or most illustrious, and in the contest, wealth, influence and importunity count for nothing; a contest where to the . victor belongs the reward of superior merit, a principle incomparably higher than one so often quoted "to the victor belong the spoils. If there were no other valid argument, the friends of the competitive or merit system could stand upon its democratic aspects, its enforcement of equal rights and "fair play."

This

In connection with the "privileged class" argument is the assertion that under the merit system the official will be indifferent, insubordinate, discourteous and insolent to the public transacting business with them. This assertion does not take into account that integral part of the merit system which disavows any absolute tenure, but leaves the power of summary dismissal without restraint. provision gives the best possible security for good discipline and insures the service against the continuance of that arrogance and impertinence exhibited to the public by appointees who were so secure through their personal and partisan influences that no superior dared to remove them. The clerk in a public office who could rely upon his strong "backing" could indulge in almost any conduct not felonious and feel certain that the severest penalty for it would be an admonition; the power that procured his appointment could compel his retention. In the merit system the official incumbent must depend upon his own good conduct and efficiency, since no extraneous influence got him his place or can insure his continuance. In fact the only effectual means of enforcing official discipline is to give the head of the office the summary power of removal and at the same time protection from the duress and potency of outside influences such as are wielded under the patronage system.

To some of those who have overlooked the points above given, the fixed tenure in office with removal for proven cause only has occurred as the proper remedy for abuses in the civil service; this, it has been well said, is putting the guard at the back door and not the front one.

It means that no particular care is to be taken in the selection of officials, but when selected they are to be dismissed only by a judicial process, which in the municipal government of New York has practically failed to insure justice to the public interests. There can be misdemeanors and impertinences difficult to judicially prove, and a shrewd employe may keep within the very verge of such proof. The abolition of patronage accomplished by open competition [Assem. Doc. No. 42.] 7

destroys the general motive for illegitimate removals, i. e., to find a place for some favored one. It has been happily proposed to substitute the principle of "appointment for cause only" for that of "removal for cause only."

One specific change often urged is that in practice competitive tests do not indicate the fittest, and alleged instances of its failure in this respect are cited. The method, in common with other human agencies, is not infallible and should not be judged by its exceptions, but if so judged it certainly would not suffer in a comparison with the patronage or spoils method. As an instance of its failures outside the public service the valedictorians of college classes, claimed to be the very flower of competition, are contrasted with those low in their classes who have subsequently achieved more wealth and fame. If the competition had been one that tested capability for such successes, there would be some force in the contrast, but on the other hand the college examinations are and should be essentially scholastic.

It is also possible that the valedictorian may have his use in the world, and become pre-eminent in some sphere of activity less brilliant and prominent than that of his classmate. The competitive grading at the West Point Military Academy, which for nearly a century has distributed in the order of their merit the members of the graduating classes to the several branches of the service, has not been abandoned because some who graduated low became famous generals in the recent war.

"Would the late Alexander T. Stewart or Commodore Vanderbilt have passed in a competitive examination for a clerkship?" is the form that these caviling queries often take, the deduction being implied that if such successful business men could not pass, the prin ciple of competition is false. The obvious answer is, that these men might have made very poor government clerks; that the ambition and conscious power that made one a great merchant and the other an owner of vast railroads would never have been content with the restricted range of an office desk. But had the public required in its service one having the highest mercantile qualities or the insight of a successful investor, Messrs. Stewart and Vanderbilt might have entered the competition with the highest assurances of success.

Somewhat analogous to the foregoing are the complaints that the higher grades of officers are not selected also by competitive tests, and which are the same as were urged in England thirty years ago by Sir G. C. Lewis, the defender in Parliament of the patronage system as a prerogative of the aristocracy. He said, "If competitive examination be so efficient a means of securing the best men, why not choose by it your Lord Chief Justice as well as your junior clerks?"

To this it was well replied "that the examination was proposed as a test of untried men or if that answer be not enough, we may add that the Chief Justice is in fact appointed as the result of an open competition of the most satisfactory kind, in which his pro

fessional brethren had done their best to get before him;" and the contest had been conducted under the public observation.

It is common to speak of these examinations as mere "schoolmaster's tests" that limit successful application to boys and young men just from the schools. The real fact is that the tenor of the examinations thus far in this country has been so pitched as to give the advantage to men of mature age. The average age of those placed upon the eligible lists during four years of these examinations in the New York Customs service was thirty-one years. The United States Commissioners report the average age of the 3,542 candidates examined last year at thirty-one years, and the average age of the candidates thus far in the State examinations is thirtytwo years, and probably the same is true as to the examinations in Brooklyn and New York for the municipal service.

This is certainly a high average in years for the "babes and sucklings" some journals have feared would monopolize the service. In all these examinations, great care has been taken in selecting questions and problems that would not be bookish, but such as represent the ordinary concerns of life, and which every intelligent citizen should be conversant with. Experience in these has shown that while the recent school-boy may answer glibly such questions as may be found in the text-books, he is at disadvantage when the questions are so framed as to represent the practical affairs of business; he is better versed in abstract arithmetic than in its concrete application. So, too, in questions given as a test of general intelligence, as in geography and history, the practical features are better comprehended by the man than the boy. That this is so does not weaken the force of the opinion that the examinations might better be based upon the educational status of the young man just from the common school, since it is highly probable that he would in a short time prove to be a better clerk than the elder man.

He would have no erroneous methods to unlearn, no stubborn habits and pride of opinions that resist discipline.

If the younger man, "with all the world before him," has such a contracted ambition as to decline all other avenues to business, and accept the tame career of a government clerk, the probabilities are that he would prove a more efficient and tractable subordinate than the elder man, who, having failed in private ventures, enters the civil service very often as a temporary make-shift. There is no reason why in a well-ordered public service the same general principles should not obtain in this respect that are adopted in private business. In the banks, great insurance companies and other concerns that in their magnitude and affairs closely resemble the government offices, the lower positions are filled by the young men who, gradually trained in the business, are advanced as their capacities and the opportunities jointly offer.

Another allegation is that the competitive system excludes those who have not had the benefit of the higher and more costly means of education. Now the fact is that in the five years of competitive

examination in the United States service, the number of those having only a common-school education has been seventy per cent of the whole number, and in the State service it has been seventy-two per cent.

These ratios probably correspond with the proportion in private business concerns, and proves that all classes of citizens, whatever the nature of their education, have equal opportunities. Could any system be more thoroughly democratic?

Other critics have affirmed that competition would encourage "cramming" and that a superficial knowledge would win the prizes over real and solid attainments. Like all other objections, this was advanced long since when the first movement was made to reform the British service. Thirty years ago, the eminent statesman and historian, Macauley, and his colleagues, emphatically expressed their conviction that with competent and trained examiners, "it is utterly impossible that the delusive show of knowledge which is the effect of the process popularly called cramming, can ever be successful against real learning and ability." Since this was said, the competi tive method has been developed, until it covers nearly the whole service of the empire, and with its growth, there have sprung up special tutors and schools, and special text-books for training those desiring to enter the service, and the result has been no appreciable injury to the service, but on the other hand a benefit in the interest in a broader and more exact education, stimulated by the new incentives offered by a public service open to all ranks and conditions upon the single basis of superior fitness.

Much has been said, particularly by appointing officers, regarding the confidential relations that subordinates bear to the head of an office or department. This is generally an absurd claim, as the cases where any such confidential relation actually exists, form only an infinitesimally small fraction of the service. There are rare contingencies where a private secretary or other confidential employe may be essential, but the vast bulk of the public business is business that is and should be public in every sense, and nothing can be more ridiculous than the assertion that there are mysteries, reservations and secrets that are to be cloaked and suppressed; in fact, such concealment always suggests danger to the public interests. The term "private secretary " is often abused to find an excuse for nepotism, and the whole claim of confidential relation is made more laughable by the recollection that under the patronage system these highly important places were generally filled without even a shadow of the precautions and safeguards that the Civil Service rules now throw around the selections.

And there has been a similar exaggeration as to the value of what is called, in a general way, "business experience," which cannot be measured by examination and must be taken upon testimonials more or less trustworthy. There are, of course, certain kinds of training or experience gained in private affairs that may be serviceable in public transactions of the same nature. Thus, an experienced bank

teller might be very efficient in a like position in a public treasury; or a person might have had valuable and approved experience in some public place that would especially fit him for a similar place. But the general term "experience" is very misleading when it is proffered as a prime factor in estimating qualifications for the Civil Service, and those who have had to do with the appointments know of no term that has been so abused, when employed in the usually vague way, without specific application.

There are those also who censure any educational tests for such positions as those of messenger, orderly, watchman, or where the duties are those of an artisan. It is admitted that in these employments, character, physical qualities, and in some cases manual skill, are the paramount requirements; but beyond this a certain amount of education is advantageous not only in itself, but also as an evidence of trained intelligence. As illustrating this, may be given the account of the great Willimantic Thread Works in Connecticut, by a recent English traveler and investigator.*

In answer to an inquiry, Colonel Burrows, the manager of these great factories, asks, Why is it that the Willimantic thread will lift more ounces of dead weight and is smoother than any other?"

Every manufacturer can buy the same cotton and the same sort of machinery to work it. Why, then, the superiority of our products? Simply because they are made by people who know more than any other people in the world engaged in the same work. They put more brains into their work than others do. They are intelligent enough to know the value of care, intelligent enough to be conscientious about employing it, and intelligent enough to know how best to apply it with skill to produce the best results. That is why it pays us directly to increase their knowledge."

For three years there were posted in all the entrance halls of these mills the notice that "no person who cannot read and write will be employed in these mills after July 4, 1884," and since that date this rule has been enforced.

In these great factories employing thousands, and which in their beneficent and profitable management exhibit one phase of the progressive solution of the great "labor question," it is found that even in work that is wholly mechanical and monotonous educated intelligence has a practical and commercial value. Indeed there is no kind of human labor that is not improved and exalted by a higher intelligence in its discharge, and this intelligence is vivified and trained by education in the schools. The occasional examples of ignorant persons who render certain services with fidelity and zeal do not affect the truth of the general proposition, since they are rare exceptions, and there remains the certainty that education would have increased the usefulness of these few exceptions. The aristocratic conservatism that long resisted popular education upon the pretext that more knowledge by the poorer classes would produce discontent and unfit

* Old World Questions and New World Answers by Daniel Pidgeon, F. G. S., Assoc. Inst. C. E-London and New York, 1885.