THE ENTRANCE TO THE CIVIL SERVICE.
IN looking over the list of subjects in the examination for entrance into the Civil Service we are struck with the all but universal introduction of history and geography as tests for the competi- tors, while the other tests—Latin, French, bookkeeping, preois writing, and English composition, &c.—are excluded in one office or included in another. This universal agreement as to history and geography has doubtless a good foundation. They are taught in all schools, and a boy fresh from school must have been dull or idle if he has not mastered many facts in general history and in descriptive geography. You cannot well test a boy's intelli- gence by composition or précis writing, because he may never have been taught these accomplishments, and you cannot ask Latin and French from all boys for some may only have received a sound English education ; therefore as applied to young men under twenty wishing to enter the service these two tests are natural and. just. We wish, however, to call attention to the fact that en- trance to the Civil Service is allowed for nearly one-half the Ser- vice to men of twenty-five, and for, we believe, every office in the whole service up to twenty-two. Applied to young men of these ages geography and history are very bad tests. A. young man of twenty-two or twenty-five is supposed to have taken some part in higher studies or in the real business of life, and he must have neglected these studies or that business if he have kept up to school-prize point the multitudinous facts to be found in his- tories and maps. A young man of twenty-five who has worked for four years in a merchant's or lawyer's office, with all the long hours and hard training of such offices, has acquired in that time a thorough knowledge of clerkly duties. If he obtain a nomina- tion to the Civil Service he finds that his acquired skill is of use— should he command coolness enough to do his best—in the tests of handwriting, arithmetic, composition, and precis writing. But he finds that his book-keeping (the mastery and practice of which are fine tests of intelligence, patience, and accuracy) is of no use, for only three small offices in the Civil Service—the Committee of Coun- cil of Education, the Exchequer, and the Mint—requive it. He finds that his quickness and accuracy in copying manuscripts are of no use, for only one office—Chelsea Hospital with its few clerks —demands it. He finds that the patience and clear-headedness required to compare copies with the original, to make fair copies from rough notes, and to draft and copy schedules are only required—the first in the House of Commons, the second in the Committee of Council for Education Office, and the third in the General Registrar's Office. He finds, however, that he is ex- amined in the history and geography which he had learned long ago and which he had wisely forgotten while acquiring a mastery of the practical craft of clerkship, and he may find himself re- jected, with all his clerkly abilities, because he has forgotten them. The Civil Service Commissioners tell us from time to time that fifty or sixty per cent of the rejected are defeated for want of knowledge of the matters practically required in their offices ; but their own schedules of last year showed us, and their own report admitted, that men superior in the practical duties of office work were in some cases supplanted by competitors inferior as to office work but superior in scholastic knowledge. This is a wrong in two ways. It is a grave wrong to the individual man sent home in bitterness to pained and repining friends ; and though men may sneer at sympathy for an individual, we cannot think with- out emotion of the cases we know where a young life has been steeped in a very dreary pain and a whole family distressed, not because the rejected was unfit for his work, but that while fitting himself for it he had no time or mind for schoolboy studies. It is a still graver wrong to the public service. Of two schoolboys the best schoolboy will, as a general rule, make the best clerk both for present and future work—but the best schoolboy in our highest school must be far inferior as a Civil Servant to a clerk with three years' office experience.
The root of the evil seems to us the introduction into the exami- nation of any tests of mere knowledge. It is almost impossible in an examination to distinguish lietween the intelligent knowledge acquired naturally by an inquiring mind and the heap of facts crammed into a boy with a good memory by a judicious grinder. Every one knows that a young man may be very deficient in in- telligence and yet acquire facts—but no stupid boy, even with the aid of a good crammer, can master arithmetic, bookkeeping, compo- sition, precis writing, the power of making a complete narrative out of rough notes, the ability of accurate copying, or other tests naturally suggested by the actual work of all offices. Examina- tion in knowledge may be necessary when you deal with boys under nineteen, for it would be expecting precocity to demand from them the clerkly skill indicated by the tests of intelligence and ability we have suggested: and an examination in know- ledge is useful simply to ascertain whether a boy has fairly gone through the usual routine of an English education. But un- less you wish to shut out from the service your good men you should not ask history or geography from any candidate over twenty. If you do you will only necessitate his immediate re- course to cramming : we know a case where a really superior competitor owned that he owed his victory in a competitive ex- amination mainly to his getting off by heart the day before a long list of three hundred "principal events" from a chronological chart. The obvious conclusion is that it is absurd to apply the same tests to boys under twenty and to young men over that age. But the absurdity is still more glaring when applied in the pre- sent practice of limited competition.
It was proposed some time ago by Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Stafford Northoote that junior civil servants should be se- lected by a competitive examination. It was in fact a proposed throwing open of the Civil Service to the whole public; but as the public are more numerous than the situations, and as every one was supposed to have the same right to a place, it was suggested that the chosen few should be indicated by a literary lottery—for such a competitive examination really is. In a pass examination the candidate knows that if he attains a certain standard—if in fact he has industry and intelligence to persevere—he is certain to succeed ; but a competitive examination is a lottery in which no one knows the highest number. You may " throw " the greatest number that has ever been known, but the next throw may turn up a still higher number and you are defeated. In other words you do not know but that you may be defeated by the coming Glad- stones or the future Macaulays of the rising generation ; or you may with mediocre abilities triumph over a bevy of very dull boys. Still if the service is thrown open to the whole public one sees no other way of selection ; a lottery is of course mere chance, but it has no personal or class probabilities. The ser- vice, however, is not thrown open—the Crown still nominates to junior clerkships; but strange to say, the lottery system —a necessary evil of open competition—is wilfully- intro- duced in the selection of civil servants. The independent ex- amination by the Civil Service Commissioners was originally introduced to strain, as it were, through a sieve the young men appointed by the Crown. Some of these young men were appointed for very natural reasons, as the records of patronage have shown—because their fathers or uncles were fine old soldiers, veteran civil servants, or eminent literary men with large poor families, or sometimes because they possessed the friendship acquired, perhaps worthily, perhaps not, of a Member of Parliament ; and sometimes no doubt for questionable motives of private concern. The independent examiners said, "We look not to these matters—we test each young man as to his fitness for the service; if he is fit he may pass—if he is unfit he will be rejected, —even though his father or patron were the greatest general of the day or the best servant of the Crown." This practice was sometimes painful in its results—but no one can doubt but that it was eminently just. What is now the practice ? The Trea- sury, (or the Secretary of State,) selects at random from the list of proteges three young men, and tells them to go in for the literary lottery. It is of course little better than chance. A very clever young man may be defeated—a very mediocre man may succeed
• —it all depends on the chance selection of competitors. Some people say that the selection is not always chance. A Minister can secure the success of his protégé by a judicious selection. We do not believe that this is often done—if at all ; but we know that one of the present Ministry objects to competition in his office on the grounds that it may be easily done.
The limited competition works, however, most mischievously when we consider its application in the case of temporary or extra clerks appointed to a competition with new candidates for the Civil Service. The public may not know that there are in nearly all our Government offices a number of clerks not belonging to what is called "the establishment," but appointed for a professedly temporary pressure of business. Their original ac- ceptance of such appointments simply indicates that they did not possess sufficient political or personal interest to obtain a junior clerkship on the establishment. In some offices the temporary clerks were so long retained that they have been formed into what is called an extra permanent staff, progressing in their sa- laries by slow degrees having no promotion and having no right to the promotion taking place in the establishment. It is the theory of this system that this extra staff is engaged in infe- rior duty, but the practice is not infrequently very different. We know one case where an extra clerk has been for ten years in one office ; his salary is now 1201. a year ; he does some of the superior work of the office, and he has seen younger men ap- pointed year after year over his head,—men who for at least five years will not be trusted with the kind of work he does' but who obtain their posts because they have influence with the Secretary of the Treasury for the time being. Attempts have been lately, made to give such men as these a chance of rescue from their de- pressed comition as a kind of pai :an class in each office. They have been in some cases offered an appointment on the establishment if they succeed in the lottery of a competition. Some have re- fused on the grounds we have stated above that while engaged in their office work, while showing zeal, punctuality, and crerkly ability, they have partially forgotten their scholastic acquire- meats; but some have competed, and with, as might be expected, occasional success. But in many cases they naturally fail. We know of one case (and it will do as one instance out of many,) where a temporary clerk after three years' steady service in a very special office' and three years' experience of its peculiar work, was defeated in a competition for a permanent appointment because he was inferior in history and geography to his com- petitor who knew nothing at all of the office work. Now, we simply ask, can the public service be benefited by the substi- tution?
In defence of the limited competition lottery, there is one strong argument—it trebles the patronage of the Government. If with this in its favour it is found impossible to abolish it, let us at least mitigate its iniquity. Firstly. Remove from the examination of men over twenty, and nearly from all examinations, all mere knowledge all questions on mere facts, so good for the cramming trade. Secondly. Make the examination of men over twenty en- tirely in ability—and in ability for the work to be done in the office. Thirdly. If you have a class of temporary and extra clerks, whose years of service are the best examination, and who have given proofs of skill and trustworthiness give them appoint- ments not by lottery or by a " Mangnall's Questions" test, but as rewards for their service—exacting, if you like, a standard of qualifications' and, Fourthly, when you admit young men under twenty, let them compete among themselves for junior clerkships in examinations testing good education. By these means you would secure the qualifications adapted to the varied work in the service, and avoid much gross injustice.
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