of the system. It should silence all cavils of the kind we are

The organization of the Census Office has afforded quite as decisive evidence of the good effects of competition. As everybody knows, the Census Bureau is not a permanent organization, but is called into existence only at the beginning of each decade, for the purpose of taking the decennial census. The present bureau was therefore organized during the current year by the Superintendent of the Census, General Walker, who is a determined supporter of the civil-service reform. Down to the 15th of October six hundred and twenty-one persons were sent before the examining board on recommendations for clerkships. These were not taken at random from those who might apply, but were selected by the Secretary and the Superintendent from the best of the general class recommended for appointment in the department, or in that bureau. They were consequently a more than usually good average of the class of applicants before the departments, since considerable numbers withdrew on learning that the examination was to be competitive; and it may be safely said that few, if any, of the whole number would have been rejected under the usual modes of appointment. The examination was a written one, and the grade of merit, in a scale of one thousand, was fixed by the examiners in entire ignorance of the names of the persons whose papers were being scrutinized by them. It was made imperative that the applicant must reach four hundred in the scale to secure an appointment to a first or lowest regular class clerkship; and the appointments were made in

their order, from the top of the list. The report by grades, as given in the Annual Report of the Interior Department, is as follows:

From this table it will be seen that only three hundred and thirty-eight succeeded in passing the examination, although only four tenths of the marks which would have indicated a perfect examination were required; and it is probably safe to say, that if the officers of the department had been able to adhere still more strictly to the proper principle, and throw the competition entirely open to all comers, it would not have been necessary to receive any whose merit was indicated by a grade of less than six hundred in the scale, of an examination no more severe than this. This would have included only one hundred and five of those actually examined. The bureau was proceeding carefully with an experiment, however, and it was thought wise to err on the side of moderation, and not to excite too great a clamor of opposing influences.

One thing, however, is demonstrated, that nearly half the class of well-recommended applicants, such as have usually obtained immediate and unconditional appointments to clerkships, were sifted out by a very moderate competition in the examination. This, of itself, speaks volumes as to the real competence of the average appointee; and yet it would prove a too favorable criterion by which to judge the standard of capacity in the older bureaus of the government.

Of course exclusion created a temporary clamor; and exaggerated stories were circulated regarding the severity of the examination. There were even instances of assertions by members of Congress that they could not have passed the examinations themselves; but as these assertions were supposed to be based upon the reports of disappointed applicants, who naturally tried to save their own credit by exaggerating the ordeal they had failed in, it would not be fair

to judge the congressmen by the test of the examination questions.

A publication of the questions used, with the answers actually given, verbatim et literatim, would be of great service in enlightening the public on the general topic we are discussing. An inspection of the penmanship would be still more decisive as to the qualification of the majority of applicants to become what may properly be called professional clerks. It is as much as the limits of such an article as this will permit, to say that the examination was chiefly arithmetical, as the statistical work of the bureau called for that class of ability; and the questions were so graded that a person of reasonably good penmanship, who spelled with tolerable accuracy, would be sure of avoiding rejection from the competitive list, if his examples in common arithmetic were correctly performed.

It should be carefully kept in mind, in the discussion of this subject, that we are not seeking in these examinations for legislators, generals, or governors. We are looking for clerks and subordinates, whose duties are in a routine that is clerical in its character. The duties of the governmental departments have more analogy to the general work of a banking-house than to any other; and we should secure a class of men who would naturally be found working their way up to the tellerships, or perhaps the cashiership, of a bank. Fidelity, accuracy, industry, neatness, and rapidity in strictly clerical work, with the prospect of advancement to the head of a bureau, for those who develop real administrative talent, are what we should seek on the one hand, and offer as an inducement to effort on the other.

We may assert, with the most complete confidence, that competitive examinations are not only theoretically the best method of determining the qualifications of applicants for routine offices, but are proven by the experience of our own departments, as well as by that of other civilized nations, to be also the best practical means of securing a good civil service, and the only refuge from evils that become more intolerable the more closely they are viewed.

But how is it as to the freedom of competition? Should the examinations be open to all? Undoubtedly they should. By

our hypothesis we have discarded the corrupt system based upon patronage and influence; and the only way is to make thorough work of it. We have declared that we are seeking by means of competition the best men that can be procured for the places we have to fill. To say that we will stop at political lines is to discard our principle, and lug in by the shoulders the very enemy we have been trying to expel, namely, favoritism and partiality in the selection. There are political places which must be distinctly and permanently recognized as such; but they do not come within the list of routine offices; and in the departments, at the seat of government, they would not necessarily include any one below the rank of Cabinet offi

cer.

The practice of selecting from the adherents of a party always and necessarily leads to abuse. When it is applied to mechanics in an arsenal or a navy-yard, most people find no difficulty in seeing that, in a country where labor is as much in demand as it is here, such places can only be desirable when some advantage in wages and terms of labor is given beyond what could be procured from private employers. The places are then made prizes, and, as such, are given to favorites and partisans. It is precisely so in all other forms of employment. The idea that the government is to adopt some other scale of the value of labor than that which is fixed by the general laws which control the labor market of the country, is wholly untenable. Whether the work be clerical or mechanical, the state should pay what such service is fairly worth in the market, leaving it to the advantage found in the assured permanence of the employ to attract into it the best class of employees, of the kind required.

It is notorious that those who are serving the nation look upon it as a grievance if they are called upon to use the same industry, or give the same time to their duties, as is required in the private business of the country. Their hours of labor are shorter, they are not as closely occupied during those hours, their vacations are longer and more frequent, and the interruptions of a casual kind are much more numerous. Under a system in which no political favoritism was used, this could not be so, to the same extent as now; although we may never

expect the public service to come quite up to the mark of a thrifty and well-managed private business.

Again, it is desirable that subordinate public officers should not be heated political partisans. Their right of private opinion they should religiously and jealously preserve, and vote according to that opinion; but it would be every way better for the country that the governmental places should be filled by members of different parties indifferently. Corrupt administration would be much less likely when the chances of the exposure of improper conduct would be increased by the presence and knowledge of those who belonged to different parties. An esprit de corps would grow up, which would make it impossible to use the subordinates of a department for merely partisan work; and they would be much more likely to remember that they are the servants of the whole people, and bound to watch closely the interests of the whole, and not of a part. Public sentiment would now condemn the head of one of our common schools who should make his office one in which he should try to convert his pupils to his own party in politics, or to use his office as a partisan; but, paradox as it is now likely to seem, it is no less objectionab'e to have the ordinary administrative business of the country conducted with a view to party profit or advantage; and it will not be long till the truth is recognized.

Upon the last of the elements of a good civil service,permanence of tenure of office, but little need be said. Establish free competitive examinations as the door into public employment, and the rest will soon take care of itself. Every interest of the people is so completely identified with the continuance of tried and faithful officers in their place, that it would not be long till public sentiment would as sharply condemn "rotation" in the civil departments as it would in the army or navy. We need skilled as well as capable officials. There ought to be systematic and continued disposition of business, instead of having every old claim, that has existed since the government was organized, returning for a new hearing once in four years or oftener.

The entire separation of the civil service from the control of politicians would secure a thorough and impartial congres