into the public service young men of considerably higher qualifications than those who, although apparently competitors, are in many instances simple nominees.

It will be perceived from the Report of the Select Committee and from our correspondence with the Treasury above set forth, that the proposed modifications with respect to competition are not intended to apply to the lower grades of offices, such as tidewaiterships, &c.

We entirely concur with the Committee in the inapplicability of purely intellectual competition to the selection of officers whose duties are principally mechanical; but we conceive that open competition in which due weight is given to physical qualifications, and also to such educational attainments as may afford presumptive proof of industry and intelligence, will be found to be the readiest and most certain method of obtaining the persons most suitable for the subordinate offices adverted to.

Upon this subject we may refer to a correspondence which we have inserted in the Appendix, between the authorities of the General Post Office and this Commission.

Although the authorities of the Post Office were unfavourable to educational competition, except of the most limited character, it appeared from the evidence of two of their principal officers, Mr. Tilley and Mr. A. Trollope, that by appointing the lettercarriers by means of an open competition in respect of physical qualifications, a more efficient class of servants would be obtained. The subject underwent the consideration of the Duke of Argyll during his tenure of the office of PostmasterGeneral, in the summer of 1860; and in Mr. Tilley's letter to Mr. Maitland of the 9th August 1860, the intentions of the Duke as Postmaster-General are thus notified to the Civil Service

Mr. Tilley states that, "after full consideration of the subject, his Grace has determined to throw these appointments open, and to invite candidates publicly to offer themselves for employment.

"His Grace does not desire to make any alteration in the literary examination which has already been fixed for letter-carriers, with the assistance of the Commissioners, viz. :

1. Writing from dictation;
2. Reading manuscript;

3. Elementary arithmetic ;

but he has determined to increase the standard of height to 5 feet 5 inches, and to extend the maximum age to 24; and further, with the view of obtaining men who possess more physical strength than those who have recently been appointed, his Grace proposes that candidates shall be subjected to a competitive examination by the medical officer; only such men, therefore, as have been selected will be sent before the Commissioners."

Shortly after this, when the present Postmaster-General succeeded to the office, he saw reason to abstain from carrying into effect this proposed plan of open physical competition, and to continue the previous mode of appointment. We felt, and

ventured to state, our regret at this change, and we thus expressed our views in a letter addressed by Mr. Maitland to Mr. Tilley on

the 4th October last :-
:-

"The Civil Service Commissioners receive with regret your announcement of the change now intended. They stated in my letter of the 17th August that they would be prepared to assist, so far as their functions extend, in carrying out the arrangements then notified to them, and as it appears from the published Minutes of the Committee on Civil Service Appointments that those arrangements were in strict conformity with, if not suggested by, the evidence* given by yourself and Mr. Trollope, they feel it unnecessary to justify the anticipations of advantage to the public service which they then expressed.

"The Commissioners have, in the course of the present correspondence, noticed the several changes, all in the same direction, which have been made in the educational standard originally fixed by the authorities of the Post Office. They do not now repeat the observations which they have from time to time made, when such changes have been proposed; nor can it be necessary that they should again disclaim all wish to enforce the possession of useless accomplishments at the risk of losing qualifications essential to the service. But if, in the selection of candidates for the police, where physical strength must be, even more than in the case of letter-carriers, the great requisite, compared with which all others are of minor importance, it is possible to insist on ability to 'read and write'-if it is reasonable to interfere with the rights of private employers of labour in factories and mines, by compulsory provisions, with regard to the education of young persons whom they receive into their service-and, above all, if the large amount of public money annually expended in teaching those whose duties in after-life will in all probability be not less mechanical than those of letter-carriers is rightly so expended-it is difficult to believe that the power of writing from dictation, with moderate correctness, a short passage containing only words of common use, and of performing sums in addition and subtraction such as those given below,† is one which it would be hazardous or unreasonable to expect in any class of public servants.

"The Commissioners have only to add, in conclusion, that they will carry into effect the wishes of the Postmaster-General as to the examination of the candidates whom his Lordship may be pleased to nominate. Unless, however, some wider field of selection is opened, they cannot anticipate that the reduction of the educational test will prevent rejections and the delay so occasioned."

*Refer to Questions 1741, 1742, 1743, 1772, 1773, 1774, 1885.
† Simple Addition.

Compound Addition.

With regard to tidewaiterships and other subordinate situations in the Customs department, requiring for the performance of the duties attached to them more limited knowledge and educational acquirements than clerkships, there appear, in various passages in the evidence given by the officers of that department, not only opinions adverse to open, or even to any competition, but also apprehensions lest, in placing too high a standard of knowledge and intellectual acquirements, the requisite physical qualifications should be lost sight of, and a class of persons introduced into offices of this character, superior perhaps in knowledge and intelligence, but unfitted for the laborious duties to be performed.

We

As we have discussed these opinions and apprehensions very fully in a letter which we addressed to the Board of Customs, and which will be found in the Appendix, No. II., we do not think it necessary to enter upon them here at any length. think, however, that by adopting a high standard of physical qualification, and, if found necessary, by making the previous exercise of certain active employments, more or less connected with the situations to be held, indispensable conditions to the appointment-all possible risk of the appointment of physically incompetent candidates may be avoided. We are aware that, although this evil may be thus prevented, yet, if the educational standard adopted by us were fixed too high, it might lead to a difficulty in finding an adequate supply of candidates who should come up to this as well as to the physical standard. At present, however, as the examination in orthography, writing, and arithmetic is limited to that degree of proficiency which is necessary for the proper performance of the duties which the candidate is to fulfil, the difficulty in question cannot now be charged on our arrangements. We shall, however, carefully keep in view this important point, and we shall fix our minimum standard accordingly.

The arrangements contemplated by the Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury for separating the competitive from the preliminary test examination have led to a change in the Audit Office in the subjects prescribed for candidates for junior situations therein; and the Commissioners of Audit have accordingly decided to raise their present standard by proposing the following list of prescribed subjects for the second or competitive examination :

1. Exercises designed to test handwriting and ortho-
graphy.

2. Arithmetic, including vulgar and decimal fractions.
3. First three books of Euclid.

4. English composition.

5. Précis.

6. Geography.

7. Translation from Latin prose.

8. Translation from one of the following modern lan-
guages, viz.:-French, Italian, or German.

:

b

We communicated to the Audit Office our cordial concurrence in this proposal.

neers.

We may here advert to the half-yearly examinations of candidates for entry as apprentices in the dockyards, and of boys to be entered in the steam factories for education as naval engiWe undertook the management of these examinations at the request of the Board of Admiralty, as mentioned in our last Report. Three examinations have been held since the change, and we believe we may say that the system has worked satisfactorily. In these examinations 200 marks are placed at the disposal of the medical officers of the several establishments, and are assigned by them according to their judgment of the physical qualifications of the candidates. It will, of course, be understood that all who are found to be disqualified on medical grounds are at once and absolutely excluded; but among those who remain some will be physically superior to others, and it is right that such superiority should be allowed to influence the result of the competition. Height, weight, and girth round the chest are in each case ascertained, and a certain proportion of the marks having been distributed accordingly, the remaining marks are assigned by the medical officer at his discretion.

In the performances of these candidates there is, as might be expected, great inequality, and the standard has of course been a low one. At the same time there are among the competitors for these appointments many whose attainments are superior to those of a considerable proportion of the candidates for metropolitan clerkships. The average number of marks obtained by the first six boys in the Devonport examination of last Christmas were as follows:

We notice with satisfaction, as bearing on this topic, the following passage from Mr. Cumin's Report as Assistant Commissioner on the state of Popular Education in the Maritime districts of Bristol and Plymouth.

"Both the Master Shipwright and the Schoolmaster are of opinion that the boys entered by competition are the best; and during my visit to the dockyard schools I saw a list of nine competition boys, whose characters, as shipwrights, had been written by the officers, and were declared to be eminently satisfactory. Moreover, the Admiral Superintendent told me that no complaints were made against them."

"Amongst the working shipwrights themselves I found the opinion general, that a boy ought to be educated before he enters the yard; and that the present system of entering half by competition and half by claims ought to be maintained; but at the same time their opinion

seemed to be, that education ought to cease as soon as the boy became an apprentice. In this the Master Shipwright did not agree, although both he and the Schoolmaster thought that education in the dockyard ought not to be compulsory, but ought to be regarded as a privilege."Reports of the Assistant Commissioners, vol. iii. p. 64.

In reference to the lower class of appointments in the public service, it has been urged in some quarters as an objection to competitive examination, that although for the higher appointments in the service, for which it is desirable to obtain young men whose minds have been well trained and improved by education, and who possess industry and intelligence, a literary and scientific examination may test those qualities, and the relative superiority displayed in subjects of that character may be taken as a fair measure of the difference between the merits of the several candidates; yet that such a comparison applied to candidates for the lower offices in the Excise and the Customs, and to Postoffice letter-carriers would fail to indicate the relative superiority of the candidates, inasmuch as the best of them would have attained a very moderate limit of knowledge, and the difference between that and the minimum acquirements necessary for the duties of the office would be too narrow to admit of its being taken as a correct test of industry and intelligence. We can readily understand that this objection may have considerable weight with many persons, who, although they may have given attention to the subject, have not had practical experience in the examinations of this class of persons; but the experience which the last six years and the multitude of candidates who have been examined under our direction have furnished to us, leads us to directly opposite conclusions.

We believe that by a judicious choice of subjects, and of questions and exercises in these subjects, the relative superiority in intelligence and industry in the class of persons from which these lower officers are selected, can be ascertained quite as accurately and satisfactorily as in the examinations for the Indian Civil Service, or as in the careful and well-considered system of examination applied to the candidates for admission into the Artillery and Engineers.

For this purpose, arithmetic and simple English composition are instruments which may be thoroughly depended on; and we should, as in the higher competitive examinations, permit the candidate to have a choice of some other subjects to which his previous education or pursuits in life may have led him to address himself; but we wish it to be carefully borne in mind in reference to these observations that we give credit to the proficiency displayed in these subjects, not as being applicable to the duties to be performed, but as proofs of the qualities of intelligence and industry-qualities alike valuable in low as in high employments.

While the Select Committee of the House of Commons was taking evidence, a Committee appointed by the Treasury, and consisting of Sir S. Northcote, Major Graham, Mr. Lingen, and