The examinations established by the commissioners, in pursuance of the order in council of 1870, were adapted to the then existing organization of the public offices; and first appointments to clerkships and similar situations in public offices were divided into two classes—the one intended to be filled by persons of high acquirements, who were to perform the more important parts of official duty, the other to be filled by persons of less extended attainments, whose duties were intended to be more or less mechanical. Candidates for the former class of appointments were to be between 18 and 24 years of age, and had to pass a preliminary test examination in handwriting, orthography, arith metic, and English composition. The subjects of the competitive examinations of this class were English composition, including précis writing, English history,English language and literature; language, literature, and history of Greece, Rome, France, Germany, and Italy; natural science, moral science, jurisprudence, and political economy. The competi tors might take up all or any of those subjects, but got marks only in subjects of which they showed a competent knowledge; and those who stood highest, up to the number of places to be filled, were the successful candidates. Mathematics and the classics counted heavily in the examination. For the inferior grade of appointments, candidates were to be between 16 and 20 years of age, and had to pass a preliminary examination in hand writing, orthography, and arithmetic. The subjects of the competitive examination were handwriting, orthography, arithmetic, copying manuscript, indexing or docketing, digesting returns into summaries, English composition, geography, English history, and book-keeping. In both classes, the successful candidates were, in order of merit, allowed to choose to which of the situations assigned for competition they should be appointed, provided that they were found qualified under the special regulations applicable to the offices which they respectively selected. For a humbler but very numerous class of appointments in the public service, consisting of second-class (out-door) assistantships of excise and the out-door service of the customs, a third variety of examination was instituted, the subjects being handwriting, spelling, arithenetic and English composition. Candidates in this case were to be between 19 and 22 years of age; and examinations took place simultaneously in all the chief towns in the 'United Kingdom. The examina tions for admission to the two grades of clerkships take place in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin only. Besides the examinations above described, special modes of testing comparative fitness were adopted in the ease of a few appointments demanding peculiar, e.g., technical qualifications.
An order in council of 12th Feb., 1876, introduced important changes as regards the lower division of civil service clerks. The subjects of examination for this class remain ing what they had been, the minimum age of candidates was raised from 16 to 17 years (provision being made, however, for the appointment—by competition in a more limited Number of subjects—of boy-clerks between 15 and 17 years of age). Successful candi dates were deprived of the right to choose out of the places vacant the office to which they should be appointed, and were made liable to serve in any office to which, not merely at first, but from time to time, the civil service commissioners should appoint them. Under this order, moreover, the number of persons selected at each examination is to exceed the number of places at the time vacant by 10 per cent. And while appoint ments are to be given, as a rule, in the order of a list made out according to merit, as shown in the examinations, that order may be departed from, if the needs of particular offices seem so to require; and provision is made, that if a candidate remains unplaced at 25 years of age, his name shall be struck off the list. The order has raised the
period of probation after appointment from six months to a year; but the civil serv ice commissioners may give a trial hi another office to a candidate rejected after proba• tion. The order further prescribed, having in view that the lower division should be strictly confined to duties more or less mechanical, that the salaries of the clerks should rise from a minimum of £80, by a triennial increment of £15, to a maximum of £200 a year—extra pay, not to exceed £100, being, however, provided for cases of special merit; and that promotion from the lower to the higher division should take place only excep tionally, on the special recommendation of the head of a department, with the assent of the treasury, and on a special certificate granted by-the civil service. commissioners.
Substantially, this order carried out the recommendations of a treasury commission pre sided over by Mr. Lyon Playfair. The recommendations of that commission as to the appointments to clerkships of the higher diviion have not yet (June, 1879) been adopted. These involved even a more considerable departure from the principle of the system intro duced in 1870; than has been made in the case of the lower division. The commission advised that there should be a preliminary test-examination open to persons above 17 years of age,and a subsequent examination (also a test rather than a competitive examination) open to persons between 18 and 23 years of age, in a certain number of subjects selected by each candidate from a list of subjects prepared by the civil service commissioners in consultation with the heads of departments. All candidates who showed a certain pro ficiency in the subjects chosen by them would be put on a list made out in alphabetical order, and be eligible for, though having no right to, appointment to the higher division. Appointments would be made from the list of persons eligible by the beads of depart ments—the candidates getting the right to refuse places offered to them, without forfeit ing their eligibility. This scheme, as the commission allowed, would involve a partial return to patronage. It should be said that it was accompanied by a proposal that every member of the higher division should be allowed to rise (from a minimum of £100) to a maximum of £400 a year, and that extra pay, not to exceed £200 a year, should be awarded in cases of special merit.
The abolition of the system of purchase in the army followed by a great extension of the use of competitive examinations. First appointments to the cavalry and infantry are now given on the results of examinations open to all youths between 17 and 20 who can pass a preliminary examination in elementary mathematics; transla tion from some modern language, writing English from dictation, geometrical drawing, and geography. The subjects of the competitive examination in this case are so arranged as to give great weight to classics and mathematics, while not excluding such branches of knowledge as English history and literature, the French and German lan guages, and some of the natural sciences, and offering a special premium for proficiency in drawing. The examinations are held three times a year, and are under the direction of the civil service commissioners. Admission to the royal military academy at Wool wich, the portal to commissions in the engineers and artillery, is also obtained by com petition in examinations superintended by the commissioners. First appointments to the supply and transport subdepartment of the commissariat and ordnance store depart ment of the army are similarly filled up. The civil service commissioners have also under their charge the examinations for the civil service of India (q.v.); for the selec tion of persons to he trained for service in the India forest department; and for admis sion to the Indian civil engineering college, in all of which the system of open compe tition prevails.