844 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



holder bas great difficulty in realizing 

 that the country was not created for 

 him to govern and regulate ; that he is 

 a servant of the public is not in all his 

 thoughts. Thay say that when men 

 are virtually irremovable, save for 

 gross misconduct, they generally be- 

 come sluggish in the performance of 

 their duties, and that in the higher 

 officials this sluggishness becomes rank 

 obstruction. They point to such an 

 institution as the Enghsh post-office, 

 which, during the regime of Rowland 

 Hill, a man who was forced on it from 

 without, exhibited a great degree of 

 life and energy, but which, under his 

 successors, shows the bureaucratic spirit 

 in perfection, and is becoming as noted 

 for its dullness and lethargy as once 

 it was for intelligence and the spirit 

 of progress. They say : Carry out the 

 examination system consistently, apply 

 it, as is done in England, to all branches 

 and grades of the public service, and 

 we shall in due time have here, not a 

 flexible and self-adapting governmental 

 machine such as we need, and as, to 

 some extent, we have at present, but a 

 vast and comprehensive mandarinism 

 existing apart from, and (with the most 

 benevolent purposes no doubt) presid- 

 ing over our national life. They point 

 to the intolerable airs which the official 

 classes give themselves in most Euro- 

 pean countries — airs implying a defi- 

 nitely established superiority on the 

 part of messieurs the functionaries over 

 the citizens with whom they come into 

 contact. They add that, however great 

 an evil office-seeking may be to-day, it 

 is after all confined to a small percent- 

 age of the people, those who, by reason 

 of the political services rendered by 

 themselves or their friends, conceive 

 themselves entitled to some considera- 

 tion in the distribution of patronage; 

 whereas if commissioners and examin- 

 ers are employed to perambulate the 

 country, advertising the public service 

 more or less in every city, town, and 

 hamlet, the number of those whose 



minds will be more or less unsettled by 

 the thought of perchance obtaining a 

 government situation will be vastly 

 greater. In such terrible colors is the 

 Charybdis of bureaucracy painted by 

 men who, for their own part, have no 

 dread of the Scylla of the spoils system. 

 "Well, the picture they draw is not 

 veiy unlike the reality. We have as 

 yet in this republic but a partial meas- 

 ure of so-called civil-service reform ; 

 but, if the time should ever come that 

 the English system should be adopted 

 in its entirety, there can be no question 

 that, in the course of half a generation, 

 we should have among us an official 

 class such as we do not wish to see — 

 men to whom the traditions and usages 

 of their several departments would be 

 of much greater moment and weight 

 than the requirements of the public, or 

 than the dictates of practical common 

 sense. The public business would not 

 be done on business principles, but on 

 " departmental " principles — something 

 very different. And, just as the govern- 

 mental machine grew in size and com- 

 plexity, would it more and more begin 

 to constitute, in the eyes of those oper- 

 ating it, an end in itself. To master 

 the technique, so to speak, of a depart- 

 ment would take some years of appli- 

 cation; and nothing would be easier 

 than for the permanent officers to per- 

 suade political heads, who might wish 

 to introduce reforms, that the machine 

 was working as well as could be ex- 

 pected, and that to try and make it 

 work otherwise than it was doing 

 would throw everything into confusion. 

 Of course, it would seem like great 

 temerity on the part of a man of no ex- 

 perience to combat the views of a most 

 respectable and apparently intelligent 

 gentleman, who had perhaps grown 

 gray in the performance of his depart- 

 mental duties; and thus many an en- 

 terprise of pith and moment would turn 

 its course awry, and lose the name of 

 action, as the Prince of Denmark once 

 thoughtfully observed. It would not, 



