690 



REFORM IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. 



tion and care of the interests (Guter) of the 

 Reformed Church of Germany, in teaching, 

 worship, and discipline in every possible way, 

 in accordance with the order of the several 

 confessions and churches to which the mem- 

 bers of this Alliance belong. It abstains from 

 any further interference in the affairs of any 

 of the churches." 



Further objects of the Bund were stated to 

 be the upbuilding of the Reformed churches 

 of Germany, the spread of Reformed litera- 

 ture, the strengthening of weak churches, and 

 other ends harmonizing with these. The meet- 

 ings of the Bund are to be held every two 

 years. Ober Consistorialrath Brandes, of Got- 

 tingen, was chosen president, and the Rev. Dr. 

 Zahn, of Stuttgart, secretary of the organiza- 

 tion. 



REFORM IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. The move- 

 ment for a reform in the methods of selecting 

 the civil servants of the United States has 

 closely followed a similar movement in the 

 mother- country. 



In Great Britain. The reform in Great Britain 

 began in 1853, with the appointment of Sir Staf- 

 ford Northcote and Charles E. Trevelyan as a 

 commission to inquire into the organization of 

 the permanent civil service. The report of this 

 commission showed an almost incredible degree 

 of ignorance and incapacity among the civil serv- 

 ants. In one important respect the evil to be 

 dealt; with was the opposite of that from which 

 the American civil service has suffered. Instead 

 of there being a continual overturning of the 

 public service, the complaint was that the in- 

 competents thrust into it could not be got rid 

 of. Once a man was appointed, the public had 

 him for life. As a remedy, the commission 

 recommended open, competing literary exami- 

 nations. Owing to a change of ministry, the 

 Government took no direct action on this re- 

 port, but in May, 1855, an Order in Council was 

 passed, appointing a Civil-Service Commission 

 to conduct examinations. The examinations 

 were not required to be competitive, but the 

 systematic methods introduced by the com- 

 mission had a good effect, and a system of 

 limited competition soon sprang up. The 

 nomination of candidates for examination was 

 still a matter of patronage. In 1870 a great 

 step was taken. On June 4 of that year an- 

 other Order in Council was issued, directing 

 that, with certain exceptions, all appointments 

 in any department should be made by means 

 of open, competitive examinations. The order 

 was at once put in force, and the system that 

 it established has not only greatly increased 

 the efficiency arid character of the civil service, 

 but it has destroyed the system of patronage 

 that was formerly supreme. Speaking of the 

 new order of things in a public address in 1871, 

 Prime-Minister Gladstone said : " As to the 

 clerkships in my own office the treasury ev- 

 ery one of you has just as much power over 

 their disposal as I have. . . . We have now been 

 enabled to remove the barriers of nomina- 



tion, patronage, jobbing, favoritism in whatever 

 form." 



The competitive system was applied to the 

 East India civil service in 1855, under a plan 

 drawn up by a committee of which Lord Ma- 

 caulay was chairman. The competitive system 

 now applies to almost the entire civil service 

 of Great Britain. The chief exceptions are the 

 Foreign Office and the diplomatic service. 



A civil - service act similar to that of the 

 United States was passed in Canada in 1882 

 and during 1883, 1,036 candidates for the pub- 

 lic service were examined under it. The sys- 

 tem is declared to have had a beneficial effect. 



In the United States. The first provision re- 

 quiring some evidence of qualification in the 

 civil servants of the United States is found in 

 the act of Congress of 1853, which provided 

 that no person should be appointed to any of 

 the four grades of clerkships in the departments 

 in Washington until he had been examined and 

 found qualified by a board of examiners, one 

 of whom, should be the head of the office to 

 which he was to be appointed. The examina- 

 tion provided for was only a pass-examina- 

 tion. This too often became a mere form, and 

 sometimes consisted of asking the candidate 

 what his name was, or what he had had for 

 breakfast ! Frequently, even the pretense of 

 an examination was lacking, the formal cer- 

 tificate of qualification being signed without 

 the candidate's even being seen by any other 

 member of the board than the head of the 

 office. The pass-examinations in the Treasury 

 Department were, however, very thoroughly 

 conducted under Secretary Boutwell, who en- 

 tered office in 1869, and the experience gained 

 in applying them was afterward of great value 

 in establishing the competitive examinations 

 under the civil-service regulations. 



The first popular demand for a reform in the 

 methods of appointment to the civil service 

 was heard soon after the close of the civil war. 

 The immense increase in the number of civil 

 servants during the war period had been made 

 under the system of congressional patronage, 

 and the necessary result was wide-spread ineffi- 

 ciency and extravagance. The agitation of the 

 question of reform bore fruit in the appoint- 

 ment by the two houses of Congress, in July, 

 1866, of a joint select committee on retrench- 

 ment, who were directed to inquire whether 

 the public expenditures could be reduced by 

 lopping off useless officers or cutting down ex- 

 cessive salaries, and to consider the expediency 

 of providing "for the selection of subordinate 

 officers after due examination by proper boards ; 

 their continuance in office during specified 

 terms . . . ; and for withdrawing the public 

 service from being used as an instrument of 

 political and party patronage/' This resolu- 

 tion, which covers the whole field of civil- 

 service reform, was introduced by Thomas A. 

 Jenckes, a representative from Rhode Island. 

 As a member of the retrenchment committee 

 Mr. Jeuckes made two reports (in 1867 and in 



