August 9, 19 17] 



NATURE 



4 — t 

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I 



THE EXAMIXATIONS FOR CLASS I. OF 

 THE CIVIL SERVICE. 



N November last a Treasury committee was ap- 

 pointed to consider and report upon the scheme of 

 examination for Class I. of the Civil Service. The 

 committee consisted of Mr. Stanley Leathes, C.B., 

 First Civil Service Commissioner (chairman) ; Sir 

 Alfred Ewing, K.C.B., Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh; Sir Henry Alexander Miers, Vice- 

 Chancellor of the University of Manchester; Mr. 

 H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of the University of 

 Sheffield; Prof. W. G. S. Adams, Gladstone professor 

 of political theorv and institutions in the Universitv 

 of Oxford; and Mr. D. B. Mair, M.A., director of 

 examinations to the Civil Service Commissioners, to 

 be secretary to the committee. 



Mr. Fisher resigned his membership of the com- 

 mittee on his appointment as President of the Board 

 of Education, and Dr. W. H. Hadow, principal of 

 Armstrong College, Newcastle, and Vice-Chancellor 

 of Durham University, was appointed in his stead. 



The committee was instructed "to consider and re- 

 port upon the existing scheme of examination for 

 Class I. of the Home Civil Service; 



"To submit for the consideration of the Lords Com- 

 missioners of his Majesty's Treasury a revised scheme 

 such as they may judge to be best adapted for the 

 selection of the type of officer required for that class 

 of the Civil Service, and at the same time mogt advan- 

 tageous to the higher education of this countn.' ; 



"And in framing such a scheme, to take into account, 

 so far as possible, the various other purposes which 

 the scheme in question has hitheirto served, and to 

 consult the India Office, the Foreign Office, and the 

 Colonial Office as to their requirements, in so far as 

 they differ from those of the Home Civil Service." 



The report of the committee, dated June 20, 1917, 

 has now been published (Cd. 8657), and the outstand- 

 ing points of the new scheme proposed for the exam- 

 inations of the future are printed below. We hope 

 next week to deal with the report as a whole. 



Scheme Proposed by the Committee. 



This scheme should be established on a basis of 

 equality of studies ; that is, of the chief studies which 

 are pursued by students at the university up to the 

 conclusion of an honours course. We propose to place 

 on an equal footing the main schools of : Classical 

 languages, history, and literature ; modern languages, 

 with history and literature ; history ; mathematics ; and 

 the natural sciences. The classical subjects will be 

 valued at 800 marks ; history and mathematics at the 

 same ; candidates in natural science taking one main 

 subject up to the higher level and two subsidiary sub- 

 jects on the lower level can obtain the same totals; 

 while two modern languages studied as comprehen- 

 sively as the classics will be worth the same. It is 

 possible, however, that for some time candidates able 

 to take full advantage of this last opportunity may be" 

 lew. We propose that the candidate coming from any 

 one of these schools shall be encouraged— it might 

 almost be said constrained by the force of competition 

 — to offer one or two other additional subjects esti- 

 mated by us as the equivalent of one-fourth part of his 

 whole main subject. This addition, valued at 200 

 marks, may be made up in many ways, and we do 

 not propose to limit in any way the free choice of 

 candidates. There is also a great range of university 

 studies — political, legal, economic, and philosophical — 

 which have not been as yet, so far as we know, con- 

 solidated into one honours school, though the courses 

 offered by the London School pf Economics may cover 

 the most part of them. We have greatly increased 

 the individual and collective weight of these studies, 

 XO. 2493, VOL. 99] 



but we do not consider it desirable that candidates for 

 the Civil Service should study exclusively either poli- 

 tics, law, economics, or philosophy ; however, for 

 students whose chief interest lies in two or more of 

 these subjects we offer a varied field of selection which 

 is fully equivalent to that appertaining to any of the 

 schools mentioned above. 



While grouping subjects as above, and expecting 

 that on the whole the main choice of candidates will 

 be in one or other of the groups, we retain for subjects 

 of university study the old freedom of selection. What- 

 ever limits we imposed upon the choice of candidates, 

 we should still be confronted by the difficulty of equat- 

 ing disparate subjects ; e.g. language including litera- 

 ture and histon.', mathematics, history, natural sciences. 

 That difficulty has to be solved as best it may by the Civil 

 Service Commissioners and their permanent and occa- 

 sional staff. It will be no greater under our proposed 

 scheme, than it is under the existing scheme. 5lore- 

 over, we think it would be difficult to make up a list 

 of subjects under our proposed scheme which would 

 not secure a useful university education, either nar- 

 rower or wider. 



But we do not consider it necessary to confine our 

 tests to the results of university study alone. The 

 young men who will be examined by the Civil Set vice 

 Commissioners will have spent not only three or four 

 years at the university, but ten or more years at 

 school ; and the best of them will have had abundant 

 leisure in which to educate themselves and pick up 

 knowledge and accomplishments useful to them in the 

 work of life. Much that they have learnt at school 

 they will quite rightly have forgotten, but that know- 

 ledge should have ser\'ed its purpose ; and we do not 

 propose to examine our candidates in school subjects. 

 But we consider that a sound and systematic education 

 should show certain results at university-leaving age ; 

 and that candidates who, while devoting themselves 

 to their individual studies, have nevertheless retained 

 an alert and acquisitive mind and have kept their eyes 

 open to the most important facts in the world around 

 them, should have seized and retained a certain amount 

 of knowledge — scientific, economic, and political. We 

 consider it also highly desirable that all Civil Servants 

 should have a good working knowledge — that is, a 

 reading and translating knowledge — of at least one 

 modern foreign language, preferably two. 



On this basis we have constructed a separate sec- 

 tion that all candidates must take. We consider that 

 all well-educated young men should be able to use the 

 English language skilfully and accurately and to grasp 

 its meaning readily and correctly. This accomplish- 

 ment is specially valuable for Civil Servants, but any 

 form of education that has noi developed it has failed 

 in a principal part of its purpose. We therefore pro- 

 pose in the first place that all candidates should write 

 an essay. To construct an essay and work out therein 

 a line of thought with suitable words, logical order, 

 and just proportions is a severe criterion of abilit\\ 

 But it is found by experience that an excellent candi- 

 date may on any one occasion fail to do justice to his 

 powers. We therefore propose that candidates should 

 have in other papers opportunities of manifesting like 

 powers of arrangement and effective expression One 

 of these papers should be a test in" English (Section A, 

 subject 2), the nature of which may best 'De under- 

 stood by reference to the specimen paper supplied. 



Further, we propose a paper in modern subjects, 

 social, political, and economic. A specimen paper is 

 supplied. It may be found that many — perhaps most 

 — young men of our country are undulv ignorant of 

 such matters. But the existence of this test should 

 encourage many to turn their attention to these sub- 

 jects and accumulate in their leisure much useful in- 

 formation It should be noted throughout this Sec- 



