WEATHER BUREAU. 11 



The new appointee is selected from a list of eligibles certified by 

 the United States Civil Service Commission. He can not be certified 

 until he has passed an examination by the Commission in spelling, 

 arithmetic, penmanship, copying from rough draft, meteorology, 

 English composition, geography, and algebra; nor if he be under 18 

 or over 30 years of age. The applicant is appointed for a probation- 

 ary period of six months. In each case the appointee is informed in 

 writing, and required to acknowledge the receipt of the communica- 

 tion, to the effect that the policy of the Bureau, under the direction 

 of the Department, is to recommend for absolute appointment only 

 those persons who show complete fitness for the work of the Bureau, 

 and he is especially cautioned that no consideration except his own 

 worth and value to the service will have any weight whatever in 

 determining the matter of his retention. 



Experience has demonstrated the wisdom of thus impressing upon 

 a young man's mind the idea that, beginning with the very first day 

 of his connection with the Bureau, he stands upon his own merit. It 

 induces him to take up his work with a purpose and determination to 

 earn, and therefore attain, permanency of position, with results gen- 

 erally gratifying to him and beneficial to the public service. 



Once a month throughout the probationary period the official under 

 whose immediate supervision the employee is placed renders a report 

 on the conduct, service, and progress of the probationer, and this 

 official is held strictly responsible that the reports be full and impar- 

 tial. If after the trial period it is clearly shown that the appointee is 

 morally, mentally, and physically qualified, permanent appointment 

 is made. While the rules laid down for the guidance of probationers 

 are exacting, yet it is required that they be applied with the utmost 

 fairness, and when early reports indicate that the prescribed standard 

 has not been maintained, admonition is sent at once to the employee 

 when time remains for improvement; but undesirable employees are 

 not retained after the expiration of six months, even on the ground 

 sometimes put forth that they may qualify if given more time to 

 develop. 



The efficiency of the service can only be maintained by a rigid 

 system of selection, and only those fully fitted to meet the exacting 

 requirements of the Weather Bureau receive recommendation for 

 permanent appointment. 



As an illustration of the results that may be expected to follow after 

 a just system of promotion has been inaugurated in a Government 

 bureau, and adhered to for several years, I point to the fact that 

 although it was known to every person in the Weather Bureau that 

 Congress had made provision in the present appropriation bill for an 

 additional professor, at 13,000 per year, and for two forecast officials, 

 at 12,000 each, several months before the actual appointments were 

 made, not a single employee made application for or exerted influence 

 to secure one of these desirable places or any of the many promo- 

 tions that resulted from these appointments. I am confident that the 

 employees of this service realized that the persons best fitted for these 

 important offices would be selected and that personal application was 

 unnecessary. 



Such a discipline has proved its beneficence during six years of prac- 

 tice. It has the hearty good will of the employees of the Bureau, 

 and the Secretary of Agriculture and the appropriations committees 

 in Congress have sustained the chief of Bureau in its enforcement. 



