he various grades of
positions in the classified service, the United States Civil Service
Commission holds annually throughout the country about 300 different
kinds of examinations. In the work of preparing these examinations and
of marking the papers of competitors in them the commission is
authorized by law to avail itself, in addition to its own corps of
trained men, of the services of the scientific and other experts in the
various executive departments. In the work of holding the examinations
it is aided by about 1300 local boards of examiners, which are its local
representatives throughout the country and are located at the principal
post offices, custom houses and other government offices, being composed
of three or more Federal employees in those offices. About 50,000
persons annually compete in these examinations, and about 10,000 of
those who are successful receive appointments through regular
certification. Persons thus appointed, however, must serve six months
"on probation" before their appointment can be made absolute. At the end
of this probation, if his service has not been satisfactory, the
appointee is simply dropped; and the fact that less than 1% of those
appointed prove thus deficient on trial is high testimony to the
practical nature of the examinations held by the commission, and to
their aptness for securing persons qualified for all classes of
positions.

The effects of the Civil Service Act within the scope of its actual
operation have amply justified the hopes and promises of its advocates.
After its passage, absentee holders of lucrative appointments were
required to report for duty or to sever their connexion with the
service. Improved methods were adopted in the departments, and
superfluous and useless work was no longer devised in order to provide a
show of employment and a _locus standi_ for the parasites upon the
public service. Individual clerks were required, and by reason of the
new conditions were enabled, to do more and better work; and this,
coupled with the increase in efficiency in the service on account of new
blood coming in through the examinations, made possible an actual
decrease in the force required in many offices, notwithstanding the
natural growth in the amount of work to be done.[4] Experience proves
that the desire to create new and unnecessary positions was in direct
proportion to the power to control them, for where the act has taken
away this power of control the