e schedule of dates and places for the
holding of those examinations. The _Annual Reports_ of the commission
contain full statistics of the results of its work, together with
comprehensive statements as to the difficulties encountered in
enforcing the law, and the means used to overcome them. In the
_Fifteenth Report_, pp. 443-485, will be found a very valuable
historical compilation from original sources, upon the "practice of
the presidents in appointments and removals in the executive civil
service, from 1789 to 1883." In the same report, pp. 511-517, is a
somewhat comprehensive bibliography of "civil service" in periodical
literature in the 19th century, brought down to the end of 1898. See
also C.R. Fish, _The Civil Service and the Patronage_ (New York,
1905).

In most European countries the civil service is recruited on much the
same lines as in the United Kingdom and the United States, that is,
either by examination or by nomination or by both. In some cases the
examination is purely competitive, in other cases, as in France,
holders of university degrees get special privileges, such as being
put at the head of the list, or going up a certain number of places;
or, as in Germany, many departmental posts are filled by nomination,
combined with the results of general examinations, either at school or
university. In the publications of the United States Department of
Labour and Commerce for 1904-1905 will be found brief details of the
systems adopted by the various foreign countries for appointing their
civil service employees.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See letter to Monroe, November 29th, 1820, Jefferson's
_Writings_, vii. 190. A quotation from this letter is given at p. 454
of the _Fifteenth Report of the U.S. Civil Service Commission_.

[2] See _Senate Report No. 576_, 47th Congress, 1st session; also
_U.S. Civil Service Commission's Third Report_, p. 16 et seq., _Tenth
Report_, pp. 136, 137, and _Fifteenth Report_, pp. 483, 484.

[3] The progressive classification of the executive civil service,
showing the growth of the merit system, is discussed, with
statistics, in the _U.S. Civil Service Commission's Sixteenth
Report_, pp. 129-137. A revision of this discussion, with important
additions, appears in the _Seventeenth Report_.

[4] For details justifying these statements, see _U.S. Civil Service
Commission's Fourteenth Re