public competition" appointments as apprentices in Her
Majesty's dockyards, and appointments as "engineer students" in the
steam factories connected therewith.

In 1870, the end so long aimed at was attained, and by an Order in
Council of June 4, open competition was made the only door of entry to
the general Civil Service.

In entire contrast with this, as has been already said, was the action
in the case of the Indian Civil Service. Here the principle of open
competition was adopted from the first, and the examination took a very
elevated start, comprising the highest branches of a learned education.
These branches were duly specified in a Report drawn up in November,
1854, by a Committee, of which Lord Macaulay was chairman; and, with the
exception of Sanskrit and Arabic, they included simply (as might have
been expected) the literary and scientific subjects ordinarily taught at
the principal seats of general education in the Kingdom. These were:--

English Language and Literature (Composition, History, and General
Literature,--to each of which 500 marks were assigned, making a total of
1,500); Greek and Latin (each with 750 marks); French, German, and
Italian (valued at 375 marks, respectively); Mathematics, pure and mixed
(marks 1,000); Natural and Moral Sciences (each 500); Sanscrit and
Arabic (375 each).

[PRINCIPLE OF SELECTION OF SUBJECTS.]

The principle of selection here is clear and obvious. It did not rest
upon any doctrine regarding the utility or value of subjects for mental
training, but simply upon this, that those subjects already in the field
must be accepted, and that (as Mr. Jowett, in his letter to Sir Charles
Trevelyan, of January, 1854, put it) "it will not do to frame our
examination on any mere theory of education. We must test a young man's
ability by what he knows, not by what we wish him to know." Indeed, this
is explicitly avowed in the Report by the author of the Scheme himself.
The Natural Sciences are included, because (it is confessed) "of late
years they have been introduced as a part of general education into
several of our universities and colleges": and, as for the Moral
Sciences, "those Sciences are, it is well known, much studied both at
Oxford and at the Scottish Universities".

Into the details of Macaulay's interesting Report, I need not here
enter. Room, however, must be found for one quotation. It deals with the
distribution of marks, and is both characteristic and put