f the highest number of marks at a competitive examination
should be the criterion by which all applications for appointment should
be put to test. And under similar conditions it may also be questioned
whether admission to the service should be strictly limited to its
lowest ranks.

There are very many characteristics which go to make a model civil
servant. Prominent among them are probity, industry, good sense, good
habits, good temper, patience, order, courtesy, tact, self-reliance,
manly deference to superior officers, and manly consideration for
inferiors. The absence of these traits is not supplied by wide knowledge
of books, or by promptitude in answering questions, or by any other
quality likely to be brought to light by competitive examination.

To make success in such a contest, therefore, an indispensable condition
of public employment would very likely result in the practical exclusion
of the older applicants, even though they might possess qualifications
far superior to their younger and more brilliant competitors.

These suggestions must not be regarded as evincing any spirit of
opposition to the competitive plan, which has been to some extent
successfully employed already, and which may hereafter vindicate the
claim of its most earnest supporters; but it ought to be seriously
considered whether the application of the same educational standard to
persons of mature years and to young men fresh from school and college
would not be likely to exalt mere intellectual proficiency above other
qualities of equal or greater importance.

Another feature of the proposed system is the selection by promotion of
all officers of the Government above the lowest grade, except such as
would fairly be regarded as exponents of the policy of the Executive
and the principles of the dominant party.

To afford encouragement to faithful public servants by exciting in their
minds the hope of promotion if they are found to merit it is much to be
desired.

But would it be wise to adopt a rule so rigid as to permit no other mode
of supplying the intermediate walks of the service?

There are many persons who fill subordinate positions with great credit,
but lack those qualities which are requisite for higher posts of duty;
and, besides, the modes of thought and action of one whose service in
a governmental bureau has been long continued are often so cramped by
routine procedure as almost to disqualify him from instituting change