CHAPTER XXVIII
FOR CIVIL SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN AND STUDENTS PREPARING FOR SERVICE EXAMINATIONS

Federal, state and municipal civil service includes so many specialized branches that a number of the chapters in Part 1 of this Guide, devoted to courses of reading adapted to various occupations (such as For Teachers, For Engineers, For Builders and Contractors) will supply useful indications. Part 2 of the Guide, containing classified courses of educational reading, will point to articles especially serviceable to those who are preparing for examinations and, for that reason, desire to review the ground they covered at school or college.

Part 4 of the Guide, with its special references to the subjects to which administration and legislation are chiefly directed, should be carefully examined. There the reader will find lists of articles dealing with schools and institutions; the defective classes; crime and alcohol; revenue and finance; ballot representation and suffrage; trusts, competition, co-operation and socialism; labour and immigration; legislation and the administration of justice; foreign relations and the expansion of the United States.

International Comparisons

The present chapter, in order that repetition may be avoided, deals only with the aspects of federal, state and municipal government which are most closely related to civil service organization. The article Civil Service (Vol. 6, p. 412) devotes nearly as much space to the British as to the American service, and its information as to British organization, examinations, salaries and pensions will greatly interest those to whom the details needed for an international comparison have not been elsewhere accessible. Until 1855 all British appointments were by nomination; and although the service was quite free from the abominable system of secretly taxing salaries in order to support party funds, that was about all that can be said for it. There was hardly a pretense of selection for merit. Influential families and the relatives and personal friends of ministers of state and of ladies whom kings delighted to honor monopolized the appointments. Many posts were pure sinecures, and in many others the work was done by a substitute to whom the nominee paid less than half the salary or fees he received. Under George III the system was at its worst, and the discontent that was aroused in the American colonies by the maladministration of colonial affairs was “one of the efficient causes of the American revolution.” The reforms begun in 1855 had by 1870 been so successful that since then open competition has been the general rule; and where nomination is still required, as in the Foreign Office and the Education Department, searching examinations must be passed. Women are employed in the post-office, board of agriculture, customs, India office, department of agriculture, local government board and home office (factory inspectors, etc.). The age for compulsory retirement is 65, but the commissioners may prolong this five years in exceptional cases. Subjects of examinations, salaries and pensions are described in the article. Since 1859 there has been a superannuation pension of ¹⁰⁄₆₀ of the annual salary and emoluments to any one serving 10 years and less than 11, and an additional sixtieth for each year’s service more than ten.

Civil Service in the United States

In the same article there is an historical treatment of civil service in the United States and of its gradual reform and extension since 1883. This may well be supplemented by a study of the American party system of government and of the “spoils system” under which party loyalty and personal service to a party machine became the test of a candidate’s fitness for office. For this the student should refer to the section (Vol. 27, p. 646) on Constitution and Government, of the article United States, written by James Bryce, author of The American Commonwealth and formerly British ambassador to the United States; see p. 658–659, especially. There is also much information in the section History of the same article, especially paragraphs 168, 169 (p. 697) on the beginnings of the spoils system in Jackson’s time, paragraph 333 (p. 722) on the beginnings of reform under Hayes, and paragraph 343 (p. 724) on Cleveland and civil service reform, etc.; and biographies of Andrew Jackson, W. L. Marcy and Martin Van Buren (for the spoils system) and of George William Curtis, E. L. Godkin, Carl Schurz, R. B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Information in regard to the civil service systems of states and cities may be found in separate state and city articles,—in addition to the material on state and city systems in the articles already mentioned.

“General Information” Papers