The seventh section is in these words:
Sec. 7. After the expiration of four months from the passage of this act no officer or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall be employed to enter or be promoted in either of the said classes now existing, or that may be arranged hereunder, pursuant to said rules, until he has passed an examination, or is shown to be specially exempted from such examination in conformity herewith.
But nothing herein contained shall be construed to take from those honorably discharged from the military or naval service any preference conferred by the seventeen hundred and fifty-fourth section of the Revised Statutes, nor to take from the President any authority not inconsistent with this act conferred by the seventeen hundred and fifty-third section of said statutes: nor shall any officer not in the executive branch of the Government, or any person merely employed as a laborer or workman, be required to be classified hereunder; nor, unless by direction of the Senate, shall any person who has been nominated for confirmation by the Senate be required to be classified or pass an examination.
Now, Mr. President, recurring to what I have said as to scope of this bill, to the officers who are embraced in it, to the avoidance of the question of removal and tenure, I have only to say that the machinery of the bill is that the President shall call to his aid the very best assistance, with or without the concurrence of the Senate—for that is a matter about which gentlemen would differ and upon it I have no very fixed opinion—that the President shall with the concurrence of the best advice which he can obtain, form a plan, a scheme of examination free for all, open to all, which shall secure the very best talent and the very best capacity attainable for the civil offices of the Government. The method adopted in the bill is by competitive examination. That method has been imperfectly tried throughout the country. I have here the statement of the postmaster of New York who has given much attention and has had great experience in this matter. I have here his statement that the business of his office increased 150 per cent. within a certain number of years, and the expenses increased only 2 per cent.
To be specific—
Says Mr. Pearson—
while the increase in the volume of matter has been from 150 to 300 per cent. the increase in cost has only been about 2 per cent.
Mr. Graves, whose testimony I read before, has stated as the result of the efforts which were made by General Grant during the period that he was allowed any funds for the purpose of putting this scheme into operation, that the expenses of the Departments here can be reduced at least one-third.
I have heard it said that this system of examination proposes to present only a scholastic test; that it proposes only to give advantage to those who are college-bred, and have had the advantage in early life of superior education. The committee investigated that subject to some extent, and I have here the result in the city of New York. Says Mr. Burt:
Taking seven hundred and thirty-one persons examined, 60 per cent. of the appointees selected from them had been educated simply in the common schools of the country; 33⅓ per cent. had received what they call academic or highschool education; and 6½ per cent, a collegiate education. In all the statistics in regard to common school education there is one little weakness resulting from the fact that we have to throw in that class men who have had hardly any education, men who will say, “I went to school until I was 11 years old,” or “I went to school in the winter,” or something of that kind. We have to throw them in that class—