s as
its principal feature the scheme of competitive examination. Save for
certain exceptions, which need not here be specified, this plan would
allow admission to the service only in its lowest grade, and would
accordingly demand that all vacancies in higher positions should be
filled by promotion alone. In these particulars it is in conformity
with the existing civil-service system of Great Britain; and indeed the
success which has attended that system in the country of its birth is
the strongest argument which has been urged for its adoption here.

The fact should not, however, be overlooked that there are certain
features of the English system which have not generally been received
with favor in this country, even among the foremost advocates of
civil-service reform.

Among them are:

1. A tenure of office which is substantially a life tenure.

2. A limitation of the maximum age at which an applicant can enter
the service, whereby all men in middle life or older are, with some
exceptions, rigidly excluded.

3. A retiring allowance upon going out of office.

These three elements are as important factors of the problem as any of
the others. To eliminate them from the English system would effect a
most radical change in its theory and practice.

The avowed purpose of that system is to induce the educated young men of
the country to devote their lives to public employment by an assurance
that having once entered upon it they need never leave it, and that
after voluntary retirement they shall be the recipients of an annual
pension. That this system as an entirety has proved very successful in
Great Britain seems to be generally conceded even by those who once
opposed its adoption.

To a statute which should incorporate all its essential features I
should feel bound to give my approval; but whether it would be for the
best interests of the public to fix upon an expedient for immediate and
extensive application which embraces certain features of the English
system, but excludes or ignores others of equal importance, may be
seriously doubted, even by those who are impressed, as I am myself, with
the grave importance of correcting the evils which inhere in the present
methods of appointment.

If, for example, the English rule which shuts out persons above the age
of 25 years from a large number of public employments is not to be made
an essential part of our own system, it is questionable whether the
attainment o