service shall be for the probationary period of six months, at the end of which time, if the conduct and capacity of the person appointed have been found satisfactory, the probationer shall be absolutely appointed or employed; but, otherwise, be deemed out of the service.

2. Every officer under whom any probationer shall serve during any part of the probation provided for by these rules shall carefully observe the quality and value of the service rendered by such probationer, and shall report to the proper appointing officer, in writing, the facts observed by him, showing the character and qualifications of such probationer, and of the service performed by him; and such reports shall be preserved on file.

3. Every false statement knowingly made by any person in his application for examination, and every connivance by him at any false statement made in any certificate which may accompany his application, shall be regarded as good cause for the removal or discharge of such person during his probation.

RULE XVIII.

Every head of a department or office shall notify the Commission of the name of every person appointed to, or employed in, the classified service under him (giving the date of the appointment and the designation of the office or place) from those examined under the Commission; and shall also inform the Commission of the date of any rejection or final appointment or employment of any probationer, and of the promotion, removal, discharge, resignation, transfer, or death of any such person after probation. Every head of any office in the postal or customs service shall give such information on these subjects to the Board of Examiners for his office as the regulations of the Commission may provide for.

RULE XIX.

There are excepted from examination the following: 1. The confldential clerk or secretary of any head of a department or office. 2. Cashiers of collectors. 3. Cashiers of postmasters. 4. Superintendents of money-order divisions in post-offices. 5. The direct custodians of money for whose fidelity another officer is under official bond; but these exceptions shall not extend to any official below the grade of assistant ashier or teller. 6. Persons employed exclusively in the secret service of the Government, or as translators, or interpreters, or stenographers. 7. Persons whose employment is exclusively professional. 8. Chief clerks, deputy collectors, and superintendents, or chiefs of divisions or bureaus. But no person so excepted shall be either transferred, appointed, or promoted, unless to some excepted place, without an examination under the Commission. Promotions may be made without examination in offices where examinations for promotion are not now held, until rules on the subject shall be promulgated.

RULE XX.

If the failure of competent persons to attend and be examined, or the prevalence of contagious disease or other sufficient cause, shall make it impracticable to supply in due season for any appointment the names of persons who have passed a competitive examination, the appointment may be made of a person who has passed a non-competitive examination, which examination the Commission may provide for; but its next report shall give the reason for such resort to non-competitive examination.

RULE XXI.

1. No person shall be promoted, without examination under these rules, from any position for which an examination is not required to any position for which an examination is required under the rules; nor shall any person who has passed only a limited examination under clause 4 of Rule 7, for the lower classes or grades in the departmental or customs service, be promoted within two years after appointment to any position giving a salary of $1,000, or upwards, without first passing an examination under clause 1 of said rule, and such examination shall not be allowed within the first year after appointment.

2. But a person who has passed the examination under said clause 1, and has accepted a position giving a salary of $900 or less, shall have the same right of promotion as if originally appointed to a position giving a salary of $1.000 or more.

1. The Commission may at any time certify for a $900 or any lower piao in the classified service any person upon the register who has

passed the examination under clause 1 of Rule 7, if such person does not object before such certification is made.

RULE XXII.

The Civil Service Commission will make appropriate regulations for carrying these rules into effect.

RULE XXIII.

Every violation, by any officer in the executive civil service, of these rules, or of the 11th, 12th, 13th, or 14th section of the civil service act, relating to political assessments, shall be good cause for removal.

[Rules, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 16, 18, and 19 were amended and promulgated Nov. 7. Rule 12 was amended and promulgated Dec. 5, 1883. Rule 16 was amended and promulgated Jan. 18, 1884. Present Rule 21 was promulgated Jan. 18, 1884. Former Rule 21 is now 22; and 22 is Rule 23.]

REGULATIONS.

The United States Civil Service Commission, acting under the authority of the Civil Service Act of January 16, 1883, and the rules promulgated by the President, makes the following regulations:

CHIEF EXAMINER.

1. The Chief Examiner shall, as far as practicable, except when otherwise directed by the Commission, attend the examinations held by the several boards of examiners. He shall take care to secure accuracy, uniformity, and justice in all their proceedings, which shall at all times be open to him; but leaving the duty of the examiners, in marking and grading those examined, unimpaired. The Commission will, in its discretion, designate one of its own members, or request the detail of a suitable person, to supervise examinations whenever deemed needful. 2. He shall prepare and submit to the approval of the Commission proper forms and questions. He shall take care that the rules and regulations are complied with, and bring every case of injustice and irreg ularity observed by him to the attention of the Commission. He shall take such part as the Commission shall assign him in the work at Washington. It shall be his duty to confer, from time to time, with the heads of the postal and customs offices which he officially visits concerning the regularity, sufficiency, and convenience of the examinations for the service under them,

SECRETARY.

3. The Secretary shall keep the minutes of the proceedings of the Commission and have charge of and be responsible for the safe keeping of the books, records, papers, and other property in its office. He shall make the proper certification of those eligible for the Departmental service. He shall generally conduct the correspondence of the Commission and perform such other appropriate duties as it may assign to him.

BOARDS OF EXAMINERS.

4. The general Board of Examiners for the Departmental service shall consist of two persons from the Treasury Department, two from the Post Office Department, two from the Interior Department, and one from each of the other Departments. But any three members may be designated by the Commission to constitute the acting Examining Board for any examination.

The secretary of the Board of Examiners for the Departmental service shall keep a record of its proceedings and have charge of its papers. 5. In case of examinations to be held at other places than those having the classified service, the Commission will designate an Examining Board for that purpose.

6. For each post-office, the Board of Examiners shall consist of three persons.

7. The Examiners for each customs district shall consist of two persons selected from the office of the collector, and one from each of the other customs offices which are subject to the rules; but if there be no office subject thereto except that of the collector, the three shall be selected from his office.

8. The Examiners may serve as a Board for conducting any exam ination; and the Examiners for any customs district will determine which three shall hold any examination, taking care that, if an exam

NON-COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS UNDER RULE 20.

In case the necessity shall exist at any office or Department for holding a non-competitive examination under Rule 20, the following conditions shall be observed:

30. The Commission shall be immediately notified of such necessity and of the grounds thereof, showing that it is impracticable to supply in due season for any appointment the names of persons who have passed a competitive examination by reason of the failure of competent persons to attend to be examined, or the prevalence of contagious disease, or other sufficient cause.

31. If the Commission shall not disapprove the holding of a non-competitive examination, the Secretary of the Commission in Washin. ton, or of the Examining Board for any post-office or customs district, shall notify for such examinations any persons whose names may be on the record, as applicants for places analogous to those to be filled, and whom the exigency of time may allow to be notified, not less in number than the vacancies and places to be provided for, nor more than four for each of them.

32. If the number of applicants on the record be insufficient to furnish such supply, then the examining Board, or in its absence the Secretary, may notify other suitable persons, nominated by sid Board or Secretary, upon consultation with the head of the office, who, taken together with said regular applicants notified, shall, if practicable, be not less in number than four to each place to be filled. The persons selected for appointment or employment shall be required to make oath to the proper application paper, before entering upon their official duties.

33. The non-competitive examination shall conform as nearly as practicable, in subjects, questions, and marking, to the competitive examinations of the same grade; but no person shall be appointed under such non-competitive examination whose average standing upon the first three subjects, clause 1, Rule 7, or such parts thereof as may be used, is less than 63 per centum; Provided, There are those who pass at or above that grade from whom the place can be filled.

34. The names of all the persons passing the examination shall be certified to the proper officer, and the existing vacancies shall be filled therefrom; but no person by reason of such non competitive examination shall be appointed at any other time than during such exigency or to any other vacancy or place.

35. A record shall be kept by the local Examining Board, and by the Secretary of the Commission at Washington, of the persons thus notified, examined and appointed, or employed, and copies of notices and the examination papers shall be preserved; and said Board shall after each such examination and appointment make full report to the Civil Service Commission of all the facts.

36. In case a majority of the ommission may not be present, when an examination hereunder may need to be held at Washington, the same may be conducted under the charge of the chief examiner and any two members of the Board of Examiners.

SPECIAL EXAMINATIONS.

37. Special Boards of Examiners will, when deemed necessary, be designated by the Commission for the examinations in special and technical subjects under clause 5, Rule 7, and one or more members of each such Board will be selected from the office or bureau for which the Board is to serve. These special Boards shall be subject to the regulations prescribed by the Commission for the general Examining Boards as far as they are applicable, except as herein otherwise provided.

38. Applications for any special examination must be made in the form prescribed by the Commission, and must be accompanied by certificates as required in the case of ordinary applications. The minimum limitations of age shall be the same as those prescribed by Rule 12 for the several branches of the service, but no maximum limitations shall be required except such as the Commission may from time to time prescribe.

39. Whenever a special examination is to be held, notice in writing, specifying the time and place of the examination, shall be sent to s suitable number of the applicants, in the order of their application for the same, in time to allow their attendance.

40. Each special examination shall embrace the subjects approved by the Commission therefor, after consultation with the head of the office concerned or the special Examining Board for such office; and shall, as far as appropriate, be conducted under the same general regulations, as to the marking of the examination papers and the grading of the persons examined, as those for ordinary examinations.

41. A special record of applicants and a special register of eligibles shall be kept for each part of the service or office requiring special examina ions; and when the Commission, or the proper Examining Board, shall be notified by the appointing officer of a vacancy in such part of the service, ce tification shall be made to him of the names of the four persons graded highest on the special list of eligibles for the same, or of a less number, if four names do not remain thereon.

42. In case that competent special applicants do not apply, or do not appear for a competitive examination, after suitable notice, a non-competitive examination may be held in as near conformity as may be to the regulations provided for non-competitive examinations for admission to the service. For such examination, applicants on the general Record, and persons on the general Register of Eligibles whose application papers claim the special knowledge required, may be notified, and if they appear shall be examined, as if special applicants; but no person so examined shall forfeit his right to the general examinations, or lose his place on any register of eligibles by reason of his special examination.

Adopted, December 10, 1988

THE APPLICATION FOR EXAMINATION. To every person requesting to enter the classified service, a blank application paper is sent. The filing of this paper is the first step in the applicants' examination. In the proper blanks she gives her name, age, residence and occupation, for each of the past five years, and such other facts in regard to herself and her experience, education, and qualifications as are importaut to be known. All these statements are made under oath, and are required to be confirmed by the vouchers of not less than three, or more than five persons, who state, in blank certificates on the same sheet, their knowledge of the applicant, and their belief in the truth of her statements, and vouch for her character, capacity, and good reputation. No recommendation outside of these vouchers are allowed to be received or considered by the Commission, the examiners. or the appointing officers.

The application thus filed is returned to the Commission, or to the proper Examining Board, and if its statements show that the applicant is regularly voched for, and that she is entitled by age, health, and citi zenship, to be examined for the service she seeks, her name is entered upon the proper record, with the date of her application, and her paper 18 placed on file. When the examination is held, at a point which is deemed convenient for her, she is notified to be present. If the applications on file, at any office, are in excess of the number that can be examined at one time, the earlier applicants, by Rule 13, are summoned first; except that at Washington, the duty of apportionment may require those to be first examined who are from states whose qualified applications are in deficient numbers. This excludes all preference of applicants through favor or patronage, and is the spirit of the act, section 5, which makes all willful and corrupt obstruction of the right of examination a criminal offense. The applicants who are in excess of the number that can be examined at one time stand first upon the record to be notified for the the next examination. Examinations are held as frequently as the needs of the service require. Thus for all applicants (except some from the District of Columbia, where the number is excessive, and in one or two similar cases outside), have been notified to attend the first examinations held after their applications were received.

The application paper is itself a sort of preliminary examination, it asks the same questions that any wise and experienced business man or appointing officer would desire to ask concerning the circumstances, health, character, and experience of the applicant, and it frequently deters from the examinations unworthy or incompetent peraons, who find themselves uuable to answer satisfactorily the inquiries proposed, or unwilling to give the information asked for. Of the best of place-seekers, many may be weeded out by the necessity of making this sworn statement of their career, while to genuine and worthy applicants it opens the way for the proper statement of their qualifications.

WHO MAY COMPETE.

A competition theoretically perfect would be one in which every person, from any part of the country, could compete for every vacancy. But the needs of the public business, as well as the provisions of the act that the examination shall be practical, and shall fairly test capacity and fitness needed for discharging the duties of the place sought, require limitations. The qualifications needed for carriers or for weighers. for example, are quite different from those needed for copyists, or for

some grades of clerks. Questions appropriate for ordinary clerkships would be unfit tests for telegraphers, or pension-office examiners. Provisions is therefore made under which the application paper designates the grade or description of places sought; and it follows that the real competition is between all those who seek the same grade or places.

Further than this, the act, requiring the appointments to the service at Washington to be appointed among the States, 1erritories, and the District of Columbia, practically makes the competition between those from the same State or Territory, rather than an inter-State competition. In some cases, perhaps, this state competition may put into the service a person inferior to the one whom the broader competition would have supplied. But it gives to each State and Territory, what it has not yet had, a proportion of the appointments numerically due to the population, and it will unquestionally stimulate education in the states as well as increase the local interest in all matters affecting the administration of the Fedral Government.

SUBJECTS FOR EXAMINATION.

The branches embraced in the general examination for ordinary clerkships and other places of the same grade, are given in Rule 7. In none of these branches do the questions go further than is covered by the ordinary instruction in the common schools of the country. If limited examination is provided under Clause 4 f Rule 7, for copyists, messengers, carriers, night inspectors, and other employees of similar grades, including only a part of the branches above named, the subjects and questions being varied in number and grade to meet the requirements of the different parts of the service. This allows persons of only limited atta nments to secure the positions for which t.ey are competent. The common school education must have been exeecdingly defective which does not enable one to pass this examination.

It will be noticed that, even in the general or higher grade of examination under Clause 1, Rule 1, proficiency in the first three subjects secures eligibility for appointment. Therefore failure in the last two will exclude no one from the service, though a good standing therein raises the grade of the applicant and gives her the better chance for an appointment.

If any shall notice, with regret, that only common-school education is exacted for entering the public service at the higher grade, and that thus only small direct reward is offered to academic an college learning, it may be remembered, on the other hand, that both by rewarding excellence in the common schools and by barring out corrupt influence from public office, learning of every grade, and good character and effort in every position are stimulated and strengthened. The common schools are the gates to the academies, and the academies are the gstes to the colleges.

SPECIAL AND TECHNICAL EXAMINATIONS. While only the common-school education is required of the applicant for the ordinery clerkship and subordinate places in the classified service, there are other places, comparatively few in number, for which higher qualifications are requisite. Among these are clerkships in the State Department, which demand some knowledge of modern languages, and of other special subjects; assistant examiners, draughtsmen, and other places requiring technical knowledge or skill, in the Patent office; pension examiners and other clerkships in several Departments requiring some knowledge of law; draughtsmen and other employees in the Super

vising, Architect's office, and Engineer Department, and employees in other technical or scientific Bureaus or divisions of the service. Rule 7, Clause 5, provides for the special examinations for such places. Special Boards of Examiners have already been designated in the State Department, the Patent Office, and the Pension Bureau. Special examinations have been held of a telegrapher for the Department of Justice, and a telegraphic draughtsman for the Engineer Department.

QUESTIONS AND EXAMINATIONS.

In order to secure uniformity and justice, the questions for the examinations are almost invariably prepared by the Commission; those for any Examining Board outside Washington being forwarded for its use just before any examination is to be held. They are printed upon sheets with adequate space below each question for writing or solution. The applicant gets her first knowledge of the question as the sheets are given her, one after the other as her work advances, at her examination table. The examinations are open to such spectators as can be accommodated without interfering with the quiet due to those being examined, but the answers are not exhibited without the consent of the person who wrote them. The question sheets, with answers thereon, are preserved as a part of the permanent records of the Commission, so that the fairness of the marking and grading can be tested as well a year as a week after they are made. It is hardly necessary to add that, except in the very few examinations needed for places requiring technical or scientific knowledge, no very difficult questions have been used The examples in arithmetic do not go beyond the needs of the public business. Every question in geography, history, or government is confined to that of the United States. Not a word of a foreign language, nor a technical term of art or science, nor any example in algebra, geometry, or trigonometry has been employed in any one of the general or limited examinations, and these examinations alone are used for at least ninety-five out of every hundred places within the classified service.

CERTIFYING FOR APPOINTMENT,

Those who have attained a grade showing fitness for appointment at Washington are placed upon the proper register kept by the Commission, for the service there; and at other places by the Examining Board at each place. (See Rules 13, 14 and 16, and Regulations 4 to 10.) These registers are permanent books of record, showing the age, grade, residence, date of entry thereon as elegible for appointment for all parts and grades of the service. When a vacancy occurs at Washing on, the Commission, and when at a Post Office or Customs Office the Examining Board of the same, certifies from the proper register four persons who are graded highest among those entered thereon for the grade or part of the service in which the vacancy exists. In the latter offices, where no appointment is required, the four graded highest must in every case be certified. At Washington, the Commission takes the four names from the list of those from one or more States (having names upon the register), which have the strongest claim on the basis of the appointment. But the highest in the grade, from the State or States which have such claim, must be taken; and the whole action in that regard appears on record. The grade is won by the applicant herself. The order of selection is fixed by the law and the rules. This excludes both favor and patronage.

WOMEN IN THE SERVICE.

Nowhere, on the part of the Commission or its subordinants, is there any favor or disadvantage allowed by reason of sex. Only under free, open, competitive examinations have the worthiest women the opportunities, and the government the pretection, which arise from allowing character and capacity to win the precedence, and the places their due. The need for political influence, or for importunate solicitations, especially disagreeable to women, for securing appointments in the classified service exists no longer. Rule 16, Clause 3, control the certificaion of women for appointment so completely that the Commission has no discretion on the subject. The law in force before the passage of the Civil Service act gave the heads of Departments authority to decide when women are required or can be accepted. Both the Civil Service act and the rules have that authority unimpared.

In order to prevent disappointment we ought to add that, perhaps, because the examinations naturally appeal to the hopes and the ambition of women, a greater number of them, in proportion to the places treated by the Departments as open to their sex, have been examined and

hence the number of women waiting to be certified is large in a like ratio.

REMOVALS.

The power of removal and its exercise, for just reasons, are essential both to discipline and the efficiency of the public service, Alife tenure would be indefensible.

The Civil Service act and rules have the authority and duty of removal undisturbed, with this exception, that the second rule forbids a removal for refusing to perform a political service, or to pay a politicol assessment, and the last rule adds every violation of either rule, or of the provisions of the act against assessments to the good causes for removal which existed before, The act and rules have greatly diminished the pressure upon appointing officers for removals, and have taken from them the temptation to make removals of their own notion for the mere purpose of making a vacancy for a favorite. Many removals, and those the most indefensible in former years, were unquestionably made not because the person removed was not a useful public servant, but because some powerful Influence was to be conciliated. Some friend was to be gratified, or some dangerous enemy was to be placated by putting a particular person in the vacancy.

Nevertheless, save in the particulars mentioned, the power to remove for even the most partisan and selfish reasons remains unchanged. The changes are only in the opportunity of filling the vacancy with favorites and henchmen, and in the greater peril from a frowning, hostile public opinion.

PROMOTIONS AND OTHER EXCEPTIONS FROM THE RULES.

Rule 19, recognizing needs in the public service familiar to those acquainted with the conditions of good administralion, allows the applicant for certain places to be appointed without examination. The confidential or fiduciary relations sustained by those who all some of these places, the occasional need of employing persons of professional standing or of peculiar capacity in others, and the lack of temptation for disregarding the public interests in filling others, are the reasons for all but one of these exceptions.

The entire exceptions (outside from that relating to promotions), cover but few places-not exceeding 135 in all the Departments at Washington; and in the postal and customs service the ratio of excepted places is smaller still.

PROBATION.

The rules provide for a probationary service of six months before any absolute appointment can be made. At the end of this time the appointee goes out of the service, unless then re-appointed. During the probation, the character of the service rendered by the probationer and her fidelity, are carelully observed, as the question of a permanent appointment depends upon them.

The probation is a practical scrutiny continued through six months in the very work which the applicant is to do. In this part of the system and oft-repeated objections based on the assumption that no merely literary examination can show all the qualities required in a good officer. Nobody pretends that an examination in any branch of learning is an adequate test of business capacity. Congress clearly recognized its inadequacy, and therefore provided that in all cases there shall be a period of probation before any absolute appointment or employment. Instead of this practical test being foreign to the competitive system, it is original with that system, and is everywhere an important part of it. It has been shown moreover, upon each of the several trials of competitive examinations, that in a larg majority of instances the superior men in the competitions are also the superior men in the public work The proportion, among the bright minds, of those who have good business capacity, is at least as great as the proportion of those having that capacity among men of very dull minds. Between these extremes, they who excel in the schools do so by reason of the fidelity, patient labor, and good habits-qualities which also fit them for the public service.

The first person to enter the public service anywhere under the present rules-a young man at the post-office at St. Louis-was the first in the competition, and he was the first to be promoted for merit at the end of his probation. The first person appointed under the rules to a department at Washington, was a lady who stood first on the competitive list of her sex. Her practical capacity has proved to be as excellent as her attainments.