Page:The Indian Civil Service as a profession.djvu/8

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The Indian Civil Service

highly-trained officers, with duties and privileges defined by statute.[1] The highest official in India, the Viceroy, is not ordinarily a member of the Service, nor, on the other hand, is a single clerk included in its ranks. The Indian 'civilian,' the man lawfully entitled to write the letters C. S. or I. C. S. after his name, may in the course of his service be many things successively, or all at once, but, whatever he may be or become, he can never, even in his most junior and 'griffin' days, be a clerk.

The young man, therefore, who thinks of entering the narrow gate which leads to the Indian Civil Service, and feels a distaste for the kind of employment ordinarily associated with the idea of the Home Civil Service, need not fear that, if he goes to India, he will ever be called upon to do the work of a clerk. The call of duty may summon him to hunt

  1. Especially the 'Indian Civil Service Act' of 1861. Subsequent enactments permit the occasional appointment of natives, under certain restrictions, to offices ordinarily reserved by the Act for the Civil Service.