PAPER
[Prepared for the Educational Conference of June, 1857].
The subject which I have undertaken to introduce to the Conference is briefly this:—"Competition for certain appointments in the Civil Service, considered as a means of promoting popular education."
As it is, perhaps, known to some now present, that I have the honour of holding an appointment under the Civil Service Commissioners, it may be advisable, in order to obviate all possible misapprehension, to state that the following remarks and suggestions have been written entirely on my own responsibility as a private individual, and that I have had no communication on the subject with the Commissioners, except so far as to ascertain that they recognize the privilege which has been so beneficially employed by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools and others, and which is now generally conceded to public officers, of expressing in an unofficial manner, their individual opinions upon questions of public interest.
The general question of competitions for the Civil Service has probably been rendered familiar to nearly all present by the Report of Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir S. Northcote. I am not now about to say anything new upon the subject; and what I shall say that is old has been better said by the Reporters and by the commentators on the Report; but it seems to me extremely desirable, that attention should be directed to the scheme there recommended, with especial reference to its applicability to that particular portion of the Service which draws its recruits from the popular day schools of the country. I allude to what may be called the inferior portion of the Service, including the Excisemen in the Inland Revenue, the Letter-carriers and Sorters in the Post Office, the Tidewaiters and Weighers in the Customs, and the whole force of messengers and similar officials wherever they may be found. The plan of Sir C. Trevelyan, it is well known, embraces the entire Civil Service; his recommendation being, that all vacancies in junior situations, whether Clerkships or more subordinate positions, should
