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be filled up by the successful competitors in examinations adapted to the respective offices. The argument of the Report, however, is evidently applied more particularly to competitions for clerkships, and to the best means of attracting to the public service the more highly educated portion of the youth of this country—those in fact who obtain their instruction in the public endowed schools, and other efficient schools for the middle classes. If, however, I rightly understand the object of this Conference, it is to discover the best means of making really effective the education given in what may be called our popular Day Schools, such as those connected with the National and British and Foreign Societies, and with various religious bodies. It has, therefore, seemed desirable to limit the scope of this paper to the inferior situations already mentioned; and I propose to ask with respect to these situations, whether the plan of filling them up by competition would not be attended by very considerable benefit, in the first place to the Civil Service itself, and, in the second place, to the cause of popular education and advancement. I put the Civil Service first, and education second in this inquiry, because, while yielding to no one in a desire for the promotion of the latter, I certainly concur most strongly with the opinion, that whatever alterations may be made in the Civil Service should be made with a primary reference to the interests of the Civil Service itself, and that no change, however fertile in other social advantages, can be justified, unless it be advantageous, or at least not detrimental, to the Service which is made the subject of it. It will, consequently, I fear, be necessary to trouble the meeting with a few remarks upon this point; but I hope to be able to shew that a system of competitions for the posts referred to, while giving a great impulse to education, would, so far from being hurtful or even merely innocuous to the Civil Service, tend greatly to promote its efficiency. But first, let us try and gain a clear idea of the number, nature, and value of the situations proposed for competition.
From the estimates for the financial year 1856–7, we collect the following numbers, or approximations, referring to the whole of the United Kingdom:—
