service and improving the personnel in various branches of administration, glaring inequalities developed in the salaries paid for particular grades of work and in the different conditions prescribed for substantially the same service. "Standards of compensation for specified kinds of work as a basis for making salary appropriations are unknown," reported a committee of the New York Senate in 1915. Furthermore, positions are created for the most part without any definition of the work requirements or any real understanding of the work or needs to be served thereby. Civil service employments are, from the viewpoint of salary, standards, and related work conditions, in a chaotic state." In order to remedy such defects in the public service a series of studies were begun to formulate some principles and standards for appointments, promotions, and salaries, and, in some instances, efforts have been made to apply the principles and standards developed. The objects of this of this movement for standardization are, to formulate a basis for the fixing of salaries in relation to work performed, so as to involve equal work for equal pay, to determine the factors of education or experience necessary for each grade of employment, and to establish standards to govern promotions and transfers.2

Though a beginning has been made in the inauguration of principles and standards both in appointments and in promotions, in a few states and cities the reform has made progress slowly and differences in methods and procedure, as well as the peculiar conditions involved in each instance,

1 Cf. Bulletin of New York Bureau of Municipal Research, No. 67, November, 1915, pp. 13-14.

Cf. Bulletin of New York Bureau of Municipal Research, No. 67, November, 1915, p. 17, and William C. Beyer, "Employment Standardization in the Public Service," Supplement to the National Municipal Review, June, 1920, p. 394. Attempts at the introduction of principles of standardization have been made as follows: Chicago, 1911; `Oakland, California, 1915; Los Angeles County, California, 1915; Pittsburgh, 1915; New York State and City, 1916; Seattle, 1917; Ohio, 1917; Milwaukee, 1917; New Jersey, 1917; Cleveland, 1917; Akron, Ohio, 1917; Milwaukee County, 1917; St. Louis, 1918; Massachusetts, 1918; Dominion of Canada, 1919.

have made the adoption of standards extremely difficult. Recently an effort has been made to adapt the standard of wages to the cost of living and this has made the process even more complicated.

Unfortunately, the movement for standardization and uniformity in the tests for entrance to the civil service has not affected to any great extent the methods as prescribed by civil service commissions. This fact was emphasized in a recent paper read at the annual meeting of civil service commissioners:

There is little or no uniformity in the plan of examination tests of the various civil service commissions throughout the country, and while but few examination plans have been considered, they are typical, and careful and painstaking analysis of two or three hundred different examination plans would show the same wide variation. The subjects of the relative weights in the several examinations considered do not fully indicate the wide variations that actually exist. Some commissions require certain definite preliminary education and training, and certain definite periods of experience, before an applicant is admitted to the examination. Other commissions apparently admit all who may apply, using the examination test itself as the one means by which those who are fitted for the position sought are separated from the unfit. Some require a certain percentage on essential subjects; others do not. In some cases a general average of 70 per cent represents the passing mark; in others an average of 75 per cent is required. In one instance little or no weight is given to the subject of "Experience and Training," while in another, for the same kind of employment, the weight given to this subject is the determining factor. One commission divides the examination into a number of separate subjects with separate weights, planned not so much for the purpose of discovering the special knowledge which the applicant may possess, but for the purpose of finding out his general educational qualifications and fitness. Another commission confines an examination of the same character to two or three subjects, laying emphasis only on the past experience and training and the special knowledge of the applicant.1

The most ambitious attempt at standardization was that inaugurated by Congress in the appointment of a Con

1 "Tackling Employment Problems," Report of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Assembly of Civil Service Commissioners, Rochester, 1919, p. 78.

gressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries.1 It was made the duty of the commission to

investigate the rates of compensation paid to civilian employees by the municipal government and the various executive departments and other governmental establishments in the District of Columbia, except the navy yard and the Postal Service, and report by bill or otherwise, as soon as practicable, what reclassification and readjustment of compensation should be made so as to provide uniform and equitable pay for the same character of employment throughout the District of Columbia in the services enumerated.

About 100,000 employees were comprised within the scope of the inquiry. In attempting to classify the employees doing substantially the same kind of work, needing the same general qualifications, and assuming about the same degree of responsibility the commission found it necessary to make 1,700 classes. Assistance was received from those who had gained experience in classification elsewhere and an effort was made to secure the co-operation of departments and employees. After an investigation of more than a year the commission reported to Congress that:

The United States government, the largest employer in the world, is without a modern classification of positions to serve as a basis for just standardization of compensation, and without a central employ ment agency having adequate powers; in short, without an employment policy.

This lack of a comprehensive and consistent employment policy, and of a central agency fully empowered to administer it, has produced most glaring inequalities and incongruities in salary schedules, pay-roll titles, and departmental organization, with much resultant injustice, dissatisfaction, inefficiency, and waste.2

A plan for standardization was presented to Congress for adoption with the recommendation that Congress strengthen the Civil Service Commission and authorize

See Report of the Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries submitting a classification of positions on the basis of duties and qualifications, and schedules of compensation for the respective classes. House Document No. 686, Sixty-sixth Congress, Second Session, March 12, 1920.

Report, op. cit., p. 8.

the commission to continue the study of standardization and to make such changes as are necessary to adjust the classes and salaries to meet new conditions and that the commission be authorized by Congress to provide for a comprehensive and uniform employment policy to be administered by a central personnel agency. To continue the work of systematization and standardization it was recommended that

...the Congress undertake a systematic examination of the functions now being exercised, the organization now in effect, and the methods of procedure in use in the several departments and independent establishments making up the Washington service, in order that unnecessary work, duplicated work, improperly allocated work, instances of poor organization, and expensive or inefficient methods of conducting business may be discovered and eliminated.1

In addition to the consideration of methods of recruiting the civil service and classification and standardization of those within the service special attention has been given recently in Federal and state governments to proposals for the retirement of public employees. It is recognized that the failure to provide retirement allowances is expensive to the government, since many continue in active service who are unable to do efficient work, and the retention of such employees checks the advancement of those who are performing their duties well. Though it is difficult to provide a system which will meet the needs of the service and will be financially practicable, a beginning has been made in the solution of this problem and the principles involved have been rather clearly formulated.2

The chief difficulty thus far has been due to the fact that most of the positions in the civil service are the minor and clerical positions. There have been few positions to which

1 Report, op. cit., pp. 23-24. For a summary of the findings and recommendations of the commission, consult Report, op. cit. pp. 22-132, and for the draft bill see pp. 133-145. To carry out the above recommendation there was created in December, 1920, a "Joint Committee on the Reorganization of the Administrative Branch of the Government.'

2 Lewis Merriam, Principles Governing the Retirement of Public Employees (D. Appleton & Co, 1918).

those having completed a university career might aspire; and furthermore, little progress has been made in recognizing the necessity of training for many branches of the public service. Efforts have been too much consumed in fighting the spoilsmen to give much attention to the positive side of public-service training and to provisions for a permanent tenure for those who prepare for the technical and professional branches of the service.

We have been so busy fighting for a full realization of the competitive principle and so busy preventing retrogressions, that the great problems of division, of intellectual qualifications and examinations, of stimulating national education through civil service examinations and attracting the best men into our government departments, have been quite neglected.1

With the extension of the merit system to important administrative positions and the introduction of publicservice training in the universities, we may look forward to the employment of a body of trained and permanently employed public servants, similar to the practice in the European countries where administrative efficiency has been attained.

PUBLIC SERVICE IN ENGLAND AND IN FRANCE

Civil Service in England.2-As a basis for comparison and discussion, a short account of the recruiting of the civil service in England and in France is given. According to President Lowell, the English nation

has been saved from a bureaucracy such as prevails over the greater part of Europe, on the one hand, and from the American spoils system, on the other, by the sharp distinction between political and nonpolitical officials. The former are trained in Parliament, not in administrative routine. They direct the general policy of the government, or at least they have the power to direct it, are entirely responsible for it and go

1 Robert Moses, op. cit., p. 249.

2 The treatment of the Civil Service of England is condensed from the account by A. L. Lowell, The Government of England (The Macmillan Company, 1910), chaps. vii and viii.