motive? And what are the 'practical tests' to be? Are we to let loose our army of 'qualified' persons on some Public Department, like the apprentices of a country dentist among the farmers on a market day? Let us recognise facts. Let us reduce our examinations in number if possible, let us carefully select our examiners, pay them well, and give them as much time as we can. But do not let us talk of abolishing or revolutionising competition. It is part and parcel of our democratic Constitution, and must stand or fall with it. HAROLD ARTHUR PERRY. III. To the EDITOR of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. SIR,-Your new departure and crusade against competitive examinations seems to me to have a very lame and impotent following. Let me state the following facts, which should go far to disprove your case. I have been successful in two open competitions: the appointments were for the Indian and Home Services, with 1,000l. and 500l. per annum respectively-the highest ever given direct in open competition. I trust it will not be misunderstood when I say that I am the only person who has gained Two open competitions, and I claim therefore a right to speak in the defence of the system. Because, firstly, I left a small London day-school at fourteen years of age, and taught myself all I know after that in the evenings and anyhow; but I never had an hour's coaching' or 'cramming' from any one, and I was so poor that I never had the slightest interest or influence used in my favour in my life, and I did not even get a nomination for an appointment, which is simply a mockery of a fair and open competition. I think it physically and mentally impossible to 'cram' as it is called, with a ten days' memory,' &c. &c., ad nauseam, because the mind of my fellow man is not like the liver of a goose, and it is mere abuse to detract from the merit of the successful competitors by such clipped-foxtail kind of argument-for the other foxes will have none of it. The jibes and sneers of the whole genus of Tite Barnacles will not prove a crammed man to be rammed so intellectually tight that he incontinently busts up' as soon as the cram ceases, and that they, the ever-victorious Tite Barnacles, are better men than those selected by competition, in consequence of adhering to the Red Tape Office with all the tenacity due to their low scale of intellectual vitality, and to the low jobbery and backstairs patronage by which they crawled into their ten-to-four sinecures. Dickens might well have called the creatures the O'Mac Tite Barnacles-because the electoral difficulties in Celtic districts of the Disunited Kingdom of Lesser Britain have filled our services with Celtic O'Macs of a type that the nation will regret in the hour of need when no English need apply. To be brief, however, let me add a remedy for all the objections to the system of Competition v. Patronage, viz. let the examiners themselves be selected by OPEN competition. Then we shall no more hear the laments of those who cannot 'wub two ideales togevah,' and who call it cramming' if any one else scores higher than they do in examinations. I am too busy to go into the self-evident deductions from the foregoing. I will, however, add this farewell shot, with advice to those who have gained open competitions, viz.: Directly you are appointed, resign. You will then be able, with your proved abilities, to make a ! much better position for yourself out of her Majesty's Services than is them. Verb. sap. Verb. sap. To say nothing of the very unfair conditions of the life, the O'Macs will make it hot for the average Englishmantoo hot to hold him, in fact. Let him rather try and get up a company entitled England for Englishmen, Unlimited. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Bute. Mem. Inst. C.E. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake INDEX TO VOL. XXIV. The titles of articles are printed in italics. ADY BRY DY (Mrs. Henry), Jean-François Banting cure, the, 200 - Barnett (Rev. Samuel A.), A Scheme Belief, Sins of, and Sins of Unbelief Bent (J. Theodore), What St. John saw Beothuks, the, of Newfoundland, 899-918 Blaine (Mr.), his 'Twenty Years of cause of his defeat in the Presidential Blake (Sir Henry), nomination of, to Blake (Lady), The Beothuks of New- Board schools, reports of the commis- Boccaccio and Chaucer, 347-348 The Cry for Useless Knowledge, 653- Boulanger (General), 474-475 Armstrong, Lord, and Technical Edu- cation, 325-333 -effect of his popularity on Germany, Brazil, Liberating the Slaves in, 94-105 Arnold (Edwin Lester), The Future of Brewster (Sir David), on lighthouse il- English Tobacco, 569–575 ADEN-POWELL (Sir George), 898 lumination, quoted, 80 Brienne, Comte de, the Memoirs of the, Brooks (Dr. Phillips) on the Chautauqua Brown (Professor Colin) on Gaelic Bryce (General Lloyd S), Socialism through American Spectacles, 315- Conduct, Belief and, 372-389 324 Buddhism, 119-135 Buddhism in Japan, 855 Buildings, Public, in London, 703-718 Co-operative Stores for Ireland, 410-418 and, in France, 136-144 Court of High Commission, origin of, Crackanthorpe (Montague), The Future Crawfurd (Oswald), Slavery in East YABINET revelations, the rule regard- Cry for Technical Education, the Vague, CABINE ing, 454-455 Cadenas, the word, explanation of, 694 California, a Mountain Vineyard in, Canada and the United States, 786-788 45-52 - for Useless Knowledge, the, 653-668 DAN ANTE, transfusions from, in Chaucer, Davos, health resort, 57-59 Dawson (Sir William), on St. John's Death, the First-born Son of, 576-578 Detaille (M.), his picture of the 'Dream,' Devils, forms for the casting out of, 580- D'Israeli (Isaac), on songs for the people, Chautauqua Reading Circle, the, 487- Doyle (Dr. Conan), The Geographical 500 Christianity, what is left of? 282-300 Church of England, Queen Elizabeth and Churches, who owns the? 145-160 Clifford (Edward), The First-born Son Colliery life in Scotland, 360-371 Colombo (Bishop of), see Copleston Colonial Governors, Selecting, 891-898 – fallacy of Socialism regarding, 320- |