MR. LOWE'S WARNING "TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS."
TORY Members of the House of Commons will do well to 1. utilise their Whitsuntide holidays by inquiring what their constituents really think about Competitive Examination. A question or two put directly to influential supporters may save both them and the Government they approve from getting themselves into a scrape. If we do not mistake signs apparent on every-side, and in every department of the State, the Middle- class is about to be deprived of its most valuable property, the right of its children to introduce themselves, without currying favour with any patron, into the public Service. The Govern- ment is evidently anxious to effect changes in the system of Examinations which will restore much of the old power of the Heads of Departments, and as this change is naturally acceptable to the influential classes who control this Parlia- ment, the constituencies will find it necessary to watch their representatives with some jealousy. This is the country- gentleman House of Commons, and there is nothing your country gentleman dislikes so much as a man who rises by brains alone, or is so disposed to put down as the competition which paralyses social influence. He is very proud, he says, of a country- where the newest man may rise, but he hopes in his heart that one of those " mansions " in Heaven will be reserved for the well-descended. He will need watching, if the proposal is made, and there is little doubt that it will be made, though in methods varying with the practice and ideas of each department. In the Army and Navy the plan will be to -whittle away the examinations till nomination is nearly equivalent to appointment, and in the Civil Services to combine the power of selection with the apparent practice of competition. In the Indian, Civil Service, for example, Mr. Lowe tells-" all parents and guardians," in
his speech of Wednesday before the University of London, that it is intended to increase very largely the number of apparent prizes to be competed for, and then allow the department to select from among the successful the youths whom they wish to appoint. No statement will be made of the number of marks obtained by any candidate, so that the comparative suceees of the successful will remain unknown, and the Patron in making his choice will be unembarrassed by any claim of intellect. Moreover, the choice is not to be made until all the successful have passed through a regular University course, and the geographi- cal distribution of the men ultimately selected will be left to the Authorities. It follows, therefore, that the country clergy- man whose son has done best in the competition will have first to send him to the University ; then get his Member to induce the Secretary of State to select his son; then use further influ- ence to obtain his appointment to the Presidency he prefers ; and then at last, when his son is about twenty-five, see him off with his blessing. That is, if he is successful in all his efforts; but if he is not, if he cannot induce everybody to help him, or if he is of the wrong shade of politics, or if he belongs to a class which it is considered will not "do" for India, then, after giving his son an education too high and expensive for his chances, he will have, after weary years of waiting, to do the best with him he can.
This scheme of competition tempered by favour may, of course, be an immense improvement upon the existing one— we will discuss that presently—but it is dear that as regards patronage it introduces a radical alteration, and that should be thoroughly understood. At present, the father of an efficient son who sends him up for examination is, if the boy wins in the struggle, the actual patron, is beholden to no one for any favour, can settle all details, such as choice of Presidency, according to the boy's capacity, and is, in fact, possessed of a most valuable property. He has spent, if an Englishman, probably a thousand pounds, or if a Scotchman, about £500, to acquire it ; but still it is his at last, and nobody can take it away. Under the new scheme, however, he has got nothing except a right to pester Lord Salisbury, or other influential persons at the India Office, with appli- cations on behalf of his son, which may be refused, or delayed till any chance of another career has passed away, and he has on his hands a young man who ought to have been at work three years before, who has an educa- tion fitting him for any profession, but no capital, no special training except for India, and no further time to expend in acquiring one. If Paterfamilias is rich, he is uninjured ; but if he is poor, he has simply wasted his son's life and his own money in seeking to obtain what is at best a most uncertain chance, and one in which he is sure to be distanced by those who are powerful enough to influence political persons. As Mr. Lowe says :—" The result would be that even before the competition was over there would be a canvassing of the Heads of Departments by the friends of the candidates, and after the competition all that was disagreeable and objectionable in patronage would be brought back, with this aggravation,—that you would commit the extreme injustice of examining a man to see what he was worth and then conceal it from every one." Paterfamilias will, we think, comprehend the difference, and if he is the man we take him to be, he will impress his compre- hension on the Member for his county or borough with sufficient emphasis and distinctness.
The scheme, in fact, as far as Paterfamilias is concerned, is a good deal worse than Patronage, and we do not see that, as far as the State is concerned, it is any better. Under patron- age pure and simple, the father at least knows what his ehance is, and regulates his conduct accordingly ; but under I this mixed scheme, he knows just nothing at all, except that ' he must educate his boy from fifteen to twenty in a very ex- pensive manner ; must subject him to all the annoyance and in many eases hardship of a competition ; must keep him for two years more at great cost,—for not one Oxford student in ten will be content with an official allowance not coining out of his father's pocket,—and may then find his son without an appointment after all. The State, on the other hand, does not obtain any of the advantages for which the innovation is to be introduced. It is said to be desirable that the Secretary of State should be allowed to select, because he can test character, manner, and forms of ability which are not literary, and no doubt that is partially true. An experienced man of the world, who understands men and takes trouble will, no doubt, often select more competent persons than an examiner can, but by this scheme that advantage er chance of advantage is ahnost entirely lost. The Secretary of
State is not allowed to select lads he knows, but only lads he does not know from among a miscellaneous crowd picked out for him by Examiners. He is required to use his judgment, without being allowed to use it freely, and without being entirely responsible for its use. He may see a budding Clive in his private secretary, but unless the examiner selects the secretary, he can no more appoint him than he can now under honest competition. It is said to be desirable to put a atop to "cramming," a word which seems to excite -country gentlemen as -intellect" excited the Oxford Don ; but Mr. Wren, Mr. Scoones, and the rest of the clever men who have found out how to educate specially sharp lads quickly, under the reformed scheme will have just as much practice as be- fore. There is to be a preliminary competitive examination, and the boy whose mind has been turned inside out by the "crammer," its structure examined, and its chinks and chasms filled up, will still be the successful candidate. It is said to be desirable that the civilians should be gentlemen in the technical sense, but under this arrangement there will be no test of caste, or even of social culture, for if all who passed dropped their " h's," Lord Salisbury, or his successor, could only reject a few. Unless he is utterly unfair, and judges by mere birth, or outside appearance, or mode of speech, the uttermost he can do is to reject here and there "an utter cad," an advantage quite incommensurate with the general lowering in the intellect of the Service ensured by the new rules. Men like Mr. Hill—so specially complimented by Lord Granville on Wednesday for his success in the Indian Examination—will not go to it, if their appointment is, after all, to depend on favour, or to be governed by considerations of caste. And finally, it is said to be desirable that the candidates should become, if they arc not already, men of the world, and that is true ; but who ever sent a lad to Oxford to become a man of the world ? Why, half the Oxford men come away gentlemanly children, with everything about the real life and struggle of mankind still to learn. The old College in Calcutta was a better school than that, for if the Civilian did get into debt, he did at least acquire the languages, some knowledge of the people, and that acquaintance with the tradition of his own Service the loss of which is, perhaps, the most zeal loss caused by competition. Nothing is secured by the mew scheme which would not be much better secured by direct patronage, checked by a pass examination ; and if we are to have a change, let us go back to that, which had at least the advantages that the man selected, having received a great favour, obeyed orders, and felt moderately content, that the power of giving such favours made a seat in the Cabinet rather more an object of desire, and that no class was cheated by the offer of a privilege which, when it has been secured, may prove worse than worthless. If the "horse-doctor class," as it was called by the original Committee which investigated the subject, is to be struck out of the com- petition, let it be struck out, but let it not be tempted into a great effort and then refused the reward. It is very ridiculous, in a country which professes to open careers equally to all men, and which does not bar any except the poor from Parliament, to strike it out ; but it is worse than ridiculous to retain it under a secret handicap,—to offer a reward of merit, but I give it only if merit is well born. There is a good deal to be said for patronage, and a great deal for
• I honest competition, but this mixed system seems to unite with perverse ingenuity all the evils of both. It is indefinitely inferior to the rival scheme practised in several departments. under which the Minister selects the candidates, and then leaves them to fight it out by competition among themselves. That scheme is unfair to the majority of the nation, which is sure in this way to be shut out from official careers ; but still it has this advantage, that a painstaking Minister can make sure that no unworthy or incompetent candidate shall make his way to the front, and this without deceiving anybody into expensive efforts by holding out a promise it is not intended to keep. If open competition has any meaning, it is that the victor shall have first chance ; and the moment it ceases to have that meaning it becomes a delusion, and should be swept away.
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