25 MARCH 1905, Page 21

The University and the Civil Service. By E. B. Sargent.

(Longmans and Co. ls.)—This pamphlet contains an address delivered on Degree Day at the University of the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Sargant gives what is practically a history of the Civil Service examinations, a system which is now about half-a-century old, with an application to the special circum- stances of Cape Colony. We may quote a sentence in which the speaker may be said to sum up the advantages of the system :— " The old circumlocution office is gradually fading away from Whitehall. If we would find it outside the pages of Charles Dickens, we must now cross the seas and seek within the precincts of some brand-new colonial administration."