Competitive examination

“ As to the system of Examinations, of which prizes form a natural part, there are few who would profess to regard it with unmixed satisfaction. But its immense development, keeping pace with the most earnest desire of improvement, is enough of itself to show that it meets some needs which are deeply and universally felt. Every one who has sought to spread education over some new surface, or to direct it into some new channel, has almost without exception had recourse to competitive examination as a practical means of attaining his end. ”

“ Written competitive examinations offer the only available means in many cases for applying this system. In other cases, as where laborers are employed, a system of registration undoubtedly can be widely extended. There are, of course, places where the written competitive examination cannot be applied, and others where it offers by no means an ideal solution, but where under existing political conditions it is, though an imperfect means, yet the best present means of getting satisfactory results. ”

“ Upon recommendation by the agency concerned, and subject to such noncompetitive examination, time limits, or other requirements as the Commission may prescribe, the following classes of persons may acquire a competitive status without competitive examination:
(1) A person holding a permanent position when it is placed in the competitive service by statute or executive order or is otherwise made subject to competitive examination. ”

“ And for the purpose of establishing in the classified service the principle of compulsory competitive examination for promotion there shall be, so far as practicable and useful, such examinations of a suitable character to test the fitness of persons for promotion in the service, and the Commission may make regulations applying them to any classified Department, customs office, or post-office, under which regulations examinations for promotion shall be conducted and all promotions made ”

“ A competitive status shall be acquired by career-conditional or career appointment through open competitive examination upon satisfactory completion of a probationary period, or may be granted by statute, executive order, or the Civil Service Rules without competitive examination. A person with competitive status may be promoted, transferred, reassigned, reinstated, or demoted without taking an open competitive examination, subject to the conditions prescribed by the Civil Service Rules and Regulations. ”

“ While a nomination by patronage, and a pass examination have a direct tendency to reduce the average ability of the selected candidates to the minimum required, a competitive examination raises the general average to the maximum ability of all who apply. ”

“ It is likely that the time will soon come when all offices requiring peculiar skill or especial training will be filled on the basis of efficiency, determined by competitive examination or other tests of ability. ”

“ Candidates are admitted only by competitive examination, and have to pay for their board 1000 francs a year. The pupils who pass satisfactory examinations at the end of their course are admitted to that branch of public service which they select. ”

“ The estimate in which letters are held is clear, from the fact that learning forms the very threshold that leads to fame, honor, and official position. Competitive examination is the mode by which office is disposed of, those who hold the highest standard of scholarship bearing off the palm. ”

“ Only, knowledge is advancing, and it is full time that we reconsider our educational principles and recast our methods. We absolutely must get rid of the competitive examination system if we would not be reduced to the appalling mediocrity which we see in China, for example, to have befallen an examination-ridden empire. ”

“ I believe that free competition and a rigid competitive examination before a board composed of conscientious examiners, as a condition of appointment, will prevent the frequent occurrence of removal without sufficient cause. At any rate, when vacancies in the Departments are to be filled only with men having issued best from a competitive examination, the service will not suffer by the change, removals and appointments on mere partisan grounds will cease and greater stability will be secured without sacrificing the elasticity of the system. ”

“ There grew up, therefore, both among the weavers and the spinners, a system of selection of new secre- taries by competitive examination, which has gradually been perfected as the examiners that is, the existing officials have themselves become more skilled. ”

“ When we are now told that our competitive examinations may indeed exhibit the scholastic acquirements of a candidate for place, but not his practical business capacity, his industry, or his aptitude as a worker, the overwhelming answer is found in the established fact, that wherever the competitive system has been properly carried out, it has immeasurably improved the service in its practical efficiency. ”

“ We do not think it within our province to discuss the expediency of adopting the principle of open competition as contra-distinguished from examination; but we must remark that, both in the competitive examination for clerkships in our own and in other offices, those who have succeeded in attaining the appointments have appeared to us to possess considerably higher attainments than those who have come in upon simple nomination ”

“ If we inquire what inducements are offered to pupils to excel in special subjects or to proceed to higher branches of them, we find that the same general plan is followed in all our institutions, from the most elementary to the highest—namely, money prizes or their equivalent in books or medals, the obtaining of which presupposes a competitive examination. ”

“ Observe, the evil lies in the competition, not in the examination. If the old axiom be true, that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind itself, it is relatively true that knowledge conveyed from without must needs be tested from without. Probably, work on a given syllabus tested by a final examination is the condition of definite knowledge and steady progress. All we contend for is that the examination shall not be competitive. ”

“ Whenever the announcement of any examination in which education, training, or experience is prerequisite shall so state, and the applicants are given opportunity to file detailed sworn statements of their qualifications, a preliminary competitive rating may be given on the basis of the duties, requirements, and conditions of work in the position to be filled before any applicant shall be required to travel for further tests. ”

“ As a general principle, skilled labor requiring specific accomplishments for the work to be done, the possession of which can be well ascertained and relatively measured by competitive tests, should be put under the competitive rule. As to unskilled labor, such as street sweeping and the like, an examination as to physical fitness and a good report as to character will be sufficient to qualify for registration, those who have been registered to be employed in the order of their application for registry. ”

“ Opinions have somewhat differed among the friends of civil service reform as to whether promotions from lower to higher grades should also be regulated by competitive tests. It is readily admitted that a good title to promotion may be established by practical efficiency and the qualities constituting what is called executive ability, the evidence of which cannot be furnished by an examination in the ordinary sense. ”

“ The system of competitive examinations for the public service, of which I have laid before the Section a brief history compiled from the Reports, is one of those radical innovations that may ultimately lead to great consequences. ”

“ It is also absolutely necessary that the examinations should be competitive, and the appointments given to those who are most successful. A mere pass examination never, in the long run, does more than exclude absolute dunces. ”

“ In the Police Department I found these examinations a serious handicap in the way of getting the best men promoted, and never in any office did I find that the written competitive promotion examination did any good. The reason for a written competitive entrance examination is that it is impossible for the head of the office, or the candidate's prospective immediate superior, himself to know the average candidate or to test his ability. But when once in office the best way to test any man's ability is by long experience in seeing him actually at work. ”

“ Competitive examinations, practical in character, and fairly testing the relative capacity of applicants for the discharge of the duties of the position sought, are made compulsory, with the provision that no question shall relate to religious or political opinions. ”

“ The competitive examinations prescribed by the constitution are, therefore, beyond question, in every essential point such as were provided for by the civil service law at the time when the constitution was adopted—that is to say, in point of fact, what true competitive examinations were universally understood to be wherever a civil service system like ours was in practice. ”

“ Competitive examinations must, whenever practicable, be held for original entrance to the service, and promotions of employees must also be based upon competitive examinations, in which the previous experience and efficiency of employees shall be given due consideration. The examinations for entrance to the service must be held in the United States and in the Philippine Islands, and applicants are required to be tested in both English and Spanish. ”

“ The names of all preference-claiming competitors whose general average is not less than 65 per cent, together with the names of all other competitors whose general average is not less than 70 per cent, shall be entered upon the register of persons eligible to the class or place to test fitness for which the examination was held. ”

“ Instead of being allowed in any degree to fall into abeyance by neglect, the range and magnitude of such observances have progressively grown appreciably greater since the principles of competitive business have come to rule the counsels of the universities. ”

“ The system of scholarships obtained by competition, though better than nothing, is objectionable from many points of view. It introduces the competitive spirit into the work of the very young; it makes them regard knowledge from the standpoint of what is useful in examinations rather than in the light of its intrinsic interest or importance ”

“ For those who shall be appointed as experts from public organizations, the requirement of having taken up their profession by a competitive and proficiency exam is sought as well. Until the organization of the Competition Authority is completed, the personnel of the related Ministry may be temporarily commissioned in the fulfillment of the tasks of the Authority. ”

“ The examination system in our country is founded on a misconception, I mean on the confusion between knowledge and competence. We search conscientiously for competence or efficiency, and we believe that we have found it when we find knowledge, but that is an error. [179] An examination requires from a candidate that he shall know, and competition demands that he shall know more than the others, but that is almost all that examination and competition require of him. ”

“ In the competitions for honours, which, as in the London University, will follow the examinations for degrees, care should be taken to maintain such a standard as will afford a guarantee for high ability and valuable attainments; the subjects for examination being so selected as to include the best portions of the different schemes of study pursued at the affiliated institutions. ”

“ It applies only in so far as the principles of competitive enterprise control the selection of the personnel, and even then only with exceptions. There is no intention to depreciate the work of those many eminent scholars, of scientific animus and intellectual grasp, whose endeavours are given to this range of inquiry. ”

“ The examination must be held upon such subjects as in the opinion of the board of examiners, with the approval of the Commission, the general nature of the business of the office and the special nature of the positions to be filled may require. In grading the competitors due weight must be given to the efficiency with which the several competitors shall have performed their duties in the office; but none who shall fail to attain a minimum standard of 75 per cent in the written examination shall be certified for promotion. ”

“ Promotions shall be from class to class, and the examination of persons in one class shall be to test their fitness for promotion to the next higher class: Provided, however, That if in any examination for promotion the competitors in the next lower class shall not exceed three in number, the board may, at its discretion, open the competition to one or more of the classes below the class in which there are not more than three competitors. ”

“ In the first place, as the Reports of the Civil Service Commissioners prove that, on an average, one out of every three of the Candidates who come before them is incompetent to pass even a test examination, the competition is virtually between two only for each vacancy. In the next place, the present plan affords no security for the proper allocation of the successful competitors. ”