The Civil Service of Great Britain (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Civil Service of Great Britain

This essay is not an exhaustive history of the civil service of England. Its object is to present the steps in the reform of the English civil service with particular emphasis upon the success of competitive examinations and of the brilliant and farsighted plan to attract the most intelligent and capable young men in universities into the government service - a plan first introduced by Macaulay in the civil service of India and later adopted in the Home service. It may be said, then, that in this study the emphasis has been upon examinations, personnel, and prospects, rather than upon organization, economy, and conduct of business. In writing this monograph the author has had constantly in mind the influence of the reformed English civil service upon the civil service of the United States.

This influence begins with the early American reformers, especially with the American author of the only existing complete history of the English civil service, Dorman B. Eaton, our first United States Civil Service Commissioner. Mr. Eaton was sent by President Hayes to study the English service, with a view to reforming the American "spoils" system, and embodied his researches in Civil Service in Great Britain. This book was a leading contribution to the reform movement which resulted, after Garfield's murder by an office seeker, in the Pendleton Act for open competition in 1883. Mr. Eaton began his volume with the Norman Conquest.

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