The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-24 00:00:00

merely better atafbematinians or better classics than
those of lower &gra,. but that they are men of greater
intelligence and high r capabilities, and that in habits of
accuracy, punctuality, and industry, and in all that die-
tin;.4uishes the man who does as much as he can from
the man who does as little as he can, they are as a class
greatly superior. lie equally maintains their superiority
in moral qualifications. It will therefore admit of little
doubt that, while private individuals have got prizes,
the public and the civil service in India have got prizes.
There will, on consideration, be found, when looked at
with a will and a practicable desire to render them
available, as little CAW° for doubt that the same princi-
ples are as applicable to appointments to inferior posi-
tions, for which your institutions are adapted, to pro-
mote qualifications, and that in respect to them the pub-
lic would gain as well by what open competitive ex-
aminations would exclude as by what they would
admit.

Otte of the delegates wished to know whether Mr.
Chadwick could express any opinion as to the course the
present Government might be prepared to take on the
question I
Mr. CHADWICK—No ; I can only refer you to the
public expressions which the heads of private parties have
given of adhesion to the principle of appointments for
merit, whatsoever hostility is manifested by their tails
to the only proved and undoubted means by which merit
for the public service can be tested. But I can express
a confident opinion that whilst you are inquiring as to
the probable intentions of the Government, the particu-
lar Minister who may have the subject in charge will in
all probability be looking out and inquiring, with a
view to his own course, what are the intentions
of yourselves as constituents. The patronage secretary,
it is known, declares that the patronage is indispensable
to his supporters. His supporters, the borough mem-
bers, many of them, declare that they would be glad to
be rid of it ; but that they require it to meet the pres-
sure from their supporters, their constituents. I say
the borough members, because it is a mistake to assume
that the body of the patronage which would be appli-
cable to general educational instructions such as those
now under consideration, or those classes of appoint-
ments in respect to which the question of open compe-
tition has been raised, are of an aristocratical character.
Very little, indeed, of the patronage is given to the
county members—the mass of it goes to the borough
members. I say, therefore, it is for you, Mr. Mayor
—not you, perhaps, individually, but those whom
you represent, who are responsible for the continuance
of the evils in question, and it is for you, the consti-
tuencies of boroughs such as this, to adopt a self-denying
ordinance against those foul abominations. Of the
patronage maintained by you, it might be said that it
is, like party, the occasion of the madness of the many
for the gain of the few ;—usually the supposed gain, for
frequently it is as injurious to the receiver as it certainly
is to the supposed giver, the state. 'Y'our borough
would gain its shire of prizes to its schools and educa-
tional institutions and their purifying influence, in sub-
stitution fsr the patronage and the corrupting influence
which you would give up. I ask you to consider whe-
ther it would not be a gain in moral influence at least,
that the Queen's uniform worn by your postmen were
to denote that it had been won by merit by the wearer,
as a prize scholar of a village or a diocesan school, in-
stead of his being a hanger on to one of your election-
eerine committees ? Do you conceive that the amenities
of the Customs offiears in your pert, or that the
despatch of business there would suffer, if the
appointments to the Customs were given as prizes
to the most attentive and successful students, in-
stead of to the prosecutors of your party con-
tests ? In the Government dockyards there are fore-
inanshipe, surveyorships, and places for artisans requiring
the qualifications of practical mechanical science, which
we are trying to promote. Would not the navy and the
public be better served by appointments given for prize
scholarships in mechanics than by appointments made
as bribes for votes in the way displayed before the com-
mittee and the country, in the Dockyard Committees ?
At no great distance you have the new forests, and
some extensive public lands. If the appointuents to
offices, for their management, were given upon compe-
tie° examieatione, for special qualifications in the science
of botany or in arboriculture, might we not expect a
fairer display of produce, and better economical results
and examples than were displayed before successive
Parliamentary committees of inquiry ? I believe that
there are some sixteen thousand public places, of various
grades, the majority of which are applicable, both to the
improvement of almost all grades of educational institu-
tions, and a most defective civil service, as several civil
servants of extensive experience represented, before any
defects were made manifest in extraordinary public disas-
ter. It might be shown that for all which you of the bo-
rough constituencies gain in occasional patronage, you,
yourself, are made to pay severely in general taxation. In
consequence mainly of this patronage, for the continuance
of which you are chiefly responsible, you pay, in many
instances, more for double the number of badly appointed
officers than would suffice under a purer system for the
better despatch of the public business. The mainte-
nance of patronage appointments by popular constituen-
cies I must declare is in violation of individual popular
rights ; for that which we are talking of as a new mo-
rality is an old statutory right, end a i'ght at common
law, declared by Lord Coke in his institutes, that the
most fit individual has a right to fitting office, whilst the
State has a right to his services There are those
here who, I know, have had experience of the benefits
derivable from the adoption of better practice in respect
to local appointments. The general poor-rates were
once 88. Gd. per head on the population, and increasing.
They are now ss. 6d., and the care of pauper children,
the medical relief, and the general administration of
relief is improved. The first step to this improvement,
by which two millions per annum, and more, has
been gained, was the abolition of your local patronage
in appointments, your appointments of officers for such
causes as that they had failed in trade, or bad a large
family, with small means of supporting it, and the pa-
tronage was nearly put an end to by taking practical
securities for the improved securities for the qualifica-
tions of officers, chiefly by competitive examinations.
The like results would follow the application of similar
means to the general public administration. It seems
that the present meeting is understood to be for a
conference simply, and that it is not understood
that resolutions are to be proposed in a formal manner.
I think sufficient facts have been brought before the
meeting to enable those present to judge of the cour-e
which they ought to take at once, as constituents, and
as heads of families, and hereafter as members of
educational. institutions. (Applause.)
air. FALVEY said there was certainly a general agree-
meet gaining strength in society of the importance of
the views represe ,ted that day by Mr. Clad wick The
main difficulty felt at present 'loon the eubject was in
the appointment of examiners sufficiently responsible.
What securities could he props-ed in respect to them ?
Mr. CHADWICK said that the diffi .ultv wee, he appr, -
heeded, in great part, and indeed suffici ntly, met. by
inakine the examinations eenipetitive. It was in troth
the chief ground of the importance attached to competi•
tive examination by the offieial supporters of the mea-
sure, that the competition was a etreeg security ag tinnt
misdecision on the part of the examiners. In private
and departmental examinations the "leaping bar" might
he, and it was not unfrequently, lowered to favour the
passage of a particular candidate. In the public and
competitive examinations this could not be safely done ;
the rival candidates and their friends. it not the general
public, would be enabled to detect any unfairness, and
the decisions, involving comparisons of relative merits,
were necessarily of a j character involvine judicial
securities. The evidence of actual experience would be
found complete and satisfactory on that point. lie had
omitte l to mention that the competitive examinations
for medical appointments in India, of which no account
had yet appeared before the public, had afforded the
most valuable, complete, and decisive experience of the
dangers of the common " pass examinations" for degrees,
which filly justified the apprehensions expressed. Tee
competitive examinations proved that under the common
pass examinations men obtained degrees to practise as
surgeons and degrees of doctors of medicine who were
in a state of the most dangerous ignorance of the com-
mon requisites for the safe practise of their profession.
Several doctors of medicine had been plucked for scan-
dalous ignorance. The only protections of the public
would be found in the institution of new competitive
eimminations.
Mr. STaBBING (the optician), of Southampton, said
that he had no doubt whatever that the borough corpo-
ration might be got to give up their political patronage.
He would undertake to say that in Southampton there
would be little difficulty in the matter. (Applause.) In-
deed it was now very generally felt to be a nuisance.
Professor TYNDALL, of the Royal Institution, made an
eloquent appeal on the claims of science and for the aboli-
tion of mere patronage. He had acted as an examiner on
some of the recent competitive examinations, and he
described the very serious ignorance which but for them
might have passed undetected into the public service.
The CHAIRMAN eileressed his- satisfaetion at the una-
nimity which prevailed amongst all parties on the
subject. He referred to the report on industrial
instruction, adopted by the Society of Arts, to re-
impress them with the dreary position of the mid-
dle class not intended for the universities, whose
motives to exertion were as few as they were
' feeble. The youth of that class knows that he must re-
main at school for a certain period, and then proceed to
business ; but he cannot discover how his diligence
there can have any perceptible efect upon his future
prospects, in matters having so few points of resemblaice
as science or literature with commerce, ignorant of the
fact that success in each is achieved by the same instru-
ment. Now, were he certain that, in leaving school, he
must go before an impartial tribunal, and there be s
e-
jected to a most searching examination, and corneev
with boys from other schools, what a powerful rnotiro:
to exertion would be at once supplied ?
Liebig, in a communication to the Societya.cl,in
said, " Without examinations all efforts are
l effect. I
no scheme of instruction has any perceP
perience of 27
am supported in my assertion by
po
hu
yr m
ofe•
years, and I can assure you that etavitenranieaxinphoiniogg'ot
dical students, the study of
nutterly neglected until
chemistry, and of geology
eexxaaminetion in the natural
wmmination of the students
we determined to divide the
into two, namely, a preveilaeurea
initiation in them proper to
tehcieenmceede,icaanlddaep;eretiotonetdit.
When I assure you that for
department.
at Giessen visited the late,
this is a full and
sufficient proof of what
say.
2raOtoyreyars medical
introduced
with
students pursued their studies z-al and ardour. 1
, But immediately after the examination was
the
In the magnificent halls of Oxford and Cambridge, men
the most eminent, in the various departments of law,
political economy, history, and natural
cience lecture,
too often, almost to empty benches. It is not' that the
pupils are ignorant of the great value of the subjects
lec-
tured upon ; quite the reverse.yetellthupeymmtuhsetir endot
attend to them, because they not t
for educational labours was open
ignrgesu, -pot
tbhreimghitier day
themsraisers duly supported the views
4116PLVid ai t..e racW,
(4pitlzrze.) A deithery