The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-18 00:00:00

ADMINISTRATIVE AND ACADEMIC

REFORM.

On Monday evening, James Heywood, Eq., M.P.
For North Lancashire, delivered an address on .A.dminis-

;rative and Academic Reform, to the members and

friends of the Athenaztum, in the library hall of the insti-
tution. Alderman Sir E. Armitage, president of the

Athenaeum, took the chair, and most of the directori
were upon tho platform ; but the attendance otherwise

was small.

The CHAIRMAN briefly introduced Mr. Heywood, re-
marking that that gentleman laid the foundation•stone
of the institution, and for many years took an active in-
terest in its prosperity, as a tnanaging director. Only his

more important duties in the House of Commons pre-
vented his appearance more frequently amongst the
members. (Applause.)
Mr. HEYWOOD said he felt that he owed a debt of gra-

titude to the institution, in connection with which:- he
first had an opportunity of learning public business,
which had since been very useful to him. We were now
at a very important period of our history ; for the Go-
vernment of the country was gradually giving up the
old system of favouritism and patronage, and adopting
that of competition and merit as the test of fitness for

public appointments. He had thought, therefore, that a
few remarks upon our transition state would not he un-
interesting. Last session he put upon the paper a notice

of motion for the adoption of a system of open competition
for entrance into the Royal Engineers and Artillery at
Woolwich, and he was very much pleased silently

to drop that motion, when he found that the Govern-
ment were going to adopt the principle. This step, he
believed, was very much due to the exertions of Mr.
Aleutian, clerk to the Board of Ordnance, who took the

responsibility of recommending the competitive system.
The first examination was to take place next Monday, at
Burlington House ; and the examination paper was
upon the whole satisfactory. The importance of this
would be seen when it was recollected that our engineers
at first thought that Sebastopol could be taken in three
days ; although the earthworks that they then slighted
cost the labour of the batter part of 12 months, and were
only at last taken by a desperate act of valour. Great
military achievements were not generally the result of

accident •r bravery ; but of skill, gained by careful
training and matured by experience. In the line the
_ _

system had hitherto been one purely of favouritism and
patronage ; and Lieut.-Colonel Adams told the coin-

rnittee on promotions that the officers in tho line had
generally not sufficient education to enable them to in-
terest themselves in things which could tend to promote
their efficiency. Mr. Layard had told him some time
ago, that while out in the East he dined one day with
the late Lord Raglan and his staff, and the next with

General Canrobert and the French staff. At the former,
the conversation amongst young men was upon Lon-
don patties, horses, and things of that sort ; at the
latter Mr. Layard said that all present were aoconi-

plished engineers, thoroughly acqua,inted with the pro-
gress of the siege, and conversing upon the prospects
before the allied armies. Mr. Sidney Herbert, while at
the head of ti,e Department of War, recommended that,
for the line, there should be local means of education for

regimental officers ; but it had not been adopted. He
(Mr. Heywood) thought that Mr. Herbert was in the
right. Our army was supported by the taxes, to fight
for our benefit ; and we had a right to insist that the
officers should be thoroughly skilled men. (Applause.)
It was a very bad investment, to pay a number of igno-
rant people merely that they might amuse themselves ;
especially as we knew that whenever called into active
service they would have to contend with officers who
were skilled as a result of training, and more efficient
frDm the interested attention they paid to the practicAl
details of their profession. (Applause.) The appoint.
ments to the Indian civil service had been a complete
matter of patronage, of which the ministers of the day
had no doubt had their share ; and the places were good
ones, beginning with 6001. and increasing to 3,0001.
a year. But next July a competitive system was to be
introduced. undone should be allowed to be examined
for appointment ; for we should never thoroughly gain

the affections of the people until we showed that they
might themselves rise by the opening to them of the
civil service. A case bad occurred of two young Hin-
doos who were admitted to be qualified ; but new offices
were created for them, rather than allow them to take
any position that had been before kept solely for Eng-
lishmen. This should not be ; it was of no importance
to this country whether there were five or six English-
men more or less in the Indian service, but it was im-
portant how this country stood in the affections of the
millions of nativ, s under our government. (Applause.) In
the new department of nurses, we had at the head Miss
Nightingale—an excellent example of " the right lady in
the right place"—(applause)—but in that department
candidates were subjected to some examination, and to a
test as to whether they possessed the nerve which would
enable them to endure the hospital scenes through which
they must pass at Scutari and Belaklava. As to our
consuls, he was not aware that the competitive system
had ever been introduced. He thought that the exclu-
sive selection of men for that department, from the aris-
tocracy, was a mistake, especially when he saw how
things could be managed in foreign countries, as to pecu-
lation, bribery, and corruption. There might be very
many cases in which it would be better to select as con-
suls men otherwise qualified, but also acquainted with
trade ; and who might know how to deal with those who
showed an inclination to cheat. Sir R. Peel took a step
in the right direction, as regarded the principal ministers
of state, when he selected for appointments such men as
Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Lord Lincoln (now
the Duke of Newcastle), and Mr. Cardwell. Those
gentlemen had distinguished themselves at Oxford. Al-
though that university was purely a Church institution,
still within those limits there was competitions ; and Sir
Robt. Peel, when he selected for distinction in his minis-
try those who had distinguished themselves at college,
acknowledged the value of the competitive system.
Coming to the question of academic reform, Mr, Hey-
wood said that a change was needed, for although the
universities produced some good men, they also turned
out many very dull ones. Both clergy and laity suffered
from this ; but as a large number of the students be
came clergymen, it was especially injurious to the coun-
try that the system of education was not adapted to
the times. Ile thought that the late act as to Oxford
would have introduced a better system ; but he was
afraid that it had not done so. In fact, while the
colleges had so much influence in the university, he
did not think that any important change could very
well be effected, unless the Government interfered
more directly than they had hitherto done. He be-
hewed that the commission, with Lord Ellesmere as
chairman, had exerted themselves very much. Next
session he expected a bill would tee brought in as to
Cambridge, under the charge of the Lord Chancellor,
which he hoped would destroy the oligarchic government
of the heads of colleges, and substituting one approach-
ing somewhat to a municipal constitution. After real-
ing the memorial to Prince Albert, as chancellor of Cain-
bridge, which was agreed to by the public meeting en
university reform held at Birmingham, on the 30th of
October, and sonic correspondence showing that his
Royal Highness had forwarded the document to the Vice-
Chancellor, " for the consideration of the resident uni-
versity authorities," Mr. Hey wood said that the object
of the movement was to open the universities to all sects.
He remarked that the agitation in favour of a reduction
of academical expenses had brought much support to the
movement ; and lie described what was done in support
of it by the Parliamentary committee of the British
Association, and by the " Civil and Religious Liberty
Committee," consisting of members of Parliament.
Something was needed in the way of local education ;
and if there could not be an agreement as to what should
be taught in schools supported by local rates, the next
best thing would be a thorough investigation of old en-
dowments and charities connected with the city and
neighbourhood. With respect to the grammar school :
doubtless at the time of its foundation by Bishop Old-
ham, in 1515, the vesting the appointment of its head
master in the president of Corpus Christi College was
a good arrangement, but at the present clay the school
had as good a body of trustees as any in the king-
dom, and who were perfectly competent to make a suit-
able appointment ; he should recommend that the presi-
dent of Corpus Christi should be constituted one of the
trustees, and the appointment then be vested in that
body. Such an arrangement would not ignore the will
of the founder of the charity, but would yet adapt
the institution more to the requirements of the pre-
sent day. He (Mr. Heywood) was very much in-
clined to bring a bill into Parliament in relation to
such schools. (Hear, hear.) There was a great deal
that wanted reforming about them. Many of them
still continued to teach the Catechism, and to force the
pupils to go to church on the Sunday, even when it was
quite at •ariance with their religious professions or the
desires of their parents or friends. There was a trust
which many of them perhaps knew but little about, be-
longing to this locality—the Huhn° Trust. It was ori-
ginally for the purpose of enabling poor bachelors of art
to study divinity at Oxford, but it could not now be ad-
vantageously employed in that way, and the money had
accumulated to the extent of from 40,0001. to 50,0001.,
till the trustees had obtained from Parliament permis-
sion to lay out the money in church livings. The
Oxford commission had recommended that no more
money should be laid out in the purchase of livings, and
he should say the trustees had better stop, and as the origi-
nal intention of the founder had died out, they had bet-
ter apply the money for the good of the neighbourhood
in which the property was situate. The only question
would be, perhaps, whom should they assist. He would
recommend that a local committee should be appointed,
with the mayor at its head, for the purpose of adminis-
tering such trusts. He should be very glad if some of
the residents iu the town would take this matter of the
old trusts in hand. They did not have the first-rate
education in Manchester which they ought to have ; and
now, as there were many really valuable places thrown
open for competition, the cleverest young men ought to
be able to obtain them. The inhabitants of Manchester
ought to have the same chances as those in other places,
and as he fully believed the competition would be fair,
as well as open, he was sure they would take as good
a stand as any others. He should be very glad if the
public would take this matter up for consideration, and
he would with pleasure attend another meeting, if one
could be called, although he understood there would be
a difficulty in fixing one to take place immediately.
Mr. EDWIN CHADWICK said he had been requested by
the directors to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Heywood,
for the highly instructive and interesting address they
had heard, which he (Mr. Chadwick) had great pleasure
in doing. They had also requested him to state his own
views upon it, which he would do as briefly, as shortly
as the time permitted. Undoubtedly Mr. Heywood had
acted wisely in connecting administrative reform with
academical reform ; because the first step in administra-
tive reform is the substitution of well-regulated, fair and
open competitive examinations, for mere pass examina-
tions would be the only trustworthy test of the success
of academic reform, and the best security for its Fro-
anis. lie (Mr. Chadwick) had been asked to attend

meeting of the delegates of educational institutions in

connection with the—Society of Arts, held at Southamp-
ton. It had been attended by persons of every party,

and there the question of administrative reform was
considered, and by pasty corporations even it was unani-
mously agreed that every place given as mere patron-
age, of whatsoever political party, was a prize schlar-
ship taken from some one educational institution, stolen
to the detriment of education, and to the injury of the
state, by corrupt influence, and to the waste of the pub-
lic means by inefficient and dear service. He was glad,
therefore, to find it moved for consideration in Manches-

ter as an educational as well as a political question.
At the meeting of delegates, to which he re-

ferred, it was recognised by persons of opposite po-
litical parties, that it would be far better that the post-

man's uniform, or mechanics' service in a Government

dockyard, should designate the fact that the person pc, s-
sessin,g it had gained it by a competitive examination, by
qualifications gained, possibly, in a mechanics' insti•
tute, or as a prize scholar in a diocesan or other school,
than as a mere hanger-on of a❑ electioneering committee.
Now he could state to them that defective and errono-

0118 as he and others considered the subject matters of
most of the competitive examinations already instituted
to be—new as were the examiners to the duties—seri-

ously niggard and imperfect as were the means which
wet e yet allowed to the commissioners, the competitions
had yet been attended with decided success, and great
promise for the future. The first effect of them had
been to display the gross ignorance and almost incredibly
low condition of the great proportion of the candidates
for admission to the public service—of those who, from
the known influence of their supporters, generally mem-
bers of the House of Commons, it was well known would,
in the ordinary course of things, have been permanently
charged upon the departments. The examinations had
more than justified all that had been said by Sir Charles
Trevelyan, Sir Stafford Northcote, by himself, and
other official administrative reformers as to the cacti-

nary character of the parties commonly got into the
public servioe by the usual course of patronage, and had
demonstrated the ignorance at the least of those official

opponents to the reform of the civil service who had bit-
terly reproached them with having libelled it. He be-
lieved that Sir E. Ryan and the other commissioners bad

acted honestly, and directed the examinations efficiently,
as far as their means permitted, and were fully entitled
to the public support. On the mere pass examinations,
for the departmental service, which had been reluctantly
permitted, more than two-thirds of the candidates coming
from the usual sources had. been rejected. Between one
and two hundred rejected candidates complained through
their patrons, the members, that they bad been rejected
on unfair, or recondite, or irrelevant poirt;, but the re-
jections bad been on the commonest and most relevant
elementary points of a common education, and for gross
and scandalous deficiencies. The Government would be

unable to try the appeals on the commissioners' deci-
sions arising, as was foreseen from the expedient of mere
pass or private examinations, and the only means of ol)-
viating continued influential complaints would be to
abandon them, and have recourse to open
and public competitive examinations. (Applause.)
Whether in peace or in war, in the civil or for the whole
military service, the abolition of patronage, the sub-
stitution of service and merit, tested by competi-
tive examinations, would be the best securities for eco-

nomy and efficiency. A popular general, Sir De Lacy
Evans, was reported to have said that it took three
campaigns to make an English army efficient. Three
years' expenditure in lives and money then, according
to that military authority, and to the historical evidence
of actual experience, might be taken as the cost of
patronage, of political corruption, of reckless ignorance,
of the want of that training and education by which
foreign forces, made up of inferior military stamina,
are yet made ready in a shorter time or at once. (Ap-
plause.) And yet he did not appear to manifest any
consciousness that any responsibility attaches to him

as a political reformer and public representative in allow-
ing all these sources of waste and insecurity to go on
from year to year, so that at the earl of forty years of
enormous expenditure, every military institution was,
according to the declaration of Sir J. Burgoyne, before
the Sebastopol Committee, in an imperfect state ; all this
had been allowed to go on without the attention of the
country being called to the magnitude of the waste and
the danger, and without any one specific measure being
proposed by him, until after disaster, for its preven-
tion. (Hear, hear.) The real fact is, that to object
was one thing—to investigate, to systematise, and elabo-
rate practical measures of amendment was another, re-
quiring labour or qualifications out of the course of corn-
mon political agitation. To those who might not see
the bearing of the great question of administrative re-
form, or of the first step, competitive examinations, upon
military efficiency as well as upon the efficiency of the
civil service, he would refer to the fact that the artillery
is the only arm of our service which was proved, accord-
ing to common professional acknowledgment, to be
superior to any other in the field. Now, the ar-
tillery (which is without purchase) owes such superiority
as it at present possessed to the speciality of persons,
tested by such merely pass examinations as have hitherto
been conceded ; and for the artillery as well as the en-
gineers competitive examination has been conceded, as Mr.
Heywood had stated, as the proved and acknowledged
means of its further advancement. Why, then, should
not purchase be abolished and competitive examinations
be introduced, as a tried and proved practical means of
improvement, for the cavalry and the line ? Why ? be-
cause the army commissions are a source of political pa-
tronage, distributed to reform members or-others of the
House of Commons, as a means of influence, expected
by the local constituencies and supporters. Mr.
Heywood himself would have proved an exception
to other reform members if he had not been ap-
plied to from constituents for commissions and ob-
tained them, in common with others, and, as a matter
of course, in ignorance on his part as to whether those
for whom the commission had been obtained possessed
the first qualification of command over others, which has
not been displayed in common scenes of barrack life,
namely, command over themselves. It must be far
more s4tisfactory to him to see the qualifications in
question tested by a competent examination. It must
he more satisfactory to him to see a commission obtained
by a pupil of the Owen's College, of Manchester, of
which he is a trustee ; to see the tuition in the practi-
cal sciences taught in that institution, and, possibly, in
the mathematical or other classes of this institution,
tested by competition with the pupils trained at Oxford
and Cambridge, to be satisfied that lives and the in-
terests of the country had been placed under a high order
of intelligence, calculated for leadership in peace as well
as in war. (Applause.) The bulk of the constituents ought
not to he satisfied without this measure, and those of
them who take an especial interest in the educational in-
stitutions ought especially to come forward to correct the
bias or the indifference of those who, as party or political
leaders, participate in the patronage and the corruption
which are the source of weakness and oppressive changes.
Whilst speaking of the responsibility attaching to poli-
tical reformers for failures, to propose specific measures
for the prevention of the failures experienced, and claim-
ing to administrative reform, and above all to official
administrative reformers, the first elementary step, it
was due to advert to others, civilians, to whom a similar
responsibility may be proved to attach. Thus—before
the war there were two committees of Parliamentary
investigation—the committee on the Ordnance estimates,
and the committee on the civil salaries, before which,
in thoe unsound branches of the public service, the seed
plots of future waste and disaster were displayed. Now
if any one would look over the reports and the exami-
nations before those two committees, and consider what
has been displayed since the war. by the more conspi-
cuous trial of the branches of service then submitted for
investigation ; if they would from what has since tran-
spired consider what ought then to have been found and
provided against ; if they will see what ought to have
been elicited and proposed by reforming members, some-
thingo
li of ofu give him credit when he said
that
qualities, great in ordinary political
agitation, weld
deal with them in the ordinary course
of stcfh be the failure
ho might establish in these two corn-
wt heeeyil
tu or
agitation,
mittecs a case of imbecility or of political corruption
against one at least of their own representatives ; but he
did not so put it. He put it as showing how much the
subject of administrative reform was out of the ordinary
track of political discussion, and how much active sup-
port was particularly needed from those who usually
took little part in them, but were interested in the re-
form and progress of educational institutions. One cause
of disaster during the war appeared from the evidence to
have been the want of knowledge of the resources and
position of the enemy. As displayed on the committee
of inquiry, our first proceedings in relation to the Crimea
were immense gropings in the dark, and at vast hazards.
Now, for much of this state of ignorance the consular as
well as the diplomatic service was surely responsible,
if net for preceding information available for the war,
for the want of means of getting it ; and from our con-
suls, especially from our wider commercial relations,
more should be expected than from those of any other
country. Of the difference between the information de-
rivable from our service, particularly in the East, and that
derivable from the French service there, he had himself
means of jedging, in consequence of the part he had
with his colleagues to take in the sanitary congress for
the abolition of the impediments to commerce by qua-
rantines. He could not more strongly describe the
deficiencies of our service than by repeating statements
made to him by eminent and competent members of that
same service, all referable to the same source of infirmity
as that in the military service—party or political patron-
age. The people of Manchester must have seen the
commercial affairs as well as the political affairs of Eng-
land, the business of an important foreign port, entrusted
to the hands of Beau Brurnmel. Members of the con-
sular service, Englishmen who travel, would indicate to
you later minor diplomatic or consular appointments, if
are
et
nsto
a the conspicuous,
ordinaryn u
political really no better in character. What
litical doctrines as to such au appoint-
othsapticwhich he had indicated ? The evil is that the
patronage is Tory, it should be Whig, said one; that it is
aristocratical, said another, and it should be democratical.
The remedy of one of their members on the Civil Sa-
laries Committee, and Mr. fume's remedy would have
been to have reduced Beau Brummell's salary. But
that measure would scarcely have given to the Beau
Brumeaslls the qualities most required, those which in-
sure efficiency. On examining the qualities required in
a consul, for the promotion of the commercial intercourse
and affairs of a country_not to speak of its political
affairs—and trying the market value of such qualities
even in Manchester, it would, be (Mr. Chadwick) appre-
hended, be found that higher rather than lower pay-
ments were needed. With our neighbours the French,
in whatsoever foreign country a Frenchman is, the
French Consul must be his notary, his advocate, his
adviser in affairs of difficulty, and stand in the
stead of the legal and administrative institutions of
France. The French have profited by the experience
of the deficiencies of their consular service, and have
found that the qualities required can be insured by a
training tested by examinations, and no one can now be
made a consul of France who has not obtained some de-